Sunday, July 24, 2011

It Couldn't Happen Here

Not Norway, New York.

"N.Y. Hasidic community in shock after missing boy, 8, found slain, dismembered" July 14, 2011|Associated Press

NEW YORK - An 8-year-old Brooklyn boy who got lost while walking home alone from day camp in his Orthodox Jewish neighborhood was killed and dismembered by a stranger he had asked for directions, police said yesterday, with his remains found stuffed in a trash bin and in the man’s refrigerator.

The gruesome killing of Leiby Kletzky shocked the tight-knit Hasidic community in Borough Park, in part because it is one of the safest sections of the city and because the man under arrest is himself an Orthodox Jew....

The Hasidim are ultra-Orthodox Jews who live in somewhat insular neighborhoods. The streets are policed by a group of volunteers known as the Shomrim patrol.  

You see, SOME SUPREMACISM is COMPLETELY ACCEPTABLE here in AmeriKa -- all under the banner of religious freedom and diversity.

Adel Erps, like other neighbors, expressed shock that the suspect was Jewish....  

Why?

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"N.Y. man charged with killing boy to undergo evaluation" July 15, 2011|Associated Press

NEW YORK - A man accused of kidnapping, killing, and dismembering an 8-year-old boy who asked him for directions was ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation after his lawyer told a judge that his client might be mentally ill.

“He has indicated to me that he hears voices and has had some hallucinations,’’ said the attorney, Pierre Bazile....

At his arraignment yesterday, Aron appeared disheveled and confused. He stayed quiet during the proceeding. As he was led out of the court holding cells, other inmates screamed obscenities at him. He was held without bail and placed on suicide watch.

Police and prosecutors said Aron, a clerk at a hardware supply store, has confessed to suffocating the boy with a bath towel, but they continued to work on verifying his horrific and bizarre explanation for the boy’s death.

At the Kletzky household, family members also looked for answers.

“Why?’’ asked Shmuel Eckstein, a close family friend, as the boy’s parents and four sisters sat and prayed. “We don’t have that… . What we know is that through Leiby’s death, God is sending us a huge signal - that we’re doing something terribly wrong. And we’re looking for what it is.’’   

I'll give you a hint: dumping WMD on Palestinians for starters.

Reminds me of a quote I once heard:  

"Judge for yourself its believability, and then try to tell yourself, wherever you may be, it couldn't happen here." 

I'm sure certain quarters will tag it antisemitic; however, the religion really doesn't matter. There are monsters in every religion (and even among those without); what is troubling is the supremacist self-delusion.

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"A double-amputee Iraq War veteran who was hurled off a towering roller coaster to his death never should have been allowed on the ride, but park operators will face no criminal charges despite violating park policy, authorities said yesterday....

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"Theme park is cited in coaster death" July 23, 2011|Associated Press

BUFFALO - Operator error was to blame for an amputee Iraq war veteran’s deadly fall from a roller coaster and the amusement park was cited for having improperly trained workers, state officials said yesterday.

Labor Department investigators found the Ride of Steel coaster at Darien Lake Theme Park & Resort was mechanically sound and safety devices were working properly when Army Sgt. James Hackemer, who had lost both his legs to a roadside bomb, was lifted from his seat near the end of the ride and thrown to the ground on July 8.

The 29-year-old father of two died of blunt force trauma....

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Related:

"A quick-thinking soldier who had started his leave only 90 minutes earlier pulled off a New York highway to help rescue passengers from a tour bus that was burning after a collision with a tractor-trailer that killed one person and injured 30 others....

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"Tire may have caused fatal bus crash" July 19, 2011|Associated Press

ROCHESTER, N.Y. - A tour bus probably had a front tire blowout just before it veered off a highway and overturned, killing two passengers and injuring 35 people, three seriously, State Police and a company spokesman said yesterday.

The driver of the Niagara Falls-bound bus, which was carrying Indian nationals from Washington, D.C., lost control Sunday and ran off Interstate 390 into woods near Avoca, 55 miles south of Rochester....

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"Man charged after crash kills 5 in van" July 21, 2011|Associated Press

BENTON, N.Y. - The man charged in a wreck that killed five Amish farmers in upstate New York had served prison time for stealing a Rochester police cruiser and leading pursuers on a 20-minute chase in 2006, authorities said yesterday.

Police said then that Steven Eldridge tried to back into the squad car during a traffic stop, struggled with an officer, and drove off in the cruiser. State records show he served 2 ⅓ years in prison for auto theft.

Eldridge, 42, of Penn Yan, now faces homicide and drunken driving charges after his car sideswiped a van while passing a slow-moving tractor about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday in Benton, an agricultural community in the Finger Lakes region, about 40 miles southeast of Rochester.

The 13 Amish farmers in the van were part of a larger group visiting farms to learn how they might inexpensively extend the vegetable growing season. Five were killed; eight others and their driver were injured.

The accident happened soon after the group of close to 40 farmers - Amish and others - and Cornell Cooperative Extension employees took a break for lunch in Penn Yan....  

I will be needing to do that soon.

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Expect more accidents as the Amish invade:

"N.Y. attracting more Amish" July 18, 2011|Associated Press

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Affordable rural farmland and proximity to traditional population centers are driving a recent boomlet in new Amish colonies in New York state, according to a study by Elizabethtown College researchers....

Elizabethtown professor Don Kraybill, who directed the study by the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, said Amish movement into New York has been partly fueled by a contagion effect in which families report back on finding productive and underpriced land, and other factors that are conducive to the way they live such as weather, growing season, and congenial neighbors and local officials.

In the 1980s and ’90s Kentucky played that role for the Amish, while more recently it was Wisconsin, Kraybill said. The Amish are currently in 28 states and the Canadian province of Ontario....

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Also see:

"A Columbia University junior at the heart of a drug takedown at the Ivy League school agreed Tuesday to go to jail for selling cocaine, while four fellow students pressed a court to give them a shot at treatment instead of time behind bars....

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"New York City will hold a lottery for couples who want to get married on the first day that same-sex marriage will be legal in the state, the mayor announced yesterday....  

I didn't get a ticket, sorry.

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Next Day Update: New law celebrated as gay couples marry in N.Y.

Day After Next Day Update: As same-sex weddings continue in New York, opponents sue to block marriage law