The main suspect in the Elizabeth Smart case has died.

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Nicholas Michael Farber has been found and returned to his family in Palm Desert.

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Rand Simberg has a column up at Fox News.

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I'm sick of spam, and therefore I've decided to spell out the e-mail link on my page. If you really want to contact me, type it out, or add a comment. Every mail to this address seems to be either a Nigerian scam, a weight loss scheme, a lurid sex offer, or an invitation into some pyramid scheme. I think you guys are more intelligent than that.

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The recording industry thought they were cute, as they had Congress behind them on their little legal piracy crackdown. Looks like they were wrong.

After drawing the ire of the online file-swapping community and Internet users at large, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Web site was defaced and taken offline Wednesday.

While the RIAA would not acknowledge that its site had been hacked or defaced, the group, which has tried to prevent Napster-like online file sharing, admitted that its site was offline.

While studies, including a recent Yankee Group report, have indicated that free online music trading will flourish until legitimate, licensed sites offer the content, ownership and portability that consumers want, the RIAA continues to blame free online music trading for declining CD sales.

Music CD sales declined 7 percent in the first half of this year, costing the industry more than US$280 million, the RIAA said this week. In addition, an RIAA-commissioned study indicated that increased music downloading from the Internet corresponds to reduced CD purchases. The RIAA, which has leveraged copyright law against peer-to-peer site Napster, among others, has warned that it might pursue individual users of free online file trading services.

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Pimentel tries to make the case that Arizona voters are biased against Latino candidates. It's a weak argument, as one of them is an incumbent, and is getting his butt kicked in the primary. In other words, he blew his chance. The Latino community has to get us quality candidates if it wants to be taken seriously in the political arena - not just because paid blowhards like Pimentel think they should be.

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Martha Stewart has inspired t-shirts. I'm sure she's horrified by the notion of it.

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The top suspect in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping case is in critical condition and on life support.

Richard Albert Ricci, the man at the top of the list of potential suspects in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping, was in critical condition Wednesday morning at University Hospital after collapsing and undergoing emergency surgery. Ricci was unconscious and on a life-support system. Utah Department of Corrections spokesman Jack Ford said that's a slight improvement from Tuesday night when Ricci's condition was near death.

Ricci has been the main focus of attention into the Smart kidnapping for months, though he has denied having any involvement with the abduction. Elizabeth Smart, 14, was taken from her Federal Heights bedroom at gunpoint June 5. The suspect in that abduction has been described as a white man with dark hair. The man is about 5 feet 8 to 5 feet 10 inches tall, between 30 and 40 years old, and has dark hair on the back of his hands and arms. He was last seen wearing a light-colored jacket, dark shoes and an English style driving cap.

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Pepsi-Cola has dropped rapper Ludacris as its spokesman thanks in part to outcry from viewers of The O'Reilly Factor.

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Congressional candidate Tara Sue Grubb is collecting donations via the PayPal button on her blog. (via InstantMan)

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Several of the more popular bloggers out there are going to try making some money on the subscription-based Blogging Network. (via Amish Tech Support)

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I was wondering if anyone else would buy my argument on this subject, as it's clear as the light of day. If the Clean Elections Fund is unconstitutional, then so is the Cardinals stadium. I finally noticed that somebody picked up on that same argument. And he's a former United States congressman. Guess I'm in good company.

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Reuters: Sony Takes Ax to Betamax

What VHS couldn't do, digital did. Sony Corp's Betamax video tape recorder, which famously lost the 1980s video format war but held on for decades as a niche product, will finally be laid to rest after digital formats delivered a death blow to its prospects.

Sony said on Tuesday it would only make 2,000 more Betamax machines before discontinuing the product altogether, ending its 27-year history -- spent mostly in the shadow of the Matsushita group's rival VHS format.

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Reuters: Name Your Baby for Video Game 'Turok,' Win $10,000

Video game publisher Acclaim Entertainment Inc. said on Tuesday it will give $10,000 in savings bonds to the first family to have a child on Sept. 1 and name it "Turok," after Acclaim's new game of the same name to be released on that day.

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The Los Angeles Unified School District wants to ban the sale of soft drinks on campus. The reason? It's unhealthy. The revenue from vending machine sales has been a major funding source over the years, but they are prepared to deal with the shortfall. Here is what one student had to say about the proposal:

For Veronica Reyes, 13, an eighth-grader at John Muir Middle School in South-Central Los Angeles, being denied her joy of Pepsi is almost unthinkable.

This op-ed adds more weight to the pro-ban argument.
"I'm not used to water that much, even though my mom tries to make me drink it," she said. "It's unfair because when we get thirsty we need something to drink, and we don't want water. We want something that has sugar."

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More priests are falling under the new sexual misconduct policy - and I think it's a good thing.

Four former priests have been charged with multiple counts of criminal sexual conduct, the Wayne County prosecutor said Tuesday. "The magnitude of this is astonishing," Mike Duggan said. "If they have one skill, it's manipulation."

The priests are eligible to be charged because they left Michigan before the statute of limitations ran out, he said. The charges include counts of first- and second-degree criminal sexual conduct involving boys 14 and younger. The alleged misconduct took place from the 1960s through the 1980s with the most recent involving a 13-year-old in 1986 at St. Robert's in Wayne County's Redford Township.

posted by Brian 9:55 PM

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A second man missing from 9/11 has turned up alive in a New York area hospital.

``Tell everyone I'm alive and in good health,'' said Albert Vaughan, 45, when reached by telephone Tuesday at the Rockland Psychiatric Center in Orangeburg, where he has been a patient.

Vaughan's sister, Claudia Benjamin, said her family notified authorities shortly after Sept. 11 about her brother's disappearance. She said he had been homeless for years before the terrorist attack and had been living in subway stations.

The last time anyone in her family had seen him was in the subway station below the World Trade Center about a month before Sept. 11, Benjamin said.

posted by Brian 9:40 PM

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A man who had been missing since September 11 has been found alive in a New York hospital.

Men like George V. Sims of Newark, one of 90 people the New York medical examiner's office has classified "missing" after the attacks.

But as it turns out now, he is not missing at all.

Sims' family always believed he was in the vicinity of the Twin Towers on Sept. 11 -- "selling things" as he sometimes did -- and they became concerned when he hadn't been seen or heard from as the days and weeks passed.

They reported him missing to Newark police on Oct. 7, and "missing" he remained until earlier this month when the family learned he is a patient suffering from memory loss at a health care facility in New York.

But all that changed miraculously earlier this month when the family received a telephone call from a New York health center that believed one of its patients was Sims. Could the family please fax a picture to confirm this?

With renewed hope, the family gladly obliged and learned that the patient was indeed Sims.

"He's alive, but he's not in the best of health," said his mother, Anna Sims, who lives in Newark, adding her son has been diagnosed with amnesia and schizophrenia.

"When I saw him, he did not know me. He did not know his daughter. He did not know his brother," Sims said, referring to her son's brother, Jonathan, in Newark and his daughter, Shalonda Matthews, who lives in Greensboro, N.C.

posted by Brian 9:50 AM

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Arizona is close to launching the Amber Alert system.

Gov. Jane Hull today is expected to announce that the state is ready to implement an "Amber Alert" system to publicize any child abduction in Arizona.

Bob White, a retired Phoenix police missing-persons bureau sergeant, said deciding the criteria for broadcasting an apparent abduction was one reason it took more than a year to develop the system. He served on the committee that for the past 18 months planned Arizona's alert system.

The criteria for activating Amber Alert will include belief that the victim is in imminent danger of bodily harm or death and is 17 or younger, and the availability of information on the suspect or the suspect's vehicle.

posted by Brian 9:41 AM

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Pimentel and I see eye to eye on an issue for a change, as he takes aim at one of my favorite targets - Attorney General John Ashcroft, and his broad interpretation of the law.

posted by Brian 9:30 AM

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Monday, August 26, 2002

 
A Detroit man's 17-year-old conviction on murder and rape charges was overturned after DNA tests proved his innocence.

``Lady Justice is blind. Sometimes, she's deaf,'' Eddie Joe Lloyd, 54, said after his release. ``Sometimes the wheels of justice grind very slowly, sometimes they grind in reverse. Today the wheels are grinding forward.''

Lloyd was in a mental hospital and on medication when police say he confessed to raping and murdering 16-year-old Michelle Jackson in 1984.

posted by Brian 1:34 PM

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The remains of two girls have been located in Oregon. Their alleged killer remains behind bars.

posted by Brian 1:26 PM

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Punditwatch is up at Fox News.

posted by Brian 1:16 PM

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I really hope that this guy proves himself innocent. Ashcroft is going too far with this crusade of his and must be stopped.

posted by Brian 1:11 PM

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Ruelas explains why bilingual education doesn't work - and that "English only" is NOT meant to be racist.

This policy wasn't anti-Spanish. It was pro-English, and pro-Spanish-speaking student.

Bravo to a Latino Republic columnist for writing something decent for a change.

posted by Brian 1:05 PM

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Sunday, August 25, 2002

 
UPDATE:
The Saudis are interrogating a man suspected to be connected to the 9/11 attacks. (link courtesy Amish Tech Support)

posted by Brian 9:09 PM

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