In the ArsGeek’s Top Picks section you’ll find all of these.  With each pick I’ve either spent a bunch of time with the thing, or find myself really wanting too.  I’ll be updating these often as well.

you can also sort through a whole bunch of other products.  This is an Amazon.com powered store, the proceeds from which will go into keeping ArsGeek a living, breathing site with fresh updates so if you get a chance, stop on by!

Thanks,

Ben

Technorati Tags: video games, dvds, movies, computers, electronics, gadgets, store, arsgeek boutique

Due to multiple redirects and some RSS stuff that still has me feeling like I’ve just slugged down a vodka and gasoline shot, the ArsGeek feeds were looping back to the ArsGeek main site.  If CERN’s LHC had you worried, then I’m glad you didn’t hear about this because little vortexes were spinning about all over the web.

Thankfully Cavtroop and I have fixed the problem, thus securing the Universe as we know it - at least until Sept. 10th when the LHC comes on line and all that Halo training will be suddenly useful.

Thanks,

The ArsGeek Team

Technorati Tags: vortex, rss, feed, borked, bork bork bork, swedish chef, hungry, meatballs, stream of consciousness tags are bad

The Forums are back and will hopefully become active once again! Please do stop by and say hello.  It’s a very friendly place where everyone knows your name.  Or your screen name.  Or avatar.

Welcome!

Technorati Tags: arsgeek, forum

ArsGeek is expanding and we’re looking to bring on a few new bloggers!  We’d like to reach a wider audience and to do that we need some fresh faces and fresh writing.

Here’s what we’re looking for:

4 or more original posts per week.  Editorials, reviews, insights, covering events, lists, rants and other original pieces.

2 or more links to other cool people and places on the web a week.  Great sites, interesting videos, deals and more.

You’ve got to love writing about your subjects, whether it’s Linux, SciFi, gaming or the latest revelation about robotic exploration of space.  A good sense of humor and geeky self deprecation is always appreciated.  You’ve also got to be in the United States.  A bonus if you’re in or near a big city which hosts relevant conventions as you’ll get to attend them and report on them.  You’ll be able to review books, software, gadgets, movies and more.  Tech geek, SciFi/Fantasy geek, science geek, gaming geek - we’re interested in you.

You’ll also get paid to do this.

We’d love to talk to you if this sounds like fun for you.  Please contact us and give us a little info about you.  We’ll be in touch and ask for some writing samples or link to a current blog or site, and discuss how payment will work.  We’re still a small site looking to get bigger so don’t expect a salary and health benefits but do expect the ability to earn some spending money and play with some neat stuff while getting in touch with a wide community of like minded folks.

Another plus if you’re a big fan of science fiction and fantasy, video games and table top games as we’d like especially to expand our coverage in these areas.

Technorati Tags: hiring, arsgeek, blogging, arsgeek wants you!

Man stabs shoppers in Tokyo street, killing seven

By David Dolan

TOKYO (Reuters) - A man who said he was tired of life went on a stabbing rampage on Sunday in a crowded Tokyo shopping street, killing seven people and wounding a dozen others.

The man drove a rental truck into a crowd of pedestrians at lunchtime and then walked down the street knifing passers-by in Akihabara district, known for its discount electronics and maid cafes.

“I came to Akihabara to kill people,” Kyodo news agency quoted the attacker as telling police. “I am tired of the world. Anyone was OK. I came alone.”

A Tokyo police spokesman said at least seven people had been killed and 12 wounded.

“The man jumped on top of a man he had hit with his vehicle and stabbed him with a knife many times,” Kyodo quoted a 19-year-old witness as saying. “Walking toward Akihabara Station, he slashed nearby people at random.”

The dead were six men aged 19 to 74 and a 21-year-old woman, the news agency said.
The police said a man had been arrested, and television stations showed a slight, blood-splattered 25-year-old being herded into a police car.

Witnesses said the rampage was stopped when a policeman armed with a gun confronted the man, who NHK television said was shouting as he cut down his victims.

The street, usually crowded with tourists and locals seeking cheap gadgets, was cleared by police, who searched for evidence amid pools of blood.

“It’s pretty shocking, considering that I come here all the time,” a man told NHK.

The rampage came on the seventh anniversary of a massacre at a Japanese primary school, when a knife-wielding janitor and former mental patient killed eight schoolchildren. He was later executed for the killings.

Although Japan has relatively little violent crime, such high-profile cases have raised public concern about violence.

Shooting deaths remain rare in Japan, although there have been some recent cases involving “yakuza” criminal gangs.

As well as electronics, Akihabara has become known in recent years as a centre for Japan’s expansive “nerd” culture of video games, comic books and outlandish fashion — including street performers and cafes with waitresses dressed as French maids. (Editing by David Fogarty)

It’s hard to believe it’s Memorial Day Weekend. For the first time in the 6 years I’ve lived at my apartments the parking lot is full. The typical busy Saturday afternoon street beyond my patio is almost quiet, and went I tucked my tail  between my legs again and bought a weeks worth of groceries at ‘Grocery Outlet’ it was filled with people from all sorts of social classes who had the same look as I did, “Oh please let this not hurt at the register.”

The fast food chains had 1-2 cars in the drive-thru at high noon and I’m no longer drooling over the latest in high tech gadgets or video games. With gas at four dollars a gallon, Mad Max popping in my head and surviving a blood bath of layoffs where I work; I can’t help but wonder what’s ahead.

I was sitting on my chair outside, looking at the empty field across the street and I automatically graphed my city. One of the many things I loved about visiting Manhattan during these difficult financial times was that it’s set up to be a walking community. The on going joke of “Two blocks” because everything seems to be within two blocks of wherever you are. Although the streets were busied with traffic, there were even more people walking to their destinations.

I wish that my city could cure the pain of shopping by breaking the area into smaller sections. In a smaller city, things are spread out making it impossible to walk the distance from your home to the department store, pharmacy and grocery store. Renting the latest dvd has fallen off my list of priorities and I don’t really care to run out to the movie theater because the thought of sitting at a red light makes me cringe. Am I cheap? I’ve always been a moderate minimalist especially for being a self proclaimed geek. Now however, I have to truly look ahead and really stick to the bare minimum.

I’m curious though because all areas are different and the impact may not be as vivid as it is where I live- am I the only one who has come to a grinding halt in purchasing anything that isn’t food or fuel (typical bills)? Will the lifestyle change be temporary or are we on the verge of turning our communities into merchant stands in the streets and barter systems? Do I just have an over active imagination and things are really temporary and not as bad as I think??? Will I ever be able to justify buying another shiny new gadget????

If you’re a website owner or have a profile… any where SiteMeter is tried and true. I’ve had the free/basic service for 8 years now and after trying out other stat keepers, none have measured  up to the information I’ve been able to obtained through SiteMeter.

Useful situations: If you’ve blocked your creepy ex’s e-mail address and can recognize his/her IP from the full header of the message, you can easily see that they’ve been visiting your site, when, what pages and how often they’ve been reading your every word. You can also get a good idea when their IP address has changed and what the new one is to deny access to your site. 

My main purpose is to get an idea of what the people like and why they head my way. So far it’s mainly because of Betta Fish

I’ve tried just about every other service out there and this still remains on top. The logo/stat meter is relatively small and easily hidden within a CSS. I’ve used one for all social networking profiles and my website without needing multiple accounts.

The upgrade price varies depending on page views and can range between $6.95 - $199.95 per month. Give it a chance, try it out for a month and then you’ll see how other trackers just don’t seem to compare; unless of course there’s one that easily does the same thing in such an organized manner with all the perks and is totally free. If you know of one, let me know!

If you’re interested or have an account:
Site Meter news/announcements
http://weblog.sitemeter.com/2008/05/01/beta-test-volunteers/
Beta Test Volunteers?
We would like to begin building a list of 100 brave souls to participate in our upcoming beta test. The testing will require volunteers to be accessible via email, a willingness to paste new or additional code on their site pages, and to provide detailed written feedback on results. We do not anti…

Below are some screenshots from the main demo area. If you like easy to read and understand formats that contains a wealth of data, Sitemeter is for you. The free version does have its draw backs by only holding onto approximately 100 detailed visitors at a time. This of course didn’t use to be the case and I haven’t found it to be as inconvenient as I had initially thought it’d be when they made this change.

I know all good things come to an end, and perhaps it’s just a beginning, but in the meantime the return is sinking me.

I fell in love with NYC. Head over heels in love and it’s going to SUCK having to communicate with Ben in different time zones again! I don’t wanna!

Today wasn’t quite as exciting or eventful as the previous days. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday were so unbelievable that I feel anything today could not even come close to it. I guess it *is* quite a bit for NYC to keep one upping itself. I think the city was begging for mercy, or maybe it was my aching feet.

We started off by seeing the NYC Jedi (the much cooler version of the SCA) Choreographed Jedi fighting with lightsabers (although I wanted to stand up and protest- YOU CAN’T JAB SOMEONE WITH A SABER AND YOU CAN’T CAUSE SOMEONE TO BLEED!!! IT’D CAUTERIZE!!) <- and that’s why I’m a dork. Then there was an hour of getting separated from my party by a sea of people (I should have gotten the watchie talkies).

Thankfully we found each other (with the help of security) just in time to get to the IGN theater. It was awesome seeing quite a bit of Wanted and listening to Timur Bekmambetov discuss the upcoming film and answer questions pertaining to the film (if they wore costumes then everyone would know they’re assassins- SO DON’T ASK!! Yes, that was a duh thing, but TWO people inquired!!). Seth Green and Matthew Senreich had us cracking up with a look into the Robot Chicken Star Wars (I can’t wait!) and then it was a definite treat to listen to the panel discussion of Hell Boy 2 with Guillermo Del Toro and the crew (Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Luke Goss etc. Guillermo Del Toro is truly a genius and one who does enjoy straying far from his roots in Independent film. It sucks financially, but creatively it’s worth the suffering.

We truly have a summer of delights coming our way.

The disappointment came when we tried to get into Zombie Survival 101. Now I’ll never know how to survive a zombie uprising. I bet half the people who took our spots probably thought it had to do with how to survive sitting through a Rob Zombie film (creative genius- but he needs to quit trying his hand at full length films… please Rob, I’m begging you). If the long wait and bad jokes on our part was a test, then we definitely failed. We weren’t fast or aggressive enough to push and shove our way through a ton of other people who had to wait equally long… yet fortunate enough to wait closer to the door.

The saving grace was when our Media Queen (Jenn, she’s been completely awesome- and yes… SHE… media queen is not a stage drag name) managed to get Ben to meet one of his favorite authors Terry Brooks along with a book signing. This entire trip she has done an outstanding job making sure Jonathon met his mentors and ensured we didn’t get lost!

Dinner was at Pomodoro on 9th Ave. Great food and service- make sure you stop in. You can say “Arsgeek” sent you, but that really wouldn’t do anything but cause them to smile and nod at you politely.

Tonight I’m resting up for a day of saying good bye to my friends and the city by seeing as much as we can before the evening separates us and signals the time for our departures.

Ben of course will have his say on the days events (and pictures- I left my camera on by accident and drained the battery). Until then, good night everyone and a continued thank you for your support and encouragement in making this trip possible. It’s been great getting to meet and introduce Jonathon to the many people we could who have helped to make this all a reality and being able to say “Thank You”  face to face. Sadly our last few thank you’s have been drained mumbles of appreciation because our bodies just cannot keep up with all we’ve wanted to do and see.

Dawn

Technorati Tags: Wanted, Hell Boy 2, Robot Chicken Star Wars, Terry Brooks

Of course I could be wrong, but please educate me if I am. If I’m correct and if there are any comic book writers out there: “Why do you hate your mothers?”

This causes me to think further- If a superhero is raised without an a-typical family; Why to politicians and religious figures shove the need for strong family values down our throats? We should show them the ficticious examples of what the world would be like without a two parent environment: Laser beams destroying buildings in large cities, mid-air fighting and shiny costumes all for the greater good!

I’m beginning to believe that if my folks were offed when I was a wee one, then I’d be out there saving innocent people from the clutches of evil. Thanks for being alive mom and dad. you always ruin EVERYTHING!

This brings me to my Star Wars Trilogy (V, IV, and VI) marathon this weekend. Sunday morning I popped in The Empire Strikes Back. I woke up and nixed the coffee before viewing the Lucas treat and surprisingly I was awake enough to enjoy it. A few hours and an energic lunch later I put in Return of the Jedi. 30 minutes into the movie I was completely out in slumber land. I woke up to the fire works and little Ewok celebration and realized that this is what happened the last time I watched it. The movie knocks me out regardless of the time of day or coffee quota met.

Do I like the movie or do I hate it? I’m not sure of anything except it’s a great sleep aid.

SO, if you hear an awesome ColdPlay song on the radio that makes you relaxed, pull along the side of the road and enjoy your nap.

1. The survey only consisted of 2,248 people.
2. The people were British.
3. It was done at a hotel chain (where most people on holiday would probably crash if the re-runs of the Headbanger’s Ball was airing).
4. I really love the Star Wars Trilogy… well, I guess I really love 2 of the 3… I can’t really recall the the middle part of the third, and evey time I try, I yawn and wake up 8 hours later.

Original Article from Reuters: Survey finds rockers Coldplay help you sleep
LONDON (Reuters) - Britons like a dose of music from the rock band Coldplay to help them fall asleep, a survey from hotel chain Travelodge found on Monday.

The band, whose frontman Chris Martin says he avoids caffeine and alcohol and is known for a lifestyle that is anything but rock ‘n’ roll, topped a poll of music choices to help listeners nod off.

Other artists chosen for their slumber-inducing qualities were James Blunt, Snow Patrol, Take That and Norah Jones.

But those who prefer to be tucked in with a book at night judged celebrity autobiographies as the most effective sleep aid, with the life stories of glamour model Jordan, soccer star David Beckham and Sharon Osbourne ranking at the top.

Charles Manson reaches behind bars and into your iPod with his new album (semi-new, new to me… apparently out since around 2005): “One Mind” via licensing through Creative Commons. I’m in disbelief that he’s able to do this. Notorious for brainwashing- it’s okay for HIM to make music?? I seriously can’t believe he’s allowed *that* kind of freedom.

Manson loose on the internet? That explains SO much. This was found here at LimeWire Music Blog.

Anyway, you’re adults with the freedom to listen or not and then blog away at the analogy of giving a serial killer a loaded gun and pointing to a crowd full of people. This is also the part where I ask those who have kids or are responsible for children, “Are you paying attention to what they’re downloading?”

I did post the YouTube of the music and opted to take it down. This is *not* cool, this is not something I believe should be made available to the public and I imagine a bunch of little emo’s jumping all over this. If you’re unfamiliar with the creepiest man of the latter part of the 20th Century and now the 21st Century, the following is from Wikipedia:

Charles Milles Manson (November 12, 1934) is a convict who led the “Manson Family,” a quasi-commune that arose in the U.S. state of California in the later 1960s. He was found guilty of conspiracy to commit the Tate-LaBianca murders, which members of the group carried out at his instruction. Through the joint-responsibility rule of conspiracy, he was convicted of the murders themselves.

Manson is forever associated with “Helter Skelter”, the term he took from the Beatles song of that name and construed as a race-based conflict that the crimes were intended to precipitate. This connection with rock music linked him, from the beginning of his notoriety, with pop culture, in which he became an emblem of transgression, rebellion, evil, ghoulishness, bloody violence, homicidal psychosis, and the macabre. Ultimately, the term was used as the title of the book that prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi wrote about the Manson murders.

At the time the Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict, who had spent half his life in correctional institutions for a variety of offenses. In the period before the murders, he was a distant fringe member of the Los Angeles music industry, chiefly via a chance association with Beach Boy Dennis Wilson. After Manson was charged with the crimes, recordings of songs written and performed by him were released commercially; a number of artists have covered his songs in the decades since.

Manson’s death sentence was automatically reduced to life imprisonment when a decision by the Supreme Court of California temporarily eliminated the state’s death penalty. California’s eventual reestablishment of capital punishment did not affect Manson, who is an inmate at Corcoran State Prison.

Early life

Childhood
First known as “no name Maddox,” Manson was born to unmarried, sixteen-year-old Kathleen Maddox in Cincinnati General Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio; no more than three weeks after his birth, he was Charles Milles Maddox. For a period, after her son’s birth, Kathleen Maddox was married to a laborer named William Manson, whose last name the boy was given. Charles Manson’s biological father appears to have been a “Colonel Scott”, against whom Maddox filed a bastardy suit that resulted in an agreed judgment in 1937. Possibly, Charles never really knew him.

Young Manson’s mother, allegedly a drinker, once sold him for a pitcher of beer to a childless waitress, from whom his uncle retrieved him some days later. When his mother and her brother were sentenced to five years imprisonment for robbing a Charleston, West Virginia, service station in 1939, Manson was placed in the McMechen, West Virginia, home of an aunt and uncle who grew very religious. Upon his mother’s 1942 parole, Manson was retrieved by his mother and lived with her in run-down hotel rooms. He would one day characterize her physical embrace of him on the day she returned from prison as his sole childhood joy.

In 1947, Kathleen Maddox tried to have her son placed in a foster home but failed because no such home was available. The court placed Manson in Gibault School for Boys, in Terre Haute, Indiana. After ten months, he fled from there to his mother, who rejected him.
First offenses
By burgling a grocery store, Manson obtained cash that enabled him to rent a room. A string of burglaries of other stores, from one of which he stole a bicycle, ended when he was caught in the act and sent to an Indianapolis juvenile center. His escape after one day led to his recapture and his placement in Boys Town, from which he escaped with another boy four days after his arrival. The pair committed two armed robberies on their way to the home of the other boy’s uncle.

Caught during the second of two subsequent break-ins of grocery stores, Manson was sent, at age thirteen, to the Indiana School for Boys, where, he would later claim, he was brutalized sexually and otherwise. After many failed attempts, he escaped with two other boys in 1951.

In Utah, having burgled gas stations all along the way, the three were caught driving to California in cars they had stolen. For the federal crime of taking a stolen car across a state line, Manson was sent to the Washington, D.C., National Training School for Boys. Despite four years of schooling and an average IQ of 109 (later tested at 121), he was illiterate. A caseworker concluded he was aggressively antisocial.
First imprisonment
Less than a month before a scheduled February 1952 parole hearing at Natural Bridge Honor Camp, a minimum security institution to which he had been transferred the previous October on a psychiatrist’s recommendation, Manson “took a razor blade and held it against another boy’s throat while he sodomized him.” He was transferred to the Federal Reformatory, Petersburg, Virginia, where he was considered “dangerous.” In September 1952, a number of other serious disciplinary offenses resulted in his transfer to the Federal Reformatory at Chillicothe, Ohio, a more secure institution. About a month after the transfer, he became almost a model resident. Good work habits and a rise in his educational level from the lower fourth to the upper seventh grade won him a May 1954 parole.

After temporarily honoring a parole condition that he live with his aunt and uncle in West Virginia, Manson moved in with his mother in that same state. In January 1955, he married Rosalie Jean Willis, a hospital waitress, with whom, by his own account, he found genuine, if short-lived, marital happiness, and whom he supported via smalltime jobs and auto theft.

Around October, about three months after he and his pregnant wife arrived in Los Angeles in a car he had stolen in Ohio, Manson was again charged with a federal crime for taking the vehicle interstate; after a psychiatric evaluation, he was given five years’ probation. His subsequent failure to appear at a Los Angeles hearing on an identical charge filed in Florida resulted in his March 1956 arrest in Indianapolis. His probation was revoked; he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment at Terminal Island, San Pedro, California.

Charles Manson Jr., Manson’s son by Rosalie, was born while Manson was in prison. During his first year at Terminal Island, Manson received visits from his wife and mother, who were now living together in Los Angeles; but in March 1957, when the visits from his wife ceased, his mother informed him Rosalie was living with another man. Caught trying to escape by stealing a car less than two weeks before a scheduled parole hearing, Manson was given five years’ probation; his parole was denied.
Second imprisonment
Manson received five years parole in September 1958, the same year in which Rosalie received a decree of divorce. By November, he was pimping a sixteen-year-old girl and was receiving additional support from a girl with wealthy parents. Pleading guilty in September 1959 to a charge of attempting to cash a forged U.S. Treasury check, he received a ten-year suspended sentence and probation after a young woman with an arrest record for prostitution tearfully told the court she and Manson were in love and would marry if Manson were freed. The woman, whose name was Leona and who, as a prostitute, had used the name Candy Stevens, did, in fact, marry Manson before the year’s end, possibly so testimony against him would not be required of her.

After Manson took that same woman and another girl from California to New Mexico for purposes of prostitution before the year’s end, he was held and questioned for violation of the Mann Act. Though he was released, he evidently suspected, rightly, that the investigation had not ended. When he disappeared, in violation of his probation, a bench warrant was issued; an April 1960 indictment for violation of the Mann Act followed. Arrested in Laredo, Texas, in June, when one of his girls was arrested for prostitution, Manson was returned to Los Angeles. For violation of his probation on the check-cashing charge, he was ordered to serve his ten-year sentence.

In July 1961, after a year spent unsuccessfully appealing the revocation of his probation, Manson was transferred from the Los Angeles County Jail to the United States Penitentiary at McNeil Island, Washington. Although the Mann Act charge had been dropped, the attempt to cash the Treasury check was still a federal offense. His September 1961 annual review noted he had a “tremendous drive to call attention to himself,” an observation echoed in September 1964. In the interval, in 1963, Leona was granted a divorce, in the pursuit of which she alleged she and Manson had had a son, Charles Luther.

In June 1966, Manson was sent, for the second time in his life, to Terminal Island, in preparation for early release. By March 21, 1967, his release day, he had spent more than half of his thirty-two years in prisons and other institutions. Telling the authorities that prison had become his home, he requested, unsuccessfully, that he be permitted to stay, a fact touched on in a 1981 television interview:

Tom Snyder: Let’s go back to 1967, the time you were winding up serving a term of a number of years, ten years, and written accounts indicate that you told the authorities, “Don’t let me out, I can’t cope with the outside world.” Do you have a recollection of that? And do you –
Manson: You’re making a desperate plea out of something, man. There’s no desperate plea out of it. I said I can’t handle the maniacs outside, let me back in.
Snyder: I didn’t use the word desperate; that’s your word, Charles.
Manson: Yeah, well, your inflection and your voice tones were, uh, implications there.

Rise of the Family
On his release day, Manson requested and was granted permission to move to San Francisco, where, with the help of a prison acquaintance, he obtained an apartment in Berkeley. In prison, he had been taught to play steel guitar by 1930s bank robber Alvin Karpis; now, living mostly by panhandling, he soon got to know Mary Brunner, a twenty-three-year-old University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate working as an assistant librarian at UC Berkeley. After moving in with her, he overcame her resistance to his bringing other women in to live with them. Before long, they were sharing Brunner’s residence with eighteen other women.

Manson also established himself as a guru in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, which, during 1967’s Summer of Love, was emerging as the signature hippie locale. Expounding a philosophy that included some of the Scientology he had studied in prison, he soon had his first group of young followers, most of them female.

Before the summer was out, Manson and eight or nine of his enthusiasts piled into an old school bus they had re-wrought in hippie style, with colored rugs and pillows in place of the many seats they had removed. Hitting the road, they roamed as far north as Washington State, then southward through Los Angeles, Mexico, and the southwest. Returning to the Los Angeles area, they lived in Topanga Canyon, Malibu, and Venice — western parts of the city and county.

In an alternative account, which included no mention of the eighteen girls at Brunner’s place, Manson, apparently accompanied by Brunner, acquired Family members during some months of travels that were undertaken, in part, in a Volkswagen van; it was November when the school bus set out from San Francisco with the enlarged group.
Involvement with Wilson, Melcher, et al.
The events that would culminate in the murders were set in motion in late spring 1968, when, by some accounts, Dennis Wilson, of The Beach Boys, picked up two hitchhiking Manson girls and brought them to his Pacific Palisades house for a few hours. Returning home in the early hours of the following morning from a night recording session, Wilson was greeted in the driveway of his own residence by Manson, who emerged from the house. Uncomfortable, Wilson asked the stranger whether he intended to hurt him. Assuring him he had no such intent, Manson began kissing Wilson’s feet.

Inside the house, Wilson discovered twelve strangers, mostly girls. Over the next few months, as their number doubled, the Family members who had made themselves part of Wilson’s Sunset Boulevard household cost him approximately $100,000. This included a large medical bill for treatment of their gonorrhea and $21,000 for the accidental destruction of an uninsured car of his they borrowed. Wilson would sing and talk with Manson, whose girls were servants to them both.

Wilson paid for studio time to record songs written and performed by Manson, and he introduced Manson to acquaintances of his with roles in the entertainment business. These included Gregg Jakobson, Terry Melcher, and Rudi Altobelli, the last of whom owned a house he would soon rent to actress Sharon Tate and her husband, director Roman Polanski. Jakobson, who was impressed by “the whole Charlie Manson package” of artist/lifestylist/philosopher, also paid to record Manson material.[22][23]

In the quasi-autobiographical Manson in His Own Words, the account is that Manson first met Wilson at a friend’s San Francisco house where he, Manson, had gone to obtain marijuana. The Beach Boy supposedly gave Manson his Sunset Boulevard address and invited him to stop by when he would be in Los Angeles.
Spahn Ranch
By August 1968, when Wilson had his manager clear the Family members from his house, Manson had established a base for the group at Spahn’s Movie Ranch, not far from Topanga Canyon.[24][25] The evictees joined the rest of the Family there.

Located in (or near) Chatsworth, the ranch had once been a location for the shooting of Western films; then, with its old movie sets run down, it was primarily doing business in horseback rides. While Family members did helpful work around the place, Manson kept the nearly-blind, octogenarian owner, George Spahn, on his side by having Lynette Fromme act as Spahn’s eyes and, along with other girls, attend to Spahn sexually.[26][27] For a tiny squeal she would emit when Spahn would pinch her thigh, Fromme, one of the early Family members who had boarded the school bus, won from Spahn the nickname “Squeaky.”

The Family was soon joined at Spahn Ranch by Charles Watson, who had met Manson at Dennis Wilson’s house. A small-town Texan who had quit college and moved to California,[28] Watson had given a lift to Wilson, who had been hitchhiking because his cars had been wrecked.[24] Watson’s drawl earned him, too, a George Spahn nickname, “Tex.”[25]
Helter Skelter
Main article: Helter Skelter (Manson scenario)
In the first days of November 1968, Manson established the Family at alternate headquarters in Death Valley’s environs, where they occupied two unused or little-used ranches, Myers and Barker.[23][29] The former, to which the group had initially headed, was owned by the grandmother of a new girl in the Family. The latter was owned by an elderly, local woman to whom Manson presented himself and a male Family member as musicians in need of a place congenial to their work. When the woman agreed to let them stay there if they’d fix up things, Manson honored her with one of the Beach Boys’ gold records,[29] several of which he’d been given by Dennis Wilson.

While back at Spahn Ranch, no later than December, Manson and Tex Watson visited a Topanga Canyon acquaintance who played them the Beatles’ White Album, then recently released.[23] Despite having been twenty-nine years old and imprisoned when The Beatles first came to America in 1964, Manson had been all but obsessed with the group. At McNeil, he had told fellow inmates, including Alvin Karpis, that he could surpass the group in fame; to the Family, he spoke of the group as “the soul” and “part of ‘the hole in the infinite.’”

For some time, too, Manson had been saying that racial tension between blacks and whites was growing and that blacks would soon rise up in rebellion in America’s cities.[35] He had emphasized Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, which had taken place on April 4, 1968.[29] On a bitter cold New Year’s Eve at Myers Ranch, the Family members, gathered outside around a large fire, listened as Manson explained that the social turmoil he had been predicting had also been predicted by The Beatles. The White Album songs, he declared, told it all, although in code. In fact, he maintained (or would soon maintain), the album was directed at the Family itself, an elect group that was being instructed to preserve the worthy from the impending disaster.[35]

In early January 1969, the Family escaped the desert’s cold by establishing yet another base, at a canary-yellow home in Canoga Park, not far from the Spahn Ranch. Because this locale would allow the Family to remain “submerged beneath the awareness of the outside world,”[36][37] Manson called it the Yellow Submarine, another Beatles reference. There, the group prepared for the impending apocalypse, which, around the campfire, Manson had termed “Helter Skelter,” after the White Album song of that name.

By February, Manson’s vision was complete. The Family would create an album whose songs, as subtle as those of The Beatles, would trigger the predicted chaos. Ghastly murders of whites by blacks would be met with retaliation, and a split between racist and non-racist whites would yield whites’ self-annihilation. Blacks’ triumph, as it were, would merely precede their being ruled by the Family, which would ride out the conflict in “the bottomless pit” — a secret city beneath Death Valley.[38] At the Canoga Park house, while Family members worked on vehicles and pored over maps to prepare for their desert escape, they also worked on songs for their world-changing album. When they were told Terry Melcher was to come to the house to hear the material, the girls prepared a meal and cleaned the place; but Melcher never arrived.
Encounter with Tate
On March 23, 1969,[39] Manson entered uninvited upon 10050 Cielo Drive, which he had known as the residence of Terry Melcher. This was Rudi Altobelli’s property, where Melcher was no longer the tenant; as of that February,[40] the tenants were Tate and Polanski.

Manson was met by Shahrokh Hatami, a photographer and Tate friend, who was there to photograph Tate in advance of her departure for Rome the next day. Having seen Manson through a window as Manson approached the main house, Hatami had gone onto the front porch to ask him what he wanted.[39]

When Manson told Hatami he was looking for someone whose name Hatami did not recognize, Hatami informed him the place was the Polanski residence. Hatami advised him to try “the back alley,” by which he meant the path to the guest house, beyond the main house.[39]

Concerned over the stranger on the property, Hatami was now down on the front walk, to confront Manson. When Tate appeared behind Hatami, in the house’s front door, and asked who was calling, Hatami said a man was looking for someone. Hatami and Tate maintained their positions while Manson, without a word, went back to the guest house, returned a minute or two later, and left.[39]

That evening, Manson returned to the property and again went back to the guest house, where, presuming to enter the enclosed porch, he spoke with Rudi Altobelli, who was just coming out of the shower. Although Manson asked for Melcher, Altobelli felt Manson had come looking for him,[41] as is consistent with prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi’s later discovery that Manson had apparently been to the place on earlier occasions since Melcher’s departure from it.[39][42]

Speaking through the inner screen door, Altobelli told Manson that Melcher had moved to Malibu; he lied that he did not know Melcher’s new address. In response to a question from Manson, Altobelli said he himself was in the entertainment business, although, having met Manson the previous year, at Dennis Wilson’s home, he was sure Manson already knew that. At Wilson’s, Altobelli had complimented Manson lukewarmly on some of his musical recordings that Wilson had been playing.[39]

When Altobelli informed Manson he was going out of the country the next day, Manson said he’d like to speak with him upon his return; Altobelli lied that he would be gone for more than a year. In response to a direct question from Altobelli, Manson explained that he had been directed to the guest house by the persons in the main house; Altobelli expressed the wish that Manson not disturb his tenants.[39]

Manson left. As Altobelli flew with Tate to Rome the next day, Tate asked him whether “that creepy-looking guy” had gone back to the guest house the day before.[39]
Family crimes

Crowe shooting; Hinman murder
By June, Manson was telling the Family they might have to show blacks how to start Helter Skelter.[36][43][44] When Manson tasked Tex Watson to obtain money supposedly intended to help the Family prepare for the conflict, Watson defrauded a black drug dealer named Bernard “Lotsapoppa” Crowe; Crowe responded with a threat to wipe out everyone at Spahn Ranch. Manson countered on July 1, 1969, by shooting Crowe at his Hollywood apartment.[45][46][26][47]

Manson’s mistaken belief that he had killed Crowe was seemingly confirmed by a news report of the discovery of the dumped body of a Black Panther in Los Angeles. Although Crowe was not a member of the Black Panthers, Manson, concluding he had been, expected retaliation from the group. He turned Spahn Ranch into a defensive camp, with night patrols of armed guards.[45][48] “If we’d needed any more proof that Helter Skelter was coming down very soon, this was it,” Tex Watson would later write. “[B]lackie was trying to get at the chosen ones.”[45]

On July 25, 1969, Manson sent sometime Family member Bobby Beausoleil along with Mary Brunner and Family member Susan Atkins to the house of acquaintance Gary Hinman, to persuade him to turn over money Manson thought Hinman had inherited.[49][45][50] The three held the uncooperative Hinman hostage for two days, during which Manson showed up with a sword to slash his ear. After that, Beausoleil stabbed him to death, ostensibly on Manson’s instruction. Before leaving the Topanga Canyon residence, Beausoleil, or one of the girls, used Hinman’s blood to write “Political piggy” on the wall and to draw a panther paw, a Black Panther symbol.[46][26][51]

In magazine interviews of 1981 and 1998-99,[52][53] Beausoleil would say he went to Hinman’s to recover money paid to Hinman for drugs that had supposedly been bad; he added that Brunner and Atkins, unaware of his intent, went along idly, merely to visit Hinman. On the other hand, Atkins, in her 1977 autobiography, wrote that Manson directly told Beausoleil, Brunner, and her to go to Hinman’s and get the supposed inheritance — $21,000. She said Manson had told her privately, two days earlier, that, if she wanted to “do something important,” she could kill Hinman and get his money.[50]
Tate murders
When Beausoleil was arrested on August 6, 1969, after he had been caught driving Hinman’s car, police found the murder weapon in the tire well.[40] Two days later, Manson told Family members at Spahn Ranch, “Now is the time for Helter Skelter.”[54][55][45]

On the night of August 8, Manson directed Tex Watson to take Family members Atkins, Linda Kasabian, and Patricia Krenwinkel — one of the hitchhikers allegedly picked up by Dennis Wilson — to “that house where Melcher used to live” and “totally destroy everyone in [it], as gruesome as you can.”[56][57] He told the girls to do as Tex would instruct them.[54][58]

When the four arrived at the entrance to the Cielo Drive property, Watson, who’d been to the house, on Family business,[23] climbed a telephone pole near the gate and cut the phone line. It was now around midnight and into August 9, 1969.

Backing their car down to the bottom of the hill that led up to the place, they parked there and walked back up to the house. Thinking the gate might be electrified or rigged with an alarm,[58] they climbed a brushy embankment at its right and dropped onto the grounds. Just then, headlights came their way from farther within the angled property. Telling the girls to lie in the bushes, Watson stepped out, gave a command to halt, and shot to death eighteen-year-old Steven Parent, the driver of the approaching car.[56][59] After cutting the screen of an open window of the main house, Watson told Kasabian to keep watch down by the gate.[56][58][54] He removed the screen, entered through the window, and let Atkins and Krenwinkel in through the front door.[58]

As Watson whispered to Atkins, Roman Polanski’s friend Wojciech Frykowski awoke on the living-room couch; Watson kicked him in the head.[56] When Frykowski asked him who he was and what he was doing there, Watson replied, “I’m the devil, and I’m here to do the devil’s business.”[58][56]

On Watson’s direction, Atkins found the house’s three other occupants and, with Krenwinkel’s help,[58][60] brought them to the living room. The three were Sharon Tate, eight and a half months pregnant; her friend and former lover Jay Sebring, a noted hairstylist; and Frykowski’s lover Abigail Folger, heiress to the Folger coffee fortune.[40] Polanski, Tate’s husband, was in London, England, at work on a film project.[61]

As Watson began to tie Tate and Sebring together, by their necks, with rope he’d brought and slung up over a beam, Sebring’s protest — his second — of rough treatment of Tate prompted Watson to shoot him. After Folger was taken momentarily back to her bedroom for her purse, which proved to hold about seventy dollars, Watson stabbed the groaning Sebring seven times.[40][56]

Frykowski, whose hands had been bound with a towel, freed himself and began struggling with Atkins, who stabbed his legs with the knife with which she had been guarding him.[56] As Frykowski fought his way toward and out the front door, onto the porch, Watson, who joined in against him, struck him over the head with the gun multiple times (breaking the gun’s right grip in the process), stabbed him repeatedly, and shot him twice.[56] Around this time, Kasabian, drawn up from the driveway by “horrifying sounds,” arrived outside the door and, in a vain effort to halt the massacre, told Atkins falsely that someone was coming.[54][56]

Inside the house, Folger had escaped from Krenwinkel and fled out a bedroom door to the pool area.[62][63] Pursued to the front lawn by Krenwinkel, who stabbed and, finally, tackled her, she was dispatched by Watson; her two assailants stabbed her a total of twenty-eight times.[56][40] As Frykowski struggled across the lawn, Watson finished him as well, with furious stabbing that brought his total stab wounds to fifty-one.[56][54][40]

Back in the house, Atkins, Watson, or both killed Tate, who was stabbed a total of sixteen times.[40] Tate pleaded to be allowed to live long enough to have her baby; she cried, “Mother… mother…” — until she was dead.[56]

Earlier, as the four Family members had headed out from Spahn Ranch, Manson had told the girls to “leave a sign… something witchy”;[56] now, using the towel that had bound Frykowski’s hands, Atkins wrote “pig” on the house’s front door, in Tate’s blood. En route home, the killers changed out of bloody clothes, which were ditched in the hills, along with their weapons.[56][64][58]

In initial confessions, to cellmates of hers at Sybil Brand Institute, Atkins would say she killed Tate.[64] In later statements — to her attorney, to Vincent Bugliosi, and before a grand jury — she would indicate Tate had been stabbed by Tex Watson.[58] In his 1978 autobiography, Watson himself would say that he stabbed Tate and that Atkins did not.[56] Since he was aware that prosecutor Bugliosi and the jury that had tried the other Tate-LaBianca defendants were convinced Atkins had stabbed Tate, he falsely testified he did not stab her.
LaBianca murders
The next night, six Family members — the four from from the Tate murders as well as Leslie Van Houten and Steve “Clem” Grogan — rode out at Manson’s instruction. Displeased by the panic of the victims at Cielo Drive, Manson accompanied the six, “to show [them] how to do it.”[58][54] After a few hours’ ride, in which he considered a number of murders and even attempted one of them,[54] Manson gave Kasabian directions that brought the group to 3301 Waverly Drive, home of supermarket executive Leno LaBianca and his wife, Rosemary, a dress shop co-owner.[59] Located in the Los Feliz section of Los Angeles, the LaBianca home was next door to a house at which Manson and Family members had attended a party the previous year.[58][68]

After walking up the driveway and looking in a window, Manson took Watson with him through the unlocked back door. This would be reported in Watson’s autobiography, although Atkins and Kasabian had told prosecutors Manson went up to the house alone, returned to say he had tied up the house’s occupants, and sent Watson up with Krenwinkel and Van Houten.[58][54] Watson explained that, at trial, he “went along with” the women’s account, which he figured made him “look that much less responsible.”

Rousing the sleeping Leno LaBianca from the couch at gunpoint, Manson had Watson bind his hands with a leather thong. After Rosemary LaBianca was brought briefly into the living room from the bedroom, Watson followed Manson’s instructions to cover the couple’s heads with pillowcases, which he bound in place with lamp cords. Manson left, sending Krenwinkel and Leslie Van Houten into the house with instructions that the couple be killed.[58][54]

Before leaving Spahn Ranch, Watson had complained to Manson of the inadequacy of the previous night’s weapons.[54] Now, sending the girls from the kitchen to the bedroom, to which Rosemary LaBianca had been returned, he went to the living room and began stabbing Leno LaBianca with a chrome-plated bayonet, the first thrust going into the man’s throat.

Sounds of a scuffle in the bedroom drew Watson there to discover Mrs. LaBianca keeping the girls at bay by swinging the lamp tied to her neck. Subduing her with several stabs of the bayonet, Watson returned to the living room and resumed attacking Leno, whom he stabbed a total of twelve times. After Watson was done, he carved “WAR” on the man’s exposed abdomen, as he would state in his autobiography. Atkins, who did not enter the LaBianca house, told prosecutors she believed Krenwinkel had carved the word.[58]

Returning to the bedroom, where Krenwinkel was stabbing Rosemary LaBianca with a knife from the LaBianca kitchen, Watson — heeding Manson’s instruction to make sure each of the girls played a part — told Van Houten to stab her too. She did, on the exposed buttocks and elsewhere.[68][60][62] At trial, Van Houten would claim, uncertainly,[69] that Rosemary LaBianca was dead by the time she stabbed her. Evidence showed that many of Mrs. LaBianca’s forty-one total stab wounds had, in fact, been inflicted post-mortem.[70]

While Watson cleaned off the bayonet and showered, Krenwinkel wrote “Rise” and “Death to pigs” on the walls and “Healter [sic] Skelter” on the refrigerator door, all in blood. She gave Leno LaBianca fourteen puncture wounds with an ivory-handled, two-tined carving fork, which she left jutting out of his stomach; she also planted a steak knife in his throat.[58][54]

Hoping for a double crime, Manson had gone on to direct Kasabian to drive to the Venice home of an actor acquaintance of hers, another “piggy.” Depositing the second trio of Family members at the man’s apartment building, he drove back to Spahn Ranch, leaving them and the LaBianca killers to hitchhike home.[58][54] Kasabian thwarted this murder by deliberately knocking on the wrong apartment door and waking a stranger. As the group abandoned the murder plan and left, Susan Atkins defecated in the stairwell.[71]
Justice system

Investigation and arrest
On August 10, 1969 — while the Tate autopsies were under way and the LaBianca bodies were yet to be discovered — detectives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, which had jurisdiction in the Hinman case, informed LAPD detectives assigned to the Tate case of the bloody writing at the Hinman house. They even mentioned that the Hinman suspect, Beausoleil, was associated with a group of hippies led by “a guy named Charlie.” The Tate team, thinking the Tate murders a consequence of a drug transaction, ignored the information.[40]

Parent, the shooting victim in the Tate driveway, was determined to have been an acquaintance of William Garretson, a young man hired by Rudi Altobelli to take care of the property while Altobelli himself was away.[40] As the killers arrived, Parent had been leaving Cielo Drive, after a visit to Garretson.[40] Held briefly as a Tate suspect, Garretson, who lived in the guest house and told police he had neither seen nor heard anything on the murder night, was released on August 11, 1969, after undergoing a polygraph examination that indicated he had not been involved in the crimes.[40] Not for decades would he publicly state he had, in fact, witnessed a portion of the murders, as the examination suggested. (See “Aftermath,” below.)[72]

On August 12, 1969, LAPD told the press it had ruled out any connection between the Tate and LaBianca homicides. On August 16, the sheriff’s office raided Spahn Ranch and arrested Manson and twenty-five others, as “suspects in a major auto theft ring” that had been stealing Volkswagens and converting them into dune buggies. Weapons were seized, but because the warrant had been misdated the group was released a few days later.[73]

By the end of August, when virtually all leads had gone nowhere, a report by the LaBianca detectives, generally younger than the Tate team, noted a possible connection between the bloody writings at the LaBianca house and “the singing group the Beatles’ most recent album.”[74]

In mid-October, the LaBianca team, still working separately from the Tate team, checked with the sheriff’s office about possible similar crimes and learned of the Hinman case. They also learned that the Hinman detectives had spoken with Beausoleil’s girlfriend, Kitty Lutesinger, who had been arrested a few days earlier with members of “the Manson Family.”[49]

The arrests had taken place at the desert ranches, to which the Family had moved and where, unknown to authorities, its members had been in the midst of a search for a hole in the ground — access to the Bottomless Pit.[39][75] A joint force of National Park rangers and officers from the California Highway Patrol and the Inyo County Sheriff’s Office — federal, state, and county personnel — had raided both the Myers and Barker ranches after following clues unwittingly left when Family members burned an earthmover owned by Death Valley National Monument.[76][77][78] The raiders had found stolen dune buggies and other vehicles and had arrested two dozen persons, including Manson. A Highway Patrol officer found Manson hiding in a cabinet beneath Barker’s bathroom sink.[49][76]

A month after they, too, had spoken with Lutesinger, the LaBianca detectives made contact with members of a motorcycle gang she’d told them Manson had tried to enlist as his bodyguards while the Family was at Spahn Ranch.[49] While the gang members were providing information that suggested a link between Manson and the murders,[64][26] a dormitory mate of Susan Atkins succeeded in informing LAPD of the Family’s involvement in the crimes.[26] One of those arrested at Barker, Atkins had been booked for the Hinman murder after she’d confirmed to the sheriff’s detectives that she’d been involved in it, as Lutesinger had said.[49] Transferred to Sybil Brand Institute, a detention center in Los Angeles, she had begun talking to bunkmates Ronnie Howard and Virginia Graham, to whom she gave chilling accounts of the events in which she had been involved.[46]

On December 1, 1969, acting on the information from these sources, LAPD announced warrants for the arrest of Watson, Krenwinkel, and Kasabian in the Tate case; the suspects’ involvement in the LaBianca murders was noted. Manson and Atkins, already in custody, were not mentioned; the connection between the LaBianca case and Van Houten, who was also among those arrested near Death Valley, had not yet been recognized.[76][58]

Watson and Krenwinkel, too, were already under arrest, authorities in Texas and Alabama having picked them up on notice from LAPD. On December 2, in New Hampshire, Kasabian voluntarily surrendered to authorities.

Before long, physical evidence such as Krenwinkel’s and Watson’s fingerprints, which had been collected by LAPD at Cielo Drive,[79] was augmented by evidence recovered by the public. On September 1, 1969, the distinctive .22-caliber Hi Standard “Buntline Special” revolver Watson used on Parent, Sebring, and Frykowski had been found and given to the police by a ten-year-old who lived near the Tate residence. In mid-December, when the Los Angeles Times published a crime account based on information Susan Atkins had given her attorney,[81] the boy’s father made several phone calls which finally prompted LAPD to connect the gun with the murders.[82] Acting on that same newspaper account, a local ABC television crew quickly located and recovered the bloody clothing discarded by the Tate killers.[83] Discarded knives used at the Tate residence were never recovered, despite a search by some of the same crewmen and, months later still, by LAPD.[84]
Conviction and sentencing
At the trial, which began June 15, 1970,[60] the prosecution’s main witness was Kasabian, who, along with Manson, Atkins, and Krenwinkel, had been charged with seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy. Not having participated in the killings, she was granted immunity in exchange for testimony that detailed the nights of crimes.[22][85] A deal not to seek the death penalty against Atkins had been withdrawn when she, Atkins, repudiated the grand jury testimony on which the indictments had been secured.[86]

Because of his conduct, including violations of a gag order and submission of “outlandish” and “nonsensical” pretrial motions, Manson’s reluctantly-granted permission to act as his own attorney had been withdrawn by the court before the trial’s start.[87] On Friday, July 24, the first day of testimony, Manson appeared in court with an X carved into his forehead and issued a statement that he was “considered inadequate and incompetent to speak or defend [him]self” — and had “X’d [him]self from [the establishment's] world.”[88][89] Over the following weekend, the female defendants duplicated the mark on their own foreheads, as, within another day or so, most Family members did, too.[90]

The prosecution placed the triggering of Helter Skelter as the main motive.[91] The crime scenes’ bloody White Album references — pig, rise, helter skelter — were correlated with testimony about Manson predictions that the murders blacks would commit at the outset of Helter Skelter would involve the writing of “pigs” on walls in victims’ blood.[36][92] Testimony that Manson had said “now is the time for Helter Skelter” was supplemented with Kasabian’s testimony that, on the night of the LaBianca murders, Manson considered discarding Rosemary LaBianca’s wallet on the street of a black neighborhood.Having obtained the wallet in the LaBianca house, he “wanted a black person to pick it up and use the credit cards so that the people, the establishment, would think it was some sort of an organized group that killed these people.”[93] On his direction, Kasabian had hidden it in the women’s rest room of a service station near a black area.”I want to show blackie how to do it,” Manson had said as the Family members had driven along after the departure from the LaBianca house.

During the trial, Family members haunted the entrances and corridors of the courthouse and were denied access to the courtroom itself only by being subpoenaed as prospective prosecution witnesses. When the group established itself in vigil on the sidewalk, each hard-core member wore a sheathed hunting knife that, being in plain view, was being carried legally. Each was identifiable by the X on his or her forehead.

Some Family members attempted to dissuade witnesses from testifying. Prosecution witnesses Paul Watkins and Juan Flynn were both threatened; Watkins was badly burned in a suspicious fire in his van. Former Family member Barbara Hoyt, who had overheard Susan Atkins describing the Tate murders to Family member Ruth Ann Moorehouse, agreed to accompany the latter to Hawaii. There, Moorehouse allegedly gave her a hamburger spiked with several doses of LSD. Found sprawled on a Honolulu curb in a drugged semi-stupor, Hoyt was taken to the hospital, where she did her best to identify herself as a witness in the Tate-LaBianca murder trial. Before the incident, Hoyt had been a reluctant witness; after the attempt to silence her, her reticence disappeared.

On August 4, despite precautions taken by the court, Manson flashed the jury a Los Angeles Times front page whose headline was “Manson Guilty, Nixon Declares,” a reference to a statement made the previous day when U.S. President Richard Nixon had decried what he saw as the media’s glamorization of Manson. Voir dired by Judge Charles Older, the jurors contended that the headline had not influenced them. The next day, the female defendants stood up and said in unison that, in light of the President’s remark, there was no point in going on with the trial. On October 5, denied the court’s permission to question a prosecution witness whom the defense attorneys had declined to cross-examine, Manson leaped over the defense table and attempted to attack the judge. Wrestled to the ground by bailiffs, he was removed from the courtroom with the female defendants, who’d subsequently risen and begun chanting in Latin. Thereafter, Older allegedly began wearing a revolver under his robes.

As the body of the trial concluded and with the closing arguments impending, attorney Ronald Hughes, who had been representing Leslie Van Houten, disappeared during a weekend trip. When Maxwell Keith was appointed to represent Van Houten in Hughes’s absence, a delay of more than two weeks was required to permit Keith to familiarize himself with the voluminous trial transcripts. No sooner had the trial resumed, just before Christmas, than disruptions of the prosecution’s closing argument by the defendants led Older to ban the four defendants from the courtroom for the remainder of the guilt phase. Older said that it had become obvious that the defendants were acting in collusion with each other and were simply putting on a performance.

On January 25, 1971, guilty verdicts were returned against Manson, Krenwinkel and Atkins on the seven counts of murder and the one of conspiracy; Van Houten was convicted on two counts of murder and one of conspiracy. In the trial’s guilt phase, the defendants had shocked the court by resting without calling a single witness. Lawyers for the women had been unwilling to let Manson engineer a defense in which their clients would testify and take all guilt upon themselves. Not far into the penalty phase, the jurors got a glimpse of the defense Manson had had in mind. Atkins, Krenwinkel, and Van Houten testified the murders had been conceived as “copycat” versions of the Hinman murder, for which Atkins now took credit. The killings, they said, were intended to draw suspicion away from Bobby Beausoleil, by resembling the crime for which he had been jailed. This plan had supposedly been the work of, and carried out under the guidance of, not Manson, but someone allegedly in love with Beausoleil — Linda Kasabian. Among the narrative’s weak points was Atkins’s inability to explain why, as she was maintaining, she had written “political piggy” at the Hinman house in the first place.

Midway through the penalty phase, Manson shaved his head and trimmed his beard to a fork; he told the press, “I am the Devil, and the Devil always has a bald head.” In what the prosecution regarded as belated recognition on their part that imitation of Manson only proved his domination, the female defendants refrained from shaving their heads until the jurors retired to weigh the state’s request for the death penalty.

The effort to exonerate Manson via the “copycat” scenario failed; on March 29, 1971, the jury returned verdicts of death against all four defendants on all counts. On April 19, 1971, Judge Older sentenced the four to death.

On the day the verdicts recommending the death penalty were returned, news came that the badly-decomposed body of Ronald Hughes had been found wedged between two boulders in Ventura County. It was rumored, although never proven, that Hughes was murdered by the Family, possibly because he had stood up to Manson and refused to allow Leslie Van Houten to take the stand and absolve Manson of the crimes. A Family member allegedly said Hughes was “the first of the retaliation murders.”

Aftermath
Protracted proceedings to extradite Tex Watson from his native Texas, where he had resettled a month before his arrest, resulted in his being tried separately. The trial commenced in August 1971; by October, he, too, had been found guilty on seven counts of murder and one of conspiracy. He, too, was sentenced to death.

In February 1972, the death sentences of all five parties were automatically reduced to life in prison by California v. Anderson 64 Cal.2d 633, 414 P.2d 366, (Cal. 1972), in which the Supreme Court of California abolished the death penalty in that state.

In a 1971 trial that took place after his Tate-LaBianca convictions, Manson was found guilty of the murders of Gary Hinman and Donald “Shorty” Shea and was given a life sentence. Shea, a Spahn Ranch stuntman and horse wrangler, had been killed approximately ten days after the August 16, 1969, sheriff’s raid on the ranch. Manson, who suspected that Shea helped set up the raid, had apparently believed Shea was trying to get George Spahn to run the Family off the ranch. Manson was annoyed, too, that the white Shea had married a black woman; and it’s possible Shea knew about the Tate-LaBianca killings. In separate trials, Family members Bruce Davis and Steve “Clem” Grogan were also found guilty of Shea’s murder.

Before the conclusion of Manson’s Tate-LaBianca trial, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times tracked down Manson’s mother, remarried and living in the Pacific Northwest. The former Kathleen Maddox claimed that, in childhood, her son had known no neglect; he had even been “pampered by all the women who surrounded him.”

On September 5, 1975, Squeaky Fromme attempted to assassinate U.S. President Gerald Ford in Sacramento, to which she and Manson follower Sandra Good had moved to be near Manson while he was incarcerated at Folsom State Prison. A subsequent search of the apartment shared by Fromme, Good, and a Family recruit turned up evidence that, coupled with later actions on the part of Good, resulted in Good’s conviction for conspiring to send threatening communications through the United States mail and transmitting death threats by way of interstate commerce. (The threats that were involved were against corporate executives and US government officials and had to do with supposed environmental dereliction on their part.)

1977 marked the resolution of a longstanding Family mystery — the precise location of the remains of Shorty Shea and whether, as had been claimed, Shea had been dismembered and buried in several places. Contacting the prosecutor in his case, Steve Grogan told him that Shea’s corpse had been buried in one piece; he drew a map that pinpointed the location of the body, which was recovered. Of those convicted of Manson-ordered murders, Grogan would become, in 1985, the first to be paroled — and, as of 2007, the only one.

In the 1980s, Manson gave three notable interviews. The first, recorded at California Medical Facility and aired June 13, 1981, was by Tom Snyder for NBC’s The Tomorrow Show. The second, recorded at San Quentin Prison and aired March 7, 1986, was by Charlie Rose for CBS News Nightwatch; it won the national news Emmy Award for “Best Interview” in 1987. The last, with Geraldo Rivera in 1988, was part of that journalist’s prime-time special on Satanism.

On September 25, 1984, while imprisoned at the California Medical Facility at Vacaville, Manson was severely burned by a fellow inmate who poured paint thinner on him and set him alight. The other prisoner, Jan Holmstrom, explained that Manson had objected to his Hare Krishna chants and had verbally threatened him. Despite suffering second- and third-degree burns over 20 percent of his body, Manson recovered from his injuries.

In December 1987, Fromme, serving a life sentence for the assassination attempt, escaped briefly from Alderson Federal Prison Camp in West Virginia. She was trying to reach Manson, whom she had heard had cancer; she was apprehended within days.

In a 1994 conversation with Manson prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, Catherine Share, a one-time Manson-follower, stated that her testimony in the penalty phase of Manson’s trial had been a fabrication intended to save Manson from the gas chamber and had been given on Manson’s explicit direction.[118] Share’s testimony had introduced the copycat-motive story, which the testimony of the three female defendants echoed and according to which the Tate-LaBianca murders had been the idea of Linda Kasabian. In a 1997 segment of the tabloid television program Hard Copy, Share implied that her testimony had been given under a Manson threat of physical harm. In August 1971, after Manson’s trial and sentencing, Share had participated in a violent California retail-store robbery, the object of which was the acquisition of weapons to help free Manson.

In January 1996, a Manson web site was established by latter-day Manson follower George Stimson, who was helped by Sandra Good. Good had been released from prison in 1985, after serving ten years of her fifteen-year sentence for the death threats.

In a 1998-9 interview in Seconds magazine, Bobby Beausoleil rejected the view that Manson ordered him to kill Gary Hinman. He stated Manson did come to Hinman’s house and slash Hinman with a sword. In a 1981 interview with Oui magazine, he denied this. Beausoleil stated that when he read about the Tate murders in the newspaper, “I wasn’t even sure at that point — really, I had no idea who had done it until Manson’s group were actually arrested for it. It had only crossed my mind and I had a premonition, perhaps. There was some little tickle in my mind that the killings might be connected with them….” In the Oui magazine interview, he had stated, “When [the Tate-LaBianca murders] happened, I knew who had done it. I was fairly certain.”

William Garretson, once the young caretaker at Cielo Drive, indicated in a program broadcast in July 1999 on E!, that he had, in fact, seen and heard a portion of the Tate murders from his location in the property’s guest house. This comported with the unofficial results of the polygraph examination that had been given to Garretson on August 10, 1969, and that had effectively eliminated him as a suspect. The LAPD officer who conducted the examination had concluded Garretson was “clean” on participation in the crimes but “muddy” as to his having heard anything. Garretson did not explain why he had withheld his knowledge of the events.

On September 5, 2007, MSNBC aired The Mind of Manson, a complete version of a 1987 interview at California’s San Quentin State Prison. The footage of the “unshackled, unapologetic, and unruly” Manson had been considered “so unbelievable” that only seven minutes of it had originally been broadcast on The Today Show, for which it had been recorded.

In a January 2008 segment of the Discovery Channel’s Most Evil, Barbara Hoyt said that the impression that she had accompanied Ruth Ann Moorehouse to Hawaii just to avoid testifying at the trial of Manson and the women was erroneous. Hoyt said she had cooperated with the Family because she was “trying to keep them from killing my family.” She stated that, at the time of the trial, she was “constantly being threatened: ‘Your family’s gonna die. [The murders] could be repeated at your house.’”

On March 15, 2008, Associated Press reported that forensic investigators had conducted a search for human remains at Barker Ranch the previous month. Following up on longstanding rumors that the Family had killed hitchhikers and runaways who had come into its orbit during its time at Barker, the investigators identified “two likely clandestine grave sites… and one additional site that merits further investigation.” Though they recommended digging, CNN reported on March 28 that the Inyo County Sheriff, who questioned the methods they employed with search dogs, had ordered additional tests before any excavation. Results were to be released to the public, probably in late April.

Technorati Tags: Charles Manson, Not Marilyn Mason, Psycho Rock, The End is Near

I came across this photograph that proves once and for all that life from other planets does exist and they are not friendly.

A child from the Ozarks is being declared a genius because he drew a picture of the attack last summer at a day camp which has now gone from being placed on the fridge to being on display at the SETI Institute*. When asked about the picture, he said he had it from ancient memories that are now coming back to him that the orange space craft is made out of cheese (how did he know it was orange?!). The child then went into a zen like trance and asked his parents for an Xbox, which he promptly received, along with several new age book deals**.

The parents of the young boy told AG that for the past year he has shown a strong preference for Sci-Fi video games and has seen the original Star Wars Trilogy 9 times.

“We always thought there was something extraordinary about him when he began to chant ‘ET phone home’. I mean how did he know that? ET stands for Extra Terrace… or something like that and the film came out WAY before he was born. Genius. Who’da thunk??” said the mother of little Michael. She then continued to tell us, “Given enough time, he can point to Egypt on a map… and not the flat kind that goes on the wall, the globy thing with all the lines.”

Little Michael who’s 19 years old is an honor student at his elementary school in the Ozarks. Although he remains illiterate, he’s able to add and subtract, which puts him well above the mark of his classmates.

The photographer of the invasion could not be reached for an interview but did say, “It was really crazy weird! I’ve no idea how the rest of the city didn’t see it as well!”

*It has not been confirmed that it was put on display at the SETI institute
**Ben’s guess at what happened after the child was questioned about the drawing
***Actually my Monday night show was on and I didn’t feel like talking to myself.

The Birth of a Tabloid

Someone mentioned today that they read an article about the lack of original content on blog sites. Personally I know that the art of writing something interesting and thought provoking has gone down hill ever since the big internet bang (no- it’s not a porn site… or at least I’m not referencing one).

Creative energy has been sucked dry as the Idiocracy cast mates have made their way across the www where they gloss over articles that required brain power, opinion and actual time spent sharing life observations. Instead they respond and hit upon any churned out UFO video or some odd child who was on a random website claiming to have been from Mars. It baffles me. It shouldn’t, but it does.

Could it be that I’ve been a presence on the web for too long? Finding myself sitting back while watching the de-evolution of the participates on the web? Viewing such sites as MySpace pop up and intelligence drop down?

I have to admit it’s been discouraging to put internal talent to font when you feel no one really cares about quality. At times it feels they merely care about “Oh shiny pretty pictures” or “Regardless of the poster being obviously sarcastic I’m going to come across as a know it all and scoff at them because I think they’re being serious and they must be reprimanded.”

I’ve been trying to find my inspiration to keep going. It’s not that I feel I truly have something wonderful to say about random topics, rather it’s because I love to write and I enjoy having an audience of people who could possibly relate to what I’m trying to say, or perhaps add to it by sharing their own ideas.

Take this site for instance. Life has been so overwhelming and although I haven’t had anything to decent to contribute in some time- I see posts that were excerpts from other places crash the site with readers while decent original articles that come from a couple of the staff writers go unnoticed. I sit back quietly and scratch my head. At first I thought it was a dandruff problem so I went out and purchased the new Head and Shoulders line, but the scratching continued as I have observed from afar.

Perhaps creative compromise tends to happen when Reddit and Digg take over the blogosphere and chokes the creative juices out of people when the attention is focused on the tabloid pieces.

The other writers here have been pretty solid, however for myself, I felt the need to write this and voice my opinion because I’ve been watching myself shrink. Small original sites are disappearing to make way for “profiles” and “blogs”. I’ve made the compromises and transitioned. I have to admit it’s been difficult finding my footing. From writer to blogger it’s been difficult keeping up to speed with the short attention span of viewers.

It’s like the Ma and Pa shops being shoved out the way for another Costco or Walmart. How do you keep up and still give something to be proud of?

Why do I continue to write? I guess that would be asking a swimmer why they love to swim or a pianist why they love to play music. “It’s just because it’s who I am.”

Technorati Tags: aliens, attack, tabloid, outer space, geek, blog, osphere, sigh, original writing

I need that *extra* hour. And although a lot of tribes and some areas still don’t acknowledge it, I could never figure out why Alaska jumped on that band wagon. Some how it makes sense for it to get slightly dusky at one in the morning as opposed to midnight during the summer?

My lights are now on again for the hour I’m getting ready in the morning instead of turning them on an hour earlier in the evening. What exactly is it that I’m saving?

I curse you DLS. I CURSE you. Why do we think we can manipulate time? Internally my schedule doesn’t pay attention. I stay up an hour later in the winter months and fall asleep “earlier” during spring and summer. My body cannot be fooled!

Can there be an allowance for apartment dwellers to dismiss daylight saving time because there’s really no purpose to have ‘extra light’ in the evening to do things? Can we choose to have people just adapt their schedules accordingly instead of trying to play God with the clocks? Can businesses who prefer the change have summer and winter hours?

I get up early- I need that burst of added sunlight in the mornings and I like my evenings DARK. I grew up in the land of the midnight sun (one of them), I’ve had my share for a lifetime! In the past several months, last week was the very first time the sun greeted me on the way to work. It was beautiful and it set the tone for the rest of my day. An entire week of watching the sun rise, and now it’ll be dark driving once more. Sun in the morning = good. Sun when I’m trying to unwind at the end of a long day= bad.

Daylight saving… let me think about this- So you use your air conditioner longer in the summer than you would have if your day wasn’t changed. I guess light bulbs use up more energy and increase emissions more than air-conditioners?

My opinion is merely that- an opinion. I feel silly for not knowing the history of DLS after believing my mother that it came to be from the farming community long ago. Now that I actually think about it… farmers preferred to get their work done for the most part in the mornings rather than extend their work loads into the later hours. It makes more sense because the air is cooler, the sun is lower and the heat is friendlier. I was lied to!

Idea of Daylight Saving Time a brief look into the history
Read the full text here

The idea of daylight saving was first conceived by Benjamin Franklin (portrait at right) during his sojourn as an American delegate in Paris in 1784, in an essay, “An Economical Project.”

Some of Franklin’s friends, inventors of a new kind of oil lamp, were so taken by the scheme that they continued corresponding with Franklin even after he returned to America.

The idea was first advocated seriously by London builder William Willett (1857-1915) in the pamphlet, “Waste of Daylight” (1907), that proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in April, and retarding them by the same amount on four Sundays in September. As he was taking an early morning a ride through Petts Wood, near Croydon, Willett was struck by the fact that the blinds of nearby houses were closed, even though the sun was fully risen. When questioned as to why he didn’t simply get up an hour earlier, Willett replied with typical British humor, “What?” In his pamphlet “The Waste of Daylight” he wrote:

“Everyone appreciates the long, light evenings. Everyone laments their shortage as Autumn approaches; and everyone has given utterance to regret that the clear, bright light of an early morning during Spring and Summer months is so seldom seen or used.”

Early British laws and lax observance

About one year after Willett began to advocate daylight saving (he spent a fortune lobbying), he attracted the attention of the authorities. Robert Pearce - later Sir Robert Pearce - introduced a bill in the House of Commons to make it compulsory to adjust the clocks. The bill was drafted in 1909 and introduced in Parliament several times, but it met with ridicule and opposition, especially from farming interests. Generally lampooned at the time, Willett died on March 4, 1915.

Following Germany’s lead, Britain passed an act on May 17, 1916, and Willett’s scheme of adding 80 minutes, in four separate movements was put in operation on the following Sunday, May 21, 1916. There was a storm of opposition, confusion, and prejudice. The Royal Meteorological Society insisted that Greenwich time would still be used to measure tides. The parks belonging to the Office of Works and the London County Council decided to close at dusk, which meant that they would be open an extra hour in the evening. Kew Gardens, on the other hand, ignored the daylight saving scheme and decided to close by the clock.

In Edinburgh, the confusion was even more marked, for the gun at the Castle was fired at 1:00 p.m. Summer Time, while the ball on the top of the Nelson monument on Calton Hill fell at 1:00 Greenwich Time. That arrangement was carried on for the benefit of seamen who could see it from the Firth of Forth. The time fixed for changing clocks was 2:00 a.m. on a Sunday.

There was a fair bit of opposition from the general public and from agricultural interests who wanted daylight in the morning, but Lord Balfour came forward with a unique concern:
“Supposing some unfortunate lady was confined with twins and one child was born 10 minutes before 1 o’clock. … the time of birth of the two children would be reversed. … Such an alteration might conceivably affect the property and titles in that House.”

After World War I, Parliament passed several acts relating to Summer Time. In 1925, a law was enacted that Summer Time should begin on the day following the third Saturday in April (or one week earlier if that day was Easter Day). The date for closing of Summer Time was fixed for the day after the first Saturday in October.

The energy saving benefits of Summer Time were recognized during World War II, when clocks in Britain were put two hours ahead of GMT during the summer. This became known as Double Summer Time. During the war, clocks remained one hour ahead of GMT throughout the winter.

I love to write. Truly I do. One wouldn’t guess that due to my copy/paste type articles of late and lack of reviews.

I feel stale. Truly stale. I’m not sure if it’s partially due to being over worked and very little going on in my life currently. Perhaps a part of me is stuck in that wonderful bating breath mode of an upcoming event. Comic-Con. It’s the latter without a doubt.

See, everyone has been so great and more than anything in this world I want to see the look on my sons face as we get into NYC and he sees the sky scrapers, experiences the city we’ve always longed to go to, seeing our friend Ben and his wife… and then walking into the comic wonderland. I’ve been in frozen mode. If I look forward to it too much (outloud), perhaps it won’t happen.

It’s like a wish that if you say speak it won’t come true.

So here I’ve been for the greater part of watching it become a reality with my hands at my side and sitting on wonderful thoughts and perspectives and barely uttering a word.

I’m afraid to rock the boat. I’m afraid to breathe too loudly until we step foot on East Coast soil in one month and one week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! YEE!

Each night Jonathon asks me about who will be there. He smiles, he laughs and you can see the excitement move from the bottom of his feet to his lips curling upwards as he yells, “YES!!!!!!!! I can’t wait!!!”

I wanted to send out an apology for my lack of writing and at least lack of interesting articles on my part (to you Ben especially)…

This is going to be a HUGE event for us and I encourage anyone who *can* make it- to do so. We are going to celebrate so large and share all of our excited energy that it will be an event to remember for years to come.

Be a part of it. Meet the creators who have kept us in our geek bubbles, experience the event through Jonathon’s eyes of seeing his hero’s and the innocence of feeling the greatness that humbles and inspires us for creativity. I can’t wait to meet and know people who have touched us in font and via the computer, it’d be nice to add a new dimension to it all.

I want to skip through the days leading up to this- but I know I’ll be sitting here in somber face. I’ll go the airport with a look of indifference, yet once the plane takes off, I know my tummy will feel start to feel the reality and I don’t know if at that moment I’ll be able to contain my excitement any more.

Again, thank you everyone and I will try to bring more of myself here in the meantime… but it’s really difficult to think of anything else at the moment!

Dawn- aka Ghic Chic

This year marks the first time watching the Oscars since ‘Crash’ won in 2005. I feel like a traumatized survivor who’s entering a burning building again after rafters had previously fallen and pinned me in burning debris for several hours. Thankfully though there are no nominees that will cause me to go on a long tangent and bore my friends with my rants and aggressions while I try to figure out “wtf?”

Ideas to bring at least yourself amusement:

Go to your local Target and mistake regular people for celebrities. As you’re discussing their ensemble, have them turn towards the security cameras and give the people an interview.
(picture a little old lady with shopping bags and a confused look)
You: Ms. Page… Miss Page…!!! You did a wonderful performance portraying a teenage mother to be. Did you have to do research for the role, and if so do you have any kids in an orphanage and how many?”

Rename your friends or family members after the people up for an award in a leading role and don’t tell them what you’re doing. Purchase a special gift (or a gold painted naked Ken Doll super glued to a wooden board) and whoever’s new name is declared the winner that person receives the gift, explanation optional.

Pick a movie to root for and dress/act like the main character. If it’s ‘No Country for Old Men’, spontaneously shoot whoever comes into your home with a water pistol or squirt them with a catsup bottle. I can’t guarantee you’ll have a lot of friendships after Oscar night, but at least you’ll have a lot of good memories.

If you have a circle of friends that you’re watching the event with: Place the names of the nominees on strips of paper and have people do a random drawing (actors/film/music scores, etc). All people must write an acceptance speech, and if the nominee is chosen, they must give that speech in front of camera- this should prove amusing if they truly loathe the nominee they had randomly selected. It’s even more amusing if your 6′5 300 lb line backer friend pulls “Ruby Dee” out of the hat.

SO regardless if you’re a fan of this year’s selections or not a fan of the Oscar’s period know that Crash can never win again. It has taken a couple of years for me to get over it and regain respect once more for the Academy, but I’m going to try this year so join me in the celebration!

Feel free to submit any videos taken of any of the suggestions mentioned should you chose to do any or all.

First of all I’m a little shocked that this wasn’t already in effect. I think due to the fact that I am a legal citizen of the U.S. I completely spaced the lack of information on my part required in order to obtain a license. A part of me also assumed that my Washington and Alaska ID’s and licenses perhaps offered proof. I’ve no clue. Looking back though, if I had the money- I had a license.

I don’t recall what the laws are in other states, but I’m curious as to why the regulations and requirements for obtaining a license to legally drive isn’t the same across the states.

New license laws draw praise, concern

Illegal immigration foes back changes; employers worry about losing workers

THELMA GUERRERO-HUSTON
Statesman Journal

January 28, 2008

In just more than a week, people seeking to replace or renew an Oregon driver’s license or apply for a new one will have to produce a verifiable Social Security number, in addition to showing proof of their identity and an Oregon address.

At the same time, state lawmakers will convene in Salem for an interim legislative session, where they are expected to take up a flurry of bills, including driver’s license legislation that, if approved, would require proof that a person is living here legally.

The new rules and proposed laws have generated:

Praise from illegal immigration opponents who decry any form of driving privileges for people who cannot prove they are in the country legally.

Concern from employers with large immigrant work forces, including the state’s agricultural, construction and hospitality industries.

“Each one of those industries has a large segment of its revenue generated on the shoulders of many workers who are undocumented,” said Rich Meneghello, an attorney with Fisher & Phillips, a national labor and employment law firm with an office in Portland that represents some of those industries.

Denying the undocumented driving privileges could mean the depletion of thousands of unauthorized workers from the state, which could lead to a labor crunch, especially for the agricultural industry, he said.

“It’s very difficult to find agricultural employers that are on mass transit lines,” Meneghello said.

The loss of these workers eventually could cause a ripple in the state’s economy, he said.

“That’s nonsense,” said Mike Forest, the director of the Oregon Minuteman Patriots Border Alliance in Salem.

“These people aren’t supposed to be here to begin with,” Forest said. “Anybody who comes here illegally, whether they come from Ireland or wherever, should not get a driver’s license because they’re not here legally.”

Jesus Castro, 21, an authorized farmworker from Nicaragua who lives in Salem, said he’s not going to spend too much time worrying about the driver’s license issue.

“A number of us already started making plans to carpool to our jobs,” Castro said. “I know people think we’re going to stop driving or leave the state, but I don’t believe that will happen.”

Estimates of Oregon’s unauthorized population vary.

The Mexican Consulate in Portland previously has said the figure is about 75,000.

In 2005, the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., estimated Oregon’s undocumented immigrant population at between 125,000 and 175,000. The data are based on the Center’s tabulations of the Census Bureau’s 2005 American Community Survey.

Also in 2005, the Oregon Employment Department said between 70,000 and 88,000 unauthorized immigrants were working or looking for work in the state’s labor force.

Of those, between 63,000 and 83,000 likely were employed, the OED said.

Because current state law does not require Oregon’s Driver and Motor Vehicles Services Division to ask for citizenship status, DMV officials say it is not known how many unauthorized immigrant have driver licenses.

Getting an Oregon driver’s license

The following steps outline the process for obtaining an Oregon driver’s license for people ages 16 or older or permit for those age 15. Beginning Feb. 4, the documents required to show proof of identity and date of birth will change slightly.

If you’re an Oregon resident getting a permit or first-time driver’s license:

1. Bring proof of identity and date of birth:
Before Feb. 4: Two primary documents, such as a U.S., Canadian or U.S. Territorial government-issued birth certificate and a valid U.S. passport, U.S. military documents or immigrant visa issued by the U.S. Department of State; or one primary document such as a U.S. birth certificate, and two secondary documents such as a valid U.S. or foreign passport and a U.S. Department of Homeland Security document.

After Feb. 4: A verifiable Social Security number and at least one other document such as a current driver’s license, learner’s permit, U.S. passport or birth certificate.

2. Bring proof of an Oregon address:
Acceptable documents include mortgage papers issued in recent year; utility hook-up work order; or credit card bill, which must contain actual statement, not just the envelope.

3. Pass the knowledge and vision tests:
Pay $5 fee for knowledge test for first-time driver’s license
Pass knowledge test, based on the Oregon Driver and Motor Vehicle Services driving manual
Pass vision screening (no fee required)

4. Pass the driving test:
Must make appointment with DMV by phone.
Pay $9 fee for permit or driver’s license driving test.
Pass driving test in passenger vehicle; must have proof of insurance.

5. Pay fees:
Permit/license/renewal fees:
Pay $18 fee for first-time instruction permit application. Permit valid for two years.
Pay $54.50 fee for first-time driver’s license. License valid for eight years.
If you’re an Oregon resident renewing your oregon driver’s license:

1. Bring license and be prepared to tell them your Social Security number.

2. Pay $34.50 fee for license renewal, which is valid for eight years.
If you’re moving to oregon, with a valid out-of-state driver’s license:

1. Bring proof of identity and date of birth using valid out-of-state driver’s license.

2. Pay knowledge test fee of $5.

3. Pass the knowledge and vision tests.

4. Pay driver’s license fee of $54.50.

NOTE: No driving test needed, must surrender out-of-state driver’s license. (If you do not have a valid out-of-state driver’s license, you will need to go through the first-time driver’s license documentation process above.)

Trapped inside your home; Every movie has been watched, they haven’t written enough books to read and you lack the energy and motivation to write your own. Creativity? Not until spring.

Today I was driving back from getting take out and saw “Free Pregnancy Test” on the sign of a local clinic. I was so bored that I considered actually going in to get tested. Regardless that there’s no way for me to be pregnant, it saddened me that peeing in a cup was almost a welcomed change from the dull rainy winter routine that I’ve placed myself into. Work. Home. Work home work home… store. Home. Work. Home work home work… video store. You’d think they’d have more indoor activities in my rather small city aside from the mundane and painful to visit malls.

Perhaps I’ll check out AA, NA, Alanon, over eaters anon, under eaters anon, gamblers anon and ummm- testicular cancer support group. Sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide.

When I walk outside at work and there’s a co-worker there looking at the same sky, very little needs to be said. We look at each other, look at the sky (mutual heavy sigh). “It’s never going to end.” “Nuh uh.” (heavy sigh)

For all this rain a little snow would definitely be a welcomed change of pace, but there’s no chance it’s going to happen this year. The ground is wet, the rain continues to pour down and temperatures stay a steady 35-45 degrees.

Sometimes I’ll sit and wonder why the houses haven’t sunk into the ground. Maybe it’s happening so gradually that we don’t even notice. One of these days I’ll walk out my front door and realize that I’ve been entering and exiting an underground ramp leading to the surface.

Snow. It’s like that annual bonus your company may or may not give out. If received it gives that inner light an added boost, if not received, it sucks your soul a little and set the tone for the rest of the season.

For those of you who have enough of the white stuff, please send it my way. I’d be more than happy to shovel it, pile it, make igloos out of it, scrape it off my roof, plop down and make snow angels, throw it at pedestrians and stomp it off my boots as there’s just not a whole lot you can do with rain. Trust me, I’ve tried.

Okay Ben, NOW my whine of no snow is out of my system. The site may now resume as normal.

Andrew died in early January in Iraq, and had an arrangement with friends back home to post a ‘final post‘ (caution:brought tears to my eyes) on his blog - his way of leaving a bit of a legacy, and getting his final word in. Powerful stuff, if you ask me.

Why do I think this is remarkable? Well, it shows the power of the citizen journalist blogging in this digital age - even in death you can still get your word out, almost instantly, with the help of technology and some friends. Andrew loved blogging, as reflected in part of his final post:

“Believe it or not, one of the things I will miss most is not being able to blog any longer. The ability to put my thoughts on (virtual) paper and put them where people can read and respond to them has been marvelous, even if most people who have read my writings haven’t agreed with them.”

This is not about political position, Liberal or Conservative, etc. This is about the ability of a person - any person - in the digital age to extend his reach, get his word out - whatever that word may be - even from beyond the grave.

You can read his archived posts, both on his blog, and at the blog he ran for the Rocky Mountain News.

RIP, Andrew Olmstead.

Technorati Tags: Andrew Olmstead, blogging, Iraq, Rocky Mountain News

Why is this even up for discussion? IS creationism being taught in public schools? It irks me beyond belief that it’s taught in private schools and that it’s being taught period. Math is a universal language and you must comprehend, understand, and apply that language in order to move on to obtain a higher education. Why isn’t the same for science?

My comments are bolded

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The National Academy of Sciences on Thursday issued a spirited defense of evolution as the bedrock principle of modern biology, arguing that it, not creationism, must be taught in public school science classes.

The academy, which operates under a mandate from Congress to advise the government on science and technology matters, issued the report at a time when the theory of evolution, first offered in the 19th century, faces renewed attack by some religious conservatives.

Creationism, based on the explanation offered in the Bible, and the related idea of “intelligent design” are not science and, as such, should not be taught in public school science classrooms, according to the report. I thought this was a “duh” factor. Seriously, it’s not?

“We seem to have continuing challenges to the teaching of evolution in schools. That’s something that doesn’t seem to go away,” Barbara Schaal, an evolutionary biologist at Washington University in St. Louis and vice president of National Academy of Sciences, said in a telephone interview.

“We need a citizenry that’s trained in real science.” Can I hear an “Amen”?

Evolution is a theory explaining change in living organisms over the eons due to genetic mutations. For example, it holds that humans evolved from earlier forms of apes.

The report stated that the idea of evolution can be fully compatible with religious faith. “Science and religion are different ways of understanding the world. Needlessly placing them in opposition reduces the potential of each to contribute to a better future,” said the report.

But teaching creationist ideas in science classes confuses students about what constitutes science and what does not, according to the report’s authors.

The report was released by the academy and the Institute of Medicine, which advises policymakers on medical issues. It updates academy publications issued in 1984 and 1999. It was written by a committee headed by University of California-Irvine biology professor Francisco Ayala.

“Biological evolution is one of the most important ideas of modern science. Evolution is supported by abundant evidence from many different fields of scientific investigation. It underlies the modern biological sciences, including the biomedical sciences, and has applications in many other scientific and engineering disciplines,” the report stated.

The authors highlighted developments in evolutionary biology, citing its importance in understanding emerging infectious diseases. They noted the discovery, published in 2006, of the remains of a Tiktaalik, a creature described as an evolutionary link between fish and the first vertebrate animals that walked out of water onto land 375 million years ago.

President George W. Bush said in 2005 American students should be instructed about “intelligent design” alongside evolution as competing theories. “Part of education is to expose people to different schools of thought,” Bush said. Okay Mr. Bush, would you be willing to teach Wicca, Buddhism, Muslim, Judaism, Mormonism and other belief systems into the curriculum? Yeah, I didn’t think so. Basically ignorant people take up the majority of the US- so let’s all throw out logic and go with the Idiot’s Guide to the Universe.

Advocates of “intelligent design” contend that some biological structures are so complex they could not have appeared merely through natural processes. So gee golly let’s go back to the time in which God bowling explained thunder until science was able to convince otherwise. Or the world was flat until they were able to prove otherwise. And we’re the center of the Universe all alone out here for all of eternity, aren’t we?

A Typical Discussion:

Moron: “Well I guess if you want to believe you came from apes (laughing) that’s your choice.”
Me: “I believe we perhaps belong to the same order, yes, but the not the same class or genus. Perhaps a common ancestor, although the more I speak with you, the more it does seem plausible that yes, perhaps we did come from apes as you share a similar intellect.”

A judge in Dover, Pennsylvania ruled in 2005 that the teaching of intelligent design violated the U.S. Constitution, which requires a separation of church and state, because it is based on religious conviction, not science. Exactly.
A 2006 Gallup poll showed that almost half of Americans believe that humans did not evolve but were created by God in their present form within the last 10,000 years. Hm, perhaps I’m really Canadian.

(Editing by Julie Steenhuysen)

As much as I dislike celebrity attention, I don’t give a flying [insert whatever word comes to mind here] about what film, song, and circus stars do on their off time as I’m pretty sure they don’t care what I do on my off time. I felt the need to give something a little attention.

Here are my thoughts.

I’m curious as to why there’s such a price tag on the mundane aspects of someone who’s in the lime light. Who is demanding to peer at these people as if they’re animals in a free roam zoo? I for one couldn’t care less. As long as writers and producers puppet them properly in which I’m entertained be it on an MP3, stage or film, that’s all that matters to me.

I wonder if the death of Princess Diana caused them to see power they held in pestering, intruding and creating drama which caused a higher price tag to float above celebrities heads as they run the risk of causing further damage that could possibly be captured on film. People who are in the public eye live life large just because the cameras are on 24/7 and they feel people are wanting to live vicariously through them until they break or fade away.

Take good ol’ basket case Britney and I swore I never would give her attention. There is absolutely nothing special about the mental case except that she is a product of the paparazzi. She grew up in front of the camera and attention became her air. I personally feel that she is psychologically damaged beyond repair. I couldn’t imagine being in those shoes (or actually lack of shoes most times). The privacy that is longed for becomes too silent too soon. The attention is too intrusive and everything is recorded causing you to feel suffocated under those same lights that you know if you bore them more than a few times by living a regular life, you fade if you lack the true talent to keep you on top. At this point she will never become a legend or icon of talent, beauty and grace. She is not classical and she will never be a classic.

Alcohol and drugs aren’t her addiction nearly as much as the need to stay in the eyes of the public even if it costs you your rights as a parent. Alcohol and drugs are a symptom of her ultimate social disease. Unless she bows out of the way of the lens, and fans and paparazzi allow her do to so, her clownish behaviors will give her the same demise as Ana Nicole Smith and very little tears will be shed by the public. If she treasures her children, she will put on the clothes, make a true attempt to churn out some non digitally enhanced music in which actual talent went into it, and bore the paparazzi with her mature actions of being a woman and a mother merely living her life.

So it brings me back to these people who capture it all- people I can only describe as weasels. I’m curious as to how these people live, how they view themselves, and what they’ll do with their lives when society tires of being voyeurs. <-Well it may take quite a while for the Springer generation to actual get their own lives, but I do hope there comes a day when someone who approaches a company with invasive photos or footage of a person is deemed as a pervert, delinquent and is reprimanded by society for doing exposing someone without consent.

People shell out money to listen to music, to see a film (hopefully for a great premise and film, not the names), not to take away a persons right to live a personal life.

Seriously, I know the bitter sweetness of fame. I remember back when I was customer number 3 in a school holiday play in the second grade. There was the thrill of being on stage, the uncomfortable attention I gained with the applause, the cameras flashing- people coming up to me after the show and patting me on the head and telling what a fantastic job I did. I wanted to hide behind my mother’s skirt and just enjoy the post show party cookies and juice. Once the applause and attention died down, I felt so alone and rejected. The attention was gone, so I got the same feelings of warmth through sugar highs in Twix bars and Tang mix.

This will be the last time I speak up on this topic, and the only reason I spoke up initially is because while I was trying to see what the “Monster Storm” in my area was going to do- Britney’s melt down was on every station instead. Politcal and real news were merely scrolled at the bottom of the screen.

Once more I have to bring up the term I coined, “Idiocracy Manifestations”.

Whether you opt to recognize any one of the many winter holidays, post New Years still paints the world a certain shade of grey. The streets are littered with dead trees, tinsel is crinkled around browned pine needles, and the twinkle lights that had illuminated the neighborhood and cities for months are now balled back up in closets leaving a certain void both visually and mentally.

As much as the Hallmark season gets on our nerves; it felt good to celebrate, complain, and do a shot every time we heard a holiday song (via alcohol or a rifle).  

Paid days off and short work weeks were also an added bonus I already miss as I’m clinging desperately to my first two day weekend in quite a while.  

Annoying yet addictive music, cheesy holiday themed shows and films, multiple festive gatherings and aesthetically appeasing decorations wiped out of view calls for a way keep us going until spring. 

Helpful Suggestions:

• Dye your pets vibrant colors. Not only will it brighten up your surroundings, but constantly cleaning up the bleeding color will keep you busy for months.

• Make a list of your firsts on a white board or blog. January 4th, 2008: “I’ve flipped off my first motorist of the year!” or “I was flipped off for the first time this year!”

• Movie theme nights! This is actually something I used to do for years. You pick a genre be it cheesy horror films, academy award films, classic black and whites- rent a marathon’s worth of the films, don similar attire to the films being watched and eat foods that you associate with the movies. You can do this alone, with your significant other or host a film themed night get together. New Year’s day I had a Godzilla marathon!

• Go to your local florist and buy fresh cut greenery, not flowers, but just leafy branches. It’ll perk you up and transition you from the holiday wreaths and trees through spring, plus they last much longer than cut flowers.

• Keep the festive foods going. Why limit yourself to pumpkin pie once a year? I think associating holiday type foods year round keeps the blah away from the post seasonal culinary delights and assists in not over indulging once November hits.

Feel free to list your post holiday survival that doesn’t include anti-depressants or vandalizing the neighbors’ house.

-Ghic 

I wanted to thank everyone so much for helping 2007 become a year of new family, new chances and feelings of belonging.

What started off as a scary year of uncertainty as we resided in a hospital upstate as a risky operation went awry, as thankful as I was when we were able to resume life at home, there was still a greater feeling of disconnect. A great worry that had weighed on my heart and mind for quite some time prior to the surgery was finally lifted after the “Let’s hope this one works” took place, but it was still difficult to transition back into the swing of things.

Mid-summer as I finally felt life was resuming, I came across AG and loved what I read. I merely wanted to link to join the link exchange, and instead I found a home and a wonderful friend and extension of my family.

So many dreams have been coming true in my time spent here via my want to meet wonderful people and have true friendships,  passion to write and to be read, playing with fun gadgets and then the biggest wish came true of all- Jonathon getting the chance to go to Comic-Con 08 in NYC to meet the creative minds behind his heroes and his passions.

To do something for yourself and create your own happiness is one thing, to see people come together and make your childs dream come true is the greatest feeling in the world.

From the bottom of my heart I wanted to say thank you to everyone for making 2007 the best year I can recall and for setting the tone for 2008.

My faith in people has been restored and I’m finding myself more accepting and embracing of the world around me.

Thank you so much, all of you

Dawn (Ghic Chic) and Jonathon

So have yourself a great holiday, stay safe and stay in touch.

I can picture it now, “I can’t focus, I can’t eat, I can’t save the puppies because what if Dawn aka Ghic Chic is sad or… or… or blah today??? I can’t move forward until I know!”

The holidays can be tough. Lots of people hanging around, lots of family to contend with, lots of money being spent and nary an hour to oneself to plow through the latest game or tinker with the newest gadgets. To that end I’ve put together a list that may help us geeks get through the holidays with our sanity and humor intact.

1. Make your own meade, a honey based alcohol drink dating back over 3000 years. It’s delicious and after seven glasses, Aunt Bertha no longer seems all that intimidating.
2. Go out and get a bunch of USB drives for all your friends. Then, make them more memorable by sewing them inside of stuff.
3. Invest in one of the coolest toys ever – Remote Control Laser Tag Helicopters. Then give them to your only child niece or nephew, thus guaranteeing that you’ll get to play with them too! (or buy two sets!)
4. Vote to get super cheap stuff through Amazon.com. Imagine scoring that PS3 for 50% off? Well it may just be a reality. Then you’ll have to decide whether you’re going to give it away or be selfish!
5. Start a blog detailing all of your holiday triumphs and tragedies.
6. Build customized Linux distros for each family member. Sure it will take you hours and hours but think of the excitement on Grandma’s face when you hand over a 5 year old P4 with NanaOS on it!
7. Have a relative that seems to have everything or a spouse that’s hard to shop for? How about a kid who’s only looking for run of the mill toys? Add some adventure and excitement to their lives by building them a rocket launcher! Imagine their faces as they open this gift!
8. Learn how to cure hangovers and be worshiped by your family members for the uber-geek with all the answers that you are.
9. Synchronize your holiday lights to your holiday music. Sure you may not have $10,000 like the well watched synch to the Trans Siberian Orchestra that’s been circulating around for a few years but for $125 you can come up with something that will do you fairly well.
10. Lock your doors and watch the entire Lord of The Rings (extended edition) trilogy, the Matrix Trilogy and the original cuts of the Star Wars episodes IV – VI.

Technorati Tags: holiday, geeks, christmas, thanksgiving, surviving, making, eating, drinking, geekery

www.sina.com.cn is listed on Technorati as rank 1. It’s a blog by an actress/director which receives upwards of 100 hits a second. Wow! It just got a teeny tiny bit more popular as well because I’m going to link to it.

Here’s the original site and here’s the site in English courtesy of Google translations.

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