It's a heartwarming tale of a child's love and determination, and learning about things like government and how to lobby it and then go on TV later to spin the necessity of piece of narrowly drawn special-interest legislation.

Judson says he did research about the spiny rodents, "daydreamed about him every single day," and has 5,000 pictures. (Dear God, if ever an entire species needed a restraining order ...) Then, after assembling a weighty "Hedgehog Primer," he got on the agenda for Lawrence's city council. And he made a strong enough case that the board agreed there was no good reason for the continued outlawing of hedgehogs. Then they also legalized dancing and everyone got footloose. OK, kidding about the last part.

Here's video from Topeka's KTKA-TV to explain the whole shootin' match. Good work, Judson.

A Boy and His Hedgehog [KTKA-TV via CNN, thanks to reader PsychE.]

Better yet? He's going to spend another $1,500 on 36 copies of Wrath of the Lich King so his army of level 80 Shamans can start pounding down Stormwind and Ironforge on day one.

Bradster is a WoW multiboxer. This isn't a lifestyle I'm all that familiar with, but there are forums and discussion boards devoted to helping players control multiple characters in WoW. It sounds like he has utilities that allow him to start up all of his copies simultaneously, and use his mouse to control eight of these monitors (which look like they have at at least 3 copies running) at once.

Oh and here's a comment beneath his post on a multiboxing forum:

"I'm horrified and greatly impressed at the same time. And I thought I took my hooby [sic] too seriously at $1680/year in subscription fees."

Psssht. $1,680? Night elf, please. So, now I really want to know what Bradster does for a living, a) so he can afford all this shit and b) so he can have the time to play it.

Here's the class picture.

Prepared the 36 Boxer World of Warcraft [Dual Boxing.com via Ripten]

Video game obsession is what lead to the beating death of 17-month-old Alayiah Turman, an Assistant District Attorney said yesterday in the closing arguments of Tyrone Spellman's murder trial.

"(Spellman's) entire life and daily routine is about playing (Ghost Recon).

"What do you think someone with that kind of obsession is going to do when it gets knocked over? What do you think is going to happen?

"The skull fractures on that baby are what happened."

Prosecutors say that Spellman was obsessed with video games, that he played them up to six hours a day. They say that in September 2006 Spellman beat his daughter, Alayiah Turman, to death after she knocked over his Xbox 360 while he was playing Ghost Recon.

Spellman's defense attorney cast blame on the child's mother and said that the confession was coerced. The case was handed to the jury yesterday afternoon, but they had still not reached a verdict last night and were set to return today to continue deliberation.

Jury talking in infant-death case [The Philadelphia Inquirer]