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BLOGGING NOTES -

I have had a health issue arise
over this past weekend. As a result,
I need to take a break from blogging.

Thank you for stopping by.

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LONDON MAYOR RACE -
Ken v Boris: 2 Colorful Personalities -

In a very competitive race for Mayor,
the final results of the election won't
be known until later today, but it
looks like Boris is ahead, so far.

:: Primer :: .......... :: Early Results ::

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MORE GAME -

A man was stabbed in the town center of Croydon at
the debut of the new video game Grand Theft Auto 4.

Someone described: a bloke staggering up the
road with a gaping wound to his back and his head.

"There was blood all over
the road and he was carrying a knife."

But some witnesses at first thought
it was a stunt to promote the game.

There have been no arrests
so far; the investigation continues.

:: This is Local London ::

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MEZ & THE GTA GAME DEBUT - (3#) -

Senseless Violence
is Exhilarating, Some Say . . .

Grand Theft Auto IV made its debut Tuesday. While I've been surfing around the Internet today, it seemed unavoidable. Of course, it's only a game, but how much of its atmosphere might be absorbed by osmosis?

I've never seen it myself - it doesn't look like my cup of tea. I'm just raising some questions about it, perhaps, because in following the Meredith Kercher Murder Case lately, I've been struck by many people's search for the motive.

Does murder really need a motive? Indeed, there are some people now who are ridiculing the very idea of any motive being attributed to the principal suspects in that case. If senseless violence is said to be "exhilarating," then why couldn't murder be exhilarating?

"A book tells you something, a movie shows you something and a video game lets you do something... When we started you had fantasy or space games. We added gangster to that... We want to do the things you never thought about."

"While the game looks like a fairly run-of-the-mill crime drama at first glance, it won't take long for it to get under your skin and stick with you even while you're not playing."

Just some things to think about.

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NO BODY, NO PROBLEM? - (3#) -
Guess Again . . .

At the end of a six-month trial in Oakland Cal, the jury found computer programmer Hans Reiser guilty of first-degree murder in the death of his wife, Nina.

"We have a body," prosecutor Paul Hora said, referring to evidence of Nina Reiser's blood in Hans Reiser's car and home. "We just don't know where it is."

How she was killed might never be known, but the jury pieced together sufficient circumstantial evidence to support their verdict.

Reportage by Henry K Lee:

:: SFGate 1 :: ..... :: SFGate 2 :: and [trial blog]

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AS THE WORLD CHURNS (2#) -

Just checked Pods and Blogs.
Chris Vallance took the week off
and sent Rhod to ROFLCon :-)

"This is, I mean, totally."

Well, the program is broadcast
in the middle of the night there.

And, while I was over there,
I got this link to a new blog:

:: The Churner Prize ::

+ We've been expecting some stormy
weather here, but it hasn't shown up yet.

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Bookish: GOING
GLOBAL & SIMULCAST (6#) -

There no longer exists one successful recipe in writing Mysteries and Crime Detection for the U.S. or the U.K. in our increasingly globalized world. This PK feature story will give you some idea of the array of upcoming offerings in the genre.

:: The Cozy Gets the Hard-Boil :: [via]

# A big feature story about Charles Fort who created the Fortean Times. He was a twentieth century pioneer in writing about anomalies.

# Ah, Lists! - 50 best cult books
with comment thread - to bicker about?

# A brief review of Blogger Mark Sarvas'
first novel called Harry, Revised. And a
handful of others from last week which I missed.

# Guess who's Blogging -
Here's another new one:
::: Granta's New Blog :::

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TAL TERRORISTS BOMB POPPYCON (2#) -

Taliban terrorists have bombed an outdoor poppy eradication team meeting in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan.

"The Afghan Interior Ministry said the attack showed the connection between terrorists and drug trafficking."

Nangarhar province is one of the heaviest
opium-producing areas in that country.

"The blast left the area covered
in flesh and blood," according to a witness.

The wounded included two foreign
journalists: a French national and an Australian.

:: CNN :: ..... and ..... :: AFP ::

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IN SEARCH OF THE DRAMATURGE (2#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

Richard Owen gives a reprise of the Higher Court's written validation of the Lower Court's decision to detain the suspects, which ruled that the Lower Court has acted in accordance with the Law in detaining the suspects. The focus here is on suspect Rudy Guede.

Owen notes: "what appears to be an orchestrated media campaign" to undermine the Court's credibility and legitimacy.

Meanwhile, Frank at Perugia Shock blog supplements the latest Owen dispatch. The Court is determined to ascertain the "author" of this gruesome giallo. But Rudy Guede denies being a murderer.

+ It is interesting that the Court seems to presume that the "author" is one and the same as the murderer, whereas, I would not have automatically posited this presumption. It seemed possible to me that the murder was committed by person or persons unknown, but then someone else who may or may not have been present, could have "arranged" the situation.

INRE: faccia a faccia . . .

The question has arisen among those following the progress of this case as to whether the judge will convene a pre-trial hearing. This is quite possible, unless prohibited by Italian law.

"Faccia a faccia" means there is a rumor afoot that the judge is considering such a hearing moved into a conference room setting in which everyone is seated around a conference table, rather than in a formal courtroom, according to my interpretation.

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Bookish: STRETCHING BOUNDARIES (2#) -

Have you met Zizek yet? A contemporary iconoclastic philosopher-showman with a sardonic Eastern European sense of humor.

"In Defense of Lost Causes is a frenetic, eclectic parody of intellectual scholarship, by one so assured in his grasp of the finer points of Kafka or John le Carré that he can afford to ham it up a little."

:: TLS Review by Terry Eagleton,
Professor of Cultural Theory at
the University of Manchester.

* * * * *
And an enjoyable excerpt from an
essay about writing and entertainment
:: By Michael Chabon at the LAT ::

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A CLOUD OF CLICKS (3#) -

# Saudi Jeans Blog reports
that Ahmed's friend, Fouad al-Farhan,
has been freed from government detention.

#Mapping Iran's Blogosphere:
:: Berkman Center :: Harvard Law.

# Comment from Nazanin's Blog:
::: perma :::

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JEDI CHURCH ATTACK -
From the Annals of Improbable Cases -

A man jumped over the garden wall garbed in a black plastic trash bin bag and cape. Drunkenly swinging a metal crutch as his weapon, he set upon the cousins, while exclaiming "Darth Vader!" He hit one cousin with the crutch, then laughingly hit the other.

Arwel Wynne Hughes, 27, has admitted to the assault, but claims he has no memory of it. His lawyer, Frances Jones, said that drink was ruining his client's life and that Hughes had "no idea" where he'd gotten the crutch from. Case
still in progress...

:: BBC ::

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SHOE CLUES & HEATED BUZZ - (2#) -
Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

An online publication in the UK is reporting that the police have seized more shoes and other items in connection with the murder. I believe they are getting this information from some of the Italian reports which I've read via G-translate.

Brian Chin reports on the Seattle PI's Buzzworthy Blog about the newspaper's difficulties in dealing with the contentious comment threads associated with this case. Seattle is Amanda Knox' hometown, so that feelings about the case tend to run higher there.

Uh-oh! Chin's entry
has a comment thread attached to it, too!

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Central Florida:
THE RIVER CADAVER CASES (2#) -

Last night I tuned in to C2C-am from the beginning of the radio show. Ian Punnett was hosting. He alluded to the first hour of Friday night's show, which I hadn't heard, and urged us to look it up because it concerned a possible serial killing case - Ian mentioned a possible connection to cult activity.

Looking at the archived recap, we find a link to a page featuring the case on a local TV website: Channel 5 Twin Cities (ABC affiliate), Kristi Piehl is lead reporter.

"Gannon and Duarte say they've discovered a link between Jenkins' death and the drownings of at least 40 other men in 25 cities in 11 different states."

I have noted a string
of similar deaths up in Central Florida:

- young men's cadavers found in rivers.

Heretofore, I evaluated the phenomenon as a suspicious pattern, but did not see any indications of cult connections reflected in the local news media. There has been no mention of tags or glyphs associated with the Central Florida cadavers so far.

The two detectives who have been investigating the cases, Kevin Gannon and Anthony Duarte, do not seem to have a website which they should get.

:: C2C-am recap :: ..... and ..... ::KSTP-TV::

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