RSSVolunteers Search For Natalee Holloway
Hats off to the “Volunteers” who made the effort to search for the missing teen, Natalee Holloway.
From the AP:
ORANJESTAD, Aruba – About 700 volunteers joined police, soldiers and FBI agents on Monday, combing scrubland and beaches on Aruba’s southeastern tip in an unprecedented search for an Alabama teenager who vanished a week ago on a trip to the Dutch Caribbean island.
Aruba’s government let 4,000 civil servants off work early at 2 p.m. to hunt for Natalee Holloway, 18, of Mountain Brook, Ala. The expanded search began a day after police charged two men in her disappearance.
Kenneth Angela and three co-workers from Aruba’s lottery company were among the hundreds who boarded 10 buses in the community of Santa Cruz, about six miles from the capital, Oranjestad, to be taken to the search site.
“It’s the first time Aruba has done such a big search,” said Angela, a 31-year-old lottery supervisor. “We want to keep Aruba’s name good. That’s why we’re here, to help find Natalee.”
The initial idea for the search called for an islandwide effort, but later changed focus to the southeastern area of Seroe Colorado and part of San Nicolas, police commander Judy Hassell said. San Nicolas is where authorities arrested the two men who were charged in the case.
Hassell said Aruba’s 74 square miles, slightly larger than Washington, D.C., made a full search of the island impractical. “We’re going to do as much as we can,” he said.
One of several search parties scoured barren terrain spotted with sequoia cactus, prickly pear and sea grass in view of Valero oil refinery. A helicopter hovered overhead. Other groups searched abandoned houses, remote roads and bushes. Lizards skittered across their paths.
Some of the volunteers were tourists, including Bill and Sarah Wise, both 22, of Cleveland. “We couldn’t leave without trying to help a fellow American,” Bill Wise said.
Sarah Wise said the case touched her because she and Holloway are about the same age. “It could be me,” she said.
Hassell said she asked the Justice Ministry for permission to conduct another big search Tuesday but had not yet received permission.
The coast guard said Aruba’s shoreline already had been searched on foot, by boat and helicopter, but the new search was more thorough.
Holloway’s disappearance has shaken the sense of security many of Aruba’s 97,000 people took for granted. Only one murder and six rapes were recorded last year. So far this year, there have been two murders and three rapes on the island, where the average annual income is a comfortable $22,000.
I will just make one comment that struck me a little with the number of volunteers. Aruba, this is a search for a missing girl and if you want to make the comments that its a sake island and tourism should not be affected than you best show you care more than 18% turnout for a search. The mission is to find Natalee Holloway; however, the Aruban government let people off work to help aid in the search. 700 out of 4000 people is not all that acceptable in my eyes.
If anyone on Aruba has better numbers than what AP is reporting please tell me. But I would really like to know where the other 3300 + Arubans were seeing that some of the volunteers were tourists?
Update:
Graphic of teen’s disappearance in Aruba
Meet The Press; Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the RNC (aka think Dems May Want to change?)
After listening to the rantings of Howard Dean, DNC Chair, two weeks ago on “Meet The Press”, it was certainly refreshing to listen to a normal interview. Gone was the vile hate, the insults and the look at me I’m Howard Dean that was the interview with Dean by Russert. Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the Republican Party is a class act and a man that gets the job done. Without having to grab all the attention and make an ass out of himself Ken Mehlman is running circles around Howard Dean in substance, class and fund raising as the national Democratic Party raised about $18.6 million in the first four months of the year, compared with $42.6 million for the RNC. Hear what a normal interview sounds like from a class act. Here is the full transcript from Meet The Press.
Here is just one of the exchanges.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Social Security. NBC News and The Wall Street Journal has gone out and asked voters what they think of the president’s plan for personal private accounts. Good idea, 36 percent; bad idea, 56 percent. This is after the president has embarked on a campaign across 26 states. It’s day 92 of a planned 60-day tour. People are simply not buying the president’s prescription to deal with Social Security.
MR. MEHLMAN: Well, Tim, there are a number of polls that have shown other things as well. I would respectfully disagree with those numbers. Here’s what I think with respect to this question. The fact is five months ago this was an issue that people weren’t really talking that much about. Because of the president’s leadership, because he’s brought it to people’s attention, it’s now a top issue. That same NBC News poll showed that a plurality of Americans believe that Congress is moving too slowly on the question of dealing with Social Security.
So what we have is a president that has brought this issue before the American people. We now understand that we can’t wait.
Hmm … Where were the hateful Dean-like comments during the interview? What a breathe of fresh air. From the looks of the Liberal comments and whining about the interview looks like they wish they had a Mehlman on their side and not a Dean.
It even appears that many Democrats are tiring of Howard Dean’s comments and antics. Its one thing when those of your party say things as an anonymous source and quite something else when they go public. Thus was the case with Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) Distancing yourself from the spokesperson of your party? Where is that unity that Democrats were talking about?
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) and former senator John Edwards (D-N.C.) distanced themselves over the weekend from remarks by Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, who is facing criticism for the pace of the party’s fund raising.
Dean, who inspired a passionate following when he ran for president in 2003-04 and showed the potential of Internet fund raising, has been as unpredictable with his public remarks since becoming party chairman in mid-February as his Republican counterpart, Ken Mehlman, has been on message
Biden made his comment on ABC’s “This Week” after the host, George Stephanopoulos, played a clip of Dean saying Thursday that perhaps Republicans can wait in line to cast ballots because a “lot of them have never made an honest living in their lives.”
Asked whether Dean is doing the party any good, Biden said, “Not with that kind of rhetoric. He doesn’t speak for me with that kind of rhetoric. And I don’t think he speaks for the majority of Democrats. . . . I wish that rhetoric would change.”
Edwards, the party’s vice presidential nominee last year, said at an annual party fundraising dinner Saturday in Nashville that he disagreed with Dean’s comment. “The chairman of the DNC is not the spokesman for the party,” Edwards said, according to the Associated Press. “He’s a voice. I don’t agree with it.”
John Edwards not only disagreeing with Howard Dean but also showing the reason why the political novice lost the Presidential nomination for the Democrats in 2004 and was made to look sophomoric in the 2004 Vice-Presidential Debate, “not the spokesperson for the party? Really?
This may have been the quote of the week if it were not for Ken Mehlman’s effort from Meet The Press.
“I’m not sure the best way to win support in the red states is to insult the folks who live there. I think that a better approach might be to talk about the issues you’re for.”
I cannot wait for the future interviews of the side by side confrontations between Mehlman and Dean on “Meet The Press”, if Dean is still DNC that is.
Video of Ken Mehlman on Meet The Press from Trey Jackson
This picture touched me
Living in the south, the image on this car could be driving by me in my hometown. Natalee could have been anyone of our babysitters, stepping out after graduation and letting her hair down.Pray for her.
“Bummer, Dude” From the Supreme Court – The Press
The Supreme Court today ruled against the use of medical marijuana even within a states borders as a commerce clause issue. How they could see that this would touch interstate commerce is amazing to me, but todays Court is has kept up the tradition of the powerful federalist bent on the court. The media had a hard time figuring out the fact that he conservative judges were the ones voting against this measure, and the liberal justices wanting to increase the power of the federal government over states and individuals rights.
Here is the round up:
For text excerpts from these articles, please click the “Read the rest of this entry” below
“Bummer, Dude” From the Supreme Court – The Blogs
The blog reaction to the verdict is across the board. The liberals are upset because someone is messing with their herb, but can not believe that it was the conservatives who tried to protect the stash, and the liberals who want hassle their buzz. The conservatives seem to be befuddled too, mainly because it is another bad precedent coming out of the courts that will take away states rights in a case that obviously does not need to be addressed by the Supreme Court.
Now for the wrap up.
- Orrin Kerr at The Volokh Conspiracy
- Radley Balko
- Realistic Revolution
- IndyBay.com
- Kevin Aylward
- Protein Wisdom
For text excerpts from these articles, please click the “Read the rest of this entry” below
