LARRY ROIBAL

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A long time New Jersey Democratic operative, and one of the 44 arrested in last weeks political corruption round-up, Shaw had agreed to cooperate with investigators and turn states evidence. He was found dead in his Jersey City luxury apartment. Authorities are trying to determine if it was a suicide.

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You knew something was up when last week, during Yahoo’s second Quarter earnings announcement, the CEO of Yahoo, Carol Bartz, praised it’s competitor Microsoft for the effectiveness of it’s new product, Bing. My own site statistics confirm that Bing is moving up the charts, In June of 09 (it’s inaugural month) Bing referred 150 hits to my site and was 16th down the list of top referrers. This month Bing rose to fifth place referring 1273 hits. While that’s still only 0.38 % of the total hits and a fraction of the traffic referred by Google, it’s a major shift considering Bing only launched it’s search engine last month.

June

July

Well, the long rumored deal has finally happened. Yesterday Yahoo and Microsoft announced they have partnered to take on the industry powerhouse Google. Interesting! Continue Reading

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Daniel Patrick Boyd is charged with operating a terrorist cell in the US since 2006. The indictment alleges that Boyd received military style training in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the purposes of advancing violent jihad against the United States.

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Once the highest paid player in the NFL, Michael Vick has finished serving an 18 month prison term for running a dogfighting ring. NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell announced Monday that Vick has served his time and could play in the league if he could find a team, but a number of teams have already passed.

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A building boom, big bucks, no viable opposition party and a party boss system… Put-em all together, and bada bing, bada boom, you got your Joisey politics. 44 new faces, same old story. The list of crooked politicians in this state is as long as the Garden State Parkway… and that’s just the ones that were caught! Swing a cat in New Jersey and your bound to hit someone on the take. Continuing the New Jersey Hall Of Shame.
1. Hoboken Mayor, Peter Cammarano III - Charged with taking $25,000 in bribes
2. Ridgfield Mayor, Anthony Suarey - Charged with taking $10,000 in bribes
3. Assemblymann, L. Harvey Smith - Charged with taking $15,000 in bribes
4. Seacacus Mayor, Dennis Elwell - Charged with taking $10,000 in bribes
5. Jersey City Deputy Mayor, Leona Beldini - Charged with taking $20,000 in bribes

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A building boom, big bucks, no viable opposition party and a party boss system… Put-em all together, and bada bing, bada boom, you got your Joisey politics. 44 new faces, same old story. The list of crooked politicians in this state is as long as the Garden State Parkway… and that’s just the ones that were caught! Swing a cat in New Jersey and your bound to hit someone on the take. Former mayor of Camden, Milton Millan, convicted on corruption charges in 2000.

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Todays Doodle portrays Wayson Dun, Special Agent in charge of the Newark, New Jersey FBI office. Yesterday federal agents in New Jersey and New York arrested 44 corrupt politicians and rabbis in a vast money laundering network. All I can say this morning is, thank God for the FBI! You’ve heard it said, You get the government you deserve and deserve the government you get? Well, I don’t think I deserve the most corrupt government in the nation, so I’m appreciative of all the hard work the FBI does to protect me from the thugs and the uninformed citizenry of New Jersey that keeps electing said thugs to office. Good Work FBI!

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Judith Leyster 1609-1660 was a dutch painter thought to have studied under the great Franz Hals. She had the beginnings of a great career. She had her own atelier, her own students and her own style, which was very unusual for a woman in that era. What happened next wasn’t so unusual. She married the famed (albeit inferior) painter, Jan Miense Molenaer, settled down to have children and painted less. Like an appetizer, her body of work is small, beautifully crafted and leaves you salivating for more. In celebration of her 400th birthday The National Gallery in Washington DC is having a small retrospective of the woman dutch master through Nov 29.

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After a six week hospital stay and more than two months away from the senate, Robert Byrd made a surprise return to the senate floor yesterday to cast a vote.

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A fame hungry woman dreams of breaking from her boring hubby. A glitzy starlet arrested for double homicide when she discovers her hubby sleeping with her sister. The Fame hungry woman shoots a sleaze ball who made false promises. Enter the smooth talking charlatan who gives everyone the old razzle dazzle. No, it’s not a preview for an upcoming Jerry Springer Show. But it does seem fitting that Springer is starring as Billy Flynn in the London production of Chicago and hopes to play the role on Broadway this August.

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Frank McCourt passed away yesterday from complications of melanoma. He was born in Brooklyn, New York during the Great Depression and would return years later and become a New York City public school teacher. What happened in between was the horrific tale of his childhood and the basis for his Pulitzer Prize winning memoir, Angela’s Ashes. He was 78.

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The “most trusted man in America” has passed away from complications of dementia. Cronkite anchored the CBS Evening News from 1962 to 1981. His trusting delivery and presence informed America during one of the most turbulent eras in our nation’s history - from the Vietnam War to the assassinations of  JFK, RFK and MLK. He was 92.

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While most reporting in Hollywood seems to consist of puff pieces written by those rubbing elbows with celebs on the red carpet, Nikki Finke is a tough reporter who keeps her distance from the limelight and her elbows sharpened. Her blog Deadline Hollywood Daily has made her a modern day Walter Winchell that execs fear.

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Natalya was a mother, lawyer, journalist and Russian human rights activist. She worked and reported on Russian civil rights abuses in Chechnya. Yesterday she was kidnapped from her home in Grozny. Her body was found dead nine hours later, dumped by the side of the road with two gun shot wounds to the head. She was 50 year old.

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Sonia Sotomayor will be the next Supreme Court Justice, as soon as those on the Senate Judiciary Committee are though showing off how much they know about the law.

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Ron Bloom will become the Obama administration’s top auto adviser. Bloom attended Harvard Business School, spent ten years at investment banks as is known for his negotiating skills.The position is being vacated by Steve Rattner, who is leaving under a cloud of suspicion for his alleged involvement in NYS pension kickbacks.

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Judge Sotomayor goes before the Senate hearing this morning on her way to almost certain confirmation as the next U.S. Supreme Court Justice.

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After conflicting accounts of what was or was not said during a House Intelligence Committee briefing, Leon Panetta has instructed a senior CIA officer to take a look at what happened and to explore what the CIA can do to improve it’s reporting to Congress.

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The Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, Silvio Berlusconi is hosting the G8 Summit. This doodle goes out to my son Andrew, who is studying abroad and today is probably baffled by all the traffic and congestion being he’s in Rome, Italy along with eight of the most powerful men on the planet. Enjoy Capri this weekend Andrew!

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At the age of five, both his parents were imprisoned in Soviet forced labor camps, He was taken from his grandmother and raised in an orphanage as the son of an enemy of the people. From that nightmarish beginning, he went on to earn a medical degree from Leningrad Medical University. He worked as a doctor while he pursued his interest in writing. He wrote of jazz and fashion instead of the misery of the Gulag, publishing more than twenty novels. Aksyonov … Continue Reading

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The eighth and perhaps the most influential Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara has passed away. McNamara served as Defense Secretary for Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson from 1961 to 1968. He was the architect of the Vietnam War, instituted policy analysis, expanded the influence of the Defense Department, and played a large role in the Kennedy Administration’s handling of the Cuban Missile Crisis. He was 93.

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President Obama is in Moscow talking to Putin’s puppet, Dimiri Medvedev.

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With yesterdays win at Wimbledon, Federer has now won more Grand Slam titles than any other player in the history of mens tennis.

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Wha-Wha-What? I have to admit, I didn’t see that coming.

Happy 4th of July everyone!

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California is broke. For the second time since the Great Depression, California is paying it’s bills with I.O.U.’s.

Happy Independence Day Everyone!

Karl Malden passed away yesterday, Malden was extraordinary at portraying the ordinary man. In 1951 he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor portraying Blanche’s suitor Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire and he was nominated in 1954 for his role as a tough dockside priest in On the Waterfront. Growing up I watched him play Lieutenant Mike Stone opposite Michael Douglas in the television series The Streets Of San Francisco. He was 97.

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The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled in favor of Al Franken, making him the next Senator of Minnesota. The SNL alum earned a BA degree in political science from Harvard College, graduating cum laude. Prior to his run for Senate, he wrote and performed for Saturday Night Live for fifteen years, penned five NYT best-selling books and had his own talk radio show. The victory gives the democrats a filibuster proof majority in the US Senate.