This information isn't exactly new, but I still thought I'd pass it along...

CNN and Court TV personality Nancy Grace purports to be an advocate for law and order, and she regularly uses her program to express her disgust for anyone even suspected of breaking the law. I wonder if this self-righteous outrage extends to her own indiscretions? Here's what the Georgia Supreme Court had to say in 1997 about Grace's behavior as the prosecuting attorney in a murder trial:

Our review of the record supports Carr's contention that the prosecuting attorney engaged in an extensive pattern of inappropriate and, in some cases, illegal conduct in the course of the trial. Specifically, his allegations about illegal entries into his home are borne out by the record; the trial court, after a hearing on a motion to suppress evidence gathered through illegal use of subpoenas, specifically found that the prosecuting attorney abused the subpoena process by, among other things, inserting false information regarding hearing dates; the record shows that the witness list delivered on the eve of trial contained many names new to the defense...; the transcript of the opening argument shows that the prosecuting attorney repeatedly made references to physical abuse although the trial court had ruled out all evidence of purported abuse...; and the closing argument was replete with references to the prosecuting attorney's beliefs and patent misrepresentations of fact such as the prosecuting attorney's use of a chart falsely indicating that a defense expert had not disagreed with a specific opinion by a State's witness. We conclude that the conduct of the prosecuting attorney in this case demonstrated her disregard of the notions of due process and fairness, and was inexcusable.

Carr v. Georgia, 482 S.E.2d 314, 322 (Ga. 1997) (emphasis added).

The Georgia court is not alone in expressing such an opinion of Grace's prosecutorial behavior. Just last year, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals also had harsh words for her, noting her "failure... to fulfill her responsibilities." Stephens v. Hall, 407 F.3d 1195, 1207 (11th Cir. 2005). Specifically, the court pointed out that "Grace, as the prosecutor, failed in her 'duty to learn of any favorable evidence known to others acting on the government's behalf in the case, including the police.' [citation omitted]." Id. at 1204. All in all, according to the court, "Grace 'played fast and loose' with her ethical duties." Id. at 1207.

Gee, I wonder why she's not a prosecutor anymore?

Even as I struggle finding time to finish Elizabeth Kostova's enjoyable debut novel, The Historian, I've already got my eye on a couple of non-fiction books to take its place on my nightstand:

The Rescue Artist : A True Story of Art, Thieves, and the Hunt for a Missing Masterpiece, by Edward Dolnick: "In the predawn gloom of a February day in 1994, two thieves entered the National Gallery in Oslo. They snatched one of the world's most famous paintings, Edvard Munch's The Scream, and fled with their $72 million trophy. The thieves made sure the world was watching: the Winter Olympics, in Lillehammer, began that same morning. Baffled and humiliated, the Norwegian police called on the world's greatest art detective, a half-English, half-American undercover cop named Charley Hill.

"In this rollicking narrative, Edward Dolnick takes us inside the art underworld. The trail leads high and low, and the cast ranges from titled aristocrats to thick-necked thugs. Lord Bath, resplendent in ponytail and velvet jacket, presides over a 9,000-acre estate. David Duddin, a 300-pound fence who once tried to sell a stolen Rembrandt, spins exuberant tales of his misdeeds. We meet Munch, too, a haunted misfit who spends his evenings drinking in the Black Piglet Café and his nights feverishly trying to capture in paint the visions in his head. The most compelling character of all is Charley Hill, an ex-soldier, a would-be priest, and a complicated mix of brilliance, foolhardiness, and charm. The hunt for The Scream will either cap his career and rescue one of the world's best-known paintings or end in a fiasco that will dog him forever."

Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her, by Melanie Rehak: "A plucky 'titian-haired' sleuth solved her first mystery in 1930. Eighty million books later, Nancy Drew has survived the Depression, World War II, and the sixties (when she was taken up with a vengeance by women's libbers) to enter the pantheon of American girlhood. As beloved by girls today as she was by their grandmothers, Nancy Drew has both inspired and reflected the changes in her readers' lives. Now, in a narrative with all the vivid energy and page-turning pace of Nancy's adventures, Melanie Rehak solves an enduring literary mystery: Who created Nancy Drew? And how did she go from pulp heroine to icon?

"The brainchild of children's book mogul Edward Stratemeyer, Nancy was brought to life by two women: Mildred Wirt Benson, a pioneering journalist from Iowa, and Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, a well-bred wife and mother who took over as CEO after her father died. In a century-spanning story Rehak traces their roles-and Nancy's-in forging the modern American woman. With ebullience, wit, and a wealth of little-known source material, Rehak celebrates our unstoppable girl detective."

Yahoo! has become one of the biggest facilitators of phishing scams, claims an anti-spam group, and the web giant is doing little to stop it:

Yahoo! is hosting thousands of fraudulent websites that have domain names containing the words "bank", "PayPal" or "eBay", according to a leading anti-spam group Spamhaus.

Spamhaus claims Yahoo! is hosting almost 5,000 domain names using these words, many of which are linked to phishing scams. [...]

Spamhaus had written to Yahoo! about a number of cases, but received no replies.

According to Spamhaus, both AOL and Microsoft frequently scan their networks for fraudulent domain names and remove offending websites from their systems.

A representative for Yahoo! says that the Spamhaus report is the first the company has heard of fraudulent use of its network by phishers.

[Silicon.com] The Spam Report: Yahoo! accused of hosting thousands of phishing sites (via LJ Tech Blog)