Another instance of no-show jobbing rears its ugly head yet again in Rhode Island, this time the accusations are against Providence Fire Union president Paul Doughty, who has allegedly not come to work a whole lot in the last three years. Doughty claims the allegations are retaliation from all the bad blood between the union and the city. It’s a pretty meaty story, read the whole thing here.

LAAAAAADY…. just move the car. Speaking of doppelgangers…. when the Rhode Island Emergency Management Agency is being run by Jerry Lewis, whaddya expect? A cover story in today’s ProJo about ‘The Storm’ indicates that RIEMA director, Robert Warren, has been canned. Now, how do we fire the thousands of Rhode Island drivers who really bolloxed the whole thing up by pulling into and blocking the goddam intersections?!

This point was raised again the other night — given the funkiness and generally conspiratorial natures of the people who occupy this town and the things that go down in it, why doesn’t anybody make use of the fact that the “all seeing eye” is formally called the “Eye of Providence“?

Whereabouts are the stickers and t-shirts and cocktails and kitchy boutiques? Don’t even think it’s worked its way into the fabric of that re-tread Masonic Temple.

Must be some sort of of conspiracy.

Maybe we should rename this blog. Tim — get on it!

Whatever you say about how Governor Carcieri handled the snowstorm fiasco, let the record show that he’s owned up to his mistake. He acknowledged today that his administration did “a poor job of communications” during last week’s storm. Awww, Donald, we forgive you. Just foot the bill for the damage to my car, please! I hear there’s that tobacco money…

ProJo has the scoop:

Today’s press conference marked his first public comment on last Thursday’s epic traffic jam, which choked most of the state’s major arteries, stranded children on school busses until late at night, and left motorists struggling to get home three to six hours on gridlocked roadways in the nation’s smallest state.

Carcieri, who returned from a weeklong visit to the Middle East on Saturday, acknowledged he didn’t learn of the story until it was over because he was flying from Kuwait to Afghanistan while the storm played out, and would not in any event have expected his staff to call him “for a 6- to 10-inch’’ snowstorm and what, he was told, was largely a Providence issue.

Uh oh… looks like Carcieri and Lt. Gov. Roberts kissed and made up and decided to turn the Plowgate scandal on the Providence Department of Public Works.  Cicilline wasn’t in Iraq, so what’s his alibi?

It is commonplace to spend the month of December reflecting on the year that has passed. This year (at least when it comes to reflecting on the liberal/independent media) Alternet has done that reflection for you. Check out their Top 10 Best Environment Stories, Top 10 Rights & Liberties Stories, Top 10 Sex & Relationship Stories, and Top 10 Reasons Why I broke up with God of 2007.

More after the jump.

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New York Times, I hardly knew ye! It seems that pot-growers are moving into McMansions a la Weeds, and that this somehow qualifies as a worthy Item for the NYT mag’s year in ideas.

According to Lt. Greg Garland of the sheriff’s department in San Bernardino County, where more than 50 pot houses have been raided this year, the growers favor newer communities in outlying suburbs because they get more space for the money, and residents pay scant attention to their neighbors. “In these communities, both the husband and wife work; they’re busy coming and going,” Garland says. “One man we spoke to lived next to a grower for a year and wasn’t even sure what color the guy’s car was.”

Umm, it was green, duh. Do you think this stuff is happening in East Greenwich, too?

We’re in the eye of the storm. Channukah just ended, and X-mas is right around the corner. It’s a beautiful time for the many products of intermarriage.

For some help getting through the season, check out these public service announcements on stuff and buying stuff, courtesy of our friends at Adbusters.

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is planning to spend $762 million to demolish 4600 apartments in New Orleans’ public housing projects. HUD, which seized control of the local housing authority years ago, intends to replace these housing units with 1000 units at market rate–each costing over $400,000.

Demonstrators gathered outside the New Orleans City Hall today to protest. Leslie Eaton reports for the Times:

Though local and federal housing officials say the storm-damaged projects were inhuman places to live and should not be rebuilt, some protesters accused the government of a darker motive behind the demolition plan. They contended that the government’s real aim was to keep the poor, mostly female, almost entirely black residents of public housing from returning to their city, to their homes.

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Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row since 1982, when he was sentenced for killing a Philadelphia police officer. Mumia has long been a figurehead in the movements to abolish capital punishment and free incarcerated political prisoners, but new evidence has been discovered that might actually lead to a new trial. Linn Washington, Jr. reports:

In the storied history of Philadelphia few events match the controversial case of death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal for generating creative projects across the globe.

This 26-year-old case is the subject of a new round of projects from feature-length films by Philly-based producers to a bevy of books about Abu-Jamal authored from Chicago to Paris.

This flurry of creative projects coincides with the release of new evidence contradicting core elements of the highly disputed prosecution case that place d Abu-Jamal on death row.

If Abu-Jamal were now proven innocent, it would surely not be the first time that the government released a political prisoner after decades on death row. Just ask Robert King Wilkerson, the former Panther who served 29 years in solitary confinement at Louisiana’s Angola Prison (a plantation-turned-prison where inmates pick cotton during their bid and prison costs are frayed by the Angola Prison rodeo) for a murder he did not commit.

Dear Readers,
We recieved this very urgent email in our tipbox this morning. I cannot underestimate the seriousness of Ms. Kojo’s plight. We, as a compassionate city must band together to lend help where we can, so what we need to do is open a bank account…well, I’ll just let you read the whole letter:

“From Maimuna Kojo
Treichville Abidjan Ivory coast,

How are you and your health that is very important to me? [Ed: that's very nice of her!] I am Maimuna Kojo, The only child of late Mr and Mrs Kojo, My Late father was a very wealthy Cocoa Merchant based in Abidjan, the Economic Capital of Ivory Coast before he was poisoned to death by his Business Associates [Ed: !!!] in connection with my uncle who was with him that day on the business outing to discuss on a business deal with some of his foreign business partner… more »

Chris Hitchens?

[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoclaTQWzvc]

or Bill Maher?

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