Nothing Says "I Hate You" Like Severed Heads in a Box

Matamoros,Tamaulipas- home of the gulf cartel.
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Two human heads have been found with threatening messages in central Mexico, police reported Friday.

A Mexico state police official in Cuautitlan, just outside the capital, said one head turned up in a box left in the parking lot of the station.

It was accompanied by a message warning that federal police and members of the drug gang La Familia will be beheaded, said the official, who was not authorized to give his name.

State prosecutors in the western state of Michoacan, where La Familia is based, said another head was discovered Friday in an ice chest in the port city of Lazaro Cardenas. Tape covered the eyes and an attached message read: "From the Gulf Cartel."

(MIAMI HERALD)

This speaks for itself- unless they cut out the tongue- ha ha.

Muder/Suicide Statistical Measures Sadly Lacking

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I think they should get it in the software, for gods sake. What kind of an operation is law enforcement running, technology-wise? My sense is that law enforcement is filled with untechnologically sophisticated people- and I'm not talking about technology professionals- just people who use it to execute their job in a more efficient/less efficient way. The basis of law enforcement is "Someone commits a crime, we figure out who did it."

Headlines, police officers and grieving family members state the obvious: When one person kills another and then himself, it's a murder-suicide.

But crime statistics fail to capture that reality.

"We don't have a special category for it," said Columbus Police Division spokeswoman Amanda Ford. "It's not in the software."

Columbus isn't unique. Most law-enforcement agencies don't compile official reports on murder-suicides because the federal Uniform Crime Reporting Program, to which agencies submit their local data, doesn't include murder-suicide as a single or related offense.

Researchers say that makes it difficult to get a handle on what seems like a too-common tragedy.

(THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH)

Memo to Would Be Terrorists: Stop Watching Terrorist Videos

Pro America!

THIS STORY: FORT DIX FIVE
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The Fort Dix Five trial is underway in the Philly/New Jersey area. These guys are charged with plotting an ambush of Fort Dix with the purpose of killing u.s. soliders. I'm like, "Oh yeah?" to this case because I've experienced the impact that agents can have on people. It's all about whether the agent supplied the plan. Regardless of that analysis- watching terrorist videos on you tube or whatever? Bad idea, guys:

As U.S. District Judge Robert Kugler dimmed the courtroom lights, the prosecutors, Assistant U.S. Attorneys William Fitzpatrick and Michael Hammer, let the scenes play -- one after another for nearly the entire afternoon session.

One, titled "Tribute to OBL," appeared to be a collage of speeches from Osama bin Laden and scenes of the World Trade Center attacks.

In another, a rifle's crosshairs roll over the faces of President Bush, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and others. Then shots ring out and a red bullet hole appears on each forehead.

Earlier today, jurors watched a video from a February 2007 trip that showed some of the defendants shooting rifles at a firing range in the Poconos.

Under cross-examination from defense attorney Michael Huff, Special Agent William Grace acknowledged that the Poconos video included more than just scenes of target shooting.

Also on it, he said, was footage of the defendants riding horses.

(NEW JERSEY STAR TELEGRAM)

"Ladies and gentlemen of the jury- they were outdoor enthusiasts. They were training for the Amazing Race! They're practicing for the 2009 dressage season!"

Book Review/Movie Review: Tristram Shandy

tristram shandy: a cox and bull story (movie preview)


The modern trend is to see Tristram Shandy (book) as a forerunner of modernism and post-modernism in terms of use of non-linear plot development and self-referential characters.

Of course, to describe Tristram Shandy in such a fashion diminishes its instant popularity upon time of publication and its enduring popularity a century or more before the rise of "modernism", let alone "post-modernism." The main failing of the film, which is in many respects an enjoyable piece of cinema, is that it hardly bothers to pay lip service to the ways in which Tristram Shandy is noteable BESIDES the proto modernism/post-modernism aspect.

On the other hand- the film does successfully challenge the usage of "classic literature" in the modern film industry, and so it may be more appropriate to view the film version of Shandy as a movie about the adaptation of classic literature for the movie screen, rather then a "post-modern" re-telling of the original "post-modern" novel.

Perhaps the tone of the above two paragraphs suggests some of the rabbit holes that dog any interpretation of Tristram Shandy. I will say that although it took me six + months to actually finish it, this is one of those "classic" novels that can actually inform your understanding of contemporary life- not to mention literature, and as such it is worth the investment of time & energy.