Shadowscope

I meant to have this post up yesterday and somehow got sidetracked. Holding a linkfest is a great way to get new people to come check out your writing that may not have been to your site before. Link to your best writing or just to something that you would like everyone to read by sending a link back to this post and it will show up in the body of this post.

The best way to do it is to use the form at Linkfest Haven but you don’t necessarily have to.

If you are interested in joining the open trackback alliance just head on over and check it out!.

Apparently one piece of the ‘new’ evidence (according to reports) that prosecutor’s used to justify the re-arrest of the three suspects in the Natalee Holloway case was a bit of chat log retrieved from the computer hard drive belonging to one of them. In the chat, one of the suspects said ‘The fact that she’s dead is not good’, referring to Holloway.

There was no further discussion of Holloway’s death or how she died. Other evidence included two new witnesses but they were only witnesses as far as the behavior of the suspects after Holloway’s disappearance, not of the deed itself.

One other piece of evidence included a conversation about what happened that night after the authorities bugged the Kalpoe home.

So, apparently that one report at FOX News was right in that Hans Mos did an interview today but wrong in the fact that they have closed the case barring any new evidence.

What gets me is the fact that it is an admission that they know she is dead and had something, no matter how small, to do with it, yet are now just considered persons of interest in the case since they refused to talk to the prosecution.

This Weeks Hero Was Suggested By Leo

 

 

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

 This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.

I had one of the readers send me a link yesterday afternoon that contradicts the story over at CNN that I had mentioned, wherein the lead prosecutor said that they were closing the case and not going to charge the three suspects in the Natalee Holloway case. Somehow I missed it yesterday evening.

According to FOX News, despite the report yesterday in which everyone said the case has been closed, Aruban officials have NOT closed their investigation into the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway. The media liaison for Hans Mos dismissed the earlier report and said that a press conference was scheduled for Thursday that will reveal new evidence against the three young men last seen with Holloway.

Damn, they need to make up their minds…Seeing is believing so I guess I will just wait until Thursday and see what there is to see.

Thanks for the link, Loral.

Here is the original report from about 2:45 yesterday afternoon.

I am not sure what time the FOX story was posted at this point in time.

CNN is reporting that none of the three suspects in the disappearance of Alabama teenager Natalee Holloway are going to be charged. The prosecutor in the case, Hans Mos, said that there isn’t enough evidence to take the case to trial. WTF? Just weeks ago they all kinds of new evidence and evidence that had been analyzed incorrectly that he said was sure to prove that they had killed Natalee Holloway and now all of a sudden there is none?

According to the prosecutor’s office the new evidence had consisted gathering advanced techniques used to re-examine cell phone records and text message exchanged the night that Holloway disappeared. Mos said last month that the evidence would show that Holloway is dead although her body has not been found.

According to Scared Monkeys, Aruba was warned by the IMF (International Monetary Fund) about having to heavy a dependence on tourism. Wonder how this news is going to affect their tourism now?

A Cuban television news anchor read a letter on the air today from Fidel Castro that promises not to cling to office or impede the rise of new younger leaders according to this report on CNN.

The letter says that…

What is left unsaid is that if you don’t vote for the man that Fidel wants your ass will be jailed or worse for being a traitor to the regime.

I went to check out my source for anything related to Castro and Cuba, Babalu Blog and all he really has up right now is a link to the FOX News story which doesn’t say a whole hell of a lot either. Right now we are all just left hanging in the wind wondering if this means that he will be retiring, when, and what power he will wield afterward. I just don’t see him handing the reigns of power completely over to anyone that isn’t his puppet.

This Week’s Hero Was Suggested By Louie

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero.

 We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

 This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.

As I mentioned over the weekend prosecutors are pretty likely to close the Natalee Holloway case at the end of the year if the body is not found between now and then. CBS News’ Julie Chen interviewed the Holloway’s attorney John Q. Kelly.

Does this mean that the case is over forever and everyone is just going home? No, her father is still enroute in a search ship where they are going to be looking in areas that have not been searched yet. Even if the body were to turn up several months or years from now the case could be reopened. It just means that the Aruban government will quit expending time and money on the case. Regardless of what I and others think about how they have handled it, Aruba has expended quite a bit of time and money in this investigation.

Amigoe has an article up about Joran and his release as does Scared Monkeys. In all actuality, even though the Aruban government may have made a few blunders early on I doubt very seriously that he would have even been jailed a second time in the U.S. considering our court system. The outcome would not have been so much different than it is now, particularly without a body.

Scared Monkeys seems to think that there was a cover up in the case. I don’t know about that but they have certainly been much closer to the case and the people involved over the last two years. They had an interview with Jossy Mansur, the managing editor of Diario recently, who offers the same opinion and is planning a new investigation into the details.

Michael Vick at one point was one of the highest paid players in the NFL until he blew it with the dog-fighting deal. He turned himself in early last month and began serving his time even though he had not been sentenced at that point.

This really isn’t a post to recap everything that happened. I was just pretty pissed off when I read the article over at CNN. The part that really disgusts me is that several people sent letters in support of Vick, including Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin and Hank Aaron. I expect that kind of crap out of Shirley girl but Hank Aaron? That dude used to be one of my heroes and the fact that he can throw his support behind Michael Vick is disgusting.

The title of this article at CNN pisses me off almost as much as the deed itself. Basically what happened is the Carlos Huerta, a senior at Loyola Marymount University in California for making threats at Juicy Campus, more of a message board than a blog.

The message Huerta is suspected of posting was that he was going to shoot and kill as many people as possible before being killed himself by police. They certainly need to take it seriously, but leave it to the main stream media to call this moron a ‘blogger’ and put bloggers everywhere in a bad light. Just because someone posts messages on the Internet does not make them a blogger any more than the fact that I build my own computers makes me a PC manufacturer. Fucking idiots.

Friday Aruba’s chief prosecutor Hans Mos said that they will most likely close the case of the missing teenager Natalee Holloway by the end of the year unless his office finds that there is enough evidence to charge someone with a major crime. Mos said that he wouldn’t comment on the type of evidence that the prosecutor’s office is reviewing but that he does not anticipate finding Natalee Holloway’s remains and prosecuting a case is going to be extremely hard without said remains, which pretty much throws it back in the lap of Natalee Holloway’s father who is to be searching in deep sea areas for her remains.

According to CNN, Holloway’s parents did not return multiple messages left at their homes and on cell phones.

Mos said that he and the Holloway family feel pursuing a minor charge would not serve any kind of purpose. Under Aruban law a person convicted of making a body disappear would only server six months in jail.

There is always the tiniest chance that her father along with Texas Equusearch will find the body, at which point the case could be pursued. I, along with many other people, would really like to know what happened.

Commenter Grace made a point a few days ago in that we are all stupid enough to believe that  a person is innocent until proven guilty, except in Aruba. She is from Ottumwa, Iowa (according to her IP address) but in comments discusses Aruba and some things that go on there as if she is extremely familiar with the island and it’s inhabitants. She has been defending Joran endlessly in the murder/disappearance and pointing at the Kalpoe brothers.

It very well may be that he had nothing to do with it but the fact is that he has made several different conflicting stories and statements and it’s very clear that even if he didn’t do the deed he knows who did and what happened and that would make him an accessory, at least under our law. If you walk like a duck and quack like a duck you damn sure ain’t a pig.

The search for Natalee Holloway has spanned two and a half years and involved hundreds of volunteers, Aruban soldiers, FBI agents and even F-16s laden with search equipment. Prosecutors in Aruba do not anticipate ever finding Holloway’s remains.

Wyatt Earp over at Support Your Local Gunfighter feels like Hans Mos is not taking the feelings of Natalee’s parents under consideration and that they are not showing any respect for Holloway or her family. I don’t think it’s so much the prosecutor’s office as it is the fact that if they chose to press charges they would end up losing the case, as shown by the fact that at least four different judges felt that the three suspects should be freed last week. I am all for prosecuting them but the fact remains that as Joran van der Sloot’s father told him two years ago, you can’t be convicted without a body.

Mad Cow calls the Aruban authorities are incompetent and wonders if they will ever be held accountable.

The Omaha Police released this statement yesterday evening on the mall shooting which killed nine people including the shooter and injured five others. The shootings took place inside the Von Maur department store at Westroads Mall in Omaha.

Police Chief Thomas Warren called the shootings premeditated but did say that they appeared to be randomly selected and unprovoked.

Rather than his mother, it was Hawkins’ landlord, Debora Kovac that found the suicide note at 1pm, just a few minutes prior to the shootings.

The shootings began at 1:42pm and police responded within six minutes.

A three-member panel of Aruban judges ruled today that the two brothers who have been arrested more than once in the Natalee Holloway case should remain free, which may mean trouble in the investigation into the disappearance of teenager Natalee Holloway. The panel turned down a request from prosecutors to reverse the decision of a judge made last week in the case against the two brothers.

The panel of judges said that the case against Deepak and Satish Kalpoe fails to show whether or not Natalee Holloway died as the result of a crime. The trouble that prosecutors may have now is the fact that Joran van der Sloot may not be able to be held as well. Van der Sloot was slated to have a hearing on Friday but at a request from defense attorneys he will get his hearing tomorrow, Thursday December 6th.

The decision of the court in this matter is final and does not allow for further appeals but it does not stop further investigation or prosecution later.

A gunman opened fire from the balcony of a shopping mall in Omaha Nebraska today and shot several people. At least five people have been shot according to witnesses and local media. One witness still inside the mall said that two people were dead and nine wounded, shot at random by a man with a rifle on a third floor balcony.

President Bush gave an address in Omaha this morning but he had already left the city several hours before the shootings occurred.

According to CNN, nine were killed including a man thought to be the gunman, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

A spokesperson for the Omaha Police Department, Sgt. Teresa Negron, said during an official announcement that nine people have died from their wounds and two people are in critical condition. The shooter is deceased and his body had not been removed from the crime scene at that point.

9:11pm – here’s a bit of raw video from KMTV in Omaha, Nebraska…

After the shooting Police locked down the shopping center while they searched for the gunman.

Updated 9:59pm -

The Police have identified the shooter as Robert A. Hawkins. He was believed to be about 19 or 20 and apparently his mother found a suicide not in his home that said he wanted to ‘go out in style’.

A shot from the front of Westroads Mall in Omaha, where the shootings took place.

This is the fourth mall shooting this year that I am aware of including shootings in Salt Lake City, Kansas City and the attempted robbery that took place at the mall about 20 miles from me in Douglasville, Georgia.

CBS affiliate KMTV had this report on the shooting earlier today. The video is acting sort of funny, at least on my end, most likely due to heavy traffic on their server. Hopefully that will clear itself up later this evening.

This Week’s Hero Was Suggested By Mark Bell

Marty and Sue Horn

Born in Philadelphia, Marty Horn spent 20 years in the Army as a Military Policeman, retiring in 1993 and going to work in Internet technologies. In 2003, his son Brian Horn deployed to Iraq. Trying to support their son’s unit, Marty and his wife Sue, who also served as in the Military Police, put together the concept of Any Soldier. In essence, Any Soldier is an effort to provide support and encouragement to those who are in harm’s way. Due to overwhelming requests for ready-made care packages on the AnySoldier.com site, Sue Horn started TreatAnySoldier.com.

Using his background in Internet technologies, Marty built and maintains the web site. The Any Soldier program slowly expanded to include other Army units. In 2004, the program opened up to include all service branches.. In 2005, the websites for AnyMarine.com., AnySailor.com, AnyAirman.com, and AnyCoastguardsman.com were launched.

In the words of the Any Soldier web site: “The success of Any Soldier has far exceeded expectations and continues to grow with the invaluable help and guidance of our supporters, board members and Support Team.”

In the words of Marty Horn: “It is the supporters who deserve the credit.”

Thanks to the efforts of Marty and Sue, their son Brian, and a dedicated staff, over 950,000 servicemen and women received support and encouragement they would never have been able to get through the Any Soldier program.

These brave men and women sacrifice so much in their lives so that others may enjoy the freedoms we get to enjoy everyday. For that, I am proud to call them Hero. We Should Not Only Mourn These Men And Women Who Died, We Should Also Thank God That Such People Lived

This post is part of the Wednesday Hero Blogroll. For more information about Wednesday Hero, or if you would like to post it on your blog, you can go here.

According to what I read over at Scared Monkeys, Chief Aruban Prosecutor Hans Mos will appeal the decision of the judge that allowed the release of Deepak and Satish Kalpoe. The judge reviewing the case said that there are serious objections against them and although the evidence shows that they wiped out traces of a crime scene and possibly helped spirit a body away, that is not enough to hold them in custody.

WTF?

This is the same evidence that has extended Joran van der Sloot’s stay at the crossbar motel and which prosecutors are going to try and get him held for another 60 days later this week.