Starbucks closes stores, yuppies hardest hit.

A “yuppie”, by my definition, is anyone stupid enough to pay $3 for a cup of coffee. RT-D:

Five Starbucks outlets in Virginia are among the 600 company-owned stores that the coffee retailing giant plans to close.

No Richmond-area stores are on the closure list released yesterday by the Seattle-based company.

The underperforming Virginia stores that Starbucks said it is closing are at Spotsylvania Towne Centre in Fredericksburg, Madison Crescent in Gainesville, the Power Plant in Hampton, Patrick Henry Mall in Newport News and Stonewall Plaza in Winchester.

Starbucks said it will begin closing targeted stores this month.

There are three things I’m proud of in my life: a) I have never had a cup of Starbucks coffee, b) I have never set foot inside a Starbucks, and c) I have never seen an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

I have a question: Who knew the Spotsylvania Mall (or Towne Centre) was still around?

Christ, I haven’t been in there in years.

And remember that coffee is #1 on Stuff White People Like.

Correction: POS not eligible for the death penalty.

I posted previously about the POS, Vincent Puglisi, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of the coauthor of “Curious George”, Alan Shalleck.

Shalleck suffered “83 blunt force injuries and more than three dozen stab wounds” in the attack that killed him.

Well, according to the trial court, Puglisi wasn’t eligible for the death sentence (of course, the AP story didn’t mention any of this):

Circuit Judge Krista Marx rejected the state’s attempt to have Puglisi sentenced to death for the brutal killing of Curious George collaborator Alan Shalleck because Puglisi’s co-defendant, Rex Ditto, got a life sentence. That’s what the judge gave Puglisi.

[…]

Puglisi admitted to police that he held a pillow over Shalleck’s face at one point while Ditto stabbed Shalleck. And he said he threw candlestick holders at the man who adapted more than 100 stories about Curious George to television.

Shalleck did not die easily. A forensic pathologist testified that he suffered 83 blunt-force injuries, 37 stab wounds and 49 defensive wounds in a fight for his life. When it was over, his assailants left his body in trash bags in his driveway and stole some of his jewelry.

Ditto pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and robbery with a deadly weapon in October in return for a life sentence. Puglisi was convicted by a jury of the same charges last month.

Assistant State Attorney Andy Slater argued that Puglisi should be sentenced to death. But Judge Marx said the law prohibits her from doing so unless Puglisi was more culpable than Ditto.

“Much of the evidence points to Rex Ditto being the dominant player in the crime,” Marx said. At most, she said, Puglisi was equally culpable, and a death sentence for him would be disproportionate to that of his co-defendant and therefore an illegal sentence.

A similar problem occurred with the four defendants charged with the murder of Redskins football player Sean Taylor.

The triggerman in the case was a 17 year-old.

Persons that commit capital crimes when under the age of 18 are not eligible for the death penalty (Roper v. Simmons).

Therefore, the state couldn’t seek the death penalty for the other three defendants either (About.com).

Gee, thanks, Supreme Court.

No, Keith, the issue is that you lied repeatedly.

The Free Lance–Star:

When 1st District congressional candidate Keith Hummel said three weeks ago he was suspending his campaign, local Democrats hoped he could exit the race quietly and they could find a new candidate.

But since then, Hummel has not taken steps to withdraw formally from the race.

Frustrated, Fredericksburg Democrats have passed a resolution demanding that he withdraw. And they also passed a resolution asking for the resignation of 1st District Democratic chairwoman Suzette Matthews.

Hummel, an emergency room doctor who also runs a vineyard in Montross, suspended his campaign on July 3 because his multiple past bankruptcy filings had become an issue.

In a written statement announcing the suspension, he blamed others for making his financial difficulties an issue that threatened to overshadow his campaign.

No, the issue here is that you lied repeatedly Keith.

At the First Congressional Democratic Committee meeting in March, you said that you had one bankruptcy filing; not five:

While Hummel has said he was open about his financial difficulties, area Democrats say he misled them as to the extent of his past bankruptcy filings, and that if they’d known his full background–which includes three bankruptcies in the Eastern District of U.S. Bankruptcy Court and two older ones elsewhere–he never would have gotten the party’s nomination.

Climate change on Jupiter? Impossible!

But Bush and Cheney aren’t there drilling for oil and drive SUVs all around the plant! AP:

Jupiter’s third spot may not be around for long.

Images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope show the third spot, the smallest of the three, recently passed under the Great Red Spot and now is a pale version of its former self. Meanwhile, the planet’s second-largest spot passed by its neighbor apparently unscathed.

The Space Telescope Science Institute, which coordinates the use of the orbiting Hubble telescope, released a series of three images taken since mid-May on Thursday.

The institute said some astronomers now predict the so-called Baby Spot will now get pulled back into the Giant Red Spot and disappear.

The second spot, dubbed Red Spot Jr., appeared in the spring of 2006 while the Great Red Spot has been observed for centuries. Some believe the new spots may be due to climate change on Jupiter.

What do you have to do to get a death sentence in this country?

Rob and kill someone while afflecting “83 blunt force injuries and more than three dozen stab wounds”?

Not-****ing-good-enough:

A man convicted of killing “Curious George” collaborator Alan Shalleck in South Florida has been spared the death penalty.

A judge sentenced Vincent Puglisi to life in prison yesterday after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and robbery with a deadly weapon.

His co-defendant Rex Ditto was given a life sentence in 2007.

Authorities said the pair went to Shalleck’s home in February 2006 intending to rob him.

Shalleck suffered 83 blunt force injuries and more than three dozen stab wounds.

Shalleck wrote and directed episodes of “Curious George” and co-wrote books with Margret Rey, who created the mischievous monkey with her husband more than 60 years ago.

The idiots the media hires as talking heads.

I was watching the 3 a.m. news that either ABC or CBS was running on Tuesday morning (the 15th), when they had some female talking head talking about the recent request by the prosecutor at the International Criminal Court for an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan, for war crimes committed during the Darfur conflict.

The talking head stated that the Darfur conflict was “the first time rape has been used as an instrument of war.”

Uh, hello? Has this woman heard of World War II?

During World War II, the Japanese invaded China in 1937. In December of 1937, the city of Nanking, at the the time the capital of the Republic of China, was captured by Japanese forces.

In what became the Nanking Massacre, a.k.a. the Raping of Nanking, 300,000 unarmed soldiers and civilians were killed according to United States records (link). The International Military Tribunal for the Far East, a.k.a. the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, estimated that 20,000 women were raped during the first month of occupation, including adolescents and the elderly (link).

Estimates for the number of rapes in Berlin after the fall of the city to the Soviet Red Army range from 90,000 to 130,000. A female Soviet war correspondent stated the following: “‘The Russian soldiers were raping every German female from eight to eighty,’ she recounted later. ‘It was an army of rapists.'” (The Guardian)

If a news agency is going to have a talking head on, they might want to get one with some knowledge…

The AP should be tried for treason and/or murder.

At The Jawa Report:

AP photographer Rahmatullah Naikzad was a witness to a Taliban murder. The two women were alleged to have been prostitutes who served Western clientèle.

[…]

This page from the AP seems to suggest that Rahmatullah Naikzad also took a snuff video of the two women being murdered. [UPDATE: Yes, he did. Video added at end of post]

We would remind the AP that the act of the Taliban inviting a reporter to the murder means they wanted this news out there. The AP was clearly being used as a propaganda outlet for the Taliban.

Does this make him an accomplice or only a witness to the crime? When you know a crime is about to be committed, do you not have a moral and ethical obligation to try to prevent that crime? Even if you’re a journalist? Even if all you do is try to call the authorities, in this case someone in the Afghani government or NATO?

A quick Yahoo News photo search of Rahmatullah Naikzad seems to indicate that he’s very friendly with the Taliban. Many of the pictures show Taliban fighters posing for the AP photographer.

[…]

UPDATE II: It gets worse. A snuff video was made by Naikzad. It’s horrible. The murder of the two women is at night, so it’s not visually graphic, but the audio is awful. You can hear at least one of the women screaming after the first shots are fired.

It’s official: the AP has now replaced al Jazeera as the official outlet for terrorist snuff videos. You’ll have to scroll all the way down for video. I’ll put additional updates before it with relevant bail out warnings.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch can’t see the forest for the trees.

Or they’re just incompetent; take your pick.

Consider a recent “news story” from Jeff Schapiro about the recent General Assembly special session. First the intro:

Shame on our short-timer governor, Tim Kaine. How dare he berate the legislature for doing nothing on transportation.

On the contrary, the General Assembly was enormously productive during the six days in June and July it was, ahem, at work.

Belying the perception they are deadbeats, Virginia’s worthies actually passed nearly 120 measures. Some were important — to someone.

Yes, yes, no one cares, details please:

One was essential to making this a truly special session. It allowed legislators to pay themselves about $120,000 — for again ducking a $1 billion problem.

Wow, $120,000, which is only 0.00034% of the state’s budget, and that’s calculating the percentage using FY07 expenditures.

And considering there were 140 legislators working for 48 hours (six days), that’s only $17.86 a hour. (A lot of legislators are lawyers, for example, and would be making a heck a lot more at their office, for comparison.)

Right now, you have a state that spends $35,442,393,597.43 a year in their budget (again, FY07 numbers [Auditor of Public Accounts]). At what point, is enough enough?

From FY03 to FY07, the biggest growth, by percentage, in the Commonwealth’s budget has been in Capital Outlay Projects (126.19% increase), Education (45.57% increase), and General Government (35.78% increase) (Auditor of Public Accounts, different link). Who thinks we can find some cuts in there?

Meanwhile, transportation funding has only increased by 6.69% in the same time period (Ibid).

In the same time period that transportation only increased by 6.69%, the total statewide spending increased by 26.84%.

Back to RT-D:

The House version was carried by Del. Phil Hamilton, R-Newport News, an inartful dodger carrying water for the big companies angling to run, for fun and profit, vast hunks of the Hampton Roads road-tunnel-and-bridge network.

As Christina Nuckols, of The Virginian-Pilot, reminded her readers: Those firms are represented by lobbyists who sit in the privy council of Speaker Bill Howell, ensuring Republicans receive only objective, dispassionate advice on what could prove a giant government giveaway.

Oh my God! Those evil “big companies”!

They have some nerve employing people and giving them a paycheck for work! Those saps that work for those evil “big companies” should just quit, get on welfare, and live off the government.

What’s even worst is that the companies hire people (lobbyists) to represent themselves to the legislature. Those bastards should be executed for using their First Amendment rights.

Remember that hating corporations is #82 on Stuff White People Like.

The legislative calendar included some somber business: bills by Dels. Chris Peace, R-Hanover, and Albert Pollard, D-Lancaster, naming bridges over Interstate 95 in Caroline County for troopers Robert Tinsley Lohr and Robin Lee Farmer, both killed in the line of duty in 1978 and 1981, respectively.

Is that a complaint or what? The renaming of the bridges was requested by the Caroline County Board of Supervisors and Sheriff Tony Lippa. The idea was originally proposed by a private citizen of Caroline County, Roger Cavendish.

Delegates Peace and Pollard, along with Delegate Orrock and Senator McDougle, also introduced a resolution celebrating the life of Mildred Jeter Loving.

Are you going to bitch about that too, Jeff?

How about Bill Howell, et al., introducing a resolution celebrating the life of Fredericksburg Police Officer Todd Bahr, who was killed in the line of duty on June 6th?

Going to bitch about that one too, Jeff?

And there were tributes to war dead. Del. Adam Ebbin, D-Alexandria, and Sen. John Watkins, R-Powhatan, sponsored separate memorial resolutions for Army Lt. Col. Jim Walton, who fell in Afghanistan last month in an attack on his convoy.

Again, is this a complaint?

Veterans of Operation Iraqi Freedom would qualify for special license plates, under a measure by Del. Bill Janis of Henrico. The VMI guy and former naval officer is on the partisan special-ops squad of the House GOP Caucus.

Does that mean the license plate shouldn’t be allowed?

A prospective governor was honored by another. Sen. Creigh Deeds of Bath, running for the 2009 Democratic nomination, introduced a resolution “celebrating the life” of the late Bill Battle. Battle, defeated for the 1969 Democratic nomination, lived in Charlottesville, on the eastern edge of Deeds’ sprawling, sylvan district.

The problem?

The business of the just-adjourned session covers four pages on the General Assembly’s Web site. Some of it is heady stuff — not.

[Blah, blah, blah, blah…]

All are appointments with a $200-per-meeting paycheck. Unlike the other day, maybe the senators will actually earn it.

Okay, I guess that all the preceding was a complaint.

Does anyone notice that this reporter has time to go through and check out every little resolution that the General Assembly dealt with and proceeded to complain about the unimportance of them?

Did he write a story about the transportation bills that were dealt with? No, of course not; those aren’t important.

Is this not the very height of irony?

First, these resolutions probably take about a minute of time in each house of the General Assembly.

Second, while Jeff was tracking down every resolution the General Assembly dealt with, he missed the following:

The Republicans went from wanting (unconstitutional) regional taxes imposed on Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads to offering a no-tax solution: The Republican solution include appropriating money to NoVA and Hampton Roads from airport fees and taxes and port revenues to pay for the transports needs that are partly caused by the airports and port!

Where’s the story about Jeff Frederick’s bill that would give money to localities to pay for their own roads instead of giving money to the monstrosity that is VDOT (HB6025)? That bill didn’t even make it out of the House.

How about the bill that would implement the 2002 Governor’s Commission on Efficiency and Effectiveness that died in the House Rules Committee (HJ6061)?

How about the the great idea for the state to stop paying for roads in subdivisions (HB6041)? Why should I be paying for someone else’s subdivision roads that I and 99.99% of the state will never see or use?

How about the bill that would required an independent audit of the monstrosity-known-as-VDOT (HB6023)? The Senate refused to act on that bill.

RT-D had time to nitpick about every little resolution that was passed by the General Assembly, but couldn’t do their jobs and actually tell the people what did occur during the session.

While I was picking on the Richmond Times-Dispatch, D. J. McGuire was skewering The Free Lance–Black White Hole.

He also took care of another act of outright incompetence by RT-D here.

Pardon the following pop culture post.

On television, now that the writer’s strike is over, the good television shows (that means no Grey’s Anatomy, guys) will be back on. Of course, with the possibly of an actors strike, who knows.

But anyway, my shows to watch:

Stargate Atlantis‘s fifth season has already started on SCI FI (first episode was on July 11th).

Can a show unjump-the-shark? Find out on the fourth season of Prison Break when it premieres on September 1st.

The Shield‘s final season is slated to start September 2nd on FX.

Season two of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will start September 8th on FOX.

The last season of Battlestar Galactica will return in 2009 with the possibility of a couple webisodes in late 2008.

There has been talk of webisodes for Farscape for at least a year now, but little concert details as of yet.

And in the movie arena:

The new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, will premiere on July 18th.

The best science fiction show ever, The X-Files [die Trekkies], returns in The X-Files: I Want to Believe on July 25th.

At least he didn’t rob and kill three people.

Some New Orleans paper:

With minutes left in the last shift of his 35-year New Orleans police career, Sgt. Bobby Guidry received a call from a supervisor telling him he had been suspended for wearing the wrong uniform shirt, the veteran officer said.

The Police Department confirmed the censure Tuesday, though it quibbled with the term “suspended.” Rather, Guidry is “under investigation for wearing the wrong uniform,” said Police Department spokesman Bob Young.

Instead of the standard-issue all-black uniform, Guidry, a veteran officer in the city’s Uptown 2nd District, chose the powder-blue uniform shirt that he wore to work for more than three decades.

He viewed it as a simple statement, not an affront to rules or department leadership.

“Eighteen people died in the line of duty in that powder-blue shirt while I was with the department,” Guidry said. “I went to each of those funerals. I wore that shirt on a Saturday, on my last day, out of respect for them.”

(H/t: Matt “threat to democracy” Drudge)

I make the quip about robbing and killing three people because Antoinette Frank, a NOPD officer, robbed a Vietnamese restaurant in New Orleans and shoot and killed three people, including an off-duty police officer who was working as a security guard, back in the ’90s.

She was later identified as the perpetrator, after a surviving witness who she didn’t know was in the building identified her, when she had the gall to respond to the call.

Time has more.