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Botched Suicide Attempt Kills Eleven Others

The suicidal man who authorities say caused the chain-reaction train derailment that killed 11 people has been charged with multiple counts of murder and could face the death penalty, the district
attorney said Thursday.

Juan Manuel Alvarez, 25, left his sport utility vehicle on a railroad track Wednesday after changing his mind about committing suicide, authorities said. He was held without bail at a hospital’s jail ward after apparently slitting his own wrists and stabbing himself in the chest.

Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said prosecutors filed charges for 10 counts of murder with "special circumstances" of committing murder through a train derailment. Under state law, special circumstances allegations can make a defendant eligible for the death penalty.

>> Source Article [MSNBC]

Real slick... He couldn't even kill himself right but he succeeded in inadvertantly(?) killing at least eleven others. Damn shame.

Others shouldn't have to pay like that because someone is incapable of handling their problems so they want to kill themselves.

Yet here he is, responsible for the deaths of unsuspecting innocents because of his suicidal self. But if you give him the death penalty, you're just gonna give him what he was aiming to do to himself in the first place.

Is that really "justice"? It certainly won't bring back the no less than eleven families reeling from their losses - presuming that some of the two dozen critically wounded may not make it and the crippling injuries some of the survivors may have - loss of limbs or impaired mobility, trauma and such.

The Ominous Threat of... Oh Wait

Cartoon by Mike Thompson, The Detroit Free Press

What?!

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Counterpunch Articles

Just came across this site called Counterpunch. Been skimming a bit here and there and found two noteworthy (or should I say link-worthy) articles.

>> The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah Gulag
>> Listening and Talking to God About Invading Other Countries (from the Phillipines and McKinley to Iraq and Bush)
>> Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today" (something I researched about around Thanksgiving but kept quiet about ranting on)
>> An Interview with Kevin Zeese (interesting talk with Nader's Press Secretary).

I could go deeper into each and perhaps even connect them all together in some grand way but I don't have the mind set for it right now nor the eagerness to engage in that endeavor, which would probably turn into a ranting about hypocrisy and the like of government and of the church and of people and all that good stuff.

Smooth Handling

Full Article >> "Undiplomatic Immunity" [Slate]

One thing that struck me about this piece was the writing style, which is first noticeable in the first paragraph. Another example from later on of the writing style:

Sen. Lindsay Graham is the lone Republican to blast Gonzales. His boyish face comes paired with a kindergartner's hyperactivity, as he impatiently rocks his chair while waiting for his turn. During Gonzales' answers to others' questioning, Graham sometimes wears a look of confusion mingled with disgust.

To me the piece also makes a number of good points and well noted observations - such as the minute observation above about one of the Committee member's body language. It suggests, one that the writer had an eye for detail, and that Gonzales would not give a straight forward answer (as the article's photo caption implicates).

Then comes the question of the day: "Now, as attorney general, would you believe the president has the authority to exercise a commander-in-chief override and immunize acts of torture?" Leahy asks. That's "a hypothetical that's never going to occur," Gonzales says, because we don't torture people. He continues, "This president has said we're not going to engage in torture under any circumstances, and therefore that portion of the opinion was unnecessary and was the reason that we asked that that portion be withdrawn." Translation: Yes, I think the president has the legal authority to immunize acts of torture, but he doesn't want to, so I'm not going to bother with defending the idea.

Pressed for an answer, Gonzales concedes, "I do believe there may come an occasion when the Congress might pass a statute that the president may view as unconstitutional," and therefore the president may ignore it. That's a general statement of principle, Leahy says, but I'm asking a specific question. Can the president immunize torture? Gonzales retreats to the that's-hypothetical-and-it's-not-gonna-happen defense.

...

This is a government of good men, Gonzales implicitly assured the senators, so there's no need to worry about legal hypotheticals like whether torture is always verboten. Don't worry, because we don't do it. It's a strange argument from a conservative: We're the government. Trust us.

One Way of Looking at it..

My Kind of Plan

It sure stinks when your days and nights can be summed up just with "work" and "sleep". There is very little time for anything else, and when you're off, you're dead (or least I am) for most of it, which is quite a drawback to having any kind of "freedom" when your locked in service for the system.

So it made me pretty happy to see that the drastic reduction in hours (since most of the available hours get gobbled up by the full time workers guaranteed for 40 hours a week) after the first of the year -- and theres another cut coming next week.

There is a bit of a catch to it all, but I'm not complaining too much. But why not outline it anyway:

You are scheduled to work for say four hours on a given night at my workplace, but you are practically told to stay until you've put in eight. So it doesn't matter how few hours a night they schedule you, you could be scheduled to come in for 3 nights, 4 hour shifts each (12 hours on the schedule for the week), but in the end you still work eight hours anyway (doubling the hours if there is no overtime on a given day of work) more often than not at my workplace.

It's a means of getting around limitations on hours you can schedule people (because they only get X number of hours to schedule, with scraps going to the part timers), and if I didn't need to work a full eight hours when scheduled only four or five, for the money, I'd be incredibly pissed.

Hell, it's not really my need right now that I'm fulfillin by working, it's more of societies need / requirement of indentured service by individuals to itself that's being fulfilled, I just lump what I get into savings for the most part --until I get the inclination to use some of it. I'm not gonna just toss it out left and right like others who make less than me do (for one, what if I were to lose my job tomorrow and not have a source of income for weeks or maybe months? I'll have savings to conservatively draw from whereas person B would be screwed).

One reason why I like that catch: If on one night there are three to four part timers scheduled (hell, even on nights where they may only be two), and we all leave when scheduled (at the most there are eight people working on a given day/night, but it's usually seven) to after 4 or 5 hours of work, the store/rest of the night crew would be thoroughly screwed with no doubt an hour or two of overtime having to finish where we each left off (almost justifiably, it wouldn't be our problem - we left when the schedule said we could).

Perhaps this has happened in the past and the "catch to the hours scheduled" was initiated as a contingency plan to avoid the above situation, a type of correction to a "systemic anomaly" I guess you could call it that I'd be prone to devising. Hence why I like it. It also shows how at my work place there is considerable power held by part timers (but since we all tentatively "work together" to get the store done before we leave, it is a power not exercised. There is also the lack of a desire to exercise it.

That contingency plan has one "flaw" (as all plans usually do): And that is that there is nothing in the rules that can prevent someone from leaving when the schedule says they are free to leave. Sure, the boss can blackmail / threaten them by telling them that they won't schedule you off on days you'd prefer to be off on (commonly Friday and Saturday), but any disciplinary action could no doubt be countermanded by the Union (an empire within the shadow of an empire...).

Essentially, the "contingency plan"/"catch" is problem solving, something I occassionally like to do depending on circumstances and amount of understanding or perceived understanding of the factors involved in the problem, which is why I found this as good enough of a topic to semi-randomly ramble about.

And it's also to a degree a basic of politics. Problem solving, exercising "control", trying to keep those with more "control" from realizing it or from feeling inclined to utilize it, etc.

Fravitta

So I've been browsing Wikipedia for most of the last two to three hours (From the Sumatra quake to the new Lira and the Euro with various things inbetween). Just a minute ago I hit "random page", and got one that made me just laugh.

According to Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos, on the death of Acacius, the emperor Zeno placed on the altar of the great church of Constantinople two sheets of paper. On one was written a prayer that God would send an angel to inscribe on the blank sheet the name of him whom He wished to be the patriarch. A fast of 40 days with prayer was ordered. The church was given into the custody of a confidential eunuch, the imperial chamberlain, and the imperial seal set on the casket containing the papers.

Fravitta was a presbyter in charge of the suburban church of Saint Thecla. Fueled with ambition, he paid the eunuch large sums, and promised him more, to write his name on the blank sheet. At the end of the 40 days the casket was opened; the name of Fravitta was found, and he was enthroned amid universal acclamations. Within 4 months he died, and the powerful eunuch was pressing his executors for the promised gold. They revealed the odious tale to the emperor. The forger was turned out of all his employments and driven from the city. The emperor Zeno, ashamed of his failure, entrusted the election of the new patriarch to the clergy.

>> Patriarch Fravitta of Constantinople [Wikipedia]

Goes to show how people can be easily fooled at times by their own beliefs and superstitions.

What was greater was before I was through the first paragraph I knew that someone would have his name written on it since it'd be believed that an "angel" wrote it there. It was enjoyably predictable. (even if it is not a completely true story)

Asian Tsunami

NOAA animation

>> Full animation showing tsunami going all the way to African coast

I just now found these when roaming around Wikipedia.

1:47 AM EDIT

Image from DigitalGlobe. Before and After images of Banda Aceh.

Treason's Greetings

Hopefully the latter half of this excerpt speaks for itself.

On the Thursday before Christmas, Al Neuharth, former Gannett bigwig and founder of USA Today, suggested in his weekly column for that newspaper that the U.S. should start bringing home our troops from Iraq "sooner rather than later."

Yet, our brief article about the Neuharth column (which did not endorse his position) got linked at numerous other Web sites, and drew more letters than virtually any story we have ever posted. We presented a few excerpts from those letters, pro and con, in a second article on Dec. 24, but we did not quote from some of the nastiest--and, believe me, there were plenty in that category to choose from.

...

Mel Gibbs: "The Patriot Act will put both of you (Neuharth and Mitchell) on trial for treason and convict and execute both of you as traitors for running these stories in a time of war and it should be done on TV for other communist traitors like you two to know we mean business. This is war and you should be put in prison NOW for talking like this. Who the hell do you people think you are? You give aid and comfort to our enemies and aid them in murdering our proud soldiers. You people are a disgrace to America. Your families should be put in prison with you, then be made to leave and move to the Middle East ...This is a great Christian nation and god wants us to lead the world out of darkness with great leaders like President George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. Communists like Al and Greg will soon be in prison and on death row for your ugly papers. We won the election and now you are mad. We own America and all the rights, you people are trash, go back to Russia and Africa and take your friends with before we put you on death row after a fair trial."

>> Source [Editor & Publisher]

...
How nice, questioning amounts to treason, as is having a view that does not conform to that of our infallible leaders.

But, of course, it's a matter of opinion. As is the harsh quote cited.

Should the media ignore any American wrong doing for the sake of propoganda meant to inundate the sheep at home and the service personel abroad with unwavering confidence (personally I'd call it self-arrogance) for the sake of "defeating the enemy", or should the media remain what it is meant to be (but not %100 sound at being) - an information outlet that states the facts no matter who or what organizations it might harm, discredit, or support. (both forms would / are selective in what appear in headlines and on newscasts and such)