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Surprise! Surprise! The International Federation of Gymnastics (FIG) has released its findings and declared that every member of the Chinese Women's team was sixteen or would turn sixteen this year. That amid worldwide speculation that at least three of the team members were not even close to sixteen.  And, if you believe that report, I have some swamp land in Florida that I am just dying to show you! Â
The FIG requested passports, family books, and any other documentation the Chinese government had available.  Letting the FIG conduct the investigation is akin to allowing the athletic department at USC investigate the payoffs to Reggie Bush and his parents. Â
John McCain
For anyone not aware of the Keating Five, here’s a very simple summary:
The Keating Five were five United States Senators accused of corruption in 1989, igniting a major political scandal as part of the larger Savings and Loan crisis of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The five senators, Alan Cranston (D-CA), Dennis DeConcini (D-AZ), John Glenn (D-OH), John McCain (R-AZ), and Donald W. Riegle (D-MI), were accused of improperly aiding Charles H. Keating, Jr., chairman of the failed Lincoln Savings and Loan Association, which was the target of an investigation by the Federal Home Loan Bank Board (FHLBB).
All five met with regulators twice, urging them to back off Charles H. Keating and to quit harassing one of their constituents. Each had received significant donations to their campaigns from Keating.
CAfter a lengthy investigation, the Senate Ethics Committee determined in 1991 that Alan Cranston, Dennis DeConcini, and Donald Riegle had substantially and improperly interfered with the FHLBB in its investigation of Lincoln Savings. Senators John Glenn and John McCain were cleared of having acted improperly but were criticized for having exercised "poor judgment".
McCain and Keating had become personal friends following their initial contacts in 1981,[11] and McCain was the closest socially to Keating of the five senators.[27] Like DeConcini, McCain considered Keating a constituent as he lived in Arizona.[25]
 Between 1982 and 1987, McCain had received $112,000 in political contributions from Keating and his associates.[28] In addition, McCain's wife Cindy McCain and her father Jim Hensley had invested $359,100 in a Keating shopping center in April 1986, a year before McCain met with the regulators. McCain, his family, and their baby-sitter had made nine trips at Keating's expense, sometimes aboard Keating's jet. Three of the trips were made during vacations to Keating's opulent Bahamas retreat at Cat Cay. McCain did not pay Keating (in the amount of $13,433) for some of the trips until years after they were taken, when he learned that Keating was in trouble over Lincoln.[7][29]
Not everyone was satisfied with the Senate Ethics Committee conclusions. Fred Wertheimer, president of Common Cause, which had initially demanded the investigation, thought the treatment of the senators far too lenient, and said, "The U.S. Senate remains on the auction block to the Charles Keatings of the world."[41] Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen, called it a "whitewash".[41] Jonathan Alter of Newsweek said it was a classic case of the government trying to investigate itself, labelling the Senate Ethics Committee "shameless" for having "let four of the infamous Keating Five off with a wrist tap."[42] Margaret Carlson of Time suspected the committee had timed its first report to coincide with the run-up to the Gulf War, minimizing its news impact.[41] One of the San Francisco bank regulators felt that McCain had gotten off too lightly, saying that Keating's business involvement with Cindy McCain was an obvious conflict of interest.[43](See wikipedia for references)
McCain's own Arizona newspaper stated that McCain was the worst of the five.Â
McCain went back to Arizona and reinvented himself with the help of some expensive PR spin men as the "straight-shooting war hero" and managed to survive the scandal. But, thanks to a Republican President at the time, McCain, the only Republican of the five, got off with a slap on the wrist from the Senate Ethics Committee. Another case of a group investigating its own!
And, if you believe that, I've still got that swampland for sale.
[Thanks to Wikepedia and Google for providing material for this post]
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