"I have this recurring dream all the time. I see him in New York. I see him walking down the street. And I pull him aside into a doorway. And I ask him, ‘Why? Why would you be an informant? Why would you do that? Something you've always preached against?' And then, that's when I snap his neck."

That's John "Red" Shea, five years ago, describing what he'd do if he ever happened to bump into his former boss and mentor, Whitey Bulger, on the street.

Last night in Santa Monica, CA, the 16-year-long manhunt for South Boston Irish mob boss James "Whitey" Bulger came to an end. The 81-year-old Bulger was number one on the FBI's most wanted list from 1995 until 9/11/01 for "his role in 19 murders committed from the early 1970s through the mid-1980s in connection with his leadership of an organized crime group that allegedly controlled extortion, drug deals, and other illegal activities in the Boston, Massachusetts, area," according to the Feds.

The bizarre-yet-irresistable story about the FBI taking DNA samples from Osama's sister's brain spread itself across the Internet today. Most accounts source the story to the Telegraph, and the Telegraph sources it to ABC, which credits an unnamed informant for the info.

But ABC seems to be backing off the story now

The sentencing memorandum filed by Boston federal prosecutors last week, seeking between 33 and 41 months incarceration for convicted former Boston City Councilor Chuck Turner, is no ordinary document. (Today, Judge Douglas Woodlock imposed a sentence of 36 months.)

From the first line, the memorandum reads like the coked-up rant of a paranoid regime, infuriated that any of its subjects would dare speak against it.

Chuck Turner is absolutely right. I'm not being sarcastic. The expelled councilor is right that the FBI's case against him was overblown and petty, that “people don't think critically in this society,” and, most of all, that today's Boston City Council meeting (and vote regarding his stature) was “a difficult situation for all of [the councilors].

Chuck Turner didn’t call this morning’s press conference at his Dudley Square district office to talk about media harassment, like he did this past Monday outside City Hall. Instead, he came “to talk about media incompetence.”

But before he got to spanking those of us who have been reaming him in editorials, Turner reiterated his innocence: “I don’t have the slightest fear that I’ll spend one day in jail,” he said.

Anyone who believes that only Republicans detest the press should have checked the scene outside Boston City Hall today. Maybe reporters aren’t as biased as talk-radio blowhards allege; in the wake of City Councilor Chuck Turner’s arrest, even liberals who cheer when we expose right-wing tomfoolery are tormenting us like Howie Carr does union bosses.