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The "Femme Fatale" segment on NoirWhale.com is designed to highlight the life and merits of exceptional film noir actresses. These women are the embodiment of the femme fatale archetype, and propel possibly the most recognizable and integral theme in the noir genre.
"Because I was promoted as a sort of a siren and played all those sexy broads, people made the mistake of thinking I was like that off the screen. They couldn't have been more wrong."
Ava Gardner was propelled to stardom in 1946 for the femme fatale role she played in The Killers. Because of the resounding success enjoyed by that picture, she became a recognized superstar and arguably the most beautiful woman of her day. Born Ava Lavinia Gardner on Christmas Eve, 1922, she was signed to a contract with MGM studios in 1941 at the age of nineteen. She hailed from the farming community of Grabtown, North Carolina, and was the youngest of seven children. After severe economic trouble, their family moved to Newport News, Virginia where her father tragically died of Bronchitis when she was only fifteen years old. Here is a wonderful anecdote about her early career:
Gardner traveled to New York to be interviewed at MGM's office by Al Altman, head of MGM's New York talent department. With cameras rolling, he directed the eighteen-year-old to walk toward the camera, turn and walk away, then rearrange some flowers in a vase. He did not attempt to record her voice because her Southern accent made it almost impossible for him to understand her. Though Al thought Ava the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, he believed the test was a disaster and was completely surprised by what he saw in the screening room. On screen she was magnetic. The camera loved her. He sent the test to Hollywood. Louis B. Mayer, head of that studio, sent a telegram to Al: "She can't sing, she can't act, she can't talk, She's terrific!"
After the success of the film noir The Killers, she went on to act in several high profile films: including The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959), Seven Days in May (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976).
Romantically, she had many famous relationships. Her first husband was Mickey Rooney, whom she met shortly after her arrival in Los Angeles. Their marriage only lasted a year, and they were divorced by 1943. Mickey reportedly bragged about their sex life, and Ava is famously quoted as saying, "He may have enjoyed the sex, but goodness knows I didn't." She then engaged in a longer relationship with the aviator Howard Hughes. They were very 'off-and-on' and Ava described him in her autobiography as "painfully shy, completely enigmatic and more eccentric…than anyone [she] had ever met." Her second marriage was just as short as the first, she married the jazz musician Artie Shaw. Ava's third and final (and most famous) marriage was to Frank Sinatra (who left his wife Nancy for her). Frank received loads of abuse from the press and fans for leaving his wife for a noted femme fatale, and the downward spiral of his career wasn't reversed until his Oscar winning role in From Here to Eternity (1953). Gardner became pregnant twice with Frank, but she aborted both the fetuses. She said of Sinatra, "With him it's impossible…it's like being with a woman. He's so gentle. It's as though he thinks I'll break, as though I'm a piece of Dresden china and he's gonna hurt me." They divorced in 1957. During this period she became friends with Ernest Hemingway.
While staying with Hemingway at his villa in San Francisco de Paula in Havana, Cuba, Gardner once swam alone with no bathing suit in his pool. After watching her, Hemingway ordered his staff: "The water is not to be emptied".
She received an Academy Award Nomination for her role in Mogambo (1953), but she lost to Audrey Hepburn. Ava continued to act in films up until four years before her death; she died at the age of 67 from pneumonia. The American Institute's list of the Greatest Female Stars ranks her 25th.
"Deep down, I'm pretty superficial."
What an incredible femme fatale.


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The Sunset Inn is proud to announce a brand new package experience that will soon be announce on our website…
The Sunset Inn will be teamed up with The Calixica Holistic Boutique Spa that will offer a package that will bring together a nights stay at our hotel where you will be able to enjoy a fantastic Massage courtesy of Calixica.
Last Tuesday (November 22nd) The Sunset Inn and Calixica joined forces to throw a wonderful Media Launch party to announce our brand new promotion, and what a success this night was. We very much believe that this will be a big hit for people who are looking for something that little bit extra special, a package that will allow you to unwind in the luxury of you own suite and enjoy a holistic massage with the professional Calixica team. The idea of the treatment is for the guest to be able to melt away any Jet-lag, tension and worry, with the healing touch of the practitioners and the essence of a specially blended rose oil to transform and renew, leaving the guests in a state of harmony and balance. The effect is to create a sense of retreat. no matter what the purpose of the trip.
In this day and age the terms 'Holism' and 'Holistic therapy' are becoming more and more familiar around the world, notably becoming adopted in many aspects of medicine, fitness and overall health-care, in these demanding times some of us are looking for something to ground ourselves, where we can be more at one with the world around us.
The concept of Holistic health is on the rise and is now being used within the Psychological and Mental Health practice and in the general world of medicinal practice, the term in essence is a concept that encompasses all aspects of peoples needs, such as psychological, physical, social and spiritual needs, as well as the environment that the person is within, by looking at all these areas a holistic perspective may be able to enhance wellness and well-being, even if the effect is deemed to be a placebo it could very well have remarkable health benefits on the mind and soul.
Calixica like to use Rose Oils and this is a familiar theme within their Spa on Granville Island. The use of Roses for treatment is nothing new, in fact, Roses have been used by many civilizations over millennia, most notably in the Middle East and Asia where Roses are to be found in abundance, although Roses can be found on many continents around the world, these areas have been very prevalent with their use, especially for medicinal use and cooking. The use of Roses are actually on the rise, with many food recipes incorporating roses and their oils….something that could be interesting and different….you can even experiment in the hotel as every room has a full kitchen that is fully equipped for all your culinary needs!
For further information, please keep checking our website and look under our Specialty Package deals, and if you have any further suggestions, please do not hesitate to contact us, new and exciting ideas are always welcome.

subset: commoncrawl


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The Tomorrow Project
We believe that our region's prosperity — its capacity for creating and sustaining fulfilling work, its ability to cultivate a rich cultural landscape, its power to extend a wealth of opportunity to all its residents — depends on education.
Out of a series of community forums convened by President Pamela Eibeck, education emerged as both a critical concern and a vital opportunity. In response, the University of the Pacific, in collaboration with partners from throughout the region, launched the Tomorrow Project.
At the heart of this ambitious new campaign to lift college-going rates in Stockton and the surrounding Central Valley are specialized academies that offer skills and resources to some of our region's most academically vulnerable children. The after-school, weekend and summer programs that comprise the Tomorrow Project build a network of sustained support to guide our young people toward high school graduation and to prepare them for enriched and enriching lives beyond.
Explore the Tomorrow Project Academies.
"Our community's future hinges on improving the educational achievement of our youth, from the children of farm workers to the children of our wealthiest denizens." -President Pamela Eibeck


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FreeBSD Manual Pages
LO(4) FreeBSD Kernel Interfaces Manual LO(4) NAME lo -- software loopback network interface SYNOPSIS device loop DESCRIPTION The loop interface is a software loopback mechanism which may be used for performance analysis, software testing, and/or local communication. As with other network interfaces, the loopback interface must have network addresses assigned for each address family with which it is to be used. These addresses may be set with the appropriate ioctl(2) commands for corresponding address families. The loopback interface should be the last interface configured, as protocols may use the order of configura- tion as an indication of priority. The loopback should never be config- ured first unless no hardware interfaces exist. If the transmit checksum offload capability flag is enabled on a loopback interface, checksums will not be generated by IP, UDP, or TCP for packets sent on the interface. If the receive checksum offload capability flag is enabled on a loopback interface, checksums will not be validated by IP, UDP, or TCP for packets received on the interface. By default, both receive and transmit checksum flags will be enabled, in order to avoid the overhead of checksumming for local communication where data corruption is unlikely. If transmit checksum generation is dis- abled, then validation should also be disabled in order to avoid packets being dropped due to invalid checksums. DIAGNOSTICS lo%d: can't handle af%d. The interface was handed a message with ad- dresses formatted in an unsuitable address family; the packet was dropped. SEE ALSO inet(4), intro(4) HISTORY The lo device appeared in 4.2BSD. The current checksum generation and validation avoidance policy appeared in FreeBSD 8.0. FreeBSD 13.0 January 25, 2012 FreeBSD 13.0
Want to link to this manual page? Use this URL:


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2 new reports paint painful picture for Calif. wine
Silicon Valley Bank is out with their annual State of the Wine Industry Forecast and Recommendations, and it makes for sobering reading. It begins with an understatement:
"The attitudes and preferences of the U.S. taxpayer and wine consumer are in markedly different places today than they were a year ago."
Then it cites a veritable witch's brew of bad news:
– 4th quarter of 2008 was "the worst in memory for the fine wine business."
– depressed restaurant sales, higher unemployment and foreclosures and lower consumer spending will continue through 2009 "as we seek a bottom."
– wines between $40-$125 are in a "dead space."
– winery sales "at bargain prices" are to be expected.
– Most scary of all, "Distribution has all but ended as a viable sales channel for small wineries." (Which is exactly what I said last week.)
– Meanwhile, "credit markets are nearly frozen."
– The secondary market for collectible wines has softened. (What?!? You mean you won't pay me $10,000 for my bottle of 2001 Screaming Eagle?)
– And between the drought and sin taxes, whatever wineries are still standing will get hit with a double whammy.
Well, it could be worse. California hasn't fallen into the sea following a 9.7 earthquake on the San Andreas Fault. Yet.
In this toxic atmosphere, it comes as no surprise when the report states that "Central Valley suppliers [are] the most optimistic and Napa and Sonoma suppliers [are] the most pessimistic." That's because all anyone can afford anymore are jug and box wines — fortunately, for the economies of San Joaquin and Madera counties.
But wait, there's even more bad news. Small and mid-sized family wineries are facing "capitalistic Darwinism," a dog-eat-dog fight to the death from which the weak will not emerge. The report's recommendations are not surprising; they'll be familiar to regular denizens of the wine blogosphere. Wineries must
– keep prices moderate
– get better at Internet direct-to-consumer selling and e-marketing. In other words, develop a "digital plan."
– contain costs
Meanwhile, the Sonoma County Economic Development Board has a new 2009 Wine Industry Insider report that echoes the Silicon Valley Bank's gloomy forecast. Among its findings:
"The spread of economic weakness around the world creates a
disadvantage for Sonoma County wine exports to top international
markets and will expand import competition here in the U.S."
"Consumers are shifting away from high-priced wine purchases; high margin on-premise sales, such as those at restaurants, fell sharply… Wine drinkers and retailers are shifting to value, putting downward pressure on wholesale wine prices for local wineries. Some wineries are adapting to the shift by upping production of lower-priced wines."
"The outlook for the Sonoma County wine industry in 2009 is for limited unit sales growth and the continuation of consumers' shift toward value from high-priced wine purchases."
Tough times, but good for wine consumers — if they have any money to spend.
P.S. I'm taking a few days off. I may be able to blog from the road — not sure. Check in, just in case. If not, I'll be back on Monday.
"Small and mid-sized family wineries are facing "capitalistic Darwinism," " – This is one that I've been hearing quite often lately, in the form of "there are only so many consumer wine buying dollars and more and more winery products competing for them."
I'd say I might be in for a windfall bargain on (previously very) expensive CA wine… which I will take significant advantage of if the opportunity presents itself!
Enjoy the time off, Steve.
Part of the problem with the high end "dead space" is too many new wineries with aspirations to make ultra-high end wine appeared during an economic bubble. It seems like just about every boutique winery is top heavy with multiple $50 to $100 wines that, in reality, don't differ that greatly from each other because the winemaking techniques and oak regimens are nearly identical. Meanwhile, they offer next to nothing at the mid-price level.
If you look to the right importers, there are established French wineries from lesser-known regions that offer multiple cuveés. They don't just have a $50 Cab, a $50 Merlot, a $50 Syrah and a $75 Cab-Merlot-Syrah like many California wineries do. It seems with French "boutiques," the lesser wines go into the less expensive cuveés, and the best wines go into the upper level cuveés, and they don't mess with this silly varietal portfolio like California wineries do. They do one or several things well, and that's it.
Cali wineries need to do two things: make good wines at several price levels and reign in costs. The latter will be hard since a lot of folks seemed to have started when land was expensive, but ultimately it's not up to the consumer to absorb their costs stemming from a poor business model. But they can cut back on the expensive new oak and sourcing from ultra-expensive vineyards. Meanwhile, go back to the basics. Stop bulking out most of the wine at a loss so you can keep the best barrel out of every ten for the luxury cuveé. By all means, make the top end wine, but actually work to make a good wine at a fair price as well.
This correction needs to happen. There are just too many wineries charging prices that only producers with proven track records over a decade (if not a century) should be able to demand.
This is nothing new for me, being that I'm in the industry. What isn't mentioned here is that not only are the under $40 wines that are selling, but those wines that have been overpriced for a decade are able to cut their prices and give people the perception of a great value. The reality is that they have been getting ripped off up until now. Those wineries that have kept their prices reasonable, are not able to do the deep discounts, so they don't seem to be as great of a value. It's a catch 22! All we can do, is educate educate educate! The power is in the consumers hands.
Steve, I see that you are still painting with your infamous broad brush?
"That's because all anyone can afford anymore are jug and box wines — fortunately, for the economies of San Joaquin and Madera counties."
May I also observe that the last sentence of the second bullet point on page 6 of the SVB report may well be applied to veteran wine critics?
Hope your time out has provided you a more positive paradigm.
It is interesting that only a few years ago the same report by Silicon Valley Bank pretty much wrote off the San Joaquin Valley as a viable part of California's wine business. We in the Central Valley were refered to as "the Detroit of the wine industry" in that State of the Industry report which painted a very rosey picture for the future of the upper end wineries and brands.
If life hasn't taught anyone this lesson by now, let me institute it here. Positivity lets you find the answers in problems, negativity helps you find the problems among problems. Do the times leave the wine industry finding it hard to remain optimistic? Certainly. However, difficulty in optimism doesn't make it an impossibility especially when it's a necessity. The wineries the are flexible and look for the bright side will begin to live on that bright side. Wineries that react by not reacting and sit on pricing structures like too-comfortable-to-rise-from-sofas will not be happy and only then will it have gotten even harder to remain optimistic.
For many producers cutting prices isn't a solution. When you are paying $100 a case for grapes, $50 a case for a "name" consultant, $100 a case in debt service, $40 a case to Taransaud, $30 for that package with the 3 pound bottle and the 3 inch cork, $25 in labor, $10 for R.O., and $100 a case for living the appropriate high life of a winegrower. You need at least $75 a bottle retail price or you can't make the payments on the RangeRover.


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Recently my good friend Padmapani Prabhu, sent me this link to his page Prabhupada Connect where he has just posted the Vaisnava Journal in a pdf format. We will be posting all five issues here as well, for our readers, so you can download and save to your computer or just read online. Today we are posting Vol. 1, No. 2 as a free pdf download.
click on link to veiw or save; Vaisnava Journal Vol 1, No. 2
The Vaisnava Journal
by Padmapani das
The Vaisnava Journal was created to help devotees work through our differences in a respectful and co-operative manner with the aim of preserving the loving mood in our spiritual family after the physical departure of His Divine Grace Srila Prabhupada. Although only five issues were printed and distributed over the next two-and-a-half years, the magazine was popular and well received by many leaders, members and friends of ISKCON.


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Irving Thalberg
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Irving Grant Thalberg (May 30, 1899 – September 14, 1936) was an American film producer during the early years of motion pictures.
|This article about a person or group of people is a stub. You can help Wikiquote by expanding it.
- Screen credit is valuable only when it's given you. If you're in a position to give yourself credit, you don't need it.
- Quoted by Norman J. Zierold in The Moguls (New York: Coward-McCann, 1969). Also quoted as "Credit you give yourself is not worth having." Thalberg never took an onscreen credit in films he produced; MGM gave him a screen credit for The Good Earth (1937), released after his death.


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Have you been to Mardi Gras? I've never been … heck, I've never been to New Orleans or Louisiana! Someday, hopefully soon, I'm going to visit New Orleans! However, the hubby and I are going to our first Mardi Gras party … right here in California. There will be great food, good friends, lots of laughter … even a Hurricane or two! It's guaranteed to be fun 😉
So keeping in my first's mode … put together my first candy buffet! Since I don't own any of those pretty apothecary jars … used what I had …
Barware was my solution … it all started with a Hurricane (signature cocktail of New Orleans) glass! I borrowed the beads and masks from my friend that is throwing the Mardi Gras party.
Let me give you a closer and fun peek …
- I know that wines are supposed to be served in certain glasses … don't think that the same rules apply to gumballs!
- Yes, I'll pour you a tall glass of chocolate balls (wrapped in pretty colored foil)!
- There's nothing like a good old-fashioned break-a-part especially when it's Key Lime flavored (Louisiana and Florida are almost neighbors)!
- OK … we have all heard of shots of alcohol, Jello shots, even shots of frosting … I ask why not Sixlets shots? Small shot glass make excellent small servings! The bottle is some random one that I saved, probably from salad dressing.
- Beads, beads, beads … it's all about the beads!
- Masks are everywhere … not sure why … maybe people want to stay anonymous?
- Milk Chocolate Wine/Champagne bottle … it's always a good year for chocolate!
- Hurricane glasses filled with more Sixlets … never enough chocolate!
I hope you enjoyed my first Candy Buffet!
Thank you to SweetWorks for the candy!
♦ I share my stuff at these fun parties! ♦


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Paul A. Eisenstein: Safety sells when it comes to cars these days
There's an old adage among automotive markets that "safety doesn't sell." But these days, you'd have a hard time convincing consumers.
Watch the typical TV car ad and it's as likely to talk about airbags as performance or even fuel economy, and manufacturers are pushing the engineering envelope hoping to come up with a competitive edge, suggests Ford Motor Co.'s "safety czar" Sue Cischke.
The Detroit maker may have come up with that edge in the form of a new inflatable seatbelt that will begin appearing on Ford's next-generation Explorer SUV when it launches in mid-2010 and which will eventually roll out globally, promised Cischke.
She suggested the inflatable seatbelt system, which will be placed in the sport-utility vehicle's back row, will not only enhance the safety of both young and elderly back-seat passengers, who tend to have disproportionate rates of accident injuries, but also give Ford a distinct marketing advantage.
Automotive safety has come a long way since the first lap belts became mandatory in the United States back in the 1960s, says Samir Salman, CEO of Continental Corp., the U.S. subsidiary of the giant German automotive supplier.
Today's safety technology comes in a variety of different forms. First, there's the basic structures of today's cars, trucks and crossovers, which are intentionally designed to absorb crash forces, effectively cocooning passengers.
The most advanced vehicles are outfitted with an assortment of active safety systems – such as blind spot warning systems -- designed to prevent crashes, and passive devices, like airbags, to reduce injuries if an accident does occur.
The payoff is obvious. As recently as 2005, 43,000 Americans were killed in highway accidents. This year, the current "run rate," says Salman, is closer to 35,000, "and we haven't even started with technology."
The newest breakthroughs rely on laser or radar systems that allow digital safety systems to see the world around them. The 2010 Mercedes-Benz E-Class, for one, uses a high-frequency radar transceiver to scan the road ahead for potential obstacles, which could be a tree, a deer or another car. This also allows the car's active cruise control to maintain a safe distance and even come to a brief stop if traffic slows or comes to a halt.
What's next? In Europe, the latest BMW 7-Series sedan can spot traffic signs, such as speed-limit warnings, alerting the driver. Volvo's "City Safe" can bring a car to a quick stop if a distracted driver misses a potential collision. Ford, meanwhile, is using a new, lower-cost radar unit to help drivers of the 2010 Taurus spot oncoming traffic when they back out of a space, say, in a busy shopping center parking lot.
Some contend the ultimate goal is to create an autonomous vehicle, one that takes over the driving completely. The European Union has just launched a program, dubbed Project SARTRE, which will eventually allow specially equipped test vehicles to convoy down the highway only a few feet off each other's bumpers. Whether the technology will work is only part of the challenge. The other issue is whether motorists will accept the idea of handing over control to their cars.
Paul A. Eisenstein is an award-winning journalist who has spent more than 30 years covering the global auto industry. His work appears in a wide range of publications worldwide, and he is a frequent broadcast commentator on subjects automotive.


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I consider Twitter to be a background service, like instant messaging. Because of this, I wrote DestroyTwitter so I could tweet and get back to business without blinking an eye. I got the basics out of the way, then focused on a few of the more unique features, like filters and themes. Within a matter of months, the app took off, reaching an install count in the six figures. While active, it sent over a million tweets a month.
DestroyTwitter is no longer available for download due to Twitter API restrictions.


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Wolf Blitzer delivers the most important breaking news and political, international, and national security stories of the day. Tune to The Situation Room weekdays 5-7pm ET on CNN.
In an "exit interview" with CNN's Jill Dougherty and Elise Labott, outgoing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton says she's healthy, energetic and looks forward to the "next chapter" of her life, "whatever it is." More of the interview airs in the 5pm & 6pm ET hours on CNN.
RELATED VIDEO: Clinton on 2012
RELATED VIDEO: Clinton on her legacy
RELATED VIDEO: Clinton on Egypt's future
RELATED VIDEO: Clinton on Libya warning signs
RELATED STORY: Clinton talks future 'adventures'
"It's good that I get my dailly diet of Spinnach! This is where I need that little extra!"
"I myself was on blood-thinners in England fifteen years ago, went on a strict diet for a few months, started eating Dk-Geens veg (lots of spinnach) and I was soon off them, havnt used them since."
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SPOKANE, Wash., Feb. 25, 2014 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Red Lion Hotels Corporation (NYSE: RLH) announced today its Anaheim property is the first hotel in the country to use a mobile interpretation device to bridge the communication gap with international travelers. RTT Mobile Interpretation's revolutionary ELSA™ (Enabling Language Service Anywhere) device deploys cell phone technology to connect directly with interpreters for real time communications in 180 languages.
"International guests experience a lot of anxiety when they travel to the U.S., wondering whether they will be understood and accepted," said Cindy Hooper, General Manager of the Red Lion Hotel Anaheim. "Because we are located right next to Disneyland, you can imagine how many international guests we have each year and, with the help of this device, we are overcoming a communication barrier for them.
"Our guests are so surprised and delighted by the technology that they vow to come back to our hotel over and over again," said Hooper. "In fact, we had a group staying with us from Japan that was so impressed we had the device that they signed a contract to come back and stay with us in 2015."
"We are thrilled to be the first hotel company to use the ELSA device," said Greg T. Mount, President and Chief Executive Officer of Red Lion Hotels Corporation. "We recognize the value of easy foreign language access and inclusiveness for all guests, as well as employees."
The ELSA device is intuitive and easy to use. The team at Red Lion Hotel Anaheim is piloting the device for the Red Lion Hotels network and already the company is planning additional installations at other locations.
"It is exciting to see such immediate positive results from new technology," said Hooper. "Even more exciting is to be able to help our international guests express their needs while they are here."
About Red Lion Hotels Corporation:
Red Lion Hotels Corporation is a hospitality company primarily engaged in the franchising, ownership and operation of hotels located in ten states and one Canadian province. As of February 25, 2014, the company has 54 hotels system wide. The Red Lion Hotels and Red Lion Inn & Suites network is comprised of 52 hotels with 9,014 rooms and 457,222 square feet of meeting space. The Leo Hotel Collection is comprised of two hotels with 3,256 rooms and 241,000 square feet of meeting space. The company also owns and operates an entertainment and event ticket distribution business. For more information, please visit the company's website at www.redlion.com.
Social Media
A photo accompanying this release is available at:


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(CNN) - New polls released Thursday showed the battleground states of Colorado and Ohio remain statistically tied between President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.
Likely voters in Ohio put Obama at 48% and Romney at 47%, and in Colorado, likely voters split 49% for Obama and 47% for Romney, according to the surveys by American Research Group. The sampling error of each survey was plus or minus 4 percentage points.
- Follow the Ticker on Twitter: @PoliticalTicker
- Check out the CNN Electoral Map and Calculator and game out your own strategy for November.
In Colorado, the race was close across gender and age, as well as tied among independent voters. Independents went 48% to 45% for Obama over Romney. Younger voters and older voters were similarly divided between the two candidates. And among women, where other polls have shown Romney lagging behind Obama, ARG showed 50% went for the incumbent and 56% for the challenger.
In early August, Colorado was divided 45% for Obama and 50% for Romney, according to a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University for CBS News and the New York Times.
The Ohio survey showed deeper divides. Romney held a lead of 16 points among independents, and lagged 10 points behind Obama among women. Men leaned towards Romney but were divided along the sampling error.
A mid-August Quinnipiac survey in the Buckeye State also showed the Ohio race tied up.
Both Colorado, with 9 electoral votes, and Ohio, with 18 votes, are toss up states on the CNN Electoral Map. In 2008, Obama won Colorado by nine points and Ohio by five points.
The vice presidential candidates on both sides of the aisle campaigned on Wednesday in Ohio, and President Barack Obama stumped in Colorado on Thursday.
Bill - You keep posting that Barack Obama has played more golf than any other president -as if it was a fact. IT IS NOT A FACT. – Where is Congress's Job bill?
-truth hurts
ohio needs to realize that it is benefitting from the competent management of republican gov. kasich who has turned the state around financially. if they want to see even better results, not having massive head winds from obama will make things even better. republican governors around the country are getting their states back on sound financial footings and are doing well. if the country wants to get the same results at the national level, then throw the democrats and obama out. otherwise you will get four more of the current nightmare.
Oh, MI and other states with GOP governors had admitted their recoveries are due to the Auto bailout, not the governors: if anything, their gutting of public payrolls slowed the recovery. NY is a perfect example of what happens when the parties work together: NY has produced thousands of new private sector jobs, especially in manufacturing. No "recoveries" built on Walmart and Staples in NY. Kasich is gone in 2 years, along with Snyder, Walker and rest of the Koch puppets. Kasich voted himself and his staff a pay raise, while Andrew Cuamo took a pay cut: you tell me who is behind the people of their state more?
My daughter goes to school in Colorado...Last time she voted for B.O. this time she votes Romney or she goes on the gov dole.
Obama will win Ohio and Colorado....Romney/Ryan is disgrace to our country.
Ohio Obama is on your side he save the auto industry and Romney said let it fail/bankrupt.
I've got it! I know what is wrong with the Romney campaign. They're fitting a square peg into a round hole.
obama is MURDERING our economy.
"I wouldn't get too excited just yet.
Dukakis Led Bush By 17 Points After 1988 DNC By Noel Sheppard | September 09, 2012
Gallup poll showing Carter over Regan six among likely voters in a poll conducted Oct. 24 to 27 1980 by: Jim Hoft
Saturday, September 8, 2012"
Those polls you're citing are far different than the statistical analysis Silver is doing. He got the electoral vote spread exactly or almost exactly correct in 2008 and predicted almost every single race in 2010 accurately. It's far different than people simply making phone calls and reporting the results.


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In February, Palgrave MacMillan Publishing will publish Ex-Combatants, Religion, and Peace in Northern Ireland: The Role of Religion in Transitional Justice by John Brewer (University of Aberdeen, U.K.), David Mitchell, and Gerard Leavey. The publisher's description follows.
Much has been written about the influence of religion on the Northern Ireland conflict and the part played by ex-combatants in the peace process. Yet we know very little about the religious outlook of ex-combatants themselves. Are they personally devout? Is religion important to their political identity? Did faith play a role in their decision to take up arms, or lay them down? And now that their war is over, does religion help them cope with the past?
Based on original interviews with ex-combatants from across the political and religious divide, this book addresses these questions, shedding new light on the interplay of religion, identity and violence in Ireland. It also shows how the case of Northern Ireland illuminates the current international debate around religion and peacemaking. Arguing that advocates of religious interventions in transitional justice often naively exaggerate its influence, a theoretical model for understanding the role of religion in transitional justice is proposed.


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Drag and drop files into your WPF application with MVVM
Drag and drop and one of the UI interaction every user loves to have. I gave it a whip in something I was playing with at home. There might be better ways to bring Drag N' Drop interaction in WPF application but I choose to use GongSolution for WPF Drag Drop One reason for using this library for drag and drop interaction is that the library supports MVVM way to do it and does not require much integration to get started. You can add Gong WPF DragDrop library from Nuget into your MVVM enabled WPF application. Add enable a UI element for drag - drop support add following properties to it: DragDrop.IsDropTarget="True" and DragDrop.DropHandler="{Binding}" Here is how my sample XAML file looks like after adding above mentioned properties. <Window x:Class="GongDragAndDropSample.MainWindow" xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/ » Read more


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As of May 2015, 15.5 million people in the U.S. were self-employed, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics—an increase of roughly 1 million since May 2014. That number is expected to keep growing at a steady clip. By 2020, a separate study estimates that more than 40% of the American workforce, or 60 million people, will be independent workers—freelancers, contractors, and temporary employees.
Increasingly, contractor positions are being held by the best and brightest. Harvard Business Review recently called this phenomenon "The Rise of the Supertemp." These days, even professionals like attorneys, CMOs, and consultants with world-class training are choosing to work independently.
There are many reasons why independent work is on the rise, from shifting economic conditions to corporate downsizing and employee dissatisfaction. But two things have slowly fueled the trend in a much bigger way, lowering the barriers that once made independent contracting much more challenging.
There are now more ways to work remotely than ever before, from devices, apps, and other personal technology that lets us communicate with one another from virtually everywhere. But there's another kind of technology that plays an arguably bigger role—platforms designed to match companies with talent.
One of the biggest hurdles for most contractors is business development and filling their project pipelines. Some 35% of respondents in a recent survey by Contently, which matches independent writers and businesses, said that securing enough work was their biggest daily obstacle. But new online marketplaces are launching in a wide range of categories, helping talented freelancers to find jobs in their chosen fields.
I recently visited the Contently offices in New York City and saw how its growing business model and technology platform are pairing brands with journalists, writers, and storytellers. Without it, many such partnerships wouldn't have been available to either the freelancers or the companies now working with them.
HourlyNerd is a similar platform, designed by Harvard MBA students to connect companies with talented business consultants. The community lets businesses compare consultants' profiles to those who correspond with their needs. Users can bid on projects within HourlyNerd's platform, making it a flexible option to find qualified independent partners.
It's not uncommon for independent workers to feel isolated. But the rise of co-working spaces in top urban centers is changing that, offering freelancers unprecedented support and resources.
Co-working spaces are providing more than just a sense of community that comes from working around others. WeWork, for instance, is one of the most popular providers of workspace for independent contractors, and it's expanding to major cities around the world. The company has raised the bar in part by focusing on creating a collaborative ambience you'd find at any cutting-edge startup. WeWork spaces even boast arcades, fresh fruit, and beer on tap.
There are of course more traditional perks, too. More than 150 WeWork partners offer services like human resources, web consulting, and accounting help—removing some of onus on freelancers to do everything themselves. And in case you think co-working spaces are an unnecessary luxury or just a passing trend in the freelancer economy, remember that WeWork was recently valued at $10 billion.
Talent-matching platforms and co-working spaces are just two leading trends behind a freelancer economy that's growing more robust by the day. Other models and services are bound to spring up to bridge more gaps between consultants and companies in more flexible ways than ever before.
And of course, the rise of independent work isn't just a boon to independent workers, either. It also allows businesses to find more targeted and better qualified talent to address their needs—typically at lower costs. Rather than bringing someone in full-time, with benefits and a salary, a company can hire a consultant who's ideally suited to a particular project. And that consultant is likely to have more resources to tackle it than at any time before.
It's worth remembering the new freelancer economy isn't about "temp" labor. Independent workers are increasingly strategic, experienced, and professional. They want more flexibility than a traditional employee, and in many cases they're getting it.
Author: Brendon Schrader is founder of Antenna, a Minneapolis-based marketing firm that delivers experienced marketing professionals to companies of all sizes. Schrader is a member of the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization of the world's most promising young entrepreneurs.


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The Washington Post's Social Reader app on Facebook is losing members in droves, a fate that seems to have befallen other "frictionless" apps that share pretty much whatever you're doing on the Internet, whether you like it or not.
Forbes first reported the drop for the Post's Social Reader app, and AppData.com confirmed it, finding that the Social Reader has fallen from 17.4 million monthly active users to 9.2 million users in the past month.
According to AppData.com, the top apps that have lost users includes many social reader apps, such as The Guardian. The Guardian's drop-off looks similar to Post's; it has gone from about 600,000 daily active users to under 100,000 in less than one month.
Social reader apps are basically the digital equivalent of inviting people to read over your shoulder. The Washington Post Social Reader, for example, automatically shares whatever you read on their website with your Facebook friends. The automatic sharing feature is supposed to make sharing "frictionless," but it actually creates more friction as you frantically try to get rid of any evidence that you clicked on something you didn't want to share.
As if the automatic sharing feature weren't bad enough, when your friends try to click on the links to the stories you read, they're directed to install the Washington Post's Social Reader app — effectively giving it permission to share everything they're reading. This creates a giant circle of awkward oversharing that people have little control over (unless you do what I do, which is lookup the article outside of Facebook and never, ever let the Washington Post have my information).
The Washington Post's engagement officer, Ryan Y. Kellett, tweeted the following explanation for why the social reader is doing so badly:
According to Buzzfeed, this means we can conclude that "social readers are appearing less prominently in users' timelines, in part due to the site's new 'Trending Articles' feature, which promotes (and effectively minimizes) social reader stories in one place. So it's not entirely a matter of fatigue."
That's probably a good explanation for the sudden drop-off of active users. But, like everyone else on the Internet, I am of the opinion that social readers had it coming to them.


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Julia Child foundation, oven-maker in legal fight
BOSTON - A foundation set up by late chef Julia Child is locked in a legal fight with the manufacturer of Thermador ovens for touting her use of its high-end appliances.
The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts claims BSH Home Appliances Corp. is using Child's name and image without permission. The Irvine, Calif.-based manufacturer says it is simply making a factual reference to Child's use of its appliances.
BSH filed a lawsuit in Boston against the foundation last week, asking a federal judge to determine the rights of both sides. The foundation countered by filing two lawsuits this week against BHS, one in state court in Santa Barbara, Calif., where the foundation is based, and the other in federal court in Los Angeles. The lawsuits ask for an injunction to stop BSH from using Child's name and seek unspecified monetary damages.
Child, who died in 2004, had a Thermador oven in her Cambridge kitchen. It's now displayed at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in Washington. She also used Thermador products on the set of her popular television show, "The French Chef."
In its complaint, BSH said the foundation last month sent the company a letter in which it said it has exclusive ownership and control of Child's name, image, likeness and celebrity identity as well as trademarks and copyrights related to her. BSH said the foundation alleged that BSH's use of Child's name and image constitutes copyright infringement, trademark infringement and "a post-mortem violation of Julia Child's right of publicity."
The foundation demanded that BSH stop using the name, image and "all other indicia of Julia Child's personality," according to the complaint filed by BSH.
BSH acknowledges that it has used images of Child and references to her use of Thermador products on its website and on social media sites, but its attorneys wrote in the complaint that "those uses do not state or imply any endorsement by Ms. Child."
The company said its references to Child "reflect on the long history, significance and influence of Thermador products on American society and culture, and Ms. Child's documented and well-known use of those products."
The foundation, in its lawsuits, said Child, who rose to prominence in the 1960s through her books and TV appearances, had many endorsement opportunities during her lengthy career but chose to forgo them.
"Instead, she focused her career on public education, and allowed her show to be broadcast on PBS, a nonprofit television network, for its entire 10-year run," the state lawsuit said.
The foundation said BHS has featured Child's name and photo prominently in advertising, marketing and promotional materials, including on the homepage of the Thermador website, creating the appearance the Child had been its spokeswoman during her career.
Child was opposed to endorsing products, brands or services, the foundation said in a statement Wednesday.
"She believed it detracted from her credibility as a trusted source to her many fans and colleagues who relied on her for information, guidance and inspiration," the statement said.


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Since the 1920s, the Nürburgring has been the place where brave men and women have chased incredible speeds and ever-decreasing record lap times. Now we know what a Prius plug-in will do: 20 minutes and 59 seconds.
Toyota says their Prius, driven by UK auto writer Joe Clifford and equipped with a few TRD cosmetic parts, did the run on a public session and complied with all the circuit rules, including the 60 km/h (37 mph) minimum speed.
Clifford said: "We used no special tricks for this test. We simply took a fully charged car, fitted it with low rolling resistance tyres and drove the lap, among all the other public drivers taking the opportunity to experience the challenge of the Nürburgring.
The lap took 20 minutes and 59 seconds. A Porsche 918 Spyder, it ain't.
In dry, breezy conditions, he recorded 698mpg, completing his lap in 20 minutes and 59 seconds. This far outstrips the car's official combined cycle figure of 134mpg; in fact the Toyota used less than five tablespoons of fuel to do the job.
Dewalt 20V Max Cordless Drill & Driver Kit
#1 Best-seller
Comes equipped with an LED which goes on when the trigger is pulled. You'll a clear view of whatever you are drilling or screwing with minimal shadows.
Well, see, there's your problem. You're supposed to drive faster than the speed limit. Who cares about the fuel economy?
By comparison, a Trabant 500 did it in 16 minutes, so... a Prius is slower than a Trabant.


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At least according to Norway's new Minister of International Development, Heikki Holmås.
– I started playing with Ian Livingstone's The Forest of Doom when I was 15, the minister from western Norway says.
From the series of Fighting Fantasy books, the leap wasn't long to Dungeons & Dragons.
With his cousin and a group of English speaking players, the new minister from the Norwegian party Sosialistisk Venstreparti ("Socialist Left") started playing the Red Box. Soon, they moved on to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons.
Holmås was a founding member of the RPG convention RegnCon in the Norwegian city of Bergen, which he led from 1992-1993.
In 1989, he won the Norwegian Championship in D&D. The prize was a trip to GenCon in Milwaukee.
– This was a period in time when several large conventions were held in Norway, with up towards a thousand participants on ArCon in Oslo, he says.
– I've forgotten to congratulate you with the new job.
– Thanks.
– Have you leveled up?
– Hahaha. Yes, that's a nice way of putting it. Gain one level, become minister. You can say that. Hehe.
Holmås played regularly with a group for several years.
– Every Friday night, he says.
– The two longest campaigns lasted several years. I played a monk and a cavalier.
– In another campaign I had a funny twist, playing a were-rat, that is; a shape-shifter. I played that up until about the time I became a Member of Parliament.
– What's your alignment? You want to be Chaotic Good, but you're truly…?
– Hahaha. I guess I'm Neutral Good. I mean that. But every person deviates from their alignment from time to time.
Holmås has also participated in several LARPs.
– Once I played a eunuch in a Harem. He was captured as a child, and desperately wanted to escape captivity. He also wanted to, how I should put it; regain his manhood by the use of magic.
The minister also participated in the historical LARP 1942, set in a village in the western part of Norway during the Second World War.
– It was great. It was insane… I played a member of the Farmer's Party who'd gone over to the National Socialist party of Norway. He was a carpenter and a collaborator, building an airport for the Germans, Holmås recalls.
He was very impressed by the effort of the organizers.
– It was an incredible staging of 1942. We had people dressed like German soldiers, driving around in amphibious vehicles. It was totally… it was an amazing LARP. I've never before or since felt such a total feeling of isolation in society. Isolation, and the despair that grabs you when you realized that your German masters didn't give a shit.
The minister also sees a political potential in role playing games.
– RPGs can be extremely relevant in putting people in situations they're unfamiliar with. Save the Children have their refugee games. I have friends in Bergen who've run human rights-RPGs. But you have to be professional. You create real emotions when you play role playing games, real emotions that stick, he says.
– That's kind of the slightly scary aspect of role playing games, which has to be considered. At the same time, it's what makes it possible for RPGs to change the world. LARP can change the world, because it lets people understand that humans under pressure may act differently than in the normal life, when you're safe.
The minister of Development has taken note of a Norwegian LARP-project in Palestine later this year.
– I don't know all the details, but there's no doubt that you can put Israelis into the situation of the Palestinians and vice versa in a way that fosters understanding and builds bridges. Those things are an important aspect of role playing games which makes it possible to use them politically to create change.
– It's not coincidental that RPGs are used in organizations. To develop the organizations, and to make people become acquainted and more safe with each other. You lower your guard and let out parts of yourself that may not be so present in your regular life. At the same time, you're always partially yourself when you play. You're never a 100 percent in character or a 100 percent out.
– I've also been part of LARPs where we put on the brakes by using the "cut" and "brake"-rules. It was completely necessary and right. That LARP has developed the possibility to do this gives a degree of safety which is essential, Holmås says.
It's four days since he became minister when he welcomes Imagonem to his office for half an hour.
– I started role playing long before I became politically active, he says.
[Abbreviated version. The full interview in the Norwegian may be read here.]


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How did Innovate Dayton start?
Innovate Oregon is a strategic initiative launched by the Technology Association of Oregon (TAO) focused on re-imagining how we can develop the talent needed to build an inclusive, innovation-based economy. This initiative recognizes that every aspect of our economy is being rapidly transformed by new digital technologies and that it is essential that we develop a workforce that has the skills and mindsets of innovation.
In the summer of 2014, a team from Innovate Oregon was invited to Dayton to launch an Innovation Academy.
Since that initial engagement, the impact of this partnership has been transformative for the school and the community. Not only has Dayton established its own Innovate initiative, the school has become a pioneer in develop new teaching methodologies utilizing an agile learning approach, modeled after leading industry practices. It has developed a set of classes on innovation and is in the process of building a new i3 Center where students will have the opportunity to be inspired, innovate and invent.
We are building this Center in partnership with local businesses, notably OnlineNW, a local Internet service provider. As part of this partnership, OnlineNW is constructing in Dayton a gigabit fiber-optic network that includes a revenue sharing agreement with the school district that will provide ongoing financial support for Dayton's i3 Center.
What is happening currently?
Dayton is currently embarking and several strategic agreement with companies to develop new innovation initiatives, with a particular focus on issues related to agriculture, the mainstay of our local economy. These partnerships include those with IBM, SparkFun and Stoller Family Estate. For instance, on the Stoller property, a community garden is being created as part of a Farm to School initiative that will be a test-bed for developing new agriculture technology (AgTech) solutions that will seek to improve yield and distribution efficiencies to address challenges facing our current food system.
How can I help?
There are three ways to help out this initiative.
We want to provide the students at Dayton Junior High & High School with the most opportunities to learn and grow in the i3 center. This involves not only monetary support, but also mentorship and skill support. If you, or someone you know has a special skill that you think it would be beneficial for students to know, enter your information here.
We also are in the process of building the i3 center within the school. If you or someone you know has constructions skills please click enter your information here.
Another way to get involved is by signing up for OnlineNW Fiber Internet. This service provides Dayton homes and businesses with the fastest Internet speeds available while turning Dayton into one of only a few cities in the entire country that can be called a gigabit city. Part of the revenue made from these sales will then go directly to Dayton's schools to be used in the i3 center. To register for fiber click


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Aug. 10, 2009— -- After Hailey Dean's fiance, Will, is murdered weeks before their wedding, the young psychology student copes the only way she knows how: by prosecuting violent crime in court. As she tires of the courtroom, a serial killer begins to stalk Atlanta, targeting young prostitutes. She vows that this will be her last case.
As a way to start over, Hailey moves to New York and becomes a therapist in Nancy Grace's "The Eleventh Victim." Soon after, several of her clients are brutally murdered in a similar style the killer in Atlanta used. Hailey realizes that she must return to her previous life or more people will die.
Read an excerpt of the book below, and head to the "GMA" Library for more good reads.
The piercing eruption of a telephone startled Special Prosecutor Hailey Dean, still at her desk late on a Friday night preparing for a Monday-morning trial.
It was probably Fincher, her longtime investigator and some-time bodyguard. Together, they worked felony investigations from inner-city housing projects to this latest, which involved one of North Atlanta's elite country clubs.
"District Attorney's Office, Hailey Dean speaking," she said absently into the receiver.
The silence that greeted Hailey on the other end of the tele-phone line caught her attention.
Still nothing.
Realizing what was likely coming next, Hailey quickly reached for a notepad.
"Hello?" she repeated and waited for the recorded announcement that the call was from the prison. After she accepted the call, which she always did, an inmate would come on the line to offer information in exchange for a full dismissal of his own charges or, at the least, a lighter sentence or a transfer to a better facility.
As if a dismissal would ever happen. No way would Hailey go to hell to get witnesses to put a devil in jail ... she said so up front to each and every snitch.
Still, she'd talk, listening carefully, turning their tips into evidence in court—if she believed them. Then it would become necessary, like it or not, to cut some kind of deal.
She had never broken a deal, and so far, her snitches in turn had displayed a certain degree of decency. Not one had ever backed down on the stand, even when things got tense in the courtroom or behind jailhouse bars, where her informants lived day to day with the very defendants against whom they were testifying.
In fact, Hailey often trusted her rats more than her fellow attorneys, whom she routinely fed with a long-handled spoon, keeping them safely at arm's length.
"Hello," she repeated into the phone, wondering if the call got dropped by the prison switchboard. It wouldn't be the first time.
Just as she reached to hang up, she heard a faint, "Miss Hailey?"
An older, Southern woman was on the other end of the line, she realized—a woman who still functioned under the rules left over from the fifties that demanded a respectful "Miss."
"Yes, hello?"
Still nothing.
"Can I help you, ma'am?" she asked, trying not to sound impa-tient, but she had a lot of work to do before she got out of here. "The DA's office is closed right now..."
"Excuse me for calling so late. This is Mrs. Leola Williams." Williams ... Leola Williams ...
Hailey's mind whirred like a computer trying to place the name. "LaSondra was my first baby girl."
Ah. Connection. Leola Williams as in LaSondra Williams.
Otherwise known as Victim Eleven.
Hailey instinctively started taking notes on the pad, neatly writing "V Eleven" across the top of the page and underlining it. Eleven women across Atlanta, all in their twenties, had been raped, sodomized, and strangled. As the coup de grâce, each woman was stabbed with a deadly, signature four-prong weapon, piercing the lower back, moving upward through the lungs.
LaSondra Williams was the final woman they knew of to die at the hands of a ruthless serial killer who evaded the Atlanta Homicide Division for well over a year, striking with no real pattern, but always the same MO. It had taken a long time for cops to even connect victims One through Seven, mainly because the victims were prostitutes.
Most of the city's residents dismissed the murders as the price streetwalkers paid to make a living. Even as the body count rose, there was little pressure on police to stop the killing and solve the murders.
The corpses of young women slowly piled up, necks mangled and torsos ripped, left in open fields behind strip bars, cocktail lounges, crack holes, and flop houses.
From the get-go, Hailey believed the murder scenes were staged. Once she started comparing notes from each murder, she realized that a "calling card" was left on each victim.
The autopsy reports referred to it simply as "string" found on or around the body—no detail, and no description whatsoever. No wonder nobody connected the dots.
Various rotating doctors had performed the eleven autopsies and, as a result, there was no big picture, no overview, no single go-to doctor at the Medical Examiner's Office with all the answers. When Hailey ran down one of the doctors who performed two of the postmortems, she had to press hard to actually view the effects, that is, every single item found "on or about the body."
But there it was. In separate plastic bags marked with an ME's Office case number, thin but sturdy string. She insisted on seeing the chief medical examiner, known across the jurisdiction as "Jack the Ripper." After a closed-door meeting, he ordered all the effects in each case assembled for Hailey's inspection. Her theory was laid out before her eyes.
Eleven of them were arranged on a sterile metal table there in the morgue.
A bow of twine was always there, sometimes on an ankle, some-times tied around a pinkie or toe. Victim Five was nearly excluded from the series of murder victims when no twine was found on the body. It was only during the routine dissection of the head that the twine was found, shoved up the left nasal cavity.
The twine was forced so deeply into the ear of Victim Seven that blood had trickled down the side of the woman's neck, indicating the bow had been painfully inserted during life while blood still flowed freely.
Hailey had the twine traced and analyzed by the FBI. It was high-end imported baker's twine. Sisson Imports, made in France, sold in tightly wound balls, three hundred inches of pure white linen kitchen twine—preferred by chefs because it neither burned nor frayed during the cooking process.
Each body was found cold, with an unmistakable wound to the delicate flesh of the lower back—four thin, perfectly symmetrical puncture wounds, like a quartet of exactly paralleled, venomous snake bites.
Callous headlines referred to each of the victims not by her name, but by her profession.
She was a hooker, so who really cared?
I cared. I still care.
It was all running through her head rapidly, like a home movie on fast forward. Hailey lit a fire under the Atlanta Police Department to at least attempt to make the women aware they were being stalked, but that was a daunting task. How do you effectively reach an underworld made up of streetwalkers, escorts, junkies chasing johns for a hit of crack, and strippers turning the occasional trick?
Finally, as a last resort and at Hailey's urging, the city's night court took action. Officials began reading a form warning to every woman processed through the city jail when she was booked in and fingerprinted for soliciting prostitution. The same warning, in writing, was then placed in the hand of every hooker at every guilty plea, court date, and trial. The Xeroxed warnings were subsequently found littering the courthouse steps, the ladies' bathrooms, sidewalks, and the bus and trains stations at the courthouse stop. But Hailey insisted that they continue handing them out. Begrudgingly, they were.
"Miss Hailey, I can't hardly bear you all calling her what you called her in the paper. LaSondra, she went to Mt. Zion Baptist real regular. She just got her a new job keeping the books for a man up in Tucker. She didn't walk no streets, Miss Hailey." The pain in Leola's voice cracked through the receiver, and Hailey's chest hurt hearing it.
"I know, Mrs. Williams, I know she was good." She tried her best to keep an impersonal, professional tone. She steeled herself. It was easy to forget that these women, these prostitutes, were once somebody's little girls.
But Hailey knew better than to let emotion get in the way of a case, or let sympathy cloud her decisions on a trial matter. Sentimentality in a courtroom angered judges. Anything but a cool head resulted in adverse rulings from the bench, botched cross-exams, bad trial tactics, and not-guilty verdicts.
Tonight, with a high-profile case looming on Monday's trial calendar, she couldn't afford to get emotionally attached to a voice on the other end of the phone line.
"You've got to make them stop saying those things about her, Miss Hailey. You don't know what it's been like for me, waking up every morning and remembering she ain't comin' home again."
Hailey swallowed hard. "No," she lied softly, "I don't know."
"Promise me you'll make them tell the truth about her. That she didn't walk no streets. Promise?"
Hailey didn't make promises she wasn't sure she could keep.
Instead, she said, "I'll get to work on it right now." Never mind that "now" was 10:30 p.m. on a Friday night, long past time to go home.
"Thank you, Miss Hailey." The woman's voice shook with gratitude as she gave Hailey her phone number. "You call me back, then, when you know more."
"I will."
"I'll be up all night."
"Oh, no need to do that, Mrs. Leola."
"Miss Hailey," the woman said flatly, "I ain't slept through the night since I found out about my baby girl."
"I ... I'm sorry" was all Hailey could think of to say. That, and I know. I know how you feel...
But she didn't—couldn't—say that. Even after all these years, she never verbally acknowledged that she still suffered the same grief, the same sleepless nights, the same nearly disabling pain. Hanging up the telephone, Hailey spun around in her desk chair, toying with the silver Tiffany pen hanging from a black silken cord around her neck.
She had never been attached to many of her possessions, but the pen was a gift from Katrine Dumont, whose fiancé, Phil Eastwood, had been murdered.
It had been one of Hailey's very first cases. The newly engaged couple—both just twenty-two, with their whole lives ahead of them—stepped out onto the patio of their apartment to sip wine and watch the sun set over Atlanta. They toasted each other and their future and were about to call their families to tell them about their upcoming wedding—but they never got the chance.
Two brand-new parolees with heavy rap sheets ambushed them from behind a thick hedge surrounding the patio. Phil tried to fight back and was immediately gunned down at point-blank range. His fiancée was dragged into the apartment and repeatedly raped and beaten.
To complicate matters, Katrine had been so emotionally devas-tated, so weak and fragile, no way could she take the stand and survive cross-exam. Without an eyewitness to the shooting, Hailey knew a guilty verdict would be nearly impossible.
At the outset, Hailey rejected a lenient plea deal that both the defense and the trial judge, Albert Grimes, tried to push on her. A pushover on the bench, the trial judge had a reputation of always siding with defendants no matter how petty or brutal the crime, and for displaying his Harvard degree in the foyer of his chambers for all to see. After Hailey kicked back the deal Grimes had cooked up with the defense, the judge was in a foul mood at actually having to preside over a case throughout the weeks to come.
It had been especially tough for Hailey personally, dredging up all the old memories of Will's murder. But after a three-week presentation of evidence, the jury convicted. Hailey was exhausted and drained at the end.
Katrine came to see her not long after, still a fragile wisp.
"I'm sorry I couldn't be there to testify at trial," Katrine said, handing her a sky-blue velvet box.
Inside was the pen, etched with the words, for hailey, seeking justice, katrine dumont-eastwood.
They hadn't been married, but Katrine, Hailey learned, had officially taken his name after his death.
"I know it sounds crazy, but in my heart, I'm his wife."
No. It didn't sound crazy at all.
For the next ten years, Hailey wore the pen hanging on a black silk cord around her neck during every jury trial and often in between.
Now, she gazed out the window at bright lights shooting upward at Turner Stadium, slicing the dark sky. The night air hummed with cars flying past on interstate I-75.
Just for the moment, she allowed herself to consider the eleven women, long silenced, dead in their graves.
Hailey had studied the eight-by-ten crime scene photos, hundreds of them, at length, from every possible angle in the weeks leading up to trial, poring over each one to determine any possible probative significance she could use to State's advantage in court.
But tonight they haunted her, not as potential evidence at trial, but as photos of the suffering of real people. Now the media was circling the case like vultures, threatening to pick clean the bones of the women by exploiting them again, this time in sensational news accounts.
The headlights blurred, flying by outside her window. She thought of LaSondra Williams, strangled, her slender neck marred by three long, angry scratch marks and her torso ripped open. If the papers had their way, her name ... and lifestyle ... would make city headlines, maybe further if the Associated Press picked up on the trial from the death-penalty angle.
It's the least you can do, she told herself, leaving her office and heading to the record room to start running rap sheets. By midnight, Hailey's eyes were red and irritated from squinting at the computer screen.
Fingerprints don't lie, and they told Hailey that Leola Wil-liams's first baby girl, just twenty-four, was a crack hooker.
LaSondra worked motels near the strip clubs on Stewart Avenue skirting Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, the seediest piece of highway with the highest crime rate in the entire state. LaSondra was just part of the scenery outside strip bars, motels that rented rooms by the hour, and crack houses doing their business.
And LaSondra hadn't just been arrested. She'd been arrested over a dozen times for soliciting sex for the purpose of prostitution, pleading guilty or no contest under oath every single time.
In addition, her record was dotted with at least a dozen other charges for pandering, minor possession of cocaine, and one conviction for spitting on an officer at the time of arrest. They were all actually petty crimes, none warranting hard time ... maybe an occasional overnight in the city jail, maybe a fine.
Hailey could see how LaSondra's family had never known the truth. And what a series of mug shots. The girl was beautiful, thin, with gorgeous dark hair floating in waves down one side and pinned back on the other. But Hailey spotted telltale facial bruises on one mug shot and a gaunt, hollow-eyed searching stare in others. La Sondra was thin, all right. Cocaine thin.
As Hailey stared at the photos in the bright, overhead lights of the records room, the girl in the picture stared right back. She closed her eyes to block out the image, and another face, a beautiful face with chiseled features and deep blue eyes, appeared before her. Another murder victim.
It happened late on a beautiful, vivid, spring afternoon, three weeks before their wedding. Countless minor details were still etched in Hailey's memory, mundane things that unfolded in the minutes before her life was destroyed.
She remembered hurrying down the marble steps in the universi-ty's Psychology Department and out into the sunlight. She was elated, having just finished the last essay of her final exam for her Masters in Psychology. She'd actually finished a year early. Practically skipping home from campus, she burst through the door, tossing her books and her favorite coral-colored raincoat onto the scratchy plaid sofa.
Her last thought before she turned toward the answering ma-chine, with its blinking red light, was that she'd been wrong about the raincoat. That morning, she'd had the feeling she might need it, heedless of the forecast, but it hadn't rained after all. It was sunny.
The message was from Will's sister.
"Hailey—please call me. As soon as you can."
That was all there was to the message. Just nine strained words, and a click.
Hailey's hands shook as she reached for the receiver, fluttering over the dial like moths batting around a porch light in the dark. Instinctively, she knew.
Will was dead.
For months, it didn't register. Will was murdered. Murdered in a senseless act of what the police called "random violence"—a mugging. Hailey's beloved fiancé had taken five shots, four to the head, one to the back, over his wallet containing thirty-five dollars, credit cards, driver's license, and a picture of her.
The credit cards were thrown to the ground beside his body.
Her world skidded to a halt.
Nothing mattered anymore; the days, weeks, months that followed melted and blurred, one into the other. Hailey wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep, went days without speaking. Then days turned into weeks.
The clocks in her parents' home were removed when the ticking drove her crazy, and the house stood completely quiet. It was as if time stopped along with the clocks. Her wedding dress hung in the closet and no one dared suggest she put it away. She wouldn't pack away his clothes, his letters. Even her notebook of wedding plans sat unmoved at her bedside with the blue pen on top, as if there were more to write.
The fresh-faced girl with the world waiting for her was dead. She died alongside the man she loved on a sunny spring after-noon. Eight months later, the first, thick package in plain wrapping arrived, jammed into the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
It was from the first law school that wrote her back, answering her query with an application. That single envelope started a trickle that swiftly became a torrent, triggering long nights typing essays, researching scholarships, ordering transcripts, lining up references.
Her original plans—to teach college psychology or counsel patients in a quiet carpeted office—were out of the question, no longer even a remote option. The anger, the rage, but most of all the pain, were simply too big to fit into an antiseptic lecture hall or a muted psychologist's office.
One year to the day after Will's murder and with little fanfare, Hailey loaded her belongings—including her wedding dress, delicately folded into a big white box—into her car and left her family standing in the driveway, waving good-bye until they were just a tiny snatch of color in the rearview mirror.
Hailey opened her eyes and saw LaSondra still staring back at her.
Stuffing the photos into the back of the trial folder, she went padding in stocking feet out of the overhead fluorescent glare and into the lamplight of her own office.
There she dialed by heart the number for Christian Brown, managing editor of the Atlanta Telegraph, on his private office phone at his faux–Italian rococo behemoth on West Paces Ferry. His wife had dreamed it up. No children, just lifestyle.
No way would Brown budge on headlines for the sake of one bereaved mother's feelings in South Atlanta, but there was more than one way to skin a cat.
"Christian, Hailey Dean. Problem." Brown knew her well, so they dispensed with polite hellos.
"What's up?" He sounded sleepy.
"Listen, I'm doing you a favor."
"How's that?"
She reached down deep ... and lied. She lied for all she was worth and in great detail delivered the news of a lawsuit hatched by a few personal-injury lawyers just that afternoon after arraignments.
"Christian, I hate to call you at home this late and on a weekend, too. But I knew you'd want to know immediately ... they're going up against the paper for twenty mill on libel, the hooker headlines on the murder case."
She made it up as she went along. She broke every cardinal rule of testimony on the stand, her story getting more and more elaborate.
"They're already sweet-talking the victims' families one by one, meeting in their homes and showing up with all the paperwork ready to be signed."
Receiver wedged between shoulder and ear, she pictured the usual clientless hacks roaming the courthouse halls, nursing Styrofoam cups of coffee, belts riding low to make room for girth.
If it were true, the suit against the Telegraph could easily pass the time while they waited for judges to hand out appointed cases to them. An appointed case was a fast three hundred bucks in exchange for a swift, easy, and unprepared guilty plea from inmates. Judges loved clearing their calendars and defense attorneys loved the three hundred dollars.
"But my God, they were hookers!" Christian exploded, as if that would get him out of a lawsuit.
"Yeah, if you can prove it," she followed up, "but imagine a jury when they see eight-by-tens of eleven murdered women, then listen to their families break down in tears on the stand one after the other, including their mothers, Christian. Can you imagine? Plaintiffs will have a field day, even though they normally can't try their way out of a paper bag. It's over, Christian, and it hasn't even started."
She knew Brown's head was spinning as he realized he'd shot his own foot for one day's circulation boost. Hookers in headlines always sold copy. He hadn't bargained on a lawsuit.
"Vultures, all of them, Christian," she went on. "Vultures. You should have heard them. A couple million in a settlement against you makes the good life possible for them. Watch out."
"I'll see what I can do," he told Hailey. Without the least bit of guilt over the huge lie she'd just told, Hailey placed the phone back in the cradle, then imme-diately picked it up again.
Rap sheets in hand, she dialed the number Leola Williams had given her. With a pang of hurt for the loss of Leola's first baby girl and no mention of LaSondra's extensive rap sheet, Hailey promised into the phone that Leola's daughter would not be mistreated by the press. Easier said than done, but she had to try.
"Thank you, Miss Hailey. You see that justice comes to the man who did this. You make sure he pays."
From THE ELEVENTH VICTIM by Nancy Grace. Copyright © 2009 Toto Holdings, LLC. To be published in August 2009 by Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold. All Rights Reserved.


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Pterotrachea hippocampusRoger R. Seapy
The body morphology of Pterotrachea hippocampus is elongate; similar to that in P. coronata but not as streamlined (see the P. coronata page). Instead, the proboscis is shorter and thicker, the visceral nucleus is shorter and pyriform (teardrop) shaped, and the tail is shorter and less well developed. The eye shape is unique in the genus, with a narrowly- to broadly-triangular shape. The trunk cutis anterior to the swimming fin is thickened ventrolaterally, forming a bib, and the tail terminates in two small leaf-like lobes, as in P. coronata. Like the other species of Pterotrachea, a swimming fin sucker is present only in males. The geographical distribution is cosmopolitan in tropical to subtropical waters.
Brief Diagnosis
A species in the genus Pterotrachea with the following characteristics:
- Body elongate, comparable in form with P. coronata
- Proboscis similar to that in P. coronata, but shorter and thicker
- Trunk cutis anterior to swimming fin thickened as ventrolateral folds, forming a bib
- Visceral nucleus pyriform (teardrop) shaped, like that in P. scutata
- Eye shape, in dorsal view, narrowly to broadly trianguler
- Body morphology
- Proboscis tubular and moderately long (see title illustration); relatively shorter and thicker than in P. coronata
- Trunk cutis anterior to swimming fin thickened ventrolaterally, forming a bib (see title illustration)
- Viewed dorsally, eyes narrowly (juveniles) to broadly (adults) triangular in shape. Change in shape due to lengthening of the retinal base (compare the three photographs below), which can be quantified by the ratio of the eye length to retinal base width. In Hawaiian P. hippocampus this ratio decreases from 1.6 in juveniles to 1.0 in adults (Seapy, 1985)
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Click on an image to view larger version & data in a new windowClick on an image to view larger version & data in a new window
Figure. Eye shape in Pterotrachea hippocampus as a function of age. Left: eyes in a juvenile specimen, ca. 15-20 mm body length. Center: eyes in a young adult, ca. 30-35 mm body length. Right: eyes in a old adult, ca. 50-55 mm body length. ©
- Visceral nucleus pyriform, or teardrop, shaped. In Hawaiian specimens (Seapy, 1985) the length to width ratio averages 2.9 and decreases gradually with age (Seapy, 1985). This average value is nearly identical with that for P. scutata (3.0) but differs dramatically with that for P. coronata (4.8)
- Swimming fin sucker medial on the ventral margin of the fin
- Swimming fin closer to the visceral nucleus than the head (see title illustration), like in P. coronata
- Proboscis tubular and moderately long (see title illustration); relatively shorter and thicker than in P. coronata
- Shell present only in larvae and is cast off at metamorphosis
- Larva unknown, but is probably represented by either larva 2 or 3 of Richter (1968); see Pterotrachea larvae
- Radular morphology similar to that in the other species in the genus, with the median cusp of the central, or rachidian, tooth conspicuously broader and longer than the lateral cusps (see SEM below)
Taxonomy: The validity of Pterotrachea minuta Bonnevie 1920 was not questioned until a morphological analysis of the species in the genus Pterotrachea from Hawaiian waters was undertaken by Seapy (1985). Specimens tentatively identified either as P. hippocampus or P. minuta over a broad size range revealed a continuum of change in the shape of the eyes and the visceral nucleus (the two primary criteria used historically to distinguish the two species). Regardless of the initial tentative species identification, young individuals possessed narrowly triangular eyes and longer visceral nuclei which, with growth, transitioned to broadly triangular eyes and shorter visceral nuclei in older adults. The conclusion of the study was that there was no justification for recognizing P. minuta as a valid species; at least in the North Pacific Ocean. A subsequent morphological comparison of specimens collected from the North Atlantic Ocean that had been previously assigned to P. minuta and P. hippocampus was undertaken by Seapy (2000). In addition to eye and visceral nuleus shape, all of the other characters cited by Bonnevie (1920) to distinguish the two species were examined. The results confirmed and amplified upon those of the earlier Hawaiian study.
Ecology: Among the heteropods collected during the Meteor Expedition in the northwestern Indian Ocean (Richter, 1974), Pterotrachea hippocampus was rare; only four individuals were recorded. From the Amsterdam Mid North Atlantic Plankton Expedition (Pafort-van Iersel, 1983), a total of 72 P. hippocampus were captured, which was comparable with the total for P. scutata (74) but only one-half the number of P. coronata (146). Opening-closing midwater trawl tows were made along a north-south transect (approximately at 30°W longitude) between 25°N and 49°N. Nine individuals were collected between 36°N and 49°N, while the rest were from 25°N to 35°N. Although extending somewhat into subtemperate waters, these records support the general observation that the P. hippocampus is a tropical to subtropical species. In a diel vertical distribution study of heteropods from Hawaiian waters of the North Pacific (Seapy, 1990), P. hippocampus was the second most abundant heteropod species (20% of the total), behind Atlanta lesueurii (29%). However, in a subsequent study from Hawaiian waters (Seapy, 2008), P. hippocampus was recorded in very low numbers; ranking eighth of twelve species (mean nighttime density = 1.2% of the total) in a fall sampling period and eleventh of seventeen species (mean nighttime density = 0.2%) in a spring period. The striking difference between the abundances in the two studies suggests that the species' abundance in Hawaiian waters is highly variable.
Vertical distributions of carinariids and pterotracheids in the central North Atantic were reported by Pafort-van Iersel (1983) based on samples collected with paired 1-m2 and 8-m2 opening-closing midwater trawls. Pterotrachea hippocampus (data for P. hippocampus and P. minuta combined) was mainly recorded from the upper 200 m (eleven tows and 50 specimens); below 200 m only ten specimens were captured by six tows. These results suggest that the species is primarily epipelagic (upper 200 m), although its range extends into the mesopelagic zone in low numbers. Also, there was no evidence for nocturnal vertical migration by individuals below 200 m since equal numbers were recorded from the day and night tows. In Hawaiian waters the large numbers of P. hippocampus collected in the study by Seapy (1990) provided a large data set with which to investigate diel vertical distribution patterns in the epipelagic zone (0-400 m). The species ranged downward to 300 m during both day and night periods, although the abundance below 200 m was low. During the day the highest mean densities were at the 90-140 m and 140-200 m depth intervals, while at night the highest densities were in the 0-45 and 45-90 m intervals. These data support an hypothesis of nocturnal vertical migration into the upper 90 m by a large portion of the population living between 90 and 200 m during the day.
Bonnevie, Kr. 1920. Heteropoda, pp. 3-17, 5 plates. In: Report on the scientific results of the "Michael Sars" North Atlantic deep-sea expedition 1910. Part 3, No. 2, 1913-1921.
Lalli, C. M. and R. W. Gilmer. 1989. Pelagic snails. The biology of holoplanktonic gastropod mollusks. Stanford University Press, Stanford. 259 pp.
Pafort-van Iersel, T. 1983. Distribution and variation of Carinariidae and Pterotracheidae (Heteropoda, Gastropoda) of the Amsterdam Mid North Atlantic Plankton Expedition 1980. Beaufortia 33: 73-96.
Richter, G. 1968. Heteropoden und Heteropodenlarven im Oberflächenplankton des Golfs von Neapel. Pubblicazioni della Stazione Zoologica di Napoli 36: 346-400.
Richter, G. 1974. Die Heteropoden der "Meteor" Expedition in den Indischen Ozean 1964/65. "Meteor" Forschungs-Ergibnisse Ser. D, No. 17, pp. 55-78.
Richter, G. and R. R. Seapy. 1999. Heteropoda, pp. 621-647. In: D. Boltovskoy (ed.), South Atlantic Zooplankton. Backhuys Publishers, Leiden.
Seapy, R. R. 1985. The pelagic genus Pterotrachea (Gastropoda: Heteropoda) from Hawaiian waters: a taxonomic review. Malacologia 26(1-2): 125-135.
Seapy, R. R. 1990. Patterns of vertical distribution in epipelagic heteropod molluscs off Hawaii. Marine Ecology Progress Series 60: 235-246.
Seapy, R. R. 2000. Species discrimination among pelagic heteropods: resolution of the Pterotrachea hippocampus - P. minuta problem. Journal of Molluscan Studies 66: 99-117.
Seapy, R. R. 2008. Offshore-onshore and vertical distributional patterns of heteropod mollusks off leeward Oahu, Hawaii. Marine Biology 154: 985-995.
About This Page
California State University, Fullerton, California, USA
Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Roger R. Seapy at
Page copyright © 2007
Page: Tree of Life Pterotrachea hippocampus Authored by . Roger R. Seapy. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.
- First online 22 September 2008
- Content changed 22 September 2008
Citing this page:
Seapy, Roger R. 2008. Pterotrachea hippocampus http://tolweb.org/Pterotrachea_hippocampus/28739/2008.09.22 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/. Version 22 September 2008.


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Connor Turnbull
Connor Turnbull is a part-time writer covering the technology industry and part-time web designer from the United Kingdom. Connor previously wrote for AppStorm where he covered Android and Google news.
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Defense attorney Fred Goetz still fights for Mahdi Hassan Ali, now over sentencing
Convicted murderer Mahdi Hassan Ali is expected to receive a sentence of life in prison without parole Monday morning in Hennepin County District Court, after being found guilty of killing three men at the Seward Market in Minneapolis during a failed robbery attempt in 2010.
But Ali's defense attorney, Fred Goetz, is still fighting for him.
From the start, Goetz appeared to be on the wrong side of a losing battle for his teenage client. A few days after the killings, investigators searched Ali's apartment and found a pair of pants stained with the DNA of one of his victims. And Ali's accomplice in the robbery testified against him in the trial.
The shootings gained a lot of media attention; the details of the crimes were particularly gruesome. Ali shot one of his victims at point blank range in the side of the head. He chased another one down and shot him three times in the back. Firefighters were called in to wash away blood that ran out of the store, down the sidewalk and into the storm drain.
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Goetz says he was well aware that the young man he was defending was accused of horrific crimes.
"The harder, the more difficult the case in terms of the reprehensible nature of the crime -- a crime of particular ignominy -- all the more reason you need to have a good criminal defense lawyer stand up," he said recently.
Defending Mahdi Ali is probably the most high-profile case Goetz has taken since graduating from Hamline Law School in 1987, specializing in criminal defense and civil rights law. Now 50 years old, he's a partner in the Minneapolis-based law firm Goetz & Eckland, which he founded in 2002 with Deborah Causey Eckland.
His most recent headline-grabbing case was a civil rights lawsuit on behalf Nicholas Kastner, of Roseville. In December 2008, Kastner was arrested by Minneapolis police after breaking into cars in a downtown parking garage. Video cameras showed Kastner lying on the ground, not resisting arrest, as officers punched and kicked him, and fired a Taser at him. The city settled the suit in 2010 for $75,000 plus attorneys fees.
In the 20 months he has worked on the Seward Market case, Goetz figures he has spent more than 600 hours defending Ali. And while he wouldn't say how much he's charging Ali's family, he says it's considerably less than his normal fee, which he describes as "several hundred dollars" an hour.
"He works hard on behalf of his client. He tries every angle that he has."
He says he doesn't keep a tally of his wins and losses, because sometimes a win is not so easy to define - especially when he's defending someone accused of a crime: "A win might be getting a reduced sentence. Sometimes a win might be getting some early, favorable rulings on constitutional issues."
That's the strategy Goetz followed in his defense of Mahdi Ali. Earlier this year, he went in front of the Minnesota Supreme Court to try to get Ali's trial moved to juvenile court.
Goetz argued that Ali's constitutional rights could be violated if he were tried as an adult. Had he won, Ali might have been tried in juvenile court and convicted of murder, and he would not be facing life in prison without parole, which he is now. But the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled against the appeal.
The appeal delayed the start of the murder trial by several months. From the outside, it may have looked like a delay tactic from a desperate defense lawyer, but not to Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman. His office prosecuted the case against Ali. Freeman calls Goetz a "straight shooter."
"He works hard on behalf of his client. He tries every angle that he has, in terms of every possible defense, just like he did with the age in the Seward Market homicide. That was something he should try, and he did. And he does it professionally," said Freeman. "That's been his reputation and he sure showed it in this one."
During the trial, Goetz set aside the age question and argued that Ali was not the gunman. Now Goetz has shifted his defense from trying to keep Ali out of prison to keeping Ali out of prison for his entire life. Goetz has requested a jury trial to settle the question of Ali's age. He contends that Ali was 15 years old on the night of the murders, and that it would be cruel and unusual punishment to send someone that young to prison for the rest of his life.
If Goetz's efforts fail to get Ali a chance for parole, Ali will not be the only teenage murderer who will never leave prison.
In 1988, David Brom was 16 years old when he killed four family members with an axe. He received four life sentences and technically is eligible for parole when he's 70 years old.
Goetz also believes the Brom sentence was also cruel and unusual. A father of two small children, he says teenagers don't possess the emotional and mental development of adults.
"This is part of the problem of sending teenagers to prison for life without release in the case of crimes that might be horrific. I don't know that they get it," Goetz said. "Now, does that mean they should not suffer a significant punishment if they commit the crime? No."
Goetz says that if he needs to with Mahdi Ali, he'll take his argument to the Minnesota Supreme Court once again.


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Afghan deal on night raids presages longterm US presence
The deal increases the chances that the US and Afghanistan will strike a strategic partnership that would keep American troops in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
| Kabul, Afghanistan
A new agreement between American and Afghan officials has placed long-controversial night raids under the control of local forces.
The compromise comes as a substantial diplomatic breakthrough that will pave the way for a strategic partnership agreement between the two nations. The future of night raids had become a sticking point in negotiations for an agreement that will keep the US committed to Afghanistan for another decade after the 2014 withdrawal deadline.
The partnership, which now appears likely, would keep a contingent of US forces in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 withdrawal date. The agreement would also affirm continuing US economic assistance and determine the size of the Afghan military, among other issues. The strategic partnership is expected to be finalized before the NATO summit on Afghanistan that will take place in Chicago this May.
Night raids are operations usually carried out by special forces after dark to capture or kill members of the insurgency. The raids will still continue, but they will be under the control of Afghan forces, with US involvement. The change is likely to please a large majority of Afghans who viewed night raids as a violation of their national sovereignty and disrespectful to their culture.
"The government has been asking to stop the night raids for many years," says Mahmoud Khan, a member of parliament from Kandahar. "Night raids have had a big impact on this war in Afghanistan, both positive and negative. Because of the night raids, many of the enemies were defeated in many places, but in some night raids, many civilians were killed."
Night raids have long been seen as a cornerstone of the US strategy in Afghanistan. Last year alone, there were 2,200 night raids. Although Afghans tend to view night raids as often violent, US officials report that in 90 percent of last year's night raids no shots were fired. In the remaining 10 percent that resulted in gunfire, there was less than a 1.5 percent civilian casualty rate.
Despite these statistics, Afghans say that night raids remain among the most intimidating US practices here in Afghanistan.
Locals thought shooting spree was part of night raid
At the time it occurred, for example, most locals assumed that US Army Staff Sgt. Robert Bales's shooting spree last month was part of a night raid. As a result, villagers say that the lone American soldier faced no resistance as he killed 17 Afghan civilians, mostly women and children.
"Whenever people hear shooting, they think there is a night raid. Even the neighbor of the family will try to stay calm and just stay where they are. We believe that if we show a reaction, we'll be bombed and the entire village could be destroyed," says Qahir Khan, who lives near the scene of the massacre in southern Afghanistan. "During a night raid, even in the family, when there is shooting inside the house, no one will try to run or move because they believe they'll also get killed."
Still, a number of Afghan officials have conceded that despite their problems, night raids have played an integral role in breaking up the leadership of insurgent groups. By giving control of the raids to Afghans, the night operations can continue, but in a way that is more agreeable to locals.
"This agreement will eliminate the public concerns about the night raids conducted here in Afghanistan," says Davood Moradian, assistant professor of political science at the American University of Afghanistan. Still, he adds, "I don't think the Afghan forces are ready to take full responsibility because of the needs they have in terms of training, and advanced technology and equipment. We foresee that for a long period of time, there will be a need for US special forces to be with their Afghan counterparts."
* Zubair Babakarkhail contributed to this report.