Texas Governor and GOP presidential candidate Rick Perry is booked on all the major morning shows tomorrow, and with good reason.
After two months of
gaffes,
impolitic stands, and
bizarre speeches that quickly waned his
once-strong odds of winning the Republican nomination, Perry went into Wednesday's
CNBC debate sorely needing a win... only to deliver
a tortuous, cringingly forgetful attempt [video] to recall just which three cabinet departments he'd vowed to abolish, a stunning failure political scientist Larry Sabato deemed
"the most devastating moment of any modern primary debate" in his memory.
While Perry's slow-motion flameout has
boosted the fortunes of dark horse candidate Herman Cain, the unlikely challenger is facing troubles of his own in
a volley of sexual harassment claims -- an
oddly ineffective scandal Cain is doing his best to
(somewhat dubiously) disavow. If Cain collapses, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich
may reap the benefits, but his moribund campaign
has issues of its own. Pawlenty, Bachmann, Perry, Christie, Cain, Gingrich... the base is loathe to rally round him, but after so many failed, flawed, or forfeited challenges,
can anyone topple Mitt Romney?
posted by Rhaomi
on Nov 10, 2011 -
208 comments
Diner for Schmucks. GQ's restaurant reviewer
Alan Richman had heard "nothing but great things about M. Wells, one of New York City's hottest restaurants—the food was amazing, the setting sublime, the ambience charming. And, in fact, everything was going quite well. Until..." More at
Eater.
(Via) [more inside]
posted by zarq
on Aug 17, 2011 -
238 comments
"Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and their former editor Andy Coulson all face embarrassing new allegations of dishonesty and cover-up after the publication of an explosive letter written by the News of the World's disgraced royal correspondent, Clive Goodman.
In the letter, which was written four years ago but published only on Tuesday,
Goodman claims that phone hacking was "widely discussed" at editorial meetings at the paper until Coulson himself banned further references to it; that Coulson offered to let him keep his job if he agreed not to implicate the paper in hacking when he came to court; and that his own hacking was carried out with "the full knowledge and support" of other senior journalists, whom he named." (Most recent
previously.)
posted by Len
on Aug 16, 2011 -
77 comments
Thirteen-year-old
Milly Dowler was kidnapped and murdered on her way home from school in 2002. During the six-month hunt before her body was found, her parents gave exclusive interviews to the
News of the World, saying they believed she would be found alive.
That hope was based partly on the fact that her voicemails were still being listened to and deleted. Today, it was revealed that the deleting was
being done by the News of the World.
[more inside]
posted by bonaldi
on Jul 4, 2011 -
324 comments
In March of 2009, the Japan Sumo Association
won a lawsuit against Kodansha, a large Japanese publishing house. Kodansha had alleged that match fixing was rampant in Sumo, even at the highest levels. However, in the last week, police have discovered
text messages between wrestlers showing proof of fixing, including negotiation over compensation.
[more inside]
posted by Ghidorah
on Feb 5, 2011 -
24 comments
When a Duke graduate documented her sexual hookups with a series of University baseball and lacrosse players during her time there, she thought only her close friends would see it. But the list, a PowerPoint presentation which includes names, pictures, and extremely detailed ratings of the men she had sex with, spread beyond that circle of friends and has since gone viral. A few days ago, it was posted to
Jezebel and
Deadspin, both part of the Gawker Media. Deadspin initially failed to redact the names or pictures of those named within to protect their privacy,
prompting an angry response and leading others to speculate if this "
privacy landmine" will eventually
lead to lawsuits.
posted by zarq
on Oct 5, 2010 -
336 comments
Last week, the New York Times magazine
published an explosive article about the phone-hacking exploits at the Rupert Murdoch-owned British tabloid
News Of The World under the then-editorship of Andy Coulson, now the
the Government's chief of communications. Following the NYT's investigation, questions about the "unhealthy" relationship between the Metropolitan Police and the
press (particularly Murdoch's
News International, which also includes The Sun, The Times and the Sunday Times), and further claims that an independent inquiry was abandoned so as
not to upset the Metropolitan Police, assistant Met Commissioner John Yates was
questioned [video; 4 mins] on Tuesday by the Home Affairs select committee. Following an
emergency debate in Parliament today, which concerned the fact that MPs of all parties may have had their phones hacked (and therefore had their
Parliamentary Privilege breached), the
Standards and Privileges Committee, the most powerful committee in Parliament, is to
open an inquiry which will be able to compel witnesses to give evidence. Meanwhile, former News of the World reporters are coming out the woodwork, claiming that hacking at the paper was
"rife", and the pressure is on Coulson to resign his £140,000 job at No. 10, with a
poll [pdf] which says 52% of the public says he should go.
[more inside]
posted by Len
on Sep 9, 2010 -
46 comments
Scandal brewing at Harvard.
Marc Hauser, evolutionary biologist/psychologist who is an authority on how
animals think, is taking a year's leave of absence because a university review has concluded that there were "
irregularities" in the conduct of his research. One
article is being withdrawn. Others under suspicion. Hauser is well-known for his studies of cotton-top
tamarin monkeys. Not clear if he will be required to give up his edge.org
page. His most recent book is about
morality (
previously).
posted by cogneuro
on Aug 10, 2010 -
117 comments
Forget the
Ewings, the
Carringtons, or the
Channings and Giobertis, France is in the grip of the real-life soap opera of the
Bettencourts, heiresses to the
L'Oréal cosmetics empire, featuring a suave gigolo, a scheming wealth manager, a paradise island, feuding lawyers, embarrassed politicians, squabbling magistrates, New Media, another major multinational, and even a butler with a tape recorder...
[more inside]
posted by Skeptic
on Jul 15, 2010 -
25 comments
Tiger Woods will return to competitive golf today, teeing off at the
Masters at 1:42 EDT today. ESPN will carry the tee shot live, then begin full coverage at 3 PM. Last time Tiger returned from a long break due to surgery, Nike's ad was
lighthearted. This time, things are very different, and the
new ad released yesterday definitely has a different tone, invoking the words of Tiger's late father, Earl Woods. Of course, some in the media are going to keep teeing off on Tiger's scandalous affairs, including this
new revelation of a tryst with a neighbor's 21-year-old daughter.
posted by msacheson
on Apr 8, 2010 -
119 comments
This has not been a
good year for
SCI, the worlds largest funeral services corporation. Now allegations have surfaced that groundskeepers for Eden Memorial Park were secretly instructed to desecrate graves (possibly in excess of 500 individual bodies) in order to make room.
[more inside]
posted by es_de_bah
on Nov 23, 2009 -
80 comments
Sequoia Voting Systems seem to have inadvertently released SQL code from their voting machines. And people are saying that the code is incriminating. People who have analyzed the code claim that it contained code designed to control or influence the outcome of an election.
[more inside]
posted by idiopath
on Oct 20, 2009 -
105 comments
The bumping off of a famous person is the
sort of oyster that any detective delights to open, so you can just bet the
family jewels that I was pretty much elated when my Chief, the late Thomas
Lee Woolwine, District Attorney of Los Angeles County, called me into his
private office on the morning of February 3rd, 1922, and assigned me to
represent his office in the investigation of this greatest of all murder
mysteries. -- Excerpted from an article archived at
Taylorology, a site exploring the life and death of William Desmond Taylor, a silent movie actor and director whose unsolved murder was among the earliest Hollywood true crime scandals. Researcher
Bruce Long first published his accumulated information about the case as a small fanzine which evolved into a monthly electronic newsletter and is now a vast archive of articles and interviews, official documents, photos, and more. Although the Taylor case is the main focus, there's also a wealth of supplemental information about the silent film industry and its stars.
[more inside]
posted by amyms
on Feb 22, 2009 -
7 comments
Sam Adams, the recently elected openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon, has come under fire for lying about a relationship he had with a teenage legislative intern in 2005 named Beau Breedlove.
When first asked about the relationship in 2007 during the election campaign, Sam (then 42) claimed he was being a mentor to the young man.
Sam recently cut short a trip to DC to return to Portland to publicly apologize and control damage over a
new article in which he admits to having a sexual relationship with Beau.
It's got the town divided over whether he should resign of if the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink
on Jan 22, 2009 -
116 comments
"Well behaved women rarely make history," said Laurel Thatcher Ulrich.
Scandalous Women brings you the lives, loves, and sexual adventures of some of the most fascinating women who rocked the world. Like
Olimpia Maidalchini who managed to achieve something that no woman ever has, for the 11 years of her brother-in-law Innocent X's reign as pope, Olimpia was the real power at the Vatican; or
Elizabeth Armistead, wife of a cabinet minister, courtesan to many. Read the bios and follow the tales of nearly a hundred women of scandalous pursuit from
Mata Hari to
Typhoid Mary.
posted by netbros
on Jan 16, 2009 -
14 comments
Martha "Sunny" von Bulow
died this weekend at a nursing home in New York City, nearly 28 years after being found unconscious at her
Rhode Island estate (and subsequently falling into an irreversible coma) in December 1980. Her husband Claus, who obviously became
a controversial figure, was found guilty of her attempted murder (the alleged method being an overdose of insulin), but his conviction was overturned on appeal and he received a second trial in which he was acquitted.
The sensational case, which featured testimony from many notables including Truman Capote, attracted worldwide publicity and rocked high society. It spawned numerous books, television shows and a 1990
movie.
posted by amyms
on Dec 6, 2008 -
27 comments
Pimping ain't easy. In a cluster of lawsuits gathered up by The Associated Press, the
former chief financial officer of health insurance giant
WellPoint Inc. is depicted as a corporate
Casanova -- a world-class, love-'em-and-leave-'em sort of guy who romanced dozens of women around the country simultaneously, made them extravagant promises and then went back on his word with all the compassion of a health insurance company denying a claim.
[more inside]
posted by psmealey
on Jan 28, 2008 -
41 comments
