FEDS: NO ZOMBIE VIRUS

A guy in New Jersey guts himself and throws his intestines at cops. And, of course, there's the dude in Miami who decided to snack on someone's face.

Of course it's not zombies — or we'd like to think so, except the government is now telling us it's not zombies. Which makes us wonder: zombies?

The Associated Press gets in on the action:

The Centers for Disease Control (used) the "apocalypse" as the teaser for its emergency preparedness blog. It worked, attracting younger people who might not otherwise have read the agency's guidance on planning evacuation routes and storing water and food. 

(Now) chatter had become so rampant that CDC spokesman David Daigle sent an email to the Huffington Post, answering questions about the possibility of the undead walking among us. 

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead," he wrote, adding: "(or one that would present zombie-like symptoms.)"

That's it. If the feds say there is no zombie virus, there is a zombie virus. We are so hosed. We're moving here.

OBSCENE GESTURE LEADS TO SHOOTING

Tracey Grissom and her ex-husband, Hunter Grissom, were not the perfect couple. Less than two years ago she accused him of raping her.

Earlier this month the 30-year-old Grissom was driving to work when she saw the ex at a boat landing. She got out of her car to take a picture "for litigation related to their divorce."

And according to the Georgia Daily News, that's when things went bad:

(The sheriff) says several witnesses watched as the man made an obscene gesture and the woman opened fire around 8 a.m. (on May 15).
Authorities say the woman called 911 after using all her ammunition and told them she shot her ex-husband.

All her ammunition. She apparently made sure.

The couple have a four-year-old daughter.

WHEN HAMSTERS GO BAD

Bravo to the anchor for keeping it together.

SNOWBALLS MUST BE BANNED

Tavin Rutledge Wilson celebrated his 16th birthday with a snowball fight. And then someone brought a gun.

CBS 3 in Philadelphia reports:

A friend of Tavin's, who was also involved in the playful snowball fight, said the shooting happened after a wayward snowball accidentally struck a nearby neighbor.

Police said the adult male became enraged and left the scene, returning moments later with a gun.

Witnesses say Tavin's effort to apologize to the man went unnoticed and the man pulled out a gun and began firing.

Family and friends celebrating Tavin's birthday heard gunshots and found him bleeding on the front porch.

"We ran outside and saw Tavin laying on the step," said the victim's friend Mercedes Lebron. "When I picked him up, smoke stared coming out of his head … He still was breathing and we told him keep breathing, calm down."

Tavin was rushed to Temple University hospital where he was taken off life-support. At 11:30 a.m. Monday, with his family by his side, Tavin passed away.

The shooter wasn't immediately found.

WORSE THAN O.J.

No surprise that we think O.J. Simpson killed his ex-wife and her friend, Ron Goldman. Simpson, after all, never met Ron Goldman -- but somehow Goldman's blood wound up in Simpson's Bronco. Strip away the theatrics (and the sheer genius of rhyming "fit" and "acquit") and there's still only one reasonable way to explain Goldman's blood in Simpson's SUV: The Juice did it.

And Phil Spector killed a woman. Sucks. Makes us sad because we grew up admiring Spector's amazing ear, his talent for creating some of the best songs in modern pop history. Never thought he'd kill someone. Just like O.J.

The physical evidence against Spector isn't nearly as strong as it was against Simpson. What damns Spector is his peculiar history of pulling guns on people -- especially women. Several women testified at trial about Spector holding them at gunpoint. It's not a leap -- or even a half-step -- to believe that Spector did the same to Lana Clarkson, only this time the trigger was pulled.

So news of a deadlocked jury in the Spector case is puzzling, and maybe that explains why Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler is making it even easier to convict Spector. As USA Today reports:

After the jury reported the impasse last week, the judge withdrew a so-called pinpoint instruction that several jurors indicated was giving them trouble.

That instruction said that in order to convict Spector the jury had to find that "the defendant must have committed an act that caused the death of Lana Clarkson," and it specified the act was pointing a gun at her, which resulted in the gun entering her mouth while in Spector's hand.

The judge decided that the instruction misstated the law by unduly limiting possibilities that the jury could consider. He gave a new instruction that included examples of inferences the jury could draw from the evidence, including the possibility that Spector forced Clarkson to place the gun in her own mouth and it went off.

If this doesn't work, maybe he'll tell jurors that if they didn't like Spector's hair, they could convict him. Anything to end this hell.

THE CLOTHES OFF HIS BUTCHERING BACK

O.J. Simpson's definition of "sports memorabilia" is a trifle twisted. He said he was pulling a sting operation to get back some of his sports-related stuff from nefarious collectors.

Best detail in The New York Times piece about Simpson's arrest:

Mr. Simpson said he had pretended to be interested in buying the suit that he wore in court in 1995 when he was acquitted of the murders of his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

A man needs his lucky suit, dammit.

CARNAHAN ARRAIGNED IN JOHNS SLAYING

Gerry Carnahan, 48, was arraigned Friday morning in Greene County on charges of first-degree murder and forcible rape. Twenty-two years and two months after the beating death of Jackie Johns, police and prosecutors say they have the guy who's good for it.

Carnahan was 28 when Johns died; he's 49 now, and looks several years older. His appearance in court coincided with a written statement from local defense lawyers Dee Wampler and Joe Passanise, who expressed sympathy for the Johns family while entering a not-guilty plea for Carnahan.

The Ozarks was a remarkably different place in 1985 -- much more naive to the awful shock that comes when a woman is abducted and killed. When Jackie Johns' body was found in Lake Springfield on a Saturday morning, five days after she'd disappeared, the dispatcher for the Christian County Sheriff's Department cried, openly and without shame. It seemed absolutely appropriate.

For the next seven years, everytime a woman vanished, Gerry Carnahan was the invoked boogeyman. He wasn't evil incarnate, as many tried to portray him -- but even setting aside the alleged links to unsolved slayings, he was involved in disturbing crimes, including the attempted kidnapping of a woman from Sunshine and Ingram Mill.

Carnahan was sent to prison for four years for that bit of nastiness. He's apparently spent his time since on family business, living much of the year in China.

'TIME TO SAY A PRAYER'

The last words of Tony "The Ant" Spilotro, a Chicago mobster who thought he was about to be promoted to capo in his city's mob. Instead the meeting was a lure. Spilotro was about to die.

A mobster-turned-squealer testified this week about Spilotro's death. The Associated Press reports:

Nicholas Calabrese, an admitted mob killer, said he and two other men were driven to the scene of the crime by James Marcello, one of those on trial.

Spilotro had been lured with the promise he would become a "capo," or captain, in the Outfit — as Chicago's organized crime family is known — and his brother, Michael, would be initiated as a "made guy," Calabrese testified.

Michael came downstairs first, Calabrese testified.

"I said, 'How are you doing, Mike?' because I knew him," Calabrese testified. But he said a few seconds later, "I grabbed his legs and I noticed right away that Louie the Mooch had a rope around his neck."

While they were strangling Michael Spilotro, Calabrese said, he heard what may have been Tony Spilotro's last words. Several of the mobsters involved, including Louie "The Mooch" Eboli, are now dead.

Four mobsters are on trial in Chicago, including Nicholas Calabrese's brother, Frank. Ratting out your own brother seems low, even by mob standards. Then again, this was a gang that doled out nicknames like "The Ant" and "The Mooch."

PARENTS OF TRAGIC KIDS NOW DATING

John Ramsey and Beth Holloway Twitty are dating.

The 63-year-old father of JonBenet Ramsey and the 46-year-old mother of Natalee Holloway (she went missing in Aruba in 2005) are now an item. Fox News says Ramsey and Twitty have been together for five months:

The couple has been spotted openly holding hands and kissing in Mountain Brook, Ala. — where Twitty lives — and at an art show at a nearby art museum. They've also been seen at various restaurants.

Ramsey on Monday denied the reports that they are dating. He said that he and Twitty have a special friendship based on tragedy.

Ramsey's wife and JonBenet's mother, Patsy Ramsey, died last June of ovarian cancer at the age of 49. Twitty was officially divorced from George "Jug" Twitty in December.

Talk about having too much in common.

THE RANTS OF CHO SEUNG-HUI

Late Wednesday came news that Cho Seung-Hui sent NBC a package of materials, including a typewritten screed, video clips and digital photos. The package was sent from a post office between Cho's two shooting sprees -- after he killed a woman and an RA in a dorm, but before he killed 30 others in a classroom building.

So far, most of the video aired has Cho speaking quietly, his tone close to regret. But in one snippet Cho's tone is venomous, and he is wearing the clothes he died in. "You forced me into a corner and gave me only one option," he snarls. "The decision was yours. Now you have blood on your hands that will never wash off."

A couple of same-day thoughts:

•Fascinating. Macabre, but much more than that -- you can see the flat affect he displayed in December 2005, behavior that led to a temporary detention order on the shooter. Seeing his deranged mind helps explain the insanity of his last acts.

•We'd like to see it all, but NBC News is engaged in a display of public hand-wringing: what to air? what to keep secret? will publicizing this encourage others like Cho? It's all very nauseating. NBC News isn't supposed to be in the business of suppressing information from the public. You get an exclusive on a big-ass story, you run with it.

Full disclosure of what Cho sent to NBC News should be viewed through the Theodore Kaczynski prism. The New York Times and the Washington Post printed Kaczynski's 35,000-word "manifesto," and his brother recognized the disturbed writing style. The Unabomber was caught. By posting all of the Cho material, NBC would provide a unique opportunity for mass study of a mass murderer.

•Cho is the Charles Whitman of our time. Like Cho, Whitman killed two people, then paused before beginning a bloodier rampage. Like Cho, Whitman left a note, some of it written between killing sprees.

Unlike Cho, Whitman seemed to want to understand why he was becoming a killer. From Whitman's note:

I don't quite understand what it is that compels me to type this letter. Perhaps it is to leave some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed. I don't really understand myself these days. I am supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man. However, lately (I can't recall when it started) I have been a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts.

From Cho there is only rage, and blame for everyone else:

I didn't have to do it. I could have left. I could have fled. But now I am no longer running ... You have vandalized my heart, raped my soul and torched my conscience. You thought it was one pathetic boy’s life you were extinguishing. Thanks to you, I die like Jesus Christ, to inspire generations of the weak and the defenseless people.

His suitemates say Cho rarely spoke. He knew enough to keep the madness inside.

GUN IGNORANCE

Know your weapons. Every newsroom in the United States should post the order; every reporter should be required to learn about firearms before covering any story involving a gun.

Monday's shooting spree at Virginia Tech exposed several unpleasant truths about the media, especially the 24-hour cable networks:

•When facts are in short supply, fill time with speculation.

•A one-source story is all right, even when it's all wrong.

•Guns are mysterious and scary.

Many bloggers, including Tony Messenger and Fat Jack, criticize reporters for jumping to conclusions without certain knowledge. We can buy that argument, but only to a point. First reports from spot-news situations are often wrong -- at Columbine, several eyewitnesses swore they saw more than two gunmen; at Oklahoma City, Middle Eastern men were the first suspects. Reporters should do all they can to verify facts before running with them, but history's first rough draft will never be perfect.

There is no excuse, however, for the national media's lack of knowledge about guns. For much of Monday, we heard reporters wonder aloud how one man with two guns could kill so many people. A camera-phone video captured the sound of more than two dozen gunshots; reporters from all three cable-news outfits expressed amazement at how quickly the shooter was able to squeeze off so many rounds in such a short period of time.

On Fox News, Geraldo Rivera said a "guy with automatic and semi-automatic weapons is a weapon of mass destruction." No one was claiming the shooter had an automatic weapon. On CNN, a reporter spoke of the gunman's "22-millimeter" handgun.

Newsrooms are shot through with a lack of gun knowledge. People killed with rifles are the victims of "shotgun slayings." It sounds good, you see.

Cheese and rice, as a friend's kid used to curse. Cheese and rice.

Because too many reporters know too little about guns, we believe they're more inclined to take simplistic approaches to stories involving guns. They're too easily lassoed into stories like this one about the country's "gun culture."

When 32 people are shot dead by a man who then turns the gun on himself, the story isn't about questioning the legal way the shooter got his weapons. The story isn't about blaming guns (or video games, or foul language, or societal decay).

The story is about men like this Holocaust survivor who helped save several students by giving up his own life.

The blame doesn't rest with the guns. It rests with this guy.

BOOTS ON, 'LIKE THE COWBOYS'

Robert Perez was 48 when he was executed Tuesday evening for a 1994 double-murder in San Antonio. It was the seventh time this year that Texas has executed a killer. Wednesday will bring another state-ordered lethal injection.

But back to Perez. He led a prison gang and, authorities said, ordered more than a dozen killings in San Antonio during the 1990s. Especially heinous was the 1997 slayings of five people -- the West French Place killings. Perez didn't pull a trigger, but he was general of the Mexican Mafia, according to prosecutors.

A bad man, sure. But he had his charms. The Associated Press reports:

Jeff Mulliner, who was an assistant Bexar County district attorney who also helped prosecute Perez, said Perez was "someone who did bad things and has a whole dimensional shading to his character." But Mulliner, now in private practice, also found Perez to have "an abundance of charisma, a keen intellect, a sharp wit and a sense of humor."

"I kind of appreciated all those things about him," Mulliner said. "Other than French Place, which is a footnote, I believe part of the honor of Robert Perez is he was not dangerous to an elderly lady trying to cross the street or to a young man on the bus to work. I think the only people in danger from Robert Perez were people he was associated with that didn't follow the rules."

Among his last words: "I got my boots on like the cowboys."

IF?

Great holiday programming from Fox later this month, according to The Associated Press:

Fox plans to broadcast an interview with O.J. Simpson in which the former football star discusses "how he would have committed" the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, for which he was acquitted, the network said.

The two-part interview, titled "O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened," will air Nov. 27 and Nov. 29, the TV network said.

Glove didn't fit, jury did acquit, but O.J. still killed them.

ANSWER: TO MAKE SURE HE'S DEAD

The headline of the Sun-Sentinel story: Kin of man who killed deputy want probe into why he was shot 68 times

The deputy was from Polk County, Fla. The family of the dead cop killer wants the governor, Jeb Bush, to rustle up an independent investigation into the shooting of their loved one. The Sun-Sentinel reports:

Nine SWAT officers fired a total of 110 bullets at 27-year-old Angilo Freeland last week after he fatally shot a Polk County deputy and his dog and wounded another fleeing from a traffic stop. "This is not about a lawsuit. Nobody is suing anybody," the family's attorney, Grady Irvin, said at a Thursday afternoon new conference. "What this is all about is this death is uncommon in the means and manner by which Mr. Freeland died -- 68 bullet holes. His family just wants to put this issue to rest and they want a search for the truth, that's all." An Orlando-based civil rights group also on Thursday called on U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzales to look into the circumstances surrounding Freeland's death.

An uncommon death caps an uncommon life.

SEVERED HEADS IN DISCO BAR

Five heads, all human, tossed onto a crowded dance floor in western Mexico, according to early reports. Cops say drug gangs are responsible for the littering:

"Hooded men dressed in black stormed into a bar, fired into the air and threw down five heads," said Rosaura Trujillo, a spokeswoman for the Michoacan state prosecutor's office.

The men also left a card with the message: "The family does not kill for money. It does not kill women. It does not kill innocents. It kills only those who deserve to die. Everyone take note - this is divine justice."

Sol y Sombra is the name of the club. Sun & Shade. A place to lose your head.