Monthly Archives: May 2011
May 21st Celebrity Judgment Day Reply
Judgment Day May 21st … It’s the end of the world as we know it… Reply
May 21st Judgement Day… very well made video Reply
May 21st Judgement Day… well, this video isn’t really about this… just watch Reply
Heeling Hearts of NM – a dog rescue program combined with the Women’s Prison of NM 4
PB & J Family Services, a 501c3 non-profit entity, has also provided a program, Heeling Hearts, at the New Mexico women’s prison in Grants NM where dogs are rescued from the Cibola County shelter and placed into the loving care of participating women in the prison. Here the dogs receive the love and attention they have lacked, as well as helping the women, many of which have lived a life of abuse and addiction, how to love once again – and sometimes for the first time in their life.
Heeling Hearts participated in the annual NM Humane Society’s Doggie Dash & Dawdle 2010 whose goal is to gain support for the dogs at the shelters within the state.
I volunteer with this program. If you would like more information or are interested in adopting a dog, please contact me directly. My contact is in the upper right corner of this site.
Here is a slideshow showing the booth provided by Heeling Hearts.
May 21st Judgement Day picture humor 1
May 21st Judgement Day… the songs which will be heard around the world… Reply
May 21st Judgement Day cartoon humor 2
Adorable Beagle pup learns to catch ball with paws Reply
Okay, I’m a sucker for doggie stuff, this is so cute….
Photos from Libya: Rebellion, life, and the children Reply
Libya is entering the third month of fighting since a rebellion began in February. Today prosecutors from the International Criminal Court in The Hague issued arrest warrants for Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, his son Saif al-Islam Khadafy, and his brother-in-law Abdullah Al-Sanousi for organizing attacks on civilians during the uprising. Last week, rebels pushed out government troops from the Misrata airport, ending the shelling of that city. Despite air support from NATO, a grinding stalemate endures. Collected here are pictures of the rebellion and daily life in the country of over six million. — Lane Turner
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Artist Salhen Obaidi cleans his hands after painting a mural in downtown Benghazi on May 15. Hundreds of new paintings and graffiti decorate the city of Benghazi since the rebels took control of the city. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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A boy jumps from the seaside boulevard to the beach in Benghazi on May 14. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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Women observe an anti-Moammar Khadafy demonstration from a burnt building in central Benghazi on May 14. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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A boy attends a rally near the courthouse in Benghazi May 14. The protesters were calling on the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants for Libya’s leader Moammar Khadafy. They got their wish. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
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Tribesmen in traditional garb ride their horses into town to declare allegiance to the rebels in Revolution Square in Benghazi on May 4. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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A wounded rebel fighter is given aid in an ambulance at the Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Wazin May 8. (Zohra Bensemra/AP)
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Libyan rebels walk in a stairwell after firing a rocket-propelled grenade towards pro-Khadafy forces from a high vantage point in Misrata on May 8. (Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AP)
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People stand next to caricatures of Moammar Khadafy in Benghazi May 8. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
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Libyan men react as the main fuel depot in Misrata burns after a bombing by government forces on May 7. (Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AP)
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Ramzy Elshahiebi smokes a cigarette while assembling homemade bombs in Benghazi. Elshahiebi used to fish with dynamite and now makes bombs that serve the rebel army. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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A rebel fighter stands guard outside Kabaw in the Western Mountain region of Libya on May 11. Fighting in the Western Mountain region, home to the Berber ethnic minority, has intensified since the rebels seized the Dehiba border crossing into Tunisia last month, opening a key artery for supplies. (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)
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A man waves a national flag from the pre-Moammar Khadafy era on the seafront in Benghazi on May 11. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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A Libyan teenager salutes as he controls traffic at a busy junction in Benghazi on May 9. Children in Benghazi are not being sent to fight on the frontline, but they are helping Libya’s revolution by cleaning streets, working as traffic cops, and dishing up rations to rebel soldiers. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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In this photo taken on a government-organized tour, the Marriott hotel is seen in the background as youths enjoy the beach in Tripoli on May 3. The Tripoli Marriott closed 10 days after it opened, as an armed uprising swept the country. (Darko Bandic/AP)
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A Libyan rebel fighter walks near a checkpoint outside Ajdabiya on May 10, where fighting between rebels and forces loyal to leader Moammar Khadafy was ongoing. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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Rebel fighter Abdel Rahaman Faraj, 15, grimaces as he is treated by a nurse in a public hospital in Benghazi on May 10. Faraj was injured two months ago in Bisher during fighting against Moammar Khadafy’s troops. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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Libyan youths sing near a courthouse in Benghazi May 12. (Mohammed Salem/Reuters)
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An injured Libyan rebel fighter flashes a victory sign from an ambulance after being evacuated from Misrata at the port in Benghazi on May 12. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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A wounded girl evacuated from the besieged Libyan city of Misrata waits to be transported to an ambulance at the port in Benghazi on May 12. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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A rebel fighter patrols in the desert south of the Libyan rebel-held town of Zintan in the Western Mountains on May 12. (Zohra Bensemra/Reuters)
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A boy rests on a street light pole in downtown in Benghazi on May 5. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
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A Libyan girl looks at pictures of people killed or missing since the uprising began three months ago on the wall of court house in Benghazi’s Revolution Square on May 15. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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Libyan volunteers prepare food for rebel fighters and internally displaced people at a kitchen in Benghazi on May 15. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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Libyan rebels surround a house where a soldier loyal to Moammar Khadafy took refuge after killing a rebel during a battle in the town of Tamina, Libya on May 13. (Ricardo Garcia Vilanova/AFP/Getty Images)
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A Libyan rebel stands guard on top of a roof overlooking thousands performing noon prayers in Revolution Square in Benghazi on May 13. (Saeed Khan/AFP/Getty Images)
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A Libyan woman walks on a street of Benghazi May 9 holding a picture of her late son, who allegedly died in a Libyan prison in 1996. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
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Volunteers work to recover and bury dead bodies for health and religious reasons in Misrata on May 4. Misrata doctors estimate that more than 1,000 people have been killed in their city in two months of fighting. (Bernat Armangue/AP)
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Relatives mourn during the funeral of Abdul-Gader Al-Faitori, a rebel fighter who died after being injured a month ago during combat in Benghazi on May 4. (Rodrigo Abd/AP)
UPDATE: More on the man who beheaded the British woman in Los Cristianos Spain Reply
Wild-eyed, he held his hands wide apart and declared: ‘I want a knife this big – I’m going to kill someone.’
Caught on a supermarket CCTV camera, this is Deyan Valentinov Deyanov, the vagrant held over the beheading of a British grandmother in Tenerife.
Footage shows him walking into the store in the resort of Los Cristianos and explaining what he was about to do.
Unable to obtain a knife, he left and went to a Chinese souvenir shop where, 20 minutes later, he snatched a knife from the shelf and attacked 60-year-old Jennifer Mills-Westley, stabbing her 14 times before running down the street carrying her severed head.
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The killer on camera: Deyan Valentinov Deyanov pictured in a local supermarket just before the attack
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The shopkeeper who saw Deyanov minutes before the bloodbath yesterday told how the 28-year-old Bulgarian was agitatedly walking through the Avenidas supermarket in a T-shirt, shorts and flip-flops on Friday morning.
The man, who gave his name as Carlos, said: ‘He had a note in his hands which he showed me. It said, “I am God”. I asked him what he was looking for and he held his hands far apart and said, “I’m looking for a knife this big”. I said we didn’t have knives and asked what he wanted it for. He said, “I want to kill someone”, and gestured across his neck.’
Yesterday the family of mother-of-two Mrs Mills-Westley, a retired road safety officer from Norwich, questioned why her killer had been free to walk the streets despite a history of mental illness and violent behaviour.
Deyanov spent time in a mental hospital this year after attacking a security guard with a brick on New Year’s Eve and knocking out his front teeth.
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Squalid: The derelict house where Deyanov has been living
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Shrine: The makeshift home Deyanov lived in also featured an altar made from breeze blocks and a collection of books
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Locals at the resort described him as a madman who was constantly prowling the streets talking to himself, smoking cannabis and telling passers-by: ‘I am God and I’m going to strike you down.’
He slept in a derelict hut on the beach, where he kept a Bible mounted on a breeze block, and had been arrested only two days before the murder for pestering girls at a nightclub.
The Tenerife newspaper La Opinion reported that a judge had issued a search and arrest order for him on May 10, three days before the killing.
He was said to have been involved in a fight a few days earlier in the Veronicas district of Playa de Las Americas. The newspaper said that witnesses had reported that Deyanov appeared to be on drugs.
Mrs Mills-Westley’s ex-husband Peter said: ‘It goes without saying that we need to know why this man was out on the streets, and that needs to be looked into.’
The retired heating engineer, who now lives in Wexford, Ireland, added: ‘Jenny was a wonderful wife and a brilliant mother for my children. She was a wonderful woman, I loved her dearly and she was brilliant in so many ways.’
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MailOnLine
By TAMARA COHEN
Last updated at 11:51 AM on 16th May 2011
UPDATE: IMF Chief to Remain Jailed at Rikers Island in NYC Sex-assault 1
A New York City judge says the head of the International Monetary Fund must remain jailed at least until his next court hearing for attempted rape and other charges. A tired and grim-looking Dominique Strauss-Kahn appeared Monday before a judge. (May 16)
New York (CNN) — The head of the powerful International Monetary Fund arrived Monday at New York’s Rikers Island jail complex, dispatched there after a judge denied him bail for allegedly chasing and sexually assaulting a hotel employee.
At least until his next court appearance on Friday, he will be in protective custody, staying in an 11-by-13 foot cell by himself and having no contact with other inmates — steps taken because he is considered a high-profile detainee, the spokesman said. His new neighbors will include 14,000 men and women who are being held or have been convicted for a host of violent and other crimes committed in New York City.
His arrest rattled the financial world, given his leadership directing multi-billion-dollar loans and financial policy that regularly affect tens of millions of people. But its impact was most felt in France, where Strauss-Kahn had been not only a leading contender to be the Socialist party’s presidential nominee but a favorite to unseat incumbent President Nikolas Sarkozy.
Prosecutors argued Monday, during the IMF chief’s arraignment, that they believed Strauss-Kahn would right now be there in France, living “open and notoriously,” if two plainclothes Port Authority police officers had not detained him in the first-class cabin of an Air France plane Saturday minutes before take-off.
About midday Saturday, Strauss-Kahn was in his suite in the 30-story hotel when the housekeeping employee came in to clean it, said New York Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne. He shut the door, preventing the woman from leaving, according to a criminal complaint released by prosecutors.
Strauss-Kahn emerged from a room naked, according to Browne, and ran after her down the hallway of the suite.
“He grabbed the victim’s chest without consent, attempted to remove her pantyhose” and forcibly grabbed her between her legs, the complaint said. He also forced her to perform oral sex on him, Assistant District Attorney John McConnell said at Monday’s arraignment.
The 32-year-old woman said Strauss-Kahn pulled her into a bedroom and started attacking her, police said. She fought him off, she told investigators, but he then dragged her into the bathroom and forced himself on her.
Afterward, the employee ran to the front desk, Browne said. Hotel staff alerted New York police.
By the time officers arrived, Strauss-Kahn had left, leaving his cell phone behind at the hotel, according to Browne.
He departed in a hotel limo, according to the law enforcement source. He called the hotel to say he had left his phone behind and asked if it could be brought to him. That call came in about the same time police arrived to investigate the alleged sexual assault, the source said. Investigators told the hotel staff to advise him the phone would be taken to him and went to the airport. Two plainclothes Port Authority police detectives led him off the plane, the source said.
UPDATE: Botox for 8 Year Old Girl: Authorities Take Child Away From Mother Reply
The California mom who admitted to injecting her 8-year-old daughter with botox for a kiddie beauty pageant is now being investigated by the San Francisco Human Services Agency.
“It’s pretty unusual for a mom to be injecting an 8-year-old with botox and certainly is grounds for an investigation,” said Trent Rohrer of the San Francisco Human Services Agency.
Mom Kerry and daughter Britney, appeared on “Good Morning America” Thursday defending the 8-year-old pageant contestant’s use of botox.
“I just, like, don’t, like, think wrinkles are nice on little girls,” Britney said.
Britney admitted it hurt to get the injections on her face, but said she was used to the pain.
The admission sparked an uproar online, in the medical community and by child advocates.
“Like I said, I do the botox myself. It’s safe,” Kerry said.
Kerry wouldn’t reveal who provides her with the Botox. Kerry typically administers the Botox to Britney through a total of five shots, in three different locations on her face.
Planking? What is this craze that just resulted in a death…. Reply
Planking is the action of lying face down with arms to the sides, in unusual public spaces and photographing it. It has become particularly popular on Facebook with thousands of photos of planking in odd places, multiple people, and anything unique and different all trying to outdo one another.
Planking began as the lying down game in Europe and Japan in the late 2000s. The term “planking” was coined in Australia and became an internet meme in 2011.
Planking is also known as an abdominal exercise as seen in About.Com Sports Medicine site.
However, those plankers who are planking for the craze of planking, have now resulted in a death. A young man in Australia was attempting to have his photograph taken in a most extreme planking on the rail of a 7th floor balcony… and plummeted to his death.
I do not quite understand this craze, but in every generation, there is always a fad to follow… So, if you do participate in planking, please do so wisely.
Insurance gone, paralyzed athlete fights for his life – Who says we do not need healthcare reform? Reply
Rocky Clark can do little but swivel his head. He can’t move his arms or legs. More than a decade ago, he was paralyzed from the neck down after being tackled in a high school football game. After nine months in rehab and a hospital bill approaching $1 million, he went home.
As a quadriplegic, his long-term prospects were slim. And over the years, there have been regular hospital stays and health scares — no surprise, considering Clark’s fragile condition. He has just one working lung. His right lung is partially paralyzed; certain infections could kill him.
And yet Clark has endured. His doctor credits top-notch, round-the-clock home health care paid for by the school district’s $5 million catastrophic health insurance policy. But that’s run out, so the nurses and money are gone, replaced by his mother, growing financial pressures and a new sense of foreboding.
On a warm September night in 2000 just four plays into the game, Clark — a high school junior and running back for Eisenhower’s Cardinals — was grabbed by the shoulder and tackled. His head hit the ground. At first, he recalls, there was silence.
“When I started coming around, I heard a bunch of ringing,” he says. “My whole body was vibrating, like a spring. I felt cold air. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t.”
Clark’s neck had been broken in two places.
He spent about nine months at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, wondering if his injury was some sort of cruel payback for something he had done in his 16 years.
Clark finished high school, donning cap and gown and having a friend wheel him across the stage so he could accept his diploma. He took some college courses, but a full-time schedule proved too difficult. (He’d like to return, but can’t afford it.) He became a volunteer coach at Eisenhower, attending games.
All of it was made possible by the care provided through the district’s insurance policy. And Clark says when the $5 million policy ran out several months ago, he assumed it would be renewed.
But it was not.
“A limit on life? That’s crazy,” Clark says, his pencil-thin frame covered by a white sheet. “I thought I’d be being taken care of the rest of my life.”
“They’re facing unenviable decisions that balance life, death, financial security and poverty — meaning the choice they make is a choice no person ever wants to make,’” says Michael McRaith, director of the Illinois Department of Insurance.
Annual limits are being phased out and lifetime caps ended last September as part of the new health reform law, so the ranks of those exhausting their policies will drop sharply over the coming years, and will totally be eliminated by 2014, McRaith says.
Full story available on MSNBC or HuffPost Chicago
Police attacking protestors outside Israel Embassy, Egypt Reply
Police attacking protestors outside Israel Emba…, posted with vodpod
At least 120 people were injured after Egyptian security forces fired tear gas and rubber coated steel bullets at pro-Palestinian protesters who were trying to storm the Israeli embassy in Cairo.
Thousands of protesters had massed outside of the embassy in the capital on Sunday to commemorate the 63rd anniversary of the “Nakba” or “catastrophe” – the day Israel declared its independence and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled or were expelled from their homes.
Witnesses said a group of demonstrators later tried to storm the entrance of the embassy. Police used rubber coated steel bullets and tear gas to disperse the crowd. At least 20 people were arrested.
Al Jazeera’s Rob Gilles, who was at the scene, said that some protesters responded by burning tires in the middle of the road and throwing stones.
“The security forces have made a charge outside the embassy to clear the street in front of it and most of the protesters are being forced back,” he said.
‘Determined protesters’
“They’ve sealed off the main area into it but there is still a determined presence here, they are determined not to move, spurred on by the images they’ve seen of the Nakba protests in other parts of the Middle East.
“We’ve seen a few people laid out on the floor mainly suffering from gas inhalation more than anything else.”
Activists had earlier called for marches to start on Sunday to reach the Rafah border crossing between Israel and Egypt.
The incident followed the visit to Egypt by a senior Israeli defence ministry official – the first trip by a top Israeli official since a popular uprising toppled former president Hosni Mubarak in February.
Amos Gilad was to hold talks with several Egyptian officials “to discuss the latest developments in the region, in light of the Palestinian reconciliation agreement”, MENA, Egypt’s state news agency reported on Sunday.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal ended a four-year feud at a reconciliation ceremony in the Egyptian capital, Cairo, earlier this month, which Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu termed “a tremendous blow to peace”.
The long-awaited accord, inked by the two rivals among 13 factions, aims to put a stop to the animosity which has split the Palestinian territories into opposing camps since 2007.
The agreement envisages Hamas and Fatah working to put together an interim government of candidates who are unaffiliated with either faction, who would govern until presidential and legislative elections within a year.
Is Big Brother in Chicago? Estimated 10,000 cameras survey the city Reply
In what has been dubbed Operation Virtual Shield, thousands of public and privately owned security cameras have been put in place in Chicago and linked together, creating a capsule of surveillance over the entire city, more extensive than anywhere else in the United States. Chicago holds the record for number of surveillance cameras, estimated at up to 10,000. The network is said to have cost $60 million. Officials say it is worth the price, but privacy concerns are at a peak.
This brings back memories of the Red Squad in Chicago back during the cold war….
The arm of Chicago’s law enforcement known alternately as the Industrial Unit, the Intelligence Division, the Radical Squad, or the Red Squad, had its roots in the Gilded Age, when class conflict encouraged employers to ally themselves with Chicago’s police against the city’s increasingly politicized workforce. Following the Haymarket bombing, Captain Michael J. Schaack orchestrated a vicious campaign against anarchism, resulting in 260 arrests, bribed witnesses, attacks on immigrants and labor activists, and convoluted theories of revolutionary conspiracy. Continuing its use of both overt and covert tactics, such as surveillance, infiltration, and intimidation, Chicago’s Red Squad in the 1920s under Make Mills shifted its attention from anarchists to individuals and organizations who the Red Squad believed to be Communist. Casting a wide net, the squad by 1960 had collected information on approximately 117,000 Chicagoans, 141,000 out-of-towners, and 14,000 organizations. After the 1968 Democratic National Convention, the Red Squad expanded its targets from radical organizations like the Communist and Socialist Workers Parties to minority and reform organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, National Lawyers Guild, and Operation PUSH.
After 11 years of litigation, a 1985 court decision ended the Chicago Police Department’s Subversive Activities Unit’s unlawful surveillance of political dissenters and their organizations. In the fall of 1974, the Red Squad destroyed 105,000 individual and 1,300 organizational files when it learned that the Alliance to End Repression was filing a lawsuit against the unit for violating the U.S. Constitution. The records that remain are housed at the Chicago Historical Society. The public requires special permission to access them until 2012.
IMF Chief arrested in NYC for allegedly forcing hotel maid to give him oral sex Reply
UPDATE MAY 16, 2011: Click here
Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the IMF (International Monetary Fund), was arrested in New York on allegations that he forced or attempted to force a maid at the Sofitel hotel in Manhattan to perform oral sex on him.
The New York Post was first to break the news that the IMF chief was hauled off an Air France flight two minutes before it was due to take off, and taken into custody by the NYPD.
Here’s its description of the events that transpired in the hotel:
The trouble began around noon today, when a housekeeper entered Strauss-Kahn’s room at the Sofitel on West 44th Street.
Strauss-Kahn was in his bathroom, said sources. He emerged from the bathroom naked, said the sources, and grabbed her.
Then, Strauss-Kahn allegedly threw the housekeeper on the room’s bed and forced her to perform oral sex on him, said the sources.
The New York Daily news puts it a different way, saying that the maid escaped:
Strauss-Kahn, 62, allegedly crept up behind a maid after she entered his room and forced her to perform oral sex on him, sources said.
The woman broke free and ran out of the room. Strauss-Khan quickly headed for the airport, sources said.
He has been seen as a potential future candidate for Prime Minister of France.
This is not the first time he’s been involved in a sex scandal. Back in 2008 there was a story of the IMF investigating an improper sexual relationship with a subordinate.
And approximately a year ago, a book described his string of extra-marital affairs.
The Telegraph wrote this almost exactly one year ago:
The leader French Socialist and former finance minister is considered perhaps the only politician in a position to beat President Nicolas Sarkozy should he run against him in elections in 2012. But according to the book – said to be written by a close female aide – his penchant for the opposite sex could knock him out of the race even before it starts.
Meanwhile, The Guardian has a story — actually dated tomorrow — about how Strauss-Kahn is suing a French newspaper that made claims about his super-rich lifestyle, such as buying expensive, tailored suits.
He was due to meet with Angela Merkel this weekend on Euro-crisis matters.
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Here are the details of the allegations:
The 32-year-old woman told authorities that she entered Strauss-Kahn’s suite at the luxury Sofitel hotel not far from Manhattan’s Times Square at about 1 p.m. Eastern time (1600 GMT) Saturday and he attacked her, Browne said. She said she had been told to clean the spacious $3000-a-night-suite suite, which she had been told was empty.
According to an account the woman provided to police, Strauss-Kahn emerged from the bathroom naked, chased her down a hallway and pulled her into a bedroom, where he began to sexually assault her. She said she fought him off, then he dragged her into the bathroom, where he forced her to perform oral sex on him and tried to remove her underwear. The woman was able to break free again and escaped the room and told hotel staff what had happened, authorities said. They called police.
When detectives arrived moments later, Strauss-Kahn had already left the hotel, leaving behind his cellphone, Browne said. “It looked like he got out of there in a hurry,” Browne said.
The NYPD discovered he was at the airport and contacted Port Authority officials, who plucked Strauss-Kahn from first class on the Air France flight that was just about to leave the gate.
The maid was taken by police to a hospital and being treated for minor injuries.
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Update: With the news about 12 hours old, here’s a bit more of what has been learned.
Already many in France are raising questions about whether there is some kind of plot by the far-right. He had been riding high in the polls, and it seems his people were expecting more and more smears.
The IMF now faces a leadership vacuum. It’s not clear what his future is at the organization — regardless of the outcome in this particular case. Per this WSJ article, his #2 John Lipsky had planned to leave this August. Strauss-Kahn has been a forceful defender of the current bailout approach in Europe, for better or worse.
And the IMF has put out this brief statement:
“IMF Managing Director Strauss-Kahn was arrested in New York City. Mr. Strauss-Kahn has retained legal counsel, and the IMF has no comment on the case; all inquiries will be referred to his personal lawyer and to the local authorities.
“The IMF remains fully functioning and operational.”
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Meet the microbes which will be aboard the next Shuttle Endeavour LIFE Reply
Oh, sure, human astronauts will be on board Space Shuttle Endeavour’s STS-134 mission set to launch Monday. But so will five microscopic life forms: Water Bears, also known as Tardigrades (shown above); the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans and Bacillus subtilis; and the archaea Haloarcula marismortui and Pyrococcus furiosus.
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Water Bears (or Tardigrades)
Members of the animal kingdom, the Water Bears are “huge” microorganisms compared to the other LIFE travelers. Their bodies are composed of four segments, each with two legs ending in claws. Water bears are extremophiles, which means they can adapt to some pretty hostile environments — from 150 degrees Celsius (302 Fahrenheit or hot enough to bake biscotti) to just a few degrees above absolute zero. Plus, they’re radiation resistant.
The tardigrades had already been coaxed into an anhydrobiotic state, during which their metabolisms slow by a factor of 10,000. This allows them to survive vacuums, starvation, dessication and temperatures above 300 degrees Fahrenheit and below minus 240 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once in orbit, the tardigrade box popped open. Some were exposed to low-level cosmic radiation, and others to both cosmic and unfiltered solar radiation. All were exposed to the frigid vacuum of space…
Just how the invertebrate astronauts protected themselves “remains a mystery,” wrote the researchers.
… personally, I think it looks like something out of a Tim Burton movie….
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Conan the Bacterium (common nickname for Deinococcus radiodurans or "terrifying berries")
This strain of bacteria is so hardy it has the nickname, Conan the Bacterium. Whereas 10 Gy (Grays) of radiation would kill an average human, Deinococcus radiodurans can survive a whopping 5000 (five thousand) Gy. More than a third of the cells will even survive a dose of 15,000 Gy! That’s an ideal trait for long journeys through the dangerous radiation of outer space.
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The Average Joe of Bacteria (Bacillus subtilis)
Bacillus subtilis is a “model organism,” a standard bacteria used over and over again in many different biological experiments. tThe MW01 strain will fly on Shuttle LIFE. Bacillus subtilis is also quite radiation resistant and has a long history of space biology missions, going back to the days of Apollo. That will allow a good comparison point between Shuttle LIFE and some of the other space flights of this bacterium.
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Poison Lover (Halomonadaceae sp. GFAJ-1)
These rod shaped bacteria from the family Halomonadaceae made headlines as the first known microorganisms that are apparently able to thrive and reproduce using the toxic chemical, arsenic. The bacteria appear to substitute arsenic for phosphorus in their cell components. If these results are confirmed, they may imply a separate biochemistry for life. And that means that life might arise in planetary conditions we never before thought suitable.
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Old Salty (Haloarcula marismortui, an archaeon)
Many archaeons — a type of single-celled organism — are extremophiles that thrive under conditions that would destroy other organisms. Haloarcula marismortui lives in extremely salty environments. Why are we testing an organism that seems to enjoy high salinity? If ancient Mars had water on its surface at some point in the past, it was in all likelihood very salty and briny. Any life existed that there would probably have lived in those salty seas. It’s important to learn if such a salt-loving organism can survive a long journey through space.
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Fire Eater (Pyrococcus furiosus, an archaeon)
These extremophiles love heat. Pyrococcus furiosus was discovered in 1986 in volcanically heated ocean sediments off the coast of Italy, and it thrives in temperatures between 70 and over 100 degrees Celsius (158 and 212 degrees Fahrenheit). But interplanetary space isn’t hot; nor is the surface of Mars or Phobos. So why send a heat-seeking extremophile on the journey? There is always the small risk that somewhere in processing the payload, some mistake would cause the payload to overheat. In that case, Pyrococcus furiosus will serve as a kind of temperature control. If it is the only LIFE organism to survive the trip, this will indicate that overheating rather than conditions in space caused the loss of the other organisms.
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Battle to liberate the Air Force Academy 05/10/2011: Video from Libya Reply
Footage below is one of the many skirmishes that led to the liberation of the Air Academy in Misrata. You could see Freedom Fighters in the beginning of the video drawing up battle plans in the sand, preparing for their next move.
Georgia Governor Signs Immigration Bill Into Law 4
May 13, 2011
Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal has signed a bill that cracks down on illegal immigration by increasing some enforcement powers and requiring many employers to check the immigration status of new hires.
Deal on Friday signed the bill that has some similarities to a controversial bill enacted last year in Arizona.
Most parts of the Georgia law are set to enter into effect July 1. But opponents have said they plan to file lawsuits seeking to block it.
A requirement for private employers to use a federal database to check the immigration status of new hires is set to be phased in.
The new law also authorizes law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of certain suspects and to detain those who are in the country illegally. More…
Are we being too harsh on school kids for being kids? Reply
In regards to my two previous posts:
Prom ban for teen who trespassed to ask date – Ban lifted on a case-by-case basis
Ohio Boys Suspended For Farting On School Bus… What? Yup!
Are our schools becoming to generous in suspending students for being, well, kids? We were all young at one time, too. I recall doing things which, at the time, we all thought was pretty cool. Now in my later more wisened years often wonder, “What was I thinking?” But you know what, I do not regret anything I’ve done. Yes, we broke rules, skipped school, took part in high school pranks. But all our parents, adults, and school administration all understood that kids will be kids.
Today, it is a much different world from the late 1970′s to early 1980′s when I was in high school. Gangs have grown rampant, drugs spread through our school faster than the flu. Knives, weapons, guns are brought into schools both to “show off” and to use on a rival gang member – or sadly, used in revenge for some sort of humiliation caused upon the bearer.
THESE are the teenagers we should be focusing on. Not the ones who are not causing any harm to themselves or to others. The prom posting sign was a valiant thing to do which we have nearly lost in our youth of today’s world. It was not merely a text message, “Hey, wanna go to the prom?” But this student took time, effort, and originality to do what he did in order to ask his girl to the prom. It is this “thinking outside the box” mentality that brings us our Einsteins, Wright Brothers, and Edison’s of the world. I hope this suspension, although brief, does not hinder this students creativity in the future. He, in addition to all youth, have possible greatness in their future. Allow them to develop and grow under their original thinking.
Now, as far as the flatulent student… well, I’m sure it’s not pleasant, but do you all not recall how fellow students find this body function humorous? Let them be. Open the window…..
Ohio Boys Suspended For Farting On School Bus… What? Yup! 1
An Ohio seventh-grader was suspended last week for doing arguably the most predictable thing a 13-year-old boy could do for a laugh on the school bus. He cut the cheese.
Canal Winchester Middle School students Anthony Nichols and another boy lost their bus privileges on Friday for their stinky stunt, which prompted the customary rousing laughter and “lowering of windows,” according to the Columbus Dispatch.
Administrators ruled that the flatulence was in violation of the school’s code of conduct, but if you ask Nichols’ parents, the decision reeks of poor judgement.
“It’s very laughable, that’s what it is,” said Anthony’s father, James Nichols. He said he spoke with the school’s vice principal, Daniel Senu-Oke, who “suggested my son should hold his gas on this hour-long bus ride.”
For a concerned parent, however, that answer just doesn’t cut it.
“When it happens, it just happens,” he said. “It’s not intentional.”
But perhaps it is. According to the bus driver and school officials, the 13-year-old Nichols and his partner in crime are repeat offenders with a history of passing gas on the school bus.
Still, for the boy’s mother, Kristine Kuzora, who has suffered from gastrointestinal issues herself, the incident hits a little too close to home.
“I take great offense to passing gas being cause for suspension and marked as an obscene gesture,” Kuzora wrote to The Dispatch.
Prom ban for teen who trespassed to ask date – Ban lifted on a case-by-case basis 1
A Connecticut teenager who posted a sign on the front of his high school asking a girl to go to prom with him has been barred from attending.
The message said: “Sonali Rodrigues, Will you go to the prom with me? HMU -Tate.” HMU means hit me up, or call me.
Rodrigues said yes. But Tate and his two friends have been given one-day, in-house suspensions by the headmaster and barred from the prom.
This suspension has caused a viral uproar from around the world. Facebook pages were created with hundreds of thousands of “Likes” from people who feel the punishment was unjust and are rallying together in support of overturning the suspension from the prom. All were a-twitter on twitter also in support of the overturning of the suspension.
But the school has a “Zero Tolerance Policy”: Shelton High School’s policy states that any student who receives an in-school or out-of-school suspension after April 1 is automatically prevented from going to the prom.But through all the support from a worlwide following, the school overturned their decision.
Regarding Tate’s punishment, the Headmaster Smith said Saturday:
“In an effort to maintain a focus on teaching and learning, I have decided to implement alternate consequences on a case by case basis, beginning with James Tate and for other students who received internal suspension after April 1, which would then permit some to attend the prom.”
Superintendent Freeman Burr confirmed that yes, the statement means Tate can go to his prom. The fate of his friends wasn’t as clear, due to the vague generalities of the statement and the fact the headmaster did not take questions.Full article available on the schools website, Valley Independent Sentinel.
Full article available on the schools website, Valley Independent Sentinel.
Prom ban for teen who trespassed to ask date, posted with vodpod
