Ky. Plane Crash Survivor Asks 'Why?'(Prayer Request)

Washington Post.com ^ | September 6, 2006 | Jeffrey McMurray

[khnyny]

Ky. Plane Crash Survivor Asks 'Why?'

By JEFFREY McMURRAY The Associated Press Wednesday, September 6, 2006; 10:47 PM

LEXINGTON, Ky. -- The sole survivor of a plane crash that killed 49 people near the Lexington airport last week told family members from his hospital bed, "Why did God do this to me?" but he hasn't mentioned the crash, a close family friend said Wednesday.

James Polehinke, who was the flight's co-pilot, can move only his head, and tears often well up in his eyes, said Antonio Cruz, Polehinke's mother's boyfriend. He said the 44-year-old has been in and out of consciousness.

[PatrickHenry]

I'll probably be out until Monday.

[RadioAstronomer]

Have a good weekend!

[jennyp]

We actually pulled it at his own request.

That's not the point.

About the questions in post 63 & its replies...?

[jennyp]

Oops, sorry - post 57 & its replies.

[VadeRetro]

You too!

[VadeRetro]

That's funny, you warn him and kill him at the same time.

Same thing with HayekRocks. BANG! "Stop or I'll shoot!"

Must be an "IN" joke.

[MadameLefarge]

Better watch out buddy! You're next!

RWP used to think 'The Republican War on Science' was hyperbole. He is rapidly changing his opinion. The Deutsch affair, where the Bush administration appointed a 23-year old fundamentalist college dropout to rewrite NASA web pages to make them compliant with biblical literalism, and who attempted to muzzle a senior and distinguished NASA atmospheric scientist, was a very bad sign. The embrace of the trojan horse 'intelligent design', and even unapologetic creationism, by most conservative media, was a second. Now, it appears that Free Republic, the self-styled 'premier conservative web forum', is engaged in a full scale purge of scientists, or at least those scientists who outspokenly favor evolution.

RWP himself was banned a few months ago, for demanding that the site ban a deranged nutcase who went by the name of Agamemnon (actually an unemployed fundamentalist biochemist from Connecticut), who was posting overt libel. Agamemnon has now re-registered under the username Conservative Biochemist; he and Jim Robinson, the dictator of FR, will soon be the happy recipients of 'cease and desist' letters. But this week, the pace has accelerated:

• one pro-evolution poster was banned for pointing out that several quotations purportedly refuting the concept of the Separation of Church and State were in fact misrepresented. One can see why this would bother Jim Robinson, since he has himself in the past posted fake Madison quotes for the same purpose
• another poster, a physicist, was banned today for questioning the sincerity of the co-pilot in the Kentucky plane crash, who had asked for prayers.
• still another poster, a mathematician, was banned for the trumped up reason having two accounts; something that many if not most posters have created.

Over the last three years, FR has gone from a forum where a diverse range of conservatives and libertarians, secular and religious conservatives could debate the future of the movement, to the point where questioning even the most extreme claims of the Religious Right is cause for banning. And, of course, science challenges those claims, so science must be purged. In this respect, FR has become a microcosm of the Republican Party itself, which, unable or unwilling to carry out most of the substantive parts of the conservative agenda, despite four years of bicameral majorities, and faced with multiple foreign policy disasters, including a bloody and seemingly interminable war in Iraq, has reduced itself to empty gestures and petty assaults on the Establishment Clause, to satisfy an ever contracting base of fundamentalist Christians.

Free Republic once boasted a fair quota of conservative thinkers and intellectuals, and had a measurable impact on the 2004 election, It has become a cultural zoo of the worst sterotypes of conservatism: proudly ignorant, woefully illiterate, violently abusive biblical literalists. To everything there is a season, and the summer of Free Republic has turned to late fall. Requiescat in pace.

[RadioAstronomer]

Not a whisper yet. WOW!

[khnyny]

It's a prayer request dude, not an idealogical debate. I think you're a troll, but hey, unlike some Democrats, I understand free speech, lol. I didn't respond earlier, as I was out having fun, instead of bashing a request for compassion for someone who is obviously suffering (along with the rest of the Comair victims). You've obviously got agendas, opinions and issues which far outreach the scope of this particular thread. God bless.

[Jim Robinson]

Well, obviously, there are people out there wanting to do harm to FR.
Jim

[Jim Robinson]

"Why did you warn orionblamblam and ban him at the same time?

And for that matter, why did you ban Tortoise, of all people???

Just what is going on here???"

There were two moderators involved. Apparently, the first moderator sent a warning to orionblamblam and the second moderator didn't see the warning, but banned him.

Regarding Tortoise, I happened to notice that he registered and started posting under a second account. Thinking he was changing his name, I closed his old account. Later, he asked for his new account to be closed. I don't know why.

There is no conspiracy and no purge.

Jim

[JCEccles]

Free Republic once boasted a fair quota of conservative thinkers and intellectuals, and had a measurable impact on the 2004 election, It has become a cultural zoo of the worst sterotypes of conservatism: proudly ignorant, woefully illiterate, violently abusive biblical literalists.

Does Howard Dean write your stuff?

By my count there are very few "biblical literalists" posting at FR.

On the other hand, there are many exceptionally well-educated conservatives at FR who have the deepest respect for the legitimate claims of science and who enthusiastically applaud the efforts of honest, open-minded scientists in unlocking the secrets of nature and the cosmos. These same conservatives can also detect when science has strayed beyond its bounds and become a quasi-religious dogma, pitched by materialist snake oil salesman as the "one true way of knowing."

Even that hubris would be tolerable if the machinery of government were not employed to coerce obeisance to its outrageous faith claims in the public schools and public squares of this great nation. That hubris is no more acceptable in its Darwinist trappings than it ever was in the traditional religion trappings of bygone eras. It is a stench in the nostrils of all conservatives of good faith and diligence.

Darwinists of this ilk are at war not with biblical literalists, but with conservatism itself. They march solidly in perfect cadence with the most obnoxious elements of the radical fascist left.

[jennyp]

OK, thanks.

[RunningWolf]

Tragedy and trauma strikes all of us in this life in the most unimaginable ways and it there never a good time for it.

I give my prayers to the Lord for Him to Shepard and guide all the souls lost or touched by this event (in this life and beyond) including the young pilots and control tower people.

W.

[RunningWolf]

"These same conservatives can also detect when science has strayed beyond its bounds and become a quasi-religious dogma, pitched by materialist snake oil salesman as the "one true way of knowing."

Bravo Touche Bump

'Wolf

[syriacus]

You are talking to a banned ex freeper.

I know. I hope he's lurking.

[VadeRetro]

Well, at least YOU're still here, for now. Ms. Lefarge was gone before my coffee was warm this AM.

Yeah. RWP is doing important research in the War on Terror. (He's figuring how to easily detect that favorite of shoe-bombers, peroxide-based explosives.) That's on the job.

While he was posting on FR, he was a voice of science and reason against the tide of shrill antiscience religious hysteria. By comparision, Agamemnon--in or ot of his latest sneakback identity--is nothing but part of the problem and one of the worst parts.

[VadeRetro]

Agamemnon--in or ot of his latest sneakback identity...

Just noticed that "Conservative Biochemist" who was obviously the departed Aggie is nuked.