Filed under: Some pigs are more equal than other.
Rep. Charles Rangel paid no mortgage interest on a beach resort property for about 15 years, a lawyer for the powerful House committee chairman said Friday.
The New York congressman's lawyer, Lanny Davis, told The Associated Press that Rangel got his no-interest deal for the villa in the Dominican Republic because he was an original buyer in the resort development.
The Democratic chairman of the Ways and Means tax-writing committee has come under scrutiny for his vacation property and apartments he rents in his home district of Harlem.
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2008 14:03 ||
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I take it he now considers himself the American Mandela...
DETROIT - Only hours after agreeing to resign and serve time in jail as part of plea deal, Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick expressed regret for the scandal that has engulfed the city -- and left the door open for a return to public life. Kilpatrick walked into a City Hall conference room Thursday to thunderous applause and thanked his family, backers and staff members for sticking by him during his rocky 6 1/2-year tenure. And, oh yeah, by the way, you folks won't have jobs soon...
"I truly know who I am. I truly know where I come from. In Detroit I know who I am. And I know because of that, there's another day for me," he said in a 20-minute speech on live television. "I want to tell you, Detroit, that you done set me up for a comeback." Well...aren't they lucky.
In exchange for pleading guilty to two counts of obstruction of justice, the Democrat will get four months behind bars, pay the city $1 million in restitution, lose his license to practice law, and cannot run for any elected office for five years. Fourth paragraph. Not as good as yesterday, but still not bad for AP.
His resignation will take effect in two weeks and his sentence will be officially imposed on Oct. 28. Under the city charter, any mayor guilty of a felony is automatically expelled from office. "I always said I would stand strong for the city of Detroit," the 38-year-old mayor said in his address. "But sometimes standing strong means stepping down." That's right, folks. I'm doing it...for you.
Coming after nearly eight months of turmoil and demands that Kilpatrick resign, the plea bargain was met with relief from politicians and ordinary Detroit residents alike. His departure could also remove a major embarrassment for Barack Obama and the Democrats in Michigan, a crucial battleground state in the presidential election. Can't make Barry look bad...and presidents can issue pardons.
"This gives us hope. He's not a king," said Monica Smith, 24, of Detroit, a college student. "This is a huge victory for the city of Detroit. He was not a role model. He was a thug. I'm definitely optimistic." Well, Monica doesn't seem very...supportive.
#1
Local liberal dude threw a fit to my wife because there was an article in the local paper highlighting bo's shadey affiliates. Wife found out he wasn't pissed because of whether it was true/false, but because it was published.
#2
Only hours after agreeing to resign and serve time in jail as part of plea deal
I was not aware you could "Chose" Jail? the term implies you could also "Not Chose Jail" I'm sure any number of crooks are relieved by this revalation that they can just say NO to the judge and NOT serve jail time.
What a crock of shit.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
09/05/2008 14:06 Comments ||
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#3
four months behind bars, pay the city $1 million in restitution, lose his license to practice law, and cannot run for any elected office for five years.
A man admitted Wednesday in federal court that he helped plot a bizarre bank robbery that ended when a bomb strapped around a pizza deliveryman's neck exploded and killed him, the first conviction in the five-year-old case.
Kenneth Barnes pleaded guilty to conspiracy and a charge of aiding and abetting at a hearing in which prosecutors also revealed new details, based on a statement by Barnes, about deliveryman Brian Wells' alleged involvement in the scheme.
According to Barnes, Wells tried to back out on the day of the robbery, refusing to put on the collar-bomb after realizing it was real. Another plotter then fired a single shot from a gun, scaring him into putting it around his neck.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
"If he died, he could not be a witness,"
...and everyone else's cut would be bigger.
A strong whiff of Darwinism seems in play.
#2
Prosecutors also said Wells lied to the police officers who caught him, telling them he had been abducted by a group of black men even though all the alleged plotters were white
let his fellow prisoners hear about that....
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/05/2008 10:04 Comments ||
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#3
Wells got decapitated by the bomb.
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2008 10:19 Comments ||
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#4
Sounds like something you's see on CSI:Stupid...
The suspected remains of a World War II-era airman found dangling in trees in the jungle of Papua New Guinea have turned out to be just a moss-covered branch, the Australian military revealed Friday.
Hikers on the famed Kokoda Trail, site of a brutal 1942 battle between Japanese and Australian troops, reported they had discovered what appeared to be the suspended skeleton of a flyer tangled in parachute cords two weeks ago.
But the Australian Defence Force (ADF) said it had sent staff from Canberra's embassy in Port Moresby to inspect the remote site, only to discover that the suspected human skeleton was simply a tree limb tangled in vines.
...
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2008 00:00 ||
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We don't make this stuff up. Maybe other people do, but we don't.
A Malaysian welder had to have a nut removed from around his doinker penis after an attempt to lengthen it before he gets engaged next week went embarrassingly wrong, a news report said on Sunday. "Whoa! That is just so wrong!"
"I'm so embarrassed!"
The nut got stuck on his hose penis following an erection, the Star newspaper said, forcing him to seek help at a hospital in southern Johor state. "The ad said 'In the event of an erection lasting more than four hours seek professional assistance.'"
"Yeah?"
"That'd be you!"
"I'm a hooker."
"A professional hooker. I can tell."
"Lemme see what you got... Whoa! Now that's a nut!"
"Couldja maybe...?"
"Nope. I don't think so. I'll drive you to the hospital, though."
Staff from the Sultanah Aminah hospital had to drain some blood from the schlang penis and cut away a top layer of skin before the object could be removed, the newspaper said. "This might hurt a little..."
"Aaaiiiieee!"
"Fish him down from the ceiling, wouldja, nurse? I ain't done yet."
It said the fire and rescue department were also involved in trying to remove the nut from the unnamed welder, who is in his 20s and hoped the nut would weigh down his baloney penis to make it longer. "Hand me those Jaws of Life, wouldja, Clancy?"
"Holy shit! Allahu akbar!"
"Grab him, Clancy!"
"The patient is now recovering "[Whimper!]"
and we hope to discharge him today [Sunday]," hospital director Daud Abdul Rahim told the paper.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
This is likely cultural in nature, intended to improve male performance and female arousal/satisfaction during the coital act, aka "it-It-It-IT"! [THE SIMPSONS]. * NUTSHELL = THE ANCIENT/TRIBALIST EQUIV OF A MALE DILDO. The man has to be careful about getting his member seriously damaged or infected.
#1
I'm sure that Nigerian imam can take care of 80 or so of these women. Even more if the government benefit levels are high.
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2008 8:53 Comments ||
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#2
Gotta go to Australia.
Last time I went (pre-Divorce) I fell in love with the place. The little kids thought I talked like a cowboy because of my american (Californian) accent. Cute little tykes.
#4
Salt's says the solution for older women is to move out of the cities and into the remote, rural farming and mining communities where men are still in plentiful supply.
#5
#2 & #3 - I too would love to help out. When I was in Sydney a few years ago, it seemed that all of the local women were beautiful.
Unfortunately, my wife won't let me.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
09/05/2008 12:54 Comments ||
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#6
Maybe there could be an Australia-Alaska exchange program.
Posted by: Mike ||
09/05/2008 13:05 Comments ||
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#7
I suspect those whopping big ranches make it hard to get the population density required for small towns to start, grow and thrive as they did here.
#8
I lived in small town- or no town- Australia for 50 years. Girls tended to hate the life- when they finished High School they were out of there. The jobs available suited boys just fine- farming, ranching, mining, fishing, trucking, construction and so on.
The findings suggest that modifying corn to synthesize more PPDK during cold weather could allow corn, like Miscanthus, to be cultivated in colder climates and be productive for more months of the year in its current locations. The same approach might even be used with sugar cane, which may be crossed with Miscanthus, making improvement of cold-tolerance by breeding a possibility.
#1
Hmmm. Not sure if this, by itself, is enough to grow corn in colder places.
Corn can GROW fine in cooler climates. The problem is getting it to germinate in them. Small gardeners who don't mind going to the trouble to do so have known for years that they can start corn indoors and then plant it out in fairly cool weather with good results.
This is impractical on a large scale, though.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/05/2008 5:41 Comments ||
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#3
P2k, what do you mean? I am not sure why they are even bothering to research this. Soon the only place cool enough for plants to grow will be above the Arctic circle. That's what the Goreacle told me.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
09/05/2008 12:52 Comments ||
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#4
Rambler, don't buy a vacation home at high altitude and latitude unless you like to ski. Sorry.
#5
tipover, but, but Al said that the Earth has a fever. The Arctic ice cap is melting away, soon it will be too hot to live anywhere in the world (except the tops of mountains, and way, way North.)
/sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
09/05/2008 16:40 Comments ||
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#6
This will come in handy in the "Little Ice Age" that's on the way.
This is an example of Islamic era ignorance.
The Sindh government it establishing separate courts for women in the province, Sindh Law Minister Muhammad Ayaz Soomro said on Thursday. The law minister told the Sindh Assembly that female judges would be appointed in the Sindh High Court (SHC) and female police deputy superintendents will be recruited. All trial cases involving women will be transferred to this system, he added. He said the Larkana District Bar Association would provide free legal aid to deserving women and widows, adding that the People's Lawyers Forum would defend women's cases in the SHC.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/05/2008 00:00 ||
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The Iraqi government is seeking to buy 36 advanced F-16 fighters from the U.S., say American military officials familiar with the request, a move that could help reduce its reliance on U.S. air power and potentially allow more American forces to withdraw from the country than had been proposed.
If it clears hurdles in Washington, the multibillion-dollar deal would give the Iraqi government a powerful new weapon to use against the country's Shiite and Sunni insurgents. But the rapid rebuilding of Iraq's military forces with U.S. equipment such as F-16s could also be viewed with concern by other countries in the region, because of the placement of advanced weaponry in the hands of a nascent government of a country still struggling for stability.
The Air Force says it has 300 planes and helicopters in Iraq and Afghanistan, mostly in Iraq, but declined to provide a further breakdown, making it difficult to assess the impact of the proposed sale on overall air power there. Senior American officials have long argued that Iraq would need the U.S. to keep fighters and attack helicopters deployed throughout the country indefinitely, even as American ground troops start to withdraw.
Iraq now appears determined to significantly expand the air power of its military, which has become more competent and confident in recent months but depends heavily on the U.S. for air support. Iraq quickly has become one of the biggest weapons buyers in the world as it seeks to strengthen and professionalize its fighting force.
...
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2008 14:22 ||
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#1
And when they get powerful enough to take on Iran, look out.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
09/05/2008 16:36 Comments ||
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When Hala al-Masaad invited her girlfriends over to celebrate her 18th birthday with cake and juice, the high school student was stepping into an unusual public debate. Is celebrating birthdays un-Islamic?
Saudi Arabia's most senior Muslim cleric recently denounced birthday parties as an unwanted foreign influence, but another prominent cleric declared they were OK. You can have your cake and not eat it.
That has left al-Masaad with mixed feelings about her low-key celebration last month. She loves birthday parties because they make her feel she has "moved from one stage of life to another." "But I sometimes feel I'm doing something haram," she said sheepishly, using the Arabic word for banned. Perhaps if you tried beheading the candles?
"Everything not required is forbidden."
Posted by: ed ||
09/05/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
She was 18? Why wasn't she home tending her five through one year old children?
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
09/05/2008 12:56 Comments ||
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funny Inline ed,
5ยข those fat Clerics Xucks are tearing off all they can get from women....or boys for that matter.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
a mini-true story with no redeeming value:
Last Tuesday a Saudi with his interpreter and handlers showed up at my transplant clinic [UCSF, world class mind you]. His handlers were making arrangements and filling out forms at the desk and at an office down the hall.
He waz wearing white PJs and the usual red checkered table cloth on his head. His handlers were wearing Western style suits.
Well wouldn't you know it the Saudi had the gaul took my chair when I got up to answer a question at the desk.. Well when I got back I stood before him and gestured for him to get up with a smile [320/6'5"].
He obeyed me as I took him by the shoulders and guided him to the empty chair right next to mine. After he sat down I introduce myself.
Well he smiled and said in broken English that he was a Saudi [no sheet]. I barely had said hello when his handlers showed up looking very green indeed, and hustled him off around the corner...
>:)
I immagine that in his country he doesn't have to wait in turn for treatment along with ordinary citizens.
Posted by: Red Dawg ||
09/05/2008 14:36 Comments ||
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#3
Can't we interest them in snake handling? If you truly believe you can handle saw scaled vipers and their bite won't turn you into a puddle of jello in two weeks. As one venomous reptile expert pointed out in this country Darwin kicked in when you moved this practice into the range of the eastern diamondback rattlesnake, but YOU Saudis could prove him wrong!
Posted by: bruce ||
09/05/2008 21:23 Comments ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
