Dieses WE waren wir wieder mal in der schönen Heimat Oberösterreich. Mit den schon immer größer werdenen Jungs Samy und Ali gelang mir am Sonntag ein kleines Shooting. Die immer lieb schauende Amanda erwischte ich am Samstang ein paar Mal recht glücklich.  Hier ein paar Beispiele:

You read that right.  Nidal Hasan was on the Homeland Security Policy Institute Presidential Transition Task Force.  An adviser on the Obama transition team.

Obama won’t jump to conclusions about a fellow muslim who guns down 13 people while screaming “allah akbar,” but he will immediately jump to conclusions about a white cop PROPERLY doing his job investigating what appeared to be a break in at the home of one of Obama’s race-baiting buddies.

Why hasn’t anyone covered this?  Where is CNN, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Chicago Sun Times, and all of the other liberal rags on a story like this?

See page 29 of the attached pdf file to see it for yourself.

Nidal Hasan
Uniformed Services University School of Medicine
(…and aspiring terrorist and martyr. Soldier of allah? Try cowardly, hate-filled muslim.)

PTTF_ProceedingsReport_05.19.09

Howdy.

I’m writing this partially to keep everyone in the loop (that wants to be) on what’s going on with me, but also, to help me wrap my head around everything that is going on. Things are moving so fast right now.

First, surgery recovery.

I am recovering well from surgery. The swelling has gone down, pain is slowly going down, the tumor is obviously gone now, the jaw reconstruction is working well, and my neck is healing well from where they had to cut me open to finish the surgery. They said 4-6 weeks to recover. It’s been a little over a week.

I still cannot feel anything on the bottom right lip or chin, and I never will again. I’ve been retraining myself to talk and eat correctly again, I’ve been pretty successful so far. The strangest thing is shaving my chin without feeling it. That tripped me out a lot.

I haven’t needed much help in the recovery, but what little help I have needed, I’ve had all of the support I could ever ask for. And I’ve never been more thankful to friends and family. Thank you.

So after my surgery, on the 16th, I came into my work at SSI and picked up my paycheck, asked them where my schedule was, so I could resume work. The said to take all of the time I need to recover, feel better, and contact them when I am ready to come back. Where as I was able to work, I was not ready to truly come back.

A few days prior to that, since I was doing some job hunting during my recovery, (yes, I never give myself a break) I received a job offer in Nashville. After getting my paycheck, and not having a schedule, I contacted them and told them that I could be out by Wednesday the 18th for an interview.

Late night on the 16th I packed up and left. By the evening of the 17th I was where I am now, in southern Kentucky, staying with a special friend of mine. She’s been generous enough to let me stay here until I get everything settled in. I went to the job interview, and acquired the job. Basically, what I will be doing, is high-end tech support for the military. I cannot get into any more details, except that it’s requires a top secret clearance to do the work. The pay is generous, and it’s right up my alley. I’ve been needing this change for a long time now. There was a narrow window of opportunity to grab this position, so I did, and pending paperwork, I should be starting sometime in December. I’m definitely looking forward to this.

In the meantime, I have been relaxing and recovering. The pace of things out here is very laid back, and I like it a lot. It’s nice to just be able to chill once in a while, and it’s definitely something that feels new and refreshing to me. Starting next week though, things are going to start ramping back up.

Later today, Holly and I are going to go into Nashville, kinda just check out the town and see what all it has to offer. Tomorrow I will be filling out the extensive paperwork for the job, maybe visit one of my old friends, that now lives in Bowling Green, KY.

Monday I am going to run some errands in town here, meet up and talk with the local emergency operations center here and discuss what I could do to help out here, like I did in Wichita, get a hold of some Ham Radio operators here, get into the Skywarn stuff out here, maybe even look for a second part time job in case something falls through with the first one. Turns out, they have a news radio station in town here that has the same programming as KNSS did in Wichita, so I could do production and on-air work for them, without any training. Although the on-air part, might be a little tricky, after the surgery and all.

Tuesday I have to go back down to Nashville and fill out paperwork, get fingerprinted, and all of that for the job, so I will be busy then too. Wednesday I plan on tying up any loose ends here, doing various things, and confirming dates and times on things here. Thursday I am having cable TV installed here just before I leave back for Kansas. Leaving for Kansas around 6p to be back in the Wichita area by around 6am Thanksgiving Day. I will sleep, spend time with family and friends. Then, from the 27th and the first week or so in December, I will be in town to tie up loose ends there, pick up paychecks, pack up more things, get a few doctor appointments in, say goodbye to friends and family, etc. By December 8th, I plan to be back here again in the KY/TN area. Predicted start date of this job is on or around December 11th, and if it starts later, I will want to be working another job by then anyways, to bring in more money.

If you want to see me while I am in town, you should get a hold of me soon, so I can get a time slot for you. I will be very busy once I am there, but I want to see as many of you as possible. Use my links on the right side of this blog to get a hold of me. Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. My phone number, most people have, but if not, it’s on my Facebook. Contact me and we’ll hook up.

I also will have a few photo shoots that I will be doing when I get back into town, and have room for a few more, so look me up for that as well.

So anyways, I’ll come back up here to the Nashville area, start working, start saving up for my own place, and get everything ramped up out here. Provided that finances allow, I will be trying to fly back again to the Wichita area around whatever Christmas break I can get, to spend time with family and friends for Christmas, and then be taking my Oldsmobile packed up with whatever I had forgotten or couldn’t fit into the Celica, back with me to Nashville. The Olds is in great shape, practically brand new, no miles and works perfect, and nobody seems to want to buy it from me for what it’s really worth, so I am going to just take it with me. It’ll be nice to have a backup ride in case something were to ever happen with the Celica.

The goal is to then again, get back here to the Nashville area before New Years, and start 2010 here in Nashville, new chapter in my life. =]

So last night I was online catching up with friends of mine and stuff and some weird shit has been going down out there in Wichita. Like, I guess one of my idiot officers at SSI (that I couldn’t stand) pulled someone else’s gun on another officer. Yeah, couldn’t believe it either. The idiot officer obviously doesn’t work there anymore. But the guy that has the business end of the gun pointed at him, disabled the idiot, and let it go. Better man than I. I would have killed him where he stood. And I would have been legally allowed to as well. There’s no way that someone is going to pull a gun on me, and live to see another day. If you plan on putting a gun into my stomach like that, you’d better make plans to pull the trigger a few times, because it’ll be the last thing that you do, if you don’t. I respect the officer that disabled the tard officer that thought that something like that would be funny, and commend him for doing nothing further. After talking to him, he basically said that his family flashed before his eyes and wasn’t worried so much that the tard would actually kill him on purpose, but more so that his stupidity would get him accidentally killed. Needless to say, the tard officer, Logan Hertel is his name, was caught on tape doing all of this, and no longer works there. But if you hear or see this stupid kid, don’t hire him, he’s just dumb enough to do this type of thing again, and it’s disgusting that he’s still alive.

So the gun wasn’t Logan’s. It was someone else’s. One of the new dispatchers that works up there now actually. I guess he felt the need to bring his personal weapon up there. He’s brought it up there a few times, and there’s nothing wrong with that, until the owner of the company tells you not to bring it up there. Then you don’t. But he brought it up there anyways, Logan took it, and did the above. Jeremy, the new dispatcher, gets fired for having the gun up there, understandably. He was told not to have it up there. Simple. Logan was obviously fired too, and the officer that handled everything well, the good friend of mine, is being backed by all of his other officers, as well as the company owner 110%.

Jeremy, the new dispatcher, goes home to his girlfriend, to tell her that he lost his job because of this idiot (as well as himself for having the gun up there) – his girlfriend is pissed that he lost his job (tough job market and all), Jeremy gets pissed and goes looking for Logan for like 3-4 days I guess, and doesn’t find him (which is a damn shame).

After having nowhere to live, after getting fired from his job for having the gun up there, after losing his girlfriend, after looking for Logan and not finding him, Jeremy shoots himself in the chest, and dies.

Yeah. Told ya I was having a hard time wrapping my head around everything that has been going on, maybe now it’s more clear as to why.

So I am filing my resignation there when I get back, was going to before I found out about all of this happening, but especially now.

They are missing me as a dispatcher, new guy no longer there now, Tracy is leaving, our most experienced dispatcher. That leaves one person. And me, if I were to stay there. I appreciated my job there, don’t get me wrong, but all of this shit happening, and more to probably happen, at $8 an hour, having to pick and choose which bills to pay, or come to Nashville and work for double the pay doing half as much with none of the drama.

Which one would you choose?

Crazy times. Tis’ the season I guess.

That’s all I have for now. I would appreciate any and all comments.
Thanks for listening/reading.

“Deadly Force” sounds like the title of the next Dirty Harry movie, with an 80-year-old Clint Eastwood wielding his familiar .44 Magnum against a gang of hoods littering the city streets.

Last week that scenario wasn’t too far from the real-life truth when a SWAT team shot and killed an armed gunman who refused to surrender after a standoff in a Ventura industrial complex.

There’s been an outrage online as people are battling each other on both sides of the issue. Did police use too much force? Or did the gunman, who had a history of violent outbursts, give the cops just cause?

Daniel Chilson, 34, was said to be a threatening person, served with restraining orders from his family, and combined with his troubled past, antagonized police with a pellet gun that looked damn real when compared side by side with a 9mm, as displayed in a police photo released yesterday.

Police had no way of knowing from several yards out that Chilson’s weapon wasn’t a real handgun, and that’s why some people believe that pumping 10 bullets into him, courtesy of three SWAT officers, was a bit too much firepower.

After all, three on one doesn’t exactly sound like a fair fight, even if Chilson was armed with a high-powered assault rifle.

Some may say that the cops, given their reputation in U.S. history for police brutality, took the easy way out. Shoot lots of rounds first, and ask questions later … that is, if your assailant is still breathing.

But if you ask me (and if you looks at the particulars of the story), Chilson was the one who took the easy way out. He had it coming, and he was asking for it.

Call it “suicide by cop.” Chilson not only egged police on, evading them for hours and taunting them by cell phone, but he threatened to kill himself and basically let police do it for him. There was no way he was going to surrender that day.

Given the fact that his BB gun wasn’t even capable of inflicting major harm, Chilson knew that if suicide was his goal, the only way to do it was to get himself shot.

And that’s exactly what he did when he spun around and began raising his weapon in the direction of police at the scene; officers who presumably have families, lives and personal safeties that they have to defend, too, responded in the only proper, procedural way they were trained.

Chilson killed himself … he just had somebody else do it for him.

_BRU0044, première mise en ligne par gaorl.

Je ne fais que rarement des photos dénudées, donc je m’entraine en préparation de mon séjour berlinois…
Luna est venue de Reims et adore se déshabiller dans tous les coins, tout le temps, donc une collaboration sympa, un peu frais pour elle mais nous sommes contents du résultat, et vous?

I know I haven’t written anything in well over a week.  I’ve been pretty busy but here’s what I think of the latest news and scandals:

Fort Hood Shootings

The Fort Hood shootings were just sad and very very tragic.  Our heart goes out to those who lost a loved one in those shootings.  Malik Nadal Hasan is go away to prison for the rest of his life.  What he did can never be justified.

Josh Duhamel’s Infedilty
I think this is all just a big rumor.  The stripper just wants money and attention, because everyone wants their 15 minutes of fame.  Josh Duhamel doesn’t seem like the kind of guy that would cheat on his wife.  I hope that this all gets resolved soon, so we can stop having to listen to the stripper that doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

Water On The Moon

I hope that there really is water on the Moon.  This way space exploration can really evolve even more and hopefully, one day, civilians will b e able to go to the moon easily.

Obama Urges Congress to Delay Fort Hood Investigation

On an eight-day Asia trip, President Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to “resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater.”
Article: FOX News

President Obama on Saturday urged Congress to hold off on any investigation of the Fort Hood rampage until federal law enforcement and military authorities have completed their probes into the shootings at the Texas Army post, which left 13 people dead.

One correction I MUST make, Fox: FOURTEEN people were left dead because of this radical Islamic terrorist. One was the unborn child of one of his victims. So, let’s get it right. Fourteen people lost their lives in this massacre; not thirteen. Please continue.

On an eight-day Asia trip, Obama turned his attention home and pleaded for lawmakers to “resist the temptation to turn this tragic event into the political theater.” He said those who died on the nation’s largest Army post deserve justice, not political stagecraft.

“The stakes are far too high,” Obama said in a video and Internet address released by the White House while the president he was flying from Tokyo to Singapore, where Pacific Rim countries were meeting.

 

Whoa whoa whoa, did I just read that correctly? BHussein Obama says he believes those who lost their lives at the hands of one of his Muslim brothers deserve justice? Yet he’s begging for the investigation to be delayed?! WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS THERE TO INVESTIGATE? RADICAL MUSLIM – SHOOTING RAMPAGE – ALLAHU AKBAR – MURDER – TIES TO AL-QAEDA – ATTENDED THE SAME FUCKING TEMPLE AS THE FUCKING TERRORISTS WHO CARRIED OUT THE 9/11 MASSACRE?! HE IS LYING. HE does NOT think they deserve justice. He believes the terrorist who MURDERED those people deserves justice. His MUSLIM BROTHER.

Army psychiatrist Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, 39, was charged on Thursday with the shooting spree at Fort Hood last week. Army investigators have said Hasan is the only suspect and could face additional charges.

Obama already had ordered a review of all intelligence related to Hasan and whether the information was properly shared and acted upon within government agencies. Several members of Congress, particularly Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, have also called for a full examination of what agencies knew about Hasan’s contacts with a radical Muslim cleric in Yemen and others of concern to the U.S.

Hoekstra confirmed this week that government officials knew of about 10 to 20 e-mails between Hasan and the radical imam, beginning in December 2008.

A joint terrorism task force overseen by the FBI learned late last year of Hasan’s repeated contact with the cleric, who encouraged Muslims to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The FBI said the task force did not refer early information about Hasan to superiors because it concluded he wasn’t linked to terrorism.

Bizarre. Hasan contacts a cleric who encourages Muslims to kill U.S. troops in IRAQ, and BHussein Obama supports the killing of US troops by Muslims. Brotherhood.

Lawmakers, however, already have announced they want their own investigations and were frustrated with what they view as a less-than-forthcoming administration.

Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., said he wanted to go ahead with an investigation from the House Armed Services Committee, where he is the top Republican. He said he wanted an investigation that wouldn’t compromise law enforcement or military investigations that were continuing on separate tracks.

In the Senate, Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, said his Homeland Security Committee was opening an investigation.

Obama said he was not opposed to hearings — eventually. But he strongly pressed lawmakers to hold off until the probes now under way are completed.

“There is an ongoing investigation into this terrible tragedy,” Obama said. “That investigation will look at the motives of the alleged gunman, including his views and contacts.”

Why? His little black book probably contains many of the same contacts as YOURS, BHussein. THAT’S RIGHT, I SAID IT.

“We must compile every piece of information that was known about the gunman, and we must learn what was done with that information. Once we have those facts, we must act upon them.”

Hillbuzz.com, a gay liberal Democrat-based web-site, has written an excellent blog about what many are feeling about former President Bush. I think that it’s an exercise in class, as most of those who voted for Obama are suffering “buyers remorse” but are so lagged out from 8 years of GWB that it’s hard for them to cope with their feelings about what’s happening under President Obama and the Democrat Congress and Senate. At the end of the article, there is a link to a blog that they wrote on January 20th, 2009 after Obama was sworn in. I highly recommend both; well written and honest.

http://hillbuzz.org/2009/11/10/thank-you-former-president-george-w-bush-and-former-first-lady-laura-bush/

Today is Veterans Day, a day to remember, reflect, and give Thanks for the many who have died in the defense of our country, along with the freedoms we still currently have.

In these days, it is necessary to take time to reflect what’s going on personally, yet in these days, and its been almost a year since the current administration has taken office, so much has taken place at the hands of the Obama Administration of making this country more unsafe. Shootings last week in Texas, Orlando, and a day or so ago in Portland seem to reflect the mood of a country experiencing unrest and angst in the midst of not knowing what is going to happen with the national debt at 12 trillion dollars, our government lapsing back into a pre 9/11 mindset, and letting political correctness run a mock.

Government officials in Washington DC are living in beltway denial while Americans across the country are seeing the horrific act of violence in Texas that occurred a week ago for what it really is as an alleged act of Terror. It was at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas that an Army Major by the name of Hassan went on a shooting rampage killing 13 and wounding 31 on an army base of 33,000. This Army Major who executed this act of violence has denied his country and broken his solemn vow to protect and defend the United States of America against all enemies foreign and domestic. There are numerous reports of this gunman professing pro Islamic ideology prior to the shooting.

What we have to be thankful for at this time entering into the Thanksgiving season is that we are still living in a free country. We are still free to worship the God of our fathers, We are still able to express ourselves freely without retribution (so far), we still have a free press (so far), we still have the opportunity and the means to build a business and create unlimited resources based upon our ability to exercise our talents and gifts to perform and offer services to those who desire those services, and be able to create an income that will support ourselves and our loved ones.

We live in the Greatest country on the face of this earth. Yet at the same time, we also have people who want to try and implement legislation to threaten that means of allowing the exercise our God given liberties and freedoms. Examples include the recent house passage of Universal Health Care limiting competition, a tax on energy through the passage of Cap and Trade, efforts to implement Card Check which will force a public vote showing who voted for the implementation of a local union and who did not. In December, there is going to be a vote in Copenhagen to bring about the start of a One World Government flushing the sovereignty of the United States of America down the toilet. Given the track record of representatives from the state of Oregon, there are some scary implications ahead.

While there are a lot of issues and concerns facing Americans as it relates to the outlined issues, the economy, and unemployment, we need to choose to be thankful in spite of what we see knowing there are greater days ahead. We still have our freedoms and our liberties as currently guaranteed by the constitution. We will need to work a little harder, longer and more intentionally to preserve what freedoms and right s that we have and currently enjoy.

From Politico and NBC……..

November 10, 2009

Obama’s Best Speech Ever

President Obama’s speech at Fort Hood may go down as one of his best ever.

The president was able to balance his duties as Commander in Chief while consoling a nation in the aftermath of a terrible tragedy. That he was able to do this while taking away the focus on the shooter’s religion was even more impressive.

It was one of those speeches that makes you especially proud to be an American.

Marc Ambinder: “I guarantee: they’ll be teaching this one in rhetoric classes. It was that good. My gloss won’t do it justice. Yes, I’m having a Chris Matthews-chill-running-up-my-leg moment, but sometimes, the man, the moment and the words come together and meet the challenge. Obama had to lead a nation’s grieving; he had to try and address the thorny issues of Islam and terrorism; to be firm; to express the spirit of America, using familiar, comforting tropes in a way that didn’t sound trite.”

Here’s the link for the video…..

Here’s the transcript……..

Remarks of President Obama

Memorial Service at Fort Hood
November 10, 2009

We come together filled with sorrow for the thirteen Americans that we have lost; with gratitude for the lives that they led; and with a determination to honor them through the work we carry on.

This is a time of war. And yet these Americans did not die on a foreign field of battle. They were killed here, on American soil, in the heart of this great American community. It is this fact that makes the tragedy even more painful and even more incomprehensible.

For those families who have lost a loved one, no words can fill the void that has been left. We knew these men and women as soldiers and caregivers. You knew them as mothers and fathers; sons and daughters; sisters and brothers.

But here is what you must also know: your loved ones endure through the life of our nation. Their memory will be honored in the places they lived and by the people they touched. Their life’s work is our security, and the freedom that we too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – that is their legacy.

Neither this country – nor the values that we were founded upon – could exist without men and women like these thirteen Americans. And that is why we must pay tribute to their stories.

Chief Warrant Officer Michael Cahill had served in the National Guard and worked as a physician’s assistant for decades. A husband and father of three, he was so committed to his patients that on the day he died, he was back at work just weeks after having a heart attack.

Major Libardo Eduardo Caraveo spoke little English when he came to America as a teenager. But he put himself through college, earned a PhD, and was helping combat units cope with the stress of deployment. He is survived by his wife, sons and step-daughters.

Staff Sergeant Justin DeCrow joined the Army right after high school, married his high school sweetheart, and had served as a light wheeled mechanic and Satellite Communications Operator. He was known as an optimist, a mentor, and a loving husband and father.

After retiring from the Army as a Major, John Gaffaney cared for society’s most vulnerable during two decades as a psychiatric nurse. He spent three years trying to return to active duty in this time of war, and he was preparing to deploy to Iraq as a Captain. He leaves behind a wife and son.

Specialist Frederick Greene was a Tennessean who wanted to join the Army for a long time, and did so in 2008 with the support of his family. As a combat engineer he was a natural leader, and he is survived by his wife and two daughters.

Specialist Jason Hunt was also recently married, with three children to care for. He joined the Army after high school. He did a tour in Iraq, and it was there that he re-enlisted for six more years on his 21st birthday so that he could continue to serve.

Staff Sergeant Amy Krueger was an athlete in high school, joined the Army shortly after 9/11, and had since returned home to speak to students about her experience. When her mother told her she couldn’t take on Osama bin Laden by herself, Amy replied: “Watch me.”

Private First Class Aaron Nemelka was an Eagle Scout who just recently signed up to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the service – diffuse bombs – so that he could help save lives. He was proudly carrying on a tradition of military service that runs deep within his family.

Private First Class Michael Pearson loved his family and loved his music, and his goal was to be a music teacher. He excelled at playing the guitar, and could create songs on the spot and show others how to play. He joined the military a year ago, and was preparing for his first deployment.

Captain Russell Seager worked as a nurse for the VA, helping veterans with Post-Traumatic Stress. He had great respect for the military, and signed up to serve so that he could help soldiers cope with the stress of combat and return to civilian life. He leaves behind a wife and son.

Private Francheska Velez, the daughter of a father from Colombia and a Puerto Rican mother, had recently served in Korea and in Iraq, and was pursuing a career in the Army. When she was killed, she was pregnant with her first child, and was excited about becoming a mother.

Lieutenant Colonel Juanita Warman was the daughter and granddaughter of Army veterans. She was a single mother who put herself through college and graduate school, and served as a nurse practitioner while raising her two daughters. She also left behind a loving husband.

Private First Class Kham Xiong came to America from Thailand as a small child. He was a husband and father who followed his brother into the military because his family had a strong history of service. He was preparing for his first deployment to Afghanistan.

These men and women came from all parts of the country. Some had long careers in the military. Some had signed up to serve in the shadow of 9/11. Some had known intense combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, and some cared for those did. Their lives speak to the strength, the dignity and the decency of those who serve, and that is how they will be remembered.

That same spirit is embodied in the community here at Fort Hood, and in the many wounded who are still recovering. In those terrible minutes during the attack, soldiers made makeshift tourniquets out of their clothes. They braved gunfire to reach the wounded, and ferried them to safety in the backs of cars and a pick-up truck.

One young soldier, Amber Bahr, was so intent on helping others that she did not realize for some time that she, herself, had been shot in the back. Two police officers – Mark Todd and Kim Munley – saved countless lives by risking their own. One medic – Francisco de la Serna – treated both Officer Munley and the gunman who shot her.

It may be hard to comprehend the twisted logic that led to this tragedy. But this much we do know – no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor. And for what he has done, we know that the killer will be met with justice – in this world, and the next.

These are trying times for our country. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, the same extremists who killed nearly 3,000 Americans continue to endanger America, our allies, and innocent Afghans and Pakistanis. In Iraq, we are working to bring a war to a successful end, as there are still those who would deny the Iraqi people the future that Americans and Iraqis have sacrificed so much for.

As we face these challenges, the stories of those at Fort Hood reaffirm the core values that we are fighting for, and the strength that we must draw upon. Theirs are tales of American men and women answering an extraordinary call – the call to serve their comrades, their communities, and their country. In an age of selfishness, they embody responsibility. In an era of division, they call upon us to come together. In a time of cynicism, they remind us of who we are as Americans.

We are a nation that endures because of the courage of those who defend it. We saw that valor in those who braved bullets here at Fort Hood, just as surely as we see it in those who signed up knowing that they would serve in harm’s way.

We are a nation of laws whose commitment to justice is so enduring that we would treat a gunman and give him due process, just as surely as we will see that he pays for his crimes.

We are a nation that guarantees the freedom to worship as one chooses. And instead of claiming God for our side, we remember Lincoln’s words, and always pray to be on the side of God.

We are a nation that is dedicated to the proposition that all men and women are created equal. We live that truth within our military, and see it in the varied backgrounds of those we lay to rest today. We defend that truth at home and abroad, and we know that Americans will always be found on the side of liberty and equality. That is who we are as a people.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. It is a chance to pause, and to pay tribute – for students to learn of the struggles that preceded them; for families to honor the service of parents and grandparents; for citizens to reflect upon the sacrifices that have been made in pursuit of a more perfect union.

For history is filled with heroes. You may remember the stories of a grandfather who marched across Europe; an uncle who fought in Vietnam; a sister who served in the Gulf. But as we honor the many generations who have served, I think all of us – every single American – must acknowledge that this generation has more than proved itself the equal of those who have come before.

We need not look to the past for greatness, because it is before our very eyes.

This generation of soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and Coast Guardsmen have volunteered in a time of certain danger. They are part of the finest fighting force that the world has ever known. They have served tour after tour of duty in distant, different and difficult places. They have stood watch in blinding deserts and on snowy mountains. They have extended the opportunity of self-government to peoples that have suffered tyranny and war. They are man and woman; white, black, and brown; of all faiths and stations – all Americans, serving together to protect our people, while giving others half a world away the chance to lead a better life.

In today’s wars, there is not always a simple ceremony that signals our troops’ success – no surrender papers to be signed, or capital to be claimed. But the measure of their impact is no less great – in a world of threats that no know borders, it will be marked in the safety of our cities and towns, and the security and opportunity that is extended abroad. And it will serve as testimony to the character of those who serve, and the example that you set for America and for the world.

Here, at Fort Hood, we pay tribute to thirteen men and women who were not able to escape the horror of war, even in the comfort of home. Later today, at Fort Lewis, one community will gather to remember so many in one Stryker Brigade who have fallen in Afghanistan.

Long after they are laid to rest – when the fighting has finished, and our nation has endured; when today’s servicemen and women are veterans, and their children have grown – it will be said of this generation that they believed under the most trying of tests; that they persevered not just when it was easy, but when it was hard; and that they paid the price and bore the burden to secure this nation, and stood up for the values that live in the hearts of all free peoples.

So we say goodbye to those who now belong to eternity. We press ahead in pursuit of the peace that guided their service. May God bless the memory of those we lost. And may God bless the United States of America.

Meistens greife ich mir jeden Morgen auf dem Weg zur EL oder zum Bus eines der täglich erscheinenden kostenlosen Newspaper. Die paar Seiten des RedEye enthalten überwiegend Schrott, viel Slang, Gossip, Werbung und einige Nachrichten. Leider habe ich immer noch zu wenig von der Southside gesehen. Zwar sitze ich in der EL immer Richtung Southside, aber ich steige ich spätestens im South Loop (südlichster Teil Downtowns), wo ich arbeite, meistens aus.  Zum Zeitvertreib bis dahin dient dieses Blatt jedoch. Regelmäßig lese ich erneut von Schiesserein und Mord auf der Southside oder Far Westside (“Homicide Tracker”). Für mich als Europäer ist ist dieses Maß und diese Form der Kriminalität nicht die Gewohnheit. Chicago hat ein großes Problem mit Gangs und Jugendlichen, die sich gegenseitig abknallen. Durchschnittlich lässt hier jeden Tag eine Person auf gewalttätige Weise ihr Leben. Mehr Fakten: EveryBlock Chicago oder Chicago Breaking News

Ein paar Beispiele:

November 5: The seven female homicide victims killed in the last week and a half represent 14 percent of all female homicide victims this year, according to a RedEye analysis of preliminary police data.

On Sunday, a 16-year-old woman died from assault wounds while a 24-year-old woman was shot to death in Austin.

Last week, a 3-month-old Avalon Park girl died after child abuse; and a 32-year-old woman was beaten to death in Englewood. A 47-year-old woman was stabbed to death in Pullman; and a 46-year-old woman was shot to death in West Englewood. In Hermosa, a 22-year-old woman was found shot to death, according to information from the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Citywide, October ended with 37 homicides, including a fatal car crash that killed two people in West Englewood. The driver in that crash initially was charged with reckless homicide. Chicago police recorded 46 murders in October last year.

So far in November, seven homicides have been recorded. Police logged 38 in November 2008.

Reference: http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/redeye/homicide-map.html

Ich realisiere diese Nachrichten nicht und kapiere auch nicht, dass dies alles nicht weit entfernt von mir, in der selben Stadt, geschieht. Trotzdem ist Chicago ein relativ sicher Ort in den USA, auch wenn das Image ein anderes ist…
By the way: Der kostenlose wöchentlich erscheinende Chicago Reader ist zu empfehlen.

Chicago Police im Einsatz

Text.

When you go through some kind of life changing tragedy or major event you are changed forever.  No matter how you try to hide it or fight it, that’s why they call it life changing.  It can give you all kinds of secondary issues, like being a control freak.  When something so huge happens in your life that you can not control, you tend to over manage other things.  I am in no way a doctor of any kind nor do I know any of this to be clinically true, I am speaking on my experiences ONLY.

 When I ran lavish weddings and events at a country club from top to bottom, start to finish, I learned that trait was my best friend.  When I freak out because I left some not-really-that-imprtant-but-super-duper-important -to- me item at home or I think the baby’s schedule will be messed up in some way the trait is not so helpful.

This week I learned something else.  I had some very personal reactions to some of the news stories, blogs,  twitter, and Facebook comments regarding the military shooting. I truly honestly know very little about the actual story OR facts. This is purely about my emotional response to this act and others like it.  I thought about the shooter.  I wondered if he was sick.  I wondered if he was suffering from PTSD.  I wondered how bad the service to his country had messed him up.  I actually got offended by what people were assuming and saying, before all or any of the facts were released about the shooter.  This made me feel really strange and ultimately ashamed.  (Of course my thoughts and hearts went out to the victims and their families, of course.)  Before my own family shooting I would have not cared less about the  shooter, or their mental state.  I would have just wished them swift punishment and pain.  I guess I react differently now.  That doesn’t mean I don’t belive in retribution or punishment.  It just means my initial reaction is different now.

Backing up…

Being drafted out of college to serve in the Amy during the Vietnam War was a life changing experience for my dad.   There were endless things about his personality that were the result of what he had been through and what he had seen.  We never really knew what those things were.  It was understood in our house that it wasn’t discussed and if you had to do a project on the war, you got your information from the encyclopedia.

 It had been over 25 years since the Vietnam War had ended, but the change it had on my dad’s life never left him.  A few weeks before he took his and my brothers’ lives he had finally started talking about the war.  He was participating in some court ordered family counseling because my teenage brother had gotten into a little trouble.  Mom, Dad, and G would do individual sessions and then a group.  In the last private session my dad had within a week of his suicide, he had been comparing G to his platoon and how it was his job to keep them safe.  His job to guide them, like G.  He was breaking down on all types of things we later found out from the therapist as we were trying to piece the mystery together.  My dad was suffering from severe PTSD  25 years later, and subsequently should have been on suicide watch.

Now this is my way to cope with this.  To allow myself to get up in the morning and live a somewhat normal life.  I HAVE to believe he was out of his mind and didn’t really know what he was doing.  There is no other way for me to even understand this.  I don’t really know what other people in my family think.  This is such a hard thing to wrap our heads around we just allow each other to grieve it and deal with it in whatever way makes it possible for us.  I can never know 100%. NEVER.  I just need something to remind myself that, that morning, that man, that act, THAT was not the man who raised me.  It just wasn’t.  That is my cross to bear so please do not dare to argue with me otherwise. 

So not only do I have an incredibly heavy heart for the victims of the shooter and their families, but I know what the shooter’s family is going through too. ( I don’t just mean in this weeks events, just broadly, with any tragic violent act.)   I know the shock and denial.  They too are thinking, not possible!  Not MY loved one.  He was a great man, or she was a wonderful mother.  I just think sometimes people break.  Is it excusable?  No. Un-punishable? No.  Any less painful?  HELL NO.   It just helps me to have a compartment to put it in. For me. For my grief.  It probably goes back to the whole control trait.  I need to control my grief by having a place to put it, so that it makes sense to me.  I had to check WHY off my list.  I need a place where I can put it that makes it less scary for my daily life.   When someone so close to you does something so out of character, you can not live your life in fear of trust.  It in no way makes the loss of my brothers hurt any less.  Nothing ever will. Ever.  Just like when this shooter goes to trial, the grief won’t go away for those families.

When the Orlando Shooting tweets started showing up, someone tweeted, “Well I hope this person at least had the decency to take his own life too.”  That kind of thing that someone just quickly and emotionally tweeted (which they has every right to) hit me in the gut.   It made me realize that as much as I do miss my dad, I am glad he did take his life too.  That feels so ugly and dark to actually put out there, but it’s my ugliness.  I would not even be able to handle what people would say about him, I mean they already do/did and he is dead.  I can not even imagine or fathom handling what people would be saying, what a trial would have been like.  This was SO out there for my family.  If he would have lived and there would have been a trial or a chance at conversation I guess I would have more answers.  I wouldn’t have to cling to speculation and be left with my own wide imagination of nightmares.  I would know the real reason.  Speculation and wrestling with the question why, no matter how painful, seems like it will always be better than the truth.   

Of course I choose to believe this because there will never be a conversation with him about it, he is gone, and I miss him.  Regardless.  He was my dad.

I am so sorry that these types of shootings and violent acts ever take place.  My heart goes out to all involved.  These acts merely just inspired me to further expand on my feelings about what happened to me.  I am in no way advocating for the shooter, or giving and excuse for anyone’s actions.  This is a purely emotional reaction, that chipped away at another piece of my grief and how grieving for some people is an everyday process.  Sometimes big, when acts like this stir emotions.  Sometimes small, like when my son gives me the same look, with the same features my brother once did.  I wish for some kind of peace for these families because they are now forever changed.  All of them.

Fort Hood shooting: Texas army killer linked to September 11 terrorists
Major Nidal Malik Hasan worshipped at a mosque led by a radical imam said to be a “spiritual adviser” to three of the hijackers who attacked America on Sept 11, 2001.

Article: Telegraph

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt. His mother’s funeral was held there in May that year.

The preacher at the time was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Yemeni scholar who was banned from addressing a meeting in London by video link in August because he is accused of supporting attacks on British troops and backing terrorist organisations.

Hasan’s eyes “lit up” when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings, according to a fellow Muslim officer at the Fort Hood base in Texas, the scene of Thursday’s horrific shooting spree.

Now, this is an interesting point. Not only are there OTHER Muslim soldiers in the Armed Forces; but it just goes to prove that there ISN’T an incredible discrimination against Muslims serving in our Armed Forces. On a one on one basis? Possibly. The same thing goes for racism. Overall, Americans aren’t racist. We’re SO far over the “race game” it’s amazing; however, yes, there are a few sour apples in the bunch that are racist. To pretend that racism (and anti-Muslim/Jewish/Christian/what-the-fuck-ever) has been completely abolished is absurd.

Also, the whole “attending the same mosque as the 9/11 terrorists” and how his eyes “lit-up when he mentioned his deep respect for al-Awlaki’s teachings” thing… sounds… unsurprisingly familiar:

As investigators look at Hasan’s motives and mindset, his attendance at the mosque could be an important piece of the jigsaw. Al-Awlaki moved to Dar al-Hijrah as imam in January, 2001, from the west coast, and three months later the September 11 hijackers Nawaf al-Hamzi and Hani Hanjour began attending his services. A third hijacker attended his services in California.

Hasan was praying at Dar al-Hijrah at about the same time, and the FBI will now want to investigate whether he met the two terrorists.

Now? Just now? Sounds to me like they should have been investigating this psychopath from the beginning.

Charles Allen, a former under-secretary for intelligence at the Department of Homeland Security, has described al-Awlaki, who now lives in Yemen, as an “al-Qaeda supporter, and former spiritual leader to three of the September 11 hijackers… who targets US Muslims with radical online lectures encouraging terrorist attacks from his new home in Yemen”.

Last night Hasan remained in a coma under guard at a military hospital in San Antonio, Texas, and was said to be in a “stable” condition. Born in America to a Palestinian family, Hasan, 39, was an army psychiatrist who had chosen to sign up for the US military against his parents’ wishes.

But he turned into an angry critic of the wars America was waging in Iraq and Afghanistan and had tried in vain to negotiate his discharge.

See also: Contentious Objector – or – TRAITOR.

He counselled soldiers returning from the front line and told relatives that he was horrified at the prospect of a deployment to Afghanistan later this year – his first time in a combat zone.

So, he had NEVER been in a combat zone before; so that just strikes out the whole “PTSD” argument I’ve heard. Post traumatic stress disorder? Legit. PRE traumatic stress disorder? Not legit.

Whether due to his personal convictions, his stress over his deployment or other reasons, Hasan is alleged to have snapped and gone on a murderous rampage with a powerful semi-automatic handgun after shouting “Allahu Akhbar” (“God is great”), according to survivors. He had earlier given away copies of the Koran to neighbours.

Investigators at this stage have no indication that he planned the attacks with anyone else. But they are trawling through his phone records, paperwork and computers he used before the attack during an apparently sleepless night.

Five of the 13 victims were fellow mental health professionals from three units of the army’s Combat Stress Control Detachment, it was disclosed yesterday.

It is understood that Hasan had been due to be deployed with members of those units in coming months. Whether he deliberately singled out other combat stress counsellors is another key question.

What does seem clear is that the army missed an increasing number of red flags that Hasan was a troubled and brooding individual within its ranks.

“I was shocked but not surprised by news of Thursday’s attack,” said Dr Val Finnell, a fellow student on a public health course in 2007-08 who heard Hasan equate the war on terrorism to a war on Islam. Another student had warned military officials that Hasan was a “ticking time bomb” after he reportedly gave a presentation defending suicide bombers.

Kamran Pasha, the author of Mother of the Believers, a new novel relating the story of Islam from the perspective of Aisha, Prophet Mohammed’s wife, was told of the al-Awlaki connection from a Muslim friend who is also an officer at Fort Hood. Using the name Richard, the recent convert to Islam described how he frequently prayed with Hasan at the town mosque after Hasan was deployed to Fort Hood in July. They last worshipped together at predawn prayers on the day of the massacre when Hasan “appeared relaxed and not in any way troubled or nervous”.

*GASPZ* Other Muslims?! Serving in our military?! Enjoying the right to worship freely? Get RIGHT the fuck out of town!!

But Richard had previously argued with Hasan when he said that he felt the “war on terror” was really a war against Islam, expressed anti-Jewish sentiments and defended suicide bombings.

“I asked Richard whether he believed that Hasan was motivated by religious radicalism in his murderous actions,” Mr Pasha said.

“Richard, with great sadness, said that he believed this was true. He also believed that psychological factors from Hasan’s job as an army psychiatrist added to his pathos. The news that he would be deployed overseas, to a war that he rejected, may have pushed him over the edge.

“But Richard does not excuse Hasan. As a Muslim, he finds Hasan’s religious perspectives to be fundamentally misguided. And as a soldier, he finds Hasan’s actions cowardly and evil.”

Well, duh. Hasan didn’t want to fight WITH the infidels against his terrorist brothers in the war against radical Islam… Other Muslims serving our great nation obviously don’t feel the way Hasan the nutjob does. Why is this? BECAUSE NOT EVERY MUSLIM IS AN EXTREMIST ISLAMIC FUCKWIT, duh!

Fellow Muslims in the US armed forces have also been quick to denounce Hasan’s actions and insist that they were the product of a lone individual rather than of Islamic teachings. Osman Danquah, the co-founder of the Islamic Community of Greater Killeen, said Hasan never expressed anger toward the army or indicated any plans for violence.

But he said that, at their second meeting, Hasan seemed almost incoherent.

“I told him, ‘There’s something wrong with you’. I didn’t get the feeling he was talking for himself, but something just didn’t seem right.”

He was sufficiently troubled that he recommended the centre reject Hasan’s request to become a lay Muslim leader at Fort Hood.

Hasan had, in fact, already come to the attention of the authorities before Thursday’s massacre. He was suspected of being the author of internet postings that compared suicide bombers with soldiers who throw themselves on grenades to save others and had also reportedly been warned about proselytising to patients.

But hey, he worked with the Obama administration. Of course he was given a free pass. Besides; the shitstains in our government needed a diversion so they could fuck us all in the ass while the rest of us are mourning for the loss we ALL suffered at Fort Hood. That’s right I fucking said it.

At Fort Hood, he told a colleague, Col Terry Lee, that he believed Muslims should rise up against American “aggressors”. He made no attempt to hide his desire to end his military service early or his mortification at the prospect of deployment to Afghanistan. “He had people telling him on a daily basis the horrors they saw over there,” said his cousin, Nader Hasan.

Yet away from his strident attacks on US foreign policy, he came across as subdued and reclusive – not hostile or threatening. Soldiers he counselled at the Walter Reed hospital in Washington praised him, while at Fort Hood, Kimberly Kesling, the deputy commander of clinical services, remarked: “Up to this point, I would consider him an asset.”

Relatives said that the death of Hasan’s parents, in 1998 and 2001, turned him more devout. “After he lost his parents he tried to replace their love by reading a lot of books, including the Koran,“ his uncle Rafiq Hamad said.

“He didn’t have a girlfriend, he didn’t dance, he didn’t go to bars.”

Say WHAT? THIS CATCH didn’t have a GIRLFRIEND? OMGGGGGGZZZ COLOUR ME SURPRISED!!! Get out of town!

His failed search for a wife seemed to haunt Hasan. At the Muslim Community Centre in the Washington suburb of Silver Spring, he signed up for an Islamic matchmaking service, specifying that he wanted a bride who wore the hijab and prayed five times a day.

Adnan Haider, a retired professor of statistics, recalled how at their first meeting last year, a casual introduction after Friday prayers, Hasan immediately asked the academic if he knew “a nice Muslim girl” he could marry.

First off, you psycho fuck… This is America. Women aren’t forced to wear a hijab. They’re not forced to pray five times a day. If you don’t want (if you’re even fortunate enough to MEET a woman with standards so low) a woman who is “westernized” – GO THE FUCK BACK TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND LIVE IN A SHITHOLE. If you don’t want to fight with our soldiers in the name of liberty against radical islam; GO THE FUCK BACK TO THE MIDDLE EAST AND LIVE the lifestyle you so desired. Also, here in America, women are free to CHOOSE who they marry. You can’t just go around askind ig anyone has a nice Muslim girl lying around. One that they’re not using or one that needs to be rehomed like a dog. Here in America; people are free citizens. Capiche?

“It was a strange thing to ask someone you have met two seconds before. It was clear to me he was under pressure, you could just see it in his face,” said Prof Haider, 74, who used to work at Georgetown University in Washington. “You could see he was lonely and didn’t have friends.

“He is working with psychiatric people and I ask why the people around him didn’t spot that something was wrong? When I heard what had happened I actually wasn’t that surprised.”

Indeed, many of the characteristics attributed to Hasan by acquaintances – withdrawn, unassuming, brooding, socially awkward and never known to have had a girlfriend – have also applied to other mass murderers.

Hasan was born and brought up in Virginia to parents who ran restaurants after emigrating to America from the West Bank. He graduated from Virginia Tech university – coincidentally, the scene of the worst mass shooting in US history in 2007 – with a degree in biochemistry and then joined the army, which trained him as a psychiatrist.

Relatives said that he was subjected to increasingly ugly taunts about his religion and ethnicity from other soldiers after the September 11 attacks. But his uncle insisted yesterday that Hasan would not have been driven to mass murder by revenge or religion.

ANYONE who buys this shit is a moron. On EVERY military base I’ve lived on (DOZENS) in my lifetime, every church, every chapel, every religious facility was multi-denominational. They catered to EVERY religion and didn’t hate on any one religion that they felt like singling out. There are soldiers of EVERY religion serving our great nation. Try and tell me otherwise and you’re a liar. Yep. A liar.

Speaking in the West Bank town of al-Bireh, Mr Hamad said his nephew “loved America” and could only have been caused to snap by an as yet unexplained factor. “He always said there was no country in the world like America,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. “Something big happened to him in Texas. If he did it – and until now I am in denial – it had to have been something huge because revenge was not in his nature.”

Yeah, right. “Not in his nature”. Sounds to me like you ARE in a bit of denial. Also a bit of a moron. I guess it runs in the family. YOU say he wasn’t driven to mass murder by revenge or religion; but that whole “Allah Akbar” thing kind of blows your naive idiotic theory out of the water. No sense in trying to stand up for this psychopath. I don’t care HOW you’re related to him.

The day after the mass murder at Fort Hood there was another attempted mass murder in Orlando, FL. The shooter in Texas was named Nadal Hasan while the shooter in Orlando was named Jason Rodriguez. Though Jason Rodriguez shot eight people and killed one in his rampage, not once was his ethnicity or religion spoken of or discussed publicly while Nadal Hasan’s religion and ethnicity has been discussed at length. The past few years have witnessed a number of shootings like the one in Fort Hood, or in Orlando, but never have the religion or the ethnicity of the shooters been discussed publicly unless some connection to Islam is made. What has been publicly discussed is that the shooters snapped, were under stress, taunted, outsiders, and had easy access to weapons and ammunition.

Such is the case of Major Nadal Hasan, he was under stress, taunted, and outsider. So why is his religion or ethnicity coming under such public scrutiny as if they were the cause for his murderous rampage? Why must I, a Muslim who served in the army for six years and followed it up with two years in the Peace Corps, suffer collateral damage for his crime? Why must thousands of Muslims who are serving honorably in the U.S. military suffer collateral damage? It is time to let go of analyzing religion for the behavior of a mentally disturbed person who had easy access to weapons and ammunition.

Adeel Ahmed

By PAMELA HESS
Associated Press Writer

The family of the alleged Fort Hood shooter held his mother’s funeral at the same Virginia mosque that two Sept. 11 hijackers attended in 2001, at a time when a radical imam preached there.

Whether the Fort Hood shooter associated with the hijackers is something the FBI will probably look into, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

The family of Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Army psychiatrist who killed 13 and wounded 29 at the Texas military base, held his mother’s funeral at the Dar al Hijrah Islamic Center in Falls Church, Va., on May 31, 2001, according to her obituary in the Roanoke Times newspaper.

In 2001, Anwar Aulaqi was an imam, or spiritual leader, at the Washington-area mosque. Aulaqi told the FBI in 2001 that, before he moved to Virginia in early 2001, he met with 9/11 hijacker Nawaf al-Hazmi several times in San Diego. Al-Hazmi was at the time living with Khalid al-Mihdhar, another hijacker. Al-Hazmi and another hijacker, Hani Hanjour, attended the Dar al Hijrah mosque in Virginia in early April 2001.

In his FBI interview, Aulaqi denied ever meeting with al-Hazmi and Hanjour while in Virginia.

MORE…...breitbart.com/

Here are the pictures from my second shooting with Claudia. It wasn´t really a shooting.
It was more like a autumn walk through some parts of Freiburg.
I had some hard light conditions because the weather wasn´t the best and the sun came out irregular for 5-10 minutes so we had to hurry up when we found some sunshine.

But all in all i´m satisfied with the result.
Check also her homepage: http://www.claudiazubic.com/
She´s an actress, singer and vocalist.

cheers // Martin