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18 Dec 2010 12:16

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U.S.: “Grim Sleeper” suspect’s attorney: My client won’t get a fair trial

  • Sadly, the public officials who have the duty to uphold the Constitution have forgotten the basics in their desire for sensationalism and are jeopardizing Lonnie Franklin’s chance for a fair trial.
  • Lonnie Franklin’s attorney, Louisa Pensanti • Arguing that the release of the “Grim Sleeper” suspect’s photos created a sensational environment where it’d be impossible for Franklin to get a fair trial. “The photographs include members and friends of the Franklin family,” Pensanti said, “all now subject to the intense scrutiny of the public as well as the police.” Does that include the ones where the women in the photos are completely naked, by chance? Because those make up a large majority of the photos. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

18 Dec 2010 11:53

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U.S.: DREAM Act falters, DADT repeal gets past debate in Senate

  • 55-41 the Senate wasn’t really into the DREAM Act
  • 63-33 however, they can back a DADT repeal (WHOO) source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Dec 2010 00:27

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U.S.: Obama gets his tax compromise, pulls off triangulation hat trick

  • Alright guys. Time to rock and roll. Obama got his tax compromise, even after House Democrats got all uncomfortable about it towards the end there. The process was a little tense, but eventually the House passed it as-is, 277 to 148. Obama learned the art of triangulation well from Master Sensei Bill Clinton, and will now be in the good graces of the GOP for approximately ten minutes. Savor them, Barack, because you’ve earned them. You only had to sell out the estate tax and a number of your people in your own party to do it. But sometimes, to Get Things Done, you have to do some selling out. This is why Superdrag isn’t on the radio anymore and Weezer is still going strong. Weezer Got Things Done. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

17 Dec 2010 00:02

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Politics, U.S.: GOP divide: 2012 contenders disagree on tax cut legislation

  • five potential GOP candidates support the tax cut deal: Mike Huckabee, John Thune, Newt Gingrich, Mitch Daniels and Tim “T-Paw” Palenty
  • four potential GOP candidates oppose it: Mitt Romney, Sarah Palin, Mike Pence, and Rick “The Rock” Santorum source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Dec 2010 22:56

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Politics, U.S.: Senator’s cancer scare throws wrench into Democrats’ legislative plans

  • bad Democratic Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon announced today that he’s been diagnosed with prostate cancer.
  • goodThanks to early detection, he’s probably going to make a full recovery. We’re glad to hear it, Ron!
  • uncertainHe’ll have to miss some votes to get surgery, making it that much harder for Senate Dems to pass anything. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Dec 2010 22:32

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U.S.: Congress passes bill requiring hybrids to be louder

  • The trend toward putting more environmentally friendly, quiet vehicles on the road has unintentionally jeopardized the safety and independence of the blind and other pedestrians.
  • Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y) • Regarding the House’s recent passage of a new bill requiring auto regulators to set minimum decibel levels for hybrid vehicles. Because hybrids are so quiet, pedestrians sometimes don’t hear ’em coming, and so they get hit. It’s a particularly big issue for the visually impaired, who often rely on a car’s noise to warn them of its presence. The bill has already passed the Senate and is on its way to becoming law. source
Posted by Seth Millstein • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Dec 2010 20:50

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U.S.: Ohio State’s servers hacked; officials wait two months to tell people

  • 760,000 people’s private data at risk source
  • » Why did they wait? Well, the school wanted to double-check that this is what happened, so they used a private security firm to check what happened. Fortunately for affected users, while Ohio State says that they don’t think anyone’s data was actually taken (and the breach was more to see if the server was ripe to launch cyberattacks from), they’ve offered a year of free credit protection to those who were affected by the breach. Still, two months? That’s a long time to wait to inform people about something of this nature.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 

16 Dec 2010 20:13

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U.S.: Police want public’s help with huge “Grim Sleeper” photo collection

  • First off, We’re A little uncomfortable with the way the L.A. times is covering this story. See, the Times put the collection of photos – 180 of them – into a pageview-generating giant slideshow, complete with ads on every page. We’ll let you click through them without posting any ourselves. Anyway, moving on … the photos, collected from suspect Lonnie David Franklin Jr., are disturbing documents – the way they are cropped suggests at least some, but not all, of the women were naked in the original photos. The “Grim Sleeper,” called that due to a long period of dormancy, may have killed many other young girls; there’s nothing to suggest he ever stopped between 1998 and 2002. It’s possible he was just really good at covering his tracks. source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink

16 Dec 2010 10:49

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U.S.: How hard was it to drive in snowy, icy metro Atlanta last night?

  • 1,000+ crashes ‘cuz they suck with snow source
Posted by Ernie Smith • 1 Comment • Permalink

16 Dec 2010 10:40

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U.S., World: Afghan war report: Troops could start leaving in mid-2011

  • 100k number of troops the U.S. has stationed in Afghanistan right now
  • 30k number of troops Obama added to that total earlier this year
  • 20k troops could leave in 2011 without significantly affecting the war source
  • » The progress so far: Those numbers, which come from the Obama administration’s assessment of the war, suggest that the administration is optimistic about the way things are going – particularly that they’ve stunted the Taliban’s momentum. Hopefully that’s true – a prior report from the US National Intelligence Estimates suggested things were much gloomier.
Posted by Ernie Smith • 0 Comments • Permalink
 
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