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From Reuters:
Pakistani security seeks to tamp down reporting on California shooter
By Mehreen Zahra-Malik
MULTAN, Pakistan Dec 6 (Reuters) – Pakistani security forces appeared to be trying to dampen down reporting this weekend on the background of Tashfeen Malik, who mounted an attack alongside her husband that killed 14 people in California.
Three professors at Malik’s university said they had been advised not to talk to the media, while men claiming to be from Pakistan’s security agencies told reporters to drop their investigations into her background on pain of arrest.
An official at the interior ministry later said this was due to a “misunderstanding”.
In the U.S., the Department of the Interior is in charge of the park rangers and other not very serious sounding jobs. In many other countries, however, the Ministry of the Interior is the Clampdown.
Juliette Ochieng has some theories on her name.
http://hotair.com/not-good-to-be-the-king/2015/12/06/whos-that-girl-2/
Malik means "village chief\elder" not king, there are plenty of Pakistanis with that surname.
I don’t blame them. This will not be good for the booming (literally) tourist industry in Pakistan.
The James Deen story gets even more iSteve-y. Deen was a founder and chairman of a lobbying organization called APAC:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/james-deen-s-current-girlfriend-chanel-preston-head-of-porn-s-advocacy-committee-speaks.html
...
this is the non-story of the century.
the only even slightly interesting things about the story is the angle referenced by another commenter that ((deen)) tried to shame porn girls for refusing to have sex with blacks, and they decided to shut him up.
OT (but speaking of ‘deep state’…)
As some may recall, initial reports said ‘three white men’ — this was based on an eyewitness, a woman, who worked at the center and was there when it happened:
Sally Abdelmageed was in an office in the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, Calif., during the mass shooting Dec. 2. She says she saw three men dressed in black military attire enter a room and open fire.
Here’s Scott Pelley of CBS News reporting the same thing/speaking to the same person.
She was rather specific in her description:
“You are certain you saw three men,” the newscaster asked Abdelmageed…“Yes,” said Abdelmageed…“It looked like their skin color was white. They look like they were athletic build and they appeared to be tall.”
Here is her public LinkedIn profile.
Carly Fiorina also said in an interview:
“If you listen to your reporter earlier, what he said is the ATF believes that someone purchased this gun on behalf of the police department and somehow that gun ended up in the hands of this guy, so it actually does not sound at all like this man purchased a firearm.”
I find it really hard to believe that the country which sheltered OBL for a decade would do such a thing. The Pakistanis are our friends!
Also interesting is (what appears to be) the twitter account of Nicholas Thalasinos, one of the victims — his views supposedly antagonized Syed Farook.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/james-deen-s-current-girlfriend-chanel-preston-head-of-porn-s-advocacy-committee-speaks.htmlReplies: @gruff, @27 year old, @Sam Haysom, @The most deplorable one, @Richard S
zzz
Spotted what I think’s a good analogy to UK and US immigration policy.
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/64648037
Think of a government who (ostensibly) wants more workers “to boost the economy” as like a doctor or hospital who need more drugs to cure a given disease.
Say you have a patient with a disease curable by a drug.
Drug A is the current standard – well known, produced in the home country, works in most cases (90%), side effects are rare – one in every 4,000 patients will suffer severely from them. But you’re a bit short of supply. You could however increase production*.
Here’s new Drug B – just imported from the Middle East or South Asia, cheaper but only works in 60% of cases. Side effects are still rare, but double those of drug A. One in 2,000 patients will suffer from them – and they include many distressing new side-effects absent from Drug A.
And here’s new Drug C, imported from Africa. Cheap as chips, but only works on 50% of cases – and side effects are double Drug B’s – One in 1,000 patients will suffer, and the same distressing new side-effects as Drug B.
Now Drugs B and C can still be said to do a useful job – they cure a majority of patients. And, just as extremist Muslims are a minority, so only a small number of patients will have bad side-effects from them.
But anyone from a health service, with an option to simply increase the production of Drug A, would never decide** to instead import B and C. Why replace something that works with something less effective and more dangerous?
* have you noticed any government action in the last40 years to encourage productive Americans or Native Brits to raise more children? Me neither.
**assuming they had patient interest at heart. This may be where the analogy falls down.
Nice analogy, but you need one teensy weeny fact to make it more realistic. Assume that, while there are lots of people claiming you could simply increase production of drug A, there are no countries around which have actually managed to do so...zip...ZERO!
Assume that you have one or two countries like Japan which have managed to avoid importing drugs B and C but, far from increasing production of drug A, seem to heading towards a catastrophic shortage of drugs. Assume that the countries which pride themselves on not importing drugs mostly have pathetic health services and have their indigenous drug manufacturers leaving in droves.
Finally, assume that, despite all the doom and gloom, your health service is still one of the best in the world with ever-increasing number of patients have access to drugs and overall patient outcomes still continuously improving. That would give a more accurate picture of the quandary faced by your fellow citizens - they have qualms about the current situation but no evidence that the "common sense" alternatives have wonders anywhere else.
Not only that, but once the GWB Administration came into power in 2001 all efforts to encourage birth control in Africa and other third world countries were abandoned out of deference to the fundamentalist Christians who were such an important bloc for GWB. So, while Americans are rationally reducing the size of their families, we were (are?) actually encouraging the people who were least able to care for large families to produce more babies.Replies: @G Pinfold
One could be forgiven for taking the lovely Ms. Tashfeen to be a man.
Then maybe the witness "could be forgiven" for mistaking her for two men as well? Both with "athletic build" and "tall"? Seems like a lot to 'forgive'...Replies: @Steve Sailer, @NOTA
That thought crossed my mind a few days ago. A young American born (or raised) Muslim man gets "radicalized" and returns from a trip to the old country with a new "wife" who is soon to be seen leading hubby in guns ablaze terror slaughter. Is it too farfetched to think that jihadi men who can pass as women (to the eyes of most westerners anyway) might be trained for just such a mission?
OT…
An impossible to authenticate, firsthand account of the refugee situation in a smallish German town:
https://www.reddit.com/r/european/comments/3vq6np/my_experiences_with_refugees_in_my_town_germany/
“Interesting” even if all too predicable…
When the media first reported about Tafsheen they said she had come from Saudi Arabia but in fact she was a Pakistani just living there in the last two years.
I know some Jordanians and other Arabs that don’t consider Saudi Arabia a Arab country anymore, its full of Muslims from all over the world, especially South Asians like Tafsheen.
One could be forgiven for taking the lovely Ms. Tashfeen to be a man.
Then maybe the witness “could be forgiven” for mistaking her for two men as well? Both with “athletic build” and “tall”? Seems like a lot to ‘forgive’…
Much as I’m aware of the love of blaming white men for everything the media has, people can be honestly confused in something chaotic like a mass shooting.
Then maybe the witness "could be forgiven" for mistaking her for two men as well? Both with "athletic build" and "tall"? Seems like a lot to 'forgive'...Replies: @Steve Sailer, @NOTA
Terrified witnesses aren’t all that reliable.
Heck, I’ve watched a fender-bender accident unfold right in front of me while walking and 90 seconds later found myself only 75% confident I could identify which car hit which without looking at the physical evidence of where the dents are.
(By the way, the common complaint that someone has been accused or convicted of a crime based upon "only circumstantial evidence" is simple and utter ignorance: DNA evidence itself is "only circumstantial evidence," as are fingerprint evidence and other forms of forensic evidence. There are two general types of criminal evidence: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence consists of criminal confessions, victim statements, eyewitness testimony, and any actual recordings of the crime, such as a surveillance video, which, alone, if accepted by the trier(s)-of-fact as being both valid and reliable, would prove a defendant's guilt. Circumstantial evidence is evidence that, by itself, only makes it more likely than otherwise that the accused actually might be guilty-- e.g., the mixed DNA found in some blood smears, inside of O. J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco-- when an innocent explanation for such evidence is lacking. Even the most-famous exemplar for conclusive criminal evidence-- "the smoking gun"-- itself refers to a merely hypothetical criminal scenario in which "the smoking gun" itself is "only circumstantial evidence," rather than direct evidence! The criminal law makes no categorical judgment as to which type of criminal evidence is inherently superior; any piece of evidence is to be judged based on its own validity, reliability, and probative value-- not on whether it is categorized as direct evidence or as "only circumstantial evidence!")
That said, I found the eyewitness' story of three tall, athletically built, White men to be extremely fishy!?! Combined with the fact that she has what appears to be an Arab surname-- although she actually appears, to me, to look Hispanic, if the alleged identification of that witness is accurate-- her story certainly struck me as being something more than simply the usual unreliability of an eyewitness to a potentially life-threatening situation; it struck me as being deliberately contrived.Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
It may be that the description of the SB shooters as "white" came from the perception that, quite simply, they were not blacky black or indio/squat/brown. If Sicilians and Spaniards are "white," then someone would see a tall taupe-to-milk-chocolate person as white. Unless of course they had the DNC behind them insisting they were black, which I guess was not the case here.But if Sally Abdelmageed saw two Arabs shooting up her workplace...
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-abdelmageed-a0257b20...would she have said that? Would she have deliberately called them white...appearing as she does elsewhere as Sally Abdelmageed-Alsuwadi...
https://plus.google.com/112651716474934248130/about...and the HR lady at Inland Regional Center, who would be extremely conscious of these categories. More importantly: Was she involved with hiring Farook? And did they meet at Cal State SB?
An eyewitness might not be able to discern between two similar people of the same race. But three white men vs any Arab man and a portly woman is exactly the kind of thing an eyewitness can reliably tell apart.
You can dismiss the eyewitness because of her name areal you want, but that works both ways. Can whites not be reliable witnesses if it is a white committing committing crime against a black?
Besides, if she wanted to shill for her people and lie, she could have easily done this by blaming Mexicans who have similar skin color and getting the number of shooters correct along with the sex of each. This leads me to believe the shooters really were white people.Replies: @D. K.
So to expand on/summarize your comment: You would not necessarily always trust the media due to their propensity to ‘blame white men for everything’, but in this case you seem to trust them — you trust them to the extent that you believe one of the assailants was a pregnant woman who abandoned her infant daughter to go shoot up a social services center, thereby sacrificing her life in what most people would consider a ghastly and meaningless manner, and that the quoted eyewitness must have been mistaken about the number of assailants and their descriptions (“athletic”, “tall”).
Tashfeen Malik’s post pledging allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was made on an account with a different name, according to one U.S. official…The officials did not explain how they knew Malik made the post.
I’m the curious type, so I would like to hear if this is still the claim, and if so what the explanation is.
Yes, surely witnesses can be mistaken/unreliable. However, I personally find the entire supposed scenario implausible; not impossible, but implausible. And I would like to hear again from Ms Abdelmageed. But I’m betting we won’t hear anything more from her…
Our lovely late terrorists looked relatively white.
Then maybe the witness "could be forgiven" for mistaking her for two men as well? Both with "athletic build" and "tall"? Seems like a lot to 'forgive'...Replies: @Steve Sailer, @NOTA
Eyewitnesses are pretty bad at getting things straight. A huge number of the people sent to prison and later exonerated by DNA evidence or some similar thing were put there originally by mistaken witness identification.
https://www.reddit.com/r/european/comments/3vq6np/my_experiences_with_refugees_in_my_town_germany/
"Interesting" even if all too predicable...Replies: @AndrewR
It seems plausible enough.
Merkel will go down in history as the mirror image of Hitler. He wanted to create a vast empire and ethnically cleanse the natives of the lands the Germans conquered. She wants Germany to be invaded by millions of hostile foreigners who will ethnically cleanse the natives of the land they conquer.
Merkel as Hitler through the looking glass.
I must say there is something Alice-in-Wonderland about PC.
It is a surreal blend of hyper capitalism, globalism, tribalism, elitism, egalitarianism, decadence, puritanism, hedonism, masochism, etc.
PC is less Orwellian or Huxleyian and more Carrollean.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qpb_4cAWP0U
As Charlie Chan said in Charlie Chan at the Circus, “Curiosity responsible for cat needing nine lives.”
Did Mr Farook go full jihad before or after finding out he had married a John Belushi lookalike? With a beautiful personality to match?
Our host provides us wide ranging insight, an ability to write interestingly on many diverse subjects (I never thought I would regularly read about golf course design), and a fearlessness in discussing subjects that other authors shy away from. All this, AND references from The Clash.
One possibility is the first that springs to mind–a Coverup! In other words, a meaningful connection between Tashfeen Malik and the ISI.
More likely, I think, it that EVERYONE in Pakistan who can read and write is within six degrees of separation of one terrorist/jihadist/deep-state-gun-squad or another. Over time (since 9/11 made westerners nosy), formal or informal procedures have developed. When western journalists come around, nobody needs to tell the local no-necks what to do–they just follow the procedure.
As my father said: “Two brothers, just like in Boston.”
Good ol’ Pakistan. The 9/11 money trail led right back to it. I saw it with my own eyes. That was reported to the public, but soon faded away.
The Pakistani deep state does not like to be messed with. The doctor who helped the CIA locate Bin Laden has been slung in jail for twenty years. He is having trouble finding legal representation after his last lawyer was shot to death.
That tends to happen to a lot of people the deep state finds inconvenient esp. anyone questioning how they are handling the insurgency in Baluchistan like the blogger and social activist Sabeen Mahmud.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/james-deen-s-current-girlfriend-chanel-preston-head-of-porn-s-advocacy-committee-speaks.htmlReplies: @gruff, @27 year old, @Sam Haysom, @The most deplorable one, @Richard S
nobody cares. a scummy industry has a bunch of scummy people in it and young girls with mental/family/personality issues are taken advantage of…
…
this is the non-story of the century.
the only even slightly interesting things about the story is the angle referenced by another commenter that ((deen)) tried to shame porn girls for refusing to have sex with blacks, and they decided to shut him up.
Bingo. It’s one of the reasons I’m always sceptical about eye witness accounts until they have been corroborated by multiple individuals who aren’t related/have reason to change their story/are interviewed separately. Thank god for the increasing quality of phone cameras and near instantaneous uploading/streaming.
OT – here we go – BBC news are reporting that a Syrian Army base has been attacked by aircraft – presumably either Turkish or US/UK/France/Australia/Uncle Tom Cobley.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-35024408
This is exactly what I feared – the “get ISIS” campaign inexorably morphing into a “well Assad is just as bad so we ought to bomb him too” campaign.
The name ‘Abdelmageed’ might be a clue as to her motivations.
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/64648037
Think of a government who (ostensibly) wants more workers "to boost the economy" as like a doctor or hospital who need more drugs to cure a given disease.
Say you have a patient with a disease curable by a drug.
Drug A is the current standard - well known, produced in the home country, works in most cases (90%), side effects are rare - one in every 4,000 patients will suffer severely from them. But you're a bit short of supply. You could however increase production*.
Here's new Drug B - just imported from the Middle East or South Asia, cheaper but only works in 60% of cases. Side effects are still rare, but double those of drug A. One in 2,000 patients will suffer from them - and they include many distressing new side-effects absent from Drug A.
And here's new Drug C, imported from Africa. Cheap as chips, but only works on 50% of cases - and side effects are double Drug B's - One in 1,000 patients will suffer, and the same distressing new side-effects as Drug B.
Now Drugs B and C can still be said to do a useful job - they cure a majority of patients. And, just as extremist Muslims are a minority, so only a small number of patients will have bad side-effects from them.
But anyone from a health service, with an option to simply increase the production of Drug A, would never decide** to instead import B and C. Why replace something that works with something less effective and more dangerous?
* have you noticed any government action in the last40 years to encourage productive Americans or Native Brits to raise more children? Me neither.
**assuming they had patient interest at heart. This may be where the analogy falls down.Replies: @Vinay, @tbraton
“But anyone from a health service, with an option to simply increase the production of Drug A, would never decide** to instead import B and C. ”
Nice analogy, but you need one teensy weeny fact to make it more realistic. Assume that, while there are lots of people claiming you could simply increase production of drug A, there are no countries around which have actually managed to do so…zip…ZERO!
Assume that you have one or two countries like Japan which have managed to avoid importing drugs B and C but, far from increasing production of drug A, seem to heading towards a catastrophic shortage of drugs. Assume that the countries which pride themselves on not importing drugs mostly have pathetic health services and have their indigenous drug manufacturers leaving in droves.
Finally, assume that, despite all the doom and gloom, your health service is still one of the best in the world with ever-increasing number of patients have access to drugs and overall patient outcomes still continuously improving. That would give a more accurate picture of the quandary faced by your fellow citizens – they have qualms about the current situation but no evidence that the “common sense” alternatives have wonders anywhere else.
http://discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/64648037
Think of a government who (ostensibly) wants more workers "to boost the economy" as like a doctor or hospital who need more drugs to cure a given disease.
Say you have a patient with a disease curable by a drug.
Drug A is the current standard - well known, produced in the home country, works in most cases (90%), side effects are rare - one in every 4,000 patients will suffer severely from them. But you're a bit short of supply. You could however increase production*.
Here's new Drug B - just imported from the Middle East or South Asia, cheaper but only works in 60% of cases. Side effects are still rare, but double those of drug A. One in 2,000 patients will suffer from them - and they include many distressing new side-effects absent from Drug A.
And here's new Drug C, imported from Africa. Cheap as chips, but only works on 50% of cases - and side effects are double Drug B's - One in 1,000 patients will suffer, and the same distressing new side-effects as Drug B.
Now Drugs B and C can still be said to do a useful job - they cure a majority of patients. And, just as extremist Muslims are a minority, so only a small number of patients will have bad side-effects from them.
But anyone from a health service, with an option to simply increase the production of Drug A, would never decide** to instead import B and C. Why replace something that works with something less effective and more dangerous?
* have you noticed any government action in the last40 years to encourage productive Americans or Native Brits to raise more children? Me neither.
**assuming they had patient interest at heart. This may be where the analogy falls down.Replies: @Vinay, @tbraton
“* have you noticed any government action in the last40 years to encourage productive Americans or Native Brits to raise more children? Me neither.”
Not only that, but once the GWB Administration came into power in 2001 all efforts to encourage birth control in Africa and other third world countries were abandoned out of deference to the fundamentalist Christians who were such an important bloc for GWB. So, while Americans are rationally reducing the size of their families, we were (are?) actually encouraging the people who were least able to care for large families to produce more babies.
Steve, Obama is using a cloward-piven overwhelm strategy against the FBI: right now there are 900+ ISIS investigations in the USA that are full-time surveillance. The FBI chief said a couple of weeks ago that these investigations are pushing the agency to exhaustion.
We intuit that with Muslim immigration the number of these cases is going to increase perhaps dramatically…
Maybe this is why the search of the Farook house was a quickie: they don’t have any extra manpower to apply anywhere except in short bursts.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/james-deen-s-current-girlfriend-chanel-preston-head-of-porn-s-advocacy-committee-speaks.htmlReplies: @gruff, @27 year old, @Sam Haysom, @The most deplorable one, @Richard S
In what way is this an I-Stevey story?
I’m thinking the shooters went off too soon. I hope the investigation keeps going. I also read that this economically stagnant town of 200K people has four mosques, which seems pretty interesting. Also, we’ve got neighbors who report lots of “Middle Eastern” people in and out of their apartment, but all the local Muslims act like this tall, comparatively good-looking Pakistani with a healthy city paycheck never said boo to anyone. High-trust society–specifically, idealistic journalists with limited life experience–is in over its head with such people.
Even non-terrified eye witnesses tend to be unreliable. Hard to make sense of it, but true.
Suggestions for a Reach Out to Your Muslim Colleague initiative at the office: throw a baby shower for his wife; or, even better, party with him over the Christmas holiday.
Say your prayers if among your colleagues at work you have “co-workers.”
http://hotair.com/not-good-to-be-the-king/2015/12/06/whos-that-girl-2/Replies: @Ali Choudhury
She is spelling the name wrong which is why she’s not getting results. It’s Tafsheen not Tashfeen. Another common name for women is Afsheen which is what she might be confusing it with.
Malik means “village chief\elder” not king, there are plenty of Pakistanis with that surname.
Syed Farooq’s mother, Rafia Farooq was also connected to Islamists by being member of ICNA(Islamic Circle of North America) which has donor ties to Jamaat-e-Islami which itself has donor ties to the Taliban, Al Qaeda and now ISIS.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/james-deen-s-current-girlfriend-chanel-preston-head-of-porn-s-advocacy-committee-speaks.htmlReplies: @gruff, @27 year old, @Sam Haysom, @The most deplorable one, @Richard S
Maybe if he had co-founded the Adult Industry Performer’s Advocacy Committee …
As someone trained in both Law and Social Psychology, I certainly would agree that eyewitness testimony is inherently dubious– while also, unfortunately, among the evidence most persuasive to criminal juries! Thus, all of those DNA-exonerated prisoners, in recent years, most of whom had been convicted by criminal juries, usually based largely on the basis of eyewitness testimony that simply was accepted as being essentially accurate, and therefore dispositive of criminal guilt.
(By the way, the common complaint that someone has been accused or convicted of a crime based upon “only circumstantial evidence” is simple and utter ignorance: DNA evidence itself is “only circumstantial evidence,” as are fingerprint evidence and other forms of forensic evidence. There are two general types of criminal evidence: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence consists of criminal confessions, victim statements, eyewitness testimony, and any actual recordings of the crime, such as a surveillance video, which, alone, if accepted by the trier(s)-of-fact as being both valid and reliable, would prove a defendant’s guilt. Circumstantial evidence is evidence that, by itself, only makes it more likely than otherwise that the accused actually might be guilty– e.g., the mixed DNA found in some blood smears, inside of O. J. Simpson’s white Ford Bronco– when an innocent explanation for such evidence is lacking. Even the most-famous exemplar for conclusive criminal evidence– “the smoking gun”– itself refers to a merely hypothetical criminal scenario in which “the smoking gun” itself is “only circumstantial evidence,” rather than direct evidence! The criminal law makes no categorical judgment as to which type of criminal evidence is inherently superior; any piece of evidence is to be judged based on its own validity, reliability, and probative value– not on whether it is categorized as direct evidence or as “only circumstantial evidence!”)
That said, I found the eyewitness’ story of three tall, athletically built, White men to be extremely fishy!?! Combined with the fact that she has what appears to be an Arab surname– although she actually appears, to me, to look Hispanic, if the alleged identification of that witness is accurate– her story certainly struck me as being something more than simply the usual unreliability of an eyewitness to a potentially life-threatening situation; it struck me as being deliberately contrived.
OT but hilarious:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/07/the-reason-for-the-far-rights-success-in-france-its-the-economy-stupid/
Yeah, that’s what it must be.
The misdirection to young muslims being responsible for FNs success was indeed hilarious however.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/12/07/the-reason-for-the-far-rights-success-in-france-its-the-economy-stupid/
Yeah, that's what it must be.Replies: @AnAnon
Youth unemployment is a proxy for immigration, and its interesting to see the breakdown in the US which the CIS has done that shows the best thing a state can do for its young people is to be on the border with Canada. Young French are getting screwed hard by the multicult, its good to see them rejecting it.
The misdirection to young muslims being responsible for FNs success was indeed hilarious however.
degenerate porn actresses vs degenerate porn actor…… who cares beyond skimming one article?
Pakistan’s motive being? To conceal elite support of, or accommodation with, Islamist forces and ideology? Something else?
Easy-peasy.
The enemy center of gravity is the Riyadh-Islamabad axis. Both SA and Pak are at war with us - and they're winning.
“In the U.S., the Department of the Interior is in charge of the park rangers and other not very serious sounding jobs. In many other countries, however, the Ministry of the Interior is the Clampdown.”
So which US Dept handles the Clampdown or the Kibosh on various unpleasant domestic news that could potentially prove embarrassing for the gov? Justice Dept? FBI? Or is it spread out among the various depts at large?
Does eyewitness unreliability follows a pattern? Does it match preconceptions or is it random?
So you’re saying she has a foreign-sounding, sort of/kind of muslim-sounding name, therefore she’s a liar? Therefore she instantaneously decided she herself would attempt a cover-up by giving false descriptions? And then lied about both the number and appearance of the attackers? Or maybe she’s in cahoots with the attackers?
I do not find this/your explanation all that convincing.
(By the way, the common complaint that someone has been accused or convicted of a crime based upon "only circumstantial evidence" is simple and utter ignorance: DNA evidence itself is "only circumstantial evidence," as are fingerprint evidence and other forms of forensic evidence. There are two general types of criminal evidence: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence consists of criminal confessions, victim statements, eyewitness testimony, and any actual recordings of the crime, such as a surveillance video, which, alone, if accepted by the trier(s)-of-fact as being both valid and reliable, would prove a defendant's guilt. Circumstantial evidence is evidence that, by itself, only makes it more likely than otherwise that the accused actually might be guilty-- e.g., the mixed DNA found in some blood smears, inside of O. J. Simpson's white Ford Bronco-- when an innocent explanation for such evidence is lacking. Even the most-famous exemplar for conclusive criminal evidence-- "the smoking gun"-- itself refers to a merely hypothetical criminal scenario in which "the smoking gun" itself is "only circumstantial evidence," rather than direct evidence! The criminal law makes no categorical judgment as to which type of criminal evidence is inherently superior; any piece of evidence is to be judged based on its own validity, reliability, and probative value-- not on whether it is categorized as direct evidence or as "only circumstantial evidence!")
That said, I found the eyewitness' story of three tall, athletically built, White men to be extremely fishy!?! Combined with the fact that she has what appears to be an Arab surname-- although she actually appears, to me, to look Hispanic, if the alleged identification of that witness is accurate-- her story certainly struck me as being something more than simply the usual unreliability of an eyewitness to a potentially life-threatening situation; it struck me as being deliberately contrived.Replies: @Yojimbo/Zatoichi
Granted that several of your points re: the criminal justice system make sense, it would appear as though you’ve been watching Rashomon too many times: Multiple eyewitnesses = nobody ever is reliable or at least…the justice system cannot ascertain for 100% certainty which eyewitness testimony is 100% accurate. But all you “need” in criminal justice cases is “beyond” a reasonable doubt and not 100% conclusive. Those who had been convicted of priors only to be exonerated by the evidence of DNA may or may not be the norm. The Left would have us believe that many, many, perhaps well over two-thirds of all those convicted and currently on death row, are totally innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted; all they need is some DNA evidence to be admitted into their appeals and presto, they’d go free. The Right, obviously, holds to the opposite opinion: DNA or not, those convicted of capital criminal crimes would still be sitting on death row today.
So which side is telling the truth? Who can say for certain?
It is of course an attorney’s job to plant the seeds of doubt in the testimony of eyewitnesses, that’s to be expected. But is there no ulterior motive from the attorneys? Are all of them just simply looking and seeking for the truth to play out? If we were to go by economic incentives (oftentimes a very compelling motive in human nature) both the public defenders as well as the prosecution for the state receive far less (on average) in compensation than trial lawyers in private practice.
So if we must all check our motives as well as the reliability of witnesses we must also check and question the motives of everyone directly involved in the justice process: the Judge; the Jury Members; and of course both sides of counsel, including the defendant. After all, why should we automatically side with the defendants’ legal representation in criminal cases?
So again, what it comes down to is: Which side is telling the truth? Or rather, which side is giving a more accurate viewpoint/testimony/evidence admitted into court as to what occurred on the day in question of when a crime took place?
Also, as it relates to this case from a social/political/religious standpoint: In Islam there must be at least four witnesses, and all of them must be men (women are never permitted to testify under Sharia law as their testimony is automatically discounted as being unreliable). If Maliks were being charged for the same crime only committed in Pakistan, it would be interesting to see which type of justice they would receive.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Kassin
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Loh
Things are getting too surreal:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2015/12/07/students-heckled-ex-muslim-during-talk-now-they-want-the-video-removed-from-youtube/?utm
“Last week, activist Maryam Namazie gave a speech at Goldsmiths, University of London, during which she was heckled by students from the school’s Islamic Society (who were, in turn, supported by the school’s Feminist Society and LGBTQ+ Society). They couldn’t handle her criticism of their bad ideas.”
———————–
As for ‘safe spaces’ from the media, why shouldn’t Muslims or Pakistanis do this?
What happened to the USS Liberty story?
And how come the Pollard story has been muted?
How Arnon Milchan, the confessed spy and thief, can travel to the US without being arrested?
How many Americans know about the US role in messing up Ukraine and Syria?
And how did the Jewish community react to revelations that many of the commie spies were Jewish during the Stalinist era?
And how was it that Armand Hammer got away with so much sleaze?
Paks are no worse in this.
OT – more from the Middle East – Turkey sends troops into Iraq, Iraq says ‘get them out’, Turks stay put. It really seems like someone wants to provoke a fight.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/turkey-refuses-to-withdraw-troops-from-north-iraq-base-isis
“Turkey has said it will not withdraw hundreds of soldiers who arrived last week at a base in northern Iraq, despite being ordered by Baghdad to do so within 48 hours. The arrival of such a large and heavily armed Turkish contingent in a camp near the frontline has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against Islamic State fighters that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers. Ankara says the troops are there as part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight against Isis. The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force, and will take its case to the UN if they are not pulled out. “
Iraq should appeal to the US to help defend them against foreign invasion, preferably with airstrikes.
“Pakistan’s motive being?”
Easy-peasy.
The enemy center of gravity is the Riyadh-Islamabad axis. Both SA and Pak are at war with us – and they’re winning.
Imran Khan (cricketer, former spouse of Princess Diana’s stunning friend Jemima Goldsmith) is supposedly poised to win the presidency of Pakistan this time.
He has said some very reasonable things regarding US blunders in the region. Also, he loves his dogs, not exactly a Muslim trait.
But even if he wins Pakistan will likely exercise its God given right to be Pakistan.
So does Pervez Musharraf, then President of Pakistan and our BFF after 9/11. It's not uncommon amongst the upper classes in Pakistan. The Brits did rule the area for over 100 years.http://www.outlookindia.com/images/pervez_musharraf_dogs_2006109.jpg
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/07/turkey-refuses-to-withdraw-troops-from-north-iraq-base-isis
"Turkey has said it will not withdraw hundreds of soldiers who arrived last week at a base in northern Iraq, despite being ordered by Baghdad to do so within 48 hours. The arrival of such a large and heavily armed Turkish contingent in a camp near the frontline has added yet another controversial deployment to a war against Islamic State fighters that has drawn in most of the world’s major powers. Ankara says the troops are there as part of an international mission to train and equip Iraqi forces to fight against Isis. The Iraqi government says it never invited such a force, and will take its case to the UN if they are not pulled out. "
Iraq should appeal to the US to help defend them against foreign invasion, preferably with airstrikes.Replies: @Hunsdon
Or Russia.
I’ve been waiting for that point to be spun ever since I saw the first piece on the identities of the slaughtered. (Validating the idea that if someone doesn’t like your politics or religion, it’s perfectly reasonable to plot to slaughter that person and a baker’s dozen others.)
Interesting to ponder:
If it IS true that Thalasinos had opinions about Islamic whatever and expressed them as a born-again conservative Jew in or outside the workplace, it would make narrative control that much more difficult for those who command and staff Twitter, Faceberg, LA Times, etc., eh?
Compare this thought to a hypothetical where the former truck driver from Georgia had expressed similar opinions about Islamic immigration. No narrative difficulty with that–just call him a Klansman neo-Nazi redneck NRA member racist teabagger.
But despair not. I’m sure CAIR is working with DoJ, EEOC, Homeland Security, and other agencies to craft a new narrative to supply to all concerned parties in power. Think Marvin Nathan is involved?
OT,
Ingrates will be ingrates, especially when they are sucked up to:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/06/brown-university-professor-denounces-mccarthy-witch-hunts.html
The “meeting” between the President of Brown and these cretins, recorded on a video in this link, gets especially hilarious at the very end. The protesters demand that the President acknowledge that they have been “helping” her to do her job, and that this “labor” on their part has been “unpaid”.
It’s clear enough I think where this is leading: their next demand will be that they be recompensed for protesting.
OT – We have all been hearing the progs saying we have to bring refugees into the US because we are so wealthy. Even though they are safe once they leave Syria and enter Turkey, we still need to bring them here because of our wealth.
If that is the case then shouldn’t we apply that same reasoning once the refugees arrive in the US? That would mean Malibu and every other rich zip code would be picked to take them in since they are wealthier than say the flyover zips.
Why is it that wealth is used to determine which country they go to, but not which zip code?
Or, as Hundson suggested, Russia. The interesting scenario is Russia secretly negotiating with Iraq and then bombing the hell out of these Turkish troops as a result, something the Russians would probably love to do. Which Turkey surely knows.
Because value-driven systems are not the way to reward your friends and punish your enemies. Well, not unless the value is “reward your friends and punish your enemies.”
On the other hand, we’ve been hardwired for far longer to recognize human traits since kin-group identification is important in societies where one encounters a lot of strangers.
Cars are evolutionarily new and mostly look alike to people who aren’t gearheads. Even then, there are those of us who are gearheads for some cars but not others.
But that’s generally not the important fact in a car crash, because you have the vehicles with dents, as you say. We see a car doing something suspicious, we probably quickly mentally record “small blue sedan, pointy front, out of state plates starting with xxx….”
Quick ID of humans is harder, but in a human-on-human violence situation, people will assort and record certain physical features, inborn horrible racists that we are.
Consider also the “cross-race” effect, in which people are shown to have a harder time identifying someone not of their race.
http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/0021-9010.88.4.760
It may be that the description of the SB shooters as “white” came from the perception that, quite simply, they were not blacky black or indio/squat/brown. If Sicilians and Spaniards are “white,” then someone would see a tall taupe-to-milk-chocolate person as white.
Unless of course they had the DNC behind them insisting they were black, which I guess was not the case here.
But if Sally Abdelmageed saw two Arabs shooting up her workplace…
https://www.linkedin.com/in/sally-abdelmageed-a0257b20
…would she have said that? Would she have deliberately called them white…appearing as she does elsewhere as Sally Abdelmageed-Alsuwadi…
https://plus.google.com/112651716474934248130/about
…and the HR lady at Inland Regional Center, who would be extremely conscious of these categories.
More importantly:
Was she involved with hiring Farook? And did they meet at Cal State SB?
Ah the ever present peacenik when talking about American power and super hawk when talking about Russian power Russophile. Lenin had a term for you guys. General Mola too if I recall. Classic oikophobic leap frogging loyalty.
For example, it was probably a good idea that he US let the Nazis and Commies duke it out in the opening rounds of WW2. Had we entered earlier our death count would have been higher. Letting the USSR sop up 80% or so of the Third Reich's might wasn't done because we were peaceniks or Russophiles. But because we were loyal to our fellow citizens and didn't want to use them as cannon fodder.
Maybe the guys who want to spend US blood and treasure at the drop of a hat need to have their loyalty questioned.
Trump has now called for a complete cessation of Muslims entering the US.
Could this be used as precedent by Iran to move it’s troops enmasse to retake Iraq or Russia to move troops into Syria?
Not only that, but once the GWB Administration came into power in 2001 all efforts to encourage birth control in Africa and other third world countries were abandoned out of deference to the fundamentalist Christians who were such an important bloc for GWB. So, while Americans are rationally reducing the size of their families, we were (are?) actually encouraging the people who were least able to care for large families to produce more babies.Replies: @G Pinfold
Peter Costello, conservative coalition Treasurer of Australia from 1998 to 2007, called on Aussie mums to do their bit. Of course he was ridiculed by the bien pensant.
It will be interesting to see all those lefties who claim Bush “knew” about the 9/11 attacks before hand and “did nothing” and therefore knowingly allowed them to happen—
will suddenly reverse course over the reports that Obama knew about the San Bernadino attacks forthcoming and did nothing.
its always interesting how the left cares nothing for its own credibility.
I worked at a transnational organization in DC. Since I was the only American on my team, they’d ask me questions about the various aspects about the US that they found baffling. One day we were passing the Interior Department building and the Koran asked what they did there. The old Russian replied quickly but ominously “secret police.” (This was the same guy who compared the stupid compulsory town hall meetings to communist party meetings. He cracked me up.) I laughed and said no, think Yogi Bear, not MI5…
Jurassic World..
Wow, it suck so bad.
No magic, just mechanics. If a movie could be a slot machine for the makers, this is it. Suckers just put in the coins and pull.
What total crap.
But I must say the ending was hilarious.
The T-Rex and the little raptor cooperate against Clubber-Lang-asaurus that gets swallowed up by a… Dino-whale-croc-asarus?
And then what follows is precious. The T-Rex and the little guy exchange chummy glances in mutual appreciation and go separate ways.
Shiite. Even them dino fellers can have a heart.
Talk about hokum.
“Merkel will go down in history as the mirror image of Hitler.”
Merkel as Hitler through the looking glass.
I must say there is something Alice-in-Wonderland about PC.
It is a surreal blend of hyper capitalism, globalism, tribalism, elitism, egalitarianism, decadence, puritanism, hedonism, masochism, etc.
PC is less Orwellian or Huxleyian and more Carrollean.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/12/04/james-deen-s-current-girlfriend-chanel-preston-head-of-porn-s-advocacy-committee-speaks.htmlReplies: @gruff, @27 year old, @Sam Haysom, @The most deplorable one, @Richard S
You seem overly interested in that particular male prostitute. Is everything ok? How are things at home?
Lol at the people here. Eyewitnesses are not reliable? Maybe that is just because it disrupts the narrative white people are looking for. That Arabs are all terrorists.
An eyewitness might not be able to discern between two similar people of the same race. But three white men vs any Arab man and a portly woman is exactly the kind of thing an eyewitness can reliably tell apart.
You can dismiss the eyewitness because of her name areal you want, but that works both ways. Can whites not be reliable witnesses if it is a white committing committing crime against a black?
Besides, if she wanted to shill for her people and lie, she could have easily done this by blaming Mexicans who have similar skin color and getting the number of shooters correct along with the sex of each. This leads me to believe the shooters really were white people.
His actual statement specifies “cessation of Muslim immigration.”
“Donald J. Trump’s Statement on Preventing Muslim Immigration”
Here is another eye witness who says it was 3 white men who were the shooters. And it is a Mexican guy so quit with the bias calls.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/12/eyewitnesses-describe-terrorist-shooters-white.html
The women of the liberal media are fascinated with this woman Tashfeen Malik. They just can’t get over the idea that she maybe she wore the pants in this family, she’s the one who radicalized her husband and she’s the one who woke him from of his puerile “American dream” and onto the path she wanted to follow.
And don’t forget that just before she died, she dedicated herself to her spiritual lover, the dark, powerful, mysterious leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! Not her pantywaist husband.
You go, girl! you know they all want to say it. And the part where she killed a bunch of stupid people at a Christmas party, where she was forced to go as her weak husband’s wife (humiliating!) – what woman hasn’t secretly thought of doing that! Some witnesses say she shot first.
And having a man’s name – that’s a feminist tradition in America. Might as well make the relationship clear from the start.
She lived the feminist dream – she had it all. Tashfeen Malik, American feminist icon.
Lemme guess; you don’t read much.
Why do you conclude he is a peacenik, Russophile or his loyalty is to be questioned? Maybe he’d rather not waste US treasure and blood when someone else is perfectly willing to do the job.
For example, it was probably a good idea that he US let the Nazis and Commies duke it out in the opening rounds of WW2. Had we entered earlier our death count would have been higher. Letting the USSR sop up 80% or so of the Third Reich’s might wasn’t done because we were peaceniks or Russophiles. But because we were loyal to our fellow citizens and didn’t want to use them as cannon fodder.
Maybe the guys who want to spend US blood and treasure at the drop of a hat need to have their loyalty questioned.
An eyewitness might not be able to discern between two similar people of the same race. But three white men vs any Arab man and a portly woman is exactly the kind of thing an eyewitness can reliably tell apart.
You can dismiss the eyewitness because of her name areal you want, but that works both ways. Can whites not be reliable witnesses if it is a white committing committing crime against a black?
Besides, if she wanted to shill for her people and lie, she could have easily done this by blaming Mexicans who have similar skin color and getting the number of shooters correct along with the sex of each. This leads me to believe the shooters really were white people.Replies: @D. K.
She was a Pakistani emigrant; he was a first-generation Pakistani-American. I know very few Americans, White or otherwise, who think that all Arabs are terrorists. There obviously are some ignoramuses, however, who think that all Muslims are Arabs. Are we to believe that three White males attacked this party, for some yet-unknown reason, and that the police in San Bernardino, which is now about two-thirds Hispanic, then hunted down and assassinated the first Muslim-looking couple that they saw driving through town, and planted weapons and ammunition on the hapless couple, along with planting umpteen pipe bombs where the couple had been living, rather than seek out the White suspects described by the roomful of survivors? Yes, that sounds far more likely than a woman with an Arab surname falsely claiming that she saw three White men attack her and her co-workers, rather than a swarthy couple– at least one of whom she knew, because she had worked with him, at the site of the attack. As for that other question of yours, the abilities of Whites witnessing White-on-Black crimes is not an issue that comes up very often, for some odd reason….
I have never seen it. Unlike you, I have no interest in the Japanese. They have their civilization, and I have mine. “Ne’er the twain…,” and all of that. I do, however, have some academic training in both Personality & Social Psychology (M.S.) and Law (J.D.), including some seminars on Legal Psychology, in both graduate school and law school, under Dr. Saul Kassin and Dr. Wallace Loh, respectively. I also have worked on federal criminal cases, both as an attorney and as a (social-psychological) legal consultant. How about you?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Kassin
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Loh
I stir my coffee with the same spoon, to her favorite tune. Gone shootin!
He has said some very reasonable things regarding US blunders in the region. Also, he loves his dogs, not exactly a Muslim trait.
But even if he wins Pakistan will likely exercise its God given right to be Pakistan.Replies: @Anonymous
So does Pervez Musharraf, then President of Pakistan and our BFF after 9/11. It’s not uncommon amongst the upper classes in Pakistan. The Brits did rule the area for over 100 years.
Not dealing well with US policy in Syria having been exposed for what it is, are you Sammy?
Eye witness testimony is proven as being highly unreliable, nor am I surprised Ms Abdelmageed would want to identify the perpetrators as white males.
The FBI would be more accurately the US version of the Eastern Bloc secret police. J Edgar Hoover fully deserves the tag of America’s secret policeman.
Nope I just really disdain Americans with foreign loyalties. The fact you guys seem so eager to emulate the Rosenbergs is something I take great pleasure in pointing out.
“One could be forgiven for taking the lovely Ms. Tashfeen to be a man.”
That thought crossed my mind a few days ago. A young American born (or raised) Muslim man gets “radicalized” and returns from a trip to the old country with a new “wife” who is soon to be seen leading hubby in guns ablaze terror slaughter. Is it too farfetched to think that jihadi men who can pass as women (to the eyes of most westerners anyway) might be trained for just such a mission?
And don't forget that just before she died, she dedicated herself to her spiritual lover, the dark, powerful, mysterious leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi! Not her pantywaist husband.
You go, girl! you know they all want to say it. And the part where she killed a bunch of stupid people at a Christmas party, where she was forced to go as her weak husband's wife (humiliating!) - what woman hasn't secretly thought of doing that! Some witnesses say she shot first.
And having a man's name - that's a feminist tradition in America. Might as well make the relationship clear from the start.
She lived the feminist dream - she had it all. Tashfeen Malik, American feminist icon.Replies: @Anon7
Just saying.