Category Archives: National

Marine Corps officials: 4 Marines killed in training accident at Camp Pendleton in California

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SAN DIEGO – Four Marines were killed Wednesday in a training accident at Camp Pendleton in Southern California, base officials said.

The accident happened at 11 a.m. during a range maintenance operation at the San Diego County coastal base. Officials were investigating the cause and provided no further details on the training or the accident.

The identities of the dead were being withheld pending notification of relatives.

“We offer our heartfelt prayers and condolences to the families of the Marines lost today in this tragic accident,” said Brig. Gen. John W. Bullard, commanding general of Marine Corps Installations West at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton. “Our first priority is to provide the families with the support they need during this difficult time.”

More at FOX News

Hundreds Attend Lonely Veteran’s Funeral After Sad Obit Goes Viral

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ku-bigpicWorld War II vet Harold Jellicoe “Coe” Percival passed away peacefully in his sleep last month at the age of 99. According to his obituary, Harold had “no close family who can attend his funeral.”

Enter: The Internet.

After a scan of the former RAF Bomber Command ground crew member obituary appeared online last week, many took special note of the sentence asking for “any service personnel who can” to kindly attend his funeral, which was scheduled for this morning at 11 AM Blackpool time.

A call to action soon coalesced as the obit made its way around Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit.

“If you’re in the area give him the send off he deserves,” asked Sgt. Rick Clement, an Afghanistan War vet who was wounded in the line of duty. “This guy needs and deserves your help.”

More at Gawker

‘Thanksgivukkah’: The Thanksgiving and Chanukah hybrid.

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We are being taught of the virtues of hybrid cars over fossil fuel vehicles. This year there will be an unusual holiday hybrid as Chanukah, commonly called Hanukkah, will be celebrated starting on Thanksgiving. The celebration will begin, this year, sunset on Wednesday, November 27, 2013, and ends in the evening of Thursday, December 5.

The fact that Thanksgiving and Chanukah fall on the same day is so rare that it won’t happen again for another 77,000 years.

This combination gave Stephen Colbert the opportunity to attack Christians, Jews (but not as bad), and America on his Colbert Report.

Most people have not taken the time to find out what Hanukkah is, exactly. Most Americans only know of the holiday because of its usual proximity to Christmas. The holiday is not considered that high on the Jewish calendar and is not of religious significance.

The Jewish Virtual Library Chanukah is a celebration of the Jewish people, led by the Maccabbees, over the Greeks. After their victory over the Greeks, the people went to rededicate the temple, but there was only enough oil to burn in the temple menorah for one day. The miracle is that the menorah burned for eight-days. The Festival of Lights celebrates the miracle of the oil, not the victory of war.

It is tradition to give presents each of the eight-days of items that are useful to the receiver, such as clothing, food and the like.

Interestingly the book of the Maccabbees is removed from the King James Bible while being retained in the Apocrypha used by the Catholics. The Catholics apparently did not add the Apocrypha until the Council of Trent (1546 AD). This is probably because of the descendants of the Maccabbees. The descendants are known in the New Testament as the Herods of the time of Jesus. There are arguments against the Apocrypha being considered inspired by God as is the Holy Bible.

Thanksgiving is supposed to be a celebration of thanks to God. Children today are only taught to think of turkey and pumpkin pie. Rarely are the Pilgrims mentioned and the Mayflower Compact is strictly forbidden teaching in schools.

Just as Chanukah is not about the victory, Thanksgiving is not about getting stuffed and watching football. It is about giving thanks to God for all that one has received through the year. Far from being closed for the holidays, churches should be open and having worship services.

Kenny’s Story- The Formerly Paralyzed Doberman

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In April of 2013, Two Hands Four Paws founder Leslie Gallagher received a call from Doberman Rescue regarding a paralyzed Doberman named Kenny. Kenny had suffered a traumatic event to his neck, possibly due to a kennel gate being dropped on him. He was rendered paralyzed in all four legs, completely unable to move. Due to the potential costs of a proper diagnosis and restorative surgery, euthanasia was proposed. Lisa contacted Leslie for advice. Leslie subsequently offered to take Ken in and try to work her magic one more time. The odds were not in her favor.

The staff at Two Hands Four Paws worked diligently for a month to get some functionality back into Ken’s legs. They were met with minimal success. Kenny had to be carried everywhere, he was unable to urinate on his own, and he was in terrible pain. At the end of the first month he developed cancerous tumors that needed to be removed. While recovering from surgery Kenny developed pneumonia which landed him back in the hospital. It was a low point. After spending several days under the watchful eyes of hospital staff, Kenny recovered and came home.

Read more and see more videos at Two Hands Four Paws

Urbee 2, the 3D-Printed Car That Will Drive Across the Country

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It may look like a bean, but the hybrid car Urbee 2 can get hundreds of miles to the gallon—and it’s made mostly via 3D printing. In two years, it could become the first such vehicle to drive across the United States.

In early 1903, physician and car enthusiast Horatio Nelson Jackson accepted a $50 bet that he could not cross the United States by car. Just a few weeks later, on May 23, he and mechanic Sewall K. Crocker climbed into a 20-hp Winton in San Francisco and headed east. Accompanied by Bud, a pit bull they picked up along the way, the two men arrived in New York 63 days, 12 hours, and 800 gallons of fuel later, completing the nation’s first cross-country drive.

About two years from now, Cody and Tyler Kor, now 20 and 22 years old, respectively, will drive coast-to-coast in the lozenge-shaped Urbee 2, a car made mostly by 3D printing. Like Jackson and Crocker, the young men will take a dog along for the ride—Cupid, their collie and blue heeler mix. Unlike Jackson and Crocker, they will spend just 10 gallons of fuel to complete the trip from New York to San Francisco. Then they will refuel, turn around, and follow the same west-to-east route taken by Jackson, Crocker, and Bud.

Read more at Popular Mechanics

Melissa Joan Hart Subjected to Death Wishes for ‘Simple Tweet’ Supporting GOP

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Melissa Joan Hart, the actress most well known for playing “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch,” told HuffPost Live that, because she tweeted her support of Mitt Romney, she was overwhelmed with hateful insults in 2012.

“I got called every name in the book. And told I was, you know, they hope I die, and that they hope my children are gay which was, somehow, supposed to be some kind of punishment,” Hart said.

She said people called her names she wouldn’t say on the program. “The hate was really unbelievable, that I got just for saying that simple tweet.”

Read more at CNS News

Huge fish ‘from Mars’ caught in Elliott Bay

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A sunfish weighing up to 350 pounds was caught within view of the Seattle skyline on Tuesday night. It took four men to pull the fish aboard a boat.

By Mark Yuasa
Seattle Times staff reporter

The warm ocean currents that drift north every summer off the Washington coast can bring along some bizarre nonnative fish.

The latest unusual fish to show up didn’t occur in the ocean, but way inside Puget Sound right in front of the downtown Seattle skyline.

On Tuesday night, Todd LaClair, a Muckleshoot tribal fisherman, got his gill net tangled into something huge in Elliott Bay off Harbor Island.

“I was fishing at about 100 feet deep, and as I pulled in the net I could feel that it was big,” LaClair said. “When it first came up, it startled me and looked like something that came from Mars.”

LaClair soon discovered that it was a giant sunfish — also known as a mola — which he estimated at 325 to 350 pounds. The fish was so large that he asked for assistance from a larger vessel, and with the help of three other people managed to bring the fish aboard.

Read more and see picture at The Seattle Times

Minister sentenced to 2 years for setting fire

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Faked “Hate” crime

A black Baptist minister from Chesterfield County was sentenced Thursday to serve two years in prison for setting his front porch ablaze in a phony hate crime attack that included racist graffiti he painted to deceive police.

Olander D. Cuthrell, 41, a minister of music at Gospel Shepherd Baptist Church, told the judge he was both ashamed and embarrassed for pouring a mixture of oil and gasoline across part of his family’s front porch and igniting it March 15 after becoming overwhelmed by financial problems.

Minutes before, he spray-painted the N-word on two sides of his rental house in the 7800 block of Little Ridge Court to divert attention from himself and bolster his claim of being the target of a racially motivated attack.

He further perpetuated the fraud by igniting a 16-ounce bottle filled with oil and gas inside an inoperable, family-owned 1992 BMW parked outside the house.

Read more at Richmond Times Dispatch

Pro-Gun Sheriff Found Not Guilty

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Jury nullifies false arrest of Nick Finch who supported Second Amendment

103113finch340Nick Finch, the Florida sheriff arrested in June after he defended the Second Amendment, has been declared “not guilty” of the charges brought against him by the State of Florida, according to Richard Mack.

The Liberty Co. sheriff was charged with felony “official misconduct” and “falsifying public records” after he released a suspect arrested on an unconstitutional gun charge and removed the arrest file.

After closing arguments by prosecutors and the defense, the jury took less than 90 minutes to reach its verdict.

Finch said today on the Alex Jones Show that the judge and the prosecutors were “not surprised” over his acquittal.

“They knew that they had no case,” he said.

Finch is expected to return to his duties as sheriff.

During the trial, the sheriff testified that he released Floyd Eugene Parrish, who was arrested for unlawfully carrying a firearm, because he believed the Second Amendment trumped all state gun laws.

Read more at Infowars
SEE ALSO: The New American

J. Robinson Risner, fighter pilot and leader of Hanoi Hilton prisoners, dies at 88

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By Steve Chawkins
Los Angeles Times

Brig. Gen. J. Robinson 'Robbie' Risner is credited with destroying eight MiG-15s and damaging another while assigned to the 336 Fighter Squadron in South Korea. On Sept. 21, 1952, the then-major scored double kills. He achieved ace status on Sept. 15, 1952, downing his fifth MiG-15. U.S. Air Force

Brig. Gen. J. Robinson ‘Robbie’ Risner is credited with destroying eight MiG-15s and damaging another while assigned to the 336 Fighter Squadron in South Korea. On Sept. 21, 1952, the then-major scored double kills. He achieved ace status on Sept. 15, 1952, downing his fifth MiG-15.
U.S. Air Force

The captured fighter pilot had already been through so much at the infamous Hanoi Hilton.

He had been beaten up and starved, thrown for months into a dark cell crawling with rats, held immobile with his legs pinned in stocks, and strapped with ropes so tightly that his right arm was torn from its socket. When he passed out from pain, the ropes were briefly loosened until the ordeal could start yet again.

Now, with his jailers ordering him to do a propaganda broadcast, J. Robinson Risner, in the solitude of his cell, tried to destroy his voice.

“I began pounding my throat as hard as I could,” he wrote in his 1973 memoir “The Passing of the Night.” After he delivered repeated judo chops to his larynx, he drank a paste made from acidic lye soap and intensified the burn by screaming as loud as he could into a rag he clamped over his mouth.

Read more at LA Times

Source: Stars and Stripes