WORTH REPEATING: Born In The USA

The Boss on 60 Minutes, in a segment that airs Sunday: In the interview, Springsteen points out the direction in which the U.S. is going, by his estimation. “I think we’ve seen things happen over the past six years that I don’t think anybody ever thought they’d ever see in the United States,” says Springsteen. “When people think of the Unites States’ identity, they don’t think of torture. They don’t think of illegal wiretapping. They don’t think of voter suppression,” he tells Pelley. “They don’t think of no habeas corpus,” he says, referring to the people being held by the […]

NEWS CLUES: It’s Like Adderall For Your Eyeballs

D.A. DESCRIBES HOUSE OF HORROR FUNERAL PARLORS, ILLEGAL SKIN TRADE District Attorney Lynne Abraham said the men operated funeral homes and a crematorium in which body parts were taken and sold to various tissue banks, which, in turn, sold the parts to hospitals in Philadelphia, New Jersey and New York for tissue transplants. The tissue was used in operations in which patients required connective tissue replacements for arteries, joints, and dental work. The parts — bones, cartilage, and skin — were taken from 244 people in the Philadelphia area, she said. She said the bodies were “sometimes stacked in the […]

TYRANTS CANNOT HIDE ON THEM INTERNETS: Footage The Junta Does Not Want The World To See

BBC: Images of saffron-robed monks leading throngs of people along the streets of Rangoon have been seeping out of a country famed for its totalitarian regime and repressive control of information. The pictures are sometimes grainy and the video footage shaky — captured at great personal risk on mobile phones — but each represents a powerful statement of political dissent. “It is amazing how the Burmese are able through underground networks to get things from outside and inside,” says Vincent Brussels, head of the Asian section of press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders. “Before, they were moving things hand-to-hand and […]

JOYLESS IN MUDVILLE: Phils Eat It 10-5

BY MIKE WOLVERTON SPORTS GUY An as-it-happened account of NLDS Game 2: Top of the 1st: Kyle Kendrick on the hill. The rook has been money for the Phillies this year, winning 10 games after a June callup. Home Run, Tulowitzki. OK, it only one run. Home Run, Holliday. Oh shit. Is this whole season gonna finish up with an obscure late Saturday night loss in Denver? (notice the immediate flip-flop from optimism to doomsaying) Bottom of the 1st: The Phils really need something to feel good about, at least a run in this inning to show they wont roll […]

RIAA Wins $222,000 Downloading Suit Against Mom

In the first lawsuit over file sharing to make it to court, a jury ordered a woman who record labels claimed illegally shared songs to pay the labels $222,000. The lawsuit, filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, the record label lobbying organization, accused Jammie Thomas, a 30-year-old mother of two, of sharing more than 1,700 songs on the now defunct peer-to-peer file sharing network Kazaa. The suit contended that Thomas violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act by distributing songs for free that belonged to the record labels. ABC NEWS: Look Out School For The Blind, Your Next! ARS […]

PAPERBOY: Spooky Edgar Allan YO! Edition

BY AMY Z. QUINN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right — these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. Hey, we know how it is — so many words to read, so little time to surf for free porn. That’s why every week, PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you, freeing up […]

NY TIMES: No One Expected The Spanish Inquisition!

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations. But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales‘s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency. The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization […]

NPR 4 THE DEAF: Giving Public Radio Edge Since 2006

FRESH AIR In a new book about the constitutional separation of church and state, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Garry Wills insists that that separation was meant as “the great protector of religion, not its enemy.” That, as Wills tells guest host Dave Davies, hasn’t stopped fervent believers from challenging the concept. Wills, a translator of St. Augustine and author of What Jesus Meant, is an emeritus professor of history at Northwestern University; the new book is titled Head and Heart: American Christianities. In The Secret History of the War on Cancer, environmental-health expert Devra Davis warns that we’re ignoring dozens of […]

WTF: Why The South Won’t Rise Again

MAIDEN, N.C. — Authorities say a South Carolina man who mistakenly lost his amputated leg when it was sold in a barbecue smoker at a public auction will get the appendage back. John Wood had been battling to regain custody of the leg from Shannon Whisnant. Whisnant found the leg in a barbecue smoker he purchased at an auction of Wood’s belongings last week. Whisnant first turned the leg over to police but later claimed ownership of it, saying he wanted to charge admission for people to see it. Wood’s leg was amputated three years ago after an airplane crash. […]

HOT DOCUMENT: I Can See For Miles And Miles

View Si1very’s map Taken in Coronado, California (See more photos here) 32?40′ 34″ N, 117?9′ 28″ W32.676136-117.157767 This Google map satellite pic of a swastika-shaped building on a US Navy base in Coronado, California, has been making its rounds on the internet. According to some sources, the building is part of the training facilities for Navy Seals, and is perhaps their barracks. It’s nicknamed “The Seals Lair.” Apparently, the building was constructed with no intention of promoting the swastika symbol, so it was completely unintentional. I note that for its time period, the design of the building was really optimal […]

KILLADELPHIA: 2 More Dead Since U Went 2 Work

BLOOMBERG NEWS: Oct. 4 PHILADELPHIA — Two guards for Securitas AB’s Loomis cash-handling unit were killed during the robbery of an armored car this morning in the northeastern part of Philadelphia, police said. The robbery happened at about 8 a.m. local time in the parking lot of a Wachovia Bank branch near Bustleton and Bleigh avenues in the city’s Rhawnhurst section, Officer Tanya Little said in a telephone interview. MORE INQUIRER: An intensive manhunt is underway in the Northeast for a lone gunman who shot dead two Loomis armored-truck guards and wounded another in a robbery attempt. The men who […]

MAILBAG: It’s A Black Thing

DEAR PHAWKER, Based on your “editorial,” maybe you missed this part of the article: “It’s indicative of the growing schism between the older generation in the black community and the younger generations in the black community, as well as the upper class and the poor. It’s a sad state of affairs.” (Both Lartigue and Green are black, as are all those who introduced the legislation in Louisiana and Georgia.) MICHAEL J.A. [The point isn’t the skin color of the signers of bad legislation, it’s the impact it will have on society at large. Think about it: White cops pull over […]