According to the Associated Press the video has been endlessly debated ahead of a runoff vote in the country. No-one can tell if he hit a kid deliberately, or in some kind of bizarre accident. Judge for yourself. Basescu squats at the edge of a stage, reaching out into the crowd. Then little Bogdan Istratoiu reaches up and puts his hand in the president's...

John DeJohn, who owns four Albany eateries including the new Pearl Street Pub, and Joe Schaefer, co-owner of Savannah's, located two blocks from the pub, are scheduled for a three-round boxing match...
"I'm going there not just to win but to take out a lot of rage and aggression I have toward certain people," says Schaefer

Also maybe a good night for Steve Barnes to look for a suspect in his beating: an Albany restaurateur with a violent streak.

Freshman NYU ladies come running to windows of their dorm every time Jude Law comes out on his balcony. The reason for this, again: Jude Law lives in a condo with a balcony that is towered over by a dormitory full of 18 year-olds. He has not made friends with his neighbors, according to the NYP:

"He noticed we were there and we started waving at him. Then he went inside and came back with two oranges," freshman Neha Najeeb told The Post. "He threw them at our window, but he missed." Law then went back inside and returned with two additional oranges, she said.

In four tries, he landed two oranges on the windows next door. I see several problems here:

1. They don't play baseball in England. Try kicking the oranges next time, Jude. Heh.
2. Jude Law goes out on his balcony to exercise with a personal trainer, then gets upset when people look at him. Go to a gym, you bizarrely attractive yogi. Rich people seem to enjoy Equinox.
3. Look at these pictures of his totally comical workout outfit. Heh.
4. Just be thankful you're not located next door to a state school dorm, Jude Law. Your balcony would be covered in shattered beer bottles at all times. It's not as bad as you think. Your every move is an object of fantasy for dozens of young women, just enjoy it. God.

LeDuff's story today on the murder of a witness to another murder unfolds like a single strand of an unceasing web of violence, drugs, and urban hopelessness; by the time LeDuff's finished, he's detailed two gun murders, a man beaten to death in a nightclub, the vagaries of Detroit's biggest crack gang, multiple crime witnesses terrified for their own lives, an old man beaten and robbed, and one informant convinced the prosecutor of the case he's informing on is going to get him killed. And vice versa!

"Me and my family's dead, know what I'm saying? I mean, the first witness got killed," he shouted. "The prosecutor's desperate for a case but they can't even use that tape. I could have been lying. It's hearsay. If they subpoena me, I ain't saying s—-. I'm taking the Fifth. Who's gonna protect me? BMF runs the streets. I'm f——— dead. I ain't going out without a gun battle. I promise. There's gonna be a war."

The prosecutor wears a bulletproof vest, btw. Detroit: Jesus Christ, what the fuck. Read the whole story. And the upshot of this piece of journalism: LeDuff tells us he's taking precautions with his family. "Let me just say they're staying elsewhere." [Pic: Flickr]

Meet Lionel McIntyre (pictured), an "Associate Professor in the Practice of Community Development and the Founding Director of the Urban Technical Assistance Project at Columbia University." According to the Columbia Spectator and the NY Post, he went out to a bar on 125th St. last Friday night with Margaret Davis, a white female colleague, and practiced community development by technically assisting her with a sucker punch in the face:

The professor, who is black, had been engaged in a fiery discussion about "white privilege" with Davis, who is white, and another male regular, who is also white...McIntyre, who is known as "Mac" at the bar, shoved Davis, and when the other patron and a bar employee tried to break it up, the prof slugged Davis in the face, witnesses said.

Dude Lionel McIntyre we hope you were really drunk, for your own sake. Judging by all the sources cited, this is an accurate report of what happened. Professor McIntyre is a veteran of the civil rights movement but appears to have descended into either a serious drinking problem or total bitchassness.

The Ivy League Punch-Edginess hypothesis has failed.

Today's New York Times article on Munley details the 5"4, 34 year-old SWAT-team member's hobbies thusly:

...A woman with a fierce love of hunting, surfing and other outdoor sports..

So, we have a hunter, a surfer, and an outdoorswoman. Who's also got more balls than anybody you will probably encounter over the course of your life:

Sergeant Munley...bolted from her car, yanked her pistol out and shot at Major Hasan. He turned on her and began to fire. She ran toward him, continuing to fire, and both she and Major Hasan went down with several bullet wounds, Mr. Medley said.

Whether Sergeant Munley was solely responsible for taking down Major Hasan or whether he was also hit by gunfire from her partner is unclear, but she was the first to fire at him, the authorities said.

Bang bang. The name of the training which Munley received is called "active shooter protocol," from which you could probably surmise is what they teach you to do when somebody is firing bullets at other people and/or you. Most people's "active shooter protocol" is to get the fuck out of the way as quickly as you can and start every foxhole prayer you've ever learned. Munley went after Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, and opened fire. She's already got a reputation for this kind of bravado:

Her partner in Wrightsville, Investigator Shaun Appler, recalled how Sergeant Munley saved him one night when she wrestled a large man off him after the man had pinned him down and was trying to take his gun. She earned the nickname Mighty Mouse for that, he said.

Damn. She's been hunting since she was 11, her husband is in a Special Forces unit, she's got a 3 year-old daughter, and she chases would-be burglars around her neighborhood when she's not working.

One neighbor, Sgt. First Class William Barbrow, said that about a year ago Sergeant Munley chased down a burglar who had been prowling around the neighborhood.

Not only that, but she's got about 3,540 more Twitter followers than you. Is there anything this woman's afraid of?

Naturally. I always feel creepy and weird when placing the designation of "hero" on anybody, because, you know, that's just strange. It's a word that gets thrown around, especially here in New York, where our "hero" cops are often just a bunch of thick-necked, jacked-up crooks using intimidation tactics and barely subtle racism to enforce their own brand of "justice" upon our fair city. But I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that we've found ourselves The Real McCoy in this one, wouldn't you?

• Nouriel Roubini likes to rock the party.
• JFK blown away, what else did Mad Men have to say about how crazy it was that things were different in the early '60s?
• We endorsed not voting for Mike Bloomberg and, to be fair, a majority of New Yorkers took our advice, one way or another.
• Jay Leno maybe wants to go back to late night. No one knew that Tucker Max had a movie out, besides Hamilton.
• Old people at a newspaper were punching each other. It was kinda awesome. Then someone from Yelp tried to punch someone else from Yelp, and it was not as awesome.
• Sarah Palin really wanted to give a terrible speech full of "gonnas" and stuff, on election day, last year.
• Google stole maps! And they know everything about you!
• Gossip Girl and The City are shows about girls who gossip and live in the city.
• Oh no, some newspaper reporters missed out on the heartwarming story of a baseball team buying themselves a special prize.
• Dead clubs: still dead.
• Hey, an attempt to put the civil rights of a minority group to a popular vote failed, this week. Crazy.
• Whoops, we forgot to ask permission before reprinting emails between journalists and Eliot Spitzer's press office.
• Tom Cruise can control things with his mind. His mind and his arms and hands and legs and stuff. But mostly his mind.
• Are you exploiting your child enough? Or is a child exploiting you?
• Project Runway continues to suffer from boring challenges, terrible and inconsistent judging, and impossibly bland contestants. On the plus side: those ads for that movie with Ashton Kutcher and Catwoman.
• Levi Johnston is worried that his penis—which he plans on displaying in a pretend internet magazine—is not large enough to be presented in a pretend internet magazine.
• Swine flu attacked an adorable kitty cat! And also Rudy Giuliani gave it to a ferret.
• Spanx: still a thing.
• Top Chef had Fabio on it, yay!
• Oliver Zahm: he is French and he takes pictures of naked ladies and he goes to parties.
• Michele Bachmann attempted to lead a band of insurrectionists to take over the Capitol, where she is an elected legislator.
• Let's paint, exercise, and ride a private jet with a Silicon Valley performance artist/charlatan.
• Have you caught "Tardy For the Party" fever???
• Nidal Hasan, a military psychologist, shot dozens of people at an Army base, before a hero cop (a civilian and a woman) shot him. The shooter reportedly fulfilled all of the right-wing's demented deathporn fantasies.
• Glenn Beck's appendix attempted to burst from his stomach and free itself from his toxic body, but doctors kept the famous crazy person alive. Some people asked some questions about all of this!

Near-retiree Washington Post editor Henry Allen punched writer Manuel Roig-Franzia in the face after Roig-Franzia called him a "cocksucker." Hank Steuver, a WaPo colleague whose editor is Allen, thinks the man may have some issues:

What made Henry snap was that a writer called him a naughty word, an epithet that rhymes with "coughstucker" and is playfully or spitefully reserved as a way to insult a man, by implying he's gay.

Being an enthusiastic coughstucker myself, I would someday like to ask Henry if it was the insulting delivery of the word, or the subtext of gayness that the word implies that angered him most?...Was it about the person who said it? The way he said it? Or that it was said at all? If another person in Style called me a coughstucker, I'd just have to shrug and use the Popeye retort: I am what I am.

You're totally missing the point, Hank. Imagine how you would feel if someone called you a vagina sucker! It's a slur because it was meant to be a slur. Why not ask Manuel why in the world he would use "cocksucker" as anything less than a term of endearment? Outrageous! A slur is not rendered moot to the average testosterone-filled male simply because it's true. I may be ugly, but I don't want it pointed out to me.

[And be sure to watch that dramatic re-enactment video of the fight, performed by Washington City Paper employees. A+. It does make Henry Allen appear somewhat unstable though! Via Romenesko]

Your Fighters:

Henry Allen, Pulitzer Prize-winning veteran WaPo feature writer and editor who is "nearly 70" and an ex-Marine.


Manuel Roig-Franzia, much younger WaPo staff writer who knows how to "make a mean gumbo."

The Washingtonian has the stunning details of the journobrawl: Reportedly, Roig-Franzia and his colleague Monica Hesse filed a charticle about historic political ethics violations that enraged Allen, who called it "the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years." We can't wait to hear what happens next!

"Oh, Henry," [Roig-Franzia] supposedly said, "don't be such a cocks——-."

Allen lunged at Roig-Franzia, threw him to the newsroom floor, and started throwing punches. Roig-Franzia tried to fend him off. Brauchli and others pulled the two apart.

That would be WaPo editor Marcus Brauchli, who reportedly helped break up the fight himself! Then he reportedly pulled Allen into his office, maybe to fire him?!? Although one could argue that Roig-Franzia should possibly be fired as well on general principle if he did in fact lose a fistfight to a near-septuagenarian!

WaPo staffers, we know you have more details, and maybe sexxxy fight pixxx! Can this be accurately termed an "ass whupping," or was it just a "sucker punch," or was it more of an "embarrassing flailing about?" Email us at once.

UPDATE: FishbowlDC (which apparently broke this story, hey), has a source saying "it was a single punch and no one was on the ground."

We're thinking it was like this, but if Zimmer had ducked and then knocked Pedro Martinez out:

Queens Democrats will instead endorse Assemblyman Jose Peralta. All because Moneserrate switched parties earlier this year in an attempt to seize control of the State Senate and then went on trial for slashing his girlfriend's face with a broken glass and also there are dozens of campaign finance disclosure and ethics violations that someone should probably be looking into!

It's not all bad, though! The Democrats still haven't decided whether or not they should expel Monserrate from the Senate (hint: you should), and so far they have just asked him politely to resign, which he will not do.

And! Some good news! Secret billionaires are paying all of Monserrate's legal bills, in a gross and obvious violation of State Senate ethics rules that, once again, no one is investigating.

Still: not having the backing of the Democratic party might make it difficult for Monserrate to fundraise for his reelection.

Of course, it could be worse! Someone could've slashed his face open with a broken glass, literally dragged him kicking and screaming from his apartment, and dumped him off at a hospital miles away from home. That might put a damper on his day.

[Photo: Getty]

It is a shitty decision, frankly. Misdemeanor reckless assault means it was unintentional, but if the judge didn't see any intent, why did he issue an "order of protection" keeping Monserrate away from his girlfriend until the sentencing? According to a New York criminal law blog, if the judge had found Monserrate guilty of intentional misdemeanor assault, the fact that he used a "dangerous instrument" would've made it an automatic felony, which would've forced his removal from the State Senate, once again throwing Albany into chaos.

But whatever! What's slashed and dragged to a hospital is done! What is next for ol' Hiram?

Albany Democrats were, perversely, praying for a felony conviction, if you believe the anonymous quotes in the Daily News. This would've saved them the trouble of having to oust Hiram themselves.

"I was praying that [expletive deleted] would get convicted and he would be gone," one furious Democratic senator said.
[...]
"A lot of people want to oust him," a Senate Democrat said. "As the days go by, I think most people will (agree) that we should get rid of the guy. This is not a guy who most of his colleagues want to see back."

But!

Fearful of losing their slim majority in the Senate, Democratic leaders were vague about the what kind of "disciplinary action" Monserrate might face.

Hah. Yes, and when the pol in question is happy to switch party allegiances whenever it suits him (making Republican calls for ouster equally amusing), and when that switch has the potential to give the other party the Senate majority, your disciplinary options are limited, especially if you're a bunch of scum-sucking political cowards and hacks. Which they are.

This is a New York Post exclusive from a prison snitch source—and that combo last wowed the world with the story about how Madoff has cancer, which turned out to be false. So regulate your credulousness accordingly!

Anyhow, the story goes that Madoff and another prisoner were arguing about the stock market, of all things, and the other dude shoved Bernie, and Bernie—to the surprise of all the hard rocks—shoved the dude back so hard that he fell down. Then the other dude took off like a punk! Madoff earned himself some "cred," according to the Post. It's practically a scene-by-scene reenactment of American Me up in there! And what horrific gang violence is coming now that Bernie set it off?

The next day, Madoff and his attacker, described by inmates as a white male over 60 years old, made up and were spotted hanging out together.

Outstanding. Until another paper gets its act together and starts bribing those prison snitches as well as the Post does, we'll have to take their word for it.

Please God let the Black Guerilla Family recruit Bernie Madoff.
[Pic: Getty]

Thousands of people lined up for assistance, with some arriving the night before, like a new iPhone was being released, except the opposite. The line went around the block. The Police Gang Unit showed up. A fight broke out.

The city was directing people with additional questions to call 313-224-0316, but no one was answering before calls to that number were automatically disconnected just before noon today.

And here is the part where some stupid, hippy-dippy liberal pantywaist would be like "huh so banks get literally billions with the understanding that eventually they should maybe pay some of it back but we will only help 5,000 human beings pay their electric bills, and only if they get their application in by 2 p.m. today. Crazy!" But, as we said, only someone fat and annoying like Michael Moore would say that.

This kinda takes the shine off that 12th-inning Twins victory, right?

[Old Tiger Stadium photo: Heyroob via Flickr]

Major Mackerel—remember him, from back in the day? 'Dutty Bungle?' 'Pretty Looks Done?' Well if you really liked dancehall you probably would. But in an interesting insight into what musical artists do after their time in the spotlight is over, Major Mackerel's now living a quiet life in Brooklyn. Until yesterday, when he fell victim to that most urban of crimes: a samurai sword attack, by an irate neighbor. Major, what happened out there?

"I was singing my song, then I see him with a sword," he said.

This is the most notable Ninja vs. Reggae Artist incident since Super Cat was slain in a shuriken attack in a Cincinnati suburb in 2003.
[Pic: Myspace]

Stanford came out of the jailhouse scrap last week with "a concussion, two black eyes and a broken nose." Which is a pretty serious whuppin by fight standards, let's be honest.

But look: for months, Allen's been complaining that there's no air conditioning in his crowded facility, and that the conditions are hellish. Now that he caught a bad one, he's finally getting transferred to another jail. Presumably with air conditioning? The fact that the awful jail food is withering away his once-thick frame to the point that he was seriously beaten in a fistfight is actually paying off for him, if you disregard the beating itself.

Also, the fact that more than two million of our fellow citizens are locked in cages where they must fight for their very lives as an unstated additional punishment for their crime is fucked up, even if we don't care for the person.
[Pic: AP]

Here is a video of various popular television news show hosts and elected officials—well, Glenn Beck and Michele Bachmann (R-MN)—explaining that the census was part of a plot to round up patriotic Americans and place them in internment camps.

Also included: a fun amateur short-film in which a young man in fatigues aims an assault rifle at a census taker. The best part is when the crazy patriot holds up his handy copy of the Constitution, which explains that you only have to answer one question from the census taker and if they try to ask anymore you are free to shoot them.

Authories have not yet declared Sparkman's death a homicide, Oviously, there is a hell of a lot we don't know about the case, and we are actually leaning toward "killed by meth producers" instead of politically motivated domestic terror, but it is still worth pointing out that these people in this video are insane.

Now his judge, Queens Supreme Court Justice William Erlbaum, has seen the famous video of Monserrate dragging his bleeding girlfriend from their apartment building, on his way to take her not to the closest hospital but rather to one that he thought was outside city limits, and he might not have shown that tape to a jury, but Monserrate decided not to leave that to chance.

His gravely voiced attack-dog lawyer Joeseph Tacopina says it'd be impossible to get an unbiased jury anyway, because everyone who reads the papers knows what this asshole did, and Tacopina does not want things like "sympathy" getting in the way of a fair verdict.

Monserrate's defense rests on his claim that his girlfriend's face was brutally slashed when he tripped while bringing her a glass of water during an argument, because in addition to being violent he is also dumb.

The New York branch of the National Organization for Women are asking Justice Erlbaum to sentence Monserrate to the maximum sentence allowable by law, which could be as much as seven years in prison. Tacopina thinks this is a terrible injustice, that an activist group would write a letter to a judge, but they are the ones who decided to let a judge decide this, and people are obviously allowed to write whatever they want to judges. In fact we are writing a letter to the judge asking him to consider maybe locking up other members of the New York State Senate after he's done with this one.

[Photo: Getty]