Although no custody issues were hammered out Friday in the Bahamas, Howard K. Stern used the downtime to add more fuel to the legal fire that's been blazing out of control since Anna Nicole Smith died suddenly in February. Stern filed a federal slander lawsuit against attorney John O'Quinn, who represents Smith's estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, accusing him of suggesting to reporters that Stern was responsible for Smith's death.
According to court documents filed Friday in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach and obtained by the Associated Press, O'Quinn appeared on several national TV shows to discuss the case in the days leading up to the medical examiner's announcement of what killed Smith. In an interview with Fox News' Greta Van Susteren, O'Quinn said that Arthur believed that Stern had murdered her daughter. He also implied on MSNBC that Stern was a little to eager to get a glimpse at Smith's will in the days leading up to her death, the lawsuit states. "The public airwaves should never be used to promote personal agendas or vendettas," Stern's attorney, L. Lin Wood, said in a statement Friday.
Stern himself was in the Bahamas today, where a custody hearing attended by him, Arthur and confirmed baby daddy Larry Birkhead was adjourned before a ruling could be made. The presiding judge said that he wanted to give Arthur, who is fighting for custody of granddaughter Dannielynn, and Birkhead more time to reach an agreement themselves. O'Quinn told reporters outside the courthouse that his client and Birkhead would have a face-to-face meeting, just the two of them, on Saturday "to figure out what's in the best interest of the child."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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"Lawsuits at twenty paces"?
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 12:04 Comments ||
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As the Wikipedia points out in the historic Royal Governor of New York versus John Peter Zenger: At the end of the trial on August 5, 1735, the twelve New York jurors returned a verdict of "not guilty" on the charge of publishing "seditious libels," despite the Governor's hand-picked judges presiding. Hamilton had successfully argued that Zenger's articles were not libelous because they were based on fact.
The Sun broke the surprise news on Saturday and friends of the second in line to the throne confirmed the tabloid story was correct. An official spokesman for William, eldest son of the late Princess Diana, said only: "We do not discuss his private life."
Middleton, the eldest child of middle-class entrepreneurs who had won plaudits for her fashionable dress sense and poise, was widely tipped to be the next Queen. She was pursued everywhere by paparazzi photographers - as Princess Diana was.
The Sun said that the couple, who met while studying at St Andrews University in Scotland, had reached "an amicable agreement" to end their relationship. The young couple - he is 24 and she is 25 - were seen hugging and kissing during a skiing holiday in Switzerland only last month. The Sun said their relationship had been strained since William graduated from Sandhurst military academy last December at a ceremony attended by Middleton.
William is pursuing his career as an army officer. His younger brother, Prince Harry, also graduated from Sandhurst and is due to join frontline troops in Iraq next month. A close friend of the couple told the paper: "As far as Kate is concerned, William simply hasn't been paying her enough attention. She is stuck in London while he is living in an officer's mess. Kate feels hugely frustrated that their relationship just seems to be going backwards at a rate of knots."
Last month the Sun published a photo of William holding the honker of with an 18-year-old Brazilian student in a night-club and said he had doinked invited another girl back to his barracks for a night-cap.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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"As far as Kate is concerned, William simply hasn't been paying her enough attention. She is stuck in London while he is living in an officer's mess. Kate feels hugely frustrated that their relationship just seems to be going backwards at a rate of knots."
#5
That's the point. In the Spartan system the 'mess' was the community. Members either had to progress in rank/seniority to maintain household outside the mess. Even though married, less ranking Spartans had to get a 'pass' to spend time with the misses and kids [who weren't out learning life the hard way].
#10
Sadly, FOTSGreg, that Stern Howard isn't nearly invisible enough... the obnoxious, salacious, twit!
Clearly, Miss Middleton isn't suited for the challenges of being married to the military. Just as well she figured it out before she became queen, which is even more challenging.
ABUJA (Reuters) - Opposition supporters burned buildings, blocked roads and barricaded election offices in Nigeria on Sunday as early results from flawed state elections showed a big victory for the ruling party.
Just another day in Nigeria ...
Nigerian newspapers estimated about 50 people were killed in violence linked to rigging in Saturday's vote for 36 state governors, which should give Nigerians an idea of what to expect at the presidential poll on April 21. Expect lots more killings. That's what elections are all about.
The ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP) held onto 11 of 13 states where results were announced by the electoral body, the opposition All Nigeria People's Party held one and the southeastern state of Abia swung from PDP to the opposition Progressive People's Alliance. "They have awarded themselves almost every state. It's incredible," said Lai Mohammed, a spokesman for the opposition Action Congress. And what 'action' might that be, Mohammed? Head chopping?
Now now, he's a pious man ...
In the southern oil-producing state of Delta, where the PDP was announced the winner, youths armed with cutlasses and guns burned houses and blocked roads in the city of Warri while hundreds of women and children fled on the back of motorcycles. Look for kidnappings of westerners in protest of the election results. Followed by ransom payments to ease the pain of the stolen election.
Saturday's polls were disrupted by late or non-arrival of ballots, theft of ballot boxes, kidnapping of election officers, voter intimidation, fake results sheets, mistakes in the voter register, faulty ballots and under-age voters, witnesses said. Sounds like they got assistance running things from Mayor Daley.
Zimbabwe police allowed an opposition prayer meeting to take place on Saturday in the second city of Bulawayo despite earlier threats to stop the gathering as an illegal anti-government protest. President Robert Mugabe's government has in the last two months used riot police to break up opposition rallies. Main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and dozens of other members of his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) sustained serious injuries on March 11 after being arrested by police at an aborted prayer rally in the capital Harare.
In Bulawayo, journalists said police officers, in uniform and in plain clothes, watched opposition figures, labour and student leaders, rights activists and clerics filing in and out of a township church for the protest prayer meeting. "They did not stop the meeting but they watched from some distance, from a police station near the church," one journalist said by telephone from Bulawayo, southwest of Zimbabwe.
On Friday the government said it might stop the gathering because it could be turned into an illegal opposition protest. Organisers of the vigil, the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, said in a statement on Saturday they were determined to defy any attempt to stop the prayer meeting despite fears of a police crackdown. "The leadership of the campaign once again reiterates its commitment to the resolution of the Zimbabwean crisis in total defiance of the brutality being perpetrated by the state security agents," it said. "We deplore the use of violence by those that are in power."
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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A Prayer meeting again allowed the government of zimbabwe to stand through another day.
Indifference of the senior BNP leaders to the 'plight' of party chief Khaleda Zia and her family has raised questions among the rank and file about their allegiance to the party leadership. A rift within BNP seems to be deepening with the young leaders accusing the seniors of hatching anti-party plots, said sources. Most of those who were ministers in the last five years are staying mum to save their skin.
Things are more confusing for the party workers and the grassroots level leaders as they remain in the dark with no direction from the high command in last two months, added the sources.
Meanwhile, some of the senior leaders believe that misdeeds of the junior leaders obedient to Tarique Rahman are solely responsible for the mess now BNP is in. Although the writing was on the wall the then prime minister Khaleda Zia did not bother to take any action against them. The young ones began to voice their resentment towards the senior leaders especially after the Awami League (AL) had issued a statement to protest the extortion case filed against its President Sheikh Hasina. "The Awami League leaders have issued a strong statement to protest the case filed against Hasina though the situation was not in favour of them either. Unfortunately, ours did not say or do anything to condemn the arrest of Tarique or decry the government's attitude towards the BNP chairperson," a former lawmaker, who was a student leader in the 90s, told The Daily Star.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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For beleaguered but feisty anti-Kremlin activists of various political stripes, today was a day of drama and high tension, as young radicals and fed-up pensioners alike used a protest march and rally to taunt authorities. The demonstrators succeeded in provoking the government to bare its teeth, with police arresting hundreds and trying to intimidate journalists.
The day was not without humor, however. After police detained one of the protest organizers, Garry Kasparov, a former world chess champion turned democratic activist, a rally speaker declared wryly that Kasparov was "playing chess" with the authorities. Kasparov and his disparate allies, including a former prime minister and a writer who heads a radical youth group, share the goal of keeping protest alive in a country where Russian President Vladimir V. Putin's government asserts ever-greater centralized control.
Putin enjoys more than 70% support ratings, and many critics question why, given that popularity, his government appears intent on stifling even weak opposition. A maximum of 3,000 people made any attempt to protest in Moscow today, while authorities called out 9,000 officers to keep control.
Some opposition activists argue that the response is proof that Putin's circle is neither so powerful nor monolithic as it seems. In recent months, Kasparov and his associates, along with London-based tycoon Boris Berezovsky, a onetime political insider turned fierce Putin critic, have outlined similar visions of how greater democracy might come to Russia. Under their scenario, street protests keep the spark of dissent alive, and at some point the seemingly solid Kremlin power structure splits, and one faction goes over to the opposition. That is when true political competition and greater hopes for real democracy could take hold, they say.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television. The instructor tells the soldier, "You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother in the worst ways ... Act."
The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English. The instructor then tells the soldier to curse even louder. A little more at the link. Via Davids Medienkritik. Actual video here. WARNING: Naughty words. I laughed at the soldier firing off rounds and rote insults at the same time.
But seriously: the hell? "Imagine your enemy..." I can see that, even if it isn't politically correct. But when was the last time Germany was invaded by the Crips? The Germans got some kind of complex about this? Too many movies? Or is it a video game thing?
#1
Don't forget the prevalence of US pop culture in Europe; name a tv cop show, and there's good chance it's been aired here (I'm waiting for the sixth and final Sopranos season, I'm pretty sure Tony's not gonna make it), not to mention american movies and american music.
So, the ubiquitous blang gangsta from the Bronx is quite real, in its cultural archetype guise.
Animal rights activists in Italy have asked Pope Benedict to stop wearing fur in a sign of respect for the "sacredness of all living species". The Pope, who turns 80 on Monday, has been seen over the past winter donning a red velvet hat trimmed with white ermine fur, known as "camauro". The hat was commonly worn by popes in the medieval period to keep their heads warm on cold days and it featured on many paintings at the time. On special occasions, such as official audiences with heads of state, Pope Benedict also wears a red cape trimmed with white fur.
The Anti-Vivisection league (LAV) made its appeal ahead of an April 22 visit by Benedict to Pavia, a northern town where Italy's best-known fur makers are based. "We call on the Holy Father to make a choice of high religious and ethical signficance by not wearing fur on this occasion, nor in the future," the LAV said in a statement.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Tell the animal rights folks to read the Bible, especialy the part about humans being given dominion over all anamalkind, then tell them "Bless you my son"
(Catholic for Fuck Off)
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
04/15/2007 12:12 Comments ||
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Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Friday as saying he had no fixation on becoming president amid rising tensions between staunch secularists and the ruling AK Party over next month's election. "I have no insistence on the (presidential) palace. I have no insistence on becoming president ... My insistence is that this country be a place where its citizens live in peace," he was quoted in Radikal newspaper as saying.
Turkey's powerful secular elite, including army generals and judges, are worried that Erdogan, a former Islamist, will take the top job and undermine the strict division between state and religion -- principles dating back to the foundation of the republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.
Erdogan's ruling AK Party is expected to name its candidate next Wednesday. As the party has a big majority in parliament,its candidate is virtually certain to become president once the staunchly secularist incumbent Ahmet Necdet Sezer's term ends. Erdogan, Turkey's most popular politician who has presided over strong economic growth and the launch of European Union entry talks, denies claims that he has an Islamist agenda.
The head of the powerful military, General Yasar Buyukanit, issued a veiled warning to the ruling AK Party on Thursday,saying the next head of state should be a faithful follower of the country's secular order. "We hope the next president will be somebody genuinely bound by the basic values of the republic, including secularism, not somebody who just pays lip service to them," Buyukanit told a rare news conference.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/15/2007 00:00 ||
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Erodgan isn't interested in the Presidency of Turkey - he wants to be the Caliph of Greater Islamastan. Somebody will ice him sooner or later - probably someone in the Turkish Army.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/15/2007 18:16 Comments ||
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FOR the past two years, China has protected the Sudanese government as the United States and Britain have pushed for UN Security Council sanctions against Khartoum for the violence in Darfur. But the past week has seen a major shift in Beijing's stance. A senior Chinese official, Zhai Jun, travelled to Sudan to push the government to accept a UN peacekeeping force. Zhai even went all the way to Darfur and toured three refugee camps, a rare event for a high-ranking official from China, which has extensive business and oil ties to Sudan and generally avoids telling other countries how to conduct their internal affairs.
The credit goes to Hollywood - Mia Farrow and Steven Spielberg in particular. Just when it seemed safe to buy a plane ticket to Beijing for the 2008 Olympic Games, nongovernmental organisations and other groups appear to have scored a surprising success in an effort to link the Olympics, which the Chinese government holds very dear, to the killings in Darfur, which until recently Beijing had not seemed too concerned about.
Farrow, a UN goodwill ambassador, has played a crucial role, starting a campaign to label the games in Beijing the "Genocide Olympics" and calling on corporate sponsors and even on Spielberg, who is an artistic adviser to China for the games, to publicly exhort China to do something about Darfur. In an article in the Wall Street Journal, Farrow warned Spielberg that he could "go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing games", referring to a German filmmaker who shot Nazi propaganda.
Mia plays hardball.
Four days later, Spielberg sent a letter to President Hu Jintao of China, condemning the killings in Darfur and asking China to use its influence in the region "to bring an end to the human suffering there", according to Spielberg's spokesman, Marvin Levy. Soon after, China sent Zhai. More at the link...
#1
After their spiel about Iraq, do you think any one cares any more about what self important and self worshiping Hollyweird personalities think? Actions have consequences kiddies.
#2
I would be delighted to see the Chinese Olympiad boycotted in huge numbers. Sudan is just the iceberg's tip. Chinese hegemony in the far East could spell obliteration on a scale that would make Darfur look like a bar room brawl.
Shoah is the Hebrew word for "whirlwind." It is the term used to described the conflagration that swept up six million Jewish souls between 1938 and 1945. A war was waged against the Jews in which unspeakable atrocities were perpetrated against a defenseless people. Men and women, young and old alike, were butchered at the hands of the accursed Nazis, may their name be eradicated for all time. Every year, on Yom HaShoah, we remember the martyrs who sanctified the name of G-d in the camps, the ghettos, and in the gas chambers.
Those Jews in the Diaspora who observe Yom HaShoah may observe it within the synagogue, as well as in the broader Jewish community. Commemorations range from synagogue services to communal vigils and educational programs. Many Yom HaShoah programs feature a talk by a Holocaust survivor, recitation of appropriate psalms, songs and readings, or viewing of a Holocaust-themed film. Some communities choose to emphasize the depth of loss that Jews experienced in the Holocaust by reading the names of Holocaust victims one after another dramatizing the unfathomable notion of six million deaths. Many Jewish schools also hold Holocaust-related educational programs on, or towards Yom HaShoah.
On the eve of Yom HaShoah in Israel, there is a state ceremony at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes Authority. At 10:00am on Yom HaShoah, throughout Israel, air-raid sirens are sounded for two minutes. Public transport (including virtually all highway vehicles) comes to a standstill for this period, and people stop and stand silent. During Yom HaShoah, public entertainment and many public establishments in Israel are closed by law. Israeli television and radio channels broadcast mourning songs and documentaries about the Holocaust, without commercials. All flags on public buildings are flown at half mast.
Just a reminder of what happens when we appease evil instead of oppose evil. Never Forget. Never Again.
#2
Thank you, Old Spook. Lest we forget, that six million was 1/3rd of all the Jews in the world at the time. It was only a few years ago that the world's Jewish population again reached eighteen million.
But it wasn't only the Jews that were swept up in the whirlwind. I've read that the Nazis and their eager helpers murdered 95% of Europe's Gypsies. I wonder if George Soros helped in that effort, too.
#3
And it wasn't just the Jews who were targeted for extermination. There were also the the Roma (Gypsy) people.
Unfortunately, 'never again' disappears from the mind when Cambodia and Rwanda are carried out without action and repeated again and again.
The infantile worshipers of fuzzy bunnies and baby ducks need to remember the line from Sergeant York -
Well I'm as much agin killin' as ever sir. --- But it was this way Colonel. --- When I started out I felt just like you said, but when I hear them machine guns a goin' and all them fellas are droppin' around me --- I figured them guns was killin' hundreds maybe thousands and there wern't nothin' any body could do, but to stop them guns. And that's what I done.
#4
The words "Never again" always make me cringe - not only because of the enormity of the evil, but because I know that they are mere words. "The world" simply will not intervene to stop another genocide. And if it's the Jews again, they'll aid and abet.
The Jews must never again go quietly into the night.
Those who seek another Shoa must be exterminated. Islam's genocidal slime automatically forfeit any right to exist. If we are to make even the least pretense of honoring those who perished in the Holocaust, we owe it, not just to the Jews, but to ourselves to begin eradicating all who seek a renewed genocide. Since pursuit of another Holocaust is the explicit intent of Koranic doctrinal filth, it must be cleansed from this earth. Those who cannot abandon such a vile creed must perish with it.
#7
I have the same "NEVER AGAIN" feeling about Congress losing another war for us. It's the same type of BS - the dummycritters simply don't want the US military to succeed, especially in Iraq. I was in Germany when the last helicopter left Saigon. I don't want to be sitting here in Colorado when the last helicopter leaves Iraq. Some of the Jews fought back, especially in Warsaw, and in Russia. EVERY patriotic American needs to fight back against the current mission of the Dummycritter party of saddling us with another imposed defeat. I won't go any further, so I won't get sink-trapped.
Thanks, Old Spook. Yom HaShoah is a constant reminder of why evil MUST be opposed, not defended. The same idea should force Nancy Pelosi to lose her job - and her "pension".
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
04/15/2007 18:25 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.
Although no custody issues were hammered out Friday in the Bahamas, Howard K. Stern used the downtime to add more fuel to the legal fire that's been blazing out of control since Anna Nicole Smith died suddenly in February. Stern filed a federal slander lawsuit against attorney John O'Quinn, who represents Smith's estranged mother, Virgie Arthur, accusing him of suggesting to reporters that Stern was responsible for Smith's death. 
The Sun broke the surprise news on Saturday and friends of the second in line to the throne confirmed the tabloid story was correct. An official spokesman for William, eldest son of the late Princess Diana, said only: "We do not discuss his private life." 
ABUJA (Reuters) - Opposition supporters burned buildings, blocked roads and barricaded election offices in Nigeria on Sunday as early results from flawed state elections showed a big victory for the ruling party. 
Indifference of the senior BNP leaders to the 'plight' of party chief Khaleda Zia and her family has raised questions among the rank and file about their allegiance to the party leadership. A rift within BNP seems to be deepening with the young leaders accusing the seniors of hatching anti-party plots, said sources. Most of those who were ministers in the last five years are staying mum to save their skin.
Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was quoted on Friday as saying he had no fixation on becoming president amid rising tensions between staunch secularists and the ruling AK Party over next month's election. "I have no insistence on the (presidential) palace. I have no insistence on becoming president ... My insistence is that this country be a place where its citizens live in peace," he was quoted in Radikal newspaper as saying.
