Streamed live on Dec 19, 2013
The U.S. Army All-Brass Big Band presents A Stan Kenton Christmas: an annual holiday musical tradition featuring many holiday standards arranged by and made famous by Jazz great Stan Kenton.
Monthly Archives: December 2013
Washington Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon Sends Controversial Tweet After Seahawks Loss
The Arizona Cardinals ended the Seattle Seahawks’ 14-game, 729-day winning streak at home Sunday with a 17-10 victory.
Washington State Representative Joe Fitzgibbon wasn’t happy with the game, which led to a controversial tweet.
KING TV’s Chris Daniels grabbed a screenshot of it:
WA Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon has deleted his #Seahawks related tweet, which referred to Arizona as a “racist wasteland”. http://t.co/SbU9xuCfJE
— Chris Daniels (@ChrisDaniels5) December 23, 2013
Read more at Bleacher Report
The Man Who Invented The AK-47 Has Died — Here’s His Greatest Regret
Russian weapon designer Mikhail Kalashnikov presents his legendary assault rifle to the media while opening the exhibition “Kalashnikov – legend and curse of a weapon” at a weapons museum in Suhl, eastern Germany, in this July 26, 2002, file photo.
Mikhail Kalashnikov, the creator of the famous AK-47 assault rifle, has died at the age of 94, according to Russia Today. He had reportedly been suffering from heart problems and was in intensive care since November.
The Kalashnikov AK-47 is frequently cited as the world’s most popular assault rifle, with its only serious rival being the American M-series rifle. Still, Kalashnikov had mixed feelings about his success.
“I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work — for example a lawnmower,” he said on a visit to Germany in 2002.
Read more at Business Insider
Coconino County Sheriff’s Deputies search for missing hiker
The Coconino County Sheriff’s office in conjunction with the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office is seeking information concerning a 22-year old, white male hiker missing since December 18th.
Thomas Lang was last seen at the Manzanita Campground in Oak Creek Canyon outside of Sedona on Wednesday December 18 and was due back to the campground on Sunday December 22.
Thomas is 6-foot 1-inches, 140 pounds with blonde dreadlocks. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a dark blue sweat shirt and carrying a red sleeping bag, a white tarp, a guitar and a blue backpack.
Anyone with helpful information are requested to call the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office at 1-800-338-7888 Or the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office (928)771-3260.
Pastor Ken Hutcherson, 61, Champion of the Multi-ethnic Church, Dies of Cancer
By Alex Murashko, Christian Post Reporter
December 18, 2013|7:01 pm
Pastor Ken Hutcherson, 61, of Antioch Bible Church in Kirkland, Wash., highly respected for his solid biblical teaching and a champion of the multi-ethnic church movement, died Wednesday after a lengthy battle with cancer.
“Antioch Bible Church sadly announces that shortly before noon today our Senior Pastor Dr. Ken Hutcherson was ushered in the [presence] of the Lord. Please pray for comfort and peace for the family,” an announcement on the church website reads. “The family asked that you give them some privacy at this time.”
During an interview with The Christian Post earlier this month, Hutcherson (known to his friends as “Hutch”), with a voice weakened by cancer and its required treatment, said the number one thing he wanted to talk about was the importance of having churches that not only accept, but embrace people of different ethnicities and races.
Read more at the Christian Post
Was Wichita airport bomb suspect a victim of entrapment?
Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government has mounted a number of investigations in which undercover FBI agents or informers have posed as co-conspirators with suspects who get charged with trying to carry out plots.
It has spawned a national debate about whether the suspects are really terrorists or just easily manipulated people who become victims of entrapment. With the arrest of Terry Lee Loewen at Wichita Mid-Continent Airport on Friday, that national debate has come to the Air Capital of the World.
Loewen, a 58-year-old avionics technician, has been charged in an alleged plot to use his airport access to try to drive a car bomb onto the tarmac to inflict maximum deaths. Two FBI employees posed as people engaging him or helping him to carry out the attack, a criminal complaint said. Loewen didn’t find out he had been fooled until he tried to carry out the attack with what was inert material, not high explosives, the court document said.
A letter to the editor in Tuesday’s Eagle typifies the entrapment argument: “The FBI has a pattern of seeking out naive, harmless, disaffected individuals and using them to orchestrate a crime. … Terry Lee Loewen has been entrapped along with others in these phony plots,” wrote Don Anderson of Winfield.
Read more at The Wichita Eagle
Senate confirms Obama pick Jeh Johnson as Homeland Security secretary
It should be noted that the Senate thwarted a filibuster attempt by Republicans under the new rules prior to the vote for this previously unknown Obama campaign contributor.
The Senate approved Jeh Johnson as the fourth Homeland Security secretary, giving him the reins at a department that, more than a decade after its creation, is still unstable and trying to figure out its role in the massive federal bureaucracy.
The 78-16 vote gives President Obama a solid victory, filling a major Cabinet post that has remained empty since Janet A. Napolitano left in September.
“In Jeh, our dedicated homeland security professionals will have a strong leader with a deep understanding of the threats we face and a proven ability to work across agencies and complex organizations to keep America secure,” Mr. Obama said in a statement released soon after the vote. “I look forward to Jeh’s counsel and sound judgment for years to come.”
Moments after the Johnson confirmation, Democrats set up a vote on another contentious Homeland Security nomination in Alejandro Mayorkas, Mr. Obama’s selection to be deputy secretary of the department, even though Mr. Mayorkas is facing an internal department investigation.
Mr. Johnson brings the shortest list of qualifications to the job of any of the secretaries, having served only as a top lawyer in the Defense Department.
Read more at the Washington Times
Special Report: How China’s weapon snatchers are penetrating U.S. defenses
By John Shiffman and Duff Wilson
OAKLAND, California (Reuters) – Agents from Homeland Security sneaked into a tiny office in Oakland’s Chinatown before sunrise on December 4, 2011. They tread carefully, quickly snapping digital pictures so they could put everything back in place. They didn’t want Philip Chaohui He, the businessman who rented the space, to learn they had been there.
Seven months had passed since they’d launched an undercover operation against a suspected Chinese arms-trafficking network – one of scores operating in support of Beijing’s ambitious military expansion into outer space.
The agents had allowed a Colorado manufacturer to ship He a type of technology that China covets but cannot replicate: radiation-hardened microchips. Known as rad-chips, the dime-sized devices are critical for operating satellites, for guiding ballistic missiles, and for protecting military hardware from nuclear and solar radiation.
It was a gamble. This was a chance to take down an entire Chinese smuggling ring. But if He succeeded in trafficking the rad-chips to China, the devices might someday be turned against U.S. sailors, soldiers or pilots, deployed on satellites providing the battlefield eyes and ears for the People’s Liberation Army.
Entering He’s office at 2:30 that December morning, the agents looked inside the FedEx boxes. The microchips were gone. The supervisor on the case, Greg Slavens, recoiled.
“There are a bunch of rad-chips headed to China,” Slavens recalls thinking, “and I’m responsible.'”
Read more at Yahoo!
Snow predicted over the weekend
FLAGSTAFF—Snow is predicted through the area from Thursday through Saturday with less than a half-inch for Williams and less than an inch in Flagstaff. Ash Fork is predicted to get rain for the period.
Does God Love Online Poker? Texas Congressman Has Shocking Answer
Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas) at the Congressional hearing regarding the Internet Poker Freedom Act
December 12, 2013|8:56 am
During a Congressional hearing earlier this week concerning the new Internet Poker Freedom Act, Texas Rep. Joe Barton, a staunch supporter of online poker, argued that God enabled him to travel to the congressional hearing in Washington D.C., and therefore the Almighty must be in support of online poker and the passing of the online gaming bill.
Barton, speaking during the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Tuesday in D.C., said that “God must be for this bill because I got up this morning at four o’clock in Texas, outside Dallas, and braved icy roads and 20 degree temperatures to get to DFW airport where my good friends at American Airlines left exactly on time. God put a 200 mile tail wind behind our plane, and I got here an hour early. So that tells me that God is for this bill,” Barton, a Republican, said jokingly, garnering laughter from those attending the subcommittee hearing.
The Internet Poker Freedom Act, also known as House Bill 2666, would allow more people to play internet poker by setting certain regulations to the online game, including establishing a program for states and federally recognized Indian tribes to license the game. The legality of online poker in the U.S. folded in 2011 after the Department of Justice ended many online gaming operations, and earlier in 2006 Congress passed a law banning the use of credit cards for illegal internet gaming.
Barton, who is backing the Internet Poker Freedom Act , went on to argue at Tuesday’s congressional hearing that he believes fans of poker should be able to play online, saying the game is superior to other games such as slots or roulette, because it requires skill and not just luck. “Now we have the Internet and iPhones and iPads and apps and all these things,” he said. “Just about the only thing you can’t do [online] anymore is play poker. And that is changing.”
Read more at The Christian Post