Archive for June 2007
Glasgow Airport Bombed By Terrorists
UPDATE: 7:45PM EST Two more persons arrested in Northern England bringing the number of tartan terrorists to four in connection with the bombings. US warned Glasgow two weeks ago about bombings. h/t to Dave.
UPDATE: 4:30pm The car bomb at Glasgow Airport has been linked to the failed bombings in London two days ago. Scottish police have said that there were no casualites in the Glasgow Airport, but one man was being treated for a leg injury. There was a suspect device found on the victim who was taken to the Royal Alexandra Hospital. It was removed without incident. Both terrorists have been detained, one is in critical condition due to burns received in attack.
UPDATE: More on the bombings. Fox is reporting that the Royal Alexandra hospital in Paisleywhere one suspect was taken has been evacuated.
UPDATE: 12:35pm EST – AP is reporting that only two people have been arrested.
On the wake of two failed car bombs in London, Glasgow Airport, a regional and busiest airport in Scotland has been rammed by a Jeep Cherokee filled with gas explosives. Four people have been arrested. Glasgow Airport is closed at this time.
The British Broadcasting Corp. said witnesses described an SUV driving at full speed toward the terminal building with flames pouring out from the car.
The airport was evacuated and all flights suspended, the report said.
Police, however, said two cars had collided outside the airport around 3:15 p.m., with one of them bursting into flames.
Strathclyde Police spokeswoman Lisa O’Neil did not confirm media reports saying the motorist tried to drive into the terminal building.
“One car is on fire, but it is not clear if it went inside the terminal building,” she said.
Muslim Attacks Are Not New
Was just told that Muslim attacks are relatively new since the 90’s. Not true. Here’s a list of attacks against the United States since 1979.
America’s war on terrorism did not begin in September 2001. It began in November 1979.
That was shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini had seized power in Iran, riding the slogan “Death to America” – and sure enough, the attacks on Americans soon began. In November 1979, a militant Islamic mob took over the U.S. embassy in Tehran, the Iranian capital, and held 52 Americans hostage for the next 444 days.
The rescue team sent to free those hostages in April 1980 suffered eight fatalities, making them the first of militant Islam’s many American casualties. Others included:
- April 1983: 17 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
- October 1983: 241 dead at the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut.
- December 1983: five dead at the U.S. embassy in Kuwait.
- January 1984: the president of the American University of Beirut killed.
- April 1984: 18 dead near a U.S. airbase in Spain.
- September 1984: 16 dead at the U.S. embassy in Beirut (again).
- December 1984: Two dead on a plane hijacked to Tehran.
- June 1985: One dead on a plane hijacked to Beirut.
- After a let-up, the attacks then restarted: Five and 19 dead in Saudi Arabia in 1995
- 1996, 224 dead at the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998
- 17 dead on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000.
Simultaneously, the murderous assault of militant Islam also took place on U.S. soil:
- July 1980: an Iranian dissident killed in the Washington, D.C. area.
- August 1983: a leader of the Ahmadiyya sect of Islam killed in Canton, Mich.
- August 1984: three Indians killed in a suburb of Tacoma, Wash.
- September 1986: a doctor killed in Augusta, Ga.
- January 1990: an Egyptian freethinker killed in Tucson, Ariz.
- November 1990: a Jewish leader killed in New York.
- February 1991: an Egyptian Islamist killed in New York.
- January 1993: two CIA staff killed outside agency headquarters in Langley, Va.
- February 1993: Six people killed at the World Trade Center.
- March 1994: an Orthodox Jewish boy killed on the Brooklyn Bridge.
- February 1997: a Danish tourist killed on the Empire State building.
- October 1999: 217 passengers killed on an EgyptAir flight near New York City.
In all, 800 persons lost their lives in the course of attacks by militant Islam on Americans before September 2001 – more than killed by any other enemy since the Vietnam War. (Further, this listing does not include the dozens more Americans in Israel killed by militant Islamic terrorists.)
And yet, these murders hardly registered. Only with the events of a year ago did Americans finally realize that “Death to America” truly is the battle cry of this era’s most dangerous foe, militant Islam.
In retrospect, the mistake began when Iranians assaulted the U.S. embassy in Tehran and met with no resistance.
Interestingly, a Marine sergeant present at the embassy that fateful day in November 1979 agrees with this assessment. As the militant Islamic mob invaded the embassy, Rodney V. Sickmann followed orders and protected neither himself nor the embassy. As a result, he was taken hostage and lived to tell the tale. (He now works for Anheuser-Busch.)
In retrospect, he believes that passivity was a mistake. The Marines should have done their assigned duty, even if it cost their lives. “Had we opened fire on them, maybe we would only have lasted an hour.” But had they done that, they “could have changed history.”
The End Of Captain America
The demise of Steve Rogers alias Captain America, ending with his burial at Arlington Cemetery? Millions of comic book readers will have to work through their grief as one of the most beloved Superheroes dies.
In the drizzling rain at Arlington National Cemetery, thousands of grieving patriots solemnly watch as the pall bearers—Iron Man, and Black Panther, Ben Grimm and Ms. Marvel—carry a casket draped with an American flag.
Yes, folks, Captain America is dead and buried in the latest issue of Marvel Comics, due on newsstands the morning after Independence Day. After 66 years of battling villains from Adolf Hitler to the Red Skull, the red, white and blue leader of the Avengers was felled by an assassin’s bullet on the steps of a New York federal courthouse.
He was headed to court after refusing to sign the government’s Superhero Registration Act, a move that would have revealed his true identity. A sniper who fired from a rooftop was captured as police and Captain America’s military escort were left to cope with chaos in the streets.
But the sniper didn’t act alone, and didn’t even fire the shot that killed the captain.
Writer Jeph Loeb has been busy working through the stages of grief in the most recent issues of Marvel Comics. A book centered on Wolverine dealt with denial; one with the Avengers covered anger; and Spider-Man battled depression.
With the story line so relevant to present-day politics, and the timing of the latest issue so precise, it’s hard not to think the whole thing is one big slam on the government.“Part of it grew out of the fact that we are a country that’s at war, we are being perceived differently in the world,” Loeb said. “He wears the flag and he is assassinated—it’s impossible not to have it at least be a metaphor for the complications of present day.”
But Loeb says he was working with more personal material: the death of his 17-year-old son from cancer.
Read more about Loeb’s Fallen Son here.
Do you know which Comic Book Characters were Catholic?
Who Are Today’s Saints?
Maximus, of Roman Catholic Blog, asks the question “Who are the living saints today?” You can give Maximus your opinion by clicking on the post’s title. He says on his blog:
There are people who have passed away that I know are saints….
– the late Father Newman Eberhardt,CM, a staunchly orthodox Vincentian (what a rara avis today) who taught philosophy and patristics at St. John’s Seminary in Camarillo. He had the power to read souls. (I can attest to this personally).
– the just recently passed (in 2006) Father Marie Dominique Philippe (pictured below), a former Dominican who started the Community of Saint John in France in the 1960s. They’re now in Texas and Illinois here in the USA
Pope Issues First Statement On China’s Catholics
Pope Benedict XVI offered reconciliation towards China’s Communist government wanting to renew relations that were severed almost fifty years ago.
St. Paul’s Tomb To Be Opened
Pope Benedict XVI has given permission for investigators to examine by optical probe, the supposed tomb of St. Paul’s after increased requests from thousands of pilgrims.
Since the rediscovery of the tomb, measuring approximately eight feet long, four feet wide and 3 feet high, archaeologists have cleared away centuries of debris and plaster that surrounded the site. According to Kath.net, investigators have been given permission to remove a plug with which the coffin has been sealed so an endoscopic probe can be inserted and images of the contents captured.
“Absolute proof that it holds St. Paul’s bones is impossible,” Leonard Rutgers, an archaeologist at the University of Utrecht who visited the excavation, told Archaeology magazine in April.
St. Paul’s remains were removed from the original burial site in A.D. 258, according to documentary evidence, reburied in another part of Rome, and then moved back to the site of the basilica when it was built over the original church in the late fourth century.
“So they were schlepping these bones around a lot,” says Rutgers. “It’s hard to say if the remains in the sarcophagus itself belong to the saint. But it is still a significant late-fourth-century burial.”
The Bible does not state how Paul died. Many scholars believe he was beheaded in Rome in about A.D. 64 during the reign of Roman Emperor Nero. The “apostle to the gentiles,” as he described himself, was the most prolific of all the New Testament writers.
More Global Warming Debunking
James M. Taylor, senior fellow for environment policy at the Heartland Institute shows how science refutes Environmental Chicken Littlers.
It’s hard to do research when people don’t take you seriously.
With no simple template for how to measure increased infrastructure costs from climate change, Mr. Larsen said he and other researchers had settled on studying how higher temperatures and precipitation changes affect the life span of materials. Then they combined that data with forecasts for higher temperatures and climate change in Alaska.
“There are other places that have done studies,” he said, “but Alaska is warming more quickly than any other place on the planet right now. There was nothing to this extent.”
He said he had begun the research “from scratch,” calling various state agencies. “I’d say something like ‘Can you tell me how much the changing climate over the last 50 years has changed this piece of infrastructure?’ ” he said. “On more than one occasion I had people laugh at me on the phone.”
It wouldn’t be, Mr. Larsen, because your research questions aren’t based on facts?
- United Nations Falsified World Climate Reports
- It’s Going To Be A Cold Day In Hell For Gore
- Carbon Offsets Offputting
- Global Warming Is Cheesy Science
- Green Fervour New Paganism
- No Scientific Back Up To Hollywood Agenda
- Chicken Littling Of Global Warming
- Gore’s Hypocritical Footprint Growing
- CEO Warming Up To Having A Spine
A Zebra Of A Different Colour
Jet Blue Two And A Half Hour Flight Last 25 Hours
Do you know your passengers rights? Here’s the latest horror story. Just as we are sending our children on a flight by themselves. Somebody’s head will roll if this happens to us.
A 2 ½-hour JetBlue Airways flight bound from Fort Lauderdale to New York on Wednesday turned into a 25-hour odyssey that finally ended Thursday afternoon, as a chain of problems left 150 passengers staggered by the mind-boggling delay.
The cascade of problems occurred just four months after a disastrous five-day period in February when the airline canceled more than 1,000 flights in the New York area. And it again raises questions about how much of the blame should fall on airlines when flights encounter unexpected delays.
Flight 62’s takeoff at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday was delayed for three hours. The jet departed, only to be diverted by bad weather to Atlantic City, N.J., where passengers stewed on the tarmac for four hours. At 12:30 a.m. Thursday, they were allowed off the plane. It would be another four hours until they finally were sent to a hotel for the night. The flight ultimately arrived at JFK International Airport at 3:21 p.m.Thursday. Flight 62 passengers said an already bad situation was made worse by the lack of customer service in Atlantic City.
Azim Khan, of Fort Lauderdale, said he felt abandoned by JetBlue’s representatives there. Kahn said that upon landing around 8:30 p.m. passengers were told that buses would soon arrive to transfer them to JFK. The promised buses never came.
Passengers ultimately took taxis at their own expense to a nearby hotel where JetBlue had secured rooms for the night, he said. The taxi fares will be reimbursed.
For the remainder of the night, Khan and others went without food because nearby restaurants already had closed. Les Raye, 60, of Davie, said JetBlue should have made better provisions.
“I don’t think I’ve ever gone through anything like this in my many years of flying,” Raye said.
JetBlue has a “bill of rights” that entitles passengers to discounts on future flights for delays under certain conditions. Stories of marooned passengers on other carriers, including Northwest Airlines and American Airlines, have also prompted talk in Congress of legislation.
JetBlue spokesman Todd Burke said Thursday’s situation was very unusual. Storms had caused multiple JetBlue delays on the East Coast and led several planes to divert to Atlantic City, where it normally does not fly.
With no ground crew or staff in Atlantic City, the airline’s contracted representatives did their best to locate buses for the trip to JFK. But after calling several casinos and about 45 bus companies, they found none could do the job, Burke said.
Stuart Klaskin, an aviation consultant in Coral Gables, said landing where it had no operations was Jet Blue’s key mistake.
“It might have been better to divert to a different airport where they could have better accommodated [passengers],” he said.
June 27th post: Getting ready to travel on an airline? Do you know what passenger rights you have?
David Ollia, a V.I.O. employee and stranded passenger on the June 21, 2007 Delta Flight 5367, used the POV.1 to record his unique Point of View. Watch the video as he interviews the pilots to find out how the health and safety issues for the passengers aboard were being addressed
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