Name that party? HT to AOSHQ!
In a city that routinely sees more than 400 murders a year, the 2003 slaying of Tamara "Strawberry" Greene was an easily overlooked crime.
Few people initially took notice when the 27-year-old stripper was found slumped over the steering wheel of her green Buick Skylark. But soon the city was buzzing with rumors that she had danced at a party at the mayor's mansion--a story that never has been proved.
The investigation into the rumored party and her death helped launch Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick's avalanche of current woes, but nearly five years later, Greene's death has been overshadowed by recent revelations of an affair between the mayor and his chief of staff, Christine Beatty.
The scandal, complete with text-messaged endearments, has been fueled by reports that Kilpatrick and Beatty lied about the affair while testifying last year.
Now Greene's death in April 2003 is emerging as a key story line in the city's civic soap opera.
Lawyers for Tamara Greene's 14-year-old son are pushing forward with a $150 million federal civil lawsuit against the mayor and the city, for allegedly quashing the investigation of her slaying.
They recently filed a statement from a former Detroit police officer alleging that his homicide unit was pressured to drop the case, even though it appeared to him that Greene's death was a hit -- one possibly carried out by another police officer. They also have subpoenaed a slew of text-messages among city employees, including those sent between 1:30 and 5:30 a.m. on the day Greene was killed.
The city is petitioning for the case to be dismissed. A federal judge ordered SkyTel and the city to save certain messages from 42 city pagers, including Kilpatrick's, as well as all messages sent on the day Greene died.
The sordid tale of Greene's slaying revolves around the rumored party at Manoogian Mansion, the official residence of the mayor. Court documents lay out the following sequence of events:
An officer with the Executive Protection Unit reported that a party for the mayor and his friends had taken place and " ... the party featured nude female dancers," according to a 2003 internal affairs memo commissioned by Police Deputy Chief Gary A. Brown. The unit handles security for the mayor.
When the mayor's wife, Carlita Kilpatrick, unexpectedly arrived at the mansion, she saw her husband and the strippers, according to the officer who reported about the party, Harold Nelthrope.
Nelthrope, who was not at the alleged event but learned about it the following day, "further stated that a fight ensued between Ms. Kilpatrick and a dancer and that the dancer received injuries requiring medical attention." Nelthrope does not say who told him about the alleged events.
The dancer -- believed to be Greene -- was taken to a hospital, " ... and the Executive Protection Unit confiscated all activity log sheets (from the police precinct that responded)," Nelthrope said.
The mayor, who declined to comment for this story, has denied that the party and the alleged assault took place. (Carlita Kilpatrick also declined to comment.) So, too, have Detroit police officials -- at least publicly. A state investigation resulted in Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox dismissing such claims as urban legend.
"They have no eyewitnesses, no caterers, not one person that said they were there that has been named," said attorney Mayer Morganroth, who is defending the city and the mayor in the lawsuit filed on behalf of Greene's son, Jonathan Bond.
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2008 19:57 ||
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The rendezvous that established Gov. Eliot Spitzers involvement with high-priced prostitutes occurred last month in one of Washingtons grandest hotels, but the criminal investigation that discovered the tryst began last year in a nondescript office building opposite a Dunkin Donuts on Long Island, according to law enforcement officials. . . .
h/t Tim Blair
Posted by: Mike ||
03/11/2008 14:41 ||
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#1
C'mon, Mike. How come you got my nym involved with this goofed up post?
I didn't have anything to do with it, mods. Honest.
Malvin Wald, who conceived and was a co-writer of the gritty 1948 crime film The Naked City, a prototype for modern police dramas, including the popular television show of the same name, died on Thursday in Sherman Oaks, Calif. He was 90 and lived in Sherman Oaks.
Ending with the famous lines There are eight million stories in the Naked City. This has been one of them, The Naked City, which was written with Albert Maltz, was inspired by Mr. Walds adolescent years on the streets of Brooklyn.
No one had done a film where the real hero was a hard-working police detective, like the ones I knew in Brooklyn, Mr. Wald told The Hollywood Reporter last year. We knew we were making a new genre that became the police procedural.
Posted by: Mike ||
03/11/2008 18:24 ||
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#1
Awww - NAKED CITY [TV Show] was a staple of evening fare in 1960's Guam, alongside WAGON TRAIN, GUNSMOKE, HAVE GUN-WILL TRAVEL ["PALADIN"], COMBAT, DRAGNET, FATHER KNOWS BEST, MR. ED, DISNEY. etc.... My late father was real fan of NAKED CITY, PALADIN, + COMBAT.
Can barely remember last nite's assorted REALITY SHOWS, BUT YOU CAN BE D *** NGED SURE NAKED CITY + ABOVE WILL ALWAYS BE REMEMBERED.
Mentally challenged Kentucky Representative Tim Couch filed a bill this week to make anonymous posting online illegal. Did some anonymous meanie say make you cry, Tim?
The bill would require anyone who contributes to a website to register their real name, address and e-mail address with that site. How 'bout if I borrow yours, Tim?
Their full name would be used anytime a comment is posted. Unless you're doing something illegal, that is.
If the bill becomes law, the website operator would have to pay if someone was allowed to post anonymously on their site. The fine would be five-hundred dollars for a first offense and one-thousand dollars for each offense after that. Har har har! Another colossal waste of time and energy courtesy of the US House!
Representative Couch says he filed the bill in hopes of cutting down on online bullying. He says that has especially been a problem in his Eastern Kentucky district. Ah, he's doing it for the children.
Action News 36 asked people what they thought about the bill.
Some said they felt it was a violation of First Amendment rights. Others say it is a good tool toward eliminating online harassment. If you don't like gettin harassed, go elsewhere or change your nym and/or stop acting stoopid. Stop trying to set the standards according to the lowest common denominator, Tim. How socialist. You end up going backwards every time.
Representative Couch says enforcing this bill if it became law would be a challenge. I'd call this the understatement of the week.
#7
You got it wrong, Rantbourgeosie. I am from the government and I am here to help you. If you got nothin' to hide, you got nothin' to be afraid of!
If Jihadis come to your house because you post on Rantburg, well just call the cops. That's what they're there for. If you didn't post hate speech in the first place that wouldn't be necessary anyway. Right?
If you denounce a yokel politician and your water gets cut off or your yard catches fire, that, too, can be used as a learning experience: This kind of stuff is for professionals only, don't try it at home, leave it to the trained and licensed media.
Posted by: Tim Couch ||
03/11/2008 18:12 Comments ||
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#3
I wanted to hear the next story: "Three people are dead after a grenade-eating contest goes awry...' No doubt it had to do with Paleostan. Perfect RB story.
As he looks back from his Grass Valley, Calif., retirement home, Hargesheimer says he often mused over the word "if." Why, for example, didn't the Japanese pilot finish him off as he floated helplessly down beneath his parachute?
In 1999 he got an answer. With the help of World War II history buffs, he located Mitsugu Hyakutomi of Yamaguchi, Japan, the pilot who records show downed his P-38. He was suffering from Alzheimer's disease but his wife recounted by mail that her husband had said he could never shoot such defenseless enemy flyers.
"The Japanese pilot gave me the opportunity to get involved in something worthwhile, and for that I'm ever grateful," he says.
This modest man says he has many people to thank as he draws nearer the end of a long, perilous, challenging road from 1943. "These people were responsible for saving my life. How could I ever repay it?"
It came down to that, and perhaps to the psalmist's words of gratitude, "My cup runneth over."
"I wasn't a millionaire," says Mastah Preddi. "But I was very rich."
Posted by: Brig. Gen. Jack D. Ripper ||
03/11/2008 11:47 ||
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Britain faced more severe gales after the worst storm of the winter battered the country yesterday. !
Hurricanes reaching 82mph cut the power to more than 10,000 homes and caused widespread transport chaos and flooding across the country. Conditions were set worsen last night as the storms second surge hit Britain. !!!
The Met Office also gave warning that a third storm would strike large areas of England, Northern Ireland, North Wales and the Midlands late tonight. This could cause even greater disruption because it will occur over a wider land area. The Bristol Channel, Severn Estuary and Somerset coast are deemed most at risk of flooding but almost all of England is expected to suffer gales of up to 80mph today. Well, that is another vacation destination that is off the list. Head for the Carribien folks!
Yesterdays storm hit Cornwall and Devon before sweeping east across England and Wales. More than 100 flights were cancelled as 50mph winds hit Heathrow. Rail services were disrupted and roads around southern England were made impassable. 100 flights cancelled at Heathrow is UNUSUAL?
#5
FREEREPUBLIC > GLOBAL WARMING TO AFFECT TRANSPORT, + WROLD WARNED AS TO RISING FOOD COSTS/PRICES.
As per WARMING and related WEATHER effects, i.e. GLOBAL COOLING = NEW/MINI ICE AGE, my home island of GUAM should expect to see increasing frequencies of VERY STRONG [generational]TORNADO-STYLE WIND/AIR CIRCULATIONS IN MULTIPLE PATTERNS, ON LAND AND SEA, BESIDES ICING.
WITH a twinkle in his eye and the cheeky grin of a man half his age, 84-year-old Taw Paya does what few in Myanmar are prepared to do: speak out openly against the ruling military junta.
But this is no gung-ho dissident, courting the wrath of one of the worlds most repressive governments. Taw Paya is the sole surviving grandson of the former Burmas last monarch, King Thibaw, exiled to India by the British in 1885. The blue blood flowing in his veins does not make him immune to recrimination, but it certainly helps. People are still respectful of the royal blood, he told Reuters in the sitting room of his red-brick colonial-style villa, built in 1947, the year before the southeast Asian nation claimed its independence from Britain. A woolly hat is pulled low over his forehead and his jacket is buttoned up to the neck to ward off the early morning chill of Pyin U Lwin, a hill-station popular with British officers seeking escape from the sweat and dust of Myanmars central plains.
There is little else to cover his disdain for the 46 years of unbroken army rule that have transformed Myanmar from the rice bowl of Asia into a deeply impoverished international pariah. Theres nothing good in Burma any more, he said, recalling the apparent Golden Age of early independence in which food was cheap and plentiful - in stark contrast to the galloping inflation and deepening poverty that sparked Septembers monk-led protests. How will it change? Thats the big question, he said. Nobody knows how to unravel the trouble were in. Theres no answer as long as these chaps are in power. We have to hope for change, but I dont think itll be realised while were alive.
Right royal mess: Taw Payas mother was allowed back to Burma in 1919, but kept under close watch by British imperial rulers fearful of the lingering respect accorded to the royal line. The military, which seized power in a 1962 coup, has been no less restrictive. Id be mad to want to become a king now. With these chaps, I dont think Id get very far, he said in understated Victorian English learnt at a mission school in 1930s Rangoon, long since renamed Yangon and superseded as the capital city.
Since 2005, the generals who replaced dictator Ne Win after a brutally crushed 1988 pro-democracy uprising have shut themselves away in a remote new capital, Naypyidaw, carved out of the bush. The so-called Royal City is a clear sign of junta supremo Than Shwes regal pretensions, Taw Paya said, but it is also indicative of a regime which does not understand, and does not want to understand, the outside world. Even compared to Ne Win, they are burglars, he said. At least he had some general knowledge from travelling around countries overseas. He could see how the rest of the world and democracies worked. Than Shwe hasnt even been to England.
Despite international outrage at Septembers crackdown in which at least 31 people died, the generals would kill again to put down any repeat, said Taw Paya, who likes to pass his days watching European soccer via a cheap Chinese satellite dish. If there is upheaval, it will be put down very drastically, he said. They dont give a damn for anybody so long as their own skin is safe. They dont give a damn about what others say. For them, any change is bad, so they try to cover it. Nor has there been any sign of the called-for relaxation of the juntas grip on the lives of Myanmars 53 million people. If somebody farts in a house, they know who it is, he said with a smile.
Posted by: Fred ||
03/11/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
BURMA is a charming country wid a lot of beauty amidst the troubles - iff there's one country in Asia I believe the USA could've done more to assist, its this one.
Latin American and Caribbean migrants sent relatives back home a record $66 billion last year, but the remittances grew by the lowest rate ever, with Mexico and Brazil showing significant slowdowns, a study released Tuesday shows. Remittances, which now are considered a crucial part of many Latin American and Caribbean economies, rose 7 percent in 2007, the first year that the growth rate has been in single digits. ...
Posted by: ed ||
03/11/2008 18:40 ||
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#1
I think twas either FREEREPUBLIC or LUCIANNE - something about CALIFORNIA = FLORIDA? undergoing a HISPANIC EMIGRATION BACK TO MAHICO + LOWER PARTS???
#4
Require Taxpayer ID to do international transfers.
No ID = 35% federal fee.
ID on US Side only?
nothing off the first $1000/yr.
20% of next 5000, 25% of next 5000, 35% of any amount over that.
Taxpayer ID on both sides?
Nothing off the first $10K
Exceptions: wiring money to the US Consulate or Embassy for legal use (i.e. throwing bail).
Business use? Register the business as import/export or having proof of full operations in both countries, no taxes but will have to report all transfers above $1000 to treasury.
#1
I can't speak to the generality, but of the high school girls I know, one is pregnant, and none have unmentionable diseases that I'm aware of. The pregnant one worked hard to graduate early from high school, is working full time now, and plans to go to college in the fall while Grandma watches the baby.
#3
I'm no statistics guru, but only 800 or so girls interviewed really does NOT seem "representative" to me.
Posted by: BA ||
03/11/2008 13:19 Comments ||
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The problem with the article is the calling of "A virus that causes cervical cancer - HPV - was the most common" an STD. It really isn't.
HPV in one form or another is present in practically 100% of all sexually active human beings. Some strains can cause cancer, other strains can cause warts, most strains cause no symptoms whatsoever.
There is no test for most strains. The strains there are tests for can be used for females but not for males. There is no way to test a male for the strains that cause cervical cancer or warts or the hundreds of other strains.
BUT ... the vaccine that is now available WILL vaccinate against the strain that causes cervical cancer AND gives cross-immunity to the strain that causes warts and many other strains.
I believe the real purpose of the article is to get more people to give their daughters the vaccine. I know mine certainly is, but not because of any BBC article.
#5
I thought it interesting that the diseases that most people associate with the term STD (i.e. syphillis, gonorrhea, AIDS, et. al.) were conspicuously absent. The thrust of the study and the article, I believe, is as crosspatch stated, to drum up support for the HPV vaccine.
Although teenage boys never give up hope, I, for one, don't believe the level of sexual activity attributed to girls in these age brackets. Further, in almost every state in the Union, the age of consent is 16 - 17 and anyone having sex with an underage girl is guilty of statutory rape and goes to prison for 20 years.
#6
Let's remember the Anorexia hoax perpetrated by an agenda group with willing assistance by the MSM. "In Revolution from Within Gloria Steinem reported that 150,000 young women die each year of anorexia nervosa. Naomi Wolf gave the same figure in The Beauty Myth where she speaks of a "holocaust" and calls anorexia a disease "caused not by nature but by men." The 150,000 death toll is in college textbooks, and Ann Landers credits this in her column. But it is wildly false. According to the Center for Disease Control there were 101 deaths from anorexia in 1983, 67 in 1988 and 54 in 1991."
On the other hand Although teenage boys never give up hope, I, for one, don't believe the level of sexual activity attributed to girls in these age brackets may not hold true anymore. There are indications, just below the radar screen that the agenda pushed by the Gay community to indoctrinate your children in the earliest years of school are starting to bear fruit. Your statement is predicated upon a pre-indoctrination perspective.
#8
all I know is that statistics I've read since I was a child showed everyone was else was getting a lot more than me
*damn*
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2008 16:50 Comments ||
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Ed Morrisey (now at Hotair) adds this:
"Allegedly he isnt a big fan of Petraeus either, so bear that angle in mind too as explanations emerge. Stand by."
I think Petraeus has proven himself a lot more than Fallon in teh ME theater
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2008 17:04 Comments ||
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#10
??? that was for the Fallon thread, obviously...dunno how that happened
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/11/2008 17:07 Comments ||
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#11
The stats are questionable. What is plain and obvious is that black culture indulges reckless "booty" hunts. And promiscuous women are routinely referred to as "hos" (whores) by "playahs" (sex predators). 100% of hos and playahs support Obama. Who wants to question my stats?
The truth about teen sexuality is that most of them have no sex life but are convinced beyond any doubt that their peers do. They are ruthlessly propagandized that they are abnormal because they are not in a sexual relationship at a young age.
Typically, the few that are sexually active began at a very young age, being molested by adults. But most students look at this few and extrapolate them to everyone else.
Then about the age of 17 or 18, a larger number of students lose their virginity, but have nothing approaching regular and healthy sexual relationships. Often those girls who get pregnant do so before they have their first mature relationship.
An oddity are those girls who want to get pregnant at an early age, often as a means to avoid further responsibility or because they feel neglected.
Again, from 17 and 18, the family culture becomes dominant. If boys and girls see graduating high school as the end of their education before work, they often become parents very soon. Those who have a "college culture" in their family wait.
More and more, an "unmarried" culture is evolving, people who decide to not have children because in stages they feel first, that they cannot afford to get married; and second that they cannot afford to have children. The demands are just too high for them to compete.
Ironically, these are some of the smartest potential parents. I remember adding up some of the figures.
With college graduation, they start work at $25k, already deeply in debt. Their spouse must also work at about that same wage for them to be able to afford the mortgage on a house after perhaps a decade of education debt. So they are 10 years or more down the road before they can even consider children.
Then, the price of raising a child could add up to $500k, but with no guarantee that their paychecks are going to keep pace with the demands placed on them. Little hope for a retirement at all, after supporting their child or children for 18 years.
It just doesn't add up. The alternative is to neither marry nor have children. This means the education debt will be paid off soon, and as an individual they can afford a good home and lead a comfortable life and retirement.
It is no surprise that more young people are choosing this route.
Secret Service Code Names for the candidates:
Barack Obama "Renegade."
Michelle Obama "Renaissance."
Hillary Clinton "Evergreen."
No word on McCain or Bill Clinton.
"Maverick" and "Casanova", perhaps?
The political passions stirred by the Democratic presidential battle between the possible first black nominee and the possible first woman are also stirring security concerns on the part of the U.S. Secret Service.
The agency began providing protection to candidates earlier this year than in any previous election in response to crowds that have sometimes topped 30,000, a record for the primary season, spokesman Darrin Blackford said.
The excitement of the race pitting Illinois Senator Barack Obama against New York Senator Hillary Clinton ``definitely adds something the Secret Service hasn't seen in a while,'' said Andrew O'Connell, a special agent in the 1990s who is now a managing director at New York-based Fortress Global Investigations and Security Corp.
Besides the fact that Obama is the first black candidate with a chance to win the party nomination, Clinton is a ``polarizing figure'' dating back to her time as first lady, O'Connell said.
Obama, 46, began receiving protection in May 2007, 18 months before the November 2008 election. That was the earliest for any candidate since the practice was instituted following the 1968 assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, shot by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles moments after claiming victory in the California primary.
Clinton and McCain
Clinton, 60, has had protection since 1992, when her husband, former President Bill Clinton, became the Democratic nominee. Arizona Senator John McCain, 71, hasn't had Secret Service coverage, though he will get it now that he has won enough delegates to clinch the Republican nomination.
The Secret Service began covering the 2004 Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, seven months before the election. President George W. Bush, then the governor of Texas, received his detail eight months before the November 2000 vote.
Obama -- whose Secret Service codename is ``Renegade'' -- got his protection at the prompting of Richard Durbin, a fellow Illinois senator and supporter. Durbin, the No. 2 Senate Democrat, saw thousands of people showing up for early campaign rallies when only hundreds had been expected, said Joe Shoemaker, his spokesman.
``Roads would be choked with cars,'' blocking escape routes in the event of an incident, Shoemaker said.
`Special Concern'
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, like Durbin an Obama supporter, wrote Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff on Jan. 9 that ``the national and international profile of Senator Barack Obama gives rise to unique challenges that merit special concern.'' Thompson's panel oversees the Secret Service, which is part of Chertoff's department.
Another black presidential candidate, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, received Secret Service protection for his 1984 and 1988 runs a year before Election Day.
Obama's wife, Michelle -- codenamed ``Renaissance'' -- received protection at the request of the campaign on Jan 29. Jen Psaki, a campaign spokesman, declined to comment on the reasons.
While Obama has inspired comparisons with John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. among his supporters, some of them are taking the comparison too far, said former Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk, an Obama backer. Kirk said he has read Internet postings from blacks saying ``we shouldn't even nominate him, because if we do something bad will happen.''
`Stop Worrying'
Obama has ``the best security in the world, and people should stop worrying,'' said Robert Gibbs, the candidate's spokesman.
As Obama gave a speech in San Antonio on the night of the March 4 primaries, four sharpshooters were positioned on two towers behind him while four plainclothes agents stood near him. Three helicopters circled above, a level of security that is common for Obama and Clinton at large events.
At least seven agents surrounded Obama at a March 4 rodeo in Houston. At rallies, agents in T-shirts printed with Obama's likeness melt into the crowd.
While a news report that the Secret Service had stopped scanning participants at a Feb. 20 rally in Dallas's Reunion Arena sparked criticism on the Internet, Blackford, the Secret Service spokesman, said the agency never intended to put everyone through magnetometers.
``We don't rely on any one measure,'' he said. ``The plans are multilayered.''
White Supremacists
In the past month, animosity toward Obama has increased on white supremacist Web sites, said Mark Potok, director of the intelligence project at the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Alabama.
He said that while he didn't know of any specific threats, ``the tone has begun to heat up.''
Security for Clinton -- codename ``Evergreen'' -- was tightened in January, when the Secret Service began requiring people at rallies to walk through scanners. On the candidate's plane, rows of agents separate her from the press corps.
The toughest events to secure are those that are scheduled and public, O'Connell said. In assessing threats, the Secret Service monitors groups and people who have been a problem in the past, rating the risk they present, he said. Those deemed most dangerous are put under surveillance.
Agents are trained to handle a politician's interaction with the public, including handshakes and posing for pictures, he said.
Joe Russo, who was in charge of the Clintons' Secret Service detail until 2004, said presidential campaigns often create a conflict between the need for exposure and security.
The candidates ``have to be out there,'' he said. ``You can't restrict them.''
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.
This is only the beginning. Another fine news report from the Onion.
