TOMORROWKNOWS

IT STARTED WITH MILES STANDISH


Official: Iraq civilian deaths unjustified

WASHINGTON - Military investigators probing the deaths last November of about two dozen Iraqi civilians have evidence that points toward unprovoked murders by Marines, a senior defense official said Friday.

The Marine Corps initially reported 15 deaths and said they were caused by a roadside bomb and an ensuing firefight with insurgents. A separate investigation is aimed at determining if Marines lied to cover up the events, which included the deaths of women and children.

If confirmed as unjustified killings, the episode could be the most serious case of criminal misconduct by U.S. troops during three years of combat in Iraq. Until now the most infamous occurrence was the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse involving Army soldiers, which came to light in April 2004 and which President Bush said Thursday he considered to be the worst U.S. mistake of the entire war.

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"It is ... a thing more glorious, in men's eyes, than pleasing in God's, or convenient for Christians, to be a terror to poor barbarous people, And indeed I am afraid lest, by these occasions, others should be drawn to affect a kind of ruffling course in the world."

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Pastor John Robinson admonishes Plymouth Governor Bradford when he gets word that the Pilgrims have murdered Indiand in cold blood. (1622)

I'LL BE RIGHT BACK. I'VE GOT A CALL INTO THE PEOPLE AT THE DARWIN AWARDS

Susan Thomas was reclining in a lawn chair Monday on a sandbar on the upper river area of Ross Barnett Reservoir.

A book was open in her lap, but her attention was elsewhere.

Thomas was mostly keeping tabs on her two daughters swimming but was also on the lookout for something that could sneak up and snatch one of them.

"There are some big alligators on this river; I know, I've seen them," said Thomas, 41, of Madison. "And even though I've never seen one come near a sandbar when we've been swimming, I am paying more attention lately."

Three recent fatal alligator attacks on humans in Florida have Thomas a little more on edge.

A jogger was killed May 9 in southeastern Florida when an alligator apparently attacked her on land and dragged her to the water. A snorkeler in central Florida died five days later. And another woman was killed a few days before her dismembered body was discovered in a canal on Mother's Day.

"But we're not about to quit swimming up here," she said. "The girls (Jill, 12, and Carly, 9) love it too much. Like today, they got out of school early and had asked if we could go to the river. ... This is a lot safer than a lot of other things the girls could get into, and, if we're careful, I doubt we'll have any problems with alligators."

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FAT MAN HITCHING A RIDE DOESN'T WORK AS WELL, DOES IT?

NEW YORK -- He became America's hero, a flawed man with a massive belly and a headful of demons. Fat Man Walking, as Steve Vaught referred to himself, embarked on a cross-country journey to discover why he was unemployed and depressed, and weighed 400 pounds.

excised

But what Vaught, 40, achieved is less clear. Interviews, online journals and a timeline of his progress provided by the documentary film crew have raised serious questions about whether Vaught in fact walked every inch of the way. Members of the film crew gave Vaught a camera (they didn't accompany him for the whole trek) and in one case, the film places him in Albuquerque one day and 117 miles to the east in Santa Rosa, N.M., the next.

wapo

THOUGHT FOR TODAY

pas besoin de gril: l'enfer, c'est les autres

I JUST GOT AN EMAIL FROM ONE OF THEM - WE'RE GOING IN ON A BUSINESS DEAL

Nigerian Monkeys Drop Hints on Language Origin

Researchers taping calls of the putty-nosed monkey in the forests of Nigeria may have come a small step closer to understanding the origins of human language.

uh huh

HENCE THE BLOGGING

Researchers studying monkeys and apes have learned that they possess all the basic apparatus needed to make and analyze sounds.

But the nonhuman primates did not seem to possess either of the two combinatorial features of language, those of combining discrete sounds into compound words, and of stringing words together under rules of syntax.

nyt

STINGY MOM TAUGHT A LESSON

CHARGED WITH BEATING MOM

Mom won't take back boys, 14 and 15

Instead of a gift, flowers or even a card, two Jersey City teens gave their mom a beating on Mother's Day, according to Jersey City police.

The 14-and 15-year-old brothers were arrested for simple assault Sunday after sending their mother to the Jersey City Medical Center for treatment of cuts and bruises, Sgt. Edgar Martinez said.

The 31-year-old Van Horne Street mom said her sons attacked her about 11 a.m. because she refused to give them cash to buy expensive clothes, Martinez said.

"They didn't even say 'Happy Mother's Day' that morning," she said sadly.

"We were sitting there watching TV and they started asking me for $100 sneakers, jeans," she said inside her apartment yesterday. "When I said no, they started cursing me, telling me they hated me. Then they 'mushed' me into that wall."

The boys then punched and kicked her, chasing her and continuing the attack even after she fled into the hallway, she said. The beating stopped when a concerned neighbor called police and the boys fled.


here

WHAT I FIND AMAZING IS THAT THEY WERE ALL AT NUMBERS DIVISIBLE BY 100 WHEN POLLED.

Maxim's Top 10 Living Legends of Sex - and the number of women they are alleged to have slept with:

10. Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones bassist) - 1,000
9. Earvin (Magic) Johnson (basketball star) - 1,000
8. Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead frontman) - 1,200
7. Jack Nicholson (actor) - 2,000
6. Ilie Nastase (tennis star) - 2,500
5. Engelbert Humperdinck (singer) - 3,000
4. Julio Iglesias (singer) - 3,000
3. Gene Simmons (Kiss frontman) - 4,600
2. Charlie Sheen (actor) - 5,000
1. Umberto Billo (Venetian hotel porter) - 8,000

HIS BAD

Spouse's creepy porn

He posted pix of wife on Web& invited others to rape her: DA

Meet the hubby from hell.

A Queens man threatened to kill his wife and her family unless she posed in sick sex positions, prosecutors said yesterday. Then, unbeknown to her, he allegedly posted the sordid photos over the Internet, inviting viewers to rape her.

"Someone Googled her name at work and all this awful stuff showed up," Assistant District Attorney Todd Komisky told a judge. "Pornographic sexual things were all over the Internet."

Thomas Gillen, 43, a college recruiter from Rockaway Park, was charged in January with reckless endangerment for posting the photos. He was charged yesterday with threatening his wife if she cooperated with law enforcement.

"The e-mail[s] were sent to random strangers with the message, 'I have a fantasy of being raped. I want to be raped,'" said Komisky, adding that Gillen gave his wife's name, work address and other information.

"The complaining witness was extremely distressed and frightened."

the rest

DEPT. OF TMI

The first step in making a culatello is boning and removing most of the thigh from the leg of fresh ham, leaving the rounded buttock ("culo" is Italian slang for a rear end).

Cured for several weeks in a mixture of salt, sugar and small amounts of sodium nitrate (also called saltpeter), a preservative, and massaged several times, the meat is spiced with black pepper, tightly encased in a pig's bladder to help maintain its succulence ("creaminess is godliness," or so Mr. Batali says), tied into its characteristic shape and hung up for long, slow aging.

there's lots more (if you're registered)

GOSH DARN IT. THE INTRUSIVE MEDIA HAS CLAIMED ANOTHER SET OF VICTIMS.

Ex-Beatle Paul McCartney Splits From Wife

LONDON (Reuters) - Former Beatle Paul McCartney and his second wife Heather Mills are to separate after four years of marriage, the couple confirmed in a statement on Wednesday.

McCartney, 63, and former model Mills, 38, who married at a lavish wedding ceremony in Ireland in June 2002, had decided to split because constant media intrusion had made "it increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship".

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I ALWAYS SAID THAT YOU CAN'T TRUST A WRESTLER

Principal let perv volunteer - report

Retired Principal Sidney Massey defended move to let Mario Martis, accused of sodomy by boy, 12, work as volunteer.

A city principal allowed a disgraced school employee - who had been fired for allegedly sexually assaulting a student - to volunteer at an East Harlem school where the pervert continued to prey on boys, authorities said yesterday.

Mario Martis, 29, was axed from his city school aide post in 2000 after a 12-year-old boy he tutored accused him of sodomy.

But his twisted criminal history did not stop Principal Sidney Massey from permitting Martis to volunteer at Public School 37 from 2004 until last year, according to special schools investigator Richard Condon.

Martis also invited a half-dozen young boys to sleep over at his Manhattan home, where he shared a bed with several kids and wrestled with them, students told investigators.

In one case, Martis allegedly promised to buy a bicycle for a 9-year-old boy if he agreed to spend the night. The boy slept over and wrestled Martis in his underwear but never got the bike, investigators said

and more

I GUESS REGULAR HAND TOOLS WOULD HAVE BEEN FINE

EDMONTON -- A "cowardly" Edmonton man who "scalped" his sleeping girlfriend while using a power drill to style her hair avoided being sent to the slammer yesterday.

Shee Theng, 30, was handed a nine-month conditional sentence to be served in the community and eight months of probation on his assault with a weapon conviction.

snipped

Defence lawyer Ron Morin told court Theng never meant to hurt Rose and "wanted to just brush her hair," but conceded he used "very bad judgment" to use a power tool.

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STOLEN SHOPPING CART FOUND

Butchery in Bronx

Drug beef prods man to kill, carve up his boss

Police lead Victor Gonzalez back to the Bronx apartment where he allegedly killed and brutally butchered his boss.

A bloodthirsty ex-butcher from the Bronx expertly carved up his boss and then dumped the mutilated remains along several streets early yesterday - horrifying neighbors who found the body parts, police and witnesses said.

Victor Gonzalez confessed to cops he bashed his boss, Wilfredo Pintos, 36, in the head with a hammer during a drug-fueled argument shortly after midnight, police said.

Gonzalez - a roofer who trained to be a butcher in his native Puerto Rico - boasted to cops that he used three boning knives to fillet Pintos' corpse inside a Kelly St. apartment, a police source said.

"He was sorta proud of his handiwork, of his nice, clean lines and the clean cutting at the joints," another police source said.

Gonzalez, 44, told cops that Pintos was too big to fit in the bathtub so he laid him on white sheets and started cutting, a source said.

"The white sheets were so bloody, they looked like Russian flags," the source said.

Gonzalez first tried to borrow a neighbor's shopping cart to remove the parts all at once from the third-floor home.

After the neighbor turned him down - without knowing why he wanted the cart - Gonzalez allegedly carried five bags of flesh and a bag holding bloody sheets and clothing outside one by one. He dumped the bags around the Longwood neighborhood, cops and neighbors said.

Angel Romano found a severed arm on Intervale Ave.

"It was from the elbow down with just a plastic bag over it," said Romano, a 31-year-old carpenter. "It was a clean cut. He knew what he was doing."

Gonzalez had been feuding with Pintos for some time, neighbors said. The two men worked for Imperial Roofing Co. and the brawny Pintos enjoyed punching the smaller Gonzalez, they added.

more gory details

IT MUST BE WONDERFUL TO BE EXPOSED AS BOTH A PERVERT AND A MORON IN THE SAME ARTICLE.

Web sex sting snares Roselle Park coach

Girls soccer volunteer allegedly performed on camera .

Authorities arrested a Roselle Park High School girls soccer coach on charges of attempted sexual contact after he allegedly made explicit sexual comments and masturbated on camera in an Internet chat room.

Roselle Park resident Fernando Alfonoso-Cruz, 26, is accused of making the comments and performing the sex act online for an undercover detective who he thought was a 14-year-old girl.

According to Deputy Chief Joseph Macellaro of the Bergen County Prosecutor's Office, Alfonoso-Cruz also asked the would-be teenager to masturbate as well.

The office's computer crimes unit also is investigating the possibility that Alfonoso-Cruz possessed and transmitted child pornography, according to Bergen County Prosecutor John Molinelli.

the rest

AND I HAVE A MASTERS IN MAKING TOAST AND A DOCTORATE IN TURNING OFF ALARM CLOCKS *

--

"My experience has been hearing just a few notes that are similar to my phone's ring, my brain will fill in the rest," said David Laramie, a doctoral student at the Los Angeles campus of the California School of Professional Psychology, who is writing his dissertation about the effect of cellphones on behavior.

nyt

*Also:

My uncle is a professor of setting the correct time on VCR's (he's got tenure, so no worries about the DVR age).

My cousin lectures on microwave defrosting.

And, my neighbor gives seminars on how to program car radios.

OF WHOM WAS IT SAID?

"We thought he was an amiable dunce, sort of like a guy out of a Budweiser ad. Actually, turns out he’s a preppy Redneck-wanna-be, a type I’ve encountered once or twice in my life and is probably one of the creepiest personality types there is. To be a racist because you were raised in a racist family in the Deep South is one thing, racist by choice is a bit worse."

A. Toby Keith
B. George Bush, 41
C. George Bush, 43
D. Jeb Bush
E. Either of the other two Bush brothers, whose names escape me at the moment.
F. George Allen, the late football coach
G. George Allen, son of tlfc, and politician
H. Jack Kemp, former politician and former football quarterback (and a pretty good one, too)
I. Jeff Kemp, son of the former politician and former football quarterback (not so good)

answer

THEY HAVE TO KNOW - IT'S 50% OF THE FINAL GRADE

Expert: Ritual took place in nun's slaying

James Ewinger
Plain Dealer Reporter

Toledo -- A priest schooled in the occult testified that the 1980 slaying of a nun was filled with dark symbolism and signs that a ritual transpired.

And only "a nun, a priest or possibly a seminarian" would have the full knowledge of what all the signs meant.

A priest is on trial in the slaying -- the Rev. Gerald Robinson. He is accused of stabbing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl 31 times -- including nine times in the form of an inverted cross.

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