Violent SWAT raid leaves St. Paul family traumatized, two pets shot dead

 Mello and Laylo, both killed by the St. Paul SWAT. (Source: KMSP)

A SWAT team left a family traumatized and mourning the loss of two beloved family pets that were abruptly gunned down in their living room during a surprise morning raid.  In the wake of their devastation, police walked away with enough evidence to issue a $200 ticket.

At approximately 7:00 a.m. on Wednesday, July 9th, the home of Camille Perry and Larry Lee Arman was breached with a battering ram, and strange men charged in with rifles and opened fire on their pets.

Mr. Arman, owner of a towing business, says he was laying asleep when he heard the front door breached and then the gunfire.

“The first thing I heard was ‘boom,’” he recalled to KMSP. “Bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. Right in front of us.”

More with video @ Police State USA

NC = 3: 10 Best Southern barbecue spots C

Via Cousin John

http://www.seriouseats.com/images/sandwich-a-day-skylight-inn-whole-hog-bbq-barbecue-tray-ayden-nc.jpg

Call it barbecue, barbeque, BBQ, or just plain 'cue; all throughout the South, millions of people call it lunch or dinner. A steady stream of visitors make a point to explore the region's most beloved and best-known cuisine type, the style of which often varies from state to state. Some purveyors offer "low and slow" pit barbecue; others smoke their meat over indirect fire at higher temperatures. From Memphis's legendary rib joints to North Carolina's whole hog spots, here are 10 of the best spots for enjoying Southern barbecue.

More @ USA Today

California 8th graders maneuvered into Holocaust denial, anti-Semitic slurs

A student's musings on the Holocaust-as-a-hoax essay assignment. (Source: LA Daily News)
Looking at an 8th grader's writing?/printing tells all you need to know about education today.

Loyal members of LU Nation will remember a post by Howard Portnoy in May 2014, outlining an outrageous classroom assignment given to 8th graders in Rialto, California:

Here is the assignment, which was handed out in April:

“[S]ome people claim the Holocaust is not an actual historical event, but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain. Based upon your research on this issue, write an argumentative essay, utilizing cited textual evidence, in which you explain whether or not you believe the Holocaust was an actual event in history, or merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain. Remember to address counterclaims (rebuttals) to your stated claim.”

Iran teams up terrorists to attack Israel

 140712rockets

In the last 24 hours, the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group reopened an operational room with Hamas to coordinate regional militant developments, including attacks against Israel, informed Middle Eastern defense officials told WND.

The operational room, commissioned at the direction of Iran, is located in Lebanon and is coordinating with the Hamas command and control in the Gaza Strip, the defense officials said.
Further, the defense officials said they are aware of Hezbollah plans to bring more weapons into the Gaza Strip in the coming days.

In another alarming development, the defense officials said the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad terrorist organization is not answering to Hamas and is shooting rockets into Israel at times without the approval of Hamas leaders. The move could complicate any cease-fire achieved between Israel and Hamas, and it gives Iran more discretion over the Gazan Palestinian arena.

More @ WND

World Cup fan loses modeling contract over hunting photo

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A Belgian soccer fan landed a once-in-a-lifetime modeling contract with L’Oreal in while cheering at the World Cup in Brazil, but shortly after she posted a hunting photo to Facebook, the beauty company cut its ties.

More @ GUNS

The ammunition shortage is a real thing. Here’s why it happened.

Via avordvet

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America's shooters have had around five years of trouble finding enough bullets for their guns. In the years after President Obama's 2008 election, then again after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, with barely a lull in between, big-spending gun aficionados left manufacturers struggling to keep shelves full. Now, the shortage seems to be winding down.

Demand has remained high since 2008, in part because some gun owners, frightened that Obama would tighten gun control laws, went into panic mode. But that's only one side of it. The problem is that supply never seemed to quite meet that demand. And that's in part because even though they haven't said so, skittish manufacturers don't believe the panic will last long enough to make it worth the investment in costly new factories.

The (sparse) data 

More @ Vox

Bearing Their Afflictions with Philosophy and Christian Fortitude

 http://bnafreedom.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/polk.jpg?w=614

The postwar South endured a swarm of curious Northerners: some journalists, many exploitive speculators, and often offensive bigots “who gave advice, condemned customs, asked obtrusive questions, and published tactless statements.” Despite New England’s large part in the African slave trade and perpetuation of slavery with its ravenous cotton mills, the North was determined that the South alone would be punished for the supposed sins of slavery.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
"Unsurpassed Valor, Courage and Devotion to Liberty"
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"

Bearing Their Afflictions with Philosophy and Christian Fortitude

“The defeated Southerners were expected to make the sacrifices necessary for reforms favoring the Negro. They were willing to recognize the defeat of the Confederate armies, the freeing of the slaves, and the restoration of the Union.  A considerable number with the fear of summary punishment before them were willing to repudiate the Confederacy with unseemly haste.  A few – the first scalawags – were prepared to adopt the beliefs of the conquerors.

For the great majority, however, the tragic outcome of the war increased their hatred of Northerners, made Southern doctrines more precious, and invested the war leaders with an aura of heroism. Only the minimum demands of the victor were to be accepted. As soon as it became clear that the North would not be as vindictive as some imagined every reform suggested from the outside was contested bitterly.

Those among the conquerors who imagined that military defeat had reduced the white Southerners to impotence were to be unpleasantly surprised. Although defeated, these people were not without material resources.  Despite threats of confiscation, the land remained mostly in their hands and agricultural possibilities partially compensated for decline in land values. All tools were not destroyed and many cities were unscathed or only partially wrecked.

The whites faced their difficulties with superb courage. “While clouds were dark and threatening,” wrote a Northern newspaper reporter, “I do not believe there was ever in the world’s history a people who bear their afflictions with more philosophy and Christian fortitude than these unfortunate people.”  Women cheerfully returned to the kitchen and men turned to manual labor. A philosophy of hard work and close economy was preached, and every expedient which might lead out of the impasse of poverty and social stagnation was advanced.

The war had accustomed men to hardships, and the women had learned to manage plantations, maintain slave discipline, and endure privations. Certainly there was no ground for the belief, fostered by the romantics, that Southerners were a lazy and improvident lot who were helpless unless ministered to by faithful blacks. Actually, they were ready to assume duties previously exercised by Negroes, at the same time resisting Northern assaults on their inherited privileges. 

They were backed in their policies by an assertive country folk who were accustomed to dwell on lands of their own, and who had a profound contempt for Northerners . . . had proved their stamina while serving in the Confederate army . . . [and] were ready to terrorize Yankees and Negroes alike if members of either group attempted to upset the traditional social order.”

(The South Old and New, A History, 1820-1947, Francis Butler Simkins, Alfred A. Knopf, 1947, pp. 171-172)

Life in the Killing Fields revealed: How soldiers survived in the trenches and spent their time concocting their own slang

Via WiscoDave


The First World War was just that - a global conflict in which soldiers from six continents played their parts. 

Men huddling in trenches quickly spiced their conversation with foreign words, dialect, rhyming slang, puns and new terms for the strange conditions they found themselves in. When demobbed in 1918, they carried their soldiers' lingo back into civilian life. 

Some phrases that came out of those times are  still with us. How many of these did you realise were WWI vintage?

Photos of a traffic jam stuck in the woods for 70 years

Via Cousin Colby

Screen Shot 2014-07-09 at 7.57.46 AM

Around the town of Chatillon, Belgium, the end of World War II left a few creepy hallmarks of the armistice in the form of long lines of cars left abandoned by the hundreds in the woods. While one theory goes that the cars belonged to Americans who left them in a hurry on their way off the continent, Bored Panda points out that no one really knows for sure. While there were initially four giant pileups with over 500 cars, only one remains rotting in the woods, a monument to the inexorable creep of entropy.

France: 1944 & 2014

Via Cousin Colby

German Prisoners

There are 10 photos and you can scroll back and forth on each picture as
fast as you want to see the changes.


    To get this link to work. Left click, hold and drag your mouse
    gently from right to left on the original photo and it will become
    the exact same location today. Repeat the motion to take it back to
    the original.


Man Who Shot at Cops During No-Knock Raid Acquitted on All Charges

Via III Percent Patriots

http://tftppull.freethoughtllc.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/perryman.jpg

After a 9 hour deliberation, a jury has found  Adrian Perryman, not guilty on all four counts of aggravated assault on a peace officer.

The incident that led to the charges against Perryman happened during the pre-dawn hours of October 26, 2010 in San Antonio, TX.

SAPD’s tactical response unit was executing a no-knock search warrant. The occupants in the house at the time were Perryman, his girlfriend Rebecca Flores, and Flores’s 3 year old grand daughter Savannah.

When Flores saw two shadowy men on the security cameras, she woke up Perryman, and tossed him his gun.

According to MySA News,  Flores recalled the events of that night to the jury. “I put my body over Savannah’s,” she said, recalling for jurors what she did in the moments after handing Perryman the gun and before he opened fire. “He said ‘I’ve got a gun and I’m going to shoot — stay out!’”

Flores said it wasn’t until after he fired four shots that she heard anyone yelling “Police!”

“I remember telling him the police were here; I thought they were there to protect us. I said ‘Oh, thank God,’” she said.

Henry Gray - They Call Me Little Henry

 
This is a classic underrated gem by a forgotten Blues legend, Henry Gray. From 1977, I believe this is his first album.

1. Dust My Broom 0:00
2. Can't Afford To Do It 3:52
3. Shake Her Hands 7:13
4. How Many More Years 10:42
5. When Things Go Wrong 14:48
6. The Dirty Dozens 18:02
7. Saturday Night Fish Fry 22:11
8. Gray's Bounce 24:23
9. They Call Me Little Henry 26:39
10. Ain't No Use 30:07
11. How Can You Do It 33:35
12. Down The Line 37:29
13. Long Way From Home 40:41
14. Keep On Shakin' That Thing 44:32
 
88 years young! :)