What’s worse than committing suicide by hanging yourself?

Committing suicide by hanging yourself on a tree in your front lawn and no one noticing because its a few days before Halloween.

Suicide Mistaken for Halloween Decoration:

The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said.

The 42-year-old woman used rope to hang herself across the street from some homes on a moderately busy road late Tuesday or early Wednesday, state police said.

The body, suspended about 15 feet above the ground, could be easily seen from passing vehicles.

With such a scary real-life story like this, who needs ghost stories?

Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted in the CIA leak case today, as the investigation remains ongoing.

Libby, who helped shape the Bush Administration’s case for going to war in Iraq, resigned his position and plans to fight the 5 charges against him.

CIA probe ‘not over’ after Cheney’s top aide indicted:

The CIA leak investigation is “not over,” special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said Friday after announcing charges against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff. […]

Libby resigned Friday after a federal grand jury indicted him on charges related to the leak probe, including one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements.

During an afternoon news conference, Fitzgerald said, “A CIA officer’s name was blown and there was a leak and we needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it. Given national security was at stake, it was especially important that we find out accurate facts.”

Libby was charged with lying to FBI agents and to the grand jury about two conversations with reporters, Tim Russert of NBC News and Matt Cooper of Time magazine.

Libby wasn’t charged with actually leaking the agent’s identity, but with obstructing the investigation. He faces over a million dollars in fines and jail time if convicted.

Since the investigation isn’t yet over, other Bush Administration officials may be indicted as well, including possibly the president’s chief adviser Karl Rove.

The Chicago White Sox beat the Houston Astros — and the curse of Shoeless Joe Jackson — to win their first World Series in 88 years.

For the first time since 1917, back when the MLB had only 16 teams, the White Sox showed they are indeed a championship ballclub by sweeping the Astros in their first-ever World Series appearance.

Between last year’s Red Sox championship, where they ended the curse of the the Bambino (Babe Ruth), and this year’s White Sox win, surely the Chicago Cubs are in line to take the title in the 2006 World Series! (They last won a WS in 1908.)

The White Sox were so commanding in their playoff run that they swept both the division series and the World Series, which is nothing less than amazing.

For a team that I’ve never followed, unless you count watching Carlton Fisk video clips, I can say I’ve developed a new-found respect for the team. Ozzie Guillen’s excellent managing style seemed to come naturally, the pitching was always in control, and the team’s hitting was always there to back them up. Congrats White Sox and congrats Chicago!

So, I went 3-4 in my MLB playoff picks this postseason. How’d you do? Pick the White Sox to take it all?

Civil rights activist Rosa Parks died today in Michigan at the age of 92.

Civil rights icon Rosa Parks dies at 92:

Rosa Parks, whose act of civil disobedience in 1955 inspired the modern civil rights movement, died Monday in Detroit, Michigan. She was 92.

Parks’ moment in history began in December 1955 when she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man in Montgomery, Alabama.

Her arrest triggered a 381-day boycott of the bus system by blacks that was organized by a 26-year-old Baptist minister, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

What a tremendous inspiration Rosa Parks was for this country and what a difference one woman was able to make.

(Reflections on her life, associated coverage, and more to come tomorrow.)

It’s official — 2005 is the busiest hurricane season ever, as Tropical Storm Alpha was named just south of Puerto Rico, following right behind Hurricane Wilma.

After Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita, what’s next?

The next round of tropical storms and hurricanes will be named following the Greek alphabet.

Fraternities and sororities everywhere may soon start claiming destructive storms after their chapters. (Okay, not too likely.)

I blew it in the league championships with my picks. Both my NLCS and ALCS predictions were wrong (0-2).

Added together with my division series record (2-2), that leaves me at 2-4 overall. Who could have known the Cardinals would look just like they did in last year’s World Series?

Without further ado, here is my 2005 World Series prediction:

* Houston Astros vs. Chicago White Sox
My pick: White Sox in 6.
My take: I doubted the resolve of the White Sox to break the curse of Shoeless Joe Jackson in the ALCS. They will survive the pitching threat of Roger Clemens and the bats of Craig Biggio and Albert Pujols to win their first World Series since 1917.

The Astros are a great team and deserve to win just as much as the Sox, but their pitching seems a bit too wobbly to win it all.

*Deadly Wilma eyeing Florida: The record-tying 12th hurricane of the season is also the strongest recorded Atlantic hurricane ever. The Category 5 monster may reach Florida by this weekend. Hopefully Hurricane Wilma will lose some of it’s power before it reaches the US.

*4 Fox shows named worst for families: “The War at Home,” “Family Guy,” “American Dad,” and “The OC” were on the Parents Television Council’s annual list of family-offending television shows. “CSI” and “Desperate Housewives”were on the list, too. The PTC was only able to come up with 9 primetime shows they deemed fit for kids.

*Homeland Security Secretary: ‘I’m not a hurricane expert’: Alan Chertoff attempted to defend his handling of Hurricane Katrina by telling lawmakers he relied on Michael Brown and FEMA to make all the decisions. Great way to insure homeland security, Alan.

*Spain seeks arrest of U.S. soldiers: Spain issued an international arrest warrant for three American soldiers for the death of TV cameraman Jose Couso, who was killed when a US tank shelled the Palestinian Hotel in the advance into Baghdad in April 2003. A Ukranian Reuters camerman was also killed in the attack. At least 37 journalists have been killed in Iraq since 2003, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

*Spammers face jail in Nigeria: This letter will definitely come to you as a huge surprise, but Nigeria passed a new law that would penalize unsolicited email spammers with up to three years of jail or fines up to $7,700.

“Life is too short to click on an unknown.” — Jakob Nielsen

Take Jakob Nielsen’s advice about the web (and the value of life itself) seriously. Afterall, he has been called both “the usability Pope” and “the next best thing to a true time machine.”

Don’t mess with Jakob Nielsen.

Now that we have the standard warning out of the way, let’s take a look at Dr. Nielsen’s latest column about bloggers’ common design faux paus:

Weblog Usability: The Top Ten Design Mistakes:

1. No Author Biographies
2. No Author Photo
3. Nondescript Posting Titles
4. Links Don’t Say Where They Go
5. Classic Hits are Buried
6. The Calendar is the Only Navigation
7. Irregular Publishing Frequency
8. Mixing Topics
9. Forgetting That You Write for Your Future Boss
10. Having a Domain Name Owned by a Weblog Service

There are very many, even millions of blogs that do more than one of the common mistakes on Jakob’s list. And no, not all of them are LiveJournals! Maybe even your blog contains some of these problems.

If you write a blog, take pride in it. Making it easier to use and understand will encourage readers to stick around and check back regularly. Weblog usability is a good thing.

So take Jakob Nielsen’s advice and apply it to your blog and also yourself: Life is too short to click on an unknown.

Sploid, the Gawker Media news site “with a tabloid mentality,” just redesigned their box-blurb headline structure.

The gray and black and white boxy layout works well, especially with the added time stamps, and definitely blows the design-challenged Drudge Report’s looks out of the water.

The photos interspersed throughout the top stories works well and the new “featured story” section works well to illustrate what editor Ken Layne feels is the big news of the day. Again, its a more effective approach than Drudge’s H1 headline.

One problem with Sploid’s otherwise refreshing design is that sometimes, while viewing the site in Firefox, the last line of text is cut off and unreadable. That might have something to do with browser text display size, though. But either way, it’s distracting.

It would be interesting to hear from Ken about how the order of the day’s stories are determined and also what Ken and publisher Nick Denton think about their answer to Matt Drudge.

So far Sploid is doing a great job, covering the news in a unique short-form blog-tabloid hybrid sort of way.

After going 2-2 with my division series picks, getting the NLDS results totally right (rematch!) and the ALDS totally wrong (due to the deflated Yankees and Red Sox), it’s time for my League Championship Series picks:

* Angels vs. White Sox
My pick: Angels in 7.
My take: The White Sox made quick work of the Red Sox, but their drive to break their own World Series curse (that of Shoeless Joe Jackson) won’t be enough to match the Angels’ pitching.

* Astros vs. Cardinals (rematch!)
My pick: Cardinals in 6.
My take: The Astros are hot right now and a very good team, but the Cardinals’ depth will propel them back into the World Series.