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

Mark McGwire was one of the most feared sluggers in the game during his career. In 1998, the home run chase between McGwire and Sammy Sosa helped baseball recover from the 1994 strike. But, when a reporter found a bottle containing andro in McGwire's locker, some chinks in his armor began to emerge. [more inside]
posted by reenum on Nov 6, 2009 - 61 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

An investigation by the Guardian newspaper has uncovered a trail of hacking and other illegal "Dark Arts" at the News of the World. Rupert Murdoch, the paper's owner, is reported to have shelled out over £1m in out of court settlements [more inside]
posted by Acey on Jul 9, 2009 - 49 comments

1) American Apparel uses stills from Annie Hall in an ad campaign. 2) Woody Allen sues American Apparel for $10M+. 3) American Apparel stays classy.
posted by Sys Rq on Apr 15, 2009 - 118 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

Racism in Austria is a problem that has been well documented for quite some time. With the recent rise of the far right political parties, however, things seem to be getting worse. The recent case involving an African American teacher who was mistaken for a drug dealer and beaten by the police however has the potential to bring some changes to the country.
posted by Slash_fan on Feb 19, 2009 - 31 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

Coming February 3, 2009.... It's time for the next big wintertime memoir scandal.... ...and Oprah is not going to be amused. [more inside]
posted by availablelight on Dec 24, 2008 - 52 comments

The man who provided Bob Woodward with the critical leads on the story that eventually saw the resignation of Tricky Dick Nixon has died: W. Mark Felt, aka. Deep Throat, was 95.The NYT has a little feature on why he was such a big deal. Only in 2005 did Felt finally admit to being Deep Throat in a Vanity Fair article. [more inside]
posted by krautland on Dec 19, 2008 - 31 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

A long-brewing online poker scandal reaches the mainstream: 60 Minutes Report (1, 2) (text version) and two consecutive front page Washington Post articles (by Pulitzer winning investigative journalist Gil Gaul) (plus lots of web exclusive content about the investigation)! [more inside]
posted by Potomac Avenue on Nov 30, 2008 - 45 comments

"Scandal is our growth industry. Revelation of wrongdoing leads not to definitive investigation, punishment, and expiation but to more scandal. Permanent scandal. Frozen scandal." [Via]
posted by homunculus on Nov 24, 2008 - 14 comments

A Metatalk Post about someone's birthday included a sound file that made me think of the Stock Market Slide. Not this one, but rather, this one. [more inside]
posted by Rafaelloello on Oct 10, 2008 - 7 comments

Why can't China guarantee safe milk for its babies? "From the outset, in what seemed like some bizarre parallel universe, rather than alert Chinese parents as soon as possible to potentially life-saving information about the melamine contamination, baby formula producer Sanlu and various levels of government tried to shut down information. (...) Chinese journalists say the government's Central Propaganda Department, however, issued orders that Chinese media not send their own reporters to further investigate the story." [more inside]
posted by iviken on Sep 21, 2008 - 44 comments

Misc-Olympics-Filter. Google's 2008 Olympics page (gadget can be added to your Google homepage). Former Sudanese refugee chosen as US flag bearer for opening ceremonies. And a scandal after BeijingTickets.com (now shut-down) fails to deliver tickets that they sold: BeijingTicketScam.com
posted by allkindsoftime on Aug 8, 2008 - 32 comments

Payback is a b*tch. Former presidential scandal Gennifer Flowers is putting the tapes of her recorded conversations with Bill Clinton -- which she was previously offered $5 million for -- up on the auction block. [more inside]
posted by markkraft on Feb 25, 2008 - 65 comments

Hong Kong sex scandal. Edison Chen's cache of private photos may be the biggest Asian sex scandal ever. Starting roughly on Feb. 5, developing, developing. Some pix NSFW but pixelated, and you'll have to google if you want the real images.
posted by klangklangston on Feb 12, 2008 - 142 comments

Bob Greene Returns
posted by timsteil on Feb 2, 2008 - 14 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

Vanity Fair sits down with Larry Flynt --his history and hits and misses, how much he pays for scandals involving hypocritical public figures, and a new (and limp) Nixon anecdote -- and tons of other juicy tidbits, of course).
posted by amberglow on Dec 20, 2007 - 26 comments

Morrissey makes some controversial remarks to the NME. Defensive explanations by the interviewer, attempts at defusing the situation and threats of legal action ensue, as does satire.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Dec 1, 2007 - 53 comments

Mayor Ken Williams of Centerton, Arkansas, recently resigned over allegations of identity theft and other weirdness. He claims that a truth serum injection helped him to recognize that he was formerly The Rev. Don LaRose. He runs a website telling the "amazing story" (in 11 chapters) of his abduction by satan-worshippers three decades ago.
posted by amyms on Nov 26, 2007 - 19 comments

Closeted gay GOP elected official with an anti-gay voting record #756,394 --(Special Halloween Edition!) GOP Washington State Representative Richard Curtis says he’s not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women’s lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis’ activities publicly…. He resigned today.--Curtis is the third conservative lawmaker in just as many months to resign amid allegations of soliciting gay sex.
Bubbling up--and being sat on--by the DC Press Corps is a potentially devastating sexual scandal involving a leading Presidential candidate.
posted by amberglow on Oct 31, 2007 - 143 comments

McHenry and his "roommates" -- GOP Rep Patrick McHenry (NC), co-owner of a DC home with Scott G. Stewart, former chair of the College Republican Nat'l Cttee (and bilker of many senior citizens), received a DC home-ownership reduction improperly. McHenry's actual home in North Carolina was apparently also home to quite a collection of young men: (convicted fraudulent voter) Michael Aaron Lay, Neil Everett Capano, Matthew Allen Hamilton, and (multiple violations, including "death by vehicle") Jason Jent Deans. Also, McHenry's 04 consultant Ralph Gonzales was one of the men involved in a recent FL murder/suicide, and links to Robert Drake, the killer (political work in NC and escort service connections), are still being documented. Stay tuned! [more inside]
posted by amberglow on Sep 28, 2007 - 67 comments

A gay Republican news story that you probably didn't read about in the paper: In late August, Ralph Gonzalez--Republican strategist, former Georgia GOP executive director, and "political powerhouse"--was murdered (along with his roommate, David Abrami, another Republican political consultant) by Gonzalez' "friend" and former Marine Jason Robert Drake. Characterized as the result of a "lovers' quarrel," it's a bizarre crime story that should've made at least a ripple in the national news, given some other recent incidents. But it never did. [more inside]
posted by cowboy_sally on Sep 19, 2007 - 30 comments

British football players pay with credit card, American politicians still pay with checks. (First link slightly NSFW.)
posted by iviken on Sep 4, 2007 - 26 comments

Newsfilter: Attorney General Gonzales resigns
posted by rxrfrx on Aug 27, 2007 - 214 comments

Ted Haggard returns --with a cash for heaven offer to support him while he helps "broken people". Unfortunately, the procedure outlined is illegal, and the charity (Families With a Mission) is unregistered and run by a convicted sex offender. Meanwhile, Mike Jones, Haggard's favorite whore, pops up at a dirty bar trivia night (questions about Haggard and him, maybe nsfw, textwise)
posted by amberglow on Aug 25, 2007 - 184 comments

You probably heard the news today and saw earlier threads about Michael Vick, but ESPN has done an amazing job wrapping up the entire case into a handy one-page FAQ. Written by a sports lawyer, it explains all the interesting aspects of the case: what happened, when did it happen, and what results we'll likely see.
posted by mathowie on Aug 20, 2007 - 75 comments

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip ends tonight, and Aaron Sorkin will be leaving television production for a while. His current project is Charlie Wilson's War, a movie starring Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts and Philip Seymour Hoffman, based on the late George Crile's excellent, funny nonfic book of the same name. The movie will trace "party animal" Congressman Charles "Good Time Charlie" Wilson's (D, TX) rise from a scandal (he was caught in "a hot tub tryst with two cocaine-sniffing showgirls in Las Vegas",) to his role in the 1980's covertly funding Afghanistan guerrillas so they could expand their war with the Soviet Union. Wilson's actions would eventually help collapse the Afghan PDPA government, a power vacuum which would be filled by the Taliban. Who would have thought ending the Cold War would be so easy?
posted by zarq on Jun 28, 2007 - 60 comments

Scandalfilter: Former South Dakota legislator Ted Klaudt is arrested for raping his own foster children, along with a legislative page.
posted by bardic on May 19, 2007 - 118 comments

"If they fuck with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to fuck them too." The World Bank opted to fuck with Wolfowitz anyway.
posted by chunking express on May 15, 2007 - 93 comments

Network Hosting Attorney Scandal E-Mails Also Hosted Ohio's 2004 Election Results --...more than ample documentation to show that on Election Night 2004, Ohio's "official" Secretary of State website -- which gave the world the presidential election results -- was redirected from an Ohio government server to a group of servers that contain scores of Republican web sites, including the secret White House e-mail accounts that have emerged in the scandal surrounding Attorney General Alberto Gonzales's firing of eight federal prosecutors. ...
posted by amberglow on Apr 23, 2007 - 66 comments

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is in the middle of his testimony before Congress on firing of eight US Attorneys. The questioning has gotten heated at times, and TPM Muckraker has many highlights from the testimony. DailyKos has been giddily blogging live, and there are many sites carrying the live video feed. Conservative blogs have been mysteriously quiet about this.
posted by OldReliable on Apr 19, 2007 - 190 comments

The Purgegate Primer is a helpful document from The Morning News to assist all us armchair pundits in making sense of the U.S. Attorney scandal. Brought to us by the letter Q and recently-mentioned defective yeti, who it seems is about more than just laughs. (Also see his Plamegate Cheatsheet.)
posted by JHarris on Apr 3, 2007 - 55 comments

The dismissals took place after President Bush told Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales in October that he had received complaints that some prosecutors had not energetically pursued voter-fraud investigations...
Sampson sent an e-mail to Miers in March 2005 that ranked all 93 U.S. attorneys. Strong performers "exhibited loyalty" to the administration; low performers were "weak U.S. attorneys who have been ineffectual managers and prosecutors, chafed against Administration initiatives, etc." A third group merited no opinion.

Newsfilter: Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found drunk and naked apart from bondage gear. Reports say he was able to identify himself to police only after a rubber ball had been removed from his mouth. Oy! More here. This isn't the first time an Israeli ambassador has gotten in trouble, either. Previously on Metafilter: The Swedish Art Incident
posted by zarq on Mar 12, 2007 - 67 comments

The Hatto Hoax. Joyce Hatto has been described as "the greatest living pianist that almost no one has ever heard of." Her performances of piano works by Liszt, Schubert, and Rachmaninov were praised by classical afficionados for their "addictively beautiful sonority, cultured musicianship, and total instrumental mastery." Since she died in June 2006, however, Hatto has been at the center of one of the stranger scandals to hit classical music in years. It's starting to look like some or all of her treasured, hard-to-find recordings made since 1990 are not her playing at all. [Via]
posted by gottabefunky on Feb 16, 2007 - 52 comments

Where are you going? Where we came from. Where have we come from? Every place and no place, so come, let’s go.
posted by Sticherbeast on Nov 20, 2006 - 12 comments

The Enron Explorer from Trampoline Systems "lets you investigate the actions and reactions of Enron's senior management team as the noose began to tighten" (through some 200,000 public domain corporate emails) using Trampoline's SONAR social network mapping platform. (via FutureFeeder)
posted by tpl1212 on Oct 31, 2006 - 1 comment

Mexican government bans American Catholics who sued Mexico City Prelate The Mexican government took the unprecedented and controversial step of banning Dave Clohessy of SNAP and Jeffrey Anderson, a lawyer specializing in abuse cases, from entering the country for five years. The men had filed a lawsuit against Mexico City Archbishop Norbeto Rivera, who they allege covered up sex abuse in his diocese.
posted by parmanparman on Oct 16, 2006 - 14 comments

Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle. He was a comic actor, who, despite his girth, was capable of acts of astounding physical grace (link goes to tiny Quicktime clips). But what Fatty Arbuckle is best remembered for is scandal. On Labor Day of 1921, Arbuckle hosted a party that ended with the death of an actress, Virginia Rappe. On this day in 1921, Arbuckle was arrested for her rape. Although he was acquitted twice, the event would ruin his career. (Previously.)
posted by Astro Zombie on Sep 11, 2006 - 19 comments

"I learned Valerie Plame's name from Joe Wilson's entry in 'Who's Who in America.'" Bob "Prince of Darkness" Novak comes clean (sort of) on his role in the Plame scandal. Novak asserts that Fitzgerald knew the identities of his source for Plame's identity. "That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act," Novak says. Further, he says that his source spilled the beans inadvertently: "After the federal investigation was announced, he told me through a third party that the disclosure was inadvertent on his part."
posted by Heminator on Jul 11, 2006 - 48 comments

Big news in the cycling world. Favorites Basso, Ullrich out of the Tour de France. Should make for an interesting July.
posted by dizzycow on Jun 30, 2006 - 53 comments

At approximately 9:20 PM (ET) on January 6th, David E. Rosenbaum, a longtime reporter for the Washington bureau of the New York Times, was found lying on a sidewalk in Washington, DC. He was disoriented. He was bleeding from the head. He was vomiting. And, as it turned out, he had been assaulted and robbed. [more inside]
posted by scrump on Jun 20, 2006 - 49 comments

Newsfilter: Rove won't be charged in CIA leak case. More coverage here, here, and here.
posted by Heminator on Jun 13, 2006 - 150 comments

Newsfilter. Surveillenve of everything you do online: "It was clear that they would go beyond kiddie porn and terrorism and use it for general law enforcement." Offline: "I'm John Doe, and if I had told you before today that the F.B.I. was requesting library records, I could have gone to jail." Previously, here. On your phone? We've already discussed that, too.
posted by |n$eCur3 on Jun 2, 2006 - 36 comments

O'Reilly and Associates apologize about threats to keep an Irish non-profit from stealing O'Reilly's "Web 2.0" service mark. The usually-forgiving blogosphere cabal is not amused.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on May 27, 2006 - 38 comments