Wednesday, May 22, 2013

FBI Killing Of Tsarnaev Associate Will Fan Conspiracy Theories

UPDATE: Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in a 2011 triple homicide outside Boston along with a Chechen killed Wednesday during a confrontation with the FBI and Massachusetts State Police in Orlando, Florida, a federal law enforcement official told CNN.

Ibragim Todashev not only confessed to his direct role in slashing the throats of three people in the killings in Waltham, Massachusetts, he also fingered Tsarnaev in the deaths, the official says.

Breaking news regarding the death of Ibragim Todashev is disturbing.

I realize we live in conspiracy-driven times, but I would think if the FBI and other federal agencies wanted to avoid stimulating more spin, they would attempt to build in safeguards against things like this happening.

A man fatally shot last night, May 21, 2013, by the Federal Bureau of Investigations in Orlando, Florida, was being interviewed for a possible connection to the Boston Marathon bombings, a U.S. law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the case told CNN and other media outlets.

The FBI has confirmed that the man killed is Ibragim Todashev who lived at 6022 Peregrine Avenue.



The shooting happened overnight in the Windhover apartment complex off Peregrine Avenue near Kirkman and Vineland roads.

Ibragim Todashev knew both of the Tsarnaev brothers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar, the official said.

The FBI agent shot Todashev in self-defense in an incident at Todashev's house.

Agents were led to Todashev, who had once lived in Boston, "through investigative leads," the official said. Todashev was from the Chechnya region, as were the Tsarnaev brothers.

Friends of Ibragim Todashev, 26, (shown at top) who was shot and killed by an FBI agent in Orlando, say he is from Chechnya and knew Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. (Photo credit: Orange County Jail)


Khusen Taramov, a friend of Ibrahim Todashev's, says the day that federal agents identified the Tsarnaev brothers as the Boston bombing suspects, FBI agents came to their apartment complex and started questioning a few people of Chechnyan descent. Photo.

Ibragim Todashev was a fighter, as had been Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Here is a video of Todashev.
 

Monday, May 20, 2013

The Mystery Meridian's Tornado Deaths



In Weird America (New York: EP Dutton, 1978), Jim Brandon introduces the concept of The Mystery Meridian. Brandon identifies a series of curiosities and oddities that are "overwhelmingly concentrated along a north-south axis between the ninety-seventh and ninety-eighth meridians of longitude, give or take a few miles on either side."


Brandon especially documents the weirdness along this Mystery Meridian in Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. But he also states that strange sites are to be found as the "line extends as far north as the Dakotas."
The Mystery Meridian is centered along Interstate 35, for half its length, in the South.

In Kansas, the Mystery Meridian was especially active late in 1973 and early in 1974, with a rash of cattle mutilations, especially in Ottawa County, the home of the Rock City's 200 strange unexplained spheres. That county is also the location of Delphos, where in 1879 ice fell from the sky, then on July 16, 1976 a phantom panther was sighted, and later during that same July 1974 for the flap of the Delphos "Wolfgirl." In 1897, there were the Kansas visitations of the mystery airships near Belleville (see also Bell name game), along this bizarre meridian. 

In Texas, the Mystery Meridian splits and involves Dallas - and all the phenomena that is linked to that location. But perhaps one of the best names for a site along the Mystery Meridian is at Meridian, Texas. On April 13, 1976, there was an inexplicable fall of dead white pelicans from the sky at Meridian.

In Oklahoma we discover, up and down the Mystery Meridian, a virtual explosion of weirdness clusters. Allow me to summarize:
*Crescent - Kerr-McGee Corporation is one of the few plutonium packing facilities in the country - and it was here that the infamous killing of Karen Silkwood occurred in November 1974; Government agents investigated whether "stolen" plutonium from the Crescent plant ended up with Texas devil worshipers who were mutilating cattle.
*El Reno - In May 1971, an unknown anthropoid was reported to be stealing chickens and left an apelike print on a coop; it was called the "Abominable Chicken Man of El Reno," and I was involved with investigating and discussing it with the Oklahoma City Zoo director.
*Enid - Three people who "by coincidence" were allegedly linked to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln all ended up in Enid: (1) David E. George, who claimed he was really John Wilkes Booth, died by poisoning at the Enid hotel here on January 13, 1903; (2) Boston Corbett, who reportedly was the army sergeant who rushed the Maryland barn and said he killed the original John Wilkes Booth, lived in Enid; and (3) also a resident here was said to be the former property manager who opened the window for Booth, allowing him to escape from Ford's Theater, after shooting Lincoln.
*Oklahoma City - The OKC bombing and other incidents start a long list for Oklahoma City. Weirder are the reports of an 1897 Airship seen here, a July 7, 1947 "flying saucer" sighting, and a November 1901 crocodilian (4.5 ft long) found in the Canadian River, in nearby Norman.



Today, death and destruction visited the Mystery Meridian in Oklahoma, in the form of tornadoes.






The most damage seems to have focussed on Moore, Oklahoma, where the 1999 tornado also hit.


The path of the May 3, 1999 tornado.




On Monday, May 20, 2013, more than 51 people were killed by the massive tornado that hit the Oklahoma City area, the office of the state's chief medical examiner said. Several children were killed. At least 20 children are among the 51 people killed after a tornado slammed Oklahoma. Of those killed, seven have been confirmed as children from the Plaza Towers Elementary School in Moore, police said. At least 145 people were hospitalized in the area, said hospital officials.

The tornado leveled buildings, while cutting a wide path of destruction the scale of which is just starting to become clear. Rescue workers were digging through the rubble of an elementary school looking for trapped students


President Barack Obama told Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin the federal government "stands ready to provide all available assistance," a White House statement said.

The Monday storm came in the wake of destruction that hit the area on Sunday night.

Andrew Griffin at Red Dirt Report earlier today wrote, "Driving around the area near Dale, Bethel Acres and then back towards Lake Thunderbird and on into Norman, we criss-crossed the areas where the Sunday tornado had passed through. Twisted bits of metal, downed power poles and homes that were badly damaged by the destructive force of the tornado were clearly visible in these areas of Oklahoma, Pottawatomie and Cleveland counties.

"As we write this story, a new, powerful tornado formed west of Newcastle and went east-northeast, right through Moore and parts of the southside of Oklahoma City. The devastation is massive. People are injured, possibly dead. This is as bad – or at least more widespread in terms of damage – as the notorious May 3, 1999 tornado that hit Moore."



Read more, at the Red Dirt Report. And check there for further updates.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

On the Damascus Road


Why do a few multiple news items appear to play name game tricks of their own?


On Saturday, May 18, 2013, a powerful car explosion hit the Ruken al-Deen neighborhood in Damascus, killing at least three people in the latest blast to strike the Syrian capital (population 1.7 million). The SANA news agency reported that an explosive device was planted under a car parked on Rukneddin highway near Ibn al-Nafis Hospital in Damascus, Syria. The initial death toll was put at three, and the number of injured at five.

Also on Saturday, May 18th, around 2:10 p.m. during the Hikers Parade at the Trail Days festival in Damascus, Viriginia, an annual celebration of the Appalachian Trail,  was interrupted by tragedy. 



Read more here: http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/2013/05/19/3494077/medical-emergency-eyed-in-va-parade.html#storylink=cpy
An elderly driver in a 1997 Cadillac plowed into the parade, injuring at least 60 people, sending a dozen to the hospital.

"In 27 years of this, we've never had anything of this magnitude, and is it our job to make sure it doesn't happen again," Damacus Mayor Jack McCrady said.

Damascus is a small town of less than 1000 people in Washington County, Virginia, United States. Damascus is the home of the annual Trail Days festival (with reportedly 20,000 people visiting). The community is known as Trail Town USA due to the convergence of four scenic trails in the town, including the Appalachian Trail, U.S. Bicycle Route 76, The Iron Mountain Trail, and the Virginia Creeper Trail.

The word Damascus means "a well-watered place."

Conversion of Saint Paul, 1542 by Michelangelo Buonarroti
At top, The Conversion of St. Paul, 1767 by Nicolas-Bernard Lepicie

In the West, Damascus is most frequently associated with the conversion incident mentioned in the New Testament of the Bible. Saint Paul was on the road to Damascus (present day Syria) when he received a vision of Jesus, and as a result accepted The Christ as the Messiah. (Some Fortean theories for what really happened have been developed in recent years.)

Ten years ago, it is intriguingly how Palestine popped up in the context of the first Israeli astronaut being killed.

On February 1, 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia on mission STS-107 disintegrated during reentry into the Earth's atmosphere, killing all seven astronauts aboard. 

One who died was Ilan Ramon, the first Israeli astronaut. His first name, Ilan, means "tree" in Hebrew. Ilan changed his last name from Wolferman when he joined the Israeli Air Force. On June 7, 1981, he was the youngest pilot taking part in Operation Opera, Israel's strike against Iraq's unfinished Osiraq nuclear reactor, 10 miles southeast of Baghdad.

A location often mentioned ten years ago for where the parts of the Columbia fell was Palestine, Texas. The irony of that location was not lost on many at the time, considering the fact the Columbia carried an Israeli aboard. 

Even this remarkable "coincidence" is apparent in this Wikipedia mention:
Palestine entered the news in February 2003, as one of the East Texas towns that received much of the debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, where seven astronauts were killed, including the first Israeli astronaut. Palestine is also home to the NASA Columbia Scientific Balloon Facility (renamed after the shuttle crash), which has flown 1700 high-altitude balloons for universities and research agencies. Source.

An FBI agent and a Texas Department of Public Safety officer looked over a 4-foot by 6-foot piece of the Space Shuttle Columbia that was found in the median along State Highway 155 north of Palestine, Texas on Sunday, February 2, 2003.
 

Saturday, May 18, 2013

Synchrocinema Galore: Dallas in Wonderland


The 50th anniversary of the JFK hit is fast approaching. November 22, 1963, is a day burned into the memory of anyone who was conscious back then. It will be recalled for most of November, I predict. Expect the television specials, new books, and release of films.

The movie that's getting most of the mainstream buzz is Tom Hanks' production of Parkland, which has a cast including Paul Giamatti, Zac Efron, Marcia Gay Harden, Jacki Weaver, and Billy Bob Thornton.

It may get all the mass media notice, but there's a gem of a movie coming out of this wave that is worthy of your attention.

Dallas in Wonderland is the one that I want to see. 13th Sign Pictures will produce and finance the synchromystic movie, which will include a cameo appearance, perhaps, by the character James Shelby Downard (see "Synchromysticism's Godfather.")


There is a good deal of mystery surrounding some of the actors who will be appearing in Dallas in Wonderland. Stay tuned.

Back in January, here are the good things that Variety said about Dallas in Wonderland:
Maybe it’s because the 50th anniversary of that event is fast approaching, but now there’s another film based around the assassination on its way from Queens of Country writer-director Ryan Page.
Page will write (alongside Adam Parfrey) and direct a conspiracy thriller going by the name of Dallas In Wonderland, which will center around a documentary filmmaker and his producer who are hired by a TV network to do a puff piece for their planned motorcade reenactment that will take place during a televised memorial ceremony. Finding themselves “wrapped up in the network’s plot” to prove that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman, the pair close in on the central narrative surrounding JFK’s assassination, leading to the climax of the event playing out once more on the nation’s television screens.
Page believes that he and Parfrey have come up with “an altogether new kind of thriller, featuring the very latest research done in the JFK assassination case.”
 Adam Parfrey (also the coauthor of Ritual America)

“Adam Parfrey and I [have] crafted what feels to us like an altogether new kind of thriller, featuring the very latest research done in the JFK assassination case,” said Page, who will produce with Alastra and Mundo. “This story has not fully been told. It continues to evolve and is rife with the most interesting storylines and fascinating real-life personalities I worked with Joe and Tommy on previous films and when it came time to select our production partner for Dallas in Wonderland, there was never even a debate.” ~ Ryan Page


In the realm of unfortunate title timing, on May 1, 2013, the online publisher eXtasy released a new gay love novel entitled Dallas in Wonderland by Julie Lynn Hayes.

It apparently (?) is part two of 2012's earlier Hayes book of the same name.


Like I say often, each to their own, as they pursue their dreams and passions.
But in the case of the two current Dallas in Wonderland choices, I'm looking forward to critiquing the film Dallas in Wonderland for the 50th anniversary of the assassination.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

More Red Dawns in a Dark Summer?


Bruce Willis brought us a bloody Valentine's Day gift on February 14, 2013.

Did that open a hint of a spring and a summer of red dawns and dark movies?

Are we now Into Darkness?

What selections have opened and remain on the horizon in USA?

What others would you suggest?

Iron Man 3 (May 3, 2013)

Star Trek Into Darkness (May 17, 2013)

The Lone Ranger (July 3, 2013)

Man of Steel, producer Christopher Nolan's dark film (June 14, 2013)

Thor: The Dark World (November 8, 2013)

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Dutch Clown Stabs Russian Boy On Crete: UPDATED



On the island of Crete in Hersonissos, a violent fierce attack by a Dutch hotel clown was made against a Russian family's child.

As you may recall, earlier in 2013, three Dutch clowns beat a boy at the Dutch city of Volendam's clown festivities (which involves over 200 clowns) in January.

In Crete, according to the forensic findings the child, aged 11 years, was stabbed 20 times in the chest, back and left arm. No sexual abuse was found.



Police authorities have arrested a 20-year-old Dutch hotel employee, who allegedly has confessed that he is the perpetrator of the attack on the minor. He was the hotel's clown.



Here are some of the photographs of the suspect from European newspapers. On his back is a tattoo with the words, "Vatos Locos."

Vatos Locos (in English, Crazy Dudes) is a widely used name for a street gang. Gangs using this name are active in several American states. The film Blood in, Blood out (1993) about the life of poet Jimmy Santiago Baca in 1972, was based on the experiences of gang members of Vatos Locos. The video game Call of Juarez: The Cartel features a fictional Vatos Locos gang.

The 11 year-old lost his cellphone and laptop, went searching for them, and then was lost. His parents, who had been looking for their child, did not find him until 3:00 AM in the hotel parking garage.

After a lengthy police interrogation, the young Dutch hotel clown reportedly confessed he stabbed the kid and directed the police to where the knife could be found.

The child is of Russian origin and is with his family in Crete for a holiday. 







Hersonissos (Greek: Χερσόνησος, pronounced [xerˈsonisos] - Chersónisos), also transliterated as Chersonisos and Hersónisos, is a town and a municipality in the north of Crete, bordering the Mediterranean/Aegean Sea. The vicinity of Hersonissos is noted for its prehistoric archaeological finds. On the coast approximately one kilometer to the east of Hersonissos was an ancient temple dedicated to the goddess Britomartis.

Britomartis (Βριτόμαρτις) was the Minoan goddess of mountains and hunting. She is among the Minoan goddess figures that passed through the Mycenaeans' culture into classical Greek mythology, with transformations that are unclear in both transferrals. For the Greeks Britomartis (Cretan dialect for "sweet maiden", "sweet virgin") or Diktynna (derived by Hellenistic writers as from diktya, "hunting nets") was a mountain nymph (an oread) whom Greeks recognized also in Artemis and in Aphaea, the "invisible" patroness of Aegina.
Britomartis ("sweet maid") is an epithet that does not reveal the goddess's name, nor her character, for it has the ring of an apotropaic euphemism. The goddess addressed as "Britomartis" was worshipped in Crete as an aspect of Potnia, the "Mistress." The oldest aspect of the Cretan goddess was as Mother of Mountains, who appears on Minoan seals with the demonic features of a Gorgon, accompanied by the double-axes of power and gripping divine snakes. Her terror-inspiring aspect was softened by calling her Britomartis, the "good virgin," a euphemism to allay her dangerous aspect.
Britomart figures in Edmund Spenser's knightly epic The Faerie Queene, where she is an allegorical figure of the virgin Knight of Chastity, representing English virtue—in particular, English military power—through a folk etymology that associated Brit-, as in Briton, with Martis, here thought of as "of Mars," the Roman war god. In Spenser's allegory, Britomart connotes the Virgin Queen, Elizabeth I of England.
In his retelling of the King Arthur legends, Arthur Rex, author Thomas Berger suggests that Queen Guinevere may have become a powerful female knight known as Britomart after the death of the King.
Source.

BTW, media sources are also reporting the attack occurred in the "seaside town of Anissaras" and "in Iraklio, Crete." 

"Anissaras" is a hilly area in east Crete just outside of Hersonissos. "Iraklio" is another spelling for Heraklion, or Heraclion, where the famed ruins of Knossos were excavated and restored by Arthur Evans. English usage formerly preferred the classicizing transliterations "Heraklion" or "Heraclion," but the form "Iraklion" is becoming more common.




(Thanks to Thanassis V. for the news account information on this breaking story.)

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Dark Knight of Gotham: Sports Illustrated Curse?


Making the cover of Sports Illustrated is sometimes called a curse. How do you think it might feel to be on the cover and be called The Dark Knight of Gotham? Major League Baseball pitcher for the Mets, Matt Harvey, may be pondering that very fate. He's on the cover of the May 20th issue.

Matthew Edward Harvey was born (March 27, 1989) in New London, Connecticut and grew up in Mystic, Connecticut. He played during his youth for Fitch Senior High School in Groton, Connecticut and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Harvey is an National League MLB right-handed pitcher for the New York Mets, debuting with them on July 26, 2012.



The Staten Island Advocate even published Harvey and Batman next to each other so the comparison would not be lost on its readership. And by doing that, all could clearly see that Harvey's jersey number is 33.

Also, don't forget, Harvey Dent was a major character in the second Dark Knight film.



The name Harvey is of Old English and Old French origin, and derived from the Breton name Haerviu, rooted in the elements haer "battle" and vy "worthy," literally "battle worthy," or in some views, "eager for battle; strong and worthy."

The Sports Illustrated cover curse or jinx is an urban legend that states that individuals or teams who appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine will subsequently be jinxed or experience bad luck. See here for a long list of incidents causing some to feel the curse has been confirmed.


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