Maori Legend of Man-Eating Bird is True

Photo Credit: independent.co.uk

A Maori legend about a giant, man-eating bird has been confirmed by scientists. Te Hokioi was a huge black-and-white predator with a red crest and yellow-green tinged wingtips, in an account given to Sir George Gray, an early governor of New Zealand. It was said to be named after its cry and to have “raced the hawk to the heavens”. Scientists now think the stories handed down by word of mouth and depicted in rock drawings refer to Haast’s eagle, a raptor that became extinct just 500 years ago, shows their study in The Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Haast’s eagle (Harpagornis moorei) was discovered in swamp deposits by Sir Julius von Haast in the 1870s. But it was at first thought to be a scavenger because its bill was similar to a vulture’s with hoods over its nostrils to stop flesh blocking its air passages as it rooted around inside carcasses.

But a re-examination of skeletons using modern technology, including CAT scans, by researchers at Canterbury Museum in Christchurch and the University of New South Wales in Australia showed it had a strong enough pelvis to support a killing blow as it dived at speeds of up to 80kph.

With a wingspan of up to three metres and weighing 18kg, the female was twice as big as the largest living eagle, the Steller’s sea eagle.

Read more from this story HERE.

Alaska May Events from Space

Following an April which was the coldest on record in many locations (including Fairbanks), May was a month with more record events. Anchorage saw it’s second latest measurable snowfall on May 18th which made the 2012-2013 snow season on record. The record cold also delayed the river breakup, which set the stage for the severe ice jam flooding in Circle and Galena.

The MODIS instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite captured the aerial extent of the flooding in Galena from space. Below is the extent of the Yukon River last year on May 27, and the second picture is the widespread flooding behind the ice Jam on May 28th of this year.

Photo Credit: NASA images courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.



Photo Credit: NASA images courtesy LANCE MODIS Rapid Response. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Above is the Yukon River flooding Galena May 28, 2013.

More information and images can be found HERE.

While erupting volcanoes along the Aleutian Range are not uncommon, there were some views of Pavlof Volcano taken from the International Space Station (ISS) that are worth a look.

Photo Credit: ISSA Crew, NASA

Above is the erupting Pavlof Volcano on May 18, 2013 taken from the ISS. It is located between Sand Point and Cold Bay on the Alaska Peninsula. The Volcano just to the right of Pavlof is Pavlof’s Sister, and is also a volcano.

A summary of the recent Pavlof eruption with a few more ISS photos can be found HERE.

This most recent eruption of Pavlof Volcano was downgraded by the Alaska Volcano Observatory on May 28th as activity subsided.

Obama Desecrating the US Military’s Sacred POW Code of Conduct

Forty years ago, President Nixon finally succeeded in having Secretary of State Henry Kissinger complete the negotiation for the repatriation of the Vietnam POWs from North Vietnam. On the weekend of May 23rd, for the last time, the surviving Vietnam POW’s solemnly celebrated the 40th anniversary of their release, at the Nixon Presidential Library.

If you have ever read any of the many books published, articles printed in newspapers, or read interviews given by Vietnam POW’s, you will understand that the common thread that helped get them through their very difficult period of captivity was their faith in God, their religious worship away from the eyes of their captors, and the support the Prisoner of War Code of Conduct that was inculcated in them.

Here’s how the Prisoner of War Code of Conduct, Article VI, reads:

“I will never forget that I am an American, fighting for freedom, responsible for my actions, and dedicated to the principles which made my country free. I will trust in my God and in the United States of America.”

The US military tries to instill the Code of Conduct in all US military personnel to remind them of their “character and heritage,” and in order to emphasize to them that as American fighting men and women they have inner strengths to rely on, in face of the mental and physical abuses they will have to endure if they are ever captured. “Character” was emphasized in American’s youth at home each day by parents, by teachers in both public and parochial schools, by the leaders and coaches of the various organizations they belonged (such as the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, YMCA, YWCA, 4H, athletics, etc.), by religious leaders in the churches/synagogues they attended, by service academies where they were instilled with the Honor System/Honor Code and love of country, by boot camp where military indoctrination emphasized the service branch heritage and love of country, and by military leadership training programs for officer and noncoms.

While Character was being instilled in most Americans by these means, Barack Obama’s character was developed, as he relates in his book “Dreams,” every day after school in Hawaii, by his mentor, Frank Marshall Davis, the Secretary of the Communist Party USA. He previously went to school in Indonesia where American values weren’t taught, went on to Columbia under the name of Barry Soetoro, where his character was further developed by his two roommates who took him to Pakistan in the 1980’s to be indoctrinated in a philosophy that was not typically American.

Obama’s unvarnished “Character” is different from that of most of the US military personnel, most of whom were born and bred in America, and the true color of his “Character” has been revealed by his actions over the last four years. Most intelligent and forthright Americans realize that he has never said he loves this country or praised the heritage of the Republic; his actions speak louder than words.

By his actions (look at what he has done, not what he says), Obama has demonstrated that he doesn’t support the US Military Code of Conduct which instills in the American fighting man and women their faith in God and their love of the heritage of the United States of America. The Code of Conduct was developed to give US Prisoners of War (POW) the inner strength to believe in something bigger than themselves, even when they were being tortured or mentally abused by his captors (even after resisting, they may have been broken by such severe torture, but their love of country survived).

Instead of emphasizing the concepts of the US Military Code of Conduct to strengthen the faith of US military personnel, the Obama administration has been emphasizing Obama’s Social Experiment on Diversity, and has been forcing his radical Social Experiment on Diversity into regulations of the captive US military that must follow those regulations and policy directives issued by Obama’s civilian appointees at DoD. Those radical policies are damaging the Combat Effectiveness of the US Armed Forces.

Please review 15 of Obama’s policies or directives, listed below, that are overtly hostile toward Christians in the US Armed Forces. For four years the Obama administration has been trying to eliminate the influence of Christianity in the US Armed Forces, concepts that were first instilled in the US military culture by General George Washington in 1776, and it has given US military personnel the inner strength that sustained them in combat and in captivity.

Just before a combat operation, military personnel flock to the Chaplains for their blessing, or meditate quietly in their own solitude; when they become Prisoners of War, they lean on their faith and the Code of Conduct to give them strength. Obama’s Social Experiment on Diversity, outlined in new regulations, has been forced upon members of the US Armed Forces, military chaplains, and the civil service employees that support the US military programs. They have attempted to diminish the fundamental Judeo/Christian concepts that have been the foundation upon which the US Armed Forces was built to strengthen it for 238 years.
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Aggressive anti-Christian actions by the Obama Administration are real, documented, and are escalating:

1. January 2010 — Department of Defense orders removal of tiny Bible references on military scopes and gun sights.

2. June 2011 — The Department of Veterans Affairs forbids references to God and Jesus during burials at National Cemetery.

3. August 2011 — The Air Force stops teaching the Just War theory because it is based on a philosophy of St. Augustine.

4. September 2011 — Air Force Chief of Staff prohibits commanders from notifying airmen of religious programs.

5. September 2011 — The Army issues guidelines to Walter Reed Medical Center stipulating that no religious items (i.e. Bibles, reading materials) are to be given to the wounded.

6. November 2011 — The Air Force Academy rescinds support for Operation Christmas Child because it is run by Christians.

7. November 2011 — The Air Force Academy pays $80,000 for a Stonehenge-type worship center for pagans, druids, and witches.

8. February 2012 — The U.S. Military Academy disinvites decorated war hero LTG William “Jerry” Boykin, USA (Ret), and FRC Executive VP, because he is an outspoken Christian.

9. February 2012 — Army orders Catholic chaplains not to read archbishop’s letter from pulpit (Pilgrims fled England because they were prevented from free speech from pulpit)

10. May 2012 — Obama administration opposes legislation to protect the rights of conscience for military chaplains who do not wish to perform same-sex “marriages.”

11. June 2012 — Obama administration revokes the long-standing U.S. policy of allowing military service emblems to be placed on military Bibles.

12. August 2012 — Lt. Col. Jack Rich, USA e-mails subordinates saying they should be on the lookout for people who share FRC’s values because they are not “Army Values.”

13. January 2013 — Obama announces his opposition to a provision in the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act protecting the rights of conscience for military chaplains.

14. April 2013 — Officials briefing for U.S. Army Reservists states examples of “religious extremism” includes “Evangelical Christianity”, “Catholicism”, and “Islamic Jihadist Terrorism” in organizations like Al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, and Hamas.

15. May 2013 — The Pentagon meets with Mikey Weinstein and the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) who is trying to establish new rules which would restrict the religious freedom of Christian and Jewish military personnel (they shouldn’t have even given such a radical anti-Christian an audience).

On November 5, 2009 at Fort Hood, a devout Muslim, Maj Nidal Malik Hasan, USA (A. K. A. “Abu Wali”), who had been communicating with Al Qaeda terrorist cleric, Anwar Al-Awlaki, in a series of 20 E-mails, shouted at the top of his lungs, “Allah Akbar”, and used two hand guns to kill 12 US military personnel, while wounding 31 US military and law enforcement personnel. It was a radical Islamic terrorist attack against American Christian military personnel executed on a US military base; Al Qaeda spokesman, Adam Gadahn, praised “Abu Wali” as a Mujahid Brother. The Obama administration through its spokesman, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Martin Dempsey, insisted it was not terrorism at all, but work place violence. The US military personnel who were killed and wounded that day, should have been awarded the Purple Heart Medal for coming under a military assault by a Islamic Terrorist and traitor. An attempt has been made for nearly 4 years to cover up this Islamic Terrorist assault perpetrated on US soil (like the failed Terrorist attacks on US soil including the failed bombing in Times Square, the Terrorist bombing at the Boston marathon, and the Al Qaeda Terrorist attack on US soil/the US Mission in Benghazi that killed 2 Navy SEAL’s). We will not remain compliant for another of the Obama administration’s cover ups; we will endeavor to continue to bring that Terrorist attack to the attention of the American people until those murdered and wounded US military personnel receive the Purple Heart Medals they so rightly deserve.

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Captain Joseph R. John, a combat veteran, is a 1962 graduate of the United States Naval Academy who retired from the US Navy after a long and distinguished career. He currently is the President of the Combat Veterans Training Group and is the founder of the Combat Veterans for Congress PAC.

Your Tax Dollars at Work: IRS Turns Over Idiotic Line Dance, Star Trek and Gilligan Island Videos to Congress

By Fox News. In the wake of the scandal over the Internal Revenue Service’s targeting of conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status, the embattled agency has provided lawmakers with a video featuring about a dozen of its employees line dancing on a stage.

The video of the IRS workers practicing their dance moves, which lasts just under three minutes, comes weeks after it was revealed that agency workers produced two other videos parodying the “Star Trek” and “Gilligan’s Island” TV shows.

All three videos were given to Congress on Friday in response to a request issued by Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La., a senior member of the House Ways and Means Committee, after learning that the videos were recorded at IRS offices in New Carrollton, Md., outside Washington, D.C.

The latest recording cost about $1,600 and was produced to be shown at the end of a 2010 training and leadership conference held in Anaheim, Calif., said IRS spokeswoman Michelle Eldridge. Read more from this story HERE.

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GOP says report will expose lavish spending at 2010 IRS conference

By Bernie Becker. The House Oversight Committee is holding another hearing on the IRS — but not one dealing with the agency’s targeting of conservative groups.

The panel, led by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), will hear on Thursday from Treasury’s inspector general for tax administration about “excessive spending” at IRS conferences.

“The IRS is an agency in crisis,” Issa said in a statement. “The American people expect that their tax-dollars will be used responsibly and not for financing lavish hotel suites and entertainment for government employees. The Oversight Committee will examine these egregious abuses of the public trust and an IRS culture that shuns accountability.” Read more from this story HERE.

Congressman’s Chief of Staff Tied to Absentee Ballot Vote Fraud Effort

Photo Credit: Getty

Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff implicated in phantom absentee-ballot requests scheme

By Patricia Mazzei. Congressman Joe Garcia’s chief of staff abruptly resigned Friday after being implicated in a sophisticated scheme to manipulate last year’s primary elections by submitting hundreds of fraudulent absentee-ballot requests.

Friday afternoon, Garcia said he had asked Jeffrey Garcia, no relation, for his resignation after the chief of staff — also the congressman’s top political strategist — took responsibility for the plot. Hours earlier, law enforcement investigators raided the homes of another of Joe Garcia’s employees and a former campaign aide in connection with an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter.

“I’m shocked and disappointed about this,” Garcia, who said he was unaware of the scheme, told The Miami Herald. “This is something that hit me from left field. Until today, I had no earthly idea this was going on.”

Jeffrey Garcia, 40, declined to comment. He also worked last year on the campaign of Democrat Patrick Murphy of Jupiter, who unseated tea-party Republican congressman Allen West. Murphy has not been implicated in the phantom-requests operation. Read more from this story HERE.

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Congressman denies involvement in staffer’s alleged vote fraud attempt

By Gregory Wallace. U.S. Rep. Joe Garcia said Saturday he was saddened and disappointed by absentee ballot fraud allegations leveled against his former chief of staff.

The congressman said at a press conference he asked for the staffer’s resignation and called for fixes to the “flawed voter absentee process” which left the system vulnerable.

Garcia said he demanded the resignation of chief of staff Jeffrey Garcia (no relation, according to local media reports), then fired him shortly after learning of the allegations Friday afternoon.

No fraudulent ballots were cast as a result of this alleged plot, the congressman said.

“I’ve asked an attorney to investigate what went on and interview the people. I have asked all of my staff to fully cooperate with any investigation,” he said. “Here’s the good part about this – from my conversations thus far, no ballots were tampered with, no ballots were touched. Read more from this story HERE.

FBI Terrorism Task Force Wants to Question National Crisis Pregnancy Center Director

Photo Credit: Chris Slattery

The FBI office charged with investigating terrorism has said it intends to question the national director of a chain of crisis pregnancy centers. The development is the latest in what pro-life activists have charged is a pattern of intimidation on the part of the Obama administration against pro-life activists.

Agents of the Joint Domestic Terrorism Task Force told Chris Slattery, national director of Expectant Mother Care (EMC) FrontLine Pregnancy Centers, only that they wanted to meet him “for a mutually beneficial relationship.”

“In other words, if I don’t meet with them, it will not be beneficial for me,” Slattery told LifeSiteNews.com. “I’m not sure what I’m going to get out of it,” he joked.

The questioning comes as New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has subpoenaed the group for not abiding by the standards of a consent agreement Slattery believed expired more than 20 years ago, as well as in relation to a question of some of its paperwork.

Currently EMC is poised to expand crisis pregnancy centers into 10 states, including Washington, D.C.

Read more from this story HERE.

English Lord Carey: Homosexual Marriage Will Lead to Legalization of Polygamy, Incest

Photo Credit: Alamy

By Steve Doughty. A former Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday warned David Cameron that his ‘equal marriage’ reforms open the door for multiple weddings and marriages between siblings.

Lord Carey said that same-sex marriage laws amount to a radical and disturbing upheaval which is likely to lead to unintended consequences.

Among them he listed the inclusion of polygamous and multiple relationships into the definition of marriage, and the right for two sisters living together to demand a legal wedding.

The intervention from Lord Carey, one of the most prominent campaigners against same-sex marriage since the Prime Minister first announced his plan in the autumn of 2011, comes as peers prepare to debate the new marriage law.

Ministers are braced for an attempt to wreck the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill next week. Read more from this story HERE.

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Same-sex marriage hits red light in blue Illinois

By Sandy Rios. What same-sex marriage advocates won in the Illinois Senate on Valentine’s Day 2013 was just reversed. After weeks and months of hard work to accomplish what should have been easy, gay Democrat sponsor Greg Harris could not muster the votes, while Democratic Speaker of the House, Michael Madigan, did not even call for a vote to establish same sex marriage in Illinois.

“Today a broad grassroots coalition of Illinois families of Faith of all creeds and colors took on all the Illinois political bosses from Washington to the Governor’s Mansion to Chicago’s City Hall who tried to pay back the homosexual community for their political support,” said Paul Caprio, Spokesman for the Coalition to Protect Children & Marriage.

Throughout the day, same-sex marriage proponents hammered the Speaker relentlessly, threatening to withhold support for his daughter, Attorney General Lisa Madigan, a gubernatorial hopeful.

Equality Illinois and other groups brought in celebrities and generated thousands of phone calls. Governor Pat Quinn pushed hard, purportedly offering back room deals to members of the Black Caucus. But under the leadership of former Democrat Senator the Reverend James Meeks and Bishop Lance Davis, black legislators pushed back.

Representative Monique Davis, when asked by the Sun Times if same-sex marriage is a civil rights issue, said, “Have they ever hung from trees? Were they ever slaves for 500 years? Then I don’t think so.” Read more from this story HERE.

Both Parties Attack Obama’s Failure to Address Veterans’ Claims

Photo Credit: AP

Congress is turning up the heat on President Obama to cut the backlog of Veterans Affairs disability claims, which has gone up by 2,000 percent while the agency’s budget has increased by 40 percent over the past four years.

A bipartisan group of House lawmakers is the latest to call upon the president to be more aggressive, sending a letter this week asking him to “take direct action.”

“We need direct and public involvement from you to establish a clear path to end the backlog once and for all,” said the letter by Reps. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., and Patrick Murphy, D-Fla.

The number of veterans waiting for overdue disability claims is now at 600,000 with the average wait for first-time filings at 317 to 327 days, according to the letter.

“In many cases, veterans have waited and continue to wait 800 days, 900 days and even more than 1,000 days,” Coffman and Murphy said in the letter, cosigned by 164 other House Democrats and Republicans.

Read more from this story HERE.

WHO Calls Middle Eastern Virus, MERS, ‘Threat to the Entire World’ as Death Toll Rises

Photo Credit: AP

Calling it a “threat to the entire world,” the head of the World Health Organization sounded the alarm over the Middle Eastern virus that has so far killed 24 people.

Speaking on Monday in Geneva at the global health monitor’s annual conference, Dr. Margaret Chan did not mince words about the SARS-like novel coronavirus that researchers call MERS.

“Looking at the overall global situation, my greatest concern right now is the novel coronavirus. We understand too little about this virus when viewed against the magnitude of its potential threat. Any new disease that is emerging faster than our understanding is never under control,” Dr Chan said. “These are alarm bells and we must respond. The novel coronavirus is not a problem that any single affected country can keep to itself or manage all by itself. The novel coronavirus is a threat to the entire world.”

One day after Chan’s speech, health officials in France announced the death of a 65-year-old man who had apparently contracted the MERS virus after traveling to Dubai.

So far, the WHO says that more than half of the people who have been diagnosed with MERS have died. The organization said that 24 of 44 confirmed MERS cases have ended in death.

Read more from this story HERE.

Carbon-Tax Advocate Pays $32k to Lobby Obama for 2 Minutes So He Can Sell More Electric Cars

Photo Credit: Paul Scott

A Los Angeles car salesman and electric car advocate is shelling $32,400 out of his retirement savings so he can make a pitch directly to President Obama at a “private, off-the-record” Democratic fundraiser next week.

Paul Scott, 60, says he isn’t a rich guy. He’s a $50,000-a-year Nissan salesman who plans to rub elbows with 24 bigwigs in a private luncheon that he says will put a crimp in his retirement plans.

But he says the goal is worthwhile. He wants to make a few points to Obama about on how to better support electric cars — a cause that Obama already embraces — and thought the private audience would be a fine way to do it.

So when a solicitation came for the fundraiser, Scott says he was told that he’d get a chance sometime over the luncheon to offer his advice directly to the president. “That was something I had to confirm before I wrote the check,” Scott says. At least two minutes, probably no more than four, he says he was told.

Read more from this story HERE.