Four scientists warn ‘global warming out, global cooling in’
Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright - the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant.
Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out. However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way. Words like “highly possible,” “likely” or “reasonably convincing” about what may soon occur were used frequently. Then there were other words like “mass pattern shift” and “wholesale change in anomalies” and “changes in global circulation.”
Noted presenters, such as William Gray, Harry van Loon, Rol Madden and Dave Melita, signaled in the strongest terms that huge climate changes are afoot. Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly.
However, amid all of the highly suggestive rhetoric, none of the weather and climate pundits said outright that a global cooling trend is about to replace the global warming trend in a shift that could begin as early as next year. Van Loon spoke about his theories of solar storms and how, combined with, or because of these storms, the Earth has been on a relative roller coaster of climate cycles. For the past 250 years, he said, global climate highs and lows have followed the broad pattern of low and high solar activity. And shorter 11-year sunspot cycles are even more easily correlated to global temperatures.
It was cooler from 1883 to 1928 when there was low solar activity, he said, and it has been warmer since 1947 with increased solar activity.”We are on our way out of the latest (warming) cycle, and are headed for a new cycle of low (solar) activity,” van Loon said. “There is a change coming. We may see 180-degree changes in anomalies during high and low sunspot periods. There were three global climate changes in the last century, there is a change coming now.”
Meanwhile, Madden noted that while temperature forecasts longer than one to two weeks out has improved, “what has really gotten much better is climate forecasting . predicting the change in the mean,” he said. And the drivers impacting climate suggest a shift to cooler sea surface temperatures, he said.
Perhaps the best known speaker was Colorado State University’s Gray, founder of the school’s famed hurricane research team. Gray spoke about multi-decade periods of warming and cooling and how global climate flux has been the norm for as long as there have been records. Gray has taken quite a bit of political heat for insistence that global warming is not a man-made condition. Man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible, he said, compared to the amount of CO2 Mother Nature makes and disposes of each day or century. “We’ve reached the top of the heat cycle,” he said. “The next 10 years will be hardly any warmer than the last 10 years.”
Finally, climate scientist Melita spoke of a new phase in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.”I’m looking at a new, cold-negative phase, though it won’t effect this summer, fall or winter `08,” he said.
Conference host, analyst and forecaster Andy Weissman closed the conference by addressing how natural gas prices and policy debates would be impacted by a possible climate shift that could leave the market short gas.This would be especially problematic if gas use for power generation were substantially increased at the expense of better alternatives.”If we’re about to shift into another natural climate cycle, we can’t do it without coal-fired generation. So the policy debate has to change,” he said. “Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”As for natural gas: “Next year, may see a bit of price softening,” Weissman said. “After that, fogetaboutit!”.
Political_mama
Posted July 12, 2008 at 7:20 pm | Permalink
EL DORADO POLICE IGNORE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN:
My very good friend was held captive by her boyfriend in their house with a gun, and the police still have yet to file charges, or arrest the man who did it.
When my friend asked why the man hadn’t been arrested, the arresting police officer, JEFF MURPHY, said that he deemed the guy to no longer be a threat.
The man was suicidal, threatening to kill another woman that he had previously had an affair with…and since the officer took the gun from the man, he said that she was safe. That it was just him blowing steam and that he didn’t really mean any harm. WHAT THE HELL?
Now the DA hasn’t even seen the case according to teh DA, because my friend called, and the officer will not call her back.
Do we need to come and protest the ILLEGAL and INEPT actions of the ElDorado police department?
I think the man though. The first is insistence, and the second facility is global circulation (both are located on anomalies). That translates into a 3 % casino edge, which is not far removed from that of global circulation.
Pmom I lived in Eldorado when I was in college, and the PD their was well known both being assholes and for being inept looks like nothings changed in 6 years. the Sheriff’s office on the other hand exact opposite
I guess the WE editors consider all the spamming here to be listed as hits, so they can run up the numbers to look good. We used to have to do the random box thing, now thats gone and the spammer rule the roost. This could be fixed, but numbers rule, huh? Now we got morons spamming open threads with pure nonsense, such as http://casinoslut.net/ . Good work editors, that crap makes for bogus Sunday reading, doesn’t it. Talk about idiots.
That’s kindof what I”m counting on..that ole GMC will put a bug in the Chief’s ear that we’re about to go uncomfortably public..which will probably flush out other poorly handled domestic abuse cases.
its going in the newsletter as a call to action.
After Jana’s death, I’m really in no mood to play around with the good ole boy network.
Keep at it, PMom. If I can be of any assistance, let me know. I’m tired of corruption and gold ole boy networks at every level! Innocents always pay when coverups are allowed.
Did everyone see where Mayor Brewer will be cooking for an upcoming Republican fundraiser?
I added the article to my B.O.H.I.C.A. file. Our local elected “officials” have made that file thick here recently!
Their antics are so frequent and often the newest is so outrageous it makes memories of the less recent dim, so I must keep the file so my memory doesn’t fade!
Another interesting article from this morning’s paper is:
Obama platform meeting to air live on KCTU
The Barack Obama for President campaign is inviting ordinary folks to participate in hammering together the Democratic Party platform.
And in Wichita, you can do it on live TV.
KCTU-Channel 5 will be opening up its studio July 22 for an “Online, On-Air Platform Meeting.”
Input from the event and others across America will be incorporated into crafting the platform, a statement of positions to be presented at the Democratic National Convention in August.
KCTU news director R.J. Dickens said the event will start at 6 p.m. and could run as long as three hours, depending on how many people want to call in.
The meeting also will be streamed live at http://www.kctu.comand viewers will be able to participate online or by phone.
Dickens, the Tuesday night host of the station’s daily call-in show, River City Forum, said, “If the Republicans have a similar event, we’d gladly run it as well, schedule permitting.”
KCTU is not carried by Cox Cable, but broadcasts over-the-air on Channel 5.
If that’s what it was P.M. You are maligning an officer without knowing what the facts are. Just because your friend unloaded a story on you doesn’t make it true. And given the general level of your constant hysteria, it’s very likely you don’t know what happened. You’ll get your tit in a wringer one of these days for going off when you don’t have any real information. But your tit’s always been in a wringer, hasn’t it. Did you ever wonder why?
Hint: It has nothing to do with unfairness directed at women.
If that’s what it was P.M. You are maligning an officer without knowing what the facts are. Just because your friend unloaded a story on you doesn’t make it true. And given the general level of your constant hysteria, it’s very likely you don’t know what happened. You’ll get your tit in a wringer one of these days for going off when you don’t have any real information. But your tit’s always been in a wringer, hasn’t it. Did you ever wonder why?
Hint: It has nothing to do with unfairness directed at women.
And Beber you have no idea what you are talking about. My friend is a professional, I would trust her with my life. I listen to stories from women and yeah I have to discern whether or not I’m being played but I’m certain in this case taht I am not or I’d had never stuck my neck out like that.
I’ve got the statement she made to police. SO if she’s lying, which she isn’t, she’d had made a false report as well.
Why do you hate women Beber? YOU ARE FINE WITH RAPING GIRLS so why would anyone expect anything different from you.
Just another example of your hysteria, P.M. You have translated my statements that some science has shown that early consensual sex does not harm girls into “fine with raping girls.”
Just how many lives have you ruined in addition to your own?
I am watching a discussion of Gay marriage and its benefits and downfalls at the American Enterprise institute (BTW the place that the PNAC fled to). Some good points and some rather stupid on both sides.
One of the dumber one against is if one partner is unfaithful and a child is produced it can be hard to work out the details. If it a straight couple is that not more a chance then with a Gay couple?
Irving Kristol the founding father of modern Neoconservatives stated he can not understand why a young couple whom have no intention of having children. Should get married or be allowed to! But for the most part the panel is in agreement that allowing Gay marriage would be a benefit to the country and the economy.
Is Irving Kristol married? If so, his wife should learn what he thinks she is good for from his wondering why one would marry if they don’t intend to have children. Screams a bunch to me!
“Irving Kristol the founding father of modern Neoconservatives stated he can not understand why a young couple whom have no intention of having children.”
SEE?? THIS is what I have been posting for some time, that is part of the REAL Anti-Gay Marriage movement…. THIS is what they are really after… No offspring?? No marriage!!
PMama, I wont say anything RE your friend in Butler County, for fear that if GMC saw my comments, he would likely turn it into some kind of RANT… Keep me informed through that “back door” OK??
“Irving Kristol the founding father of modern Neoconservatives stated he can not understand why a young couple whom have no intention of having children, should get married or be allowed to!”
Obviously, that “be allowed to” is the scary part of his thought…
Plus his showing the high regard he gives marriage. Seems to indicate he only sees ONE reason for marriage. He must not enjoy the companionship, the love and support of a committed relationship, the joy of sharing and knowing in time each has another to lean on. Or, maybe he approves of these relationships outside marriage, the living together without the hassle of legality? Do you suppose his “fans” know of his true character?
“The only thing that is happening at these sample stations that read nearly identical co2 levels is that they are calibrated as non-empirical samples.
In other words, they are submitted(sic) as bona fide samples the calibration gas, plus some imaginary weasel factors that the alarmist have dreamed up.
Instead of using actual data from actual sites where human lives, the alarmists have purified and indemnified virginal co2 levels literally out of thin air.”
—————
Okay, according to multi-nic’d ‘Regular’,
The data is “nearly identical”. . . “calibrated as non-empirical samples”.
Scientists submited as “bona fide samples the calibration gas” + “some imaginary weasel factors, that the alarmist have dreamed up“.
The scientist’s CO2 data is “purified and indemnified virginal co2 levels literally out of thin air“.
——
I think mult-nic’d ‘Regular’ said that the scientists are guilty of a global conspiracy to FALSIFY the CO2 data.
I am not against abstinence education, i’m against abstinence ONLY education.
If you’re going to comment at least educate yourself on the facts. Odd someone here as often as you beber, you’d think you’d know the debate a little better. Perhaps if you weren’t high.
Did you know that physically kids under 18 have a higher complication rate and more problems rearing children? Did you know the growth plates in a female don’t start to close till about 17, and may not complete closing until around 20?
That is important as a pregnancy will sap the nutrients needed to complete the process.
There are reasons kids shouldn’t have kids. They’re not all simply social. Emotionally, physically, its bad enough when kids have sex with kids….old yucky men preying on them is an absolute no no.
“Conference host, analyst and forecaster Andy Weissman…
“Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”
————–
Well suprise, suprise. A pro-coal person invited William “man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible” Gray to his conference.
Hank Price: “[Harry van Loon said] “it has been warmer since 1947 with increased solar activity.”
van Loon is misinformed. . .
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
“The most commonly cited study by skeptics is a study by scientists from Finland and Germany that finds the sun has been more active in the last 60 years than anytime in the past 1150 years (Usoskin 2005). They also found temperatures closely correlate to solar activity.
However, a crucial finding of the study was the correlation between solar activity and temperature ended around 1975. At that point, temperatures rose while solar activity stayed level.
This led them to conclude “during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.” ”
—————-
I hope the forum attendees don’t base their business decisions on what the speakers said.
Phil Gramm obviously had the quote of the week. Voters dealing with skyrocketing gas prices and collapsing home values just love being called “whiners” by a millionaire. This kind of out-of-touch condescension comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Gramm’s career. He’s left his fingerprints on some of the worst economic debacles in U.S. history. He was a champion of energy deregulation, which gave us Enron and blackouts and price gouging. He was a champion of deregulating the savings-and-loan industry, the bailout of which cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. And his leadership on banking deregulation helped create the current sub-prime mortgage crisis. Republicans love to talk about Obama’s lack of experience. I’ll take fresh blood over Gramm’s kind of track record any day of the week.
cosmos, son, my little global warming alarmist friend,
“Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”
Yep, in the real world, coal has to be back on the table. Our energy needs will increase 50% in the next 20 years. The United States is the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of coal. If we allow insignificant politically appointed bureaucrats to shut down coal fired electric plants we’ll soon be little more than a third world nation.
With our coal reserves, natural gas reserves and our oil reserves untouchable because of ideology that John Cook and his ilk host BLOGs to apologize for is worse than idiotic, it’s borderline criminal.
John Cook’s ’scepticalscience.com’ BLOG is nothing more than another apologist for Al Gore and his political agenda. I’m always amazed that you think a credible argument for a AGW denier website is little more than an AGW alarmist website!
The recent G-8 conference in Japan is evidence that your side has lost the world wide political fight against global warming. More and more people are seeing Al Gore for the hypocritical opportunist that he is.
A State that takes Federal Abstinence Training Money: TEXAS
Texas teens lead the nation in having babies. Last month, the nonprofit group Child Trends conferred another No. 1 ranking on Texas. In the latest statistics available, 24 percent of the state’s teen births in 2004 were not the girl’s first delivery.
Texas’ policy is to deny contraceptives without parental consent wherever possible and to push an abstinence-only sex education program in public schools.
Experts, though, are questioning that approach. They note that from 1991 to 2004, the state’s teen birth rate dropped by 19 percent, while the U.S. rate dipped by one-third.
A State that DOES NOT take Federal Abstinence Money: CALIFORNIA
By contrast, California, which has seen its teen birth rate drop by 47 percent in the same period, teaches abstinence but also explains contraception at school and has gone to dispensing birth control to teenage boys and girls – for free, no parental consent required – in community clinics and doctors’ offices.
Following is the text of a statement issued today by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in our housing finance system and must continue to do so in their current form as shareholder-owned companies. Their support for the housing market is particularly important as we work through the current housing correction.
GSE debt is held by financial institutions around the world. Its continued strength is important to maintaining confidence and stability in our financial system and our financial markets. Therefore we must take steps to address the current situation as we move to a stronger regulatory structure. In recent days, I have consulted with the Federal Reserve, OFHEO, the SEC, Congressional leaders of both parties and with the two companies to develop a three-part plan for immediate action. The President has asked me to work with Congress to act on this plan immediately.
First, as a liquidity backstop, the plan includes a temporary increase in the line of credit the GSEs have with Treasury. Treasury would determine the terms and conditions for accessing the line of credit and the amount to be drawn.
Second, to ensure the GSEs have access to sufficient capital to continue to serve their mission, the plan includes temporary authority for Treasury to purchase equity in either of the two GSEs if needed.
Use of either the line of credit or the equity investment would carry terms and conditions necessary to protect the taxpayer. Third, to protect the financial system from systemic risk going forward, the plan strengthens the GSE regulatory reform legislation currently moving through Congress by giving the Federal Reserve a consultative role in the new GSE regulator’s process for setting capital requirements and other prudential standards.
I look forward to working closely with the Congressional leaders to enact this legislation as soon as possible, as one complete package.
Some of you want to help me understand what it might say, what it leaves out, whether it will indeed protect taxpayers? I admit to being more than little distrustful. I am a firm believer that, “I’m the government, I’m here to help you” is an oxymoron.
Obama said that while removing U.S. forces from Iraq won’t be “perfectly neat,” he said a call from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a withdrawal timetable supports his position more than the longer-term presence favored by McCain or his fellow Republican, President Bush.
“John McCain and George Bush both said that if Iraq, as a sovereign government, stated that it was time for us to start withdrawing our troops, then they would respect the wishes of that sovereign government,” Obama said.
GOP consultant on tape offering access to senior Bush officials for library gift
The Sunday Times of London (hat tip: Think Progress) has some fascinating videotape of a GOP consultant named Stephen Payne offering to set up meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior Bush administration officials in return for a donation to the new library for President Bush, as well as as much as $500,000 for his firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners.
You can see the videotape and read the Sunday Times story in full here.
“John Cook’s ’scepticalscience.com’ BLOG is nothing more than another apologist for Al Gore and his political agenda. I’m always amazed that you think a credible argument for a AGW denier website is little more than an AGW alarmist website!”
————-
So Hank carefully read all of these scientific papers, and concluded that all of the scientists who authored them are “alarmists”?
And all of their papers are “blogs”?
* Solanki 2008 reconstructs 11,400 years of sunspot numbers using radiocarbon concentrations, finding “solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades”.
* Ammann 2007: “Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century.”
* Lockwood 2007 concludes “the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.”
* Foukal 2006 concludes “The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years.”
* Scafetta 2006 says “since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone.”
* Usoskin 2005 conclude “during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
* Haigh 2003 says “Observational data suggest that the Sun has influenced temperatures on decadal, centennial and millennial time-scales, but radiative forcing considerations and the results of energy-balance models and general circulation models suggest that the warming during the latter part of the 20th century cannot be ascribed entirely to solar effects.”
* Stott 2003 increased climate model sensitivity to solar forcing and still found “most warming over the last 50 yr is likely to have been caused by increases in greenhouse gases.”
* Solanki 2003 concludes “the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970″.
* Lean 1999 concludes “it is unlikely that Sun–climate relationships can account for much of the warming since 1970″.
* Waple 1999 finds “little evidence to suggest that changes in irradiance are having a large impact on the current warming trend.”
* Frolich 1998 concludes “solar radiative output trends contributed little of the 0.2°C increase in the global mean surface temperature in the past decade” ”
————-
Hank: “The recent G-8 conference in Japan is evidence that your side has lost the world wide political fight against global warming.”
————-
Hank does not seem to understand the obvious difference between politics and science. Not to mention the power and influence of the fossil-fuel industry on politics.
Suspect soldiers: Did crimes in U.S. foretell violence in Iraq?
Before Army Sgt. 1st Class Randal Ruby was accused in Iraq of beating prisoners and of conspiring to plant rifles on dead civilians, he amassed a 10-year criminal record in Colordao and Washington state for assaulting his wife and in Maine for a drunken high-speed police chase, for which he remains wanted.
Before Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes stabbed an Iraqi private to death, angering the soldier’s unit of coalition soldiers, he was hospitalized after threatening suicide in high school, accused of assault, disorderly conduct and trespassing, and, in the months leading up to deployment, twice linked to drug use.
Before Army Spc. Shane Carl Gonyon was convicted of stealing a pistol at Abu Ghraib prison, he was convicted twice on felony charges and arrested four times, once for allegedly giving a 13-year-old girl marijuana in exchange for oral sex. He enlisted weeks after his release from a federal prison in Oregon.
A yearlong examination of military and civilian records by The Sacramento Bee involving hundreds of troops who entered the services since the Iraq war began identified 120 cases of people whose backgrounds should have raised the suspicions of military recruiters, including felony convitions and serious drug, alcohol or mental health problems.
Of those, 70 later were involved in controversial or criminal incidents in Iraq.
Ruby, Holmes and Gonyon were among those cases.
“These guys are out there carrying weapons, fighting on the streets with drugs in their pockets,” said Tressie Cox, whose son, Lee Robert, had a history of drug and mental problems before he was charged with selling drugs in Iraq. “Shame on my son, but shame on all you people out there who are policing this and allowing this to continue to happen.”
The 70 were among the tens of thousands of military personnel recruited or retained as the armed services, entering the sixth year of the Iraq war, lowered educational, age and moral standards and granted a growing number of waivers to applicants whose backgrounds previously would have barred them from serving.
From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called “moral conduct” waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent to 11.2 percent. Others, The Bee found, were able to enlist because they had no official criminal record of arrests or convictions, their records were overlooked or prosecutors suspended charges in lieu of military service — akin to a now-defunct Vietnam-era practice in which judges gave defendants a choice between prison and the military.
“How in the hell can they legally possess a gun?” asked Montgomery County, Ala., Sheriff D.T. Marshall, when questioned about a soldier from his county.
That soldier, Eli C. Gregory, was convicted in an attempted home invasion and of felony theft in Alabama, making him ineligible to legally possess a firearm there. Yet the military gave him a rifle and sent him to Iraq, where he was convicted by the Army of assault and battery on a fellow soldier and discharged.
Gregory, who returned to Alabama after his court-martial, said during an interview that he still cannot legally possess a firearm in the United States.
The military defended its recruiting policies, including granting more waivers for past conduct.
“Standards in our society have changed over the years; we are a reflection of those changes,” said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command. “Considering offering a waiver to otherwise qualified recruits is the right thing to do for those Americans who want to answer the call to duty.”
Earlier this month, the Department of Defense announced a new system to categorize waivers by the severity of prior offenses to allow the services to analyze the link between waivers and future military behavior.
The examination looked at only a fraction of the 1.4 million people in uniform and was conducted largely without benefit of sophisticated criminal databases available to the military.
Still, The Bee linked dozens of soldiers and Marines with criminal records and other questionable backgrounds to misconduct in the military. In some cases, past misconduct appeared to forshadow future behavior.
“Criminal history is the best predictor of future behavior,” said Shawn Bushway, a criminology professor at the University of Albany, N.Y., School of Criminal Justice. “Any time you lower your standards, you’re going to raise the risk. No question about it.”
Nine months before the death of the first of three Iraqis that Army sniper Michael A. Hensley was accused of murdering, members of a San Diego-area family witnessing his actions in Seward, Alaska, were so concerned about what they saw that they videotaped him.
The family, sharing a third-floor hotel room in Seward, awakened to screams from the parking lot below and peered out to see Hensley threatening a woman inside a Jeep, pounding on the vehicle with his fists.
“He obviously wasn’t stable, just from seeing him the 20 minutes I did,” said Alex Elling, who was 18 when he videotaped the incident.
Hensley “had bloody knuckles, and the windshield of the Jeep was broken,” a Seward Police Department report said. Hensley, who had previously served six months’ probation on a drunken-driving conviction in Georgia, pleaded no contest to the Alaska charges of disorderly conduct.
In Iraq, the military found Hensley guilty of planting an AK-47 on the body of an Iraqi he was accused of killing, but not guilty in any of the three killings.
In the months surrounding his enlistment into the Army in 2000, Ricky Allen Burke was the subject of two court cases for unpaid debt, and, according to Monticello, Ky., Police Chief Ralph Miniard, he was involved in two vehicle accidents. His wife, who left him before their second anniversary, claimed in a domestic violence petition filed in March 2000 that he threatened to kill her, causing her to flee to a police station.
Two months later, court records say, Burke confronted his wife again at a relative’s house, and police cited him for violating the domestic violence order.
A domestic violence conviction could have triggered a federal law precluding Burke from possessing a firearm. But seven days after he enlisted, the criminal case was continued, one of several continuances before it was dismissed in 2002.
Three years later in Iraq, Burke shot and killed a wounded insurgent he claimed had moved toward a weapon. But soldiers contradicted his story in statements to investigators.
“(Burke) said to me, ‘Let me shoot him. Let me shoot him. I got payback coming,’ ” Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein said, adding that he repeatedly ordered Burke not to fire since the insurgent was injured and Nein saw no weapon nearby.
Despite the testimony against him, Burke was found not guilty of the killing by a military court.
In December, the National Guard quit granting felony waivers. The Guard’s chief recruiting officer, Col. Mike Jones, was quoted in the Army Times calling the previous policy “a risk,” but he later told The Bee an increased number of applicants made the policy no longer necessary.
Of the more than 120 soldiers and Marines with questionable pasts examined by The Bee, at least 18 had felony arrests or convictions or histories of mental illness. At least eight of the 18 later were connected to incidents in Iraq, and a ninth fatally shot himself while on guard duty in Kuwait.
The military refused to disclose who required waivers to enter the military, citing privacy, but waivers were not required of all convicted felons.
Gregory, the Alabama felon prohibited from possessing a firearm, said he was allowed to join without a waiver because he was convicted of stealing less than $500, so the Army didn’t technically consider the crime a felony. The Army confirmed that it does not require waivers for some felonies in which the crime loss is less than $500, but a spokesman noted that a felony waiver is required for larger amounts.
Spc. Shane Gonyon had four felony arrests and two convictions, but he had only to lie to avoid rejection.
Shortly after he was discharged from the Air Force in Wyoming for drunken driving in 1998, Gonyon was arrested in Colorado on suspicion of pointing a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol at a homeless man who had accused him of theft.
The following year, he admitted to stealing more than $10,000 in equipment from an Air Force base, and months later, he was accused of providing marijuana to a 13-year-old girl in exchange for oral sex, triggering a felony charge that resulted in a guilty plea to misdemeanor child endangering.
Nineteen days after he walked away from a federal prison, Gonyon applied for the Michigan National Guard, claiming he had worked at a wood supply company during the period when he actually was incarcerated. He was accepted the following month, in January 2003.
Since Gonyon had previously served in the military, the Guard didn’t require a complete background check. That practice also ended earlier this year, after a guardsman with a past felony conviction shot and killed four civilians.
Gonyon wasn’t confronted about his criminal record until 2006, after an incident at Abu Ghraib prison, where he processed detainees. In late March or early April 2006, Gonyon stole a 7 mm pistol from a translator. He was caught trying to mail it to the United States.
“I deliberately concealed my arrest(s) and convictions,” Gonyon told a court-martial panel, which convicted him of theft and other charges.
The military is required to screen applicants for drug or alcohol abuse, mental health history and prior criminal conduct.
Recruiters, however, are not required to call former employers, research all information held by law enforcement agencies, check civil court files or, unless a security clearance is involved, attempt to contact relatives, former spouses, schoolteachers and neighbors — all techniques used by law enforcement agencies to screen applicants.
Such checks could uncover applicants not necessarily fit for service, even though they lack serious criminal convictions.
The additional checks might find criminal defendants not prosecuted in exchange for agreements to join the military, for instance, or defendants in criminal cases who had their charges dropped or reduced in exchange for providing information to police.
When the military did its standard criminal background check on David Crawford, who entered the Army at age 18 in 2006, he had only a minor juvenile record, Cincinnati police said. A request to police for a more thorough check would have revealed much more.
“I would have told them he was a suspect in a murder case,” said police Spc. John Horn, who questioned Crawford about the killing days before he left for boot camp. “When I interviewed him in September 2006, he admitted, because he was sniffling, that he was on a three-day cocaine binge.”
Crawford was arrested by Cincinnati officers for the crime when he returned from boot camp in 2006, and the following year, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 28 years to life.
Asked why someone like Delano Holmes was allowed to deploy to Iraq, Marine Capt. Brett Miner, a prosecutor at Holmes’ court-martial, said: “We’re kind of short on bodies.”
Indianapolis police records show that on Jan. 13, 2002, when Holmes was 16, officers dispatched an ambulance to his high school after Holmes threatened to kill himself.
Fifteen months later, Holmes was arrested for disorderly conduct at an Indianapolis mall and banned from returning there for a year. He returned 10 minutes later and was arrested on a trespassing charge.
Then, on April 14, 2004, a college student told police that Holmes had shoved him onto a bed and hit him in the forehead during a dispute over a vehicle.
Weeks later Holmes left for boot camp in San Diego.
In the months leading up to his 2006 deployment to Iraq, civilian police found Holmes in a pickup containing marijuana residue and drug paraphernalia. In a separate incident, the military disciplined him for failing a drug test given to members of his unit preparing to deploy to Iraq.
Section 6210.5 of the Marine Corps Separation and Retirement Manual says Marines confirmed to have used illegal drugs “will be processed” for separation. A Marine Corps spokeswoman said the regulation does not give a time limit for completing that separation process, but she acknowledged that commanders had not even started the process for Holmes.
Three months after he deployed, Holmes was standing guard at an outpost in Fallujah when he pulled out a 13¼-inch bayonet and repeatedly stabbed Pvt. Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin, whose Iraq army unit was serving alongside U.S. Marines. An autopsy found Hassin suffered 17 stab wounds, 26 cuts and a severed spine.
Holmes then fired Hassin’s AK-47 rifle to make it appear he had killed him in self-defense, the prosecutor told The Bee. Defense attorneys said the fight started when Hassin refused to put out a cigarette, which Holmes feared might alert insurgents.
A military panel at Camp Pendleton, Calif., found Holmes guilty of negligent homicide and making a false statement and sentenced him to 10 months in jail or, in effect, time served.
Holmes did not testify during his military trial, but read a statement. He stood silent for several minutes, turning pages in a notebook. Then his eyes filled with tears so large that they could be seen falling on the lectern from across the room.
Between sobs and silence, he finally spoke, calling himself a warrior and a Christian.
“I believe we are all products of our experiences,” Holmes said. “God gave me more than I could handle.”
Holmes’ criminal record was not part of his court-martial, and media accounts identified him as a college student. The prosecutor acknowledged in a subsequent interview that he was aware of Holmes’ record.
“I think that his character for violence was a contributing factor to the death of Private Hassin,” Capt. Miner said.
COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES
For years the military was warned about applicants with criminal backgrounds.
A 1996 Pentagon study of more than 100,000 California recruits found that those with arrest records left the service at a rate 70 percent higher than those without such histories. A 2003 study warned that destructive behavior by troops with criminal histories or troubling backgrounds “could have the most serious consequences.”
An October 2007 Army study shows that although recruits requiring conduct waivers re-enlisted at a higher rate, were promoted to sergeant faster and received more awards, they had a higher rate of desertion, misconduct and failure to complete alcohol rehabilitation.
Hassin, the Iraqi soldier killed by Holmes, had a relative assigned to the same post. His death angered the Iraqi soldiers serving with the Marines there.
“They took it pretty personal,” Capt. Javier Torres testified at Holmes’ court-martial. “After the incident, the Iraqis did not want to assume (their) post.”
In another well-publicized incident, Army Spc. Mario L. Lozano Jr. fueled anti-war protest across Italy when he mistakenly shot and wounded an Italian journalist and killed her bodyguard at a checkpoint in Iraq. The shooting of Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence agent, and journalist Giuliana Sgrena, whose freedom Calipari had help secure, bolstered anti-war sentiment in Italy credited with helping elect a new government, which pulled its troops from Iraq in late 2006.
Though the shooting was the subject of hundreds of news accounts, including a “60 Minutes” segment, and described in two books, The Bee uncovered criminal records on Lozano not previously made public.
In 1994, for instance, a man who repossessed Lozano’s car told Hollywood, Fla., police that Lozano threatened him.
“My Rottweiler was barking,” Lozano explained in an interview. “I look out my window, and there’s a guy rolling the car back. So I came out. I grabbed a bat.”
Lozano joined the Army in 1998. Two years later, his wife dialed 911 and told Hollywood police that Lozano had hit her in the face with his open hand because she had been seeing another man.
“I’ve never done anything like that to any female,” Lozano responded. He left after the incident and was back at his military post in Alaska in a day, he said, because “I know that … even if she dials 911 and hangs up, the cops are going to come.”
A domestic violence conviction could have ended Lozano’s military career, but with Lozano in Alaska, records indicate, authorities had trouble pursuing the case. His wife subsequently filed for divorce.
In Alaska, Fairbanks police twice sought Lozano regarding threats to a man there, he was accused of writing bad checks, and eventually owed child support of more than $5,500, prompting a Florida court to take legal action.
Lozano left the active duty Army in 2001 but joined the National Guard in July 2003. Less than two years later, he was sitting atop a Humvee parked near a road leading to the Baghdad airport, manning an M-240B belt-fed machine gun that can fire 10 large-caliber rounds per second.
Lozano said he shone large lights on the vehicle carrying the Italians before firing, but Sgrena’s book, “Friendly Fire,” said the illumination and the shots came simultaneously.
An Italian court threw out the murder charge against Lozano, his attorney said, after realizing the United States is allowed to prosecute its own soldiers.
Lozano blamed the journalist for the shooting. “If it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “It was her idea to go over there and mingle with terrorists.”
Lozano said he left the Guard after commanders refused to let him deploy to Afghanistan.
“They got like 5,000 Italian soldiers over there,” he said. “They don’t want to create no kind of problems.”
MILITARY HISTORIES
Like Lozano, several other soldiers and Marines linked to incidents in Iraq had questionable histories — obtained not as civilians, but as members of the armed services. They, too, were nonetheless deployed.
Three years after Randal Ruby joined the Army in 1985, civilian police near his post at Fort Lewis, Wash., arrested him on a charge of assault after Tacoma police officers reported finding him pacing amid belongings scattered across his living room. The officers reported that the left side of his wife’s face was swollen.
Six months later, Ruby’s wife again called officers, who found her scalp and forehead red from an apparent attack, and, in 1991, she obtained a restraining order after alleging Ruby “struck me several times.”
Ruby was transferred to Fort Carson, Colo., and civilian police were called to the couple’s home after his wife accused him of choking her.
He filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997, the same year he led three police officers in Maine on a high-speed chase that ended when he lost control of his pickup and crashed.
Ruby was indicted in that case on charges of eluding an officer, drunken driving, speeding more than 30 mph over the limit and driving without a license.
A warrant remained outstanding when he deployed to Iraq, where he was accused in 2006 of “drop kicking” one detainee and allowing a translator to beat another with a Kevlar vest.
“What was Sergeant Ruby doing when he (the detainee) started crying after he beat him in the head with a Kevlar?” a defense attorney asked Sgt. Justin Stubblefield during a military proceeding in 2007.
“He was laughing,” the soldier responded.
Soldiers, including Ruby’s driver, testified that the unit kept AK-47 rifles, known as “packages,” in Humvees to plant on civilians killed by mistake. Once, Pfc. Nathan Huhn testified, Ruby ordered a “package” after telling his men to open fire and calling in an airstrike on an area populated by civilians.
Once the firing started, Huhn testified, “We maneuvered up there and still didn’t see nobody … a crowd of women, children and men, but nobody with weapons or like that. Sgt. Ruby told Staff Sgt. (Armando) Cardona (Jr.) to go ahead and send the package.”
Cardona testified: “I grabbed an AK, walked up around my truck, looked for a spot” to throw it, then realized he couldn’t reach across a canal.
Ruby, who said in an interview that he ordered his men to stop firing as soon as he realized civilians were in the area, was charged with nine offenses but found guilty of only one: disrespecting a superior.
That superior, Lt. Neale Shank, was found dead in a suspected suicide weeks before Ruby’s court-martial.
Ruby was sentenced to a reprimand, in which a general wrote: “Your behavior is a disgrace to the Army.”
Now retired and living in Kentucky, Ruby denied ever planting weapons, and said his soldiers were pressured to testify against him, especially after Shank’s death. He also maintained that his civilian charges “have nothing to do with Iraq.”
“I never robbed a bank or a 7-Eleven or smoked dope or any of that stuff that they’re letting kids in the military for today because there’s no draft,” Ruby said. “I served my country honorably.”
That’s what happens in the heat of domestic affairs.
I’ll bet the ElDorado police take seriously the threat to them in the middle of domestic assault situations- as it is the most dangerous time for police. But if you’re the victim- forget about it.
He never expressed a “need to kill” as you tried to claim he did.
He clearly said “in case” I need to kill someone.
Figuring that my father routinely talks about a gun being used for self defense and his carrying one for that reason, the way you try to twist his comments is rather obvious.
She comes from good bloodlines. Her dam, her grandmother on her dam’s side are both herding champions. Her grandfather on her sire’s side was the first Bearded Collie to become an AKC herding champion. Her Sire is a multiple international BIS winner.
This trait of being more in love with consumption than production is one shared by most of my socialist colleagues in academia. They base their lives on the idea of taking “from each according to his ability” and giving “to each according to his need.” The problem is that they do a better job of articulating their needs than promoting their abilities. This is, of course, because socialists are generally short on abilities. They seek socialism because they think being guaranteed an average outcome is safer than trying to beat the average in a system based on merit, which is otherwise known as ability.
Anyone watching the 2008 presidential race has doubtless seen a similar dynamic among supporters of Barack H. Obama. Most of his supporters have been talking about rights without any mention of the notion of responsibilities. Like supply and demand, and need and ability, the terms rights and responsibilities are best understood in relation to one another. For example, I have a 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms that the government cannot simply take away from me on a whim. But I also have a responsibility for everything that occurs between the time I discharge a bullet and the time the bullet comes to its final stopping point.
But consider the following list of “rights” that supporters of Obama have recently told me that we all have:
Everyone has the right to a college education. I can’t imagine what it will be like as a college professor once Obama implements this one. I’ve been teaching to the occasional unqualified black and the occasional unqualified athlete for years. But now that everyone, including, presumably, the mentally retarded, has a right to a college degree, I might just retire and become a firearms instructor. Hopefully, Obama will not grant a Right to Firearms Education to both idiots and the insane. (Author’s Note: This one came from Obama himself).
Everyone has a right to breathe clean air. This is a really bad idea for the Obama campaign. If everyone starts to enforce his right to breathe clean air in the presence of swarthy young Muslims, Obama might lose an important part of his electoral base.
Everyone has a right to free health care. I recently learned this from an incoming Drexel law student appearing on The O’Reilly Factor. Bill did a great job by asking her whether this right is in the constitution or whether it just comes from the fact that she is a really nice person. She was forced to admit that it was not in the constitution. She should do really well in law school because she’s a really nice person.
Everyone has a right to demand that the rich pay taxes in proportion to their ability to pay taxes. I recently learned this from an incoming Yale law student on the same segment of The Factor. Everyone agrees that the rich should pay more taxes than the poor. What is controversial is the notion that they should also pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. But that was not the issue in this segment. The issue was whether the existing gap in the proportion of taxes paid by the poor and the rich should be widened and, if so, by how much. When someone says we have a right to tax the rich “in proportion to their ability to pay” they mean “tax them until they can no longer pay” or “tax them until they are bankrupt.” Many people who hold this view were not actually alive during the Carter Administration. But they have taken history classes from people who assure us that he was really not such a bad president.
Every gay man has a right to feel comfortable. I heard this one from a first-year law student at Yale. He actually informed me thrice that his right to be comfortable as a gay man trumps the First Amendment. I guess they don’t teach constitutional law until the second year of the Yale law program. But the question is: How did this sissy get into Yale Law School?
After spending only a little time listening to followers of the Dali Bama I have concluded that, in Obama’s America, everyone gets to declare at least one new fundamental right regardless of whether it is written into the constitution. And so, naturally, I am going to declare first that I have a right to unlimited rights. (This is sort of like making one’s only wish a request for unlimited wishes).
My second declaration of a new right is a little more complicated. First, I believe that I have a right to demand that you show me a copy of the U.S. Constitution every time you demand a new right. And if you cannot identify the constitutional basis of your proposed right, you forfeit that right as well as your right to vote in 2008. And, of course, I get to cast the vote you forfeited.
So, those of you prone to simply announce fundamental rights without any constitutional basis should beware that this could soon deprive you of the right to vote. Until now, it’s only deprived of you the right to sound intelligent.
looks like the dems. are going to tell the oil companies to use it or lose it on federal leases. About time. Good response to Drill here…
“Democrats support more drilling,” he said. “In fact, what the president hasn’t told you is that the oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands with the potential to nearly double U.S. oil production. That is why in the coming days congressional Democrats will vote on ‘Use It or Lose It’ legislation requiring the big oil companies to develop these resources or lose their leases to someone else who will.”
Anyways, get this. Oliver Stone is filming “W”, a movie about the life and times of our own beloved President Bush.
“Stone has said the film, which will focus on the life and presidency of Bush, won’t be an anti-Bush polemic, but, as he told Daily Variety, “a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?”
BTW: I need not remind you what a tiny effect drilling in ANWR will have way out in 2017…
#
cosmos_originally
Posted July 13, 2008 at 8:36 pm | Permalink
Nathaniel posted July 13, 2008 at 8:16 pm
“This way we can rile up both the AGW alarmists and those who are against guns too!”
————
Your father’s daily posts don’t “rile” me. I enjoy proving that you people are misinformed and gullible.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/07/open-thread-713-2/#comment-383119
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cosmos is just irked that the G8 summit revealed that the major countries of the world saw to it that the Kyoto protocol died on the vine. The world leaders have awakened to the unworkable carbon credit and tax plan. It does not work, because countries adopting the Kyoto plan have had their co2 levels go up, not down.
It would be used as a last resort to protect me and my family against extreme bodily harm or to save our lives.
I would avoid as much as possible any circumstances that would require me to use my hand gun.
I have always brought reasonable and rational discourse to the concealed carry debate on this BLOG.
That being said, there is only one reason to pull a handgun for self defense. There is only one reason that I have the handgun that I carry. That’s the reality of CCH. Anyone that doesn’t understand that reality doesn’t understand the law and they should never get their license to carry a handgun.
You asked,
“Hank, just so we all get it right…IF you had to use your CCH gun, for what purpose would you use it??”
It would be used to eliminate the threat to my life or to the life of my wife.
“That being said, there is only one reason to pull a handgun for self defense. There is only one reason that I have the handgun that I carry. That’s the reality of CCH.” [HLP]
My understanding is that in order for you to protect yourself with a gun- you have to have reason to fear for your life or your safety. Obviously this woman was coming after this other woman…so if she would had been justified in shooting her, why is the judge not allowing the jury to consider self defense in a stabbing death?
If someone were threatening me with bodily harm, you’re darn right I’d protect myself. Why are you all not fighting so hard for this woman who used a knife- is it because she’s black or is it because it doesn’t deal with your precious gun arguments?
PMama, seems to me like you have run across a story there that needs some investigation… I sure hope that self protection isnt just limited to GUNS… or I could be in deep Kaka with my Deutsche Bayonet…
Your entire argument is based on the premise that the situation would have been justified self defense if only McCullough has used a gun.
The article is not exactly a picture perfect description of what happened, but the guy with McCullough had taken her back to the car.
It didn’t seem like there was any threat of serious bodily harm or death by the victim towards McCullough to warrant McCullough going back into the store to stab the woman.
I don’t see how using a gun would have made it self defense either.
You can’t just shoot someone or stab someone because they are swinging at you with their fists.
On top of that, the reason for the fight starting is not entirely clear.
If you start or instigate a fight and then end up killing someone to protect yourself, that is not considered legaly justified self defense because you instigated the action.
I don’t have all the facts in front of me here to be able to tell you if that is what did or didn’t happen.
Obviously the Judge felt there was not enough evidence to warrant this being self defense.
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cosmos_originally
Posted July 13, 2008 at 9:09 pm | Permalink
And again, “politics” is not “science”.
What the politicians do, or don’t do, doesn’t refute AGW science.
————————————
If AGW was only about science, then you and the rabid Goracle worshipers wouldn’t be promoting it with so much spit and spew.
There are many more important scientific fields than AGW that don’t have the rabid, foaming at the mouth political hacks like yourself yelling from every street corner.
Cancer, diabetes, birth defects, AIDs and other diseases are much more important to find a cure/vaccine/solution than AGW.
Feeding the world’s hungry, providing potable water and educating the illiterate are much more than AGW.
You were also the one to inform the blog of how you would hide behind your door with a baseball bat or use the bayonet in your bedroom for self defense.
If you didn’t think those things were any of my business then why did you share them?
So the same people who defend the guy running out of his house to confront his neighbor’s unarmed hispanic robbers, are going to SIT HERE and say that a woman who stabbed the woman hitting her was not self defense.
Nathan, if some big fat guy came after you- would you find that to be a threat of serious bodily harm? Or is it because it was a woman that you think she couldn’t possibly inflict harm? If she got one good punch in, enough to knock her down, how do you know that she wouldn’t had stabbed her as well? She already threatened to kill her.
I don’t know the facts of this case, but from what I’m reading, self defense should be left up to the JURY to decide.
Texas Law is different than Kansas law in regards to the protection of property.
If I am correct, I believe that man in Texas didn’t just shoot those people, he only shot them when they presented weapons and were going to try to kill him.
You obviously haven’t seen the videos of the incident in the store that day. The only person justified in using a handgun for self defense would have been Callaway.
McCullough, after a minor altercation left the store and went to her car and got a knife. She came back into the store and stabbed Callaway. That is why she is being charged with first degree murder.
If you come at me with a knife, I can pull my handgun and kill you in self defense. If you slap me in a Quick Trip and I go out to my car and get my gun, come back in the store and shoot you I have just committed premeditated murder.
That is why McCullough is being charged with first degree murder. Her life was not at risk once she left the store.
Nathan, the two men shot and killed by Mr. Horn, in Texas, were not armed. They were running AWAY from him, and were shot in the back, at the same time as the 911 Operator TOLD Mr. Horn NOT to go out on his porch to shoot them, which is what Mr. Horn TOLD the 911 Operator he was going to do.
This was a very strange case, in Texas. I do not understand why the Grand Jury didnt indict him… Unless they figure there will be a Civil Suit, for loss of life… just like OJ…
183 Comments
Four scientists warn ‘global warming out, global cooling in’
Four scientists, four scenarios, four more or less similar conclusions without actually saying it outright - the global warming trend is done, and a cooling trend is about to kick in. The implication: Future energy price response is likely to be significant.
Late last month, some leading climatologists and meteorologists met in New York at the Energy Business Watch Climate and Hurricane Forum. The theme of the forum strongly suggested that a period of global cooling is about emerge, though possible concerns for a political backlash kept it from being spelled out. However, the message was loud and clear, a cyclical global warming trend may be coming to an end for a variety of reasons, and a new cooling cycle could impact the energy markets in a big way. Words like “highly possible,” “likely” or “reasonably convincing” about what may soon occur were used frequently. Then there were other words like “mass pattern shift” and “wholesale change in anomalies” and “changes in global circulation.”
Noted presenters, such as William Gray, Harry van Loon, Rol Madden and Dave Melita, signaled in the strongest terms that huge climate changes are afoot. Each weather guru, from a different angle, suggested that global warming is part of a cycle that is nearing an end. All agreed the earth is in a warm cycle right now, and has been for a while, but that is about to change significantly.
However, amid all of the highly suggestive rhetoric, none of the weather and climate pundits said outright that a global cooling trend is about to replace the global warming trend in a shift that could begin as early as next year. Van Loon spoke about his theories of solar storms and how, combined with, or because of these storms, the Earth has been on a relative roller coaster of climate cycles. For the past 250 years, he said, global climate highs and lows have followed the broad pattern of low and high solar activity. And shorter 11-year sunspot cycles are even more easily correlated to global temperatures.
It was cooler from 1883 to 1928 when there was low solar activity, he said, and it has been warmer since 1947 with increased solar activity.”We are on our way out of the latest (warming) cycle, and are headed for a new cycle of low (solar) activity,” van Loon said. “There is a change coming. We may see 180-degree changes in anomalies during high and low sunspot periods. There were three global climate changes in the last century, there is a change coming now.”
Meanwhile, Madden noted that while temperature forecasts longer than one to two weeks out has improved, “what has really gotten much better is climate forecasting . predicting the change in the mean,” he said. And the drivers impacting climate suggest a shift to cooler sea surface temperatures, he said.
Perhaps the best known speaker was Colorado State University’s Gray, founder of the school’s famed hurricane research team. Gray spoke about multi-decade periods of warming and cooling and how global climate flux has been the norm for as long as there have been records. Gray has taken quite a bit of political heat for insistence that global warming is not a man-made condition. Man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible, he said, compared to the amount of CO2 Mother Nature makes and disposes of each day or century. “We’ve reached the top of the heat cycle,” he said. “The next 10 years will be hardly any warmer than the last 10 years.”
Finally, climate scientist Melita spoke of a new phase in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.”I’m looking at a new, cold-negative phase, though it won’t effect this summer, fall or winter `08,” he said.
Conference host, analyst and forecaster Andy Weissman closed the conference by addressing how natural gas prices and policy debates would be impacted by a possible climate shift that could leave the market short gas.This would be especially problematic if gas use for power generation were substantially increased at the expense of better alternatives.”If we’re about to shift into another natural climate cycle, we can’t do it without coal-fired generation. So the policy debate has to change,” he said. “Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”As for natural gas: “Next year, may see a bit of price softening,” Weissman said. “After that, fogetaboutit!”.
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/four-scientists-global-warming-out-global-cooling-in/
Why did all you patriots piss on the 4th of July?
Political_mama
Posted July 12, 2008 at 7:20 pm | Permalink
EL DORADO POLICE IGNORE VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN:
My very good friend was held captive by her boyfriend in their house with a gun, and the police still have yet to file charges, or arrest the man who did it.
When my friend asked why the man hadn’t been arrested, the arresting police officer, JEFF MURPHY, said that he deemed the guy to no longer be a threat.
The man was suicidal, threatening to kill another woman that he had previously had an affair with…and since the officer took the gun from the man, he said that she was safe. That it was just him blowing steam and that he didn’t really mean any harm. WHAT THE HELL?
Now the DA hasn’t even seen the case according to teh DA, because my friend called, and the officer will not call her back.
Do we need to come and protest the ILLEGAL and INEPT actions of the ElDorado police department?
We will do it.
I think the man though. The first is insistence, and the second facility is global circulation (both are located on anomalies). That translates into a 3 % casino edge, which is not far removed from that of global circulation.
Pmom I lived in Eldorado when I was in college, and the PD their was well known both being assholes and for being inept looks like nothings changed in 6 years. the Sheriff’s office on the other hand exact opposite
Pmom GMC70 is one of the prosecutors over in Butler County. Maybe he will read this and help you out? We can hope…
I guess the WE editors consider all the spamming here to be listed as hits, so they can run up the numbers to look good. We used to have to do the random box thing, now thats gone and the spammer rule the roost. This could be fixed, but numbers rule, huh? Now we got morons spamming open threads with pure nonsense, such as http://casinoslut.net/ . Good work editors, that crap makes for bogus Sunday reading, doesn’t it. Talk about idiots.
That’s kindof what I”m counting on..that ole GMC will put a bug in the Chief’s ear that we’re about to go uncomfortably public..which will probably flush out other poorly handled domestic abuse cases.
its going in the newsletter as a call to action.
After Jana’s death, I’m really in no mood to play around with the good ole boy network.
What a total lack of respect for abused women.
And here’s the kicker..if the chief doesn’t know who I’m referring to, then we’ve got a bigger problem than just this.
Keep at it, PMom. If I can be of any assistance, let me know. I’m tired of corruption and gold ole boy networks at every level! Innocents always pay when coverups are allowed.
“Political_mama” shares –
“…I”m counting on… ole GMC will put a bug in the Chief’s ear that we’re about to go uncomfortably public…”
Good luck with what you’re “counting on,” “Political_mama.”
I suspect “GMC70″ is already at work on his case for “the bitc# had it comin’.”
On a much happier note, My wife and I were in your neck of the woods yesterday, P-Mom.
The Salina Kennel Club had a sanctioned fun match and our new puppy, Pentangles Stand Back (Nikki), won it!
There were some very nice puppies from around the area and a good time was had by all!
Only a dog could love a conservative, HLP. It probably means you smell as human as the rest of us.
Did everyone see where Mayor Brewer will be cooking for an upcoming Republican fundraiser?
I added the article to my B.O.H.I.C.A. file. Our local elected “officials” have made that file thick here recently!
Their antics are so frequent and often the newest is so outrageous it makes memories of the less recent dim, so I must keep the file so my memory doesn’t fade!
Another interesting article from this morning’s paper is:
Obama platform meeting to air live on KCTU
The Barack Obama for President campaign is inviting ordinary folks to participate in hammering together the Democratic Party platform.
And in Wichita, you can do it on live TV.
KCTU-Channel 5 will be opening up its studio July 22 for an “Online, On-Air Platform Meeting.”
Input from the event and others across America will be incorporated into crafting the platform, a statement of positions to be presented at the Democratic National Convention in August.
KCTU news director R.J. Dickens said the event will start at 6 p.m. and could run as long as three hours, depending on how many people want to call in.
Those who want to participate live at the KCTU studio on East Douglas can sign up through http://www.barackobama.com or, if that’s busy, e-mail rjdickens@kctu.com.
The meeting also will be streamed live at http://www.kctu.comand viewers will be able to participate online or by phone.
Dickens, the Tuesday night host of the station’s daily call-in show, River City Forum, said, “If the Republicans have a similar event, we’d gladly run it as well, schedule permitting.”
KCTU is not carried by Cox Cable, but broadcasts over-the-air on Channel 5.
http://www.kansas.com/224/story/462147.html
There goes P.M., trying to put someone is jail again. This is like the third time we’ve seen her do it on this blog alone.
You have a problem with putting kidnappers, and gun weilding terroristic threats in jail beber?
And Hank, too bad you didn’t say something, I’d had come seen you. GASP we could had had lunch.
“And Hank, too bad you didn’t say something, I’d had come seen you. GASP we could had had lunch.”
We would have enjoyed that! I didn’t mention it because we didn’t know for sure we could go until the last minute. Then we had to get back to Wichita.
We’ll be up in September working the dog show and herding trial. Nikki will be six months and a day old then, old enough to show.
Until then, next time you’re in Wichita. . .
If that’s what it was P.M. You are maligning an officer without knowing what the facts are. Just because your friend unloaded a story on you doesn’t make it true. And given the general level of your constant hysteria, it’s very likely you don’t know what happened. You’ll get your tit in a wringer one of these days for going off when you don’t have any real information. But your tit’s always been in a wringer, hasn’t it. Did you ever wonder why?
Hint: It has nothing to do with unfairness directed at women.
If that’s what it was P.M. You are maligning an officer without knowing what the facts are. Just because your friend unloaded a story on you doesn’t make it true. And given the general level of your constant hysteria, it’s very likely you don’t know what happened. You’ll get your tit in a wringer one of these days for going off when you don’t have any real information. But your tit’s always been in a wringer, hasn’t it. Did you ever wonder why?
Hint: It has nothing to do with unfairness directed at women.
And Beber you have no idea what you are talking about. My friend is a professional, I would trust her with my life. I listen to stories from women and yeah I have to discern whether or not I’m being played but I’m certain in this case taht I am not or I’d had never stuck my neck out like that.
I’ve got the statement she made to police. SO if she’s lying, which she isn’t, she’d had made a false report as well.
Why do you hate women Beber? YOU ARE FINE WITH RAPING GIRLS so why would anyone expect anything different from you.
Just another example of your hysteria, P.M. You have translated my statements that some science has shown that early consensual sex does not harm girls into “fine with raping girls.”
Just how many lives have you ruined in addition to your own?
and how you use that to justify you gettnig turned on by very young women is highly disturbing to anyone who has read the blog.
You should be watched very closely.
Beber why dont you ask Chelsea Brooks how that early age consenual sex worked out
Seems everyone else remembers those statements you made too Beber.
I am watching a discussion of Gay marriage and its benefits and downfalls at the American Enterprise institute (BTW the place that the PNAC fled to). Some good points and some rather stupid on both sides.
One of the dumber one against is if one partner is unfaithful and a child is produced it can be hard to work out the details. If it a straight couple is that not more a chance then with a Gay couple?
Irving Kristol the founding father of modern Neoconservatives stated he can not understand why a young couple whom have no intention of having children. Should get married or be allowed to! But for the most part the panel is in agreement that allowing Gay marriage would be a benefit to the country and the economy.
Is Irving Kristol married? If so, his wife should learn what he thinks she is good for from his wondering why one would marry if they don’t intend to have children. Screams a bunch to me!
Kristol is a blazing right wing fundie, he knows full well why people would get married.
I agree Linda, his wife must be proud to know she’s his personal incubator and then he’s done with her.
“Irving Kristol the founding father of modern Neoconservatives stated he can not understand why a young couple whom have no intention of having children.”
SEE?? THIS is what I have been posting for some time, that is part of the REAL Anti-Gay Marriage movement…. THIS is what they are really after… No offspring?? No marriage!!
And NO — I didnt make it up!!
PMama, I wont say anything RE your friend in Butler County, for fear that if GMC saw my comments, he would likely turn it into some kind of RANT… Keep me informed through that “back door” OK??
OOOPS I missed part of Kristol’s quote by WDog….
“Irving Kristol the founding father of modern Neoconservatives stated he can not understand why a young couple whom have no intention of having children, should get married or be allowed to!”
Obviously, that “be allowed to” is the scary part of his thought…
Plus his showing the high regard he gives marriage. Seems to indicate he only sees ONE reason for marriage. He must not enjoy the companionship, the love and support of a committed relationship, the joy of sharing and knowing in time each has another to lean on. Or, maybe he approves of these relationships outside marriage, the living together without the hassle of legality? Do you suppose his “fans” know of his true character?
Linda, the SAD thing is, his “fans” most likely are in total agreement with him…
Linda, his ilk are also the ones wanting to make “co-habitation” illegal too…
and how you use that to justify you gettnig turned on by very young women is highly disturbing to anyone who has read the blog. — p.m.
Just how many condoms have you distributed at the Jr. High, p.m.? Remember it’s you who is the opponent of abstinence education.
‘Multi-nic’d ‘Regular’ posted July 12, 2008 at 11:03 pm
“Don’t put beliefs as a statement on something I never wrote.”
———
‘Multi-nic’d ‘Regular’ posted July 12, 2008 at 3:40 am
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/07/open-thread-710-2/#comment-382388
“The only thing that is happening at these sample stations that read nearly identical co2 levels is that they are calibrated as non-empirical samples.
In other words, they are submitted(sic) as bona fide samples the calibration gas, plus some imaginary weasel factors that the alarmist have dreamed up.
Instead of using actual data from actual sites where human lives, the alarmists have purified and indemnified virginal co2 levels literally out of thin air.”
—————
Okay, according to multi-nic’d ‘Regular’,
The data is “nearly identical”. . . “calibrated as non-empirical samples”.
Scientists submited as “bona fide samples the calibration gas” + “some imaginary weasel factors, that the alarmist have dreamed up“.
The scientist’s CO2 data is “purified and indemnified virginal co2 levels literally out of thin air“.
——
I think mult-nic’d ‘Regular’ said that the scientists are guilty of a global conspiracy to FALSIFY the CO2 data.
Cosmos, I think you’re right!!
I am not against abstinence education, i’m against abstinence ONLY education.
If you’re going to comment at least educate yourself on the facts. Odd someone here as often as you beber, you’d think you’d know the debate a little better. Perhaps if you weren’t high.
Did you know that physically kids under 18 have a higher complication rate and more problems rearing children? Did you know the growth plates in a female don’t start to close till about 17, and may not complete closing until around 20?
That is important as a pregnancy will sap the nutrients needed to complete the process.
There are reasons kids shouldn’t have kids. They’re not all simply social. Emotionally, physically, its bad enough when kids have sex with kids….old yucky men preying on them is an absolute no no.
Hank Price Posted July 13, 2008 at 6:10 am’
“Conference host, analyst and forecaster Andy Weissman…
“Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”
————–
Well suprise, suprise. A pro-coal person invited William “man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) is negligible” Gray to his conference.
Hank Price: “[Harry van Loon said] “it has been warmer since 1947 with increased solar activity.”
van Loon is misinformed. . .
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
“The most commonly cited study by skeptics is a study by scientists from Finland and Germany that finds the sun has been more active in the last 60 years than anytime in the past 1150 years (Usoskin 2005). They also found temperatures closely correlate to solar activity.
However, a crucial finding of the study was the correlation between solar activity and temperature ended around 1975. At that point, temperatures rose while solar activity stayed level.
This led them to conclude “during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.” ”
—————-
I hope the forum attendees don’t base their business decisions on what the speakers said.
Do you pass out flavored massage oils with the condoms, P.M.?
Phil Gramm obviously had the quote of the week. Voters dealing with skyrocketing gas prices and collapsing home values just love being called “whiners” by a millionaire. This kind of out-of-touch condescension comes as no surprise to anyone who has followed Gramm’s career. He’s left his fingerprints on some of the worst economic debacles in U.S. history. He was a champion of energy deregulation, which gave us Enron and blackouts and price gouging. He was a champion of deregulating the savings-and-loan industry, the bailout of which cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. And his leadership on banking deregulation helped create the current sub-prime mortgage crisis. Republicans love to talk about Obama’s lack of experience. I’ll take fresh blood over Gramm’s kind of track record any day of the week.
– Arianna Huffington
cosmos, son, my little global warming alarmist friend,
“Coal has to be back on the table if we’re ever going to meet our energy needs.”
Yep, in the real world, coal has to be back on the table. Our energy needs will increase 50% in the next 20 years. The United States is the ‘Saudi Arabia’ of coal. If we allow insignificant politically appointed bureaucrats to shut down coal fired electric plants we’ll soon be little more than a third world nation.
With our coal reserves, natural gas reserves and our oil reserves untouchable because of ideology that John Cook and his ilk host BLOGs to apologize for is worse than idiotic, it’s borderline criminal.
John Cook’s ’scepticalscience.com’ BLOG is nothing more than another apologist for Al Gore and his political agenda. I’m always amazed that you think a credible argument for a AGW denier website is little more than an AGW alarmist website!
The recent G-8 conference in Japan is evidence that your side has lost the world wide political fight against global warming. More and more people are seeing Al Gore for the hypocritical opportunist that he is.
Okay, ‘fess up –
Which one of you CONs posed for this picture?
http://tinyurl.com/5l2odh
Good afternoon Monkeyman!
It looks more like a female NEA delegate at an Obama rally! Have you seen some of them NEA union thugs?
#
HLP
Posted July 13, 2008 at 4:33 pm | Permalink
Good afternoon Monkeyman!
It looks more like a female NEA delegate at an Obama rally! Have you seen some of them NEA union thugs?
——————–
LMAO!
…them NEA union thugs?
How’s about all those old fart white men in grey suits with white shirts and red power ties? Them’s some ugly dudes.
Dennis
(and yes, I used to be in a union)
A State that takes Federal Abstinence Training Money: TEXAS
Texas teens lead the nation in having babies. Last month, the nonprofit group Child Trends conferred another No. 1 ranking on Texas. In the latest statistics available, 24 percent of the state’s teen births in 2004 were not the girl’s first delivery.
Texas’ policy is to deny contraceptives without parental consent wherever possible and to push an abstinence-only sex education program in public schools.
Experts, though, are questioning that approach. They note that from 1991 to 2004, the state’s teen birth rate dropped by 19 percent, while the U.S. rate dipped by one-third.
A State that DOES NOT take Federal Abstinence Money: CALIFORNIA
By contrast, California, which has seen its teen birth rate drop by 47 percent in the same period, teaches abstinence but also explains contraception at school and has gone to dispensing birth control to teenage boys and girls – for free, no parental consent required – in community clinics and doctors’ offices.
Adapted and excerpted from http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/110507dnmetteenbirths.35daddb.html
Following is the text of a statement issued today by Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson on Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae:
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in our housing finance system and must continue to do so in their current form as shareholder-owned companies. Their support for the housing market is particularly important as we work through the current housing correction.
GSE debt is held by financial institutions around the world. Its continued strength is important to maintaining confidence and stability in our financial system and our financial markets. Therefore we must take steps to address the current situation as we move to a stronger regulatory structure. In recent days, I have consulted with the Federal Reserve, OFHEO, the SEC, Congressional leaders of both parties and with the two companies to develop a three-part plan for immediate action. The President has asked me to work with Congress to act on this plan immediately.
First, as a liquidity backstop, the plan includes a temporary increase in the line of credit the GSEs have with Treasury. Treasury would determine the terms and conditions for accessing the line of credit and the amount to be drawn.
Second, to ensure the GSEs have access to sufficient capital to continue to serve their mission, the plan includes temporary authority for Treasury to purchase equity in either of the two GSEs if needed.
Use of either the line of credit or the equity investment would carry terms and conditions necessary to protect the taxpayer. Third, to protect the financial system from systemic risk going forward, the plan strengthens the GSE regulatory reform legislation currently moving through Congress by giving the Federal Reserve a consultative role in the new GSE regulator’s process for setting capital requirements and other prudential standards.
I look forward to working closely with the Congressional leaders to enact this legislation as soon as possible, as one complete package.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aNHPA3k7pAAQ&refer=home
—–
Some of you want to help me understand what it might say, what it leaves out, whether it will indeed protect taxpayers? I admit to being more than little distrustful. I am a firm believer that, “I’m the government, I’m here to help you” is an oxymoron.
Paulson Seeks Authority to Shore Up Fannie, Freddie (Update1)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601068&sid=aGFaSjTJmUZ0&refer=home
—–
This update makes me feel less comfortable with what seems to be the suggested solution.
Not that it makes a hill of beans difference whether I understand it, whether I approve or disapprove. Like there is anything I can do about it. lol
Obama said that while removing U.S. forces from Iraq won’t be “perfectly neat,” he said a call from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for a withdrawal timetable supports his position more than the longer-term presence favored by McCain or his fellow Republican, President Bush.
“John McCain and George Bush both said that if Iraq, as a sovereign government, stated that it was time for us to start withdrawing our troops, then they would respect the wishes of that sovereign government,” Obama said.
GOP consultant on tape offering access to senior Bush officials for library gift
The Sunday Times of London (hat tip: Think Progress) has some fascinating videotape of a GOP consultant named Stephen Payne offering to set up meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other senior Bush administration officials in return for a donation to the new library for President Bush, as well as as much as $500,000 for his firm, Worldwide Strategic Partners.
You can see the videotape and read the Sunday Times story in full here.
Hank posted July 13, 2008 at 4:23 pm
“John Cook’s ’scepticalscience.com’ BLOG is nothing more than another apologist for Al Gore and his political agenda. I’m always amazed that you think a credible argument for a AGW denier website is little more than an AGW alarmist website!”
————-
So Hank carefully read all of these scientific papers, and concluded that all of the scientists who authored them are “alarmists”?
And all of their papers are “blogs”?
Please explain your conclusions, Hank.
http://www.skepticalscience.com/solar-activity-sunspots-global-warming.htm
“This conclusion is confirmed by many studies quantifying the amount of solar influence in recent global warming:
* Solanki 2008 reconstructs 11,400 years of sunspot numbers using radiocarbon concentrations, finding “solar variability is unlikely to have been the dominant cause of the strong warming during the past three decades”.
* Ammann 2007: “Although solar and volcanic effects appear to dominate most of the slow climate variations within the past thousand years, the impacts of greenhouse gases have dominated since the second half of the last century.”
* Lockwood 2007 concludes “the observed rapid rise in global mean temperatures seen after 1985 cannot be ascribed to solar variability, whichever of the mechanism is invoked and no matter how much the solar variation is amplified.”
* Foukal 2006 concludes “The variations measured from spacecraft since 1978 are too small to have contributed appreciably to accelerated global warming over the past 30 years.”
* Scafetta 2006 says “since 1975 global warming has occurred much faster than could be reasonably expected from the sun alone.”
* Usoskin 2005 conclude “during these last 30 years the solar total irradiance, solar UV irradiance and cosmic ray flux has not shown any significant secular trend, so that at least this most recent warming episode must have another source.”
* Haigh 2003 says “Observational data suggest that the Sun has influenced temperatures on decadal, centennial and millennial time-scales, but radiative forcing considerations and the results of energy-balance models and general circulation models suggest that the warming during the latter part of the 20th century cannot be ascribed entirely to solar effects.”
* Stott 2003 increased climate model sensitivity to solar forcing and still found “most warming over the last 50 yr is likely to have been caused by increases in greenhouse gases.”
* Solanki 2003 concludes “the Sun has contributed less than 30% of the global warming since 1970″.
* Lean 1999 concludes “it is unlikely that Sun–climate relationships can account for much of the warming since 1970″.
* Waple 1999 finds “little evidence to suggest that changes in irradiance are having a large impact on the current warming trend.”
* Frolich 1998 concludes “solar radiative output trends contributed little of the 0.2°C increase in the global mean surface temperature in the past decade” ”
————-
Hank: “The recent G-8 conference in Japan is evidence that your side has lost the world wide political fight against global warming.”
————-
Hank does not seem to understand the obvious difference between politics and science. Not to mention the power and influence of the fossil-fuel industry on politics.
BENTON COUNTY : Neighbor killed after threats, home invasion
http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/230891/
“A Prairie Creek resident shot and killed a neighbor who had kicked in his door Tuesday evening and tried to assault him, police said.”
US military scraping the bottom of the barrel:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/227/story/43999.html
Suspect soldiers: Did crimes in U.S. foretell violence in Iraq?
Before Army Sgt. 1st Class Randal Ruby was accused in Iraq of beating prisoners and of conspiring to plant rifles on dead civilians, he amassed a 10-year criminal record in Colordao and Washington state for assaulting his wife and in Maine for a drunken high-speed police chase, for which he remains wanted.
Before Lance Cpl. Delano Holmes stabbed an Iraqi private to death, angering the soldier’s unit of coalition soldiers, he was hospitalized after threatening suicide in high school, accused of assault, disorderly conduct and trespassing, and, in the months leading up to deployment, twice linked to drug use.
Before Army Spc. Shane Carl Gonyon was convicted of stealing a pistol at Abu Ghraib prison, he was convicted twice on felony charges and arrested four times, once for allegedly giving a 13-year-old girl marijuana in exchange for oral sex. He enlisted weeks after his release from a federal prison in Oregon.
A yearlong examination of military and civilian records by The Sacramento Bee involving hundreds of troops who entered the services since the Iraq war began identified 120 cases of people whose backgrounds should have raised the suspicions of military recruiters, including felony convitions and serious drug, alcohol or mental health problems.
Of those, 70 later were involved in controversial or criminal incidents in Iraq.
Ruby, Holmes and Gonyon were among those cases.
“These guys are out there carrying weapons, fighting on the streets with drugs in their pockets,” said Tressie Cox, whose son, Lee Robert, had a history of drug and mental problems before he was charged with selling drugs in Iraq. “Shame on my son, but shame on all you people out there who are policing this and allowing this to continue to happen.”
The 70 were among the tens of thousands of military personnel recruited or retained as the armed services, entering the sixth year of the Iraq war, lowered educational, age and moral standards and granted a growing number of waivers to applicants whose backgrounds previously would have barred them from serving.
From 2003 to 2007, the percentage of Army recruits receiving so-called “moral conduct” waivers more than doubled, from 4.6 percent to 11.2 percent. Others, The Bee found, were able to enlist because they had no official criminal record of arrests or convictions, their records were overlooked or prosecutors suspended charges in lieu of military service — akin to a now-defunct Vietnam-era practice in which judges gave defendants a choice between prison and the military.
“How in the hell can they legally possess a gun?” asked Montgomery County, Ala., Sheriff D.T. Marshall, when questioned about a soldier from his county.
That soldier, Eli C. Gregory, was convicted in an attempted home invasion and of felony theft in Alabama, making him ineligible to legally possess a firearm there. Yet the military gave him a rifle and sent him to Iraq, where he was convicted by the Army of assault and battery on a fellow soldier and discharged.
Gregory, who returned to Alabama after his court-martial, said during an interview that he still cannot legally possess a firearm in the United States.
The military defended its recruiting policies, including granting more waivers for past conduct.
“Standards in our society have changed over the years; we are a reflection of those changes,” said Douglas Smith, spokesman for the Army Recruiting Command. “Considering offering a waiver to otherwise qualified recruits is the right thing to do for those Americans who want to answer the call to duty.”
Earlier this month, the Department of Defense announced a new system to categorize waivers by the severity of prior offenses to allow the services to analyze the link between waivers and future military behavior.
The examination looked at only a fraction of the 1.4 million people in uniform and was conducted largely without benefit of sophisticated criminal databases available to the military.
Still, The Bee linked dozens of soldiers and Marines with criminal records and other questionable backgrounds to misconduct in the military. In some cases, past misconduct appeared to forshadow future behavior.
“Criminal history is the best predictor of future behavior,” said Shawn Bushway, a criminology professor at the University of Albany, N.Y., School of Criminal Justice. “Any time you lower your standards, you’re going to raise the risk. No question about it.”
Nine months before the death of the first of three Iraqis that Army sniper Michael A. Hensley was accused of murdering, members of a San Diego-area family witnessing his actions in Seward, Alaska, were so concerned about what they saw that they videotaped him.
The family, sharing a third-floor hotel room in Seward, awakened to screams from the parking lot below and peered out to see Hensley threatening a woman inside a Jeep, pounding on the vehicle with his fists.
“He obviously wasn’t stable, just from seeing him the 20 minutes I did,” said Alex Elling, who was 18 when he videotaped the incident.
Hensley “had bloody knuckles, and the windshield of the Jeep was broken,” a Seward Police Department report said. Hensley, who had previously served six months’ probation on a drunken-driving conviction in Georgia, pleaded no contest to the Alaska charges of disorderly conduct.
In Iraq, the military found Hensley guilty of planting an AK-47 on the body of an Iraqi he was accused of killing, but not guilty in any of the three killings.
In the months surrounding his enlistment into the Army in 2000, Ricky Allen Burke was the subject of two court cases for unpaid debt, and, according to Monticello, Ky., Police Chief Ralph Miniard, he was involved in two vehicle accidents. His wife, who left him before their second anniversary, claimed in a domestic violence petition filed in March 2000 that he threatened to kill her, causing her to flee to a police station.
Two months later, court records say, Burke confronted his wife again at a relative’s house, and police cited him for violating the domestic violence order.
A domestic violence conviction could have triggered a federal law precluding Burke from possessing a firearm. But seven days after he enlisted, the criminal case was continued, one of several continuances before it was dismissed in 2002.
Three years later in Iraq, Burke shot and killed a wounded insurgent he claimed had moved toward a weapon. But soldiers contradicted his story in statements to investigators.
“(Burke) said to me, ‘Let me shoot him. Let me shoot him. I got payback coming,’ ” Staff Sgt. Timothy Nein said, adding that he repeatedly ordered Burke not to fire since the insurgent was injured and Nein saw no weapon nearby.
Despite the testimony against him, Burke was found not guilty of the killing by a military court.
In December, the National Guard quit granting felony waivers. The Guard’s chief recruiting officer, Col. Mike Jones, was quoted in the Army Times calling the previous policy “a risk,” but he later told The Bee an increased number of applicants made the policy no longer necessary.
Of the more than 120 soldiers and Marines with questionable pasts examined by The Bee, at least 18 had felony arrests or convictions or histories of mental illness. At least eight of the 18 later were connected to incidents in Iraq, and a ninth fatally shot himself while on guard duty in Kuwait.
The military refused to disclose who required waivers to enter the military, citing privacy, but waivers were not required of all convicted felons.
Gregory, the Alabama felon prohibited from possessing a firearm, said he was allowed to join without a waiver because he was convicted of stealing less than $500, so the Army didn’t technically consider the crime a felony. The Army confirmed that it does not require waivers for some felonies in which the crime loss is less than $500, but a spokesman noted that a felony waiver is required for larger amounts.
Spc. Shane Gonyon had four felony arrests and two convictions, but he had only to lie to avoid rejection.
Shortly after he was discharged from the Air Force in Wyoming for drunken driving in 1998, Gonyon was arrested in Colorado on suspicion of pointing a .25-caliber semiautomatic pistol at a homeless man who had accused him of theft.
The following year, he admitted to stealing more than $10,000 in equipment from an Air Force base, and months later, he was accused of providing marijuana to a 13-year-old girl in exchange for oral sex, triggering a felony charge that resulted in a guilty plea to misdemeanor child endangering.
Nineteen days after he walked away from a federal prison, Gonyon applied for the Michigan National Guard, claiming he had worked at a wood supply company during the period when he actually was incarcerated. He was accepted the following month, in January 2003.
Since Gonyon had previously served in the military, the Guard didn’t require a complete background check. That practice also ended earlier this year, after a guardsman with a past felony conviction shot and killed four civilians.
Gonyon wasn’t confronted about his criminal record until 2006, after an incident at Abu Ghraib prison, where he processed detainees. In late March or early April 2006, Gonyon stole a 7 mm pistol from a translator. He was caught trying to mail it to the United States.
“I deliberately concealed my arrest(s) and convictions,” Gonyon told a court-martial panel, which convicted him of theft and other charges.
The military is required to screen applicants for drug or alcohol abuse, mental health history and prior criminal conduct.
Recruiters, however, are not required to call former employers, research all information held by law enforcement agencies, check civil court files or, unless a security clearance is involved, attempt to contact relatives, former spouses, schoolteachers and neighbors — all techniques used by law enforcement agencies to screen applicants.
Such checks could uncover applicants not necessarily fit for service, even though they lack serious criminal convictions.
The additional checks might find criminal defendants not prosecuted in exchange for agreements to join the military, for instance, or defendants in criminal cases who had their charges dropped or reduced in exchange for providing information to police.
When the military did its standard criminal background check on David Crawford, who entered the Army at age 18 in 2006, he had only a minor juvenile record, Cincinnati police said. A request to police for a more thorough check would have revealed much more.
“I would have told them he was a suspect in a murder case,” said police Spc. John Horn, who questioned Crawford about the killing days before he left for boot camp. “When I interviewed him in September 2006, he admitted, because he was sniffling, that he was on a three-day cocaine binge.”
Crawford was arrested by Cincinnati officers for the crime when he returned from boot camp in 2006, and the following year, he was convicted of murder and sentenced to 28 years to life.
Asked why someone like Delano Holmes was allowed to deploy to Iraq, Marine Capt. Brett Miner, a prosecutor at Holmes’ court-martial, said: “We’re kind of short on bodies.”
Indianapolis police records show that on Jan. 13, 2002, when Holmes was 16, officers dispatched an ambulance to his high school after Holmes threatened to kill himself.
Fifteen months later, Holmes was arrested for disorderly conduct at an Indianapolis mall and banned from returning there for a year. He returned 10 minutes later and was arrested on a trespassing charge.
Then, on April 14, 2004, a college student told police that Holmes had shoved him onto a bed and hit him in the forehead during a dispute over a vehicle.
Weeks later Holmes left for boot camp in San Diego.
In the months leading up to his 2006 deployment to Iraq, civilian police found Holmes in a pickup containing marijuana residue and drug paraphernalia. In a separate incident, the military disciplined him for failing a drug test given to members of his unit preparing to deploy to Iraq.
Section 6210.5 of the Marine Corps Separation and Retirement Manual says Marines confirmed to have used illegal drugs “will be processed” for separation. A Marine Corps spokeswoman said the regulation does not give a time limit for completing that separation process, but she acknowledged that commanders had not even started the process for Holmes.
Three months after he deployed, Holmes was standing guard at an outpost in Fallujah when he pulled out a 13¼-inch bayonet and repeatedly stabbed Pvt. Munther Jasem Muhammed Hassin, whose Iraq army unit was serving alongside U.S. Marines. An autopsy found Hassin suffered 17 stab wounds, 26 cuts and a severed spine.
Holmes then fired Hassin’s AK-47 rifle to make it appear he had killed him in self-defense, the prosecutor told The Bee. Defense attorneys said the fight started when Hassin refused to put out a cigarette, which Holmes feared might alert insurgents.
A military panel at Camp Pendleton, Calif., found Holmes guilty of negligent homicide and making a false statement and sentenced him to 10 months in jail or, in effect, time served.
Holmes did not testify during his military trial, but read a statement. He stood silent for several minutes, turning pages in a notebook. Then his eyes filled with tears so large that they could be seen falling on the lectern from across the room.
Between sobs and silence, he finally spoke, calling himself a warrior and a Christian.
“I believe we are all products of our experiences,” Holmes said. “God gave me more than I could handle.”
Holmes’ criminal record was not part of his court-martial, and media accounts identified him as a college student. The prosecutor acknowledged in a subsequent interview that he was aware of Holmes’ record.
“I think that his character for violence was a contributing factor to the death of Private Hassin,” Capt. Miner said.
COSTS AND CONSEQUENCES
For years the military was warned about applicants with criminal backgrounds.
A 1996 Pentagon study of more than 100,000 California recruits found that those with arrest records left the service at a rate 70 percent higher than those without such histories. A 2003 study warned that destructive behavior by troops with criminal histories or troubling backgrounds “could have the most serious consequences.”
An October 2007 Army study shows that although recruits requiring conduct waivers re-enlisted at a higher rate, were promoted to sergeant faster and received more awards, they had a higher rate of desertion, misconduct and failure to complete alcohol rehabilitation.
Hassin, the Iraqi soldier killed by Holmes, had a relative assigned to the same post. His death angered the Iraqi soldiers serving with the Marines there.
“They took it pretty personal,” Capt. Javier Torres testified at Holmes’ court-martial. “After the incident, the Iraqis did not want to assume (their) post.”
In another well-publicized incident, Army Spc. Mario L. Lozano Jr. fueled anti-war protest across Italy when he mistakenly shot and wounded an Italian journalist and killed her bodyguard at a checkpoint in Iraq. The shooting of Nicola Calipari, an Italian intelligence agent, and journalist Giuliana Sgrena, whose freedom Calipari had help secure, bolstered anti-war sentiment in Italy credited with helping elect a new government, which pulled its troops from Iraq in late 2006.
Though the shooting was the subject of hundreds of news accounts, including a “60 Minutes” segment, and described in two books, The Bee uncovered criminal records on Lozano not previously made public.
In 1994, for instance, a man who repossessed Lozano’s car told Hollywood, Fla., police that Lozano threatened him.
“My Rottweiler was barking,” Lozano explained in an interview. “I look out my window, and there’s a guy rolling the car back. So I came out. I grabbed a bat.”
Lozano joined the Army in 1998. Two years later, his wife dialed 911 and told Hollywood police that Lozano had hit her in the face with his open hand because she had been seeing another man.
“I’ve never done anything like that to any female,” Lozano responded. He left after the incident and was back at his military post in Alaska in a day, he said, because “I know that … even if she dials 911 and hangs up, the cops are going to come.”
A domestic violence conviction could have ended Lozano’s military career, but with Lozano in Alaska, records indicate, authorities had trouble pursuing the case. His wife subsequently filed for divorce.
In Alaska, Fairbanks police twice sought Lozano regarding threats to a man there, he was accused of writing bad checks, and eventually owed child support of more than $5,500, prompting a Florida court to take legal action.
Lozano left the active duty Army in 2001 but joined the National Guard in July 2003. Less than two years later, he was sitting atop a Humvee parked near a road leading to the Baghdad airport, manning an M-240B belt-fed machine gun that can fire 10 large-caliber rounds per second.
Lozano said he shone large lights on the vehicle carrying the Italians before firing, but Sgrena’s book, “Friendly Fire,” said the illumination and the shots came simultaneously.
An Italian court threw out the murder charge against Lozano, his attorney said, after realizing the United States is allowed to prosecute its own soldiers.
Lozano blamed the journalist for the shooting. “If it wasn’t for her, it wouldn’t have happened,” he said. “It was her idea to go over there and mingle with terrorists.”
Lozano said he left the Guard after commanders refused to let him deploy to Afghanistan.
“They got like 5,000 Italian soldiers over there,” he said. “They don’t want to create no kind of problems.”
MILITARY HISTORIES
Like Lozano, several other soldiers and Marines linked to incidents in Iraq had questionable histories — obtained not as civilians, but as members of the armed services. They, too, were nonetheless deployed.
Three years after Randal Ruby joined the Army in 1985, civilian police near his post at Fort Lewis, Wash., arrested him on a charge of assault after Tacoma police officers reported finding him pacing amid belongings scattered across his living room. The officers reported that the left side of his wife’s face was swollen.
Six months later, Ruby’s wife again called officers, who found her scalp and forehead red from an apparent attack, and, in 1991, she obtained a restraining order after alleging Ruby “struck me several times.”
Ruby was transferred to Fort Carson, Colo., and civilian police were called to the couple’s home after his wife accused him of choking her.
He filed for bankruptcy protection in 1997, the same year he led three police officers in Maine on a high-speed chase that ended when he lost control of his pickup and crashed.
Ruby was indicted in that case on charges of eluding an officer, drunken driving, speeding more than 30 mph over the limit and driving without a license.
A warrant remained outstanding when he deployed to Iraq, where he was accused in 2006 of “drop kicking” one detainee and allowing a translator to beat another with a Kevlar vest.
“What was Sergeant Ruby doing when he (the detainee) started crying after he beat him in the head with a Kevlar?” a defense attorney asked Sgt. Justin Stubblefield during a military proceeding in 2007.
“He was laughing,” the soldier responded.
Soldiers, including Ruby’s driver, testified that the unit kept AK-47 rifles, known as “packages,” in Humvees to plant on civilians killed by mistake. Once, Pfc. Nathan Huhn testified, Ruby ordered a “package” after telling his men to open fire and calling in an airstrike on an area populated by civilians.
Once the firing started, Huhn testified, “We maneuvered up there and still didn’t see nobody … a crowd of women, children and men, but nobody with weapons or like that. Sgt. Ruby told Staff Sgt. (Armando) Cardona (Jr.) to go ahead and send the package.”
Cardona testified: “I grabbed an AK, walked up around my truck, looked for a spot” to throw it, then realized he couldn’t reach across a canal.
Ruby, who said in an interview that he ordered his men to stop firing as soon as he realized civilians were in the area, was charged with nine offenses but found guilty of only one: disrespecting a superior.
That superior, Lt. Neale Shank, was found dead in a suspected suicide weeks before Ruby’s court-martial.
Ruby was sentenced to a reprimand, in which a general wrote: “Your behavior is a disgrace to the Army.”
Now retired and living in Kentucky, Ruby denied ever planting weapons, and said his soldiers were pressured to testify against him, especially after Shank’s death. He also maintained that his civilian charges “have nothing to do with Iraq.”
“I never robbed a bank or a 7-Eleven or smoked dope or any of that stuff that they’re letting kids in the military for today because there’s no draft,” Ruby said. “I served my country honorably.”
That’s what happens in the heat of domestic affairs.
I’ll bet the ElDorado police take seriously the threat to them in the middle of domestic assault situations- as it is the most dangerous time for police. But if you’re the victim- forget about it.
Dear cosmos, my strident little buddy,
Do yo deny scepticalscience.com is a BLOG?
Do you deny that it’s stated purpose is to be 100% anti global warming sceptics?
Do you deny that John Cook doesn’t have any climate science credentials?
Do you deny that Al Gore spending $300,000,000.00 for his propaganda over the next three years is politics not science?
Do you deny there will be no global solution to your ’scientific’ problem that isn’t driven by politics?
Do you deny that the G-8 summit was a total bust when it comes to any solution to greenhouse gas emissions?
Do you deny that there is spittle on you keyboard immediately after one of your strident little posts?
Just wondering, I still love ya.
Hey Hank!
Looks like Nikki is an up and coming star. Be sure and give him/her a treat.
KansasNative,
“said blogger” has repeatedly expressed “self defense” on this blog as to why a gun is carried.
You just choose to take something out of context to try to make someone look bad when nothing they said was bad at all.
KansasNative,
He never expressed a “need to kill” as you tried to claim he did.
He clearly said “in case” I need to kill someone.
Figuring that my father routinely talks about a gun being used for self defense and his carrying one for that reason, the way you try to twist his comments is rather obvious.
As you yourself admit…he said “in case I need to kill someone”…
the same thing a criminal sociopath would say.
You can twist it any way YOU like but he said it exactly like you admit.
He said NOTHING at the time about self defense.
End of argument.
Hank,
Do you deny that John Cook’s scepticalscience.com blog provides credible science that refutes van Loon’s claim in your 6:10 am post?
Do you deny that Anthony Watts doesn’t understand statistics?
Do you deny that you AGW deniers don’t have any credible science to support your position?
Do you deny that the fossil-fuel energy sector has spent millions to spread misinformation about climate science?
Al Gore isn’t spending $300 million.
And again, “politics” is not “science”. What the politicians do, or don’t do, doesn’t refute AGW science.
KansasNative,
These were your words, the ones twisting what was said:
“just expressed the “need” to kill.”
No where did my father express the need to kill as you tried to imply.
Thanks Regular,
She comes from good bloodlines. Her dam, her grandmother on her dam’s side are both herding champions. Her grandfather on her sire’s side was the first Bearded Collie to become an AKC herding champion. Her Sire is a multiple international BIS winner.
Right now she has cute working for her!
We’re going to have a good time with her!
My Right to Unlimited Rights
by Mike S. Adams
This trait of being more in love with consumption than production is one shared by most of my socialist colleagues in academia. They base their lives on the idea of taking “from each according to his ability” and giving “to each according to his need.” The problem is that they do a better job of articulating their needs than promoting their abilities. This is, of course, because socialists are generally short on abilities. They seek socialism because they think being guaranteed an average outcome is safer than trying to beat the average in a system based on merit, which is otherwise known as ability.
Anyone watching the 2008 presidential race has doubtless seen a similar dynamic among supporters of Barack H. Obama. Most of his supporters have been talking about rights without any mention of the notion of responsibilities. Like supply and demand, and need and ability, the terms rights and responsibilities are best understood in relation to one another. For example, I have a 2nd Amendment Right to Bear Arms that the government cannot simply take away from me on a whim. But I also have a responsibility for everything that occurs between the time I discharge a bullet and the time the bullet comes to its final stopping point.
But consider the following list of “rights” that supporters of Obama have recently told me that we all have:
Everyone has the right to a college education. I can’t imagine what it will be like as a college professor once Obama implements this one. I’ve been teaching to the occasional unqualified black and the occasional unqualified athlete for years. But now that everyone, including, presumably, the mentally retarded, has a right to a college degree, I might just retire and become a firearms instructor. Hopefully, Obama will not grant a Right to Firearms Education to both idiots and the insane. (Author’s Note: This one came from Obama himself).
Everyone has a right to breathe clean air. This is a really bad idea for the Obama campaign. If everyone starts to enforce his right to breathe clean air in the presence of swarthy young Muslims, Obama might lose an important part of his electoral base.
Everyone has a right to free health care. I recently learned this from an incoming Drexel law student appearing on The O’Reilly Factor. Bill did a great job by asking her whether this right is in the constitution or whether it just comes from the fact that she is a really nice person. She was forced to admit that it was not in the constitution. She should do really well in law school because she’s a really nice person.
Everyone has a right to demand that the rich pay taxes in proportion to their ability to pay taxes. I recently learned this from an incoming Yale law student on the same segment of The Factor. Everyone agrees that the rich should pay more taxes than the poor. What is controversial is the notion that they should also pay a higher percentage of their income in taxes. But that was not the issue in this segment. The issue was whether the existing gap in the proportion of taxes paid by the poor and the rich should be widened and, if so, by how much. When someone says we have a right to tax the rich “in proportion to their ability to pay” they mean “tax them until they can no longer pay” or “tax them until they are bankrupt.” Many people who hold this view were not actually alive during the Carter Administration. But they have taken history classes from people who assure us that he was really not such a bad president.
Every gay man has a right to feel comfortable. I heard this one from a first-year law student at Yale. He actually informed me thrice that his right to be comfortable as a gay man trumps the First Amendment. I guess they don’t teach constitutional law until the second year of the Yale law program. But the question is: How did this sissy get into Yale Law School?
After spending only a little time listening to followers of the Dali Bama I have concluded that, in Obama’s America, everyone gets to declare at least one new fundamental right regardless of whether it is written into the constitution. And so, naturally, I am going to declare first that I have a right to unlimited rights. (This is sort of like making one’s only wish a request for unlimited wishes).
My second declaration of a new right is a little more complicated. First, I believe that I have a right to demand that you show me a copy of the U.S. Constitution every time you demand a new right. And if you cannot identify the constitutional basis of your proposed right, you forfeit that right as well as your right to vote in 2008. And, of course, I get to cast the vote you forfeited.
So, those of you prone to simply announce fundamental rights without any constitutional basis should beware that this could soon deprive you of the right to vote. Until now, it’s only deprived of you the right to sound intelligent.
http://townhall.com/columnists/MikeSAdams/2008/07/07/my_right_to_unlimited_rights?page=2
Whoa, we’ve turned it into a CCH thread?
Tell me, KansasNative, why do you think CCH was passed in Kansas? What is the purpose for carring a handgun concealed?
Dad,
I actually found a good blog which tracks all the self defense shootings around the country.
I think I will post an example everyday.
This way we can rile up both the AGW alarmists and those who are against guns too!
looks like the dems. are going to tell the oil companies to use it or lose it on federal leases. About time. Good response to Drill here…
“Democrats support more drilling,” he said. “In fact, what the president hasn’t told you is that the oil companies are already sitting on 68 million acres of federal lands with the potential to nearly double U.S. oil production. That is why in the coming days congressional Democrats will vote on ‘Use It or Lose It’ legislation requiring the big oil companies to develop these resources or lose their leases to someone else who will.”
Nathaniel posted July 13, 2008 at 8:16 pm
“This way we can rile up both the AGW alarmists and those who are against guns too!”
————
Your father’s daily posts don’t “rile” me. I enjoy proving that you people are misinformed and gullible.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/07/open-thread-713-2/#comment-383119
Anyways, get this. Oliver Stone is filming “W”, a movie about the life and times of our own beloved President Bush.
“Stone has said the film, which will focus on the life and presidency of Bush, won’t be an anti-Bush polemic, but, as he told Daily Variety, “a fair, true portrait of the man. How did Bush go from being an alcoholic bum to the most powerful figure in the world?”
BTW: I need not remind you what a tiny effect drilling in ANWR will have way out in 2017…
#
cosmos_originally
Posted July 13, 2008 at 8:36 pm | Permalink
Nathaniel posted July 13, 2008 at 8:16 pm
“This way we can rile up both the AGW alarmists and those who are against guns too!”
————
Your father’s daily posts don’t “rile” me. I enjoy proving that you people are misinformed and gullible.
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/07/open-thread-713-2/#comment-383119
———————-
cosmos is just irked that the G8 summit revealed that the major countries of the world saw to it that the Kyoto protocol died on the vine. The world leaders have awakened to the unworkable carbon credit and tax plan. It does not work, because countries adopting the Kyoto plan have had their co2 levels go up, not down.
And again, “politics” is not “science”.
What the politicians do, or don’t do, doesn’t refute AGW science.
Drill the leases! Or We’ll Repeal the Leases!
Estimate is U.S. oil production would double if they drilled.
The bush film would no doubt be classified as a Tragic Comedy.
Hank, just so we all get it right… IF you had to use your CCH gun, for what purpose would you use it??
Chas,
For the same reason you would use your bayonet of course…
A bayonet, in the home, is a BIT different from a gun carried about by a person who has said “In case I need to kill someone.”
BlueJay,
The reasons for using them are still the same though.
Dear Chas.,
It would be used as a last resort to protect me and my family against extreme bodily harm or to save our lives.
I would avoid as much as possible any circumstances that would require me to use my hand gun.
I have always brought reasonable and rational discourse to the concealed carry debate on this BLOG.
That being said, there is only one reason to pull a handgun for self defense. There is only one reason that I have the handgun that I carry. That’s the reality of CCH. Anyone that doesn’t understand that reality doesn’t understand the law and they should never get their license to carry a handgun.
You asked,
“Hank, just so we all get it right…IF you had to use your CCH gun, for what purpose would you use it??”
It would be used to eliminate the threat to my life or to the life of my wife.
BlueJay,
You are right though, they are different in many ways.
Using a gun for self defense is far more effective than a bayonet.
“That being said, there is only one reason to pull a handgun for self defense. There is only one reason that I have the handgun that I carry. That’s the reality of CCH.” [HLP]
Thanks…. and now, that “one reason” would be??
Thanks Hank….
Nathaniel
Posted July 13, 2008 at 10:19 pm | Permalink
Chas,
For the same reason you would use your bayonet of course…
========================================
With stupid answers like that, is there much wonder WHY so many here dont trust you with your gun??? Geez!!
My home is protected…. Yours is protected… HOW they are protected I dont think is much of your damn business!!
You gun advocates might pay attention to this:
http://www.kansas.com/213/story/461578.html
My understanding is that in order for you to protect yourself with a gun- you have to have reason to fear for your life or your safety. Obviously this woman was coming after this other woman…so if she would had been justified in shooting her, why is the judge not allowing the jury to consider self defense in a stabbing death?
If someone were threatening me with bodily harm, you’re darn right I’d protect myself. Why are you all not fighting so hard for this woman who used a knife- is it because she’s black or is it because it doesn’t deal with your precious gun arguments?
Chas,
Do you know what the continuum of force is?
Do you know what deadly force is?
Nathan, are you an IDIOT, or do you just play one on the Blog???
PMama, seems to me like you have run across a story there that needs some investigation… I sure hope that self protection isnt just limited to GUNS… or I could be in deep Kaka with my Deutsche Bayonet…
“It would be used as a last resort to protect me and my family against extreme bodily harm or to save our lives.”
I happen to know better.
Guess ol’ Dad needs the Boy to answer for him… Hmmmmm….
Self-defense via knife, firearm, baseball bat…all acceptable.
The Judge deemed that there were no facts to support the possibility of self-defense.
No need for further discussion.
Political_mama,
Your entire argument is based on the premise that the situation would have been justified self defense if only McCullough has used a gun.
The article is not exactly a picture perfect description of what happened, but the guy with McCullough had taken her back to the car.
It didn’t seem like there was any threat of serious bodily harm or death by the victim towards McCullough to warrant McCullough going back into the store to stab the woman.
I don’t see how using a gun would have made it self defense either.
You can’t just shoot someone or stab someone because they are swinging at you with their fists.
On top of that, the reason for the fight starting is not entirely clear.
If you start or instigate a fight and then end up killing someone to protect yourself, that is not considered legaly justified self defense because you instigated the action.
I don’t have all the facts in front of me here to be able to tell you if that is what did or didn’t happen.
Obviously the Judge felt there was not enough evidence to warrant this being self defense.
Do you have something to prove otherwise?
#
cosmos_originally
Posted July 13, 2008 at 9:09 pm | Permalink
And again, “politics” is not “science”.
What the politicians do, or don’t do, doesn’t refute AGW science.
————————————
If AGW was only about science, then you and the rabid Goracle worshipers wouldn’t be promoting it with so much spit and spew.
There are many more important scientific fields than AGW that don’t have the rabid, foaming at the mouth political hacks like yourself yelling from every street corner.
Cancer, diabetes, birth defects, AIDs and other diseases are much more important to find a cure/vaccine/solution than AGW.
Feeding the world’s hungry, providing potable water and educating the illiterate are much more than AGW.
Chas,
What does calling me an idiot add to the discussion?
If you don’t want to discuss the topic, you don’t have to. Feel free to skip right on over it if all you can do is call people names.
Chas,
You were also the one to inform the blog of how you would hide behind your door with a baseball bat or use the bayonet in your bedroom for self defense.
If you didn’t think those things were any of my business then why did you share them?
#
Chas
Posted July 13, 2008 at 10:40 pm | Permalink
Nathan, are you an IDIOT, or do you just play one on the Blog???
=============================
Chas,
Why does the Eagle have a copy of your paperwork? Why would a newspaper care if you are a minister or not? Why would they keep such paperwork on file?
So the same people who defend the guy running out of his house to confront his neighbor’s unarmed hispanic robbers, are going to SIT HERE and say that a woman who stabbed the woman hitting her was not self defense.
Go figure.
James McCluer has nothing on you chas. It’s a bluff. He’s hoping you react to it. Don’t.
Chas,
I suggest you learn about the continuum of force and what deadly force is if you intend on using a bayonet for self defense.
I teach these things in the Marine Corps because I carry a loaded weapon to protect the armory during the course of my duties.
You really do need to understand those things.
This is not an insult, it is a really good suggestion.
NOW you got it PMama….
Nathan, if some big fat guy came after you- would you find that to be a threat of serious bodily harm? Or is it because it was a woman that you think she couldn’t possibly inflict harm? If she got one good punch in, enough to knock her down, how do you know that she wouldn’t had stabbed her as well? She already threatened to kill her.
I don’t know the facts of this case, but from what I’m reading, self defense should be left up to the JURY to decide.
Nathan… Please show ALL of us where I called you an Idiot??
And why hasn’t the Eagle called a meetup in more than a year James?
That’s on you. They don’t want to meet you or be responsible for you.
Politcal_mama,
Texas Law is different than Kansas law in regards to the protection of property.
If I am correct, I believe that man in Texas didn’t just shoot those people, he only shot them when they presented weapons and were going to try to kill him.
The two situations are entirely different.
P-Mom,
You obviously haven’t seen the videos of the incident in the store that day. The only person justified in using a handgun for self defense would have been Callaway.
McCullough, after a minor altercation left the store and went to her car and got a knife. She came back into the store and stabbed Callaway. That is why she is being charged with first degree murder.
If you come at me with a knife, I can pull my handgun and kill you in self defense. If you slap me in a Quick Trip and I go out to my car and get my gun, come back in the store and shoot you I have just committed premeditated murder.
That is why McCullough is being charged with first degree murder. Her life was not at risk once she left the store.
Nevermind, they didn’t have weapons that I know of, but he warned them to not move or he would shoot.
Texas just passed a law expanding the abilities of homeowners to protect their property.
Those were two burglers who were tresspassing and stealing from someones home.
The two situations do not compare.
And what happened to that meetup you were going to call between you, WS Clark, and the editors there James?
Not answering your emails are they?
Nathan, the two men shot and killed by Mr. Horn, in Texas, were not armed. They were running AWAY from him, and were shot in the back, at the same time as the 911 Operator TOLD Mr. Horn NOT to go out on his porch to shoot them, which is what Mr. Horn TOLD the 911 Operator he was going to do.
This was a very strange case, in Texas. I do not understand why the Grand Jury didnt indict him… Unless they figure there will be a Civil Suit, for loss of life… just like OJ…
Multi-nic’d ‘Regular’ posted July 13, 2008 at 10:49 pm
“If AGW was only about science, then you and the rabid Goracle worshipers wouldn’t be promoting it with so much spit and spew.”
——–
WHY are YOU lying about AGW science, multi-nic’d ‘Regular’?
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2008/07/open-thread-713-2/#comment-383020
“I think mult-nic’d ‘Regular’ said that the scientists are guilty of a global conspiracy to FALSIFY the CO2 data.”
Nathaniel,
We’re still laughing at your very gullible post here (and other posts),
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/09/open-thread-915/#comment-185927
““Not all of these researchers would describe themselves as global warming skeptics,” said Avery”
———-
That’s Nathaniel’s lying agricultural economist, Dennis Avery.
D-O events were not “global warming”
http://blogs.kansas.com/weblog/2007/09/open-thread-915/#comment-185980
see, omg Nathan what a freaking nut you are.
Unbelieveable.
The man who shot the two UNARMED man told them to STOP and then shot them not even a full second later.
He was in no danger whatsoever. But someone PHYSICALLY assaults someone else and that’s ok.
Don’t you get dizzy trying to defend the indefensible?