Arkansas Blog

A lot of evil people in this world.

Why?

Check out, "The Lucifer Principle," and, "The Lucifer Effect." Opposite perspectives, but no denial of evil, without which we wouldn't know good.

After embarrassing the cops for 2 days, you just knew that boy was never gonn'a see the inside of a jail. Too bad the girl got caught in the cop's revenge.

I heard about this on the radio this morning, and I broke into tears. I will never understand domestic violence of any tenor, whether it is the woman who shoots the man, or vice versa, or child abuse. These are relationships that are at the core of who we are -- the romantic relationship and that which we have with our children. Seeing that end in such violence is just devastating.

70%er,

Let's wait for the details before we point fingers. With or without the cops, it was unlikely this was going to turn out well for the hostage. Your knee jerk response discounts her life and your credibility. Show some respect for her.

Yossy, please explain to me how my expression of sympathy for the girl's plight discounts her life or disrespects her in any way.

KTHV-According to Garland County SO, they didn't consider her a hostage anymore."

I guess they saw her locking doors in the house and getting into the passenger side of the truck willingly.

Max,

Your obsession with scooping the news coverage blinds you from seeing the human tragedy. Your twitter account rivals the most cynical depictions of reporting.

ARK. BLOG: I don't see it. News organizations have always competed to be the first with delivery of news. In this case, it's clearly of wide interest. If you kept up with web traffic you didn't need to worry after about 4:30 a.m. that this guy was still on the loose. The difference today is that instantaneous information isn't available only to those who subscribe to news services, as once was the case. Now it's available to anyone with a computer. For those interested in breaking news coverage, I think it's interesting to note how news organizatons performed in delivering the news. It's a factor to follow in setting RSS and Twitter and other feeds. Eventually, I've found you narrow your selections to the most useful and productive.

That said, my observations on news coverage was a secondary part of the blog post. The death of the suspect and his killing of the pregnant hostage came first.

Also, I think it's interesting to review the short-form reports the TV stations filed. There's a great deal yet to be known about the second-by-second events. But the essential elements were accurately reported. The brevity of the posts, in a way, limits extraneous info.

Yossarian, You're commencin' to get on my VERY LAST nerve. If you don't like Max's opinions, why, pray tell, do you follow him around the web reading all of them?

It is a lot like that obsession people have with Palin's remarks.

Doc, there was nothing wrong with any of Palin's remarks that keeping her mouth shut wouldn't have fixed, was there? I never did understand what that woman was talking about.

What part of Hot Springs did all this take place around, I can't get any sense of where Driftwood Estates is in my mind. Probably because I havent been to hot springs in ten years. Just curious.

what's even harder to understand than a man killing his former girlfriend, wife, ex-wife, whatever, is murdering an unborn child. But maybe we shouldnt expect to make much sense of any tragedy like this one anyway.

Tina-

Driftwood Estates is a very nice gated community on Lake Hamilton.
You get there by way of Amity Road.

State Rep Johnnie Roebuck D-Arkadelphia has a house there.

Blue Heron Drive....Hot Springs......

isn't that in a gated area? If I remember correctly, there are big gates preventing the majority of people from driving down that street. I see where THV said the home was that of "an acquaintance." I wonder why the "acquaintance" would open the gates for a fugitive like that to enter the neighborhood. I'm sure the neighbors, who paid extra for the "added security" of the big iron gates will be pleased with the events of last night and this morning.

Arky

Tina, it's on a peninsula to the southwest of HS on the south shore of Lake Hamilton. From Expedia maps: Take hwy 7 across the lake, then take 192 (I think) west for a ways. Turn north toward the lake again. Sorry, I didn't pay closer attention to the hwys and streets when I looked.

True, from the first reports, it looked like this would end badly for all -- kind of a male version of Thelma and Louise.
But you know me. Always skeptical of first reports. She was a hostage? She wasn't a hostage? She could have gotten away? She never had a chance -- or was too afraid -- to get away? Friend's wife knew what was going on? She didn't? Shots traded with the sheriff's department, then a sniper takes the guy out? And on and on and on. (Actually my questions start much earlier in the multi-day ordeal.)
But all that aside, I want to know more about the reincarnation of Billy the Kid. Or was it Pretty Boy Floyd?

To bad that dead guy didn't just join the armed forces... he would be considered a hero for doing the same things in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan today. I mean he could be killing entire villages, wedding ceremonies, or funerals, or schools... for a paycheck. He could have just asked to work at any number f known or unknown (black sights) torture / prisons around the world.

This story is what we tell many thousands of our brethren Americans in uniform to do to millions of innocents every day.

Please, so that we can be informed (or misinformed--who cares?), keep rushing the Twits' breaking news. We don't have time for verification and clarification. Rumor is more efficient.

Eureka Springs-

That is the dumbest comment i have EVER read on this blog. EVER.
You aught to be ashamed of yourself for that.
Its sad to think that there are people in the USofA that believe that about our military.

If it bleeds, it leads.

Eureka.

To bad that dead guy didn't just join the armed forces... he would be considered a hero for doing the same things in Afghanistan, Iraq, or Pakistan today. I mean he could be killing entire villages, wedding ceremonies, or funerals, or schools... for a paycheck.

you should think before you type. this kind of comment is like saying my son is like him and killing innicents in iraq in an indiscriminate manner. people like you should be there to see what they really do there.

Yossarian - I kept my police scanner on during this ordeal. The police were looking high-and-low for the bad guy here. He was a threat to the entire community, and we want to know the instant that the threat is neutralized - even if that news comes from Twitter. Healthy competition between news providers is a good thing for our society.

Eureka Springs,

You should be horsewhipped within a inch of your sorry life!

Sad to see how this ended. That guy was determined to go out in a blaze of glory.

I had a feeling he was much more dangerous, or would become so, than anyone who was dealing snark against the NLRPD on the blog at the time. Guess nobody in Central Arkansas is safe now.

I have had my share of problems with police behavior in the past, but I'm just not in the mood to criticize right now.

And I'm STILL not laughing.

thanks for the info, y'all. I'm with Ark Blogger --- if I had been anywhere near the area where the police were searching for this killer, I would've been scared to death too and would've wanted to know the minute he was captured, dead or alive. wonder if he had a suicide by cop plan in mind?

I think it is a shame there is not more outrage about the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq by our troops and hired mercenaries.

Even if you are acting under orders, or think you are, it is still murder every time an unarmed woman or child is killed. Period.

Two innocent people in Arkansas = Outrage.

Ten thousand innocent people in Iraq = who cares, they deserve it for being born there, they're going to hell anyway because they aren't Christian, and let's horsewhip anyone who even mentions it.

How do you think those mothers feel over there? Do you think they're not human and suffer like we do? Or are you happy to see them suffer?

Yup, country boy.. it's amazing how willing people are to suggest horsewhipping a truth teller, a peace lover.. a person who abhors violence no matter where it is or which innocents are suffering because of it.

Meanwhile we wage many needless wars, torture globally, spend more than the next 50 percent of the world combined on military, Use depleted uranium and chemical weapons all around the world. All of which would be impossible to do without many many thousands of folks in uniform (or in intell secret agencies or private militia) trained and paid and brainwashed to act just like this dead nutcase did.

They know I spoke the truth. And if they truly don't.. they better run out and refill their stupid prescription. because it's plain to see... has been for decades.

For this is where we are in the United States, nearing the end of the Year of Our Lord 2007: the truth is not merely unpleasant, an uninvited guest who makes conversation difficult and awkward. Truth is the enemy; truth is to be destroyed. To attempt to speak the truth on any subject of importance requires a deep reserve of determination, for to speak the truth requires that one first sweep away an infinite number of rationalizations, false alternatives, and numerous other failures of logic and the most rudimentary forms of thought - as well as the endless lies. On that single occasion in a thousand or a million when a person overcomes these barriers and speaks the truth, he or she discovers an additional, terrible truth: almost no one wants to hear it. This is how we live today: lies are the staple of our diet. Without them, we would die, certainly in psychological terms.

--- Arthur Silber

Country boy
I think it is a shame there is not more outrage about the killing of innocent civilians in Iraq by our troops and hired mercenaries

Eurika
Yup, country boy.. it's amazing how willing people are to suggest horsewhipping a truth teller, a peace lover.. a person who abhors violence no matter where it is or which innocents are suffering because of it.

I am willing to bet that neather one of you have ever been in the service and if you have you have never been in a combat zone. Since you are patting your selves on the back so hard for being aginst violance of any kind. Since you are so civilized. Being as I am ex-military police form the Vietnam era I can attest to the fact that when civilians are killed by americian troops the incident is investigated and if they did not follow orders and inocents were killed they were proseduted. That is more than I can say for the enemies that we faced daily who killed and maimed inicents on a daily basis. You talk about our troups like they are murders and cry for some person who blows himself up along with thirty or forty civilians who are women, children and old people who are trying to live their lives and say nothing about the people who sent him out to do it. Then you cry for a career criminal who was let out of prison by a parole board because they are civilized and the prisons are overcrowed because civilized judges and juries belive that wharehousing criminals is better than putting aneedle in there arm or just putting a rope around their neck. Because you dont have to see the effect that it has on the families of the people that they killed, mamed or raped while they were robbing and stealing from them. I would say that you live above the mortal people, and then you wonder why some people get angery when you spout this kind of tripe, I dont believe that you should be horse whipped I believe that you should go to Iraq and see what the civilians are living like and see what the americian soldiers are doing before you condem them!!! I will close now and pray to god that our sons and daughters that are in Iraq come home safe and sound and dont have to deal with uninformed people like I did when I returned From Veitnam.

When one hopes to live as a non violent person... it's a safe bet they wont serve in the military unless they have no choice. So you are right.. in my lifetime our country has not been in one conflict worth invading. occupying, randomly killing and bombing entire populations over.

Military investigations? That's right up there with military intelligence in terms of off the oxymoron meter.

Here's one example... in the news this week:

U.S.: No Grounds to Probe Afghan War Crimes

Friday, July 10, 2009 9:25 PM

WASHINGTON - Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces.

snip

The allegations date back to November 2001, when as many as 2,000 Taliban prisoners died in transit after surrendering during one of the regime's last stands, according to a State Department report from 2002.

Witnesses have claimed that forces with the U.S.-allied Northern Alliance placed the prisoners in sealed cargo containers over the two-day voyage to Sheberghan Prison, suffocating them and then burying them en masse using bulldozers to move the bodies, according to the State Department report. Some Northern Alliance soldiers have said that some of their troops opened fire on the containers, killing those within.

I look at the effect of what we are doing as much as I can possibly find. I look constantly for a defined mission in places like Afghanistan.. 8 years into slaughtering and occupying it.. and can't find one. BTW, just this year we have tossed 4 "missions plans" on paper and are working on a 5th.

Attention.. the 9-11 hijackers were almost all Saudi and Egyptian (Not one Iraqi or Afghan or Iranian)! Attention, we are killing, occupying, and planning on looting lanes through Afghanistan... a country who's GDP is 800 million a year by some estimates. We spend more than that a month killing them. They win... whatever that means. We not only train our soldiers to do horrific acts... we hire former soldiers from places like Pinochet and South African apartheid regimes too.

If I were poor, desperate, and my country was under endless attack from foreigners.. i would suicide bomb too.

Which means we should have never been there beyond an initial search and take out of the obvious Al Q camps.. and left long ago. If we should have deployed there at all.

Not one conflict in the last several decades was warranted on our part. When we constantly start or join wars needlessly.. then there is no honor in the mission, defined or not. It can only mean all the deaths in our wake (ours or theirs) was needless.

Dostum, the Northern Alliance general who is accused of overseeing the atrocities, has previously denied the allegations.

A former U.S. ambassador for war crimes issues, Pierre Prosper, told the Times that the Bush administration was reluctant to investigate the deaths, even though Dostum was on the payroll of the CIA and his soldiers worked with U.S. special forces in 2001.

Dostum was suspended from his military post last year on suspicion of threatening a political rival, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai recently rehired him, the Times reported.

snip

Yup, that's how we "investigate" alright.

There is not one word that gives you any merit when you claim I am crying over the dead guy. I simply made a point...and suggested he missed his chance to do those things (which I abhor) in the military. I haven't followed this story in detail, knew nothing about him being a prisoner at one point... and assuming you are right it makes no difference as to the point I was initially making.

And your willingness to ignore how many we have and are killing in countries which never attacked us... and likely never could nor will be able to attack us anytime soon... It's pathetic, it's sad, it's dumb... and a damn shame most of all because of what you have been through and seen our country do from Viet Nam forward.

If you don't think our military wouldn't order soldiers to use suicide bombing techniques if we had no other weaponry... you are not just keeping your head in the sand... you are crazy.

Nope, MS, you are not willing to look at what we really do. Who we really are.. the most violent people on earth.. among ourselves and out among the rest of the world. I talk with people in Iraq and Afghanistan from time to time. They work with organization like Iraq Red Crescent (Red Cross). I hope you are right about your sons experience. But history tells us the last thing a soldier is likely to do is send a letter to mother describing the atrocities of their own acts in war. If your son is being nice and doing good things, it's only so our rich can control their oil someday.

You are being defensive... when the facts proved otherwise long ago. Nothing's changed. You are being defensive against me, when in fact what I am hoping for is to bring our soldiers home from needless occupation as soon as possible. You are a mother, you have to believe there is some good reason for all of this. I'm sorry, it's just not so... So I will say so until we as a society snap out of our deadly slumber.

There is nothing more cowardly than sitting silent and letting our troops be used for rich boys games of global risk.

Eureka

I find it kind of ironic that you like many people that I have had this conversation with do not know the difference between the Government officials and the Military. The article that you chose does not have anything to do with the Military investigating solders. It has to do with your Government Administration Officials. (Obama administration officials said Friday they had no grounds to investigate the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners of war who human rights groups allege were killed by U.S.-backed forces). This is a diplomatic decision because they are US-backed forces. The real oxymoron is the Diplomatic Corp. of the Government. They are to simply put it find a reason not to go to war. The military is the last resort when the diplomats cannot agree and when the diplomats (the President) send the military in to fight, the military goes in to kill the enemy before they can kill them. By the way I learned that In History Class in school. You are right in one respect innocent people do die in wars (i.e. combat situations) it is inevitable. You are also right about big business, but you should understand that most of our Representatives and Senators and even the President are Doctors, Lawyers, Business men, and learned people. But we (the military) do not try to target civilians like the enemy does and that is the difference that you will never understand until you have been there. It is why I will have to agree to disagree. What I would suggest is that you become a member of the government so that you can decide when to send in the military and when not to because until you do it is just talk on your part with no conviction.

ms.. last entry here. if you think bombing with remote drones halfway around the world from where the remote person pilots... or bombing weddings, funerals and schools and hospitals... or running through Baghdad door to door for years.. is not intentionally killing civilians. There is no hope.

I have injoyed your views hope to do it againsometime have a great day Mike