I've spent a couple of weeks trying to figure out what I wanted to write about this, partly because it hits so close to home. I quietly followed the murder of Sophie Lancaster in 2007 because what happened to she and her boyfriend hit a little too close to home for me. Because it happened in the United Kingdom it really didn't have much of a media impact in the States, though word can and did get around. In summary, Lancaster and her boyfriend Robert Maltby of Lancashire, both of whom were part of the gothic subculture in the area …

The notorious Russian spammer Alexey Tolstokozhev was found shot to death in his apartment just outside of Moscow earlier this week. Apparently, someone took rather violent offense at all of the advertisements for Viagra that he was hammering out and shot him a number of times, including one head shot. Supposedly, Russian police forces think that this is the trademark of a hitman employed by Russian organized crime, who don't take kindly to people muscling in on their territory (or declining "polite requests" to become part of their territory). It is thought that Tolstokozhev was personally responsible for roughly 30 …