“Louisiana State University’s main campus is being evacuated following a bomb threat.”
Last week was UT, North Dakota State, and Hiram college.
Islamists? Copycats? Pranksters? Who knows?
Until they actually set off a bomb, or pull this sort of thing during the Alabama game on November 3, these bomb threats are all turban and no boom.
There was a shooting near Texas A&M earlier today. Here are a few nuggets of information gleaned from Dallas Morning News and WFAA’s Twitter feed:
More details when they occur.
In the meantime, as Dwight has already implored CHL holders to do, “Carry your damn guns, people.” Also, here’s firearms instructor Karl Rehn on what to do when faced with an “active shooter.”
Update
Update 2
Seeing reports that a third person has died, and also that the suspect has died. Not sure if those are one and the same. News reporting that the third person dead is the shooter.
Update 3
Sgt. Jason James, spokesman for the Bryan Police Department, confirms to The News: Three were killed during today’s shooting, including, as mentioned below, Brazos County Constable Brian Bachmann. Also killed, he says: a male civilian and the shooter.
Right now, James says, another female bystander is hospitalized at the College Station Medical Center; her condition is unknown. Also, says James: “An officer injured during the gunfight is hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.” Two more officers, he says, were injured — “but not through the initial contact” with the gunman.
Update 4
The bystander killed was Chris Northcliff, 43. Suspect killed was Thomas Caffall, approx. 35, divorced.
Hey, remember when UT’s Dean stepped down because he had a $500,000 slush fund?
Well, there’s been another law school dean stepping down because of a slush fund. Only this time it’s St. Louis University School of Law Dean Annette Clark and she’s stepping down not because of her own slush fund, but because University President Father Lawrence Biondi transferred more than $1 million in law school funds into his own slush fund. Without asking her. Or consulting her on the new law school building. And refusing to meet with a law school reaccreditation team.
I am very far indeed from intimate knowledge of St. Louis University, but if even half of what Clark alleges is true, something stinks to high heaven.
(Hat tip: Tax Prof Blog, via Instapundit.)
A random compilation of vaguely interesting news that you may have already read elsewhere. So it goes:
(Hat tip: Dwight.)
That’s some industrial strength stupidity right there, Mr. Adam Smith: videotaping yourself being King of the Douchebags and then putting it up on YouTube yourself. What possible go wrong? Beside, you know, your company firing you for being King Douchebag.
Spent most of the day checking things off my list and web-surfing Creepy Pasta. So here’s a quick roundup of Texas vs. California tidbits:
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Dwight has been all over the story of Amado “Mayo” Pardo, owner of South Austin Mexican restaurant Joviata’s, who just happens to be a two-time convicted murderer (a third murder charge was dropped as part of a plea bargain for the first) and the accused leader of a heroin-dealing ring.
He’s also a noted fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
I have not been able to find any direct political donations at the state or national level for Pardo (and the Travis County website doesn’t seem to have a way to search for individual donations, only rank upon rank of PDFs), but Jovita’s seems to have been the site for numerous liberal and Democratic fundraising events:
There are more, but you get the idea. If these people were just renting Jovita’s as a venue, fine and dandy. But if they were specifically approaching Pardo to hold fundraisers for them, perhaps a bit more due diligence was in order on the part of the Austin Democratic establishment? The Austin Chronicle named him “Mayor of South Austin” in 2009. Here’s their profile of him, also from 2009, in which discusses his reading Marx and his love for Cesar Chavez, but omits his two murder convictions. How could he spend two decades hob-nobbing with Austin’s liberal community and no one bothered to find out that not only did he have two murder raps, but the FBI believes he had been dealing heroin for 25 years?
Of course, Pardo hasn’t been convicted. Instead of a heroin-dealing convicted murderer and liberal activist, he may only be a convicted murderer and liberal activist…
Accused Plano bomber Anson Chi was denied bail at a hearing at which he testified on his own behalf. I don’t see anyone placing any sort of credibility on his claims that some of his wounds were due to being tortured by police while in the hospital. Various testimony adds a lot more to the “walking time-bomb” file:
[FBI agent Brian] Carroll described Chi as “anti-government, anti-technology, anti-big business, pro-environmentalist (and) slightly anarchist.”
“He said he was tired of armchair activists and wanted to have this in the bank to prove he was a real activist,” Carroll said.
One wonder what sort of “activism” Chi thought he was displaying. Anti-gas-pipeline activism? I fail to see how blowing up a pipeline would fight the Federal Reserve, the IRS, or genetically modified food (all noted Chi concerns).
Testifying for the defense, Chi’s parents said they were OK with him living at home if the judge agreed to release him and would notify police immediately if he broke any rules.
But the testimony also seemed to backfire.
His father, Swia Chenn Chi, said he often fought with his son and was so afraid of him he once called the police.
“If we don’t agree, he usually goes wild,” the father testified. “I was so afraid he would take the gun and point it at me … I wished the police would (have taken) his gun away, but they never did.”
The FBI said agents recovered two pistols and three shotguns from the family’s Plano house, in addition to bomb-making chemicals and hardware in a search hours after the explosion.
Chi’s father said he was upset with his son because he hadn’t worked for several years.
“He’s such a grown-up man,” Swia Chenn Chi said of his 33-year-old son. “He’s not handicapped but he doesn’t work so he makes me disappointed.”
An adult refusing to look for a job fits the Occupy mold a lot more than your typical Ron Paul supporter. It also fits in with Chi’s posting the “Disappointed Asian Father” images on his Facebook page, like this one:
It also ties into the themes in his novel.
Anson Chi’s mother, Fai, testified her son had no real friends and added she had no idea what the chemicals were inside their home.
“I didn’t know what he was doing,” Fai Chi said. “When I ask him questions, he says I’m nosy.”
She said she thought the chemicals were ingredients for him to make soup.
“I always thought he was baking and cooking,” she said.
Asked if she ever saw him eat anything he baked, she said, “Last year he did eat a loaf of bread.”
She also said her son would sometimes compare himself to Jesus.
“He said, ‘Jesus cannot save the world. I can save the world,'” she said.
Comparing yourself to Jesus is a pretty clear sign you’ve gone off the deep end.
More information from The Dallas Morning News:
In addition to the bomb-making materials and instructions, agents found three shotguns and two 40-caliber semi-automatic handguns at the Chi home. They found books on domestic terrorism and technological slavery. They also found $2,000 hidden in a spray can with a false bottom, as well as euros and Asian currency.
Carroll detailed Chi’s extensive travel in recent years, including trips to Taiwan, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia. Records show that Chi crossed into Mexico 20 times on foot and that he was denied entry into Canada last year, Carroll testified.
More information continues to come out about Chi, including some information I was unable to locate between the time I figured out he was the likely bombing suspect and the time the Dallas media revealed who he was.
Here’s Chi, in a video with badly synched audio:
I’m not a big fan of the IRS, and as a fan of small government I have a bit of sympathy for tax protestors. But that sympathy is tempered by the fact that the theories by which they deduce the federal income tax is unconstitutional range from the almost certainly wrong to the completely ludicrous. And further evidence that they’re mistaken is the frequency with which they end up in prison.
Chi also posted a copy of this well-known video depicting soccer fans overwhelming police over their excessive use of violence. I’m all for exposing and punishing police brutality, but when Chi comments “Watch the police (pigs) get what they deserve—oink!” once again he gives that Occupy-tainted whiff of throwback 1960s radicalism. Not everyone who called police pigs in the 1960s built bombs, but virtually 100% of the 1960s bomb builders (The Weatherman Underground, etc.) would be found among their ranks.
He also links to a 9/11 Truther video, which does not speak well of his credulity.
Aaron Walker provides more details on his SWATing.
Whether this was done by convicted felon Brett Kimberlin, his likely associate Neal Rauhauser, or anyone else on Team Kimberlin, I don’t think they’ve thought their cunning scheme all the way through. Did it ever occur to the people setting up these SWATings that police really, really don’t like being made to look like fools? Having police officers kill an innocent person based on a malicious prank has to rank pretty high among nightmare scenarios at police headquarters.
You SWAT people once or twice and and police may shrug it off as a prank. You do it repeatedly, as the supergeniuses on Team Kimberlin have done, and you’re really going to piss them off. So much so, that they’re going to start sharing information between departments in an effort to track down the people behind it and nail them to the wall. And they’re going to start calling their friends among the feds and private security consultants for help. Eric Holder may not be interested in helping conservative bloggers, but there are a lot of feds that still want to do the right thing.
Team Kimberlin better be having fun messing with the bull now, because I have a strong feeling they’re not going to like what comes next…
Even for convicted felon Brett Kimberlin this seems ham-handed. They seem desperate to punish conservative bloggers. Or perhaps distract our attention from Obama’s lousy job as President. Whatever the reason, they’re doubling-down on the nasty tactics.
It isn’t working.
Speaking of nasty tactics, here’s more on methods of Neal Rauhauser and Team Kimberlin.
According to this DSM story. The other material in that story should be familiar If you’ve been reading this blog.
On reason I’ve kept on this story is that once I uncovered the Ron Paul connection, it was obvious the MSM would run with Chi as a “Right Wing Extremist.” Which is already happening in the comments for various stories. But, as I showed, it’s not that simple. Chi is also on record as supporting organic food and opposing religion, corporations and genetically modified food, all of which are hardly typical Ron Paul positions. I wanted to get the facts out there before the MSM clouded the issue.