9-11 conspiracist charged with desertion

From The Daily Star: Movie creator charged:

An Oneonta man who helped produce a 9/11 conspiracy documentary that became an Internet hit was arrested Monday for allegedly deserting the Army.

Korey Rowe, 24, a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq, was picked up by deputies at about 10:45 p.m. Monday, Otsego County Sheriff Richard Devlin Jr. said.

Rowe, along with Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, are members of Louder Than Words, a production company that is working on a third edition of the movie “Loose Change,” which contends the U.S. government was involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. That edition is intended to be a theatrical release.

[…]

Rowe was arrested on a “military warrant” that Devlin said was brought to the attention of deputies by the Oneonta Police Department, who received information from a source outside of that department.

[…]

After deputies received the information from Oneonta police, they reached out to the Army, and officials from Fort Knox faxed a copy of the warrant, deputies said.

Rowe previously told The Daily Star he enlisted in August 2001. He left the Army in June 2005, according to the Louder Than Words website.

He is being held without bail in the Otsego County jail and is waiting to be picked up by U.S. Army officials, Devlin said.

The Associated Press reported last month that deserters are rarely court-martialed by the Army.

Although 3,301 soldiers deserted in the 2006 fiscal year, there were just 174 troops court-martialed.

Hopefully, they line him up against a wall and shoot him.

Hat tip: The Jawa Report and Screw Loose Change.

Sept. 11 rescue dog with cancer dies

From the AP via Yahoo! News [photo credit: AP]: Sept. 11 rescue dog with cancer dies:

Mary Flood leashes her black Labrador retriever search and rescue dog, Jake, near the World Trade Center in New York in this Sept. 22, 2001 file photo.A black Labrador that burrowed through smoking debris after Sept. 11 and flooded rubble after Hurricane Katrina in search of survivors has died after developing cancer.

Owner Mary Flood had 12-year-old Jake put to sleep Wednesday after a last stroll through the fields and a dip in the creek near their home in Oakley, Utah. Flood said Jake had been in pain, shaking with a 105-degree fever as he lay on the lawn.

No one can say whether the dog would have gotten sick if he hadn’t been exposed to the toxic air at the World Trade Center, but cancer in dogs Jake’s age is common.

Some owners of rescue dogs who worked at ground zero claim their animals have died because of their work there. But scientists who have spent years studying the health of Sept. 11 search-and-rescue dogs have found no sign of major illness in the animals.

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The results of an autopsy on Jake’s body will be part of a medical study on the Sept. 11 dogs that was started by the University of Pennsylvania more than 5 years ago.

Flood adopted Jake as a 10-month-old puppy. He had been abandoned on a street with a broken leg and a dislocated hip.

“But against all odds he became a world-class rescue dog,” said Flood, a member of Utah Task Force 1, a federal search-and-rescue team that looked for human remains at ground zero.

On the evening of the team’s arrival in New York, Jake walked into a fancy Manhattan restaurant wearing his search-and-rescue vest and was treated to a free steak dinner under a table.

Flood eventually trained Jake to become one of fewer than 200 U.S. government-certified rescue dogs — an animal on 24-hour call to tackle disasters such as building collapses, earthquakes, hurricanes and avalanches.

After Katrina, Flood and Jake drove from Utah to Mississippi, where they searched for survivors in flooded homes.

In recent years, Jake helped train younger dogs across the country. He showed them how to track scents, even in the snow, and how to look up if the scent was in a tree.

He also did therapy work with children at a Utah camp for burn victims and at senior homes and hospitals.

“He was a great morale booster wherever he went,” Flood said. “He was always ready to work, eager to play — and a master at helping himself to any unattended food items.”

She said Jake’s ashes would be scattered “in places that were important to him,” such as his Utah training grounds and the rivers and hills near his home where he swam and roamed.

Hat tip: The Jawa Report