Chris Benoit is Dead

One thing is certain.......Chris Benoit committed suicide after killing his wife and 7 year old son. What led him to this very brutal and irrevocable action is now a matter of controversy. We in truth may never really know why. There was no suicide note, no last minute phone call to a buddy, reaching out for help and apparently no remorse or second thoughts as he killed one and then the other and finally himself over a period lasting from Friday through Sunday.

As the authorities conduct their investigation into the murder-suicide some more facts have emerged. Nancy Benoit, 43, was killed sometime Friday night and had bruises on her back and stomach, indicating her husband had his knee in her back as he pulled on a cord that was around her neck. Daniel, who was killed sometime on Saturday, appeared to have been killed in a chokehold because he had internal neck injuries but no visible bruises. He placed a bible beside each of their bodies after killing them. Chris Benoit, 40, then killed himself, on Sunday, by wrapping a cord around his neck that was attached to a weight machine. He released the weights —- about 240 pounds —- to cause strangulation.

Although no motive has been identified as the cause of the murder-suicide, there is much speculation surrounding Chris Benoit's family situation and the possibility that steroids may have played a role.

"As we went back to the time line of events, it became pretty obvious from several different sources that Nancy and Chris had tension in their relationship," said the lawyer, Jerry McDevitt. "I don't know what they said to each other, but they were constantly struggling with the difficulties of raising a child who, from all indications, may well have had Fragile X Syndrome."

Fragile X Syndrome is the most common inherited form of mental impairment, affecting boys twice as often as girls, according to the Emory University School of Medicine's Department of Human Genetics. It can lead to autistic-like behavior, and there is no known cure. "It's very difficult to raise a child this way. There's a lot of guilt," said McDevitt, a lawyer with the WWE. "Chris was traveling on the road; she was trying to deal with the problems on her own but she was still in pain after having recent neck surgery." Daniel had just finished kindergarten at First Baptist Church School in Peachtree City and they were trying to find a school for him to attend. July 22, is National Fragile X Day. To find out more about Fragile X click here

There were also reports that Chris and Nancy Benoit had been through marital problems in the past. Nancy Benoit had filed for a divorce in 2003, saying the couple's three-year marriage was irrevocably broken and alleging "cruel treatment." She however later dropped the complaint as well as the restraining order filed on her husband. Chris also had two other children from a previous marriage: David, 14, and Megan, 10.

Anabolic steroids were also found in Benoit's home, leading officials to wonder whether the drugs played a role in the slayings. Some experts believe steroids cause paranoia, depression and violent outbursts known as "roid rage." Benoit had been under the care of Dr. Phil Astin, a longtime friend, for treatment of low testosterone levels. Astin said the condition likely originated from previous steroid use. The WWE issued a statement doubting that steroids were involved:

The WWE, based in Stamford, Conn., issued a news release saying steroids "were not and could not be related to the cause of death" and that the findings indicate "deliberation, not rage." It also added that Benoit tested negative April 10, the last time he was tested for drugs.

Benoit's personal physician said the wrestler did not give any indication he was troubled when he met with the doctor hours before the start of the weekend. "He was in my office on Friday to stop by just to see my staff," Astin said. "He certainly didn't show any signs of any distress or rage or anything. I'm still very surprised and shocked, especially with his child Daniel involved," Astin said. "He worshipped his child."

Speculation about drug use caused Federal Drug Agents to raid the office of Dr. Astin said agent Chuvalo Truesdell, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. No arrests were made. Among other things, investigators were looking for Benoit's medical records to see whether he had been prescribed steroids and, if so, whether that prescription was appropriate. State medical records show that Astin's privileges were suspended for three months in 2001 at a Georgia hospital for "reasons related to competence or character."

Another twist in the story occurred when officials from Wikipedia announced that Benoit's page was updated at 12:01 a.m. Monday, about 14 hours before authorities say the bodies were found. The reason he missed a match Saturday night was "stemming from the death of his wife Nancy," it said. A Wikipedia official, Cary Bass, said that the entry was made by someone using an Internet protocol address registered in Stamford, Connecticut, where World Wrestling Entertainment is based.

WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt said that to his knowledge, no one at the WWE knew Nancy Benoit was dead before her body was found Monday afternoon. Text messages released by officials show that messages from Chris Benoit's cell phone were being sent to co-workers a few hours after the Wikipedia posting. "I have no idea who posted this," McDevitt said. "It's at least possible Chris may have sent some other text message to someone that we're unaware of. We don't know if he did. The phone is in the possession of authorities."

Below in this video clip Linda McMahon, co-founder of the WWE, talks about Chris Benoit

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHelOXkPv_4]

For more on Chris Benoit and his wrestling career click here

Chris Benoit's parents, Michael and Margaret Benoit, live in Ardrossan in the Canadian province of Alberta.

"It's a horrible, horrible event that's happened," Michael Benoit, the wrestling star's father said, speaking softly on the phone. "We have no understanding why it happened. It's going to take us a long time to come to terms with this, and we may never come to terms with it."

Chris Benoit will have a private service in Canada, separate from the services for his wife and son, his father said. Nancy Benoit's parents, Paul and Maureen Toffoloni, live in Daytona Beach, Fla., where services for Nancy Benoit and Daniel probably will be held, Benoit said. They could not be reached for comment. The plan is to cremate the mother and child in Georgia, according to Bee Huddleston of Carl J. Mowell and Sons Funeral Home in Peachtree City, which is assisting the families.

"Our thoughts and prayers are with Nancy's family," Michael Benoit said. "We're very concerned about the long-term affects on her family. "There are no words to describe the loss we feel."

Sex on the Net V

The Sex on the Net series continues with more, sometimes unbelievable, situations people find themselves involved in and some new "clothes" available for sale.

Porn Star gets Trooper Suspended

• Trooper James Randy Moss of the Tennessee Highway Patrol has been suspended from active duty while an investigation is conducted into his activities with porn star Barbie Cummings, during a recent traffic stop. Ms. Cummings (her real name is Justis Richert) also is a blogger and has her own website. According to her blog after being stopped by the trooper for speeding he found drugs in her car (her "happy" pills) and during questioning learned she was a porn star. He asked if he could see her website and they looked it up on his state-issued laptop computer in his patrol car. After throwing away her "happy pills", he asked her to perform a "sex act" on him, which she did and during the course of "the act" pictures and short video clips were recorded using a hand-held camera. Even though the trooper is in a lot of trouble over this incident, Ms. Cummings did not get off lightly........she still got a $180 speeding ticket!

• In an update to this story James Randy Moss resigned before he could be fired saying that he didn't want to "further discredit or embarrass the THP". However, Assistant District Attorney General David Durham is in the process of building a criminal case against Moss. Investigators are also looking into a series of complaints from other women against Moss, which have come up since the story broke.

Sex Addict fired for "Self-Medicating" .... Sues IBM

• James Pacenza, 58, is suing for $5 million saying he was addicted to online chat rooms and that IBM should have offered him sympathy and treatment instead of firing him. The Vietnam War veteran says he has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since 1969. He argues that he used the internet to control his psychological problems. He says that his psychological problems have left him addicted to sex, especially adult internet chat rooms. When a fellow employee at IBM told managers that Mr Pacenza was visiting such sites while at work, he was fired. The stated reason was that he visited an internet chat site for a sexual experience after he had previously been warned.James Pacenza's lawyers will argue in court that their client was using the internet to self-medicate as a way of controlling his post traumatic stress disorder. They will also argue that Mr Pacenza's claimed addiction to adult internet sites should be treated in the same way as other employees' addictions to drugs or alcohol. The case, which has been postponed, has potential implications for employers across America and their attitude towards regulating how employees use workplace computers.

Mom Puts Daughters to "Work"

• Nelsi Yolanda Latuda and her boyfriend, Pedro Espinoza-Escama, are charged with two counts each of compelling prostitution of a minor. They were ordered held in lieu of bail totaling $20,000 each. Nelsi's 16-year-old daughter, who had endured being sold into prostitution, finally went to the Huston police after seeing her younger sister also forced to perform sex acts. Nelsi Latunda, 35, is the girls' mother, but they are not related to Espinoza-Escama, who is 21.
  

  "They were interrogated, and they confessed to forcing the juveniles into prostitution," police spokesman Victor Senties said.

  
  The prostitution scheme went on for months. Latuda and her boyfriend printed and passed out business cards near their northwest Houston home, offering the girls for sex. The pair arranged meetings and delivered the girls. Police said Latuda and her daughters are from Honduras and have lived in Houston for about two years. The two girls are now staying with relatives. Harris County Assistant District Attorney Justin Wood said:
  

  "I have never dealt with a case where biological children were being prostituted out by their own mother."

  
  

No More Panty Lines or Tan Lines!!

• Kiss goodbye to panty-lines and tan-lines with the incredible C-String Invisible Underwear!
  

  "When I try on an evening dress, I am impressed," says Alice Smellie in the Daily Mail. "Normally I can see the smallest of thongs, but with the C-string nothing is visible, and the dress does look more elegant than usual."

  
  The C-String is a completely new and exciting innovation in lingerie. It fits your figure with no need for side-straps! It has a flexible internal frame that hugs and holds it to the body both securely and comfortably. Your modesty remains safely covered at all times. At the front it looks like sexy underwear, to the rear it has a thong-style strip, and to the sides it has nothing at all! Out and about: the C-String can be worn under all your favourite clothes: dresses, skirts, jeans. On the beach: the C-String can be worn alone as beachwear for the perfect all-round tan. Forget the bikini the C-Kini is where it's at! In the bedroom: the C-String is ultra-sexy lingerie!
  

Those Aren't My Pants

Remember the case of the judge (Roy Pearson) who was suing the dry cleaners (Soo and Jin Chung) for $54 million? Well the trial is over and Judge Pearson gets NOTHING!! and on top of that he is ordered to pay the court costs of the defendants, likely to be a few thousand dollars. The judge presiding over the trial, Judith Bartnoff, was also considering ordering Pearson to pay the Chung's attorney's fees, likely to be over $100,000.

The case began back on May 3, 2005 when Pearson went to the local dry cleaners, run by Soo and Jin Chung, to have the pants of a suit he intended to wear, altered. He had put on weight and needed the pants let out. When he returned to pick up the pants at the dry cleaners, they were unable to find them. Soo Chung promised to look for them. Pearson returned a week later and she tried to give him a pair of pants which he said was not his. Not only was the pattern different but the pants also had cuffs. Pearson wrote the Chungs a letter demanding $1,150 to buy a new suit. The Chungs did not respond. Pearson then brought a lawsuit against them.

The original lawsuit asked for $67 million which was later scaled back to $54 million. Pearson argued that the amount he asked for was not the actual cost of the suit but was about "Safeguarding the rights of every consumer in the District who might fall prey to signs like those once posted in Custom Cleaners". The sign said: "Satisfaction Guaranteed". During the course of the litigation Pearson was offered $3,000 then $4,600 and finally $12,000 all of which he refused, to settle the case.

In handing down her decision Judge Judith Bartnoff said:

"A reasonable consumer would not interpret 'Satisfaction Guaranteed' to mean that a merchant is required to satisfy a customer's unreasonable demands or to accede to demands that the merchant has reasonable grounds to dispute," Bartnoff wrote in a 23-page ruling, adding that Pearson "is not entitled to any relief whatsoever."

Pearson also has something else to think about.......His Job! He is up for reappointment this year, and could have a hard time keeping his $96,000-a-year job if Bartnoff finds him at fault for his pursuit of the case. While awaiting a decision on his reappointment, Pearson is not hearing cases.

Christopher Manning, the lead attorney for the Chungs, made a statement outside their dry cleaning business after the decision: "Obviously, it's a great day for the Chungs, and honestly, it's a great day for American justice"

Soo Chung was smiling, grateful for the news from the court and hopeful that she would soon be able to put the incident behind her. But when asked what she would do if Pearson turned up again with some clothes, she took no chances. "We can't stop him from coming in as a customer," she said, speaking through a relative who translated her words from Korean.

Before the decision was handed down there was much media discussion about this case. Was it a frivolous lawsuit and should the judge who brought it be sanctioned if he looses the case? Below is a video clip that touches on some of the implications of the case.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1Q2Tlenw9Q]

Georgia Brown - Child Genius

Georgia Brown is 2 years old, cute and adorable but she has one quality that sets her apart from all the other cute and adorable 2 year olds; she is a genius. She is also the youngest girl member of Mensa, the largest, oldest, and best-known high-IQ society in the world. In order to become a member of Mensa you must score in the top 2% in an approved standardized intelligence test. Georgia scored 152 on her IQ test putting her in the top 0.2 percent of the population. This score earned her an invitation to become a member of Mensa.

Georgia's parents Lucy and Martin Brown have always regarded her as a quick learner, some of her early accomplishments include:

• Crawling at 5 months


• Walking at 9 months


• Dressing herself at 14 months


• Speaking fluently at 18 months

Recognizing Georgia's advanced skills, her mother contacted Professor Joan Freeman, a specialist educational psychologist, for advice. Professor Freeman applied the standard Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale test to Georgia and was amazed to find this was too limited to map her creative abilities. "She swept right through it like a hot knife through butter."

"In one test I asked her to draw a circle and she did it so perfectly.

"Most adults would struggle to do that. Her circle was near to being perfect.

"It shows she can physically hold a pen well but also that she understands the concept of a circle."

Georgia is the youngest of 5 children. Her mother, the chief executive of a charity, thinks that she had benefited from having older siblings. "She has been absorbing information from her older brothers and sisters and father, a self-employed carpenter, while not receiving any special treatment."

But don't think that Georgia is an adult in a little girl's body. She still acts like any normal 2 year old according to her Mom:

"She still has temper tantrums, like you wouldn't believe, throwing herself on the floor. She doesn't think she's better and cleverer than everyone else. She is a very kind and loving child."

PS: If you are interested in taking some online Intelligence Tests Check this out and also Try this one too

Cry Me A River

Leonard Pitts Jr. is a nationally-syndicated columnist, respected journalist, 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Commentary, best-selling author, has his own column in the Miami Herald........and is Black. He is also the target of White Supremacists.

In his column he writes extensively about race, politics and culture. In a recent column titled 'Oppressed' whites? Give me a break in which he referred to the case of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom, a young white couple who were brutally murdered. Although not considered to be a hate crime, five Blacks including a woman were arrested for the crime. The murders made headlines in Knoxville, where the incident happened, but was largely unnoticed in the national press; that is until bloggers jumped on the case as proof that "Black on White" crime is not given the same exposure in the media as "White on Black" crime as in the Duke Lacrosse case. Pitts took exception to this characterization and in his article cited sources that said:

• African Americans and Latinos are underrepresented in news media as victims of crime and significantly overrepresented as perpetrators, based on crime statistics.

• Newspaper articles about white homicide victims are longer and more frequent than those about black ones.

• Interracial violent crime is more likely to be reported even though it is just about the rarest kind of violent crime.

He concluded his article with the following words:

I am likewise unkindly disposed toward the crackpots, incendiaries and flat-out racists who have chosen this tragedy upon which to take an obscene and ludicrous stand. I have four words for them and any other white Americans who feel themselves similarly victimized.

Cry me a river.

This article so angered the white supremacist website Overthrow.com that it posted a video (which can be seen to the right of this column) on its site featuring both Leonard Pitts and his wife and included his full address and phone number. The predictable happened. They received numerous threats. When Pitts' boss, Dave Wilson, Miami Herald Managing Editor/News, sent an email to the owner of the website, Bill White, requesting that Pitts' address and phone number be removed from the video, he got the following reply:

"We have no intention of removing Mr. Pitts' personal information. Frankly, if some loony took the info and killed him, I wouldn't shed a tear. That also goes for your whole newsroom."

A copy of the correspondence and reply was also posted on the Overthrow.com website, this led to hate mail also being directed at Dave Wilson as well, although the vast majority of the hate was reserved for Pitts. When asked, Wilson declined to confirm or deny that Pitts was under police protection and Pitts himself was unavailable for comment. Wilson did say that some the messages were "thoughtful" but others were "very unsettling" in nature. "We did refer some of them to our legal representatives," added the Herald editor. "Our first concern is for Leonard, and we have been in close contact with him."

Wilson said Pitts has the Herald's full support.

"He's a nationally known writer who's not afraid to express his opinion and challenge perceptions. We have every expectation that his column will continue to do that for a long time."