Tag Archives: crime

Remember Chain Letters? Hackers Do

Ashwin Seshagiri, New York Times’ Tech Roundup: The victims have a choice […] Pay the hackers a ransom of one bitcoin, a digital currency worth roughly $2,365, in exchange for regaining access to the computer, or try to infect two new people on behalf of the attackers. That sucks.

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45 years later, FBI closes books on ‘D.B. Cooper’

The last time anyone saw D.B. Cooper, he parachuted out of a Mexico City-bound airplane with $200,000 in ransom strapped to his body, vanishing over the Pacific Northwest and initiating one of America’s greatest manhunts. Forty-five years later, the FBI is closing the books on this unsolved case.

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All are equal, but not all are treated equally

Rabbi Shai Held writing at CNN: If you’re white and you don’t believe that white privilege is real, talk to an African-American parent about “the conversation,” in which they teach their children to be cautious and tentative around officers of the law.

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Stabbing Rampage at PA High School

Another tragic school stabbing.

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Batkid completes San Francisco mission; hero’s welcome planned

The story of Batkid is unbelievably heart-warming. Bravo, San Franciscans! Coordinated by the Make-A-Wish Foundation, Miles’ escapade was complete with donated Lamborghinis that were turned into Batmobiles, a personal call from Police Chief Greg Suhr asking for help, and a live television broadcast kicking off the adventure.

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Reason: How Even a ‘Well-Trained Narcotics Detection Dog’ Can Be Wrong 84 Percent of the Time

So even a dog that is very good at finding drugs in a “controlled testing environment” will generate a lot of false positives when sniffing randomly selected cars. Again, forensic “science” (with the exception of DNA) largely isn’t science. The U.S. Extreme Court is WRONG.

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How reliable is the science behind forensic science?

Fascinating PBS: FRONTLINE show from April, “The Real CSI: How reliable is the science behind forensics?” So it turns out that the Forensic sciences (with the notable exception of DNA) are no more “hard science” than Creation “science”, social “science”, or Scientology… Most have no scientific basis at all, and those that do rarely reach […]

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Essential Rules of Gunfighting Everyone Should Know

(You may someday have to apply one or more of these…) 1) Bring a gun; when possible, bring at least two guns, all of your friends that have guns and FOUR TIMES the ammunition you think you could ever need. 2) Guns have only two enemies: rust and inexperience. a) Practice. Practice reloading one-handed and […]

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Romney = Akin?

Ok, let’s just recap the events of the last few days. First, Missouri Representative Todd Akin, running for Senate in that state, made statements to the effect that a woman’s body shuts down when she is legitimately raped and that this prevents pregnancy from occurring. These statements are patently false, and are so very far […]

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MacDonald Murders +42 years

On this day in 1970, the wife and daughters of Army Green Beret physician Jeffrey MacDonald were murdered at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. This is a fascinating, if terribly sad, case. If you’re even slightly into “true crime” you couldn’t pick a better case to read about. And, if you think you know about […]

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