Mumbai photographer: I wish I’d had a gun, not a camera. Armed police would not fire back

Belfast Telegraph:

Jerome Taylor talks to the photographer whose picture went around the world

A terrorist walks at the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. — Photo: Sebastian D’Souza

It is the photograph that has dominated the world’s front pages, casting an astonishing light on the fresh-faced killers who brought terror to the heart of India’s most vibrant city. Now it can be revealed how the astonishing picture came to be taken by a newspaper photographer who hid inside a train carriage as gunfire erupted all around him.

Sebastian D’Souza, a picture editor at the Mumbai Mirror, whose offices are just opposite the city’s Chhatrapati Shivaji station, heard the gunfire erupt and ran towards the terminus. “I ran into the first carriage of one of the trains on the platform to try and get a shot but couldn’t get a good angle, so I moved to the second carriage and waited for the gunmen to walk by,” he said. “They were shooting from waist height and fired at anything that moved. I briefly had time to take a couple of frames using a telephoto lens. I think they saw me taking photographs but they didn’t seem to care.”

The gunmen were terrifyingly professional, making sure at least one of them was able to fire their rifle while the other reloaded. By the time he managed to capture the killer on camera, Mr D’Souza had already seen two gunmen calmly stroll across the station concourse shooting both civilians and policemen, many of whom, he said, were armed but did not fire back. “I first saw the gunmen outside the station,” Mr D’Souza said. “With their rucksacks and Western clothes they looked like backpackers, not terrorists, but they were very heavily armed and clearly knew how to use their rifles.

“Towards the station entrance, there are a number of bookshops and one of the bookstore owners was trying to close his shop,” he recalled. “The gunmen opened fire and the shopkeeper fell down.”

But what angered Mr D’Souza almost as much were the masses of armed police hiding in the area who simply refused to shoot back. “There were armed policemen hiding all around the station but none of them did anything,” he said. “At one point, I ran up to them and told them to use their weapons. I said, ‘Shoot them, they’re sitting ducks!’ but they just didn’t shoot back.”

As the gunmen fired at policemen taking cover across the street, Mr D’Souza realised a train was pulling into the station unaware of the horror within. “I couldn’t believe it. We rushed to the platform and told everyone to head towards the back of the station. Those who were older and couldn’t run, we told them to stay put.”

The militants returned inside the station and headed towards a rear exit towards Chowpatty Beach. Mr D’Souza added: “I told some policemen the gunmen had moved towards the rear of the station but they refused to follow them. What is the point if having policemen with guns if they refuse to use them? I only wish I had a gun rather than a camera.” — SOURCE: Belfast Telegraph

Meanwhile, this from The Australian received little notice…

Article from: Agence France-Presse

HUNDREDS of people were killed in the central Nigerian city of Jos when Christians and Muslims clashed over the result of a local election.

“Hundreds of people have been killed in the last two days since the riots started. Remains of burnt bodies litter some parts of the town; it is so terrible,” Christian clergyman Yakumu Pam said.

Local Radio Plateau said the governor of Plateau State, Jonah Jang, had placed four districts of the city under a curfew and had ordered police to fire on anyone who broke it following the clashes on Friday.

Aminu Manu said incidents of violence were still being reported in the city today.

“So far over 10,000 people have been displaced from their homes and are now seeking refuge in churches, mosques and army and police barracks,” a Nigerian Red Cross official in Jos said.

“I can’t give any figures but there are dead bodies on the streets that are yet to be evacuated. We are afraid of an outbreak of an epidemic if they are allowed to decompose,” he said. — SOURCE

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Worker Killed In Wal-Mart Stampede

Shocking video from a Long Island Wal-Mart shows police officers giving a trampled worker CPR. The man died a short while later.

Throngs of Black Friday shoppers stampeded the man as they rushed into the Green Acres mall in Valley Stream minutes before it opened.

“When the doors opened, all hell broke loose,” a law enforcement source told The Post.

An unidentified man, believed to be a store employee who tried to restrain the oncoming juggernaut, was knocked to the ground at 5:03 a.m.

He was rushed to a local hospital but declared dead at 6:03, police said.

Four other people were hospitalized, including a 28-year-old pregnant woman. She was knocked to the store floor a short distance from where the 34-year-old man was trampled and her fate was unclear.

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RELATED:
“Sought: Shoppers who trampled Wal-Mart worker to death”
I wonder what makes them think the frigging imbeciles will come forward.

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I used to make regular business trips to the site of this tragedy at Point Mugu, CA and in those days the area was well marked with signs as being extremely hazardous and dangerous. Additionally, the people that lived and worked around Oxnard knew better than to crawl out on Mugu Rock to take photos. That leads me to wonder if the young men in this story could read or understand English.

3 swept to deaths by Point Mugu wave are identified

Three young men enjoying the ocean view at Point Mugu were swept to their deaths Thursday afternoon by a wave that pulled them into the water along with two companions who were able to scramble to safety, authorities said.

The victims — brothers Marcello Ramos Vasquez, 17, and Catalino Ramos Vasquez, 19, and their friend Pedro Avila Ramos, 22, all of Oxnard — were standing with two friends at the water’s edge on the landmark Mugu Rock, taking photographs of the ocean about 1:50 p.m. when they became nervous, said Shasta Gainer, deputy medical examiner at the Ventura County medical examiner’s office.

“They saw that the waves were strong, and they realized that it was dangerous, so they attempted to make their way back from the water lines,” said Gainer, who interviewed one of the survivors. “A big wave came and he told me all of them got knocked in the water and he told me he was lifted up by a swell and grabbed onto a rock.”

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TheDailyGreen.com:

The Kit That Turns Gas Guzzlers into Plug-In Hybrids

Ulrik Poulsen’s Innovative Invention

Sitting in a Connecticut warehouse, the very first Poulsen Hybrid looks like a standard Honda Civic with immobilizer boots attached to its rear wheels. It is, one would have to say, not the most visually elegant of solutions to the pressing problem of using electric power to extend the range of the internal-combustion automobile. But it’s also both practical and affordable.

Ulrik Poulsen and his converted Honda Civic.

Ulrik Poulsen is a mechanical engineer and Danish immigrant whose Shelton, Connecticut-based Bridgeport Magnetics Group makes a range of transformers, power supplies, magnetic cores, audio cables and other products. One new product for Con Edison is an isolation transformer designed to prevent people from getting electric shocks from defective streetlights. But Poulsen is branching out with a bolt-on kit that, he says, can transform ordinary cars into a form of plug-in hybrid. And he’s entered his invention as a contestant in the Progressive Auto X Prize, which carries a $10 million purse.

The concept is relatively simple: Two of the company’s seven-horsepower (five kilowatt) disc-shaped DC electric motors are bolted onto the rear wheels of the host car, connected by cables to a controller, battery charger and 4.5-kilowatt-hour lithium-ion battery pack in the trunk. The system, adding approximately 200 pounds to the car and taking up 20 percent of trunk space, acts as range extender. The motors do not drive the car, but kick in to provide a power boost between 15 and 60 miles per hour. Regenerative braking helps keep the batteries charged.

There are several companies converting Priuses and other hybrids to plug-in status, but Poulsen may be the only contender starting with ordinary gasoline cars. For $10,000, for instance, HyMotion will turn your ordinary Prius into a 100-mpg plug-in with a five-kilowatt-hour battery pack.

Poulsen installation is not a do-it-yourself operation, but an authorized dealer can accomplish it in as little as four hours. If the system works as advertised, a 30-mile-per-gallon car will be raised to 55 mpg.

The disc-shaped seven-horsepower Poulsen motor.

“The spark for this was reading that the great majority of personal trips in the U.S. are relatively short, 25 miles or less,” Poulsen said. His battery system can keep the electric motors supplied for 25 to 30 miles, after which the car reverts to being a slightly heavier Honda Civic. Recharging, through an onboard battery charger, takes four or five hours from ordinary household current and costs less than $1.

Alas, the Poulsen Civic looked purposeful sitting in the warehouse but was not actually drivable at the time of our visit. The white-coated engineers were conducting tests, working on some electrical issues, and a range of meters and gadgets were plugged in to the halfway disassembled battery pack and controller. We’ll follow up with a ride-and-drive opportunity.

Like most such startups, Poulsen Hybrid has ambitious plans that may not be realized. Mr. Poulsen thinks he can have 50 cars equipped with his kits by January. By mid-2009, he projects the capacity to produce 100 kits a day. Installed with lithium-ion batteries, the system is projected to cost $8,600. There is a lead-acid battery option that will be much cheaper.

This is an exciting time for automotive dreamers. And Ulrik Poulsen would appear to have more realistic dreams than most.

By Jim Motavalli. Photo Credits: Jim Motavalli
SOURCE + MORE…

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Shocking percentage of DWI arrests involve suspected illegal immigrants

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – It’s been over 3 years since Emily Moose lost her son Scott [Gardner] — a popular Gaston County teacher — to a drunk driver. Scott’s wife Tina remains in a vegetative state, her young children being raised by her parents.

Emily says one fact has made this especially hard to deal with:

“It could have been prevented. My son didn’t have to die.”

Garder is one of a number of people in our area who’ve died in accidents caused by drunk illegal immigrants. The man who pled guilty in Gardner’s case is Ramiro Gallegos. He’d been in court before and convicted of DWI before.

“We as a family and all the others with us have been betrayed by a failed and broken system that should have worked properly in the beginning,” Emily told WBTV.

A WBTV Investigation reveals what Gallegos did hasn’t stopped. We went through every single Mecklenburg DWI arrest on weekends this month: 25% of the arrests were suspected illegal immigrants. That means one out of of every four people arrested for DWI was an alleged illegal immigrant.

Some days are worse than others. On Sunday, November 9th, nearly half of the 13 DWI arrests were suspected illegals.

“it’s wrong for everybody to drink and drive!” said Maudia Melendez with Jesus Ministry Inc. She says local Hispanic media have been pounding home the message to immigrants not to drink and drive, and she feels its happening less.

She questions whether Latino illegal immigrants are really drinking and driving more than any other group, or whether police are just arresting them more.

“Can you show me why you have such a high percentage? Did you go to directly to where they live, or were checkpoints close by to where they live?”

Local congresswoman Sue Myrick has been trying for several years now to get the Scott Gardner Act passed. Among other things, It would automatically deport any illegal immigrant convicted of DWI. Moose feels it would save lives.

SOURCE

RELATED:
Scott Gardner didn’t have to die

Another wreck sharpens questions

And, the pitiful tale continues

Myrick will push again for bill involving illegal immigrants and drunk driving

CHARLOTTE, NC (WBTV) – An On Your side investigation exposed just how bad the problem of illegal immigrants getting DWIs is here in Mecklenburg County.

Our analysis found one out of every four people arrested for D-W-I on weekends this month is a suspected illegal immigrant.

This is not a new issue. Congresswoman Sue Myrick has been trying to make D-W-I a deportable offense since 2005.

“It’s just frustrating as the Dickens that we can’t get something done to stop it,” she told WBTV.

Three years ago she first introduced the Scott Gardner Act in memory of a Gaston County man killed by an illegal immigrant who was driving drunk.

She says our investigation is evidence the bill is needed.

“This is a problem that’s literally all over the country,” Myrick said. “Some areas worse than others, but there’s no excuse for it.”

The Scott Gardner Act would automatically deport any illegal immigrant convicted of DWI, and would give cops better access to immigration records to tell who’s illegal.

Behind Myrick’s support it passed the House in 2005, but it’s never passed the Senate. That upsets Gardner’s mother, Emily Moose.

“My son didn’t have to die,” Moose said. “And had the information been available and the laws enforced and the new law in place, he would be here today, taking care of his family.”

Myrick says she’ll try again in January. The Republican says even with Democrats in control of Congress, she’s hopeful, since some Democrats have worked with her on the bill.

“This is not a Democrat Republican issue, this is an American issue. We have a problem that needs to be dealt with, and it’s a justice problem.”

Angeles Ortega-Moore, the head of the Latin American Coalition in Charlotte, says she supports the Scott Gardner Act. But she thinks along with it, illegal immigrants should have an easier time getting help for drinking problems. She says in America they often can’t get help because of their immigration status.

SOURCE

RELATED:
DHS Has 600 Vacancies For Deportation Officers

Illegal Aliens in North Carolina

Immigration Enforcement, The Right Way

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Flight 93 Memorial Tribute To Islam

No, the Mecca-orientation of the Crescent of Embrace is NOT a product of the landform

Defenders of the Flight 93 memorial repeatedly insist that the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent HAS to be a coincidence. It is completely determined, they insist, by the landform, the path of Flight 93, and the impact point, leaving no room for intent to enter.

Of course it is crazy to think that, so long as it is just an unfortunate coincidence, there is nothing wrong with planting a giant Mecca-oriented crescent (the central feature of a mosque) on the graves of our murdered heroes. About as crazy, actually, as thinking that the Mecca-orientation of the giant crescent could really be a coincidence. First architect Paul Murdoch just innocently comes up with a half mile wide Islamic-shaped crescent to honor the victims of Islamic terrorism, then he innocently places the Sacred Ground Plaza between the tips of the giant crescent, in the position of the star on an Islamic crescent and star flag, then he innocently just happens to point this entire crescent-and-star-flag configuration at Mecca (and on and on and on).

When the nation saw the second airliner hit the Trade Towers, everyone immediately knew that the first impact was no accident. The more airplanes that Paul Murdoch flies into the Flight 93 memorial, the more the Memorial Project thinks it HAS to be an accident. Its just TOO OUTLANDISH to think that an Islamic enemy could attack us out of the blue and unawares in such a henious way. What precedent is there for thinking that such a thing could even be possible? (Knock, knock, knock.) And so the more evidence they are confronted with, the more impossible it seems, and the more they insist that Murdoch HAS to be innocent.

Okay, so they are WILLFULLY blind. Even so, they still need an excuse to hang their willful blindness on, and part of Murdoch’s evil genius is to supply these excuses. That is where this trope about the crescent design being dictated by the landscape comes from. It comes from Murdoch, and is actually one of his most brilliant deceptions.

Murdoch’ PRELIMINARY DESIGN actually can be seen as dictated by the landform, the flight-path, and the point of impact

Before any designs were submitted, the Memorial Project gave all the design contestants a site organization map that labeled the “the ridgeline,” “the bowl,” “the crash site,” and “the flight path.” Architect Paul Murdoch claims that all he did was combine these elements by having the flight path symbolically “break” the circular bowl shape, creating the giant Crescent of Embrace design. If you start a crescent at the point where the flight path crosses the ridgeline, and follow the rim of “the bowl” around the ridgeline to create a crescent that “embraces” the Sacred Ground where Flight 93 crashed, then you get the Crescent of Embrace design. Since this procedure uniquely determines the orientation of the crescent, there is no room for the orientation to be determined by anyone’s intent. If it faces Mecca, it HAS to be a coincidence.

This argument actually works, but only when applied to Paul Murdoch’s ORIGINAL Crescent of Embrace design, which did NOT point to Mecca. Take a look:

Click for larger image.

The site organization map (left), shows “the bowl,” bordered by “the ridge,” along with the flight path and the crash site. Murdoch’s preliminary Crescent of Embrace design (right), uses the point where the flight path crosses the ridge/bowl as the end point for a crescent that has the Sacred Ground centered between its crescent tips. Resulting orientation: 11.1°. clockwise from north, which is 44.1° north of Mecca.

The explanatory notes in the preliminary design are perfectly accurate when they describe the crescent as focused on the Sacred Ground:

A curving arc of maple trees along a walkway unites the ridge and forms an edge to the bowl, with a focus on the Sacred Ground.

It is also correct to say that this crescent and its orientation are uniquely determined (to within 5° or so) by the landform, the flight path and the crash site. If the crescent arc were extended much further then it would no longer point to the Sacred Ground. (The amount of curve between the end points of the crescent does not matter. Murdoch established the curve of his original crescent by smoothing the curved shape of the ridge line.)

If THIS crescent is uniquely determined by the combination of landform, flight path and crash site, then the final Crescent of Embrace design, rotated 42.3° further to the east, obviously CANNOT be determined by these factors. By extending the crescent in his final design to match the full Islamic crescent shape (covering about 2/3rds of a circle of arc), Murdoch created a crescent that no longer points to the Sacred Ground:

The bisector of the crescent in Murdoch’s final Crescent of Embrace design points approximately 1.8 ° north of Mecca (marked “qibla”). Notice that the bisector of this Mecca-oriented crescent does not even touch the Sacred Ground, but crosses through the upper portion of the Sacred Ground Plaza that sits up the flight path from the Sacred Ground.

While the crescent no longer points to the Sacred Ground, Murdoch still PRETENDS that it does. Asked last summer about the orientation of the crescent, Project Superintendent Joanne Hanley and architect Paul Murdoch both claimed that it points to the Sacred Ground:

Further, [Hanley] added, it is still unclear exactly where on the landscape the memorial will even be situated. It could move as much as 200 yards, she said, discounting the idea that it faces Mecca.

“The only thing that orients the memorial is the crash site,” she said.

Mr. Murdoch reinforced that idea.

“It’s oriented toward the Sacred Ground,” he said. “It just couldn’t be clearer.”

Hanley may be honestly duped, but Murdoch knows full well that the crescent does not point to the Sacred Ground. Such an orientation would ruin his mosque design, not just because a Sacred Ground oriented crescent would no longer point to Mecca, but also because it would place the graves of the infidels in the location of the star on an Islamic flag, leaving them inside the symbolic Islamic heavens. Blasphemy!

Murdoch has a very different symbolism in mind for the star on his giant crescent and star flag. In the top third of the Sacred Ground Plaza, centered on the bisector of the giant crescent, in the exact position of the star on an Islamic flag, sits a separate upper section of Memorial Wall, inscribed with the 9/11 date. The date goes to the star on the Islamic flag. The date goes to the terrorists.

The duping of David Beamer

At this August’s public meeting of the Memorial Project, David Beamer (father of Flight 93 hero Todd Beamer) came out to counter Tom Burnett Sr.’s protests against the crescent design.

Mr. Beamer declared that he had performed several months of due diligence investigating the warnings about the crescent design, by which he presumably meant that he had checked at least a few of our factual claims, like the Mecca orientation of the giant crescent (now called a broken circle). But instead of reporting the results of his fact-checking, Beamer changed the subject. He did not say a single word about the accuracy of any of our claims, but only reported how he had met with architect Paul Murdoch and was satisfied that Murdoch’s design properly honors his son and the other murdered heroes of Flight 93.

If he actually did any fact checking, then he is fully aware that the giant crescent DOES point within 2° of Mecca, in which case there is only one plausible explanation for Beamer declaring the design innocent. Murdoch must have convinced him that the crescent orientation is determined by the landform, the flight path and the crash site, so that its orientation on Mecca HAS to be coincidence.

If Mr. Beamer had bothered to talk to the person who has been warning of an enemy plot then Alec Rawls would have explained to him that no, these physical facts about the crash site do NOT yield a Mecca-oriented crescent. They yield a crescent that points 44° north of Mecca. It is a very strange concept of due diligence to trust the assurances of the person one is being warned is an enemy operative while refusing to talk to the person who is issuing warnings

Very strange too, to think that just because one is convinced that the Mecca orientation of the crescent is a coincidence, that somehow makes it okay to deny the Mecca orientation when speaking to the press and the public, as several Project spokesmen have now done. The fact that Beamer and Hanley and other Project Partners have been duped be Murdoch”s explanations would be of little consequence if they just let the public know what they know, so the American people can decide for themselves whether the fact that it might be a coincidence makes it okay to plant the world’s largest Mecca-direction indicator on the Flight 93 crash site.

Obviously the answer would be “NO!” and this nightmare would be over. It is the lying that is the problem. Hanley et. al. can be a bunch of dupes if they want, but they have no right to deceive the public about what they know.

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May your Thanksgiving be filled with joy

Don Surber offers this Thanksgiving Day message:

H/T: Doug Ross

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Amid all the political and media hysteria, national output has declined by less than one-half of 1%. In fact, it may not have declined even that much — or at all — when the statistics are revised later, as they very often are.

We are not talking about the Great Depression, when output dropped by one-third and unemployment soared to 25%.

What we are talking about is a golden political opportunity for politicians to use the current financial crisis to fundamentally change an economy that has been successful for more than two centuries, so that politicians can henceforth micromanage all sorts of businesses and play Robin Hood, taking from those who are not likely to vote for them and transferring part of their earnings to those who will vote for them.

For that, the politicians need lots of hype, and that is being generously supplied by the media.

Whatever the merits of trying to shore up some financial institutions, in order to prevent a major disruption of the credit flows that keep the whole economy going, what has in fact been done is to create a huge pot of money — hundreds of billions of dollars — that politicians can use to give out goodies hither and yon, to whomever they please for whatever reason they please.

No doubt we could all use a few billion dollars every now and then. But the question of who actually gets it will be strictly in the hands of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It is one of the few parts of the legacy of the Bush administration that the Democrats are not likely to criticize.

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If you’re impressed by BHO’s bullshit, er, promise of 2.5 million new jobs, maybe you need to brush up on current events.

IBD:

Every presidential candidate in recent times has claimed that his policies will lead to the creation of millions of new jobs — often making promises far bolder than Obama’s.

In 1988, George H.W. Bush promised 15 million new jobs. In 1992, Bill Clinton said his economic plan would create 8 million. In 2000, Al Gore promised 10 million new high-tech positions. That same campaign, George W. Bush said his tax cuts would add 5 million to payrolls. In 2004, John Kerry pledged 10 million.

Earlier this year, Hillary Clinton offered up a plan during the primaries that she said would create 3 million jobs just “through increased investments in the nation’s infrastructure.”

Such promises are easy for politicians to make because a growing economy creates enormous numbers of new jobs, no matter who sits in the White House.

Since Eisenhower’s first term, the economy has created an average of 1.5 million new jobs each year. Since Reagan’s first term, the average has been about 2.5 million a year. And Reagan, who inherited an economy as bad if not worse than the current one, saw 6.3 million new jobs created four years after he entered the White House. [Bold added]

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Bet you thought your vote meant something, didn’t you?

Well, fergitaboutit! The judges conducted a coup and you lost.

In Alaska, The Drill Is Gone

Energy: Remember those 68 million acres House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said the oil companies had to use or lose? According to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, they can’t drill there either.

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