Michael Jackson sued by Arab sheikh in UK court

11/17/2008 3:18 PM, AP


The son of an Arab monarch took the King of Pop to court Monday, charging that Michael Jackson took $7 million as an advance on an al*** and an autobiography that he never produced.

Lawyers for Sheikh Abdulla bin Hamad Al Khalifa say their client paid's Jackson expenses as an advance on the book and joint recording project with the sheikh, who is an amateur songwriter. Jackson claims the money was a gift.

Al Khalifa, 33, was due to testify at London's Royal Courts of Justice Wednesday. Jackson's lawyer Robert Englehart said he was seeking permission to have Jackson testify by video link from Los Angeles.

A lawyer for Al Khalifa said the royal first spoke to Jackson, 50, by telephone while the singer was on trial in California following his 2003 arrest on child molestation charges. Attorney Bankim Thanki said that Al Khalifa wanted to work with Jackson on rebuilding his career. Jackson's finances fell apart after his arrest and he was desperately short of cash.

Al Khalifa's first payment, for $35,000, went toward paying the utility bills at Neverland, Jackson's 2,500-acre (1,000 hectare) ranch and miniature amusement park in California, Thanki said. When Jackson was found innocent of the molestation charges in June 2005, Al Khalifa footed $2.2 million in legal bills, the lawyer said.

Al Khalifa said he believed the money would be repaid once Jackson's career recovered from the damaging trial.

"I saw the payment as an investment in Michael's potential," the sheikh in a statement he read out in court. "He said he would pay me back ... through our work together."

Al Khalifa moved Jackson and his entourage to Bahrain almost immediately after the trial, setting up a recording studio for him in Manama, the Gulf state's capital. The sheikh, who is the governor of the Bahrain's Southern Province, supplied Jackson with $500,000 in cash to subsidize his lifestyle and splashed out on a $350,000 European vacation for Jackson and his associates in February of 2006, Thanki said.

"The costs even included the expenses of bringing out Mr. Jackson's hairdresser," he said.

The lawyer said Jackson and the sheikh became close friends and at one time both lived in a palace in Abu Dhabi owned by Al Khalifa's father, Sheikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bahrain's king. The singer stayed nearly a year in Bahrain as a guest of the son, but the relationship soured when Jackson repudiated a business deal Thanki said they had agreed to.

Jackson's lawyers say the pair never entered a valid agreement and that Al Khalifa's money was given freely.

Thanki acknowledged that Al Khalifa gave some gifts to Jackson but said that most of what the singer received was part of a business deal.

The gifts, he said, "were essentially personal effects "” watches, jewelry."

Thanki said the sheik was wealthy but that paying Jackson's bills had taken a big bite out of his finances.

"Some of the payments were staggering by any standards," Thanki said, saying the expenditure "should not be regarded as loose change for my client."

As for Jackson, he still appears to be in difficult financial straits.

Last week he was forced to give up the deed on Neverland, which is named for the mythical land of Peter Pan.

The trial is being held in London because the parties had agreed to take any disputes over their deal to an English court, Al Khalifa's representatives said. The trial is due to wrap up by the end of the month.

These local town cops are dumber than sh*t. Fancy releasing a tape of the interview BEFORE the trial and then not following their own procedures. No Miranda rights given, legal guardian present and asking questionable leading questions of an 8y/o boy??!! Shame on St John's "Police Dept" AZ

Experts: Interrogation of boy, 8, 'out of bounds'
By Ann O'Neill

(CNN) -- The third-grader's legs dangle from an overstuffed leather chair as he answers the questions of two female police officers. His manner and voice are casual, even helpful, but his words are shocking.

And so, legal analysts say, were the methods police used to obtain them.

By the time the boy was finished talking, say police in St. Johns, Arizona, he'd confessed to a premeditated double murder.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/...n.tactics/index.html

quote:

Originally posted by Brit4064:
These local town cops are dumber than sh*t. Fancy releasing a tape of the interview BEFORE the trial and then not following their own procedures. No Miranda rights given, legal guardian present and asking questionable leading questions of an 8y/o boy??!! Shame on St John's "Police Dept" AZ

Experts: Interrogation of boy, 8, 'out of bounds'
By Ann O'Neill

(CNN) -- The third-grader's legs dangle from an overstuffed leather chair as he answers the questions of two female police officers. His manner and voice are casual, even helpful, but his words are shocking.

And so, legal analysts say, were the methods police used to obtain them.

By the time the boy was finished talking, say police in St. Johns, Arizona, he'd confessed to a premeditated double murder.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/...n.tactics/index.html

Shameful Procedures and Actions!!! 8 Year Olds Do Not Even Understand That Dead Is Permanent!!! He Is Probably Thinking They Will Be Fixed and Come back? Or that Santa Clause Will Bring Them Back!

SHAME ON THEM!!!

Scores killed in Mumbai rampage

(CNN) -- Gunmen rampaged through a series of targets in the Indian city of Mumbai killing indiscriminately and taking hostages at two luxury hotels.

Mumbai police spokesman Satish Katsa said gunmen have taken over the Taj Mahal Hotel and Hotel Oberoi, and were holding hostages on multiple floors.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/...a.attacks/index.html

A bad time be British or American over there it seems.

That pic says it all, LOL...

quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
That pic says it all, LOL...

I agree.

Indiana woman dies at 115 as world's oldest person

Thu Nov 27, 7:24 pm ET AP – Edna Parker holds a rose that she was given during a birthday party for her in Shelbyville, Ind., in … SHELBYVILLE, Ind. – Edna Parker, who became the world's oldest person more than a year ago, has died at age 115.

UCLA gerontologist Dr. Stephen Coles said Parker's great-nephew notified him that Parker died Wednesday at a nursing home in Shelbyville. She was 115 years, 220 days old, said Robert Young, a senior consultant for gerontology for Guinness World Records.

Parker was born April 20, 1893, in central Indiana's Morgan County and had been recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest person since the 2007 death in Japan of Yone Minagawa, who was four months her senior.

Coles maintains a list of the world's oldest people and said Parker was the 14th oldest validated supercentenarian in history. Maria de Jesus of Portugal, who was born Sept. 10, 1893, is now the world's oldest living person, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

Parker had been a widow since her husband, Earl Parker, died in 1939 of a heart attack. She lived alone in their farmhouse until age 100, when she moved into a son's home and later to the Shelbyville nursing home.

Although she never drank alcohol or tried tobacco and led an active life, Parker didn't offer tips for living a long life. Her only advice to those who gathered to celebrate when she became the oldest person was "more education."

Parker outlived her two sons, Clifford and Earl Jr. She also had five grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren and 13 great-great-grandchildren.

Don Parker, 60, said his grandmother had a small frame and a mild temperament. She walked a lot and kept busy even after moving into the nursing home, he said.

"She kept active," he said Thursday. "We used to go up there, and she would be pushing other patients in their wheelchairs."

Gov. Mitch Daniels celebrated with Parker on her 114th birthday.

"It was a delight to know Edna, who must have been a remarkable lady at any age," Daniels said.

Parker taught in a two-room school in Shelby County for several years after graduating from Franklin College in 1911. She wed her childhood sweetheart and neighbor in 1913.

But as was the tradition of that era, her teaching career ended with her marriage. Parker traded the schoolhouse for life as a farmer's wife, preparing meals for as many as a dozen men who worked on her husband's farm.

Parker noted with pride last year that she and her husband were one of the first owners of an automobile in their rural area.

Coincidentally, Parker lived in the same nursing home as 7-foot-7 Sandy Allen, whom Guinness recognized as the world's tallest woman until her death in August.


Source

A clear cut case of a State endorsement of religion?

Atheists want God, Bible out of homeland security law

FRANKFORT, Kentucky (AP) — A group of atheists filed a lawsuit Tuesday seeking to remove part of a state anti-terrorism law that requires Kentucky's Office of Homeland Security to acknowledge it can't keep the state safe without God's help.

American Atheists Inc. sued in state court over a 2002 law that stresses God's role in Kentucky's homeland security alongside the military, police agencies and health departments.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/r...eists-security_N.htm

Inspirational! A girl learns to fly without having any arms. In case you're wondering, the plane she flies is an Ercoupe, a 1930s design, unique because there are no rudder pedals. They linked the pedals to the yoke (aileron) control.

Arizona girl with no arms gets her wings

Makes the rest of us look like underachievers, LOL. Impressive. A repub no doubt!

quote:

Originally posted by Houston:
Yeah, you can find KKK members everywhere... like, GOP's mighty chief Trent Lott! lol

"...Lott gave the keynote address at a 1992 national executive board meeting of the Council of Conservative Citizens, a successor organization to the old white Citizens Councils, segregation-era groups the Southern Poverty Law Center refers to as "the white-collar Ku Klux Klan. The C of CC may have changed its name, but it remains a passionate "white racialist" group that condemns intermarriage, integration and immigration by non-whites."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat/208

Ob boy, guilty by association. Must be those nice Wyoming family values in place there

Polish immigrants go home as work dries up in Britain

By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — Polish immigrants who filled jobs as plumbers and waitresses helped fuel the recent economic boom here. Now they're going home, as Britain slips toward a recession and jobs disappear.

As many as 300,000 Poles — more than a quarter of those who came here the past four years — may have departed in the last year, says Wiktor Moszczynski, spokesman for the Federation of Poles in Great Britain.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/w...08-12-03-poles_N.htm

Women swept to her death at proposal rock

A BRIDE-to-be was swept away by a wave before her boyfriend got the chance to ask her to marry him at a landmark called Proposal Rock.

Scott Napper had taken his Filipina girlfriend Leafil Alforque, 22, to Proposal Rock near Neskowin Beach in Oregon to pop the question last Saturday.

The couple had been dating since they met on the internet in 2005 and Ms Alforque had arrived in the US only three days before, The Oregonian newspaper reported.

Mr Napper said the tide was out around Proposal Rock, which got its name from the number of couples who visited it to get hitched.....

Full Story.

quote:

Originally posted by Brit4064:
Polish immigrants go home as work dries up in Britain

By Jeffrey Stinson, USA TODAY
LONDON — Polish immigrants who filled jobs as plumbers and waitresses helped fuel the recent economic boom here. Now they're going home, as Britain slips toward a recession and jobs disappear.

As many as 300,000 Poles — more than a quarter of those who came here the past four years — may have departed in the last year, says Wiktor Moszczynski, spokesman for the Federation of Poles in Great Britain.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/w...08-12-03-poles_N.htm

Well 4once Bush seems to have done something right when he did this .......

Bush keeps Poland off visa-waiver list
Nicholas Kralev
Friday, October 17, 2008

President Bush speaks about the the Visa Waiver Program in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 17, 2008.

President Bush angered staunch ally Poland Friday by excluding it from a group of newcomers to a program that allows citizens of certain countries to visit the United States without entry visas.

At a Rose Garden ceremony, Mr. Bush announced rescinding visa requirements for six other former communist countries -- Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia -- as well as South Korea, effective in about a month.


All That 300000 would have been on a plane to usa to take 300000 jobs that usa does not protect for its own citizens and lprs. Beware of north american union.. coming soon

E-verify is still around


Even Obama supports it!!! Surprise Surprise.



The E-Verify program is well on its way to fixing a 20-year-old problem of determining legal employment eligibility in a manner employers can support. Arguably E-Verify is the most successful programmatic upgrade to U.S. interior border systems, assisting employers in abiding by the law and weeding out those that don't. Fast, efficient, and easy to use, E-Verify helps employers have confidence that their hiring choices are within the law and less likely to be disrupted by a worksite raid. Enabling employers to make better decisions about the legality of their hires also helps the federal government better prioritize enforcement tools. Illegal immigrants are dissuaded from applying for jobs that use E-Verify, thus making it less likely — the more prevalent in use E-Verify becomes — that illegals will settle into a job, only later to be arrested and land in deportation hearings that lead to family disruption while simultaneously draining enforcement and immigration court resources.

E-Verify enjoys broad bipartisan support, with reauthorization passing in the House of Representatives on July 31, 2008, by a vote of 407-2. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year that reauthorized E-Verify, while in the Senate Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) made E-Verify a cornerstone provision in their comprehensive immigration reform bill. Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) also endorses E-Verify. 2 The entire federal government is using E-Verify. Eleven states require use of E-Verify in certain circumstances, including Arizona and Mississippi, which mandate use of E-Verify for all enterprises in the state. Only one state, Illinois, limits its use.

E-Verify will sunset on November 29, 2008, if not reauthorized. 3 It may not be — Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) has put a hold on reauthorization. If the hold is not released, or voted down by 61 senators, or if the House version of E-Verify isn't "hotlined" and passed on the Senate floor, E-Verify will disappear. Perhaps because of E-Verify's success, attacks on the program are intensifying. Assessing the credibility of such attacks is the purpose of this paper.... full story.


Nov 29 came and went and E-verify is still here. So much for the fist pounding concerning its use and functionality. Maybe because it works?

quote:

Originally posted by davdah:
...

Nov 29 came and went and E-verify is still here. So much for the fist pounding concerning its use and functionality. Maybe because it works?

________________

"On 09/30/08, President Bush signed into law the fiscal 2009 continuing resolution entitled the "Consolidated Security, Disaster Assistance, and Continuing Appropriations Act, 2009" (H.R. 2638).

The bill extended funding for all government operations through 03/06/09.

The House passed the measure on 09/24/08, and the Senate followed suit on 09/27/08.

The bill also included an extension of the Basic Pilot/E-verify program (section 143)... through the term of the continuing resolution."
________________


This "employee verification" feature by the government has been around since the IRCA of 1986 (I-9), through a number of re-authorizations (Basic Pilot/E-Verify), until its present-day rocky road journey, near death, comatose state between November 29, 2008 thru March 6, 2009.

But why should that be the case? If it worked, still works, or deemed to continuously work, then extend it in a snap! What's the matter? Whyyyyyy???

Likewise, let's take a short glance at the figures (that don't lie).

There are around 55,000 employers currently enrolled in E-Verify out of the estimated 6-7M employers in the United States!

I'm not a mathematician but in my math-illiterate eyes, this 'ratio' isn't at all very impressive from whichever angle I tried to look at it!

Likewise, for a program to be said 'working and cost-effective' the 'ratio and proportion' should at least be on a reasonable percentage point level - unlike the comical <.78571%> of E-Verify's exposure in the current labor marketplace.

But anyway, let's see what's in store in the 111th Congress.

For which, a recent ilw.com editorial has expressed this very interesting pulse: http://www.ilw.com/immigdaily/digest/2008,1126.shtm

So it's the same Discussion Board. The same E-Verify monitor. Stay tuned!

Rocky, comatose? The entire Federal Government is using it. That alone indicates it has a secure future. Along with several states adopting it as a required measure.

If it was as dismal a program as some suggested then it would have been dropped just as quickly as positive impact was shown to be absent. Didn't happen. Instead, it continues to evolve with the support of even the democrats. Surprised? You shouldn't be. After all. Well,.. you already know.

More than 22 years and 12M illegals (and counting)! Where has it taken us? Please explain...

That's why e-verify was invented. The prior attempts counted on willful adhesion to the truth and obedience by its users. A mistake, as is given by the evidence of 12 mil+ illegals. With e-verify it takes away the temptation and ability to circumvent the law of the land. A sacrifice of trust that, sad as it is to say, became required to fix the problem.

Or rather, I-9/Basic Pilot/E-Verify manifested further the necessity to rationalize and streamline the outdated dynamics of laws that are no longer responsive to the changing needs of time.