Sentenced to death over 20 years ago by the Israeli authorities as a Nazi war criminal but later freed when fresh evidence undermined the basis of his conviction, Demjanjuk again expects to face charges, this time alleging that he helped to murder many thousands of Jews at a Nazi death camp.
If the case proceeds, with Demjanjuk now 89 and remaining witnesses also elderly, this could be the last such prosecution for crimes committed during the Holocaust.
Mr. Demjanjuk, a retired auto mechanic from Cleveland, Ohio has never changed his name nor tried to hide.
More of the story here.
Most of the dead were in L'Aquila, a 13th century mountain city about 100 km (60 miles) east of Rome, and nearby towns and villages in the Abruzzo region.
An Italian scientist predicted a major earthquake around L'Aquila weeks before disaster struck the city on Monday, killing dozens of people, but was reported to authorities for spreading panic among the population.
Vans with loudspeakers had driven around the town a month ago telling locals to evacuate their houses after seismologist Gioacchino Giuliani predicted a large quake was on the way, prompting the mayor's anger.
Giuliani, who based his forecast on concentrations of radon gas around seismically active areas, was reported to police for "spreading alarm" and was forced to remove his findings from the Internet.
Claudio Torghele, who has invented the "Let's Pizza" machine, claims that it can make a pizza by beating flour and water into a dough, stretching the dough into the classic round shape and then adding tomato sauce and toppings to choice - cheese and tomato, vegetables, ham or bacon - before baking it in an infrared oven and finally sliding the finished product into the hands of the customer, all for a modest €3.50 (£3.25) ($4.80).
That's half the price of eating one in the average Italian pizzeria.
More here.
The Associated Press had this caption below the photo shown here:This satellite image provided by DigitalGlobe shows a missile on the launchpad at Musudan-ni, North Korea formally know as Taepo-dong missile launch facility. The image was collected Sunday March 29, 2009. CNN has said North Korea has begun fueling a long-range rocket for an impending launch Thursday April 2, 2009 as President Barack Obama warned the liftoff would be a "provocative act" that would generate a U.N. Security Council response.
What will the UN do besides pass on Obama’s complaint?
If firing a missile is a threat to us why don’t we shoot it shot down before it can do damage to us or to our allies? Isn’t that why we sent warships into the area?
A Lucianne comment about the Korean incident:The rest of the world is learning that the United States has the weakest President since Calvin Coolidge. They are going to push him around knowing full well that all he is prepared to do is read a speech off of a teleprompter in response to their actions.
We had ships in the general proximity capable of shooting the missile down. What if the next missile doesn’t go astray?
Link
A protestor wore a mask that is shaped like a skull during a demonstration against the NATO summit in Strasbourg, France.
Some might think it macabre but Iraq is offering honeymooners the chance to spend their wedding night in Saddam Hussein’s bed.
As the country gingerly begins to revive a war-ravaged tourism industry, the former dictator’s bedroom is on offer for £150 a night in a presidential palace that is undergoing renovation in the town of Hillah, some 60 miles south of Baghdad.
With its Roman columns, chandeliers and gargantuan bathrooms, the palace is a striking example of excess, and one of several reserved for the exclusive pleasure of the dictator, who was deposed in 2003 and executed in 2006.
More of the story here.
It is King Abdullah’s royal family that funds radical mosques in the United States and wouldn’t allow us to investigate the al-Qaeda attack on the Khobar Towers (shown below).
A Chinese laborer sleeps between the lines at the Wuhan North railway marshalling yard construction site in Wuhan, Hubei province.
One of the most important tests of a globe-trotting president: picking out just the right gift for your foreign counterpart. Barack Obama is learning this the hard way.
Only a few weeks on the job, Obama created a minor diplo-mess when British Prime Minister Gordon Brown came to the U.S. for a visit.
Obama's historic Oval Office desk, a gift from Queen Victoria to Rutherford Hayes, is made from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. Brown proudly presented Obama with a pencil holder carved from its antislavery sister ship, the HMS Gannet. Classy!
So how did our president reciprocate? Obama gave Gordon Brown a DVD set of Hollywood movies, including "Psycho." When Brown got back home, he discovered they didn't work in his European player. Classless!
Mr. Obama didn’t do much better with the gift he presented Queen Elizabeth II on his UK visit last week. The gift was an iPod loaded with photos from Obama's Inauguration, audio of Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention followed by audio of Obama’s 2009 Inauguration Address.
I’m sure the Queen listens to Obama’s teleprompter speeches every night when she goes to bed.
Americans knew he had lots of ego and no class. Now the entire world knows it.
At a time when we needed a Winston Churchill we voted in a Charlie Chaplain instead.
Link here and here.
The man was accused of trying to rob Sykes Liquor Store in Trenton, New Jersey.
Police said the owner, who was behind the counter, triggered the lock after the man grabbed a bottle of Hennessy cognac and bolted for the door.
The man then allegedly pulled out a handgun and demanded to be released. But the owner said he saw that the gun was a fake, refused to unlock the door and called police.
Police said the suspect threw away the gun, slumped to the floor and was crying when officers arrived to arrest him.
Photos from the Queen's 2007 White House State Visit
Photos from the Queen's 2007 Jamestown, Va., Visit
Photos from the Queen's 2007 Richmond, Va., Visit
Video from the Queen's 1957 Jamestown Visit
Video from the Queen's 2007 Jamestown Visit
Video from the Queen's 2007 Richmond Visit
Photos from President Obama's Inauguration
Audio of then-state senator Obama's speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention
Audio of President Obama 2009 Inauguration Address
The first six items reflected a nice gesture on Obama’s part.
The last three items reflected Mr. Obama’s egocentric personality and lack of any knowledge of proper protocol when dealing with the Queen of our closest ally.
Link
The bronze statue, in the city of St Petersburg, was badly damaged before dawn on Wednesday.
The statue, outside the Finland Station, marks the Bolshevik leader's return from exile in April 1917.
Lenin gave a speech at that railway station after his return from exile.
Later that year he would lead the revolution that overthrew the government and would take the Communists to power for more than 70 years.
St Petersburg was the cradle of the Russian Revolution and was renamed Leningrad after Lenin's death in 1924.
The daytime show transferred from NBC radio to CBS television in 1952. It has won 69 Daytime Emmy Awards throughout its history.
Guinness World Records has dubbed it the world's longest-running TV drama. More than 15,700 episodes will have been broadcast by the time its final episode airs on September 18.
"Guiding Light has achieved a piece of television history that will never be matched; it has crossed mediums, adapted its stories to decades of social change and woven its way through generations of audiences like no other," said Nancy Tellem, CBS Paramount Network Television Entertainment Group president.
However, when Congress tried to enact an auto industry bailout plan in December, the legislation was approved by the House but failed in the Senate where, under the rules, it needed 60 votes.
How can Congress just pass a bill that claims they have dictatorial rights over the management of any company in the US just because they want to run it?
Seize private companies and fire CEO’s. Dictate salaries and assess retroactive punitive taxes on company management. Well, I guess they backed off on the retroactive punitive taxes - for now.
When will the blatant power grab end?
Much more of this story here including Steny Hoyer’s offhand comment, But if authority is a question, then Congress will grant it to the administration.
TSA spokesman Dwayne Baird says the pictures online right now are of models demonstrating how the equipment works. He is quick to say the equipment cannot save, print or send images of passengers.
"Once we resolve the image, then the next passenger comes into the machine and the image that is on the screen is immediately deleted," Baird said.
He says the scanners are part of a pilot program right now at several airports around the nation.
TSA says that some people are bringing items through the checkpoint that are not allowed. When the prohibited items are not metallic, they would not be picked up with the walk-through metal detector.
The screeners are in a resolution room away from the checkpoint, so they don't see the face or identity of the person being screened. That way even celebrities coming through won't be identified and potentially exploited.
The US president is a dreadful cur, with no appreciation for history or former relationships in the world. Even the dumb American people with grow to detest the very mention of his name.
We reported earlier that:Pro-Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler (upper picture) wants to break up.
Owner Pat Bowlen (center picture) wants to make up.
Rookie head coach Josh McDaniels (lower picture) wants to throw up.
The only change now is:
Pro-Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler still wants to break up.
Rookie head coach Josh McDaniels wants to make up.
Owner Pat Bowlen wants to throw up.
New coach Josh McDaniels tried to bring quarterback Matt Cassel to Denver. You don’t bring in a quarterback the caliber of Cassel just to be a backup.
It didn’t work out anyway - Cassel went to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Cutler wanted out - for two reasons.
First: a complete lack of confidence by head coach McDaniels - wanting to bring in a “starting caliber” quarterback proved that.
Second: The Broncos failed to renegotiate Cutler’s contract to match his performance. He was still being paid based on a rookie player from Vanderbilt. Nothing against Vanderbilt University but
quarterbacks out of that football program don’t get top dollar contracts when the enter the NFL.
Should the fault for Cutler’s departure fall directly on the shoulders of rookie head coach Josh McDaniels or is owner Pat Bowlen to blame for hiring a young untried coach.
Pat Bowlen surly must have buyers remorse after the McDaniels hire.
The loss of one of the best young quarterbacks to come along in a long time may haunt Bowlen forever.
A recent Cutler story from Denver Channel 9 Sports is here.
But Uncle Sam won't stand by warranties held by current vehicle owners or safety recalls, which can occur years after the warranty expires.
That would leave uncovered about 10 million to 15 million GM and Chrysler vehicles bought in the past couple years, said Clarence Ditlow, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.
The National Automobile Dealers Association said it also isn't impressed by Obama's plan saying:
"We are encouraged by President Obama's commitment to putting the domestic auto industry back on the road to recovery but continue to urge the administration to focus immediately on correcting the dysfunctional credit markets," the organization said in a statement, adding that bankruptcy should not be an option.
"It would further erode consumer confidence and, therefore, our ability to sell at the retail level. Moreover, it would further exacerbate the availability of credit."
The government backed warranties and huge government backed incentives planned for selling new GM and Chrysler vehicles, will leave Ford at a serious disadvantage and may soon need the same drastic bailout as GM and Chrysler.
Possibly that’s in the Obama master plan for the federal government to own all three of Detroit’s automakers.
Under government direction, how long before they will all be making Edsel’s?
Link
A picture of my cave
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