MTV Ditches Lily Allen, Lily Allen Ditches America

If Lily Allen had made it big in America she'd have been the biggest anomaly out there - a dumpy, three-nippled faux pikey lost in a sea of cosmetically-altered stage-school graspers - but we needn't worry about any of that.

That's because Lily Allen still isn't allowed into America after she punched a photographer earlier in the year. And Lily Allen's inability to get an American visa means that she's been forced to cancel her forthcoming American tour - and her spot at the MTV video music awards has been scrapped, too. This is a situation where nobody wins - Lily Allen doesn't get the exposure and cash that American fame would bring her, Lily Allen's American fans don't get to see her in concert and everyone in Britain still isn't able to get rid of Lily Allen. Unless Lily Allen decides to go and tour Russia. Which she probably should, for our sakes.

The MTV VMAs haven't been kind to the British this year. After the MTV nominations were announced a couple of weeks ago, British nominee Amy Winehouse took all the drugs in the world and had to go to hospital and other British nominee Lily Allen was banned from all of America because she assaulted a photographer in June and couldn't get a visa. It's at times like this that we wish fellow MTV nominee Fergie was British too, because with this kind of luck she'd have probably fallen down the stairs or something.

Anyway, now it seems that Lily Allen Vs The American Immigration Department isn't quite as easy a fight as Lily Allen Vs Cheryl Cole or Lily Allen Vs Lady Sovereign, because the assault charge means Lily Allen still can't get a visa to work in America, and this has serious consequences for the future of her American career. Next month Lily Allen was due to go on an American tour - to make up for the last one that Lily Allen cancelled because she was a bit sad - but now that's had to be cancelled. Worse, Lily was due to perform at the MTV VMA ceremony next month with Kanye West and Common, which would have been the highlight of a show watched by hundreds of millions of record-buying fans, and MTV has only gone and ditched Lily Allen too. News reports:

Lily Allen has been dropped from the MTV Video Music Awards. The British pop star - who was banned from the US last month after having her visa revoked at Los Angeles airport - has been scrapped from the line-up for the Las Vegas ceremony on September 9 because of complications over her entry into the States. A source said: "MTV were desperate to get Lily and they're furious with her visa situation. They've decided to pull the plug because they didn't want to leave it to the last minute to find out if she could or couldn't make it."

But forget about the setback to Lily Allen's career - what about us? Now that Lily Allen is still banned from America it means she's stuck in this country and we have to keep reading stories about how Lily Allen drew a picture of some nice clothes or hides in carrier bags sometimes. At least all hope isn't lost for you American Lily Allen fans - to replicate the Lily Allen live experience all you need to do is kidnap a bear cub from the local zoo, superglue a slice of pepperoni to its chest to make it look like it's got a third nipple, slap it in a ballgown and make it dance to some warmed-up 1980s reggae. What could be easier than that, you lucky bastards?

Read more:

MTV Video Music Awards Cancels Lily Allen From Line-Up - News.com.au

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America's Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs

America's Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs

It's like blue-eyed crooner Frank Sinatra once said: "It's nice work if you can get it."

While the U.S. economy remains strong, factory jobs are being outsourced, a slowing housing market has killed construction jobs over the past several months and manufacturing employment has been on a downward trend in recent years.

Yet, there's still good money to be made in the labor and service industries, commonly referred to as "blue-collar" jobs. That is, if you can overcome the long odds of landing a job as an elevator installer and repairer, a gig that could pay more than $63,000 a year.

In Pictures: Best-Paying Blue-Collar Jobs

While some people might not immediately associate blue-collar occupations with higher-level formal education, some of these managers and supervisors must have extensive knowledge of business or sciences to perform the tasks of, for example, power plant operator or agricultural manager.

Power plant operators earn a median annual wage of $55,000, or $26.44 an hour. These workers control, operate or maintain machinery to generate electric power keeping your home or business juiced.

Farm, ranch and other agricultural managers make an annual wage of $52,070, or $25.03 an hour, to supervise the farming activities, get their hands dirty on occasion and handle some of the business and marketing. They perform all these tasks with the owner's consent, of course.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics had defined "blue-collar" and service occupations in America as precision production, craft and repair occupations; machine operators and inspectors; transportation and moving occupations; handlers, equipment cleaners, helpers and laborers; and service occupations.

The BLS data collected on these jobs after 2005 no longer categorizes them by the blue-collar moniker. The numbers shown in this article are from the most recent data collected (May 2006).

According to the BLS, the annual wages have been calculated by multiplying the hourly mean wage by 40 hours a week for 52 weeks. For those occupations where there is not an hourly mean wage published, the annual wage has been directly calculated from the reported survey data.

At one point, the BLS listed some 200 jobs as blue collar that ran the gamut from auto mechanics to crane operators, from garbage collection to pest control.

http://www.forbes.com/leadership/compensation/2007/07/23/bluecollar-jobs-occupations-lead-careers-cx_mk_0723jobs.html

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