Beyonce In Nothing but a Pair of Jeans

So, Beyonce has finally crossed over…. Stripping to sell clothes. Hey, I guess the guys absolutely love this. But, did she have to do that to promote her jeans? Beyonce is a beautiful woman and she doesn’t have to use nudity to sell any of her products. You be the judge! I guess nothing accounts for real talent any more or good taste, for that matter. Ring the alarm…..

I guess her song is appropriate….”You must not know about me, you must not know about me…” Yeah, I guess we didn’t.

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Is There a Government Cover-Up in Benazir Bhutto’s Assassination?

I have long suspected that the Pakistani government would resort to a cover-up in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, which is very unsettling. A newly released video of her murder and an inconclusive medical report have raised more doubts that the government is telling the truth. I am pretty sure that a doctor knows what a gunshot wound looks like and to state that she banged her head on a lever, which ultimately caused her death is an insult to all. If she was shot, she would, in fact, her fell back into the vehicle, thereby possibly hitting her head. However, from photographs of the “assassin” it seems as though he had a clear line of fire to Bhutto, raising the distinct possibility that she was in fact shot. This footage, obtained by Britain’s Channel 4 television, showed a man firing a pistol at Bhutto from just feet away as she greeted supporters through the sunroof of her armored vehicle after a rally Thursday.
The reports have said that her hair and shawl then moved upward and she fell into the vehicle just before an explosion, which was apparently detonated by a second man, rocked the vehicle.

• Click here to watch the video (warning: graphic content).

Most naturally, her aides, including one who rushed her to the hospital, would know for certain if she was shot or not. The government, citing a report from doctors at the hospital where she died, said she was not hit by any of the bullets, but was killed when the force of the blast slammed her head into a lever on the vehicle’s sunroof.

A copy of the medical report sent to reporters by a prominent lawyer, Athar Minallah, who is a board member of the hospital said the doctors had made no determination about whether she was shot. It gave the cause of death as “open head injury with depressed skull fracture, leading to cardiopulmonary arrest.”

The report, signed by seven doctors at the hospital, said that when Bhutto was brought in, she had no pulse and was not breathing. Blood trickled from a wound on the right side of her head and whitish material that appeared to be brain matter was visible. Her clothes were soaked with blood. Unless you fell from the sky, I don’t think hitting your head on a lever would have done such untold damage. The report said her head wound was an irregular oval shape measuring about 2 inches by 1.2 inches. No surrounding wounds or blackening were seen.
“No foreign body was felt in the wound. Wound was not further explored,” it said.

There is definitely something sinister going on here and the sooner an international investigatory body steps in, the sooner we are able to make some sense of what is going on. What is quite clear, is the fact that we cannot trust Pervez Musharraf, who seized power in a coup. The United States government is giving Pakistan a lot of money and that should hinge on the fact of whether of not he is meeting the obligations set forth to eradicate terrorism in his country, which is it quite obvious is not occurring. Benazir Bhutto, despite all her faults (which will be revisited in her death) may very well have managed to raise awareness of the utter mess that is occurring in Pakistan on a daily basis.

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Political Unrest Rocks Kenya

You don’t hear an awful lot about Kenya in the news on a daily basis, so this was quite unsettling, to say the least, to see the reports on television about the rioting that came as a result of the recent elections. I can never understand, for the life of me, why people will riot and destroy the very things they need to get by. Take the recent riots in Pakistan over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, for example. The people burned buses, which they need to get around and damaged trains, which they also need to get around. This makes no sense, but it happens everywhere people engage in rioting.

So, what’s the deal in Kenya? News reports have said that Kenyan police battled thousands of opposition supporters enraged over President Mwai Kibaki’s allegedly fraudulent re-election, firing tear gas and live ammunition as the death toll from the violence rose to 103, officers and witnesses said. Several officers said they had orders to shoot to kill, while opposition supporters said they would risk death to protest what they called a stolen election. Demonstrators were beaten back with tear gas and water cannons, and police fired live rounds over their heads in Nairobi’s burning slums. It is always the slums that bear the brunt of the rioting too.

“We have been rigged out, we are not going to accept defeat,” said 24-year-old James Onyango, who lives in Nairobi’s Kibera slum. “We are ready to die and we’re ready for serious killings.” I guess when you have nothing, sometimes you just do what you have to do.

The news also said that Raila Odinga, the fiery opposition leader who came in second according to the official results, compared Kibaki to a military dictator who “seized power through the barrel of the gun,” and called on one million people to gather Thursday in Nairobi’s Uhuru Park,where protesters gathered to demand multiparty democracy in the early 1990s.

“We are calling for mass action,” said Odinga, who had been leading early results and public opinion polls. “We will inform police of the march. We will march wearing black arm bands because we are mourning.”

The violence has killed at least 103 people since Saturday across the country, police and witnesses said, although the tally was likely far higher.
The United States said it was concerned over “serious problems” during the counting of votes.

“Those alleging vote tampering may pursue legal remedies and should be able, consistent with respect for freedom of speech, to make their case publicly. We call on the judiciary to play its role expeditiously,” the U.S. embassy in Kenya said.

What I find quite unsettling is that Kibaki was sworn in almost immediately after the results were announced. That is quite unheard of in any democracy, but is Kenya really a democracy? Suspicions over rigging were fueled by the fact that the opposition took most of the parliamentary seats in Thursday’s vote and rightly so, but Kibaki still won the election.

Kibaki’s supporters have said that he has turned Kenya’s economy into an east African powerhouse, with an average annual growth rate of five percent. He won by a landslide in 2002, ending 24 years in power by the notoriously corrupt Daniel arap Moi. But Kibaki’s anti-graft campaign has largely been seen as a failure, and the country still struggles with tribalism and poverty.

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The Prosperity Gospel and Blacks

Senator Charles Grassley has put the issue of prosperity gospel front and center as a result of his investigation of the financial records of seven mega-televangelists. For too long, many of these ministries have literally pandered to the poor to sow a seed towards their needs. Televangelists often tell viewers that they must be faithful in how they live and how they give. They tell people that God will shower them with untold riches, as long as they are faithful and sow that seed. Through the years I have heard many of them justify the need to sow a seed in order to receive the money needed to pay bills, to have that luxury car, to have that illness miraculously healed. Yes, the list goes on and televangelists such as Juanita Bynum, the new self-proclaimed face of the battered woman, has literally berated people into sowing seed against their need. By the way, Ms. Bynum has refused to disclose how much money her ministry has taken in, but yet she wants us to be accountable for all that we do.

People are pledging money towards these ministries in massive amounts. In most cases, these people are living from paycheck to paycheck, barely able to make ends meet. All too often, these people faithfully sow their seed and their needs are never met. The answer many of these televanglists give when needs are met is that the person’s faith was not strong enough. They must put it on the altar and leave it to God.

Senator Grassley has launched an investigation into the ministries of Bishop Eddie L. Long of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church, Creflo & Taffi Dollar of World Changers International, the flamboyant “healer” Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland and Paula & Randi White, who are in the middle of a divorce (how do you explain divorcing to your flock as the pastors?). They are being investigated about their lavish spending and possible abuses of their tax-exempt status.

The probe by Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, has brought new scrutiny to the underlying belief that brings in millions of dollars and fills churches from Atlanta to Los Angeles — the “Gospel of Prosperity,” or the notion that God wants to bless the faithful with earthly riches. These ministries preach the prosperity gospel in varying degrees.

Proponents have called it a biblically sound message of hope. Others say it is a distortion that makes evangelists rich and preys on the vulnerable. They say it has evolved from “it’s all right to make money” to it’s all right for the pastor to drive a Bentley, live in an oceanside home and travel by private jet.

The modern-day prosperity movement can largely be traced back to evangelist Oral Roberts’ teachings. Roberts’ disciples have spread his theology and vocabulary (Roberts and other evangelists, such as Meyer, call their donors “partners.”) And several popular prosperity preachers, including some now under investigation, have served on the Oral Roberts University board. Copeland is on the board of trustees for the University, which has its own scandal on its hands, with Richard and Lindsay Roberts being accused of funding their lavish lifesytle with money donated to the university.

Most scholars trace the origins of prosperity theology to E.W. Kenyon, an evangelical pastor from the first half of the 20th century. It was not until the postwar era, that a pair of evangelists from Tulsa, Okla. introduced the theology of “health and wealth,” which became a fixture in Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

According to David Edwin Harrell Jr.,Oral Roberts and Kenneth Hagin — and later, Kenneth Copeland — trained tens of thousands of evangelists with a message that resonated with an emerging middle class, said David Edwin Harrell Jr.

“What Oral did was develop a theology that made it OK to prosper,” Harrell said. “He let Pentecostals be faithful to the old-time truths their grandparents embraced and be part of the modern world, where they could have good jobs and make money.”

Prosperity preachers have Bible verses at the ready to make their case. One oft-cited verse, in Paul’s Second Epistle to the Corinthians, reads: “Yet for your sakes he became poor, that you by his poverty might become rich.”

Critics acknowledge the idea that God wants to bless his followers has a Biblical basis, but say prosperity preachers take verses out of context. The prosperity crowd also fails to acknowledge Biblical accounts that show God doesn’t always reward faithful believers, Palmer said.

The prosperity gospel continues to draw crowds, particularly lower- and middle-income people who, critics say, have the greatest motivation and the most to lose. The prosperity message is spreading to black churches, attracting elderly people with disposable incomes, and reaching huge churches in Africa and other developing parts of the world.

The checks and balances central to Christian denominations are largely lacking in prosperity churches. Recent media reports have said that Bishop Eddie Long has written that God told him to get rid of the “ungodly governmental structure” of a deacon board. Some ministers hold up their own wealth as evidence that the teaching works. Atlanta-area pastor Creflo Dollar, who is fighting Grassley’s inquiry, owns a Rolls Royce and multimillion-dollar homes and travels in a church-owned Learjet.

There is evidence of change. Joyce Meyer Ministries, for one, enacted financial reforms in recent years, including making audited financial statements public.Meyer, who has promised to cooperate fully with Grassley, issued a statement emphasizing that a prosperity gospel “that solely equates blessing with financial gain is out of balance and could damage a person’s walk with God.”

There has to be greater financial scrutiny of these megachurches and people must be mindful not to be fooled into thinking that all will be well if you just sow a seed towards your needs. Paula White has boasted that she appeals to blacks because she understands our struggles. I think not. She talks a good game that’s all. It is time for us to wake up and stop giving our last dollar to these ministries. Yes, I believe in giving back and sowing my seed, but not at the expense of having my electricity turned off and on the premise that if I sow my seed God will take care of the rest. It simply does not work in that manner.

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James Brown’s Children to Contest Will

The saga of James Brown’s estate continues. The latest news reports have said that five of his children have said that his will should be invalidated because his former advisers “used undue influence” to get him to create charitable trusts that they would profit from by managing. Like the recent announcement of Barron Hilton, magnate of the Hilton family, who just left 97 percent of his estate to charity, the Brown children were largely left out of the financial portion of the will. Brown’s will leaves the bulk of his money to trusts set up to educate his grandchildren and needy children.

The Brown children challenging the will are Deanna Brown Thomas, Venisha Brown, Daryl Brown, Yamma Brown Lumar and Larry Brown. A sixth child named in Brown’s will, Terry Brown, has hired a different attorney.

Atlanta attorney Louis Levenson said the children discovered earlier wills drafted by their father that cast doubt on whether he truly wanted to leave his estate to charity. “There was sporadic indication that Mr. Brown intended to benefit some charities, but the circumstances surrounding the making of these documents have always been clouded in mystery,” Levenson said.

Five Brown children are challenging the will in Aiken County Probate Court. They claim Brown’s longtime advisers Buddy Dallas, Alford Bradley and David Cannon convinced the soul singer to create the trusts so the advisers would profit from managing the two charities after Brown died.
Dallas denied the allegations and called attempts to void the will “an act of desperation.”

There seems to be some “in-fighting” going on too. One grandchild whose tuition would be paid for by the trusts has accused his relatives of trying to break the charities to get the money.

Most of Brown’s estate, including his Beech Island home and rights to his image, name and music, would go to the James Brown “I Feel Good” Trust for the education of needy children in South Carolina and Georgia, as well as to a family trust to educate his grandchildren younger than 35. It is not clear how much money in involved in the estate. In October, Forbes reported Brown made an estimated $5 million in 2005 alone. But attorneys have said Brown’s accounts do not have the money they expected.

So, here we go ahead….. Confusion surrounds the estate of a famous black person. This is nothing new. Just think about Redd Foxx and Sammy Davis Jr., who owed the IRS enormous sums of money. Take a look at Elvis Presley’s estate that continues to make money year after year. Can we please take a page from these people? James was too busy doing other things during his life, than focusing on what he truly wanted his legacy to be and to set the wheels in motion to ensure that legacy was passed on smoothly. By the time this is all over, nothing will be left of his money because the lawyers will claim a large chunk for legal fees.

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Benazir Bhutto’s Son, Husband To Serve as Co-Chairs of Opposition Party

Politics must be in their blood. Benazir came from a political party, so like the Kennedy dynasty, it is natural for the torch to be passed to another member. With that said, it is my hope that they will protect these two individuals better than they protected Benazir. Asif Ali Zardari and 19-year-old Bilawal Bhutto were chosen to take the reigns of the Pakistan People’s Party Sunday in the wake of Bhutto’s assassination on Dec. 27.

Bilawal Zardari is an Oxford University student with no political experience and this decision has, in essence, catapulted him to the center of Pakistan’s tumultuous public life. Bhutto’s husband Asif Ali Zardari, 51, is a party powerbroker who served as environment minister in her second government.As co-chairman he is widely expected to have hands-on leadership of the party.

“The party’s long struggle for democracy will continue with renewed vigor,” Bilawal said at a news conference. “My mother always said democracy is the best revenge.” News reports said that supporters chanted “Benazir, princess of heaven” and “Bilawal, move ahead. We are with you.”

The government has been begun to quietly seek counsel from foreign countries in its “investigation” of the assassination of Bhutto. Zardari has announced that his party will participate in the upcoming elections and has appealed to the United Nations and the British government to help in the investigation of his wife’s death.

Zardari is not without his share of scandals and the death of Bhutto will only serve to bring this to light. He served as a member of the National Assembly and as Environment Minister during the second term of Benazir’s administration. His last position in the Pakistani government was that of a senator until 1999 when the senate and assemblies were dissolved by General Pervez Musharraf who overthrew former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

He was arrested in 1990 on blackmail charges but the charges were later dropped and he was released from prison in 1993 when Benazir’s People’s Party took power. During the final days of his late wife’s second premiership, just before her government was dissolved by the then president, Farooq Leghari, his brother-in-law Murtaza Bhutto was assassinated. He was subsequently arrested on murder charges in 1996. A full investigation was never completed. He was kept in custody from 1997 to 2004 on charges ranging from corruption to murder. He was granted bail and released in November 2004 when a judge said the cases were all false, although allegations of pressure on the judge have also been made. However, he was re-arrested on December 21, 2004 after his failure to attend a hearing in a murder trial in Karachi. He was charged with conspiracy in the 1996 killing of a judge and his son. These charges coincided with his plans to launch massive protests in the country.

In August 2004, Zardari finally admitted owning a £4.35m estate in Surrey, England (including a 20-room mansion and two farms on 365 acres of land), which the Pakistani authorities allege was bought with the proceeds of corruption. He and his family had long denied ownership of such property in the UK. Legal proceedings brought by the Government of Pakistan against Zardari to recover the sale proceeds of the property are continuing before the High Court of England and Wales. In October 2006, the English High Court dismissed Zardari’s application to have the proceedings stopped on the basis that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case. As of late 2007, Zardari is seeking permission to appeal that decision.

It will be interesting to see what role he will play in the party in light of all the allegations of money laundering and others that have been made against him and his wife.

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Affirmative Action In the Forefront Again

The drive to ban affirmative action is in the forefront once more. A campaign to ban affirmative action is underway in five states that are already embroiled in debates over illegal immigration. The campaign is underway in Arizona, Colorado, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma to put initiatives on November ballots that would essentially end programs to increase minority and female participation in government and education.

Ward Connerly is the main force behind the latest push. Connerly is a California management consultant who successfully ran similar campaigns in California, Washington and Michigan. All five states have had big increases in their Hispanic population since 2000, leading to racial tensions and debates over illegal immigration.

Arizona, Colorado and Oklahoma have passed the nation’s toughest laws against illegal immigration. In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt is pushing for tougher immigration laws and enforcement, while in Nebraska, towns with large food processing companies that employ Hispanic immigrants have been targeted by federal immigration raids.

Connerly said “It’s a simple principle we are promoting: equal treatment for all Americans.”
He has said that he believes in affirmative action if it is based on socioeconomic conditions, not gender or race. His campaign is in its first stage in Colorado, Arizona and Nebraska, gathering signatures to qualify to be on the ballot.

This has been a very contentious subject and the outcome will not be pleasing to some and fine to others. If we lived in a color-blind society, then I would say that we do not need affirmative action, but with the recent rise in discrimination cases and racial intolerance, we need some safeguards in place. I do not want to be handed something because of the color of my skin, I would much prefer to be judged on the basis of my qualifications, but sometimes that is not enough.

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African American Firefighter Carter Stephens Awarded $1.17M In Harassment Lawsuit

Carter Stephens, a retired Pasadena firefighter, was awarded $1.17 million by a jury in a discrimination case. Stephens said that harassment complaints to superiors in the department only led to retaliation. He said that he was forced to resign after complaining for five years about other firefighters leaving blood, urine and feces in his bedding, as well as scrawling a swastika on his equipment. According to Carter Stephens’ suit, supervisors and co-workers also put mucus on his uniform and a captain referred to him by the “N” word.

Stephens, 55, said he felt vindicated after enduring racially-motivated attacks for five years. “The general thought was, ‘You just have go ahead and take a beating. Maybe it’ll stop,’ ” he said. “That’s what I tried to do. But it wouldn’t stop.” Stephens said he filed numerous complaints to his supervisors, but instead of getting better, things got worse. According to news reports of the trial, attorneys for the city argued that Stephens was not out for justice but for money. Under questioning, Stephens acknowledged that sometimes it was red-colored ink and not blood that was left on his bedding. He also testified that he was once fired by the department after being convicted of charges related to the flattening of car tires. Stephens got his job back after an arbitrator’s ruling, according to media reports. So what, does that mean that one should put up with such blatant racism and say nothing? All too often we have seen victims being denigrated and made to feel that they have somehow brought this on themselves.

Stephens joined the Pasadena Fire Department in 1987 and said that when he tried to challenge that culture of the “good old boys network,” he experienced retaliation. He said the problems started late in his career in Pasadena and corresponded to a change in management within the Fire Department. In 2005, he was retired from the stints as a shoe salesman at Macy’s. After the verdict, Stephens said he looked forward to going back to school.”I’m looking to further my education,” he said. “I don’t really have any concrete plans. I have a couple of ideas in my head. Maybe open a business.” He said nothing would make up for the career he had to give up. “I attempted to endure things because I wanted to do the job that I loved,” he said. “Being a firefighter was absolutely my dream job. I loved being a fireman, and I was a very good firefighter.”

We have to eradicate racial discrimination on the job. I am sure that the majority of African Americans and other races, have dealt with some form of racial discrimination in the workplace.

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Giuliani’s Veteran Coalition Co-Chair John Deady Resigns Over Muslim Comments

John Deady, the co-chairman for Rudy Giuliani’s veterans’ coalition in New Hampshire has resigned after putting his foot in his mouth. He told a British newspaper, the Guardian, that Muslims need to be chased “back to their caves.” What planet are these “authorities” from? Don’t these people know that disparaging comments will come back to haunt them? Giuliani, for what it is worth, had nothing to do with this bigotry, however, he has fostered an atmosphere conducive to such thinking. When he was mayor of New York City, he fanned the flames of racial tension by backing the police who mercilessly beat Haitian immigrant Abner Louima and lied about it, only for the city to end up having to pay the largest police brutality settlement to this man. Justin Volpe, the police who led the attack on Louima is sitting behind bars to this very day for the crime. So, racial intolerance is nothing new for the Giuliani camp.

“Mr. Deady offered his resignation from his volunteer position in the campaign and I accepted his resignation,” Giuliani New Hampshire Chairman Wayne Semprini said in a statement.
In the original Guardian interview, Deady said Giuliani is the best candidate to handle “one of the most difficult problems in current history” — “the rise of the Muslims.”He added: “We need to keep the feet to the fire and keep pressing these people until we defeat or chase them back to their caves or, in other words, get rid of them.”

Click here to see the video of Deady’s comments for the Guardian.

Deady continued to seal his own fate by stating in an interview with the Talking Points Memo Web site, by confirming that he had made the statements and said he was referring to all Muslims. “I don’t subscribe to the principle that there are good Muslims and bad Muslims,” Deady said in the article. “They’re all Muslims.” This way of thinking is quite serious because the feeling could be the same for other races, ethnicities and sexual orientation.

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Rioting Continues in Pakistan

The fallout from the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto continues. The government puppet is still maintaining that she was killed by hitting her head on a lever in her SUV. Okay, let’s be realistic for a moment….. If she was shot, would she not fall back into the vehicle? Cheema’s actions are eerily reminiscent of Saddam Hussein’s spokesman, who during the US led invasion, when Iraq was crumbling around him, kept saying that their military forces were winning the war. His name eludes me, but the guy was spreading a lot of propaganda, much like this guy.

News reports have said that mass rioting following the assassination of opposition leader Bhutto has led to the deaths of 38 people and caused tens of millions of dollars in damage, the government said Saturday. Rioters destroyed 176 banks, 72 train cars and 18 rail stations, said Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema. At least 100 prisoners were sprung from jails, he said.

Speaking at a news conference, Cheema reiterated the government’s claim that Islamic militant leader Baitullah Mehsud was behind Bhutto’s killing, despite Mehsud’s denials. “We have the evidence that he is involved,” Cheema said. “Why should he (Mehsud) accept that he has done it. It does not suit him. I don’t think anybody has the capability to carry out such suicide attacks except for those people.”

Here is the clincher to reinforce my position that we are seeing a massive cover-up — Cheema said Pakistan did not need foreign help to probe the killing. “This is not an ordinary criminal matter in which we require assistance of the international community. I think we are capable of handling it,” he said.

He also responded to reports by Bhutto aides that the former prime minister was killed by gunshot wounds and not by the force of a subsequent suicide attack as the government said. “We gave you absolute facts, nothing but the facts,” he said. “It was corroborated by the doctors’ report. It was corroborated by the evidence collected.” Did any independent party really see the medical report on this woman’s injuries? Another clincher for me — It is immaterial as to how she died. What is more important is who are the people who killed her,” he said.

I can understand to some degree that an alliance with Pakistan is vital to fight the war on terror, but we must remember that Pervez Musharraf is a dictator and will stop at nothing to keep his power in tact. I am not accusing him of having a hand in her death, but he certainly has done nothing substantial to fight the Taliban. The American government is pouring massive sums of money into his country and for what? Osama bin Laden and his cronies are still running around and I believe in or around Pakistan.

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