A Hundred Stranger Rapes

Omar Little got his well-deserved revenge in the last episode of THE WIRE, in one of the most satisfying bloodbaths I have ever seen put to film. For all those who have yet to watch THE WIRE, this will mean little to you now, so I'd hardly call this a "spoiler". But trust me, you're going to go ape-shit when you see how Omar sweeps a battle royale through the underbelly of Bodymore in the penultimate episode. And walks away without a fucking scratch... I confess, I cheered.

Of course, with a serial killer dominating the headlines in this final season, the show deals (briefly?) with the subject of "criminal profilers".

What IS criminal profiling? What's the history of it? Here's an edited excerpt from a fascinating New Yorker article:

... the Liverpool group selected a hundred stranger rapes in the United Kingdom, classifying them according to twenty-eight variables, such as:

• whether a disguise was worn
• whether compliments were given
• whether there was binding/gagging/blindfolding
• whether there was apologizing
• whether there was theft of personal property...

They then looked at whether the patterns in the crimes corresponded to attributes of the criminals—like:

• age
• type of employment
• ethnicity
• level of education
• marital status
• number of prior convictions
• type of prior convictions
• drug use

Were rapists who bind, gag, and blindfold more like one another than they were like rapists who, say, compliment and apologize...?

The answer is no—not even slightly.

FBI criminal profiling. Quantico bullshit. Read the full New Yorker article here.

In other clickable news...

Can a bank make people happy? (Crank up the volume.)

"The Moment of Truth" finally scores the nadir it was aiming for.

Happy fucking LEAP YEAR, fuckos. You better not tell, you hear me? You better not tell or I'll fucking GET you...