In the last post I recounted a brief history of the life of
Adolph Hitler up to his usurpation of absolute power
over Germany on 23 March 1933. I offered a pretty
spare account of the events with only a little bit of
personal opinion included. What I did not recount, due
to time constraints, was the savagery, treachery and
violence involved in the takeover of the German
Workers Party nor the treachery, savagery and
violence involved in maneuvering himself into the
position of power that he achieved. I felt that his
savage penchant for murdering people whom he felt
were either obstacles to his purpose or whom he
considered as being useless to his purpose was well
attested in history and could safely be left unstated.
In that belief, I might have erred.
It has been pointed out to me that internet posts are
available to be read by people who might lack suf-
ficient background in the history of WWII and/or
information, concerning the almost unbelievable
lack of humanity or decency which characterised
the Nazi regime and its creators, to realize that Hitler
and the Nazis were elected and he then was selected
not on merit but due to wholesale calculated decep-
tion purveyed consistently over a span of years to a
population in severe distress due to the incompre-
hensible loss of their national institutions and live-
lihoods coupled with a campaign of terror carried
out in riot and brutal attacks against hapless victims
as well as others of their own ilk who opposed their
aims.
In short: he was a nasty piece of work and his Nazi
cohorts were, in the main, not much better.
Maltese Frog 04-20-2008
Sunday, April 20, 2008
April 20, 2008 Adolph Hitler's 119th birthday.
A few men in history have been so pivotal that their names are either associated with excellence and good, or with pure evil.
Adolph Hitler, born near Linz, Austria 119 years ago today, was one of those men.
Over the past 80 years, the name "Hitler" has become almost synonymous with "Devil" or "Satan".
He is considered by the Western World, except for a few, as the man responsible for the deaths of the 65 million people killed worldwide because of World War II, including almost 70 % of the Jews of Europe and close to 2 million children...
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 near Linz, Austria in Braunau Am Inn just outside of Bavaria, where one day the Nazi movement would take root and grow.
When Hitler was born Franz Josef was Emperor of Austria and Hungary, the portrait above is from 1908, and had been for 40 years. The Crown Prince had just died and the empire was more-or-less at peace.
In Bavaria, across the border in the German Empire, was another king. There were many kings in Germany in those days and Wilhelm of Prussia was the new Emperor, having succeeded his father and grandfather both of whom died in 1888.
While many contend that Adolph Hitler was a spoiled child, he was also raised strictly: his austere father retired when Hitler was young and was involved daily in his children's upbringing.
The elder Hitler died when Adolph was 14 years old and the young Hitler lost his beloved mother when he was 18.
Determined to pursue a career as an artist in Vienna, Hitler withdrew his personal funds and moved to the capital in order to pursue his dream. Unfortunately, for the world, young Hitler failed his entrance examination at the Academy of Art in Vienna, which excluded him from Art School.
Finding himself stymied by the official Art establishment Adolph Hitler lived, for several years, an almost vagabond existence in Vienna painting and selling postcards and painting scenery for picture-frame makers in order to survive.
In 1913 he remained an unacclaimed artist and, dissatisfied with Vienna (and Austria), moved across the border into the Bavarian capital city, Munich, which was in the German Empire, to try and gain acceptance to study painting and architecture.
It was here that world events caught up with him and in August 1914 the European continent erupted in war.
The causes of World War I and even its devastating effect on European society are, for the most part, beyond the scope of this essay.
The 25 year old Adolph Hitler enthusiastically enlisted in the German army and spent the next 4 years as a soldier on the Western Front. WWI was a brutal war fought with 19th century attitudes using 20th century technology (in embryo).
The war was prosecuted by both sides firing massed heavy artillery barrages against their enemy's positions until the ground, and the enemy army, was pulverized and pounded into mud.
This was alternated by sending infantry soldiers in massive waves to run across "no man's land" toward the enemy entrenchments through a veritable hailstorm of machine-gun bullets and artillery, usually resulting in huge numbers of killed and wounded soldiers but little gain of ground against the enemy.
During the 4 years 3 months and 10 days of the war 9,998,000 men lost their lives in combat, about 6,000,000 were reported as missing and slightly more than 20,000,000 were wounded in battle.
By all accounts Hitler was a good soldier, he was twice wounded, advanced in rank to corporal and was awarded the Iron Cross second class along with other, lesser awards.
Finally, the war ended with Germany's surrender to the hated French, English and Johnny-come-lately Americans. The German Army in the field was not defeated but the government lost its will to carry on and capitulated in order, perhaps, to make a better deal for the people.
The surviving soldiers returned home to a bitter defeat, the emperors and kings of the defeated combatants were forced to abdicate and Germany and Austria along with Hungary became republics. In Germany there were communist revolutions in Berlin, Munich and several other cities which were suppressed during late 1918 and 1919.
Within five years the economic structure of Germany crumbled and the currency became almost worthless, the once mighty German Mark was by December 1924 valued at 4,210,500,000,000 to 1 dollar U.S.
The money was so without value that this postage stamp became needed to send a letter. A couple of years earlier 5 pfennigs was enough and by the end of 1924
ten billion marks was needed!
While the political and economic situation in post-war Europe were deteriorating Adolph Hitler was recovering from temporary blindness caused by exposure to poison gas and working for the army as an anti-communist spy in Munich.
Hitler had abandoned art and had a new direction after the war years. He was working to save the world from communism and "The Jew". Somehow the never-do-well would-be artist turned soldier had become possessed of an implacable will... He was self-obsessed and self-directed, he was stiff and formal in manner and except when expressing his ferverent beliefs he had difficulty relating to people in normal ways.
In late 1919 Hitler began attending meetings of the German Worker's Party and late that year he joined the party. In a short time he was the leader of the party and had had its name changed to the National Socialist German Worker's Party,
NSDAP, the NAZI party.
Hitler had found his vehicle and started his rise to the highest office of Germany.
In 1923, the well known Beer-Hall Putsch catapulted the young Hitler into fame as a revolutionary...
Leading what he thought would be a violent overthrow of the the weak Weimar Government, he jumped onto a table in a Beerhall in Bavaria, where the Nazis had their power base, and in a fiery rant called the gathered Nazi officials to support him in the march on Munich.
The situation in Munich, and all of Germany, was chaotic. Unemployment was rife and even those with jobs watched their money drop in value hourly. There was armed conflict in the streets as the government sought to control various revolutionary factions which were contending for popular support or at least acquiesence.
Hitler's uprising also failed, he was arrested, tried and imprisoned.
Sitting in a jail cell after his arrest for the Beerhall Putsch, Hitler in 1923 began to to collate his ideas and ideologies. He wrote to pass the time while in prison, eventually publishing what would become the manifesto for the National Socialists. The Name of the premiere book of Nazi Philosophy which would set the stage both for the Nazis rise to power and subsequent reign, was called, "Mein Kampf", or "My Struggle".
While he had expressed it in other writings, the new manifesto viciously indicted the Jewish people for crimes against the "German People" and called for an end to their citizenship. He also expressed his extreme personal bigotry against Jews.
The Nazi movement gained strength, after 1923, initially in the more conservative Southern regions of Germany, especially in Bavaria. Though their tactics were often decried and their violence and censorship criticized, the movement gained momentum under the thirty-four year old Hitler.
Over time, with unemployment continuing, discontent grew and the largely Protestant populace became increasingly critical of the Catholic -controlled and ineffective government.
As the Bolshevik communist revolutionaries continued to incite disorder in Germany, Hitler gained popularity with his call for a return to traditional German values and religion, and a return to the land.
After regaining the head of the Nazi Party in 1924 from Rosenberg who took over while Hitler was in prison, Hitler began a reorganization of the party structure.
By 1925, Hitler had reformed the Party and re-organized the SA, the "Brownshirts" who were the party's uniformed militia of street-fighting thugs.
Among the policies developed during this time were: The nationalization of vital industry, the outlawing of profiteering from the war effort, the outlawing of unearned income, and the declaration of a need for a land policy reform (blut und boden or blood and soil).
In 1927, the ban on Nazi public speech by the Weimar government was lifted and Hitler resumed spreading his message of racial superiority and destiny around Germany. On May-Day the Nazis held their first open major meeting in Berlin following the lifting of the ban. This was a provocation of the Communists who felt that May first belonged to them.
There were bloody confrontations between the Nazis and Communists in Berlin, the Nazis were propagandising about the miserable conditions and bitter poverty which they claimed Bolshevism had brought to Russia.
Later they would stage an exhibition in which the drab, desolate desperate soviet life was portrayed in the style of an exposition.
The German president at the time was the aged war hero, Field Marshall Paul Von Hindenburg. Hindenburg's presidency was seen as a victory for the monarchists and the old aristocracy along with the industrial establishment and the military.
The government had, in 1926, rejected a move by Communists and Social Democrat Party populists to confiscate the property of the many German Princes without compensation. The landed class and militarists apparently saw Hitler's fledgling Nazis as a means of preserving their prerogatives and power. They thought that they could control the poor and uneducated Hitler, whose aims seemed consistent with their own, and use his growing party to control the masses.
In August 1927, twenty thousand national socialists met in Nurnberg with Adolph Hitler as their undisputed leader.
In the national elections of 1928 the Social Democrats and the German People's Party began to regain representation in the Reichstag. Again, fate played into the hands of Hitler. The international economic slow-down had begun and unemployment again rose to serious levels in the winter of 1928-1929.
The right-wing Nationalists, who were the landed and military classes, invited Hitler into the fold and provided financing for the party in order to combat the rise of the populist and socialist parties.
The slide into economic depression continued and hard hit working class Germans became receptive to Hitler's message of a return to pre-war stability.
By 1931 unemployment was again at five million and rising, there was continuing violence in the streets and the people yearned for stability. The Nazis were campaigning against "misery and hunger" as well as against Communists and Jews and they were gaining audience.
In 1932 there was a national election for president, Von Hindenburg - then 84 years old- was reelected with 53% of the votes, Hitler was second with 36 percent voting for him! This near victory was a tremendous triumph for Hitler and the Nazis. They went into a whirlwind round of speech-making and behind-the-scene manipulating and on January 30, 1933 Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
Hindenburg's Nationalist backers still thought that they could control "the Bavarian Corporal" as they called Hitler, in that they were mistaken.
Events now began to move rapidly. On February 1st Hindenburg, as was pre-arranged, dissolved the Reichstag which cleared the way for new elections.
As the campaigning progressed, on February 27th soon after 9:00 PM flames engulfed the Reichstag building. This arson was declared to be the work of a Dutch Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe. President Von Hindenburg signed an emergency decree against "communist acts of violence endangering the state" which gave Chancellor Hitler the legal means to suspend civil liberties along with freedom of the press.
Hitler's government now had "legal" power to conduct searches without warrants, to open people's mail, to listen to telephone conversations and to confiscate private property. There were no longer any operating guarantees of privacy of individuals.
Opponents of the regime were arrested, the jails were filled and when there was no space left people were confined in barbed-wire enclosures.
Six days after the fire the election was held. The Nazis were just seventy-six delegates short of a majority. The problem was solved by arresting all eighty-one Communist delegates thereby giving the Nazi party a majority. Adolph Hitler now was in total control of the German Nation.
The heads of the police forces were Nazis. Dr Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, was in total control of the Nation's Press and was assuring the German People that everything was OK: the government was simply acting to safeguard the state.
Hitler emerged triumphant, his political enemies were imprisoned, all opposing political parties were effectively silenced and he was now the absolute ruler of Germany.
On March 23, 1933 an act of the Reichstag entitled " Law for removing the distress from the people and the Reich" consisting of five paragraphs was passed. It gave the government the power to make laws, enter into treaties with foreign states, and to initiate constitutional amendments all without the approval of the Reichstag.
In summary, the elected delegates of the people of Germany voted to give "the government" legal authority to act without restraint by the Reichstag.
Thereby a defacto end to representative government was voted by the representatives of the German electorate.
Adolph Hitler, born near Linz, Austria 119 years ago today, was one of those men.
Over the past 80 years, the name "Hitler" has become almost synonymous with "Devil" or "Satan".
He is considered by the Western World, except for a few, as the man responsible for the deaths of the 65 million people killed worldwide because of World War II, including almost 70 % of the Jews of Europe and close to 2 million children...
Adolf Hitler was born on April 20, 1889 near Linz, Austria in Braunau Am Inn just outside of Bavaria, where one day the Nazi movement would take root and grow.
When Hitler was born Franz Josef was Emperor of Austria and Hungary, the portrait above is from 1908, and had been for 40 years. The Crown Prince had just died and the empire was more-or-less at peace.
In Bavaria, across the border in the German Empire, was another king. There were many kings in Germany in those days and Wilhelm of Prussia was the new Emperor, having succeeded his father and grandfather both of whom died in 1888.
While many contend that Adolph Hitler was a spoiled child, he was also raised strictly: his austere father retired when Hitler was young and was involved daily in his children's upbringing.
The elder Hitler died when Adolph was 14 years old and the young Hitler lost his beloved mother when he was 18.
Determined to pursue a career as an artist in Vienna, Hitler withdrew his personal funds and moved to the capital in order to pursue his dream. Unfortunately, for the world, young Hitler failed his entrance examination at the Academy of Art in Vienna, which excluded him from Art School.
Finding himself stymied by the official Art establishment Adolph Hitler lived, for several years, an almost vagabond existence in Vienna painting and selling postcards and painting scenery for picture-frame makers in order to survive.
In 1913 he remained an unacclaimed artist and, dissatisfied with Vienna (and Austria), moved across the border into the Bavarian capital city, Munich, which was in the German Empire, to try and gain acceptance to study painting and architecture.
It was here that world events caught up with him and in August 1914 the European continent erupted in war.
The causes of World War I and even its devastating effect on European society are, for the most part, beyond the scope of this essay.
The 25 year old Adolph Hitler enthusiastically enlisted in the German army and spent the next 4 years as a soldier on the Western Front. WWI was a brutal war fought with 19th century attitudes using 20th century technology (in embryo).
The war was prosecuted by both sides firing massed heavy artillery barrages against their enemy's positions until the ground, and the enemy army, was pulverized and pounded into mud.
This was alternated by sending infantry soldiers in massive waves to run across "no man's land" toward the enemy entrenchments through a veritable hailstorm of machine-gun bullets and artillery, usually resulting in huge numbers of killed and wounded soldiers but little gain of ground against the enemy.
During the 4 years 3 months and 10 days of the war 9,998,000 men lost their lives in combat, about 6,000,000 were reported as missing and slightly more than 20,000,000 were wounded in battle.
By all accounts Hitler was a good soldier, he was twice wounded, advanced in rank to corporal and was awarded the Iron Cross second class along with other, lesser awards.
Finally, the war ended with Germany's surrender to the hated French, English and Johnny-come-lately Americans. The German Army in the field was not defeated but the government lost its will to carry on and capitulated in order, perhaps, to make a better deal for the people.
The surviving soldiers returned home to a bitter defeat, the emperors and kings of the defeated combatants were forced to abdicate and Germany and Austria along with Hungary became republics. In Germany there were communist revolutions in Berlin, Munich and several other cities which were suppressed during late 1918 and 1919.
Within five years the economic structure of Germany crumbled and the currency became almost worthless, the once mighty German Mark was by December 1924 valued at 4,210,500,000,000 to 1 dollar U.S.
The money was so without value that this postage stamp became needed to send a letter. A couple of years earlier 5 pfennigs was enough and by the end of 1924
ten billion marks was needed!While the political and economic situation in post-war Europe were deteriorating Adolph Hitler was recovering from temporary blindness caused by exposure to poison gas and working for the army as an anti-communist spy in Munich.
Hitler had abandoned art and had a new direction after the war years. He was working to save the world from communism and "The Jew". Somehow the never-do-well would-be artist turned soldier had become possessed of an implacable will... He was self-obsessed and self-directed, he was stiff and formal in manner and except when expressing his ferverent beliefs he had difficulty relating to people in normal ways.
In late 1919 Hitler began attending meetings of the German Worker's Party and late that year he joined the party. In a short time he was the leader of the party and had had its name changed to the National Socialist German Worker's Party,
NSDAP, the NAZI party.
Hitler had found his vehicle and started his rise to the highest office of Germany.
In 1923, the well known Beer-Hall Putsch catapulted the young Hitler into fame as a revolutionary...
Leading what he thought would be a violent overthrow of the the weak Weimar Government, he jumped onto a table in a Beerhall in Bavaria, where the Nazis had their power base, and in a fiery rant called the gathered Nazi officials to support him in the march on Munich.
The situation in Munich, and all of Germany, was chaotic. Unemployment was rife and even those with jobs watched their money drop in value hourly. There was armed conflict in the streets as the government sought to control various revolutionary factions which were contending for popular support or at least acquiesence.
Hitler's uprising also failed, he was arrested, tried and imprisoned.
Sitting in a jail cell after his arrest for the Beerhall Putsch, Hitler in 1923 began to to collate his ideas and ideologies. He wrote to pass the time while in prison, eventually publishing what would become the manifesto for the National Socialists. The Name of the premiere book of Nazi Philosophy which would set the stage both for the Nazis rise to power and subsequent reign, was called, "Mein Kampf", or "My Struggle".
While he had expressed it in other writings, the new manifesto viciously indicted the Jewish people for crimes against the "German People" and called for an end to their citizenship. He also expressed his extreme personal bigotry against Jews.
The Nazi movement gained strength, after 1923, initially in the more conservative Southern regions of Germany, especially in Bavaria. Though their tactics were often decried and their violence and censorship criticized, the movement gained momentum under the thirty-four year old Hitler.
Over time, with unemployment continuing, discontent grew and the largely Protestant populace became increasingly critical of the Catholic -controlled and ineffective government.
As the Bolshevik communist revolutionaries continued to incite disorder in Germany, Hitler gained popularity with his call for a return to traditional German values and religion, and a return to the land.
After regaining the head of the Nazi Party in 1924 from Rosenberg who took over while Hitler was in prison, Hitler began a reorganization of the party structure.
By 1925, Hitler had reformed the Party and re-organized the SA, the "Brownshirts" who were the party's uniformed militia of street-fighting thugs.
Among the policies developed during this time were: The nationalization of vital industry, the outlawing of profiteering from the war effort, the outlawing of unearned income, and the declaration of a need for a land policy reform (blut und boden or blood and soil).
In 1927, the ban on Nazi public speech by the Weimar government was lifted and Hitler resumed spreading his message of racial superiority and destiny around Germany. On May-Day the Nazis held their first open major meeting in Berlin following the lifting of the ban. This was a provocation of the Communists who felt that May first belonged to them.
There were bloody confrontations between the Nazis and Communists in Berlin, the Nazis were propagandising about the miserable conditions and bitter poverty which they claimed Bolshevism had brought to Russia.
Later they would stage an exhibition in which the drab, desolate desperate soviet life was portrayed in the style of an exposition.
The German president at the time was the aged war hero, Field Marshall Paul Von Hindenburg. Hindenburg's presidency was seen as a victory for the monarchists and the old aristocracy along with the industrial establishment and the military.
The government had, in 1926, rejected a move by Communists and Social Democrat Party populists to confiscate the property of the many German Princes without compensation. The landed class and militarists apparently saw Hitler's fledgling Nazis as a means of preserving their prerogatives and power. They thought that they could control the poor and uneducated Hitler, whose aims seemed consistent with their own, and use his growing party to control the masses.
In August 1927, twenty thousand national socialists met in Nurnberg with Adolph Hitler as their undisputed leader.
In the national elections of 1928 the Social Democrats and the German People's Party began to regain representation in the Reichstag. Again, fate played into the hands of Hitler. The international economic slow-down had begun and unemployment again rose to serious levels in the winter of 1928-1929.
The right-wing Nationalists, who were the landed and military classes, invited Hitler into the fold and provided financing for the party in order to combat the rise of the populist and socialist parties.
The slide into economic depression continued and hard hit working class Germans became receptive to Hitler's message of a return to pre-war stability.
By 1931 unemployment was again at five million and rising, there was continuing violence in the streets and the people yearned for stability. The Nazis were campaigning against "misery and hunger" as well as against Communists and Jews and they were gaining audience.
In 1932 there was a national election for president, Von Hindenburg - then 84 years old- was reelected with 53% of the votes, Hitler was second with 36 percent voting for him! This near victory was a tremendous triumph for Hitler and the Nazis. They went into a whirlwind round of speech-making and behind-the-scene manipulating and on January 30, 1933 Adolph Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.
Hindenburg's Nationalist backers still thought that they could control "the Bavarian Corporal" as they called Hitler, in that they were mistaken.
Events now began to move rapidly. On February 1st Hindenburg, as was pre-arranged, dissolved the Reichstag which cleared the way for new elections.
As the campaigning progressed, on February 27th soon after 9:00 PM flames engulfed the Reichstag building. This arson was declared to be the work of a Dutch Communist, Marinus van der Lubbe. President Von Hindenburg signed an emergency decree against "communist acts of violence endangering the state" which gave Chancellor Hitler the legal means to suspend civil liberties along with freedom of the press.
Hitler's government now had "legal" power to conduct searches without warrants, to open people's mail, to listen to telephone conversations and to confiscate private property. There were no longer any operating guarantees of privacy of individuals.
Opponents of the regime were arrested, the jails were filled and when there was no space left people were confined in barbed-wire enclosures.
Six days after the fire the election was held. The Nazis were just seventy-six delegates short of a majority. The problem was solved by arresting all eighty-one Communist delegates thereby giving the Nazi party a majority. Adolph Hitler now was in total control of the German Nation.
The heads of the police forces were Nazis. Dr Goebbels, the Nazi Propaganda Minister, was in total control of the Nation's Press and was assuring the German People that everything was OK: the government was simply acting to safeguard the state.
Hitler emerged triumphant, his political enemies were imprisoned, all opposing political parties were effectively silenced and he was now the absolute ruler of Germany.
On March 23, 1933 an act of the Reichstag entitled " Law for removing the distress from the people and the Reich" consisting of five paragraphs was passed. It gave the government the power to make laws, enter into treaties with foreign states, and to initiate constitutional amendments all without the approval of the Reichstag.
In summary, the elected delegates of the people of Germany voted to give "the government" legal authority to act without restraint by the Reichstag.
Thereby a defacto end to representative government was voted by the representatives of the German electorate.
Above: Adolph Hitler in his guise as leader of the German People appears on the German Postage stamp and with Il Duce on an Italian stamp of 1942.
Below: Adolph Hitler on two stamps issued by his occupation government of Poland marking his birthday April 20, 1944.
Also: Former President and Field Marshall Paul Von Hindenburg on a German stamp over-printed for use in the German occupied area of Russia.
Above: A Polish stamp over-printed with the Nazi eagle and a new value for use in German-occupied Poland.
Right: A German stamp for use in Poland and a German stamp for use in the Czech Republic...
For more information about this turbulent period in world history, I recommend William L. Shirer's magnificent "The Rise And Fall Of The Third Reich"
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Mayan Apocalypse, 2012 Or Not?
Mayan Apocalypse, 2012
by: Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University
physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and medical doctor
The driver was taking me from Melbourne airport into the city. As we chatted, it came out that he was deeply worried. He had a wife and child, and a new baby on the way - but what was the use of living, he cried, if the world would end in 2012 as predicted by the Mayan prophecies, when his new baby would be just four years old.
Prophecies about the end of the world (or at the very least, civilisation as we know it) have been around forever. There was a flurry of them around 2000 AD, and another bunch for 5 May 2005, when all the planets were supposed to line up. (By the way, they didn't line up and yep, we're still here.)
The Mayan civilisation covered the skinny bit of the Americas between North and South America, reaching from the southern states of Mexico down to western Honduras. Its Classic Period was from 250 to 900 AD, so their best years were behind them by the time of the Spanish invasion.
At their peak, the Mayans had the only mature written language ever found in the Americas, spectacular and densely populated cities, and very sophisticated systems of mathematics, astronomy and calendars.
They were marvelous astronomers, showing what could be done with the naked eye. Their measurements of the lunar month, the period of Venus and the year were more accurate than those of the Ancient Greeks.
Which brings us to the calendar that predicts the end of the world in 2012.
The Mayans had many calendars, because they saw 'time' as a meshing of sacred or spiritual cycles. So while our Gregorian calendar organises days for social, administrative and commercial purposes, the Mayan calendars added a religious element. For example, each day had a patron spirit, and so could be good for travel, but bad for business.
One of their several calendars was called the Long Count. It was set up around 355 BCE, and had as its chosen starting date 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BCE. And on 21 December 2012, the Mayan Long Count calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0.
Now here's how it works. Our numbering system is based on 10. But the Mayans had a counting system based on 20, so most of the 'slots' in their calendar had 20 potential numbers (0 to 19). The calendar read a little like the odometer in your car's speedo (which run from 0 to 9). The extreme right slot (of five slots) would count through the days, and when it got to 19 days (0.0.0.0.19) would reset to zero, and the next slot across to the left would increase by one (to 0.0.0.1.0).
So 0.0.0.0.1 was one day, and 0.0.0.1.0 was 20 days. Then 0.0.1.0.0 was about one year, 0.1.0.0.0 was about 20 years and with 1.0.0.0.0, you've clocked up about 400 years. And on 21 December 2012, the Mayan Long Count calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0.
By the way, the time between 0.0.0.0.0 and 13.0.0.0.0 is about 5126 years. Now some Mayan archaeo-astronomers reckon that the calendar should reset back to zero and start again. But others disagree and say it should continue to 20, and then reset again.
We don't have enough information to know who is correct - but if it does go up to 20, then this completely destroys the End of Days Conspiracy Theory, as far as the year 2012 is concerned. But let's stick to the 13 Conspiracy for the time being.
The claims for 21 December 2012 cover a lot of ground. They range from 'nuclear holocaust' to 'Harmonic Convergence of cosmic energy flowing through the earth, cleansing it and raising it to a higher level of vibration', and along the way they include 'the death of two-thirds of humanity' and 'the north and south poles will split' - you get the picture.
But there are two problems with this.
First, when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 - or good-ol' 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas.
And the second problem is that it is always remarkably difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, and things that haven't happened yet.
To contact Dr Karl...
Dr Karl S. Kruszelnicki,
Julius Sumner Miller Fellow,
The Science Foundation for Physics,
School of Physics, Building A-28,
The University of Sydney, NSW 2006
Tel ++ 61-2-9909-0033
Published 15 April 2008
by: Dr Karl Kruszelnicki, Julius Sumner Miller Fellow at Sydney University
physicist, tutor, film-maker, car mechanic, labourer, and medical doctor
The driver was taking me from Melbourne airport into the city. As we chatted, it came out that he was deeply worried. He had a wife and child, and a new baby on the way - but what was the use of living, he cried, if the world would end in 2012 as predicted by the Mayan prophecies, when his new baby would be just four years old.
Prophecies about the end of the world (or at the very least, civilisation as we know it) have been around forever. There was a flurry of them around 2000 AD, and another bunch for 5 May 2005, when all the planets were supposed to line up. (By the way, they didn't line up and yep, we're still here.)
The Mayan civilisation covered the skinny bit of the Americas between North and South America, reaching from the southern states of Mexico down to western Honduras. Its Classic Period was from 250 to 900 AD, so their best years were behind them by the time of the Spanish invasion.
At their peak, the Mayans had the only mature written language ever found in the Americas, spectacular and densely populated cities, and very sophisticated systems of mathematics, astronomy and calendars.
They were marvelous astronomers, showing what could be done with the naked eye. Their measurements of the lunar month, the period of Venus and the year were more accurate than those of the Ancient Greeks.
Which brings us to the calendar that predicts the end of the world in 2012.
The Mayans had many calendars, because they saw 'time' as a meshing of sacred or spiritual cycles. So while our Gregorian calendar organises days for social, administrative and commercial purposes, the Mayan calendars added a religious element. For example, each day had a patron spirit, and so could be good for travel, but bad for business.
One of their several calendars was called the Long Count. It was set up around 355 BCE, and had as its chosen starting date 0.0.0.0.0, which corresponds to 11 August 3114 BCE. And on 21 December 2012, the Mayan Long Count calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0.
Now here's how it works. Our numbering system is based on 10. But the Mayans had a counting system based on 20, so most of the 'slots' in their calendar had 20 potential numbers (0 to 19). The calendar read a little like the odometer in your car's speedo (which run from 0 to 9). The extreme right slot (of five slots) would count through the days, and when it got to 19 days (0.0.0.0.19) would reset to zero, and the next slot across to the left would increase by one (to 0.0.0.1.0).
So 0.0.0.0.1 was one day, and 0.0.0.1.0 was 20 days. Then 0.0.1.0.0 was about one year, 0.1.0.0.0 was about 20 years and with 1.0.0.0.0, you've clocked up about 400 years. And on 21 December 2012, the Mayan Long Count calendar will read 13.0.0.0.0.
By the way, the time between 0.0.0.0.0 and 13.0.0.0.0 is about 5126 years. Now some Mayan archaeo-astronomers reckon that the calendar should reset back to zero and start again. But others disagree and say it should continue to 20, and then reset again.
We don't have enough information to know who is correct - but if it does go up to 20, then this completely destroys the End of Days Conspiracy Theory, as far as the year 2012 is concerned. But let's stick to the 13 Conspiracy for the time being.
The claims for 21 December 2012 cover a lot of ground. They range from 'nuclear holocaust' to 'Harmonic Convergence of cosmic energy flowing through the earth, cleansing it and raising it to a higher level of vibration', and along the way they include 'the death of two-thirds of humanity' and 'the north and south poles will split' - you get the picture.
But there are two problems with this.
First, when a calendar comes to the end of a cycle, it just rolls over into the next cycle. In our Western society, every year 31 December is followed, not by the End of the World, but by 1 January. So 13.0.0.0.0 in the Mayan calendar will be followed by 0.0.0.0.1 - or good-ol' 22 December 2012, with only a few shopping days left to Christmas.
And the second problem is that it is always remarkably difficult to make predictions, especially about the future, and things that haven't happened yet.
To contact Dr Karl...
Dr Karl S. Kruszelnicki,
Julius Sumner Miller Fellow,
The Science Foundation for Physics,
School of Physics, Building A-28,
The University of Sydney, NSW 2006
Tel ++ 61-2-9909-0033
Published 15 April 2008
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Real Time With Bill Maher: 'Nazi' Pope Runs 'Child-Abusing Cult,' Says HBO's Maher
'Nazi' Pope Runs 'Child-Abusing Cult,' Says HBO's Maher
By Fred Lucas
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
April 15, 2008
(CNSNews.com) - Comments by HBO's Bill Maher insulting the Pope and calling Catholicism a "cult" that promotes "organized pedophilia" have stirred resentment among many American Catholics upset he would say this the week before Pope Benedict XVI visits the United States.
The comments were made on HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" on Friday, April 11. Maher went into a long monologue on his program comparing the Catholic church to a polygamous cult -- the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints -- which was raided on April 3 and whose founder, Warren Jeffs, was convicted last year for being an accessory to the rape of a teenage girl.
Bill Maher compared the Texas scandal and its latest alleged abuse with the sexual abuse scandal that rocked the Catholic Church in the United States in 2002.
"I'd like to tip off law enforcement to an even larger child-abusing religious cult," Maher told his audience. "Its leader also has a compound, and this guy not only operates outside the bounds of the law, but he used to be a Nazi and he wears funny hats. That's right, the Pope is coming to America this week and, ladies, he's single."
Catholic League President Bill Donohue responded that Maher "lied when he said the Pope 'used to be a Nazi.' Like all young men in Germany at the time, he was conscripted into a German Youth organization (from which he fled as soon as he could). Every responsible Jewish leader has acknowledged this reality and has never sought to brand the Pope a Nazi. That job falls to Maher."
Maher, a political liberal, has often been a magnet for controversy, making audacious statements targeting religion in general and ridiculing Christians especially. His mother was Jewish but he says that he "was raised Catholic."
On May 24, 2002, Maher told CNN's Larry King Live: "I never even knew I was half-Jewish until I was a teen-ager. I was just so frightened about the Catholics and everything that was going on there in the church -- and I was never, you know, molested or anything. And I'm a little insulted. I guess they never found me attractive. And that's really their loss."
Last year, Maher made news after strongly implying on his HBO show that the world would be a better place if Vice President Dick Cheney had been assassinated. "I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow," Maher said on March 5. "I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That's a fact."
On his May 18, 2007 edition of "Real time with Bill Maher," the host compared communion to homosexual oral sodomy and called for turning homosexuality into a religion.
"Gay men, don't say you're life-partners, say you're a nunnery of two," said Maher. "We weren't having sex officer, I was performing a very private Mass, here in my car. I was letting my rod and my staff comfort him. Take this and eat of it, for this is my roommate, Barry. ...
"And for all those who truly believe there is a special place for you in Kevin. And speaking of Heaven, one can only hope that as Jerry Falwell now approaches the Pearly Gates, he is met there by God Himself, wearing a Fire Island muscle shirt, and nut-hugger shorts, and saying to Jerry in a mighty lisp, 'I'm not talking to you.'"
Maher frequently has well-known celebrities, politicians, and journalists on his program.
Mary Ann Kreitzer, president of the Catholic Media Coalition, an umbrella group of Catholic organizations, called the comments, "a horrifying anti-Catholic diatribe."
"Poor Bill Maher. We'll pray for him," Kreitzer told Cybercast News Service. "Talk about hate speech."
Regarding the contents of his comments, she noted that one percent of priests were pedophiles, less than the number of pedophiles in U.S. public schools and other institutions.
Maher, last Friday, further said: "If you have a few hundred followers, and you let some of them molest children, they call you a cult leader. If you have a billion, they call you 'Pope.' It's like, if you can't pay your mortgage, you're a deadbeat. But if you can't pay a million mortgages, you're Bear Stearns and we bail you out. And that is who the Catholic Church is: the Bear Stearns of organized pedophilia -- too big, too fat."
"When the current Pope was in his previous Vatican job as John Paul's Dick Cheney, he wrote a letter instructing every Catholic bishop to keep the sex abuse of minors secret until the Statute of Limitations ran out," said Maher. "And that's the Church's attitude: 'We're here, we're queer, get used to it,' which is fine, far be it from me to criticize religion. But just remember one thing: If the Pope was -- instead of a religious figure -- merely the CEO of a nationwide chain of day care centers, where thousands of employees had been caught molesting kids and then covering it up, he'd be arrested faster than you can say 'who wants to touch Mr. Wiggle?'"
Maher's comments about the Pope were vicious and false, said Donohue, as Pope Benedict XVI was never involved in the sex scandal cover-up.
"The fact is that, before he was named pope, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) had absolutely nothing to do with policing allegations of sexual abuse until 2002, after the scandal erupted that January," Donohue said in a statement. "And he certainly never counseled bishops to keep sexual abuse secret-this is a bald face lie. Indeed, a week before Pope John Paul II died, he addressed the scandal by saying, 'How much filth there is in the church, even among those who, in the priesthood, should belong entirely' to God."
Kreitzer believes that celebrity guests that appear on Maher's show should rethink appearing on the program considering Maher's comments.
Read more here...
Real Time With Bill Maher
HBO's politically incorrect muse, Bill Maher, hosts an all-new season of his cutting-edge live HBO talk show, Real Time with Bill Maher. (11:00 p.m.-midnight ET/PT), exclusively on HBO.
Another viewpoint to consider?
Jimmy Carter: Emissary of Evil
By Ben Shapiro
CNSNews.com Commentary
April 16, 2008
(Ben Shapiro, 23, is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School. He is the author of the recently published "Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future," as well as the national bestseller "Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth.")
Jimmy Carter is an evil man. It is painful to label a past president of the United States as a force for darkness. But it is dangerous to let a man like Jimmy Carter stalk around the globe cloaked in the garb of American royalty, planting the seeds of Western civilization's destruction.
On Tuesday, former President Carter met with leaders of the terrorist group Hamas. He embraced Nasser al-Shaer, the man who has run the Palestinian education system, brainwashing children into believing Jews are the descendants of pigs and dogs. He laid a wreath at the grave of Yasser Arafat, the most notorious terrorist thug of the 20th century.
Then, he had the audacity to offer to act as a conduit between the Palestinian Arabs and the Israeli and U.S. governments. This is somewhat like Lord Haw-Haw offering to broker peace between the German and British governments during World War II.
Carter is a notorious anti-Semite and an even more notorious terrorism-enabler. In particular, he is a huge supporter of Palestinian violence. He considered himself a friend to Arafat, as Jay Nordlinger of National Review wrote in his masterful 2002 piece, "Carterpalooza!": After the Gulf War, when Saudi Arabia was perturbed by Arafat's support for Saddam Hussein, Carter flew to the country at Arafat's behest to soothe the Saudis.
In 1990, Carter told Arafat, "You should not be concerned that I am biased. I am much more harsh with the Israelis." He then proceeded to agree with Arafat that "the Reagan administration was not renowned as promise keepers," according to Douglas Brinkley.
Carter subsequently wrote one of Arafat's speeches, penning these vomit-inducing lines: "A good opening would be to outline the key points of the Save the Children report ... Then ask: 'What would you do, if these were your children and grandchildren? As the Palestinian leader, I share the responsibility for them. Our response has been to urge peace talks, but the Israeli leaders have refused, and our children continue to suffer. Our people, who face Israeli bullets, have no weapons: only a few stones remaining when our homes are destroyed by the Israeli bulldozers.' ... Then repeat: 'What would you do, if these were your children and grandchildren?' ... This exact litany should be repeated with a few other personal examples."
Not surprisingly, Carter's ardent hatred for Israel translates into a Jeremiah Wright-esque hatred for the United States -- Read the rest here.
"Video Of Naked Girl Was Accident"
Indiana News from TheIndyChannel.com
Arrestee: "Video Of Naked Girl Was Accident"
Man Admits Secretly Recording Relative, But Says Nudity Unintended
POSTED: 8:03 pm EDT April 14, 2008
GREENSBURG, Ind. -- A Greensburg man charged with having video of a naked 12-year-old female relative admits to secretly recording the footage but says he never intended to capture her in the nude.
Danny Shelton, who recently was arrested and charged with child exploitation, said Monday he had hidden a camera in the girl's bedroom at his home to determine whether she was jumping on and damaging a bed.
"What I caught was something different. ... So I had videos on (my computer) of her undressing and then jumping into bed nude," Shelton, 55, told 6News' Derrik Thomas in an interview in jail.
Shelton (pictured) said he thought he had erased the video. But he learned otherwise when he took his computer to a Staples store to fix a malfunction, police said.
"Fortunately, the technician that was servicing the person's computer was alerted to some improper material on the hard drive and alerted us," Greensburg Police Chief Brian T. Heaton said.
Officers found firearms in his home during his arrest, police said. Shelton, because he was convicted in 1979 in Ohio of attempted murder and aggravated robbery, is not allowed to possess firearms in Indiana. So, besides child exploitation, he was charged with firearms possession by a serious violent felon.
Shelton said he hid the camera in the girl's room because... read the rest here.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Want to rent out a room? Know your renter!
Bomb maker dies in house explosion
KING 5 News
07:15 PM PDT on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
By DREW MIKKELSEN / KING 5 News
PUYALLUP, Wash. – A convicted sex offender who was apparently making bombs was killed Tuesday morning in an explosion inside a home where he was living.
The blast blew the entire second floor off the home at 160th Street East and 70th Avenue East, showering deputies with ash and debris up to 100 yards away.
"The house was totally engulfed in flames. The explosion took the top floor off," said Pierce Co. Sheriff's spokesperson, Det. Ed Troyer.
"We have children. This is a pretty rude awakening to have our kids see this," said neighbor James Patterson.
Police believe the series of explosions killed 26-year-old Zane Dittman. He had been renting a room at the home, a room he had found in an ad on Craigslist.
Police say Dittman's landlords called 911 Monday night, saying Dittman was acting suspiciously. When deputies arrived, Dittman ran upstairs carrying a dufflebag.
Moments later, the explosions started.
Bomb squad members who feared the home might have booby-traps inspected Dittman's three cars before firefighters could try to save the home.
Dittman was a registered sex offender, convicted of the 2003 kidnapping of a Spokane County boy.
A friend of Dittman's landlords claims they did not know about his past.
Someone who did know about Dittman's past was his former landlord, Lamandalynne Promise. She does not feel sorry for him.
"I don't think anybody should die, but no, not in this case," said Promise.
She rented a room in her Tacoma house to Dittman last year before getting a sexual assault protection order against him. She says Dittman abused her son, but prosecutors refused to charge him,
"It is hard for a five-year-old to convince a jury of 12 a grown man had sexually abused him without the jury knowing prior that he is a sex offender," said Promise.
She says that before she rented Dittman that room, he told her his name was Dittaman. When she checked that name, it did not come up as a sex offender.
Nearby neighbors were evacuated. No one else was injured.
KING 5 News
07:15 PM PDT on Tuesday, April 15, 2008
By DREW MIKKELSEN / KING 5 News
PUYALLUP, Wash. – A convicted sex offender who was apparently making bombs was killed Tuesday morning in an explosion inside a home where he was living.
The blast blew the entire second floor off the home at 160th Street East and 70th Avenue East, showering deputies with ash and debris up to 100 yards away.
"The house was totally engulfed in flames. The explosion took the top floor off," said Pierce Co. Sheriff's spokesperson, Det. Ed Troyer.
"We have children. This is a pretty rude awakening to have our kids see this," said neighbor James Patterson.
Police believe the series of explosions killed 26-year-old Zane Dittman. He had been renting a room at the home, a room he had found in an ad on Craigslist.
Police say Dittman's landlords called 911 Monday night, saying Dittman was acting suspiciously. When deputies arrived, Dittman ran upstairs carrying a dufflebag.
Moments later, the explosions started.
Bomb squad members who feared the home might have booby-traps inspected Dittman's three cars before firefighters could try to save the home.
Dittman was a registered sex offender, convicted of the 2003 kidnapping of a Spokane County boy.
A friend of Dittman's landlords claims they did not know about his past.
Someone who did know about Dittman's past was his former landlord, Lamandalynne Promise. She does not feel sorry for him.
"I don't think anybody should die, but no, not in this case," said Promise.
She rented a room in her Tacoma house to Dittman last year before getting a sexual assault protection order against him. She says Dittman abused her son, but prosecutors refused to charge him,
"It is hard for a five-year-old to convince a jury of 12 a grown man had sexually abused him without the jury knowing prior that he is a sex offender," said Promise.
She says that before she rented Dittman that room, he told her his name was Dittaman. When she checked that name, it did not come up as a sex offender.
Nearby neighbors were evacuated. No one else was injured.
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Military is developing ways to launch virtual attacks
U.S. cyberwarfare takes the offensive
By Anick Jesdanun
updated
7:59 a.m. PT, Mon., April. 7, 2008
NEW YORK - U.S. military officials seeking to boost the nation's cyberwarfare capabilities are looking beyond defending the Internet: They are developing ways to launch virtual attacks on enemies.
But first the military will have to figure out the proper boundaries.
"What do we consider to be an act of war in cyberspace?" asked Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., who heads the Air Force's cyberoperations command. "The military is not going to tend to do that (use virtual strike capabilities) until you cross some line that constitutes an act of war.
Elder said initial uses likely would be limited to diverting or killing data packets that threaten the nation's systems, the way the military may intercept a foreign ship carrying arms in international waters.
The remarks came late Friday during a New York chapter meeting of the Association For Intelligence Officers, a nonprofit group for current and former intelligence agents and their supporters.
In an interview afterward, Elder said that in the future, the military might rely upon network warfare to disrupt an enemy's communications system, replacing the need for conventional weapons like bombs.
In any such scenario, Elder said the military would be restricted by the same rules of engagement — such as requirements for a formal declaration of war _ that apply to conventional attacks.
Elder said that during the early days of the Iraq war, rudimentary forms of cyberattacks were used by the United States, including electronically jamming Iraqi military systems and using network attacks to hinder Iraqi ground units from communicating with one another.
The military's offensive capabilities have improved since then, he said.
As the military increasingly relies on networks and computer systems to communicate and coordinate conventional operations, the U.S. Air Force is planning to establish by October a Cyber Command for waging a future war that is fought not only by land, sea and air but also in cyberspace.
Hackers with a foreign government or terrorist group potentially could bring down military and civilian Web sites using what is known as a denial-of-service attack _ flooding the computer servers with fake traffic such that legitimate visitors cannot get through.
Read the rest of the story here...
By Anick Jesdanun
updated7:59 a.m. PT, Mon., April. 7, 2008
NEW YORK - U.S. military officials seeking to boost the nation's cyberwarfare capabilities are looking beyond defending the Internet: They are developing ways to launch virtual attacks on enemies.
But first the military will have to figure out the proper boundaries.
"What do we consider to be an act of war in cyberspace?" asked Lt. Gen. Robert J. Elder Jr., who heads the Air Force's cyberoperations command. "The military is not going to tend to do that (use virtual strike capabilities) until you cross some line that constitutes an act of war.
Elder said initial uses likely would be limited to diverting or killing data packets that threaten the nation's systems, the way the military may intercept a foreign ship carrying arms in international waters.
The remarks came late Friday during a New York chapter meeting of the Association For Intelligence Officers, a nonprofit group for current and former intelligence agents and their supporters.
In an interview afterward, Elder said that in the future, the military might rely upon network warfare to disrupt an enemy's communications system, replacing the need for conventional weapons like bombs.
In any such scenario, Elder said the military would be restricted by the same rules of engagement — such as requirements for a formal declaration of war _ that apply to conventional attacks.
Elder said that during the early days of the Iraq war, rudimentary forms of cyberattacks were used by the United States, including electronically jamming Iraqi military systems and using network attacks to hinder Iraqi ground units from communicating with one another.
The military's offensive capabilities have improved since then, he said.
As the military increasingly relies on networks and computer systems to communicate and coordinate conventional operations, the U.S. Air Force is planning to establish by October a Cyber Command for waging a future war that is fought not only by land, sea and air but also in cyberspace.
Hackers with a foreign government or terrorist group potentially could bring down military and civilian Web sites using what is known as a denial-of-service attack _ flooding the computer servers with fake traffic such that legitimate visitors cannot get through.
Read the rest of the story here...
Thursday, April 3, 2008
More on last week's Craigslist story
Police: Couple covered up theft with Craigslist post
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last updated April 1, 2008 9:10 a.m. PT
MEDFORD, Ore. -- It wasn't a hoax or revenge that cost a Southern Oregon man many of his belongings when people responded to a Craigslist posting and nearly emptied his rural home, officers say: It was a pair of thieves covering their tracks.
Jackson County sheriff's deputies arrested a Medford couple Monday and said the two stole horse saddles and other items from Robert Salisbury's home.
Then, deputies said, the couple tried to cover up their theft by posting a notice on the Web site Craigslist that said Salisbury had to leave the state and his belongings were free for the taking.
On a Saturday, March 22, Salisbury came home to see people loading his goods into their vehicles.
When he protested, people whipped out copies of the Craigslist post, insisting that because the offer was on the Web, it had to be true and refused to return his stuff.
The sheriff's office thought at first that the posting was a nasty prank.
But later, deputies say, they tracked computer files to Amber Herbert, 28, and Brandon Herbert, 29.
They said they determined that the couple had stolen goods from a garage at Salisbury's place a few days before the Craigslist posting and sold the saddles over the Internet.
Other than taking a look at the property because it was listed as for rent, the pair had no connection to Salisbury, deputies said.
"Other Craigslist hoaxes we've seen were malicious, but this was not the revenge-type thing we were expecting," said Sgt. Colin Fagan said. "But it was pretty sinister." Read the rest here..
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Last updated April 1, 2008 9:10 a.m. PT
MEDFORD, Ore. -- It wasn't a hoax or revenge that cost a Southern Oregon man many of his belongings when people responded to a Craigslist posting and nearly emptied his rural home, officers say: It was a pair of thieves covering their tracks.
Jackson County sheriff's deputies arrested a Medford couple Monday and said the two stole horse saddles and other items from Robert Salisbury's home.
Then, deputies said, the couple tried to cover up their theft by posting a notice on the Web site Craigslist that said Salisbury had to leave the state and his belongings were free for the taking.
On a Saturday, March 22, Salisbury came home to see people loading his goods into their vehicles.
When he protested, people whipped out copies of the Craigslist post, insisting that because the offer was on the Web, it had to be true and refused to return his stuff.
The sheriff's office thought at first that the posting was a nasty prank.
But later, deputies say, they tracked computer files to Amber Herbert, 28, and Brandon Herbert, 29.
They said they determined that the couple had stolen goods from a garage at Salisbury's place a few days before the Craigslist posting and sold the saddles over the Internet.
Other than taking a look at the property because it was listed as for rent, the pair had no connection to Salisbury, deputies said.
"Other Craigslist hoaxes we've seen were malicious, but this was not the revenge-type thing we were expecting," said Sgt. Colin Fagan said. "But it was pretty sinister." Read the rest here..
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