Truthy Iffy

After deliberating 10 days, a federal jury Tuesday found I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney, guilty on four of five counts in his perjury and obstruction of justice trial.

Libby was convicted of:

# obstruction of justice when he intentionally deceived a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame;

# making a false statement by intentionally lying to FBI agents about a conversation with NBC newsman Tim Russert;

# perjury when he lied in court about his conversation with Russert;

# a second count of perjury when he lied in court about conversations with other reporters.

A man authorities tracked down in the snow of a wilderness area confessed to killing and dismembering his wife, and described the "horrific" details surrounding her death, a sheriff said Monday.

Stephen Grant was recovering from hypothermia at a hospital on Monday, a day after he was captured by authorities who pursued him to northern Michigan after he fled his home near Detroit.

Grant has been cooperating with investigators and telling them in detail how Tara Lynn Grant was killed and dismembered and where her remains were dumped, Macomb County Sheriff Mark Hackel said at a news conference Monday.

A Florida appeals court cleared the way Wednesday for Anna Nicole Smith to be buried next to her son, Daniel, in the Bahamas.

The decision by a panel of three judges with the 4th District Court of Appeal upheld a lower court ruling that gave custody of Anna Nicole Smith's remains to the court-appointed guardian for her daughter, Dannielynn.

Last week, Broward Circuit Judge Larry Seidlin awarded custody of Smith's body to Richard Milstein, whom Seidlin had appointed as guardian ad litem for the nearly 6-month-old girl.

Smith's mother, Virgie Arthur, appealed that ruling, because Milstein wants the former Playboy playmate buried in the Bahamas and Arthur wants her daughter buried in Texas with other family members.

It's infant prize day at King David School, a state primary in Moseley, Birmingham. The children sit cross-legged on the floor, their parents fiddling with their video cameras. The head, Steve Langford, is wearing a Sesame Street tie.

A typical end-of-term school event, then. But at King David there's a twist that gives it a claim to be one of the most extraordinary schools in the country: King David is a strictly Jewish school. Judaism is the only religion taught. There's a synagogue on site. The children learn modern Hebrew - Ivrit - the language of Israel. And they celebrate Israeli independence day.

But half the 247 pupils at the 40-year-old local authority-supported school are Muslim, and apparently the Muslim parents go through all sorts of hoops, including moving into the school's catchment area, to get their children into King David to learn Hebrew, wave Israeli flags on independence day and hang out with the people some would have us believe that they hate more than anyone in the world.

n the wake of the latest We Media event last week the usual round of self-flagellation by a group of attendees is occurring.

David Cohn wishes We Media was an unconference. Scott Karp acknowledges that media companies need to make money, but bizarrely refers to that as an "idealogical agenda". A BBC exec calls it groundhog day. The staid Mark Glaser even throws a few rocks (one at me!), with a big pile-on in his comments to boot.

Andrew Nachison and Dale Peskin put on a solid show. They make a real effort to have the panels interact with the audience. This is not easy -- you get 200 people in a room for 90 minutes, how much interactivity do you really expect? But they managed to pull it off and the results were far more successful than many other panels I've been on. They also get really amazing attendees. Major publishers, tons of senior media execs, a dozen startup CEOs, VCs, Pulitzer-winning journalists, and an eclectic spectrum of media spinners like documentary filmmakers, artists, social activists, and the like to keep the cocktail mixer from getting too businessy and boring. If you can't find someone interesting to talk to at this thing, it's not the event's fault.

So what's the problem?

The problem is that the hopes that Dan Gillmor raised for the media industry in his book -- which kicked off this whole business -- have largely failed.

Tremendous excitement followed the publishing of Dan's We the Media (the conference's namesake). It accompanied the trumpeting of a new model of media by the newsy press, and the rise of blogs with attendant breathless hype.

Unfortunately, after doing the author's victory tour, Dan then attempted to put his ideas into practice in a business venture. I suppose there is some due credit for having the courage to cross the line from a long career as a newspaper journalist (observer) to become a startup founder (participant), and try to prove the viability of his alt.media business plan outlined in the book.

Venerable Phrakru Wichian, head of the Buddhist Monks Network of Northern Thailand, was very shocked when he discovered that a fellow monk at his monastery was HIV positive. Instead of simply throwing out the infected monk, Wichian turned to the finer teachings of his religion and found a way to cope with the situation, including realizing that condoms were integral to HIV prevention.

"We could not chase the monk away from the monastery. After all, he had been infected before he became a monk," said Wichian. "We had to find a way to help him. Spiritual support is important for people living with HIV."

How does J.K. Rowling feel now that she has finished the seventh and final Harry Potter book? As the author herself confided Tuesday on her Web site, "Charles Dickens put it better than I ever could":

"It would concern the reader little, perhaps, to know how sorrowfully the pen is laid down at the close of a two-years' imaginative task; or how an Author feels as if he were dismissing some portion of himself into the shadowy world, when a crowd of the creatures of his brain are going from him for ever," reads the passage from Dickens' preface to "David Copperfield."

A NASA astronaut charged with pepper-spraying and trying to kidnap a romantic rival was granted bail Tuesday, but her release was delayed after police announced they were filing an attempted murder charge against her, a corrections department spokesman said.

Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak had already paid her bail on three other charges when she learned that she would not be released because Orlando police were planning to add attempted murder to the list, said Allen Moore, a spokesman for the Orange County Corrections Department.

Nowak will remain in protective custody until her first appearance on the new charge, Moore said. She was scheduled to appear before a judge Tuesday afternoon.

A NASA astronaut charged with pepper-spraying and trying to kidnap a romantic rival was granted bail Tuesday, but her release was delayed after police announced they were filing an attempted murder charge against her, a corrections department spokesman said.

Navy Capt. Lisa Marie Nowak had already paid her bail on three other charges when she learned that she would not be released because Orlando police were planning to add attempted murder to the list, said Allen Moore, a spokesman for the Orange County Corrections Department.

Nowak will remain in protective custody until her first appearance on the new charge, Moore said. She was scheduled to appear before a judge Tuesday afternoon.

Gunmen wearing uniforms similar to those of Iraqi soldiers have kidnapped an Iranian diplomat, according to an Iraqi official, and Iran said the gunmen "acted under U.S. supervision."

A U.S. military spokesman said no Multi-National Forces were involved in the incident.

The kidnapping took place Sunday night while the diplomat was driving through Masbah, near the Karrada neighborhood, according to a high-ranking Iraqi government official.

The official confirmed Iran's government-run Islamic Republic News Agency report that the abductee is Jalal Sharafi, second secretary of the Iranian Embassy in Baghdad.

For nearly two years, Jay Dobyns led a double life. He rode alongside the Hells Angels, becoming a member of one of the nation's most feared criminal gangs. But at the same time, he was working as a federal agent in an effort to bring the Hells Angels down.

Jay Dobyns works for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the federal agency responsible for enforcing the nation's gun laws. His deep undercover work with the Hells Angels from 2001-2003 ultimately helped bring the indictment and trial of 16 gang members and their associates.

As a result, Dobyns was awarded a top cop award by the National Association of Police Organizations. He also was hailed on America's Most Wanted as one of the "Good Guys" who brings down the criminals.