He then described hearing a "huge windows shaking bang" and soon updated, "all silent after the blast, but a friend heard it 6 km away too." Now Athar has over 30,000 Twitter followers, and writes, "Uh oh, now I'm the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it," followed by "and here come the mails from the mainstream media... *sigh*" He's reportedly been deluged with emails and interview requests, and his most recent update is simply, "Bin Laden is dead. I didn't kill him. Please let me sleep now." more ›

The strange case of the plucky former NYPD officer Arno Herwerth (who is from Long Island, natch) and his GETOSAMA license plate has gotten even stranger. This time the man with “Kill Bin Laden” crudely painted on his American flag themed minivan and a habit of attending Smithtown board meetings in a chicken suit has rejected the offer of the DMV allowing him to keep his plates, since they would not pay his legal fees. more ›

Last Sunday and Monday a collective of activists, journalists, retired government officials and theater makers gathered at The Culture Project to begin mock impeachment proceedings against President Bush. The “trial by theater” arose in part out of frustration with Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi’s pledge to leave impeachment “off the table” when her party seized the House majority. The month long series, called A Question of Impeachment, is intended to spark debate and, participants hope,... more ›

There are 9.3 million vanity license plates in the United States, but every now and then there is one person whose choice of to proclaim on his/her plates causes some problems. Typically, the problematic plate is weeded out thanks to the DMV’s “blue list”of banned letter and number combinations ranging from the obvious, like GOD, NYPD and POL1CE, to the less so, like 3M TA3. Still the NY State DMV’s online plate lookup allows for... more ›

A federal judge is allowing a NYC bus driver to sue the New York City Transit over harassment he received at the hands of fellow workers. Mathen George, a bus driver since 1987 and was born in India, claims that after September 11, 2001, colleagues called him "Bin Laden," "Saddam Hussein," "caveman" and "camel jockey." And all this allegedly took place at a depot in Queens. more ›

It wasn't an anti-Muslim hate group that bombed a 24 hour deli owned by Pakistani immigrants in Staten Island after September 11 - it was the mob! The NYPD says that Edward "The Irishman" Fisher firebombed My deli & Grocery because it competed with a mob-protected bagel business nearby (it happens to be owned by a Pakistani immigrant as well). Fisher is supposedly a Gambino family associate, and other crime families were involved as well: My Deli & Grocery owner Hamim Syed was intimidated by members of the Luchese crime family, and Syed later asked for help from a Pakistani businessman with Genovese ties (the Daily News says the businessman "arranged a sitdown with two other gangster at the Hooters" in Staten Island). more ›

A new book claims that Al Qaeda was 45 days away from attacking the NYC subway system with cyanide gas, but then, for an unknown reason, decided not to. Um, phew? The One Percent Doctrine by Ron Suskind is being excerpted in Time magazine this week, and yesterday, Time teased the excerpt with a "web exclusive" (Ali is an Al Qaeda operative/nformant to the U.S.; Ayeri is "Yusuf al Ayeri, "bin Laden's top operative on the Arabian peninsula"; Zawahiri is Ayman Zawahiri, Bin Laden's deputy):

Ali revealed that Ayeri had visited Ayman Zawahiri in January 2003, to inform him of a plot to attack the New York City subway system using cyanide gas. Several mubtakkars were to be placed in subway cars and other strategic locations. This was not simply a proposal; the plot was well under way. In fact, zero-hour was only 45 days away. But then, for reasons still debated by U.S. intelligence officials, Zawahiri called off the attack. "Ali did not know the precise explanation why. He just knew that Zawahiri had called them off."

"This is a simple cyanide thing, two chemicals mixed together, and it releases cyanide gas," he said. "They'd be lucky if they killed everybody on one car — you can do that with a 9-millimeter pistol." He added, "None of it has been confirmed in three years, who these guys were, whether they in fact had a weapon, or whether they were able to put together a weapon, whether that weapon has been defined and what it would cause or whether they were even in New York."

Oh man, when was the last time we had a good artistic freedom vs. religion controversy? Hmm... maybe the Black Virgin Mary covered in poo back in 2000-- which itself was nothing compared to Serrano's Piss Christ back in 1989. Well, here's a new one! CBS reports on the National Black Fine Arts Show at the Puck Building: more ›

Many people think the tape was a way to show people he was still alive after bombings in Pakistan. He has released 35 tapes, and only one seems to have preceded an incident outside of the Middle Eat (a truce with European countries expired and seemed to lead to the London subway bombings). more ›

- And contributions to Governor Pataki's presidential aspirational fund have been slowing down more ›

A.J. Daulerio, Oddjack more ›

Gothamist is really psyched to check out Dirty on Purpose tomorrow night (details below). Their sound gets endlessly compared to Yo La Tengo and we've been listening to their EP for a while now, but haven't had a chance to catch them live just yet. On any given Sunday we like to scroll over to their song on our iPod and go walk around a quieter area of downtown...the perfect weekend soundtrack. Often breathy vocals shyly build up into something that gets us walking faster while simultaneously relaxing us. The music gets into our head and we're left wanting more... more ›

The trailer for Mel Gibson's new movie about the last hours of Christ's life is up and it is a downer - very bloody and spooky. James Caviezel, who is a notably vocal Catholic (he didn't want to do a nude scene with Jennifer Lopez in Angel Eyes), stars as Christ and the entire movie is in Aramaic. Aramaic! more ›