John Edwards and his Hair … When Will the Breck Girls Ever Learn?

During the 2004 Presidential Elections, Democratic VP candidate John Edwards was pretty much rendered to a political joke when the video came out of him primping with his hair. Seems the former VP candidate has not learned from his ways. Seems that John Edwards is still paying $400 for a hair cut to make himself look pretty. Maybe it was those $400 haircuts that made Jennifer Swanson, Edwards’ finance director leave?

For those of you who have forgotten, take a peek at John “I feel pretty” Edwards on You Tube.

Of course maybe even a funnier line than picking on Edwards’ hair was his comment that “he can win some Southern States“. This coming from a man who did not run for re-election in NC because he knew he did not have a snowballs chance. Edwards, you have about as much chance of winning in the South as Gore did winning TN in 2000. Stick to something you know a lot about like  keeping your hair neat, clean  and cut.

Presidential candidate John Edwards said Monday that he is the strongest general election candidate in the Democratic field because he’s won in the South and his chief rivals have not been tested there.

“I think I have the strongest chance of changing the electoral map,” Edwards said in an interview with The Associated Press. “If Senator McCain or Mayor Giuliani or Governor Romney, if one of them is the nominee, I think we have a great chance to win, not just Ohio, but to win some Southern states.

VA Tech Massacre … the day after … Gunman was a Student (Update: Cho Seung Hui Identified as Shooter)

One day after the most deadly mass shooting in American history we learn that the shooter, an Asian male was a student at Virginia Tech. The shooters name has not yet been released. The ramifications of this tragic event will play out for years to come. To the educational system in this country, it is their 9–11. Changes will have to be made across every campus to provide better communication and information for the security and safety of students. Many questions will be raised from this heinous and tragic event.

UPDATE I: Centreville Student, Cho Seung Hui, Was Va. Tech Shooter.

No red flags there from those that knew Cho Seung Hui.

The 23-year-old student who police say is responsible for one of the deadliest shootings in modern history was described by teachers and classmates at Virginia Tech as an eccentric loner whose writings were violent and troubling.

Cho Seung Hui, who graduated in 2003 from Westfield High School in Fairfax County, is is responsible for killing 32 people during a shooting rampage at two buildings on the sprawling campus in Blacksburg, authorities said today.

Law enforcement sources said that Cho died with the words “Ismail Ax” in red ink on one of his arms, but they were not sure what the words meant.

Investigators also found a note left in the shooter’s dorm room, said to a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation. “It’s sort of a manifesto” said the source, who described the note as a rambling and somewhat incoherent list of grievances. Among the people that Cho attacked in the note were those he considered rich, spoiled students, the source said. “It was just sort of against the world,” the source said.

A second note was found near Cho’s body. It also contained obscenities and angry denunciations of “rich kids” and others who he said had “ (Washington Post)

UPDATE II: Who’s joking Now?

Did we learn nothing from 9–11 and previous school shootings to warn people other others bizarre and abnormal behavior?

“We always joked we were just waiting for him to do something, waiting to hear about something he did,” said another classmate, Stephanie Derry. “But when I got the call it was Cho who had done this, I started crying, bawling.” (Yahoo News)

UPDATE III: Killer’s Note: ‘You Caused Me to Do This’

In typical loser fashion of a blame everyone else mentality, Seung-Hui Cho left a note that blamed other for the causes of his violent rampage. Heaven forbid this individual take responsibility for his own actions.

Seung-Hui Cho, the student who killed 32 people and then himself yesterday, left a long and “disturbing” note in his dorm room at Virginia Tech, say law enforcement sources.

He also wrote at least two violent plays for an English course that worried his professor and several classmates.

Sources described the note, which runs several pages, as beginning in the present tense and then shifting to the past. It contains rhetoric explaining Cho’s actions and says, “You caused me to do this,” the sources told ABC News. (ABC News)

As many had speculated after the horrendous massacre, were there signs that the gunman was showing prior to the shooting? Was he acting in a bizarre manner or did he do things that should have raised red flags? The answer appears to be yes, but no one did anything. Seung-Hui Cho’s writings should have been a warning.

Lucinda Roy, a co-director of the creative writing program at Virginia Tech, taught Cho in a poetry class in fall of 2005 and later worked with him one-on-one after she became concerned about his behavior and themes in his writings.

Roy spoke outside her home Tuesday afternoon, saying that there was nothing explicit in Cho’s writings, but that threats were there under the surface.

She said she notified authorities about Cho, but said she was told that there would be too many legal hurdles to intervene. She said she asked him to go to counseling, but he never did.

UPDATE IV: The Writings of a Mad Man

Read the Virginia Killer’s Violent Writings
Play told of pedophilic stepfather, murder of 13-year-old boy

UPDATE V: Va. Tech gunman writings raised concerns

News reports said that he may have been taking medication for depression and that he was becoming increasingly violent and erratic.

Despite the many warning signs that came to light in the bloody aftermath, police and university officials offered no clues as to exactly what set Cho off on the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

“He was a loner, and we’re having difficulty finding information about him,” school spokesman Larry Hincker said.

A student who attended Virginia Tech last fall provided obscenity- and violence-laced screenplays that he said Cho wrote as part of a playwriting class they both took. One was about a fight between a stepson and his stepfather, and involved throwing of hammers and attacks with a chainsaw. Another was about students fantasizing about stalking and killing a teacher who sexually molested them. (Yahoo News)

He was allowed to walk among us why? This is how we protect the masses of students, letting a troubled individual simmer into a time bomb?

The gunman in the Virginia Tech massacre was a sullen loner who alarmed professors and classmates with his twisted, violence-drenched creative writing and left a rambling note raging against women and rich kids. (Charlotte Observer)

Daily Commentary – Tuesday April 17th, 2007 – Family Finds Closure After WWII Flyer ID’ed

Dana discusses how:

• Family Finds Closure After WWII Flyer ID’ed

Air Force 1st Lt. Archibald Kelly’s Remains ID’d after 63 Years

Backlash from many Including Parents of how VA Tech Shootings Were Handled

It was becoming apparent early in the VA Tech shooting massacre that questions would abound as to how the VA Tech Administration and police handed this matter. The first shots were fired at 7:15 AM at West Ambler Johnston Hall. Two people were killed, the Hall was locked down, and a gunman was on the loose. Then at 9:15 AM the carnage truly began as a gunman opened fire in Norris Hall and killed 31 people including himself. Why did campus police allow classes to continue with an unaccounted for gunman on the loose. There was no way of knowing where he could be or what was going through his mind. My not error on the side of caution, wasn’t that our biggest learning lesson from 9–11?

There was no way any one could have known that our countries worst mass shooting would ever have occurred in such a peaceful college setting. However, that is why we are supposed to have policies in procedures in place.

The following are the text of the e-mails that were sent out by Virginia Tech to students and staff following the initial shooting at 7:15AM. Which begs the questions by many, why the delay? Informing the public of danger is a great tool. It would appear that many campuses will have to work on this line of security.

Times according to the time stamps on the e-mails.

- E-mail sent at 9:26 a.m.:

Subject: Shooting on campus.

“A shooting incident occurred at West Amber Johnston earlier this morning. Police are on the scene and are investigating.

“The university community is urged to be cautious and are asked to contact Virginia Tech Police if you observe anything suspicious or with information on the case. Contact Virginia Tech Police at 231-6411 (read more …)

The tragic carnage appears to have started as a lover’s tiff and escalated into the worse mass shooting murder spree in US history. However, many are scratching their heads as to how this was handed. Why were classes allowed to continue when police knew that there were two students murdered and a killer on the loose? Why the delay in notifying the students as to what originally happened?

Many parents of Virginia Tech students are out raged and are calling for the firing of VA Tech President, Charles Steger and the Police Chief. Every one had to know that it was only a matter of time before this occurred. The Q&A from the press conferences today left much to be desired. The cold hard fact is that 31 innocent people are dead at VA Tech and someone(s) is going to have to be accountable. It is also a matter of time before the law suits reign down upon VA Tech as well.

John and Jennifer Shourds of Lovettsville, Va. demanded the immediate firings of University President Charles Steger and Virginia Tech Campus Police Chief W.R. Flinchum who he said “screwed up” the handling of separate shooting incidents that left 33 students dead, including the shooter.

“My God, if someone shoots somebody there should be an immediate lockdown of the campus,” said John Shourds. “They totally blew it. The president blew it, campus police blew it.”

The Shourds said they received a phone call from their daughter, Alexandra, a freshman at the college in Blacksburg, who was unsure of how to handle a vague university e-mail received around 9:20 a.m. regarding the first shooting incident that happened at the West Ambler Johnston Hall around 7:15 a.m. Later, it was learned that a lone gunman entered that hall, two buildings away from Alexandra’s dorm, and opened fire, killing two people. (Fox News)

 UPDATE I: The Gunman was a VA Tech Student

Virginia Tech’s president said Tuesday that a student was the gunman in at least the second of the two campus attacks that claimed 33 lives to become the deadliest shooting rampage in modern U.S. history.

The University president continued to defend its actions in notifying students and faculty of the earlier shooting; however, it is evident that many had no idea what had transpired earlier that day.

Steger said the university was trying to notify students who were already on-campus, not those who were commuting in.

“We warned the students that we thought were immediately impacted,” he told CNN. “We felt that confining them to the classroom was how to keep them safest.”

He said investigators did not know there was a shooter loose on campus in the interval between the two shootings because the first could have been a murder-suicide.

Two students told NBC’s “Today” show they were unaware of the dorm shooting when they reported to a German class where the gunman later opened fire.

Derek O’Dell, his arm in a cast after being shot, described a shooter who fired away in “eerily silence” with “no specific target — just taking out anybody he could.” (Yahoo News)

Diario Editorial: A TRAITOR AND HIS ANTI-ARUBAN GOVERNMENT … Anti-American too

Jossy Mansur fires back at MEP in his latest editorial in Diario, ‘UN BENDEPATRIA Y SU GOBIERNO ANTI-ARUBIANO! (2)’. Let’s see the MEP government go against Jossy for an editorial. News flash to MEP, an editorial is one’s opinion or is an opinion against free speech as well in Aruba? Jossy Mansur says it like it is, its just too bad that many in Aruba fail to have the courage or the spine to admit the truth.

“What did Nel’s government do in the case of Natalee? Hide their heads in a hole like ostriches so as not to see the truth of what was happening, try to fire Jan and Karin because they did not belong to the group of political yes-men of his government; put the interest for American tourism money above the value of a human life; try to throw the blame on the family of the girl that disappeared, instead of going all-out against the three suspects who are responsible for the bad name Aruba got in other countries …”

Jossy, don’t beat around the bush. Tell us how you really feel? Of course we know he will. It is just too bad so many other Arubans cannot see the obvious. Hiding one’s head in the sand and turning your back on injustice is hardley an act of bravery.

We can no longer say that! Now our island has become, in the hands of Nel Oduber and his anti-Aruban and anti-American government, an island of the abuse of power, of nepotism, of favors to the small group of privileged MEP fanatics, and political persecution against the rest of the population that do not subject themselves to his amens!

A TRAITOR AND HIS ANTI-ARUBAN GOVERNMENT (2) (full English translation)

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