Sunday, April 28, 2013

An Assassin In Rome

Gunfire was heard in Rome on Sunday, April 28, 2013. The targets for the assassination attempts were politicians. The victims were police officers. The suspect appears to have been a self-styled "warrior."



As ministers in Italy's new left-right coalition cabinet were being sworn in, a lone gunman attempted to get to the politicians to shoot them. Frustrated in his efforts, the shooter turned the gun on law enforcement officials, the Carabinieri. One officer was wounded in the leg, and another in the neck. A pregnant woman passerby was grazed by a bullet. None were seriously injured, apparently.


The ''desperate" gunman had ''lost work, had lost everything" ...[and] "wanted to shoot politicians, but given that he couldn't reach any, he shot the Carabinieri" police at the edge of Chigi Square. News Observer.

The rightwing mayor of Rome, Gianni Alemanno, said: "We shouldn't be surprised at a time when people are inveighing continually against the establishment."
Though he denied that it was aimed at any one group, Alemanno's remark was widely seen as a reference to the maverick Five Star Movement (M5S), which has bitterly attacked Italy's mainstream parties. Beppe Grillo, the ex-comedian who leads the M5S, condemned the shooting.
The suspected gunman was wrestled to the ground and disarmed by Carabinieri as he tried to flee. He was named as Luigi Preiti, a man in his late 40s from the mafia-ridden town of Rosarno, in Calabria.
He was initially described by the authorities as mentally disturbed, but his brother, Arcangelo Preiti, said: "Until yesterday morning, Luigi was a lucid and go-ahead person."
He said his brother, who has a son, had returned to Calabria from the north after losing his job and separating from his wife.
Preiti, who was dressed in a jacket, collar and tie, was said not to have any links with organised crime. Forensic officers reportedly found seven bullet casings in the broad, paved square in front of the prime minister's official residence. Guardian.


The suspect's name Luigi Preiti has an intriguing literal translation.  The meaning of Luigi is "famous warrior." Preiti is a name, usually of Indian/Hindi origin, which means "switch." Nothing has been noted about his ethnicity, and he is being discussed merely as "from Calabria."


The swearing in was occurring in the Palazzo Chigi, the prime minister's official residence, and is acknowledged as the seat of the Italian government. The Palazzo Chigi is a palace or noble residence in Rome, overlooking the Piazza Colonna and the Via del Corso. In 1659 it was purchased by the Chigi family.

Palazzo Chigi, etching by Giuseppe Vasi, 18th century
XIX century print, Piazza Colonna

Palazzo Chigi was begun in 1562 by Giacomo della Porta. A courtyard was built that is decorated with a fountain, designed by Giacomo della Porta. The fountain has been copied in many sites in Rome and other Italian cities. This Chigi's fountain is called the Fontana di Piazza Colonna. Why was the piazza given this name?
The name of this piazza comes from Marcus Aurelius's column still standing where it was erected in ancient Rome and reminding us of the topographical changes made in the city over the centuries. In Imperial times, there used to be a temple dedicated to the Emperor on part of what is now the piazza.
Colonnades bounded two sides, with houses and shops on the Via del Corso side. The column was erected in 180 AD in the center of the temple's piazza.
The reliefs narrate the imperial campaigns of the era of Marcus Aurelius and, for the first time, they were the works of actual Roman artists. Even if they are less refined than those on Trajan's column, they are nevertheless more expressive.
In the Middle Ages, the piazza was at the intersection of the two most important pilgrim itineraries: one went from Piazza del Popolo to the Campidoglio and then on to San Giovanni in Laterano; the other left from Via Salaria towards Porte Sant'Angelo and on to St. Peter's.
After the Renaissance when restoration work was done on the column, the piazza began to take on its present appearance. The small medieval dwellings gave way to palaces for noble families. Bars and cafés became important meeting places for citizens and, especially, intellectuals involved in city politics. Source.



Where this attempted assassination took place today was designed, as noted, in 1562, by a significant historical individual. Giacomo della Porta (c. 1533 – 1602) was an Italian architect and sculptor, who was influenced by and collaborated with Michelangelo, and Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, his teacher of architecture. After the death of Vignola in 1573, Giacomo della Porta continued the construction of Il Gesù, the mother church of the Jesuit order, and in 1584 modified its façade after his own designs. From 1573 he was in charge of the ongoing construction of St. Peter's Basilica, and later, in collaboration with Domenico Fontana, completed Michelangelo's dome between 1588-1590.

In Dan Brown's 2000 book about some of the twilight language of Rome, Angels and Demons includes a mystery murder at Giacomo della Porta's Piazza Campitelli (1589).

In terms of the day, RS sends along notes on April 28th, involving three assassinations (one involving an Aurora, please note) and two shooting sprees (the infamous Port Arthur massacre and another a week after Columbine) on this date.

1192 – Assassination of Conrad of Montferrat (Conrad I), King of Jerusalem, in Tyre, two days after his title to the throne is confirmed by election. The killing is carried out by Hashshashin.

1949 – Former First Lady of the Philippines Aurora Quezon, 61, is assassinated while en route to dedicate a hospital in memory of her late husband; her daughter and 10 others are also killed.

1978 – President of Afghanistan, Mohammed Daoud Khan, is overthrown and assassinated in a coup led by pro-communist rebels.

1996 – In Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia, Martin Bryant goes on a shooting spree, killing 35 people and seriously injuring 21 more.

1999 – In Tabor, Alberta, Canada, 14-year-old Todd Cameron Smith fires upon three students, killing one and wounding another in the W. R. Myers High School shooting.

Friday, April 26, 2013

TL Reader Discovers: "You Accurately Predicted This In 2005"

Patriots' Day. The Boston Marathon. I foresaw this, it appears.
As many of you recall, on September 17, 2012, Dangerous Minds published "Copycat Effect: Meet The Man Who Predicted The Aurora Shooting" by British writer Thomas McGrath. You may wish to read it, if you haven't yet. I detailed a bit of the background to McGrath's article in my piece, "The Man Who Predicted The Aurora Shooting."
Because one of the final questions McGrath asked was about other predictions, I addressed his inquiry by posting "Ten Predictions: Ten Hits."
Now, as it turns out, thanks to an alert reader of this blog, I've been reminded that, indeed, I, Loren Coleman, did foretell the Patriots' Day Boston Marathon terrorist bombing - eight years ago.

I didn't go looking for this, so you can imagine my surprise when I found someone had "discovered" in my past writings that I had "predicted" the Marathon bombings. I had literally forgotten that I had written what was pointed out to me.

On April 25th, I began receiving messages from a reader, Carol J., saying "I decided to randomly browse posts from past years and see that you accurately 'predicted' this [Boston Marathon event] in 2005."

I asked her a little more about how this happened and Carol J. shared, "It was very eerie when I came across it. I felt like I wanted to read something from the past to get my mind off the present and my finger was hovering over 2006 and then it was almost like my finger felt kind of 'pulled' to 2005....For real! Synchromysticism and following intuition at its best."

What Carol J. had found was a long posting I had written on September 10, 2005. In that blog entry, I wrote of the importance of being aware of the special significance of numbers, dates, and special days, in relationship to future acts of terrorism. I penned these words:

...what about the dates? This Bush administration's little known badly named Patriot Day (9/11) may or may not be that important to al Qaeda, as I think they have their own number, date, and name game agenda. They might wish to go for the real Patriots Day, in April, in Maine, or the Patriots Day in Massachusetts, at the Boston Marathon, for example. Thousands of people there. Of course, this is not an invitation, but we have to see that we might not see what they see....

And...

Well, then, truth be told, I live in Portland, Maine, where 9/11 all began for Mohammed Atta, who picked Flight 11, so needless to say, I'm not letting my guard down on 9/11/05. Or 11/9/05. Or 11/11 (Veteran's Day). Or on next April's Patriots Day 2006, 2007, 2008, and so forth. Atta, the leader of the operations wing of 9/11, historically, was tied into those elevens. Afterall, the first mastermind of the 1993 Twin Towers attack was Ramzi Yousef, and he used parts of Bonjinka, a plan to place bombs on 11 planes in the Phillippines, for the eventual 9/11 attacks. Yousef's test run for Bonjinka occurred on, you guessed it, another eleven, December 11, 1994. Sometime, look up the 1970 origins of the naming of the group 'Black September,' whose kidnapping of Israeli athletes attending the Munich Olympics (which was scheduled to end on September 11, 1972), ended in the death of 11 of those athletes. Certainly, 9/11 hits very close to home. And lives on. Mysteries remain that may be hidden in numbers and places.
Clearly, the combination of Patriots Day and the Boston Marathon was too tempting for the terrorists who would conduct the first major attack at a public event, post-9/11.

The scope of the Boston Marathon bombing is enormous. Five deaths resulted: three people from the April 15th bombing, one police officer from the firefight on April 18th, and one suspect from shooting on April 19th. A total of 299 people were injured, with 282 of them from the initial bombs on April 15th, 16 police officers from the firefight on April 19th, and one suspect from shooting on April 19th. The injuries to the victims of the bombings were severe, involving limbs lost at the bomb sites or due to amputations to save their lives.

It was a terrible and horrible series of events in Boston on Patriots' Day. Let us wish and pray that other terrorists will not see what occurred in Boston as a roadmap for future copycat incidents. That is certainly my fear, based on what I know of behavior contagion. It does make me sad to be able to "see" this coming. I take no delight in being close in my predictions.

My hope is that someday, somewhen, predicting behavior patterning is developed to such a level that violent and fatal events can be prevented.














My ideas and insights about "predicting" such events are in my 2004 book, 
a work that the media never wants you to read.
 

(NY: Simon and Schuster, 2004)

Never forget, remember...

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

New Copycats: Pressure Cookers and Sporting Events

What will be the result of the Boston bombings? 

Has one outcome been a cookbook for future disasters?

The following images were spread all over the papers, Internet, and cable television news - wall to wall. I am purposefully making the images so small so that the instructions for "how to make a bomb" will not be readable, as they have been since April 15th.


In 1989, when Simon and Schuster published my Suicide Clusters, no one believed that phenomenon existed. In 2004, when my book The Copycat Effect was released, only one newspaper in North America reviewed it. The Boston Globe ran a skeptical critique. The media wanted my book to be ignored.

Today, it is rather firmly established that the "copycat effect" is part of the way that future events are being programmed.

What do you think will be the legacy of the Boston bombings? At sporting events? And large gatherings? Using what instrument of mass destruction?


Changes Coming In Sporting Events

Certainly the loss of life and the massive injuries to the individuals during the Boston Marathon bombings have to be addressed as now copycats will sadly probably occur.

Moves in the direction of future prevention are in the works.

The Kentucky Derby will ban backpacks during the running races held in conjunction with the horse race:

Officials with the Kentucky Derby announced that backpacks would be banned at the Marathon and miniMarathon held in conjunction with the Derby itself, in an effort to tighten security.
The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting that festival president Mike Berry and vice president Matt Gibson made the announcement during a press conference held on Tuesday. Other banned items include duffel bags, purses taller or wider than 12 inches, luggage, tents, coolers and weapons.
Instead of backpacks, runners will have to bring any necessities in transparent bags.

* * *

According to Churchill Downs, backpacks had been previously banned from the Kentucky Derby and Oaks themselves in 2012. Coolers, noisemakers, pepper spray, fireworks and purses larger than 12 inches were recently added to this year’s list of prohibited items. Also banned are cameras with detachable lenses, cameras equipped with lenses more than six inches in length, and tripods of any kind. Source.
Major League Baseball is thinking about making similar refinements.
Stadium operations officials from the 30 big league baseball teams will meet this week and are expected to discuss whether to make any security changes in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings…Among the security topics that could be discussed are backpacks that fans bring into ballparks.










Sunday, April 21, 2013

The Dark Knight Chechen



Manuel F. writes:
Loren,
Don't know if anyone left you with this sync, but here goes...
Yesterday I was thinking about this "dark night" period we're living in. Then my mind jumped to Dark Knight and something was connected.
You saw the infamous Dark Knight movie (the one with Heath Ledger). Remember the scene where the Joker burns the mountain of money?
The gangster he double crosses is called "The Chechen."
The Joker says he will retrieve their money from the money launderer and then burns it and feed "The Chechen" to the "pooches."
Seems like the fountain of syncs never gets dry with the Batman trilogy. You do more dot connecting (you're good at it)! I just wanted to leave this idea.
Greetings


Enki writes:


Tsarnaev contains the root tsar (also spelled czar, csar, or tzar) - a Russian emperor. A villain in the Batman universe, Mr. Hammer, has a tattoo which reads: "Joker The Tzar" in Russian.

Mister Hammer and his brother Sickle were conjoined, orphan twins who performed in a russian circus, developing a reputaton for brutality which attracted the attention of the Joker. Joker sent his cohort Harley Quinn to recruit the twins, but the circus manager refused, however he subsequently turned up with a Glasglow smile carved into his face, and the twins were recruited into Joker's gang. During a fight between the Abramovici's and Batman, Joker had an ingenius idea to separate the brothers, and acquired the help of Dr. Thomas Elliot to perform the surgery and cut the twins in two. After the surgery was completed, Joker favorably chose Mr. Hammer to be his "right-hand man" and left Sickle for the Penguin, who hired the twin to be apart of his gang. Ever since, the Abramovici's operated alone in Gotham, and later Arkham City, however Sickle always had a disliking for Joker for separating him from his brother. Source.
Here we have twins again, as well as the theme of brothers separated violently.
Also, in Batman Confidential, Batman works to prevent a massacre by a bomb-packing villain called The Tsar. Source.

The site Merovee mentions a further link to the Dark Knight and Aurora, beyond the early one widely noted that "Dzhokhar" sounds like "Joker." That site points out that the the Boston police released the number plate of a car connected with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev – 116 GC7.

Merovee writes that "116 is a number which is closely connected with The Joker – Century 16 (116) at Aurora, as well as being a mirror of 911. As well, there is the compulsory 7/7. G=7. 116 7 C 7."  

(Personally, I don't understand the "7" numerology being "compulsory.")


 Century 16 in Aurora, Colorado.

Aurora building, Shanghai, in Skyfall.

There are stories of coincidence and chance, of intersections and strange things told, and which is which and who only knows? And we generally say, "Well, if that was in a movie, I wouldn't believe it." Someone's so-and-so met someone else's so-and-so and so on. And it is in the humble opinion of this narrator that strange things happen all the time. And so it goes, and so it goes. And the book says, "We may be through with the past, but the past ain't through with us." ~ Magnolia, 1999.


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was named after Dzhokhar Musayevich Dudaev (Chechen: Dudin Musa-khant Dʒouxar/Дудин Муса-кIант Жовхар; Russian: Джохар Мусаевич Дудаев), who was a Soviet Air Force general and Chechen leader, the first President of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. He was born February 15, 1944, and reportedly killed by "two laser-guided missiles when he was using a satellite phone, after his location was detected by a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which intercepted his phone call," on April 21, 1996.
Recent postings of the Boston Marathon/Patriots' Day Bombings and aftermath are:

* Targeting Patriots' Day Is Significant for Boston Marathon Bombing 

Saturday, April 20, 2013

Name Game: The Brothers Tsarnaev







Inland, on the traditional Patriots' Day, the Boston Marathon bombing manhunt ended in Watertown when the suspect crawled out of a boat, in which the final suspect had been hiding. The sychronmystic symbolism of that event's finale may be dissected for years.


The boat was behind this house on 67 Franklin Street in Watertown.

But for now, let's look at the "name game" harmonics of Suspect #1's and Suspect #2's names.

The Brothers Tsarnaev

Two brothers were identified by the FBI and other law enforcement organizations as the primary suspects, with the last name Tsarnaev.

While the Tsarnaevs may have identified as ethnic Chechens, they are not from Chechnya. The Tsarnaev brothers were born in Russia (Tamerlan) and Kyrgyzstan (Dzhokhar). The Tsarnaevs' father was working in Chechnya when he fled, reportedly, living briefly in Kyrgyzstan and the Dagestan region of Russia, before finding political asylum in the USA. Tamerlan was 15 and Dzhokhar was only 8, when they came to Cambridge, Massachusetts to live.




Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Suspect #1

Tamerlan, 26, was killed early Friday (April 19, 2013) morning in a shootout with law enforcement officers in Watertown.



The name Tamerlan is directly linked to a 14th century Turkic warlord, Timur. The origins of his name, Timur is related to its meaning, "iron." Timur was a devout Muslim who referred to himself as the Sword of Islam. Find more here.

AWG shares:
Tamerlane is an epic poem by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in the 1827 collection Tamerlane and Other Poems. That collection, with only 50 copies printed, was not credited with the author's real name but by "A Bostonian." The poem's original version was 403 lines but trimmed down to 223 lines for its inclusion in Al Aaraaf, Tamerlane, and Minor Poems.


Forensic facial reconstruction of Timur by M. Gerasimov. 1941

 Tamerlane is the Latinized name of a 14th-century historical figure, Timur Lenk.
The poem itself follows a Turkic conqueror named Tamerlane. The name is a Latinized version of Timur Lenk, the 14th century warlord, though the poem is not historically accurate.
Tamerlane ignores the young love he has for a peasant in order to achieve power. On his deathbed, he regrets this decision to create "a kingdom [in exchange] for a broken-heart." The peasant is named Ada in most of Poe's original version of the poem, though it is removed and re-added throughout its many revised versions. The name "Ada" is likely a reference to Ada Lovelace, the daughter of Lord Byron, a renowned poet whom Poe admired. In fact, the line "I reach'd my home -- my home no more" echoes a line in Byron's work Don JuanSource.

CK notes:
Amir Timur (a/k/a Tamerlane) is remembered as a vicious conqueror, who razed ancient cities to the ground and put entire populations to the sword. On the other hand, he is also known as a great patron of the arts, literature, and architecture. One of his signal achievements is his capital at the beautiful city of Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbekistan. Source.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Suspect #2.


Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's name is pronounced Joe-HARR tsar-NAH-yev, although early commentators pointed out that "Dzhokhar" can sound like "Joker."


The origins of the first name Dzhokhar is Russian/Chechen. 
In Russian, "Grozny" means "fearsome," "awesome" or "redoubtable". During the existence of the separatist republic, the city was renamed Dzokhar-Ghala in 1996, and Chechen separatists sometimes continue to refer to the city as Dzhokhar or Djohar (Chechen: Джовхар-ГIала, Dƶovxar-Ġala); it was named so after Dzhokhar Dudaev, the first president of the separatist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. As of December 2005, the Chechen parliament voted to rename the city Akhmadkala after Akhmad Kadyrov, a proposition which was rejected by his son Ramzan Kadyrov, the prime minister and later president of the republic. Source.

Nineteen year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's Twitter handle J_tsar and nickname is Jahar.

++++++



: Police seeking MA Plate: 116-GC7, ’99 Honda Sedan, Color - Green. Possible suspect car. Do not approach. pic.twitter.com/IVCPtmVwRT



+++

Dzhokhar tweeted the following two pictures of a "friend's" car on his Twitter account J_tsar.


Here's is a closer look at the front plate:






















The two men arrested last night (April 19th) in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings drive a car with the licence plate that reads: ‘Terrorista #1’

The students, named be neighbours by their first names Azmat and Diaz, drive a black BMW 330XI with the personalised plate and a sticker on the back which reads: ‘F*** you, you f****** f****’.

They are thought to be from Kazakhstan and had not been seen since the bombings until last night when their ground floor apartment in New Bedford, MA, was raided by a dozen FBI agents at gunpoint.



Two women and one man, both of whom appeared to be college-aged, were apprehended for questioning from the Hidden Brook Apartments on Carriage Drive in New Bedford. Source.