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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/23/2013 5:11:21 PM
In Colorado, Blacks Make Up 4 Percent Of The Population And 100 Percent Of Death Row













Written by Nicole Flatow

In March, Colorado came close to becoming the 19th state to abolish the death penalty, but thebill failed after Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) voiced opposition and suggested a possible veto. A few months later, Colorado’s death penalty is still firmly in place, and the state is poised to complete what would be only the second execution in 45 years (the last was in 1997). Few dispute that Nathan Dunlap committed a horrific crime and murdered several people at a Chuck E. Cheese. But judges, university professors, and other prominent state leaders are urging Gov. Hickenlooperto commute Dunlap’s sentence, both because crucial errors that defined his trial may have led him to get a harsher sentence than others, and because killing anyone under the perverted state system would be a miscarriage of justice. According to letters filed with Hickenlooper’s office:

  • All three people on death row are black men. In a state that is only 4.3% African American,Colorado’s death row is 100% African American.
  • All three men on death are from the same one county, out of Colorado’s 64.
  • All three men committed their crime when they were under the age of 21.
  • Two law professors who studied Colorado’s application of the death penalty concluded it was unconstitutional, after finding that prosecutors pursue the death penalty in less than one percent of the cases where it is an option, and that the state failed to set “clear statutory standards for distinguishing between the few who are executed and the many who commit murder.”

“It appears that race, geography and youth largely determines who gets the death penalty in Colorado,” wrote a group of NAACP leaders in a letter urging Gov. Hickenlooper to grant clemency. They note that not a single black juror served on the panel that sentenced Dunlap to death.

In addition to the injustices that define the Colorado system, a group of former Colorado judges also point out that Dunlap’s bipolar disorder and psychotic tendencies were not even mentioned at trial. In fact, according to their letter, Dunlap’s lawyer told the jury that there was no explanation for his violence.

The judges add that “no clear evidence exists that the death penalty deters violent crime. What it does in our current system, as in this case, is to drain our judicial system of millions of dollars as mandatory appeals drag on for decades.” Studies have shown that the death penalty does not lower the homicide rate. In fact, the murder rate is lower in states without the death penalty. Hickenlooper says he continues to wrestle with the death penalty, and whether to commute Dunlap’s sentence.

This post was originally published by ThinkProgress.


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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/23/2013 6:16:58 PM

Tornado? Beheading? Last Full Frontal Gasps of the Dark?



A photo of a naked man alleged to be walking along the street immediately after the London street attack. Photo:beforeitsnews

A photo of a naked man alleged to be walking along the street immediately after the London street attack. Photo:beforeitsnews

By Stephen Cook – May 23, 2013

In Bangladesh, four of the world’s five worst-ever tornadoes have claimed upwards of thousands of lives. In fact on April 26, 1989, a 22.4 sq mile area in Bangladesh’s Manikganj district was devastated by the Daulatpur-Saturia Tornado which claimed 1,300 lives.

In countries across the globe – from Syria to Mexico, from Brazil to the Congo – violence, in the form of unfathomably vicious street attacks on innocent men, women and children, is an everyday fact of life.

But today, we’re all sitting up taking notice of a truly bizarre and horrific attack on one man in a quiet London street. At the same time, we’re still reeling from the aftermath of a violent tornado that eerily ripped through a major American city, originally supposedly killing 91 people – which oddly (and yet fortunately) was later lowered to 24 – and which is still affecting thousands of lives.

Why are these two stories making headlines right around the world?

Neither event is anything less than horrific: both sent shivers down my spine as soon as I learned of them; the thought of the ‘fearful’ energy of both is nothing less than overwhelming. If you let it be.

And yet, if I sit within my own equilibrium and balance, I become somewhat detached from both events; I see them in another weirdly ‘que sera, sera’ kind of way. Let me explain.

Both events have quickly drawn claims of being ‘staged’, in some way. That’s the power of today’s internet and the ever-increasing number of people who are growing weary – and also aware – of the lies we’ve been fed about many things. From how wars have started, to who really perpetrated 9/11, to whether the vaccinations we give our children are truly safe. The list goes on.

Two babies and eight other young children were among the 24 people killed by a tornado that tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore.

Two babies and eight other young children were among the 24 people killed by a tornado that tore through the Oklahoma City suburb of Moore.

Dutchsinse, the man with his eye on HAARP, had instant readings that HAARP had been used around the Oklahoma City southern suburb of Moore prior to the tornado’s sudden arrival. You can read what he had to say here:http://sincedutch.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/5202013-oklahoma-city-massive-tornado-damage-radar-pulse-haarp-ring-scalar-square-confirmation/

If he’s right, then what happened in Oklahoma on Monday was sinister indeed – although, I’m personally not quite sure of what benefit creating such a wild weather event would do, other than earn of lot of money for people who are involved in either the temporary accommodation industry (finding homes for the homeless) or the construction industry (rebuilding all that was destroyed).

If it was a last gasp of the dark to create fear and terror from nature and our planet, then it certainly did its job.

Either way, my heart, and no doubt all our hearts, go out to all – the children, the families – who’ve been affected by this freak weather event.

Meanwhile, just as questions arose within hours of the Boston marathon event, people around the world are questioning whether the London beheading was real and if it was a staged event.

Certainly, the mysterious appearance of the photo above – supposedly of a naked man walking the streets of the London suburb of Woolwich immediately after the incident – is bizarre, to say the least.

But what if he was there as a distraction, simply to make people turn away from what was really going on. (And how come he wasn’t arrested?)

However, in the even more ‘stranger than strange’ category, we’ve seen the two men who allegedly committed the attack blatantly court attention from passers by immediately after they’d caused such grief. Asking people to photograph and film them and making no attempt to flee the scene. Yes, they were both shot but you’d expect them to run and hide after committing such a crime. (Oh, and of course, they were once again, supposedly, Muslim.)

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett confronts one of the attackers (@dannymckiernan)

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett confronts one of the attackers (@dannymckiernan)

Even more bewildering to me is why a local woman also engaged one of the two ‘criminals’ in a long conversation – becoming a brave hero in this odd incident. But did she actually have no actual fear because no fear was actually present? (I can’t see or feel fear in the photo, at left.)

So, due to my questioning of other events, I’m even wondering if this woman was a ‘plant’ – as terrible as that sounds. If she was simply a planted ‘brave passer by’, it would be very easy for her to be the first ”witness’ to say the man had no pulse. Yet what if he was already dead and this event was completely staged. The mind seriously boggles these days, because anything is possible, no matter what we’re being led to believe.

So, with all these questions bouncing around, do you see how I can now feel detached from both events despite their seeming tragedy?

For, if they were both among the last full frontal gasps of the dark, then they will be seen for what they are very quickly. As maybe they already are.

And then there’s the other thought process. And that is this: if we are all here to play a role, and we have a chosen destiny, then are those destinies now playing out?

Maybe the men who did this awful beheading are really here to bring the atrocities that are going on, day after day, in other cities and countries of the world to all of our attention.

Maybe they did what they did (if indeed it did happen) to make the rest of the world go ‘enough is enough, we have to clean up the root causes of all such violence’.

And if the Oklahoma tornado was ‘manufactured’ for some reason that isn’t yet apparent to me (or even if it was naturally-caused weather event) despite the tragedy it has caused, hasn’t it also united a community with love and compassion as they rebuild their lives.

As we’ve been told, this time between April 25 (when the most recent lunar eclipse took place) and this coming Saturday May 25, when another lunar eclipse will take place, was always going to be a wild ride.

It’s certainly been that. Yet something deep inside tells me that we all need to sit back, retain our balance, remain detached and not be overcome by any drama – for a whole lot of good (WAY more than we possibly realise) is also going on.


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/23/2013 10:08:48 PM

UK attack spurs Muslim community soul-searching, backlash fear


By Mohammed Abbas

LONDON (Reuters) - Strapping his baby into a car seat, Abu Khaled said it was unfortunate that a British soldier was hacked to death in an apparent Islamist attack a day earlier in London, but it was not the only misfortune on his mind.

"A 75-year-old man was stabbed to death earlier this month on his way back from the mosque in Birmingham. You didn't hear about that, did you?" said the bearded 36-year-old personal trainer, speaking near East London Mosque, one of the capital's oldest and largest.

"Eleven children died in Afghanistan in a U.S. drone attack about the time of the Boston bombings. You didn't hear about that either, did you?" he said.

The overwhelming reaction from Muslim communities to the brutal killing on Wednesday has been one of horror, compounded by fears of a backlash.

"These men have insulted Allah (God) and dishonored our faith ... There will no doubt be a lot of soul-searching about why these individuals do what they do," Farooq Murad, head of the Muslim Council of Britain, said in a news conference.

Abu Khaled said it was probably Western treatment of Muslim life as "collateral damage" in conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq that triggered Wednesday's crazed attack in Woolwich, southeast London.

In a video of the killing, one of the two suspects, named by local media as Londoner Michael Adebolajo, 28, said he did it because "Muslims are dying every day" and that the soldier's death was a "tooth for a tooth, an eye for an eye".

For east London housewife Muna Hussein, 35, nothing could justify such an act.

"That man was slaughtered like a goat. I was shocked. I couldn't sleep. I was afraid to leave the house in case people attacked me for wearing a headscarf," she said.

Abu Khaled's chief concern now is for his extended family, who live in the east London district of Barking, a bastion of the English Defense League, a far-right group that opposes what it sees as the spread of Islamic extremism in Britain, which on Wednesday took to the streets in protest.

"The terrible events in Woolwich today were a reminder of something very few are willing to accept: we are at war ... in defense of our culture, our rights, our freedom and our country," the group said on its website.

ROCK AND A HARD PLACE

The East London Mosque's Facebook page is now littered with threats and xenophobic comments, and two other mosques have been attacked. The East London Mosque also houses a Muslim center, and is involved in combating extremist teaching.

"The mosque and center is between a rock and a hard place ... We're trying to fight off two kind of extremist groups - the far right, and we're trying to fight off these extremist groups within our own community," spokesman Salman Farsi said, adding that fear had spread through British Muslim communities.

The center said state support had been lacking since David Cameron's coalition government came to power in 2010, embarking on a tough austerity drive to fix a big budget deficit.

In recent years party leaders have also toughened their rhetoric on immigration.

"The coalition has just cut connections with the Muslim community. It's almost like they don't want to engage. Money's gone to think-tanks over grass roots and frontline work. And that's one of the reasons you see trouble on the streets," said Shaynul Khan, another mosque spokesman.

Farsi said his center was battling against figures such as Anjem Choudary, the head of a banned British radical Islamist group, who told Reuters he knew Adebolajo and declined to condemn his attack, blaming it on "British foreign policy".

One of Choudary's fellow preachers Abu Abdullah Al-Britani, who gives sermons calling for the end of western democracy and for the introduction of sharia law, said the killing was a natural reaction to what Britain was doing overseas.

"Nobody wants to see this; we want to live in peace, in harmony, but we can't do that if the British are going to be going around butting their noses into other people's business," he told Reuters.

Choudary and al-Britani appear to have some sympathizers.

"Police always pull me aside at airports and ask me whether I know any terrorists. I say I do, and their eyes go wide," Abu Khaled said.

"I say George Bush and Tony Blair," he said, referring to the former U.S. and British leaders behind the 2003 Iraq war.

(Additional reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Will Waterman)


"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/23/2013 10:10:49 PM

London street slayer references British wars, not Nigerian insurgency

Reports say the suspects in yesterday's butchering of a British soldier have Nigerian ancestry. However, they appeared to be driven by UK involvement in other Muslim nations.


Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron (l.) visits an army barracks today near the scene of yesterday's killing in Woolwich, southeast London. British authorities believe that two men accused of hacking a soldier to death on a London street in revenge for wars in Muslim countries are British of Nigerian descent, a source close to the investigation said Thursday. Luke MacGregor/Reuters


Anti-terrorist police are preparing to interview two hospitalized suspects arrested after a brutal attack on an off-duty soldier in southeast London who was butchered in the street with knives and a meat cleaver.

Sources quoted in the British media claim the two unnamed men were British but of Nigerian background who officers suspect have converted to a radical form of Islam.

While Nigeria is home to an Islamist insurgency called Boko Haram, early indications do not point to the conflict there as a genesis for their rage. Instead, the target of a soldier and the statements from his alleged killers suggest they were reacting to the long British military engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

RECOMMENDED: Quiz: How much do you know about terrorism?

“The emphasis from Boko Haram is more internal inside Nigeria and less international. They understand the British Army is not involved in suppression within Nigeria which is being carried out by the Nigerian Army," says Paul Rogers, a professor of peace studies at the University of Bradford. The group is fighting to set up an Islamic state in the mainly Muslim north of Nigeria.

Instead, says the professor, the attackers appear at this point to have launched the attack on their own after being radicalized. "This is the type of thing that the British authorities are most worried about," he says. "Counter-terrorism has almost doubled in size over the last 10 years with over 10,000 people now working in it whether it’s MI5, MI6 or police. But their problem is, how do you stop random attacks?"

How the suspects came to be radicalized is not known yet, but Professor Rogers points out: “We know extreme Islamic groups have used our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan to radicalize Muslims."

In scenes widely replayed on social media and television, one of the bloodied men spoke to a camera saying: "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you.

"We must fight them as they fight us. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. I apologize that women have had to witness this today, but in our land our women have to see the same. You people will never be safe. Remove your government, they don't care about you."

Eyewitnesses said the two men were shouting "Allahu Akbar" – God is great – as they attacked the unnamed soldier near the Royal Artillery Barracks in Woolwich yesterday. It is thought the victim was hit by a car before he was attacked.

In a remarkable act of courage, a passer-by tried to calm one of the alleged killers by talking to him about the violence, earning widespread commendations.

Cub Scout leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett told the ITV television network she first thought the victim had been in a car accident but after spotting the blood-spattered meat cleaver she tried to engage one of the men. She described him as a "regular guy" who was not on drugs or drunk, but seemed "upset."

As she knelt by the body she spoke to the man. "He said 'don't touch, I killed him'. I said 'Why?' He said 'He's a British soldier. He killed people. He killed Muslim people in Muslim countries.'"

“And I said, okay. So what would you like? I tried to make him talk about how he felt. He said all the bombs dropping and blindly killing women, children.”

Both men were shot by police and taken to separate hospitals. Relatives of the victim have been informed of the death, but he has not been named. It is thought the soldier was wearing a "Help for Heroes" sweat shirt – a military charity which helps wounded soldiers – at the time of the killing and a camouflaged rucksack.

In the immediate aftermath, soldiers were told not to wear uniforms in public for security reasons but today Prime Minister overruled the Ministry of Defence saying the best way to beat terrorism was to "continue with normal life." Today he held talks with the government’s emergency response Cobra committee as anti-terrorist police prepared to interview the two suspects and officers raided a house in Lincolnshire.

Overnight, police reported isolated attacks on mosques while officers in Woolwich battled with nearly 250 members of the English Defence League, an anti-Islamic group, protesting against the attack and Muslim immigration.

Today various Muslim groups condemned the killing. In a statement issued on its website, the Muslim Council of Britain said: “This is a truly barbaric act that has no basis in Islam and we condemn this unreservedly. Our thoughts are with the victim and his family.

“We understand the victim is a serving member of the Armed Forces. Muslims have long served in this country’s Armed Forces, proudly and with honour. This attack on a member of the Armed Forces is dishonourable, and no cause justifies this murder.”

Around 600 Muslims serve in the British Armed Forces.

The Stop the War Coalition condemned the killing but said the roots of the problem was Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. Convenor Lindsey German said in a statement: “Any rational balance sheet of the last decade and more would demonstrate that the war on terror has been a failure in its own terms. It has not prevented terrorism but caused it to spread.

“The failure of politicians and military to face up to this has further damaging consequences: If the government refuses to change its own policy it has one simple solution - 'blame the Muslims'. Muslims are expected to condemn any such attack whereas no such demand is put upon people of other faiths when a killing is carried out by Christians. Muslim is also equated with black or Asian, as when one television reporter described the men as of 'Muslim appearance'.”

RECOMMENDED: Quiz: How much do you know about terrorism?

Related stories



"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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Luis Miguel Goitizolo

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RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?
5/23/2013 10:14:58 PM

Thunderstorms slow Oklahoma tornado cleanup


Associated Press/Charlie Riedel - Monty Montgomery surveys the scene as he prepares to clean up a friend's tornado-ravaged home Thursday, May 23, 2013, in Moore, Okla. Cleanup continues three days after a huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb, flattening a wide swath of homes and businesses. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

MOORE, Okla. (AP) — A band of thunderstorms battered theOklahoma City area Thursday, slowing cleanup operations in the suburb where a tornado killed 24 people and destroyed thousands of homes this week.

The first of the funerals, for a 9-year-old girl killed at a Moore elementary school that took a direct hit in Monday's storm, took place Thursday morning. A family photo showed the girl, Antonia Candelaria, beaming with a big smile and wearing a white sun hat.

Early estimates indicate the tornado caused more than $2 billion of damage in Moore. Whole subdivisions in the fast-growing community of 56,000 people were destroyed.

Antonia's relatives and friends huddled under umbrellas in a downpour as they hurried into a chapel for her funeral. Mournful country music played in the chapel that was adorned with photos of the smiling girl.

Two elementary schools were hit — one was leveled — by Monday's tornado. Antonia was one of seven children who perished at thePlaza Towers Elementary School, a one story building with barely a wall left standing. Altogether, 10 children were killed in the storm, including two infants.

The medical examiner reported that six of the children who died at Plaza Towers suffocated after being buried under a mass of bricks, steel and other materials as the building collapsed. A seventh child who died there, 8-year-old Kyle Davis, was killed instantly by an object — perhaps a large piece of stone or a beam — that fell on the back of his neck.

Thursday's thunderstorms produced hail, heavy rain and high winds in the morning. A flash flood warning was also in effect. The National Weather Service said more severe storms were forecast for late afternoon and at night, and that more tornados were a possibility.

The weather was hampering cleanup and recovery efforts that had just begun to accelerate now that all of the missing have been accounted for. Residents were only formally allowed back into the damage zone on Wednesday afternoon, where they picked through enormous piles of debris.

Shayne Patteson was among them, moving around the ruins of his three-bedroom home. All that was left was the tiny area where his wife hunkered down under a mattress to protect their three children when a tornado packing winds of at least 200 mph slammed through his neighborhood.

Patteson vowed to rebuild, likely in the same place, but said next time he will have an underground storm shelter.

"That is the first thing that will be going into the design of the house, is the storm shelter and the garage," he said as he looked around piles of bricks and plywood where their home once stood.

Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis said Wednesday he would propose an ordinance in the next couple of days to require all new homes to have storm shelters.

The city already has some. After a massive tornado tore a near-identical path in 1999, city authorities provided incentives such as federal grant dollars to help residents cover the costs of safe rooms. This time, though, Lewis thinks it is necessary to compel people to include them in all new construction.

___

Associated Press writer Tim Talley contributed to this report.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

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