It was a cold and rainy morning as the Bearcat attack truck was put on display to the public for the first time in Keene, New Hampshire. Between nine and eleven ante meridiem, the Ballistic Engineered Armored Response Counter Attack Truck was on display with the motor running and the rear doors open, revealing the personnel carrying compartment which seats eight. With the driver and passenger seat, the truck fits ten commandos comfortably, and came standard with no less than ten gun ports. While the KPD didn’t receive the additional gas injector arm, LRAD, or a .50 caliber to mount atop their rotating turret, the powerful fixed FLIR camera gives the department new vision as hunters. The infrared lens can see warm bodies in the darkness, as the image is created by detecting thermal signatures instead of light, akin to the alien antagonist in the sci-fi thriller Predator.
Waco-style penetrating gas weapon
Among those who braved the weather, there was much speculation as to how the Bearcat would be first put to use. While those who tried selling the prospect of the Bearcat to the people claimed it could be used as a rescue vehicle, tour guides acknowledged that it was a standard Ford pickup truck on an enhanced frame with armor. It is not capable of traversing flood waters any more than its unarmored counterpart, beyond the additional elevation provided by the large wheels.
The attack truck is equipped with environmental detectors on the exterior of the vehicle. The sensors are capable of recognizing certain chemical, biological, and radiation dangers. However, the interior itself is in no way insulated from any of these potential threats, as it does not have its own pressurized cabin. The boondoggle also features three spotlights, and all the flashes and noises one would expect from a police vehicle. (more…)
Coming in just behind Maine and Vermont is New Hampshire at #3 on the most peaceful states in the US! Check out the interesting information and graphics they have at the Global and US Peace Rankings.
On the evening of December 3, the Bradley Manning Support Network sponsored a presentation by Manning’s attorney David Coombs. Coombs played down the media’s role in covering the military tribunal, yet acknowledged the more humane treatment that positive press coverage resulted in after Manning was removed from harsh conditions in Quantico, Virginia and moved to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. See the full hour video embedded below, featuring Emma Cape, Michael Ratner, and David Coombs. A detailed writeup is available from the Dissenter.
Earlier this month passed another Veterans Day, which formerly commemorated the signing of the armistice which would end Europe’s World War the first. Often forgotten in the celebration associated with the cessation of war are the victims who suffer from its ills long after alleged peace deals are signed. The effects of WWI on the culture of the US and the world were not fully actualized as events were transpiring. If history was any indicator, the nation would find itself in the same brutish death trap just over a generation later.
Conscientious objectors at Camp Lewis, WA. Nov 1918
A violent militarism, which could be described as an antipacifism, swept the United States, with an even stronger sentiment arising in the more war-ravaged Soviet Union. One of the darkest examples of this hostility towards civilians during WWI is the treatment of pacifist Hutterites following the draft which began just over a year before the war would come to an end. While saukerkraut makers were changing their product names to ‘Liberty Cabbage’ and South Dakota was banning instruction of the German language in government schools, four members of a 400 year old pacifist, communalist Christian sect received draft notices to risk their lives in Europe for the mythical Uncle Sam. Perhaps it was by chance and perhaps deliberately that four names from an antimilitant community found their way onto the draft register. There had already been tension building between the area Hutterites and their neighbors, as the community had refused to buy war bonds the year prior. (more…)
The signups keep rolling in with the Free State Project crossing another exciting milestone – 2/3rds of the original 20,000 participant goal! It seems like people joining at an increasing clip.
Local independence movements continue to be popular in various media. NHPR has today published a seven minute segment that focuses mostly on the Foundation for New Hampshire Independence. Also published on the same day as last week’s Free Concord article on the subject was a story on the Concord-NH Patch, Secession Movement Comes to NH. FreeWilliamsburg.com published on November 16 an interview with a resident of the Brooklyn neighborhood who started a petition on WhiteHouse.gov to grant secession to East Williamsburg to ‘create a new, hipper neighborhood’.
A mural welcoming Barack Obama to Burma (Myanmar) is vandalized in Yangon
