Los Angeles (E! Online) - David Copperfield may not have been able to believe his eyes, but that really was the FBI combing through his Las Vegas warehouse.
A dozen agents from Seattle carted away a computer hard drive, a memory chip from a digital camera and close to $2 million in cash during a late-night raid Wednesday on the famed magician's Sin City storage space, KLAS-TV reports. An FBI spokesperson said that out-of-state agents get involved when tips originate in their area, meaning the warehouse was in some way connected to an investigation that originated in Washingtonalthough what the investigation concerns is now anyone's guess.
After the raid, Copperfield's attorney issued a statement confirming that the search took place. "We understand there is an investigation, [we] are in touch with the investigators, and are respecting the confidentiality of the investigation," lawyer David Chesnoff said.
"We'd like you to respect the confidentiality of the investigation as well," Chesnoff told the reporters, "so disappear."
The FBI's Las Vegas office also told KLAS that agents had made a stop at one of Copperfield's frequent performance spots, the MGM-Grand on the Vegas Strip, where the illusionist is scheduled to appear for a two-week engagement at the Hollywood Theater starting Nov. 15. Once again, the government agency wouldn't go into detail about what authorities were looking for at the hotel, or how it factored into the investigation, but it would confirm that the MGM itself was not the target.
Meanwhile, still remaining in Copperfield's two-story treasure trove is a heady, 80,000-piece mix of collectibles and perception-deceiving devices.
The 51-year-old entertainer, who, according to Forbes, banked $57 million in 2005, keeps, among other things, a stash of vintage sports cars, gadgets, quirky stuff like gargoyle heads and an old electric chair, 15,000 magic books, Houdini memorabilia, posters, playbills, centuries-old documents, and various trick apparatuses in the warehouse he has dubbed the International Museum & Library of the Conjuring Arts. Access to the collection is usually only granted to scholars looking to research and write about the illusionary world, but no disappearances, transferences, levitations, cutting-in-halves or other unexplainable phenomena were reported to have taken place during the raid.
According to Copperfield's Website, he performs more than 500 shows a year all over the world (not all at oncenobody's that good). Before heading back to the MGM-Grand, he'll be bringing his Intimate Evening of Grand Illusion to Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. Then, after Vegas, it's off to the United Arab Emirates.
#4
Magician David Copperfield is being accused of raping a Seattle woman.
The woman told police Copperfield raped her while she was in the Bahamas, but because the alleged incident happened out of the US, and the woman did not report it until she returned home, authorities turned over the case to the FBI.
So on Thursday, 12 FBI agents raided Copperfields Las Vegas warehouse awesomely dubbed the International Museum & Library of the Conjuring Arts and contacted him to say they were investigating him.
"Unfortunately false allegations are all too often made against famous individuals," Copperfield's Las Vegas attorney David Chesnoff said. "But we are confident the investigation will conclude favorably."
Sammy Duddy was a colourful Belfast character who combined membership of one of the city's most lethal paramilitary groups with a career as "Samantha ", a highly suggestive drag act.
In the 1970s, he was by day a propagandist for the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), the extreme Protestant group which was responsible for the killings of hundreds of Catholics. By night, however, he appeared on Belfast's limited but vibrant cabaret circuit, presenting a ribald act in loyalist pubs and clubs dressed in fishnet tights, wig and heavy make-up.
As well as appearing on stage, he also appeared in court, in 1990 serving almost a year in prison on remand before the authorities dropped a charge of possessing documents likely to be useful to terrorists. An unlikely loyalist terrorist, he was never, so far as is known, a frontline gunman or bomber. Despite his mild manner, his acceptance within this particularly butch organisation was helped by his street reputation for being handy with his fists.
He functioned in the 1970s as editor of the UDA's almost embarrassingly crude magazine, which never approached the sophistication of the material produced by republican organisations. For a time he served as one of the UDA's public relations officers. He was not seen as a leading figure within the UDA, but he was regarded as useful in a grouping which had few members with any literary bent. In 1983, he produced a volume of poetry, Concrete Whirlpools of the Mind.
He was a familiar figure at the UDA's east Belfast headquarters, working closely with the organisation's leaders when it was at the height of its activities and had a membership of many thousands. He was known as a jester within the UDA, with a ready fund of adult jokes.
He once said of his drag act:
I wore a miniskirt many a time, but it was usually a long dress, a straight black wig, a pair of falsies and loads of make-up to cover my freckles. The darker the mascara the better - and scarlet lipstick, because I was a scarlet woman.
The charge which put Duddy behind bars related to security force documents on republicans which were leaked to the UDA, and which the organisation attempted, with little success, to use to target IRA members. He later dropped out of sight but reappeared in recent years, becoming active both in the UDA and in loyalist community groups. He helped out in the organisation's faltering and so far unsuccessful efforts to develop a political wing along the lines of Sinn Fein.
In that role he became embroiled in a number of the violent feuds which have convulsed the UDA in recent years. Regarded as a moderate in UDA terms, he found himself on the opposite side of the argument to more extreme figures such as Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair. On one occasion, Duddy's home was attacked with a pipe bomb, while on another shots were fired into it. While he was uninjured, his pet chihuahua, Bambi, was hit by gunfire and died. "Who killed Bambi?" Sammy Duddy, political activist, drag artist and poet: born Belfast 1945; twice married; died Belfast 17 October 2007.
Ellen DeGeneres' talk show was put on hold for a day because of her emotionally wrenching dog-adoption drama. . . .
The battle over Iggy, a Brussels Griffon terrier mix, pitted DeGeneres against an animal rescue agency and, at one point, had her in tears on her show. The agency's owners complained of receiving death threats over the dispute.
DeGeneres adopted the dog, then gave it to her hairstylist's family after the dog, despite training, couldn't get along with the comedian's cats, her publicist has said. "Ellen was totally surprised. Dogs and cats not getting along: what're the odds of that?"
Marina Batkis and Vanessa Chekroun, owners of the nonprofit Mutts and Moms agency, claimed that DeGeneres violated the adoption agreement by not informing them that she was giving the dog away and removed Iggy from the hairstylist's home Sunday.
Posted by: Mike ||
10/19/2007 16:28 ||
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#1
Now I know these "Pooch Police" are trying to do the right thing but they are going overboard. Once the agency determined that fido wasn't sold for food or sport they should have let it go. Unless they should up with cops I never would have surrendered my pooch.
#3
Our dogs and cats have always gotten along very well. One of the cats was 'rescued' by one of the dogs - he was carrying the days-old (eyes not open, umbilicus still attached) kitten gently in his mouth. We later found its sister and both are fine now; the feral mother had been hit by a car after bearing them under our back shed.
Note: This post is severely OFF-TOPIC and possibly only slightly comprehensible to the RB tech head community.
This is a link to a thread at the eBay "Trust & Safety" discussion board, where I lurk from time to time.
The relevant background here is that eBay's founders had a great concept for this global peer-to-peer marketplace, but an overly optimistic view of human nature. Their mission statement begins with: "We believe that people are basically good" and this single line has hamstrung eBay's security obligations essentially from its first auction. eBay has grown to be its own little ecosystem, with vast numbers of people flowing through and around the system at any given second. And like in any large complex ecosystems, malicious and opportunistic elements are drawn like flies to carrion. At eBay, the swarms are scammers, thieves, skriddies, haxorz, and Eastern European mafiosi.
The "Trust & Safety" (T&S) discussion board is a user-to-user group where folks who feel they've been scammed or ripped off can go to request help or information for their specific situation. Over the years, I've seen that many internet scams and security vulnerabilities are reported first at the T&S board. eBay rarely fixes the problems that are examined there, at least not until they become a problem that costs them money out of their own treasury.
At any rate, the link here goes to a very interesting discussion of some new twists on old eBay scams. Don't click on the links embedded in that thread; you can follow the commentary on the eBay page just fine.
#1
Very innardstesting, Sea. Reading through half the article has persuaded me to randomize my passwords and stop using my computer's administrative user account.
This article also confirms my belief that these sort of scammers should be faced with international extradition, massive hard-time jail sentences and confiscation of assets when apprehended. These scumbags are not just predatory but also the one's most prone to really screw up a person's computer.
Sites that install malware and spyware must be forced by law to have a click-through that unmistakably announces the site's intention of installing such software on your computer. Anyone who violates such a law should be subjected to massive financial penalties and hard jail time.
This sort of crap is really reducing the quality of people's computing experience and retarding the development of an honorable Internet economy. The benefits to our world of a functioning Internet economy are so huge that all countries need to band together on this with mutual extradition pacts and similar agreements.
Countries whose governments benefit from such nefarious activities need to be cut off from the Internet and be subjected to destructive haxing. We cannot afford to have something so important as the Internet being disrupted by a small community of unethical criminal users.
#2
How do we know this is the real Rantburg we are posting on? Maybe it is a spoof page designed to hurl our snarks into the endless void of cyberspace, never to be heard from again.
#3
Maybe it is a spoof page designed to hurl our snarks into the endless void of cyberspace, never to be heard from again.
pooplisting 101
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/19/2007 6:18 Comments ||
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Stuff like the eBay scams and spoofs can and do happen on other internet commerce sites as well. I used to be able to easily recognize the spoofs just by the syntax or style, but no more. In many cases I can't even tell from the embedded link names. So I don't do e-commerce any more. I feel guilty freeloading here on the 'burg, but I don't do PayPal (I've offered and would send a check if I had a place to send it.)
#5
someone scammed my ebay account and bought a car in Australia, I talked with the Aussie and said he understood, thank god it was an Aussie!Pay Pal and E-Bay pretty much suck and should be held responsible for these kinds of scams until they can correct the problem
#7
A point I forgot to make is that eBay is sort of its own little hacker/cracker factory; lurk at Trust and Safety long enough and you can see these things evolve almost in real time. It might not be a bad idea for the Fibbies or the spooks to detail someone to check in there from time to time.
#10
(I've offered and would send a check if I had a place to send it.)
Glenmore, please go to the main page and scroll down to the yellow box on the right-hand side. The second link is to Fred's email. A polite request for a snail mail address will usually result in a nice missive from Herr Fearless Leader. Fred needs all of our help as much as possible right now. Please give often and early.
#11
#10 Zen - too true. Thanks to someone mentioning that Fred get paid (probably very little) when people go to Amazon through his link, I clicked on his link today to buy books instead of using the link in my Favorites as I normally would.
Too bad he doesn't get a percentage of what I paid....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
10/19/2007 15:35 Comments ||
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#12
He's lucky it was a car. He could have been scammed and ended up with Belgium.
A military helicopter destroyed the conservatory of a £1.75 million mansion when its pilot swooped too low to look at a sunbathing au pair, a court heard yesterday. The four servicemen flying the Merlin helicopter were said to have dropped to 500ft or lower for the "frolic" in July.
The house's owners claim the downdraught from the aircraft seriously damaged the 23ft-high glass conservatory, leaving it needing to be replaced. Barry and Anna George, who own The Old Stables in Eastbourne, East Sussex, are claiming £250,000 in damages plus legal costs.
The Ministry of Defence denies all liability in the case. Their [NB: Georges] barrister, Daniel Crowley, told a preliminary hearing at the High Court in London that the helicopter dropped to 500ft so the crew could "communicate" with the au pair. He said the crew was not given permission to fly at under 1,000ft and that "their own regulations say they should not have been flying low over a built-up area of Eastbourne".
Mr Crowley claimed that when the MoD Merlin - which is 75ft long and weighs 14 tons - flew over the mansion on the afternoon of July 23, 2004, the downdraught from its rotors damaged the conservatory's glass roof. This left it leaking and, he said, "pretty much most of it" needed to be replaced.
Mr Crowley told the judge that Mr and Mrs George's home - which has two other houses attached - was valued at £1.75 million at the time of the incident. Around 50 per cent of the roof of the property - which has a floor-space of 7,000 square feet - is made up of "steel and aluminium double glazed glass panels" and is highly visible from the air, Mr Crowley said. He added that the conservatory had won an architectural prize in 2000.
The eight-day case, to start in February, is likely to generate hundreds of thousands of pounds in legal costs. If the MoD loses the taxpayer will have to pick up the bill.
The judge, Jonathan Foster QC, described the incident as an "alleged frolic".
Conceding that suggesting the damage was caused as a result of a frolic gone wrong was a "serious allegation", Mr Crowley said he would seek to develop the point during cross-examination. He said there was an issue as to whether "those piloting the aircraft were deliberately flying at a low height for fun". "They have got this expensive equipment, it's fun to fly and, rather than just sit around, they want to fly it," Mr Crowley added.
But James Maxwell-Scott, for the MoD, insisted a 'helicopter flying at 500ft or above simply could not have caused the damage'. He added that although, "technically", permission needed to be granted for flying the helicopter at under 1,000ft, a chart the pilot was using did not indicate that he needed it and that he 'felt he could fly down to 500ft'.
Central to the case is a piece of equipment on the Merlin which measures the height at which the helicopter is flying. That was not working at the time. Good grief. The crew was flying a helicopter that didn't have a working altimeter? More bad news from "The Borrowers", I'm afraid.
#1
I've worked under a variety of hovering helicopters at altitudes significantly less than 500 feet and the rotorwash is not that bad; never got blown down or anything. suspect that the homeowners are trying to cash in on a routine low level flight to fix their house. admitting the altimeter is titzup was a bad decision.
#1
EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND [paraph] > Dad to son Robert > Women like that [beautiful Itali babes] aren't built for friendship... Gotta hand it to ya, Robert, your being being rejected/turned down by a better class of babe.
Activists of Amr Bil Maroof, a militant organisation, on Thursday killed a self-proclaimed prophet, injured his son and a brother and arrested his three sons in the Barqambar Khel area of Bara.
Amr Bil Maroof chief Haji Namdar said Shireen of the Yakatara area declared himself a prophet and formed a group called Sabi. He said his organisation persuaded Shireen to backtrack on his claim. Later, Namdar said, a feud between the Sheikhmal Khel and the Amr Bil Maroof provided Shireen with an opportunity to preach his beliefs again.
Namdar said some of his family members were among his followers and that Shireen used to tell people revelations about heaven and hell. Namdar said activists of Amr Bil Maroof surrounded Shireens house and asked him to surrender but the house occupants opened fire on the activists. He said Shireen was later killed in the crossfire while his brother Shakeel and son Saleem were injured. One of the Amr Bil Maroof activists, Saeed Khan, was also injured. The activists have also arrested three of Shireens sons Imran, Habib and Hamid.
Posted by: Fred ||
10/19/2007 00:00 ||
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#3
Much of the neo-Nazi problem everywhere is adolescent boys needing to shock. The Jews have offspring like that, too. Some of them become John Stewart, and some become neo-Nazis. In a different milieu they would have played at Satanism.
Simple economic crime? Or terrorism? Can't tell yet.
Baltimore City Police Spokesman Sterling Clifford tells ABC News that a fuel tanker truck carrying 7,100 gallons of diesel fuel was stolen at gunpoint at around 5:00am this morning on the 3100 block of Vera street. The red Peterbuilt truck and it's tanker trailer were last seen heading towards I-95. Law enforcement agencies throughout the I-95 corridor have been notified.
The truck was operated by Baltimore Tank Lines. Clifford also told ABC News, "This is being investigated as a robbery. There is no connection to terrorism at this point", but officials tell ABC News that the Joint Terrorism Task Forces from Washington and Baltimore are assisting local Police in this investigation as a precaution.
The Peterbilt truck cab is described as a 1997 model 379, and cherry red in color. The Maryland license plate number is 436F45. The silver-colored trailer has Maine license plates, tag number 1268185. Both have the company name Baltimore Tank Lines printed on the side.
#3
Has anyone given consideration to the fuel consumption of Barbara's industrial poppers? I'll bet they guzzle down the fuel quite efficiently. What with all the Pakistani festivities, ya gotta know she's probably struggling to meet demand.
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.
Los Angeles (E! Online) - David Copperfield may not have been able to believe his eyes, but that really was the FBI combing through his Las Vegas warehouse. 
Sammy Duddy was a colourful Belfast character who combined membership of one of the city's most lethal paramilitary groups with a career as "Samantha ", a highly suggestive drag act. 
The battle over Iggy, a Brussels Griffon terrier mix, pitted DeGeneres against an animal rescue agency and, at one point, had her in tears on her show. The agency's owners complained of receiving death threats over the dispute.
Activists of 
