Major Update: The "Puppy" Found Online?!!
Sick: Marine Throws Puppy To Its Death
Update: Leaning Towards "Prank" With Already-Dead Pup

FAAAAAAAKE: I'm not 100% sure, but I think we have our proof.

Compare this "realistic sleeping puppy" to the video, especially at :05 in the vid. DaveP says the head coloring is an exact match.

Thanks, DaveP of Dean's World!!

Although some offered that it was a stuffed animal, it looked too real to me, suggesting it was a dead but real puppy... but... supposedly this stuffed "sleeping puppy" is pretty realistic, and it looks like the "puppy" in question.

Cold Water: Benson says it's not this dog:

Ace, one commenter at Hot Air has the exact same fake dog, and says it's flat on one side and its posture can't be changed. Another has seen them, too, and concurs that they're completely flat on the one side.

Okay, but the principle stands. A realistic dog stuffed animal can probably pass for an unmoving dog.

...

Earlier Post Follows:

Allah says he held off on posting the clip, and then I held off longer.

Story here.

It looks like Iraq; not sure if it is. It doesn't look like Hawaii at all. (He's from Marine Base Corps Hawaii, which I take to just be a designation for an Iraqi base.)

The Beauchamp Brigade will try to blame Bush for turning an upstanding young man into a monster. But much more likely is that this guy was just born a low-grade psychopath lacking basic Voight-Kampff empathy for other living things.

Maj. Chris Perrine of the Marine Corps Base Hawaii says it appears the man is based with a unit in the islands.

Marine officials are calling the YouTube video ``shocking and deplorable'' and say it violates ``the high standard we expect of every Marine.''

The low-quality video shows two Marines joking as one holds up what appears to be a motionless black and white puppy, which he then hurls into a rocky gully.

A yelping sound is heard as it flies through the air.

Hot Air spins a reader's theory that the puppy was already dead and the yelping noises were added post-filming -- so they weren't killing a puppy, but rather just filming a prank of dubious taste -- but I think that's just the sort of (benevolently) kneejerk conservative protectiveness of servicemen at work, plus the (often useful) skepticism of news and video reports.

I think the obvious explanation will prove to be accurate: Yup, he killed a puppy for no good reason.

I can't tell myself. The puppy doesn't seem to move, but that's not very probative either way; grabbed by the back of the neck, the puppy would probably go into a slack submissive state. Its lower legs don't hang but are rather pulled up by its body, which also doesn't mean much, as that could just be rigor mortis.

I hope Allah's reader is right, but I doubt it. Either way, the video doesn't really establish much except for what we already knew: There are are a lot of assholes in the world, and some of them even wear a uniform.

Emerging Commenter Consensus: FAKE. I hope so, and I do think there is some merit to the arguments, which I guess are, in order of increasing persuasiveness:

1) The comportment of the guys seems like they're doing a shock-video for shits and giggles, a prank. Ambiguous, of course, but I can see that.

2) The puppy doesn't move. Even when thrown, his legs do not flail. Also ambiguous, because the puppy is spun-out and centrifugal forces might just be keeping his legs extended. In any event, it's hard to really be sure he's not moving voluntarily, since he's involuntarily moving so damn much.

3) The yelps seems strangely loud even as the puppy fades into the background, suggesting they were not recorded in-scene but added later. This seems to be the strongest evidence, but it's still not overwhelming. The yelps do fade some, and I personally don't know enough about audio to know what the proper drop-off in decibel level should be as something moves 40 feet away.

Still... there is some good reason to doubt the video, and think it is all just a prank. (PS, if it is a prank, let us have none of this "Well they're so sick they still shouldn't wear the uniform!" crap. True, this is a PR black-eye, but if it is just a prank, well, it's just a prank, and no one should suffer greatly just for pulling a prank of dubious taste.)

All that said, I still think the obvious explanation will hold true. I'm just not certain of it.

Watching Again: I have moved to the "Prank" side of the aisle, though I'm not firm on that. But now I think more likely fake than real.

It's the way they act. They are acting like it's a joke and that they're putting one over on us. And add in the fact the puppy never moves at all and yes, those far-away yelps are quite suspicious... Fake.

Expected reaction from the other guy if Vittoro (sp?) actually threw the puppy: That sort of guilty, horrified laughing. Like, "Duuudde! No! I can't believe you did that!" With laughs, if the guy was into puppy-murder.

His actual reaction (the spirit of it, at least): "Look, everyone, he just killed a cute little puppy, that's cold, isn't it?" It seems less like he's reacting to the puppy murder and more like he's trying to sell it to the home audience.

Major Update: The "Puppy" Found Online?!!
Sick: Marine Throws Puppy To Its Death
Update: Leaning Towards "Prank" With Already-Dead Pup&bodytext=FAAAAAAAKE: I'm not 100% sure, but I think we have our proof. Compare this "realistic sleeping puppy" to the video, especially at :05 in the vid. DaveP says the head coloring is an exact match. Thanks, DaveP of Dean's World!!...&topic=world_news"> posted by Ace at 01:20 PM

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