Whose that Author?

[Johnny Torrio] liked my ideas, like setting up a legitimate front to keep the reform crowd from asking embarrassing questions, some easy thing to maintain, like a second-hand furniture store. This was the beginning of Al Brown, Antique Dealer. It wouldn't fool a baby, but it wasn't busting the law in their face, so there wasn't any public show of disrespect, which when you come down to it is the only thing they really care about, the church committees and politicians. Johnny said I had too good a head on my shoulders to make thirty-five bucks a week slugging drunks.
Sometimes, I have to admit, I lost that head. In the fall of 1919 I was drinking in a harbor saloon when this character Artie Finnegan comes in. I didn't know him. Short, squat, face like a cheese. He sees me and starts cussing me out, greasy nigger wop this, greasy nigger wop that, stinking up the place. I'm thinking, what's your problem, Paddy, you got piles or what? Stranger minding his own business, you want to start something over nothing? That's kid stuff. After Five Points I never in my life went looking for a fight. In Chicago I never hit back but that they hit me first. Well, he keeps on, and now he's dragging my family into it, my mother, my father, my wife if I've got one, bastards and whores all of them. He's dotting i's, crossing t's. He didn't come here to lift a pint and sing "Danny Boy."
I beat the Irish clean out of him. My hands still ache when I think about it. They had to drag me off him. Now he's on the floor leaking blood from everywhere, even his ears; I think, well, there you are, you cocksucker, you wanted to dance, now you're dead. I really thought he was.
I wasn't worried about the cops. I'd been pulled in before over a couple of scraps and questioned, roughed around, turned loose with the charges dropped, and when the doctors said they figured they could put Artie Finnegan back together after all, minus a few pieces, I knew the cops wouldn't waste their time looking for an eyewitness that wouldn't say Finnegan slipped on a puddle of beer and fell down a couple dozen times. It was the White Handers I was concerned about. Finnegan was one, and Dinny Meehan didn't like his boys being abused any more than Frankie Yale did his. Dinny sicced Wild Bill Lovett on me.

"Florida man killed after asking if bulletproof vest works"

If you think something... do you have to say that something?

A Tampa police report says Joaquin Mendez, 23, put on the vest late Saturday and "wondered aloud whether it still worked."

Police say his cousin, Alexandro Garibaldi, 24, pulled out a gun and responded, "Let's see."

Officers found Mendez outside the house with a gunshot wound in his chest. Mendez died at a hospital.

When a judge misjudges

"The judge who asked an alleged rape victim why she 'couldn't keep her knees together' might lose his job."

A Canadian judge is facing the possibility of removal from the bench after he faulted a 19-year-old woman who said she was raped for not doing enough to defend herself during the alleged attack and suggesting that she wanted to have sex.

Among Federal Court Justice Robin Camp's remarks during a 2014 sexual assault trial, according to a notice of allegations posted on the Canadian Judicial Council website:

"Why couldn't you just keep your knees together? Why didn't you just sink your bottom down into the basin so he couldn't penetrate you?"

Young women, the judge said, "want to have sex, particularly if they're drunk," according to the notice.

He also said that "some sex and pain sometimes go together" and "that's not necessarily a bad thing."

Camp's controversial remarks resulted in an investigation by the Canadian Judicial Council, a federal body that polices judges.

He is expected to testify Friday before a five-member committee as part of a week-long proceeding that began Tuesday and will end next week in Calgary, Alberta.

The committee will decide on Camp's fate after hearing evidence and testimony. (lots more)

If this is true it really sucks.

Speaking fees for ex-presidents are a big topic of discussion these days. It is obscene to find out how much money that President Clinton and Hillary and even their dog faced daughter get to give a speech. But now there is an even more distressing story.

It seems that ex-President Bush got $100,000 to give a speech to a benefit for disabled vets from Iraq and Afghanistan.

According to the New York Daily News: "Former Marine Eddie Wright (pictured above with President Bush) who served on the charity’s board and lost both hands in a 2004 rocket attack in Iraq, told ABC he didn’t think it was right for Bush to have been paid to raise money for vets through the group, which provides adapted homes to service members who became disabled in combat."

According to Mr. Wright Laura Bush got $50,000 the year before to speak to same group.

Now I don't know if this is true. It might be something thrown up against the wall for cover for the Clinton's and their shenanigans. But if it is true I am very disappointed in President Bush. I hope he donated the money back to the charity or something. Because if he didn't I would lose a lot of respect for him.