Mishmash Musings

Hahaha, I can’t stand the Patriots these days, so I LOVED seeing them lose the Super Bowl in heartbreaking fashion to the Giants once AGAIN. This is the enduring image I’ll have from the day: a subdued Brady who couldn’t even be bothered to gussy himself up into the “pretty boy” style he usually tries to adopt after games. I know he has probably already forgotten the game and he has his other three SB rings and millions of dollars as consolation, but whatever. I have a feeling he won’t taste another championship in his career.

It looks like Joran Van der Sloot, the prime suspect in Natalee Holloway’s disappearance in Aruba several years ago, is going to plead guilty to killing another young woman, 21-year-old Stephany Flores of Peru.

Van der Sloot allegedly strangled her in a Lima hotel room after he caught her on his laptop looking up articles concerning his involvement in the Holloway case. He “lost it”, hit her on the head, and then strangled her. Van der Sloot then calmly left the hotel and fled to Chile, where he was caught a few days later.

I don’t know what kind of deal is in the works, but if this psychopath gets anything less than a life sentence, it will be a travesty.

Wow, how much tragedy can one campus take? I read that two people have been shot on the Virginia Tech campus today, and students have been told to stay in their rooms as police search for the gunman, who is still at large. Since this is a breaking story, few details are available (and those that have been published are likely to change), but apparently the suspect is a white male wearing a maroon hoodie.

One police officer was killed after a routine traffic stop, and then another body was subsequently found in a parking lot.

Obviously the death toll is significantly lower than the 2007 Va Tech shooting that left 32 dead, but that’s cold comfort for now.

Don’t people know by now that Craigslist can be a very dangerous thing? We’ve all heard stories of people advertising stuff for sale on CL and then having said stuff ripped off by people posing as buyers. We’ve heard about the “massage” ads that lead to everything from robbery to prostitution charges to murder. And now the latest CL tragedy surrounds people answering job ads listed on the site.

According to an AP report, two Ohio men posted a phony job ad seeking a caretaker for a 688-acre cattle farm. A Florida man and a South Carolina man answered the ad, and were told to bring all their belongings to the Ohio farm because they would be living there. Then the Florida man was murdered, while the SC man was shot but subsequently escaped and reported the incident to authorities.

Now a 52-year-old Akron man and a 16-year-old juvenile are being held in custody pending charges. The AP didn’t state the relationship between the two suspects, but just from their ages it sounds to me like this could be some sick father-son combo.

Anyway, I know that people are desperate for work right now and are willing to travel great distances in order to earn some money. But my god, with all the bad things that happen with Craigslist, YOU NEED TO BE EXTRA CAREFUL and VIGILANT!!! I personally would NEVER answer a CL ad that required any kind of face-to-face meeting unless I had another person with me. Obviously 99% of all CL transactions go through without any kind of violence, but still… Why risk it?

Watching Attorney General Eric Holder try to answer questions about the Fast & Furious scandal was just comical. How has this guy not turned in his resignation yet? And why haven’t the media been hammering on him all along? That kind of pressure surely would have compelled him to step down, but of course the liberal media back off anyone in the Obama administration while focusing heavily on Herman Cain’s alleged “sexual misconduct” charges of many years ago from Gloria Allred-backed women. What a surprise.

(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

Well, this is highly disturbing to me. All those exotic animals that were released from Muskingum County Animal Farm in Zanesville, Ohio, are currently being hunted down and shot to death, with the carcasses lined up on a mud path for removal. I know that officials probably don’t have any choice right now because they don’t have the equipment or facilities to capture and contain the animals, but still… this is just so cold-blooded and sad.

Yeah, yeah… a couple of dead tigers, lions, bears, and zebras is better than risking the animals kill humans in their fright or quest for food. I know that on a rational level. But how can you look at the pictures and not feel that this is wrong on so many levels?

I’m interested in why the owner of the animal farm felt he had to let them all loose before he committed suicide. Couldn’t he have left them in their cages and just called wildlife officials to deal with the problem? This makes no sense to me.

There was kind of an interesting piece in the NYT a few days ago about Levi Aron’s lawyer. Aron, of course, is the man accused of killing an 8-year-old Brooklyn boy when the boy stopped to ask for directions after getting lost. The lawyer’s name is Jennifer McCann, and she’s only a few years out of law school. Nevertheless, she has accepted this high-profile case and will front and center when the trial begins.

She claims that she’s not doing it because she has a penchant for defending murderers; instead, she insists that she is defending “constitutional rights.” Everyone is entitled to a competent, vigorous defense, even if they’re caught red-handed with dismembered body parts in their freezer and confess to the heinous crime.

I didn’t like the vibe I got from McCann. Sure, I understand where she’s coming from, but she seemed highly defensive and even a bit crass with some of her statements: “This is what I do. You kill people, you call me.”

Alrighty, then….

Wow, I can’t believe how much flooding and damage has been caused by Hurricane Irene. So far, the financial losses have been estimated at about $10 billion according to some reports. And of course there’s the human life toll as well. I think 37 people have died because of the storm.

Here’s hoping the power soon comes back on in the region and that the cleanup gets done quickly so people can get on with their lives.