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Tim Russert

Wow, what a shocker.  Only 58 years old and his son just graduated college. Very sad news.

1/2 Hour Breather

Traffic was light - I may be able to decrease my 4.5 hour estimate (see below) to 4 hours - we shall see what the rest of the day brings.  The DC area has become very unpredicatble when it comes to traffic patterns, and given this is a holiday weekend, it further throws things into question.

I am home for 1/2 hour before it's time to pick up mom and dad and head downtown.  The drive with daughter was not fun.  She broke up with her boyfriend and ever since has been a bit down in the dumps (aka as cranky as hell).  Their relationship was a casualty of high gas prices.  He lives about 40 minutes away and his parents were not pleased about him coming out here all the time. 

Speaking of gas prices, Leora has a picture of what once was but is no more.  And it wasn't so long ago, either.

Something I wanted to write about but don't have the time to discuss in detail:  An article from yesterday's NYTimes cast racist aspersions as well as quite a bit of implied ignorance upon the entire elderly Jewish community of Florida.  I thought the article was unfair and borderline nasty. SoccerDad wrote an excellent post on it (apparently mentioned in Slate), and linked to several others who did as well.  For the full story plus links, take a look here. 

Gotta run.

Most Unsurprising News Event of the Day

It's just mid-morning, but I think I can call it.

Oh How Completely and Utterly COOL

A "flying saucer" that glides three metres above the ground and carries two people has gone into commercial production.

US company Moller International has begun to manufacture parts for its Jetsons-like personal flying pod, the M200G Volantor.

The M200G is the size of a small car and is designed to take off and land vertically.

Read about it and watch the video.

Via Memeorandum

The Wolfowitz Resignation

From today's WSJ:

So after weeks of nasty leaks and media smears, the World Bank's board of executive directors yesterday cleared President Paul Wolfowitz of ethical misconduct for following the board's own advice on how to handle a conflict of interest involving his girlfriend. And Mr. Wolfowitz in turn will resign from the bank at the end of June. Run that by us again?

We've said from the beginning that the charges against Mr. Wolfowitz were bogus, and that the effort to unseat him amounted to a political grudge by those who opposed his role in the Bush Administration and a bureaucratic vendetta by those who opposed his anti-corruption agenda at the bank. That view was vindicated by yesterday's statement, which showed how little the merits of the case against Mr. Wolfowitz had to do with the final result.

Mr. Wolfowitz "assured us that he acted ethically and in good faith in what he believed were the best interests of the institution, and we accept that," the directors said, thus rejecting the findings of a rigged investigating committee that had ignored key evidence. The most damning judgment the directors could muster is that "a number of mistakes were made," including by the bank's own ethics committee that had refused to let Mr. Wolfowitz recuse himself from matters involving his girlfriend, Shaha Riza.

In other words, this was all about politics. And all that mattered to Mr. Wolfowitz's accusers was to be rid of him, whatever the pretext or methods. The least they can do now is restore Ms. Riza to her job, assuming she wants to be part of an organization that treated her so shabbily.

This sucks, plain and simple.  The piece goes on to say that Wolfowitz received little support from the White House.  Bush has been slow to react to events ever since he received flak for showing up on an aircraft carrier in 2003 with the banner "Mission Accomplished" in the background.  His subsequent overcaution about speaking up along with his poor communication skills in general, ruined his presidency and may cost us the war. It certainly has been bad for the careers of those who support his policies.  

Oh?

Mr. Michael "I hate America" Moore is under investigation by the US Treasury Department.

Jihadists Arrested in New Jersey

Nice work by the FBI:

Federal investigators last night arrested six Islamic radicals who were planning a heavily-armed attack against soldiers at Fort Dix as part of a jihad against America, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

In a statement released this morning to confirm a report on The Star-Ledger's Web site, the U.S. Attorney's Office said the men planned to "kill as many soldiers as possible."

Officials would not comment beyond the brief statement. But two law enforcement sources said the men had conducted surveillance of the Army base and were caught allegedly attempting to purchase AK-47s to carry out their plan.

The bust came after several of them were lured to a meeting with an arms-seller who turned out to be a secret FBI informant, said both sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak about the arrests.

Some of the would-be attackers have been illegally in the United States, while others are illegal immigrants, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. Four are ethnic Albanians, one was born in Turkey, and a sixth was born in Jordan, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

They had been under FBI surveillance for months, practiced by shooting paintball guns and real weapons in a rural area of the Poconos, one source said. They also allegedly watched jihadist videos in which Osama bin Laden urged them toward martyrdom.

"They were prepared to die," said the law enforcement source. "We became increasingly convinced this was for real and these guys were ready to roll."

Link

VTech Blame

The gunman blamed for the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history had previously been accused of stalking two female students and had been taken to a mental health facility in 2005 after his parents worried he might be suicidal, police said Wednesday.

Cho Seung-Hui had concerned one woman enough with his calls and e-mail in 2005 that police were called in, said Police Chief Wendell Flinchum.

He said the woman declined to press charges and Cho was referred to the university disciplinary system. During one of those incidents, both in late 2005, the department received a call from Cho's parents who were concerned that he might be suicidal, and he was taken to a mental health facility, he said.

If blame belongs anywhere, it may be most appropriate to lay it at the feet of our mental health professionals and the insurance companies who refuse to cover treatment for people experiencing problems.

1. There are many incompetant mental health professionals and negligently run mental health hospitals and facilities out there.

2.  Insurance companies don't give a rat's ass about the patient and mental health care is hideously expensive. Mental health facilities don't give a darn either.  They won't argue or advocate for patients.  Families are left to their own devices to cope. 

Being from Korea and English not their native tongue, I am sure Cho's family didn't know what to do with him and had no clue how to navigate the system.

He should have been hospitalized until someone was able to get inside his brain and could tell what was going on. 

Guns, Controls and Loonies

Good editorial in the Wall St. Journal with regard to the VTech murders and gun control:

How can a society that wants to maintain its own individual freedoms stop such a man? The reflexive answer in some quarters, especially overseas, is to blame any killing on America's "lax" guns laws. Reading a summary of European editorials yesterday, we couldn't help but wonder if they all got the same New York Times memo, so uniform was their cultural disdain and their demand for new gun restrictions.

Yet Virginia Tech had banned guns on campus, using a provision in Virginia law allowing universities to become exceptions to the state's concealed carry pistol permits. Virginia is also known for its strict enforcement of gun violations, having implemented a program known as Project Exile that has imposed stiffer penalties and expedited gun cases.

In any case, there is no connection between recent mass murder events and gun restrictions. As Quebec economist Pierre Lemieux noted yesterday, "Mass killings were rare when guns were easily available, while they have been increasing as guns have become more controlled." The 1996 murders in the Scottish town of Dunblane--17 killed--occurred despite far more restrictive gun laws than America's.

You could more persuasively argue, as David Kopel does in The Wall Street Journal today, that the presence of more guns on campus might have stopped Cho sooner. But as a general rule we are not among those who think college students, of all people, should be advised to add guns to the books in their backpacks.

A better response than gun control would be to restore some of the cultural taboos that once served as restraints on antisocial behavior. These columns long ago noted the collapse of such social and moral restraints in a widely debated editorial called "No Guardrails." Instead, after Columbine, there was a rush to blame violent videogames. But videogames or other larger media influences don't inspire mass murder when there are countervailing restraints and values instilled by families, teachers, coaches and pastors. Two generations ago, colleges felt an obligation to act in loco parentis. Today, the concept is considered as archaic as the Latin--and would probably inspire a lawsuit.

However, even those benevolent influences--were it possible to restore them--might not have made a difference in the case of Cho Seung-Hui, whose madness can't be explained by reason.

The blame game: I could see it all unfolding as I watched Keith Olbermann on the news the evening the murders happened.  I could see the cogs turning as he grasped at straws, searching for an angle, a hook, an attention-getter, and who to blame  no, HOW to blame conservatives, Republicans, and the Bush administration. 

A nutcase is a nutcase is a nutcase.  In the end, there's nothing you can do to heal every brain and psyche, and until we can, these kinds of incidents are going to happen - - and they've always happened.  It's not as if mental breakdown is a new concept.  There's no way to prevent certain people from breaking and going berserk.  In their psychosis, they will find a way to murder others - either mass murder all at once, or serial killing.  Let's work on research with regard to figuring out how to discover them earlier, and in figuring out how to help them or take them out of society.

The conservative argument: Where are the men?  Are we raising wimps and kitty cats?  Why didn't anyone take the killer down when he stopped to reload his weapon?  The only person who seemed to show courage was a Holocaust survivor of the WW2 generation. 

Our kids have the concept "responding to provocation is wrong" drummed into them in school.  A personal example: When my oldest son was in 9th grade, he was attacked by a bully whose friends circled around him so he could not leave the fight.  He had no choice but to fight back.  He was suspended for a day as a result. I went to school and let the assistant principal have it. Honestly, I don't believe in fighting battles for my children - I have always encouraged them to fight for themselves - but I was incensed in this case.  She would not listen to me and kept repeating over and over that my son should have run away and gotten a teacher to help - though it was explained to her that he couldn't. (Where were the teachers, anyway?  Why weren't they keeping an eye out on the hallway?) She said they had a no-tolerance policy.  And I said to her, "Do you really mean to tell me that my son should have just sat there and not thrown a punch while some idiot tried to beat the crud out of him?"

She shrugged.

We supported our son 100% and told him that if he were ever in that situation again to do exactly what he did. He fought the bully and won, and the kid eventually apologizing to him a week or so later.  But my son ended up with a black mark on his spotless record.  He was not a fighter and never would have started up with anyone.

Grrrr. I am still mad!

I don't know what the answer is - I don't like fighting in school anymore than that assistant principal did - but I think we are going too far in teaching our kids that violence is wrong.  Yes it's wrong, but not when it's in self-defense from a bully, a psychopath or an irrational human in the midst of a mental breakdown. 

This classroom microcosm is now playing out on the world stage, and we see on a large scale what happens when bullies and nutcases are allowed to run amok - - smashing planes into buildings, suicide murdering and rallying others to their hateful cause.

And half of our population wants to run and hide and allow it to happen.   

Virginians Sticking Together

Eldest son sent me this cartoon, noting that normally there is great rivalry between these VA schools.

Our community has been shaken by this tragedy. I spotted a young woman in the grocery store this evening all decked out in VTech gear. Seung-Hui Cho, the killer, attended high school in Fairfax County, not too far from where I live. Fairfax County Schools sent out the following email earlier today:

We want to update you on the information on events that have transpired throughout the day relating to the incident at Virginia Tech.

We have confirmation that the alleged shooter, Seung-Hui Cho of Centreville, was a student at Virginia Tech and is a 2003 graduate of Westfield High School. 

At this time, we have not received an official list of victims from the Virginia State Police and are unable to confirm any information about FCPS alumni who were killed or injured at Virginia Tech.  We are expecting that an announcement about the victims will be made tomorrow, and we will pass along that information when it is made available.

The school system's crisis support team of trained psychologists and social workers is available to work with students and adults in our schools.  Parents should feel free to contact their principal if they would like to request counseling services for their children.

We grieve along with the families and friends of the victims of this terrible tragedy, which has affected not only those affiliated with Virginia Tech but the entire state of Virginia and the nation.

Below is a partial list of community events that are planned in remembrance of the victims of the Virginia Tech incident.

* Tuesday, April 17, 8 p.m. -- Members of the Light Global Mission Church will hold a candlelight vigil at the Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax. The gathering will be in the center aisle of the parking lot out in front of the Government Center. This event is open to the public.

* Wednesday, April 18 -- A vigil, hosted by the Board of Supervisors in conjunction with Faith Communities in Action, will be held in the forum of the Fairfax County Government Center, 12000 Government Center Parkway, Fairfax.

* Virginia Tech Alumni -- The DC Chapter of the Virginia Tech Alumni Association lists a number of events at http://www.novahokie.org including:

- Friday, April 20, Hokie Hope: Orange and Maroon Effect -- Virginia Tech family members across the country have united to declare this Friday, April 20, an "Orange and Maroon Effect" day to honor those killed in the tragic events on campus Monday and to show support for VT students, faculty, administrators, staff, alumni, and friends. Everyone across the country is invited to be part of the Virginia Tech family this Friday and wear orange and maroon to support the families of those who were lost and support the school and community.


- Wednesday, April 18, 8 p.m. -- Great Falls chapter candlelight vigil at 8 p.m. at St. Francis Episcopal Church, 9220 Georgetown Pike, Great Falls. All are welcome.

- Wednesday, April 18, 7:30 p.m. -- candlelight vigil on the Old Town Market Square at City Hall, 300 King Street, Alexandria.

Jack Dale
Superintendent, Fairfax County Public Schools

Our rabbi sent out a message that our temple will be lighting a candle in memory at minyan tomorrow evening. 

The VTech Killer - UPDATED

A garden variety nutcase.  People saw it coming - he was referred to counseling on the basis of his creative writing in English class.  Horribly, hideously tragic.  I know it sounds like a cliche, but it is the truth:  My heart goes out to the victims, their families and friends and all who were touched by this tragedy.

Update: 

Two plays written by Cho Seung-Hui are available online, provided by a former classmate.  They are - - not right.  Disturbing. Deranged.  Ugly.  The classmate said that he and others were very concerned about Seung-Hui's state of mind.

Gunman? Gunmen?

Questions continue to be raised this morning:

Shooter Lived in Dormitory, Va. Tech President Says

President Charles Steger Said There Was Possibly More Than One Shooter Involved

April 17, 2007 — - So many questions need to be answered about the shootings at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people.

Could the tragic massacre have been prevented? Did police wait too long to act? Were they aggressive enough? And why were students in the dark for so long?

Virginia Tech President Charles Steger told "Good Morning America's" Diane Sawyer this morning that there was still the possibility that there were two shooters in the separate campus attacks on Monday morning.

Steger said that the shooter who took his own life in the Norris Hall classroom building, where 30 other people were also killed, was a student of Asian descent who lived in a dormitory at Virginia Tech.

Steger referred to this person as the "second shooter."

"It appears that the second shooter was a resident in a dormitory," Steger said. "We don't have all of that confirmed but it appears he was an on-campus resident."

Sawyer asked whether there was more than one shooter involved.

"We don't know for sure. That's what we're trying to confirm," Steger said.

Steger said police had questioned a person of interest in the case.

"They have questioned them once and they'll probably continue to question the individual," he said.

Holocaust Survivor Dies at VTech Attempting to Bar the Door

(IsraelNN.com) As Israel observed Holocaust Day, thousands of miles away, A Rumanian-born Holocaust survivor gave his life in another senseless murder - and apparently in an act of heroism.

Among the 32 people killed by a lone gunman at Virginia Tech Monday is 77-year-old engineering professor, Liviu Librescu, a citizen of Israel. According to eyewitness accounts, Librescu ran to the door of his classroom and blocked it with his body – preventing the gunman from entering but getting shot to death himself as a result.

Alec Calhoun, a 20-year-old student who had been in Librescu's class in room 204, told a reporter that at 9:05 a.m. the heard screams and a loud banging sound from the next-door classroom. When the students realized it was gunfire, he said, some hid behind tables, and others leapt from the classroom's windows. Calhoun himself was among the last to jump. "Before I jumped from the window, I turned around and looked at the professor, who stayed behind, maybe to block the door. He had been killed."

Librescu is survived by his wife of 42 years, Marlena, who was with him in Virginia, and sons Aryeh and Joe who are in Israel. They intend to bury him in Israel.

Link

Horrifying Shooting at VTech- UPDATED

My oldest son knows people at Virginia Tech - including an RA at the dorm where at least some of the shootings occurred.  He lived in Blacksburg with friends last year, though he attended classes elsewhere in the area. He joined their fraternity and goes down there to visit as often as he can, maintaining many ties to students at the school.  (They made an exception to the rules to let him into the frat even though he didn't go to the school - long story).  Anyway, I thank God he's living at home this year and is thus, far away from this unbelievable nightmare.

This hits much too close to home - so many kids from our area go to school there:

The Virginia Tech Police Chief said at least 20 people were killed in twin shootings on the Blacksburg campus Monday morning.

"Some victims were shot in a classroom," Chief Wendell Flinchum said, adding that the gunman was dead.

President Charles Steger called the shootings "a tragedy of monumental proportions."

A hospital spokeswoman told The Associated Press that 17 Virginia Tech students were being treated for gunshot wounds and other injuries. Sharon Honaker at the Carilion New River Valley Medical Center told CNN that four patients had been transported there, one in critical condition.

One person was killed and others were wounded at multiple locations inside a dormitory about 7:15 a.m., Flinchum said. Two hours later, another shooting at Norris Hall, an engineering building, resulted in multiple casualties, the university reported.

...Amie Steele, editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper, said one of her reporters at the dormitory reported "mass chaos."

...Kristyn Heiser said she was in class about 9:30 a.m. when she and her classmates saw about six gun-wielding police officers run by a window.

"We were like, 'What's going on?' Because this definitely is a quaint town where stuff doesn't really happen. It's pretty boring here," said Heiser during a phone interview as she sat on her classroom floor.

Read the rest

According to Allahpundit, this is the deadliest campus shooting in US history.

Update:  The death toll is up to 29

Update: 

At 2:54 PM EST, Yahoo reports:

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) Government officials have told The Associated Press the death toll from the Virginia Tech campus shootings has risen to 31.

How bloody godawful. Jesus, the parents of those kids. I can't even begin to imagine.

Update:  Finally got back in touch with my son who reports that his friends are all ok, but that some of his friends have friends who were hit.

J-Pod Lets Commentator Terry Moran Have it

Nicely done.

Imus

Well said.

I never thought Imus was funny. Howard Stern made me laugh until I got sick to death of his shtik, but  I always thought Imus was a snooze.

The Doomsday Clock Moves Closer to Midnight

I suppose this announcement is a good thing in terms of generating necessary discussion and coming up with preventative measures, but I fear it will also bring about certain undesirable side effects, including a loud and extremely annoying rattling of the cages of the moonbat contingent, followed by finger pointing at Bush, the US and Israel.

From Fox News:

The end of the world may be drawing a bit closer.

Scientists on Wednesday will change the time on Chicago’s Doomsday Clock based on what they say is the “most perilous period since Hiroshima and Nagasaki.”

They based their decision on countries increasingly seeking nuclear technology, the United States’ and Russia’s ability to readily launch 2,000 of their 25,000 nuclear weapons, as well as threats posed by global warming, bioterrorism and an overall increase in worldwide terrorism, the Chicago-based Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a press release.

The group specifically singled out Iran and North Korea as examples of the threat posed by countries striving for nuclear technology.

The Bulletin scientists created the clock in 1947 to assess the threat of a nuclear holocaust during the Cold War. The time on the clock, housed at the University of Chicago, will be changed after a dual ceremony in London and Washington.

The clock's minute hand will be moved 2 minutes closer to midnight, which symbolizes the apocalypse, according to the Bulletin's Web site. The clock currently stands at 5 minutes to midnight.

The decision to move the clock forward reflects "growing concerns" about a “Second Nuclear Age," the press release said.

 

Credit Given Where it is Due

A heartfelt thank you to our friends, American Muslims:

Muslims Mark Solidarity With Jews
Event Held Days After Iranian Meeting That Denied Genocide

Local Muslim leaders lit candles yesterday at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum to commemorate Jewish suffering under the Nazis, in a ceremony held just days after Iran had a conference denying the genocide.

American Muslims "believe we have to learn the lessons of history and commit ourselves: Never again," said Imam Mohamed Magid of the All Dulles Area Muslim Society, standing before the eternal flame flickering from a black marble base that holds dirt from Nazi concentration camps.

Major American Muslim and Arab-American organizations have condemned the Iran conference. The Muslim speakers at yesterday's ceremony did not mention that event but called for recognition of the suffering Jews experienced in the Holocaust and condemned religious hatred. Asked afterward why they did not single out Iran, the Muslim leaders said the problem was broader than the recent conference.

"The issue here is: There might be somebody from X and Y country, a Muslim, saying the same thing," Magid said. If anyone wants to make Holocaust denial an Islamic cause, he said, "we want to say to them: You cannot use our name."

Museum officials said a Muslim delegation had never before made such a public statement at the memorial building.

After the speeches yesterday, Bloomfield invited the visitors to light candles to remember the Holocaust victims and Muslims who rescued some of the besieged Jews. One by one, the guests silently shuffled along the wallside bank of candles: the tall imam in his round Muslim cap, known as a kufi; a woman in a Muslim head scarf; Muslim men in business suits; and three elderly women in pantsuits from the D.C. suburbs, survivors of the genocide.

One of them, Johanna Neumann, recounted at the ceremony how Muslims saved her Jewish family. Members of her family had fled from Germany to Albania, where Muslim families sheltered them and hid their identity during the Nazi occupation.

"Everybody knew who we were. Nobody would even have thought of denouncing us" to the Nazis, said the tiny 76-year-old Silver Spring resident. "These people deserve every respect anybody can give them."

More

There's hope for this world yet.

Ground Zero Milestone

Two 25-ton steel columns — one bearing signatures of American steelworkers who helped make it — rose at ground zero Tuesday, a milestone in prolonged efforts to build the skyscraper that will replace the twin towers of the World Trade Center.

As construction workers, politicians and architects applauded, a massive crane lifted the first 31-foot-high column, which was painted with an American flag and the words "Freedom Tower," and set it over steel bars on the southern edge of the tower's base.

A second column set a few feet away carried the signatures of steelworkers and politicians from Virginia, where it spent time at a steel company before being shipped to New York.

A third column lay on its side, plastered with signatures of New Yorkers and Sept. 11 victims' relatives as well as pictures of some firefighters killed in the 2001 attack. It will be installed in the next few days.

By next spring, 27 of the jumbo steel columns to anchor the skyscraper are expected to rise to street level — about 70 feet from the bottom of ground zero.

"Today the steel rises, the Freedom Tower rises from the ashes of Sept. 11, and the people of New York and the people of America can be proud," Gov. George Pataki said.

The 1,776-foot tower, set to open in 2011, is to be the tallest of the five skyscrapers planned to replace the trade center.

Read more.

Numerous Reports of Problems in France

I've been reading signs of concern for weeks:

France Sends Riot Police to Marseille - Michel Allione
France's interior minister sent riot police to patrol the southern port city of Marseille on Sunday after a group of marauding teenagers torched a bus, gravely burning a young woman. Though youths have burned other buses during the flare-up of violence, passengers have generally escaped before the vehicles went up in flames. Another bus was burned Saturday in Trappes, outside Paris, but its passengers fled unharmed, police said. Youths set fire to about 200 vehicles Saturday, police said. But even on ordinary nights, the number of cars burned often reaches 100. (AP/Yahoo)
    See also Two Buses Torched in Paris Suburb Friday - Elaine Ganley (AP/Yahoo)

Ewwww

Dear Newswriters:

Would you mind sweeping this story under a rug somewhere?  At least until after lunch:

Priest admits affair with congressman
The Age -
Photo: AP. A CATHOLIC priest has admitted having an intimate relationship with disgraced Republican congressman Mark Foley when Mr Foley was about 12 years old.
Priest Admits Possibly 'Fondling' Foley in 1960s Los Angeles Times
Priest Admits Being Naked With Foley ABC News 37 minutes ago