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mark hayden - Update: Parents of slain Mansfield man speak out

July 9th, 2008 · No Comments

mark hayden -

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. — Police have arrested a 19-year-old man in the shooting of a Mansfield man found dead behind the wheel of a running car.

Mark Hayden of Mansfield was arrested last night at the town’s police station.

He faces charges including murder at his arraignment, which has been postponed until 2 p.m. today.

Eighteen-year-old Andrew Colwell was found Monday night in a car with a gunshot wound to the head outside a condominium complex in Mansfield, about 25 miles south of Boston.

The Colwell family has sent a statement, through the Bristol County District Attorney’s Office:

“We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the heath care professionals and law enforcement agencies for their relentless efforts in assisting Andrew and our family during this very difficult time. We ask that the media respects our need for privacy as we begin to grieve the loss of our son Andrew.”

Hayden was wanted for questioning after the shooting and was spotted by MBTA officials Monday afternoon at South Station in Boston.

He was stopped by police and agreed to return to Mansfield for questioning.

Authorities did not immediately comment on a motive.

– The Associated Press

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jason siemon - Lara Logan’s hot Iraq love life.

July 9th, 2008 · 2 Comments

jason siemon - Media: Going from the CNN drunk to a married man, classy.

NEW YORK - Lara Logan, the chief foreign affairs correspondent for CBS News, tells The Washington Post she is pregnant, and the father is a married federal contractor whom she met while stationed in Iraq.

Logan’s relationship with Joseph Burkett — who’s in the midst of a divorce from wife Kimberly, with whom he has a 3-year-old daughter — has made media headlines, including the front page of the New York Post.

Logan is going through a divorce from estranged husband Jason Siemon, a Chicago-based energy lobbyist whom she married in 1998.

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reiserfs file system - Analysis: Recovery of Nina’s Body Provides Closure, New Meaning to Hans Reiser Murder Trial

July 9th, 2008 · 2 Comments

ReiserheadsOAKLAND, California – Now that Hans Reiser, the Linux developer, has led authorities to the gravesite he dug 4-feet-deep for his estranged wife he killed in 2006, there’s likely to be some psychological closure for Nina Reiser’s family and her two small kids the defendant fathered.

“Now the family gets to pick a burial site, not the defendant,” prosecutor Paul Hora told a news conference Tuesday, as he explained a complex legal maneuver by which a California jury’s April first-degree murder conviction can be nullified and converted to a second-degree conviction in exchange for the defendant’s production of the body.

The difference is an automatic 25-to-life term being reduced to a 15-to-life term, leaving it to California parole officials to determine eligibility for release only after the 44-year-old defendant serves 15 years. No sentencing date has been scheduled.

The psychological benefits of the deal are impossible to quantify. Clearly, the deal brokered between Hora and defense attorneys and being approved by the judge will open up old wounds. While the six months of trial verged on a story that Hollywood playwrights could only dream of concocting, the real life actors of this made-for-television drama are the victim’s mother, Irina — Nina’s and Han’s two children, a boy now 8 and a girl now 6, and other family members and friends.

The children are living with Nina’s mother in St. Petersburg, Russia, where the couple met when Hans was overseas hiring programmers for his Namesys software company.

At least for the blood relatives, the benefits to them are easy to see. During the trial, Reiser and his attorneys maintained that Nina abandoned the children after he accused her of bilking his company, and that he stood falsely accused of murdering the mother of his two children.

Reiser and his attorneys told jurors the grandmother even coached her grandson to testify against his father. But the b
Source: reiserfs file system - Analysis: Recovery of Nina’s Body Provides Closure, New Meaning to Hans Reiser Murder Trial

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butch patrick - Discuss: Movie Songs Stuck in Your Head

July 9th, 2008 · No Comments

butch patrick -

Filed under: Fandom, Cinematical Indie, Trailers and Clips

Strangers are staring at me. No, I’m not paranoid, and I’m not a beautiful person. But ever since I saw Linda Linda Linda, a sweet yet perceptive film about the dreams and aspirations of high school girl musicians, the title song has been stuck in my head. The toughest part? It’s sung in Japanese. So now I find myself singing “Linda Linda. Linda Linda Linda” and humming the insistently memorable tune over and over again. It’s just so darn catchy. (Check out the clip from the movie.)

I don’t really mind, though, because I loved the movie, which follows three Japanese girls who recruit a Korean exchange student to become their singer so they can perform at an important school function. And I’m not alone in loving the song, which was originally recorded by the seminal punk band The Blue Hearts in the 1980s. (Watch this clip for evidence.) Japanese pop culture expert Patrick Macias says on the DVD that the song is still a karaoke favorite and that learning all the words makes foreigners instantly cool (or words to that effect).

Songs from movies have gotten stuck in my head before. Way back when, I found myself constantly singing “Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head,” from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and then I became a John Williams freak, humming and tapping my fingers to music from Jaws, Star Wars, and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. I hated disco, so I worked very hard to keep all those songs from Saturday Night Fever out of my head.

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The biggest sports story ever?

July 3rd, 2008 · No Comments

As a blogger, and in particular as a YANKEES’ blogger, I feel it is my sworn duty to write something about the Alex Rodriguez-Madonna-Cynthia Rodriguez-Lenny Kravitz entanglement, and the Rodriguez’s reported separation.

After all, the illustrious Dan Shanoff called it “the best sports story ever” in an entry on The Sporting Blog this morning. Deadspin spent time today wondering how Yankee fans will greet A-Rod tonight when the Yankees face the Red Sox.

The thing is, I really don’t give a damn about the whole sordid mess. If A-Rod and the missus want to go their separate ways, and spend their time swapping bodily fluids with used-up, passed around, former super stars that’s their problem. Not mine.

Sports story? The amazing Tampa Bay Rays are a sports story. Seattle losing the Sonics after 41 years is a sports story. The ongoing Wimbledon tennis tournament is a sports story.

The Alex-Madonna-Cynthia-Lenny entanglement? That’s a New York Post Page 6 celebrity gossip story. A fine, juicy one with lots of rumors, half-truths, denials, secrecy and untold stories for sure, but still a celebrity gossip story. Not a sports one.

Maybe I’ve been rendered humorless by the less-than-stellar season the Yankees are having. Maybe I just don’t have the true soul of the humorist blogger, the kind who lives to expound on and make fun of the juiciest of rumors.

I don’t know. I just know that what I care about is A-Rod hopefully using his wooden bat to get some key hits this weekend against Boston and next week against first-place Tampa Bay.

I really could care less what he uses his wood for on his own time.

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joe pesci - A tribute to George Carlin

June 23rd, 2008 · No Comments

joe pesci -

Bullshit

The Ten Commandments

On June 22, 2008, American comedian George Carlin was admitted to St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California complaining of chest pain. He died later that day at 5:55 p.m. PDT of heart failure at the age of 71. He had a history of cardiovascular issues, including several heart attacks.

“Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.”
— George Carlin
Raised in the Roman Catholic faith, Carlin often denounced the idea of God in interviews and performances. He invented the parody religion Frisbeetarianism, defining it as the belief that when a person dies “his soul gets flung onto a roof, and just stays there” and cannot be retrieved.

Carlin also joked that he worshiped the Sun, because he could actually see it, but prayed to Joe Pesci (a good friend of his in real life) because “he’s a good actor”, and “looks like a guy who can get things done!”

Carlin also introduced the “Two Commandments”, a revised “pocket-sized” list of the Ten Commandments in his HBO special Complaints and Grievances, ending with the additional commandment of “Thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself.”

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typhoon - Burma

May 6th, 2008 · 1 Comment

The death toll from a typhoon in Burma is estimated to have climed past 20,000. This is a disaster whose scale has even forced one of the world’s most evil military dictatorships to overcome its deep distrust of foreign influence. Much of the country’s infrastructure has been destroyed with little hope of repair in a badly crippled political climate in which the government abuses its own people - there is evidence that Burmese officials failed to warn villages that were known to be in the path of the storm.

It’s even brought Laura Bush to the White House podium in one of the most memorable moments of her tenure as first lady (although the White House itself delivered a highly questionable ultimatum regarding American aid).

Pay attention folks. Give if you can. The aftermath of this storm may exceed the damage of the storm itself.

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jim neal - Pennsylvania Senate to vote on marriage amendment bill today

May 6th, 2008 · No Comments

jim neal - In yet another move to “protect” marriage, the wingnuts in Pennsylvania have stepped up to the plate as Senate Bill 1250 moved from committee to a full Senate vote today

Senate Bill 1250, which is meant to bolster the state’s 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which already prohibits same-sex marriage, “is disheartening and discriminatory,” said Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park. “It’s marriage mischief — an attempt to enshrine bigotry in the state constitution,” he told an angry crowd of 200 protesters gathered in the Capitol rotunda.

Politicians always want to get into your wallet, but now many politicians, some Democrats as well as Republicans, want to get into your bedroom.”

Other opponents of the constitutional amendment included Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Squirrel Hill, and Democratic Sens. Vincent Fumo of Philadelphia and Connie Williams of Delaware County. “When the basic rights of any group are threatened, then no one’s rights are safe,” said Mr. Fumo, amid echoing chants of “Stop this bill! Stop this bill!”

“Freedom is at risk in the bill,” said Mr. Fumo, whose South Philadelphia district includes considerable numbers of gay and lesbian voters. “It’s possible this legislative body could embed discrimination in our constitution by taking away the rights of a group of people based on their sexuality.”

You can read more about this at Joe Murray’s blog, Paleo Place. Over at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, there is a call for LGBT residents to get on the phone and call their legislators.
jim
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pat mccrory - Unaffiliateds and the Republican race

May 6th, 2008 · No Comments

pat mccrory - Dome reports that Pat McCrory is concerned about unaffiliated voters choosing the Democratic ballot. He should be, and it’s been reflected in our polls.

There is a stereotype that unaffiliated voters in North Carolina are moderates with views in between the two parties. Certainly there are unaffiliated voters who fit that description but it’s not necessarily a majority. In Orange County most unaffiliated voters are stubborn liberals who don’t think the Democratic party is sufficiently progressive. I’m sure that in many conservative areas conservatives disenchanted with Republican leadership don’t register with the party as well.

When it looked like the North Carolina Presidential primary wouldn’t matter, Pat McCrory was sitting pretty with the unaffiliateds. He led the first four polls we broke out that way 27-12, 23-17, 27-16, and 32-12 with that group.

In our final two primary polls though Smith actually leads among the unaffiliated voters- 35-29 this week and 46-34 this week.

Why the difference? I think in February and March plenty of those centrist unaffiliateds were planning to vote in the GOP primary, and inclined to support McCrory. Now most of them are voting in the Democratic primary, and the ones who are left voting on the Republican side are those stubborn conservatives- and they’re more likely to go for Smith.

The good news for McCrory? Our polls have picked up this trend the last couple weeks and he’s still in the lead. It shouldn’t be a deal breaker for him.pat
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walter dalton - How I’m Voting — May 6 edition

May 6th, 2008 · No Comments

walter dalton -

Call these endorsements or not — whatever.  Enough people have asked me to post these over the past few elections that I feel like doing one here.  I do my best to be clear with just how much knowledge (or lack thereof) about the candidates I’m basing my decisions on, so I don’t give any false impression of expertise.  Anyway, enough primary blather to choke a horse awaits just below the fold….

(I’ve put whom I’m voting for in bold, for perhaps easier reading.)

President

It’s time for this saga to end.  Obama’s 50 state strategy and his background in community organizing with the IAF was enough to win me over initially, after it was apparent we weren’t going to get a governor as the nominee, which was my original hope.  Since then, Clinton’s insulting and petulant campaign has only made that decision easier. 

US Senate

An investment banker who’s lived most of his life out of state isn’t my idea of an ideal candidate, regardless of sexual orientation.  That said, Jim Neal is very impressive in his policy positions, and he didn’t have to be dragged into the race.  I honestly don’t know how I’m going to vote tomorrow – based on resume, it would be Hagan.  Based on rhetoric, it would be Neal.  Based on electability, it would be Hagan.  Based on sheer courage, it would be Neal.  Hmph.

Governor

I didn’t vote for Bev Perdue when she ran for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor.  Why?  Because everything I heard was that she was little more than a party hack, with little inspiring about her.  During her tenure as LG, she’s been involved in some good child and mental health initiatives, but other than that it’s been pretty unremarkable.  So, when she announced her candidacy for the Governor’s office, I can’t say I was excited.  On the other hand, Richard Moore caught my attention with his advocacy of a minimum wage increase, so I was initially more predisposed towards his candidacy.  However, in the ensuing campaign, both of them have heaped such mountains of mud on the other, the whole thing has became a rather depressing sight.  Both have shown little hesitation to stoop to the lowest forms of campaigning, demonizing immigrants and touting their “get tough” stances on crime and the death penalty.  I have no doubt either would make a passable governor, but I have to say I’ll be very surprised if either turns out to be anything other than a continuation of North Carolina Democratic machine politics.  That said, North Carolina has been under the control of the machine for the last 16 years and 24 of the last 32, and it’s done considerably better in that time than many other states, so there’s worse things.

Still, there’s this decision to be made.  Two

Source: walter dalton - How I’m Voting — May 6 edition

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