http://www.vanityfair.com/fame/features/2007/11/pearlman200711
Mad About the Boys
Until he fled the country in January, accused of embezzling more than $300 million, Lou Pearlman was famous as the impresario behind the Backstreet Boys and 'NSync. Turns out his investors weren't the only victims, colleagues reveal: Pearlman's passion for boy bands was also a passion for boys.
by Bryan Burrough November 2007
The crowds began gathering outside Orlando's Church Street Station complex early on a sweltering June morning, waiting in line to wander through the abandoned offices of the unlikely multi-millionaire who had transformed this central Florida city into a music-industry mecca. Lou Pearlman, the rotund impresario who created the Backstreet Boys and 'NSync and guided the early recording careers of Justin Timberlake and scores of other young singers, had been an international celebrity, a popular, easygoing local businessman known as "Big Poppa." In his heyday, 5 to 10 years ago, he was profiled on 60 Minutes II and 20/20 and produced a hit ABC/MTV series, Making the Band.
Pearlman was long gone now, vanished, one step ahead of the F.B.I. and investigators from the state of Florida, who had rocked Orlando months before by accusing him of being a con man. Gone too were Justin and JC and Kevin and all the other young singers he had made into stars. What remained of Pearlman's empire, mostly memorabilia and office furniture, was to be auctioned later that day. Up in his gaudy third-floor corner office, with its rust-colored shag carpet and walls lined with gold and platinum records, would-be bidders poked into his cabinets and rifled through his desk drawers; the only secret they uncovered, alas, was Pearlman's passion for breath mints. At the back, a cavernous storeroom was stacked with framed posters of his bands.
Most of those milling about Pearlman's offices had scant idea what he had done wrong, much less where he had fled to. Some said Israel, or Germany, or Ireland, or Belarus. He had left the country last January, just days before the state sued him, alleging that he had bilked nearly 2,000 investors, many of them elderly Florida retirees, out of more than $317 million in a Ponzi scheme lasting at least 15 years. A dozen banks also sued for more than $130 million in back loans. Later the indictment would come. Big Poppa, it turned out, had been an accomplished swindler long before he formed his first band. His were scams of jaw-dropping audacity. Pearlman's largest company, a colossus he boasted was bringing in $80 million a year, was … well, not. For years his investors, starry-eyed after rubbing elbows with 'NSync and the Backstreet Boys, never questioned his promises of forthcoming riches. When they finally did, he fought back with lawsuits, forged documents, and fictitious financial statements. When the truth began to come out, he ran.
That much any reader of the Florida newspapers might know. What no one knows, however, is that Pearlman's sins appear to have been far more sordid than conning kindly grandmothers. What no one knows, because it is described here for the first time, is that while the King of the Boy Bands was smitten with the music industry and the millions he made there, while he adored his gold records and his television appearances, what Lou Pearlman loved at least as much were the attentions of attractive young male singers.
Some, especially the teenagers, shrugged and giggled when he showed them pornographic movies or jumped naked onto their beds in the morning to wrestle and play. Others, it appears, didn't get off so easily. These were the young singers seen emerging from his bedroom late at night, buttoning their pants, sheepish looks on their faces. Some deny anything improper ever happened. But the parents of at least one, a member of the Backstreet Boys, complained. And for any number of young men who sought to join the world's greatest boy bands, Big Poppa's attentions were an open secret, the price some paid for fame.
"Some guys joked about it; I remember [one singer] asking me, 'Have you let Lou blow you yet?'" says Steve Mooney, an aspiring singer who served as Pearlman's assistant and lived in his home for two years. "I would absolutely say the guy was a sexual predator. All the talent knew what Lou's game was. If they say no, they're lying to you."
To a number of his former band members, Pearlman seemed so enamored of his male singers that it called into question his motivations for entering the music business in the first place. "Honestly, I don't think Lou ever thought we would become stars," says Rich Cronin, lead singer of the Pearlman boy band Lyte Funky Ones (LFO). "I just think he wanted cute guys around him; this was all an excuse. And then lightning crazily struck and an empire was created. It was all dumb luck. I think his motives for getting into music were very different."
Pearlman was already the 37-year-old millionaire C.E.O. of a publicly held company when he entered the music business, in 1992. He wasn't raised rich, though. Born in 1954, he grew up in the Mitchell Gardens Apartments, a collection of six-story brick buildings on a tidy street in Flushing, in the northernmost reaches of Queens, New York, below the Whitestone Bridge. His father, Hy, worked in dry cleaning; his mother was a homemaker. His cousin the singer Art Garfunkel was among those who encouraged Pearlman's interest in music. In his 2002 book, Bands, Brands & Billions, Pearlman describes an idyllic childhood in which he grew up a kind of miniature Bill Gates, earning money with lemonade stands and paper routes.
His life, Pearlman wrote, changed forever in 1964, when, looking across the Whitestone Expressway from his bedroom window, he spied a Goodyear blimp landing at Flushing Airport for the World's Fair. At the airport, he begged the blimp men to let him take a ride. When they said only special guests and journalists were allowed on board, the 10-year-old wangled an assignment from his school newspaper, presented his "credentials," and was duly lifted into the skies above New York City. A dream was born. The blimps returned to Queens every summer for years, and Pearlman was always there to meet them, helping around the hangars and becoming an unofficial mascot.
"I was ecstatic," Pearlman wrote in his book. "The airport became my summer playground and my after-school hangout."
But there are other versions of Pearlman's early years one hears at Mitchell Gardens. The most compelling is told by Alan Gross, who for 55 years has lived in Apartment 4C, a narrow space crammed with flotillas of blimp models, blimp posters, blimp photos, blimp key chains, and a cat. "This is the window Lou always talks about," Gross tells me, pointing across the Whitestone Expressway toward the long-closed Flushing Airport. "Lou's apartment is on the other side of the building. He couldn't even see the blimps from there. He saw them here, because I showed him."
After a career in aviation, Gross is now a census worker in poor health, a worn man with a luxuriant gray pompadour, dark circles beneath his eyes, and blue-jean shorts cut off with scissors. Though he has never spoken publicly about his longtime friend, Gross lives in a kind of Pearlman museum, his apartment stacked with boxes bursting with Pearlman correspondence, Pearlman news clippings, Pearlman family photos, even tape recordings of 25-year-old arguments the two had over the telephone. Gross is a kind of ramshackle Inspector Javert to Pearlman's Jean Valjean, a man who has spent years trying to warn investors and government agencies about the kid he first knew as "Fat Louie."
"I remember him in a baby carriage," Gross says, taking a seat on an old couch. "Louie was a very shy kid, didn't have many friends. Wasn't very friendly, a little overweight. He wasn't comfortable with who he was, you know? I'm three years older, but we were the only only children in the building, so we became friends. We went on family outings, to the Statue of Liberty, to Coney Island. I went to their family circles, where I listened to his cousin Artie sing as a kid."
As Gross tells it, it was he, not Pearlman, who first glimpsed the blimps that day in 1964. It was he, not Pearlman, who scurried there to befriend the blimp men; he, not Pearlman, who got the press pass necessary to get a ride; he, not Pearlman, who snagged the job of gofer around the blimp's hangar. "The stories he tells?" Gross says. "They're not about Lou. They're about me. He's taken episodes from my life to make his own. He always has."
Pearlman did join Gross at the hangar, doing odd jobs, but, as Gross tells it, Pearlman did little but sit and stare, which, he says, "made the blimp guys uncomfortable. I had to tell him to stop staring, to come out and talk a little, or they wouldn't let him hang around. That's really when he started coming out of his shell, you know. Sometimes I feel like the Dr. Frankenstein who created a monster."
The two lost touch when Gross left to attend Syracuse University and Pearlman enrolled in accounting classes at Queens College. It was for a class assignment that Pearlman, infatuated with aviation, worked up a business plan for a commuter helicopter service. When the two friends returned to Mitchell Gardens after college, Apartment 4C became the headquarters for Pearlman's first aviation company. He persuaded a small group of Wall Streeters living on Long Island to buy a helicopter, which he leased and flew around New York. In his book, Pearlman claims he made his first million at 21. This is at best doubtful. (The company was later merged into a competitor.)
Helicopters were fine, but what Pearlman really wanted was a blimp. He had never shaken the bug he caught in 1964; he and Gross were proud members of the airship fraternity who call themselves "balloonatics" and "Helium Heads." Some of the best blimps in the world were built by a German company, headed by an industrialist named Theodor Wüllenkemper. In 1978, when the 24-year-old Pearlman heard that Wüllenkemper would be visiting the U.S. around the time of his 50th birthday, he mailed him a two-foot-high birthday card covered with glitter, along with an invitation to dinner in New York. To Pearlman's amazement, Wüllenkemper accepted. Pearlman picked him up at the airport in a helicopter and ferried him to dinner at, of all places, Apartment 3F, Mitchell Gardens, Flushing, Queens. Pearlman's mother hosted. Wüllenkemper, charmed by Pearlman and his enthusiasm to start a blimp business, invited Pearlman and another Mitchell Gardens friend, Frankie Vazquez Jr., to train at Wüllenkemper's facilities in Germany.
Returning to the U.S. in 1980, Pearlman formed a company he called Airship Enterprises Ltd., and, after making the rounds of potential corporate sponsors, persuaded the owners of Jordache Jeans to lease a blimp for promotional purposes. Unfortunately, Pearlman had neither a blimp nor the money to buy one. According to Alan Gross, who joined Airship as its public-relations manager, Pearlman wangled a used balloon "envelope" from a California man and hired a New Jersey aluminum contractor to build a frame for it. The blimp was assembled at a naval base in Lakehurst, New Jersey, the same one where the German zeppelin Hindenburg crashed in flames, in 1937. There were problems from the beginning, among them the fact that the gold paint Jordache demanded tended to turn brown after several days in the sun, making the blimp look, in Gross's words, "like a giant turd." On its inaugural flight, on October 8, 1980, the new Jordache blimp floated into the New Jersey sky on its way to New York Harbor, where it was to circle a promotional party Jordache was throwing. It made it less than a mile, however, before losing altitude and forcing the pilot to crash-land in a garbage dump.
The crash made national headlines. Pearlman blamed the weight of the gold paint. In the airship community, however, there were darker whispers. "Lou never intended to fly that blimp," asserts Gross, who says the airship hadn't flown anywhere near the number of practice runs required under federal law. "He could have been arrested if it had left that base." Pearlman and his insurer ended up in court; seven years later a New York jury awarded Pearlman $2.5 million in damages.
It took years for him to rebound. After moving into a penthouse apartment in Bayside, Queens, however, Pearlman met a Wall Street broker well versed in the market for small, fly-by-night "penny stocks" who proposed a way he could return to the blimp business: Go public. Though he had little to sell but an idea, this was the go-go 1980s, and Pearlman's new company, Airship International, managed to raise $3 million in a 1985 public offering, which he used to purchase a 13-year-old blimp from Wüllenkemper. In short order Pearlman secured a promotional contract with McDonald's, and with his new McDonald's blimp in the air most of the year, he was able to rent office space on Fifth Avenue. In time Pearlman had enough money to begin flying in a rented Learjet. By 1989 he owned a 6,000-square-foot vacation home on a leafy street in Orlando.
A large, pale man with thinning red hair and glasses, Pearlman had a style that was enthusiastic, giving, and nonconfrontational. He picked up every check and seldom if ever said no. A big talker and a better listener, Pearlman drew people into his world by deducing their dreams and promising to deliver them. But his soft edges cloaked an unyielding will and the purring persuasions of a televangelist. "You could point your finger in his face and hold a Bible in one hand and tell him your name, and he could tell you you were wrong and make you believe it," recalls Jay Marose, Pearlman's publicist in later years. "He could make you believe anything. Anything at all."
In the late 1980s, Pearlman began to grow restless after he suffered two profound losses: the 1988 death of his mother and the 1989 destruction of his blimp in a San Antonio windstorm. Some suggest he went through an early midlife crisis; maybe, at the age of 35, he was just lonely. Whatever happened, within two years he had moved into new offices on Sand Lake Road in Orlando and begun talking about getting into the music business.
The seeds of Pearlman's rise—and his fall—were laid soon after he relocated Airship International to Florida, in July 1991, when he began attracting a massive inflow of new money, investors, and business partners. One was a suave 22-year-old British heir named Julian Benscher, who met Pearlman when he acquired a replacement blimp from a British company Benscher was negotiating to buy. After touring Airship's U.S. facilities and poring over its financials, Benscher bought into the company, becoming its second-largest shareholder. It seemed a bargain. As Pearlman explained it, his little empire now had two strong legs, the publicly traded Airship and a rapidly growing private company called Trans Continental Airlines, an aircraft-leasing business Pearlman co-owned with Theodor Wüllenkemper. According to Dun & Bradstreet, Trans Con Air operated more than 49 aircraft, including 14 727s, and had annual revenues of $78 million.
Benscher pushed Pearlman to expand Airship, and he did, eventually acquiring four more blimps, which were leased to SeaWorld, Metropolitan Life, Gulf Oil, and others. To raise the needed funds, Pearlman, true to his penny-stock roots, turned to a shady Colorado brokerage house, which in two public offerings helped raise about $17 million selling Airship stock to investors. The firm was what Wall Street calls a "boiler room," that is, it hawked risky, overpriced stock to unsuspecting investors. In 1993, shortly after the Pearlman offerings, the firm, Chatfield Dean & Co., was hit with $2.4 million in fines by the National Association of Securities Dealers for swindling investors; it later agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C.). Among the allegations were charges that Chatfield brokers took investors' orders for one stock but actually bought Airship shares instead.
Pearlman was thrilled with Chatfield's work. When one of its brokers, Anthony DeCamillis, was banned for a year from the securities industry and fined $25,000, Pearlman hired him to help raise still more money for Trans Con Air from banks and private investors. Another Chatfield executive was hired as well and ended up handling merchandising for the Backstreet Boys. "I remember asking Lou, 'You know, do you think it's wise to hire a guy who's been banned from the industry?'" Benscher recalls. "And he said, 'Oh, Tony'll be great for getting us financing!'"
The real problem, Benscher saw, was Pearlman's spending. He and his men hired private jets and helicopters for every business trip; every meal seemed to be a dozen people on the company's tab, a habit that drove up not only Pearlman's expenses but his weight, which hit 316 pounds and may have gone as high as 350. ("He was so unbelievably fat—he used to sit down and his middle tire was down to the floor," recalls Jennifer Emanuel, one investor's daughter. "His favorite place was that all-you-could-eat buffet at Olive Garden.") "I remember sitting his guys down and saying, 'Look, at this rate, you'll go through this $17 million in no time,'" Benscher says.
So Pearlman raised more money. He had been gathering small amounts from family and friends, mostly in the New York area, but in the early 1990s he aggressively began soliciting outside investors. Some, such as the late Eric Emanuel, a Wall Street investment banker, were sophisticated; Emanuel ponied up several million dollars and persuaded a Long Island real-estate mogul, Alfonse Fuglioli, to do the same. Many others weren't as savvy. Dr. Joseph Chow, a Chicago engineering professor whose wife ran a successful long-term-care organization, entered Pearlman's orbit when a Chatfield Dean broker cold-called him. Pearlman took it from there, wooing Chow intensely, sitting next to him at his daughter's wedding and, in later years, inviting him to kibitz with the Backstreet Boys and 'NSync. Chow came to consider Pearlman the son he never had and eventually lent him more than $14 million.
At first Pearlman's new investors received Airship stock. Then he began selling small lots of Trans Con Air stock, which paid an annual dividend of about 10 percent. At some point in the early 1990s, Pearlman began offering investors a new option, a chance to participate in Trans Con Air's federally insured employee stock-ownership plan, what he termed an Employee Investment Savings Account, or eisa. Trans Con's eisa, which paid an annual return of about 8 percent, was a rock-solid investment, Pearlman said, guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (F.D.I.C.), the giant American International Group (AIG) insurance company, and Lloyd's of London. In time Pearlman began selling eisa investments through a series of small brokerage houses in Florida. Many of his buyers were retirees.
Typical of Pearlman's investors was the Sarin family. Steven, a Manhattan dentist, his brother, Barry, and their parents began investing with Pearlman in the 1980s, after the elder Sarins heard someone in their Florida retirement community speak glowingly of Pearlman. "He constantly sent promotional materials, you know, first on the blimps and the airplanes, then later on boy bands," recalls Steven Sarin, who occasionally stayed in Pearlman's home when he visited Orlando. "The company was always doing phenomenal. He kept saying it would all go public. And, you know, we were getting a decent return, so we were happy. Besides, we got to meet 'NSync and the Backstreet Boys." Over a span of 15 years, the Sarins invested more than $12 million with Pearlman.
There was just one problem: neither the Sarins' investments nor those of Dr. Chow or any other Pearlman investor were actually guaranteed by the F.D.I.C. Or AIG. Or Lloyd's of London. It was all a lie. In 1999, Lloyd's caught wind of it and fired off a letter to Pearlman demanding that he stop. He said it was all a misunderstanding. Lloyd's went to the S.E.C.; there is no evidence the agency followed up on the complaint.
For the most part investors simply took Pearlman at his word. When someone did ask to see proof of AIG and F.D.I.C. backing, Pearlman invited them to his office and displayed what appeared to be a massive AIG insurance policy, as well as a letter confirming F.D.I.C. protection. According to Bob Persante, a Tampa lawyer representing 15 Pearlman investors, the AIG policy was unrelated and the F.D.I.C. letter a fake, believed to be dummied up by Pearlman himself.
The bigger lie, though, was the simplest: there is no such thing as an eisa account. There is a legitimate, federally insured vehicle called an erisa—an Employee Retirement Investment Savings Account—but, according to Persante and others, Pearlman's fictitious eisa accounts were nothing more than a transparent attempt to capitalize on confusion between the two names. It was a startlingly simple, and fabulously successful, con. Between the early 1990s and 2006, Pearlman took in more than $300 million in eisa sales. In fact, the state of Florida alleges, it was a straightforward Ponzi scheme: Pearlman paid old investors with money from new ones. "What he told people was that 'I've got this eisa plan, and normally these plans are restricted to employees, but I've built in a special clause that allows me to give it to friends and family,'" says Persante. "The genius was he promised only a point above prime or so, so people never got suspicious."
There is scant evidence many other than Pearlman knew the extent of his frauds. One way Pearlman protected himself was hiring inexperienced people. In a business that rarely numbered more than a few dozen employees, several top Pearlman aides, including both his general counsel and his last right-hand man, Robert Fischetti, began their careers as Pearlman's driver. Fischetti's earliest duties, one investor recalls, included handing out paper towels in a Trans Con men's room. Pearlman found another of his top men, Paul Russo, working at a convenience store. "None of these guys knew anything," remembers Jay Marose. "If you needed a decision made, they would listen to you and go, 'Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh,' and then go back to Lou."
As he told the story in later years, Pearlman began to think about entering the music business during the late 1980s, when one of his charter planes flew New Kids on the Block to several concerts. His epiphany, Pearlman claimed, came when the band's manager told him New Kids was grossing $100 million a year. Pearlman wanted in.
Julian Benscher says he sensed Pearlman's love of the blimp business waning as early as 1991. "I remember we were in his living room, and I said to him, 'Lou, what is your dream? What do you really want to do?'" Benscher says. "And he said, 'The music business.' He wanted to start a group like New Kids. I said, 'Well, then, let's do it. You put up half, I'll put up half.'"
In early 1992, Pearlman placed an advertisement in the Orlando Sentinel, announcing auditions for a band to be composed of teenage boys. Among the first to reply was Denise McLean, whose son, A.J., was an aspiring singer; after A.J. auditioned for Pearlman in his living room, he became the group's first member. The McLeans came with a pair of music managers, Jeanne Tanzy Williams and Sybil Hall, who began working with Pearlman to complete the group. Dozens of teenage boys auditioned for them at Pearlman's home. Eventually, in January 1993, Pearlman held an open casting call in which hundreds of young performers danced and sang at his blimp hangar in Kissimmee, south of Orlando. After several starts and stops, four young men—Brian Littrell, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson, and Howie Dorough—were selected to fill out the group. Pearlman came up with a name, the Backstreet Boys, after Orlando's Backstreet flea market.
The rest is music history. The group staged its first show, at SeaWorld in May 1993, and soon went on the road, appearing at amusement parks and malls. Pearlman brought in a pair of professional managers, Johnny and Donna Wright, and within a year the Backstreet Boys had a deal with Jive Records. After U.S. radio stations ignored its first single, the band began touring in Europe, where its first album, released in 1995, became a smash hit. Through it all, Pearlman remained a smiling father figure to the boys, paying for everything, the tours, housing, clothes. He preached that they were all a "family" and urged the boys to call him "Big Poppa."
Even though the Backstreet Boys would not find success in America until 1997, Pearlman was soon spending so much time on the music business he all but lost interest in blimps. As a result, Airship International went down in flames. The company posted a $2 million loss in 1992 and a $4 million loss in early 1994; by late 1994 its stock had fallen to 13 cents a share, down from $6. Of its five blimps, only one was still flying in late 1994. The SeaWorld blimp was dismantled after the park declined to renew its lease. Another, leased to promote a Pink Floyd tour, was damaged in a windstorm. Another crashed in North Carolina. Yet another, en route to the U.S. Open tennis tournament in September 1994, crashed into a Long Island man's front yard. The end came when the lease on Pearlman's last blimp expired, in 1995.
Pearlman's investors didn't care much about Airship's death. Most, like Pearlman, were too excited about the music end of the business. But what made many investors feel secure was the knowledge that, even with Airship gone, the second and far larger leg of Pearlman's empire, the $80 million Trans Continental Airlines, was thriving. Its income grew steadily through the 1990s. In fact, almost all Pearlman's ventures became subsidiaries of Trans Con Air—the Backstreet Boys, the Chippendales male-stripper franchise (acquired in 1996), Trans Con Records, Trans Con Studios, even Trans Con Foods, which included a string of TCBY yogurt franchises and a small chain of deli-cum-pizzerias called NYPD Pizza. Pearlman regularly mailed out glowing letters to Trans Con Air shareholders, detailing how the aircraft-leasing and other businesses were doing.
By and large Pearlman's investors owned only tiny lots of Trans Con Air stock; he told people Theodor Wüllenkemper controlled most of it. Only Julian Benscher, after years of pestering Pearlman, was able to buy a significant stake in the company, about 7 percent. It wasn't until the late 1990s, after Benscher began disentangling his affairs from Pearlman's, that he stumbled onto the truth. When Benscher complained that he wasn't receiving dividends on his Trans Con stock, Pearlman blamed Wüllenkemper, saying the German magnate was refusing to pay out. Irked, Benscher flew to Germany in November 1998 and pleaded his case directly to Wüllenkemper, with whom he had become friendly.
As Benscher remembers their meeting, "Wüllenkemper said, 'What are you talking about?' I said, 'Trans Continental Airlines.' He said, 'What's Trans Continental Airlines got to do with me?' I said, 'You own it. You own 82 percent of it.' He starts laughing. [I said], 'Trans Con Air? Forty-nine airplanes?' He said, 'I have planes, but not this Trans Con Air. Julian, this has nothing to do with me.' I went cold inside. Everything I had believed for eight years was a lie. I didn't know what to do."
There was no Trans Continental Airlines.
Stunned, Benscher investigated how many airplanes Pearlman actually owned. He found precisely three, and all appeared to belong not to Trans Con but to a small charter service Pearlman had formed in 1998, Planet Airways. "Trans Con Airlines existed only on paper," Benscher explains. "But it was always so believable. There was always a plane or helicopter there whenever he wanted. When we flew to L.A. on MGM Grand Air, Lou said the jet was one of his. When he said he owned the plane, well, how could you tell he didn't?" But Benscher struck a settlement agreement with Pearlman in which he promised not to publicly disparage him, and he has never revealed his discovery to a soul until now.
When I mention Trans Con Air to Alan Gross, he grins and disappears into another room, then returns with a pair of faded Polaroids. Both show a massive "Trans Continental Airlines" 747 landing at what appears to be New York's La Guardia Airport; they are the same photos, I realize, that adorned the Trans Con Air brochures Pearlman had shown Benscher and other investors for years.
"Look closer," Gross says, eyeing the photos. "You notice you can't see the entire airplane. You can't see the tail numbers. You know why? Because that's where Lou was holding his fingers!"
Gross erupts in gales of laughter.
"It's a model!" he guffaws. "It's one I built for him. Louie was using those fake pictures all the way back in the late 70s to try and raise money. Can you believe it? People thought it was all real!"
By his own estimate, Pearlman sank $3 million into the Backstreet Boys before he saw a penny of profit. Still, the music business thrilled him. Even before the band hit it big, he began planning more groups. The first was 'NSync—composed of Justin Timberlake, JC Chasez, and three other singers—which Pearlman formed and dispatched to tour in Europe in 1995. Other groups were soon in the works, including a five-teen band named Take 5, a three-teen group called LFO, and an all-girl group named Innosense. With money pouring in from investors, Pearlman began work on a state-of-the-art recording studio. When it was finished, artists as varied as Kenny Rogers and the Bee Gees would record there.
From the very beginning, people remarked how odd it was for a blimp-industry executive to be diversifying into boy bands. In fact, insiders raised questions about Pearlman's motivations almost from the moment the Backstreet Boys was formed. The group's initial co-manager Sybil Hall and her partner, a singer named Phoenix Stone—he had been one of the original Backstreet Boys before starting his own company—remained close to Pearlman as co-investors in the band. "Basically this was an excuse for Lou to hang around with five good-looking boys," says Stone, who now runs a record label with Hall in Los Angeles. "He was along for the ride. What he liked to do was take boys out to dinner."
From outward appearances, Pearlman was not gay; in fact, over the years he dated several women, including a nurse. But even in those early years, when Pearlman shepherded the Backstreet Boys to appearances around the U.S. and Europe, members of the group and their families frequently gossiped about his sexual proclivities. "As a mother, you kind of put two and two together," remembers Denise McLean, A. J. McLean's mother. "Yet there was always that fine line where you sat back and went, 'O.K., is this a guy who always wanted to be a father or an uncle? Is this all innocent? Or is it more?' I kind of thought that there might have been some strange things going on. But you just didn't know."
Others felt Pearlman was above reproach. "I spent quite a lot of time with Lou from '90 to '94 and never did he behave inappropriately in any sexual fashion," says Julian Benscher. "Did I a couple of times think that maybe with one of the drivers he had an unusually friendly relationship? Sure. But I spent a lot of time with the boys and Lou, and I can tell you there was no inappropriate behavior. No way."
For Pearlman, and for all the people around him, everything changed in June 1997 when the Backstreet Boys charted their first U.S. hit, "Quit Playing Games (with My Heart)." Overnight the band became an international sensation. Reporters rushed to profile Pearlman as the unlikely impresario—some said "Svengali"—of a new era of boy bands. The success of the Backstreet Boys and later 'NSync created a huge new music scene in Orlando, with thousands of fresh-faced boys, and girls, flocking to audition for Pearlman.
It was during this period, in 1997 and 1998, that the first allegations of inappropriate behavior involving Pearlman appear to have surfaced. One incident centered on the youngest of the Backstreet Boys, Nick Carter, who in 1997 turned 17. Even for many of those closest to the group, what happened remains unclear. "My son did say something about the fact that Nick had been uncomfortable staying [at Pearlman's house]," Denise McLean says. "For a while Nick loved going over to Lou's house. All of a sudden it appeared there was a flip at some point. Then we heard from the Carter camp that there was some kind of inappropriate behavior. It was just odd. I can just say there were odd events that took place."
Neither Nick Carter nor his divorced parents, Robert and Jane Carter, will address what, if anything, happened. But at least two other mothers of Pearlman band members assert Jane termed Pearlman a "sexual predator." Phoenix Stone says he discussed the matter with both Nick and his mother. "With Nick, I got to tell you, this was not something Nick was comfortable talking about," says Stone. "What happened? Well, I just think that he finally, you know, Lou was definitely inappropriate with him, and he just felt that he didn't want anything to do with that anymore. There was a big blowup at that point. From what Jane says, yes, there was a big blowup and they confronted him."
In a telephone interview, Jane Carter stops just short of acknowledging Pearlman made improper overtures to her son. "Certain things happened," she tells me, "and it almost destroyed our family. I tried to warn everyone. I tried to warn all the mothers." Told that this article would detail allegations that Pearlman made overtures to other young men, she replies, "If you're doing that, and exposing that, I give you a big flag. I tried to expose him for what he was years ago.… I hope you expose him, because the financial [scandal] is the least of his injustices." When I ask why she won't discuss it further, Carter says she doesn't want to jeopardize her relationship with Nick. "I can't say anything more," she says. "These children are fearful, and they want to go on with their careers."
Since Pearlman's financial collapse, a number of his onetime band members have told Vanity Fair they experienced behavior that many would consider inappropriate. Much of what is described occurred at Pearlman's two Orlando-area homes, the white house he owned on Ridge Pine Trail and, after 1999, the sprawling Italianate mansion he acquired from Julian Benscher, in suburban Windermere. Tim Christofore, who joined Pearlman's third boy band, Take 5, at the age of 13, remembers one sleepover when he and another boy were dozing and Pearlman appeared at the foot of their bed, clad only in a towel. According to Christofore, who now runs a small entertainment business in St. Paul, Minnesota, Pearlman performed a swan dive onto the bed, wrestling with the boys, at which point his towel came off.
"We were like, 'Ooh, Lou, that's gross,'" Christofore recalls. "What did I know? I was 13."
On a separate occasion, Christofore and another band member telephoned Pearlman to say they were coming to his home to play pool. When they arrived, Pearlman met them at the door naked, explaining he was just getting out of the shower. Another time, Christofore remembers, Pearlman showed him security-camera footage of his girl group, Innosense, sunbathing topless. On still another occasion, Pearlman invited all five band members to watch the movie Star Wars in his viewing room. At one point the film switched off and was replaced by a pornographic movie. At the time, Christofore says, "We just thought it was funny. We were kids. We were like, 'Great!'"
"No one ever complained," says Tim's mother, Steffanie. "Most of the stuff, we learned about only after the group broke up [in 2001]. Lou played this game of trying to alienate the parents. Every time he dropped the boys off, it was 'Don't tell the parents anything.' They pretty much had a pact with him and they kept it." Only later did Merrily Goodell, who had two sons in Take 5, learn that Pearlman had taken one to a strip joint. "Did Lou rape my boys? No, he didn't," she says. "But he put them, and a lot of others, in inappropriate situations. I know that. To me, the man is just a sexual predator."
To this day, the question of Pearlman's behavior remains a sensitive topic among former members of his boy bands. For every young man or parent who says he experienced or saw something inappropriate, there are two who won't discuss it and three more who deny hearing anything but rumors. More than a dozen insiders told me they heard stories of Pearlman's behavior while insisting they experienced nothing untoward themselves. Asked who might have been targets of Pearlman's overtures, the names of seven or eight performers are repeatedly mentioned. Only two of these men would talk to me, and while one acknowledges hearing stories from other boys of inappropriate behavior, both strenuously deny experiencing it themselves.
"None of these kids will ever admit anything happened," one attorney who has sued Pearlman told me. "They're all too ashamed, and if the truth came out it would ruin their careers."
Among the few who will discuss Pearlman's behavior in detail is one of his former assistants, Steve Mooney. In 1998, Mooney, then a strapping 20-year-old with flowing blond hair, was trying to get started as a singer when a Pearlman aide approached him at an Orlando mall, where he was working at an Abercrombie & Fitch store, and told him, "The big man wants to see you." Mooney visited Pearlman in his Sand Lake Road offices and performed a Michael Jackson song, but instead of a singing job Pearlman offered him a job as his personal assistant. Pearlman explained that JC Chasez of 'NSync had gotten his start this way. Mooney signed on, and Pearlman soon invited him to live in his home. All the time Pearlman held out the chance that Mooney could join one of the groups he was planning, called O-Town. According to Mooney, Pearlman told him, "By this time next year, you'll be a millionaire."
From the outset, Mooney noticed how Pearlman enjoyed hugging him, rubbing his shoulders, and squeezing his arms, usually in conjunction with one of his odd pep talks. "He would say, 'Do you trust me?' [And I would say], 'Of course I trust you, Lou,'" Mooney recalls. "He always said, 'I want to break you down, then build you up, so we can be a team together.' Then he would say, 'Your aura is off,' so he begins rubbing my back. I was like, 'Whoa!' And he's going, 'It's O.K., we've got to get your aura aligned.'" It got to the point, Mooney says, where every time they were alone Pearlman would rub his muscles. "As soon as the elevator doors close, he would grab you and rub your abs," he recalls. "The first few times, it's O.K. But it gets to be too much. It's like you have this creepy friend who's always touching you."
"That was the line, the 'aura,' I definitely heard that aura bullshit," says Rich Cronin, lead singer of the Pearlman band LFO. "It took everything in me not to laugh. He was like, 'I know some mystical fricking ancient massage technique that if I massage you and we bond in a certain way, through these special massages, it will strengthen your aura to the point you are irresistible to people.'
"I swear to God," Cronin goes on, "I had to bite my cheeks to stop from laughing. I mean, I now know what it's like to be a chick.… He was so touchy-feely, always grabbing your shoulders, touching you, rubbing your abs. It was so obvious and disgusting.… He definitely came at people. He came at me. In my situation I avoided him like the plague. If I went to his house, I went with somebody. I would never go with him alone. Because I knew every time I was over there by myself it always led to some weird situation. Like he'd call late at night to come over and talk about a tour, and you'd get there and he'd be sitting there in boxers. The guy was hairy as a bear."
Steve Mooney shared his concerns with his father, who joined the two for dinner. While they ate, Mooney says, Pearlman kept putting his hand on his leg. Finally he asked him to stop. Afterward, he was surprised when his father said Pearlman seemed O.K. "It's weird," Mooney says. "But when you start talking about the money and fame, it's like Lou's got this mind control over people."
Mooney remembers having a heart-to-heart talk with a young man I'll call "Bart," a singer in a second-tier Pearlman band. "I said, '[Bart], does he ever grope you?,' and he said, 'Yeah, all the time,'" Mooney recalls. "[He said] Lou once grabbed him 'down there.' I said, 'Well, what do you do about it?' [He said], 'Look, if the guy wants to massage me, and I'm getting a million dollars for it, you just go along with it. It's the price you got to pay.'"
On several occasions in the late 1990s, Phoenix Stone says, he felt obliged to confront Pearlman over his behavior. "We were trying to build a company, you know, build a brand, a worldwide brand," says Stone. "And this kind of thing, I mean, it looks bad for your reputation. We didn't want the reputation of Lou as a predator.… So, yeah, I did have a conversation with him. I was worried about the under-aged kids. He never admitted to being gay or anything. I said, 'Look, I know exactly what time it is with you, and I don't care whether you're gay or not, but this is a business, and you can't come on to these guys like this. And if you do, none of them can be under-aged.' He just kind of laughed and said, 'I got it all covered, I got it all covered.' This was still at the height of [his fame]."
"I tried to protect the kids," says the publicist Jay Marose. "You'd see Lou kind of moving in on one of them, and you'd just tell someone, Get that kid away from Lou before it's too late."
Living at Pearlman's home, Steve Mooney believed he saw firsthand the price many young men were paying. Pearlman's bedroom lay behind a pair of double doors, and when they were closed, Mooney knew not to intrude. More than once, he says, he encountered young male singers slipping out of those doors late at night, tucking in their shirts, a sheepish look on their faces. "There was one guy in every band—one sacrifice—one guy in every band who takes it for Lou," says Mooney, echoing a sentiment I heard from several people. "That's just the way it was."
As Mooney tells it, matters came to a head in 2000, during the final stages of the O-Town selection process. Pearlman was resisting his entreaties to join the group. According to Phoenix Stone, who consulted on the selection process, he and Pearlman were at his home late one night discussing Mooney's future when Pearlman telephoned Mooney, explaining he needed someone to take out the garbage.
"It was very clear to me what was going on," Stone recalls. "I stopped it right then and there. When Lou called Steve, they had an argument. Steve got very mad, you know, [saying], 'I'm not coming over.' [I said to Pearlman], 'If it's about the garbage, there's plenty of people who can take out your garbage. If it's not, well, leave the kid alone. It's late.'"
Stone left, believing the matter had been resolved. In fact, Mooney says, there was a second phone call. At Pearlman's insistence he drove to the mansion at two a.m. and found Pearlman in his office, clad in a white terry-cloth bathrobe. A long argument ensued. It climaxed, Mooney says, when he beseeched Pearlman, "What do I have to do to get in this band?" At that point, Mooney says, Pearlman smiled.
"I'll never forget this as long as I live," Mooney says. "He leaned back in his chair, in his white terry-cloth robe and white underwear, and spread his legs. And then he said, and these were his exact words, 'You're a smart boy. Figure it out.'"
Mooney says he left the house without further incident. He knew, however, that his days with Pearlman were numbered. Afterward, in an effort to protect himself, he says, he returned to Pearlman's office when Pearlman was out. He had perused Pearlman's private files in the past, curious to see what they contained. Now he removed three items he had seen before: a photo of a longtime Pearlman aide posing as a Chippendales dancer; a photo of Pearlman and one of the Backstreet Boys on a ski vacation, apparently alone; and a photo of a young singer naked in Pearlman's sauna, his hands covering his genitals. After making copies of the photos, Mooney says, he contacted the aide who posed as a dancer. "I went to [him] and showed it all to him," he says. "He's like, 'Listen, all you got to do is keep your mouth shut and you're in this company for life. That photo? I'd burn it.'" When Pearlman learned of the theft he confronted him. Mooney says he turned over the copies and resigned. Today he sells real estate in Orlando. "Nobody will talk about this stuff," Mooney says, "but plenty of guys were willing to go along to get what they wanted."
In late 2000, Phoenix Stone and Sybil Hall say, they took an odd phone call from Pearlman: he said he had found a listening device in his home. The two joined Pearlman in an impromptu grilling of an assistant, a young man I'll call "Jeremy," who according to several people had begun an affair with Pearlman. Stone and Hall say Jeremy admitted to placing the device because he was jealous of the attention Pearlman was lavishing on another young man, whom I'll call "Peter," a member of one of Pearlman's bands. "He told me that he and Lou were in a relationship and that he thought Lou was cheating on him with [Peter]," Hall recalls. "He wanted to find out what they were doing." Jeremy couldn't be located for comment, but after his dismissal—Hall and Stone say he received an Escalade to keep quiet—Peter continued to work for Pearlman for years.
Despite innuendo that dogged him for years, Pearlman faced the prospect of public allegations only a handful of times. Once, an unidentified male singer—there may have been more than one—made it clear to Pearlman that he was about to go public. Pearlman's longtime attorney, J. Cheney Mason, of Orlando, confirms that he turned the matter over to the F.B.I. for investigation as a possible extortion. No charges were ever brought, the boy or boys never went public, and Mason, despite filing suit against Pearlman for unpaid legal fees, says he never heard a single reliable account of improper behavior on Pearlman's part.
Almost from the moment Pearlman achieved his first real success in the music industry, in 1997, the foundations of his little empire began to quake. It started when one of the Backstreet Boys, Brian Littrell, couldn't understand why he was seeing so little income from their nonstop touring and European record sales; Littrell hired attorneys who calculated that, while Pearlman had taken in several million dollars in revenue since 1993, the five singers had received barely $300,000, about $12,000 per member each year. Littrell sued, and in May 1998, his bandmates joined the litigation; during discovery they learned that, among other things, Pearlman was paid as the sixth member of the band.
"He totally deceived me," Kevin Richardson told Rolling Stone in 2000. "It's 'We're a family, we're a family,' then you find out 'It's about the money, it's about the money, it's about the money.'" Pearlman and the band eventually reached a series of settlements, details of which were never disclosed. In general, the band got cash and its freedom; Pearlman retained a portion of its future revenues.
In the wake of the Backstreet lawsuit, Pearlman's bands began to realize how much of their income was flowing to Big Poppa. One by one they sued or disbanded. Despite success in Europe and Asia, Take 5 broke up in 2001; LFO, after two top-10 singles, did the same. The biggest loss by far was 'NSync, whose members sued, settled, and broke all ties with Pearlman in 1999, a struggle memorialized by the title of their platinum-selling 2000 album, No Strings Attached. None of 'NSync's members would comment for this article, but in a 2006 interview, Justin Timberlake said the band felt it "was being financially raped by a Svengali."
After that, the lawsuits just kept coming. The Backstreet Boys' first managers, Jeanne Williams and Sybil Hall, sued. Phoenix Stone sued. Pearlman ran up $15 million in legal bills with just one lawyer, J. Cheney Mason. Yet even with all the legal fees, Pearlman, who retained royalty interests in both 'NSync and the Backstreet Boys, was still swimming in cash. He bought the 12,000-square-foot lakeside mansion in suburban Windermere, along with two condominiums in Orlando, a waterfront condo in Clearwater, two Las Vegas penthouses, a house in Hollywood, and an apartment in Manhattan. He had at least two Rolls-Royces.
The slowing of the boy-band craze in 2001 and 2002, however, meant Pearlman needed new income streams to keep paying his investors. He signed a slew of new artists, but none, other than Nick Carter's brother, Aaron, a solo act, had any real success. Pearlman tried to break into Hollywood, developing a script titled Longshot, written by Tony DeCamillis, the once banned stockbroker. As its stars Pearlman cast one of his singers, a teenager named Joey Sculthorpe, more than a dozen Trans Con artists, and Britney Spears, the Rock, and Justin Timberlake in a series of cameos. Released in 2002, Longshot was a complete flop. According to one source, the movie cost $21 million and brought in barely $2 million.
Chastened, Pearlman next attempted to capitalize on his image as a molder of young talent, co-producing the successful Making the Band series for ABC and MTV and, in September 2002, acquiring a controversial talent-scouting bureau known as Options Talent. The Options acquisition proved a nightmare; several of its executives had criminal records, and its clients, mostly young people seeking careers in acting and modeling, had filed hundreds of complaints with Better Business Bureaus around the country alleging they had received little in return for fees they paid. Under Pearlman, Options endured a series of name changes, a lengthy Florida state investigation into its methods—Pearlman was never charged with any wrongdoing—and a 2003 bankruptcy before emerging as a new company called Talent Rock, a small and rarely profitable business that held open casting calls for singers, actors, and models at venues around the U.S. and Mexico.
While Pearlman's celebrity dimmed, he remained a star in Orlando, where he was given a key to the city and named an honorary sheriff's deputy. In 2003 he used this goodwill to strike a deal with the city council to assume control of the Church Street Station complex, a cluster of historic buildings in downtown Orlando. Promising to refurbish the complex and create 500 jobs, Pearlman relocated all his businesses there, and, despite construction delays, the opening of several restaurants and stores in the next several years slowly brought Church Street back to life.
Still, by 2004, Pearlman had yet to find anything to replace the income lost from Airship International, 'NSync, and the Backstreet Boys. He continued pumping out new singing groups, including a Latin boy band and a Euro boy band called US5, but none caught fire. Yet his hundreds of investors still needed to be paid. In time he faced the squeeze every Ponzi scheme ultimately confronts—where to find new cash to pay the old investors. In 2003, with his cash crunch growing worse by the month, he began taking out bank loans. In the next three years, in 13 separate loan packages, Pearlman pledged every asset he possessed in return for cash: the condominiums, the mansion, Church Street, his three airplanes, even his shares of band royalties. In return he received about $156 million. Just as important, he gained time.
The mind-boggling thing is that not one of Pearlman's new banks discovered that the emperor had no clothes. Not one realized that his largest asset by far, Trans Con Air, didn't exist. Not one realized that his financial statements and tax returns were a tissue of lies. In hindsight, these deceptions should have been easy to discern. All it would have taken was a single phone call to Harry Milner, the attorney who signed Pearlman's returns. Milner wouldn't have come to the phone.
Because he was a dead man.
For Pearlman, the beginning of the end came in mid-2004, when 72-year-old Joseph Chow succumbed to pancreatic cancer in a Chicago hospital. Over the years Chow had become Pearlman's dream investor, a virtually unlimited source of money with total faith in Pearlman's promises of future riches. The loans, however, were a source of tension within the Chow family. "From the very beginning, my mom was very skeptical of Lou Pearlman," recalls the Chows' 32-year-old daughter, Jennifer. "She didn't trust him. My parents argued about it quite a bit. She had me talk to my father a number of times, to see if we could get some money out. Or slow it down. My father would get very defensive. He just had so much confidence in Lou and everything he told him. He was always promising to expand into TV, movies, recording studios, the charter-airline business. He was always promising there would be an I.P.O."
When Joseph Chow died, his family, faced with a large bill for estate taxes, had an uncle approach Pearlman about repaying the loans. "He told my uncle that he would think about it and try to work out a payment plan," Jennifer says. "My uncle essentially responded, 'What's the situation with the I.P.O.?' Lou sounded skeptical. That's when Lou said to him, 'If anything, Joseph's investments are worth maybe 10 cents on the dollar.' We were pretty stunned. Then Lou comes back and says he could repay a hundred thousand every quarter or so until the full $14 million was paid down. That wasn't really acceptable."
The Chows hired a lawyer. Before they could do more, however, Pearlman sued them, in a Chicago court, seeking to stop the family from demanding repayment. "We get sued and I'm scratching my head: why the hell does this guy want to be in my jurisdiction instead of Florida?" remembers the Chows' attorney, Edwin Brooks. "It turns out the courts down there all have his number. They're all sick of him."
Filed in late 2004, the centerpiece of Pearlman's lawsuit was what's called a "forbearance letter," in this case a one-paragraph note signed by Joseph Chow saying, in essence, that his loans could be forgiven if Pearlman didn't feel like repaying. To Brooks the letter made no sense: why would anyone forgive $14 million in loans? "What really got me, late one night, poring over all these documents, was that Joseph Chow's signature looked familiar," Brooks recalls. "And so that's when I started going through the notes my client had signed. Then I saw it. I grabbed one of the old letters, with his signature, held it up to the light, and compared it to the forbearance letter. The signatures were identical. Absolutely identical. You lay them over the top of each other, it's one signature. At that point I realized I was looking at a forgery." It would take another year, however, Brooks says, to gather the original loan documents, hire experts, and prove it.
In the meantime, after a counterclaim against Pearlman was filed, discovery got under way. Needing to study Pearlman's finances, Brooks subpoenaed the accounting firm that had certified his financial statements. The firm's name was Cohen & Siegel; it was the same firm that had been furnishing Pearlman's statements since at least 1990. But when Brooks dispatched a process server to the firm's Coral Gables headquarters, "the process server calls back and tells me, 'There's no accounting firm at this address, just a secretarial service,'" Brooks recalls. "At which point I realized I was onto something."
Brooks deposed the woman who ran the secretarial service. She said Cohen & Siegel had no offices or employees she knew of; Pearlman had simply paid her to take calls on its behalf. When a call came in, she forwarded it to Pearlman himself. "He paid for the whole thing," Brooks says. "I realized there was no accounting firm." Not long after, Brooks discovered a Cohen & Siegel Web site, apparently a new one. "Lou claimed it was a German accounting firm, but it was a joke," Brooks says. "It had no contact information. We hired investigators to find it. It didn't exist."
By the middle of 2005, the Chow family and its attorney had solid evidence Pearlman had perpetrated a massive fraud. Other investors, however, knew nothing of this and continued to shovel money Pearlman's way. He needed it—badly. By 2006 few if any of his remaining businesses—a handful of obscure bands, Talent Rock, Planet Airways, the recording studio, the delis, and a few restaurants—were making money, yet Pearlman, thanks to bank loans, kept mailing interest checks to hundreds of investors. He was able to borrow from an Indiana bank as late as August 2006, but by then he was all but broke.
Soon after, investors stopped receiving their checks. That September, Steven Sarin, the dentist, heard rumors of the Chow family's litigation. Sarin's family had given Pearlman so much money—$12 million—that he still lived in a studio apartment, awaiting the day Pearlman went public. When Sarin telephoned, Pearlman dismissed the Chow litigation as a mix-up. A few weeks later he went to Queens and met Steven Sarin and his brother, Barry, at their usual spot, Ben's Deli, in Bayside. Barry demanded his money back. "Lou said, 'No problem—I can pay you back with one hubcap from my Rolls-Royce,'" Steven recalls. "He showed us a financial statement showing we're doing phenomenal. He told us Trans Con had 60 jets. It was only after the meeting was over, I remember, I noticed for the first time in 22 years he didn't use a credit card for the meal. He paid in cash."
The Sarins would never see their money again. Nor would many of Pearlman's aides, including Frankie Vazquez Jr., who had been at his side since boyhood; Vazquez's father had been the super at Mitchell Gardens. In early November, when Vazquez sought to withdraw a portion of the $100,000 or so he had with Pearlman, "Lou told him he was on his own, the money was gone," recalls Kim Ridgeway, a friend of Vazquez's. "After all the years Frankie had devoted to Lou, he turned his back on him. Frankie, I knew, felt totally betrayed."
Afterward, Ridgeway says, Vazquez grew distraught. He couldn't sleep. On November 11, a neighbor heard a car running for several hours in his garage. Police were called. Opening the garage, they found Vazquez sitting in his white 1987 Porsche, the motor running, a T-shirt wrapped around his head, dead.
The state of Florida's Office of Financial Regulation began examining Trans Con's eisa program after investors started complaining in the fall of 2006. Pearlman did his best to delay state auditors, but when word of the probe leaked to the press in mid-December, he knew the end was near. According to one report, he attempted to buy an apartment in Berlin, but the purchase fell through. He began selling or giving away his automobiles, including a Rolls, and laying off Trans Con employees. He stopped paying his banks, and they began to sue. Every day last January seemed to bring a new lawsuit. Just days before the state filed its own lawsuit charging Pearlman with operating a Ponzi scheme, a group of banks petitioned an Orlando judge to place Trans Con in bankruptcy. An attorney named Jerry McHale was assigned to begin liquidating Pearlman's assets.
By the time McHale entered Trans Con's offices on February 2, there had been no sign of Pearlman for weeks. "The situation was a disaster," McHale recalls. "There were actually no employees left when I arrived. It appeared that everyone was aware that this thing was falling apart and had just left." That same day, Pearlman wrote an e-mail to the Orlando Sentinel from Germany, where the night before he and his band US5 had attended an industry awards show. While declining to comment on the allegations against him, he said, "My executive team and I are working hard to resolve the issues."
It was over. In mid-February the F.B.I. raided Pearlman's mansion, hauling out cartons of documents and quizzing his assistant when he drove up in Pearlman's last Rolls, a bright-blue model with "LP" license plates. At the same time, Jerry McHale gained entrance to Pearlman's office computers and realized the enormity of the scandal. All told, McHale identified $317 million in missing money that was supposed to be in Trans Con's eisa accounts, not to mention the $156 million in vanished bank loans.
There was no money left. McHale got busy selling Pearlman's remaining real estate and his last functioning business, Talent Rock, for next to nothing. His only real success came when he received an anonymous tip that Pearlman, wherever he was, was attempting to transfer $250,000 from an account at the Bank of New York to Germany. McHale managed to get the money frozen before it left the U.S.
By the time McHale wrapped up his work, in April, there had been no reliable sighting of Pearlman for six weeks. There were reports he had been seen in Israel, Belarus, and Brazil. Every day more angry investors thronged to one of several blogs dedicated to the scandal to pour out their rage and hatred. But Big Poppa was gone.
Thorsten Iborg, a 32-year-old German computer programmer, arrived on the Indonesian island of Bali on June 9, checking into the five-star Westin Nusa Dua resort for a scuba vacation with his wife. After a day or two, Iborg noticed a pale, overweight American on the terrace. Back in Germany he had seen a newsclip about boy bands, and he was certain the man was Pearlman. Later, Iborg found himself sitting beside the man in the hotel's Internet café. It was him. He was sure.
Pearlman arrives at court in Orlando, Florida, on July 11, 2007. Orlando Sentinel/MCT/Landov.
At breakfast on June 14, Iborg secretly snapped a photo of the man. Scanning the Internet, he found a blog written by a St. Petersburg, Florida, newspaper reporter, Helen Huntley, which was jam-packed with articles and complaints written by people Pearlman had scammed. Iborg uploaded the photo and e-mailed it to Huntley. Huntley turned everything over to the F.B.I. Agents attached to the American Embassy in Jakarta appeared at the Westin the next day and led Pearlman away; he had been registered under the name "A. Incognito Johnson." His passport stamps indicated he had spent time in Panama before arriving in Bali. U.S. marshals loaded him onto a plane to Guam, where he remained in jail for nearly a month before being returned to Orlando in mid-July. At the end of June, federal prosecutors had announced his indictment, on three counts of bank fraud and single counts of mail and wire fraud. More indictments are expected.
Today, Pearlman sits in Orlando's Orange County Jail. Repeated calls to his court-appointed attorney went unreturned. He is scheduled for trial next spring.
A few days after Pearlman was returned to Orlando, I drove through the gates of his sprawling lakeside mansion, amid the steamy walled communities west of the city. The house, which had been on the market for months, was vacant. Weeds grew in the side yards. The pool, housed in a mosquito-proof enclosure out back, remained a brilliant blue. Down by the lakefront, where Spanish moss dripped from towering pines, the water lapped quietly against the shore.
A back door was unlocked, allowing entrance into his wood-paneled office. The house was still. Blueprints lay on a kitchen counter. Pearlman had ambitious plans for his compound, envisioning a massive, 30,000-square-foot edifice complete with indoor and outdoor performance stages and a bowling alley. In the marble foyer, twin staircases curled up to the second floor, like something out of Sunset Boulevard. In the master suite, all that remained was a hulking, four-foot steel safe. Wires sprouted from the walls. I could just make out impressions on the carpet where Pearlman's bed had stood.
Outside, the real-estate agent, Cheryl Ahmed, met me in the driveway. She had gotten the listing from Pearlman's assistant but hadn't heard from him since Easter. "You hear a lot of stories about what went on," she says. "Big, big parties. Lots of pretty boys. Lots of boys."
Later, I chatted with the couple who live next door. They never saw much of Pearlman, they say, but he was always polite when they did. Parties? Not many, they say. In fact, the only time they ever wondered about their neighbor was several years ago, when a gardener motioned toward Pearlman's mansion and made what seemed like a strange comment. "If you have a little son," the gardener said, "don't let him go to that house. Bad things happen there."
Bryan Burrough is a Vanity Fair special correspondent.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Schwarzenegger offers health care bill for uninsured
http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSN0945898120071009
Schwarzenegger offers health care bill for uninsured
Tue Oct 9, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday unveiled his long awaited bill aimed at providing health care insurance to nearly 7 million people in the most populous U.S. state who do not have it.
The Republican governor's bill will compete with plans proposed by Democrats who control the state legislature amid a special legislative session he ordered for lawmakers to tackle health care and water policies.
In addition to his goal of extending health care coverage to the uninsured, Schwarzenegger has said he aims to lower medical costs with legislation that would require individuals and businesses to have, offer or subsidize some form of health care insurance.
"Everyone is working so hard on this because what's at stake is a health care delivery system that works for all Californians," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
"We have the best opportunity for comprehensive health care reform in 100 years because the more people study our plan, the more they agree with what we have been saying since day one: if everyone pitches in and does their part, then everyone will benefit," the celebrity governor added.
Schwarzenegger said his bill advances the principles he said in January would guide his plans for extending health care insurance to an estimated 6.7 million uninsured Californians.
Under his bill, Californians would be required to have health care insurance. Low and moderate income individuals could obtain it through a subsidized state account.
Employers would be required to offer employees health care insurance and insurers could not reject applicants because of their age or medical history.
Small businesses that do not offer health care insurance would have to pay into a state account that funds it and proceeds from California's lottery would help pay for it.
A major difference between the bill he introduced and the governor's initial plan is that under the legislation doctors would not be required to pay a fee to help support a state account that would fund health insurance for the poor.
Doctors had complained about the initial fee plan and Republican lawmakers said it amounted to a tax.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez in a statement said a "careful review" of Schwarzenegger's plan could move talks on a compromise health care bill forward.
"I am pleased the governor will be putting his health care proposals into a bill that can be properly studied and evaluated," Nunez said.
Schwarzenegger offers health care bill for uninsured
Tue Oct 9, 2007
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Tuesday unveiled his long awaited bill aimed at providing health care insurance to nearly 7 million people in the most populous U.S. state who do not have it.
The Republican governor's bill will compete with plans proposed by Democrats who control the state legislature amid a special legislative session he ordered for lawmakers to tackle health care and water policies.
In addition to his goal of extending health care coverage to the uninsured, Schwarzenegger has said he aims to lower medical costs with legislation that would require individuals and businesses to have, offer or subsidize some form of health care insurance.
"Everyone is working so hard on this because what's at stake is a health care delivery system that works for all Californians," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
"We have the best opportunity for comprehensive health care reform in 100 years because the more people study our plan, the more they agree with what we have been saying since day one: if everyone pitches in and does their part, then everyone will benefit," the celebrity governor added.
Schwarzenegger said his bill advances the principles he said in January would guide his plans for extending health care insurance to an estimated 6.7 million uninsured Californians.
Under his bill, Californians would be required to have health care insurance. Low and moderate income individuals could obtain it through a subsidized state account.
Employers would be required to offer employees health care insurance and insurers could not reject applicants because of their age or medical history.
Small businesses that do not offer health care insurance would have to pay into a state account that funds it and proceeds from California's lottery would help pay for it.
A major difference between the bill he introduced and the governor's initial plan is that under the legislation doctors would not be required to pay a fee to help support a state account that would fund health insurance for the poor.
Doctors had complained about the initial fee plan and Republican lawmakers said it amounted to a tax.
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez in a statement said a "careful review" of Schwarzenegger's plan could move talks on a compromise health care bill forward.
"I am pleased the governor will be putting his health care proposals into a bill that can be properly studied and evaluated," Nunez said.
Should it be Burma or Myanmar?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/7013943.stm
Should it be Burma or Myanmar?
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
The Magazine answers...
Protest marches in Burma have entered a ninth day. But why is the country not known in the UK by its official name, Myanmar?
The eyes of the world's media are focused on Rangoon, where tensions are rising in the streets, yet news organisations and nations differ in what they call the country.
The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon.
THE ANSWER
It's known as Myanmar in many countries and at the UN
But the UK doesn't recognise the legitimacy of the regime that changed the name
The Adaptation of Expression Law also introduced English language names for other towns, some of which were not ethnically Burmese.
The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the United States and the UK.
A statement by the Foreign Office says: "Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised."
It's general practice at the BBC to refer to the country as Burma, and the BBC News website says this is because most of its audience is familiar with that name rather than Myanmar. The same goes for Rangoon, people in general are more familiar with this name than Yangon.
But look in a Lonely Planet guidebook to Asia and the country can be found listed after Mongolia, not Brunei. The Rough Guide does not cover Burma at all, because the pro-democracy movement has called for a tourism boycott.
HOW IS MYANMAR PRONOUNCED?
There are various ways
'My' may be 'mee' as in 'street' or 'my' as in 'cry'
And stress can be on the first, second or third syllable
So does the choice of Burma or Myanmar indicate a particular political position?
Mark Farmener, of Burma Campaign UK, says: "Often you can tell where someone's sympathies lie if they use Burma or Myanmar. Myanmar is a kind of indicator of countries that are soft on the regime.
"But really it's not important. Who cares what people call the country? It's the human rights abuses that matter.
"There's not a really strong call from the democracy movement saying you should not call it Myanmar, they just challenge the legitimacy of the regime. It's probable it will carry on being called Myanmar after the regime is gone."
Colloquial name
The two words mean the same thing and one is derived from the other. Burmah, as it was spelt in the 19th Century, is a local corruption of the word Myanmar.
They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics.
"There's a formal term which is Myanmar and the informal, everyday term which is Burma. Myanmar is the literary form, which is ceremonial and official and reeks of government. [The name change] is a form of censorship."
If Burmese people are writing for publication, they use 'Myanmar', but speaking they use 'Burma', he says.
This reflects the regime's attempt to impose the notion that literary language is master, Mr Houtman says, but there is definitely a political background to it.
Richard Coates, a linguist at the University of Western England, says adopting the traditional, formal name is an attempt by the junta to break from the colonial past.
The UN uses Myanmar, presumably deferring to the idea that its members can call themselves what they wish
Richard Coates, Linguist
"Local opposition groups do not accept that, and presumably prefer to use the 'old' colloquial name, at least until they have a government with popular legitimacy. Governments that agree with this stance still call the country Burma.
"The UN uses Myanmar, presumably deferring to the idea that its members can call themselves what they wish, provided the decision is recorded in UN proceedings. There are hosts of papers detailing such changes. I think the EU uses Burma/Myanmar."
Other countries to rename themselves like this include Iran (formerly Persia), Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) and Cambodia (Kampuchea).
"They've substituted a local name for an internationally acknowledged one for essentially nationalistic and historical reasons."
Should it be Burma or Myanmar?
WHO, WHAT, WHY?
The Magazine answers...
Protest marches in Burma have entered a ninth day. But why is the country not known in the UK by its official name, Myanmar?
The eyes of the world's media are focused on Rangoon, where tensions are rising in the streets, yet news organisations and nations differ in what they call the country.
The ruling military junta changed its name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989, a year after thousands were killed in the suppression of a popular uprising. Rangoon also became Yangon.
THE ANSWER
It's known as Myanmar in many countries and at the UN
But the UK doesn't recognise the legitimacy of the regime that changed the name
The Adaptation of Expression Law also introduced English language names for other towns, some of which were not ethnically Burmese.
The change was recognised by the United Nations, and by countries such as France and Japan, but not by the United States and the UK.
A statement by the Foreign Office says: "Burma's democracy movement prefers the form 'Burma' because they do not accept the legitimacy of the unelected military regime to change the official name of the country. Internationally, both names are recognised."
It's general practice at the BBC to refer to the country as Burma, and the BBC News website says this is because most of its audience is familiar with that name rather than Myanmar. The same goes for Rangoon, people in general are more familiar with this name than Yangon.
But look in a Lonely Planet guidebook to Asia and the country can be found listed after Mongolia, not Brunei. The Rough Guide does not cover Burma at all, because the pro-democracy movement has called for a tourism boycott.
HOW IS MYANMAR PRONOUNCED?
There are various ways
'My' may be 'mee' as in 'street' or 'my' as in 'cry'
And stress can be on the first, second or third syllable
So does the choice of Burma or Myanmar indicate a particular political position?
Mark Farmener, of Burma Campaign UK, says: "Often you can tell where someone's sympathies lie if they use Burma or Myanmar. Myanmar is a kind of indicator of countries that are soft on the regime.
"But really it's not important. Who cares what people call the country? It's the human rights abuses that matter.
"There's not a really strong call from the democracy movement saying you should not call it Myanmar, they just challenge the legitimacy of the regime. It's probable it will carry on being called Myanmar after the regime is gone."
Colloquial name
The two words mean the same thing and one is derived from the other. Burmah, as it was spelt in the 19th Century, is a local corruption of the word Myanmar.
They have both been used within Burma for a long time, says anthropologist Gustaaf Houtman, who has written extensively about Burmese politics.
"There's a formal term which is Myanmar and the informal, everyday term which is Burma. Myanmar is the literary form, which is ceremonial and official and reeks of government. [The name change] is a form of censorship."
If Burmese people are writing for publication, they use 'Myanmar', but speaking they use 'Burma', he says.
This reflects the regime's attempt to impose the notion that literary language is master, Mr Houtman says, but there is definitely a political background to it.
Richard Coates, a linguist at the University of Western England, says adopting the traditional, formal name is an attempt by the junta to break from the colonial past.
The UN uses Myanmar, presumably deferring to the idea that its members can call themselves what they wish
Richard Coates, Linguist
"Local opposition groups do not accept that, and presumably prefer to use the 'old' colloquial name, at least until they have a government with popular legitimacy. Governments that agree with this stance still call the country Burma.
"The UN uses Myanmar, presumably deferring to the idea that its members can call themselves what they wish, provided the decision is recorded in UN proceedings. There are hosts of papers detailing such changes. I think the EU uses Burma/Myanmar."
Other countries to rename themselves like this include Iran (formerly Persia), Burkina Faso (Upper Volta) and Cambodia (Kampuchea).
"They've substituted a local name for an internationally acknowledged one for essentially nationalistic and historical reasons."
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Torture Appeal
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/09/washington/09cnd-scotus.html
October 9, 2007
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Torture Appeal
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case.
The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on the grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets.
The Supreme Court’s refusal, without comment, to take the case was not surprising, given that a three-judge panel for the Fourth Circuit was unanimous. Nevertheless, today’s announcement prompted immediate expressions of dismay, and it could exacerbate tensions between the United States and Germany.
The Fourth Circuit acknowledged the seriousness of the issues when it dismissed Mr. Masri’s suit. “We recognize the gravity of our conclusions that el-Masri must be denied a judicial forum for his complaint,” Judge Robert B. King wrote in March. “The inquiry is a difficult one, for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.”
The ordeal of Mr. Masri, who is of Lebanese descent and was apparently the victim of mistaken identity, was the most extensively documented case of the C.I.A.’s controversial practice of “extraordinary rendition,” in which terrorism suspects are abducted and sent for interrogation to other countries, including some in which torture is practiced.
The episode has already caused hard feelings between the United States and Germany, whose diplomatic ties were already frayed because of differences over the war in Iraq. Mr. Masri’s lawyer in Germany, Manfred Gnjidic, said the high court’s refusal to consider the case sends a message that the United States expects other nations to act responsibly but refuses to take responsibility for its own actions.
“We are very disappointed,” Mr. Gnjidic said in an interview today with The Associated Press. “It will shatter all trust in the American justice system.”
Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman.
“They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.”
After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept in a small, filthy cell and was shackled, drugged and beaten while being interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without ever having been charged with a crime.
The C.I.A. has never acknowledged any role in Mr. Masri’s detention. But investigations in Europe, as well as news reports in the United States, have bolstered his version of events. German prosecutors issued arrest warrants in January for 13 suspected C.I.A. agents believed to have taken part in the operation that swept up Mr. Masri.
As a practical matter, it is extremely unlikely that President Bush would ever agree to turn the 13 agents over to German authorities. But the warrants against them could hinder their ability to travel in Europe.
When the Fourth Circuit dismissed Mr. Masri’s suit, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the action “truly unbelievable” and “reminiscent of third-world countries.”
The Constitution Project, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to focus attention on constitutional issues, called the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the case “profoundly disappointing.”
“The government’s treatment of Mr. El-Masri has been appalling, and the executive branch should not be permitted to hide its mistakes behind the so-called state secrets privilege,” said the organization’s senior counsel, Sharon Bradford Franklin. “Now that the court has declined to consider this issue, Congress should immediately take up legislation to reform the state secrets privilege and clarify that it does not authorize unchecked power to disregard individual rights.”
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has introduced legislation to ban extraordinary rendition, said today that “the Bush administration reflexively responds with the ‘state secrets’ defense whenever it is caught bending or simply ignoring the law.”
The chief White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said later that, on the contrary, the administration is “judicious” in citing state secrets to avoid lawsuits. “And the fact that the Supreme Court agreed with us is, in our opinion, a good thing,” Ms. Perino said.
For his part, Mr. Masri was arrested by the German police in May on suspicion of setting a fire that caused $675,000 in damage to a market in a Bavarian town. His lawyer said Mr. Masri had had a dispute with the store, and that his action was the result of not receiving psychological counseling that he had sought. A German judge ordered him held in a psychiatric ward.
October 9, 2007
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Torture Appeal
By DAVID STOUT
WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 — A German citizen who said he was kidnapped by the Central Intelligence Agency and tortured in a prison in Afghanistan lost his last chance to seek redress in court today when the Supreme Court declined to consider his case.
The justices’ refusal to take the case of Khaled el-Masri let stand a March 2 ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va. That court upheld a 2006 decision by a federal district judge, who dismissed Mr. Masri’s lawsuit on the grounds that trying the case could expose state secrets.
The Supreme Court’s refusal, without comment, to take the case was not surprising, given that a three-judge panel for the Fourth Circuit was unanimous. Nevertheless, today’s announcement prompted immediate expressions of dismay, and it could exacerbate tensions between the United States and Germany.
The Fourth Circuit acknowledged the seriousness of the issues when it dismissed Mr. Masri’s suit. “We recognize the gravity of our conclusions that el-Masri must be denied a judicial forum for his complaint,” Judge Robert B. King wrote in March. “The inquiry is a difficult one, for it pits the judiciary’s search for truth against the executive’s duty to maintain the nation’s security.”
The ordeal of Mr. Masri, who is of Lebanese descent and was apparently the victim of mistaken identity, was the most extensively documented case of the C.I.A.’s controversial practice of “extraordinary rendition,” in which terrorism suspects are abducted and sent for interrogation to other countries, including some in which torture is practiced.
The episode has already caused hard feelings between the United States and Germany, whose diplomatic ties were already frayed because of differences over the war in Iraq. Mr. Masri’s lawyer in Germany, Manfred Gnjidic, said the high court’s refusal to consider the case sends a message that the United States expects other nations to act responsibly but refuses to take responsibility for its own actions.
“We are very disappointed,” Mr. Gnjidic said in an interview today with The Associated Press. “It will shatter all trust in the American justice system.”
Mr. Masri contended in his suit that he was seized by local law enforcement officials while vacationing in Macedonia on New Year’s Eve 2003. At the time, he was 41 years old and an unemployed car salesman.
“They asked a lot of questions — if I have relations with Al Qaeda, Al Haramain, the Islamic Brotherhood,” Mr. Masri said in a 2005 interview with The New York Times. “I kept saying no, but they did not believe me.”
After 23 days, he said, he was turned over to C.I.A. operatives, who flew him to a secret C.I.A. prison in Kabul. There, Mr. Masri said, he was kept in a small, filthy cell and was shackled, drugged and beaten while being interrogated about his supposed ties to terrorist organizations. At the end of May 2004, Mr. Masri said, he was released in a remote part of Albania without ever having been charged with a crime.
The C.I.A. has never acknowledged any role in Mr. Masri’s detention. But investigations in Europe, as well as news reports in the United States, have bolstered his version of events. German prosecutors issued arrest warrants in January for 13 suspected C.I.A. agents believed to have taken part in the operation that swept up Mr. Masri.
As a practical matter, it is extremely unlikely that President Bush would ever agree to turn the 13 agents over to German authorities. But the warrants against them could hinder their ability to travel in Europe.
When the Fourth Circuit dismissed Mr. Masri’s suit, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, called the action “truly unbelievable” and “reminiscent of third-world countries.”
The Constitution Project, a nonpartisan organization that seeks to focus attention on constitutional issues, called the Supreme Court’s refusal to take up the case “profoundly disappointing.”
“The government’s treatment of Mr. El-Masri has been appalling, and the executive branch should not be permitted to hide its mistakes behind the so-called state secrets privilege,” said the organization’s senior counsel, Sharon Bradford Franklin. “Now that the court has declined to consider this issue, Congress should immediately take up legislation to reform the state secrets privilege and clarify that it does not authorize unchecked power to disregard individual rights.”
Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, who has introduced legislation to ban extraordinary rendition, said today that “the Bush administration reflexively responds with the ‘state secrets’ defense whenever it is caught bending or simply ignoring the law.”
The chief White House spokeswoman, Dana Perino, said later that, on the contrary, the administration is “judicious” in citing state secrets to avoid lawsuits. “And the fact that the Supreme Court agreed with us is, in our opinion, a good thing,” Ms. Perino said.
For his part, Mr. Masri was arrested by the German police in May on suspicion of setting a fire that caused $675,000 in damage to a market in a Bavarian town. His lawyer said Mr. Masri had had a dispute with the store, and that his action was the result of not receiving psychological counseling that he had sought. A German judge ordered him held in a psychiatric ward.
Duck-billed dinosaur amazes scientists
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071003/ap_on_sc/new_dinosaur
Duck-billed dinosaur amazes scientists
By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 3, 2007
Scientists are amazed at the chomping ability of a newly described duck-billed dinosaur. The herbivore's powerful jaw, more than 800 teeth and compact skull meant that no leaf, branch or bush would have been safe, they say.
"It really is like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of dinosaurs — it's all pumped up," said Scott Sampson, curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History.
The newly named Gryposaurus monumentensis, or hook-beaked lizard from the monument, was discovered near the Arizona line in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 2002 by a volunteer at the site. Details about the 75-million-year-old dinosaur, including its name, were published in the Oct. 3 edition of Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Duck-billed dinosaurs were previously known to have been among the most imposing herbivores, with hundreds of teeth and a body that could knock down trees.
Gryposaurus monumentensis, at least 30 feet long and 10 feet tall with a robust jaw and thick bones, was like a duck-billed dinosaur on steroids, said paleontologist Terry Gates.
"It's basically the Cretaceous version of a weed-whacker," he said. "You have a very formidable herbivore."
Although paleontologists said Wednesday that the dinosaur could eat just about any plant it wanted, scientists still aren't sure what it dined on.
Southern Utah is now a rocky desert with few trees, but 75 million years ago it was a dinosaur haven that looked something like Louisiana today, Gates said.
"It's very humid and wet, with lots of ponds and lots of rivers and creeks flowing through it. It was very lush," he said.
The discovery of new species, including Gryposaurus monumentensis, will help scientists understand more about what the earth was like millions of years ago, he said.
Sampson said fossils of duck-billed dinosaurs once lived throughout the northwestern part of North America. The newly discovered version has a smaller skull that allowed it to apply more force to what it was eating.
"By shortening the skull, you can get more power per bite. The shrinking of the skull and the robustness of the jaw and snout all lead me to think this guy was made to eat," Gates said.
However, the duck-billed dinosaur's teeth and size would not have been much of a defense against area predators such as the tyrannosaur. Scientists also aren't sure if the new dinosaur was a loner or traveled in herds for protection because so few skeletal remains have been found.
It's one of several questions scientists are hoping to answer, along with how and why different species of the duck-billed dinosaur developed.
___
On the Net:
http://www.umnh.utah.edu/
Duck-billed dinosaur amazes scientists
By BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press Writer
Wed Oct 3, 2007
Scientists are amazed at the chomping ability of a newly described duck-billed dinosaur. The herbivore's powerful jaw, more than 800 teeth and compact skull meant that no leaf, branch or bush would have been safe, they say.
"It really is like the Arnold Schwarzenegger of dinosaurs — it's all pumped up," said Scott Sampson, curator of the Utah Museum of Natural History.
The newly named Gryposaurus monumentensis, or hook-beaked lizard from the monument, was discovered near the Arizona line in the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in 2002 by a volunteer at the site. Details about the 75-million-year-old dinosaur, including its name, were published in the Oct. 3 edition of Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Duck-billed dinosaurs were previously known to have been among the most imposing herbivores, with hundreds of teeth and a body that could knock down trees.
Gryposaurus monumentensis, at least 30 feet long and 10 feet tall with a robust jaw and thick bones, was like a duck-billed dinosaur on steroids, said paleontologist Terry Gates.
"It's basically the Cretaceous version of a weed-whacker," he said. "You have a very formidable herbivore."
Although paleontologists said Wednesday that the dinosaur could eat just about any plant it wanted, scientists still aren't sure what it dined on.
Southern Utah is now a rocky desert with few trees, but 75 million years ago it was a dinosaur haven that looked something like Louisiana today, Gates said.
"It's very humid and wet, with lots of ponds and lots of rivers and creeks flowing through it. It was very lush," he said.
The discovery of new species, including Gryposaurus monumentensis, will help scientists understand more about what the earth was like millions of years ago, he said.
Sampson said fossils of duck-billed dinosaurs once lived throughout the northwestern part of North America. The newly discovered version has a smaller skull that allowed it to apply more force to what it was eating.
"By shortening the skull, you can get more power per bite. The shrinking of the skull and the robustness of the jaw and snout all lead me to think this guy was made to eat," Gates said.
However, the duck-billed dinosaur's teeth and size would not have been much of a defense against area predators such as the tyrannosaur. Scientists also aren't sure if the new dinosaur was a loner or traveled in herds for protection because so few skeletal remains have been found.
It's one of several questions scientists are hoping to answer, along with how and why different species of the duck-billed dinosaur developed.
___
On the Net:
http://www.umnh.utah.edu/
Reporter films China's own Loch Ness monster
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070909/od_afp/chinanatureanimal
Reporter films China's own Loch Ness monster: report
Sun Sep 9, 2007
A television reporter claims to have discovered China's answer to the Loch Ness monster, state press reported Sunday.
Local journalist Zhuo Yongsheng shot footage of six "seal-like" creatures in the northeastern Tianchi lake, which local legend has long said is home to Loch Ness-style monsters.
"They could swim as fast as yachts and at times they would all disappear in the water," the Xinhua news agency quoted Zhuo as saying. "Their fins, or maybe wings, were longer than their bodies."
Legend says that China's own version of Scotland's legendary monster has dwelled in the murky bottom of the volcanic lake for over a century.
The original "Nessie" dates back to the seventh century, when a water beast is said to have appeared before Saint Columba, the founder of Christianity in Scotland in the Highland lake's depths.
Zhuo said he had not previously believed in the lake monster legend, "but I believed my own eyes."
However, scientists dismissed the reports, saying the lake was too cold for life.
Volcanic eruptions would also make life extremely hazardous for any animal making its home there, they said.
Reporter films China's own Loch Ness monster: report
Sun Sep 9, 2007
A television reporter claims to have discovered China's answer to the Loch Ness monster, state press reported Sunday.
Local journalist Zhuo Yongsheng shot footage of six "seal-like" creatures in the northeastern Tianchi lake, which local legend has long said is home to Loch Ness-style monsters.
"They could swim as fast as yachts and at times they would all disappear in the water," the Xinhua news agency quoted Zhuo as saying. "Their fins, or maybe wings, were longer than their bodies."
Legend says that China's own version of Scotland's legendary monster has dwelled in the murky bottom of the volcanic lake for over a century.
The original "Nessie" dates back to the seventh century, when a water beast is said to have appeared before Saint Columba, the founder of Christianity in Scotland in the Highland lake's depths.
Zhuo said he had not previously believed in the lake monster legend, "but I believed my own eyes."
However, scientists dismissed the reports, saying the lake was too cold for life.
Volcanic eruptions would also make life extremely hazardous for any animal making its home there, they said.
Favre throws 421st career TD, surpasses Marino
http://sports.yahoo.com/nfl/news;_ylt=AnltUz3liPh.wufLpNEwEj9DubYF?slug=ap-favre-tdrecord&prov=ap&type=lgns
Favre throws 421st career TD, surpasses Marino
By JON KRAWCZYNSKI, AP Sports Writer
September 30, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Brett Favre is No. 1 -- with a bullet.
Favre broke Dan Marino's record for career touchdown passes Sunday, zipping No. 421 to Greg Jennings in the first quarter of the game against the Minnesota Vikings.
He hit Jennings on a 16-yard slant for the score with 4:56 left in the quarter, and like most of his touchdown throws through his brilliant 17-year career, this one had plenty of steam on it.
Ever the jubilant celebrator, Favre sprinted to the end zone and hoisted Jennings on his left shoulder. He joined in hugs with his teammates on the sideline, as thousands of Packers faithful who made the trip from Wisconsin cheered loudly.
Even those dressed in purple stood and applauded when the announcement was made, and a taped message from Marino played on the big screen.
"I loved holding the touchdown record for the past 13 years," Marino said. "But if someone was going to break it, I'm glad it was someone like you, who has always competed at the highest level and always played to win."
It's the latest, and possibly the most hallowed record claimed by the league's last true gunslinger. Two weeks ago, Favre broke John Elway's mark for career victories by a quarterback when he led the Packers to a 35-13 win over the New York Giants.
The soon-to-be 38-year-old also holds the marks for career completions and consecutive starts by a quarterback, which hit 241 Sunday, moving him past former Vikings center Mick Tingelhoff into second place on the list for all players.
Former Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall holds the all-time mark with 270 consecutive starts.
Late in the second quarter, Favre broke another Marino record when he threw the 8,359th pass of his career, and is also within shouting distance of Marino's record for yards passing.
Favre tied Marino's record with three touchdown passes in the Packers' 31-24 victory over San Diego last week, including the record-tying 57-yard completion to Jennings that gave the Packers the lead late in the game.
Marino held the record since 1995, but Favre's reign could be considerably shorter. Old No. 4 has acknowledged that most, if not all, of the records he sets in his career will be challenged very shortly by the Colts' Peyton Manning.
But perhaps even more impressive than the numbers Favre has put up is the manner in which he has done it.
Favre entered the league in a different era, when guys like Marino, Jim Kelly, Warren Moon and Steve Young played the game with an aggressiveness and a swagger that is uncommon among today's quarterbacks.
While offenses have moved away from that mentality more toward "game managers," the league's biggest gambler hasn't let go of his high-risk, high-reward style. That mentality has thrilled fans in Green Bay ever since he first stepped onto the Lambeau Field turf in 1992, but it has also earned him his fair share of criticism over the years.
He has been accused of being careless with the football at times, but Favre will be the last one to apologize for entering the game two interceptions shy of tying George Blanda's career record.
Favre was pressured on his first pass attempt Sunday, and he blindly winged a pass far down field for Jennings that was intercepted by Darren Sharper. But Favre was bailed out by an illegal contact call on Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield, and the Packers punted four plays later.
After Jeff Dugan fumbled to give the Packers the ball in Minnesota territory, Favre hit Donald Lee on a nice touch pass for 27 yards. Two plays later -- history.
This season, coach Mike McCarthy has reined in Favre a little bit, and it has worked brilliantly so far for the Packers, who started the season 3-0 for the first time since 2001.
And while there is no single record for quarterbacks that carries the significance of Barry Bonds passing Hank Aaron's career home run record, McCarthy said Marino's touchdown mark probably comes closest.
But Favre said he didn't think the touchdown record was getting anywhere near the hype that Bonds' pursuit of Aaron received over the summer. He laughed off any further comparison to Bonds, smiling as he jokingly flexed his forearms to prove he doesn't quite measure up.
AP Sports Writer Chris Jenkins in Green Bay contributed to this story.
Favre throws 421st career TD, surpasses Marino
By JON KRAWCZYNSKI, AP Sports Writer
September 30, 2007
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Brett Favre is No. 1 -- with a bullet.
Favre broke Dan Marino's record for career touchdown passes Sunday, zipping No. 421 to Greg Jennings in the first quarter of the game against the Minnesota Vikings.
He hit Jennings on a 16-yard slant for the score with 4:56 left in the quarter, and like most of his touchdown throws through his brilliant 17-year career, this one had plenty of steam on it.
Ever the jubilant celebrator, Favre sprinted to the end zone and hoisted Jennings on his left shoulder. He joined in hugs with his teammates on the sideline, as thousands of Packers faithful who made the trip from Wisconsin cheered loudly.
Even those dressed in purple stood and applauded when the announcement was made, and a taped message from Marino played on the big screen.
"I loved holding the touchdown record for the past 13 years," Marino said. "But if someone was going to break it, I'm glad it was someone like you, who has always competed at the highest level and always played to win."
It's the latest, and possibly the most hallowed record claimed by the league's last true gunslinger. Two weeks ago, Favre broke John Elway's mark for career victories by a quarterback when he led the Packers to a 35-13 win over the New York Giants.
The soon-to-be 38-year-old also holds the marks for career completions and consecutive starts by a quarterback, which hit 241 Sunday, moving him past former Vikings center Mick Tingelhoff into second place on the list for all players.
Former Vikings defensive end Jim Marshall holds the all-time mark with 270 consecutive starts.
Late in the second quarter, Favre broke another Marino record when he threw the 8,359th pass of his career, and is also within shouting distance of Marino's record for yards passing.
Favre tied Marino's record with three touchdown passes in the Packers' 31-24 victory over San Diego last week, including the record-tying 57-yard completion to Jennings that gave the Packers the lead late in the game.
Marino held the record since 1995, but Favre's reign could be considerably shorter. Old No. 4 has acknowledged that most, if not all, of the records he sets in his career will be challenged very shortly by the Colts' Peyton Manning.
But perhaps even more impressive than the numbers Favre has put up is the manner in which he has done it.
Favre entered the league in a different era, when guys like Marino, Jim Kelly, Warren Moon and Steve Young played the game with an aggressiveness and a swagger that is uncommon among today's quarterbacks.
While offenses have moved away from that mentality more toward "game managers," the league's biggest gambler hasn't let go of his high-risk, high-reward style. That mentality has thrilled fans in Green Bay ever since he first stepped onto the Lambeau Field turf in 1992, but it has also earned him his fair share of criticism over the years.
He has been accused of being careless with the football at times, but Favre will be the last one to apologize for entering the game two interceptions shy of tying George Blanda's career record.
Favre was pressured on his first pass attempt Sunday, and he blindly winged a pass far down field for Jennings that was intercepted by Darren Sharper. But Favre was bailed out by an illegal contact call on Vikings cornerback Antoine Winfield, and the Packers punted four plays later.
After Jeff Dugan fumbled to give the Packers the ball in Minnesota territory, Favre hit Donald Lee on a nice touch pass for 27 yards. Two plays later -- history.
This season, coach Mike McCarthy has reined in Favre a little bit, and it has worked brilliantly so far for the Packers, who started the season 3-0 for the first time since 2001.
And while there is no single record for quarterbacks that carries the significance of Barry Bonds passing Hank Aaron's career home run record, McCarthy said Marino's touchdown mark probably comes closest.
But Favre said he didn't think the touchdown record was getting anywhere near the hype that Bonds' pursuit of Aaron received over the summer. He laughed off any further comparison to Bonds, smiling as he jokingly flexed his forearms to prove he doesn't quite measure up.
AP Sports Writer Chris Jenkins in Green Bay contributed to this story.
Konformist FeedBack 10-14-7
Konformist FeedBack
Hello, I was looking at your conspiracy site. I wonder if Britney spears is being slipped some drugs by someone.
Robalini's response: Leave Britney alone!!!
Hello, I was looking at your conspiracy site. I wonder if Britney spears is being slipped some drugs by someone.
Robalini's response: Leave Britney alone!!!
Censored again - and proud of it
Censored again - and proud of it
GregPalast.com
The bad news is, the Palast team has won its tenth-in-a-row "Project Censored" prize. For another story that Big Media won't dare touch.
The good news is: we're broke.
Last month, for the first time in two years, we came to you begging for cash so we could keep reporting the uncomfortable truth. Your response was astonishing. We're out of debt - back to zero.
(Our crawl out of the red was also helped by The Nation Magazine's Institute - which awarded our team the $25,000 Puffin Fellowship for investigative reporting.)
I'm back with one last (I promise) desperate plea for help. Now that we've made it out of debt, the Palast Investigative Fund needs your help to pay THIS month's bills.
Please, right now, make a tax-deductible donation to the Investigative Fund and I'll send you a personalized, signed copy of the book, 'Project Censored 2008' with my exposé on Mr. Giuliani's friend - the hedge fund vulture who is swiping the debt relief meant for Africa.
Make your donation at least $125 and we'll throw in Censored 2007 which includes our exposés on Iraq and Oil, "Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools!" and, the skinny on elections theft - co-written with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
We have had to say good-bye to our two top investigators, Leni and Matt. Damn, we miss them! Our struggle now is to pay their successor, Kat, who is demanding to eat at least once a day.
And for those who really believe we've just GOT to get the word out: we are LOOKING FOR A COUPLE OF FILM PRODUCERS (twelve to be exact), so we can quickly release the broadcasts, "Greg Palast Investigates" Vol. 1 ("Election Theft for Dummies") and Vol. 2 ("The Chavez Tapes") based on our award-winning reports for BBC Television.
Become a mini-mogul by donating at least $1,000 to our fund (tax-deductible), and you'll get on-screen executive producer credit and DVD copies of the films to impress (and depress) your friends and enemies.
No joke. We're broke. But the work continues even if our pockets are bare. Want to support Raw Journalism, the real stuff? Here it is: just a $100 donation and I'll send you Project Censored 2008, or Bush Family Fortunes (the BBC film on DVD), or Live From the Armed Madhouse, or the book that took 50,000 volts from a taser and keeps on ticking: Armed Madhouse - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.
And true, deep appreciation from myself and the investigative team for your generosity which has kept us alive and proudly censored for nearly a decade.
GregPalast.com
The bad news is, the Palast team has won its tenth-in-a-row "Project Censored" prize. For another story that Big Media won't dare touch.
The good news is: we're broke.
Last month, for the first time in two years, we came to you begging for cash so we could keep reporting the uncomfortable truth. Your response was astonishing. We're out of debt - back to zero.
(Our crawl out of the red was also helped by The Nation Magazine's Institute - which awarded our team the $25,000 Puffin Fellowship for investigative reporting.)
I'm back with one last (I promise) desperate plea for help. Now that we've made it out of debt, the Palast Investigative Fund needs your help to pay THIS month's bills.
Please, right now, make a tax-deductible donation to the Investigative Fund and I'll send you a personalized, signed copy of the book, 'Project Censored 2008' with my exposé on Mr. Giuliani's friend - the hedge fund vulture who is swiping the debt relief meant for Africa.
Make your donation at least $125 and we'll throw in Censored 2007 which includes our exposés on Iraq and Oil, "Bush Didn't Bungle Iraq, You Fools!" and, the skinny on elections theft - co-written with the Rev. Jesse Jackson.
We have had to say good-bye to our two top investigators, Leni and Matt. Damn, we miss them! Our struggle now is to pay their successor, Kat, who is demanding to eat at least once a day.
And for those who really believe we've just GOT to get the word out: we are LOOKING FOR A COUPLE OF FILM PRODUCERS (twelve to be exact), so we can quickly release the broadcasts, "Greg Palast Investigates" Vol. 1 ("Election Theft for Dummies") and Vol. 2 ("The Chavez Tapes") based on our award-winning reports for BBC Television.
Become a mini-mogul by donating at least $1,000 to our fund (tax-deductible), and you'll get on-screen executive producer credit and DVD copies of the films to impress (and depress) your friends and enemies.
No joke. We're broke. But the work continues even if our pockets are bare. Want to support Raw Journalism, the real stuff? Here it is: just a $100 donation and I'll send you Project Censored 2008, or Bush Family Fortunes (the BBC film on DVD), or Live From the Armed Madhouse, or the book that took 50,000 volts from a taser and keeps on ticking: Armed Madhouse - Sordid Secrets and Strange Tales of a White House Gone Wild.
And true, deep appreciation from myself and the investigative team for your generosity which has kept us alive and proudly censored for nearly a decade.
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Springsteen Gets Political on Today Show
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/28/101850/975
Springsteen Gets Political on Today Show
by rjmac
Fri Sep 28, 2007
Bruce Springsteen, promoting his new album by doing a concert "in the plaza" on the Today Show, did a spoken intro to "Living In the Future" that was an overtly political public service announcement.
After Clarence Clemons played the sax intro for the song, and as the band vamped in the background, The Boss opened with some lighthearted banter and NBC-centric jokes and then got serious:
This is a song called Livin' In the Future. But it's really about what's happening now. Right now. It's kind of about how the things we love about America, cheeseburgers, French fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston... the Bill of Rights [holds up microphone, urging crowd to cheer] ... v-twin motorcycles... Tim Russert's haircut, trans-fats and the Jersey Shore... we love those things the way womenfolk love Matt Lauer.
But over the past six years we've had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, the neglect of that great city New Orleans and its people, an attack on the Constitution. And the loss of our best men and women in a tragic war.
This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here happening here.
So right now we plan to do something about it, we plan to sing about it. I know it's early, but it's late. So come and join us.
Springsteen's new album, Magic, has political themes woven into the songwriting, but it was surprising and inspiring to see him bring it to the forefront on television's most popular morning program.
Tim Russert, who did as much as anyone in the media to enable the Bush regime, was standing near the stage, but the camera wasn't on him during Springsteen's pointed comments. Would have been interesting to see his reaction, but, then again, clowns like Russert somehow always seem to think they had nothing to do with legitimizing the lies told by Cheney, Bush, and all the others.
Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Today Show
To see Bruce perform and get political:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20995086/
Springsteen Gets Political on Today Show
by rjmac
Fri Sep 28, 2007
Bruce Springsteen, promoting his new album by doing a concert "in the plaza" on the Today Show, did a spoken intro to "Living In the Future" that was an overtly political public service announcement.
After Clarence Clemons played the sax intro for the song, and as the band vamped in the background, The Boss opened with some lighthearted banter and NBC-centric jokes and then got serious:
This is a song called Livin' In the Future. But it's really about what's happening now. Right now. It's kind of about how the things we love about America, cheeseburgers, French fries, the Yankees battlin' Boston... the Bill of Rights [holds up microphone, urging crowd to cheer] ... v-twin motorcycles... Tim Russert's haircut, trans-fats and the Jersey Shore... we love those things the way womenfolk love Matt Lauer.
But over the past six years we've had to add to the American picture: rendition, illegal wiretapping, voter suppression, no habeus corpus, the neglect of that great city New Orleans and its people, an attack on the Constitution. And the loss of our best men and women in a tragic war.
This is a song about things that shouldn't happen here happening here.
So right now we plan to do something about it, we plan to sing about it. I know it's early, but it's late. So come and join us.
Springsteen's new album, Magic, has political themes woven into the songwriting, but it was surprising and inspiring to see him bring it to the forefront on television's most popular morning program.
Tim Russert, who did as much as anyone in the media to enable the Bush regime, was standing near the stage, but the camera wasn't on him during Springsteen's pointed comments. Would have been interesting to see his reaction, but, then again, clowns like Russert somehow always seem to think they had nothing to do with legitimizing the lies told by Cheney, Bush, and all the others.
Tags: Bruce Springsteen, Today Show
To see Bruce perform and get political:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/20995086/
Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic' Has Anti-War Message
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,298230,00.html
Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic' Has Anti-War Message
Thursday , September 27, 2007
By Roger Friedman
Bruce Springsteen has already made his political feelings clear in the last couple of years. Remember his Ted Koppel interview? The series of concerts — Vote for Change — he did to support John Kerry?
On his new album, "Magic," Springsteen jumps right into the fray again. In a dramatic new REM-ish anthem called "Last to Die," he sings: "Who'll be the last to die for a mistake/The last to die for a mistake/Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break/Who'll be the last to die for a mistake."
The mistake is clearly the Iraq war. "We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore," he sings. "We just stack the bodies outside the door."
"Magic," which hits stores Tuesday but is already widely available on the Internet, seems like a party album at first. But it has a dark underside: blood and dead bodies wend their way through the songs.
Even when things are looking up at least musically — the songs are strong rockers — the lyrics suggest dire, dark things are happening.
In one song, “Seven drops of blood fall” as a woman smooths the front of her dress. In another, a kiss produces “the taste of blood on your tongue.” There’s a “bloody red horizon.”
But I digress: “Magic” could be the release to save Columbia Records, a company at a crossroads.
A few weeks ago, Lynn Hirschberg profiled new chief Rick Rubin in The New York Times Magazine. Rubin, who refuses to work from an office, was nevertheless scouting Los Angeles for new, much more expensive offices rather than for hit records. The story sent off alarms all over the business.
Ironically, it was the prior Sony administration that made “Magic” possible. Critics went berserk when Andy Lack, brought over from NBC, helped finalize a much-vaunted contract for Springsteen said to be worth $100 million. They claimed that Bruce wasn’t worth it, that he was over the hill and not a big seller. Ouch!
But Lack was right. Springsteen is the last of a dying breed of big-name rockers who are indeed worth the money. Not only has he got a fervent, dedicated following — he’s good. In fact, he’s great.
Springsteen’s last E Street Band album, "The Rising," was nominated for Grammy awards because it presented serious stuff about 9/11.
He followed that up with less commercial projects: "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" and "Live in Dublin." You couldn’t dance to any of this, and in this generation of a dumbed-down audience, that was a risk.
You can dance to “Radio Nowhere,” the lead single from “Magic,” and sing along, too. The whole album, made with the E Street Band, is designed for pleasure. There’s nothing here as poignant as “You’re Missing” from “The Rising.”
In concert, “Magic” is going to work like … magic. It doesn’t miss a beat; there are no good stadium bathroom breaks. The whole thing sounds like hit singles, if they still had hit singles.
Fans are going to love “Livin’ in the Future,” with its throwback arrangement to Springsteen’s real “Glory Days.” Clarence Clemons blows his horn, the band swings into action and it’s the Bruce everyone loves. There’s even a sing-along na-na-na chorus at the end.
But don’t be deceived. The lyrics show Bruce’s maturation and his love of stark images:
“Woke up election day/Skies gunpowder and shades of grey/Beneath a dirty sun, I whistle my time away … I opened up my heart to you/It got all damaged and undone.”
You gotta take the bitter with the sweet.
“Magic” is also an album full of rockers, many showcasing Springsteen’s love of the Wall of Sound. “I’ll Work for Your Love” and “Gypsy Biker” — with wild guitar and harmonica solos possibly from Nils Lofgren — stood out for me, and I think after one more spin, “Your Own Worst Enemy” is going to be lodged in my brain forever. It’s an obvious hit.
“Devil’s Arcade” is the closest Springsteen gets to his haunting Western gothic style. It’s a slow brewing beauty of a song too, with melodrama and magnificent imagery: “A bed draped in sunshine, a body that waits/For the touch of your fingers, the end of the day.”
“Devil’s Arcade” would be a great last song on any album, but on “Magic,” it’s a bridge to something more somber. Springsteen wrote “Terry’s Song” for his late friend and personal assistant of 30 years, Terry Magovern, who died last summer. Springsteen played it at Magovern’s funeral, and here it’s a fitting final moment:
“When they built you, brother, they turned dust into gold,” he sings, “When they built you, brother, they broke the mold.” The same could be said for Springsteen, who’s always a mensch.
Will “Magic” be a hit? Even with the downloads, I think so. Springsteen plays the "Today" show Friday morning for the first time ever. He undoubtedly knows things have changed dramatically in the music biz.
And Lack’s critics were right about one thing: the Boss has never sold multimillions of records. But he’s sold the right records to the right people. “Magic” can only bring him new fans to add to the old, and some more Grammys besides.
Bruce Springsteen's 'Magic' Has Anti-War Message
Thursday , September 27, 2007
By Roger Friedman
Bruce Springsteen has already made his political feelings clear in the last couple of years. Remember his Ted Koppel interview? The series of concerts — Vote for Change — he did to support John Kerry?
On his new album, "Magic," Springsteen jumps right into the fray again. In a dramatic new REM-ish anthem called "Last to Die," he sings: "Who'll be the last to die for a mistake/The last to die for a mistake/Whose blood will spill, whose heart will break/Who'll be the last to die for a mistake."
The mistake is clearly the Iraq war. "We don't measure the blood we've drawn anymore," he sings. "We just stack the bodies outside the door."
"Magic," which hits stores Tuesday but is already widely available on the Internet, seems like a party album at first. But it has a dark underside: blood and dead bodies wend their way through the songs.
Even when things are looking up at least musically — the songs are strong rockers — the lyrics suggest dire, dark things are happening.
In one song, “Seven drops of blood fall” as a woman smooths the front of her dress. In another, a kiss produces “the taste of blood on your tongue.” There’s a “bloody red horizon.”
But I digress: “Magic” could be the release to save Columbia Records, a company at a crossroads.
A few weeks ago, Lynn Hirschberg profiled new chief Rick Rubin in The New York Times Magazine. Rubin, who refuses to work from an office, was nevertheless scouting Los Angeles for new, much more expensive offices rather than for hit records. The story sent off alarms all over the business.
Ironically, it was the prior Sony administration that made “Magic” possible. Critics went berserk when Andy Lack, brought over from NBC, helped finalize a much-vaunted contract for Springsteen said to be worth $100 million. They claimed that Bruce wasn’t worth it, that he was over the hill and not a big seller. Ouch!
But Lack was right. Springsteen is the last of a dying breed of big-name rockers who are indeed worth the money. Not only has he got a fervent, dedicated following — he’s good. In fact, he’s great.
Springsteen’s last E Street Band album, "The Rising," was nominated for Grammy awards because it presented serious stuff about 9/11.
He followed that up with less commercial projects: "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" and "Live in Dublin." You couldn’t dance to any of this, and in this generation of a dumbed-down audience, that was a risk.
You can dance to “Radio Nowhere,” the lead single from “Magic,” and sing along, too. The whole album, made with the E Street Band, is designed for pleasure. There’s nothing here as poignant as “You’re Missing” from “The Rising.”
In concert, “Magic” is going to work like … magic. It doesn’t miss a beat; there are no good stadium bathroom breaks. The whole thing sounds like hit singles, if they still had hit singles.
Fans are going to love “Livin’ in the Future,” with its throwback arrangement to Springsteen’s real “Glory Days.” Clarence Clemons blows his horn, the band swings into action and it’s the Bruce everyone loves. There’s even a sing-along na-na-na chorus at the end.
But don’t be deceived. The lyrics show Bruce’s maturation and his love of stark images:
“Woke up election day/Skies gunpowder and shades of grey/Beneath a dirty sun, I whistle my time away … I opened up my heart to you/It got all damaged and undone.”
You gotta take the bitter with the sweet.
“Magic” is also an album full of rockers, many showcasing Springsteen’s love of the Wall of Sound. “I’ll Work for Your Love” and “Gypsy Biker” — with wild guitar and harmonica solos possibly from Nils Lofgren — stood out for me, and I think after one more spin, “Your Own Worst Enemy” is going to be lodged in my brain forever. It’s an obvious hit.
“Devil’s Arcade” is the closest Springsteen gets to his haunting Western gothic style. It’s a slow brewing beauty of a song too, with melodrama and magnificent imagery: “A bed draped in sunshine, a body that waits/For the touch of your fingers, the end of the day.”
“Devil’s Arcade” would be a great last song on any album, but on “Magic,” it’s a bridge to something more somber. Springsteen wrote “Terry’s Song” for his late friend and personal assistant of 30 years, Terry Magovern, who died last summer. Springsteen played it at Magovern’s funeral, and here it’s a fitting final moment:
“When they built you, brother, they turned dust into gold,” he sings, “When they built you, brother, they broke the mold.” The same could be said for Springsteen, who’s always a mensch.
Will “Magic” be a hit? Even with the downloads, I think so. Springsteen plays the "Today" show Friday morning for the first time ever. He undoubtedly knows things have changed dramatically in the music biz.
And Lack’s critics were right about one thing: the Boss has never sold multimillions of records. But he’s sold the right records to the right people. “Magic” can only bring him new fans to add to the old, and some more Grammys besides.
Up for Rock-God Status
http://www.eonline.com/news/article/index.jsp?uuid=864c9b51-062e-4e65-afd2-e518182584f2&entry=index
Madonna, Beasties, Mellencamp Up for Rock-God Status
by Josh Grossberg
Madonna's love may be on the borderline, but apparently her rock credentials aren't.
The Queen of Pop joined a disparate group of artists on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shortlist, a ballot that includes the Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen and another music royal, Queen of Disco Donna Summer, for the Cleveland class of 2008.
Rounding out the nominees, which were announced Friday: Afrika Bambaataa, Chic, the Dave Clark Five, and the Ventures.
An act becomes eligible for induction 25 years after its first release, be it single, EP or album. That means the current contenders had to have issued their inaugural record no later than 1982.
Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Detroit, the Material Girl emerged from New York's underground club scene and shot to fame on the success of her self-titled 1982 debut album, which spawned the singles "Holiday," "Borderline" and "Lucky Star."
Her follow-up, Like a Virgin, became her first chart-topper and went on to sell 19 million copies worldwide thanks to such ditties as "Material Girl," "Into the Groove" and "Dress You Up."
Her penchant for boundary-pushing behavior, both onstage and off, and constant reinvention has kept her on the charts and in the headlines. Over the course of her 25-year-old career, the 49-year-old entertainer has logged six number one albums (including her latest, Confessions on a Dance Floor), 12 number one singles and 49 top 10 hits on her way to selling more than 200 million albums worldwide.
The Beastie Boys—Mike "Mike D" Diamon, Adam "MCA" Yauch, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and their deejay, Michael "Mix Master Mike" Schwartz—not only paved the way for white rappers like Eminem but are considered among hip-hop's elder statesmen after their quarter-century career.
Like Madonna, the Beasties sprung from the New York music scene in 1982, but instead of party-hearty rap, the Boys were a hard-core punk band. But under the tutelage of Def Jam maestro Rick Rubin, they switched to rap, and their 1986 debut, License to Ill, exploded onto the charts with radio-embraced anthems like "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)," "No Sleep till Brooklyn" and "Brass Monkey."
They enjoyed immense critical acclaim with such subsequent albums as 1989's Paul's Boutique, 1992's Check Your Head, 1994's Ill Communication (with the monster hit "Sabotage") and 1998's Hello, Nasty. The band has also gotten political, helping launch the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. Their most recent album was a dub-influenced postpunk instrumental affair, appropriately titled The Mix-Up.
Originally billed as John Cougar when his then agent thought his last name wasn't marketable enough, Mellencamp became the first artist since the Beatles to have two simultaneous Top 5 hits with "Hurts So Good" and "Jack and Diane" off his 1982 breakthrough, American Fool.
He changed his name to John Cougar Mellencamp and then eventually to just John Mellencamp while gaining artistic credibility with his Scarecrow album and such top 10 Heartland anthems as "Pink Houses," "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song" and "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." He also cofounded Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. The concert series, which benefits strapped family farms, just celebrated its 22nd year.
A singer, songwriter, poet and novelist, Cohen achieved his first folk-rock success with a pair of songs on Judy Collins' 1966 album, In My Life, one of which, "Suzanne," became a signature hit. He eventually moved from his native Canada to New York a year later and established himself as a folk troubadour with his 1967 debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen. Cohen has influenced everyone from U2, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and R.E.M. to Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright.
Summer reworked her R&B sound to take advantage of the 1970s disco era and quickly established herself as one of its top performers. She scored three successive number one hit albums between 1979 and 1980, Live and More, Bad Girls and On the Radio. Among her best known songs are "Love to Love You Baby," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "This Time I Know It's Real," "She Works Hard for the Money" and the Bruce Springsteen-penned "Protection."
Chic was also among the biggest disco acts. Formed as a jazz-funk group in 1976 by Nile Rodgers, the band is best remembered for "Le Freak." Other hits included "Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance." Chic's rhythms also inspired earlier hip-hop performers, notably the Sugarhill Gang, which sampled Chic's "Good Times" bass riff for "Rapper's Delight."
Bambaata is credited with laying the foundations for hip-hop in the 1970s as a deejay and South Bronx community leader. He began his performing career while still in high school. He founded a collective known as the Universal Zulu Nation that sought an end to gang violence through block parties that facilitated the development of rap music.
After building the Zulu Nation into a group consisting of deejays, rappers, break dancers, graffiti artists and writers, Bam released in 1982 the seminal Kraftwerk-sampling hit, "Planet Rock," which spawned a the genre known as electro-funk. He also joined forces with former Sex Pistol John Lydon for one of the earliest songs fusing rap with rock 'n' roll, "World Destruction."
Part of the original British invasion, the Dave Clark Five scored 1960s hits with "Glad All Over," "Over and Over" and "Bits and Pieces." The DC actually appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show more times than the Beatles or Rolling Stones and sold more than 50 million albums worldwide before disbanding in 1970.
A pioneering surf-guitar instrumental act from Seattle, the Ventures' best-known hits included 1960's "Walk Don't Run" and 1969's "Hawaii Five-O." The Beatles, Stephen Stills, Joe Walsh and Aerosmith have counted the band as an inspiration.
Nominees are chosen by a 70-member committee of label execs, rock historians and journalists, with ballots mailed to an international voting body of 700 music industry types. Ultimately, the five honorees will be announced in January, with the 2008 induction ceremony taking place, per tradition, at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria hotel in March.
Chic, the Dave Clark Five and the Ventures have all appeared on recent ballots but never made the cut.
Last year's inductees were R.E.M., Van Halen, the Ronettes, Patti Smith and the Hall's first rap act, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
Madonna, Beasties, Mellencamp Up for Rock-God Status
by Josh Grossberg
Madonna's love may be on the borderline, but apparently her rock credentials aren't.
The Queen of Pop joined a disparate group of artists on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame shortlist, a ballot that includes the Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp, Leonard Cohen and another music royal, Queen of Disco Donna Summer, for the Cleveland class of 2008.
Rounding out the nominees, which were announced Friday: Afrika Bambaataa, Chic, the Dave Clark Five, and the Ventures.
An act becomes eligible for induction 25 years after its first release, be it single, EP or album. That means the current contenders had to have issued their inaugural record no later than 1982.
Born Madonna Louise Ciccone in Detroit, the Material Girl emerged from New York's underground club scene and shot to fame on the success of her self-titled 1982 debut album, which spawned the singles "Holiday," "Borderline" and "Lucky Star."
Her follow-up, Like a Virgin, became her first chart-topper and went on to sell 19 million copies worldwide thanks to such ditties as "Material Girl," "Into the Groove" and "Dress You Up."
Her penchant for boundary-pushing behavior, both onstage and off, and constant reinvention has kept her on the charts and in the headlines. Over the course of her 25-year-old career, the 49-year-old entertainer has logged six number one albums (including her latest, Confessions on a Dance Floor), 12 number one singles and 49 top 10 hits on her way to selling more than 200 million albums worldwide.
The Beastie Boys—Mike "Mike D" Diamon, Adam "MCA" Yauch, Adam "Ad-Rock" Horovitz and their deejay, Michael "Mix Master Mike" Schwartz—not only paved the way for white rappers like Eminem but are considered among hip-hop's elder statesmen after their quarter-century career.
Like Madonna, the Beasties sprung from the New York music scene in 1982, but instead of party-hearty rap, the Boys were a hard-core punk band. But under the tutelage of Def Jam maestro Rick Rubin, they switched to rap, and their 1986 debut, License to Ill, exploded onto the charts with radio-embraced anthems like "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party!)," "No Sleep till Brooklyn" and "Brass Monkey."
They enjoyed immense critical acclaim with such subsequent albums as 1989's Paul's Boutique, 1992's Check Your Head, 1994's Ill Communication (with the monster hit "Sabotage") and 1998's Hello, Nasty. The band has also gotten political, helping launch the Tibetan Freedom Concerts. Their most recent album was a dub-influenced postpunk instrumental affair, appropriately titled The Mix-Up.
Originally billed as John Cougar when his then agent thought his last name wasn't marketable enough, Mellencamp became the first artist since the Beatles to have two simultaneous Top 5 hits with "Hurts So Good" and "Jack and Diane" off his 1982 breakthrough, American Fool.
He changed his name to John Cougar Mellencamp and then eventually to just John Mellencamp while gaining artistic credibility with his Scarecrow album and such top 10 Heartland anthems as "Pink Houses," "Crumblin' Down," "Authority Song" and "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." He also cofounded Farm Aid with Willie Nelson and Neil Young. The concert series, which benefits strapped family farms, just celebrated its 22nd year.
A singer, songwriter, poet and novelist, Cohen achieved his first folk-rock success with a pair of songs on Judy Collins' 1966 album, In My Life, one of which, "Suzanne," became a signature hit. He eventually moved from his native Canada to New York a year later and established himself as a folk troubadour with his 1967 debut, Songs of Leonard Cohen. Cohen has influenced everyone from U2, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash and R.E.M. to Kurt Cobain, Jeff Buckley and Rufus Wainwright.
Summer reworked her R&B sound to take advantage of the 1970s disco era and quickly established herself as one of its top performers. She scored three successive number one hit albums between 1979 and 1980, Live and More, Bad Girls and On the Radio. Among her best known songs are "Love to Love You Baby," "Hot Stuff," "Bad Girls," "This Time I Know It's Real," "She Works Hard for the Money" and the Bruce Springsteen-penned "Protection."
Chic was also among the biggest disco acts. Formed as a jazz-funk group in 1976 by Nile Rodgers, the band is best remembered for "Le Freak." Other hits included "Dance Dance Dance (Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah)" and "Everybody Dance." Chic's rhythms also inspired earlier hip-hop performers, notably the Sugarhill Gang, which sampled Chic's "Good Times" bass riff for "Rapper's Delight."
Bambaata is credited with laying the foundations for hip-hop in the 1970s as a deejay and South Bronx community leader. He began his performing career while still in high school. He founded a collective known as the Universal Zulu Nation that sought an end to gang violence through block parties that facilitated the development of rap music.
After building the Zulu Nation into a group consisting of deejays, rappers, break dancers, graffiti artists and writers, Bam released in 1982 the seminal Kraftwerk-sampling hit, "Planet Rock," which spawned a the genre known as electro-funk. He also joined forces with former Sex Pistol John Lydon for one of the earliest songs fusing rap with rock 'n' roll, "World Destruction."
Part of the original British invasion, the Dave Clark Five scored 1960s hits with "Glad All Over," "Over and Over" and "Bits and Pieces." The DC actually appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show more times than the Beatles or Rolling Stones and sold more than 50 million albums worldwide before disbanding in 1970.
A pioneering surf-guitar instrumental act from Seattle, the Ventures' best-known hits included 1960's "Walk Don't Run" and 1969's "Hawaii Five-O." The Beatles, Stephen Stills, Joe Walsh and Aerosmith have counted the band as an inspiration.
Nominees are chosen by a 70-member committee of label execs, rock historians and journalists, with ballots mailed to an international voting body of 700 music industry types. Ultimately, the five honorees will be announced in January, with the 2008 induction ceremony taking place, per tradition, at New York City's Waldorf-Astoria hotel in March.
Chic, the Dave Clark Five and the Ventures have all appeared on recent ballots but never made the cut.
Last year's inductees were R.E.M., Van Halen, the Ronettes, Patti Smith and the Hall's first rap act, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
The Top 10 Best-Selling Game Franchises
http://videogames.yahoo.com/feature/the-top-10-best-selling-game-franchises/532199
Video Games Home
The Top 10 Best-Selling Game Franchises
Sep 28, 2007
It's official -- the fight has been finished. With Grand Theft Auto IV on the blocks until early next year, it's a pretty safe bet that Halo 3 will be the best-selling game of 2007. On Wednesday Microsoft gleefully announced a $170 million take on opening day alone, making it the highest-grossing single day launch in entertainment history. To give you some perspective, current box-office champ Spider-Man 3 enjoyed an opening weekend total of about $150 million. Master Chief does whatever a spider can and then some.
But despite such astronomical revenue, the Halo trilogy barely cracks the worldwide best-selling franchises Top 40, currently resting at a comfy 15 million units sold. Tack on a generous 10 million more courtesy of Halo 3 (Halo 2 rests at 9 million) and it's still light years away from competing with these formidable franchises.
10. Gran Turismo
Units sold: 47 million
Defining game: Gran Turismo (PSOne)
For racing game fans, there was life before Gran Turismo and whatever shreds of a life they could piece together after Gran Turismo. Known for its insanely realistic graphics, bevy of licensed vehicles and intricately detailed tuning and control, the series has become widely considered the de facto leader in video game simulation racing. Though only four full games have been released thus far, each of those has been a massive worldwide seller.
Trivial Trivia: The first Gran Turismo was the best-selling game on the original Playstation.
9. Donkey Kong
Units sold: 48 million
Defining game: Donkey Kong (Arcade)
Drawing inspiration from the classic King Kong and, presumably, a large barrel of whiskey, ace game developer Shigeru Miyamoto uncaged his bizarre, beastly creation in 1981. While the barrel-throwing has become significantly less prominent, the apish frontman certainly hasn't, enjoying steady work through the years in a variety of well-received platformers and racers. But by introducing the world to a mustachioed plumber named Jumpman (who would later become you-know-who), it's DK's first game that remains his beloved best.
Trivial Trivia: Universal Studios, owner of the King Kong trademark, unsuccessfully sued Nintendo in 1982 over the Donkey Kong name.
8. The Legend of Zelda
Units sold: 52 million
Defining game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
While Mario might rule Nintendo's roost, Zelda hero Link rules its heart. Few franchises have enjoyed the kind of critical and commercial success routinely heaped upon the Action/RPG mainstay, and for good reason. Each Zelda outing is a study in whimsical game design, a clever puzzle rife with secrets and oozing with fairy tale wonder. The timeline is a bit wacky, but whether you're rebuilding the Triforce in the NES classic or saving Hyrule from perpetual darkness in Twilight Princess, you're truly playing with power.
Trivial Trivia: The titular princess is named after F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda.
7. Madden NFL
Units sold: 60 million
Defining game: Oh, just pick one.
Long live consistency - a new Madden football game has arrived on store shelves every summer for nearly twenty years in a row. The result is the best-selling sports franchise ever and easily the most famous. Though the series is almost entirely associated with consoles, it began in 1989 on the Apple II after the ex-Raider coach convinced publisher Electronic Arts that he'd only sign on if the game were an authentic 11-on-11 experience. Like a great back, it's never stopped running.
Trivial Trivia: John Madden himself is the only voice actor who has appeared in every single version of the game.
6. Tetris
Units sold: 60 million
Defining game: Tetris (Game Boy)
Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajintov had a thing for shapes. Little did he realize that his obsession would soon become ours when he unleashed the world's most popular puzzler in 1989. An instant sensation, Tetris quickly became a commuting staple, a work distraction and a late-night fixation. It's so dangerously addictive, in fact, that it created a scientific phenomenon describing the inability of players to stop thinking about shifting blocks long after playing the game, blandly dubbed the "Tetris Effect." Trademark disputes and legal wrangling resulted in it being shamelessly ported to every known platform under a ton of different names, but whatever you want to call it, this block party is an undeniable success.
Trivial Trivia: The name of the theme song you can't get out of your head is "Korobeiniki," a traditional Russian folk tune.
5. Grand Theft Auto
Units sold: 65 million
Defining game: GTA III (PS2)
Throw your hands in the air and wave them like you're being robbed, because Rockstar's gangsta paradise has jacked its way onto the list. That's quite a move for a series that didn't see its initial blast of blockbuster success until 2001's seminal Grand Theft Auto III. Every subsequent release has been a major, major deal, due in equal parts to continued design brilliance and buckets of unintentionally promotional backlash. But whether you hate to love it or love to hate it (or, like us, just love to love it), you can't deny GTA's power over the people.
Trivial Trivia: The original Grand Theft Auto PC game takes place in three different cities: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas.
4. Final Fantasy
Units sold: 75 million
Defining game: Final Fantasy VII (PSOne)
In 1987, a fledgling Japanese game development studio desperate for a hit poured all its resources into their last ditch-effort, a role-playing game given the exhausted title, Final Fantasy. The studio was Square, and the series isn't remotely close to being over. Roughly 30 games bearing the Final Fantasy moniker have been released worldwide, a feat made even more amazing considering that most are stand-alone affairs set in totally new worlds with little to no relationship with other games in the series. Despite the disconnected plots, gamers can't get enough of the franchise's trademark combat systems, stellar production values, mystifying melodramas and, of course, those weird, adorable Chocobos.
Trivial Trivia: Final Fantasy XI is considered to be the first console game to have received a downloadable patch.
3. The Sims
Units sold: 90 million
Defining game: The Sims (PC)
When legendary sim game designer Will Wright first announced his digital dollhouse The Sims, we were all a bit skeptical. Who in their right mind would want to distract themselves from their daily routine by playing a game based on their daily routine? The answer is approximately all of us. The original Sims was a crossover sensation, simultaneously appealing to both seasoned gamers looking for a brand new experience and uninitiated newbies itching to play house and practice social politicking. The formula works; powered by a steady stream of expansions, The Sims franchise maintains a firm grip on monthly PC sales charts to this day.
Trivial Trivia: The original The Sims is the best-selling PC game of all time.
2. Pokemon
Units sold: 164 million
Defining game: Pokemon Red/Blue (Game Boy)
Well, folks, you were instructed to catch 'em all, and you nearly did. Second only to big brother Mario, the Pokemon games have clawed, scratched and merchandized their way into the hearts and wallets of families all over the world. The Poke-phenomenon began in 1996 with the simultaneous release of two linkable Game Boy games, introducing hordes of impressionable young gamers to the holy handheld trinity of collecting, training and battling digital beasts. Thrilled with the overnight success of its devious concoction, Nintendo quickly opened the media floodgates by spinning it off into an anime series, a trading card game and a variety of feature films. A decade later, the games remain Pokemon's meat and potatoes.
Trivial Trivia: In 1997, over 600 Japanese children suffered seizures while watching an episode of Pokemon called "Electric Soldier Porygon." It hasn't aired since.
1. Mario
Units sold: 195 million
Defining game: Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Over his illustrious 25-year career, the world's most famous plumber has also become its most successful. Starting with 1983's Joust knock-off Mario Bros., a Mario game has graced every Nintendo console system ever released, from the classic NES to the not-so-classic Virtual Boy. A true Renaissance man, he's had more hits than The Beatles, spawning entire genres (Mario Kart, Super Mario 64) and reinventing old ones (Super Paper Mario). Along the way, his incessant quest for coins has been immensely profitable, grossing Nintendo in upwards of $8 billion.
Trivial Trivia: Mario was named after real-life Nintendo of America office landlord Mario Segale.
Video Games Home
The Top 10 Best-Selling Game Franchises
Sep 28, 2007
It's official -- the fight has been finished. With Grand Theft Auto IV on the blocks until early next year, it's a pretty safe bet that Halo 3 will be the best-selling game of 2007. On Wednesday Microsoft gleefully announced a $170 million take on opening day alone, making it the highest-grossing single day launch in entertainment history. To give you some perspective, current box-office champ Spider-Man 3 enjoyed an opening weekend total of about $150 million. Master Chief does whatever a spider can and then some.
But despite such astronomical revenue, the Halo trilogy barely cracks the worldwide best-selling franchises Top 40, currently resting at a comfy 15 million units sold. Tack on a generous 10 million more courtesy of Halo 3 (Halo 2 rests at 9 million) and it's still light years away from competing with these formidable franchises.
10. Gran Turismo
Units sold: 47 million
Defining game: Gran Turismo (PSOne)
For racing game fans, there was life before Gran Turismo and whatever shreds of a life they could piece together after Gran Turismo. Known for its insanely realistic graphics, bevy of licensed vehicles and intricately detailed tuning and control, the series has become widely considered the de facto leader in video game simulation racing. Though only four full games have been released thus far, each of those has been a massive worldwide seller.
Trivial Trivia: The first Gran Turismo was the best-selling game on the original Playstation.
9. Donkey Kong
Units sold: 48 million
Defining game: Donkey Kong (Arcade)
Drawing inspiration from the classic King Kong and, presumably, a large barrel of whiskey, ace game developer Shigeru Miyamoto uncaged his bizarre, beastly creation in 1981. While the barrel-throwing has become significantly less prominent, the apish frontman certainly hasn't, enjoying steady work through the years in a variety of well-received platformers and racers. But by introducing the world to a mustachioed plumber named Jumpman (who would later become you-know-who), it's DK's first game that remains his beloved best.
Trivial Trivia: Universal Studios, owner of the King Kong trademark, unsuccessfully sued Nintendo in 1982 over the Donkey Kong name.
8. The Legend of Zelda
Units sold: 52 million
Defining game: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
While Mario might rule Nintendo's roost, Zelda hero Link rules its heart. Few franchises have enjoyed the kind of critical and commercial success routinely heaped upon the Action/RPG mainstay, and for good reason. Each Zelda outing is a study in whimsical game design, a clever puzzle rife with secrets and oozing with fairy tale wonder. The timeline is a bit wacky, but whether you're rebuilding the Triforce in the NES classic or saving Hyrule from perpetual darkness in Twilight Princess, you're truly playing with power.
Trivial Trivia: The titular princess is named after F. Scott Fitzgerald's wife, Zelda.
7. Madden NFL
Units sold: 60 million
Defining game: Oh, just pick one.
Long live consistency - a new Madden football game has arrived on store shelves every summer for nearly twenty years in a row. The result is the best-selling sports franchise ever and easily the most famous. Though the series is almost entirely associated with consoles, it began in 1989 on the Apple II after the ex-Raider coach convinced publisher Electronic Arts that he'd only sign on if the game were an authentic 11-on-11 experience. Like a great back, it's never stopped running.
Trivial Trivia: John Madden himself is the only voice actor who has appeared in every single version of the game.
6. Tetris
Units sold: 60 million
Defining game: Tetris (Game Boy)
Russian computer programmer Alexey Pajintov had a thing for shapes. Little did he realize that his obsession would soon become ours when he unleashed the world's most popular puzzler in 1989. An instant sensation, Tetris quickly became a commuting staple, a work distraction and a late-night fixation. It's so dangerously addictive, in fact, that it created a scientific phenomenon describing the inability of players to stop thinking about shifting blocks long after playing the game, blandly dubbed the "Tetris Effect." Trademark disputes and legal wrangling resulted in it being shamelessly ported to every known platform under a ton of different names, but whatever you want to call it, this block party is an undeniable success.
Trivial Trivia: The name of the theme song you can't get out of your head is "Korobeiniki," a traditional Russian folk tune.
5. Grand Theft Auto
Units sold: 65 million
Defining game: GTA III (PS2)
Throw your hands in the air and wave them like you're being robbed, because Rockstar's gangsta paradise has jacked its way onto the list. That's quite a move for a series that didn't see its initial blast of blockbuster success until 2001's seminal Grand Theft Auto III. Every subsequent release has been a major, major deal, due in equal parts to continued design brilliance and buckets of unintentionally promotional backlash. But whether you hate to love it or love to hate it (or, like us, just love to love it), you can't deny GTA's power over the people.
Trivial Trivia: The original Grand Theft Auto PC game takes place in three different cities: Liberty City, Vice City and San Andreas.
4. Final Fantasy
Units sold: 75 million
Defining game: Final Fantasy VII (PSOne)
In 1987, a fledgling Japanese game development studio desperate for a hit poured all its resources into their last ditch-effort, a role-playing game given the exhausted title, Final Fantasy. The studio was Square, and the series isn't remotely close to being over. Roughly 30 games bearing the Final Fantasy moniker have been released worldwide, a feat made even more amazing considering that most are stand-alone affairs set in totally new worlds with little to no relationship with other games in the series. Despite the disconnected plots, gamers can't get enough of the franchise's trademark combat systems, stellar production values, mystifying melodramas and, of course, those weird, adorable Chocobos.
Trivial Trivia: Final Fantasy XI is considered to be the first console game to have received a downloadable patch.
3. The Sims
Units sold: 90 million
Defining game: The Sims (PC)
When legendary sim game designer Will Wright first announced his digital dollhouse The Sims, we were all a bit skeptical. Who in their right mind would want to distract themselves from their daily routine by playing a game based on their daily routine? The answer is approximately all of us. The original Sims was a crossover sensation, simultaneously appealing to both seasoned gamers looking for a brand new experience and uninitiated newbies itching to play house and practice social politicking. The formula works; powered by a steady stream of expansions, The Sims franchise maintains a firm grip on monthly PC sales charts to this day.
Trivial Trivia: The original The Sims is the best-selling PC game of all time.
2. Pokemon
Units sold: 164 million
Defining game: Pokemon Red/Blue (Game Boy)
Well, folks, you were instructed to catch 'em all, and you nearly did. Second only to big brother Mario, the Pokemon games have clawed, scratched and merchandized their way into the hearts and wallets of families all over the world. The Poke-phenomenon began in 1996 with the simultaneous release of two linkable Game Boy games, introducing hordes of impressionable young gamers to the holy handheld trinity of collecting, training and battling digital beasts. Thrilled with the overnight success of its devious concoction, Nintendo quickly opened the media floodgates by spinning it off into an anime series, a trading card game and a variety of feature films. A decade later, the games remain Pokemon's meat and potatoes.
Trivial Trivia: In 1997, over 600 Japanese children suffered seizures while watching an episode of Pokemon called "Electric Soldier Porygon." It hasn't aired since.
1. Mario
Units sold: 195 million
Defining game: Super Mario Bros. (NES)
Over his illustrious 25-year career, the world's most famous plumber has also become its most successful. Starting with 1983's Joust knock-off Mario Bros., a Mario game has graced every Nintendo console system ever released, from the classic NES to the not-so-classic Virtual Boy. A true Renaissance man, he's had more hits than The Beatles, spawning entire genres (Mario Kart, Super Mario 64) and reinventing old ones (Super Paper Mario). Along the way, his incessant quest for coins has been immensely profitable, grossing Nintendo in upwards of $8 billion.
Trivial Trivia: Mario was named after real-life Nintendo of America office landlord Mario Segale.
Hired Gun Fetish
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/28/opinion/28krugman.html
September 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Hired Gun Fetish
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work.
Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies. Tax farming — giving individuals the right to collect taxes, in return for a share of the take — went out with the French Revolution; now the tax farmers are back.
And so are mercenaries, whom Machiavelli described as “useless and dangerous” more than four centuries ago.
As far as I can tell, America has never fought a war in which mercenaries made up a large part of the armed force. But in Iraq, they are so central to the effort that, as Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution points out in a new report, “the private military industry has suffered more losses in Iraq than the rest of the coalition of allied nations combined.”
And, yes, the so-called private security contractors are mercenaries. They’re heavily armed. They carry out military missions, but they’re private employees who don’t answer to military discipline. On the other hand, they don’t seem to be accountable to Iraqi or U.S. law, either. And they behave accordingly.
We may never know what really happened in a crowded Baghdad square two weeks ago. Employees of Blackwater USA claim that they were attacked by gunmen. Iraqi police and witnesses say that the contractors began firing randomly at a car that didn’t get out of their way.
What we do know is that more than 20 civilians were killed, including the couple and child in the car. And the Iraqi version of events is entirely consistent with many other documented incidents involving security contractors.
For example, Mr. Singer reminds us that in 2005 “armed contractors from the Zapata firm were detained by U.S. forces, who claimed they saw the private soldiers indiscriminately firing not only at Iraqi civilians, but also U.S. Marines.” The contractors were not charged. In 2006, employees of Aegis, another security firm, posted a “trophy video” on the Internet that showed them shooting civilians, and employees of Triple Canopy, yet another contractor, were fired after alleging that a supervisor engaged in “joy-ride shooting” of Iraqi civilians.
Yet even among the contractors, Blackwater has the worst reputation. On Christmas Eve 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee reportedly shot and killed a guard of the Iraqi vice president. (The employee was flown out of the country, and has not been charged.) In May 2007, Blackwater employees reportedly shot an employee of Iraq’s Interior Ministry, leading to an armed standoff between the firm and Iraqi police.
Iraqis aren’t the only victims of this behavior. Of the nearly 4,000 American service members who have died in Iraq, scores if not hundreds would surely still be alive if it weren’t for the hatred such incidents engender.
Which raises the question, why are Blackwater and other mercenary outfits still playing such a big role in Iraq?
Don’t tell me that they are irreplaceable. The Iraq war has now gone on for four and a half years — longer than American participation in World War II. There has been plenty of time for the Bush administration to find a way to do without mercenaries, if it wanted to.
And the danger out-of-control military contractors pose to American forces has been obvious at least since March 2004, when four armed Blackwater employees blundered into Fallujah in the middle of a delicate military operation, getting themselves killed and precipitating a crisis that probably ended any chance of an acceptable outcome in Iraq.
Yet Blackwater is still there. In fact, last year the State Department gave Blackwater the lead role in diplomatic security in Iraq.
Mr. Singer argues that reliance on private military contractors has let the administration avoid making hard political choices, such as admitting that it didn’t send enough troops in the first place. Contractors, he writes, “offered the potential backstop of additional forces, but with no one having to lose any political capital.” That’s undoubtedly part of the story.
But it’s also worth noting that the Bush administration has tried to privatize every aspect of the U.S. government it can, using taxpayers’ money to give lucrative contracts to its friends — people like Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, who has strong Republican connections. You might think that national security would take precedence over the fetish for privatization — but remember, President Bush tried to keep airport security in private hands, even after 9/11.
So the privatization of war — no matter how badly it works — is just part of the pattern.
September 28, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Hired Gun Fetish
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Sometimes it seems that the only way to make sense of the Bush administration is to imagine that it’s a vast experiment concocted by mad political scientists who want to see what happens if a nation systematically ignores everything we’ve learned over the past few centuries about how to make a modern government work.
Thus, the administration has abandoned the principle of a professional, nonpolitical civil service, stuffing agencies from FEMA to the Justice Department with unqualified cronies. Tax farming — giving individuals the right to collect taxes, in return for a share of the take — went out with the French Revolution; now the tax farmers are back.
And so are mercenaries, whom Machiavelli described as “useless and dangerous” more than four centuries ago.
As far as I can tell, America has never fought a war in which mercenaries made up a large part of the armed force. But in Iraq, they are so central to the effort that, as Peter W. Singer of the Brookings Institution points out in a new report, “the private military industry has suffered more losses in Iraq than the rest of the coalition of allied nations combined.”
And, yes, the so-called private security contractors are mercenaries. They’re heavily armed. They carry out military missions, but they’re private employees who don’t answer to military discipline. On the other hand, they don’t seem to be accountable to Iraqi or U.S. law, either. And they behave accordingly.
We may never know what really happened in a crowded Baghdad square two weeks ago. Employees of Blackwater USA claim that they were attacked by gunmen. Iraqi police and witnesses say that the contractors began firing randomly at a car that didn’t get out of their way.
What we do know is that more than 20 civilians were killed, including the couple and child in the car. And the Iraqi version of events is entirely consistent with many other documented incidents involving security contractors.
For example, Mr. Singer reminds us that in 2005 “armed contractors from the Zapata firm were detained by U.S. forces, who claimed they saw the private soldiers indiscriminately firing not only at Iraqi civilians, but also U.S. Marines.” The contractors were not charged. In 2006, employees of Aegis, another security firm, posted a “trophy video” on the Internet that showed them shooting civilians, and employees of Triple Canopy, yet another contractor, were fired after alleging that a supervisor engaged in “joy-ride shooting” of Iraqi civilians.
Yet even among the contractors, Blackwater has the worst reputation. On Christmas Eve 2006, a drunken Blackwater employee reportedly shot and killed a guard of the Iraqi vice president. (The employee was flown out of the country, and has not been charged.) In May 2007, Blackwater employees reportedly shot an employee of Iraq’s Interior Ministry, leading to an armed standoff between the firm and Iraqi police.
Iraqis aren’t the only victims of this behavior. Of the nearly 4,000 American service members who have died in Iraq, scores if not hundreds would surely still be alive if it weren’t for the hatred such incidents engender.
Which raises the question, why are Blackwater and other mercenary outfits still playing such a big role in Iraq?
Don’t tell me that they are irreplaceable. The Iraq war has now gone on for four and a half years — longer than American participation in World War II. There has been plenty of time for the Bush administration to find a way to do without mercenaries, if it wanted to.
And the danger out-of-control military contractors pose to American forces has been obvious at least since March 2004, when four armed Blackwater employees blundered into Fallujah in the middle of a delicate military operation, getting themselves killed and precipitating a crisis that probably ended any chance of an acceptable outcome in Iraq.
Yet Blackwater is still there. In fact, last year the State Department gave Blackwater the lead role in diplomatic security in Iraq.
Mr. Singer argues that reliance on private military contractors has let the administration avoid making hard political choices, such as admitting that it didn’t send enough troops in the first place. Contractors, he writes, “offered the potential backstop of additional forces, but with no one having to lose any political capital.” That’s undoubtedly part of the story.
But it’s also worth noting that the Bush administration has tried to privatize every aspect of the U.S. government it can, using taxpayers’ money to give lucrative contracts to its friends — people like Erik Prince, the owner of Blackwater, who has strong Republican connections. You might think that national security would take precedence over the fetish for privatization — but remember, President Bush tried to keep airport security in private hands, even after 9/11.
So the privatization of war — no matter how badly it works — is just part of the pattern.
Blackwater ‘may be worse than Abu Ghraib’
http://www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com/archives/13008.html
Blackwater ‘may be worse than Abu Ghraib’
Posted September 26th, 2007
To describe the ongoing Blackwater scandal as a fiasco would be a dramatic understatement. Not only do we have a situation in which private security contractors stand accused of killing Iraqi civilians without provocation, we also have deep divisions brewing between the Pentagon and the State Department, coupled by State stonewalling a congressional investigation.
A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq, according to U.S. military and government officials.
In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department’s authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. “The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they’ve built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event,” the official said.
“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we’re trying to have an impact for the long term.”
At this point, the State Department seems to be treating Blackwater contractors as the agency’s own private army, accountable to no one outside the department. The Maliki government believes Blackwater is a criminal enterprise, the Iraqi people resent Blackwater’s presence, the Pentagon believes Blackwater is lying about the Sept. 16 incident in Nisoor Square, and congressional Democrats have questions about what has transpired — which the State Department refuses to answer.
This is a debacle so severe and humiliating, only the Bush administration could pull it off.
David Kurtz offers this helpful timeline of events that sets the stage for where we are now.
Sun, Sept. 16: Blackwater incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians are killed after State Department convoy reportedly comes under fire, an account disputed by the Iraqis.
Mon, Sept. 17: Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee announces his committee will investigate the Blackwater incident.
Tue, Sept. 18: The American Embassy in Baghdad suspends diplomatic convoys outside the Green Zone.
Wed, Sept. 19: In a phone call, Acting Assistant Secretary of State William Moser warns Blackwater that no information regarding the Blackwater contract can be released without State’s prior written approval.
Thu, Sept. 20: Moser repeats the warning in a second call to Blackwater, and State sends Blackwater a follow-up letter again asserting again that the information possessed by Blackwater belongs to State and cannot be disclosed.
Fri, Sept. 21: The four-day suspension of State Department convoys ends and Blackwater resumes business. Secretary of State Condi Rice announces that her department will undertake a “full and complete review” of diplomatic security in Iraq.
And while it’s certainly nice of Rice to suddenly take an interest in accountability, Congress, which has oversight responsibility and is paying the bills for all of this, believes a bipartisan review on Capitol Hill will produce a more accurate picture of what’s transpired.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not only refuses to cooperate, her office has also ordered Blackwater not to answer any questions from lawmakers.
The State Department has interceded in a congressional investigation of Blackwater USA, the private security firm accused of killing Iraqi civilians last week, ordering the company not to disclose information about its Iraq operations without approval from the Bush administration, according to documents revealed Tuesday.
In a letter sent to a senior Blackwater executive Thursday, a State Department contracting official ordered the company “to make no disclosure of the documents or information” about its work in Iraq without permission.
I appreciate the fact that outrage fatigue is inevitable when dealing with the Bush gang, but this is truly ridiculous. We have American taxpayers financing a private security army, whose members stand accused of slaughtering civilians. The Secretary of State believes no one should ask any questions about this, and those who do must be ignored. It’s pure lunacy.
The State Department’s cooperation with a congressional inquiry is not optional. Rice can’t simply refuse to divulge information, and ordering others to remain silent is getting fairly close to the obstruction-of-justice line.
When these guys act like they have something to hide, it’s almost always because they have something to hide. Stay tuned.
Blackwater ‘may be worse than Abu Ghraib’
Posted September 26th, 2007
To describe the ongoing Blackwater scandal as a fiasco would be a dramatic understatement. Not only do we have a situation in which private security contractors stand accused of killing Iraqi civilians without provocation, we also have deep divisions brewing between the Pentagon and the State Department, coupled by State stonewalling a congressional investigation.
A confrontation between the U.S. military and the State Department is unfolding over the involvement of Blackwater USA in the shooting deaths of Iraqi civilians in a Baghdad square Sept. 16, bringing to the surface long-simmering tensions between the military and private security companies in Iraq, according to U.S. military and government officials.
In high-level meetings over the past several days, U.S. military officials have pressed State Department officials to assert more control over Blackwater, which operates under the department’s authority, said a U.S. government official with knowledge of the discussions. “The military is very sensitive to its relationship that they’ve built with the Iraqis being altered or even severely degraded by actions such as this event,” the official said.
“This is a nightmare,” said a senior U.S. military official. “We had guys who saw the aftermath, and it was very bad. This is going to hurt us badly. It may be worse than Abu Ghraib, and it comes at a time when we’re trying to have an impact for the long term.”
At this point, the State Department seems to be treating Blackwater contractors as the agency’s own private army, accountable to no one outside the department. The Maliki government believes Blackwater is a criminal enterprise, the Iraqi people resent Blackwater’s presence, the Pentagon believes Blackwater is lying about the Sept. 16 incident in Nisoor Square, and congressional Democrats have questions about what has transpired — which the State Department refuses to answer.
This is a debacle so severe and humiliating, only the Bush administration could pull it off.
David Kurtz offers this helpful timeline of events that sets the stage for where we are now.
Sun, Sept. 16: Blackwater incident in which 11 Iraqi civilians are killed after State Department convoy reportedly comes under fire, an account disputed by the Iraqis.
Mon, Sept. 17: Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Government Reform Committee announces his committee will investigate the Blackwater incident.
Tue, Sept. 18: The American Embassy in Baghdad suspends diplomatic convoys outside the Green Zone.
Wed, Sept. 19: In a phone call, Acting Assistant Secretary of State William Moser warns Blackwater that no information regarding the Blackwater contract can be released without State’s prior written approval.
Thu, Sept. 20: Moser repeats the warning in a second call to Blackwater, and State sends Blackwater a follow-up letter again asserting again that the information possessed by Blackwater belongs to State and cannot be disclosed.
Fri, Sept. 21: The four-day suspension of State Department convoys ends and Blackwater resumes business. Secretary of State Condi Rice announces that her department will undertake a “full and complete review” of diplomatic security in Iraq.
And while it’s certainly nice of Rice to suddenly take an interest in accountability, Congress, which has oversight responsibility and is paying the bills for all of this, believes a bipartisan review on Capitol Hill will produce a more accurate picture of what’s transpired.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice not only refuses to cooperate, her office has also ordered Blackwater not to answer any questions from lawmakers.
The State Department has interceded in a congressional investigation of Blackwater USA, the private security firm accused of killing Iraqi civilians last week, ordering the company not to disclose information about its Iraq operations without approval from the Bush administration, according to documents revealed Tuesday.
In a letter sent to a senior Blackwater executive Thursday, a State Department contracting official ordered the company “to make no disclosure of the documents or information” about its work in Iraq without permission.
I appreciate the fact that outrage fatigue is inevitable when dealing with the Bush gang, but this is truly ridiculous. We have American taxpayers financing a private security army, whose members stand accused of slaughtering civilians. The Secretary of State believes no one should ask any questions about this, and those who do must be ignored. It’s pure lunacy.
The State Department’s cooperation with a congressional inquiry is not optional. Rice can’t simply refuse to divulge information, and ordering others to remain silent is getting fairly close to the obstruction-of-justice line.
When these guys act like they have something to hide, it’s almost always because they have something to hide. Stay tuned.
Blackwater
http://www.buzzflash.com/store/reviews/524
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Hardcover)
By Jeremy Scahill
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS
From Nation Books:
Meet Blackwater USA, the powerful private army that the U.S. government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. Its contacts run from deep inside the military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House. Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the “global war on terror,” with its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and 20,000 soldiers at the ready. Run by a multimillionaire Christian conservative who bankrolls President Bush and his allies, its forces are capable of overthrowing governments, and yet most people have never heard of Blackwater.
Blackwater is the dark story of the rise of a powerful mercenary army, ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to rooftop firefights in Najaf to the hurricane-ravaged US gulf to Washington DC, where Blackwater executives are hailed as new heroes in the war on terror. This is an extraordinary exposé by one of America's most exciting young radical journalists.
“Jeremy Scahill’s exposé of the Blackwater mercenary firm forcefully demonstrates the grave dangers of outsourcing the government’s monopoly on the use of force.”
--Joseph Wilson, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
“Jeremy Scahill skillfully chronicles the birth of America's frightening Praetorian Guard, one that has been unleashed--25,000-strong--in Iraq. These hired guns, with their black uniforms and automatic weapons, appeared on the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. They operate, at home and abroad, beyond the bounds of legal constraints and are controlled by secretive puppet masters, such as Erik Prince, who have close ties to the radical Christian Right. Should our nation enter a period of instability following another terrorist attack on American soil, an economic collapse or a series of environmental disasters the tyranny that groups such as Blackwater impose on others could become the tyranny they impose on us. The rise of this unchecked mercenary force, as Scahill understands, could presage the final stage in the collapse of American democracy.”
--Chris Hedges, former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief
“If the Republicans lose in 2008, they will leave office armed and dangerous. Blackwater is the utterly gripping and explosive story of how the Bush Administration has spent hundreds of millions of public dollars building a parallel corporate army, an army so loyal to far right causes it constitutes nothing less than a Republican Guard. The most important and chilling book about the death throes of U.S. democracy you will read in years and a triumph of investigative reporting.”
--Naomi Klein, author No Logo
"Of all the insane Bush privatization efforts, none is more frightening than the corporatizing of military combat forces. Jeremy Scahill admirably exposes a devastating example of this sinister scheme."
--Michael Moore, Academy Award Winning Director
This engrossing investigative piece exposing, in shocking detail, a U.S. government-outsourced Frankenstein replete with helicopter gun ships may leave you incredulous. But you better believe it, for it poses a grave and gathering danger to the future of our Republic."
--Ray McGovern, CIA veteran and former intelligence briefer for George H. W. Bush
“In this terrifying and thrillingly written book, Jeremy Scahill introduces us to the shape of things to come, and to the kind of people and corporations who are likely to govern our lives if we don't do something about it pretty quickly.”
--Arundhati Roy, author The God of Small Things
“Jeremy Scahill's comprehensive research and reporting lifts the veil off the ever-tightening relationship between the federal government and unaccountable private military corporations such as Blackwater USA. . . .”
--U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (Hardcover)
By Jeremy Scahill
BUZZFLASH REVIEWS
From Nation Books:
Meet Blackwater USA, the powerful private army that the U.S. government has quietly hired to operate in international war zones and on American soil. Its contacts run from deep inside the military and intelligence agencies to the upper echelons of the White House. Blackwater is the elite Praetorian Guard for the “global war on terror,” with its own military base, a fleet of twenty aircraft, and 20,000 soldiers at the ready. Run by a multimillionaire Christian conservative who bankrolls President Bush and his allies, its forces are capable of overthrowing governments, and yet most people have never heard of Blackwater.
Blackwater is the dark story of the rise of a powerful mercenary army, ranging from the blood-soaked streets of Fallujah to rooftop firefights in Najaf to the hurricane-ravaged US gulf to Washington DC, where Blackwater executives are hailed as new heroes in the war on terror. This is an extraordinary exposé by one of America's most exciting young radical journalists.
“Jeremy Scahill’s exposé of the Blackwater mercenary firm forcefully demonstrates the grave dangers of outsourcing the government’s monopoly on the use of force.”
--Joseph Wilson, former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq
“Jeremy Scahill skillfully chronicles the birth of America's frightening Praetorian Guard, one that has been unleashed--25,000-strong--in Iraq. These hired guns, with their black uniforms and automatic weapons, appeared on the streets of New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. They operate, at home and abroad, beyond the bounds of legal constraints and are controlled by secretive puppet masters, such as Erik Prince, who have close ties to the radical Christian Right. Should our nation enter a period of instability following another terrorist attack on American soil, an economic collapse or a series of environmental disasters the tyranny that groups such as Blackwater impose on others could become the tyranny they impose on us. The rise of this unchecked mercenary force, as Scahill understands, could presage the final stage in the collapse of American democracy.”
--Chris Hedges, former New York Times Middle East Bureau Chief
“If the Republicans lose in 2008, they will leave office armed and dangerous. Blackwater is the utterly gripping and explosive story of how the Bush Administration has spent hundreds of millions of public dollars building a parallel corporate army, an army so loyal to far right causes it constitutes nothing less than a Republican Guard. The most important and chilling book about the death throes of U.S. democracy you will read in years and a triumph of investigative reporting.”
--Naomi Klein, author No Logo
"Of all the insane Bush privatization efforts, none is more frightening than the corporatizing of military combat forces. Jeremy Scahill admirably exposes a devastating example of this sinister scheme."
--Michael Moore, Academy Award Winning Director
This engrossing investigative piece exposing, in shocking detail, a U.S. government-outsourced Frankenstein replete with helicopter gun ships may leave you incredulous. But you better believe it, for it poses a grave and gathering danger to the future of our Republic."
--Ray McGovern, CIA veteran and former intelligence briefer for George H. W. Bush
“In this terrifying and thrillingly written book, Jeremy Scahill introduces us to the shape of things to come, and to the kind of people and corporations who are likely to govern our lives if we don't do something about it pretty quickly.”
--Arundhati Roy, author The God of Small Things
“Jeremy Scahill's comprehensive research and reporting lifts the veil off the ever-tightening relationship between the federal government and unaccountable private military corporations such as Blackwater USA. . . .”
--U.S. Representative Jan Schakowsky (D-IL)
Raw Spirit Fest in Sedona, Arizona
Raw Spirit Fest in Sedona, Arizona
Contact: Happy Oasis (928) 776-1497
With obesity and so-called incurable diets on the rise in our country and even abroad, individuals, medical professionals, administrators and researchers are searching for solutions. A sub-group of medical professionals and people have discovered ways of eating and living more in harmony with the produce earth produces to restore and maintain wellness.
Raw Veganism is on the rise. And The Raw Spirit Festival boasts of wholeheartedly presenting the works, talents and insights individuals, medical professionals, administrators and researchers who are living the new healthful realities offered by raw foodism.
While sound waves from RSF’s many musical performances waft through the red rocks of beautiful Sedona Arizona, seven organic raw vegan gourmet meals will be served to all, while hundreds of vendors will offer a wide variety of items for sale including exotic food tastings, hemp clothing, CDs, DVDs, books, chair massage, wellness therapies, jewelry and the most cutting-edge eco-technologies available on the planet, including a variety of electric cars.
Featured speakers included dynamic David Wolfe, wise Victoria Boutenko, pioneer Viktoras Kulvinskas, Distinguished Doctors in the know, India’s pre-eminent solar-gazing teacher HRM, Jasmuheen from Australia, foremost international ethnic chefs including an entire contingent of British Raw Food Chefs who are set on making amends for hundreds of years of boiled potatoes by making the most startlingly scrumptious raw vegan cuisine ever!
Main Outdoor and Indoor Stages will feature well-known celebrities such as Woody Harrelson and Alicia Silverstone, and the greatest speakers in the raw-eco-health world. Visit the Workshops Area to plunge into didactic and direct experience, grooving the latest about what’s happening eco-wise around the planet.
And what does the 2007 Raw Spirit Festival share in common with the spectacular scenery of Sedona? This raw vegetarian, world-class music, eco-sustainability festival ROCKS! If you love live music in a gorgeous outdoor grassy location, fire spinning beneath the stars, get-down dancing and powerful performance, you’re sure to become completely enamored with the dynamic synergized musical line-up at this year’s Raw Spirit Fest in Sedona, October 12th – 14th.
Ongoing musical performances include the innovative and profound Scott Huckabay; Prescott’s own Grammy-nominee Liz Story; jazzy Prescott pianist Tim Whitcanak; high-vibin’ Hawaiian Shimshai; profoundly celestial Tina Malia; Sedona’s venerated ecstatic luthier William Eaton; haunting native-style flautist and didge artist John Dumas; Sedona’s grooviest African-style drummer Three Trees; enlightened New York rap artist Fun Yung Moon; Sudhandanda and his melodious, healing songs of the Northwest forests; beautiful Manaka’s inspired island reggae; Connie Fisher’s eclectic folk magic; and musical comic celebrity for the stars, Scott Kalechstein, plus Many More are guaranteed to catalyze your highest vibe!
San Francisco’s Vatra will spin fire beneath the stars; Prescott’s wildest African Dancer Liz Faller, Sedona’s Belly Dancer Carrie Konya and Europe’s Slide Dancer Bettina Seidl will tantalize the senses, Mr. Human Singing Bowl will inspire shared serenity, countless indoor-outdoor restaurant muses will have a chance to play their songs, while wandering musical minstrels will enlighten cozy corners of the gorgeous festival grounds. Paying participants, including You, are encouraged to share your talents at Sunday evening’s Talent Show.
Children are half price or free and welcome to join our playful Kids’ Programs. Health coaches are available for free advice on a one-to-one basis while Leadership Sharing Circle gives the newest authors opportunities to shine and stimulate provocative group dialogue. Ongoing Wild Plant Hikes, Cuddle Party Booth and Speed Dating Games offer more fun ways to mingle. The Raw Spirit Festival happens October 12th - 14th, beginning at noon on Friday and ending at 10 pm on Sunday. More fun-loving activities are available on Monday October 15th a la carte.
http://www.rawspiritfest.com/
Registration is available online and at 928.776.1497 or 804.708.7324. happy@rawspirit.com .
• Talks, Workshops & Inspiration by over 60 phenomenal speakers, workshop leaders and facilitators including David Wolfe, Viktorus Kulvinskas, Jameth Sheridan, Joel Furman, Jasmuheen, Brian Clement, Victoria Boutenko, Len Horowitz, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich,
• Celebrity appearances
• Seven Gourmet Raw Vegan Meals
• Free raw chocolate samples from some of the best raw chocolatiers and candy-makers in the raw vegan world
• Free samples of many delicious raw vegan food items including Kombucha by High Country Kombucha, Superfood Snacks Chocolate Goji Treats, Larabars, Raw Revolution Bars, Ancient Sun's Wild Bar and more
• An Electric Car Exhibit
• International Debut of Two Major Films and a Mini-Film Fest
• Extraordinary Social Opportunities: Leadership Sharing Circle, Conscious Speed Dating, Cuddle Party, Free Coaching
• Fire Spinners, Dancers, Musicians: Over 15 amazing performers including Scott Huckabay, Liz Story, Shimshai, Tina Malia, William Eaton, and more!
• Live Food Prep Demos by amazing raw and living food chefs
• 240+ Conscious Exhibitors who share the most ecologically-friendly, conscious products on the planet
• A Rawfood Meetup Booth for people involved with a local Rawfood Meetup
• Wild Food Walks and beautiful natural scenery
• Ongoing music, poetry reading and sharing
• Chocolate party and book signing with David Wolfe and Nick Good
• Endless opportunities to meet amazing new conscious friends
• The most awesome rawsome rawkin party on planet earth
and more!
Contact: Happy Oasis (928) 776-1497
With obesity and so-called incurable diets on the rise in our country and even abroad, individuals, medical professionals, administrators and researchers are searching for solutions. A sub-group of medical professionals and people have discovered ways of eating and living more in harmony with the produce earth produces to restore and maintain wellness.
Raw Veganism is on the rise. And The Raw Spirit Festival boasts of wholeheartedly presenting the works, talents and insights individuals, medical professionals, administrators and researchers who are living the new healthful realities offered by raw foodism.
While sound waves from RSF’s many musical performances waft through the red rocks of beautiful Sedona Arizona, seven organic raw vegan gourmet meals will be served to all, while hundreds of vendors will offer a wide variety of items for sale including exotic food tastings, hemp clothing, CDs, DVDs, books, chair massage, wellness therapies, jewelry and the most cutting-edge eco-technologies available on the planet, including a variety of electric cars.
Featured speakers included dynamic David Wolfe, wise Victoria Boutenko, pioneer Viktoras Kulvinskas, Distinguished Doctors in the know, India’s pre-eminent solar-gazing teacher HRM, Jasmuheen from Australia, foremost international ethnic chefs including an entire contingent of British Raw Food Chefs who are set on making amends for hundreds of years of boiled potatoes by making the most startlingly scrumptious raw vegan cuisine ever!
Main Outdoor and Indoor Stages will feature well-known celebrities such as Woody Harrelson and Alicia Silverstone, and the greatest speakers in the raw-eco-health world. Visit the Workshops Area to plunge into didactic and direct experience, grooving the latest about what’s happening eco-wise around the planet.
And what does the 2007 Raw Spirit Festival share in common with the spectacular scenery of Sedona? This raw vegetarian, world-class music, eco-sustainability festival ROCKS! If you love live music in a gorgeous outdoor grassy location, fire spinning beneath the stars, get-down dancing and powerful performance, you’re sure to become completely enamored with the dynamic synergized musical line-up at this year’s Raw Spirit Fest in Sedona, October 12th – 14th.
Ongoing musical performances include the innovative and profound Scott Huckabay; Prescott’s own Grammy-nominee Liz Story; jazzy Prescott pianist Tim Whitcanak; high-vibin’ Hawaiian Shimshai; profoundly celestial Tina Malia; Sedona’s venerated ecstatic luthier William Eaton; haunting native-style flautist and didge artist John Dumas; Sedona’s grooviest African-style drummer Three Trees; enlightened New York rap artist Fun Yung Moon; Sudhandanda and his melodious, healing songs of the Northwest forests; beautiful Manaka’s inspired island reggae; Connie Fisher’s eclectic folk magic; and musical comic celebrity for the stars, Scott Kalechstein, plus Many More are guaranteed to catalyze your highest vibe!
San Francisco’s Vatra will spin fire beneath the stars; Prescott’s wildest African Dancer Liz Faller, Sedona’s Belly Dancer Carrie Konya and Europe’s Slide Dancer Bettina Seidl will tantalize the senses, Mr. Human Singing Bowl will inspire shared serenity, countless indoor-outdoor restaurant muses will have a chance to play their songs, while wandering musical minstrels will enlighten cozy corners of the gorgeous festival grounds. Paying participants, including You, are encouraged to share your talents at Sunday evening’s Talent Show.
Children are half price or free and welcome to join our playful Kids’ Programs. Health coaches are available for free advice on a one-to-one basis while Leadership Sharing Circle gives the newest authors opportunities to shine and stimulate provocative group dialogue. Ongoing Wild Plant Hikes, Cuddle Party Booth and Speed Dating Games offer more fun ways to mingle. The Raw Spirit Festival happens October 12th - 14th, beginning at noon on Friday and ending at 10 pm on Sunday. More fun-loving activities are available on Monday October 15th a la carte.
http://www.rawspiritfest.com/
Registration is available online and at 928.776.1497 or 804.708.7324. happy@rawspirit.com .
• Talks, Workshops & Inspiration by over 60 phenomenal speakers, workshop leaders and facilitators including David Wolfe, Viktorus Kulvinskas, Jameth Sheridan, Joel Furman, Jasmuheen, Brian Clement, Victoria Boutenko, Len Horowitz, Dennis & Elizabeth Kucinich,
• Celebrity appearances
• Seven Gourmet Raw Vegan Meals
• Free raw chocolate samples from some of the best raw chocolatiers and candy-makers in the raw vegan world
• Free samples of many delicious raw vegan food items including Kombucha by High Country Kombucha, Superfood Snacks Chocolate Goji Treats, Larabars, Raw Revolution Bars, Ancient Sun's Wild Bar and more
• An Electric Car Exhibit
• International Debut of Two Major Films and a Mini-Film Fest
• Extraordinary Social Opportunities: Leadership Sharing Circle, Conscious Speed Dating, Cuddle Party, Free Coaching
• Fire Spinners, Dancers, Musicians: Over 15 amazing performers including Scott Huckabay, Liz Story, Shimshai, Tina Malia, William Eaton, and more!
• Live Food Prep Demos by amazing raw and living food chefs
• 240+ Conscious Exhibitors who share the most ecologically-friendly, conscious products on the planet
• A Rawfood Meetup Booth for people involved with a local Rawfood Meetup
• Wild Food Walks and beautiful natural scenery
• Ongoing music, poetry reading and sharing
• Chocolate party and book signing with David Wolfe and Nick Good
• Endless opportunities to meet amazing new conscious friends
• The most awesome rawsome rawkin party on planet earth
and more!
Hillary the She-Bush
Cindy Sheehan
cspeacemom@sbcglobal.net
Friday, September 28, 2007
Hillary the She-Bush by Cindy Sheehan
Dear Friends,
With the deplorable performance of Hillary at the debate, the other evening, I decided to post an article that appeared in The Progressive Magazine earlier this year.
Cindy
Let’s face it: In 2008, we are not going to get much worse than George W. Bush. I shudder to even think of what a President worse than George would look like.
I am hoping with 2008, though, that the American electorate will not settle for someone who is not as bad as George W., but we will seek out, support and celebrate someone who is far better and will lead our country back on a path of healing and peace in a way that will also show the rest of the planet that the United States is regaining her sanity after the horribly destructive Bush years.
I am praying that we are finished with politicians who either don’t listen to the American public at all, or like Hillary Clinton, play political games while our troops are dying by the dozens every week.
It’s hard to figure out which Hillary will appear on a given day. In a voice that alternates between nails on a chalkboard and the charm, warmth, and modulation of a dripping faucet, Hillary changes her rhetoric and her positions as fast as her advisers can send her a message on her Blackberry. (A recent disturbing trend she has been exhibiting is laughing wildly and inappropriately at weird random times...it's truly creepy).
One of the reasons that I’m opposed to a Hillary Clinton Presidency is that another Clinton in the White House would mean that for the last twenty years we have had either a Clinton or a Bush in power. America does not do dynasties. We broke away from a monarchy 231 years ago, and we have engaged in imperialism all over the world allegedly deposing dynasties. Even though the monograms are already in place, it sets a dangerous precedent, especially with another Bush in the offing.
Everyone who knows me, though, understands the main reason I do not, have not, or will not support Hillary Clinton. It is not because she is annoying. It is not because she is a Clinton. It is because she is a She-Bush warmonger. She can twang all she wants that she has always been against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, (as she did on a recent MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann) but anyone with a memory and a basic awareness of current events knows she is not exactly telling the truth. She said this on the floor of the Senate before she cast her original vote: “The facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt. . . . Saddam must disarm or be disarmed.”
I want Senator Clinton to show remorse for her complicity in the murder of my son, Casey, and his buddies, and for the mass murder of the Iraqi people. Even though saying, “I’m sorry for my vote that caused so much pain,” will not raise anyone from the dead, or rebuild the smashed structures and infrastructure in Iraq, it may go a long way toward healing and also toward bringing the rest of the troops home so they can live a long life on top of the earth, not prematurely buried beneath it.
But Hillary refuses, even at this late, to apologize. “Mrs. Clinton believes that reversing course on Iraq would invite the charge of flip-flopping that damaged Mr. Kerry,” The New York Times reported on February 18. “She argued to associates in private discussions that Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry lost, in part, because they could not convince enough Americans that they were resolute on national security, the associates said. Mrs. Clinton’s image as a strong leader, in turn, is critical to her hopes of becoming the nation’s first female President. According to one adviser, her internal polling indicates that a high proportion of Democrats see her as strong and tough, both assets particularly for a female candidate who is seeking to become commander in chief.”
Still, she tries to have it both ways, saying that if she becomes President in 2009 she will “bring the troops home from Iraq” if they are still there. My answer to that is: Come in off of the fundraising track and work on bringing the troops home now. While the Senator is out campaigning and equivocating, people are dying.
I, my sister, Dede, and another Gold Star Mother, Lynn Braddach, whose son, Travis Nall, was killed in Iraq in 2003, met with Senator Clinton in September of 2005. We poured our hearts and souls out to her. We cried as we told her of our sons and our fear for the people of Iraq and the escalating body count of our brave young people. She sat there stone-faced and walked out and told Sarah Ferguson of the Village Voice, “My bottom line is that I don’t want their sons to die in vain. . . . I don’t believe it’s smart to set a date for withdrawal. . . . I don’t think it’s the right time to withdraw.” She may as well have slapped us in the face using Bloody George’s own lines and using our son’s sacrifice to justify her own warmongering.
Since we met with her, more than 1,000 of our young people have come home in body bags and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died while she was waiting for the best political time to be semi-against the war. How many of our troops are lying in Walter Reed with devastating injuries that could have been prevented if a Senate leader like Clinton would have taken a moral, instead of a political, stance?
On January 18th, Senator Clinton introduced a meaningless bill to put a cap on the number of soldiers that can be in Iraq. She set the cap at January 1st levels. It is as weak and meaningless as the nonbinding resolution, and it is just as politically safe, since about two-thirds of the country now opposes the war—and Bloody George, too.
This occupation of Iraq can’t be won by being smarter; it was lost before we went in. The United States was the big loser in a capricious military expedition that began with the support of Senator Clinton. She is an amazingly brilliant person, and she cannot credibly say that she was fooled, or lied to, by George. But that is what she said, as she began to backpedal as early as October 17, 2003.
“The Administration gilded the lily, engaged in hyperbole, took whatever small nugget of intelligence that existed and blew it up into a mountain,” she said on the Senate floor that day.
I don’t want a President who admits to being fooled by George Bush, one of the biggest fools in American history.
Now, as Bush threatens war with Iran, Senator Clinton is in no position to hold him back. In fact, she out-hawks George W. on the imminent invasion of Iran. Early last year, she had this to say to a meeting of AIPAC (American-Israeli Political Action Committee): “U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” she said. “In dealing with this threat . . . no option can be taken off the table.”
To avoid letting Iran get a nuclear weapon, she is willing to go nuclear. She dares to threaten using a weapon of mass destruction, which has only ever been used by the U.S., to pick the mote out of Iran’s eye when Israel has hundreds of logs in its own eye, and America has thousands.
I want a President who keeps us safe. But I crave a President who keeps us safe not by killing innocent people, or embarking on an insane arms race to add weaponry to our already formidable arsenal, but by implementing wise policies that give fewer people abroad any good reason to despise us. I crave a President who does not aspire to run the empire just like the guys but who understands the need to dismantle the empire and to turn this country into a real democracy, instead.
I, again, affirm my commitment to peace. I don’t care if it is a man or a woman; Democrat, Republican, Green; white, brown, or black; Christian, Jew, Muslim, or otherwise. I will only support a candidate who is courageously and uncompromisingly committed to peace.
Hillary Clinton is not that person. She never will be.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Bush’s war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute.
Cindy@CindyforCongress.org
cspeacemom@sbcglobal.net
Friday, September 28, 2007
Hillary the She-Bush by Cindy Sheehan
Dear Friends,
With the deplorable performance of Hillary at the debate, the other evening, I decided to post an article that appeared in The Progressive Magazine earlier this year.
Cindy
Let’s face it: In 2008, we are not going to get much worse than George W. Bush. I shudder to even think of what a President worse than George would look like.
I am hoping with 2008, though, that the American electorate will not settle for someone who is not as bad as George W., but we will seek out, support and celebrate someone who is far better and will lead our country back on a path of healing and peace in a way that will also show the rest of the planet that the United States is regaining her sanity after the horribly destructive Bush years.
I am praying that we are finished with politicians who either don’t listen to the American public at all, or like Hillary Clinton, play political games while our troops are dying by the dozens every week.
It’s hard to figure out which Hillary will appear on a given day. In a voice that alternates between nails on a chalkboard and the charm, warmth, and modulation of a dripping faucet, Hillary changes her rhetoric and her positions as fast as her advisers can send her a message on her Blackberry. (A recent disturbing trend she has been exhibiting is laughing wildly and inappropriately at weird random times...it's truly creepy).
One of the reasons that I’m opposed to a Hillary Clinton Presidency is that another Clinton in the White House would mean that for the last twenty years we have had either a Clinton or a Bush in power. America does not do dynasties. We broke away from a monarchy 231 years ago, and we have engaged in imperialism all over the world allegedly deposing dynasties. Even though the monograms are already in place, it sets a dangerous precedent, especially with another Bush in the offing.
Everyone who knows me, though, understands the main reason I do not, have not, or will not support Hillary Clinton. It is not because she is annoying. It is not because she is a Clinton. It is because she is a She-Bush warmonger. She can twang all she wants that she has always been against the invasion and occupation of Iraq, (as she did on a recent MSNBC Countdown with Keith Olbermann) but anyone with a memory and a basic awareness of current events knows she is not exactly telling the truth. She said this on the floor of the Senate before she cast her original vote: “The facts that have brought us to this fateful vote are not in doubt. . . . Saddam must disarm or be disarmed.”
I want Senator Clinton to show remorse for her complicity in the murder of my son, Casey, and his buddies, and for the mass murder of the Iraqi people. Even though saying, “I’m sorry for my vote that caused so much pain,” will not raise anyone from the dead, or rebuild the smashed structures and infrastructure in Iraq, it may go a long way toward healing and also toward bringing the rest of the troops home so they can live a long life on top of the earth, not prematurely buried beneath it.
But Hillary refuses, even at this late, to apologize. “Mrs. Clinton believes that reversing course on Iraq would invite the charge of flip-flopping that damaged Mr. Kerry,” The New York Times reported on February 18. “She argued to associates in private discussions that Mr. Gore and Mr. Kerry lost, in part, because they could not convince enough Americans that they were resolute on national security, the associates said. Mrs. Clinton’s image as a strong leader, in turn, is critical to her hopes of becoming the nation’s first female President. According to one adviser, her internal polling indicates that a high proportion of Democrats see her as strong and tough, both assets particularly for a female candidate who is seeking to become commander in chief.”
Still, she tries to have it both ways, saying that if she becomes President in 2009 she will “bring the troops home from Iraq” if they are still there. My answer to that is: Come in off of the fundraising track and work on bringing the troops home now. While the Senator is out campaigning and equivocating, people are dying.
I, my sister, Dede, and another Gold Star Mother, Lynn Braddach, whose son, Travis Nall, was killed in Iraq in 2003, met with Senator Clinton in September of 2005. We poured our hearts and souls out to her. We cried as we told her of our sons and our fear for the people of Iraq and the escalating body count of our brave young people. She sat there stone-faced and walked out and told Sarah Ferguson of the Village Voice, “My bottom line is that I don’t want their sons to die in vain. . . . I don’t believe it’s smart to set a date for withdrawal. . . . I don’t think it’s the right time to withdraw.” She may as well have slapped us in the face using Bloody George’s own lines and using our son’s sacrifice to justify her own warmongering.
Since we met with her, more than 1,000 of our young people have come home in body bags and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died while she was waiting for the best political time to be semi-against the war. How many of our troops are lying in Walter Reed with devastating injuries that could have been prevented if a Senate leader like Clinton would have taken a moral, instead of a political, stance?
On January 18th, Senator Clinton introduced a meaningless bill to put a cap on the number of soldiers that can be in Iraq. She set the cap at January 1st levels. It is as weak and meaningless as the nonbinding resolution, and it is just as politically safe, since about two-thirds of the country now opposes the war—and Bloody George, too.
This occupation of Iraq can’t be won by being smarter; it was lost before we went in. The United States was the big loser in a capricious military expedition that began with the support of Senator Clinton. She is an amazingly brilliant person, and she cannot credibly say that she was fooled, or lied to, by George. But that is what she said, as she began to backpedal as early as October 17, 2003.
“The Administration gilded the lily, engaged in hyperbole, took whatever small nugget of intelligence that existed and blew it up into a mountain,” she said on the Senate floor that day.
I don’t want a President who admits to being fooled by George Bush, one of the biggest fools in American history.
Now, as Bush threatens war with Iran, Senator Clinton is in no position to hold him back. In fact, she out-hawks George W. on the imminent invasion of Iran. Early last year, she had this to say to a meeting of AIPAC (American-Israeli Political Action Committee): “U.S. policy must be clear and unequivocal: We cannot, we should not, we must not permit Iran to build or acquire nuclear weapons,” she said. “In dealing with this threat . . . no option can be taken off the table.”
To avoid letting Iran get a nuclear weapon, she is willing to go nuclear. She dares to threaten using a weapon of mass destruction, which has only ever been used by the U.S., to pick the mote out of Iran’s eye when Israel has hundreds of logs in its own eye, and America has thousands.
I want a President who keeps us safe. But I crave a President who keeps us safe not by killing innocent people, or embarking on an insane arms race to add weaponry to our already formidable arsenal, but by implementing wise policies that give fewer people abroad any good reason to despise us. I crave a President who does not aspire to run the empire just like the guys but who understands the need to dismantle the empire and to turn this country into a real democracy, instead.
I, again, affirm my commitment to peace. I don’t care if it is a man or a woman; Democrat, Republican, Green; white, brown, or black; Christian, Jew, Muslim, or otherwise. I will only support a candidate who is courageously and uncompromisingly committed to peace.
Hillary Clinton is not that person. She never will be.
Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Specialist Casey Sheehan, who was killed in Bush’s war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute.
Cindy@CindyforCongress.org
2 Patriot Act provisions ruled unlawful
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/09/26/2_patriot_act_provisions_ruled_unlawful/
2 Patriot Act provisions ruled unlawful
By William McCall, Associated Press Writer
September 26, 2007
PORTLAND, Ore. --Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."
Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.
The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.
Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.
"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law -- with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.
By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."
Elden Rosenthal, an attorney for Mayfield, issued a statement on his behalf praising the judge, saying she "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."
Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency was reviewing the decision, and he declined to comment further.
The ruling probably won't have any immediate affect on enforcement under the Patriot Act, according to legal experts who predicted the government would quickly appeal.
"But it's an important first step," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project.
Jaffer noted that the Patriot Act carries dozens of provisions and that several have been challenged -- but that this is one of the first major rulings on Fourth Amendment rights.
"This is as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as you'll ever find," Jaffer said.
Garrett Epps, a constitutional law expert at the University of Oregon, said the ruling adds to the poor record that the Bush administration has piled up in defending the Patriot Act.
"It's embarrassing," Epps said. "It represents another judicial repudiation of this administration's terrorist surveillance policies."
A federal judge in New York this month handed the ACLU a victory in a challenge to the Patriot Act on behalf of an Internet service provider that was issued a "national security letter" demanding customer phone and computer records. The judge in that case ruled the FBI must justify to a court the need for secrecy for more than a brief and reasonable period of time.
Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was taken into custody on May 6, 2004, because of a fingerprint found on a detonator at the scene of the Madrid bombing. The FBI said the print matched Mayfield's. He was released about two weeks later, and the FBI admitted it had erred in saying the fingerprints were his and later apologized to him.
Before his arrest, the FBI put Mayfield under 24-hour surveillance, listened to his phone calls and surreptitiously searched his home and law office.
The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department's internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.
Congress passed the Patriot Act with little debate shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help counter terrorist activities. It gave federal law enforcers the authority to search telephone and e-mail communications and expanded the Treasury Department's regulation of financial transactions involving foreign nationals. The law was renewed in 2005.
In early August, the Bush administration persuaded lawmakers to expand the government's power to listen in on any foreign communication it deemed of interest without a court order, even if an American was a party. The expanded surveillance authority expires early next year. As Congress takes a closer look at the law, many Democrats want to rein in language that many consider overly broad.
2 Patriot Act provisions ruled unlawful
By William McCall, Associated Press Writer
September 26, 2007
PORTLAND, Ore. --Two provisions of the USA Patriot Act are unconstitutional because they allow search warrants to be issued without a showing of probable cause, a federal judge ruled Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Ann Aiken ruled that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, as amended by the Patriot Act, "now permits the executive branch of government to conduct surveillance and searches of American citizens without satisfying the probable cause requirements of the Fourth Amendment."
Portland attorney Brandon Mayfield sought the ruling in a lawsuit against the federal government after he was mistakenly linked by the FBI to the Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people in 2004.
The federal government apologized and settled part of the lawsuit for $2 million after admitting a fingerprint was misread. But as part of the settlement, Mayfield retained the right to challenge parts of the Patriot Act, which greatly expanded the authority of law enforcers to investigate suspected acts of terrorism.
Mayfield claimed that secret searches of his house and office under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act violated the Fourth Amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure. Aiken agreed with Mayfield, repeatedly criticizing the government.
"For over 200 years, this Nation has adhered to the rule of law -- with unparalleled success. A shift to a Nation based on extra-constitutional authority is prohibited, as well as ill-advised," she wrote.
By asking her to dismiss Mayfield's lawsuit, the judge said, the U.S. attorney general's office was "asking this court to, in essence, amend the Bill of Rights, by giving it an interpretation that would deprive it of any real meaning. This court declines to do so."
Elden Rosenthal, an attorney for Mayfield, issued a statement on his behalf praising the judge, saying she "has upheld both the tradition of judicial independence, and our nation's most cherished principle of the right to be secure in one's own home."
Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the agency was reviewing the decision, and he declined to comment further.
The ruling probably won't have any immediate affect on enforcement under the Patriot Act, according to legal experts who predicted the government would quickly appeal.
"But it's an important first step," said Jameel Jaffer, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's national security project.
Jaffer noted that the Patriot Act carries dozens of provisions and that several have been challenged -- but that this is one of the first major rulings on Fourth Amendment rights.
"This is as clear a violation of the Fourth Amendment as you'll ever find," Jaffer said.
Garrett Epps, a constitutional law expert at the University of Oregon, said the ruling adds to the poor record that the Bush administration has piled up in defending the Patriot Act.
"It's embarrassing," Epps said. "It represents another judicial repudiation of this administration's terrorist surveillance policies."
A federal judge in New York this month handed the ACLU a victory in a challenge to the Patriot Act on behalf of an Internet service provider that was issued a "national security letter" demanding customer phone and computer records. The judge in that case ruled the FBI must justify to a court the need for secrecy for more than a brief and reasonable period of time.
Mayfield, a Muslim convert, was taken into custody on May 6, 2004, because of a fingerprint found on a detonator at the scene of the Madrid bombing. The FBI said the print matched Mayfield's. He was released about two weeks later, and the FBI admitted it had erred in saying the fingerprints were his and later apologized to him.
Before his arrest, the FBI put Mayfield under 24-hour surveillance, listened to his phone calls and surreptitiously searched his home and law office.
The Mayfield case has been an embarrassment for the federal government. Last year, the Justice Department's internal watchdog faulted the FBI for sloppy work in mistakenly linking Mayfield to the Madrid bombings. That report said federal prosecutors and FBI agents had made inaccurate and ambiguous statements to a federal judge to get arrest and criminal search warrants against Mayfield.
Congress passed the Patriot Act with little debate shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to help counter terrorist activities. It gave federal law enforcers the authority to search telephone and e-mail communications and expanded the Treasury Department's regulation of financial transactions involving foreign nationals. The law was renewed in 2005.
In early August, the Bush administration persuaded lawmakers to expand the government's power to listen in on any foreign communication it deemed of interest without a court order, even if an American was a party. The expanded surveillance authority expires early next year. As Congress takes a closer look at the law, many Democrats want to rein in language that many consider overly broad.
More Republicans Than Democrats...
http://tpmelectioncentral.com/2007/09/poll_more_republicans_than_democrats_approve_of_congress.php
Poll: More Republicans Than Democrats Approve Of Congress
By Eric Kleefeld
September 20, 2007
Now this is curious. In the latest Gallup poll, more Republicans approve of the job Congress is doing than there are Democrats who approve. According to the poll, 37% of Republicans approve of Congress' performance, compared to 23% of Democrats and 14% of independents, with an overall rating of 24% approval and 71% disapproval.
This is odd, of course, considering that both houses have Democratic majorities. But on second thought, the current Congress has passed President Bush's funding requests for Iraq, passed his FISA bill, and has given the White House exactly what it wanted on a host of other issues. So what do Republicans really have to complain about?
Poll: More Republicans Than Democrats Approve Of Congress
By Eric Kleefeld
September 20, 2007
Now this is curious. In the latest Gallup poll, more Republicans approve of the job Congress is doing than there are Democrats who approve. According to the poll, 37% of Republicans approve of Congress' performance, compared to 23% of Democrats and 14% of independents, with an overall rating of 24% approval and 71% disapproval.
This is odd, of course, considering that both houses have Democratic majorities. But on second thought, the current Congress has passed President Bush's funding requests for Iraq, passed his FISA bill, and has given the White House exactly what it wanted on a host of other issues. So what do Republicans really have to complain about?
We Need to Sell 1,000 'Neck Deep' Books
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092707b.html
We Need to Sell 1,000 'Neck Deep' Books
September 27, 2007
In September, we’ve had a dangerous budget shortfall at Consortiumnews.com. So we’re hoping to fill the gap by selling 1,000 copies of our new book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. With each sale, $5 is rebated to help keep our free investigative Web site alive.
So, if you haven’t bought a copy of this important new book – co-authored by award-winning investigative reporter Robert Parry and two of his sons, Sam and Nat Parry – please go to the publisher’s Web site right now at http://www.neckdeepbook.com/. If you’ve already bought a copy for yourself, buy another for a friend.
Neck Deep is the first book to offer a critical examination of the entire presidency of George W. Bush – from the electoral chicanery at the start through the cascade of catastrophes that have followed. Other books have dealt skeptically with narrow pieces of this history, and some books by Bush’s acolytes have offered an overview that puts a positive gloss on this national disaster.
However, if the history is going to be accurate – and if these deadly mistakes are not to be repeated – the honest account of Neck Deep must become the dominant narrative of the Bush years. You can help by making sure as many people as possible read this compelling work of recent history.
If you prefer to order by mail, you can print out a form at http://www.neckdeepbook.com/ or just send a check for the Neck Deep purchase price (paperback $22.95 or hardcover $29.95) plus $4 for shipping to The Media Consortium; Suite 102-231; 2200 Wilson Blvd.; Arlington, VA 22201.
Thank you.
We Need to Sell 1,000 'Neck Deep' Books
September 27, 2007
In September, we’ve had a dangerous budget shortfall at Consortiumnews.com. So we’re hoping to fill the gap by selling 1,000 copies of our new book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. With each sale, $5 is rebated to help keep our free investigative Web site alive.
So, if you haven’t bought a copy of this important new book – co-authored by award-winning investigative reporter Robert Parry and two of his sons, Sam and Nat Parry – please go to the publisher’s Web site right now at http://www.neckdeepbook.com/. If you’ve already bought a copy for yourself, buy another for a friend.
Neck Deep is the first book to offer a critical examination of the entire presidency of George W. Bush – from the electoral chicanery at the start through the cascade of catastrophes that have followed. Other books have dealt skeptically with narrow pieces of this history, and some books by Bush’s acolytes have offered an overview that puts a positive gloss on this national disaster.
However, if the history is going to be accurate – and if these deadly mistakes are not to be repeated – the honest account of Neck Deep must become the dominant narrative of the Bush years. You can help by making sure as many people as possible read this compelling work of recent history.
If you prefer to order by mail, you can print out a form at http://www.neckdeepbook.com/ or just send a check for the Neck Deep purchase price (paperback $22.95 or hardcover $29.95) plus $4 for shipping to The Media Consortium; Suite 102-231; 2200 Wilson Blvd.; Arlington, VA 22201.
Thank you.
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