Hamaseh Kianfar

Not far beneath the haute bourgeois facade of “America’s dystopian future” lurks the primeval savagery of the frontier West of the cannibal Bender family, combined with the latest form of decadent perversity the New Age can invent.

Thomas Lifson at American Thinker reports a criminal case illustrating the propinquity of the Californian Utopia of Good Living to the American Heart of Darkness

A 75 year old woman and her husband were walking along Euclid Avenue, where it runs between the Rose Garden and Codornices Park. It is one of the most spectacularly beautiful urban scenes in the world, with panoramic views of San Francisco, the Bay, and its bridges on one side, and a hillside of architectural landmark houses and public spaces, including Bernard Maybek’s classicist masterpiece Rose Walk and the modernist Greenwood Common.

The elderly couple were walking home from a continuing education class at the University of California. The North Gate to its campus stands at the foot of Euclid Avenue, (Berkeley) less than a mile away. They moved aside to make room on the sidewalk to allow a pair of girls to walk by them. Suddenly, one of the girls grabbed Kate around the neck and slashed her throat with an 8-inch butcher knife all the way to a bone in what police say was an apparently random attack. Kate struggled briefly with her attacker, who released her. Then she reached up to her neck. “It was spurting blood,” she said from a hospital bed Friday. “It was just astonishing.”

Fortunately, the knife narrowly missed the important veins and arteries in the victim’s neck, and she survived the brutal and senseless attack. The area usually has many people enjoying its parks and views, and witnesses were able to see the attackers drive off in a very expensive car, a BMW M-3 convertible. Unless the car was stolen, these were not underprivileged children. Police relied on tips and arrested a 16 year old Oakland girl.

So, over a year later, Lifson follows up:

The wheels of justice have been grinding very slowly. The alleged assailant, Marilyn Webster, was a juvenille at the time. She has been found to be severely mentally impaired, and authorities have not been able to find a facility adequate to house her.

The alleged accomplice, Hamaseh Kianfar, was a county-employed mental health worker who had worked with Webster in an official capacity. Following the attack, she drove Webster from the scene, allegedly lied to police about the crime, and now her attorney expresses herself to be “incredulous” that her client is to stand trial.

Kristin Bender of the Oakland Tribune has been providing the best coverage of the bizarrae and shocking case. Here is her account:

As the woman laid on the street “bleeding profusely,” Kianfar drove the girl away, bought her clothing to wear following the assault and did not notify police about the incident for roughly 15 hours, said prosecutor Carrie Panetta. The woman recovered from her wounds.

Panetta said Kianfar also did not tell police where the girl was staying and later “warned” relatives there was a warrant out for the teen’s arrest.

“She knew very well where the juvenile was,” Panetta said. “She gave statements to police, but they were untruthful statements.”

Kianfar met Webster while the teenager was serving a sentence in Juvenile Hall. Kianfar’s supporters have said the mental health worker befriended the girl in an effort to help her.

Judge Jon Rolefson ordered Kianfar to return to court May 18 to begin routine court proceedings for the trial. She remains free on $15,000 bail.

Several aspects of the case remain mysterious. In the early aftermath, there were reports of a ritualistic aspect the crime, supposedly involving an occult practice called “blood-feasting.” Kianfar’s precise relationship to the mentally-impaired young woman has also not been detailed for the public.

Kianfar is entitled to a fair trial with the presumption of innocence. But her alleged behavior disturbs me deeply, as does her attorney’s apparent belief that one can leave a victim to die, spirit away the alleged perpetrator, buy clothing to disguise the evidence and lie to police, all without being charged.

The Brussels Journal reports that Sharon Dijksma, a prominent member of the Dutch Labor Party (PvdA) has introduced legislation which will attempt to recover some portion of the costs of their education from women who choose to stay at home and who fail to pursue careers.

Dijksma’s proposal reflects Dutch state subsidies of education. Consequently, the Labor politician is of the opinion that those who study at the taxpayers’ expense and do not join the workforce are guilty of destruction of social capital.
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Hat tip to David Ross.

Convicted terrorist Ilych Ramirez Sanchez, known world-wide as “Carlos the Jackal,” though serving a life sentence, was permitted by the enlightened government of France to give an interview in 2004 broadcast by French M6 television.

In that interview, Sanchez argued that his crimes were justified and that there were no innocent victims of terrorism. He also expressed satisfaction over the September 11 attacks in the United States and allegedly laughed that “the Great Satan got it up the arse.”

French prosecutors sought a fine of E20,000 ($34,022) for these remarks. But, at the end of the judicial proceedings, French courts only fined him E5000 ($8505), finding that his arguing that terrorism was justified did constitute a crime under French law, but his expressions of pleasure at the Al Qaeda attacks on the United States represented only a personal reaction, and were not justiciable.

Guardian – Telegraph (Australia) – Reuters

University of Texas Biological Sciences Professor Eric R. Pianka has the answer: Ebola!

At the Texas Academy of Sciences 109th meeting held March 3-5 last, Professr Pianka delivered a rip-roaring speech, regrettably overlooked by the MSM. Forest R. Mimms III gives an account of the highlights in Citizen Scientist:

One of Pianka’s earliest points was a condemnation of anthropocentrism, or the idea that humankind occupies a privileged position in the Universe. He told a story about how a neighbor asked him what good the lizards are that he studies. He answered, “What good are you?”

Pianka hammered his point home by exclaiming, “We’re no better than bacteria!”

Pianka then began laying out his concerns about how human overpopulation is ruining the Earth. He presented a doomsday scenario in which he claimed that the sharp increase in human population since the beginning of the industrial age is devastating the planet. He warned that quick steps must be taken to restore the planet before it’s too late.

Professor Pianka said the Earth as we know it will not survive without drastic measures. Then, and without presenting any data to justify this number, he asserted that the only feasible solution to saving the Earth is to reduce the population to 10 percent of the present number.

He then showed solutions for reducing the world’s population in the form of a slide depicting the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. War and famine would not do, he explained. Instead, disease offered the most efficient and fastest way to kill the billions that must soon die if the population crisis is to be solved.

Pianka then displayed a slide showing rows of human skulls, one of which had red lights flashing from its eye sockets.

AIDS is not an efficient killer, he explained, because it is too slow. His favorite candidate for eliminating 90 percent of the world’s population is airborne Ebola (Ebola Reston), because it is both highly lethal and it kills in days, instead of years. However, Professor Pianka did not mention that Ebola victims die a slow and torturous death as the virus initiates a cascade of biological calamities inside the victim that eventually liquefy the internal organs.

After praising the Ebola virus for its efficiency at killing, Pianka paused, leaned over the lectern, looked at us and carefully said, “We’ve got airborne 90 percent mortality in humans. Killing humans. Think about that.”

With his slide of human skulls towering on the screen behind him, Professor Pianka was deadly serious. The audience that had been applauding some of his statements now sat silent.

After a dramatic pause, Pianka returned to politics and environmentalism. But he revisited his call for mass death when he reflected on the oil situation.

“And the fossil fuels are running out,” he said, “so I think we may have to cut back to two billion, which would be about one-third as many people.” So the oil crisis alone may require eliminating two-third’s of the world’s population.

How soon must the mass dying begin if Earth is to be saved? Apparently fairly soon, for Pianka suggested he might be around when the killer disease goes to work. He was born in 1939, and his lengthy obituary appears on his web site.

When Pianka finished his remarks, the audience applauded. It wasn’t merely a smattering of polite clapping that audiences diplomatically reserve for poor or boring speakers. It was a loud, vigorous and enthusiastic applause.

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Hat tip to Wizbang via PJM.

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We reported previously on an enviromental group which goes the extra 10%.

The BBC reports that the Swedish delicacy Surströmming (Sour herring) has been banned from several major airlines as a potential explosive.

Wikipedia indicates that this is old news.

Japanese video

Male Organs of Ox and Snake

The Telegraph reports on a Chinese restaurant in Beijing specializing in male organ dishes.

China’s cuisine is renowned for being “in your face” – from the skinned dogs displayed at food markets to the kebabbed scorpions sold on street stalls – and there is no polite way of describing Guo-li-zhuang.

Situated in an elegantly restored house beside Beijing’s West Lake, it is China’s first speciality penis restaurant.

Here, businessmen and government officials can sample the organs of yaks, donkeys, oxen and even seals…

..In China, you are what you eat, and The Daily Telegraph’s nutritionist, Zhu Yan, said the clients were mainly men eager to improve their yang, or virility. Women could benefit, too, she added, although she told the Telegraph’s female photographer: “I wouldn’t recommend the testicles. The testosterone might interfere in fertility. But many women say bian is good for the skin.”

Hat tip to Ratty.

California definitely features America’s most colorful crime. On Monday, a 68 year-old Sonoma former gaming executive grabbed his .357 Magnum revolver and dispatched an intruder who had pursued his 64 year-old wife into the house. The intruder was armed, and apparently dressed as a ninja.

Police investigators looking into the shooting death of a ninja-style assailant at a semirural home in Healdsburg say they have not yet been able to identify the masked intruder or establish a motive for his actions.

The intruder was shot dead Monday morning by Louis J. Phillips, a former tribal and Nevada gaming executive, shortly after the man attacked Phillips’ wife, Sandra, outside their home on Sunset Drive, police said. The man struggled with her and chased her inside, where Louis Phillips opened fire with his .357-caliber Magnum handgun.

“We don’t have a motive for the attack,” Police Chief Susan Jones said. “And we’d feel a whole lot better if we could identify the intruder.”

Jones described the dead assailant as a white man, about 35 to 40 years old. He was armed with a revolver and carried no identification. The man was dressed from head to toe in black, including a black mask and black leather gloves, Jones said.

The attacker’s motives, and identity, remain unknown, but Mr. Phillips’s former occupational associations might just possibly have had some connection with the attack. SF Chronicle

Beer used to cost ten cents a glass on tap in local Pennsylvania saloons, when I was young. But you can get these Gen X yuppies to pay anything, if you appeal to their snobbery.

Tom Stienstra, the SF Chronicle’s Outdoor columnist, tells the story of this guy who was scared to death of bears.

But he was going to Bear Valley, and anyplace with a name like that would require some bear repellent, he figured…

He was tortured with the nightmare of a pack of bears surrounding him, slapping him around for fun, and then jumping on him, slobbering in his face. So he bought a canister of bear pepper spray, which is similar to mace. That is, if attacked, you spray it on the attacker’s face.

The outfitters from Alaska I know told me the hardest thing about administering pepper spray is that it hurts like heck when the bear stuffs the can down your throat.

Well, as the story goes, this guy in hysterics came running into the Bear Valley fire house.

“He was in great pain and wanted first-aid,” Jung said. “He thought pepper spray was like mosquito repellent and had sprayed it all over himself.”

That’s right, the guy sprayed himself with pepper spray.

In honor of this excruciating encounter, I hereby award Bear Repellent Bill the Bite-The-Alligator Award that I occasionally bestow.

This award is in honor of a small poodle dog in Florida that yapped at the alligator that climbed out of the canal, nipped it in the tail, whereupon the alligator whipped around and promptly ate it.

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Of course, there is also the famous alleged Glacier National Park advisory sign:

MONTANA GRIZZLY BEAR ALERT

In light of the rising frequency of human/grizzly bear encounters, the Montana Department of Fish and Game advises hikers, hunters, and fishermen to take extra precautions and to stay alert for bears while in the field.

It is advised that outdoorsmen wear small bells on their clothing so as not to startle bears that aren’t expecting them. We also advise outdoorsmen to carry pepper spray with them in case of an encounter with a bear.

Additionally, it is also a good idea to watch out for fresh signs of bear activity. Outdoorsmen should be able recognize the difference between black bear and grizzly bear sign.

Black bear excrement is smaller, and contains lots of berries and squirrel fur.

Grizzly bear excrement has lots of little bells in it, and smells like pepper.

Loralee Wright with Ambergris

The Australian Wright family, in the course of a fishing trip were walking on a beach near Streaky Bay on South Australia’s west coast, when they found a peculiar large object, which they eventually decided to take home. Research on the Internet, and a visit to a matine biologist, in the course of the next few weeks etablished that they had found a 14.75 kg (that’s 32.5 lbs to Americans) lump of Ambergris, a rare and valuable natural substance cast up by sperm whales, and used in the manufacture of perfumes worth $20-65 a gram. The beach souvenir is thought be worth as much as $295,000.

Indian Express — ABC West Coast

I used to think this had already happened to my grandparents.