The sentencing memorandum filed by Boston federal prosecutors last week, seeking between 33 and 41 months incarceration for convicted former Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, is no ordinary document. (Today, Judge Douglas Woodlock imposed a sentence of 36 months.)

From the first line, the memorandum reads like the coked-up rant of a paranoid regime, infuriated that any of its subjects would dare speak against it.

Two days ago, as every resident of Massachusetts was daydreaming of what to do if he or she won the Mega Millions (I too was guilty of that), Governor Deval Patrick held an intense marathon of media availability. He gave 15-minute interviews to 19 reporters from all over Mass., including two from Hispanic media outlets, three Brazilians, and one Haitian.

One surefire way to rile activists is to beat a teenager in plain sight, and tell witnesses that they can't record the free-for-all. Needless to say, more than a few folks are furious in the wake of news that Boston Police Department officers jabbed and kicked a 16-year-old inside a Roxbury Community College building this past Friday.

Is there any scenario in which a co-sign from a former President can do more to hurt a candidate than help? Unless his last name happens to rhyme with ‘mush', the answer would seemingly be no. And if that former Commander in Chief even goes as far as coming out to show support at a rally in your backyard? You'd really have to go above and beyond the call of ineptitude to fuck that up.

Subcultures spawn defining rituals: fans of Insane Clown Posse have the Gathering of the Juggalos; practitioners of radical self-realization congregate at Burning Man; and for the national journo-politico elite and its legion of camp followers there are the publication of Bob Woodward's inside-the-Beltway, memo-and-tell, docudramas.

In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department.

It's not clear how broadly the order was communicated. Some officers who heard it say they refused to carry it out.

Testifying before a house panel on Thursday, an official with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration gave the following estimate: About three-quarters of the oil that spilled into the Gulf from BP’s ruptured well is still in the environment

Apparently someone over at NPR has been trolling our website for story ideas. First, they took a shot at our film critic Peter Keough for taking a shot at Scott Pilgrim fanboys. For their second Phoenix namedrop in a week, we turn to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, NPR's weekly news quiz show. In a reoccurring segment entitled "Who's Carl This Time?", the show's official scorekeeper Carl Kasell rattles off quotes and one lucky contestant gets to guess what timely news story he's referencing in his quote.

For all the anger, political strategizing and stabs in the heart that the plans to build a Muslim community center near ground zero may have brought about, land-use and zoning experts say opponents of the project have very little legal basis on which to rest their argument.