Niko Sanders, left, of Davenport and Jordan Walker, right, with the Imaginarium test out a pair of Lifestraws during a zombie survival demonstration at the Bluedorn Science Imaginarium in Waterloo, Iowa, Saturday, Oct. 5, 2013.
Do zombies really exist?
Well the answer, according to what a Grout Museum told youngsters Saturday, is yes, no or maybe.
Jordan Walker, a science educator with the Grout, told more than 20 people who attended a Saturday education that zombies are not real, but left the door open to zombie-like conditions that may produce walking dead-type creatures that fall short of the stereotypical brain-eating version.
The Grout Museum hosted a weekend of activities titled “Cedar Valley of the Zombies,” which included a book signing, concert and zombie makeup clinic in addition to the science show Saturday at the Bluedorn Science Imaginarium. Walker cited the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2012 statement that they know of nothing that could create zombies. Of course, that statement was given after the infamous cannibalistic attack by Rudy Eugene on a homeless man in Miami that year. It was found that Eugene was not a zombie, but instead gnawed on the man even after being shot several times because he was on drugs.
However, Walker gave two examples where some form of zombies may exist — all the better to lead in to an apocalypse survival talk. Read the rest here
Belgian firemen facing budget cuts went to protest where they were greeted by a line of riot cops. Well, shit got real and the firemen cranked up the Aqueous film forming foam (AFFF). Now that’s a less lethal….
When officials found human remains in an old Japanese medical dump in Papua New Guinea this year, they may have done
more than locate two missing World War II commandos. Instead, they may have unlocked a Pandora’s box involving continuing censorship and the failure to punish those involved in some of the worst war crimes perpetrated on Australian soldiers in the Pacific War.
In April, the Australian Defence Force confirmed it had discovered bones suspected of being those of missing commandos Spencer Walklate and Ron Eagleton on Kairiru Island, about 20 kilometres from Wewak on Papua New Guinea’s northern coast.
Walklate, 27, a one-time St George rugby league player, and Eagleton, 20, had gone missing during a raid to reconnoitre Japanese gun emplacements on Mushu Island, just to the south of Kairiru on April 11, 1945. The raid failed when their boats capsized in the surf and they were attacked before completing their objective. Hunted across the island, the eight Australians fought on before most were killed or wounded. Eagleton and Walklate were thought to have tried to avoid capture by floating out into the ocean on palm logs, where they drowned or were killed by the Japanese.
But when the bones were found on Kairiru this year, and information was obtained from the island’s elders, it suggested the men had suffered a different fate – one that had been covered up for decades.
Approaching the first anniversary of the Newtown School Shooting tragedy, one school in the Southeast is trying to be proactive by putting modern rifles in the arsenals of those who would be tasked with protecting the school.
School shootings are, despicably, not new to the country. In fact they date back as far as 1764. What the anti-gunners would have you believe though is that these unspeakable crimes are more prevalent now that so-called assault rifles are available. Well, not to nitpick, but the firearm that the Newtown shooter used was a semi-automatic sporting rifle that was illegally acquired.
In Gainesville, Georgia, the local school district is considering adding patrol carbines to the school resource officer’s (SROs) tool kit. SRO’s are certified law enforcement officers who are stationed at the school to meet both local campus security issues and enforce local and state laws. In Gainesville, they are already armed with pistols and intermediate (less lethal) weapons, but not carbines.
Under a program submitted by the police department, they are seeking $6,000 and a political mandate to place a 5.56mm rifle in a safe in each of the three protected schools in the district. The police department and the school district would split the cost evenly. The rifle would only be accessible to the resource officer through fingerprint recognition. To prevent the threat of theft, it would not be left on school grounds when the officer is not on duty.
Read the rest in my article at Firearms Talk.com
Can it be so? While most Marines and many others are aware that by Federal statute, members of the United States Marine Band, “The President’s Own,” are exempt from recruit training, few Marines and even fewer others are aware that an estimated 8,500 Marines in the 20th century Marine Corps never went to boot camp. These were no-prior-servicemembers of the Marine Corps Reserve who were mobilized for active duty at the beginning of the Korean War in 1950. It is almost gospel that when two Marines—active, Reserve, or veteran—meet for the first time, the question of where they went to boot camp comes up in the first 5 minutes of conversation. When a Marine veteran states that he did not go to either the Parris Island or San Diego Recruit Depots, his fellow Marine gets a look of disbelief, especially when that fellow Marine determines that the Marine in question was neither an officer nor a member of the United States Marine Band.
Since the subject title is a little known anomaly in the history of the Marine Corps, it is time that an explanation is written for the purpose of clarifying the subject issue for all present, including Marine veterans, future United States Marines, and those, of whom there are many, persons who are devoted fans of the Marine Corps but have never served in the Corps… – See more here
Here at LSOZI, we are going to take out every Wednesday for a look at the old steam/diesel navies of the 1859-1946 time period and will profile a different ship each week.
– Christopher Eger
Warship Wednesday October 16, The Ship that Wouldnt Die
Here we see the USS Franklin (CV-13), one of the 24 Essex class fleet carriers that were completed. Laid down a year to the
day after Pearl Harbor, the 800+ foot long ship was built in just over 400-days, commissioned 31 January 1944.
She rushed out to sea, did her shake down cruise, and was almost immediately in combat. Among her crew was bandleader Horace Kirby “Saxie” Dowell, who had just had one of the largest hits in the country before the War started with “Three Little Fishes”, which was famously covered by the Andrews Sisters. Saxie at 37 was one of the oldest of the 2600 men on the boat. But like Saxie, most of the rank and file had only a year before been a civilian.
By June 1944 she was neck-deep in Japanese disputed waters, sending sorties into Bonin and Mariana Islands, Peleliu, and other islands on the final push towards the Empire. Then came the Philippines in October where Franklin and her escorts fought in the Battle of the Sibuyan Sea in which her planes helped drop ordnance on the Japanese battleships Musashi, Fuso, and Yamashiro. This was followed by the Battle off Cape Engano where her planes helped scratch the Emperor’s carriers Zuiho and Chiyoda.
Then by March 1945, she was the closest US carrier to the Japanese coast, lying just 50 miles offshore. It was then on 19 March that a single Japanese aircraft came in low and slow on Franklin and dropped two 550-pound bombs right on to her deck. There she had 31 fully armed and fueled aircraft ready to take off for strikes against the home islands. The resulting explosions and fires led to an amazing struggle between men and flame. This left the ship dead in the water, charred, and listing at 13-degrees. Suffering 807 killed and more than 487 wounded, half of the ship’s crew had been killed or seriously injured. Cumulatively on the magazine explosion on the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor caused more loss of life in US Navy history.
Well within a day she had made enough repairs to make it off to Ulithi Atoll at 14-knots. Within six weeks she had steamed across the Pacific, through the Canal, and into Brooklyn Naval Yard. Her war over, she spent months being restored to near-new condition. Unneeded after the war, she was decommissioned 17 February 1947, having spent just over three years in service. Her condition kept her in mothballs for almost two decades but unlike her sisters, she was never converted to the post war Essex-type pattern with an angled flight deck.
Displacement: As built:
27,100 tons standard
36,380 tons full load
Length: As built:
820 feet (250 m) waterline
872 feet (266 m) overall
Beam: As built:
93 feet (28 m) waterline
147 feet 6 inches (45 m) overall
Draft: As built:
28 feet 5 inches (8.66 m) light
34 feet 2 inches (10.41 m) full load
Armament: As built:
4 × twin 5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns
4 × single 5 inch (127 mm) 38 caliber guns
8 × quadruple 40 mm 56 caliber guns
46 × single 20 mm 78 caliber guns
Armor: As built:
2.5 to 4 inch (60 to 100 mm) belt
1.5 inch (40 mm) hangar and protective decks
4 inch (100 mm) bulkheads
1.5 inch (40 mm) STS top and sides of pilot house
2.5 inch (60 mm) top of steering gear
Aircraft carried: As built:
90–100 aircraft
1 × deck-edge elevator
2 × centerline elevators
If you liked this column, please consider joining the International Naval Research Organization (INRO)
When the Civil War erupted in 1861, most of the armament factories in the country were located in the North. In the agricultural South, the Confederates were desperate for modern guns. Most of the weapons carried by the grey-coats came from Europe or were captured in battle from the ‘Yankees’. However, the ‘Rebs’ did try to make a few of their own. One of the more famous of these was the Griswold revolver.
Read the rest in my article at Firearms Talk.com
Back in the days where men wore fedoras, drove cars that weighed more than a tank, and only mixed whiskey with more whiskey, the Thompson submachine gun was the benchmark for defense needs. The military used it. The criminals loved it. And the FBI considered it standard issue for a while.
And they had to qual with it…
Read the rest in my article at Firearms Talk.com
