Monthly Archives: November 2013

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

Former border agent sentenced for taking bribes

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Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominic Lanza said the case was “one of the most serious” Border Patrol corruption cases “in a long time.”

“This is such serious misconduct, such tarnishing of the oath,” Lanza said in asking Rosenblatt to sentence Herrera-Chiang to 15 years in prison.—AZCentral

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PHOENIX, Nov. 6 (UPI) — A U.S. judge in Phoenix Wednesday sentenced former Border Patrol agent Ivhan Herrera-Chiang to 15 years in prison for taking bribes to help drug smugglers.

Herrera-Chiang pleaded guilty in April to four felony bribery counts for taking money in exchange for information on border security enforcement, including the combination to locks on U.S.-Mexico border crossing gates, The Arizona Republic reported.

U.S. District Judge Paul Rosenblatt told Herrera-Chiang during sentencing that the ex-border agent had “done about the worst thing a law-enforcement agent could do, especially a Border Patrol agent.”

More at UPI News

Election Results 2013

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WILLIAMS—As of 10:30 pm a little over 25.5% of the voters voted in the elections held in Coconino County.

With only one precinct left to report, the Coconino Community College Question appears to have failed. As of this writing 54.76% voted no on assessing a secondary property tax to raise $4.5 million for the college. 45.24% voted yes.

Williams voted to continue the tax for the Williams Health Clinic. The vote is 56.08% for with 43.92% voting against.

Both the Grand Canyon Unified and Sedona-Oak Creek Joint Unified school districts voted to approve additional property taxes for the schools. The vote on the Grand Canyon Question was approved by a vote of 75%. The vote for the Sedona-Oak Creek Joint Unified school district was 52.10% for and 47.9% against, but not all of the votes have been counted at this point.

These are unofficial results until after the canvas process is complete.

In the closely watched and hotly contested race in Virginia, Democrat Terry McAuliffe appears to have won the race for governor with 47.39% of the vote with 99.5% of the precincts reporting. Republican Ken Cuccinelli received 45.8% of the vote with the Libertarian challenger Robert Sarvis receiving 6.66%. Democrat Ralph Northam won the race for Lieutenant Governor.

Republican Mark Obenshain is barely winning the race for Attorney General against Democrat challenger Mark Herring. The vote is currently 50.27% to 49.52%.

If India Can Afford a Space Program, Why is the US Government Giving Them $98.3 Million in Aid This Year?

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What’s even more shameful is that the United States government is willing to hand over $98.3 million in aid this year alone.

The Mars Orbiter Mission successfully took off at 09:08 GMT today from the Satish Dhawan Space center on the east coast of India. If it goes into orbit around the red planet, India will become the fourth space agency to have a craft orbiting Mars.

From the BBC:

Some commentators have wondered whether India should be spending $72m (£45m) on a scientific mission when the country has one of the highest rankings for childhood malnutrition in the world.

But those who defend such projects say the MOM is comparatively cheap and that the technological development required to mount this mission could indirectly benefit the country’s other activities.

Nisha Agrawal, chief executive of Oxfam in India, told the BBC: “India is home to poor people, but it’s also an emerging economy, it’s a middle-income country, it’s a member of the G20. What is hard for people to get their head around is that we are home to poverty but also a global power.

“We are not really one country but two in one. And we need to do both things: contribute to global knowledge as well as take care of poor people at home.”

Read more at The Daily Sheeple

It’s Election Day

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"Here" is the Grand Canyon Railway if you are in Williams.

“Here” is the Grand Canyon Railway if you are in Williams.

If you have not already, make sure you take time to vote in the election today. No candidates are on this ballot, but you are voting for something as important. Whether or not to raise property taxes.

In Williams, you will determine whether or not to keep the property tax which supports the Williams Health Clinic.

The Coconino Community College is asking for $4.5 over seven years:

To maintain the operations of Coconino Community College, shall the Coconino County Community College District be authorized to levy a secondary property tax in an amount not to exceed $4,500,000 each year for the next seven years. The incremental funding to be used to continue its missions to:

• Maintain Career and Technical education programs that prepare local students for careers as Nurses, Emergency Medical Technicians, Firefighters, Detention Officers, Computer Technicians, Network Engineers, Alternative Energy Technicians and others; and

• Continue to prepare local students for higher education and for transfer to Arizona’s public universities; and

• Maintain programs to train and re-train local workers, in conjunction with local employers, for new occupations and careers in areas including Health Care, Manufacturing, Alternative Energy and others.

The Grand Canyon School and Sedona-Oak Creek Joint Unified School districts will be asking voters to exceed revenue control limits set by Arizona Revised Statute. The Grand Canyon proposal would add approximately $1.21 per $100 assessed value of your property while the Sedona-Oak Creek proposal claims .21 per $100 assessed value.

At the Williams voting station there is also a poster urging people to become an election board worker. You must be registered to vote in Coconino County and may register online. You may call 928-679-7860 or 800-793-6181 if you have questions.

North Korea sailors killed when ship sinks during ‘combat duties’

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north-korean-navy(Reuters)—At least 19 North Korean sailors were killed when a naval vessel sank during “combat duties” off the east coast last month, state media said, a rare admission by the impoverished and reclusive country.

South Korean media said the ship sank during a drill killing “scores”.

Photos released by North Korea’s KCNA state news agency showed leader Kim Jong Un laying flowers at the foot of a memorial to the dead, encircled by at least 19 graves emblazoned with the faces of the sailors.

“Submarine chaser No. 233 fell while performing combat duties in mid-October,” KCNA said.

Read more at Reuters

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