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Detroit mayor agrees to resign
Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty Thursday to charges resulting from a sex scandal and is to resign from office, a prosecutor said.
The resignation won't take effect for 14 days, Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy said outside the courthouse.
Kilpatrick will go to jail on October 28, the day of his sentencing, and serve 120 days, she said.
The mayor pleaded guilty in Wayne County Circuit Court to two counts of obstruction of justice.
Circuit Judge David Groner accepted a no-contest plea on an assault charge.
As past of his plea deal Kilpatrick also agreed not to run for public office during his five-year probation.
Kilpatrick has been embroiled in a public scandal since January, when the Detroit Free Press reported he had exchanged romantic text messages with his former chief of staff, Christine Beatty, indicating the two were involved in an affair.
At a police whistle-blower trial in 2007, the pair, under oath, denied they had an affair.
The mayor and Beatty were accused in criminal court of lying about their romantic involvement, under oath, during the summer 2007 whistle-blower trial, which eventually led the city to pay more than $8 million in settlements.
Peter Hammer, a Wayne State University law professor, testified Wednesday that in addition to a standard agreement not to disclose the amount of damages and escrow, the settlement reached last fall included another agreement on confidentiality.
"The confidentiality agreement is for private purposes," Hammer said. "It commits all parties to not disclose the contents of the text messages."
He added, "The agreement purports to manage who has access and control to the text messages as of October 17. It's dated the same day as the private contractual settlement. ... So this is a side agreement."
According to the confidentiality agreement, the text messages were to be put "into a safe and secure bank," or deposit box.
The issue became public in January, when the Free Press reported Kilpatrick had exchanged romantic text messages with Beatty, indicating the two were involved in an affair.
Kilpatrick subsequently was charged with perjury, obstruction of justice and misconduct in office. Beatty was charged with perjury. Both could be sentenced to up to 15 years in prison if convicted.
The two accused Kilpatrick of retaliating against them because of their roles in an internal affairs probe of the mayor's security team -- an investigation that could have exposed the affair. They sued Kilpatrick and the city of Detroit. A Wayne County court ruled in their favor.
Walt Harris, another former mayoral bodyguard, filed his own whistle-blower suit, contending he was punished for supporting Nelthrope's reports of wrongdoing by Kilpatrick and his bodyguards.
The city of Detroit paid $8.4 million to settle the lawsuits, but legal fees have pushed that to at least $9 million.
On Wednesday, Granholm said she would consider only two issues: whether Kilpatrick, as mayor, authorized the settlements to further his "personal and private interests," because he feared the text messages would be publicly revealed; and whether he concealed information that council members should have had in reviewing and approving the settlements.
"My responsibility ... is to determine at this hearing whether I am satisfied by sufficient evidence submitted that the respondent has engaged in such conduct," she said. "This is not a criminal trial. This is not a civil trial."
She had filed a court petition that cited a portion of the state constitution allowing the governor to remove an elected official if there is sufficient evidence that the official has been guilty of misconduct.
Kilpatrick had challenged that petition. He said the statute is vague, and accused the governor of bias. A judge Tuesday rejected that challenge, clearing the way for the hearing Embattled Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick pleaded guilty Thursday to charges resulting from a sex scandal and is to resign from office,... more -
Sarah Palin Speech Video
Sarah Palin rocked the X last night during prime time at the RNC in St. Paul, Minnesota. She knocked it out of the ballpark according to political pundits who had been highly critical of John McCain’s surprise VP pick. Sarah Palin rocked the X last night during prime time at the RNC in St. Paul, Minnesota. She knocked it out of the ballpark according... more
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MySpace Levi Johnston: "I Don't Want Kids" (Photos)
Levi Johnston, 17 year old Alaskan teenager and father of Bristol Palin’s unborn child, has sparked more controversy with comments that he has posted on his MySpace page. Bristol is the 17 year old daughter of Governor Sarah Palin, who has been tapped by John McCain to run on the Republican ticket as his VP pick. Levi Johnston, 17 year old Alaskan teenager and father of Bristol Palin’s unborn child, has sparked more controversy with comments tha... more
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Claudine Longet's Murderous Past (Photos)
Claudine Longet, 66, was a popular singer in the 1960’s and 1970’s when she shot and killed her lover, famed Olympic skier Spider Sabich at his Aspen, Colorado home on March 21, 1976. Claudine Longet, 66, was a popular singer in the 1960’s and 1970’s when she shot and killed her lover, famed Olympic skier Spider Sabi... more
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Intimate Photos of Kate Middleton and Prince William Stolen
A man was arrested after trying to sell photographs of Prince William and Kate Middleton to a British newspaper. A camera with 40 photos of the couple’s recent Caribbean vacation was reported stolen in London on Friday. Within an hour, two men using false names contacted The Sun newspaper offering to sell the photos. A man was arrested after trying to sell photographs of Prince William and Kate Middleton to a British newspaper. A camera with 40 pho... more
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Stephanie Rice scandal photosStephanie Rice's DIRTY & PARTY PICS from her...
ALL PICTURES from the "scandal" with the famous Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice. The photos was published at her Facebook account, but the Australian Swimming Association forced her to bring them down from the site. ALL PICTURES from the "scandal" with the famous Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice. The photos was published at her Facebook ... more
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Robert Paxton Resigns College Presidency After Beer Party Photos
Paxton, 13 years on the job as Iowa Central Community College president, was photographed aboard a boat with a group of partying young people. He is seen opening the spigot of a beer keg and holding over the open mouth of a young woman. The photo was leaked to the Des Moines Register and published by them. Paxton, 13 years on the job as Iowa Central Community College president, was photographed aboard a boat with a group of partying young... more
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Wild pot found in Indiana National Park
The National Park Service has found wild marijuana growing in a northern Indiana federal park, the Chicago Tribune reports. Officials don't know how many plants are spread throughout the 15,000-acre Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, on Lake Michigan about 30 miles southeast of Chicago, but said they will work with local police to eradicate the illegal crops. The National Park Service has found wild marijuana growing in a northern Indiana federal park, the Chicago Tribune reports. Officials ... more
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"New" Madonna video comes with a trojan horse
Sophos is warning music fans to be wary of opening unsolicited emails claiming to reveal the latest news about their favourite pop stars. The warning follows the discovery of a new wave of malware attacks which arrive in the unsuspecting computer users' inbox and claim to contain a link to a scandalous video of Madonna.
Sophos experts note that the cybercriminals have timed the attack to coincide with the start of Madonna's new world tour on Saturday - it is a common tactic for hackers to try to exploit excitement around upcoming events.
However, users that click on the URL will not see a video of Madonna but will instead download a Trojan horse called Troj/FakeVir-EW that displays a bogus security warning encouraging them to purchase a piece of fake anti-virus software. Sophos is warning music fans to be wary of opening unsolicited emails claiming to reveal the latest news about their favourite pop sta... more -
Hackers unearth more underage gymnast allegations
Hackers have unearthed more compelling evidence that China's dual-gold medal winning gymnast He Kexin is underaged and should have been barred from competing at the Olympics.
A US-based internet security consultant and part-time hacker calling himself "Stryde Hax" has trawled through the search results on Google, Google China and the Chinese search engine Baidu, unearthing numerous examples of cached official Excel spreadsheet showing He Kexin listed as being born on January 1, 1994.
Search engines work by trawling the web and indexing search results. They usually take a snapshot of their findings at the same time in a process known as caching. So while original web pages can expire or be removed, the cached snapshot of the page can usually still be recovered.
The 1.42-metre (4'8") tall gymnast was part of the women's gymnastic team which won gold and then took an individual gold medal in the uneven bars at the Beijing Olympics. If correct, that would make her 14 instead of 16 and under the competition rules, gymnasts must be aged 16 in the year an Olympics takes place in order to qualify to compete.
The rules were put into place to avoid exploiting younger gymnasts, who have more flexible bodies. Hackers have unearthed more compelling evidence that China's dual-gold medal winning gymnast He Kexin is underaged and should hav... more -
Bush Aims to Relax Endangered Species Rules
You thought Bush might try last effort to save his legacy, well, NO! Really hard to add to the title! so sad, so pathetic!
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Edwards' donor wants refund
Some former Georgia supporters of one-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards are furious about his confessed affair with aide Rielle Hunter, and at least one wants her campaign donation back.
“That’s money I could have put in my children’s college fund,” state Rep. Stephanie Stuckey Benfield (D-Atlanta) said of her contributions to Edwards.
Stuckey said she donated a total of $750 to Edwards and has contacted former Edwards backer Stephen Leeds trying to find out how to get a refund.
Leeds, an Atlanta attorney, has been an Edwards supporter since 2002 and was considered Edwards’ point man in metro Atlanta. Leeds said he now backs presumptive Democratic nominee Barack Obama and has no idea if there is any money in Edwards’ campaign coffers to return to disgruntled former supporters. He said he has not talked with Edwards since the scandal broke.
“John ended up dishonoring an awful lot of people in this process, from his family to a lot of his supporters,” said Leeds, who gave Edwards $2,300 for his primary run and $2,300 for the general election.
Benfield said she was shocked by Edwards’ admissions, and especially troubled by revelations that he paid Hunter $114,000 for video Hunter shot for his campaign.
“I could think of better ways to spend that money than on his girlfriend’s videos,” Benfield said of her contribution. Some former Georgia supporters of one-time Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards are furious about his confessed affair with ... more -
Next-generation Olympic doping methods
While the International Olympic Committee is busy trying to catch today's performance enhancers, athletes are already looking for the next big boost that will give them the edge in 2012.
Most of the positive doping tests in Beijing -- and the IOC president estimates there will be as many as 40 -- will likely be for steroids and the blood-boosting hormone erythropoietin, known as EPO.
But the future of doping could get a lot more complicated. Here are some of the most promising -- or threatening, if you're the World Anti-Doping Agency -- candidates for the next Olympics.
Use your genes to grow more muscle
Manipulating genes to block naturally occurring muscle-growth inhibitors could allow athletes to boost their muscle mass. A lot.
In tests on mice, blocking the protein myostatin gave the mice up to 60 percent more lean muscle mass. Even more promising, Johns Hopkins' Se-Jin Lee recently found that overproduction of one myostatin inhibitor pumps the mice up even more: up to 81 percent in females and a whopping 116 percent in males. Results of human clinical trials are pending.
Complicating the picture, particularly for WADA, is a small number of people with naturally inhibited myostatin who will have to be distinguished from the dopers somehow.
Pop a blood-boosting pill
Who wouldn't love a pill that delivers the same record-breaking benefits of synthetic EPO without the hassle of injections or getting caught?
Clinical trials are under way for a pill that tricks the body into thinking blood-oxygen levels have dropped, causing it to produce more red blood cells, thus improving muscle endurance.
When blood-oxygen levels drop, hypoxia-inducible factor, or HIF, kicks in to stimulate red blood cell production. Once oxygen is back to normal, the HIF breaks down and cell formation stops. The drugs, known as HIF stabilizers, stop the breakdown and keep blood production up.
Some suspect athletes may already be using HIF stabilizers, but the health risks are unknown.
Grow more blood vessels
If you don't mind injections directly into your heart and limbs, vascular endothelial growth factor may be for you. VEGF causes new blood vessels to grow, which in theory could move more oxygen and nutrients between muscles, lungs and the heart with less effort. So more effort could be expended on athletic performance. VEGF gene therapy could potentially help patients with heart and arterial diseases form new blood vessels, keeping them alive and avoiding amputation. But it's not a simple hack, and a failed gene-doping test isn't the only risk. Unregulated VEGF-induced vessel growth appears to also promote tumor growth and metastasis.
Feel less pain, get more gain
Athletes know how to suffer. Raise an athlete's pain threshold, and suffering will occur at a higher level of exertion.
Tests on rats suggest that injecting the beta-endorphin gene into spinal fluid through a spinal tap causes the body to release its own painkilling endorphins. Pain signals get blocked before they reach the brain, without the sleepiness and cloudiness associated with morphine and other painkilling opioids.
Raising an athlete's pain threshold may improve performance, but it may also cause them to ignore warnings of overexertion and injury.
Beef up specific muscles
Say you're a cyclist who wants powerful legs but a light upper body so you don't have to haul the extra weight when riding uphill. Or a tennis player who needs a bit more shoulder muscle. Injecting insulin-like growth factor, or IGF-1, into specific muscles sparks those muscles to grow while avoiding the full-body muscle growth usually associated with IGF-1. Physiologist H. Lee Sweeney at the University of Pennsylvania discovered this while looking for a treatment for muscle-wasting that avoids side effects from unwanted growth, such as cancer and heart enlargement. While the International Olympic Committee is busy trying to catch today's performance enhancers, athletes are already looking for... more -
9-year-old in US prison in Iraq?
A video released shows American soldiers taking a group of Iraqis on a tour of a prison camp.
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The IOC must investigate the Chinese gymnasts' ages or lose all credibility
The Olympics’ age-old problem
By Dan Wetzel,
BEIJING – For a long time, elements of the Chinese government itself thought women’s gymnast He Kexin was born Jan. 1, 1994, which would make her 14 and too young to compete in these Summer Olympics.
Whether it was repeated mentions in the government-controlled media – including a new one uncovered Friday by the Associated Press – or on official gymnastic meet registration forms and websites, He was “this little girl” and a “new star.”
As recently as December 2007, in provincial gymnastics meets and news reports that covered it, she was a 13-year-old prodigy, too young for the 16-year-old Olympic age limit for gymnastics.
Then, suddenly, she wasn’t.
Earlier this year China produced her passport that claimed she was born Jan. 1, 1992, making her old enough to perform a brilliant uneven bar routine and push China to the women’s all around gold medal.
The Chinese either got it wrong in 2007 or wrong in 2008. Considering 2000 Chinese bronze medalist Yang Yun later admitted on state television she was 14 that year, the reported ages of He Kexin and at least two of her teammates have aroused suspicion in nearly everyone except the powers that be – the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) and the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
Both organizations accepted the new passport as fact, certified He and tried to cover their collective ears at all the complaints. Wednesday, the IOC even slipped a gold medal around He Kexin’s neck.
If the IOC had a modicum of decency and courage (don’t count on it), it would open an immediate investigation into whether it might take that medal right back.
If not for the of-age gymnasts who lost to the Chinese, then for He and her diminutive teammates, who – if they actually are old enough – don’t deserve suspicion tainting their accomplishment.
While the IOC undoubtedly is petrified of humiliating the host country in such a scandal, doing nothing merely humiliates the IOC and continues the belief that the organization is about money, not fair play.
continued........... The Olympics’ age-old problem By Dan Wetzel, ... more -
China faked Olympic opening ceremony
Well, why aren't we surprised? Good intentions aside, did we not expect something like this?
According to the British publication The Telegraph, Chinese Olympic Organizers faked the spectacular opening fireworks show for viewers around the world.
According to the story, Beijing used computer graphics, recorded previous to the beginning of the Olympics to fake the show.
I, like many others, watched in awe, as many beautiful fireworks were seemingly set off in the Beijing Olympic Stadium. According to said publication, it was done for safety purposes, but all the same, it would have been a lot better if it were real. Well, why aren't we surprised? Good intentions aside, did we not expect something like this? ... more -
Top CIA official: "9/11-Iraq war forgery came from White House"
A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency’s former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.
The transcript was posted Friday by author Ron Suskind of an interview conducted in June. It comes on the heels of denials by both the White House and Richer of a claim Suskind made in his new book, The Way of The World. The book was leaked to Politico’s Mike Allen on Monday, and released Tuesday.
On Tuesday, the White House released a statement on Richer’s behalf. In it, Richer declared, “I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document … as outlined in Mr. Suskind’s book.”
The denial, however, directly contradicts Richer’s own remarks in the transcript.
“Now this is from the Vice President’s Office is how you remembered it–not from the president?” Suskind asked.
“No, no, no,” Richer replied, according to the transcript. “What I remember is George [Tenet] saying, ‘we got this from’–basically, from what George said was ‘downtown.’”
“Which is the White House?” Suskind asked.
“Yes,” Richer said. “But he did not – in my memory – never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now – he may have hinted – just by the way he said it, it would have – cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president.”
“But he didn’t say that specifically,” Richer added. “I would naturally – I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president.”
“But there wasn’t anything in the writing that you remember saying the vice president,” Suskind continued.
“Nope,” Richer said.
“It just had the White House stationery.”
“Exactly right.”
Later, Richer added, “You know, if you’ve ever seen the vice president’s stationery, it’s on the White House letterhead. It may have said OVP (Office of the Vice President). I don’t remember that, so I don’t want to mislead you.”
Suskind posted the transcript at his blog, saying, “This posting is contrary to my practice across 25 years as a journalist. But the issues, in this matter, are simply too important to stand as discredited in any way.” It was first picked up by ThinkProgress and Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein.
But wait, there’s more …
The bogus memo claimed that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had received training in Baghdad but also discussed the arrival of a “shipment” from Niger, which the Administration claimed had supplied Iraq with yellowcake uranium — based on yet another forged document whose source remains uncertain.
The memo subsequently was treated as fact by the British Sunday Telegraph, and cited by William Safire in his New York Times column, providing fodder for Bush’s efforts to take the US to war ...
Today, The American Conservative also published a report saying that the forgery was actually produced by then-Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans, citing an unnamed intelligence source. The source reportedly added that Suskind’s overall claim “is correct.”
“My source also notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment,” the magazine wrote. “Instead, he went to Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans and asked them to do the job. A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the ... more -
No Veep for You!
well whaddya know, the National Enquirer was half-right.
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Rocambolesque!
(French word - rocambolesque [ʀɔkɑ̃bɔlɛsk(ə)] adj → fantastic, incredible)
A cloned dog, a Mormon in mink-lined handcuffs and a tantalising mystery...
At first it seemed a straightforward example of the oddball stories which emerge during the long, slow, news days of high summer.
A 'Californian woman' had paid £25,000 to a South Korean laboratory to have her dead pitbull terrier cloned, in the first transaction of its kind.
'Bernann McKinney' had saved tissue from the ear of her beloved 'Booger', which was frozen after the dog died, and then used as DNA source material to produce five pitbull pups.
So far, so silly season. (But as the eccentric Miss McKinney beamed joyfully from the world's television screens on Tuesday, vague bells began to ring.)
The face was familiar, albeit older and heavier. The surname was the same.
So was the alleged American, ex-beauty queen background and the unusual devotion to pitbull dogs.
Surely it wasn't? Could the new owner of the world's first commercially cloned pups be the same woman who had gone on the run from British justice 30 years ago, having been the star of one of the most bizarre, entertaining and downright saucy court cases in living memory?
* * * * *
Juicy details at link! (French word - rocambolesque [ʀɔkɑ̃bɔlɛsk(ə)] adj → fantastic, incredible) ... more -
Some more money wasted on a stupid research
Ask anybody that have a dog since years, they could have answer it without the need to spend thousands of tax money
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