Another Indiana Hate Crime Death

From WTHR, a story on a man who was beaten to death in Crothersville, Indiana because his attackers thought he was gay:

Aggravated Assault in a Vehicle, honor killing and hate crimes are increasing day by day. Police found Aaron Hall’s badly beaten body hidden inside a garage on Sunday. Charged in connection with the murder were 19-year-old Garrett Gray, 18-year-old Coleman King and 21-year-old Robert Hendricks. Police made the arrests after receiving a tip from Garrett Gray’s friend.

The tipster got a multi-media text message on his cell phone from the suspects. In the photo, Aaron Hall appeared with the suspects’ arms around him. Hall had a swollen lip, a black eye, and appeared badly beaten.

Police say on April 12th, Hall and the three suspects were drinking at Gray’s house. The suspects told police Hall grabbed Coleman King and questioned his sexuality. That set off the deadly beating.

“And they’re saying what’s why they killed him. Because he was gay. And he wasn’t gay,” said Thomas Hall. “I don’t know any crime on the planet that deserves that type of punishment.”

A few drug crimes attorneys called it a brutal crime. Court papers show Gray and King brutally attacked, then photographed Hall. King hit him with his boots at least 75 times. The suspects told police they dragged Hall down the steps, loaded him into Robert Hendricks’ truck, and dumped his body in a ditch. They say they went back two days later, and found Hall in a nearby field. That’s when they tell police they wrapped the body in a tarp and hid it in Gray’s garage.

The homicide has left Aaron Hall’s family horrified.

As pointed out by several local websites and criminal justice lawyers in LA, this year’s state legislature chose to kill off a hate crimes bill that would have ensured this man’s attackers received just punishment for their bias-motivated crime.

Coverage on Advance Indiana
Coverage on Bilerico
Coverage on Shakespeare’s Sister

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links for 2007-04-27

Continue Readinglinks for 2007-04-27

Joost

I downloaded and played with Joost, the TV on the internet viewing software that Warner and Viacom have signed up to put TV shows on. Interesting, I guess. I’m not thrilled about having to use a different interface than my browser to watch videos. And I had trouble finding anything interesting to watch. There’s boxing (yawn) and Indy Car racing (double-yawn – I live in Indy and don’t even care.) Comedy Central had a channel, but they only have their third-rate crap shows on it. If I wouldn’t watch it on my actual TV, why would I watch it at crappier resolution on my computer?
Hmm. I don’t know what to make of it yet; I’m not motivated to actually fire it up regularly. I’ll check back in later to see if they have added anything I’m interested in watching.

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links for 2007-04-26

Continue Readinglinks for 2007-04-26

Strategic Incompetence

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From the Wall Street Journal:

To learn something at the office can be difficult. But to refrain from learning something requires years of practice and refinement.
It’s an office skill that Steven Crawley finds indispensable. “The inability to grasp selective things can be very helpful in keeping your desk clear of unwanted clutter,” says the executive in HR, or what he calls “the dumping ground” of all unwanted office tasks. “I have developed a very agile selective memory across a wide range of nonvalue-added activities.”
The most memorable time he brandished his nonskill was when the president at an automotive-parts manufacturer asked Mr. Crawley to organize the company picnic. With a sensibility more dry than bubbly, he wasn’t crazy about party planning. So he began to milk his lack of picnic knowledge for all it wasn’t worth. He responded to any inquiries or suggestions with questions and comments such as “How do you do that?” or “What did you guys do in the past?” or even “Help me remember why we’re talking about this.”
Ultimately, responsibility for the picnic was reassigned. Mission unaccomplished. Says Mr. Crawley: “You’d be amazed at how much I don’t know about picnics.”
Strategic incompetence isn’t about having a strategy that fails, but a failure that succeeds. It almost always works to deflect work one doesn’t want to do — without ever having to admit it. For junior staffers, it’s a way of attaining power through powerlessness. For managers, it can juice their status by pretending to be incapable of lowly tasks.
In all cases, it’s a ritualistic charade. The only thing the person claiming not to understand really doesn’t understand: That the victim ultimately stuck with the work sees through the false incompetence.

The only time I do this is when Stephanie’s cat Lucy begs me to feed her when I walk into the upstairs bathroom. “I don’t know where the food is, Lucy.” I tell her every morning and evening.
Stephanie is frustrated by this sort of thing at her workplace, though, particularly with the males in her office who claim “not to know how” to make coffee after they’ve taken the last cup. “There’s nothing in your penis that blocks you from learning to make coffee” she says.

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The Bushes are “suffering”

On the Today Show this morning:

ANN CURRY: Do you know the American people are suffering… watching [Iraq]?
LAURA BUSH: Oh, I know that very much, and, believe me, no suffers more than their president and I do when we watch this. And certainly the commander-in-chief who has asked our military to go into harm’s way.
AC: What do you think the American people need to know…
LB: Well, I hope they do know the burden of worry that’s on his shoulders every single day for our troops. And I think they do. I think if they don’t, they’re not seeing what the real responsibilities of our president are.
AC: It must be hard for you to watch him in this.
LB: It’s hard. Of course, it’s absolutely hard.

Yes, the dead and wounded soldiers, the families of the dead, the Iraqi people; none of them suffer as much as the president and his wife. Let them eat cake, indeed.

Continue ReadingThe Bushes are “suffering”

Ohio Election Fraud

Um, yeah – a really interesting tidbit of information from Slashdot:

goombah99 writes:
Netcraft is showing that an event happened in the Ohio 2004 election that is difficult to explain. The Secretary of State’s website, which handles election reporting, normally is directed to an Ohio-based IP address hosted by the Ohio Supercomputer Center. On Nov. 3 2004, Netcraft shows the website pointing out of state to a server owned by Smartech Corp. According to the American Registry on Internet Numbers, Smartech’s block of IP addresses 64.203.96.0 – 64.203.111.255 encompasses the entire range of addresses owned by the Republican National Committee. Smartech hosted the recently notorious gbw43.com domain used from the White House in apparent violation of the Presidential Records Act, from which thousands of White House emails vanished.”

Update: 04/25 01:24 GMT by KD : ePluribus Media published a piece called Ken Blackwell Outsources Ohio Election Results to GOP Internet Operatives, Again on election eve 2006, when a similar DNS switch to Smartech occurred. They have been investigating the larger story of IT on Capitol Hill and elsewhere for two years.

We can’t get these things investigated sooner than this? What the hell?

Continue ReadingOhio Election Fraud