For some reason, our system of law allows a criminal defense known as the "crime of passion," also referred to as "diminished capacity," the "abuse excuse," "heat of passion," and the "twinky defense."

A case in point would be the ongoing trial of Clara Harris, who used her Mercedes-Benz to run her husband down after she caught him trysting with his mistress. After Clara brawled with the other woman and was ejected from the hotel by concerned employees, she climbed into her car and waited for the two to emerge. As it happened, she'd hired a private investigation agency to follow her husband, and they filmed the murder as it happened.

You can watch the video at the CBS site linked to above and see what the jury saw as the prosecution made its case.

"The evidence is going to show you that she intentionally hit him and didn't stop. She did it again and again and again," prosecutor Mia Magness told the jury.

Clothes Caption

When the Cal Poly Technical University orchestra won an invitation to play at Carnegie Hall, they needed to raise $80,000 to cover their expenses. A dozen female members of the group came up with a winning plan: They posed for a nude calendar.

To be fair, this is pretty tasteful stuff, since the members are positioned coyly behind their instruments.

"The water polo team did something similar a few years ago, but all they had to work with was their water polo balls," said Holly Ransom, a senior featured with her bass trombone in February. "Ours are more unique because we got to use our instruments."

Crashing the Party

We notice that a bunch of new players are jumping into the frenzy here at Salonblogs. A good reception has been extended to the provocatively-titled Sexy Mothers Do Exist and the jejunishly monikered My so-called lesbian life. Most of the other young turks are looking to find their voice or their angle. I've got a few thoughts on that subject, which are meant in a good-natured and helpful way.

1. A snappy name never hurts. Naming your blog is like naming a child. This is a personal decision, but "Egbert McGillacudy's Radio Weblog" has less rack appeal than "You Suck, and I'm Going to Kill You." You can change your blog's name at any time, remember.

2. Make your first post count! People see a new blog, they'll probably click on it. "Hey, something new here..." and so you're gonna get some curious traffic based on the novelty factor alone. That person visits your page, and what do they see?

Testing

Just seeing how this works

Still testing

This color is nice

3. Don't give up. I've seen some new entries post a few times, then vanish. There's plenty of reasons why that might happen. Writing every day takes discipline, and it's more work than most people think. You might be a "one-hit wonder," or whatever made you feel like blogging went away when you sobered up. But don't quit because you're only getting 10 hits a day. Building a readership could take months. If you write well, they'll find you.

3:06:22 PM       

We only managed one edition of the Raven yesterday because at some point along the line, I got the bright idea to make Siberian Pelmeni for dinner. This thing turned into a freight train of flour-covered bowls, utensils, baking sheets, the whole pastry-deal that led the human race to invent the bakery so as to stick some poor schmuck with all that work. And there was a defect in the recipe—"makes about 60 pelemeni" it said. It lied. We had to construct over a hundred of the miniature ravioli-like pasta dumplings. At the end, well, of course it was worth it: savory meat-stuffed pasta in a delicate broth topped with sour cream and dill. Worth the 3 1/2 hours? Absolutely.

The Third Degree of Separation

Network theory is getting popular lately, but the cops have been using its basic principals for a long time: go after the big node and then roll up the connectors. In Barcelona yesterday they rolled up 16 muslim extremists with al Qaeda affiliations.

As you can see in this photo, the men in black-leather jackets wearing hoods and conducting pre-dawn raids are the Good Guys. I guess. Anyway, they've turned up some bomb-making materials and apprehended "Algerian citizens and suspected members of the Salafist Group for Call and Combat." By the looks of the cops here, the interrogation sessions being held in Madrid right now are probably somewhat intense.

The Big Node

In any kind of distributed media network, you want to be a Big Node. In the world of magazines and television, the amount you can charge for advertising depends on how big of a node you are and how much traffic you draw.

The folks over at National Geographic, in a wild attempt at increasing the size of their influence, are releasing their first-ever swimsuit issue next month. They're saying that it's just a "historical tour of the swimsuit over the last 100 years," but the looks of this cover suggests that they've figured out the Power of Sex to Attract Readers.

The photos in the magazine brought out "a sense of fun and wonder—as well as total astonishment at what some people will wear in public," said Bill Allen, National Geographic's editor-in-chief.

The Catbird Seat

Lots of people are getting interested in the pure mathematics of network theory, as well as its practical applications. Here's a focus article on one network theorist, Duncan J. Watts of Columbia University.

Quit yawning, this stuff is interesting. Up to now, large-scale systems have essentially defeated our ability to construct mathematical models of them (see "chaos theory"). But network theory's heating up now because it looks as if it may provide predictive data about everything from fashion to marketing to Wall Street to terrorism.

Network scientists study networks: collections of people or objects connected to each other in some way. Think of the 1.5 million Manhattan residents or the 30,000 genes inside a human cell. Such networks, scientists argue, behave in ways that can't be understood solely in terms of their component parts.

Research shows that as work or friendship ties strengthen, communicators exhibit a greater frequency of communication, maintain more and different kinds of relations, and use more media.

Web of Evil

This headline at the Washington Times got my attention: Nigerian e-mail scams flourish despite global crackdown.

The story leads off with the arrest of Chuks and Svitlana Nwogu, a Nigerian husband-and-wife team who ripped off an extremely gullible Wisconsin businessman for $200,000 with the old "we need your help to collect our money" scam.

"It just shows how easily people fall for these things," said Rafael Figueroa, a Secret Service agent in White Plains, N.Y.

"We see that it has a very bad image for Nigeria," said Volaji Adebiyi, deputy information attache for the Nigerian Embassy. "It's so very, very unfair. We advise people not to send those e-mails, people are not being sincere."

My name is Haja I am a 23 years old and a British citizen who was taken to Brunei by my father at the young age of 12. He deceived me that I was going there on vacation and later married me off to a wealthy Prince in Brunei who is 30 years older than me.

I was thus forced into marriage and when I objected I was beaten and raped by this Prince. I was locked up in a house for two years after which I submitted and decided to accept my faith, knowing that was the only way out.

After I got my freedom back I have been allowed by my husband to have access to his businesses. Over the years I am been able to acquire some money $16,000,000.00 (Sixteen million dollars), which I diverted into a private finance house in Darussalam without his knowledge.

Right now I have mapped out a plan of escape out of Brunei, first of all I want to move the fund out of the Brunei. This is where I need your assistance, I will move the fund out of Brunei on your name through a Cargo courier company to Europe to avoid been detected by my husband. After which you will help me secure the fund before I get out of Brunei.

10:01:13 AM