A cursory view of these lyrics beckons the question, would it kill you to use a little grammar every now and again, instead of perpetuating the stereotype that black people are illiterate.

Considering the illiterate lyrics you have written in "Ring The Alarm" and people complaining that you are misleading younger audiences into think the phrase "Deja Vu" from your previous single, means seeing hallucinations, which it does not and the fact that you do not write the music/beats on your songs, that is not songwriting.

Furthermore, what happened to the “Independent Woman” who can buy her own things. Now you’re singing about all his material things that you’re not gonna give up like his cars, homes, diamonds, fur coats. Jay-Z has brought out the worst in you.

Now you’re getting mad and screaming at the beat and everyone who will listen.

From other web sites:

“I've just read some comments and I agree that she stole Kelis' "Caught Out There" style and that screaming is not for everyone.” – Beauty 'n the Beat Blog

Considering she used to dress like and wear her hair like Kelis, I’m not surprised.

"Speaking of Rihanna, rumors are swirling that she was the inspiration behind Beyonce’s new single “Ring The Alarm.” On the track, Beyonce shouts: “Ring the Alarm! I’ve been doin’ this too long. But I’ll be damned if I see another chick on your arm.”

Some believe that the words are directed at Rihanna, who was rumored to be spending quality time with Beyonce’s boyfriend Jay-Z in New York while she was off filming Dreamgirls in L.A. It might be good timing on Beyonce’s part, as the Caribbean starlet plans to join Jay-Z on a 3-date tour of South Africa in October. - Vibe Magazine

Yea, and just to kill the rumors that something's going on with the two, Jay-Z is going on tour with Rihanna (didn't that negro say he retired):

Deja Vu Booo!

Seriously though, it is her worst work yet.

"Do It Over Says Fans"

Beyonce Knowles Beyonce Knowles has defended her racy new Deja Vu video amid a fan campaign aimed at prompting her to reshoot the steamy promo.

Fans are unhappy with the video, shot on location in Louisiana, because it features the sweating diva in provocative scenes with her real-life boyfriend, rap mogul Shawn 'Jay-Z' Carter.

Conservative fans swamped the internet with concerns after they were outraged by one scene in which Beyonce crouches down by Jay-Z and fondles his belt. They claim the clip has sexual overtones.

But Knowles admits she's both amused and puzzled by the reaction the new video has caused - and she won't be changing a thing.

She says, "I'm an adult and I can only be responsible for myself but I thought it (video) was great."

But she has been hurt by some of the criticism leveled at her: "I'm a human being; I like for people to like what I do but I can't please everyone. You've gotta just set priorities." –Star Pulse

A few random news clippings:

Beyonce v Letoya

"Honorablemedia.com said on May 8, 2006: “Something tells me that Beyonce or S dot (or both – Bey-Z) will block her success, especially if Beyonce plans on releasing an album in September (meaning the single will drop in mid-summer).” - Honorable Media

Beeyawnce One Ups LeToya

As you know, LeToya Luckett’s self-titled CD was released yesterday (7/25) and is expected to do well on the strength of her hit “Torn”. Not to be outdone, LeToya’s former band member Beeyawnce (pronounced Bee-yawn-ce) pulled a catty move by making her album “B’Day” available for pre-order on iTunes, thereby undercutting LeToya’s sales.

Beeyawnce’s album was originally scheduled for release Sept. 5 but the pre-order was pushed up 2 months in advance. Beeyawnce just couldn’t resist giving the ex-Destiny’s Child member a virtual slap. – Sandra Rose web site

The Toilet?

She was a guest on a BBC radio show when the DJ told her that he thought her album was pronounced bidet. She responded:

"When I came up with the title, I wasn't thinking about a bidet. And if I had, I would have probably named it birthday, or just B." – Radio 1

Too Competitive

"Beyonce Knowles insists she feels "sick" with jealousy whenever she hears a great track by a rival artist. She says, "When I hear a great new record, especially when it's by someone that I respect and admire, then a part of me is like, 'Why didn't I think of that? Why didn't I make that record?' "It makes you sick but in a way it can be a great thing. It makes you want to go back to the lab and start writing again. Maybe it will inspire you to work a little harder." – Contact Music 

Yea work a little harder at jacking stuff...

Being too competitive and overly ambitious is not a good thing - just ask your two former bandmates whose careers you and your family destroyed to preserve yours. No, not the last two you just kicked to the curb when you went solo, the two before them, and don't forget the third member as well that got pushed out.

Beyonce Says She Stays Off Line?

RWD: Do you Google yourself?

Beyonce: Oh no, I stay off the Internet. I learnt that maybe seven years ago – don’t go on it.

RWD: But you have heard about the petition that ‘fans’ got together complaining that the video to Déjŕ Vu is too sexual?

Beyonce: It’s really amazing to me that 2000 kids – or who knows who they are – could get together like that. That’s the scary thing about the Internet." - RWD

I don't believe that. One, she knew and said the exact number of people who signed the petition against that lackluster song and video, when said news item blew up in the urban press. Two, she knew the contents of the petition, stating the names of the signers were made up, such as people using her family members' names. Three, this month, a site posted where a fan site owner said you said in an interview that you read his site. 

I think you visit artists web sites all the time and jack stuff from them for your own work - it shows in your pics, music and speech in press interviews. For one, you need to lay off the Kelis and Jennifer Lopez sites, among others, because they are coming through way too much in your projects to the point that audiences comment on it.

MUSIC SOHH Questions MTV

“SOHH, let's get to the matter at hand. Is MTV really music television? No, I am not referring to all of the youth oriented scripted reality shows that have replaced much of the landmark music related programming. I am referring to what one Janet Jackson fan describes as "MTV still being salty with Janet."

According to TMZ.com and a load of Janet Jackson fan sites, Janet has seemingly been black listed at MTV. *clutch the pearls* Fans allege that MTV has shown blatant lack of support to Miss Jackson, MTV's very first recipient of the MTV Icon Award, as she promotes her new album.

Apparently MTV has not premiered Janet's new video for "Call On Me" directed by Hype "Not Worth the Bullet" Williams nor have they made any announcements as to when it will begin to play on MTV. The video for "Call On Me" debuted on BET last Wednesday.

Janet's fans have flooded MTV's message boards however many of they comments were deleted by a MTV moderator due to Janet's fans calling them everything but a child of God.

I guess it does seem quite odd that Janet's video hasn't even broke ground at MTV. As you recall, MTV produced the famed half time show where Miss Jackson experienced a wardrobe malfunction. Allegedly they feel burnt by Damita Jo and they are like...

Having Janet only on BET is like punishment…Would MTV be this shady is that was Madonna? She’s had her fair share of run-ins with MTV and they play videos from her flopped album. – SOHH

When has MTV ever cared about black people anyway? We're only good when they can objectify us, degrade us, promote every negative stereotype of black culture and portray us in the worst light possible for their amusement.

Sorry to say, it is like Ice Cube said in his song "True To The Game" from his video I saw years ago regarding MTV:

"On MTV but they don't care.

They'll have a new ni*ger next year."

Black artists are disposable to them. White artists, no matter how poor the sales are, are not.

Tell me, really, how often do you see Aretha Franklin on MTV in any capacity, but every five minutes they are pulling Madonna out their butt. 

At least BET shows some variety and balance in their portrayals of black people. They also show blacks some loyalty (i.e. pulling the Eminem video making fun of Michael Jackson's nose in what was viewed as racially insensitive from a white artist, while MTV played that same video day and night).

Much like them welcoming Justin again with open arms, whose new song is subpar (black and white people are saying this about said song), while Janet, whose song and video are far better, was snubbed to the point her fans started complaining. They were both equally responsible for the Super Bowl Incident, so why weren't they both snubbed then. 

There's your proof right there. They've shown this bias time and time again. I don't know why anyone would be surprised at this. From negative cartoons inappropriately depicting black women as subhuman to handing out the least amount of awards to black artists and actors at their award shows. 

My mom watched the MTV Music Awards tonight and was shaking her head at how few black artists won anything. Some of the projects that won awards didn't even sell well or achieve critical acclaim, but won anyway.

Even the wedding reality shows that became their main programming staples were about white couples and families (The Newlyweds, The Barkers, Carmen and Dave), not black ones.

But that's MTV. It is what it is. Positive black portrayals need not apply.

While I really don't care about modern mainstream music per se, as most of it is garbage at this point in music history, I do care about race issues, inequality and how black people are portrayed.

I believe in being fair to blacks and whites and everything in between. Something MTV still hasn't learned.

LEGAL FILE Anthony Pellicano

Bernard Weintraub let rip on the Huffington Post web site regarding the Anthony Pellicano wiretapping case that affected him, naming Bert Fields and said attorney's his clients Tom Cruise and Madonna. Bert Fields employed the wiretapping private investigator more than anyone else (hmm I wonder why) whose horrible reign terrorized many in Hollywood and ironically Washington as well:

"The New Yorker's Funny Anthony Pellicano Story"

The current New Yorker had Ken Auletta's piece about Anthony Pellicano, or more specifically Bert Field and Michael Ovitz who are under a cloud in the scandal in which Anthony Pellicano was indicted, along with six associates, on charges that include wiretapping, racketeering, bribery and perjury. Anthony is a thug.

I confess that I'm an extremely minor footnote to this story, having been named as one of the numerous people whose backgrounds were illegally checked or phones were tapped. In my case, it came after Anita Busch and I were writing stories about the business failures of Michael Ovitz. I spoke to Ken Auletta while he was reporting his article. But I don't think I told him too many jokes.

But the article is really funny. For one thing, we have a portrait of Bert Fields, the toughest litigator in Hollywood for decades, a man who has represented Rupert Mudoch, Tom Cruise, David Geffen, Jeffrey Katzenberg, Madonna. Clearly Fields gets the job done. He has employed the disreputable Pellicano since 1989. That's a long time. In 1993, a front-page story in the Los Angeles Times exposed Pellicano's alleged mob links in Illinois and the way he physically intimidated people. Yet Fields, who claims he never lost a case in his life and has a steel-trap mind, told Auletta that "I'm not sure I read it."

Yet Fields and Ovitz are such pussycats here. They are shocked, shocked that their friend Anthony would have done all those terrible things that the prosecutors said he did. They had no idea that Anthony was a bad guy. And they are being victimized. Susan Estrich, a Fields loyalist, goes so far as to say that the Bush Administration may be going after Fields. What?

In the meantime we have a portrait of Fields being chauffeured in his Bentley to his home in Malibu from Century City to prepare a salad and take a 20-minute nap for what the Japanese call "wa time," or peacefulness or spirit, before returning to his office to behave, as one Fields client told Auletta, like "a pr**k."

And several miles away in Santa Monica, we have Ovitz, in some weird concrete bunker with exposed pipes and German art, letting his hair grow long and wearing jeans and sneakers without socks, babbling incoherently about Perry Mason, saying how Anthony Pellicano was not at all like Tony Soprano or the Corleones and he had no idea (unintentionally, do we not think of Howard Hughes?).

And he was so hurt -- Ovitz is always hurt and victimhood -- that his former partner, Ron Meyer, said nasty things about him. And then Ovitz tells Auletta, straight-faced apparently, that he should not have been as tough as he once was. And we are supposed to believe this bull?

It's all so bizarre. So delightful. Now, unfortunately, it's back to the Middle East. – Huffington Post, July 18, 2006 

LEGAL FILE Madonna Lawsuit

More details on the case in the next month's Column, where I will post the Supreme Court filing. But for now, here is a post I made a few days ago on the lawsuit page, that I have updated today:

Material Girls And Paris's CD flops, New Article About Madonna's Many Thefts

For new article about Madonna's many thefts, an updated, condensed one, please click here

Material Girls and Paris flops. Material Girls made $4,600,000 on its opening weekend, which is a major bomb for a widescreen release (it would be a bomb for certain indie films as well, actually), debuting at #9 on the Box Office Charts.

Then sales plummeted in the second week (as if the first week wasn't bad enough). Considering the film cost $20,000,000 to make, plus millions more in release prints, marketing and advertising, and that the theatres get roughly half of the $4,600,000 the film grossed, this movie is a total creative and financial failure. They will not even...break even. 

Preliminary reports from Hits Daily Double show that Paris' debut CD (Warner - Madonna's labelmate) will sell 75,000 the first week, which for a major label release that they spent millions on, had to do a video re-shoot for, bribe, um, hire journalists for reviews, make a zillion pricey promo appearances worldwide, with that huge, costly advertising push, is a big flop. They are not gonna make their money back off that atrocity of a record.

To put Paris' numbers in perspective, Christina Milian sold 56,000 during the first week and got dropped by her label for poor sales. But Milian, unlike Paris, has talent.

Christina Aguilera's CD released the week before, sold a moderate 320,000 copies in its first week, which her producer, Scott Storch, dropped her in favor of working with Paris (how does one choose Paris Hilton, who can't sing to save her life, over Christina Aguilera, who can sing very well).

CGS

I'm sure you've heard of CGI (Computer Generated Images) used in film. Well, clearly Storch has come up with CGS (Computer Generated Singing).

Paris "Autotune" Hilton with her producer Scott Storch

Make it worse, Hits Daily Double Chart estimates show Aguilera's CD is on course to sell more/place higher in its second week than Paris' CD will in its debut week (ouch!). Looks like somebody picked the wrong project to produce, which won't help his credibility as I wrote two months ago.

Make matters worse, Paris' CD, a major label release, totally bombed in the UK, selling 2,000 copies (double ouch!).

Also, news reports indicate both Warner Bros and Warner Music aren't having a good year, particularly the former, who have hit a big sales slump, which I write about further in the Column.

Thank you to all of you worldwide who participated in the boycott again. It is much appreciated and is a consolation in the face of what the Defendants have put me and my family through. God bless. 

AOL

Not to mention, this month AOL, owned by Warner Bros, trampled on the privacy of their customers in making public over 600,000 customers' personal identify data and search queries. I wrote in my lawsuit that they don't care about your privacy, as I was speaking from experience - they allowed their artist Madonna and her commissioned hacker full access to my computer when I was with AOL, which is how they nabbed a copy of my unreleased copyrights and illegally started using them, in addition to the released copyrights many people had already heard that they started using as well.

Said hacker further committed identity theft, trying to spend all the money in my account via my Visa Debit Card that was on file with AOL to pay for my monthly internet fees, the week I announced the pending release of my CD, to leave me and the CD marooned with no funds to promote it and press up copies.

And anytime I wrote something about Madonna stealing from me on the site, AOL would block me from getting online for several days at a time so I couldn't write anything else on the site about what she was doing. I have proof of all this.

In last month's Column, I wrote about my belief that Paris and the Kabbalah cult run by Madonna, being behind the hack of Lindsay Lohan. This month, what I wrote previously was confirmed in several news outlets in that Spoofcard terminated Paris' account for hacking.

In my lawsuit last year I accused Madonna and the Kabbalah Center of invasion of privacy and hacking, among other things, and what happened to Lohan fits in perfectly with their standard mode of operation. They invade the privacy of their cult members (Fiona Davis case in London illustrates that), people who have something they want (copyrights, money ect) and those who publicly speak out against them.

"Paris Hilton was recently terminated from her SpoofCard account for allegedly breaking into unauthorized voice mail boxes. SpoofCard calling cards offer the ability to change what someone sees on their caller ID display when they receive a phone call.

Feedback from the internet:

1. He isn't the only one! - Ann C, Italy

2. On the evidence of her last 2 cd's he is not a bad judge! - Ian Webb, Juzanvigny, France

3. Wonder if she'll ever grow out of playing charades and just be herself? - Jules, London, UK

4. He's obviously a music lover.- Robert Drummond, Edinburgh

5. I'm sorry, she's no Olivia Newton John and certainly no English Lady, her husband seems to have more sense. - Aj, UK

6. Madonna is the best - if she has the guts to say what she said, it only shows how original and self centered she is.- Julia, Brazil

7. ... and he's not the only one. - Freddie, Northants

8. His films may be rubbish - but he knows about music.- Jacquie, Heathrow, UK

9. Why does she want to keep reinventing herself? Why is she not happy with just being herself?- M. Beattie, England

- Daily Mail UK

Yes, why does she keep trying to be other people. It's crazy. And why would any singer in their right mind "transform myself into an English country lady and, a second later, change my look to that of Olivia Newton John or Farrah Fawcett." That's called a split personality.

Madonna looking like Cruella Deville (such a cold, evil face):

"Madonna's diva demands overruled by health and safety"

"Madonna's demands for no air-conditioning has landed her in trouble with health and safety officials. After fans started wilting in the heat at her concert on Tuesday night, council officers at Wembley Arena bravely overruled the 47-year-old singer and immediately ordered the air conditioning be turned back on.

The decision was prompted after some fans started to faint, with temperatures hitting the high 90s Fahrenheit. And in an unprecedented move, Wembley chiefs have now put themselves on a collision course with the star by snubbing her air-conditioning demands for her next six shows.

Wembley Arena marketing manager Colin Roberts said: "A lot of people realise that 12,000 people in a confined space will generate a lot of heat, as well as the production itself and the lights.

"There's a health and safety issue with regards to the audience and that's why we will be reviewing the situation and her requirements."

The snub will infuriate Madonna, who is very prickly when to comes to the sensitive matter of her vocal chords. - Daily Mail 

1. I saw this popular music performer on the television recently, and could not imagine why anyone would want to pay to see her. - C Blackmore, Melksham England

2. The demands of these over indulged prima donnas are pathetic! Well done for standing up to her. - John Luty, Harrogate, Yorks.

3. Well done to Wembley Arena officials ! Madonna's request was absurd, especially considering this is the middle of summer. Plus at Ł160 a ticket, fans should be able to enjoy the show in comfort, not at fainting hot temperatures. - Dan, London UK

4. You know...maybe she needs to step back and take a few pointers from the real stars. A couple of years back we saw David Bowie in Ottawa. It was just before his tour went down to Florida where there was an unfortunate accident with a lighting guy, not Bowie's fault and then after that he was unwell with his heart condition and the tour stopped. The tickets were a fraction of what she is charging.

Really great opening/supporting act and then the man himself. On stage for about 3 hours. Just him, looking amazing, chatting about life, fatherhood, songwriting and singing, self-deprecating and funny, intelligent and incredibly entertaining. Old songs, new songs and ones in between. From what we could see there were no tantrums or demands. Even though the place is huge we really felt he was 'talking' to us. Now that's a star. Madonna doesn't even come close. - Carolyn, Ontario, Canada

5. Madonna is just someone in the celebrity world who thinks of new ways to be demanding! It is interesting that she is not like some of the other celebrities who are adopting orphan children and helping Hurricane Karina victims .This would be something to focus on rather than air conditioning for her concert or voice. She should donate or get on a telethon to help others. - Terry K, Manhattan Beach California

6. I don't get it. My family and I just spent four years living in the greater Phoenix area with constant air conditioning from April through November. Not once do I recall having a problem with my vocal chords or anyone else having that problem either. What gives? - Alison, Mukilteo, WA, USA

And in crazy cult news…

Kabbalah Lunatics Harass The Government With Their Nonsense

This is just pure lunacy. They told the UK government that Kabbalah water, meditation and chanting can clean up nuclear waste in rivers ect. It is clear nuclear waste is in that Kabbalah water and it is making them act crazy. These people are seriously crazy and a danger to the community with this and other nonsense they get up to:

Nuclear waste? Madonna has solution. Despite being told their ideas defy the laws of physics, the material girl and her film-maker husband believe Kabbalah fluid can be given magical powers.

Madonna and her husband, Guy Ritchie, have been lobbying the British Government and nuclear industry over a magic cleaning solution.

The couple, both followers of the Jewish spiritual movement Kabbalah, approached Downing Street, Whitehall and British Nuclear Fuels (BNFL) promoting a scheme to clean up radioactive waste using a "mystical" liquid tested in a Russian lake.

"It was like a crank call ... the scientific mechanisms and principles were just bollocks, basically," one official said.

The Kabbalah Centre, which is based in California, believes water is a uniquely important substance that can be given magic healing powers through "meditations and the consciousness of sharing".

Madonna is said to have approached Downing Street, before being directed to the DTI. "She relentlessly pursued people," said a former DTI public servant. "She wanted to get this Russian scientist to explain this to civil servants."

But her campaign became bogged down by Whitehall bureaucracy. "It was a case of pass the parcel," the public servant said.

Ritchie, who directed Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, cold-called BNFL and wrote a series of letters accompanied by scientific papers. A panel of BNFL's best scientists was assigned to look at the proposal but could find no scientific basis for the claims.

The Kabbalah Centre, which is based in Los Angeles but has branches worldwide, was set up by Philip Berg, a former insurance salesman. One devotee has described how Berg leads chants of "Chernobyl" and the names of other nuclear power plants. Followers believe this helps "heal the problem of nuclear waste".

Undercover reporters who attended a Kabbalah Centre dinner in London described how Madonna and Ritchie were among guests who turned east towards Chernobyl and began shouting its name.

Some Kabbalah followers are even said to believe that nuclear waste is the cause of the AIDS epidemic.

Madonna has said: "According to science, we aren't going to have a planet in about 50 years at the rate we're going with nuclear waste.

"I can write the greatest songs and make the most fabulous films and be a fashion icon and conquer the world, but if there isn't a world to conquer, what's the point?" - The Sunday Times

Don't you mean you can steal songs, films and other musicians' styles. That's not conquering, that's called being a con. 

Kabbalah Cult Member Demi Moore - “What's Up Demi's Nose?

"What is up with Demi's nose? Even Lindsay is scared and feeling busted. So is this how Demi keeps up with the 20 year olds she parties with? Demi, Ashton, Bruce, LL and more are out for Rumor Willis' 18th Birthday Party. Looks like it was a big event.” – Pop Sugar

"Madonna And Ritchie To Renew Vows"

"Madonna and Guy Ritchie are planning to renew their vows in a simple ceremony at their home in Wiltshire, England, as soon as the pop queen finishes her Confessions tour this autumn. The golden couple spent last year fighting off rumors their marriage was in a mess - but their romantic gesture will prove the critics wrong, according to website Celebrity Week. A friend says, "They want to show the world how committed they are to each other. Because they've been living in Los Angeles, they've missed spending time in the English countryside with friends and family."- IMDB

Feedback from ONTD:

1. I give them 3 weeks till they announce their divorce. [info]missperfect7 

2. i give 'em a week before he chokes the ***** to death. [info]watagrlwants

3. Guy Ritchie always seems like he hates her. =/[info]vanillaink

4. madge really bores me.[info]slightly

5. Man, they're really trying to save this marriage huh?[info]aurosan

6. Nothing says impending celeb divorce like renewed vows.[info]mondragona

7. seriously![info]lovemyjtf

8. and choke on those 15 quid *blessed* water bottles straight from the Canadian holy water factory. [info]freeze_i_say

9. Madonna does anything to get the spotlight...Pathetic. Guy Ritchie should leave her and make another cool movie. [info]june_glasschild

10. you know what would be grrrrrreat! if madonna just blew out her knee big time, and couldn't move and then just lost her voice and was locked in her house and richie was a free man liberation is oh so nice. [info]watagrlwants

11. LOLOLOL NUMBER ONE SIGN THAT YOU ARE ABOUT TO GET A DIVORCE: RENEWAL OF VOWS BEFORE YOUR TWENTY-YEAR MARK. [info]lisbonlovesjacq

12. DUDES! Dont they know that the renewal of vows before twenty years is disastrous? That and getting matching tattoos.Both the kiss of death. [info]irideshortbus-

"Rome 'Unites To Condemn Madonna'"

Religious leaders in Rome have united against the mock-crucifixion featured in US pop star Madonna's latest show. In the sequence, Madonna appears on a giant cross wearing a crown of thorns.

Father Manfredo Leone of Rome's Santa Maria Liberatrice church told Reuters news agency it was "disrespectful, in bad taste and provocative".

Muslim and Jewish leaders have also raised objections. Madonna performs in Rome on 6 August ahead of six further dates at London's Wembley Arena.

The 47-year-old received similar complaints during the American leg of her Confessions world tour, with one critic accusing her of "blatant insensitivity".   

"Being raised on a cross with a crown of thorns like a modern Christ is absurd," continued Father Leone. "Doing it in the cradle of Christianity comes close to blasphemy."

Mario Scialoja, head of Italy's Muslim League, told Reuters Madonna would "do better to go home", a sentiment echoed by a spokesman for Rome's Jewish community.

Madonna has invited controversy before, notably with her 1989 Like a Prayer video, which featured a black Christ-like figure and burning crosses, and a 1993 tour in which she simulated masturbation on stage."

Russian Church: Singer Madonna "Needs Spiritual Assistance"

Moscow, August 7, Interfax - The Russian Orthodox Church has argued that U.S. pop singer Madonna "needs spiritual assistance" and advised Orthodox Christians against attending her concerts in Moscow.

"This is not the first year that this lady has been mixing singing about human passions with Christian symbols - crosses, statues of the Virgin, beads, and now it's self-crucifixion. This means the singer needs spiritual assistance," Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, deputy head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, told Interfax.

Earlier, an Italian cardinal, Ersilio Tonini, accused Madonna of blasphemy and threatened that the Roman Catholic Church would excommunicate her for performances in which she wears a crown of thorns and hangs from a mirrored cross." - Interfax

"Madonna is Anal About Her Toilet"

"Here's yet another story proving the more rich and famous people are, the more insane they are. Madonna has turned into such a big germaphobe, that she insists her toilet seat be replaced with a brand new toilet seat every night of her current 'Confessions' world tour.

A source said: The seat has to be inspected by her people, then installed - with an unbroken seal - by plumbers before every gig." Of course the list of demands doesn't stop there.

She also requires three candles to protect her from negative vibes and mean-spiritedness, a relaxing foot spa complete with lavender and camomile body soak, plenty of Kabbalah water, and a love seat. Madonna, 47, also insists her dressing room is covered with white drapes and white roses - the symbolic colour of her Kabbalah faith."

You know what else will "protect" you? Being less crazy. You usually find people like this in straight jackets and padded cells complaining the voices in their heads are yelling too loud. But in Hollywood this is perfectly normal behavior." – IDLYITW

Teen Singer Lily Allen Slams Madonna As "The Most Over-rated Person In Pop History"

Singer/songwriter Lily Allen having topped the UK singles chart with Smile, is now celebrating her album Alright Still sitting at number three in the UK album charts.

Lily is no stranger to controversy. She branded Madonna "the most over-rated person in pop history," and also admitted to taking drugs from the age of thirteen. She says she loves getting hate mail.” - ITV

"Singer Michelle Heaton has branded Madonna an "idiot" over a recent fashion faux pas."

The Liberty X star has hit out at the 'Hung Up' singer for swimming in the sea wearing a t-shirt instead of a bikini.

Michelle fumed to Britain's OK! magazine: "Why would you go into the sea with shorts and a T-shirt on? She looked like a bloody idiot! "Either take your swimming costume or don't go in at all - even if you are the Queen of Pop!" Meanwhile, Madonna and husband Guy Ritchie are planning to adopt, her father-in-law has claimed." - Bang Showbiz

Material Girl's Money

"Did UNICEF shun Madonna’s money? - The Material Girl recently donated $3 million to Raising Malawi, which benefits children orphaned by AIDS, but she had originally tried to team up the charity with UNICEF, according to the source - who claims that the charity giant “got a little uncomfortable” about the organization.

“Raising Malawi has strong links to Kabbalah,” says the insider, “and I believe that UNICEF, in its eagerness to be as pure as Caesar’s wife, was uneasy with the idea or the pairing.”

Speaking of Kabbalah, Lindsay Lohan - who was spotted without her red-string bracelet - seems to have tied one on again. The bracelet is a trademark of the trendy religious movement.  . . ." - MSNBC

Kabbalah Sets Up Slave Shop in Africa

God have mercy on these kids. There is something very wrong with this story. The Kabbalah Center are infamous for using people as menial workers and slaves, not treating them like human beings. According to the Radar Magazine expose, Kabbalah cult slaves members were being paid less than $40 per month to cook, clean and do laundry round the clock. Basically, play fetch for the cults' leaders. 

Feedback from the internet:

1. Love the new trend in show biz babe. Donate millions (heh it's tax deductible ya know?) to the poor to off set your negative publicity. Posted at 6:54PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by William

2. Modonna who?? Isn't this that old lady that no one listen to anymore? Posted at 7:19PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by Nance

3. Didn't she do this "crucifixion" bit 20 years ago? I am the only person sick of "artists" using the "Christ as a statement" kind of artistic crutch? Not because it's 'blasphemy" but because it's BORING.

She should drop the props and just rely on the songs... or just enjoy an early retirement and let someone else get the airtime. Support your local musicians! Posted at 6:44PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by jd

4. What's with these rich Hollywood ******* anyway? Madonna! Give me a break! She buys this huge estate in England and develops some bogus English accent! Why didn't they give all this money years ago? Now, it's become in vogue and there all trying to out do each other. What a bunch of fake *****! I hope she chokes on a piece of baluga caviar in Bangladesh! Posted at 6:49PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by Bull

5. "Kaballa people are put on this earth to help people"??!! They are milking these idiot celebrities of their bucks, in exchange celebrities have their huge egos stroked by being told that they're here to help people....this bull confirms to them how "deserving" they are of living in mansions and ******** on the public. Madonna, you're an old hag. Shut your legs, our air is already polluted. We don't need to smell your fungus infested crotch, too. Posted at 8:11PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by lee

6. Madonna needs to say no, but she'll have her day with God and Jesus, anyone mocking Jesus' crucifixion like that...it's unspeakable, I always knew she was Satan's child, that woman always scared me, ppl just go too far and she's one of them. Posted at 8:28PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by candace

7. Given what has been happening lately, Madonna and NBC should be banned. And Madonna should make a formal apology to the Christian community. And Harvey Levin should make her.

Madonna is an anti-Catholic bigot. And NBC is showing it is anti-Catholic bigots as well. It is an insult to Catholics for Madonna to use Christian symbolism like that. She who has publicly criticized and insulted Christianity.

She doesn't even KNOW why she chose to use such symbolism. When asked, her response has been more or less that Jesus would not be upset with her. What an idiot she is.

If she is a follower of Kaballah and Judaism, and if her point is to bring attention to the AIDS and dying children, since she uses imagery of aids and dying children while hanging from the cross, with a crown of thorns, then why doesn't she strap herself onto a menorah? And hang a Star of David from her forehead instead?

According to her "One of the main precepts of Kabbalah is that we're put on this earth to help people. And your job is to figure out how you can help, and what it is that you can do."

She is obviously using Christian symbolism negatively, since she has bad-mouthed Christianity, instead of using something that she cares about, like Kaballah/Judaism. Posted at 7:02PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by about Mad Madge

8. look no one cares what she freely sings, dances, or writes in songs.. do your artistic thing.. but leave the crucifixion out of it or you will offend Madonna, and those you offend have the right to speak out against you..Posted at 8:47PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by dmumsie

9. Madonna is SO OVER. I feel sorry for her. Posted at 9:14PM on Aug 3rd 2006 by LK

10. Madonna is just doing all of this for one person. Madonna. That's all she cares about is being in the spotlight she will offend every religion known to man if it gets her picture in a magazine. Posted at 12:31AM on Aug 4th 2006 by Larry

11. interesting that TMZ and others in the media have NO problem with Madonna mocking the Catholic/Christian faith. Mel Gibson makes a drunken statement and it's on TMZ and the media every waking moment for the past few days and Madonna mocks what Catholics and Christians consider as their Lord and commits sacrilege and it's totally fine. interesting. hypocritical much? Posted at 12:34AM on Aug 4th 2006 by Mischa

12. What a crock! If she really wanted to help she would build the orphanage herself and not be "committed" to raising the money. She is doing this for her usual wanting attention.

Everyone is jealous of Angelina Jolie who did it out of her heart and not for the attention for herself but the suffering individuals.

Oprah also is building a school over there. Good for her. She does a lot of good things too.

"Madge" has plenty of money so she could afford a lot more than just her plastic surgical planted face in the media. You might know she has to have it affiliated with her beliefs. Gee..here we go again. Women are not even suppose to be studying Kabbalah.

Go take care of your own kids and protect your property there in England where you can now shoot trespassers. Posted at 6:58AM on Aug 4th 2006 by OriginalKat

"Madonna: Catholics, Jews And Muslims Against Her Show

(AGI) - Rome, Aug. 3 - Rome's Catholics, Jews and Muslims are united against pop star Madonna: she is accused for her parody of the crucifixion inserted in the "Confessions Tour" that will be put on stage at the Olympic stadium in Rome on Sunday night. Veronica Louise Ciccone - alias Madonna - during the show will put on stage a personal interpretation of Christ's passion not far from the Vatican. The performance sees the singer appear with a fake thorn crown. This performance was already criticised in the US and now the Roman Catholic world says that it is blasphemous. - AGI"             

Madonna Woos The Pope

(Sound Off Caption) The Pope to Madonna: "Talk to the hand!"

"In the latest twist, Madonna has invited the Pope to her Confessions tour, after the Catholic leader called for the singer to be "ex-communicated".

Benedict the 16th believes Madge's show is "blasphemous" because at one point she takes part in a mock crucifixion on a diamante-studded cross. The ever-controversial superstar has previously claimed that "Jesus would understand".

She performs in the Italian capital tomorrow, and Rome's Catholic, Muslim and Jewish leaders have united to condemn her on-stage antics." - The Mirror

"Russian Church Asks For Madonna Concert Boycott"  

The Russian Orthodox Church has advised its followers to boycott American pop diva Madonna's concert in the city on September 11.

This is not the first year this lady has been mixing singing about human passions with Christian symbols - crosses, statues of the Virgin, beads, and now it's self-crucifixion," deputy head of the Moscow Patriachate Foreign Relations department Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin said." - Press Trust of India Moscow, August 6, 2006         

"Unicef Shuns Madonna's Donation"

UNICEF is possibly shunning the money Madonna recently donated for the betterment of orphaned kids.

According to newsweek.com, Madonna, who had recently donated $3 million to Raising Malawi, which helps children orphaned by AIDS, had initially tried to partner the charity with UNICEF. But a source said that the charity got a little uncomfortable with the organisation.

The source said: "Raising Malawi has strong links to Kabbalah, and I believe that UNICEF, in its eagerness to be as pure as Caesar's wife, was uneasy with the idea or the pairing." - New York, August 8, 2006

"Warner Music's Loss Narrows But Shares Fall"

Warner Music Group posted a narrower quarterly net loss on better-than-expected sales from the likes of Red Hot Chili Peppers, James Blunt and new dance act Gnarls Barkley.

But shares in the fourth-largest music company dropped more than 2% soon after Chief Executive Edgar Bronfman Jr. opened the quarterly earnings call repeating that Warner would not be pursuing a merger with EMI Group in the near future.

The New York based-company said its net loss for the third quarter ended June 30 was $14 million, or 10 cents a share, compared with a loss of $179 million, or $1.41 a share, a year earlier, which included management termination fees, debt redemption and other charges. – From Reuters, Los Angeles Times August 4, 2006

"Picture This: Warner Bros. Having A Rare Down Year"

"Not even Superman could prevent a crush of movie losses that has shaken the venerable Burbank studio and its affable leader.

The costly disaster movie "Poseidon," director M. Night Shyamalan's fantasy thriller "Lady in the Water," the computer-animated "The Ant Bully" and the urban drama "ATL" could lose more than $120 million combined for Warner and its financial partners, according to one person familiar with the films' finances.

"The price of failure is high," Horn said. "It's not just the financial cost. It's reading about it in the newspaper."

The gusher of red ink is especially painful for a studio so used to success. In 18 of the last 20 years, Warner has ranked among Hollywood's top three distributors in box-office revenue." - The Times

"AOL Plans to Cut 5,000 Jobs Worldwide Within 6 Months"

"Warner Bros' AOL, AOhelL as my friend calls them, is downsizing due to declining sales :

Aug. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Time Warner Inc.'s AOL Internet unit said it plans to eliminate 5,000 jobs, or about 26 percent of the workforce, as it fires employees and sheds businesses in Europe to help revive profit.

AOL Chief Executive Officer Jonathan Miller told employees in a Webcast the cuts will take effect within six months, John Buckley, a spokesman for Dulles, Virginia-based AOL, said in an interview. The company has a workforce of about 19,000.

AOL has announced about 7,000 job cuts since late last year to save money as its Web access service loses subscribers. Time Warner yesterday said it will offer AOL's e-mail and security software for free to high-speed Internet users early next month. Time Warner President Jeff Bewkes said AOL profit this year will be unchanged even as sales drop and will begin to grow in 2007.  - Times Online August 08, 2006

TV People Aren’t Too Keen On Rosie

"A new Gallup poll puts Diane Sawyer atop a popularity list of 17 TV news and talk personalities. Among people who expressed an opinion about her, 88 percent viewed Sawyer favorably, and 12 percent had a negative view.

ABC hopes Nielsen Media Research families feel some of those good vibes. "Good Morning America" has never topped NBC's "Today" show in the ratings since Sawyer began as a co-anchor in 1999.

Producers of "The View" may have some work to do: Rosie O'Donnell, who joins the daytime talk show's panel next month, is viewed unfavorably by 65 percent of people polled who have an opinion of her. – Seattle Post Intelligencer

- Aisha feigns surprise -

Meredith Calls The View A Joke

Meredith Viera Says "The View" Has Kind Of Become A "Joke"

"I feel very sad for everything that's happened and for everybody involved. I'm proud of the work we did there, but it's not a good time in the history of that show. It's hard to watch. It sort of became a joke," said Viera.

A bitter feud erupted between Jones and Barbara Walters after Jones left the show in July where accusations were thrown back and forth as to the real reason behind the diva's sudden departure and cut from the ABC network.

Shortly before Jones left, Walters announced that comedian and former talk show host, Rosie O' Donnel would be joining the women of "The View" as a regular." - All Headline News

I wrote about this story last month in that I didn't like how Star was treated as a black woman. Viera got a lovely send off and Star basically got unceremoniously chucked out after being told her job was secure, replete with a vulgar Rosie O'Donnell publicly cracking insensitive jokes about her and being plain nasty. Not a nice send off.

Rosie O’Donnell Putting Her Foot In Her Mouth Already

Rosie O'Donnell may soon realize what most ordinary schmos already know: It's unwise to blog about your employer. The soon-to-be "View" co-host posted one of her trademark punctuation-optional odes last Thursday after she caught a commercial plugging the new season of the gab-fest.

"i saw the new view promos /and found myself in the position /i loathe most /powerless," wrote Rosie. "it will be hard 4 me /2 not b /the boss /it is already /and we have only just begun."

But O'Donnell must have thought better of openly sharing her control issues, because the next day she took the "me" out of team by penning a paean to her new gig with Barbara Walters, Joy Behar and Elisabeth Hasselbeck.

"i am excited about the view/like a new kid on the first day of school/hoping they all like me/that i fit in," she enthused, "cuz there is nothing better/then being a cast member."

When asked by "Access Hollywood" about her "powerless" post, O'Donnell explained, "I used to sort of be the star and the boss and in control and now I'm part of an ensemble. And to learn to work with a team and to learn to, you know, move myself in a different manner -- it's gonna be interesting and definitely a life lesson and I'm definitely looking forward to it."

Rosie then completed the meta circle by blogging about her "Access" chat, which included a question on whether she was "happy" Star Jones Reynolds was history: "b4 i could reply he added/ - i would have loved 2 c u 2 go at it/smiling/it would not have been fun for me/fighting everyday/life is 2 short." Even, it seems, for the rules of grammar. - MSN

SPORTS Soccer - England Names New Captain

John Terry

Terry Succeeds Beckham as England skipper

“Chelsea skipper John Terry has been chosen by new head coach Steve McClaren to succeed David Beckham as England captain.

The 25-year-old Blues defender was immediately installed as the bookies' favourite for the captaincy after Beckham relinquished the position following England's second successive World Cup quarter-final exit.

Terry, who will lead out his country for the first time when McClaren's men take on European champions Greece at Old Trafford next Wednesday, told the Football Association's official website: "It is the ultimate honour to be the captain of your country.

"I am very proud to be given this great opportunity. It is an incredible challenge and one I am looking forward to very much. Choosing a captain is one of the most important decisions a coach has to make. I'm certain I've got the right man in John Terry. I'm convinced he will prove to be one of the best captains England has ever had."

The new England boss continued: "John has all the attributes an international captain needs: leadership, authority, courage, ability, tactical awareness and a total refusal to accept second-best. He has been an inspiration for Chelsea and is at his best in adversity.” – ITV

SPORTS Tennis – Andre Agassi To Retire

Andre Agassi

It is being said that tennis legend Andre Agassi is about to retire. He's had an excellent run, that’s for sure. I really do like the work he has done for charity. He's raised quite a lot of money. It is important to give back and he is a man that clearly understands that.

But before you go, I would like to post one of my favorite sports pics. Remember this...80's fashion at its finest:

Best Tennis Pic Ever: Pete Sampras (left) and Andre Agassi (right)

left to right: John McEnroe, Andre Agassi, Pete Sampras and Pat McEnroe

LEGAL FILE Robert Mueller 

The following article published last week by Newsweek sums up my view listed in my June and July Columns regarding Mueller and the FBI's non-existent computer system:

1. The FBI's pending computer system and scrapped one should have been made with off the shelf products (I made reference to Windows, Word, Excel, PDF, Photoshop).
2. This way would have been cheaper
3. Companies in America use such built from preexisting software systems rather than from scratch.
4. The new computer system doesn't sound very feasible
5. Included an item about the head of the computer company behind the system (I wrote they should sell the CEO of the next company to the Taliban if he messes up).
6. Wrote that putting together a system of that nature should be that complicated.
7. Wrote that the average American knows this stuff.
8. Taxpayers' money is being wasted on an overpriced job
9. Poor management.
10. Questioned why he hasn't been fired yet (I previously questioned his tenure and wrote he should quit).

So, my view on the computer situation has been affirmed.

Some excerpts from the Newsweek article questioning why Mueller hasn't been fired yet. You know, Newsweek has a pretty high circulation (Aisha looks @ Mueller smirking):

"Dangerous Disgrace"

The FBI’s continued technological incompetence is putting America at risk. Should, God forbid, we be hit again by terrorists, historians will point an unforgiving finger at the computers of the FBI. The Washington Post reported on August 18, 2006 five years after 9/11 the FBI’s computer system is still not fixed. How can this be?

It’s an ugly story of poor management, contractor abuse and an agency that cannot electronically connect the dots—even though nearly everyone agreed in 2001 that developing that ability should be among the top priorities for the United States. It’s as if after Pearl Harbor President Franklin D. Roosevelt ordered that ships and aircraft be built to fight the Japanese, only to discover that five years later the government had built none.

From the start, it was a rip-off. The contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), assigned 200 people to a program that, according to a former employer, could easily have been handled by a dozen. Instead of adapting off-the-shelf software, which any computer consultant with half a brain (make that any person with half a brain) knows is the only way to go, the company decided to design a software system from scratch. Surprise! It didn’t work. If you’ve read even one of the 500,000 articles in the popular press about software development, it’s obvious that the first try never works.

The consultants would, naturally, have us believe that the FBI’s requirements were so complex and security-related that they needed their own system. This is a crock. Many businesses are larger and more complex than the FBI and they, too, have major security considerations. But this is how SAIC ballooned its contract from $14 million annually to $170 million.

After pulling the plug on Trilogy in January, 2005, the FBI started over with a different contractor, Lockheed Martin Corp. Its new system, called Sentinel, is said to be on budget and schedule, but at $305 million dollars it is many times more expensive than what a similar project would cost in the private sector. We’re told this system will work some day. Keep your finger crossed.

There’s enough blame to go around...Why wasn’t Mueller fired? – Newsweek, August 21, 2006 

UK “Police Hit Out At FBI Over Leaks"

"Anti-terror police in Britain have made an angry request to their US counterparts asking them to stop leaking details of this month's suspected bomb plot over fears that it could jeopardise the chances of a successful prosecution and hamper the gathering of evidence.

The British security services, MI5 and MI6, are understood to be dismayed that a number of sensitive details surrounding the alleged plot - including an FBI estimate that as many as 50 people were involved - were leaked to the media.

FBI sources confirmed to The Observer that the bureau had been ordered to stop briefing at the request of the British authorities. 'The shutters have come down,' a bureau source said. 'We have been told not to discuss the case any more.” - The Observer Guardian UK

What did you expect. Robert Mueller's butt is on the line. People are calling for his head. People want him out of there. He’s got commissions breathing down his neck like a drunken Paris Hilton at a party.

He needs some good publicity and talking too much about and taking too much credit for the UK arrests (that Time magazine piece) apparently is his way of getting it.

He’s been in office 5 years and hasn’t done anything substantial. No computer system. His field agents who do the work and make the big busts aren't being listened to by headquarters based on public documents. His staff is jumping ship. Yet amazingly, this rubbish is allowed to continue.

Maybe I oversimplify things too much, but I am of the belief when things don’t add up, something needs to be removed from the equation, pardon the pun.  

Speaking of that article in Time magazine Mueller did to boost his profile while spilling too much info:

“Struggling to hear, Townsend climbed under her desk to take notes on the upcoming sweep. She was so engrossed in the call that she forgot about her visitors until she looked up and could see several of them smiling at her amusing posture. FBI Director Robert Mueller joshed, "It's a good thing you're wearing pants!" – Time

You horndog.

FBI Prostitution Bust 

Kudos to the FBI excluding Robert Mueller on shutting down a prostitution ring. The headline on their web site read:

“31 Arrests in Major Prostitution Ring” – FBI 08/16/06

Um, but you missed one:

Paris Pot Hilton

Just thought I’d let you know…Oh yea that’s right, Mueller doesn’t arrest celebrity law breaking hookers.

Congress Proposes Bill To Address FBI Negligence  

Due to the Bulger case, Congress has proposed a bill to address criminal negligence on the part of the FBI. Any FBI employee that fails to report a crime or ignores it, will face 5 years in prison.

Too bad it won’t be retroactive *Aisha looks at Robert Mueller*.

More Computer System Follow Ups

Mueller basically threw the CEO of the computer company under the train over the whole computer fiasco. He really didn't seem like the type to go down alone.

But he is to blame. He was signing big checks like his name is Oprah (at least when she signs it it's her money and not the taxpayers). Dude was spending money like a rapper in a jewelry store. He signed off on that mess - he should get the blame.

On Tuesday of this week, tired of all the "criticism" he called for a demonstration to show he and the FBI are not technologically inept, but it is he and his actions that gave this perception:

1. Like actually saying you don't know about technology and it being recorded in a government meeting that is on the internet (Congress, Senate).

2. Independent government commissions saying you wasted millions on a computer system then scrapped it.

3. Going to Congress again asking for $500,000,000 more to replace the scrapped system.

4. Another government commission saying the new system in deficient with you "repeating the same mistakes" again that you made with the previous system.

5. Another commission, the 9/11 government commission, stating you are, "lagging behind promised improvements."

But now all of a sudden, this week Mueller says he has a computer system in place now, when an article in the Washington Post 5 weeks ago, endorsed by you, with quotes from you, stated the computer system won't be ready until 2009 with a temporary version of it to be set up in 2007.

How, in the space of 5 weeks did you get a computer system? While it can be done in a short space of time, I've written about stuff like that this summer, you keep contradicting yourself, which isn't comforting in light of the fact that so much taxpayer dollars keep being placed in your hands.

The FBI computer upgrade that wasn’t. $170 million bought an unusable system.

It was late 2003, and a contractor, Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), had spent months writing 730,000 lines of computer code for the Virtual Case File (VCF), a networked system for tracking criminal cases that was designed to replace the bureau's antiquated paper files and, finally, shove J. Edgar Hoover's FBI into the 21st century.

It appeared to work beautifully. Until Azmi, now the FBI's technology chief, asked about the error rate. Software problem reports, or SPRs, numbered in the hundreds, Azmi recalled in an interview. The problems were multiplying as engineers continued to run tests. Scores of basic functions had yet to be analyzed.

Within a few days, Azmi said, he warned FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III that the $170 million system was in serious trouble. A year later, it was dead. The nation's premier law enforcement and counterterrorism agency, burdened with one of the government's most archaic computer systems, would have to start from scratch.

Failures of almost every kind.

But the problems were not the FBI's alone. Because of an open-ended contract with few safeguards, SAIC reaped more than $100 million as the project became bigger and more complicated, even though its software never worked properly. The company continued to meet the bureau's requests, accepting payments despite clear signs that the FBI's approach to the project was badly flawed, according to people who were involved in the project or later reviewed it for the government.

Lawmakers and experts have faulted the FBI for its part in the failed project. But less attention has been paid to the role that the contractor played in contributing to the problems.

"SAIC was at fault because of the usual contractor reluctance to tell the customer, 'You're screwed up. You don't know what you're doing. This project is going to fail because you're not managing your side of the equation,' " said Kay, who later became the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. "There was no one to tell the government that they were asking the impossible. And they weren't going to get the impossible."

Mueller, whose inability to successfully implement VCF marks one of the low points of his nearly five-year tenure as FBI director, has accepted some of the blame. "I did not do the things I should have done to make sure that was a success," he told reporters last month.

SAIC, which declined three requests for comment, told Congress last year that it tried to warn the FBI that its "trial and error" approach to the project would not work but said that it perhaps was not forceful enough with the bureau.

Whoever is at fault, five years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and more than $600 million later, agents still rely largely on the paper reports and file cabinets used since federal agents began chasing gangsters in the 1920s.

For SAIC, the contract was relatively minor. The firm, owned by 40,000 employee shareholders, is one of the nation's largest government contractors. The 2001 attacks were a boon to its fortunes, helping to boost its annual revenue, now more than $7 billion.

At the FBI, the impact of the attacks was equally significant but certainly less auspicious. As revelations emerged that the bureau had missed clues that could have revealed the plot, its image suffered. Its long-outdated information technology systems drew particular scrutiny.

"Prior to 9/11, the FBI did not have an adequate ability to know what it knew," a report by the staff of the Sept. 11 commission concluded. "The FBI's primary information management system, designed using 1980s technology already obsolete when installed in 1995, limited the Bureau's ability to share its information internally and externally."

The problems continued to hamper the bureau after the attacks as well: To transmit photographs of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers and other suspects to field offices, headquarters had to fax copies or send compact discs by mail, because the system would not allow them to e-mail a photo securely.

In the months after the terrorist attacks, overhauling the case-management system became one of the bureau's top priorities. Deadlines were moved up, requirements grew, and costs ballooned.

Along the way, the FBI made a fateful choice: It wanted SAIC to build the new software system from scratch rather than modifying commercially available, off-the-shelf software. Later, the company would say the FBI made that decision independently; FBI officials countered that SAIC pushed them into it.

The report observed that the rollout of the new case-management software had been poorly planned nearly from the beginning. Months after the program was supposed to be complete, it remained riddled with shortcomings:

    * Agents would not be able to take copies of their cases into the field for reference.

    * The program lacked common features, such as bookmarking or histories, that would help agents navigate through millions of files.

    * The system could not properly sort data.

    * Most important, the FBI planned to launch the new software all at once, with minimal testing beforehand. Doing so, the NRC team concluded, could cause "mission-disruptive failures" if the software did not work, because the FBI had no backup plan.

"That was a little bit horrifying," said Matt Blaze, a professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the review team. "A bunch of us were planning on committing a crime spree the day they switched over. If the new system didn't work, it would have just put the FBI out of business."

The NRC team found plenty of blame to go around, starting with the FBI itself.

"In essence, the FBI has left the task of defining and identifying its essential operational processes and its IT concept of operations to outsiders," the NRC researchers concluded. "The FBI lacks experienced IT program managers and contract managers, which has made it unable to deal aggressively or effectively with its contractors."

Daniel Guttman, a fellow at Johns Hopkins University who specializes in government contracting law, said: "This case just shows the government doesn't have a clue. Yet the legal fiction is that the government knows what it's doing and is capable of taking charge. The contractors are taking advantage of that legal fiction."

In the end, the FBI's failure to police the contractors would lead to disastrous results.

SAIC has consistently said that it was trying to meet the FBI's needs but that its efforts were undermined by the bureau's chronic indecision. Executive Vice President Arnold Punaro submitted testimony to Congress in February 2005 that cited 19 government personnel changes in three years that kept the program's direction in flux.

FBI officials, he said, took a "trial and error, 'we will know it when we see it' approach to development." Punaro said the company warned bureau officials that such a method would not work, but he acknowledged that SAIC did not do enough to get the FBI's attention.

In March, testifying before a House subcommittee, Mueller said that the FBI had experienced "a delay with the contractor" but that the problem had been "righted." He said he expected that "the last piece of Virtual Case File would be in by this summer."

The decision to kill VCF meant that the FBI's 30,000-plus employees, including more than 12,000 special agents, had to continue to rely on an "obsolete" information system that put them at "a severe disadvantage in performing their duties," according to the report by Fine, of the Justice Department.

"The urgent need within the FBI to create, organize, share and analyze investigative leads and case files on an ongoing basis remains unmet," Fine's office concluded.

Maureen Baginski, the FBI's former executive assistant director of intelligence, said the lack of a modern case-management system could hurt the bureau when time is of the essence. Agents and analysts need the new system, she said, to quickly make connections across cases -- especially when they are tackling complex challenges such as unraveling a terrorist plot.

Last year, FBI officials announced a replacement for VCF, named Sentinel, that is projected to cost $425 million and will not be fully operational until 2009. A temporary overlay version of the software, however, is planned for launch next year.

SAIC is not involved. FBI officials say they are awaiting an audit by a federal contracting agency before deciding whether to attempt to recoup costs from the company.

In a follow-up to its reviews, Fine's office warned in March that the FBI is at risk of repeating its mistakes with Sentinel because of management turnover and weak financial controls.

But no one really knows how much longer the bureau can afford to wait.

"We had information that could have stopped 9/11," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (Vt.), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It was sitting there and was not acted upon. . . . I haven't seen them correct the problems. . . . We might be in the 22nd century before we get the 21st-century technology." - The Washington Post

Did you catch that line, "FBI officials say they are awaiting an audit by a federal contracting agency before deciding whether to attempt to recoup costs from the company."

Yea, Hoover Mueller you need to go get the people's money back that you squandered. $170,000,000 of the money you blew could build thousands of homes in Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans at $50,000 a pop. The next time you screw around with the people's money, you think about that.

People like my mother, who has paid taxes in this country for close to thirty years, at times working two jobs, only for a nasty piece of work like you to look the other way when crimes were being committed against us (our privacy invaded, mail illegally being opened and other items stolen, house broken into 4 more times after you were notified of the lawsuit, computers hacked, email accounts hacked, millions of dollars of copyrights criminally stolen, libel and defamation, while you sat on your overpaid butt and did nothing, though you knew exactly who was doing it and why).

None of this harassment, violation and stress that you had the ability to stop, but opting to employ criminal negligence, did not in favor of lawbreaking celebrity miscreants, helped the Guillain Barre Syndrome and chest problems she's struggling with, only aggravated it - all while not being able to retire yet, as both of us have to continue to work, because Madonna and co stole so much of my work and you willfully allowed it and her crazy conduct to continue for many months at our expense, after you were made aware of what was happening, you spineless coward.

You sat back and allowed those people to continue to violate us and break into our home 4 more times - a home with a poor little old lady struggling with illness. You are despicable.

And my father has struggled with neurological health issues of his own, where his doctors ordered him to avoid all stress - and here comes this Madonna rubbish, that has done nothing but anger, upset him and stress him out - all while you, the main person responsible for bringing about justice in such matters, criminally looked the other way.

You are an evil, unconscionable man and you deserve every bit of misfortune that comes your way in this life. You reap what you sow in life - the same thing you allowed in our lives, is what God will return to you and your family.

All this rubbish needs to stop. We have been victimized for too long now due to this criminal negligence and we did not deserve this. We are very hardworking, taxpaying, law abiding people, who constantly give to charity and help the less fortunate.

My family has a long, established track record of public service (for free) and we did not deserve to have our rights violated like we are dogs and criminally robbed of years of my labor via my intellectual property and my parents money they invested in my work.

"9/11 Panel Heads: FBI Lags On Promised Improvements"

Thomas Kean, left, chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, and Lee Hamilton, vice chair of the commission, say the FBI is lagging in its capability to penetrate terrorist groups.    

The chairmen of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks said Thursday that the FBI has moved too slowly to improve its ability to prevent future terrorist plots and is plagued by turnover in its senior ranks.

Former New Jersey governor Thomas Kean, who led the landmark investigation into the government's response, and former Indiana congressman Lee Hamilton, the 9/11 Commission's vice chairman, said in an interview with USA TODAY and Gannett News Service that the bureau is lagging in its capability to penetrate terrorist groups.

During deliberations for its final report, the commission came close to recommending that the FBI be split into two agencies, one for domestic intelligence and the other for traditional law enforcement, they said.

In the end, a divided commission recommended that the FBI improve its intelligence capabilities after agency officials promised to improve.

Two years later, "they are not even close to where they said they would be," Kean said.

Hamilton and Kean criticized high turnover rates among high-level agents and the slow pace in developing airport security to better detect explosives. They also said the FBI has not shown the ability to develop sources in its fight against terrorism.

The United Kingdom's domestic intelligence service, MI5, last week broke up an alleged plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean. MI5's investigation was aided by a tip from a member of the local Muslim community.

Hamilton and Kean are making a series of public appearances in connection with the publication of their book Without Precedent, an inside account of the 9/11 Commission." - USA Today, August 17, 2006

Now Historic Figures That The Now Derided Hoover Harassed

Former FBI head J. Edgar Hoover investigated and harassed people in violation of the Constitution and the U.S. Code.

He was in a lot of innocent people's business and for no greater cause, as the people he often tried to destroy simply did not deserve it and have gone down in history as legends, making Hoover look like a menace.

John Lennon

There’s a forthcoming documentary on how J Edgar Hoover was using the FBI to try to discredit and deport John Lennon, who is now one of the most acclaimed musicians of the last 100 years. Yea, that looks real good on Hoover now (sarcasm).

These things never stay quite long and when they come out they never look good. History is like that tenacious hound that knows there’s something buried and won’t stop until it uncovers it.

“The controversial documentary explores the government’s attempts at silencing Lennon as a proponent of humanitarian and anti-war causes, which included FBI surveillance, wiretapping and deportation proceedings.” – Lexpress

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Garvey was another now legend that was being targeted for gaining too much influence in trying to uplift and empower people. They wanted to deport him as well. Yea, that looks really good on Hoover, since Garvey is now firmly in history as a world hero. An FBI memo: 

FBI Memo

J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent Ridgely
Washington, D.C., October 11, 1919

MEMORANDUM FOR MR. RIDGELY.

I am transmitting herewith a communication which has come to my attention from the Panama Canal, Washington office, relative to the activities of Marcus Garvey. Garvey is a West-Indian negro and in addition to his activities in endeavoring to establish the Black Star Line Steamship Corporation he has also been particularly active among the radical elements in New York City in agitating the negro movement.

Unfortunately, however, he has not as yet violated any federal law whereby he could be proceeded against on the grounds of being an undesirable alien, from the point of view of deportation. It occurs to me, however, from the attached clipping that there might be some proceeding against him for fraud in connection with his Black Star Line propaganda and for this reason I am transmitting the communication to you for your appropriate attention.

The following is a brief statement of Marcus Gravey and his activities:

* Subject a native of the West Indies and one of the most prominent negro agitators in New York;
* He is a founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League;
* He is the promulgator of the Black Star Line and is the managing editor of the Negro World;
* He is an exceptionally fine orator, creating much excitement among the negroes through his steamship proposition;
* In his paper the "Negro World" the Soviet Russian Rule is upheld and there is open advocation of Bolshevism.

Respectfully,
J. E. Hoover

[Typewritten reference] JEH-GPO
DNA, RG 60, file 198940. TMS, recipient's copy.

Martin Luther King Jr

Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

Martin Luther King jr had a Hoover created and assigned task force dedicated to his destruction. They were called the “Martin Luther King Task Force.”

Can you believe it. This brilliant, benevolent man had a task force assigned to him! Because he was just this big old criminal troublemaker knocking off banks, running drugs, heading his own organized crime cartel, selling illegal visa cards and just wreaking havoc (he was none of those things).

A preacher who wanted peace and equality for all – had a crime task force investigating him with instructions to destroy him, because too many people were listening to his message of peace. What kind of wickedness is that.

It reminds me somewhat of Jesus when they came to arrest Him before crucifying Him. They brought all these sword carrying soldiers to arrest him, like Jesus was strapped, and He said to them, in modern translation “I’m not armed. What did you bring all these cops for?”

They’d never seen Him harm a soul. On the contrary, only heal people, help people and even pay His taxes, but they treated Him like a criminal and watched his every move, determining that because He was gaining so much influence, He must be killed.

However, when they got their wish they regretted it, as when He was killed, His message and legacy spread like wildfire. He became the Martyr to end all martyrs. He became the most famous person ever.  

Much like King’s death only intensified his message of peace and brotherhood and lead to greater changes that can undeniably be seen today. King is now seen as a martyr and Hoover a monster.

From King's disgraceful FBI file:

“King was the target of an intensive campaign by the FBI to neutralize him as an effective civil rights leader.” In the war against King “no holds were barred.”

This and other testimony describing this FBI counterintelligence campaign against King reached the public through the news media. As a consequence there was a regeneration of the widespread speculation on the possibility that the Bureau may have had something to do with King’s death and may not have done an impartial and thorough investigation of the assassination.”

I really wouldn’t want to be Hoover. Who wants to go down in history for having harassed future world heroes, invaded innocent people’s privacy, violating the laws he was sworn to uphold and creating an environment of fear and conspiracy among innocent citizens. For full Martin Luther King FBI file click the following link:

http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/king.htm

Is that how you treat people?

"Hackers, The FBI Needs You" 

Unless it is a well reformed hacker, you are begging for trouble:

"Appeal shows ‘desperate technical ineptness’, warns security expert. The FBI has called upon hackers to help it fight cybercrime.

Speaking at the Black Hat security conference in Las Vegas, Daniel Larkin from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) appealed for hackers to lend their “expertise and input as we develop strategies to battle cybercrime in the 21st century”. 

US federal agencies have increasingly sought the help of the private sector as security threats grow ever more sophisticated.

Security consultants responded nervously to the FBI’s appeal. "It is not reassuring," Californian security consultant Tom Thomas told Cnet. "It confirms what we already suspect. There is great technical inadequacy, if not downright ineptness, at the FBI. Therefore they are seeking help from almost anyone." - VNU August 3, 2006

"Second FBI Official To Join Bank Of America"

Boy, Bank of America is becoming Bank of  FBI - with FBI employees steadily jumping ship. Mueller's policies sure don't help.

"An FBI official who will join Bank of America Corp. in October will be in charge of developing plans to keep the company running if outside events such as hurricanes or terrorist attacks disrupt operations.

Donna Bucello, who leads the FBI's U.S. Terrorist Screening Center, is the second FBI official to join Bank of America in recent months.

In May, the FBI's assistant director for criminal investigations was hired to head the bank's global security efforts. Chris Swecker leads the Charlotte-based bank's protective and investigative services." - Associated Press

LEGAL FILE Freaky Judge Gets 4 Years

Judge Donald "Penis Pump" Thompson

I wrote about this judge a few months ago in the Column in an article about judicial corruption. Last month he got 4 years in prison for his freaky conduct in masturbating while presiding over cases that he clearly was not paying attention to. They found semen under his desk on the carpet:

Judge Gets 4 Years for Exposing Himself

A former judge convicted of exposing himself while presiding over jury trials and accused of using a sexual device under his robe was sentenced Friday to four years in prison.

Donald Thompson had spent almost 23 years on the bench and had served as a state legislator before retiring from the court in 2004.

At his trial this summer, his former court reporter, Lisa Foster, testified that she saw Thompson expose himself at least 15 times during trial between 2001 and 2003. Prosecutors said he also used a device known as a penis pump during at least four trials in the same period.

Thompson, 59, was convicted last month of four felony courts of indecent exposure for incidents that took place in his Creek County courtroom.

Thompson, a married father of three grown children, testified that the penis pump was given to him as a joke by a longtime hunting and fishing buddy.

"It wasn't something I was hiding," he said. He said he may have absentmindedly squeezed the pump's handle during court cases but never used it to masturbate.

Foster told authorities that she saw Thompson use the device almost daily during the August 2003 murder trial of a man accused of shaking a toddler to death. A whooshing sound could be heard on Foster's audiotape of the trial. When jurors asked the judge about the sound, Thompson said he hadn't heard it but would listen for it.

Police built a case against the judge after a police officer testifying in a 2003 murder trial saw a piece of plastic tubing disappear under Thompson's robe. During a lunch break, officers took photographs of the pump under the desk.

Investigators later checked the carpet, Thompson's robes and the chair behind the bench and found semen, according to court records.

Judge C. Allen McCall was considering arguments on whether Thompson should be allowed to remain free pending appeal. Thompson was also ordered to pay a $40,000 fine. - Forbes, August, 8, 2006

And to think, this man was presiding over serious cases in U.S. Federal Court. And some of you wonder why I write about the court system the way I do.

He is only one of many getting up to mischief on the bench, while deciding cases where people could be put on death row, lose their homes, their children, their money and sadly, sometimes their life.

I read another case this month about a judge in New York who took a $100,000 bribe. And another who took a $100,000. Apparently, $100,000 is the price of selling out the Judiciary's name and public trust. 

Out of curiosity, is that the going price in Miami as well. Or if it's a major lawbreaking corporation as a defendant, do they pay more based on profits from their lawbreaking conduct or give the corrupted judge stock in their company to violate United Nations Laws, The U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Code, while everyone looks on disgusted. Just asking.

Once again, Congress needs to clean up the court system starting with these judges violating citizens' rights and their oaths of office. 

LEGAL FILE Homestead Properties And Cities Who Openly Violate US Law

Lawbreaking attorney, Richard Sarafan, of the crime law firm Genovese, Joblove and Battista. Any relation to the Genovese's of New York, because much like them, you don't follow the law.

Miami Shores is a quiet, lovely town in Miami, filled with nice residents, nice homes, nice shops, nice schools...and a code enforcement board straight from hell.

They've constantly cited, harassed and verbally abused citizens, in acts of what can only be called extortion, by placing "unenforceable lines" on their many, many Homestead properties. 

This small hand full of people on said Code Enforcement Board and the Village employees that work with them, treat the 10,000 citizens of Miami Shores like garbage.

The law firm giving them legal counsel and openly, arrogantly and blatantly violating U.S. law for said Village's Code Enforcement Board, is Genovese, Joblove and Battista, located in downtown Miami, in the Bank of America Tower. Said firm is run by John Genovese.

The main attorney from said disgusting law firm, is the vile Richard Sarafan. On thousands of occasions, he and said law firm have willfully violated U.S. Homestead law and the Florida Statutes, which states that "liens" are "unenforceable" against Homestead properties.

They have brought quite a few Miami Shores homeowners to financial ruination and bankruptcy.

For example, they sent a retired elderly couple (one of whom was visibly not in the best health) into bankruptcy, forcing them to pay a lien that Florida law says is "unenforceable" against their home. However, the Village Of Miami Shores under the direction of said law firm willfully broke the law and enforced it anyway.

A storm hit and damaged the patio area of the elderly couple's home. The insurance company, as many of them do, dragged their feet in paying out the claim - which sadly enabled the Village Of Miami Shores via Richard Sarafan to assess daily fees of $25 dollars on the poor couples home for not fixing the broken tiles and screen around their patio area fast enough after the storm.

You heartless beasts. 

The poor couple had to borrow money to pay off the huge sum that the fines had grown to or the Village would not remove the almost $10,000 lien they placed on the couple's property, sending them into bankruptcy in their retirement.

Said liens were unenforceable against this elderly couple's home of almost 30 years, which was unquestionably a Homestead property, but under the direction of Richard Sarafan and that disgusting law firm, they enforced it anyway, collecting thousands of dollars from this now bankrupt couple in willful actions Florida law says is illegal.

On another occasion, they verbally abused an 8 month pregnant woman to the point of tears in a room full of people with her lawyer standing right beside her, because she politely stated she didn't understand why she and her husband were cited $35,000 for putting up a beautiful little gazebo in their backyard.

Head of the Code Enforcement Board, Barry Asmus, then decided to verbally light up this poor pregnant woman for daring to question him. She started crying - which could have caused fetal distress - and she was carrying twins.

He nastily implied via his words, in front of a room full of residents, that she and her husband are stupid if they didn't understand the made up Miami Shores Village codes that are not rooted in the U.S. Code or the Constitution.

They have verbally abused and harassed scores of innocent citizens, in rooms full of people at code enforcement board meetings, out of sheer arrogance, because they felt they could. 

Richard Sarafan and said law firm of Genovese, Joblove and Battista also specialize in defamation and endangerment as well.

They have sent code enforcement officers such as the common-sense-challenged Anthony Flores onto innocent residents' properties, also known as trespassing, on one occasion terrifying an elderly resident when the brute decided to teach a family a lesson for disputing a citation by overly citing them again and shoving said paper citations under their front door.

The problem was, when the menace did it, he steadied himself on the front door to bend down and aggressively shove said citations under a door with very little room to do so. This caused the elderly woman on the other side of the door, who was home alone to think someone was burglarizing her home, as she heard the door rattling and saw the doorknob moving. His conduct was totally excessive, to put it mildly.

I have one question: has this man not heard of the U.S. Mail. For only a few dozen cents, the USPS will deliver said citations, eliminating the need for him to molest taxpaying residents' front doors.

These jerks have been featured on television, Channel 11 ABC, in Miami for this misconduct, and still, in open violation of U.S. law, continue to use strong-arm tactics, unlawful legal maneuvers, bullying, harassment, slander, libel, defamation and threats to extort huge sums of money out of innocent Miami Shores residents via concocting alleged code violations and attaching and enforcing exorbitant liens on taxpaying citizens' properties in violation of Homestead law.

Judge Federico Moreno - his cases show he's not a friend of the taxpayers, who pay his salary - opting to side with HMOs thus ruling against taxpaying citizens in need of proper health care, ruling in favor of law breaking local government municipalities and multi-billion dollar banks thus ruling against the taxpaying citizens and small business owners, and ruling in favor of his personal social interests.

With judges like Federico Moreno on their side (it's quite telling that on more than one occasion this judge has awarded in their favor against citizens whose rights were violated, in cases where the Village Of Miami Shores clearly violated U.S. law that said judge swore an oath before God to uphold, but is not), they continue to deliberately and recklessly break the law to the serious detriment of many, many taxpaying citizens.

Katherine Fernandez Rundle (left) attorney Richard Sarafan (right). Oh wait, my bad, that's not him.

Why you ask, has this foolishness that is in direct violation of U.S. law been allowed to continue at the taxpayers' expense? Well, the woman who is supposed to see to these matters, the state attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, has not. 

Then again, Mrs. Fernandez Rundle is too busy bailing her little lawbreaking kids out of jail, to tend to city business that the people pay her salary to do. Her time is clearly more needed in answering her sons' pages, finding bail bondsmen and posting bail, than fulfilling her responsibility to the taxpayers.

To those of you reading this, do remember that when it's time to vote.

It's amazing how connected lawbreakers never get prosecuted.

Two of her kids are lawbreakers who’ve been arrested…and are free on bond. The first one, the charges were dropped for “lack of evidence” and the second one's case is pending. "Lack of evidence" seems to be a popular phrase in her office.

However, their faces are familiar to South Floridians, where they are regularly featured on the news…in handcuffs, yelling things like, "Do you know who my mommy is" well actually, he barked at cops "Do you know who you're dealing with." Yea, a spoiled, lawbreaking set of brats.

My question is, if she can't maintain law and order in her own household of a few people, how's she gonna do so for a city of roughly 10,000,000 people?

Katherine Fernandez Rundle

It is my prayer that God will either:

a.) light a fire under you to get you to do your job and fulfill your responsibility to the taxpayers as you should, which you are not doing now

-or-

b.) remove you from said job and give it to someone else who will do it properly.

Amen...and God is faithful, He does answer prayer. You have His word on it (the Bible is called "The Word").

Police Report: State Attorney's Son Belligerent After Arrest

Evan Rundle

Officers Say Evan Rundle Asked 'Do You know Who You're Dealing With?'

MIAMI -- A police report released Friday said that after he was arrested, State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle's son banged his head against a window, made obscene gestures, spit, and repeatedly said, "Do you know who you're dealing with?"

Pinecrest police said Evan Carlos Rundle, was found intoxicated and stumbling around a Dodge Caravan parked at the Shell gas station on U.S. Highway 1 near Southwest 106th Street about 6 a.m. on Tuesday.

According to the arrest report, after Rundle was placed in the back of the patrol car, he became hostile, yelling and banging his head against the window.

The report said that Rundle's bad behavior continued after he was put in a holding cell at the station. Officers said he yelled, banged repeatedly against the door and made obscene gestures at a surveillance camera. Officers said that Rundle damaged the interior of the cell door by banging on it. They said he also spit on the cell walls, floor and door.

Rundle was charged with burglary of a conveyance and criminal mischief. He was booked into the Turner-Guilford-Knight Correctional Center.

It isn't the first time Rundle has been in trouble with the law.

In 2000, he was charged with burglary for allegedly breaking into the MAST (Maritime and Science Technology) Academy and tried to steal speakers from the auditorium.

Evan Rundle's twin brother, Justin, has also had his fair share of legal troubles, with a nearly fatal car wreck and drunk driving arrest in 2001, and a possession of marijuana charge in 2002. - Local10, March 3, 2006

Charge Against State Attorney's Son Is Dropped

Officials Cite Lack Of Evidence

MIAMI -- A trespassing charge against the son of Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle has been dropped.

Officials said Monday that they dropped the charge against Justin Rundle because of a lack of evidence.

Justin Rundle was charged with trespassing in March outside Club Space in downtown Miami.

According to police, a bouncer at the nightclub asked Rundle, 22, to step aside after he refused to pay the cover charge. Police said they arrested Rundle when he would not leave after being warned.

Prosecutors in Polk County were appointed to handle the case, and a spokesman said Monday that charges have been dropped because "the evidence did not warrant further prosecution."

Rundle's attorney, Scott Fingerhut, had previously said in a statement that what happened was "a very unfortunate misunderstanding" and that his client "committed no crime."

It was a difficult month for the Rundle family, since on March 2, just two weeks prior to Justin Rundle's arrest at Club Space, his brother, Evan, had been arrested after police reported finding him intoxicated and stumbling at a Shell gas station on U.S. Highway 1.

According to the arrest report, after Evan Rundle was placed in the back of the patrol car, he became hostile, yelling and banging his head against the window. He was charged with burglary to conveyance and criminal mischief.

It isn't the first time both brothers have been in trouble with the law, however.

In 2000, Evan Rundle was charged with burglary for allegedly breaking into the MAST Academy and trying to steal speakers from the auditorium.

In August 2001, Justin Rundle was nearly killed when he drove his car off Killian Drive near Southwest 107th Avenue. Investigators said Justin Rundle, then 17, was driving drunk.

He was sentenced to six months of probation, fines and community service.

Almost a year after that incident, Justin Rundle was charged with possession of marijuana after police said they found the illegal drug and a pipe on him at Miami International Airport.

Rundle was boarding an American Airlines flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with his mother and aunt.

He agreed to a plea deal in a pretrial diversion program. Under the deal, the misdemeanor possession of marijuana charge against Rundle was thrown out after he completed a rehabilitation program that included classes and community service. – Local 10, June 26, 2006

Son Of Katherine Fernandez Rundle Arrested

Katherine's other son Justin

The 22-year-old son of Miami-Dade state attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle was arrested early Wednesday morning by Pinecrest police. He was charged with burglary and criminal mischief.

According to the arrest affidavit, Evan Rundle was attempting to hotwire a vehicle out side a shell gas station located at 10601 S. Dixie Hwy. The report also states he appeared to be intoxicated and was stumbling when police apprehended him.

Once in the police car Rundle allegedly began yelling loudly and banged his head against the rear passenger window. At the police station cops alleged that he continued to yell and make obscene gestures to the security cameras and repeatedly stated: "Do you know who you're dealing with?"

This is not the first time Evan has been in trouble with the law. Back in 2001, Rundle along with two other boys was arrested after breaking into Mast Academy in Key Biscayne and stealing a pair of speakers. At the time of the arrest police also found a small amount of Marijuana in the car. He plead guilty to those charges and was sentenced to probation and to perform community service.

In 2004 Rundle was arrested once again outside a Key West bar. Police cited the then 20-year-old outside Sloppy Joe's on Duval street for having a fake ID.

Katherine Fernandez-Rundle has yet to comment on her son's latest arrest. No other details have been released. Evan Rundle posted a $6,000 bond and was released.” - Sunbeam TV Corp.

Local State Attorney’s Son Arrested - Fernandez-Rundle’s Sons Have History Of Legal Trouble

The son of Miami-Dade County’s state attorney was arrested Tuesday and accused of trying to break into a minivan parked at a gas station.

Pinecrest police said Evan Carlos Rundle, son of Katherine Fernandez-Rundle, was found intoxicated and stumbling around a Dodge Caravan parked at the Shell gas station on U.S. Highway 1 near Southwest 106th Street around 6 a.m.

The gas station clerk told police it looked like Rundle, 22, was trying to hotwire the van.

According to the arrest report, after Rundle was placed in the back of the patrol car, he became hostile, yelling and banging his head against the window.

It isn’t the first time Rundle has been in trouble with the law.

In 2000, he was charged with burglary for allegedly breaking into the MAST Academy and tried to steal speakers from the auditorium.

His twin brother, Justin Rundle, has also had his fair share of legal troubles.

Justin Rundle was nearly killed when he drove his car off Killian Drive near Southwest 107th Avenue in August 2001. Investigators said Rundle, 17 at the time, was driving drunk.

The Florida Highway Patrol said Rundle’s blood-alcohol test showed a level that was twice the legal limit.

Justin Rundle was sentenced to six months of probation and required to pay fines and court costs. He was also given 65 hours of community service, but Rundle converted 40 of those hours into an additional fine of $400. His license was revoked for six months.

Then, almost one year later, Justin Rundle was charged with possession of marijuana. He was arrested after police said he was caught carrying marijuana and a pipe onto a plane at Miami International Airport.

Rundle was boarding an American Airlines flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico, with his mother and aunt.

Evan Rundle was charged with burglary to conveyance and criminal mischief. He was booked into the Turner-Guilford-Knight Correctional Center.” - www.mustbme.com

TECHNOLOGY Hack A Mac

In response to Apple's commercials pitting the Mac (no, not the Big Mac) against Windows, a group who call themselves hackers security specialists, hacked into a Mac computer and filmed it for posterity.

I’m not surprised, as just about anything is hackable if the person knows what they are doing and is determined enough. Sad, but true.

ECONOMICS The Penny

Ah, the penny. About how much Paris Hilton's album made.

UPDATE: 9-1-06 I updated the penny section correcting a typo error I just caught - it should have said a ".5 cent surplus" not a "5 cent surplus" (reportedly costs 1.5 cent to make each penny - a two penny would create the .5 cent surplus). I forgot to add the point/decimal.

A follow up on last month’s Sound Off Column segment on the penny and the campaign to save it. As I wrote last month, it costs more to manufacture than its monetary value, it is best to eliminate or change it. There are campaigns for and against eliminating the penny.

For a compromise, the United States Treasury can keep the penny, but change its value to two pennies, as they have in Britain with the "2 pence" coin - and their dollar is strong. That would create .5 cent surplus per coin for the U.S. Treasury per "2 penny" minted (reportedly costs 1.5 cents to make each penny), while keeping the look and feel of the penny. Just pluralize it to "two penny" and on the streets they'd call it "2 p" as in Britain. They function with it just fine.

Alternatively, the U.S. Treasury could switch to inferior other materials to make the penny. I dunno, maybe wood...oh wait, termites - never mind. Seriously, they could change to cheaper materials to reduce overhead.

In closing, if any country who trades in money and not rocks would like to loan me one of their minting machines, please, email the site and I will send you my address (just kidding).

SOCIAL Prussian Blue In GQ

Teenage, bleached blonde, racist singing duo Prussian Blue were recently interviewed by GQ magazine. As usual the white supremacist indoctrinated teens were puppets for their mother's hateful, racist beliefs.

"Lamb and Lynx clamber out of April’s minivan and carry their gear into a local recording studio to work on their new album. It’s late September. Lynx is wearing a T-shirt that says NOBODY’S PERFECT…BUT ME!, and Lamb is in her tracksuit, the one that says BABY GIRL 88 PRO.

Mom found it at a local store and thought it would make a fun present, because the number 88 is code for “Heil Hitler” (H being the eighth letter of the alphabet). April has asked me not to reveal the name of the studio—the last time they recorded, she says, the engineer got death threats. “It’s unbelievable to me how intolerant these people are,” she says.

“Intolerant” teapot calling the kettle black. Does she know “baby girl” is a Negro term made popular by black producer Timbaland.

At this, Dresden, an adorable and good-natured child with a crown of wispy golden hair, totters over and gives me a big smile. “Did you know anti-Semitism is a disease?” April asks, smiling briefly before her face hardens. “Yeah,” she continues, “you catch it from Jews.”

And apparently idiocy is genetic in the Gaede household.

I’m Jewish myself—a fact April has already informed me she “kind of figured, from your nose”—but I manage a grin.

And he "kind of figured from" her statements that she’s a little nuts.

I have to wonder if she’s right. What if Prussian Blue does become the new Sex Pistols? Years from now, will I reread this story in my apartment in Tel Aviv (where April helpfully suggests I might like to live) and wish I’d never come to Bakersfield?

Correct me if I’m wrong, don’t they, Prussian Blue and their crazy momma April, say they are from German, Irish and Scottish decent (two of which I come from as well, so the proceeding is not a slur) yet they are telling a Jewish guy the typical racist, xenophobic “go back to” Israel? Clueless. Just clueless.

Somebody buy that family a map. Germany, Ireland and Scotland are not states in America. They are countries in Europe. Know where you really come from before you start telling other people where they came from and to go back there… 

She has no doubt that her daughters will marry genetically appropriate Aryan men and have plenty of beautiful white babies. Mothers just know these things. Still, as Erich Gliebe points out, only time will tell: “You don’t know where the girls are going to be when they turn 18,” he says. “People change.”

I hope one marries a Jew and the other a big black guy from Brooklyn.

SOCIAL Violence Is Not The Answer

Some people all over the world disagree with their respective countries and their policies and go out and commit crimes as a way of expressing said feelings. However, violence is not the answer.

Be productive. Go out and vote, join a good church, donate your time and or money to a good charity, do community service to help people in your area, where you can see a real difference being made right before your eyes in what you do, even if it is on a small scale.

Do something positive and constructive. Being murderous and destructive will not help humanity. Neither will turning on your own country or someone else's.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS "London Under Attack" documentary

A still from "London Under Attack"

I saw a great documentary this month called "London Under Attack." It really delved into the terrorist mindset, even including an interview with a Muslim man who is a specialist on Islam and Muslim culture. On camera, he directed the host of the documentary to terrorist and pro-Jihad web sites and translated it for viewers.

Some pretty sad stuff was written on those web sites, then translated into English. Men that are villains committing Jihad were being called heroes. Heroes don't deliberately kill men, women and worst of all, children.

The documentary also showed how the terrorist attacks in London affected Britons. In all of the viciousness of the attacks, the bombers also killed their own people. There was a story of a pretty, young Muslim woman who was in the vicinity of one of the buses in London that was blown up, who had now gone missing after the attacks, presumably killed by them.

Her Muslim father was on TV crying uncontrollably. I felt sorry for him, as his was the grief of a parent who lost a child. And by all appearances, she was a person just going to work.

Which brings me to my point - none of this makes sense. All these innocent people dying around the world via acts of Jihad, just isn't right. No one wins. Not Muslims - and not anyone else struck by this cruelty, over a cause the whole world will never embrace.

Peace is the only answer in the face of all this and to learn to agree to disagree.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS Jamaican Drug Bust: Operation Kingfish

Some good news out of Jamaica this month - the Police made a huge marijuana bust on the island, seizing 3,000 pounds of weed, that probably had rappers all over the world salivating then lamenting. Operation Kingfish, which has received help from Briton, has been largely successful.

Me personally, I'm tired of drug dealers all over the world using the islands in the Caribbean as transshipment ports. Drug kingpins don't care about the citizens of said islands of the Caribbean and the affect this kind of crime has had on each West Indian country. So, I'm glad progress is being made. God answers prayer.

"Reports are that the intelligence-driven operations, which took the officers to eight locations, also yielded several items, such as, passports, computers, computer-related documents, financial records and assorted sums of foreign currency.

The efforts of Operation Kingfish, which has been working in collaboration with narcotics detectives, the Special Anti-Crime Task Force, Mobile Reserve and Flying Squad sleuths over the past month, have paid rich dividends since Monday.

Between Monday and Tuesday, they managed to seize close to 3,000 pounds of compressed ganja in Cockpit, Clarendon, and Old Harbour Bay, St. Catherine. Five men, including a Bahamian national, were also arrested. The lawmen also seized a 40-foot fishing boat and a truck.

Initial police reports said 1,068 pounds of compressed ganja were found in Clarendon, while another 1,868 pounds of compressed ganja were discovered in an abandoned fishing vessel that was hidden in the mangroves in Old Harbour Bay.

Eleven luxury vehicles were seized and two persons arrested yesterday during a massive international counter-narcotics operation conducted in the Corporate Area and Manchester." - Jamaica Gleaner

"Operation Kingfish has made another massive ganja find which it says may be linked to the drug for guns trade between Jamaica and Haiti. Information Officer for Operation Kingfish, Inspector Steve Brown, told RJR News that police from the Narcotics Division assisted by members of the Jamaica Defense Force escorted a vessel containing some 44 bags of the drug off the coast of Old Harbour Bay to shore." – Radio Jamaica

INTERNATIONAL NEWS “Kabul To Deport Korean Christians” For Their Safety

Stories like these really make you appreciate freedom of religion, which many countries have, but still some don't observe:

"Afghanistan says it will deport hundreds of South Korean evangelical Christians amid fears for their safety. They have been accused by Islamic clerics of preaching Christianity. Afghanistan bans attempts to convert people to non-Islamic faiths.

Around 1,500 South Koreans arrived this week for a "peace festival", and education and entertainment programme.

Correspondents say that the Seoul government has repeatedly urged the Christians - among them 600 children - to return home, warning of the dangers they face at the hands of the radical Taleban movement.

A spokesman for the South Korean-based Institute of Asian Culture and Development (IACD) told AFP that they are only in the country to provide war-ravaged Afghanistan with medical, education and cultural programmes. He said they were in the capital and four other towns and cities.

"We are not against the policies of Afghanistan. We respect and we love Afghanistan," he said. In February several thousand people protested against the release of a man who converted to Christianity, demanding he face the death penalty. He was spirited out of the country.” - BBC

SPIRITUAL You Can't Change People

You can't change people. So many times we learn this the hard way in life. You see it happen between married people who try to change each other to the other's liking. Not to excuse bad habits, but changing a person isn't the easiest thing in the world and not everything is a bad habit.  

Some people change through good things happening to them and some people change through bad things happening to them. It is usually the latter. Others change through something called conscience. Yes, it actually works when you listen to it (your conscience)

Once again, you can't change people. You have to let them change themselves or better yet, let God change them through circumstances and His grace.

And people can change. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. God can change anyone - from the most staunch atheist to the most hardened criminal. I've seen it happen. Nothing is too difficult for God.

We learn as we grow and hopefully we become better people. We do so by the choices we consciously decide to make to do what is right.

We've all made mistakes (the Bible says so). Show me a man, other than Jesus, who said he hasn't and I can tell you that man is a liar.

However, with God there is forgiveness as long as you are alive and ask for it, no matter who you are. Never feel that you have fallen so low that Jesus will turn you away. He actually says in the Bible that any person who comes to Him spiritually, He will never turn away.

As the old phrase goes, it's not how you start, but how you finish.