Breaking News Thread Version 2.0

[Krandall]

Pretty interesting Interweb facts.

http://www.onlineeducation.net/internet/

[Peelz]

Pretty interesting Interweb facts.

http://www.onlineeducation.net/internet/

whoa....we waste alot of time and money on da innernetz.

[Krandall]

WWII veteran had Hitler's art book on bookshelf
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_hitler_s_album
DALLAS – After fighting his way across Europe during World War II, John Pistone was among the U.S. soldiers who entered Adolf Hitler's home nestled in the Bavarian Alps as the war came to a close.

Making his way through the Berghof, Hitler's home near Berchtesgaden, Germany, Pistone noticed a table with shelves underneath. Exhilarated by the certainty of victory over the Nazis, Pistone took an album filled with photographs of paintings as a souvenir.

"It was really a great feeling to be there and we knew, by that time, he was on his last leg," Pistone told The Associated Press.

Sixty-four years after Pistone brought the album home to Ohio, the 87-year-old has learned its full significance: It's part of a series compiled for Hitler featuring art he wanted for his "Fuhrermuseum," a planned museum in Linz, Austria, Hitler's hometown.

Pistone's album is expected to be formally returned to Germany in a ceremony at the U.S. State Department in January. Germany has 19 other albums discovered at the Berchtesgaden complex that are part of a 31-album collection of works either destined for or being considered for the Linz museum.

Pistone's 3-inch thick, 12-pound album's journey from obscurity began this fall when a friend became curious about the book sitting on Pistone's bookshelf.

The friend discovered after some Internet searching that the Dallas-based Monuments Men Foundation for the Preservation of Art was involved in 2007 in the restitution of two other albums that were part of a series documenting art stolen by the Nazis from Jewish families.

Its founder, Robert Edsel, who while living in Italy for a time after selling his oil and gas business became interested in what was done to protect art in World War II, traveled to Ohio this fall to examine Pistone's album. Seeing it convinced him that Pistone had one of the missing albums of the series on the planned museum.

Stamped on the album's spine is "Gemaldegalerie Linz" — Gemaldegalerie means picture gallery in German — and the Roman numerals for 13. It still has a sticker from the book's binder in Dresden.

Birgit Schwarz, a German art historian from Vienna who has written books about Hitler and art, including a book called "Hitler's Museum" describing the albums in the series, is convinced the album is authentic. She said she recognized paintings in the album along with the volume number and title.

"It's absolutely clear!" she wrote in an enthusiastic e-mail to the AP after reviewing scanned photographs of the album. "Hans Makart's 'Pest in Florenz' (Plague in Florence), for example, the first picture of album XIII, Hitler got as a gift from Mussolini!"

Souvenir hunting was routine by soldiers during the war, and problems arise when people try to sell rather than return culturally important items, said Thomas R. Kline, a Washington-based lawyer who specializes in art restitution and works for the foundation.

"It's really important that as people go through their attics and they find the things that grandpa brought home, people are aware that something as simple as a book of pictures could have a cultural significance," Kline said.

Ambassador J. Christian Kennedy, special envoy for Holocaust issues at the State Department, said the agency is happy to help return objects taken during the war. "This is all about doing the right thing," Kennedy said.

Edsel started his foundation in 2007 to honor and continue the work of the original Monuments Men, the roughly 345 men and women from 13 nations who helped Allied forces protect cultural treasures during World War II. After the war, they began trying to find the rightful owners of pieces of art looted by the Nazis, hundreds of thousands of which are still missing.

"It's my desire to see the works of the Monuments Men completed," said Edsel, who wrote two books detailing the group's work.

The discovery of albums could help. In Pistone's case, experts had the names of artwork featured in his album but the photographs could help match them to the correct piece of art, Edsel said.

"They are key documents from the crime scene," he said of the albums.

He said the art Hitler wanted for his museum was bought, stolen or confiscated. The 13th album contains works by some of Hitler's favorite German painters, including a photo of Adolf von Menzel's painting of Frederick the Great that hung in Hitler's office in Munich.

Edsel said his office gets about a call a day from someone curious about an item brought home after the war.

"We're looking for people with goodwill who don't know what they have," Edsel said.

Pistone, album in hand, returned home after surviving the battlefields in Europe. He finished college, got into the restaurant business and had five children. The album mostly stayed up on a shelf at his home in Beachwood, Ohio, but he'd occasionally take it down and let family members look through it.

Once he met Edsel and learned about the Monuments Men, he knew it should be returned to Germany. "I just wanted to get it in the right hands," he said.

Before the book makes the trip overseas, it and one of two other albums the foundation helped discover will go on display for about three months at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans following the State Department ceremony, Edsel said.

Edsel said that of the two albums from 2007, one has already been donated to the U.S. National Archives to join the other albums in that series used as evidence of Nazi looting in the Nuremberg trials. He said that the second will go to the National Archives in the next three years.

"When soldiers and their families realize what they have and come forward to return it, there's never an issue. It's a happy moment and there's celebrations of one kind of another," Kline said. "We owe a huge debt to this generation that saved the world from Naziism."

[Peelz]

I've been looking for my album! 

[Krandall]

Exactly what I was thinking!

[Gunz]

I've got breaking news in my britches...

[Krandall]

erich spotted in Minnesota?
http://www.twincities.com/news/ci_13968657?source=rssBigfoot in the northwoods? Camera picks up strange image near Remer

sucks, they don't show the picture.



Tim Kedrowski and his sons, Peter and Casey, are not pushovers for Bigfoot stories, but a frame on a game trail camera set up on their hunting land north of Remer has left them in a quandary.

"To us, it's very hard because we lean toward the skeptical type," Kedrowski said in a telephone interview from his Rice, Minn., home.

But after checking with neighbors and any other hunters who might have been walking through the dense woods at 7:20 p.m. on the rainy night of Oct. 24, he said they couldn't imagine what else the image could be. Tim said he considered ideas from a bear to a bow hunter in a fuzzy suit. But the arm and hand couldn't be a bear's, or its upright gait. And there is no evidence in the photo of a bow or flashlight a hunter might be using to track a wounded deer.

The Kedrowskis checked the Minnesota Bigfoot Web site and came up with the names of Don Sherman and Bob Olson, the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team.

Sherman is the facilities manager for the Cass Lake Indian Health Service Hospital, and Olson is an auto body repairman in Deer River.

Sherman has responded to numerous area Bigfoot sighting reports and has made casts of footprints. He said he once caught footage of a Bigfoot on a thermal imaging camera and heard its warbling call.

When Sherman saw the image the Kedrowskis sent him, Tim said the researcher responded that he believes it is a picture of a Bigfoot. Sherman went with the Kedrowskis to the photo site and measured
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the height of the creature in comparison the sapling next to it. He determined the animal is about 7 feet tall.

"I've hunted there for 43 years," Tim said of their property near Shingle Mill Lake. "I've seen one bear off my deer stand. I've seen three timber wolves."

Casey Kedrowski said he and his brother had gone out to the family's hunting shack prior to deer season to bring in firewood and make other preparations. They set up a game trail camera to see what might be wandering around their property.

Casey said he and his brother were the only people who knew where the camera was located. They took the camera down when deer season started, and a couple of weeks later checked on what they had caught.

When they came to the picture of the long-armed creature walking upright, Casey said, "We just looked at each other. Each of us thought we were playing a trick on each other."

When they determined that neither of them had pulled a prank on the other, they checked to see if anyone had been in the area that night. Tim said the only neighbors were two elderly hunters in their own shack, neither of whom matched the size and appearance of the creature caught on camera.

However, he said, when he asked the men about the night the camera clicked on the mystery, they said they had gone out about 2 a.m. to use the outhouse and had heard strange squealing noises. Ted said he asked them to show him the direction of the sounds. They pointed to the area where the camera had been, although they had no idea of its location.

Ted said he just released the photo and permission for its publication last weekend.

"It was deer season and we wanted to concentrate on deer hunting, and (we) really wanted to talk to people in the area and ... make sure they weren't scamming us," he said. "We're not 100 percent sure, obviously. After visiting with (Sherman and Olson) we feel they've done a lot more investigation. That's why we put it in their hands."

Sherman said the Northern Minnesota Bigfoot Research Team started receiving reports of Bigfoot sightings in 2006 and has had reports every year since, including four reports this year. He said the first reported sighting he investigated was from a man running a road grader near Six Mile Lake south of Lake Winnibigoshish. Sherman said he was able to make casts of the footprints. A more recent sighting report was by a truck driver.

"I've talked to this guy — this was last year — he was coming from Crosby (Minn.) with a load of lumber by Washburn Lake," Sherman said. "It had hands, he said, like baseball mitts. It took three steps to cross the road. He was pretty shook up."

In spite of such seemingly credible reports, biologists remain unconvinced.

"Personally, I don't buy the fact this thing exists," said Blane Klemek, assistant wildlife manager with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources in Bemidji.

"There are certainly species that are discovered each year -but megafauna — rare is it a big mammal is discovered," he said.

He noted the belief that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct after all is based on a fleeting, indistinct video image of some kind of woodpecker recorded in 2004 in the Big Woods of Arkansas. No other sightings have been reported.

He also noted than no one has ever found a Bigfoot carcass.

"All organisms die; they don't just go away," Klemek said. "You'd think someone someday would find one."

Evan Hazard, Bemidji State University retired mammalogist, also expressed doubt about the Bigfoot's existence.

"I just don't know," he said. "My background in mammalogy makes me skeptical, not expert. My inclination is to say we really don't have good evidence."

Hazard said proof would be a clear photo matched with footprints at the same site — multiple pieces of overlapping evidence.

Sherman said the research would go on. He said he believes the Bigfoot is intelligent and perfectly at home in the woods.

"That's why they're so elusive," he said. "They know the woods better than any hunter because they live it."

One thing the hunters agree on is that even if they could produce a carcass for examination, they wouldn't shoot a Bigfoot.

"Absolutely not — no way," said Tim. "I asked my sons would they shoot it, and they said no. It has every right to live."

"I've talked to people who've had them in their sights and their scopes, and they said they couldn't pull the trigger," she Sherman.

He urged anyone who wants to report a Bigfoot sighting or evidence of the creature to call him at 218-308-1451 or Olson at 218-246-8493.

"We've got all kinds of equipment, night vision, cameras, listening devices," Sherman said.

[Peelz]

pic here...

way to go erich. busted

http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/event/article/id/30258/group/home/

might not work...

try here.

http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/12/10/sasquatch-sighting/

[Colorado700R]

nah...E's been busy elsewhere...

[Krandall]

[Lady4Fiddy]

 

[Peelz]

might not be breaking news to all of you, but we are pretty happy.

My Uncle Bill, the uncle who was here helping take care of dad, and he pretty much raised my mom, had his house broken into by meth heads while he was here lending a hand. (the uncle that lives right down the road from Pismo dunes)
yeah, i hate him. JK, He is probably right up there on the top of the "my favorite people ever list"

He is a seriously avid gun nut. ANd they took pretty much all of them. Even the tommy gun which he said "wasn't his" BS. So he was dealing with all that while he was here with mom and dad, and I felt terrible about it.
Took his brand new TV too.

They caught the douchebags!!!! On them they found 35 guns...and when the officers busted in, they were watching his tv. Oh and $80k in meth. dat's alot of fooking meth!

He considered the guns as part of his kids' inheritance as well as his hobby.

The Arroyo Grande Police Department is investigating what it considers the most extensive burglary ring uncovered in recent years — one believed to have spanned all of the South County and possibly reached into other parts of San Luis Obispo County.

Law enforcement arrested three people Saturday after an investigation found more than 800 stolen items, including more than 35 guns and $80,000 worth of methamphetamine.

Investigators say that more arrests will likely follow and that it might take months to track down the owners of the stolen property.

Click image to see caption
Arroyo Grande Police Chief Steve Annibali displays some of the recovered property from arrests made Saturday. Investigators say it will likely take months to return items to their original owners.

larger version purchase prints

The items were taken from private residences, businesses and cars, Arroyo Grande Police Chief Steve Annibali said.

Investigators also recovered hundreds of keys — likely stolen from victims and potential victims of burglary. The keys nearly fill two gallon-sized bags.

Annibali said it is not yet known how the keys were stolen.

Hundreds of recovered items are still being catalogued by Arroyo Grande police, and lists of those items will be forwarded to all local law enforcement agencies to aid in getting the items back to their owners.

"There is so much evidence that we are renting a storage pod to put our own supplies in to make room for all of it," Annibali said.

The gun cache — police say many of the weapons were stolen from registered owners — included a 45-caliber submachine gun, commonly called a "tommy" gun.


website kinda sux, and the pic of tall his guns is not working

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/local/story/951276.html

[Spider/Paleface513]

Glad they got em peelz hope they get treated like punks in jail brah.

[Krandall]

Hope you guys in Illinois like the BAD BAD guys. 

Ill. prison to get Gitmo detainees
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091215/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_detainee_prison

WASHINGTON – Taking an important step on the thorny path to closing the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the White House plans to announce Tuesday that the government will acquire an underutilized state prison in rural Illinois to be the new home for a limited number of terrorist suspects held at Guantanamo.

Administration officials as well as Illinois Sen. Richard Durbin and Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn will make an official announcement at the White House.

Officials from both the White House and Durbin's office confirmed that President Barack Obama had directed the government to acquire Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill., a sleepy town near the Mississippi River about 150 miles from Chicago. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting Tuesday's announcement.

A Durbin aide said the facility would house federal inmates and no more than 100 detainees from Guantanamo Bay.

The facility in Thomson had emerged as a clear front-runner after Illinois officials, led by Durbin, enthusiastically embraced the idea of turning a near-dormant prison over to federal officials.

The White House has been coy about its selection process, but on Friday a draft memo leaked to a conservative Web site that seemed to indicate officials were homing in on Thomson.

The Thomson Correctional Center was one of several potential sites evaluated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons to potentially house detainees from the Navy-run prison at Guantanamo Bay. Officials with other prisons, including Marion, Ill., Hardin, Mont., and Florence, Colo., have said they would welcome the jobs that would be created by the new inmates.

Closing Guantanamo is a top priority for Obama, and he signed an executive order hours into his presidency directing that the process of closing the prison begin. Obama has said he wants terrorism suspects transferred to American soil so they can be tried for their suspected crimes.

The Thomson Correctional Center was built by Illinois in 2001 as a state prison with the potential to house maximum security inmates. Local officials hoped it would improve the local economy, providing jobs to a hard-hit community. State budget problems, however, have kept the 1,600-cell prison from ever fully opening. At present, it houses about 200 minimum-security inmates.

Obama has faced some resistance to the idea of housing terrorism suspects in the United States, but in Thomson many have welcomed the prospect as a potential economic engine. Thomson Village President Jerry Hebeler, was asleep when the word came that Thomson had been chosen.

"It's news to me, but then I'm always the last to know anything," Hebeler said Monday night of the news affecting his town of 450 residents. "It'll be good for the village and the surrounding area, especially with all the jobs that have been lost here."

But Hebeler said he wouldn't rejoice until "the ink is on the paper" because previous plans for increased use of the nearly empty prison have fallen through.

Some Illinois officials have not supported the idea. GOP Rep. Mark Kirk, who is seeking Obama's old Senate seat, said he believes moving Guantanamo detainees to Illinois will make the state a greater threat for terrorist attacks. Kirk has lobbied other officials to contact the White House in opposition to using the facility.

To be sure, Thomson will not solve all the administration's Guantanamo-related problems. There still will be dozens of detainees who are not relocated to Thomson, other legal issues and potential resistance from Congress.

Thomson is a symbolic step, however, a clear sign that the United States is working to find a new place to hold detainees from Guantanamo.

[Krandall]

boeing 787 FINALLY takes flight:

http://news.yahoo.com/video/us-15749625/raw-video-boeing-787-makes-first-flight-17154767