Boston Marathon

Words can not adequately express the grief and the soul wrenching hurt such events create.  All I can think of are the people who's lives have been shattered with the loss of loved ones or loss of limb.  All because some coward had to strike at innocent people for a sick and twisted cause.

To work through this I have created a simple slideshow.  I am not sure if what I did is any good.  But I wanted to show how the marathon was before the dreadful explosions and some may disagree with some images.  But I felt this was how to do it.  There are no high value special tansitions or fades, just a timeline progression.

Here is the version that runs under VLC and Windows Media Player.  Its a 5MB .wmv file.

The music I chose is composed by Yoko Kanno for the Ghost In The Shell movie Solid State Society.  The song is called Aramaki's Theme.

Aurora

So far the only class acts about Aurora, CO have come from Obama, Romney, and the NRA. As in they are offering condolences and prayers.

For the pond scum who have raced to clamber atop the still warm bodies of the victims to push their cause like Garibaldi waving his bloody shirt, I have one thing to say - "Have you no shame?"

Of course they don't. All things are politics first and always for them. They don't care who they hurt as long as they push their agenda. They are monsters in their own right.

Lets all take a moment to pray for the victims and families.  Go donate blood for your community and dedicate it to those in Aurora. CO.  Move forward in a positive way for all those affected.

9/11 Hate

The above is some of the commentary posted in response to this photo that captures the instant Flight 175 crashes into the South Tower of the WTC and the North Tower already burns. Ten years on and the hate is still fierce.

Calculus of Hate

Friends, countrymen, Norwegians lend me your ears. I come here not to praise Anders but to dissect his evil.

-- I am writing this as details keep emerging or even change. Perchance the manifesto is fiction, but right now it is held as sacred writ for Anders' evil.

First we must shake loose our own conceptions of right and wrong. Anders operates under a different set of right and wrong in which only he knows the ultimate truth. When Anders talks of Cultural Communism, Cultural Marxism, and how fragmented leftism is; even though the words are cribbed from the Unabomber, Anders writes as if he knows such a higher truth and must convey it to others. This belief also drives why Anders surrendered himself and did not take his own life or allow himself to be killed by the police, he is the messenger of this truth and through his court appearance he thinks he will spread this message so that others can learn this truth.

What is this truth of Anders? That I am still grappling over since all we really have is some suspicious Facebook pages, the above mentioned manifesto, and a video of unknown provenance. Because of the doubts on the first and last pieces of evidence, perforce I must base my reasoning on the manifesto. It seems Anders was a very ordinary little Norwegian boy living in a safe bubble until a Muslim friend cheered at the news of missile strikes against American forces during Desert Storm, that was when his world view seemed to change he writes in the manifesto. It also seems he saw the Labor Party, a center-right political party that his parents supported, had been infiltrated by Marxists. If the manifesto is true then perhaps there lays the seeds of his mission.

I say mission because that is what Anders wants to believe he has embarked upon I think. All the talk of Templars, Marxists, and retaking Europe from unappreciative immigrants plays to Anders' desire to matter. An unspectacular though privileged childhood, father being a diplomat, only marred by a divorce he does not remember. And a seemingly uneventful adulthood in safe Norway also awaited him. So perhaps he latches on the few troubles or hangups he had in childhood and reinvents himself as a crusader to right wrongs he perceives in the system. Initially it seems he does try to work within the existing political system when he was part of the Progress Party. When that failed it seems a new crusade was truly born. The Labor Party was not ever going to acknowledge any sort of problem with immigrants even as the Muslims looted and raped while he might have felt abandoned by the Progress Party.

This is possibly Anders' motivation, but how best to strike a blow that supports this motivation. And to get the message out since he has so far found no one to believe him. Again lets look at the manifesto. It seems since he left the Progress Party so quietly they did not even notice he left. To further his now self-appointed mission he set up various schemes to acquire what he thinks is the last recourse against tyranny - the tools of violence. That is how he legally acquires the firearms and chemicals used in the bomb that blew up in Oslo.

The last step is perhaps the hardest to stomach. The government buildings in Oslo, for any terrorist from the right to the left end of the political spectrum, would be legitimate targets. So why the Labor party youth camp on Utoya then? Anders sees himself as saving Norway from the pollution of immigration, the Labor Party of his parents supports this immigration, and this camp is for the teenagers of people belonging to the Labor Party. So in that sort of calculus, attacking a camp full of future Labor members who will continue the policies Anders abhors makes perfect sense.

So Anders has attacked at what he thinks of as his enemies' soft spot. He wants the attention from such infamy. Hence he allowed himself to be taken alive. So he can continue to expose the Labor party, its enabling of multiculturalism, and its ideological blindness to the menace of unassimilated Muslims as the tool of Norway's destruction.

Now does it make sense, when viewed from Anders' very much off kilter point of view. He is not insane, he just has a mission and those poor teens at Utoya were pawns in his game to save Norway.

And now I am going to go and try to scrub that twisted thinking out of my skull. Rum&coke sounds good.

By Their Actions Pt 2

Thursday, President Obama will visit the Ground Zero site in New York City. Apparently it will be his speech on the killing of Osama bin Laden. Which means there is a very good chance, he will turn it into a re-election speech and his version of 'Mission Accomplished.'

Here is the post I did the last time Obama visited Ground Zero. As Sen. McCain carefully bent his badly injured body to reverently place that yellow rose, Obama did an underhand toss of a red rose. Lets hope President Obama is not so crass this time.

George W Bush was invited to be with President Obama tommorow, but Bush politely declined. Though he does plan to be at Ground Zero on Sept 11, 2011 to mark the 10th anniversary of that evil atrocity. I wonder if he will need another bullhorn?

Where Shall We Find Her?

Come, with bows bent and with emptying of quivers,
Maiden most perfect! Lady of Light!
With a noise of winds and many rivers,
With a clamor of waters, and with might:
Bind on thy sandals, O Thou most fleet!
Over the splendor and speed of thy feet:
For the faint East quickens, and the wan West shivers,
Round the feet of the Day and the feet of the Night.
- ‘When The Hounds of Spring’, Atalanta of Calydon by Algernon Swinburne.

Yesterday a maiden who had just started to bloom was taken from our lives in an action most evil and violent. Christina-Taylor Green had been born on a most ill-omen day, that of September 11th, 2001; born into sorrow but by her birth promising great joy. From that day until yesterday it seemed she was fulfilling that promise. Being the only girl on her Little League team and playing second base, for it seems she had absorbed from her father and grandfather a passion for America’s game. Vowing to help the less fortunate to loving animals. From ballet to jazz, she did love. So much wonderful potential she did have, all stolen away from her family and loved ones by a madman with a sick cause.

Rest in peace Christina, in the loving arms of our Creator. And may His grace and peace fall upon all who were hurt deeply with your death. I wish the same blessings of grace and peace fall upon the others who were killed. May His healing and peace fall most specially on the wounded. Especially pray for Gabrielle Giffords and her family for she has a long road to recovery.

New Year, Same Terror

For those only now recovering from the New Year celebrations, terrorists have rung in the new year with their idea of fireworks. Twenty-one Coptic Christians were killed in a bomb blast in Alexandria Egypt outside a church. Seventy-one Copts and eight Muslims were injured in the vicious and cowardly attack. President Mubarak of Egypt vows to fight the 'foreign hands' behind the attack. The Copt population in Egypt is seething over the attack. Pope Benedict in Rome has condemned the attack.

Suffer the Innocent

Hartford, Conn eight people lay murdered at a plant. Instead of saying something that would have made sense to the 911 operator like "the Devil made me do it," the killer whined the company was racist, the victims deserved what they got, and he wished he got more people. Then the scum-sucking cowardly piece of bovine solid waste name Omar Thornton killed himself as SWAT responded.

One of those he murdered was his own union representative, Bryan Cirigliano, at hearings to see if Thornton would be fired. Reason for motion of termination? It seems Thornton was stealing beer from the company and selling it to enrich himself.

There are going to be people who say the company was racist and Thornton needed to bring it up. Can I say STFU right now? Yes Thornton needed to bring it up if it was true. And its all beside the point. Thornton set about to murder people. He managed to murder eight before he stayed true to his cowardly character and blew his own brains out.

Talk about a hard decision for Lucifer Morningstar when Omar showed up. Send him to the outer ring of the Seventh Circle for murders or the center ring for suicides? Or straight to the Ninth Circle and Round 4? For this person, ice seems too good. Chiron and his centaurs filling Thornton with arrows is far more appealing. But that is vengeance speaking which would land me, the author in another circle, so I will lay off.

For the families of the eight people murdered, say prayers for them and that they find comfort and peace. These are terrible times for them.

No Win Situation

The pundit who said 'The law is an ass.' had it absolutely right.

In an unanimous decision last week, the California Supreme Court ruled a woman could sue her rescuer because Lisa Torti's attempt was not with due care.

Back on Nov 1, 2004 Alexandra Van Horn was a front seat passenger when the car she was riding in spun out of control and hit a pole, the pole toppled and the air bags deployed. Lisa Torti was in a car following and saw the accident. Both women, with friends, were returning from a night of drinking and apparently earlier use of cannabis. Ms. Torti rushed to render aid fearing the car was about to explode. As ABC News also notes, both women's accounts of that night are radically different. Torti claims she carefully lifted Van Horn from the car and set her down somewhere more safe. Van Horn's lawyer claims Torti yanked the woman out and dropped her on the ground next to the car. When the doctors examined Van Horn it was found she had a lacerated liver along with spinal damage that has left Van Horn in a wheelchair.

This ruling by the Supreme Court clears the way for Van Horn to sue Torti after her original suit against Torti was summarily thrown out, even though the justices themselves are divided over interpretation of the Good Samaritan Law they all ruled Torti can be sued. Van Horn is also suing Anthony Glen Watson, driver of the car she was in at the time of the accident. This is a true indicator that Van Horn is not after justice since she is suing in civil court two different people for the same injury.

This seems to be a narrowly defined case except for that majority opinion of the Supreme Court. Judge Moreno writing for that majority said Sec 1799.102 was meant only to protect medical personnel who are carrying out their duties. Baxter in a dissenting opinion argued that was too narrow of an interpretation and if the state government had meant to shield only medical personnel they would have stuck that wording in Sec 1799.102, which they did not.

The upshot of this is will be reticence by anyone not a medical professional or trained in life-saving from going to the aid of their neighbor or total stranger who is in distress. As Baxter wrote, this will be the quandary each person in such a situation will face: "One who dives into swirling waters to retrieve a drowning swimmer can be sued for incidental injury he or she causes while bringing the victim to shore, but is immune for harm he or she produces while thereafter trying to revive the victim."

So in the parable of the Good Samaritan, updated version, as that man lays on the side of the road robbed and injured, the Samaritan walks past him fearful of being sued by the man after he recovers. Thus the man expires on the side of the road because no one was willing to come to his aid.

By Their Actions...

Ye shall know them.

Sen. John McCain carefully places his yellow rose down at the Ground Zero Memorial.

Sen. Barack Obama throws his blush red rose like a horseshoe at the Ground Zero Memorial.

Gotbaums Sue Pheonix

Everyone should remember the tragedy that happened last September 28 in Sky Harbor Airport. Carol Anne Gotbaum, after missing her flight and then being denied to board the next flight due to her disruptive actions, was later found dead in a holding cell at the airport.

Here is the video of Gotbaum acting erratic in the concourse. Notice how people are acting in reaction to her. Also notice how long the airport security and the police take before they physically restrain Ms. Gotbaum.


Here is an newscast from CNN on this case. I have to ask the Gotbaum's laywer, Michael Manning, how come the family's private medical examiner could not wait for Maricopa County Medical Examiner to release the rest of Carol's body so they could do an independent review? I would think they would want to be precise and thorough before launching a lawsuit.

What is known is Carol was traveling to Tuscon to enter alcohol rehabilitation. She was sent alone on an airplane flight to travel 2500 miles from her family and friends. She went to a sports bar at Sky Harbor and then went to the gate where her flight was supposed to leave. She got there after the last boarding call and was refused entry. Even Michael Manning admits she was possibly drinking at Sky Harbor. Toxicology report backs up she was drunk. So she waited for the next plane to Tuscon and this time was refused due to her erratic behavior. Which lead to the above video of an irate Carol on the concourse.

What is galling is the Gotbaum family demanding the police to be psychics. To know that Carol was merely emotionally fragile and needed a shoulder. Look at the video and the body language, the officers did try to talk to her and she was not receptive. When Noah himself could not bother to escort his wife and mother of his three children to where she could get the treatment she needed. When it took over 2 hours for Noah to call American Airlines about his wife's problems after last talking to her. So now they file an $8million lawsuit to assauge their guilt for abandoning Carol and projecting that failure upon the police officers of Phoenix. Looking at Stephen Craig's rebuttal to Manning's suit, it does not seem this suit has much standing. But juries can be fickel entities, lets hope this is not one of those weird judgements.

Whiskey Romeo Zulu

One good thing about upgrading to HD on the satellite receiver, more channels of stuff to either ignore or go wow with. One such wow channel is World if they keep showing movies like Whiskey Romeo Zulu.

Does not sound like an exciting title, but it does pack a wallop. It all centers around a pilot, T, who flies for LAPA out of Argentina. On one flight which he is the Captain, a fire warning light for the APU illuminates. So him and his co-pilot go through the checklist to declare an emergency, set transponder to 7700, and land the plane. On the ground T is berated for wasting company money on a false alarm. We learn in four months there have been 100 such alarms and 96 were false. Next T is advised to write any future maintenance issues on a napkin instead of the log and pass these napkins to Maint.

The name itself derives from a LAPA 737-200 LV-WRZ that crashed on take-off and burst into flames in 1999, killing 65 and injuring 17. Enrique Pinyero is not only the director and star of this film, he was the pilot named T.

As this is happening to T, Argentine investigators are nosing around LAPA. One pilot, under oath, says he has been taking his time off because its a safety thing. So the prosecutor says the pilot's own files indicate he is owed six years leave. Then there are efforts to stop the investigation like the lead prosecutor unlocking his car and out pours hundreds of fishing floats along with a note on the windshield warning he maybe found floating in a river.

T is torn and conflicted. Other pilots start to stay away from him. His snapping point happens when he is scheduled to fly at night a 737 that has two in-op artificial horizons and one in-op gyro. Camera lingers on an artificial horizon that is banked 80 degrees to the left as the plane sits on the apron. So T down checks the 737 since the MEL says the plane can not fly at night. LAPA instead sends another pilot to fly the 737 and T finds himself grounded for the rest of the month.

The purpose of the film is to show the culture inside LAPA that lead to the crash of Whiskey Romeo Zulu. T is a pilot who sees everything in black&white - there is the safe way and the risky way. LAPA even manages to get the medical board to ground T for six months due to psychological issues. Which prompted one of the funny black humour scenes of the movie.

T - 'I am such an idiot.'
G - 'Could you be more specific.'
T - 'I did exactly what they wanted me to do.'
G - 'What is that?'
T - 'I argued with the psychologist.'
G - 'Yeah that is idiotic.'

As to what happened to 737-200 WRZ, it took off in a rush. The pilot had not had any vacation in two years. And as he accelerated for take-off, a warning buzzer went off and the pilot was yelling 'what is that?' Instead of declaring an abort, he pressed on. WRZ never completely cleared, went across a road, and hit a midden heap. It turns out the pilot nor co-pilot noticed the flaps were still set at 0 and not the approved setting for take-off. Digression, flaps and slats on a jet's wing increase its area which lowers the stall speed and makes it more manageable. Without the flaps down, WRZ required a higher take-off speed which it never truly attained and as the pilot pulled back on the yoke, he lost the little airspeed he had and as you hear in the cockpit voice recording, the stick shaker is going off indicating a stall. So the plane fell out of the sky and crashed, killing all those people.

Stick around for the credits since they put on one side actual interviews with people involved in this tragedy. The one interview I find truly appalling is the one with Deutche of LAPA. He kept saying their maintenance was always 100% and I did not detect one bit honest contriteness. Anyone with a dose of common sense knows there is no such thing as 100% in the real world, that there will always be gremlins.

The only downside of this movie is, it was made in Argentina and its in Spanish so for all us Yanquis there are subtitles. But please don't let that put you off; its a very good film that does not go for over the top spectacles, in fact its almost too low-key in its approach. Since this movie has won some awards, I guess Pinyero got it right.

We Are All VT Alumni

Cartoon by Gary Varvel. - added 10:58pm.

I am shocked and very saddened by the tragic events in Blacksburg, Virginia.

Thirty two people with so much of their lives to live have had those lives tragically cut short. The depraved person whom authorities think is the sole perpetrator of these evil acts has committed suicide and is facing higher justice.

This is not the time to second guess and finger point. To run wildly at the mouth speculating with nothing to support it. I could be a complete prat and spout off things but I shall not, not on this day.

There are many families who are still wondering if their children or brothers or sisters or cousins or even parents are among the fallen. Then there are the friends who are wondering who among them are dead.

Lets keep all of them in our prayers and let them know they are not alone.