Here's an open thread for those interested in topics besides Arnold. Actually, all topics are welcome.

TMZ and other outlets have disclosed that the former household worker for Arnold Schwarzenegger is 50 year old Mildred Patricia Baena. While they posted a picture of her and her son, at least they blocked the face of the son. They said he looks very much like Arnold.

It only takes a bit of internet sleuthing to find the pictures on My Space. The mother only has one "friend" on My Space, the My Space employee that every new member gets, which makes me wonder if it's really her My Space account, or one that the person who leaked this all to the media set up to post the photos. It's hard to tell though, because the photos have a date, which I assume is the posting date, of October, 2008. [More...]

Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on a suicide watch at Rikers Island.

The official said the action, which will put him under closer supervision, was taken as a result of Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s intake evaluation, which was based on the nature of the charges, whether he had ever been in jail before and other factors, rather than on any gesture or attempt.

He has court again on Friday. Will his lawyers make a new bail proposal with more restrictive conditions, for either the judge presiding over Friday's hearing or a higher court? I would think so. He could live in an apartment in New York, with private guards as bail sitters, like Bernie Madoff, Mark Dreier and Cameron Douglas. Or, instead of a regular ankle bracelet, they could make him submit to GPS monitoring. Aside from its greater tracking abilities, no way could someone get through airport security without it going off.

I don't think Strauss-Kahn's lawyer has said the defense would assert consensual sex as a defense. He hasn't admitted any sexual act took place. The news media is intuiting this from his statement in court, "The evidence, we believe, will not be consistent with a forcible encounter". (He didn't say "forcible sexual encounter." ) [More...]

BTD is busy at work and I'm off to the dentist. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Ohio today executed Daniel Bedford with pentobarbital, a drug used to euthanize animals, that may or may not be effective in blocking pain.

Bedford's attorneys say because of dementia and mental disability, he has no memory of the crime and may not understand he is being put to death.
There apparently were problems finding a vein, requiring him to be "stuck" several times. [More...]

Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has provided the LA Times with a statement admitting he fathered a child with a household staffer more than ten years ago.

The mother of the child worked for the family for 20 years, until January. She left on good terms. Arnold financially provided for the child since birth. [More...]

8 of the 15 men charged with piracy in the deaths of two American couples on the Quest vessel hijacked in the Gulf of Aden will plead guilty . At least one (and likely at least three) will be sentenced to life in prison.

The lawyer for one who is pleading to a mandatory life sentence says, ""My guy doesn't know who pulled the trigger....He was trying to resolve the problem." But absent the plea, the lawyer says, he could face a death penalty charge. [More...]

Via the New York Times: Information from IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn's lawyers may have the makings of an alibi:

.... he checked out of the hotel around 12:30 p.m., returning his keys to reception, and met his daughter for lunch before going to the airport, where he realized he had lost one of his cellphones, calling the hotel and asking that they return it to him at the airport. The New York police originally estimated the time of the alleged attack on the maid at about 1 p.m., but have since revised it to around noon.

And how did Strauss-Kahn's political opponents get the news before the media? The first tweet was by a French student who belongs to President Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party. [More...]

Glenn Sargent at The Plum Line obtained a copy of the May 9th letter CIA Chief Leon Panetta wrote John McCain. He quotes three paragraphs:

Nearly 10 years of intensive intelligence work led the CIA to conclude that Bin Ladin was likely hiding at the compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. there was no one “essential and indispensible” key piece of information that led us to this conclusion. Rather, the intelligence picture was developed via painstaking collection and analysis. Multiple streams of intelligence — including from detainees, but also from multiple other sources — led CIA analysts to conclude that Bin Ladin was at this compound. Some of the detainees who provided useful information about the facilitator/courier’s role had been subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques. Whether those techniques were the “only timely and effective way” to obtain such information is a matter of debate and cannot be established definitively. What is definitive is that that information was only a part of multiple streams of intelligence that led us to Bin Ladin.

Jury selection began today in Chicago in the trial of Tahawwur Hussein Rana, charged with conspiracy in the Mumbai bombings and a planned attack on a news agency in Denmark. The jury was given a questionnaire and told to return tomorrow. You can view the questionnaire here.

The trial may have major implications for the Pakistani ISI:

The proceedings are likely to add fuel to a diplomatic crisis over suspicions of official Pakistani complicity with terrorism after U.S. commandos killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 in a garrison city just 55 kilometers from Islamabad.

Pakistani intelligence, under the microscope following the revelation that the al-Qaida chief lived for years under the noses of Pakistani authorities, will come in for further scrutiny because the indictment names officers of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency as conspirators in the Mumbai attacks.

More on the implications for Pakistan-US relations today at The Guardian. All of our coverage is available here.

I never thought Donald Trump would run for President. Turns out he won't. He made the announcement today.

Yesterday, NBC renewed Celebrity Apprentice. From the first linked article:

He was scheduled to meet with NBC's bosses early Monday morning to give them his final decision -- just hours before they were supposed to present their plans for the new fall season to advertisers.

IMF Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn was denied bail today, at least until his next court appearance on May 20. He's charged with unlawful imprisonment, engaging in a criminal sex act and attempted rape. Here's the Complaint.

According to Reuters twitter feed, prosecutors argued against bail, saying he may have engaged in similar conduct once before. The defense asked for $1 million bail, saying they expect him to be exonerated. They also told the judge that the person Strauss-Kahn had lunch with on Saturday will testify he was not fleeing the hotel.

By May 20, they will probably have some elaborate plan in place for a private security firm to do 24 hour monitoring at a New York apartment or hotel (as was done for Bernie Madoff and Cameron Douglas (who still managed to violate the terms and get bail revoked.)

More from the New York Times here.