This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Breaking News

  • Grenades over Belgium

    According to Business Insider, Someone Just Threw Several Grenades Into A Crowded Belgium Square

    Reports are still coming in, but at least two people were killed and a dozen injured in central Liege, Belgium after a reported grenade attack by several unknown assailants.

    Lesoir.be reports one man of about 40 tossed at least some of the grenades toward a bus shelter at Place Saint-Lambert. Witnesses reported four explosions and a series of gunshots before the assailant killed himself.

    ADDED: More from BBC

  • Noriega back in Panama

    The French extradited Manuel Noriega back to Panama where he ruled for 17 years. He was convicted during his imprisonment overseas of murdering two political opponents, but it looks like he’ll get to serve his sentence at home;

    He was sentenced to 20 years in each case, and Panamanian officials say he will be sent straight to a jail cell when he lands. The ex-general, whose pockmarked face earned him the nickname “Pineapple Face,” could eventually leave prison under a law allowing prisoners over 70 to serve out their time under house arrest.

    He’s got some yard work to do, though. I was at his house a few years back and it’s pretty well overgrown.

    Even though Panama still has the death penalty, you can be sure that the French wouldn’t have let him return without an agreement from the Panamanian government that he wouldn’t face the death penalty.

  • VT officer was a veteran

    I mentioned briefly yesterday the shooting at Virginia Tech in which an officer was killed during a routine traffic stop. Apparently the shooter wasn’t involved in the traffic stop but, rather ambushed 39-year-old Deriek W. Crouse of Christiansburg. From Fox News;

    Crouse was an Army veteran and married father of five children and stepchildren who joined the campus police force about six months after the 2007 massacre. He previously worked at a jail and for the Montgomery County sheriff’s department.

    Of course, VT officials are not blaming the shooter, but rather, the gun;

    “In light of the turmoil and trauma and the tragedy suffered by this campus by guns, I can only say words don’t describe our feelings and they’re elusive at this point in time,” university president Charles Steger said. “Our hearts are broken again for the family of our police officer.”

    Like someone mentioned yesterday, thst this happened is inconceivable – it ocurred in a gun-free zone. Didn’t the gunman know that?

  • 2 dead in new VT shooting (UPDATED)

    Virginia Tech is the scene of another deadly shooting today. One campus cop was shot during a traffic stop and another person was found dead after the shooter fled the first shooting incident according to a link sent by Amy J;

    A Virginia Tech alert described the suspected shooter as a white male wearing gray sweat pants, a gray hat with a neon green brim and a maroon hoodie, and carrying a backpack.

    The Virginia Tech alert posted on the school’s website said the suspect was last seen walking toward McComas Hall, which is the main gym on campus, about two blocks from Lane Stadium.

    The shooting came the same day as Virginia Tech was appealing a $55,000 fine by the U.S. Education Department in connection with the university’s response to the 2007 rampage.

    UPDATE: Police believe that the second body is that of the gunman.

  • Reality gives idealism the finger yet again.

    I am sure that you have seen videos on your local TV stations that call for donations to help stop the famine in Somalia? That brought in celebrity speakers to endorse the program. There was even a catchy abbreviation too. But looks like that this will be futile since the militant groups are preventing aid and aide groups from working.

    MOGADISHU, Somalia — The Somali militant group al-Shabab on Monday banned 16 aid groups — including a half dozen U.N. agencies — from central and southern Somalia, a decision likely to harm Somalis already suffering from drought and famine.

    The banning of the aid groups falls in line with the group’s skeptical view of the outside world, but will worsen the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of Somalis who have come to depend on aid in the Horn of Africa country’s worst famine since 1991-92.

    Oh don’t worry since talking to the leaders of these groups will sort this out wiht a heart to heart discussion. Then know what the true priorities are during this crisis are right?

    Al-Shabab accused the 16 aid groups of disseminating information on the activities of Muslims and militant fighters, financing, aiding and abetting “subversive” groups seeking to destroy the basic tenants of the Islamic penal system, and of “persistently galvanizing the local population” against the full establishment of Shariah law, a harsh and punitive interpretation of Islam.

    Al-Shabab carries out amputations, stonings and beheadings as punishment. The group also frequently recruits child fighters.

    Because of its policies limiting the work of aid groups in its territory — especially the work of the World Food Program — areas under its control were declared famine zones by the U.N. in July. Some of those famine declarations have since been downgraded, but the U.N. says 250,000 still face the immediate risk of starvation.

    Yea, so send in that money because it is getting better and better.

  • Geezer terrorists thwarted

    Four men, in their 60s and 70s were arrested yesterday when federal agents busted them for plotting against government facilities and employees. AT least one of them is a Navy veteran, according to Fox News;

    The four listed in the indictment are Frederick Thomas, 73; Dan Roberts, 67; Ray Adams, 65; and Samuel Crump, 68. The men live in the north Georgia towns of Cleveland and Toccoa.

    “I’ve been to war, and I’ve taken life before, and I can do it again,” [Frederick Thomas] told an undercover investigator, according to the records.

    Thomas’ wife, Charlotte, called the charges “baloney.”

    “He spent 30 years in the U.S. Navy. He would not do anything against his country,” she said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.

    I call them “geezers” fully understanding that I’m only a few years behind them in age, so you other geezers don’t get your panties in a wad. Of course, we know that Mark Potok and the SPLC will use this as an opportunity to tell us that they told us so – that veterans and the right wing are plotting terrorism against the government.

    They have been talking about “covert” operations since at least March 2011, according to court records, discussing murder, theft and using toxic agents and assassinations to undermine the state and federal government.

    Four crotchety old braggarts in the mountains of Georgia do not a movement make.

  • The real intent of the Occupy Wall Street movement reveals it’s head again.

    So just like in Indianapolis OWS planners in Oakland reviled why the Police has been involved in there protest. Why that this has nothing to do with peaceful decent. It is about shutting down all operations in the cities regardless who it affects.

    “We mean nobody goes to work, nobody goes to school, we shut the city down,” organizer Cat Brooks said. “The only thing they seem to care about is money and they don’t understand that it’s our money they need. We don’t need them, they need us.”

    Also how the former Marine was injured.

    The hospital has confirmed Olsen was hurt during the protest, but could not say how he was wounded. Acting Oakland Police Chief Howard Jordan had told a news conference his department was investigating the incident.

    He said police had fired tear gas and bean-bag projectiles when protesters defied orders to disperse. He also said that some demonstrators had pelted police with rocks and bottles.

    Olsen is believed to be the most seriously wounded person yet in confrontations between police and activists since Occupy Wall Street protests began last month in New York.

    So looks like the 99% of Oakland will be affected simply because they are in the way. I wonder how the the people of Oakland will feel when their means of living are interfered with?

  • Car bomb in Michigan

    Tman sends us a link to the story of a car bomb which injured three people in Monroe Michigan this morning.

    Investigators were poring over what remained of the vehicle after the Tuesday evening blast, looking for clues about how the bomb was made and who might have planted it, said Donald Dawkins, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

    “There was a lot of power behind it. The victims are very fortunate, very blessed, to be alive,” Dawkins said.

    I don’t think it was related to the terror war, although it IS terrorism. According to Fox News channel, it was a lawyer and his two sons who were injured and, thankfully, not killed.