I’m no conspiracy-minded, blame-America-first lefty, but is becoming increasingly difficult to believe that Abu Grahib was in any way an isolated incident. Accounts like this lend credence to earlier accounts like this, and lead to the inescapable conclusion that, well, we’ve really f***ed up this war, big time. The “force of human freedom,” my eye.

Well this was interesting. I walk into my class and what do I find? All my students gathered around one kid with pictures of me from this site. Thanks for disrupting my class, Brendan. :-P

Honestly, how many consecutive days is it possible to accurately publish news stories with headlines like “Insurgents Step Up Violence Ahead of Vote“? Hasn’t that been the headline for, like, a week straight now? How damn G-ddamn “steps” are there? Isn’t there some finite point at which no more “stepping up” is possible — i.e., a point at which the level of violence has reached a critical mass, and the country is just basically an active war zone, in which no one is safe anywhere, at any time? And if we’ve already reached that point, aren’t these headlines just an inaccurate attempt to impose a sequential plot line on a relatively static situation, for the sake of dramatic storytelling? In other words, shouldn’t the story really be headlined, “Iraq Continues to be Extremely Violent Ahead of Vote”?

I’m probably wrong. I’m just annoyed by the repetitive headlines, is all.

Yes, I know my website is having speed issues. I think it may even be going down altogether for minutes at a time, then coming back up. It’s been very spotty for the last few days. I also suspect people may also be having problems leaving comments, as my MySQL back-end has been very slow this morning.

I just submitted a help ticket to TotalChoiceHosting. I tried to preemptively address all of their typical excuses:

(more…)

The bus I needed to be late was early, the bus I needed to be early was late, and I am officially late for class. On the bright side, the reason Becky couldn’t give me a ride is, she is waiting for a phone call the could yield a job! Cross your fingers! This message will expire on March 28, 2005

A Notre Dame 2L had a scare today, according to Patrick, as his brother-in-law’s Marine unit was involved in that awful helicopter crash. Turns out the brother-in-law is alive, but he undoubtedly lost many friends.

It wasn’t terrorism or sabotage; it was an abandoned suicide attempt:

“This whole incident was started by a deranged individual that was suicidal,” Adams told a news conference at the scene of mangled railcars in the suburb north of downtown Los Angeles. “I think his intent at that time was to take his own life but changed his mind prior to the train actually striking this vehicle.”

The man, identified as Juan Manuel Alvarez, 26, of Compton, stood by as the train hit the SUV, Adams said. Alvarez had also tried to slash his wrists and stabbed himself, authorities said.

“There is no terrorism or terrorist act involved,” Adams said.

I don’t much like the knee-jerk description of a despondent, suicidal, and (by definition) mentally ill person as “deranged,” but then again, it’s unrealistic to expect that anyone will have sympathy for this guy. I do. Don’t get me wrong, he should pay for the consequences of his actions, and he will. There’s no excuse for a suicide attempt that puts others in mortal danger. But this is a tragedy all around — for the perpetrator as well as for the victims.

P.S. Let’s talk mens rea for a second. Presumably this guy didn’t intend to kill anyone other than himself, and I’m guessing he didn’t know that his car would cause a catastrophic and deadly derailment. He probably just figured the train would hit his car and keep going, killing him but not hurting anyone else. (Yeah, I’m speculating. So sue me.) So is this manslaughter, on a negligence/recklessness theory, or can it be classified as murder under a “extreme indifference to human life” (a.k.a. “extreme recklessness,” a.k.a. “abandoned and malignant heart”) theory?

I’m sure the prosecutors will charge him with murder, but should they?

“I think, yes.” –Kevin, responding to a question
“Or…” –Prof. Tidmarsh
“Or no.” –Kevin
“Right.” –Prof. Tidmarsh

It was sabotage:

GLENDALE, Calif. — A Metrolink commuter train rammed into a vehicle that was apparently deliberately placed on the railroad tracks, setting off a derailment that killed nine people and injuring more than 100 others, authorities said.

Los Angeles Sheriff Lee Baca said authorities were speaking with the driver of the vehicle and believe it was intentionally parked on the tracks.

“It didn’t appear that the vehicle had stalled,” Baca said. “It appears that it was deliberately placed there.”

If true, does this qualify as “terrorism”? It doesn’t seem like the Islamists’ style, but it could be homegrown terrorism… or it could be random criminality, I suppose, but if so it’s criminality with terrorism-like consequences.

(Hat tip: Andrew Leyden.)

I was once on an Amtrak train that collided with an abandoned truck on the tracks in the California desert near the Salton Sea. (Liveblog posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here; photos here and here; my reminiscences one year later here.)

No one was injured in that incident, and there were no news reports about it (at least none that I could find online), so I never ascertained what exactly had happened — but it certainly seemed like it must have been deliberate. I joked at the time that it was “a deliberate act of sabotage, not by terrorists but by ‘inconvenience-ists’ … out not to terrorize, but merely to inconvenience, ordinary Americans.”

I suppose, having slept through the impact and awoken secure in the knowledge that I was okay, I never really considered how lucky I was that the train conductor spotted the truck soon enough to slam on the brakes and thus minimize the force of the impact. The collision was mild (as evidenced by the fact that it didn’t even wake me up immediately, but merely disturbed my sleep enough that I groggily awakened a minute or two later) and the train stayed safely on the tracks.

Alas, today’s Metrolink passengers were not so lucky.

There has been a major train crash in Glendale, California.

At least three people are dead.

“We don’t have any bags of cocaine.” –Prof. Venter

I love how the Drudge Report homepage totally makes it look like Ted Turner is shaking his fist at Condi Rice, and Condi is responding by giving Ted the hairy eyeball.

Heh. Gotta love Drudge.