What happened in Vegas...

... I actually kinda wish would have stayed in Vegas. It hurts to think about this one. It certainly puts my post about the Rockford Public School District's $18,000 conference at $1,285 a head in Chicago to shame...

The General Services Administration, the facilities managers of the US Government (buildings, leases, rentals, properties, etc.), is a group you'd expect to be pretty well versed on fiscal restraint and finding deals to be had. But, OH NO... Instead, they had their Western Regions Training Conference in Vegas, spending 2,783 taxpayer dollars a head for a total cost of $835,000. These 300 people were treated to:

• A mind reader - 3,200 taxpayer dollars
• A commemorative coin set in velvet boxes - 6,300 taxpayer dollars
• A training exercise to build a bicycle - 75,000 taxpayer dollars
• Canteens, key chains and t-shirts - 6,000 taxpayer dollars
• A clown (I'd love to know what he was paid)
• A comedian (ditto)
• Awards for a participant talent show held as an excuse to treat everyone to dinner
• Treating everyone to dinner (But let's be reasonable here. Even if they had to expense their own meals, they were still government employees expensing their meals to the taxpayers...)

Setting this kind of baby up costs money too:

• Airfare and lodging sending the planners on six trips to the venue to set it up - 147,000 taxpayer dollars (Because, you know, you can't set this sort of beauty up over the phone)
• A finder's fee to book this place that can't even remotely set up a conference - 12,000 taxpayer dollars

One of the worst parts? The news broke THIS WEEK about a conference that happened 18 months ago! That means the motherfuckers spending this kind of money as 'servants' of the public had a good solid run at just covering this up and making it go away. You gotta ask yourself, how much of this shit are they getting away with?

Luckily a hero from within the GSA reported this gross misappropriation of taxpayer dollars. Thank you, GSA Employee. Thank you.

So... What exactly were they being trained for again???

THIS is whyipaytaxes...

read more:GSA chief gone, but fallout continues in wake of lavish convention expense(cnn)

I first heard it:Obama Administration Tripped Up By GSA's Vegas Spending Scandal(npr)

Oklahoma takes the bull by the horns

Finally, the Oklahoma state government is taking care of the big problems. None of this sissy budget balancing for them. After all, how can a state possibly go on without an official state motto?

They do have a state slogan on the state seal, but who the heck can get up in the morning to "Labor Omnia Vincit" (Labor Conquers All Things)? Screw that bullshit, they need a good solid American motto they can feel proud of. Something original.

In God We Trust.
YEEEEEE HAAAAWWWW! Now that's a motto that will put hair on your chest.

At least the article I read quoted State Rep. Ryan "Are you fucking kidding me?" Kiesel in saying this resolution is a "frivolous waste of legislative time."

THIS is whyoklahomanspaytaxes.
read more:Oklahoma Could Soon Have New State Motto(koco)

Final exam

This Graphic brought to us by Americans Against The Tea Party.

THIS is whyfloridianspaytaxes.

Pissin' match

This is one of those things that really drives me nuts when you look at it from a whole of humanity perspective...

By around the year 2020 or so, we, as a species, will have 5 completely separate but redundant satellite systems to facilitate navigation and global positioning. Of course, you are familiar with our system called GPS. Each of these systems will cover the entire globe, costs hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars to implement and require dozens of satellites that will consume valuable natural resources and human capital.

We have not decided to dedicate these redundant resources to feeding the hungry, curing incurable diseases, or exploring our options as the Earth will eventually become completely uninhabitable (whether by our hand, or by the demise of our sun).

Rather, we have decided it is more important to have complete control over where our missiles land without fear of foreign intervention in time of war.

Congratulations, humans, on choosing once again petty differences and a profound mistrust of each other over coming together to improve people's lives...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more:China GPS rival Beidou starts offering navigation data(bbc)

At the next sign of logic, turn left

BONUS SCIENCE-RELATED POST

The first man made object ever to leave the influence of our solar system is just about there... Fun!

read more:Voyager 1 Speeds Toward The Brink Of Interstellar Space(npr)

Of the people, but not for the people

This is it, folks... We've lost control of our government.

You guys will remember this little thing we liked to call the TARP, right? Everybody got their britches in a bundle over the "unprecedented" amount of $700 BILLION to be loaned to Wall Street to ostensibly avoid worldwide economic collapse.. Nobody liked it, but at that time, Bush was the lamest of ducks with at least one foot out the door and something [supposedly] HAD to be done.

That the economy eventually collapsed in every realistic and measurable way is irrelevant, but I certainly had to bring it up.

Notice my use of the quotes around "unprecedented" in the paragraph above. I use these quotes because there was plenty of precedence. In fact, the very same banks we bailed out were already into us for a LOT more than $700 BILLION at that time!

Prior to the TARP, the Fed had already made loans to the banks at a total cost that amounted to $7.77 TRILLION! In your face, puny little $700 BILLION.

Bullet points. Too frustrated to make paragraphs:

Magnitude

• $7.7 TRILLION is more than half the value of everything our country produced that year
• Our 6 largest banks turned their share into $13 BILLION in profit
• Morgan Stanley alone borrowed enough ($107 BILLION) to pay off a tenth of nation's delinquent mortgages
• Bank of America took $91.4 BILLION of these secret loans while simultaneously taking $45 BILLION from the TARP funds
• Banks that were declared too big to fail grew even larger
  
• Our largest banks enjoyed more profits in the last 2.5 years than they did in the 8 years preceding the crisis
• All the while, they continue to spend MILLIONS lobbying to derail or weaken laws designed to keep them in check
  

Transparency

• The loans to the banks were undisclosed
  
• The profits earned by the banks were undisclosed
• Shareholders, the "owners" of the banks were not told (Where did the profits go?!?)
  
• Taxpayers, the people that have given the authority to the Fed to watch over our money were not told
• Congress, which was actively writing an overhaul to our financial regulatory system was not told
• These loans were provided with no protections or guarantees for the taxpayers
  

THEY LOANED OUR MONEY VALUED AT MORE THAN HALF OF EVERYTHING OUR COUNTRY CAN MAKE IN A YEAR TO PRIVATE COMPANIES WITHOUT EVER TELLING ANYONE! The Fed knew, the Bank Managers knew. Not even the owners of the banks knew!

THIS is whyipaytaxes.
read more:Wall Street Banks Earned Billions In Profits Off $7.7 Trillion In Secret Fed Loans Made During The Financial Crisis(tp)

If this committee was 'Super', we're screwed

Bad news:

The congressional *ahem* "Super" Committee was unable to do as they were told and will not be proposing any suggestions regarding deficit reduction aside from the following advice:

Somebody should throw together some kind of a committee to figure this shit out!

Good news:

It was no one's fault! Feel free to vote for incumbents next year, because not one of the 12 people on the committee failed in their task. As it turns out, it was the other side that failed. Awesome!

Assembling a committee of professional politicians to solve a perpetual national crisis with a result of finger pointing and bullshit posturing...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Sarcasm-free TL;DR summary: Super committee convenes with only the advice that this problem should be dealt with, not ignored for future generations to fix and the Republicans blame the impasse on the Democrats who blame the impasse on the Republicans.

In money we trust

As you may or may not have heard, there is some shit going down out there. If I am to understand things correctly, there are massive protests in many of the cities in America, our national deficit is surpassing numbers that were beyond wildest imaginations just a few decades ago, Europe is on the brink of economic catastrophe, we're still embroiled in at least one war right now, a minimum of 9% of our eligible work force can't find work, the Palestinians and Israeli's are still angry with each other, and I hear there are some untrustworthy motherfucker's out their with all sorts of guns, bombs and even a few working on nuclear weapons. I'm gonna go out on a limb and guess that there are many other things that could really use the full attention of the United States Government right about now.

But, no. OH no.

Our congress (approval rating = 9%) has got FAR more important shit to deal with here. After all, how can our country function if we don't take a time out to RE-AFFIRM our National MOTTO???

Yes, sadly, today, on the floor of the House, they brought up a motion, debated, and passed the reaffirmation of our national motto that was written in 1956: In God We Trust.

This was followed, nearly immediately, by a motion to mint coins to recognize the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Well, I sure am glad we cleared THAT up...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

Watch the video: Men Not At Work(tds)

Beauty we couldn't live without seeing again

Simon Says: "Fuck it. Tax 'em"

I ran into one of those stories that just twists my mind into a writhing heap of WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO THAT FOR?

I can tell that this was an incredibly expensive endeavor, but I have no idea how much of it was paid for by taxpayers. The work was done at Dundee University and I am assuming that this is a public university that is at least partially funded by taxes. If I am wrong and this story has no right being discussed in a blog about what our tax dollars are spent on, then I guess I'll make the karmic withdrawal. Either way, you can't tell me this money wouldn't have been more appreciated by starving children somewhere in Africa that could have used a school instead.

Adrienne 'Face Painter' Barker realized she was working on a completely useless skill set and was unable to unleash her talents on an unsuspecting business as an employee. So she undertook a project to re-create the face of an Archbishop that died in 1381. Apparently, this guy was a real pioneer in taxing peasants and had his ass handed to him during the Peasant's Revolt. By having his ass handed to him, I mean he was pulled from the Tower of London by an angry mob and had his head chopped off. (Which reminds me... Aren't we past due for another Peasant's Revolt?)

It was SO important to understand what the good Archbishop looked like that Adrienne wasn't going to just get some artists rendering done, oh no. Some excerpts of the process she undertook:
1.) used skeletal detail from the part-mummified skull to build up his facial features
2.) carry out an initial assessment of the skull to determine its age, sex and ancestry
3.) then made a series of 3D bronze resin casts of his head
4.) sculpted each muscle of the face and built this up on the cast
5.) adding a final layer which represents the skin

What drives me batty are a couple of key phrases in the story like her title of Forensic Artist. It comes down to two simple things: One, who cares and how is it important to be able to gaze upon the face of a fellow who died 630 years ago? Two, it is a model, a rendering, an interpretation - to use their term, a "reconstruction." Its not what the guy actually looked like. Period.

The bust will be on display in a church. I would hope, but doubt that it will remind the current Archbishop that he doesn't own the people just because that is how his bosses interpret their bibles.

And I exit with a quote from the artist herself:
"I hope people in Sudbury like what we've done but he's a strange looking fellow so it'll be interesting to see their reactions."

Indeed. I certainly hope they like it. And I really hope that you enjoy seeing their reactions. Otherwise, this will all have been very pointless...

THIS is whybritspaytaxes.
read more:Face of Simon of Sudbury revealed by forensic artist(bbc)

The Horse Molesterer

Derek 'Wood' Woods just LOVES horses.

In December of 2009, a woman who owns a stables in Devon (England), was surprised to see ol' Derek crashed out in her barn. Shooing him away, she thought she had seen the last of this sorry excuse for a man. To be safe, she had fake cameras and an audible alarm set up in and around her barn.

In February of 2010, she noticed that one of her horses was walking funny again. Fearing the worst, the fake cameras and alarm were eliminated and replaced with hidden infrared cameras.

By August, Derek just couldn't stand to be away from his little filly any longer and gave the stable owner and police a little infrared show.

Aside from the small mountain of private cash invested in this by the stable owner, we have several calls out to the police and now a trial and some punishment to pay for. Luckily they won't put him in jail, but a probation officer will be that much busier for the next 24 months. I also imagine Woods won't be paying for his own treatment for alcohol dependency.

THIS is whybritspaytaxes.

PS - I was torn about titling this post 'Horse Rearing', but 'The Horse Molesterer' just had that much more kick...

PPS - I was picturing a dodgy old man barely hanging on in his drunken twilight years. It was another look at the story before I realized this guy is 26 YEARS OLD! Man... If you can't get a date at 26, you've got issues. Wait. I guess that this guy has issues was already pretty clear...

read more:Man sentenced for sex act on horse at Devon stables(bbc)

Hand picked

Suddenly, the Russian state-owned media begins attacking the mayor of Moscow for a variety of things like gridlock. A couple weeks later, President Puti... errr... Medvedev fires him. Not long after, Medvedev appoints a close aid to Prime Minister Putin as the new mayor.

Hand picked leadership...

THIS is whyrussianspaytaxes

read more: President Medvedev picks PM Putin's aide to run Moscow(bbc)

Did he just say election?

Congress is done! All problems solved...

Lets put on a show to celebrate!

Seriously though... I am truly stumped.

In an effort to bring attention to a matter that is already quite in the public's awareness, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren invited and Congressman John Conyers authorized Stehpen Colbert to testify before the immigration subcommittee. The 'testimony' was based on the fact that Stephen supposedly spent a day picking vegetables with immigrants.

1.) You don't need to draw attention to the issue. Maybe you need to draw attention to a potential solution, but they don't have one. That wasn't their intent. Instead, they've highlighted their cluelessness.
2.) You don't use the floor of the Congress of the United States as a stage for comedians. I think Stephen is a comedic genius, and I love his character, but ... ... I mean, come on! The White House Correspondent's Dinner is bad enough, but at least that is an annual event designed for laughter at our government's expense.
3.) Congress ought to stop bringing in cable network stars, baseball stars, and other ridiculous celebrities and focus on the fucking job they are there to do. Yeah, its not an easy job, but thats precisely why we can't have them spending their time booking a goddamn talent show.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more:
Stephen Colbert’s Congress visit called ‘sad commentary’(bh)
Colbert testifies to U.S. Congress(ifp)

Modern day castle

This story is really quite sad...


A judge in Britain can't stand the fact that a farmer built this house in spite of having been told it would violate zoning ordinances. So, the farmer went and found himself a loophole which allows anyone to keep a building that violates such ordinances if the building had been in place for at least 4 years. Our friendly farmer simply stacked up walls of hay bails to conceal his progress in building his castle with nary a complaint. 4 years after he and his family moved in, he pulled down the hay bails and likely gave himself a content pat on the back for finding a way to complete his life's dream home.

Well, this just broils the judge. How dare the citizenry do as they see fit while taking advantage of loopholes written into the law? Now, the judge is demanding that this man tear down his castle. The logic: The hay bails was a part of the structure that stood for the 4 years. When he pulled down the hay bails from around his home, the judge rules that he substantially changed the structure thereby opening himself back up to the local zoning ordinances.

A beautiful home that would likely stand for centuries. Gone over a silly ordinance. No complaints, just an ordinance.

THIS is whybritspaytaxes.

One small step for

The California State Historical Resources Commission is claiming the various items left on the moon by the Apollo 11 crew as a Californian historical resource. Their ownership claim is based on the fact that Californian firms were involved in the Apollo mission.

They think that by stating this claim, they'll be able to preserve the site as other countries plan to visit the moon themselves. I'd like to see them enforce that one!

THIS is whycalifornianspaytaxes.

Sadly enough, California isn't the only state with departments spending time on this.

Department of Photoshop

Guess who this is.

Go ahead, guess...

Did anyone guess a figment of the US State Departments imagination? If so, you're absolutely right! * SEE COMMENTS FOR AN UPDATE*

Yes... State was feeling lonely and hadn't received any pictures or videos from their pen pal Bin Laden in quite some time so they decided to imagine what he might look like today.

Hey... Its easier than actually looking for the guy.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

And just how lost is our government in the *ahem* 'hunt' for Bin Laden if they resort to this as a way to flush him out? Apparently, by the image, they wonder if he's been hiding in plain site, far away from the caves of Afghanistan.

I'm gonna sue [myself]

At least when Well Fargo sues itself, it has the common decency of hiring two different law firms to prosecute and defend itself.

This is not the case when the Kauai County Government in Hawaii decides to sue itself! Instead, they spend $250,000 dollars and have the county attorney represent both sides of the case against itself.

Here's the deal:
The local residents are being taxed out of their homes. Its not a matter of not keeping up with the mortgage, its a matter of property values being driven so high by out of state speculators that the residents can no longer afford the taxes on their long owned but newly valued homes. Which is fine by the county government, because that means they can pull in tax money from the out of towners and run record budgets as high as $123 MILLION! I mean, what county doesn't need to spend that kind of money on day to day operations?

So the residents, silly as it sounds, decided to pretend like they lived in a democracy. They got a measure on the ballot that caps the property taxes on any home that is owner-occupied. In spite of heavy lobbying by the county government and using the tax gains in a coordinated attack on the ballot measure, it passed by a 2 to 1 margin.

Rather than accepting defeat and trying to get by on tax revenues most counties only dream of, they decided their best course of action was to sue itself. This way, they could get the court to declare that the people of the county had no right to propose and vote on the ballot measure. The Hawaii Supreme Court agreed, saying that only the county government has a right to police itself, not the citizens.

Sometimes the articles I summarize do it better themselves:
Now, under Hawaii law, when government officials do not agree with the outcome of an election, they are free to concoct a friendly lawsuit, fund the litigation with taxpayer money, and ask a local court to strike the measure down.

THIS is whyhawaiianspaytaxes.

read more: HAWAII GOVERNMENT SUES ITSELF TO QUASH PROPERTY TAX RELIEF - AND WINS (flashreport.org)

Conflicts of cozy interests

Am I the only one uncomfortable with the White House Chief of Staff sitting in on JPMorgan Chase's board meetings?

In an era where our federal government is handing out taxpayer dollars to private entities, picking and choosing which banks should fail and which banks will succeed, it seems wrong to have government officials at the highest levels getting so cozy with one particular bank. I'll bet that CIT wouldn't be forced into bankruptcy if they too had the opportunity to have the President's right hand man over for a visit...

I would guess this: Investing in JPM stocks is probably a pretty safe bet over the long term, 'cause they are apparently going to continue to get what they ask for...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: In Washington, One Bank Chief Still Holds Sway(nyt)

Looking into it

In 1998 the British Government announced a public inquiry into the Bloody Sunday incident of 1972. Since that time, the inquiry has costed the government over $290 MILLION, over half of which was spent directly on lawyers.

Results to date: We're still looking into it.

And, I have to ask, because I have to wonder: What in the hell is it they hope to determine? How is an inquiry lasting longer than a decade looking into events from over 30 years ago supposed to have any positive effect on anyone's life? Just take the $290 MILLION and divvy it up between all the British citizens (excluding the lawyers on the inquiry). I'll bet that would have a much more positive result.

THIS is whybritspaytaxes.

read more: again, found in Newsweek (InternationaList)

Bailin' out the lawyers (Part 2)

Ok. For those of you not reading this blog backwards, in the order I've been posting, you'll see that a couple posts ago, I was bitchin' about banks suing each other with and for their bailout funds we gave them. In my apathy towards finding solid examples, I went with the first couple I found after googling the story I had heard on the radio. They were good enough examples to get my point accross, but little did I know: The PERFECT case of banks suing themselves was right under my nose.

Wells Fargo NA has sued itself in a mortgage foreclosure case in Hillsborough County, Florida.

Yes. Go ahead, read that again. Yes. Its true. It has even hired a lawyer to defend itself from itself.

Oh my.


Parsed, Cut, 'n Pasted details: (sweet, sweet apathy) Al Lewis: Wells Fargo Bank Sues Itself(fox)
In this particular case, Wells Fargo holds the first and second mortgages on a condominium. As holder of the first, Wells Fargo is suing all other lien holders, including the holder of the second, which is itself. [Court] documents clearly label "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as the plaintiff and "Wells Fargo Bank NA" as a defendant. Wells Fargo hired Florida Default Law Group., P.L., of Tampa, Fla., to file the lawsuit against itself. And then Wells Fargo hired another Tampa law firm -- Kass, Shuler, Solomon, Spector, Foyle & Singer P.A. -- to defend itself against its own lawsuit.

To be sure: Wells Fargo NA, which is considered by our government as 'Too Big To Fail' was given $25,000,000,000 (as of 2/2009) to ensure they'd have funds left over for the legal fees to sue itself. And what we're not spending in federal subsidies directly to the bank, we're spending on the Judge's salary, the court clerk's salary, building, maintenance, and upkeep fees to make sure all parties involved have a means to sue themselves whenever they see fit.

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

To give true credit where credit is due, this story was discovered at FailBlog.org.

Goldman Sachs

As Matt Taibbi runs through the evidence and coincidence of the apparent fact that Goldman Sachs has been at the forefront to profit from every bubble that has burst since the 20s he writes this paragraph (EA):

The history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup — which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibillion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden-parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York — which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman.

With so many people in positions of financial power having come through the rites of passage known as a job at Goldman Sachs, its hard to believe that its not just a big 'Good Ol' Boys' club. What better way to ensure free government handouts by putting your buddies in charge of the government?

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

read more: Matt Taibbi has long since entered my conscience as a potential Hunter Thompson of our time. Read the excerpted story from Rolling Stone.
The Great American Bubble Machine(rs)

Some more quotes, please read to see more evidence of a required career at Goldman to get a position of any power:

(One thing that has been noticed by just about everyone but the MSM)
Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers — one of Goldman's last real competitors — collapse without intervention. [...] The very next day, Paulson greenlighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets

a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds
In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bank-holding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding — most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs — and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret.
Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs

the man now in charge of supervising Goldman — New York Fed president William Dudley — is yet another former Goldmanite.

Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs

Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites.

The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance.

Funeral costs on the rise

Michael Jackson's memorial shindig last night cost the city $1.4 MILLION in police and traffic services alone. The city is now asking for donations. We all know the state can't afford it...

No one's fault, really. Just not the sort of thing I like to see my taxes being spent on...

THIS is whyipaytaxes.

I guess I could make a comment about the flurry of lawsuits that will come from all of this and the excessive investigations that your average dead fellow would NOT get.... But there isn't much to say. Extraordinary circumstances and an investigation must ensue...

read more: Mystery surrounds Jackson burial (bbc)