More shocking news...

Tillman, a member of the Army's elite Rangers force, was awarded the Silver Star, the military's third-highest combat decoration, after the Army said he was killed leading a counterattack.

The Army later acknowledged not only that Tillman was killed by his fellow soldiers, but that officers in Tillman's chain of command knew the counterattack story was bogus.

Though the military blamed the erroneous report on an inadequate initial investigation, Mary Tillman told ESPN Radio last month that everyone involved in the shooting knew immediately that her son had been shot three times in the head by a member of his platoon.

"That was not a misstep, that was not an error," she said. "This was an attempt to dupe the public and to promote this war and to get recruitments up, and that is immoral."

Last Man Swerving...

FORT EDWARD -- Ernest "Trey" Anastasio, the former frontman of the jam rock band Phish, has been offered a plea deal with a reduced drug possession charge, which, if he accepts, could wrap up his case Friday.

Anastasio would likely appear in Washington County court that day if he agrees to plead guilty to fifth-degree attempted criminal possession of a controlled substance and go through a drug court program, said Washington County District Attorney Kevin Kortright.

A conference was conducted earlier today, during which Kortright, Washington County Judge Kelly McKeighan and Anastasio's attorney, Stephen Coffey, discussed the plea deal. Anastasio was not present.

Coffey said he has to discuss the offer with Anastasio. (click for more...)

-From Glenn Falls Post Star

Fire in the hole!

Last night as LPG and I were watching TV, we heard a loud explosion.

A few moments later we heard more loud explosions. I immediately called everyone’s favorite CRIME BLOTTER reporter “Joe” to see if he had the scoop. Turns out he did not. LPG and I went back to watching TV. A few minutes later “Joe” called back with news! The captain had called him* and told him that a Tanker had exploded right by our house. Not only that, but the tanker spilled a bunch of fuel down onto the ground, and now other stuff was on fire, and… manhole covers are blowing off, because some fuel spilled into the sewers.

Nice.

I took out the old trusty camera and went to the corner.

I could not really get any great pics L

Here is the story.

*Joe does not actually know the Captain, or even “A” Captain. He actually heard the story on the news, which came right after LOST. Since we have the DVR, and since we paused to figure out wtf was exploding, we were a few minutes behind.

P2P drain on music sales appears negligible

"A new study in the Journal of Political Economy by Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf has found that illegal music downloads have had no noticeable effects on the sale of music, contrary to the claims of the recording industry."

"The study reports that 803 million CDs were sold in 2002, which was a decrease of about 80 million from the previous year. The RIAA has blamed the majority of the decrease on piracy, and has maintained that argument in recent years as music sales have faltered. Yet according to the study, the impact from file sharing could not have been more than 6 million albums total in 2002, leaving 74 million unsold CDs without an excuse for sitting on shelves."

-Ars Technica

Read the full article here.