It took ten years, but authorities finally got one of this dude’s many wives to testify.
All the wives tattooed Ratzon’s name and picture on their arms and the children’s names are all derivatives of his name, according to the court papers.
via Israeli cult leader charged with enslavement, rape – CNN.com.
Targeted; Paul Rosenberg received a bomb in the mail from, police at the time suspected, Amy Bishop. Photo: Children's Hospital.
UAH alleged shooter Amy Bishop may have had a singular way of settling scores — by the bullet, or the bomb.
The Globe reports today that the nutty professor was suspected, too, of sending pipe bombs to a supervisor at Children’s Hospital.
Many great quotes in this story, such as this one:
“We knew she had a beef with Paul Rosenberg. And we really thought it was a really unbelievable coincidence that he would get those bombs.”
In a story about the last time Amy Bishop killed someone, the Times touches on tenure, the “publish or perish” model:
The shootings on the university campus opened a window into the pressure-cooker world of biotechnology start-ups, where scientists often depend on their association with academia for a leg up.
The piece is a reminder of the brutal ways in which senior faculty can treat junior faculty, and their graduate assistants.
While reporting for the Village Voice some years ago, I interviewed Noam Chomsky and the author Jeff Schmidt about the ruthlessness of scientific academia.
Schmidt, in his book, Disciplined Minds, describes some of the sometime deadly clashes that can occur between arrogant professors and their oddball underlings.
Photo: Mike Seyfang/Flickr CC
Think Sipowicz with a hi-tech scanner.
The National Institute of Justice is seeking proposals for a device that can immediately scan crime scenes — bodies, suspects, CCTV camera data recordings, blood traces, you name it — and prisoners, for evidence in investigations.
The device should meet the following requirements:
1. Detection of the “broad spectrum” of contraband, including metallic and nonmetallic weapons, at any controlled access point. The preferred solution would be a product that, once commercialized, would be commercially available for under $25,000. To prevent contraband from entering correctional facilities, the preferred technology will be a portal that can also detect contraband concealed within body cavities. 2. Noninvasive, continuous monitoring of a subject’s use of both illegal and prescription substances. 3. Detection of trace blood at crime scenes from a distance of 5 feet or greater. 4. Accurate detection of gunshot residue in the field in real time. 5. Ability to extract full streams of digital multimedia evidence (DME) from incompatible systems, while maintaining the integrity of the metadata.
via Grants.gov – Find Grant Opportunities – Opportunity Synopsis.
I smell a setup, but I know Swann Security will deny that “Willy Wu” (who is this guy?) wasn’t paid to “rob” its CES booth earlier this month.
One thief was either not paying close attention to the booth he decided to target or he was just very confident. What the thief didn't realize was his whole act was caught on camera at the booth he had stolen from.
via Thief Steals from the Wrong Booth at CES – Las Vegas Now.
Stranger things have happened. As I mentioned earlier this month, on this blog, a major Japanese consumer electronics maker approached me with an offer to be their corporate spy at the show.
Ngozi Pole told me in 2002 (less than a year before he started pilfering from Kennedy’s office, the government alleges) that he had enemies — “trying to ruin (his) reputation” on the Hill.
As the sole Apple fan in the Senate, he seemed all cool-like to me, ’cause he was, like, “thinking different.” And everyone in at the Sergeant at Arms Office hated him.
I even called Ngozi a rebel (from a piece I wrote for Wired earlier this century):
The rebel’s name is Ngozi Pole. He is the office and systems administer at Kennedy’s Boston and Washington offices. He got Dungan and the other staffers their iBooks during the anthrax scare. And for years, Pole has been locking horns with anti-Mac administrators at the Senate Office of the Sergeant at Arms.
“Instead of seriously considering my suggestions, (the SAA has) tried to ruin my reputation,” Pole complained.
GSN loved him, too.
He may have merely been a charmer. But I look forward to hearing his defense.
Image: Gomez Biggeri. Flickr/CC
Another mythical creature, the pishtaco (try not to think, “fish taco”), graduates from the ranks of cryptozoology:
…they are half-white ghouls who live in caves, lurk along dark isolated roads and suck the fat out of anyone careless enough to travel Andean roads at night. Andean myth holds that the fat is used to make soaps, lubricants, healing potions and cosmetic creams.
via Arrests made in ring that sold human fat, Peru says – CNN.com.
In this case, the pishtacos are two Italians, who paid $15,000 for a quart of the good stuff. (INTERPOL is looking for them.)
The Italians’ suppliers were a group of Peruvian brujos — witches — who lured poor folks to their deaths with the promise of work.
CNN’s Arthur Brice does a nice job covering this horror show. He even asks a couple of doctors if human fat makes cosmetics better.
David Liss (The Whiskey Rebels and A Conspiracy of Paper) is an amazing novelist.
Now David, whom I got to know at Syracuse University in the late 1980′s, is writing comics. His first, the story of the Phantom Reporter (cub by day, masked avenger by night), is a gem:
Marvel continues its historic anniversary celebration – as the Phantom Reporter leaps from the pages of THE TWELVE into his own solo adventure! By day, cub reporter…by night, relentless scourge of the underworld! But what could drive All-American collegiate champ Dick Jones to become a masked vigilante? Why does this high-society dilettante fight for the underprivileged? And what is the blood-soaked mystery that will take gun-toting terror from the swankiest Park Ave penthouse to the shadowed mean streets on the hunt for justice? Find out as Edgar Award-winning historical thriller novelist David Liss (A Conspiracy of Paper,) makes his comics writing debut and teams with artist Jason Armstrong (Lobster Johnson: The Iron Prometheus) to tell the never-before-revealed origin of the Phantom Reporter! Plus: A classic reprint from DARING MYSTERY COMICS #3! New & Reprint/One-Shot/Rated A …$3.99
Buy one copy, and put in a bag. Buy another, read it, and pass it around. (I bought mine at New England Comics in Brookline.)
David says he’s working on another comic for Marvel, but the project remains top secret.
Update: I’ve checked all of the other faculty member and lab web pages at Yale Medical School’s Department of Pharmacology. The lab link from Anton Bennett’s faculty page is dead. None of the available pages list Annie Le as a graduate student in their labs.
The Daily News reports one of Annie Le’s profs canceled class around the time she was reported missing.
While many of Yale’s links pertaining to Le appear to have been moved or removed, I have found in Google caches mentions of Le working in this lab:
Welcome to the Bennett Lab
Research interests
The focus of the research in this laboratory is to understand how protein tyrosine phosphatases function in the control of normal cellular physiology.
The ultimate goal of our research on protein tyrosine phosphatases is to establish whether these enzymes participate in disease processes such as cancer, diabetes and muscular dystrophy.
And here’s a link to the faculty page for an associate professor, Anton Bennett, who teaches in the pharmacology school at Yale, where Le was studying.
More Bennett.
Loren Coleman notes the symbolic locale of the Pittsburgh gym shooting this week:
That’s how a little community outside Pittsburgh called Bridgeville got it’s name, when folks use to meet each other for trading at the very first bridge built at the crossing of Chartiers Creek at the south end of what is now Washington Avenue.
Before today, Bridgeville, Pennsylvania, had been most famous in current popular culture for being the home of Jenna Morasca, a winner of Survivor: The Amazon. Well, actually, Morasca tells people she’s from Bridgeville because she really is a resident of South Fayette Township, but everyone uses the Bridgeville mailing address.
Yes, South Fayette Township is the adjoining town, and running right through the 1.1 square mile borough that is Bridgeville is the Washington Pike. The name game runs deep here.