Greta: On the Scene (VIDEO)
Greta goes on the scene and shows us the places Natalee Holloway and Joran van der Sloot went, how they met, and what may have been her last night.
Download and view video here.
Kalpoe Brothers Washed Car?
(via Riehl World View)
Dan is reporting that several different parties saw the two Kalpoe brothers clean their car from a spot away from their home after Natalee went missing.
More Help Needed
Alabama Senator Richard Shelby has written a letter to our FBI director, Secretary of State Condi Rice, and Aruban’s foriegn minister for more help to Aruba to assist in the investigation.
No Body, Yes Murder
Chief prosecutor Carin Janssen says she can still try the boys for murder even if there is no body.
Kalpoe Family Says No to Search
Scared Monkeys has information that the Kalpoe family denied the Texas EquuSearch team access to their property.
However, unfortunately the group received a no welcome at the house of the Kalpoe family at Hooiberg.
DIARIO was also present, when on Wednesday, 12 noon, the Texas Equusearch team was in the area and was doing a search around the house. That way, the search can be done quickly and if there is nothing found, it can be deduced that there is nothing to be found.
But when they went to knock on the door of the Kalpoe family, [Texas Equusearch] received a You-Are-Not-Welcome-Here attitude. The mother of Satish and Deepak came out, and denied the Texas Equusearch team access on her property. Not even when they explained to her in a well-mannered way that the search would only make it clear that there was ‘nothing’ there, the denial stayed.
Guilty?
2:45 PM EST
On Aruba there will be a moment of silence at 2:45pm EST to mark one month of the disappearance of Natalee Holloway
Civility vs. Ass-Kicking
Dan Riehl is a civilized man. The blogging businessman from New Jersey wrote an entry sometime early this morning or late last night titled An Open Letter To Aruba. It is a carefully worded and infinitely diplomatic bit of writing from Dan.
First, Dan said the following in reference to an as-yet unnamed Caribbean media outlet:
Recently, at least one media outlet has been consistently inquiring as to Natalee’s friends. Who are/were her boyfriends? How many were her boyfriends? And today it is my understanding that this media outlet not only asked these questions, but also believes it somehow has a right to demand answers from Natalee Holloway’s family. And you broadcast this on the air?
Then Dan gracefully began to make his point:
…There can be only one extremely self serving rationale behind such questions being asked in the public media at this time, especially as all ethical and reliable media can easily validate the honorable truth. Natalee was a high school student and a vibrant, good hearted young woman of more than average or reasonable moral character…
Dan hones his point nicely in the penultimate paragraph of the entry thusly:
…(B)e careful, Aruba. In terms of legal issues and public perception, if there is anything America detests more than seeing the guilty go free, it is seeing the innocent dragged down into the mud, in this case the mud of a rock and sand island we really could manage to do fine without, should a significant portion of our population so choose…
See? The above was stated firmly and the message is obvious, but it was done with civility. I like it when bloggers are civil. As anyone who has ever received an e-mail from me knows, like Hannibal Lecter, “Discourtesy is unspeakably ugly to me.” After Tom & Red at Scared Monkeys posted what I termed their “Monkey Manifesto” yesterday in response to what they perceived to be criticism from the estimable Michelle Malkin, Ms. Malkin wrote the following:
I think my post has been completely misconstrued. The gentlemen at Scared Monkeys interpret my comments as “sniping” when all I was doing was politely observing that, despite my own misgivings, their work is finding a large audience. One of the Scared Monkeys’ commenters requests that someone “bitch slap” me for my post.Crikey.
Dan Riehl has a much more thoughtful response here. As I’ve let all these gentlemen know, I wish them continued success with their blogs and will continue to read them with interest…
Classy, ain’t she?
I am inspired by such discourse. Many coming to this blog unfamiliar with me may not know that my main calling has been in the arts, as a classical musician, an operatic tenor. The opera world is a rarified one, to say the least, demanding a deep understanding of what “class” truly is. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been a bit of a sore thumb hobnobbing in white tie and tails at country club parties for the opera board, comfortable only when I stood in front of them, singing songs of love and death.
Because after this Tennessee Volunteer living in by-Gawd Georgia understood what Dan was getting at, I realized what Dan wrote was much better said by him than an unstable cracker like me. Certain things, you see, will make me jettison all my education in the fine arts, my understanding of the word “nuance” as the French actually mean it, my acquired façade of unaccented tenorial dignity and just get redneck on a body. As understanding of Dan’s news about certain Caribbean media outlets seeking so much in-depth information about Natalee Holloway’s boyfriends, her friends, et cetera, dawned on me, I saw that I had a piece to say, too. I mean, I’m only re-stating Mr. Riehl’s point, which is not necessary, as he said it very well himself — but in my mind, the point could be made in the following manner; maybe y’all had best think twice before you go trying to rattle any bones in the Holloway family closet, my good, good friends on the lovely island of Aruba, because if you choose to somehow flip this story around and attempt to make it look like the teen from Alabama either got what was coming to her or was behaving so irresponsibly that she was her own victim, there are plenty of people up in these parts who will boycott your butts into the great plaintain famine of ought-five. Andy Jackson, Ben Franklin, and George Washington will say sayonara and you will be wishing you were at least in Tijuana, and have to resort to barbecuing your native iguanas. Or should I say it like this — the average American needs no prompting from our government to get a grassroots movement started aimed at draining all American tourist dollars from Aruba for the near future, ensuring your screaming across the pond to those frosty Netherlanders for help and additionally ensuring that whatever Caribbean media outlet thinks it will make a fast buck by dishing dirt on a kid who at the moment is inarguably a victim of something is busted back budget-wise to sending out the news by morse code with coconut shells. To be totally clear, I’m talkin’ a good old-fashioned economic ass-whuppin’ for yer lack of manners.
I know the run-on sentences are a bear, but I felt it necessary to underline with text the manner in which I might speak the words above. Maybe there is a little bit of the fact that Natalee Holloway and her family are fellow southerners behind my own words. That, and the fact that she is missing, and we know at least one young man sitting in an Aruban jail has a better idea of what happened to her than just about anyone else on that island. A young man who, unlike Natalee, as best as I can tell, put who he was, or who he wanted others to perceive, out there for anyone handy with a search engine to find. Joran van der Sloot yanked as much of his internet persona off the web as he could before he was arrested, but he was out there long enough for even a dumb hick blogger like me to see that he was looking for “fling/physical” relationships, that one of his favorite sayings was “Don’t hate the player; hate the game.” He didn’t take everything down fast enough for us to not discover that he had screen names designed to manipulate the types of responses he might get from those interested in his profile — “broken_harted_loverboy” (sic) or just plain “loverboy362.”
Believe it or not, I worked just as hard on finding background on Natalee, good or bad, as I did on finding web-based evidence of who Joran van der Sloot, and Satish and Deepak Kalpoe were. Guess what? There wasn’t anything to find. She was what everyone said she was at first… at the worst, too naive, not yet cynical enough about the wide, wide world into which she’d made one of her first big steps. A ready target for any smooth-talking “loverboy” fond of blondes like he might find all over his homeland.
So y’all dig, if you want to, Caribbean media — but be assured that gentlemen like Dan Riehl, who has quite an audience, and loudmouths one generation removed from men who sold cows to crooked revenuers for whiskey like me, who if nothing else are obnoxious, will call you out by your name if we think what you are doing is fundamentally wrong. Remember, too, that one of the prettiest beaches where I personally have had the pleasure of turning from alabaster white to boiled lobster pink, where I have had the pleasure of spending my hard-earned American dollars, is just a few scant miles from my parents’ house, the home they retired to, in Gulf Shores, Alabama.
Letters for Natalee (VIDEO)
Natalee’s aunt Marcia Twitty is now asking Americans to send letters to the Dutch Ambassador to the United States for MORE HELP. This is a great idea, watch the video for all the details.
Download and watch the video here.
Linda Allison says Paul is Hiding Something (VIDEO)
SCARBOROUGH COUNTRY: Natalee’s Aunt Linda Allison was interviewed by Joe this evening to talk about what Paul[us] van der Sloot is hiding. Earlier it was brought to the public that the elder van der Sloot said “No body, no murder”. We know for sure he is hiding something from the public when the voice detector found his voice to be quite suspicious.
Download and watch the video here.
Carin Janssen Interviewed by Martin Savidge (VIDEO)
On Scarborough tonight, Martin Savidge interview chief prosecutor Caren Janssen to talk about the information the Aruban government has and doesn’t have. Janssen talks about the evidence they have and what they are doing with it.
Download the video of the interview here.
