Shadowscope

I am officially on vacation from my real job until next Friday and as I am taking the kids to Disney and am the sole author here at Shadowscope I won’t be posting much (if at all) here until next Thursday or Friday. Check out the crime links in my sidebar for some really cool crime sites, many of which are updated daily. We head out Friday afternoon so while I won’t promise, I may have an update or two before we leave town.

If you are one of the 12 or so people that visit my personal site I will still be posting vacation updates there and Twitter as well.

Last night police found a pair of toddlers wandering around an apartment complex barefooted around 10pm after someone called in to report they were out. Police found the two and three year old boys and attempted to find out where they lived but unfortunately the two little boys had no idea.

After going door to door officers eventually found an apartment with the front door open and no adult around. What they did find was another child, a baby, sleeping beside a pit-bull puppy. Of course the house was just in the shape you would think. The windows were all broken and held together with duct tape. Food, garbage and feces were all over the floor. It was generally filthy. Oh yeah, did I mention there were no adults around? Yeah, I guess I did.

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I’ve been running across vague rumors on the net at several different news sites concerning the remains of Natalee Holloway and the possibility that they have been found. I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention to any of the news coming out of Aruba since posting the transcript of the witness that came forward last fall.

This may or may not be anything at all but right now I am thinking it may be that they have really found something. Whether that turns out to be Natalee or not remains to be seen. The rumors and news have been met with very little fanfare so far, but if it turns out to be her remains I will expect the arrest of Joran van Der Sloot to follow pretty soon afterward and then it’ll be back to front page news, even if for just a short time.

Apparently a flight attendant for American Airlines has told a couple of news sources that a cadaver dog was aboard a Miami to Aruba flight she was on and the officer that accompanied the dog told her he was going to search for the remains of Natalee and that they think they have found the location of the remains.

If anything comes out of this I’ll be sure to post it here, although with my work hours it’s bound to be on the news sites long before I hear about it

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March 17, 2009 – Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Bowes, who was gravely wounded while taking down a cop killer, has been selected by the public as the latest weekly finalist in the AMW All-Star contest, sponsored by Sprint.

On September 23, 2008, Officer Bowes responded to a call asking for backup for a fellow cop about to make a drug bust. As he approached the scene, he didn’t know that the suspect had shot and killed the other officer, Sergeant Patrick McDonald.  

Officer Bowes arrived to see the suspect fleeing, and began chasing him. When he caught up with him, the cop killer opened fire again, striking Officer Bowes and shattering his pelvis.  The gunman stood over the fallen officer as he attempted to reload his gun. Officer Bowes took advantage of this moment, and was able to get off five shots, killing the attacker. Officer Bowes is currently recovering from his injuries.

Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Bowes’ bravery was recognized by the public, which gave him the votes to become the fourth of eight weekly finalists in the AMW All-Star Contest, which recognizes outstanding achievements by first responders. Any first responder, such as police, firefighter or EMT, is eligible for the contest, and any member of the public can nominate and vote for their favorite first responder online at AMW.com.

Each weekly finalist will be profiled on America’s Most Wanted (Saturdays, 9:00-10:00  PM ET/PT on FOX). Through their online votes, the public will choose the grand-prize winner. In May, AMW Host John Walsh will present the 2009 AMW All-Star winner with a check for $10,000 at the NASCAR SPRINT Cup Series™ All-Star Challenge at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Nominations are open at AMW.com until April 4, 2009. Members of the public may vote for their favorite first responder once a day, every day. Finalist voting runs through April 12, and the grand-prize winner voting will run April 16-May 5.

At one point in time I was running Amazon context links here but ditched them about a year and a half ago, mainly because most of the paid review companies don’t allow them. Since it’s been well over a year since I’ve done any paid posting here at Shadowscope I have re-implemented context links, using Kontera. For some reason they aren’t showing up on the main page, only in the entries themselves, which is fine right now. You’ll notice them by the double lines under the link, rather than the normal link with no line that I use. It all helps to pay for the hosting.

Now if I can just figured out why the heck it won’t work on the main index. Something to do with pagination I think, since that is no longer working either…

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

OS 4.7.0.114 for the Blackberry Storm has been released into the wild. Before you head over looking for links to download bear in mind that this is a beta release and can hose your storm and turn it into a brick if you screw it up.

That having been said I am currently running version .103 right now, the last official Verizon release being .75. I tend to wait a while myself and let everyone else find all of the bugs before I upgrade myself simply because my phone also doubles as my home and business line and I don’t need a non-working device if the bugs are too ugly.

If you are still interested, head over to the CrackBerry forums where you can find more information.