Opportunist Alert: New Tell-All Book Reveals Michael Jackson Was Gay! The Mud-Slinging Has Begun!
Celebrity biographer Ian Helperin is set to release an explosive book that will definitely cause substantial fall-out. “Un-Masked: The Final Years of Michael Jackson” is the working title of Ian Helperin’s biography on the inner workings of Michael Jackson’s personal and intimate life.
The book details Michael Jackson’s supposed fixation of cross-dressing and cruisin’ the streets of Las Vegas for men to pick-up for sexual encounters. In fact, one such pick-up, a construction worker, claims that Michael Jackson made him sign a confidentiality agreement before intimacy occured. Ian Helperin also attempts to deconstruct Michael Jackson’s public persona from his very private one.
“Un-Masked” is only the beginning, folks, of the massive smear campaign that is in the works to rid or tarnish the image of Michael Jackson from the hearts and minds of millions of people all over the world. Get ready for more accusations and “tell-all” books about Michael Jackson in weeks to come.
Why? Because everyone is realizing what a marketable commodity Michael Jackson is more so in death than in life. Every greedy wannabe grabber of fifteen minutes of fame and notoriety is going to conceive of something to make a buck off of Michael Jackson. Hey! Even Michael’s own father is guilty of that!
By the way, the Michael is Gay bandwagon is an old one. When this rumor first started in the mid seventies, continuing into the early eighties, fans still loved Michael Jackson and bought his records regardless. Real Michael Jackson fans could care less as to what Michael’s sexual orientation was! That is still the case right now.
All of those trying to make money off of Michael Jackson by writing smut at this point in time are vicious and cruel with a freezer for a heart! We sincerely hope that the Jackson family lawyers are taking notes and preparing to sue.This is the only way that Michael Jackson’s legacy will be preserved for his children and generations to come.
Shocking Details Concerning Chicago Cemetary Scandal! Four Arrested On Felony X Charges! Excerpts From Chicago Tribune!
New estimate on cemetery bodies: 200 to 300
Authorities today sharply increased the estimate of the number of bodies disinterred at Burr Oak Cemetery in southwest suburban Alsip in a scheme to illegally resell grave sites.
Two hundred to 300 bodies were dug up and dumped into an isolated, weedy area of the cemetery, where many prominent African-Americans are buried, including Emmett Till.
Former cemetery manager Carolyn Towns, 49, foreman Keith Nicks, 45, and dump-truck operator Terrence Nicks, 39, all of Chicago, and back-hoe operator Maurice Dailey, 59, of Robbins, were each charged with one count of dismembering a human body, a Class X felony. They all face up to 30 years in prison.
Authorities are also investigating an Emmett Till Memorial Fund that Towns set up for a museum in the slain teen’s memory. Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart and State’s Atty. Anita Alvarez asked for the public’s help in tracking donations to the fund, set up in 2005.
“If there are any people out there who in fact contributed to that fund, in order to have that building, that museum, built, which was never done … can you please call the sheriff’s hotline number, and please pass that information on,” Alvarez said.
Bail for Towns, described as the scheme’s mastermind, was set at $250,000, and for the other defendants at $200,000 by Cook County Judge Maria Kuriakos Ciesil.
“Carolyn Towns was the brains behind the operation, the one calling the shots,” Blair said.
The charges against Towns allege that “numerous graves were excavated and the human remains were then buried in a rear vacant lot in Burr Oak cemetery, Alsip … She then sold the vacant gravesites for her own personal financial gain.” Authorities said she earlier had been fired by the cemetery’s owners because of theft allegations.
The four were able to successfully carry out the scheme, prosecutors said, because bereaved relatives often came into the cemetery office to buy grave sites with cash. Towns would take the cash and destroy the deeds and other paperwork for the existing graves, they said. Towns would keep the cash and pay off the other defendants by increasing their overtime pay, which she controlled as cemetery general manager.
Mahoney described the defendants’ actions as “cold, calculating and showed a total disregard for human souls.”
The scheme was discovered when a cemetery worker was practicing on a backhoe and dug up some of the remain and went to police.
Detectives found a pile of bones decomposed, above ground and uncovered in an overgrown, fenced-off portion of the cemetery, according to Dart.
In addition, bodies apparently were double-buried in existing plots, Dart said. Dozens of FBI agents are expected in Chicago early next week to help sift through the evidence at the cemetery, Dart said.
“We’re going to be here months,” Dart said. “There are not going to be quick answers here.”
Tom Troutman, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago field office, said investigators have “got to map the whole graveyard.”
Agents will use electronic equipment to search for anomalies that might indicate where there are more bodies than there should be, Troutman said.
At the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s behest, a woman who said she has had 23 relatives buried at Burr Oak took the microphone briefly during the press conference at the cemetery. Myrtis Palm Dean said there will be legal help available at a Far South Side church on Sunday. There also will be a meeting on Saturday at Rainbow-PUSH headquarters.
Dean said families are thinking of class action suit.
“I have gravesites that haven’t even been used, headstones that are missing,” said Dean. “There is no need for this. This is sacred ground.”
Dart said that “there’s virtually no regulation” of cemetery information, and one of the things that has complicated the investigation is that there is no agency that collects the information from cemeteries about who is buried at them–and many relevant records at Burr Oak have been altered or destroyed.
One of the first predominantly African-American cemeteries in the area, Burr Oak is the resting place of many historic figures, including civil rights symbol Emmett Till, blues legend Dinah Washington and heavyweight boxing champion Ezzard Charles.
Dart said he was certain Till’s remains were not disturbed, but he could not be sure about the others.
This morning, a large crowd converged on the cemetery, most of them African-American, saying they wanted to find out if their loved ones’ remains had been moved. The families expressed outrage, disgust and discouragement.
Dart said this morning that none of the cemetery’s workers came to work today, so the sheriff’s office was aiding residents walk through the plots.
“This is just heartbreaking. The people I have talked to have made me want to cry,” Dart said. “The sense of violation is horrible.”
“Some people come back from the grave site and it’s not what it’s supposed to be and I don’t know what to tell them,” he said.
Sheriff’s employees are having concerned families first take a number. When their number comes up, they are taken to the site. But the wait is long so Dart’s office has brought out chairs for the elderly as well as water, drinks and chips for relatives.
Some people who know where the location of their loved ones’ graves are just heading to them on their own.
Dart said he believes the alleged scheme has been going on for about four years.
“We have evidence…There were also people being double-buried, that they would just sort of pound down the one casket or remains and put another set of remains on top,” he told WGN-AM.
The disinterred graves appeared to be older, neglected ones, Dart said. “They specifically looked to older graves, where there might not be someone coming out there every week,” he said.
Dart said it would take weeks, if not months, before it will be known who the bodies are. Between 30 and 40 FBI agents “from all over the world” who specialize in identifying remains will arrive on Monday to work on the case, he told WGN-AM. It will take four or five weeks to sift through the area in the cemetery in which the bodies were dumped and which has been fenced off as the main crime scene, Dart said.
No remains have been removed yet, Dart said. The bones were scattered above ground, along with casket and other related debris, over an area of about four blocks in a hilly portion of the cemetery. There’s a lot of overgrown vegetation there, he said, and the area stretches from Kostner to Cicero Avenues.
The FBI is conducting tests to determine the identities, but Dart said he was not familiar with their methods. He said it was possible not all bodies would be identified. Compounding the problem, many cemetery records appear to have been destroyed.
Dart said people have complained about the cemetery for months and have not received any answers. The families have complained specifically of flooding and even markers being moved. The Tribune in May wrote about the cemetery and residents’ complaints.
Simeon Wright of the La Grange area, a cousin of Till, said: “This is reprehensible if it’s true. I’ve got several generations of my family buried there, and I’ve never had any problems. … But this is a pretty ghoulish story.”
On Wednesday night, as news of the grim discovery spread, devastated families started trickling onto the cemetery grounds to check on their loved ones’ graves.
Donetta Newman, 35, whose father and both of her grandparents are buried at Burr Oak, stood in the rain trying to get inside to see if their grave sites had been disturbed. “You always think this is the final resting place,” she said. “This is just shocking. I’m very distraught.”
None of the remains had been removed from the site, said Steve Patterson, a sheriff’s spokesman. The state’s attorney’s office and FBI are also investigating, Dart said.
In recent years the cemetery at 4400 W. 127th St. has drawn complaints for overgrown grass, sunken grave sites and flooding.
Police told industry experts, consulted as they investigated the case, that the conspirators probably took in around $300,000.
Sheriff’s police learned of the grave-reselling scheme six weeks ago when they were contacted by the Arizona-based cemetery owners, Perpetua Inc., who told police they were concerned about possible financial wrongdoing, Dart said. The scheme came to light after another cemetery employee told the owners of the re-sold deeds and the owners contacted the sheriff’s police department, Blair said.
Perpetua Holdings of Illinois, Inc. has owned the cemetery since 2001. Trudi McCollum Foushee, a Missouri-based attorney for company president Melvin Bryant of Richardson, Texas, would only confirm the company went to police, triggering the investigation.
Authorities alleged that Towns and the other suspects targeted graves they knew had not been visited in a long time and then Towns fraudulently altered the deeds to the plots, sheriff’s spokeswoman Blair said. The plots were then resold to unsuspecting families seeking a grave site for a loved one.
All targeted grave sites were very old, though some still had headstones, Blair said. The caskets, vaults and bodies were dumped in a large back portion of the cemetery, where investigators found human remains lying in plain sight amid piles of dirt, she said.
Once a plot was resold, Blair said, “They would dig up the body, toss it and by the time the (newly) deceased person got there, they were put in the grave and their family was none the wiser.”
When investigators went out to the cemetery, Dart said, “We originally thought it was just a pure financial crime that we were walking into and then … within minutes of being out here, we had a pretty good handle on what we were dealing with, and it went well beyond anyone’s idea of a financial crime”
Blair said that financial crimes charges could be added later, but it was unclear how much money was netted from the scam. Authorities are still trying to piece together the scheme with what few records exist.
“Unfortunately, they destroyed so much paperwork,” Blair said. “I think that [the secretary] was tasked with destroying documents relating to the sale and resale of the deeds.”
The Tribune is not naming the secretary because she has not been charged with a crime.
The Cook County sheriff’s office set up an e-mail address for families who are concerned about loved who are buried at the cemetery: burroakcemeteryinvestigation@gmail.com.
***Thank You Chicago Tribune!***
White House Fact Sheet On Clean Energy!
Meeting the International Clean Energy and Climate Change Challenges
Every nation on this planet is at risk. And just as no one nation is responsible for climate change, no one nation can address it alone. That is why, back in April, I convened this forum of the world’s major economies – responsible for more than three-quarters of the world’s carbon pollution. And it is why we have gathered again here today.
–President Barack Obama
July 9, 2009, L’Aquila, Italy
From his first days in office, President Obama has made it a top priority of the United States to accelerate our transformation to a clean energy economy and combat climate change. President Obama is committed to leading the way through strong domestic actions and working with partners around the world to achieve an international agreement that will promote the clean energy technologies necessary to lower global greenhouse gas emissions in the developed and developing worlds alike.
As a key part of this effort, President Obama launched the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. The forum convened at the Leaders level in L’Aquila, Italy on July 9, 2009, in a meeting co-chaired by President Obama and Prime Minister Berlusconi.
The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate
The Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate (MEF) brings together 17 developed and developing economies to engage in a meaningful dialogue on clean energy technology and the need to secure a broad international agreement to combat climate change.
The Leaders held candid and constructive discussions culminating in a declaration that reflects real progress on the road to the Copenhagen climate conference in December and real progress in paving the way for the development and deployment of transformational technologies.
The Leaders found common ground among the critical pillars of mitigation, adaptation, finance and technology, which are necessary for any successful agreement in Copenhagen. This complements the significant progress made by the G8 Leaders on these issues in their meeting in L’Aquila. In particular, the G8 Leaders agreed to reduce their emissions 80% or more by 2050 as its share of a global goal to lower emissions 50% by 2050, acknowledging the broad scientific view that warming should be limited to no more than two degrees Celsius.
On the heels of this progress, the MEF Leaders underscored their commitment to continue to work together to strengthen the world’s ability to combat climate change and to facilitate agreement in Copenhagen. The Leaders recognized that climate change poses a clear and present danger requiring an extraordinary global response, and outlined a series of steps to meet this challenge head on.
Regarding emission mitigation, Leaders:
- Agreed that global and national emissions should peak as soon as possible;
- Agreed that MEF developed countries will promptly undertake actions to produce robust reductions in their emissions in the midterm, consistent with their ambitious, long-term objectives.
- Agreed that MEF developing countries will promptly undertake actions projected to result in a meaningful reduction of emissions below their business-as-usual path in the midterm;
- Agreed to prepare low-carbon growth plans to guide their long-term development.
- Agreed to work between now and Copenhagen to identify a global goal for substantially reducing global emissions by 2050, recognizing the science indicating that global warming should not exceed two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels;
- Committed to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
Regarding the advancement of clean energy technology, Leaders:
- Agreed to establish a Global Partnership to drive transformational low-carbon technologies;
- Aimed to double investments in public sector research, development and demonstration of transformational technology;
- Agreed to spearhead efforts on technologies through the leadership of the following countries:
o The United States on energy efficiency;
o Germany on solar energy;
o The Republic of Korea and Italy on smart grids;
o Australia and the UK on carbon capture, use, and storage;
o Japan and India on high-efficiency and lower-emissions coal technologies;
o Canada on advanced vehicles;
o Germany, Denmark and Spain on wind; and
o Brazil and Italy on bio-energy.
These countries will report by November 15, 2009, on action plans and roadmaps, and make recommendations for further progress.
Regarding financing, Leaders:
- Elaborated a broad set of principles to guide the design of a financial system that will support the deployment of new technologies to promote energy security, lower greenhouse gas emissions, and facilitate adaptation to climate change;
- Agreed, among other thing, that financing needs to be scaled up substantially; should come from a variety of sources, both public and private; should be more predictable; should draw upon the expertise of existing institutions; and should be subject to balanced governance and clear accountability;
- Asked their finance ministers to work through the G20 to recommend in advance of the Cophenhagen conference the best ways to mobilize necessary financing.
Regarding adaptation, Leaders:
- Agreed that there is a particular and immediate need to assist the poorest and most vulnerable to adapt to the impacts of climate change;
- Committed to work to develop, deploy and disseminate technologies that advance adaptation efforts, especially for the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.
The 17 economies that participate in the MEF are: Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Russia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In addition, Denmark, in its capacity as the President of the December 2009 Conference of the Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and the United Nations are also participating in this dialogue.
President Barack Obama’s Remarks At G-8 Summit
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON MAJOR ECONOMIES FORUM DECLARATION
G-8 Press Conference Room
L’Aquila, Italy
6:41 P.M. CEST
THE PRESIDENT: Buona sera, good afternoon. We have just finished a productive meeting of the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate Change, and I’d like to begin by recognizing Prime Minister Berlusconi for co-chairing this forum, as well as the extraordinary hospitality that he, his team, and the people of L’Aquila and the people of Italy have shown us during this stay. We are very grateful to all of you. I also want to thank the 17 other leaders who participated.
We had a candid and open discussion about the growing threat of climate change and what our nations must do — both individually and collectively — to address it. And while we don’t expect to solve this problem in one meeting or one summit, I believe we’ve made some important strides forward as we move towards Copenhagen.
I don’t think I have to emphasize that climate change is one of the defining challenges of our time. The science is clear and conclusive, and the impacts can no longer be ignored. Ice sheets are melting. Sea levels are rising. Our oceans are becoming more acidic. And we’ve already seen its effects on weather patterns, our food and water sources, our health and our habitats.
Every nation on this planet is at risk, and just as no one nation is responsible for climate change, no one nation can address it alone. And that’s why, back in April, I convened this forum of the world’s major economies who are responsible for more than three-quarters of the world’s carbon pollution. And it’s why we’ve gathered again here today.
Each of our nations comes to the table with different needs, different priorities, different levels of development. And developing nations have real and understandable concerns about the role they will play in these efforts. They want to make sure that they do not have to sacrifice their aspirations for development and higher living standards. Yet, with most of the growth in projected emissions coming from these countries, their active participation is a prerequisite for a solution.
We also agree that developed countries — like my own — have a historic responsibility to take the lead. We have the much larger carbon footprint per capita, and I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities. So, let me be clear: Those days are over. One of my highest priorities as President is to drive a clean energy transformation of our economy, and over the past six months, the United States has taken steps towards this goal.
We’ve made historic investments in the billions of dollars in developing clean energy technologies. We’re on track to create thousands of new jobs across America — on solar initiatives and wind projects and biofuel projects, trying to show that there is no contradiction between environmentally sustainable growth and robust economic growth.
We’ve also for the first time created a national policy raising our fuel-efficiency standards that will result in savings of 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the lifetime of vehicles sold in the next five years alone. And we just passed in our House of Representatives the first climate change legislation that would cut carbon pollution by more than 80 percent by 2050.
These are very significant steps in the United States. They’re not as far as some countries have gone, but they are further than others, and I think that as I wrestle with these issues politically in my own country, I’ve come to see that it is going to be absolutely critical that all of us go beyond what’s expected if we’re going to achieve our goals.
During the course of our three days in L’Aquila, we’ve taken also a number of significant steps forward. I want to briefly highlight them.
This week the G8 nations came to a historic consensus on concrete goals for reducing carbon emissions. We all agreed that by 2050 developed nations will reduce their emissions by 80 percent and that we will work with all nations to cut global emissions in half. This ambitious effort is consistent with limiting global warming to no more than two degrees Celsius, which, as our declaration explicitly acknowledged for the first time, is what the mainstream of the scientific community has called for.
Today, at the Major Economies Forum, developed and developing nations made further and unprecedented commitments to take strong and prompt action. Developed nations committed to reducing their emissions in absolute terms. And for the first time, developing nations also acknowledged the significance of the two degrees Celsius metric and agreed to take action to meaningfully lower their emissions relative to business as usual in the midterm — in the next decade or so. And they agreed that between now and Copenhagen, they will negotiate concrete goals to reduce their emissions by 2050.
We also agreed that the actions we take to achieve our reductions must be measurable, reportable, and verifiable. And we agreed to establish, at the earliest possible date, a peak year after which overall global emissions will start falling. And these are all very significant steps forward in addressing this challenge.
In addition, we agreed to substantially increase financial resources to help developing nations create low-carbon growth plans and deploy clean energy technologies. We also recognize that climate change is already happening, and so we’re going to have to help those affected countries adapt, particularly those who are least able to deal with its consequences because of a lack of resources. So we are looking at providing significant financial assistance to help these countries, and I want to particularly commend President Calderón of Mexico and Gordon Brown of the United Kingdom for coming up with some creative proposals that all of us are going to be exploring as to how we might finance this. We’ve asked the G20 finance ministers to take up the climate financing issues and report back to us at the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh in the fall.
Finally, we’ve agreed to create a new Global Partnership to drive the development of transformational clean energy technologies around the world. Our goal is to double the research and development investments we need to bring these technologies to market and to achieve our long-term energy and emissions goals. A number of countries have already agreed to take lead on developing particular technologies, including solar and smart grids, advanced vehicles, bio-energy, and more. Australia, for example, is creating a new center, which Kevin will be introducing shortly, and I think points to the ability for us to pool our resources in order to see the technological breakthroughs that are going to be necessary in order for us to solve this problem.
So let me just summarize: We’ve made a good start. But I am the first one to acknowledge that progress on this issue will not be easy. And I think that one of the things we’re going to have to do is fight the temptation towards cynicism, to feel that the problem is so immense that somehow we cannot make significant strides.
It is no small task for 17 leaders to bridge their differences on an issue like climate change. We each have our national priorities and politics to contend with, and any steps we agree to here are intended to support and not replace the main U.N. negotiations with more than 190 countries.
It’s even more difficult in the context of a global recession, which I think adds to the fears that somehow addressing this issue will contradict the possibilities of robust global economic growth.
But ultimately, we have a choice. We can either shape our future, or we can let events shape it for us. We can fall back on the stale debates and old divisions, or we can decide to move forward and meet this challenge together. I think it’s clear from our progress today which path is preferable and which path we have chosen. We know that the problems we face are made by human beings. That means it’s within our capacity to solve them. The question is whether we will have the will to do so, whether we’ll summon the courage and exercise the leadership to chart a new course. That’s the responsibility of our generation, that must be our legacy for generations to come, and I am looking forward to being a strong partner in this effort.
With that, let me turn it over to Kevin Rudd, who I think has a significant announcement that fits in with the issues I raised earlier about technology challenges and our capacity to move forward and leapfrog over some of the old technologies that make this problem so difficult to deal with.
Kevin.
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