Because once Carter (and his wife Marilyn, who now says he's innocent of abusing her) got onto that flight, they went to Kansas City for a little R&R, just to get away from it all. Apparently it did not go so well. According to the New York Post (which is gleefully pursuing this story, which is another problem for Dominic Carter) the following things happened after the Carters arrived:

1. Dominic Carter was supposed to give a "motivational speech" to the NAACP in KC. He canceled, because "he wasn't feeling well."

2. The next day, a relative called the cops and told them they feared Dominic was suicidal.

3. The Carters' daughter calls KC cops shortly afterwards, to say her mother seemed to be "under duress," and that the family has "domestic violence issues."

4. It becomes clear that Marilyn has disappeared.

5. Police later locate her at the KC airport. She'd abruptly decided to leave, buy a plane ticket, and fly home.

Next time, the Bahamas?

When our last president went on vacation, he went to a giant make-believe Hollywood "ranch" in a shitty suburb of Waco. No one was inconvenienced by a busload of reporters and phalanx of security. But Martha's Vineyard is a little inaccessible island of salty sea-folk and thousands of incredibly wealthy vacationers! This is no place for a media circus!

Which is why the White House is demanding that the reporters who followed Barack Obama on his vacation not do any "reporting," while they are there. No pictures of the kids without Obama! And no telling anyone where he is going!

Further, added press aide Katie Lillie, there will be no tolerating reporters using cellphones to call or text friends with the president's latest movements on the island. Since the Vineyard has relatively few roads - and it's easy to figure out how Obama would travel from one venue to another - those in the press pool must agree not to telegraph where he's going.

Violators, she said, would be thrown out of the pool.

Plus if they say where on the Vineyard Obama is going, it'll become a shitty tourist trap, like when Bill Clinton wore that Black Dog t-shirt that one time.

Drudge even ruined the website of the Martha's Vineyard Gazette!

Still, if the reporters are excused from doing "work," they can at least enjoy a free trip to the Vineyard. It is much nicer than August in Texas. And after a slow, rainy, recession-y summer, the local business-owners can cash in with Obama-related drinks and merchandise. Make sure to buy some Obama crap from one of island's hundreds of t-shirt stores while you're there, pool reporters!

Of course, you're just looking at pictures. So there'll be none of that under-the-dinner-table footsie, followed by wine-twinged strolls in the sand, followed by darkened bedroom murmurs. Nope! None of that. You're at work, surrounded by jerks, pretending. Happy boozy Tuesdee.

The New Yorker's Steve Coll has long suspected—and previously reported, based on the recollections of one of Bin Laden's childhood friends—that the Al Quaeda leader had visited the U.S. But he's found confirmation and detail in a galley of Growing Up bin Laden, the new book by Osama's first wife Najwa bin Laden and their son Omar.

One evening he [Osama] arrived home with a surprise announcement: 'Najwa, We are going to travel to the United States. Our boys are going with us.'

I was shocked, to tell you the truth…Pregnant, and busy with two babies, I remember few details of our travel, other than we passed through London before flying to a place I had never heard of, a state in America called Indiana. Osama told me that he was meeting with a man by the name of Abdullah Azzam. Since my husband's business was not my business, I did not ask questions.

Osama left Najwa in Indiana for a while to jet off to L.A. for meetings. A highlight of her stay was a trip to "a big shopping mall in Indianapolis."

The couple's son Abdul Rahman developed a fever during their vacation, and they took him to an American doctor in Indiana who assured them that the boy would be fine. They came to think of Americans as not so bad, Najwa says:

I came to believe that Americans were gentle and nice, people easy to deal with. As far as the country itself goes, my husband and I did not hate America, yet we did not love it.

No, "love" is not quite the word. While waiting for their return flight in the Indianapolis airport, Najwa writes, she and Osama got a big kick out of all the midwestern hicks gawking at Najwa's traditional Muslim garb.

When my husband and I discussed the incident, we were both more amused than offended. That man gave us a good laugh, as it was clear he had no knowledge of veiled women.

Crazy Amrikans! Doesn't Growing Up bin Laden sound like a great name for a reality show? Ben Silverman call your office.

[Via TNR; photo by AllegroArts via Flickr.]

Swingers clubs—Try Anchorena, Buenos Aires' premier boliche swinger. Enjoy the kitschy "four life-sized wooden totems of nude men and women, their genitals poised above the center of the dance floor" to get you in the mood. "Forget the tango - these days, Argentina swings," Mark Sanford.

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Gay saunas—Unikus Spa is one of the city's most popular gay meeting points, where you can go to descontracturantes y relax, if you know what we mean, Mark Sanford.

Sex spas—A Full Spa offers "Hydrotherapy Pool, Labyrinth /Individual Boxes, XXX Videos, etc." Etc. means whatever you want it to mean, Mark Sanford!

Glory Holes—At Tom's at Viamonte 638, you can go from the Leather Basement to the DVD Booths to the Glory Holes, and back—if you dare, Mark Sanford!

"Publishing"—Leonos is a "publishing" agency that "doesn't do anything" except link its hot male "models" with interested "clients" like you. What you choose to "do" with the "model" is "up to two consenting adults," Mark Sanford.

Around your hotel—"Cutty Sark is a well known bar...guys will have no problems arranging erotic services with the girls here, especially if they're staying at El Conquistador." Club Black is nice, too. Ring the front desk, Mark Sanford!

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Drugs—Cocaine here is the same price as Miller Lite is back in South Carolina, Mark Sanford!

South Carolina's The State caught Sanford arriving at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport this morning:

Sanford, in an exclusive interview with The State, said he decided at the last minute to go to the South American country to recharge after a difficult legislative session in which he battled with lawmakers over how to spend federal stimulus money.

Asked why his staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail, Sanford gave two different answers: 1) I have no idea, and 2) Because I told them I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail.

When asked why his staff said he was on the Appalachian Trail, Sanford replied, "I don't know."

Sanford later said "in fairness to his staff," he had told them he might go hiking on the Appalachian Trial.

One thing we know for sure about Sanford is that he hires idiots. His spokesman Joel Sawyer told The State yesterday that Sanford had spoken with his office, and continued to maintain that he was hiking. These are obvious lies—if Sanford checked in, then they would have known he was in Argentina, and if they knew he was in Argentina, then they knew he wasn't hiking—and it was entirely predictable that they would be revealed as such when Sanford returned. You can smell the panic. Did they not think that reporters would be staking out the Atlanta airport?

The State says Sanford returned a day earlier than planned, which would suggest that he had been in contact with his office at some point and been called home. The newspaper also said that he was originally supposed to fly into Columbia, S.C., but arrived in Atlanta after bumping up his return by a day. This is of interest because CNN reported finding his car in the Columbia airport parking lot last night, and a local television station reported finding another of the governor's security-detail SUV's in the Atlanta airport parking lot yesterday.

Why would there be cars at both airports? Given the circumstances, it wouldn't be out of order to speculate wildly: Did the governor's staff plant a car at Columbia's airport to make the Appalachian Trail story appear more likely? After all, it makes little sense that he would drive to Atlanta, about 80 miles from the trail, and then fly to another point on the trail. It does make sense that he would fly from Columbia to Atlanta and then go hiking. So did a panicked staffer, after seeing the report of the governor's car in Atlanta, plant another one in Columbia and leak it to CNN? Who knows.

Sanford also said he was alone on the trip, which no one believes.

Uighurs are a Chinese minority group persecuted by the government. A bunch of them went to Afghanistan to escape that persecution. Then: whoops! 9/11! So America invaded. And America did things like pay Pakistani bounty hunters to round up random people who may or may not be dangerous terrorists, so we could ship them to our illegal off-shore prison, in Cuba. And that is what happened to our Uighur friends. A couple years later, the US determined that these were just some guys who hadn't done anything. And four years after that it was decided that maybe they shouldn't have to be in our military prison anymore, if they hadn't done anything.

So here's where we run into a problem: we cannot send them back to China, because they will be tortured and executed. We cannot send them to America, because America is scared of people it wrongfully imprisoned for years without cause or due process. We cannot send them to some random other country, because who would want them? What a pickle!

Well it turned out that we could just send a couple of them to Bermuda, a little island inhabited by tropical drink umbrella peddlers and cruise ships. Now Bermuda is a "dependency" of the UK but the UK's mild objections to this little relocation are basically unimportant. Especially compared to the very reasonable and important points brought up by Steve Doocy, the lady, and the guy who isn't Steve Doocy.

"We better warn Geraldo they could be coming to Puerto Rico!" Sure!

"Do you want to go to a place where that guy over there, in the sombrero, was actually trained in a terror camp in Afghanistan?" What a good point! No, I don't want to go to this weird Mexican restaurant in Bermuda, with the Chinese Muslim staff! I'd imagine the food would be terrible!

A tipster points us to Matt's Facebook page, where he's telling everyone about his upcoming trip to the Greek Isle of Mykonos! "This is a villa that comes with a house staff and is all inclusive," he notes. The packages that Matt links to range from $2,750- $4,200 per week.

When Matt's story originally came out, there was a flood of comments accusing him of lying in one way or another. Nothing ever contradicted the original reporting on his story, though, as far as we know—and that reporting concluded that his story was true. All we know: Big fundraiser by Matt's friends to replace his trashed stuff, then a month or two passes, then, Mykonos!

[Also this calls Mykonos "the ultimate gay destination," but every straight couple we know who's been married in the past two years has gone to Mykonos. What's the deal with Mykonos?]

In fact the kitchen of one of America's most expensive restaurants is still nice! Much nicer than yours. How much nicer? The New York Times has traveled to the kitchen of Per Se, to tell you. "Even as the rest of the planet scrapes together money for the rent check, there seems no end to the bountiful provisions that stream in through its doors."

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Is there a game afoot at the New York Times, may we ask? Is there some sort of office pool that everyone has contributed to, and now they rush out to win the contest of "Find the Most Grating Possible Thing to a Poor Person Caught in the Throes of Economic Crisis, and Write The Fuck About that Thing." You probably already knew that Per Se had a nice kitchen. Thank you for confirming the suspicion, New York Times!

But that person is not walking off with the office pool so easily. Oh no. You thought that was a superfluous story about the upper crust? How about a sympathetic story on their kids being forced to work to help pay for part of their super-expensive summer camps? This is how the wealthy experience the recession, you see, and the paper of record is right there, with ten or twelve reporters, on the scene, recording it.

"When you have a 16-year-old and he's excited about doing something, you encourage it," said Jill D., a lawyer in New York who asked that her surname not be published. She and her husband have canceled a family trip and their own summer vacation to free up $5,000 for their son's Caribbean scuba program.

Well Jill D., next year your 17 year-old will be excited about buying a $5,000 pound of chronic and studying entrepreneurship, so cancel next year's summer vacation now. You'll share a cab to Coney Island and like it.
[Pic via]

His dad, the elder Taki, is a big old rich horndog who likes to talk about fucking younger girls all the time; the younger Taki, known as J.T., is a bike messenger and an artist who works in the Nokia cameraphone medium and lives in his own place in Red Hook and he has two kids with a totally hot wife but they're separated and he went to prep school and smoked weed and "messed with" girls and lost his virginity and then got really into graffiti and lived in Paris for a while and got in a fight with Puffy in St. Tropez and met his totally hot wife in Gstaad and now he really just wants to chill and ride his bike and smoke weed and do his art, okay.

Spencer Morgan is now working on a purely conceptual level. [NYO]

Apparently a visit to the Teatro Colon or a sightseeing stroll over to Pablo Neruda's old house is now indistinguishable from a night at Bar Martignetti. Spencer Morgan's weekly NYO profile of a quirkily enraging Manhattanite today introduces us to David Webb: former Goldman analyst, current chisel-jawed male model, Ivy League tennis star, and media party crashing friend of Neel Shah. David hopped on down to Buenos Aires for a couple weeks to just clear his head and shit, and what did he find? People exactly like himself:

"You'd start the day at a park and then run into five former bankers, and then you'd wind up at a bar and all of a sudden there would be 15 of them," Mr. Webb said. "Ex-bankers, ex-traders, Lehman guys, Bear guys, everyone. Guys that got screwed by their job and came to a place where everything was cheap. It's fuckin' beautiful and the sun was going down at 9:30."

If Juan Diaz de Solis would have known this was gonna happen back in 1516, he would have turned around and gone right back up the Rio de la Plata and left the whole mess to the native Charrua tribe. They hate bankers. (But they love male models!)
[NYO; Pic via]

The FT is "offering" staff "the chance" to "work fewer hours." And they better accept, or you know some motherfuckers are going to have to get laid off. But they're all so nice about it!

"Do you fancy spending more time with your family over the summer months? Have you been meaning to book that trip of a lifetime? Would you like to improve you work-life balance in 2009?

"If the answer is yes to any of the above questions, the FT may be able to assist," said the document.

Oh FT, we'll do whatever you like if you keep saying "fancy." [Guardian UK]

How many of YOUR friends or acquaintances pass away on vacations or in vacation spots? It certainly seems like celebrities are far more affected by this awful phenomenon than regular folks.

Good point Bonnie. Explain please, using your years of experience at celebrity magazines as a tool for insight.

# 1 Percentage wise, they have way more vacation time than the normal population

# 2 A lot of them are afflicted with a sense of infallibility. They don't think they can have accidents and that can translates into reckless behavior.

If only the Travoltas had a chance to read this before tragedy struck. Ah, well. Her work is saving future celebrities. [HuffPo]

[Video compiled by crack Gawker video intern Josh Rachford]

Craig's girlfriend was there and all, but still. It looks like fun!

President Bush bravely gave up golf to show his willingness to sacrifice for the war, while sending thousands of soldiers to their deaths. But Barry Hussein couldn't even give up one round during his vacation in in exotic "Hawaii" Sunday, since he's a self-indulgent caviar socialist.

Bush, of course, vacationed constantly, pretty much for his entire presidency. He even broke the record, by a lot. During one of his early vacations, he read a memo titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike the U.S.," told his CIA briefer, "All right, you've covered your ass now," and played some golf at his country club (see last link).

And Bush was duly ridiculed. Michael Moore used a shot of Bush taking a golf swing, in which the president said, of terrorists and his game respectively, "Bring 'em on... now watch this drive."

Obama isn't seen as lazy or glib. The president-elect launched a vigorous transition effort, including Change.gov and appointing his entire, highly confirm-able cabinet. He gets high marks, even from Republicans.

So he's earned a vacation!

But golf is still seen as an aristocratic sport. And finding an angle on this Obama round is too easy: Look! The president is playing golf! While the economy is in the toilet. And people are being laid off. How could he??

Sad to say, but Obama should have either picked a different way to unwind, or found one of those non-public courses where the press corps can't follow.

(Pictures: Getty)

"I love this room that overlooks the pool, palm trees, yoga pavilion, and ocean. It is a place where I recharge my batteries for the year-end and take time out to refresh the mind, body, and spirit. I dropped 8lbs. by following a 5-day Classic Cleansing diet comprising of vegetable juice, potassium broth, wheatgrass, and lots and lots of water.

I combined this with a daily massage (including my first ever facial) and a brilliant 5 Element Massage using hot and cold stones. I also worked out every morning, played tennis with Tam every day (four wins out of four – 3 in a tie-break and one 7-5). I had a water aerobics class daily and at least one hot tub and steam every day. I didn’t speak to anyone except the tennis pro for the entire five days and it gave me time to focus on positivity and replenishment."

While not speaking to anyone except the tennis pro, he did take note of the news back home—specifically, "people’s 401K funds in the U.S. being hammered, and job losses wherever you look." But Kevin Roberts found the strength to pull through, somehow:

Once again, though, my readings helped me, “Conditions are always good, never bad; we need to know how to make good use of them. The man who waits for conditions to improve may have to wait for eternity”.

Why can't you keep that in mind, proles? [A fuller explanation of the various outrages here at BNet Advertising]

EXCLUSIVE PALIN KITCHEN PHOTO!!!!!

EXCLUSIVE PALIN YARD PHOTO!!!

Who is this masked journalistic pair?

Lo, it is Greta Van Susteren and Piper Palin, a pair of journalists!

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww Piper.

We can't wait for the thrilling finale! [GretaWire]