Meanwhile, authorities said it was not the first time they had encountered dead animals in unusual circumstances in South Jersey.

McCleery and police said calls had been received earlier this year involving animals in Lindenwold, Camden County.

In the first case, a goat's head was found inside a recently dug grave in the Gates of Heaven cemetery on the White Horse Pike. Not long afterward, candles and dead birds were found at the doorstep of the Lindenwold police station.

Lindenwold Police Detective Chris Sherrer said police have not determined where the animals came from or why they were placed at either location.

"It's weird," he said.

---

Somebodyisfromhere.com wonders what is going on in his hometown. He also thinks it's a bizarre way journalistically to end a story. Really, you had a conversation a conversation with a detective and that was the most official your talk got? "It's weird"? It is weird. Somebodyisfromhere.com isn't judging. He thinks that aspect of the story is funny.

... 

The baseball season is long and prone to overreaction. With every good winning streak, comes with the assumption of destiny and the losses come with a sense of impending doom.

This however is not an overreaction. Jimmy Rollins should be traded.

It's not a reaction to his poor play this season in which he woke up on June 25th with a .211 batting average. Perhaps he will go on that hot streak Charlie Manual is so confident about and end up near his career .274.

Jimmy's offense has always been a bit overrated. He's always frustrated us more than he hasn't. That's not to take away from his MVP in 2007 which he earned. You can talk about how he was the spark on that team or that he scored all those runs. For me, though, the guy got 94 RBIs from the leadoff spot on a National League ballclub. That's incredible.

To me his career will be summed up by his euphoric interview after the rain soaked World Series clincher. To paraphrase, when asked about moving the runner over after Geoff Jenkin's double, he said he was going to bunt whether Manual told him to or not because it was the right thing to do. He's always seemed to be the guy who knew what he needed to do whether it was to walk more (or at least see some pitches) or bunt more, but he chooses not to do it. Instead, he pops up more than Willie Mays Hayes.

This is not a profession of love for Jason Donald whose play on the US team was patriotic and whose play in spring was encouraging. He's still a minor leaguer and anytime you bring one up there is risk.

This is only about business. The Phillies deserve credit for upping their payroll over the winter. It's assumed that they would even be willing to add to it a little more to it in the right move near the trade deadline. What they need is a number 2 pitcher (hopefully now, but definately before the start of next season) and those are expensive.

How much would a starter of that caliber cost? The Phillies probably won't get one of the pitchers people have recently been salivating over, but their salaries are good indicators of what it will cost. Jake Peavy makes $11 million this year. Roy Oswalt makes $14 million.  Roy Halladay makes $14.25.

Would the Phillies spend this much? Is it good business to?

Sooner or later the Philles will have to start to realocate some salary to pitching. Howard and Utley are the core of the team and untradeable. Shane Victorino ($3.1), Jayson Werth ($2.5), and the catchers are fairly cheap. Raul Ibanez's contract is too new.

That leaves Pedro Feliz ($5) and Rollins ($8.5). They are similar in that much of their reputation is earned on defense. There is a chance Feliz won't be back with the team next as his was a 2 year contract signed last year.

That's where Donald comes in. He is cheap and would probably play alright. And that makes Rollins expendable.

 ####

Colin Rodgers writes for the Conversational Travel Magazine Somebodyisfromhere.com. His traveling sports stories have often been about the Phillies.

Spring Training: http://somebodyisfromhere.com/Spring_Training.html

How Pat Burrell Explains Philaelphia: http://somebodyisfromhere.com/Pat_Burrell.html

Washington DC: http://www.somebodyisfromhere.com/National_Park.html

Priest: Does this offend you as a Jew?

Jerry: No, it offends me as a comedian.

Well that is what comes to mind watching Obama's "historic" speech (a little premature to label it historic no?). He talks about Christians because he is one. He talks about Muslims because he's has that liniage. He talks about Jews, presumably, because we're just too confused to say anything about it. It's Somebodyisfromhere.com's belief he'll be Buddist in weeks.

 So back to the Priest, does this offend me as a Christian? Well, no, I just want to watch Seinfeld.

Priest: Does this offend you as a Jew?

Jerry: No, it offends me as a comedian.

Well that is what comes to mind watching Obama's "historic" speech (a little premature to label it historic no?). He talks about Christians because he is one. He talks about Muslims because he's has that liniage. He talks about Jews, presumably, because we're just too confused to say anything about it. It's Somebodyisfromhere.com's belief he'll be Buddist in weeks.

 So back to the Priest, does this offend me as a Christian? Well, no, I just want to watch Seinfeld.

 There comes a point in every thriller, every movie maybe, where you need to suspend belief a little. What do you need to believe that 4 Catholic Cardinals could be kidnapped, their lives endangered, and only a Harvard symbologist would be able to save them? You'd need suspension of belief. What do you need to buy the ending of the film? Well, faith.

 Angels and Demons is a fairly straight forward adaptation of the book. The book, which, somebodyisfromhere.com read, is about 560 pages. Somebodyisfromhere.com found the book mostly compelling up until about page 500 and the doors fell off. The movie feels the same way.

 Somebodyisfromhere.com likes Tom Hanks enough (He liked him most in Saving Private Ryan), but perhaps he is too reverant to Dan Brown because he never quite inhabits the character himself. The same can about Director Ron Howard (who Somebodyisfromhere.com liked most, as director, in Frost/Nixon).

STAR TREK

 In fairness to you the reader, Somebodyisfromhere.com thinks he should tell you what he thought about Star Trek Going in. Before this Spring, he thinks there are two camps of people in this world. People who like it and people who roll their eyes. Somebodyisfromhere.com rolls his eyes. Still, the trailer looked pretty good and the reviews were pretty solid so he gave it a chance.

 Star Trek proved to be worthy of the praise. JJ Abrams has as much a cult following after Lost as Star Trek does, but don't forget how bloody awful Mission Impossible III was. Directing this time around, he put a cast of relatively unknowns behind Eric Bana's villian. Chris Pine plays Kirk. He seemed to take full comfort in knowing Jack Sparrow proved a weirdo hero could work out and dived right in. His performance is fun to watch. JJ Abrams puts together great action and aside from some time travel oddities makes a pretty fun popcorn movie.

Chris Pine delivered the, shall we say, interesting line in Smoking Aces as Darwin Tremor:

Hollis Elmore: You shot me, and you murdered my friends... and you dumped us in the lake.
Darwin Tremor: Pretty much.

Darwin Tremor: Sometimes, fate just... fate just up-and-fucks you for no good reason. That the way'a the world! The way it's always gonna be. Alright then, peace bro.

President Obama recently accepted an invitation to speak at Notre Dame's on May 17th which has been treated to the requisite boos in response by many of the Catholics across the country who think there is but one issue on this planet worth thinking about.

Forget for a second that the concept of a university is based on the premise that they serve as a location where you can get ideas other than your own. That they are places that are supposed to be ideal for disagreement and discussion.

Forget also that Notre Dame has a political science department that will presumably lecture about the actions of, you know, politicians and the bizarre stance it would be for a school with such a department to not want to speak with the leader of the very country in which the institution exists.

Forget that there are other tenants in the Catholic Church. Do they invite speakers who had sex before marriage?

Let it be said here before readers of this paper, and God, that I have not mentioned my stance on the issue.The fact of the matter is we live in an era in which there has to be more openness in religion for discussion. Rev. John Jenkins President of the Notre Dame seems to understand this with his invitation. There has to be a broadening our level of communication.

What if our Christian President Obama was as closed minded as some Catholics? Would he have mentioned Musilims in his first speech to the world after becoming President? Would he have made his first interview with a Muslim reporter? Would he have spoken as frankly to the leaders of the majority Muslim country of Turkey?

The problem is the unspoken wink that if you're a good Catholic you should only listen to a President, and to a lesser degree, lower official based on one issue. That a politician's projected skill at making decisions on large issues such as the economy or education should not be taken into account. The same goes for national security, which often has pro-life type ramifications less spoken about.

The American people, more so now than in any time in our recent history, are wrestling with these issues everyday and the Church used to be where they could go for answers. Any President who took office would have had to deal with these issues, the elected one has, ambitiously (or over ambitiously) set out to find some answers. Yet while Catholic grade schools close around the area and attendance in Mass is down across the board, the Church's concentration on one issue is not particularly effective.

That is not to say the pro-choice candidate is always right with these other topics. It only means that these things should be considered by conservative Catholics as both important to our country and our faith. That anything less than a focus on the larger picture is short sighted.

The political issue of abortion rests largely in Supreme Court appointments. The school of thought, goes that they will decide to overturn old findings and make new rulings on fresh issues such as those brought about by scienceBut things aren't always as they seem in the Supreme Court.

 Liberal Judge David Souter is leaving and will likely be replaced by a judge who is thought to lean the same way. Presidents have often been wrong in their assumptions, though. Souter was selected by George Bush in 1990 and was expected to conclude accordingly.Souter will leave, among others, John Paul Stevens on the bench. Stevens is considered the most liberal judge and was also appointed by a Republican; this time by Gerald Ford.Yet followers of the Church continue to think about just one issue inadvertently depending on the Court despite it's independibilty.

 In the meantime perhaps Catholics should just follow the Pope. It's safe to say, Pope Benedict XVI isn't afraid to meet with people with different ideas. On Tuesday, he visited the Islamic Shrine, The Dome of the Rock, and the Jewish site, The Wailing Wall.

Taking in to account the big picture, who better to explain to the bright eyed former students the endless possibilities after college than the black guy from Hawaii who lived in Indonesia who went on to become President.

January 1909, however, saw the most frenetic period of Devil sightings ever recorded. Thousands of people claimed to witness the Jersey Devil during the week of January 16–23. Newspapers nationwide followed the story and published eyewitness reports.

• 16th (Saturday) – The creature was sighted flying over Woodbury.
• 17th (Sunday) – In Bristol, Pennsylvania, several people saw the creature and tracks were found in the snow the following day.
• 18th (Monday) – Burlington was covered in strange tracks that seemed to defy logic; some were found in several other towns.
• 19th (Tuesday) – Nelson Evans and his wife, of Gloucester, allegedly saw the creature outside their window at 2:30 AM .
  • Evans gave a descriptive account as follows: "It was about eight feet and a half high, with a head like a collie dog and a face like a horse. It had a long neck, wings about two feet long, and its back legs were like those of a crane, and it had horse's hooves. It walked on its back legs and held up two short front legs with paws on them. It didn't use the front legs at all while we were watching. My wife and I were scared, I tell you, but I managed to open the window and say, 'Shoo!' and it turned around, barked at me, and flew away."
  • Two Gloucester hunters tracked the creature's perplexing trail for twenty miles. The trail appeared to "jump" fences and squeeze under eight-inch gaps. Similar trails were reported in several other towns.
• 20th (Wednesday) – In Haddonfield and Collingswood, posses were formed to find the devil. They supposedly watched the creature fly toward Moorestown, where it was later seen by at least two more people.
• 21st (Thursday) – The creature attacked a trolley car in Haddon Heights, but was chased off. Trolley cars in several other towns began to maintain armed guards, and several poultry farmers found their chickens dead. The devil was reported to collide with an electric rail in Clayton, but was not killed. A telegraph worker near Atlantic City claimed to have shot the devil, only to watch it limp into the woods. The creature apparently was not fazed as it continued the rampage through Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and West Collingswood, New Jersey (where it was supposedly hosed by the local fire department). The devil seemed poised to attack nearby people, who defensively threw any available objects at it. The creature suddenly flew away -- and reemerged in Camden to injure a dog, ripping a chunk of flesh from its cheek before the dog's owner drove it away. This was the first reported devil attack on a living creature.
• 22nd (Friday) – Last day of sightings. Many towns were panic stricken, with many businesses and schools closed in fear.

"Police in Bolivia have shot dead three men, including one identified by local officials as an Irish national, over an alleged plot to assassinate the country's president, Evo Morales...

...Three of the suspects, identified by state media as Hungarian, Irish and Bolivian nationals, were killed. A second Hungarian was arrested, along with a retired Bolivian soldier who had fought in conflicts in Yugoslavia in the 1990s, state prosecutor Jorge Gutiérrez said.

Police said they had foiled the assassination attempt after a raid on a storage facility uncovered explosives, high-calibre telescopic weapons and what appeared to be travel plans for Morales' motorcade, police commander Victor Hugo Escobar told reporters."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/17/bolivia-assassination-plot-evo-morales

http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/sports/20090413_Kalas__A_legend_who_did_not_act_like_one.html

But.

 Is Somebodyisfromhere.com supposed to understand the central plot for the show now is that a shady security/contractor outfit like Blackwater is about to get shut down. They are so pissed about getting shut down that they decide to point working missles at New York? Really? The fear of getting shut down, hey, wasn't that the plot to 2001 Space Oddity...only you know without the computer (Somebodyisfromhere.com is really asking, It's been awhile)? The computer was the part of the plot that made sense. it didn't know any better. why would blackwater want to destroy the US. theyre americans. I get there are bad americans, but it seems like a stretch no? They gotta be exmilitary. there's gotta be thousands of people. crazy.

That's Somebodyisfromhere.com's problem with 24. The show makes the plot of the movie THE ROCK look smart. Somebodyisfromhere.com is now praying for a Die Hard like twist in which it turns out to be about money or something.

They try way too hard. It should just be some Mission Impossible stuff that occurs in one day or just have Keifer yell, shoot somebody in the knee, and move the hell on to the next episode.

Is Somebodyisfromhere.com wrong?

additional info on Blackwater: 

Pro Blackwater:  http://www.blackwaterusa.com/

Anti Blackwater: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2009-04-01-blackwater_N.htm

1. The first is this dustin pedroia video game commercial. hiliarious. the top one is the famous one, but i also found another one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5b9YdMbG1I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QGqQIlRibY

2. Jimmy Rollins with Dick's Sporting Goods. Stick around until the end.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kFH4gV8rGY

3. For good measure, here's the all time classic. chicks dig the long ball.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ltD21rYWVw

 Along with spring training, Somebodyisfromhere.com looks to spend a significant time watching the NCAA tournamenet. Villanova, which is 10 mins away from his house, has advanced to the Elite Eight...and they beat Duke to get there. Somebodyisfromhere.com hates Duke, but in fairness, he also hates UNC. Go Wildcats.

"Pakistan's Swat valley is quiet once again. Often compared to Switzerland for its stunning landscape of mountains and meadows, Swat became a war zone over the past two years as Taliban fighters waged fierce battles against Army troops."

(more here:  http://www.newsweek.com/id/187093 )

Switzerland?  Really? The non judgemental Somebodyisfromhere.com wonders if this is true. Let's see...

Wiki has a beautiful Picture of Malam Jabba, a ski resort in the region. Of course, this ends much like youd expect...

"There was a popular ski resort in Swat at Malam Jabba, 40 km north east of Saidu Sharif, closed in 2007 due to the decreasing ability of the Pakistani government to maintain security in the region. In June 2008, the ski resort was burned down by militants."

(more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swat,_Pakistan)

 "One of the busiest squares, Grain Chowk, was renamed by shopkeepers as Khooni (bloody) Chowk because when they come to their shops in the morning, they find four or five bodies hung over the poles or trees. The bodies are usually headless."

(more: http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/01/200912512351598892.html)

pic mountain (http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_3f95iVVUx6I/R1K9U6NHeiI/AAAAAAAADrU/IeMZuHUJRlg/s1600-R/beautiful+mountains+of+swat+valley.jpg)

ski resort (http://cache.virtualtourist.com/2395457-Swat_Valley_Mini_Switzerland_of_Pakistan-Pakistan.jpg)

Fifty years of animosity cannot be set aside in a stroke, but now is the time for Washington to act. Much of the initiative lies with the new president. President Obama, could, for example, make good on campaign promises to allow Cuban-Americans to freely remit funds to relatives in Cuba and to visit them regularly, and could loosen travel restrictions for others as well. (Some of these measures can be found in legislation currently working its way through Congress.) Obama could also initiate technical contacts. Each country already maintains an "interests section," a small embassy by another name, in the other's capital. They also share information about weather. But they could resume exchanges on such common challenges as migration and drug interdiction, and initiate them on homeland security and counterterrorism.

Going beyond this and dealing with the basics of the embargo—or removing Cuba from the list of state sponsors of terrorism—would likely require congressional approval. Current law, though, makes it almost impossible to take such steps. It requires that Cuba effectively become a functioning democracy before sanctions can be lifted. But it's precisely engagement that is far more likely to reform Cuba. Preconditions are an obstacle to effective foreign policy.

The Obama administration has a great opportunity to begin modifying U.S. policy before or during the Summit of the Americas, to be held in April in Trinidad. A new U.S. policy would not only increase U.S. influence in Cuba, but it probably would also be the single most powerful way in which Obama could improve the U.S.'s standing throughout the Western Hemisphere. The United States can engage with China and Russia, not to mention North Korea, Syria and even Iran. Surely it ought to be able to do so with Cuba.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/188147/page/2