Friday, July 29, 2011

Radical hater of Islam edits web page to hide evidence.

Some years ago I stumbled across a web page entitled Atlas Shrugs. Being a fan of Ayn's and friendly with many friends of Ayn's, I went to the page to see what it had to offer. I was thoroughly disgusted by the rabid, irrational, hateful tone that permeated the material that I read at the time. I have had no reason to assume the site got better and never returned to it, considering it a smear on Rand. Admittedly Ayn sometimes got things wrong, but this web site was so consistently wrong, and so consistently nasty, that I saw it as a haven for deranged minds, not for reasoned debate.

We know the voice behind this fake Atlas site is a radical named Pam Geller. And we know that the killer in Oslo, the cultural conservative with a gun and a tendency to kill young people to destory "Maxist multiculturalism" and stand up to "political correctness," was an extremist named Anders Behring Breivik. Breivik was a fan of Geller's—reading his 1500 "manifesto" makes that clear.

And, there is good reason to believe that Geller actually published an email from Breivik, one that actually warned of possible violent intentions. Here is a page of an "Email from Norway" that Geller published, at least this is how the page reads today. Read it and see if you can find the warning about intended violence. Click on the image to englarge it for easier reading.




Notice anything? Of course you didn't. Since the actual armed attack. it appears that Geller has removed material from the original post she published, which quite clearly indicated violent intentions by her corespondent. Here is the same page from her site BEFORE she selectively hid material from public view.



You will note a sentence that I have highlighted in blue. This is a screencapture from Google web cache. It is currently on line here. But that will disappear at some point, which is why I did a screencapture, to preserve the image forever. Notice that the Norwegian correspondent told Geller: "We are stockpiling and caching weapons and equipment. This is going to happen fast." It is possible that Geller actually knew the identity of the man who wrote the letter indicating he was preparing for armed conflict. Please notice this from the comment section, which, as of today, Geller has forgotten to scrub clean of evidence.

Again, you can click on it to enlarge it. But commenter "turn" refers to the email from Norway as "A very nice letter to you, Pam, from a Norwegian Atlasite (Atlasonian?). Unfortunately, he or she could be prosecuted under hate-speech laws for writing or posting in Norway what you have passed on to us." Geller response says: "yes, turn, which is why I ran it anonymously." Get that? She doesn't say she didn't know the identity of the author, she implies she actually knew the identity and made the decision to run the piece anonymously so as to protect his identity.

Especially appalling to me is that while seeking to protect the identity of the author she found nothing wrong about originally publishing his comments about stockpiling weapons and equipment to prepare for the onslaught. Even after the writer implied he might well be prepared to go on some sort of assault, Geller intentionally hide his identity to protect him.

And now, that Breivik has gone on an armed attack, killing dozens of innocent, mostly young people, Geller goes on to edit out information from her own web site that may have bearing on the murders. Certainly if I were the Norwegian police I would be having a long talk with Ms. Geller and would take over her website to search for the identity of the author of that email. I would check to see if he wrote other comments to Geller and try to determine how much Geller knew and when she knew it. If she denied any knowledge or suspicion that her Norwegian correspondent was Breivik I would ask her for the author's identity, which she seems to acknowledge knowing. He could be dangerous as well.

I would want to know why she didn't pass on that information, which with minimal follow up may have prevented the terrorists attack by this cultural conservative. Right-wing web sites are defending Geller and she, loud-mouthed as normal, is shrilly insisting that just because Breivik was a regular reader of her site doesn't mean she has any responsibility for his actions.

True, she doesn't, not for that. She insists that "she has not met or communicated with Breivik at all. Not ever. 'No dealings, mo emails, no nothing,' Geller said."

Here is the problem I have with this. She did get an email from Norway, from someone whose identity she seems to have known and which she choose to list as anonymous. That email referred to preparing for some sort of armed attack of one kind or another. After the Breivik incident Geller careful removes the reference to the armed attack, perhaps assuming no one would notice that one sentence difference from the original.

If the email correspondent was NOT Breivik there is little need to edit out the statement, except perhaps to hide evidence that she was in correspondence with another potentially violent Norwegian. I suspect that when she learned of the attack, she remembered the email and feared that it could, or knew that it was, Breivik. So she went and selectively edited the email to remove the reference to potential armed conflict. She could have written a clarification if she KNEW it was not Breivik. For instance, she could have said:

"Dear Readers: Since this was published the tragic shooting in Oslo took place. The author of the email made a reference to stockpiling weapons, which I feel may be misinterpreted in light of current events. I did not see the remarks then, as they might be interpreted now, and have removed them. The author's identity is known to me and this author is the not man arrested in Oslo."

If she was honestly unaware of the identity, which her own comment below the article makes unlikely, she should say: "I am not sure of the identity of this article. In light of current events I have turned it over to the Norwegian authorities for further investigation and will cooperate where I can to help see to it that justice is done."

Neither is how Geller choose to act. Instead she scurried about to delete and hide evidence from her own website. And if there is any reason to suspect she knows more than she is admitting it is precisely her actions to hide evidence that give those suspicious credibility.



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