Guess who is a more important guest at Blair House than Barack Obama? John Howard, the former Australian prime minister. As you will recall, Howard was one of the leading members of President Bush’s coalition of the willing in Iraq.

Howard and his entourage will be bunking at Blair House on Jan. 12, the night before he, former British prime minister Tony Blair and Colombian President Álvaro Uribe are to be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Bush, said Sally McDonough, a spokeswoman for first lady Laura Bush. The three current and former heads of state are longtime political allies of the president’s, and Blair and Howard were key partners in the Iraq war.

Blair and Uribe also were invited to stay at Blair House but declined Bush’s invitation, said a second White House official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Blair, who traditionally stays at the British Embassy, and Uribe apparently found other accommodations, the source said.

There are other scheduled events at Blair House, but no other overnight visits between now and Jan. 15, when the Obama family is scheduled to move in, McDonough said. Source: The Washington Post

Barack Obama had requested an early move0-in at the 70,000-square-foot, 119-room mansion so that his children could settle in to start school this week at Sidwell Friends School. But the Obamas was told the residence had been booked, so they took a suite at the Hay-Adams. At the time, the White House would not say which events were bumping the Obamas. Once again, President Bush has his priorities mixed up.

Original post by Janet Shan

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Have you seen this woman? Sonja Kohn?

Sonja Kohn, Austria’s ‘Woman on Wall Street’ is now out of sight. She is tied to Ponzi scheme criminal Bernard Madoff. She was Madoff’s front-woman. She gathered billions for Madoff from wealthy investors in Russia and across Europe. I guess that’s why she’s missing. Those wealthy Russian Oligarchs are looking for her. I guess with them as clients and their money lost, she ought to be afraid. Very afraid.

According to the NY Times, she left Bank Medici, the firm she founded, in the hands of Austrian regulators who took it over last week. She invested heavily with Madoff and I suspect that her next place of residence will be a prison cell. But another theory widely repeated by those who know Mrs. Kohn is that she may be afraid of some particularly displeased investors: Russian oligarchs whose money made up a chunk of the $2.1 billion that Bank Medici invested with Mr. Madoff.

Isn’t this a stunning fall from grace for this 60 year-old woman? She is the daughter of Jewish refugees from Eastern Europe who moved to Vienna after World War II. She came to New York in the 1980s and was one of the rare women to found and head a small brokerage firm. At that time, she started a decades-long friendship with Mr. Madoff. Once known here as “Austria’s woman on Wall Street,” she became one of Mr. Madoff’s international conduits for securing billions of dollars from the global rich. Mrs. Kohn owns 75 percent of Bank Medici, with Bank Austria holding the rest.

The fallout from Bernard Madoff is far-reaching and I think we are in store for more surprises and more arrests. Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Kohn, some Russians are looking for you and they’re not happy!

To read the entire article, CLICK HERE

Original post by Janet Shan

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I am not a sports fanatic, but I do have a problem with wrongful termination, or the appearance of some type of impropriety. I also have an issue when someone just releasing a lot of hot air, which may be happening in this situation. It seems like Detroit News sports columnist Rob Parker was forced to resign. Prior to being forced out, he was demoted to general assignment sports reporter, the Newspaper Guild disclosed. The fallout stems from a news conference question to the coach of the Detroit Lions NFL team that drew criticism from management, readers and other sports journalists.

At a postgame news conference on Dec. 21, Parker asked Lions coach Rod Marinelli whether he wished his daughter had married “a better defensive coordinator.” Fox television showed the question, prompting analyst Terry Bradshaw to say: “You know, Rob, you’re an idiot. You’re just a flat idiot.” Others chimed in.

Parker defended himself in a column that Monday, saying, “What might have seemed like a personal attack wasn’t. . . . I respect what Marinelli is trying to accomplish as Lions coach, and he respects what I do as a sports columnist — ask questions, tough ones, to get at the root of his team’s woes.”

But Marinelli said the next day, “Anytime you attack my daughter, I’ve got a problem with that . . .” and, asked whether the question crossed the line, replied, “big time.” The Lions fired Marinelli on Dec. 28, a day after the team became the first in NFL history to finish with a record of 0-16. Source: Journal-Isms

I think the question was unprofessional, inappropriate and insulting. Apparently, it isn’t the first time Parker has been in hot water. Less than two months prior to that, according to Journal-Isms, he apologized for implicating Michigan State University backup quarterback Kirk Cousins in an off-campus assault. Parker made the statement in October on WDIV-TV’s “Clubhouse Confidential.” Mleczkc said Parker was suspended without pay for “several days” and then demoted to sports general assignment reporter for “several weeks.” The Guild filed a grievance on Parker’s behalf on Nov. 24, saying Parker made the comments as a freelancer, not as a News employee.

Back in 1991, Parker was brought up on charges by the Newspaper Guild for crossing picket lines during a bitter strike at the New York Daily News. The charges were later dropped and Parker moved on to the Cincinnati Enquirer. Parker started at Newsday in 1995, one month after he had been suspended for a day for making a joke on a radio program he co-hosted on WDFN-AM, a Detroit all-sports station. He jokingly said in a discussion of cats, “everyone needs a little pussy.”

According to Wikipedia, “The African-American Parker is not shy to discuss the racial aspects of current sports events, such as the NBA off-court dress policy, or the lack of African-Americans in NFL coaching positions. He penned a much-debated column where he called Hank Aaron a ‘coward’ for declining to attend when Barry Bonds would break the career Major League home run record.” Last year, Parker declared on ESPN’s “First Take” that he had low expectations for college players Tyler Hansbrough and Kevin Love in the NBA, because they are white.

Maybe the penalty for his question was disproportionate, but it was clearly unprofessional. The guy has a track record of exercising poor judgment. Personally, he got what was due to him. Good riddance.

Original post by Janet Shan

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Well, the more dire the economy becomes the more suicides occur. Well, at least of money managers and other rich folks. The latest is Steven L. Good, 52, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He was found in his Jaguar in a forest preserve outside Chicago, said the Kane County Sheriff’s Department.

Mr. Good was chief executive of Sheldon Good & Co., one of the nation’s largest real-estate auction firms. His father founded the company in 1965. As chairman of the Realtors Commercial Alliance Committee, Mr. Good said last month in an industry outlook news release that market conditions were “very challenging.”

According to the company’s Web site, Sheldon Good “has sold more than 45,000 U.S. and international properties in more than 100 different classes and produced more than $10 billion in sales.”

Mr. Good wrote a book called “Churches, Jails and Gold Mines…Mega-Deals from a Real Estate Maverick.” In it, Mr. Good tells how he purportedly turned his auction firm into the real-estate equivalent of Sotheby’s or Christie’s. “That book is a must-read for anyone in real-estate auctions,” said Chris Longly, spokesman for the National Auctioneers Association. Source: Wall Street Journal

This latest wave of suicides show how materialistic people are. Poor folks won’t kill themselves. They’ll make do with what they have. Some rich folks freak out once the market goes down. They are in a tailspin and the only alternative for them is suicide. How selfish. This comes on the heels of German billionaire Adolf Merckle killing himself because his fortune dipped a couple billions. A message to all the rich folks contemplating suicide, think about your family first and the anguish and heartache that would ensue.

Original post by Janet Shan

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President-elect Barack Obama’s new limo has been unveiled. The only problem is that it looks like a Batmobile. I see why General Motors Corp. is having money troubles. It is a hideous car, in my opinion. The car has been delivered to the Secret Service.

The armored 2009 Cadillac Presidential Limousine will make its debut at Obama’s Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington. The Secret Service and GM say they’ll reveal more about the custom vehicle’s specifications next week.

Older-model presidential limos will remain in use. The previous model, a modified Cadillac DTS, was introduced at President George W. Bush’s second inauguration in 2005.

The reviews are brutal:

“Ugly as sin,” says one car enthusiast on an auto Web site. “Can’t we make a hotter ride for our pres?”

“Sheesh,” says another, “why don’t they just transport the president around in an Abrams tank.”

One news agency, noting its 8-inch-thick doors, says the limo can withstand a “direct hit from an asteroid.” But GM spokeswoman Joanne K. Krell laughed off the comments.

“And it will fix you a latte if you ask,” she jokes.

If you ask me, it belongs in a rap video or a Batman movie.

Original post by Janet Shan

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I think that Sanjay Gupta would make a good surgeon general. He has done a lot of positive things in his career. But, here’s the most important thing weighing on the minds of many–his wife. According to InStyle Magazine, as a neurosurgeon and CNN senior medical correspondent who spent a month with the U.S. Navy in Iraq, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, 35, has been in plenty of trying situations. But his resolve was tested anew when he proposed to Rebecca Olson, 36. “I wrote her a poem and in the last line asked her to marry me,” says Gupta. “Watching her read it, I was very nervous—it was over a page long.” Adds Olson, a family law attorney, “He was down on one knee and asking me to marry him before I even got to the end!”

To read more, CLICK HERE.…

Original post by Janet Shan

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All I can say to this is, DAMN.

According to the Smoking Gun, In a bizarre incident that will surely lead to litigation (or an out-of-court settlement), a skier at Colorado’s ritzy Vail resort was left dangling upside down and pantsless from a chairlift last Friday morning. The January 2 mishap apparently occurred after the male skier and a child boarded a high-speed lift in Vail’s Blue Sky Basin. It appears that the chairlift’s fold-down seat was somehow not in the lowered position, which caused the man to partially fall through the resulting gap. His right ski got jammed in the ascending chairlift, and that kept him upended since his boot never dislodged from its binding. As seen in the photos on the following pages (which were snapped by fellow skiers), the Skyline Express lift was stopped shortly after the pair’s botched 10:30 AM boarding resulted in the man dangling from the lift. The exposed skier was stuck for about 15 minutes before Vail personnel backed the lift up and successfully dislodged the unidentified man from the four-seat chair.

I can tell you now, if the company was negligent, a massive lawsuit is coming. I can’t say I blame the skier if he did sue the company. That had to be a harrowing experience!

Original post by Janet Shan

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German newspaper Die Welt is reporting that German billionaire Adolf Merckle, whose investment company was renegotiating its bank debt, died after he was hit by a train and may have committed suicide, Die Welt reported.

Merckle was struck near his hometown of Blaubeuren, southeast of Stuttgart, yesterday evening, the German newspaper said on its Web site today. Police said he may have killed himself, the newspaper said.

Yep, another investment baron to fall flat on his face. Merckle had lost money from a series of wrong-way bets on Volkswagen AG, a drop in the value of his HeidelbergCement AG stake and increasing debt. The 74-year-old, whose estimated $9.2 billion fortune put him 94th on Forbes’s list of the world’s richest people, was negotiating with banks on a bridge loan to rescue his investment company VEM Vermoegensverwaltung GmbH.

Merckle was to get more than $547 million in bridge loans to rescue VEM, Financial Times Deutschland reported yesterday, citing unidentified bankers. I hate to say it, but Merckle won’t be the last to kill himself over bad investments. It isn’t everyday that people leisurely stroll on the railroad tracks and get hit by a passing train, unless of course, they wanted to get killed.

Original post by Janet Shan

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Dr. Richard Sharpe, the cross-dressing doctor convicted of murdering his estranged wife Karen in November 2001 was founded hanged in his prison cell at the MCI Norfolk Monday evening, state corrections officials said. You see, his conscience got the better of him. Scumbag.

Sharpe, 54, a wealthy Gloucester, Mass., dermatologist, was found guilty of gunning down his estranged wife at her Wenham, Mass., home after allegedly beating her for years. He was found hanging in his cell by another prison inmate about 7:30 p.m. Monday and was taken to Norwood Hospital where he was pronounced dead a short time later, corrections officials said. He was serving a life sentence for his wife’s murder.

At the time of her death, Karen Sharpe’s divorce attorney, Jacob Atwood, said she had gone to the hospital because of beatings by her husband, and that Richard Sharpe had ordered her to lie about her injuries. In one incident, Sharpe stabbed his 44-year-old wife in the head with a fork, Atwood said. When Richard Sharpe came home once with duct tape and hoses, the mother of three was so afraid she moved into a motel, the attorney said.

Sharpe was convicted of using a high-powered hunting rifle to kill Karen Sharpe with a single shot to the chest on July 14, 2001 as her brother and his girlfriend watched in horror. Two of the Sharpes’ children, ages 4 and 7, also were in the house. Richard Sharpe, 45 at the time, fled to New Hampshire where he was later arrested hiding out at a motel.

Before the murder trial, his wife’s attorney accused Sharpe of being a cross-dresser who took his wife’s birth control pills and later shot her before his habits could be made public during divorce proceedings. Source: The Boston Channel

The scumbag pleaded guilty by reason of insanity. Of course, we all know that was a lie. He was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison. A year later he was accused of trying to hire a hit man while behind bars in order to kill the prosecutor who put him behind bars. To echo the words of Jamaican superstar Buju Banton, “murderer, blood is on your shoulders.”

Original post by Janet Shan

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U.N. officials said an Israeli strike directly hit the elementary school compound where more than 400 Palestinians had come to escape fighting in northern Gaza, and which was clearly marked as a U.N. installation. The U.N. said it was “strongly protesting” the incident and called on Israel to immediately investigate it. I will not condone what Hamas has done to the Israelis, but at the same time, the offensive is killing children. Why was a school a direct strike by the Israelis? This is crazy because if the same thing was done to an Israeli school, all hell would break loose. The read more, CLICK HERE.

Original post by Janet Shan

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