Massacre in Munich

[BaalChatzaf]

Yet another massacre in Germany.   This time at a shopping mall, the OEZ, in Munich.;  9 dead.  The perp has not yet been identified but I am willing to be a non-trivial amount of money  that the perp is a Jihadi.  Any takers? 

Eventually the Germans will get tired of this  and start loading up the box-cars.  

[SteveWolfer]

19 minutes ago, BaalChatzaf said:

Eventually the Germans will get tired of this  and start loading up the box-cars.

Looks like they are in a bad spot.  As a culture they've had to live down their immediate ancestor's behavior regarding boxcars.  In that not so distant past they were whipsawed between the horrors of Nazism and occupation by the Communists.  They had their country ravaged by war and torn in half, and now they are one country again, but have adopted partial socialism under the sodden blanket of the EU.  Things are not going to get better without strong action.  I hope they get it right this time.

[BaalChatzaf]

1 minute ago, SteveWolfer said:

Looks like they are in a bad spot.  As a culture they've had to live down their immediate ancestor's behavior regarding boxcars.  In that not so distant past they were whipsawed between the horrors of Nazism and occupation by the Communists.  They had their country ravaged by war and torn in half, and now they are one country again, but have adopted partial socialism under the sodden blanket of the EU.  Things are not going to get better without strong action.  I hope they get it right this time.

I am counting on the Germans to do the effective thing to boot the Muslim imigrants out on their asses.  The Germans are not burdened with a First Amendment like we are....

[Jon Letendre]

You have to wonder why the Sunni Arab countries are not taking in Syrian Sunni Arabs. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, many others. I wonder if they are made cautious of doing that by knowing things our leaders don't talk about.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I am sickened that this stuff keeps happening.

It was all avoidable.

Maybe President Obama will realize over time (after he leaves office) that no one can sell the superiority of leftwing social justice to fanatical Islamists. They already have that box checked directly from the Angel Gabriel and they don't want another. Now that they've got some power, land and weapons (thank you Obama and Clinton), it's party time.

Except by the time Obama realizes it (if he ever does), many more innocent civilians are not going to be walking the earth, are going to be cut down before their time by these savage killers. 

That's a high price for an experiment in ideology. Funny how our fearless leaders won't have to pay it...

The media is complicit, too. Oh is it complicit. Even now.

I tried to follow the news of this massacre on TV earlier today as it first started, but I had to turn it off. ALL THE CHANNELS were giving the following kind of message:

"There has been a shooting in Munich and, from reports, six people have died. But we need to be careful and say that, as of now, we don't know what the motive of the killer or killers was. It could have been due to any number of things, we just don't know. We can only tell you what others are reporting to us and it would be irresponsible to jump to any conclusions. We would like to know why the killer or killers did what they did, but we can't speculate about that. We must keep to the facts. And the fact is, right now, nobody know why they did it..."

And on and on and on...

It was in that proportion, too. For every sentence about the event, they gave four or five sentences about themselves and essentially congratulated themselves on how good they were for not saying the term Islamic terrorism (without saying it, to boot). 

The worst part was they wouldn't stop that crap. It droned on and on and on.

So I turned the TV off in disgust.

Michael

[SteveWolfer]

19 minutes ago, Jon Letendre said:

You have to wonder why the Sunni Arab countries are not taking in Syrian Sunni Arabs. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, many others. I wonder if they are made cautious of doing that by knowing things our leaders don't talk about.

I'm sure that they know more than our leaders know (that probably isn't difficult), and that they know things our leader do know but won't mention (no surprise).... but it is also simple national self-interest - they might just be looking at this and saying, "Why would we want any of those people?" 

And it might have to do with a way of looking at things.  In Western culture we look for a solution and we tend to take a benevolent, positive outlook as natural.  When things go awry, we look for how to put them right.  The Arab culture might see things as naturally screwed up and not getting better and not fixable.  They might not be taking in refugees, in part, because they don't see any solution to the problems that generate refugees. 

There is also the difference in the way altruism is pushed in Christian countries... making it 'moral' to sacrifice your nation's safety and well-being on behalf of these refugees.

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, Jon Letendre said:

You have to wonder why the Sunni Arab countries are not taking in Syrian Sunni Arabs. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, many others.

Egypt has taken in some half a million, Lebanon another million, Turkey almost three million, Jordan a million (all rounded, refs on request). Saudi Arabia does not accept 'refugees' from anywhere on earth, and withdraws its citizenship or residencies on a whim or fatwa. In any case, those who have managed to flee through Jordan to Saudi Arabia, or who have arrived by air are generally not turned out, and can be given work permits. Other Sunni-majority countries are closed to refugees or supply their own to the world stream. Or they are principalities or emirates without a functioning naturalization or refugee regime, vastly over-settled with non-citizens.  See Dubai, etc. Libya is of course a transit camp for refugees on the dangerous sea routes to Italy. 

But on balance, I agree with you that there is an absence.  And that it is most disturbing in the rich and influential Muslim-majority lands.  Much room for disgust and shame ... but the shame is of long-standing in such places that have no modern concepts of universal rights or citizenship or refuge.

The way I see it, belligerent powers like Saudi Arabia (in the little-reported savage war in Yemen) have zero accountability and prefer to offer money (and arms money) directly to warlords and other means of destruction in Syria, rather than offer a haven to folks driven out of their communities.  They manage the Haj pilgrims and the Islamic holy places and shovel welfare to their citizens, suck up vast arms from Western nations and are not yet willing to join the 19th century world -- nor to sign any conventions on refugees that puts  the onus on them ... 

Turkey has by far the most refugees from the war in Syria. It has completed an agreement with the EU to 'manage' the flow of refugees.  This means dramatically fewer sea landings to Greece, and it also means that refugees who are unacceptable to the EU will be repatriated to Turkey.  The complicating factor in Turkey has always been that the refugees in Turkey are not legally refugees (in Turkish practice) -- not as decreed by international agreements. Thus Turkey pretends its own refugees from Syria are 'guests' with a slim to nil chance of becoming Turkish residents or Turkish citizens, no matter how many years they are stuck there.  Turkey does not in this case, pay attention to First World international law (although it pretends, up to a point). In any case, the counter-coup in Turkey means the country is now under a state of emergency, and all bets are off. Erdogan is in full purge mode.

The German shooting rampage is evidence of madness, hatred and criminality writ large/write small -- but it is the responsibility of the actor/s and conspirators if any.   A mass shooting always brings reaction. It can bring every last expression of human frustration and anger and fear that are available.

If, as could be likely, this attacker/s belong to the Turkish minority in Germany, is a native-born German of Sunni extraction, then the German 'welcome' to refugees suffers indeed, most likely. That an immigrant (or son of immigrants) could so easily drop the mask of civilization and slaughter the innocent, that will not go back in the bottle. Everyone of the class becomes suspect.  

 

Bob's boxcar fantasies are repulsive to me. 

Edited July 23, 2016 by william.scherk
Grrrammar, spelking.

[SteveWolfer]

1 minute ago, william.scherk said:

Egypt has taken in some half a million, Lebanon another million, Turkey almost three million, Jordan a million

I wasn't aware of that and shouldn't have gone running my mouth of without having looked up those stats.  I knew that Jordan had taken in quite a few refugees, especially in relation to the size of its own population and GDP but I was wholly ignorant of the others.  Thanks.

[Jon Letendre]

Hi William, yes, on balance an absence.

There are 1,500 million Sunnis so their aptitude for absorption could really be much higher. Yet, no. It strikes me. One time driving at night I swerved suddenly when the car ahead of me did so. It was fast, I thought: It's safe to follow, maybe he's drunk and I'll just be following a drunk, but not off a cliff, just to the other lane... so I did it. And there was a big dead deer in the lane we left. I would've crashed.

[william.scherk]

4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

"There has been a shooting in Munich and, from reports, six people have died. [...] it would be irresponsible to jump to any conclusions. 

Some folks are in a hurry, and maybe a bit  miffed that news organizations are slow to assemble 'The Story' into a clear and coherent narrative, with all characters named and motives nailed down. To other folks it seems  responsible and ordinary that media wait for confirmation of details and observe ethical baselines, noting speculation and conflicting reports.  Sometimes (though not, of course, every time) we can be fooled or misinformed by initial incoming information ...

But the latest from a seemingly diffident or bug-swarmed or PC-zombied media is collated, checked and updated in community media at Wikipedia, in its page on today's evil rampage; what a difference an hour makes (this second link lets you see how the story had been planted and pruned in real-time):

On 22 July 2016, shootings occurred in the vicinity of the Olympia shopping mall in the Moosach district of Munich, Germany.^[1][6] German media have cited a police spokesperson who stated several people have been killed and more injured.^[7] The shooting began at aMcDonald's restaurant near the shopping mall. Officials said it was a lone shooter of German-Iranian descent who later killed himself.^{[2][8][9][10]}

This is all derived from  sources which can be independently verified and corroborated with official releases from investigatory and civil bodies.

Sometimes the Big Five++ USA news media swarms get overwhelmed with local and national stories, and don't have the resources to follow up at the site. I read that there were 15,000 accredited media at the RNC 2016.  

I will mention the Breaking News consumer's guide one more time (link).

This short audio report in the orange is really worth a listen, you guys and gals, as previous Big News mistakes by the Big Five and smaller fry like NPR are reviewed . Michael's point is quite salient and subjectively real, and gives me a lesson in epistemology. Amid the constraint of good journalistic ethics, good cognitive housekeeping.

It also assuages my emotional urge to curse.  The Eiffel Tower is not aflame, but the gist is the same.  It seems the Germans feel bound by a non-Nazi universalism within the European Union, feel that their ideals are consequential even while a minority finds it fatal. This will be yet another test for Angela Merkel.  How does a country 'absorb' an evil act like this? How does it react?  What will Germany do with its air force in the real cockpit of war Iraq/Syria/Islamic State?

This is the original stock poster again, which can be seen to apply to more than mass shooting breaking news:

(as an aside, a bitter aside, the Twitterverse was ever more stupid and hysterical than can be imagined since the shooting was first reported. Half of the maniacs (death-cult Islamicist-ish) were happy even if it turned out to be a nazi-scum Breivik event. The other half were ready for the boxcars and barges, from a distance. Lots of keyboard warriors out-Alpha-ing each other on the firmness of their fists. In the sad middle were those Muslims who are our friends, normal secular civic Western Muslims, who know a noose is tightened about each individual Muslim neck, even if only in imagination, when such attacks occur.

The worst war of the 21st century is on. It is a culmination of failed modernism and imperial over-reach. The war is on. Sick and evil acts will spill from its cockpit and abattoirs in profusion until the militancy is completely extinguished, until a ceasefire, a truce, an armistice, a settlement, if not peace. 

For those in a lather about The Muslims, just figure out in your mind the concrete solutions to home-brewed rage attacks.  [up here in Canada, the idea has been to counter extremism with family-reunion tropes and public behaviour. Every Syrian refugee is embraced most tightly, in a positive regard, to more publicly knit them into the Canadian project. It is very Big Brother, but in a weird municipal water-park way. We don't like our new Canadians to be shut-ins or 'keep to themselves' people.  

We have known terrorism from within since our first (19th century) assassination to our last (in the 1970 October Crisis, when Canada came under martial law or War Measures). Our Air India bombing inquiry revealed a deranged separatist violence trend nurtured in the Sikh community.  That has been exterminated by the Sikhs in congress with officialdom. It changed the Sikh (and greater Indo-Canadian/South Asian) communities; the in-house revulsion was strong enough to ride them through what could have been hateful days. Now a generation later a man with a Sikh turban is our Alpha Male at the Ministry of Defence.

Europe has known wars since time immemorial. Until the current, neighbouring war is extinguished, there will be evil acts motivated or spawned by 'revenge' concepts and blood lust sadism, entrained by inhuman concepts of justice, inflamed by apocalyptic death cults like ISIS and its less-psychotic cousins.)

I didn't curse the media. I cursed the actor, and I cursed his dead body. That and 12 trillion dollars will end the war and rebuild the lands in the cockpit.

-- my biggest disappointment in a future Trump administration will be him lining up and kissing Saudi ass, as the US regime has kissed and received ass-kissing throughout the long troubled marriage. I would like Canada to give a divorce to Saudi as well.  But, arms must flow, oil must trade, Islamic Holy Site Authoritarians must be appeased lest they turn on The West along with their enemies.

Edited July 23, 2016 by william.scherk
Spelling

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

Some folks are in a hurry, and maybe a bit  miffed that news organizations are slow to assemble 'The Story' into a clear and coherent narrative, with all characters named and motives nailed down. To other folks it seems  responsible and ordinary that media wait for confirmation of details and observe ethical baselines, noting speculation and conflicting reports.  Sometimes (though not, of course, every time) we can be fooled or misinformed by initial incoming information ...

William,

Just to be clear, my beef is with the style of the media reporting, not the content. 

1. The story should be about the story, not about the media itself. When the media gives one story sentence per 5 CYA sentences and keeps it up, this is no longer journalism. I don't know what to call it, but I am loathe to call it journalism.

2. In my view, it is OK to mention a possible speculative fear like Islamist terrorism during a report and identify the speculation as such. (For example: "In the spate of repeated Islamist terror attacks, we will have to wait to see if this is one more. Or it might be something else. The authorities haven't said yet. Please stay tuned. Back to you, Joe...") What is not OK is for the media folks to keep pussyfooting around a factual term in a PC manner, padding the report with so much filler, they grow one simple WWWWH sentence about the story into 5 or more pieces of self-referential bullshit, and lecture the audience on how responsible the TV station is being. The news should be reported as news. Who, what, when, where, why and how.

This is the worst TV news style I have ever seen and I have seen a lot of TV news in my time. It doesn't help that President Obama acts weird about language when Islam is involved. The media follows suit as usual...

Michael

[william.scherk]

13 hours ago, william.scherk said:

I didn't curse the media. I cursed the actor, and I cursed his dead body.

On guilt and guilty media:

16 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

The media is complicit, too. Oh is it complicit.

On how news should be reported (on American Big Five network TV at least).

Quote

The news should be reported as news. Who, what, when, where, why and how.

Who?  An eighteen year-old,  Ali David Sonboli, born in Germany, of Iranian background and holding Iranian-German citizenship. 
What?  Sonboli shot nine people to death / Three were Turkish citizens, three were Kosovo-Albanians. Most were teenagers. He committed suicide. 
When?  Yesterday, on the fifth anniversary of Anders Breivik's evil actions in Oslo.
Where? In and around a shopping centre McDonalds in Munich's Hasenbergl district.
Why?  Sonboli was obsessed with school shootings ... there is some evidence he had been in psychiatric care ... the mall was apparently a favoured social gathering place for 'migrants' ... there is some evidence he screamed anti-immigrant epithets during the slaughter.
How?  ...Sonboli may have enticed victims to the site of the shootings ... 

9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

What is not OK is for the media folks to keep pussyfooting around a factual term in a PC manner

Which factual term/s?

-- alternatively:

Who? A Muslim.
What?  A Muslim shot people.
When? Yesterday.
Where? Germany.
Why?  Because Islam.
How?  TV news, Obama, Political Correctness, Islamic radical jihadist terrorists.**

__________________

My initial comments dragging in the war in Syria/Iraq/IS were somewhat premature. Perhaps an expectancy effect.

** Fresh from FoxNews:

Edited July 23, 2016 by william.scherk
Punctuation. Added FoxNews update on Munich attack

[Brant Gaede]

16 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

On guilt and guilty media:

On how news should be reported (on TV at least).

Who?  An eighteen year-old,  Ali David Sonboli, born in Germany, of Iranian background and holding Iranian-German citizenship. 
What?  Sonboli shot nine people to death / Three were Turkish citizens, three were Kosovo-Albanians. Most were teenagers. He committed suicide. 
When?  Yesterday, on the fifth anniversary of Anders Breivik's evil actions in Oslo.
Where? In and around a shopping centre McDonalds in Munich.
Why?  Sonboli was obsessed with school shootings ... there is some evidence he had been in psychiatric care ... the mall was apparently a favoured social place for 'migrants' ...
How?  ...Sonboli may have enticed victims to the site of the shootings ... 

Which factual term/s?

-- alternatively:

Who? A Muslim
What?  A Muslim shot people
When? Yesterday
Where? Germany
Why?  Because Muslim
How?  Obama, Political Correctness, Islamic radical jihadists

__________________

My initial comments dragging in the war in Syria/Iraq/IS were somewhat premature. Perhaps an expectancy effect.

Gee, with all that European "gun control" how could it have happened?

The United States is slowly splitting apart into Red and Blue States. The Blue States are mostly bi-coastal (NE and West Coast) and generally the Red States are conglomerated to each other as one entity. Unfortunately the mainstream media seems to be everywhere so it's just another layer of cultural messiness to be dealt with by clashing polloi.

--Brant

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

Oh, my post must be anti-Muslim bigotry, huh?

I wonder if Sonboli got that "Allahu Akbar" thing from Anders Breivik.

Also, the following is probably just a coincidence, huh? (From here):

Quote

Information, again, is yet to fully emerge about the reasons behind the teenager's gun attack, but pro-ISIS Twitter accounts have been widely celebrating the attack with some suggestions that the group has taken credit for it.

Being objective is one thing and I appreciate that both you and I try from our different biases. But the media is out of control when it keeps talking about itself instead of the story during a terrorist attack and the topic about itself is the refusal to mention Muslim, Islamic, etc. That's not good. Not in today's context. 

pssst... You can say these words and still be objective... Just a tip...

Imagine these boneheads on Okinawa during WWII refusing to say the word Japanese after an attack and congratulating themselves for it...

 

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

JAPS!

[BaalChatzaf]

3 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

JAPS!

More likely    .....  Nips.

[william.scherk]

20 minutes ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Oh, my post must be anti-Muslim bigotry, huh?

Nope. 

36 minutes ago, william.scherk said:

9 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

What is not OK is for the media folks to keep pussyfooting around a factual term in a PC manner

Which factual term/s?

I repeat the question.

Edited July 23, 2016 by william.scherk

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

William,

Sorry. I thought your question was rhetorical since I harped on the term so much in my post.

The factual term is "radical Islamic terrorism" or variants like "Islamist terrorism." This term accurately describes a fact in modern life, and a predominant fact in the vast majority of recent terrorist attacks. I know the PC crowd thinks it is bigotry to say this term, and President Obama sure as hell doesn't like it, but facts are stubborn little suckers.

There is no reason within the current context for the press to act like propaganda monkeys with this term when a new terrorist attack happens. Not unless they are not journalists and actually are propaganda monkeys. Then, I suppose, I can forgive them.

 

It's time to figure out the problem and fix it instead of playing Manipulate the Public with Word Games. Real people are being murdered...

Michael

[william.scherk]

1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

[T]he following is probably just a coincidence, huh? [Link to the UK Mirror story** from which the following was truncquoated. Emphasis added]

Quote

Information, again, is yet to fully emerge about the reasons behind the teenager's gun attack, but pro-ISIS Twitter accounts have been widely celebrating the attack with some suggestions that the group has taken credit for it.

 

I don't know what you quite mean by coincidence -- and I am not clear if your question in context suggests you might believe that the reported shouts of Allahu Akbar are not coincidence. Would you be saying "Killer's shouts of 'God is Great' are also not coincidental"?  And if you would say that, then what does the shout signify to you? 

(My first guess is that this reported shout [taken in isolation from other information] signifies to you a motive or the motive -- the attacker was [purely?] motivated by allegiance to Islam/jihad/ISIS)

"Some suggestions that [ISIS] has taken credit"  needs checking.  It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that the shooter was 'inspired' by ISIS, but no  evidence of that has yet come to light.  I would be interested in reading an argument here that brings together what is known (if and when all salient facts "fully emerge" and can be assembled into a coherent whole).

For me at least, I can't conclude that the motivation is clear.  That some sick ISIS fanboys celebrate killing is no surprise. That the organization directly inspired the attack, and that the young killer was suffused with thoughts of vengeance against "The West" -- this is not apparent yet. That he shouted God is Great, that he shouted about 'filthy foreigners' and 'fucking Turks' need to be taken in a whole, not segmented nor cherry-picked as probative. 

Anyhow, how did FoxNews do in the excerpt I posted?  

Quote

Being objective is one thing and I appreciate that both you and I try from our different biases.

Pointing out each other's mistakes or misapprehensions is a good thing -- hard mental work is rewarded with better conclusions. Thanks for engaging with at bit of my remarks.  I sort of understand your beef with The Media Blob on your subject, yet the Munich attack may not be fitted to ISIS in the days to come.  The Full Story is not obvious to me right now, and I expect it is not obvious to you either.

__________________________

** some more excerpts from the Mirror:

It has also been suggested the account, featuring an attractive woman of Middle Eastern appearance, was only created a short time before the 'free McDonald's' posts.

During the slanging match with a man hiding on a balcony, the gunman was heard to say 'because of you I was bullied for 7 years' and made a point of saying he was 'German.'

Witnesses reportedly heard the man, who appeared in the footage to be carrying a red Pokemon rucksack, screaming: “Ich bin Deutsch, scheiss Ausländer” – “I’m German, f*** foreigners” before opening fire.

In footage he was seen bursting from a McDonald's restaurant toilet before opening fire on children he reportedly screamed 'Allahu Akbar' before shooting them at close range.

At a police press conference this morning they said there were indications the gunman had been in psychiatric care and treated for depression.

There is no evidence that he had any links to Islamic State or refugees, they said.
 

Edited July 23, 2016 by william.scherk
Grammar and punctuation.

[Jon Letendre]

http://www.breitbart.com/immigration/2015/12/25/allahu-akbar-means-almost-everything-except-establishment-media-says/

"When “Allahu akbar” was found scrawled on the fuel tank of an airliner in Paris just weeks after the Paris jihad massacre of November 2015, the threat was unmistakable. Whoever wrote it wanted, in Atta’s words, to “strikes fear in the hearts of the non-believers.” 

As jihadis the world over scream “Allahu akbar” as they begin killing infidels, there is no doubt that this phrase does indeed, all too often, strike terror into the hearts of unbelievers: the superiority of the god of Islam is asserted in blood."

[william.scherk]

A few more reported bits to fit into The Story ...

[NBCNews] There were "no indications" the teenage gunman who killed 9 and then himself at a mall in the German city of Munich had links to ISIS or any other terror group, the police said Saturday.

Seven of the nine who were killed during the Friday evening rampage were themselves teens, officials announced. Three were female. The attack also injured 27, police said at a press conference.

Searches revealed that the unnamed 18-year-old who was born and raised in the Bavarian capital had "looked intensively" at the subject of "shooting rampages," police chief Hubertus Andrae told journalists.

A book entitled "Rampage in Head: Why Students Kill" was found among the suspect's belongings, officials said.

[...]

"There is no indication that there is a link to ISIS," Andrae said.

That the shooting was carried out on the fifth anniversary of white supremacist Anders Breivik's deadly rampage in Norway indicated that the attack may have been motivated by far-right ideology, he said.

"The connection is apparent," Andrae added.

[CNN via RightScoop] Police investigating the Munich shooting rampage say that there is an “obvious” link with Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre in Norway, which was carried out exactly five years to the day before Friday’s attacks. Besides the date, investigators pointed to several other connections, such as the young age of the victims, and the fact the attacker extensively researched “rampages” or mass shootings. Breivik, a far-right terrorist, killed 77 people in attacks in 2011. The Munich attacker was an 18-year-old student who was born and raised in the city, Munich Police Chief Hubertus Andrae said at a press conference Saturday. He said the gunman was “not connected with refugees at all.” The gunman had received medical treatment for mental issues, a police official said, and investigators are still looking into his mental condition. The Munich gunman used a 9-mm Glock 17 pistol that was likely obtained illegally, because the serial number had been scratched off, police told journalists in Munich on Saturday. The gunman was found armed with about 300 bullets. A total of 10 people died in the shooting, including the gunman who killed himself.

And then there’s this chilling detail:

Most of the nine victims killed in the Munich shooting were teenagers, officials told journalists Saturday. Three of the victims were 14, two were 15, one was 17 and another 19. A 20-year-old and a 45-year-old were also killed. Three of the victims were female, officials said.

 

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

I don't know what you quite mean by coincidence -- and I am not clear if your question in context suggests you might believe that the reported shouts of Allahu Akbar are not coincidence

William,

Since when have you ever been rhetoric challenged?

You are one of the most rhetoric-nuanced people I know.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

1 hour ago, william.scherk said:

The Full Story is not obvious to me right now, and I expect it is not obvious to you either.

William,

Ha!

Of course the Full Story is not obvious to me. I'm glad it's not obvious to you, either.

But the General Gist Story is pretty much in everyone's face.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I want to add one more comment. Look at these two facts:

1. ISIS is going apeshit screaming We did it! We did it! We did it! all over social media.

2. William above quotes an NBC story saying there are no indications the shooter "had links to ISIS or any other terror group."

Who in their right mind will expect that to go unnoticed? Is it any wonder nobody believes the media anymore?

If the media wants to manipulate people to fall in line with a political agenda, it is going to have to go back to Covert Persuasion 101 classes. It has gotten really sloppy.

Talk about desperation. What the media fears the most is becoming irrelevant as it does everything it possibly can to become irrelevant.

Dayaamm!

Michael

[Jon Letendre]

But Michael, don't you have to admit the possibility we may never know his motives with complete precision? ?