Another Baby Bird Drops In

Last summer I recounted my tale of caring for two fledgling Robins until they could fly.  I was helped by the birds' parents, who came often to feed the babies (I fed them too).  In less than a week they were strong enough to fly away.

This morning, as I was sitting at the table underneath my canvas patio cover, I heard a "Plop" and looked to my right to see a young sparrow on the patio, looking stunned.  He seems to have just fallen out of the sky, or perhaps from a nest on my roof, invisible to me.  I immediately fetched him and put him in my bird cage to protect him.  Then I read about the feed and caring of fledgling Sparrows via a Google search.

I learned that fledgling Sparrows have a high mortality rate when in held captivity.  Some informed wild life rehabilitators stated that the fledglings are best left on the ground, because their parents will continue feeding them until they can fly.  So I freed the baby bird.  He immediately took refuge under a big bush in the corner of my yard.  In about fifteen minutes, an adult sparrow showed up and began feeding him.

I think the bird will be okay, absent any predators (like cats).  In any case, I think I did the right thing.

The White Rose: Martyrs Against Nazi Tyanny #History #WorldWarII

One of my interests is World War II, and I spend a lot of time watching movies, documentaries and film clips of it on YouTube.  Last week I watched a film about the White Rose, a group of anti-Nazi German youths who worked against Hitler's government.  It is an inspiring tale:  young people risking, and several losing their lives, in the effort.

Founded in 1942, the White Rose wrote and distributed leaflets among the German populace, urging passive resistance to Nazi rule.  Leaflets were typed on a borrowed typewriter, and reproduced on a duplicating machine.  These were mailed at random to addresses taken from public phone books, or distributed by leaving them in public places.  The White Rose had cells in Hamburg, Freiburg, Berlin, and Vienna.

Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl and Christoph Probst

The film documents the trial and execution of three members of the White Rose:   Hans Scholl, a medical student at the University of Munich, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst.  All three had been members of the Nazi youth organizations, early supporters of Hitler and the Nazis.  Hans had served in the RAD, the National Labor Force. As a soldier on the Eastern front, Hans had observed first-hand Nazi atrocities against civilians, and became disillusioned with the German war effort.  Christoph Probst had served in the German army at a Luftwaffe (air force) base.  However, they lost their allegiance to Hitler in light of Nazi atrocities, and they were angered by Germany's loss of democracy and freedoms.  Their pamphlets denounced Hitler as a mass murderer and called upon Germans to resist the Nazi regime.

After the German defeat at Stalingrad, Hans and Sophie took a suitcase full of leaflets to the University of Munich, where they left small stacks of them outside the doors of classrooms.  However, they were observed by the janitor, who reported them to the Gestapo, the Nazi secret police.  They were arrested and tried in the so-called People's Court on February 22, 1943.  The trial was presided over by the notorious Roland Freisler, chief justice of the People's Court of the Greater German Reich, who had been sent from Berlin.

Roland Freisler, a dedicated Nazi, held show trials in which the accused were insulted and demeaned. This was no different:

He conducted the trial as if the future of the Reich were indeed at stake. He roared denunciations of the accused as if he were not the judge but the prosecutor. He behaved alternately like an actor ranting through an overwritten role in an implausible melodrama and a Grand Inquisitor calling down eternal damnation on the heads of the three irredeemable heretics before him. . . . No witnesses were called, since the defendants had admitted everything. The proceedings consisted almost entirely of Roland Freisler's denunciation and abuse, punctuated from time to time by half-hearted offerings from the court-appointed defense attorneys, one of whom summed up his case with the observation, “I can only say fiat justitia. Let justice be done.” By which he meant: Let the accused get what they deserve.

Sophie Scholl

Freisler found Hans, Sophie and Christoph guilty of high treason, and sentenced them to death by guillotine. Their executions were carried out on the same day, by executioners strangely attired in top hats.  Sophie went first, followed by Hans, and Christoph died last.  Later, the prison guards would recount the bravery with which the three had met their end, saying that Sophie did not bat an eyelash.  Her last words were "The sun still shines."  Her brother Hans shouted "Long live freedom!" as the blade fell.

Later, other members would follow the three to the guillotine, including a Munich philosophy professor, Kurt Huber, who had overseen the group.

The film about the trial and executions is called Sophie Scholl, the Final Days.  It can be viewed for free at YouTube, at this link.

Roland Freisler was later killed by an American bomb in Berlin.  On February 3, 1945, as he was preparing another trial with a predetermined verdict (death), the building in which he presided came under American bombing.  As he gathered his papers before seeking safety in a shelter, a bomb exploded through the roof and Freisler was crushed by a falling beam.  Good riddance.

After many years, the guillotine, on which the three were executed, was found in the basement of a German museum.  It is considered too grisly to put on display.  See it here.

Today, schools and squares all over Germany have been named in honor of the White Rose.  This small group today is a symbol of freedom and resistance to tyranny.  I know I will never forget their names:  Hans Scholl, Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst.  As Sophie said to her mother, shortly before her execution:  May we meet in eternity.

Postscript:  the White Rose authored and distributed six leaflets (a seventh was never finished and released).  Their English translations can be read at this link.

According to Wikipedia:

The White Rose had the last word. Their last leaflet was smuggled to the Allies, who edited it and air-dropped millions of copies over Germany.

Graves of Hans Scholl and Sophie Scholl

How Hillary Clinton Seems to Me

Shrillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton is running for president.  I am not enthused.

Sure, there are the usual arguments for opposing her:  she's never accomplished much in her long life, never been a leader, never been an effective head of an organization of any import.  All that's true, but that's not the worst of it.

When I think of Hillary Clinton, I think of an arrogant, angry woman with a superiority-complex, looking down her nose at the little people, all with a scowl on her face.  Rules do not apply to her, they are for other people.  Facts don't matter, only spin.  Even if I agreed with Hillary philosophically, I would find it impossible to like her personally.  It seems to me that her whole existence on this planet, her every waking moment, is suffused with one burning agenda:  to rule the masses, the masses whom she hates, and for whom she feels only contempt.

That, in a nutshell, is how Hillary Clinton seems to me.

Tax Season Is Over! Big Band Is Back!!

It's over.  April 15 has come and gone.  I survived.  Went home and took a big nap, followed by a good cigar.

The CPA firm I worked for me likes me a lot.  They want me to show up on Monday to discuss further work for them.  They have over 100 tax returns on extension, and no doubt need help finishing them.

Yesterday I went to my big band practice, and it went very well.  The band is beginning to gel nicely.  The songs are tighter, we all seem to know what to do.  I feel increasingly confident in my ability to play bass with this band.  My ability to read notes gets better and better.  When you are playing music, and you intuitively know the chord changes, and your playing melds with that of the other musicians to create a joyous musical harmony, it is definitely thrilling.  You feel alive in an unusual way.  You are one with your instrument.  The music flows through you like electricity through a cord.  There is no better feeling.

One of my favorite sounds is trumpets with mutes.  The mute gives a very different sound to the trumpet.  One of the songs we play is "Don't Get Around Much Anymore."  The original big band recording of that song makes use of mutes for the trumpets.  (Have a listen here.)

After practice, I swung over to Aldo's Italian restaurant in Los Gatos, only five minutes away from the band's practice site, to join the after-tax dinner put on by the CPA firm, my new employer.  April 16 was, for me, an excellent day, with everything going right.  The high point was the band performance, but being seen as a valued employee by the CPA firm was a close second.  Both my bass skills and my tax skills are at a zenith, the highest point of my life.

So for today, I will enjoy my recent accomplishments.  At least until my wife insists that I do my laundry, which is piling up, and vacuum the dog's fur-ball contributions to our house.  And straighten up my music room.  And shred old tax documents.  I'll do it though, with a smile on my face.

Happy Easter

With thanks to Mrs. AOW for the image.

Amanda Knox's Long Nightmare Comes To An End

Amanda Knox is the college student who was wrongly convicted in Italy for the 2007 murder of her roommate, Meredith Kercher.  Having closely followed the case, the characters, the evidence and the facts, I became convinced early on that she was completely innocent of the crime.  That goes the same for her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, who was convicted along with Knox in 2009.

There was never any evidence of Knox and Sollecito's involvement.  No fingerprints, no DNA, no motive, no witnesses.  However, Giuliano Mignini, a prosecutor with a bad reputation for frivolous indictments dreamed up a "sex-game-gone-wrong" scenario in which Knox and Sollecito participated with one Rudy Guede to slash Meredith's throat.  The scenario's only basis was Mignini's dirty mind.

The real murderer-rapist-burglar was a black thug named Rudy Guede, whose DNA was all over the crime scene.  He received a sentence of only 16 years.  When he was being monitored on Skype, talking to a friend, he told that friend that Knox and Sollecito were not there.  He told other cell-mates the same thing:  the unlucky couple had nothing to do with the crime.  Mignini ignored it.  The two were convicted and sentenced to prison terms of around 25 years each.  They appealed.

In an appeals trial in 2011, forensic experts testified to the inadequacy of evidence to convict the two, and they were declared innocent and set free.  This didn't set well with a higher court in Rome, who ordered a third trial with a pre-selected verdict:  guilty as determined by the first trial.  Knox and Sollecito appealed to the Italian Supreme Court, who this week declared the two innocent, and even more, not only "not guilty by lack of evidence" but stated categorically that the two did not commit the crime.

Knox and Sollecito spent four years in prison for a crime they did not commit.  Knox was also convicted of defamation of her former barroom boss, Patrick Lumumba, for signing a statement that Lumumba killed Kercher.  However, she signed the statement, written not by her, but for her, by the Perugian police, after intense and abusive interrogation all night, without sleep or food.  She signed their statement under extreme duress, and repudiated it the next day after a few hours of sleep.  This unjust conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court, perhaps as insurance that she could not sue for the false imprisonment she was made to endure.  Because of that, she "owes" Lumumba around $54,000 in damages.  I hope she never pays a dime.

The players in this drama who deserve disgust and shame are as follows:

1.  Giuliano Mignini, the corrupt prosecutor who engineered the debacle in court.  May he suffer the shame and dishonor he richly deserves, for the rest of his miserable life.

2.  The fanatical "guilters," those people fanatically devoted to preserving the convictions, in spite of the total absence of evidence of guilt.  This includes a large number of Brits, who are incapable of logic or objective evaluation of the facts.  I suspect their anti-American prejudices are a large factor in their disgraceful attitudes.  I hope this final verdict sticks in their craws and gives them enormous amounts of stomach acid.

3.  The parents of Meredith Kercher, whose displaced anger and need for revenge has made them devoted to preserving the wrongful convictions.  Meredith Kercher was a fine, lovely young woman whose murder was a tragedy, and whose loss to the world is enormous.  However, her parents have covered themselves in shame, yearning as they did for a surrogate to punish for Meredith's death, while the real murderer was given a light sentence and soon will be free to walk the streets again.

4.  Ann Coulter, whose uninformed attacks on Knox displayed her considerable ignorance of the case and the facts.  She loved to label Knox as "convicted murderer Amanda Knox."  Now it is "acquitted innocent Amanda Knox."  Will Coulter apologize for her error?  Don't hold your breath.

Congratulations to Amanda Knox and Raffaele Solecito, two young college students whose lives were trashed by the corrupt, inefficient and deeply flawed Italian system of justice.  May their long-awaited healing begin, and may they get on with their lives and find peace.

Related Article:  Italian Court Throws Out Knox Conviction Once and for All.

A Stogie Update

I am busy working on taxes and I'll be glad when its April 16!  I've done a lot of corporate (both C Corps and S Corps), a trust, a couple of partnerships, and a number of individual tax returns.  My skills are sharper than ever before, and I have become quite familiar with the most popular tax software, Lacerte.

I used some of my pay to buy an Acoustic Image Contra bass amplifier for my string bass, and looking forward to trying it out with the band.

The weather here in Northern California is warm and sunny, bad for the drought, good for the morale.

Brett Kimberlin's Descent Into Litigation Madness

This week the federal court in Maryland finally got around to dismissing Brett Kimberlin's RICO lawsuit against all defendants.  A small portion of the suit remained, though it is no longer a RICO case.  Patrick Frey must still stand trial to discover if he violated Brett Kimberlin's civil rights by asking the FBI to investigate Kimberlin for his role in several swatting cases, including that of Patrick Frey.  Google it, if you want more info.

Since Frey is an assistant District Attorney, he may have been acting "under the color of law," which means he might have frightened Kimberlin into thinking he might be arrested for speaking out.  Obviously, assistant DA's are not able to request police investigation into a serious crime committed against them, because it might upset the suspected perpetrator, and that would violate the potential criminal's civil rights.  [Update:  Frey may not have to stand trial.  The case is moving into the discovery phase.  Based on the evidence that comes to light during discovery, Frey may be able to get a motion for summary judgment, which would end the case.]

Folks closer to the case think Frey will prevail, and I think so too.

Kimberlin is obsessed with William J.J. Hoge and intent on destroying the man through the court system.  The ink was hardly dry on the dismissal of Kimberlin's Peace Order petition against Hoge, when Kimberlin filed yet a SECOND RICO suit, naming all new defendants, with the exception of Hoge.  This absurd fantasy involves a big conspiracy by a firm of attorneys, H.B. Gary (a commercial business), the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and a bunch of other folks who have never met Brett Kimberlin.  Kimberlin refers to them as "Team Themis."

I read the complaint.  It is totally unclear to me how Kimberlin could have any legal standing in this lawsuit.  There is no mention of how any of these defendants wronged Kimberlin personally, and he has no standing to sue on behalf of anyone else.  I doubt that this suit will survive as long as the first RICO suit.  It is nothing but great glaring generalities, making accusations of various wrong-doings without any specifics, or who did what to whom, when and why.  Reading it, I am struck with a strong impression that Brett Kimberlin has simply lost his mind.

However, litigious Brett wasn't finished.  In the same week he filed a million dollar lawsuit against Home Depot.  Home Depot was recently the victim of hackers, who broke into its computer system and stole credit card information, which they then sold on the black market.  Kimberlin claims that one of those credit cards was his.  Actual damages that he claimed were around $75,000, plus one million dollars for punitive damages.

The only good thing about these lawsuits is that they may hurry the day when Brett Kimberlin is finally adjudged a vexatious litigant, and unable to file more lawsuits on his own without advance permission from a court, and without posting bond for the benefit of the defendants.

Brett Kimberlin's Battle of the Bulge Moment

In late 1944, the allies were closing in on Berlin from all sides.  The war for Germany was lost.  However, the German high command launched a desperate counterattack that became known as the Battle of the Bulge.  Not expecting the attack, allied troops retreated and many were captured.  Hitler's desperation move eventually came to naught, as allied troops pushed back and regained the momentum.  Hitler's last major offensive of the war had failed, and he took refuge in his Berlin bunker to await the end.

This past week Kimberlin launched his own version of the Battle of the Bulge.  It was a desperation counter attack on his most effective critic, William J.J. Hoge of Hogewash.com.  Brett Kimberlin (BK) and his dubious associates appear to be feeling the heat, that is, expecting Brett's RICO lawsuit to be thrown out soon, and then face the legal ramifications of filing a false and vexatious lawsuit in federal court.

Kimberlin sought to launch a counterpunch that might turn the tide in his favor:  he filed yet another vexatious action against Hoge, seeking a Maryland Peace Order, claiming that Hoge was obsessed with BK's teenage daughter.  The Peace Order demanded that Hoge stop harassing and stalking his daughter, and implied that Hoge was seeking Kimberlin's arrest in order to "save" Kimberlin's daughter.  Kimberlin presented some two-year old tweets, allegedly sent by Hoge, discussing BK's daughter as evidence that his claims were true.

However, they were not true.  In my opinion, this Peace Order petition was most likely a lame attempt to denigrate the credibility and reputation of William Hoge, to be cited and used as a counterclaim in any future legal actions against BK for malicious prosecution and forged documents presented to a court.

The Peace Order claim was a huge lie from beginning to end.  Hoge had done none of the things BK claimed, said none of the things BK claimed.  The tweets presented were innocuous, briefly discussing an online Gazette article about the daughter's musical pursuits, and Kimberlin's alleged attempt to insinuate himself into the story.  The tweets were not originated by Hoge, who had simply retweeted what others had previously tweeted.  When asked in court if these tweets were authored by him, Hoge stated truthfully that they were not.

Further, a Maryland Peace Order requires evidence that is not older than thirty days, and so the two-year old tweets were inadmissible, even if relevant, which they were not.  The Peace Order petition was denied.

Kimberlin's claims in the Peace Order were highly fictitious, and could conceivably be construed as perjury.  Nevertheless, there are some mutterings from a BK support site, Breitbart Unmasked, that say BK will seek to have Hoge prosecuted for perjury, that is, for denying that the irrelevant tweets were authored by him.  Hoge has presented clear evidence on his blog that prove he is correct:  the tweets were penned by Lee Stranahan.  So before BK attempts any actions to prosecute Hoge for non-existent perjury, he should consider that it is he who may be prosecuted for perjury, by making fictitious and frivolous claims in a Peace Order hearing.

Now that BK's "Battle of the Bulge" moment has passed, perhaps it is time for him and his associates to retire to their bunker and await the inevitable day of reckoning for the wicked.

Note:  I believe the facts as stated above are true; however, readers are invited to submit corrections to any inadvertent misstatements of fact.

See also Hoge's post about the case here, and Aaron Walker's detailed account here.

Jayzoo Cree, as the French Say: the Hijinks of Obama and Hillary

I am appalled at our Democrats-in-power.  Barack Obama entertaining the notion of raising taxes by Executive Order.  Obama trying to hatch a secret deal with the Iranians, which some say will grease the skids to their nuclear bomb -- and without the advice and consent of Congress.

Now Hillary has been called on the carpet for running her own email server and doing state business on it rather than on the official email server.  That's against the law, so why did  she do it?

She claims that she would have to have two iPhones or Blackberries to use two different email addresses, and opted for using just one, for convenience sake.  Horse puckey.  You can put several email addresses on a single iPhone, so that explanation is lame and doesn't wash.

The truth, I suspect, is that she was doing unethical things with Obama, things related to Benghazi and other scandals.  Her and Barack's plot to lie about the terrorist attack on Benghazi and pretend it was just a protest against an inflammatory video that got out of hand.  Yeah, that's the ticket.  It certainly wasn't because Obama and Hillary are incompetent boobs who didn't take security threats seriously -- especially with Obama up for reelection.