Monday, January 10, 2011
Gabrielle Giffords shooting: Frightening, twisted shrine in Arizona killer Jared Lee Loughner's yard
A sinister shrine reveals a chilling occult dimension in the mind of the deranged gunman accused of shooting a member of Congress and 19 others.
Hidden within a camouflage tent behind Jared Lee Loughner's home sits an alarming altar with a skull sitting atop a pot filled with shriveled oranges.
A row of ceremonial candles and a bag of potting soil lay nearby, photos reveal.
Experts on Sunday said the elements are featured in the ceremonies of a number of occult groups.
Investigators have focused on Loughner's online anti-government ramblings as the chief motivation for the shooting Saturday of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.).
The discovery of the shrine raises the possibility that Loughner, 22, may have been driven by other forces. Students and faculty at Pima Community College, which he attended until his suspension last summer, said Loughner was clearly at odds with the world.
"He was one of the last kids tocome in, and he sat down and almost immediately started laughing to himself in a way that was just kind of creepy," a classmate, Alex Kotonias, 20, told USA Today.
"As soon as the teacher started going over the syllabus, he had this outburst out of nowhere, didn't even raise his hand, and started asking the teacher some sort of weird questions about whether he believed in mind control."
Inside Jared Lee Loughner's home (DAILY NEWS EXCLUSIVE).
Adjunct Prof. Ben McGahee, 28, worried about violence. "I remember going home and thinking to myself, 'Is he going to bring a weapon to class?'" he told USA Today.
Lynda Sorenson, 52, who was in McGahee's basic algebra class with Loughner, expressed similar fears in emails to friends, The Washington Post reports.
On June 14, she wrote: "We have a mentally unstable person in the class that scares the living crap out of me. He is one of those whose picture you see on the news, after he has come into class with an automatic weapon. Everyone interviewed would say, 'Yeah, he was in my math class and he was really weird.' I sit by the door with my purse handy."
In September, college officials sent campus police officers to Loughner's home, where he lives with his parents, with a letter informing him he could not return without a mental health professional's written assurance that hispresence at college would "notpresent a danger to himself or others."
"It was obvious to everyone that Jared wasn't a normal guy,"said neighbor Anthony Woods, 19.
Loughner worked as a volunteer at the Pima Animal Care Center, where he walked dogs and cleaned cages. "He loved animals and was a good worker," said another volunteer.
Loughner had once tried to join the military but was deemed unsuitable, officials said.
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/01/10/2011-01-10_chilling_shrine_in_madmans_yard.html#ixzz1AdeLb8AD
Second Man Sought In Giffords Shooting May Be Assassin’s Handler
Update: According to the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, the person of interest is a cab driver with no connection to Jared Lee Loughner. The man told police he drove Loughner to the Safeway grocery store where Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and others were shot yesterday.
The FBI and local law enforcement in Pima County, Arizona, are looking for a second man wanted in connection with the shooting of Rep. Giffords and the murder of a federal judge and five others.
The man is described as a Caucasian male, approximately 40-50 years old with dark hair, who was last seen wearing blue jeans and a dark blue jacket. Fox News reported early Sunday that the man may have given the accused assassin, Jared Lee Loughner, a ride to the supermarket. Is it possible he acted as Loughner’s handler in a larger assassination plot?
Early in the Oklahoma City bombing case, the FBI sought a second man, described as John Doe 2. Police sketches of the man were released to the media.
By the time the government was ready to prosecute Timothy McVeigh, however, John Doe 2 slipped into the background. Justice Department officials told the corporate media that the three witnesses at a truck rental business might have been confused when they were originally interviewed and said a second man accompanied McVeigh. “And finding out otherwise was impossible for most reporters, because the witnesses in Kansas were under intense pressure by the FBI not to talk to the press,” J. D. Cash wrote for the McCurtain Daily Gazette in 2004.
- A D V E R T I S E M E N T
“Regardless of the fact the witnesses at the truck rental were holding firm, by the time the much-anticipated murder and conspiracy trials for McVeigh and Nichols began in Denver in 1997, the government was working overtime trying to dismiss evidence that there had ever been a John Doe 2, or any other suspects that might muddy their cases against McVeigh and Nichols,” Cash writes.
The FBI later admitted it had withheld evidence about informants who claimed Timothy McVeigh had additional accomplices. “Filings in the case also revealed the existence of at least four informants who were part of the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, including the one working undercover and another under an explicit confidentiality agreement,” J. M. Berger wrote for Intelwire in 2006.
Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, the Christmas non-bombing patsy who attempted to light his underwear on fire, was delivered to the airport and placed on the plane by a “sharp dressed man” who had pull with airport authorities. Kurt Haskell, a passenger on the flight, told Alex Jones last year that the man was detained and handcuffed following Mutallab’s stunt. Since the event, however, the corporate media has ignored the participation of this Indian man, who was apparently Mutallab’s handler and managed to get the dim-witted Nigerian on the flight despite the fact he did not have a passport. He was also suspiciously removed from a terror watch listprior to the flight.
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It is very early in the Giffords shooting case. The FBI and Arizona law enforcement say they are looking for a second man connected to the murders, but this may fade into the background as the government prepares to prosecute Loughner.
The official story that will become gospel for the corporate media is in the process of formulation. A second man may not be part of that narrative.
Southern States Brace for Disruptive Storm
By TIMOTHY W. MARTIN And MIKE ESTERL
Several states across the South braced Sunday for a major winter storm that was expected to bring snow and freezing rain, disrupting air travel and inaugural activities for Georgia's new governor.
The National Weather Service issued winter storm warnings from eastern Texas to North Carolina, with ice-storm warnings for Mississippi and Alabama. The bad weather approached just over two weeks after a heavy storm brought rare Christmas Day snow to many parts of the region.
Governors in both Alabama and Louisiana issued emergency declarations. Alabama Gov. Bob Riley asked residents to avoid leaving their homes, unless necessary, Sunday night and Monday. Officials across the Southprepared snow and salt trucks and power crews prepared for outages common in ice storms. Many schools canceled Monday classes.
Mississippi officials said Sunday that ice had already accumulated on roadways, bridges and overpasses in several counties.
In Atlanta, a morning prayer breakfast and evening black-tie gala planned around Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal's inauguration on Monday were canceled, amid predictions of two to four inches of snow Sunday night followed by steady freezing rain on Monday. Mr. Deal will still be sworn in Monday afternoon, but urged Georgians to stay off the roads.
The expected precipitation triggered hundreds of flight cancellations at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the world's busiest airport and the biggest hub of Delta Air Lines Inc.
Delta said it canceled about 330 flights scheduled to depart Sunday night. Delta also canceled 1,400 flights Monday, or about a quarter of its daily global departures at this time of year.
The latest travel disruptions follow on the heels of thousands of flight cancellations around the U.S. between Christmas and New Year's because of extreme winter weather. Delta canceled about 3,100 flights between Christmas and New Year's, including more than 500 in Atlanta on Christmas Day.
AirTran Airways has canceled 270 flights for Monday. The unit of AirTran Holdings Inc. has about 700 daily departures across the U.S., including more than 225 out of Atlanta. A spokesman predicted only a couple dozen flights would be able to depart from Atlanta on Monday.
Delta and AirTran expect operations to begin returning to normal Tuesday and are waiving itinerary change fees for customers.
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Passenger Plane Crashes in Northwest Iran
TEHRAN — An Iranian airplane carrying more than 100 passengers crashed as it tried to make an emergency landing in heavy snow and fog, killing at least 70 people, official news agencies reported.
A rescue official, Heydar Heydari of the Red Crescent organization, said 32 people had survived but that the death toll was likely to rise, the official IRNA news agency reported.
Bad weather forced the Boeing 727 aircraft to abandon its first attempt to land as it approached Orumiyeh, a city in West Azerbaijan Province in the northwest, reports said. The plane was circling for a second approach when it disappeared from radar at around 7:45 p.m., state television reported.
News reports said the plane, on a domestic flight from the capital, Tehran, tried to land on farmland near Lake Orumiyeh.
Witnesses told the BBC Persian language news service by telephone that the plane broke into several pieces on impact but did not explode. A number of passengers were reportedly able to escape from the wreckage unharmed. Heavy snow was said to have been hampering rescue efforts.
Iran’s air industry has been plagued by safety concerns for years, at least in part because international sanctions have prevented the country from purchasing new American and European aircraft and spare parts for the ones it has.
Iran’s American-built aircraft were purchased before Iran’s 1979 revolution, when the two countries cut off relations. Airlines, including Iran’s flagship carrier, Iran Air, have struggled to keep those planes, as well as aging and often unreliable aircraft bought from Russia and other former Soviet states, in service.
In July 2009, a Russian-built Tupolev passenger jet operated by Caspian Airlines of Irancrashed on its way to Yerevan, Armenia, killing all 168 passengers and crew members.
In December 2005, 108 people were killed when an Iranian military plane, a Lockheed C-130, crashed into a high-rise housing block outside Tehran. The following November, a military plane crashed on takeoff at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport, killing 38 people.
Riots spread over food prices in Algeria
Psychiatry's 'Shock Doctrine': Are We Really Okay With Electroshocking Toddlers?
Healthwyze Report
Many Americans think electro-convulsive therapy has been abandoned. But American psychiatry still regards it as a respected treatment, even for kids.
On Jan. 25, 2009, the Herald Sun in Melbourne, Australia, reported: "Children younger than 4 who are considered mentally disturbed are being treated with controversial electric shock treatment." In Australia, the use of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) is increasing, and the Herald Sun's report on "Child Shock Therapy" stated that last year, "statistics record 203 ECT treatments on children younger than 14 -- including 55 aged 4 and younger."