Mullet the Amish Barber, or more Amish mugshots
Sam Mullet said he didn’t order the hair-cutting but didn’t stop two of his sons and another man from carrying it out last week on a 74-year-old man in his home in rural eastern Ohio.
Previously, on clusterflock.
Most damaging, however, was her obstinate faith in the kindness of strangers
A good overview of the Amanda Knox case, at least from what has become the American perspective:
Their list of grievances was long: incompetent police work, leading to the mishandling of evidence. The lack of any physical trace of Knox in Kercher’s bedroom. Italy’s carnivalesque judicial process, where there is never order in the court, the lawyers and defendants constantly interrupting the proceedings with groans and catcalls and wild gesticulations, while the press in the gallery yammers away like the kids in the back of the classroom. The prosecution’s failure to establish motive or intent (“We live in an age of violence with no motive,” said one prosecutor). And the fact that prosecutors did not immediately drop the case against Knox and Sollecito after the bloody fingerprints and footprints came back matching a 20-year-old petty thief named Rudy Guede.
(via marginal revolution)
In a perverse way, his work for the government only encouraged his criminal behavior and pushed his wayward ambitions into the stratosphere
Only 25 years old, with little more than a high school education, Albert had created the perfect bubble, a hermetically sealed moral universe in which he made the rules and controlled all the variables — and the only code that mattered was the loyalty of his inner circle. He even had an insurance policy, one designed to keep him a step ahead of the federal agents charged with tracking cybercrime: For the past four years, Albert had been working as an informant for the Secret Service, helping federal agents to identify and bust other rogue hackers. His double life as a snitch gave him an inside look at how the feds try to safeguard the nation’s computer data — and reinforced his own sense of superiority. “Psychologically,” his sister later told a judge, “it was feeding an obsession that in the end would become my brother’s downfall.”
I felt like the outcome of the story was less interesting than the details, but if you’re fascinated by psychology, and crime, and the internet it’s still worth a read.
We write to you today with the overwhelming concern that an innocent person could be executed in Georgia tonight
Six former corrections officials wrote Georgia Corrections Officials and Governor Nathan Deal asking that the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles reconsider the execution of Troy Davis:
We write to you as former wardens and corrections officials who have had direct involvement in executions. Like few others in this country, we understand that you have a job to do in carrying out the lawful orders of the judiciary. We also understand, from our own personal experiences, the awful lifelong repercussions that come from participating in the execution of prisoners. While most of the prisoners whose executions we participated in accepted responsibility for the crimes for which they were punished, some of us have also executed prisoners who maintained their innocence until the end. It is those cases that are most haunting to an executioner.
As of now, the execution has been postponed pending review from the Supreme Court.
Update: The Supreme Court Rejects the stay of execution.
(thanks, Tim)
Unlike Philip K. Dick’s novel “The Minority Report” or the film inspired by the novel, the program relies on algorithms, and not mutants to predict the likelihood of something happening
The police department in Santa Cruz has employed predictive algorithms to reduce burglaries and car break-ins.
The heart of the program is the belief that criminals often commit a second or third crime in the same location and the same time as a first successful crime. For example, if a burglar is successful breaking into a home at 2 p.m. in a certain neighborhood because no one is home, the criminal will use that experience to do it again to another house in the same neighborhood around the same time.
In the case of Santa Cruz, on California’s central coast and home to a University of California campus, that would be about four days later.
The algorithm knows this because Mohler has fed eight years of data on crimes in Santa Cruz into the algorithm.
Now you know, and I guess, so do the criminals.
He could have set the Guinness World Record for people who wanted to kill him
The story of Edgar Valdez, aka La Barbie, an American citizen who rose to the top of one of Mexico’s prominent drug cartels.
Like many Texans, Barbie grew up right across the border from Mexico, in the city of Laredo. The place feels like something from a Mexican postcard, with cobblestone plazas and picturesque waterfalls – except for the massive, multilane bridge to Mexico that cuts straight through town. Until the drug war, everyone in Laredo saw the two sides of the border as one; many families, after all, had blood ties in both Mexico and the States. As a kid, Barbie loved to visit Nuevo Laredo, a border town bustling with donkeys, food carts, girls in little embroidered dresses, shoeshine boys and the smell of roasting corn. It was like stepping into another world, and all you had to do was cross the bridge.
In high school, Barbie was in the popular crowd, horsing around in the breezeways outside of class and waging egg wars after school. On weekends, he went to keggers on ranches, played elaborate scavenger games and hung out with his steady sweetheart, Virginia Perez, a bubbly, blue-eyed blonde. He grew up in a middle-class development on the outskirts of Laredo, a kind of no man’s land where Burger Kings didn’t begin to sprout up until the Nineties. Even the people of Laredo considered it “Indian territory,” an area rife with dope and illegal immigrants. Barbie’s parents raised him and his five siblings in a tidy, orange-trimmed home with palm trees in the front. “They’re regular Ozzie and Harriets,” says Jose Baeza, a spokesman for the Laredo police department. “They’re business owners, PTA, morning-jog people.”
Here’s a link to the printer friendly version.
(via the browser)
from the comments
Finger Elliot. Used to be Fingers Elliot, until he crossed the Don.
headline of the day, 2
Man arrested for chomping on snake
headline of the day
Calif professor wanted for leading gang, drug ring
quote out of context
Only fools debate whether patently illegal programs “work” — only fools or those who have been legally implicated in designing the programs in the first place.
headline of the day, II
Ark. man in plane spots his home being burglarized
‘more than 75 percent of DNA exonerations involved cases of eyewitness misidentification’
Stuart Rabner, the Chief Justice for the New Jersey Supreme Court, wrote an opinion suggesting the legal standards for admissibility of eyewitness evidence should be modified.
It may seem shocking just how unreliable your eyes can be. The ruling cites studies that showed eyewitnesses picking the wrong person out of a lineup as often as they picked the right one, along with another study showing that even when witnesses are told the person might not be in the lineup, they’ll choose an innocent person about a third of the time. The reason is that our memories may seem vivid, they’re often not as accurate as we think they are. While lineups are constructed of similar looking individuals precisely to force the witness to think strongly about what they remember, this may result in witnesses unconsciously conforming their memory to the available choices.
The most complex part of eyewitness misidentification, though, is the fact that people who wrongly identify someone are often really confident they’ve made the right choice — and that confidence is persuasive in court.
headline of the day
Pa. man charged again for putting ribs in pants
headline of the day
Wrestling Sisters Take Down Hit-And-Run Suspect In Oklahoma
“They are tearing out part of the heart of Buenos Aires”
The interior of the historic Cafe Richmond was gutted a couple of weeks ago; a spot once frequented by Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene may be replaced by a Nike Store.
The plight of the Richmond has dominated local media since the cafe’s insides were gutted last Monday morning. Apparently to ensure it could not be returned to its former splendour even if the local government rules against the Nike shop, the Richmond was emptied of its historical interior, right down to its grandiosely comfortable Chesterfield wingback leather armchairs, in a 3am raid. The movers took the precaution of pulling down the security camera on the front of the building first.
“It’s against the law,” said Monica Capano of the city’s Heritage Preservation Commission. “The Richmond is one of the city’s emblematic landmarks.”
For a personal view: Oh, no: La Richmond by my friend Charlie.
Wanted: Old Water Ski Rope
Posted to the Dubuque Freecycle group Tue Aug 16, 2011 9:05 am (PDT)
Need ski rope that you use to pull a person behind a boat with. Does not need to have the handle on it nor does it need to be in great shape, really, the older the better. I’m not using it to pull a skier.
Thanks!!!
The Somerton Beach Mystery (or the enigma of the “Unknown Man”)
Let’s start by sketching out the little that is known for certain. At 7 o’clock on the warm evening of Tuesday, November 30, 1948, jeweler John Bain Lyons and his wife went for a stroll on Somerton Beach, a seaside resort a few miles south of Adelaide. As they walked toward Glenelg, they noticed a smartly dressed man lying on the sand, his head propped against a sea wall. He was lolling about 20 yards from them, legs outstretched, feet crossed. As the couple watched, the man extended his right arm upward, then let it fall back to the ground. Lyons thought he might be making a drunken attempt to smoke a cigarette.
Half an hour later, another couple noticed the same man lying in the same position. Looking on him from above, the woman could see that he was immaculately dressed in a suit, with smart new shoes polished to a mirror shine—odd clothing for the beach. He was motionless, his left arm splayed out on the sand. The couple decided that he was simply asleep, his face surrounded by mosquitoes. “He must be dead to the world not to notice them,” the boyfriend joked.
The journalistic equivalent of The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.
(via the browser)
headline of the day
Calif. man accused of trying to break in to prison
more on the D.B. Cooper hijacking case
Since I posted the latest speculation in the D.B. Cooper hijacking case, a mother and daughter have come forward with what they say, and the FBI believes, is credible information about who Cooper really was.
Marla Cooper recently came forward to the FBI with evidence that she believes proves that her uncle Lynn Doyle Cooper is the famed D.B. Cooper, the man hijacked and threatened to blow up a commercial plane flying to Seattle in 1971, then parachuted to the ground with $200,000 in hand.
Her mother, Grace Hailey, told ABC News that she doesn’t remember much about that Thanksgiving in 1971 where her brother-in-law returned to the house in Sisters, Oregon, but she believes he could be the hijacker. Hailey’s statements are one reason why the FBI thinks the tip from Marla Cooper is credible.
“I’ve always had a gut feeling it was L.D.,” Hailey told ABC News. “I think it was more what I didn’t know is what made me suspicious than what I did know, because whenever the topic came up it immediately got cut off again.”
Update: Amanda posted on the case a year ago.
interesting times
You don’t “win” a hostage crisis. You resolve it.
Any speaker who does not fear disaster can roll any president.
What Republicans have just gotten away with calls our whole system of government into question.
When I get to hold the country hostage, my “super congress” will be called “parliament.”
Congress has broad latitude to do stupid things.
America in the 21st century is a post-modern epistemological relativist state in which the right creates its own alternate reality in real time.
We’ve got crazy people running things, and a public that keeps electing them.
I’m sure I’ll add more throughout the day.
‘As one person told me, Cooper is the Bigfoot of the Pacific Northwest’
A thorough overview of, and updated information on, the notorious D.B. Cooper hijacking/ransom/parachuting case.
“You’re the first to know this, but we do actually have a new suspect we’re looking at. And it comes from a credible lead who came to our attention recently via a law enforcement colleague.” I’m stunned. Dietrich says she can’t tell me much more, but like all the Cooper sleuths I’ve met over the past few days, I too have become a little obsessed with the case. “The credible lead is somebody whose possible connection to the hijacker is strong,” she says. “And the suspect is not a name that’s come up before.” Dietrich says agents have sent an item that belongs to him for testing at the forensics lab in Quantico, Virginia. “We’re hoping there are fingerprints they can take off of it,” she says. “It would be a significant lead. And this is looking like our most promising one to date.”
quote out of context
The tension, as I see it, is that if free will is a myth then it’s not clear why we should have an ethical goal of changing people as little as possible.
an interesting subplot to the horror in Norway
Norwegians tend to see “acts of extreme violence … as aberrant events, not symptoms of national decay,” Time Magazine’s William Lee Adams reported last year. Norwegian prison guards undergo two years of training, “don’t carry guns … and call prisoners by their first names and play sports and eat meals with them,” Adams reported.
That approach — and its underlying premise that people who commit crimes are troubled who should be given a second chance and prepared to live again amongst society — can perhaps be credited with Norway’s extremely low prison-recidivism rate — only about 20 percent of those imprisoned in Norway commit a repeat crime that sends them back to prison. Recidivism figures in the United States and the United Kingdom, by contrast, are much higher — 50 to 60 percent.
This in the context of the maximum prison sentence being 21 years in Norway, especially in light of the recent atrocity.
‘As a result of several short conversations with him, officers believe he may not be from Utah’
With a little editing, this could be worked into something:
“This is really a strange case,” said Lt. Dennis Harris with the Utah County Sheriff’s Office. “He just doesn’t want to be found.”
5 greatest bar brawls in American history
Favorite subject heading from the piece:
An estimated 25 dead and the “Scottish” play’s reputation further damaged.
