Saturday, February 27

Besieged by Wild Boar -

You are hereby invited to:
Cocktails at 8 in body armor attire, please . . .

Residents of an affluent Broward County FL neighborhood feel threatened by a pack of twenty 150-pound feral hogs roaming around, digging up their well-manicured lawns and defoliating their shrubs, but when they asked their police department for permission to shoot the animals, they were told they would be charged with animal cruelty if they did.

So far, their municipal authorities
refuse to do anything about the problem.

:: Lisa J Huriash - Sentinel ::

...

SoFlo: Census Dread -

Jackie Bueno Sousa must be
hearing footsteps at The Miami Herald . . .
"The census will be very revealing'' says Howard Frank, professor of public administration at Florida International University, who suspects the numbers will show a continued loss of our middle class.
It's no random coincidence that South Florida in recent years has come to increasingly resemble pre-Castro Cuba. It's all here - the gambling, the prostitution, the drugs and thugs, and the pervasive corruption - like a squalid replica in the process of being endlessly paved over by the useless proliferation of super highways going nowhere fast.

But when the last literate residents
finally bail out, who will read her newspaper?

:: JB Sousa - MHerald ::

...

Friday, February 26

Curves Ahead (2#) -

A ring road in Derbyshire England is to be named after the famous female Tomb Raider character as: Lara Croft Way.

Core Design, the developer that created
the computer game, was based in Derby.

# Community Re-Developers all too often have been looking for quick and easy gimmicks and tricks to rejuvenate their Metro areas. Some of them have even tried to recreate (Retro) Bohemian New York City.

Jessa Crispin explores the ideas and concepts being bandied about lately in a couple of books related to these matters.

...

Int'l TV: Mystery This Weekend -

Henning Mankell's Wallander: The Secret -

Broadcast In: SWEDISH (with English subtitles);
Run Time: 2 hours.

"A boy's body is discovered in an abandoned barn. The murder shocks Kurt, Linda and Stefan, but the crime and the suspects don't seem to match. As they delve into the world of child abuse the characters are forced to come to terms with their own experiences and struggle with hidden demons. The battle is more than Stefan can take, and Kurt and Linda are left to deal with their grief and anger - and a dark secret from the past. Directed by Stephan Apelgren, 2006, color."

Listed for: Sunday, February 28th
On the MHz Network - check for your local outlet.

Our TV channel: 17.2
On our local schedule:
probably 9pm and/or repeated later at Midnight.

Enjoy!

...

Thursday, February 25

Mez: In A Moving Light -

Meredith Kercher Murder Case -

Amanda Knox's family appeared
on Oprah's TV show Tuesday afternoon.

Advocating on her behalf: her biological parents,
her siblings, and an American criminal defense lawyer.

Curt Knox kicked off the session by claiming that there was nothing of hers in the room, meaning that there was nothing of his daughter's found within Meredith Kercher's bedroom.

Although I have been relying on secondhand sources and reading some material from translation, it is my understanding that Amanda Knox's desk lamp was found by the police within Meredith Kercher's locked bedroom.

Couldn't Rudy Guede have put it there? That's not very likely because the murder took place in the dark of night and Guede had no way of knowing that there was a small desk lamp in Amanda Knox's bedroom. Unless he came equipped with special night vision goggles, he would not be able to see the lamp in Knox's dark bedroom.

Did this issue come up during the trial proceedings? I believe the desk lamp did come up. When Prosecution confronted Knox about her desk lamp, it appeared that Knox tried to disown it.

Could she succeed in accomplishing that? Probably not, because it was not Amanda who originally leased the cottage on Pergola St.

It was one or both of the Italian gals who leased the cottage from a rental agent or the representative of the owner. And since their name(s) were on the lease, they were largely responsible for the furnishings which were included in the rental agreement for the cottage.

Laura and/or Filomena would take careful inventory of which furnishings were being supplied in each bedroom. Thus, they would know that the desk lamp which was usually in Amanda's bedroom was missing and not in its normal location. Instead, it was found by the police in Meredith's locked bedroom. And the Italian housemates would be able to identify it.

We are currently awaiting the Italian court's written treatise on the case, expected in early March, which will include elaborate explanations. The Devil is often in the details, as illustrated in the issue of Amanda Knox's desk lamp.

Sorry for the delay in reporting this event, but
I've been dodging inclement weather around here lately.

:: LEStandard ::

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Monday, February 22

Notes on the Edge (4#) -

Now that the National Enquirer has been accepted as a candidate to compete for a Pulitzer prize, what does that tell us about the current condition of the American Mainstream Media? Two Guardian writers wrestle with the question:

:: Oliver Burkeman :: - - - :: Hadley Freeman ::

# Carolyn Kellogg on the West Coast reports on the O'Reilly Media Tools of Change conference taking place on the East Coast with links at Jacket Copy.

# Writer Dennis Lehane, who lives in St Petersburg, is interviewed by Gina Piccalo who delves into the background of his Shutter Island story and more at TDB.

...

SoFlo: Bullets,
Dope & Dirty Money (5#) -

An indictment unsealed in federal court on Friday charges three Miami-Dade businessmen with financing Terrorism by doing business with a shopping center designated as a fundraiser for Hezbollah in the South American Triangle area. The men are accused of exporting hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of electronic merchandise to the prohibited destination. The Hezbollah organization is linked to Lebanon and Iran.

:: CBS4 :: - - :: Herald :: - - :: Herald ::

Meanwhile, further north, in Fort Lauderdale, various law enforcement agencies, including federal, were engaged in the apprehension of gun-running, narcotics trafficking and identity theft for "Operation Smoking Gun."

Seizures included:

about 300 firearms, including
a machine gun and 3 sawed-off shotguns;

thousands of Oxycodone pills, Percocet pills,
Endocet pills, Vicodin pills, Morphine pills,
Ecstasy pills, and kilos of illegal narcotics.

About 80 people have been charged, many
of them arrested over the past several days.

:: CBS4 :: - - - :: Herald ::

...