Sarah Palin

Born February 11, 1964 (1964-02-11) (age 44)
Sandpoint, Idaho, U.S.
Political party Republican
Spouse Todd Palin (since 1988)
Children Track, Bristol, Willow, Piper, Trig
Residence Wasilla, Alaska
Occupation Businessperson, Politician
Religion Non-denominational Christian


Sarah Louise Heath Palin (pronounced /ˈpeɪlɨn/; born February 11, 1964) is the governor of the U.S. state of Alaska and the Republican Party's vice-presidential nominee for the 2008 United States presidential election.

Palin was a member of the Wasilla, Alaska city council from 1992 to 1996 and mayor from 1996 to 2002. After an unsuccessful campaign for lieutenant governor of Alaska in 2002, she chaired the Alaska Oil and Gas Conservation Commission from 2003 to 2004. She was elected governor of Alaska in November 2006 by defeating the incumbent governor in the Republican primary and then defeating a former two-term Democratic governor in the general election. She is the first female governor of Alaska, and the youngest person elected to the position.

On August 29, 2008, presidential candidate John McCain announced he had chosen Palin as his running mate in the 2008 U.S. presidential election. Palin was formally nominated at the 2008 Republican National Convention in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is the first woman to run on the Republican Party's presidential ticket and the first Alaskan nominee of either major party.

Early life and education
Palin was born in Sandpoint, Idaho, the third of four children of Sarah Heath (née Sheeran), a school secretary, and Charles R. Heath, a science teacher and track coach. She is of English, German, and Irish descent. The family moved to Alaska when she was an infant. As a child, she would sometimes go moose hunting with her father before school. The family regularly ran 5 km and 10 km races.

Palin attended Wasilla High School in Wasilla, located 44 miles (71 km) north of Anchorage. She was the head of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes chapter at the school and the point guard and captain of the school's girls' basketball team.

Palin attended several colleges and universities out of state, which was routine for Alaskans uncertain about their interests and attracted to warmer climates. In 1982, she enrolled at Hawaii Pacific College but left after her first semester. She transferred to North Idaho community college, where she spent two semesters as a general studies major. From there, she transferred to the University of Idaho for two semesters. During this time Palin won the Miss Wasilla Pageant, then finished third in the 1984 Miss Alaska pageant, at which she won a college scholarship and the "Miss Congeniality" award. Diane Osborne, Palin's hairdresser during the pageants, recalls her as "so soft-spoken, so unobtrusive, so agreeable as to seem void of the urgent quest for attention that Osborne had recognized in others." After the pageants Palin attended the Matanuska-Susitna community college in Alaska for one term. The next year she returned to the University of Idaho where she spent three semesters completing her Bachelor of Science degree in communications-journalism, graduating in 1987.



In 1988, she worked as a sports reporter for KTUU-TV and KTVA-TV in Anchorage, Alaska, and for the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman as a sports reporter. She also helped in her husband’s commercial fishing family business.
Personal life
"Levi Johnston" redirects here. For the football player, see Levi Johnson.
In 1988, Palin eloped with her childhood sweetheart Todd Palin because, according to her mother, Palin believed that her parents "couldn't afford a big white wedding." Todd Palin works for the London-based oil company BP as an oil-field production operator and owns a commercial fishing business. The Palins have an estimated combined net worth of over $1 million.



Palin family members at announcement of vice-presidential selection, 29 Aug 2008. From left to right: Todd, Piper, Willow, Bristol and Trig.Palin describes herself as a hockey mom. The Palins have five children: sons Track (b. 1989)[182] and Trig (b. 2008), and daughters Bristol (b. 1990), Willow (b. 1995), and Piper (b. 2001).[183] Track enlisted in the U.S. Army on September 11, 2007, and was subsequently assigned to an infantry brigade. He and his unit deployed to Iraq in September 2008, for 12 months. On September 1, 2008, Palin announced that Bristol was five months pregnant and that she intends to keep the baby and marry Levi Johnston, the father of the child. Palin's youngest child, Trig, was prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome.


Palin was born into a Catholic family. Later her family joined the Wasilla Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church. Palin attended the Wasilla Assembly of God until 2002. Palin says she switched to Wasilla Bible Church because she preferred the children's ministries there. When in Juneau, she attends the Juneau Christian Center. Her current home church is the Wasilla Bible Church, an independent congregation. Palin described herself in an interview as a "Bible-believing Christian." After the Republican National Convention, a spokesperson for the McCain campaign told CNN that Palin "doesn't consider herself Pentecostal" and has "deep religious convictions."

VITO RIZZUTO

Montreal — Nicolo Rizzuto, the 84-year-old patriarch of one of Canada's most infamous crime families, is free to walk out from jail only two years after his highly publicized arrest.


A Quebec judge this morning accepted the joint suggestion of Crown and defence lawyers in agreeing to a four-year jail sentence for Mr. Rizzuto. But his two years spent in jail since his 2006 arrest count as double, meaning he is now a free man.

Mr. Rizzuto and five other men, alleged leaders in the Montreal Mafia, pleaded guilty last month to a raft of charges resulting from a lengthy police investigation.

The father of Vito Rizzuto, the reputed to head the Montreal Mafia, the elder Rizzuto was described as being in poor health and, despite his reputation, for having a minor role in the criminal organization.

Nicolo Rizzuto will have to report to a probation officer, and remains on probation for three years.

Four other leader in the Montreal underworld were handed sentences today of up to 15 years. All will serve no more than 11 years, however, due to their time already spent behind bars.

A fifth man returns to court next month.

The other men are Rocco Sollecito, Paolo Renda, Francesco Arcadi, Francesco Del Balso and Lorenzo Giordano.

During a four-year investigation, the RCMP penetrated the heart of the criminal organization, installing hidden cameras inside their headquarters.

According to RCMP affidavits, hundreds of kilos of cocaine were imported through Montreal's Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport, where baggage handlers, food-services employee and even customs agents were on the gang's payroll.

The allegations are outlined among more than 1,000 criminal counts filed in November 2006 against 90 people the police identified as associates and underlings of Vito Rizzuto.

The four-year investigation by several police forces culminated in a 700-officer raid in November 2006 across Quebec, as well as Halifax and Toronto where more than 70 people were arrested and homes and bank accounts were seized. About $3-million was also seized as proceeds of crime.

At the time the RCMP said police struck at the heart of one of the top criminal syndicates in Canada.

Police say the criminal organization had succeeded in infiltrating Montreal's airport and co-opting a dozen airport employees as well as a federal customs agent.

Mitchell Janhevich couldn't believe what he was seeing. Inside a noisy hotspot called The Joy Club one evening in May, 2003, the Montreal beat cop spotted – amidst the frenzy of lights and sound – five men huddled together in a VIP section. He immediately recognized one of them as Vito Rizzuto, who seemed engaged in a sort of gangster get-together. When Rizzuto and his friends left the club and climbed into a Mercedes Benz, Janhevich followed them in his cruiser and eventually pulled them over.

As Janhevich approached the Mercedes, a heated verbal exchange broke out between the passengers and the police officer. Soon, Rizzuto lost his temper, clambered from the car and stalked over to Janhevich. A tall man with hawkish features, Rizzuto confronted Janhevich and demanded: "Do you have any idea who I am?"

Rizzuto, one of Canada's most successful gangsters. "Teflon Don": Montreal mafia kingpin
Janhevich knew perfectly well who Vito Rizzuto is, although most Canadians would be hard-pressed to place the name. Which is surprising, given that Rizzuto is considered the "Teflon Don" of Canada, due to his success in evading conviction during the more than two decades he reigned over Montreal's underworld. In fact, Victor "Vito" Rizzuto is fairly unique in how he successfully merged old-world Sicilian Cosa Nostra sensibilities with modern-day management methods in creating and running his crime family.
Debonair, charming, with trademark swept-back iron hair, the 60 year-old Rizzuto has a healthy appetite for beautiful women, sports cars, mansions, golf and haute cuisine. He is one of the most successful gangsters this country has ever produced and, were it not for the fallibility of the dons of the American mafia, he would likely be a free man to this day.

Born into a prominant Sicilian mafia family
Rizzuto was bred to be a mafia prince. Born in 1946 in Cattolica Eraclea, a small village of 6,000 in the mountainous province of Agrigento in Sicily, Rizzuto is the oldest son of Nicolo "Nick" Rizzuto, a true "man of honour" – the stony-eyed hard cases who belong to the Sicilian Mafia.


When Vito was eight he and his family came to Canada, settling in Montreal, part of a wave of Sicilian mafioso who emigrated to this country in the 1950s and would shape the criminal underworld for decades to come. In those days, the New York-based Bonanno crime family considered Montreal part of its territory, largely because of the convenience of the city's port for offloading heroin shipments from Europe.



'Mafia Row' in Montreal - where the Rizzuto family home is located. Nick Rizzuto joined the Bonanno organization, running a tough crew of Sicilian gangsters and establishing himself as an up-and-comer in the Canadian mob. As he came of age, Vito followed in his father's footsteps. He became a Canadian citizen in 1966 and married Giovanna Cammelleri in a classic mob-style wedding ceremony attended by Montreal's gangster gentry. Two years later, the 22 year-old Rizzuto was arrested after he and his brother-in-law burned down a barbershop for insurance money – his only conviction ever. He was in jail for only a few months.

By the '70s, the Rizzutos and other Sicilians were at odds with the leadership of the Bonanno's Montreal organization, then headed by the volatile Calabrian, Paolo Violi. Finally, one night in 1978, the Rizzutos' problem was solved: Violi was shot in the back of the head as he sat down for a meal at a Montreal restaurant. His grisly slaying ushered in the Rizzuto era.

A mafia-style shooting in New York
Vito's true mafia baptism occurred in 1981 when a factional tug-of-war within the Bonnano family in New York led to the decision to murder three dissident captains. A request went out to Montreal for hit men, and Vito was dispatched as a shooter. On the night of May 5, 1981, the three mob captains showed up at a hangout in Brooklyn, where gunmen immediately jumped out of a closet and opened fire. The first person charging from the closet was Vito Rizzuto.

A photo taken of Rizutto by FBI agents. In Montreal, Vito embraced the day-to-day operations of the family. He moved into a palatial house on a street called "Mafia Row", due to the fact its occupants are mostly mobsters and their relatives. His house is 4,300 square metres, with his father living in a similar spread next door.

Vito established his presence in loan-sharking, gambling, drug smuggling, and money-laundering. He formed alliances with other Italian-based crime families, along with the Hell's Angels, Montreal's West End Gang and South American cartels.

The glamorous - and dangerous - world of a gangster
Vito's routine was to rise at eleven o'clock every morning and go to the Cosenza bar, a social club the family runs on Jarry St. East, about thirty kilometers from their home. He is an avid golfer and could often be found on the links around Montreal. He drove upscale cars, including Lincolns, Mercedes, Jaguars and Corvettes. He owns resort property in Mexico and always traveled with bodyguards outside of Montreal.

Yet police had little success curbing his operations. In the '80s, Rizzuto was arrested twice for importing hash, but got off both times when a witness changed his story and wiretaps used by police were deemed illegal.



Joe Pistone, an FBI plant in the Bonnano crime family, says violence is part of life for any mafia member. Vito Rizzuto's world is a violent one. In 1992, for example, Giuseppe Lopresti, a neighbor of Vito's in Mafia Row and one of his closest associates, was found in a vacant lot, murdered, his body wrapped in a canvas sheet. He had been shot in the head, apparently because he'd run afoul of the New York mob. In 1997, Hamilton mobster Johnny "Pops" Papalia and his right-hand man were murdered. Papalia's death allowed Rizzuto to extend his reach into Ontario.

New York mafia connection turns on Rizzuto
By the 1990s, Vito's organization was so powerful it was considered stronger than most of New York's five Cosa Nostra families. But, his fall from this pinnacle was due to the treachery of his American partners-in-crime in the Bonanno family. The FBI had waged a relentless war against the New York mafia and in 2001, they targeted the Bonanno family and its cunning boss, Joey Massino. Their efforts to break the family paid off when Massino's right-hand man, Salvatore Vitale, agreed to co-operate. Vitale fingered Rizzuto as among the shooters in the 1981 killing of the three dissident Bonanno captains. Consequently, on the early morning of January 20, 2004, Vito was arrested at his home in Montreal.

In August, 2006, after Rizzuto's many appeals were exhausted, the Montreal mobster was finally deported from his prison cell in Quebec to New York where he now awaits trial. His father Nick, meanwhile, is still alive and residing in Montreal, although who will oversee the Rizzuto organization remains uncertain.


Rizzuto handed probation, suspended sentence

Killer role for Kunis in 'Max Payne'

Max Payne - Based on a popular video game, this film stars Mark Wahlberg as a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family. While investigating a series of murders, he befriends a young woman who is out to avenge her sister’s death. They discover similarities in their situations and together, they work to catch the people behind the killings. This action flick also stars Beau Bridges, Mila Kunis, Ludacris, Donal Logue, Chris O’Donnell and Kate Burton.

Mila Kunis ("That 70's Show") will star opposite Mark Wahlberg in 20th Century Fox's "Max Payne" reports Variety.

An adaptation of the Rockstar videogame, Wahlberg plays Payne, a cop haunted by the tragic loss of his family who finds himself in the thick of a conspiracy when he investigates a series of murders.

Kunis will play an assassin who teams up with Payne to avenge her sister's death. The John Moore-directed action project with Beau Thorne scripting is scheduled for release later this year.


Seven years since Max Payne brought bullet time into videogames on the back of its jaw-dropping effect on cinema audiences, the action goes back to the big screen in this belated adaptation. Mark Wahlberg has stepped up to star as the titular maverick cop on the hunt for those responsible for the brutal murder of his family, and a journey into the underworld.
The original third person shooter videogame had close allusions to film with cinematic story sequences and noir-style night and rain devouring every moment. However, the main appeal of Max Payne was the ability to shoot the bad guys in the same "bullet time" style seen in The Matrix while leaping between crates or through doorways – a simple gimmick which was stretched over two games. Controlling Max around mainly enclosed spaces, killing everything that moved with the ease of slow motion became famous for its novelty factor when bullet time was still creating a buzz and The Matrix sequels were being anticipated rather than lambasted. In bringing the game to screen, the filmmakers will need to work on giving us more than just this borrowed element to make an engrossing film - especially as it’s not clear if this novelty value is being exploited.


The last time Wahlberg was cast as a no-nonsense killer was in The Shooter, a run-of-the-mill revenge thriller. His chiselled features were wasted on a bland character and even blander story, but Max Payne has the advantage of its noir style to help develop the tortured soul’s bid to bring his family’s murderers to justice. Of course, being Max Payne there has to be copious amounts of violence but, done right, the dark undertones could be amplified by the gunfire rather than provide the padding.

Whether it achieves this aim could be reliant not on Wahlberg’s performance, but on those around him. The presence of Ludacris and Nelly Furtado, more famed for their music than acting ability, and Chris O’Donnell, normally associated with average studio fare than hits, gives the impression we could be in for a rough ride. Director John Moore’s CV is sketchy: his previous high profile movies such as The Omen, Flight of the Phoenix and Behind Enemy Lines were workmanlike and there’s no getting away from the fact Max Payne is hardly a gaming household name anymore. The film is billed to include enemies from beyond the natural world too, a fantasy element not normally used in classic noir or even more modern day fare such as Sin City.

Max Payne will not be aiming to shoot the bullseye of taste with the average movie fan: it’s most likely to fall into that limbo of gamers wanting to see how their hero has been presented on the big screen and those looking for a simple actioner. If it achieves any more, then it will be considered a huge success for all involved.

Gina Carano AKA Crush plays the Soviet Commando in Red Alert 3

Gina Carano AKA Crush is set to play the Soviet Commando Natasha in Command & Conquer: Red Alert 3’s campy FMV live-action cutscenes. The Russian hero Natasha Volkova will be portrayed by MMA fighter Gina Carano, known as Crush on American Gladiators, who will be carrying a Soviet Dragunov rifle on-screen and supposedly as a playable unit in-game as well.

Carano said: “Natasha is such a cool, powerful character, her actions definitely speak louder than her words which is something I definitely identify with. I can’t wait to see how everything turns out and I hope all of the gamers out there have a great time wreaking havoc as me.” — Red Alert 3 is coming to PC, Xbox 360 & PS3 in early October 2008.

Canadian Grand Prix dropped from 2009 calendar

The Canadian Grand Prix, which is held annually in Montreal, has been removed from the 2009 Formula One calendar.

The race, which was first held in Canada in 1967, takes place every summer in Montreal, generating tens of millions in revenue for the city.

"This brings in roughly $75 to $80 million dollars," montreal escorts said Tuesday, adding that many business owners were worried.

The decision marks the first time the Canadian Grand Prix won't be on the schedule since 1987, when local organizers and the F1 had a dispute over sponsorship.

According to the F1 calendar, Turkey's GP will be moved from August to June 7, the date usually reserved for the Montreal event.
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To ensure there are still 18 races around the globe, the inaugural Abu Dhabi GP has been added to the list.

The Montreal race was reportedly cancelled after contractual problems developed between Circuit Gilles Villeneuve officials and commercial rights holder F1 management, reports The Canadian Press.

Officials with the Grand Prix of Canada (GPC) said Tuesday they were informed of the decision through the media.

The GPC's Rosalie Wolkowicz told CTV.ca that no comment will be issued until the organization speaks with Formula One Management (FOM) and the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA).

Pierre Houde, a sports announcer for RDS, said he was shocked to learn about Montreal's removal from the calendar.

"Frankly, I don't see any valid reason for the federation to make such a drastic move as we've seen today," Houde told CTV Montreal.

The Montreal race was almost dropped in 2004 because of an impending federal ban on tobacco advertising.

Under the terms of the deal, the ten F1 teams that relied on tobacco sponsorship received up to $2 million to race unbranded cars in Montreal.

With the 2009 cancellation, North America will be without a Formula One race for the first time in 43 years.

The U.S. GP was axed from the F1 schedule last year.

The 2009 Formula One calendar is as follows:

March 29 - Australia
April 5 - Malaysia
April 19 - Bahrain
May 10 - Spain (Barcelona)
May 24 - Monaco
June 7- Turkey
June 21- Britain
June 28 - France
July 12 - Germany
July 26 - Hungary
August 23 - Spain (Valencia)
August 30 - Belgium
September 13 - Italy
September 27 - Singapore
October 11- Japan
October 18 - China
November 1- Brazil
November 15 - Abu Dhabi

Montreal Escorts