Dead, Undead

Deaths, real and imagined, in the news...

Avoid the roadblock or stop at the roadblock, but do not fight at the roadblock.

First, the good news.  Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the Al-Qaeda chief in east Africa and killer of hundreds in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, was himself shot dead by Somali Transitional Federal Government soldiers when he and another man attempted to evade a roadblock in Mogadishu last week.  Seems his driver made a wrong turn while driving a car full of supplies to an Al Shabaab safe house.  A Somali-American friend of mine laments "Of course he has already been replaced."

Unscene of an uncrime uninvolving dozens of the undead being investigated by unneeded cops

Now, the other good news.  On the 7th of June, 2011, "25 to 30 dismembered bodies, including those of children," were not found buried on a rural homestead in Liberty County, Texas.  Crediting their investigation to a lead provided by an unnamed female psychic, someone at the sheriff's office tweeted significantly erroneous information which was picked up and flashed around the world by local news outlets.  Oops.  Turns out there were no bodies, just some blood from a weeks old suicide attempt, the odor of meat rotting in a broken freezer, and a mess of cops standing around looking for something to do.  Still, I'd rather the media (especially those who use unverified tweets as headlines) have egg on its face instead of the Texas Rangers having a mass grave on their hands.  Psychic...hoax...revenge...prank; is there a difference?