[BALTIMORE.CBSLOCAL] Three people are confirmed dead after a shooting at the Columbia Mall. One of the dead is the suspected shooter. No identities have been released. Police say they have one person identified already, but have not released that name yet. I used to go shopping there now and then...
Police first responded to calls of a shooting around 11:15 a.m. Within two minutes, they arrived to find a man and a woman, both in their 20s, shot dead. Police say the victims were employees at the Zumies store on the second floor of the mall above the food court. I keep waiting for terrorism to show up in this country, but there are lots of times I think the turbans needn't bother. We have enough pinheads who think life is a movie and they're the star.
Authorities say the shooting happened both inside and outside the store.
Police say five others were taken to the hospital--one of those patients was shot in the foot. The other four were treated for either medical conditions or complications like twisted ankles.
The mall has since been cleared and all roads are blocked off.
"We do have three confirmed fatalities and we want to send our thoughts and prayers to the families of those victims," said Howard County Executive Ken Ulman. "This has obviously been a tremendously trying few hours and we ask that people continue to bear with us. This is an active crime scene and will continue to be an active crime scene for quite some time."
We don't know how the suspected shooter died, whether that person was shot by police or committed suicide.
So far, that person has not been identified. Police say the shooter used a shotgun and had a large amount of ammunition on him at the time of his death.
They say they are approaching the situation with caution, making sure there are no explosives on the gunman's body.
"There's a lot of police activity," said Mark Massechia. "Very chaotic right now."
Massechia said he witnessed workers walking out of the mall with their hands up.
Shopper Shafon says she saw the shooter.
"I looked up at the second floor by the escalators, the shooter looked straight at me and pointed the shotgun and took a shot and my husband yelled get down and we ducked," she said.
She said the shot hit the wall and caused the plaster to fall on them, another shot hit a fire extinguisher. She described him as young, between 18-21, tan khaki pants, white shirt, suspenders, shotgun.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#1
Suburbia. One of the first "planned communities". Lots of scaled amenities neighborhoods with three levels of luxury. Rich old people living on quiet paved and tree lined streets in pastel neighborhood. Nice airy Libraries and a big 180 store two story new Malls with lots of boutiques and restaurants.
And little Mikey who wanks a lot and lives at home with his grandmother and owns a shotgun and watched television all day.
#2
Not to be confused with headlines covering the number of people kill in a weather related pile up on the interstate. More people are killed by licensed automobile operators than gun owners. Somehow the sensation isn't imbued in the reporting.
#3
We don't know how the suspected shooter died, whether that person was shot by police or committed suicide.
Notice how they omitted the possibility that he was shot by a legally armed and trained civilian? Doesn't fit the narrative - can't have an example of a gun saving lives!
#5
Apparently the authorities are now thinking of this as a domestic dispute -- the girl worked in the shop, there was a current boyfriend and a former boyfriend, though I don't recall which was the shooter. Also, possibly the shooter had some sort of bomb.
Apologies that I didn't save the URl for linking. it's been that kind of day.
[KREBSONSECURITY] Federal authorities in New Jersey announced a series of arrests and indictments of 14 individuals thought to be connected to an online one-stop shop selling embossed, counterfeit credit cards and holographic overlays. We should really be paying more attention to internet vermin like this.
According to documents released by prosecutors in New Jersey and North Carolina, the men ran or otherwise profited from the Web site fakeplastic[dot]net, which specializes in selling high-quality, custom-made counterfeit credit and debit cards, as well as holographic overlays used to create fake driver's licenses. If you're like me, you probably don't carry more than about twenty bucks in cash anymore. I haven't written a check in six months, and when I did I had to stop and think what went where. Virtually all commerce is moving or has moved to plastic. The credit card fraudsters are the same as the guys who used to lurk in the ally and holler "gimme yer dough." Actual "money" is addition or subtraction carried out over internet between two databases.
The FBI and the U.S. Postal Investigative Service began investigating fakeplastic[dot]net in January 2013. Charged with running the site is 39-year-old Sean Roberson of Palm Bay, Fla. Investigators allege that Roberson began selling counterfeit cards in April 2011, and launched the site in June 2012. Since then, Roberson and two accomplices fulfilled orders for approximately 69,000 counterfeit cards -- both embossed and unembossed; more than 35,000 holographic stickers used to make counterfeit cards appear more legitimate; and more than 30,000 state identification card holographic overlays. All of the orders -- 36,000 parcels in total -- were shipped by the site to customers via the U.S. mail. The opportunities for terrorists, starting with Pak-based turbanry, are pretty obvious, but they're easily hidden in the grass of Nigerians, Moldovans, Russians, Chinese, and the guys operating out of cheap apartments in places nobody's ever been to.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[FT] He gained 20,000 Twitter followers, exchanged messages with professional footballers and occasionally seemed a step ahead on big moves in English football. But Samuel Rhodes was not the debonair blond journalist shown in his Twitter avatar. He was the alter ego of Sam Gardiner, a 16-year-old schoolboy from North London. The rise and fall of Gardiner, who this month saw his Twitter account suspended, is the latest example of impersonation on social media networks... I confess. I guess the jig's up. I'm really a twelve-year-old girl.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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I confess. I guess the jig's up. I'm really a twelve-year-old girl.
Have you informed Gloria? Ima thinkrn she'll be surprised
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/26/2014 11:17 Comments ||
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#2
Just think - as a twelve-year-old girl, Fred would be eligible for a slew of STEM scholarships in a few years.
[Egypt Independent] A ceasefire in South Sudan between government and rebel forces appeared to be holding Saturday, the army said, despite festivities as it began and fears the bitter rivals may seek to fight on.
The ceasefire, aimed to bring an end to five weeks of bitter conflict in which thousands have died, formally began at 1730 GMT on Friday, well after dark in South Sudan.
Both sides have pledged to stick to a deal struck on Thursday, but each also has said they doubt the other can fully control the forces on the ground.
The United Nations ...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks... reported "sporadic fighting" on Friday before and after the deadline, UN deputy front man Farhan Haq said.
Rebel front man Lul Ruai Koang said before the ceasefire deadline that the army had attacked positions in the northern oil state of Unity, and in the volatile eastern Jonglei region.
Koang alleged that South Sudanese government troops -- as well as Ugandan soldiers and rebels from neighbouring Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) -- had attacked rebel positions on Friday.
Army front man Philip Aguer in turn accused the rebels of launching attacks Friday afternoon in Jonglei, but said the government force had beaten back the assault, and that fighting was over before the ceasefire deadline.
Saturday morning, in the first hours of daylight of the ceasefire, Aguer said the festivities appeared to have ended.
"There are no reports of fighting, it is calm," he said.
It was not possible Saturday to immediately contact rebel forces, and gathering reports from across the vast and remote regions of South Sudan -- large areas of which have poor if any telephone network -- is a difficult task.
Brutal atrocities committed
The ceasefire agreement was signed late Thursday in the Æthiopian capital Addis Ababa by representatives of South Sudan's President Salva Kiir and rebel delegates loyal to ousted vice president Riek Machar.
"It is critical that both parties implement the cessation of hostilities agreement in full and immediately," the UN front man said.
US President Barack Obama Ready to Rule from Day One... , whose country provided crucial backing on South Sudan's path to statehood, described the deal as "a critical first step toward building a lasting peace".
Kiir urged those rebels not under Machar's control to also respect the deal.
"Now that people have fought, people should come back to their senses and we sit down so that we can resolve this conflict through negotiation," Kiir said in an address Friday.
Up to 10,000 people are believed to have been killed in the fighting pitting forces loyal to Kiir against a loose coalition of army defectors and ethnic militia nominally headed by Machar, a seasoned guerrilla fighter.
The fighting has been marked by atrocities on both sides with some 700,000 people forced from their homes in the impoverished nation, according to the United Nations.
There has also been a wave of brutal Dire Revenge™ attacks, as fighters and ethnic militia use the violence to loot and settle old scores.
Food to feed a quarter of a million people for a month has been looted from UN World Food Programme stores -- a staggering 3,700 metric tons -- with the agency warning that "humanitarian needs will continue long after the fighting stops".
More than 76,000 people are crowded inside UN peacekeeper bases across the country -- the highest number since the start of the conflict -- with most hesitant to leave the protection offered by the compound.
"We're not leaving yet, because I don't trust either side to keep the agreement," said Peter Biel, one of thousands squeezed into a former sports ground turned into crowded camp inside a UN base in Juba.
"Can they just stop fighting straight away, like that? I doubt it. I'm not risking my family's life believing that."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[Dhaka Tribune] The authorities are allegedly patronising the Bangladesh Chhatra League ... the student wing of the Bangla Awami League ... leader who reportedly assaulted a teacher on Thursday
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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#3
Well, yes. When one has to resort to things like pedestal-type lamp tables (that can quickly be broken down into a heavy shield and a studded club,) for home defense without running afoul of the authorities, there's a bit of a problem.
#7
UK is coming round, the South Wales securitate arrested a man for assault, who tackled 2 robbers (by grabbing the large block of wood they were carrying and whacking them with it, breaking one of the perps legs). It actually went to trial.
It took 20 minutes for the jury to decide not guilty (aka time for the coffee to cool).
#9
I read a deal (no confirmation) that Amazon UK was sitting there scratching their heads about baseball bat sales in the UK. Until they realized that it was not for sport but as a club, it was easier to weild than a Cricket Bat.
What does that mean anyways, in the American style?
#13
Whaddya mean, the way I talk? What? Am I funny? How am I funny?
One of my family chores is emergency prep. That includes, but not limited to, bad guys. Far more likely are extended power outages in poor weather, fire, tornado, rabid skunk in backyard with my kids, bad dogs, then crime. So when I think about prep, its not often I think two intruders low on money drugs and mind entering my property and grabbing a kid to get me to give them valuables. Thats so less likely than single burgler in wrong house.
But it is a consideration. That I would not be able to meet brute force with brute force as at least an option. By the time I get down to something UK legal, like a bat, I'm like six or eight options out of better choices.
That is crazy.
Rob, what the author was gettting at, and I have to take the word because I have never used a cricket bat, was that with the different lengths, weights, and gravity distribution, far more people were able to physically use a baseball bat effectively in a fight. I'm not saying a cricket bat would not cause a bad day.
[Bangla Daily Star] The anti-government protests in Ukraine yesterday spread to the north and east of the country as demonstrators sought to seize regional administration offices that have been occupied in over half a dozen regions in the west.
Demonstrators were still occupying regional adminstration buildings in Lviv and other regions across the pro-EU west of Ukraine that they have seized in a major blow for President Viktor Yanukovych.
But in a new development, protesters were seeking to seize buildings in regions north and east of the capital Kiev, in a sign the protest mood was spreading across the country.
Protesters were storming the regional administration in the region of Poltava east of Kiev, Ukrainian media reports said.
A similar attempt to seize control of the main local adminstration building was also underway in Chernigiv region north of Kiev on the border with Belarus, the reports added.
Demonstrators had earlier seized control of the regional administration building in the region of Vinnytsia just to the west of Kiev, undeterred by stun grenades used by riot police.
Governors of Ukrainian regions are appointed by Yanukovych and have now become targets of protesters seeking to bring about change not just in Kiev but across the country.
As well as Lviv, protesters are already controlling administration buildings in the western regions of Ternopil, Rivne, Khmelnitsky, Lutsk, Ivano-Frankivsk and Chernivtsi.
No such actions have been reported in the Donbass region of the east of Ukraine, the home region of Yanukovych which has largely remained loyal to the president throughout the crisis.
Yanukovych has always been hugely unpopular in western Ukraine, which overwhelmingly favours integration with the European Union ...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing... and a slackening of ties with Russia.
Ukraine has long been split between the nationalist and Ukrainian-speaking west and far more Russophile east. The south, in particular Crimea, also tends to favour Yanukovych.
A large number of the protesters currently massing against Yanukovych in Kiev are not from the capital but have travelled in huge numbers from western Ukraine.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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Old Spook: I would sincerely appreciate your perspective as to what the he## started this and where it is going - Thanks, UP...
Despite initial high expectations, the Indian Air Force appears to be souring on a joint development deal with Russia for a new fifth-generation fighter jet, according to the Business Standard, a major Indian business publication. The Russian prototype is "unreliable, its radar inadequate, its stealth features badly engineered, said Indian Air Force Deputy Air Marshall S Sukumar at a Jan. 15 meeting, according to minutes obtained by the Business Standard.
That contrasts sharply with high hopes voiced by the Indian government when the joint project, to which the Indian government has contributed $6 billion, began.
[The new plane] will have advanced features such as stealth, supercruise, ultra-maneuvrability, highly integrated avionics suite, enhanced situational awareness, internal carriage of weapons and Network Centric Warfare capabilities, the Indian government said in a December 2010 press release. Those are all hallmarks of fifth generation aircraft.
The Indian Air Force did not respond to a request for comment.
But it is hardly surprising that the invisible-to-radar Russian fighter planes don't quite live up to the billing, according to defense experts reached by FoxNews.com.
The Russians are certainly not up to speed in avionics, Robbin Laird, who has served as a consultant to the Marine Corps and Air Force and started the website Second Line of Defense, told FoxNews.com. For them to pull off a stealth airframe, and for it to actually be stealthy, the engine technology has to be very good. Americans have done it with the F-22 and F-35. But its not easy to do. No one has done it but ourselves.
India is the largest arms importer in world, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and its military import large amounts from both Russia and western countries.
The Indians for a long time have split their fighter industry between western work and Russian work, Laird said.
Clearly they want to go more Western because they recognize that the Russian stuff just isn't up to the western standards. You only have so much money to go around, and like everybody else they've got financial pressures, he added.
Other security experts said that India has a history of incompetence when it comes to military procurement, and so it did not necessarily reflect badly on Russia.
India has had so many problems absorbing modern equipment and supporting it that its difficult to know whether it says anything about the Russian systems at all, Anthony Cordesman, who has served as a consultant for the State and Defense departments and who holds the Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told FoxNews.com.
Laird said that the Indians may be souring on the Russian deal in part to save funds so they can build more French-designed Dassault Rafale fighter jets, which can be built relatively quickly, unlike the still-to-be-designed fifth-generation planes under development with the Russians.
The Rafale is a very nice aircraft, and they'll look at all the stuff the French are putting on that aircraft, and they'll look at the Russian stuff and say, why am I going down that path? Do I trust the Russians really are going to reach to the standards we set?
#2
Which will INDIA prefer - PROBLEMATIC RUSSIAN STEALTH, OR PAYING AN ADDITIONAL $10.0BILYUHN TO THE FRENCH FOR "RAFALES".
As for the F-35, ...
* WAFF > [USNI.org] INSIDE THE NAVY'S NEXT AIR WAR.
* RELATED SAME > THE F-35 AS A FUNCTIONING [Integrated, Battle] SENSOR FUSION ENGINE - PROTECTING THE FLEET FOR "TRON" WARFARE.
The Army-Marines = US Ground Forces have DA ARNUUULD'S "PREDATOR" + "TERMINATOR", + "ROBO-COP"; the US Navy + USAF [US Aerospace Force = future Space Force?] have "TRON"???
D *** NG IT, IS THERE NO LOVE IN THE USDOD FOR "ROBOTECH" + "GUNDAM" + "SPACE BATTLESHIP:YAMATO"!?
[DAWN] GUJRANWALA: Pakistain Moslem League-Nawaz (PML-N) activists displayed and brandished sophisticated weapons and resorted to indiscriminate gun sex on Friday in the Gujranwala city in a rally celebrating the arrival of Engineer Khurram Dastagir from Islamabad after becoming a federal minister.
Workers welcomed the minister at the River Chenab bridge in Wazirabad and brought him to the city in a caravan of vehicles.
The supporters of Khurram Dastagir had set up welcome camps in Wazirabad, Ghakkar Town, Rahwali and Lohianwala Bypass intersection on GT Road and at every camp he would be greeted amid chants and drumbeat.
The activists resorted to gun sex with automatic and modern weapons on GT Road in the city and outside the residence of Khurram Dastagir in Satellite Town to celebrate the moments.
Neither the police nor the minister and other government officials intervened.
When a footage of the firing was aired by television channels, Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif directed the inspector general of police to take action against those involved in the firing and creating harassment among the masses.
Civil Lines Superintendent of Police Shoaib Janbaz told Dawn the Satellite Town police had tossed in the calaboose ... anything you say can and will be used against you, whether you say it or not... Umer Javed Butt and 14 others while Dhulle and Satellite Town police had registered cases against several people. More arrests were expected by late night, the Civil Lines SP said.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/26/2014 00:00 ||
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[CNS News] Speaking at the United States Conference of Mayors on Friday, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said the approximately 11 million people who are in the country illegally have earned the right to be citizens. An earned path to citizenship for those currently present in this country is a matter of, in my view, homeland security to encourage people to come out from the shadows, said Johnson, in what he remarked was one of his first public speeches since being confirmed as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief in December. It is also, frankly, in my judgment, a matter of who we are as Americans, he said, to offer the opportunity to those who want to be citizens, whove earned the right to be citizens, who are present in this country--many of whom came here as children--to have the opportunity that we all have to try to become American citizens. So, an illegal activity (your words, not mine) produces "rights?" Perhaps if I chain myself to the gate of the Kennedy Space Center, NASA will declare me an astronaut.
#9
Jeh Johnson, please heed the message of the 3 wise mystic apes of Nippon...
Posted by: Oscar the Odorous8378 ||
01/26/2014 14:39 Comments ||
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#10
Raj: If you've not done so already, I can only recommend hiring a good immigration attorney. The Gov't does not like to fight these cases in a court of law where they will be quite easily found guilty of discrimination, and the plaintiffs awarded a handsome cash settlement.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[BALTIMORE.CBSLOCAL] Three people are confirmed dead after a shooting at the Columbia Mall. One of the dead is the suspected shooter. No identities have been released. Police say they have one person identified already, but have not released that name yet.
[KREBSONSECURITY] Federal authorities in New Jersey announced a series of arrests and indictments of 14 individuals thought to be connected to an online one-stop shop selling embossed, counterfeit credit cards and holographic overlays.
[DAWN] GUJRANWALA: Pakistain 
