Brian

National – Following up on one of my earlier blogs, the five mobsters on trial in Chicago were found guilty on all counts of a racketeering conspiracy and a long list of other crimes including murder. The mob group they belonged to is called The Outfit and it took one of their own, an alleged hit man turned star witness, to bring them down. It took less than 20 hours of deliberation for the jury to find the men guilty. One of the best-known defendants, Joey “The Clown” Lombardo, had been on the run for eight months after the indictment was unsealed. During the trial he lived up to his name by responding to the judge’s question of why he hadn’t seen the doctor lately with, “I was supposed to see him nine months ago, but I was — what do they call it? — I was unavailable.”

Opinion – This is what I expected, but I didn’t think it would take so little time for the jury to convict these guys of all the charges. It seems like there was a lot of evidence against them. I think they got what they had coming, but I couldn’t find out the sentencing (they still have to pin 18 murders to each of these guys and figure out which ones were involved in which murders). I would guess they face life in prison as opposed to capital punishment (according to Wikipedia Illinois has had only twelve executions since 1976). However, it does seem unjust in some ways that Calabrese (the hit man witness) will probably get off easy, or at least easier, for turning traitor on his own family. Even though it was the right thing to do, it’s almost a sure thing he did it to save his own skin.

International – Following up on a different blog entry, another Bin Laden video is due out pretty soon now. It will probably be out by the time anyone reads this. It is expected this video will be meant to serve the same purpose as the first, to rouse extremist sympathizers. Bin Laden’s current message, since his reappearance on the global stage after three years of hiding, is the same as before: convert or die! (“and I really don’t like America.”)

Opinion – Is this really Bin Laden? His beard seems to have been dyed darker and he wasn’t doing so hot last we heard from him, but I think it is. His messages, for the most part, seem up to date and he’s still quite the monotone speaker. It seems pretty tacky and in bad taste to be putting out videos of yourself on the date you murdered nearly 3000 people, but it seems Osama is more preoccupied with getting attention. It is men like this that convince people Faith is in direct opposition to Reason. Here is his previous video that was “upcoming” in my previous blog entry: