Dog Scent Lineups

I can hardly believe this isn't a joke from The Onion, but there are actually people in jail based solely on a dog alerting on their scent among other scents in a lineup. 

The 2004 F.B.I. report warned that dog scent work "should not be used as primary evidence," but only to corroborate other evidence.In several of the cases that were based on Deputy Pikett's dogs, however, the scent lineups appear to have provided the primary evidence, even when contradictory evidence was readily available. Mr. Bickham spent eight months in jail after being identified in a scent lineup by Deputy Pikett's dogs, until another man confessed to the killings.

Many people remain in jail based on such silly evidence -- they should be let out immediately.

Norwell News Blog

You can find great pictures and stories on the Norwell News Blog.

ps... and, if you must, you can always take a look at the Bluffton Bloggers and the Southern Wells Raider Report. Thanks to Jerry Battiste of the Bluffton News-Banner for getting the area schools up and running on their news sites, what a great community service!

The Worst Bill Ever

The Wall Street Journal looks at the new Health Care Bill coming out of the House.

Dolphins

Dolphin intelligence... interesting.

Happy Halloween, Everyone

Uniondale Homicide

Three teens and a 22 year old from Adams County apparently drove over to Wells County to meet with Justin Sprow, 19, and ended up killing him.  One life ended and so many ruined.  It's been a difficult couple of years for Northern Wells County.  A soft, quiet prayer, a swift, soft peace for these families and the many others affected yesterday, today, and over the previous years.

God Rest Her Soul

It's hard to think of an event more sad than the death of Amy Meyer White, killed by her estranged husband out on county road 100 South outside of Bluffton.  Accidents are one thing, but murder... double murder since she was pregnant.... is another.

Tyler White played varsity basketball for Bluffton on the 1999-2000 team.  Amy (Meyer) White played for South Adams, scoring over 1,000 points in her career and going on to play in college and coach, God rest her soul.

The Media Death Spiral

Megan McArdle believes the newspaper business in America is dying. I think the truth is that the Newspaper business in America is giving away too many free copies over the Internet.  Oh, I'm sure the days of the great National Newspapers -- like the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, are over -- you can't make too much money printing news everyone already knows and opinions nobody wants to read, after all.  But the newspaper business isn't over, they just have to print news people don't already know and sell it instead of giving it away.  I think I've said before that the Bluffton News-Banner seems to be a nice model for how papers can survive. The Banner covers local news, schools and sports in-depth, utilizes modern technology like Twitter and Facebook and Blogs to not only find news, but gather customers and interest, and (most importantly) they don't give away their product for free on the Internet.  The Banner has a nice mix of free stories of public interest and teasers where you have to subscribe to read the whole story.  It may be that newsprint will die one day in favor of online newspapers... but as long as well-written local news exists  (and isn't free), local people will buy it.

Norwell falls to Harding in the Sectional

Norwell 21, Harding 28.  Norwell ends the season 8-2:  a terrific year.

Congress takes on College Football

The picture above was snapped on the floor of the Senate recently as the Senators went about the business of reshaping America.

"Wars, what wars? Economy? We don't see anything wrong with the economy. Jobs? What do you mean, we all have jobs. Utah isn't National Champion? Crisis, Crisis! Yes, yes, of course we'll cut doctors' payments and CEO compensation ... where's my calendar... yes, we'll save you a bunch o' money in 2020, you'll see. Just trust us, we can see far, far ahead."

Life Magazine

Google has scanned in every page of every issue of Life Magazine, from 1936 through 1972 when it ended its run.  What a great resource of what Life was like in America then... even the ad pages are fun to remember.

50 Years of Space Missions

From the National Geographic.  Make sure you click on the picture to see it full size.