Akkam’s Razor

• 40 Essential Tools and Resources to Visualize Data | FlowingData -
• Brian Tierney Uses the Inquirer to Spread Right-Wing Talking Points, and Settle Old Scores | Young Philly Politics - This is almost too bizarre to be true. For those that don't know, Brian Tierney did communications for Sam Katz on his Mayoral campaign. His counterpart in the Street campaign was David Axelrod. Tierney The dissenter is so small that he is using an op-ed to settle a score with the guy- David Axelrod- who beat him 5 years ago. And he is too cowardly to do it in the open.

Geekadelphia points to an online and soon to be in print graphic novel by New York resident (and native Philadelphian) Kevin Clouden, which tells of the vicious riverside murder of 16-year old Jason Sweeney at the hands of his ‘girlfriend’ Justina Morley and his ‘friends’ in 2003. From the City Paper in 2007:

“The irony of this story taking place in the City of Brotherly Love was powerful,” says comics writer/artist Kevin Colden. His new work Fishtown is loosely based on the true story of a particularly brutal murder in the Philly neighborhood.

[...]

Fishtown is a dark psychological tale that reads like a fresh version of an old true crime pulp novel. It tells the story of the 2003 murder of 16-year-old Jason Sweeney by a group of his friends. Justina Morley, Sweeney’s first-ever girlfriend, is a worthy femme fatale (or, as the attorney for one of the other defendants called her, a “queen of evil”). With the promise of sex, she lured Jason into the bushes where three boys ambushed him. They beat him to death and then engaged in a group hug. They then stole Sweeney’s paycheck and used it to buy alcohol, drugs and deodorant.

Karl at Phillyfuture tells a personal story and links to the coverage (no longer available online) of the trial from the Philadelphia Daily News :

Justina Morley has left the building - and multitudes have breathed a sigh of relief.

After three days on the stand as the prosecution’s star witness in the horrifying Fishtown murder trial, the teenage femme fatale became a star attraction inside the Criminal Justice Center.

Attorneys, court employees, professional “jurors,” reporters, relatives and friends filled all available seats to see the teen vixen involved in the slaying of 16-year-old Jason Sweeney.

Hour upon hour of testimony wore the courtroom down to a frazzled, dispirited nub by late yesterday afternoon. Jurors seemed listless, lawyers were frazzled, the judge appeared drained.

Even defendant Nicky Coia sported a bruised and busted lip - the result of a beating he received yesterday morning at the hands of an offended fellow inmate.

Spectators were stunned.

…Was it her upbringing? Drug addiction? Parental neglect? DNA? Satan? Did this girl with the tiny shoulders really manipulate these three boys to do her vile bidding, as defense attorneys said, or was she just a sad, attention-starved shill?

There was no alternative but to rely on Morley’s own words, read yesterday from a letter she wrote from prison to Domenic Coia:

“I’m a cold-blooded f—— death-worshipping bitch who survives by feeding off the weak and lonely. I lure them and then I crush them. It’s what I’ve done to every boy I was with.”

I don’t know these kids. None of my friends when down that path. It’s somewhat theatrical to say, but all of us know kids like them.

Popularity: 4% [?]

• Joe in the Spotlight - The Caucus Blog - NYTimes.com - Turns out that “Joe the Plumber,” as he became nationally known when Senator John McCain made him a theme at Wednesday night’s third and final presidential debate, may run a plumbing business but he is not a licensed plumber. His full name is Samuel J. Wurzelbacher. And he owes a bit in back taxes.

This weekend, the entire family went down to the Parkway for the Pulaski Day Parade. Certainly a nice enough way to spend the day, but I’m still unable to escape the election.

A local McCain campaign staffer was handing out “Polish-Americans for McCain” signs to anyone who would be on TV. Maybe 1 out of every 50 took them. It was a brilliant, low cost, high visibility stunt for the local McCain camp to use.

• Pennsylvania: Where the Collar Counties Are the Big Dogs | Newgeography.com - Not surprisingly, the Obama campaign hopes to paint John McCain as a right-wing clone of President Bush. If he is successful, then McCain will likely lose the collar counties, and with them Pennsylvania. In a best case scenario for the Democrats, 2008 could mirror Governor Rendell’s 2002 triumph where wins in the collar counties and Philadelphia make up for losses elsewhere in the state.

Popularity: 4% [?]

Yesterday was one of the few times my wife engaged me on politics and economics. (If anything, she usually chastises me for being too interested). She plainly asked me what’s going on and what it means for us. She asked if I thought it would be like the Great Depression, with people out of work, waiting in line at soup kitchens. I reflexively answered yes, and then spelled out my rationale.

After having the time to reflect on the question, my answers, the bailout, and the landscape as I see it, I can now say that I may have been wrong.

Popularity: 6% [?]

• Daily Kos: State of the Nation: It’s not just 600,000 in Ohio: LA, FL, MI, KS, NM, CO, and NV - Colorado dumped ONE FIFTH of all voter registrations — the largest in history. Florida is refusing to accept 85,000 new registrants — overwhelmingly blacks. New Mexico: purged half of the democrats in Mora county (Hispanics) and 600.000 mailers were returned. Ohio & Nevada are scrubbing tens of 1000s of voters who lost their homes to foreclosures. (Kerry lost by a mere 10-votes per district in Ohio).

• Democratic Dominoes: A Guest Post - Freakonomics - Opinion - New York Times Blog - In a recent paper, co-author Andrea Dean and I investigate whether democratic dominoes like the ones American foreign policy posits actually exist and, if they do, how “hard” they fall.

  Does democracy really spread between countries? If so, how much? We find that democratic dominoes do in fact exist, but they fall significantly “lighter” than foreign policy applications of this principle pretend.

  Countries only “catch” about 11 percent of their geographic neighbors’ average changes in democracy; the modesty of this spread rate is consistent over time. Our analysis extends back to 1850, but 150-plus years ago, like today, changes in countries’ democracies were only mildly contagious.