Daily Rotten Archives January 18, 2004 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 Stephen Hawking repeatedly attacked by poltergeists London Daily Mirror | Submitted by: Jonny Plasma "Stephen Hawking's family are 'worried sick' he has again been the victim of a series of mystery assaults. Last night the 62-year-old scientist was under surveillance in Addenbrookes hospital where he is being treated for an unrelated bout of pneumonia... Hawking's three children, and nurses who have cared him, fear he may be the victim of controversial Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in which sufferers harm others to draw attention to themselves." Read article... Uri Geller resolves the Michael Jackson controversy ABC News | Submitted by: FaceInTheSea "Psychic Uri Geller defended his friend Michael Jackson on Sunday, saying the pop singer denied under hypnosis three years ago that he had sexually abused children. Geller, best known for his claimed telekinetic ability to bend spoons, told Israel's Army Radio that he hypnotized Jackson when the two were alone in a recording studio at an undisclosed location... He said he asked Jackson about persistent rumors that he had abused children. 'He answered me under deep hypnosis that he had never touched a child in a sexual way,' Geller said. 'He said and here I'm using his exact words "My relations with children are very beautiful."' Geller said he was convinced Jackson was telling him the truth. 'I'm a good hypnotist, and I know who is trying to mislead me.'" Read article... 9-11 commission turns introspective New York Times | Submitted by: Katie "Mr. Zelikow, a staff member of the National Security Council in the first Bush administration and a close associate of Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, has been a target of criticism because of concerns that his role as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission could pose a potential conflict. But it had not previously been disclosed that the panel interviewed him about the early planning of the Bush administration... Since its inception, the commission has been a focus of questions about whether possible conflicts could taint its findings. The White House's first choice for chairman, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, stepped down rather than release a list of business clients at his consulting firm." Read article... Northwest Airlines hypocritical douchebags Washington Post | Submitted by: Katie "Northwest Airlines provided information on millions of passengers for a secret U.S. government air-security project... The nation's fourth-largest airline asserted in September that it 'did not provide that type of information to anyone.' But Northwest acknowledged Friday that by that time, it had already turned over three months of reservation data... In September, JetBlue Airways said that it turned over passenger records to a defense contractor and apologized to its customers... 'We do not provide that type of information to anyone,' Northwest spokesman Kurt Ebenhoch was quoted as saying in the New York Times on Sept. 23. An article in the following day's St. Paul Pioneer Press said: 'Northwest Airlines will not share customer information, as JetBlue Airways has, Northwest chief executive Richard Anderson said.'" [Let's all welcome Mr. Anderson to the big list of proven liars.] Read article... and This article... Australian diplomat admits pederasty in Bali Sydney Morning Herald | Submitted by: wingnut "Two young boys tell how they met William Stewart Brown last year while playing on a site where the former Australian diplomat is building a house. 'He took us to the river and he asked us to play and then he gave us money and then I was forced to [have sex],' said Ida Bagus, 15. Ida and I Made Suwardika, 13, accuse Brown, who is now in jail, of paying them between $1.50 and $3 for sex in the hills behind the black sand beaches... The Karangasam police chief, Superintendent Martanto, said yesterday that Brown, 52, had admitted to having sex 10 times with the two boys at the isolated Jasi beach... Eight years ago Brown was accused of similar crimes in the nearby tourist island of Lombok, where he had been living in an isolated village with several other Australian men." Read article... Wal-Mart accused of endangering workers New York Times | Submitted by: Conster "For more than 15 years, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest retailer, has locked in overnight employees at some of its Wal-Mart and Sam's Club stores. It is a policy that many employees say has created disconcerting situations, such as when a worker in Indiana suffered a heart attack, when hurricanes hit in Florida and when workers' wives have gone into labor... several longtime Wal-Mart workers recalled that in the late 1980's and early 1990's, the fire doors of some Wal-Marts were chained shut. Wal-Mart officials said they cracked down on that practice after an overnight stocker at a store in Savannah, Ga., collapsed and died in 1988. Paramedics could not get into the store soon enough because the employees inside could not open the fire door or front door, and there was no manager with a key." Read article... Prostitute blames pimp for 3 murders Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Submitted by: jackie "A confessed prostitute who said she murdered three men in a one-night robbery spree on orders from her pimp pleaded guilty Friday in a DeKalb County courtroom... [Falicia Blakely], who was 18 at the time of the crimes, admitted she shot and killed Raymond Goodwin, 34, and Claudell Christmas, 35, in an apartment off Buford Highway on Aug. 15, 2002. Less than 12 hours later, she said, she killed Lemetrius Twitty, 29, in his apartment near Clarkston. Superior Court Judge Clarence Seeliger sentenced her to three consecutive life terms with no chance of parole. Prosecutors dropped their request for a death sentence in exchange for the plea... In 2002, Saari said, Blakely twice failed to carry out the pimp's order to shoot customers and steal their money. The pimp punished her by pouring alcohol on her and setting fire to it." Read article... Scalia scoffs at allegations of impropriety Tri-Valley Herald | Submitted by: Katie "Government watchdogs are raising concerns about a potential conflict of interest for Justice Antonin Scalia because he had dinner and went on a hunting trip with Dick Cheney while the Supreme Court was involved in a case about the vice president's energy task force. Scalia and Cheney, longtime friends, had dinner at a restaurant on Maryland's Eastern Shore in November, two months after the Bush administration asked the justices to overrule a lower court's decision requiring the White House to identify task-force members... Scalia, in a written statement to the Los Angeles Times for its story Saturday on the duck hunting trip, said: 'I do not think my impartiality could reasonably be questioned.'" [And who would know better?] Read article... Jesus freaks taking over national parks New York Times | Submitted by: Maestro "The National Park Service recently ordered the return of plaques bearing biblical verses that had hung in Grand Canyon National Park for more than 30 years before they were taken down last summer. The Park Service also approved selling a book at the Grand Canyon that suggests the canyon was created in six days several thousand years ago... While the Park Service says these are unrelated incidents, reflecting no overarching political policy, a national alliance of public environmental workers says the efforts are evidence of a new program of 'faith-based parks' promoted by the Bush administration with the strong support of conservative groups." Read article... Israeli government evidently staffed by art critics BBC | Submitted by: Bob_McBob "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has praised his ambassador to Sweden after he vandalised an art exhibit featuring a Palestinian suicide bomber. Ambassador Zvi Mazel was ejected from a Stockholm museum after the incident. Mr Mazel said the work, created by an Israeli-born artist, was 'a call for genocide.' Israel has called on the Swedish Government to dismantle the exhibit, which has a boat floating in a pool of red liquid... Called Snow White And The Madness Of Truth, the installation features a photo of Hanadi Jaradat, a 29-year-old trainee lawyer who blew up herself and 19 Israelis in a Haifa restaurant in October." Read article... and This article... CBS refuses to air anti-Bush ad during Superbowl Wired News | Submitted by: Katie "U.S. football fans will not see ads featuring scantily clad vegetarians or a political attack on President Bush during February's Super Bowl after CBS said on Thursday that advocacy advertisements were out of bounds on professional football's biggest day. The network, over the years, has rejected dozens of advertising proposals by advocacy groups... Liberal group Moveon.org, known for its Internet funding power, told members this week that it hoped to have the first political Super Bowl ad. But its hopes were dashed when CBS said the spot, which asks 'Guess who's going to pay off President Bush's $1 trillion deficit,' was an issue piece and could not run." Read article... and This article... Democrats finally notice Bush administration secrecy Wired News | Submitted by: Katie "[Retired Gen. Wesley Clark] said he would 'restore the public's right to know' by rolling back the Bush administration's expanded powers to make documents classified. He promised to return the powers of the Freedom of Information Act back to where they were before Sept. 11. And Clark vowed to keep public documents posted on the Internet permanently, 'unlike the Bush administration, which has repeatedly removed and rewritten postings when politically expedient.' ... 'No one is going to (be) making up their mind just on this issue,' said Stephen Hess, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, 'but Bush is vulnerable because he maintains the most uptight administration I've seen in the 40 years I've been around here.'" Read article...