Wednesday, June 16, 2010


Government official vindictive over being upstaged by a private operator

Raft guide arrested after helping stranded rafter

Clear Creek sheriff's deputies on Thursday arrested a rafting guide for swimming to a stranded young rafter who had tumbled from his boat on Clear Creek.

Ryan Daniel Snodgrass, a 28-year-old guide with Arkansas Valley Adventures rafting company, was charged with "obstructing government operations," said Clear Creek Sheriff Don Krueger.

"He was told not to go in the water, and he jumped in and swam over to the victim and jeopardized the rescue operation," said Krueger, noting that his office was deciding whether to file similar charges against another guide who was at the scene just downstream of Kermitts Roadhouse on U.S. 6.

Duke Bradford, owner of Arkansas Valley Adventures, said Snodgrass did the right thing by contacting the 13-year-old Texas girl immediately and not waiting for the county's search and rescue team to assemble ropes, rafts and rescuers.

"When you have someone in sight who has taken a long swim, you need to make contact immediately," said Bradford, a 15-year rafting guide and ski patroller from Summit County. "This is just silly. Ryan Snodgrass acted entirely appropriately. These guys came to the scene late and there was a rescue in progress. They came in and took over an existing rescue. To leave a patient on the side of a river while you get your gear out of the car and set up a rescue system you read about in a book is simply not good policy."

Snodgrass' raft flipped on the runoff-swelled Clear Creek around noon Thursday and the girl swam from the raft. Krueger said the girl was missing for 30 to 45 minutes while Snodgrass searched for her. He said she swam a half mile from the spot where the raft capsized.

Since it had been so long, Krueger said, it was no longer the rafting company's rescue. "They should involve themselves up to a point. They lost contact. Whether they want to say they were trying to rescue their customer, when they had lost visual contact and had no idea where their customer has been for 30 to 45 minutes, then it becomes our issue."

Bradford said he would expect his guides to do the same thing again. His guides are professionals, he said, trained and certified in swiftwater rescue.

"To jump into water and navigate a river in a swiftwater rescue is common. You get into the river and swim. You have to do it," Branford said. "The fact these guys don't understand that is disturbing. Making contact immediately with your victim is essential. It's not about who is in charge. It's about the safety of a 13-year-old girl. You are going to do everything in your power to insure the safety of your guest, and if that means in Idaho Springs you get arrested, well I guess we'll just get arrested."

SOURCE

A commenter on the article adds:

I know a lot more about these things than you'd like to believe. I have been an avid outdoorsman since I was old enough to walk alone, and leaned to the extreme side of outdoors adventure since I was old enough to drive. I have seen rescues, I have been a part of search and rescues, and I have even assisted the rescue squad in an underwater search and recovery effort, I know how fast hypothermia can set in on even one who thinks they feel fine especially when wet. I know how important the human factor can be in a rescue effort, I know the dangers of swift water rescues (I am swift water rescue certified).

I know rescue squads. I know exactly how slow they are to act, I know exactly how poorly trained most of them are (Most are just volunteers that have taken classes but have no real world experience.). I know that in some situations I would have done the same as that particular guide did. Not because of an responsibility to a company or client, but because I know what I am capable of. He assessed the situation himself, and did the job that they obviously didn't know or couldn't figure out how how to do.

People are speaking legalities. SCREW legalities. ONE MAN BY HIMSELF was able to do something in minutes that lord knows how many tools on the other river bank hadn't even gotten figured out yet. The Sherriff was embarrassed that his crew of multiple people couldn't even accomplish that so he's punishing the hero here.

I know one thing. When rescue squads are involved, sometimes they save people, sometimes they recover bodies. Often time corpse recovery could have been avoided if they would have thrown legalities aside and let people that do these types of actions all the time get in there and get it done instead of dillying aroung trying to remember what the class they took 10 years ago said to do.

I and a couple of my friends saved a friend from a cave accident faster than the rescue squad in the nearest could even get a crew assembled, difference was the authorities in that town patted me on the back rather than putting me in handcuffs.

Update

There is some evidence that the big-headed sheriff is backing down. He clearly abused his authority. There was no need to arrest anyone. If he thought he had a case he could have proceeded through the courts anyway. He is just a thug who loves having a badge. There are many like him -- as frequently documented on Strange Justice.






British comedian 'afraid' to joke about Islam

Rory Bremner, the political impressionist, said he fears joking about Islam could lead to his death due to the "chilling" issue of fundamentalism.

Bremner said self-censorship was the biggest obstacle today for comedians addressing topical issues, due to fears of retribution by extremists.

His comments came as he discussed the future of satire with Sir David Frost on a BBC documentary, Frost on Satire, to be broadcast on Thursday. He said: "The greatest danger now is that one of the toughest issues of our time is religion. "When [I'm] writing a sketch about Islam, I'm writing a line and I think, 'If this goes down badly, I'm writing my own death warrant there.' Because there are people who will say, 'Not only do I not think that's funny but I'm going to kill you' – and that's chilling."

Bremner used as an example the case where a cartoonist in Denmark was the subject of alleged murder plots over an image he drew of the prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb in a turban. He said: "If you're a Danish cartoonist and you work in a Western tradition, people don't take that too seriously.

"Suddenly you're confronted by a group of people who are fundamentalist and extreme and they say, 'We're going to kill you because of what you have said or drawn.' Where does satire go from there, because we like to be brave but not foolish."

Sir David professed himself "surprised" at Bremner's comments that he feared a joke could put his life in danger.

SOURCE






Oklahoma Lawmakers Seek Voter Backing to Ban Shariah From Courts‏

Oklahoma lawmakers are asking voters to weigh in on a proposal that would ban local courts from considering Shariah or other international law in their rulings.

The unusual measure calling for an amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution was approved in late May by the state Senate, sending the issue to voters in the fall in the form of a ballot question.

Though the question's supporters have not pointed to any specific outbreak of Shariah, or Islamic law, being considered in the U.S. judicial system, they describe it as an encroaching threat. State Rep. Rex Duncan, author of the measure, has called the ballot question a "preemptive strike" against Shariah coming to his state.

Duncan said in a statement after the vote that he hopes other states will soon follow Oklahoma's lead.

"Judges in other states and on the federal bench have increasingly turned to citing international law in their court decisions, something I and others feel is grossly inappropriate in a sovereign state such as our own," he said.

In an interview with The Edmond Sun, Duncan said the courts' willingness in Britain to consider Shariah has become "a cancer upon the survivability of the U.K." He said the ballot question "will constitute a preemptive strike against Shariah Law coming to Oklahoma."

The amendment would require courts to adhere to the laws of the U.S. and state constitutions, as well as federal and state statutes. It would prohibit the courts from considering "the legal precepts of other nations or cultures," including Shariah.

SOURCE





Newsweak Attacks Marriage

You can't always learn what malignant objectives leftists are pursuing by listening to what they accuse the resistance of. Sometimes you have to stoop to reading their most execrable publications — like MSNBC's website, which recently proclaimed in flagrant opposition to all evidence that fathers are not needed, or Newsweek, which asks us to believe that marriage isn't either:
Once upon a time, marriage made sense. … But 40 years after the feminist movement established our rights in the workplace, a generation after the divorce rate peaked, and a decade after Sex and the City made singledom chic, marriage is — from a legal and practical standpoint, anyway — no longer necessary.

Since our liberal rulers stack the deck against marriage, we may as well abandon the whole notion:
Thanks largely to the efforts of same-sex-marriage advocates, heterosexual couples have more unmarried rights to partnership now than ever. … To put the icing on the cake, it often pays to stay single: federal law favors unmarried taxpayers in almost every case — only those whose incomes are wildly unequal get a real tax break — and under President Obama's new health plan, low-earning single people get better subsidies to buy insurance. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth, writing for the Hudson Institute, put it, "Goodbye, marriage." As of 2013, "unwed Americans may find it even more advantageous — financially, anyway — to stay single."

Even more astonishing arguments in favor of abandoning holy matrimony include the claims that "having children out of wedlock lost its stigma a long time ago" (maybe it has among liberals); "women who use their partner's [i.e., husband's] name are regarded as less intelligent, less competent, less ambitious, and thus less likely to be hired"; and "the permanence of marriage seems naive, almost arrogant." Anthropologist Helen Fisher is trotted out from her ivory tower to announce that humans are actually meant to have monogamous relationships that last only for three or four years. Apparently kids don't need families after that.

This pernicious garbage is belied by our moonbat overlords' motives in publishing it. American society has to be destroyed before it can be "fundamentally transformed" (i.e., replaced by something radically different and unspeakably vile). The liberal media's hostility toward the family confirms that it is what holds our civilization together.

SOURCE

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Political correctness is most pervasive in universities and colleges but I rarely report the incidents concerned here as I have a separate blog for educational matters.

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, GREENIE WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, GUN WATCH, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, DISSECTING LEFTISM, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN (Note that EYE ON BRITAIN has regular posts on the reality of socialized medicine). My Home Pages are here or here or here or Email me (John Ray) here. For readers in China or for times when blogger.com is playing up, there is a mirror of this site here.

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