BarbaWire, March 30

It's a Business of Sadists and Masochists
It looks like we will be in 2012 before we get to see Don, Roger, Peggy, Joan and the gang again. No, little Sally Draper isn’t headed to rehab. Yet. "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner and AMC are having it out. Rumors were circling that Weiner was asking for a $30 million, three-year contract, while AMC wants him to cut some characters, trim the show by two minutes and do more product placement. Weiner had shot back saying that he has actually suggested taking a pay cut to save characters and not to trim the show’s length. More.
So, the show tends to skip ahead each season. They never just pick up where they left off. If you adjust that for this hiatus I am guessing by the time the show resumes, Don will be on wife number three and Sally will have moved to San Francisco to smoke dope and take psychedelics. Groovy.
While it could have been much funnier, this LA Times' blog suggests ways to kill off some of the characters and it gets props for referencing my favorite line from last season. The writer is right, though. Some of those drunks are definitely going to die of cirrhosis. More.

Hope They Didn't Sext
Sarah Kemp went online to find some action. The 42-year-old met 47-year-old George Bentley on ForgetDinner.co.uk in November and the two have been exchanging emails since. Kemp lives in Scotland, while Bentley lives in London. After a few months, Kemp decided to head down to meet her beau. The two started chatting it up and talking about their childhoods. Yep, they are long-lost siblings. Thank God they figured it out before there was any kind of monkey business. The siblings haven’t seen each other since the mid 1970s when their parents split up and the daughter went with the mom and the son stayed with the dad. They said they’ve looked for each other, but Kemp was married briefly in the 80s and that’s why she is no longer a Bentley. More.
I am mostly posting this story because I kind of think it is a hoax. There are just too many questions. He was 11 the last time he saw his sister. How did he not piece it together sooner? I am sure she knew her brother’s full name? I am guessing this woman asked for her suitor’s full name before traveling to see him. Or was she still calling him SilverBullet69? (You know that that was totally his screen name, right?) What about their parents? Mom never went looking for her son? Lastly, are we really supposed to believe that these two are 42 and 47?

Bonds*
Randy Velarde, a former major leaguer, testified Wednesday that he was juiced by Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds’ former personal trainer. Bonds is on trial for perjury charges related to his 2003 testimony in front of a grand jury about steroid usage. Bonds said he did not knowingly take steroids, he just thought it was flaxseed oil and arthritis cream. And the whole world rolled its eyes. On Tuesday Jason and Jeremy Giambi and Marvin Bernard all testified that Anderson sold them performance-enhancing drugs. Anderson has refused to testify against his old chum. More

Kinky Clooney
George Clooney has been sucked in to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Bunga-Bunga controversy. Berlusconi has been charged with paying the then-underage Karima El Mahroug for sex during one of his cad parties last year. El Mahroug told investigators that she saw Clooney and his girlfriend at the party. However, this might play into the defense’s hand as it looks to discredit her. Although Danny Ocean spends a lot of his free time in Italy and totally gives off that swinger vibe, he and Berlusconi are not pals. In fact, Clooney is a supporter of Berlusconi’s last opponent. Clooney said the only time he has met the randy old dude was when he was seeking aid for Darfur. You know those celebs and their causes. More

Scattered Opposition
Other than having the same goal of ousting Moammar Gadhafi, it appears the rebels are split as to what they want. Some want a liberal democracy, others want a a strict religious state. Hmm

Keep It Local
With all the volatility in the oil-rich land, President Obama wants us to decrease our dependency on foreign oil by a third in the next decade and said we shouldn’t be short-sided by only worrying about our dependency when prices are high. Seems like a reasonable proposition. Republican lawmakers ignore Obama's call to look beyond today and want to know how the steps will translate to lower gas prices today. More.