Mass murderer Cho Seung-hui made a video.
In other news, 183 people were killed today in Baghdad in four separate bombings.
Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Goldy, I think he’d be called a mass killer, not a serial killer, because his murders were a single event.
From what we know so far, it does seem warning signs were ignored. I suspect we’re going to eventually see there was fault on the part of the college administration. Colleges want parents to believe their campuses are safe, so they sweep security issues under the rug and try to hide campus crimes from the public. If they had systems in place for early intervention with apparently troubled students, it would look like the students weren’t safe. So they pretend everything is fine and do nothing to prevent something like this. If nothing else comes out of this tragedy, hopefully it will prompt serious soul-searching on campuses everywhere about their policies for handling cases involving troubled individuals.
They’ll end up tearing that building down because no one will want to go in there. They should name the new one after that instructor who sacrificed himself to save his students.
What an enormous waste of time!
Someone should tax the effing news media for the advert profits they have made from promoting this story.
Yes it is dreadful, but it took maybe 15 minutes to learn all that was worth learning (or less) not dayas and days and days with NO OTHER NEWS!
In the meantime:
Tomorrow Gonzales goes before the Senate
The Bushies are blocking an Iraqui epidemiology professor from speaking in Seattle!
The DOD is talking about docking the USAF and USN s;laries so it can keep feeding the Iraq surge.
Nigeria, a world oil power, may be entering civil war.
Condi Rice is pregnant.
The US Supremes have decided that pregnant women must die if the life of s full term baby is at stake.
The Brit Pound has now risen to over $2. Pounds are better investments than the US stock market.
The Wash legislature wants us t put sirens on all campus to announce that there is a murderer or rapist or flasher or mean person at lose aongst the 50,000 occupants of the UW campus. 1 toot for a meanie, 2 toots for a flashe, 3 toots for a rapist, 4 toots for a rapist, one long blast for a nuclear explosion. Write it down!
OOOPS at least one of my news items in the last list is not substantiated.
One that is ………
The Bushies have banned Dr. Riyadh Lafta from visiting the UW to discuss deaths of Iraqi kids. There will be a videocast by one of his coworkers, from Free Canada, at 7PM Friday at the UW’s Kane Hall.
(more below)
or you can stay home and listen to more about the media’s new villain. I can’t wait for the movie.
Aren’t you happy to be protected from the evil Dr?
Iraqi casualty count researcher visa denied
An Iraqi medical school professor invited to the University of
Washington to consult with colleagues on a research project to
document elevated levels of pediatric cancers in Basra, Iraq, has
been denied both a visa to the United States as well as a transit
visa to travel through Heathrow Airport. In the face of the US visa
denial, Dr. Lafta was instead invited to Canada to meet with
colleagues, and was scheduled to present a talk at Simon Fraser
University on Friday, April 20. To come to Canada, however, Dr.
Lafta needed to travel through Britain; the British embassy in
Jordan, however, yesterday denied him a visa to travel through
Heathrow to keep that appointment in Vancouver BC.
University of Washington organizers of the project have now recruited
a back-up speaker, Dr. Les Roberts, who was the lead researcher on
the 2004 Lancet story, “Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion
of Iraq: cluster sample survey,” and a co-author of a follow-up study
in 2006 that estimated more than 600,000 Iraqis have died as a
consequence of the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.
The pediatric cancer project was conceived as part of a sister
university relationship developed after the US invasion of Iraq in
2003. The research project is supported by a grant from the Puget
Sound Partners, a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation initiative.
Dr. Riyadh Lafta, who teaches medicine at Baghdad’s Al-Mustansiriya
University College of Medicine, co-authored the both Lancet articles.
“We wish Dr. Lafta was coming to Seattle, or even to Vancouver,” said
Amy Hagopian, UW faculty member in the School of Public Health. “But
since we could not obtain visas, we are very grateful to Dr. Roberts
for coming to Seattle to tell this important story about the public
health consequences of the war in Iraq.” Tim Takaro, a public health
physician teaching at Simon Fraser University, is the Vancouver-
based research collaborator on the childhood cancer study based at
Simon Fraser University.
“We look forward to publishing the findings of our research project,
as we believe these elevated cancer rates among children need to be
more clearly understood,” Hagopian said.
Dr. Lafta lives in Baghdad with his wife and sons. He worked 14 years
for the Iraqi Ministry of Health, where he conducted immunization
campaigns in rural areas for UNICEF during the time of US-imposed
sanctions. UNICEF has estimated (8/99) that those sanctions resulted
in an additional 500,000 child deaths in Iraq during the 1990s.
Les Roberts has a Masters degree in public health from Tulane
University and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from Johns
Hopkins. He did a post-doctorate fellowship in epidemiology at the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention where he worked for 4
years. In 1994, he worked as an epidemiologist for the World Health
Organization in Rwanda during their civil war. Les was Director of
Health Policy at the International Rescue Committee from Dec. 2000
until April of 2003. He is presently a lecturer at the Johns Hopkins
University Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering
where he teaches each fall, and teaches in the Columbia Program on
Forced Migration and Health each spring.
##
======================================================
REPRINT from 4/18/07 Globe & Mail:
IRAQI EPIDEMIOLOGIST
U.K. won’t let B.C.-bound author of child cancer study land
JONATHAN WOODWARD
Special to The Globe and Mail
After he couldn’t get a visa to tell Americans about an alarming rise
in cancer levels among Iraqi children, a renowned Iraqi
epidemiologist has been told he can’t fly through Britain en route to
give a similar talk in Canada.
Riyadh Lafta — best known for a controversial study in the respected
medical journal The Lancet that estimated Iraq’s war dead at more
than half a million — said in an e-mail to his U.S. research
colleagues that he had two choices: Fly to England without the
transit visa, or turn around and go home.
“[British consular officials] refuse to give us a transit visa just
to change airplanes,” Dr. Lafta wrote from Amman to colleagues at the
University of Washington, and to B.C.’s Simon Fraser University,
where he planned to give a talk on Friday.
“I am sorry you are disappointed, but what can I do?”
University officials were working hard to bring him to Canada through
France or Switzerland, but while flights could be arranged, officials
have not heard from those countries about whether they would grant
him a visa. With Dr. Lafta are scores of documents that will help
researchers from Simon Fraser, Washington and Iraq determine how
badly the U.S.-led war in Iraq affects children — whether birth
defects in Iraq are on the rise, and whether Iraqi children are
suffering a tenfold increase in cancers such as leukemia, said Simon
Fraser professor Tim Takaro.
“We need this data and, as unpopular as it is, we need to complete
this work,” Dr. Takaro said. “It’s extraordinary that the British
would have held up something, and it makes me think that they were
influenced to do it — we’d love to know why.”
Dr. Lafta had applied for a U.S. visa on July 20, 2006, to speak to
students at the University of Washington about the death toll of the
war in Iraq. He was helped by a U.S. congressman and a senator, but
his application was not approved. His Canadian visa was issued during
that time.
Last week, university officials at Simon Fraser approved a plan to
bring Dr. Lafta to B.C. His itinerary would have him spend slightly
more than four hours at Heathrow Airport in London, a place his
colleagues said he has been many times before. He applied for the
transit visa four days ago, but it was denied late yesterday by
British officials in Amman.
British consular officials said they could not discuss the specific
case, but said transit visas are usually issued on short notice, and
said Dr. Lafta would have a letter that states the reason for his
denial. The Globe and Mail could not reach Dr. Lafta about this
letter yesterday.
“I think that I now have two choices: No. 1, to go and try to get in
the airplane from Amman without the visa, but this is going to be
very difficult,” Dr. Lafta wrote. “No. 2 is to go back home tomorrow.”
Born in Iraq, Dr. Lafta was trained as a physician at Baghdad
University College and worked for 14 years for the health ministry
under Saddam Hussein, becoming the head of two departments. His name
was on the 2006 study in The Lancet.
As a contingency plan, Simon Fraser has invited another author of the
study, Les Roberts from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health.
“I’m proud of the local university for holding this [talk] when
others wouldn’t,” said Bill Siksay, the NDP immigration critic.
Um, Seattle Jew, Condi is 53. . .granted, not as old as Elizabeth, John the Baptizer’s momma, but really. . . .
Roger@1 Technically he is a “Spree Killer”.
It’s a sad world where we study, categorize, and discuss these people. . .
If Daddy hadn’t escalated… I mean SURGED the troops in his perfect plan to bring peace to Baghdad, there would have been MORE people killed by those bombs!! See, the escal…the SWURGE is already working.
Yeah.
It must be true. I read it on Faux News…
Tree …
Maimonides wrote an introduction to Jewish ideas called “Guide to the Perplexed.” Maimonides warned HIS readers that some remarks would be intentionally misleading and that they would need to depend on their own reasoning to use his Guide.
I recommend the same approach to reading Blogs.
Roger @1,
Good point. I’ve changed it to “mass murderer.”
Mission Accomplished!
Read this: http://www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/nics/nicsindex.htm
and this: http://abcnews.go.com/US/print?id=3052278
Virginia had the information to pass into the NICS data base that would have caused his background check to come up bad.
I don’t think Rosie O’Donnell is helping you liberals very much these days. She is unhinged.
I wish NBC had not aired this.
Support our troops – take their place.
The Price of Oil is down today – Can’t wait for the price of gas to follow!
We need to discuss/study the people that do these crimes so we know what to look for in the future to perhaps stop these tragedies. In 2005 Cho’s room mates did exactly what they should have done to alert officials to the concerns they had–it seems that those in charge dropped the ball. Cho’s judicial file on his mental state should have been reported to the state at that time–this would have kept him from purchasing the guns. I’m glad that this has been brought out in the non-stop coverage of this event. The people of Virginia now need to make changes in how their government officials handle such data–it is up to them to study the events and decide how they want laws changed.
I have another question regarding gun purchases by resident aliens or people here on a visa (as the killer at the UDUB was). Why does our country give all the rights and privileges of U.S. citizens, to non-citizens? I’d think that this would be a federal issue via the Department of Homeland Security–if the feds had a trump card when it came to the purchase of guns by non-citizens, at least some tragedies could be prevented.
I never looked for Rosie’s help. So she can say whatever she wants – it’s a free world after all.
BREAKING NEWS
“WASHINGTON – Rep. John Doolittle, R-Calif., has decided to temporarily give up his seat on the House Appropriations Committee after FBI agents searched his house as part of a congressional influence-peddling investigation. . . FBI agents had a search warrant for information connected with a fundraising business run by Doolittle’s wife, Julie, that had done work for convicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18202794/
Starting to sound a little familiar to anyone?
Can any of you TROOP HATING, criminal supporting, conservatives explain why your party is so anti-American?
MTR: Let’s start with you. Oh, by the way, who did you vote for as your congressional rep?
SeattleJew: Normally cogent and refreshing in his commentary.
But… Where is the URL for this monstrosity:”The US Supremes have decided that pregnant women must die if the life of s full term baby is at stake.”
The reason I ask is if you are using hyperbole, use it wisely.
Or are you one of Voice of Chalk Scratching’s “hemp haired ho” trainers?
Where’s the URL that proves Puffybutt’s a human being?
Puddybud @ 21:
Why are you using innuendos to denigrate women? Do you want someone to call your wife a “ho?”
Do you think it was OK for Don Imus to refer to the Rutger Women’s basket ball team as hos?
Have you no couth, Puddybud?
GBS: I expected more of you. Hemp Haired Hos is an extraction of TowHaired Hos, what Voice Of Chalk Scratching wrote just after Don IMUS. You need to remember too? Tow is from the German touw – hemp hair!
Need a bong?