Tag Archives: World War

Unrepentant Nazi criminal Priebke chills Rome

By hnn

There has been a renewed call in Italy for one of the oldest surviving Nazi war criminals to repent.

It came on the eve of the 100th birthday of Erich Priebke, who has never expressed remorse for his part in a World War ll massacre at the Ardeatine Caves, on the outskirts of Rome.

The former SS officer is actually still in the Italian capital.

He lives under house arrest in what some in the city regard as conditions that are far too comfortable and lenient….

Source:
BBC News

Source URL:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-23468227

Date:
7-29-13

…read more

Source: FULL ARTICLE at History News Network – George Mason University

What Will Be Your Fate, America?

By Bradlee Dean

“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a communist;

Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a socialist;

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a trade unionist;

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—

because I was not a Jew;

Then they came for me—

and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

Martin Niemöller

Can you imagine a world in which the Holocaust never occurred?  Or a World War that never took place?  Can you imagine all the lives that would have been saved; families that never had to be bereaved of their children; and the millions of men, women, and children whose lives could have been spared? If only the people would have stopped the destruction before it took place.  No one ever expected the Holocaust to happen.  Who could imagine that such evil embodied through Hitler and his regime could have ever taken place?  Were there no warning signs to the people of Germany?  Yes, there were.

The Germans told the Jewish people they couldn’t swim in their swimming pools, but no one protested too strongly.  Then they said they couldn’t attend their schools, “No problem,” said the Jewish people, “We’ll make our own schools.”  Little by little, their rights were stripped from them and taken away through deceptive measures; but no one ever imagined the horror that awaited them because they tolerated the beginning trickles of injustice that left governmental power unchecked, which ended up billowing into one of the most tragic events in history. Everything that Hitler did looked like law, smelled like law, and even had the color of law, but was not law. What is it that we have learned from looking back and studying the past?

John Adams, the second president of the United States, stated: “Fear is the foundation of most governments; but it is so sordid and brutal a passion, and renders men in whose breasts it predominates so stupid and miserable, that Americans will not be likely to approve of any political institution which is founded on it.”

Is America walking contrary to John Adams’ statement?  You decide. Today, those who stand for the Constitution, the sanctity of life, and the traditional values of morality our country was founded upon are now labeled as un-American haters.

Vladimir Lenin, First Leader of the Soviet Union, said: “We can and must write in a language which sows among the masses hate, revulsion, and scorn toward those who disagree with us.”

Sound familiar?

We see it in trickles now, but left unchecked by the silent majority who sit back and do nothing… what will be your fate, America?  History tends to repeat itself unless we stand up and do something to stop it. Knowing what you stand for limits what you fall for.

Proverbs 28:1 says “The wicked flee when no man pursueth: but the righteous are bold as a

From: http://www.westernjournalism.com/what-will-be-your-fate-america/

Trio of Level-5 Games Hitting Nintendo eShop

Three Level-5 eShop games are making their way to the Nintendo eShop.

The first, Starship Damprey, looks really interesting. It’s an experimental first-person horror game that looks like it’s set on an abandoned spaceship. There are no tutorials or objectives at all; players must find what little info they can by exploring in order to “discover the truth of their circumstances”.

Bugs vs Tanks is the second, from the mind of Mega Man creator and Japanese games industry renegade Keiji Inafune. It features a squadron of World War 2 tanks shrunk down to the size of bugs, like a violent Pikmin.

Attack of the Friday Monsters: A Tokyo Tale stars a young boy fighting monsters from Japanese 1970s tokusatsu monster and superhero shows, which come alive on Fridays. You can check out footage of all three below.

Continue reading…

From: http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/04/17/trio-of-level-5-games-hitting-nintendo-eshop

Academy Award Winning 'CASABLANCA' Returns to Screens for Cinemark's Classic Films Series on Wednesd

By Business Wirevia The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Academy Award Winning ‘CASABLANCA’ Returns to Screens for Cinemark’s Classic Films Series on Wednesday, April 3, 2013

PLANO, Texas–(BUSINESS WIRE)– Cinemark Holdings, Inc. (NYS: CNK) , one of the world’s largest motion picture exhibitors, is pleased to announce that the 1942 Academy Award Winner for Best Motion Picture, CASABLANCA will play at Cinemark’s Classic Series in over 120 Cinemark theatres across the country. Ranked #3 on the 2007 American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Movies of All Time, the film is scheduled to play on Wednesday, April 3, 2013, at two separate show times, 2 pm and 7 pm.

“Our Cinemark Classic Series continues to engage customers with favorites like CASABLANCA,” states James Meredith, Head of Marketing & Communications for Cinemark. “Bogart and Bergman, a moving love story, World War 2 espionage, and a great song in ‘As Time Goes By’; no wonder it’s considered one of the greatest American movies ever made.”

Winner of the 1942 Best Picture Academy Award, CASABLANCA, won additional Oscars for Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay (Philip and Julius Epstein and Howard Koch). In addition; the film received the following Academy Award nominations: Humphrey Bogart, Best Actor; Claude Rains, Best Supporting Actor; Arthur Edeson, Cinematography; Owen Marks, Film Editing; Max Steiner, Musical Score.

Individual tickets or a specially priced bundled package for Cinemark’s Classic Series are now available at www.cinemark.com or at the participating theatre box office. For a full list of participating Cinemark locations, advance ticket purchases and show time information go to the Cinemark web site.

Cinemark takes pride in creating the best entertainment experience in the industry. In order to make movie-going as easy and enjoyable as possible, Cinemark focuses on offering more choices to their customers. For example, “Print at Home” ticketing available at www.cinemark.com, makes it easy for patrons to purchase tickets in advance from the comfort of their home or office. Customers can bypass lines at the box office and go directly to a kiosk in the theatre lobby. Also, guests can download and purchase tickets through Cinemark’s mobile applications that are available for iPhone and Android phones. Finally, to stay connected, customers can sign up online to receive free, weekly showtime e-mailers that contain online coupons for discounts at the concession stand and other weekly special offers.

About Cinemark Holdings, Inc.

Cinemark is a leading domestic and international motion picture exhibitor, operating 465 …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Why Big Oil Is Ditching Biotechnology

By Maxxwell A.R. Chatsko, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Landing partners with deep pockets will be critical for many developmental stage biotechnology companies looking to take their disruptive platforms to the next level. We’re not talking measly partnerships here (although those are important too). We’re talking major investments. Unfortunately, the prospects for megadeals have taken a hit over the last year. Several well-established energy companies have dropped or distanced themselves from the list of financiers for budding industrial biotechnology companies.

Big oil isn’t abandoning renewable technologies altogether, but many companies have pivoted their focus away from genome hacking and toward more familiar industrial technology. While funding hasn’t necessarily dried up, the nascent industrial biotechnology industry could sure use a little more confidence from global energy leaders. With all of the potential behind bio-based chemicals investors may be left wondering: “What gives?”

Brute force vs. finesse
The oil and chemical industries are dominated by thermocatalytic processes, or those that use high heat and pressure to drive chemical reactions and produce useful products. This is the “brute force” approach. Industrial biotechnology, which utilizes biocatalytic processes, sits at the other end of the spectrum. These platforms use biological pathways in microbial cells — bacterial, fungal, viral, mammalian, floral, and algal — to turn chemical feedstocks into useful chemicals. This is the finesse approach.  

A general lack of understanding of how cells interact with genetic tweaking, the shear forces inside a massive bioreactor, and other industrial variables is the biggest problem facing biocatalytic technology. That makes using the methane and ethane found in natural gas as chemical feedstocks a pretty sexy idea. Nat-gas is cheap and the processes involved — or those very similar to it — have been commercially viable since World War 2.

The shorter list of unknowns for thermocatalytic technologies makes returns more certain, which is an important factor to consider when writing eight-figure checks. It also doesn’t help that the massive amounts of natural gas beneath our feet are currently much easier to access than the cellulosic sugars in agricultural wastes. Much like us individual investors, big oil is seeking to mitigate risks and maintain a clearer picture on their potential returns.

A zero-sum game?
Valero
was the first major refiner to get into the ethanol business and now owns 10 refineries. The company has kept a broad focus with its renewable energy portfolio, although the largest investments are in thermocatalytic companies such as Enerkem and several ventures producing biodiesel. Valero’s small partnership with algae fuels company Algenol shows that while the company acknowledges the potential, it is still hesitant about throwing much weight behind more advanced biotechnology ideas. The rest of the industry isn’t much different.

Early last year Shell quietly announced that it had built a drop-in biofuels facility using a thermocatalytic process licensed from partner Virent. It proceeded to cut direct ties with industrial bioenzyme manufacturers Iogen and Codexis , which many people believed were the front-runners for the company’s plans in biofuels.

BP followed …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Could This Be the Future of Nuclear Power?

By Maxx Chatsko, The Motley Fool

Filed under:

Let’s start off with a quiz. Name at least one element that fuels nuclear reactors. I don’t normally trust strangers over the Internet, but I’m fairly confident that you were able to identify uranium as the correct answer. Now, name an element that you think is most likely to be the driving force behind the industry in 2050 and beyond. Chances are you went chalk and named uranium again.

No one can blame you for that, but you may want to consider the potential of thorium. After being developed side by side with traditional uranium reactors shortly after World War 2, thorium reactors fell into the dustbin of history despite sporting several key advantages. Thorium is cheaper, more abundant, and safer to use than uranium and received heightened attention after the Fukushima accident several years ago. Now, several macro trends have a growing list of companies and governments across the globe resurrecting the technology. Is it time to prepare your portfolio for a thorium future?

History is a winner’s game
American nuclear physicist Dr. Alvin Weinberg made major contributions to nuclear technology — from the Manhattan Project to reactor architecture — over his 18 year tenure as Research Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. What began in the 1950s as an attempt to construct a nuclear-powered long-range aircraft (The Aircraft Reactor Experiment) led to Weinberg’s lifelong dedication to molten salt reactors, or MSRs. Why haven’t you heard of this technology? The MSR Program at Oak Ridge succumbed to political pressures in the early 1970s and was all but forgotten. Losers rarely become the authors of history.

That doesn’t mean the technology didn’t work. It was even considered competitive with early light water reactors, or LWRs, which are now the industry standard. One theory as to why the program was cancelled is that thorium reactors could not be used for weapons production, which was an important concern of politicians during the Cold War. Of course, today this attribute would be emphatically filed under the “advantages” column.

While Cold War fears were certainly a nail in the coffin, Dr. H.G. MacPherson, who worked on the project with Weinberg, outlined a more complete history of the MSR Program (link opens PDF) for Nuclear Science and Engineering in 1985. And while I’m a big fan of nerding-out on technical and scientific papers, The Motley Fool doesn’t keep me around to explain the intricate details behind thorium reactors. For a more thorough examination of the element and technology, I would direct you to the World Nuclear Association’s page on thorium.

Behold, the power of Thor
The leading design for a thorium MSR is the liquid fluoride thorium reactor, or LFTR. What’s so great about it? These types of reactors are capable of operating at atmospheric pressure, which essentially makes them meltdown proof. Imagine that. Such reactors would ease fears about the accidental release of radioactive material and could save hundreds of millions of dollars on the construction …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at DailyFinance

Video: Russian Nuclear Armed Jets Simulating Nuclear Strike On America

By Daniel Noe

Could this be the start of World War 3?

…read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

When Politicians Demand Gun Control, Remember Our Founders

By Leon Puissegur

Many are asking the question “Why should we allow guns?” Those who want gun control at the levels that Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) has put forth have the idea that citizens do not need certain types of weapons. However, those same people will be very quick to say that our government will never turn on the very people they intend on keeping from acquiring these arms. Just by placing the “assault weapons ban” bill on the record, Senator Feinstein has violated the Oath of her office (and as such has committed an act of treason.)

Now back in 1946, a local sheriff had developed a political machine that had taken over the area known as Athens, Tennessee. The political machine had forced people to leave the voting booth, and those who opposed them faced a beating for their oppposition. Now had the gun control ideology of present day been in effect in 1946, the people of Athens would not have been able to take back the ballot boxes that were about to be filled with fraudulent ballots by those who had taken over the town of Athens. There is a plaque showing that a number of World War 2 veterans stood up for their fundamental rights of a fair election; but this was done due to a very powerful part of the United States Constitution, the Second Amendment. An interesting video was made about this action taken by the Citizens of Athens, Tennessee, which displays that the government not only can, but did, go way out of control.

It should not only be watched but shown to all who have the false idea that the government would not go beyond the law.

It has become a very dark day within the United States today when the Senator from California presents a bill that really does nothing at all that would help ensure that another Sandy Hook massacre does not happen (but does infringe on the Second Amendment rights of law abiding citizens.) No one has addressed the root of the problem at all; instead, they go after the legal gun owners. Senator Feinstein has forgotten that Lanza had broken about 20+ laws before even going to the school. She also seems to forget that the man had a very serious mental problem and that if he had been under watch, he would have been stopped from stealing his mother’s guns (not to mention breaking nearly every gun control law on the books in Connecticut.)

Many people will quickly and wrongly say that the Second Amendment was never meant to allow people to have weapons like those now attempting to be banned, but they are totally wrong. When we look back at many of the statements by the men who started the United States and signed the Constitution, we see the exact opposite of what is being put forth in the legislative process today.

“(The Constitution preserves) the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation… (Where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.” –James Madison

“The right of the people to keep and bear…arms shall not be infringed. A well-regulated militia, composed of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country…” 
–James Madison, I Annals of Congress 434 (June 8, 1789)

“A free people ought not only to be armed, but disciplined; to which end a uniform and well-digested plan is requisite; and their safety and interest require that they should promote such manufactories as tend to render them independent of others for essential, particularly military, supplies.” – George Washington

“What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance. Let them take arms.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who didn’t.
” – Ben Franklin

“When governments fear the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.” – Thomas Jefferson

“The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed.” 
– Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

These great men either wrote, signed, or fought for the Constitution of the United States; and their words show clearly what they had in mind with the Second Amendment. It was with such forethought that they knew that if the people were properly armed, they would “preserve” liberty and freedom. This cannot be denied, and any individual who acts against the Second Amendment acts in a way that should be declared as treason against the very Constitution they took an oath to “support and defend”!

It has come down to “We the People” to preserve the founders’ ideology and not be drawn into the extreme Socialistic views of the far left “progressive” party.

It also must be stated that it is very bad to kill children; but our nation allows the murder of 4,000 children every day through abortion, and very little is done about that. They have heartbeats at 4 days, but our government has legalized their premeditated murder. With this in mind, why is it that our nation seems to take such strong action for 26 people being killed by guns when the very people crying about the innocent children being killed will turn a blind eye to 4,000 being killed each day?

While the issue in Athens, Tennessee was about a ballot box and fraudulent voting, the issue in America today is about much more; and there is far more at stake. However, in the end, the same problem exists; there are lawless men and women who wish to force their ideology on the people by undermining and even directly attacking the United States Constitution.

Source: FULL ARTICLE at Western Journalism

Greg Grossmeier: Grandpa’s tool chest

My grandpa (Grandpa Jenks, mom’s dad) was an amazing guy.

Actually, I could just say:

My grandpa was the guy you think of who lived through the depression and World War 2. He built a house with hand tools. Was a farmer. Was a carpenter. And raised 3 kids with an equally amazing wife.

He was an amazing carpenter.

I have several pieces of furniture he made over the years including a bookshelf that is the sturdiest one you’ve ever used and a sitting chest with casters that used to be underneath the upstairs phone where my grandmother would chat with her friends and family.

Each of his granddaughters have a cedar hope chest. One of those big chests that sit at the bottom of a full-sized bed that hold all the special things in your life. They smell amazing and I’m still a little jealous that grandpa never made me one.

Until today.

My grandpa passed away a number of years ago; I was still in undergrad. When he died all the extended family came to the house to grieve, remember, and (sadly) go through his possessions. Of course my other male cousin and I (the only two male cousins) went to the garage to go through his tools.

At the time I was beginning to get an itch for woodworking (an itch I haven’t fully scratched yet) and my cousin was (and is) a bang up mechanic; so it was pretty easy to divvy up the tools.

My grandpa, of course, had a wooden tool chest for his woodworking tools. I call it a tool chest because of its size and weight, but apparently my grandpa called it a toolbox and carried it to the work site every day. Grandpa sure was a buff son of a gun. That’s what I got; this amazing wooden tool chest filled with a good number of woodworking tools (even the pencil bag my mom sewed for him), still in a great condition (sharp as all heck and oiled). Since I was still in school I didn’t have a place to keep it; it has spent the last near decade in my parents’ basement.

Now it made the long trip out to California in my parents’ RV and I couldn’t be happier. Take a look why.

grandpa's tool chest

The chest

mom and grandpa's tool chest

My mom and the chest, for size comparison

grandpa's tool chest open

Opened

grandpa's tool chest open with planes

With planes

grandpa's no. 6 plane

The No. 6 plane

pencil bag

The amazing pencil bag my mom made for him that he used until the end

grandpa's chisel

A still amazingly sharp chisel

Not all of the tools are pictured; many were taken out of the tool chest for easy loading and unloading (again, he was a buff son of a gun).

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Source: FULL ARTICLE at Planet Ubuntu