The Vatican on Friday slammed a giant new modernist sculpture that portrays John Paul II, saying the bronze work outside Rome's main train station doesn't even look like the late pontiff.
Commuters and tourists said the statue looks more like the late Italian dictator Benito Mussolini than the widely beloved pope. Wotta coincidence...
"How could they have given such a kind pope the head of a Fascist?" said 71-year-old Antonio Lamonica, in the bustling square outside Termini Train Station. As he pondered the statue, his wife muttered, "It's ugly, really ugly, very ugly." It DOES look like Mussolini. No need to get all upside down over it though.
The artist, Oliviero Rainaldi, He has the political beliefs you've come to expect of 'artists'...
depicts the pontiff as if he is opening his cloak to embrace the faithful.
But the Vatican said the effect was "of a mantle that almost looks like a sentry box, topped by a head of a pope which comes off too roundish."
Rome kingpin Mayor Gianni Alemanno, asked by APTN in an exclusive interview in his office if the city might take down the statue, said public opinion would be considered.
"There's an ancient saying: 'Vox populi, vox dei' (Latin for voice of the people, voice of God)," Alemanno said. "And from this point of view we cannot help but take into consideration the opinion of the public." Since it's too heavy to hang in front of a gas station, maybe they can move it to Rockefeller Center, per Glenn Beck.
#10
I get the impression of a street-side urinal (fancy port-a-john), and I'm sure it will be used for such a thing if it remains there. "Ugly" doesn't begin to describe it. Try "hideous". The "artist" must have been an excommunicated Lutheran.
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05/21/2011 14:46 Comments ||
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#11
Look's like that klattu barrata nicto guy.
And it is incredibly ugly ass.
#1
I was glad to see they were aware of the many black southern men who served the south and not as servants. For 150 years the southern blacks lived in the south before the war. Strong ties that to this day exist. I am certain they were treated with the same disdain as their white counterparts who were left on the field as at Antietam. I lived next to that battlefield for a time where the greatest loss of live occurred. Old stone walls and stone homes are still there.
Rolling terrain with some cover and good water supply for horse and man. Shepherdstown, Harpers Ferry(John Brown), Point of Rocks, Potomac river, C&O canal, all close to visit.
#2
I was glad to see they were aware of the many black southern men who served the south and not as servants. For 150 years the southern blacks lived in the south before the war. Strong ties that to this day exist. I am certain they were treated with the same disdain as their white counterparts who were left on the field as at Antietam. I lived next to that battlefield for a time where the greatest loss of live occurred. Old stone walls and stone homes are still there.
Rolling terrain with some cover and good water supply for horse and man. Shepherdstown, Harpers Ferry(John Brown), Point of Rocks, Potomac river, C&O canal, all close to visit.
[Asia One] A Canadian senator was hospitalized after his car struck a moose overnight on a road near his rural home in St. Bride's, Newfoundland, public broadcaster CBC reported Friday.
No details of Senator Fabian Manning's condition or the accident were immediately available.
His reappointment to Canada's upper house caused a stir earlier this week.
Manning was one of three failed candidates in a May 2 election to the House of Commons who were subsequently named to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Manning and another returning senator, Larry Smith, had both resigned from the Senate to run in the election and lost. Josee Vernee, who also lost her House seat, was appointed to the Senate as well.
The opposition assailed the appointments, saying Harper once campaigned to reform the senate to make it more democratic and accountable by imposing eight-year term limits and electing future senators in provincial ballots.
Under the current system, Canadian senators from various regions are appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister and can hold their seats until they turn 75.
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05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#4
Al-Aska Paul can embellish with stories I'm sure (after he's risen from celebrating his wedding anniversary....should be around 4PM), but Moose can really do damage. High weight and center of gravity = clears the grill and comes intact through the windshield in a way you don't want to see first hand
Posted by: Frank G on the road ||
05/21/2011 12:18 Comments ||
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#5
Mass and inertia. Yes, moose get to make that 'one last great act of defiance' to the inattentive driver.
#7
I saw the remains of a semi that hit a moose at 45MPH. The moose broke the motor mounts of that huge diesel engine, and turned it sideways. The driver escaped with broken legs and a cut on his forehead. The truck was a total loss. This is the time of year when moose are moving around the most, so triple care must be taken.
Posted by: Old Patriot ||
05/21/2011 14:50 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV] Haitian President Michel Martelly has appointed entrepreneur Daniel-Gerard Rouzier as his prime minister, a member of his cabinet says.
The president had "written to the presidents of the two chambers of parliament to let them know he has chosen Mr. Daniel Rouzier as his prime minister," AFP quoted the unnamed official as saying late on Friday.
Rouzier, who holds a master's degree in accounting, must receive a vote of approval in each of the two chambers of the parliament, which is dominated by the INITE party of former President Rene Preval.
The father of three children, Rouzier runs a number of successful Haitian companies.
President Martelly took the oath of office in a parliamentary meeting room in the capital Port-au-Prince on May 14. It was the first democratic transfer of power from one party to another in the country's turbulent history.
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05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Rouzier runs a number of successful Haitian companies.
Not to sound like a jerk, but I didn't know there was even one successful Haitian companies, let alone a number.
[Al Jazeera] The operator of Japan's crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has posted an annual net loss of $15bn - the biggest-ever loss by a Japanese company outside the financial sector.
The Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, announced the loss on Friday, and said its president, Masataka Shimizu, would step down.
Shimizu apologised at his company's Tokyo headquarters and said he was taking responsibility in the wake of the March 11 earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan and damaged the company's plant, sparking a major nuclear crisis.
"I wanted to take managerial responsibility and bring a symbolic close,'' he told news hounds, bowing during the news conference. "We are doing our utmost to settle the crisis."
Tepco is to appoint Toshio Nishizawa, its managing director, to replace Shimizu, effective after a June shareholders meeting.
The company has come under criticism for its handling of the crisis - thousands of people have been displaced and radiation levels around the plant still remain high.
Al Jizz's Laura Kyle, reporting from Tokyo, said, "The government has been very critical of the way Tepco have been handling the nuclear crisis."
Tepco also announced it will be permanently shutting down its four damaged reactors at the Fukushima plant.
The crisis has prompted talk about the future of nuclear energy in Japan.
Cost of compensation
The loss, the biggest in Tepco's 60-year history, includes the costs of scrapping damaged nuclear reactors at Fukushima and a write-off of deferred tax assets.
Compensation payouts are also likely to depress profits for many years.
"Today's loss figures do not account for the huge amount of compensation that is going to have to be paid out to more than 80,000 people who have been directly affected by the disaster, having to be relocated outside the 20-30km zone," our correspondent said.
"There have been talks that the government itself is going to have to bail out Tepco, which of course, has come under a lot of fire from the Japanese who see it as taxpayer money bailing out a company. It seems to have handled the crisis very badly."
The government last week agreed to set up a fund using taxpayers' money to help Tepco cope with compensation.
The company did not offer guidance for the current year to March 2012, given uncertainty over how much of its profit will go towards paying off those forced to evacuate the areas surrounding the crippled plant, and others due compensation.
Tepco has not made an estimate for the likely cost of compensating all victims. Analyst forecasts have ranged from around $25bn up to $130bn, if the crisis at the nuclear complex drags on.
In another development, Japan's central bank kept its key interest rate unchanged at close to zero on Friday. The move was widely expected following the announcement on Thursday that the country had slipped back into recession .
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Yokay, but TEPCO + Tokyo can't cap or shut the Fukushima plant down until after the meltdowns + radiation is controlled, + back at safe levels for human activity - at last check, as of this weekend Fukush #1, #3 NucReax are repor at high risk of going boom = blowing up.
#2
ION NIPPON = FLYING DRAGON/FISH ISLE, PEOPLE'S DAILY FORUM > KURILS TO REMAIN RUSSIAN WID CHINESE + SOUTH KOREAN [development] SUPPORT.
* SAME > DESPITE JAPAN'S PROTESTS, RUSSIA BREAKS THE GROUND ON KURIL ISLANDS, as per various Airport, Seaport, infrastructure development projects.
Again, IMO RUSSIA > "JAPAN" = SSSHHHHHHH CHINA.
* PAKISTANI DEFENCE FORUM > ASIA LOOKS TO COUNTER CHINA'S SUBMARINES.
* TOPIX > RUSSIA'S [builds its]WALL AGZ CHINA IN THE ARCTIC.
* WAFF > CHINESE JETS INTERCEPTED OER PH [Philippines = Spratlys/Nanshas] AIRSPACE - AFP.
ARTIC = Unfortunately for Manila, their country does not yet have the potent capability to interdict or intercept [stop] the PLAAF [or PLAN for that matter] oer the disputed Spratlys = Nanshas.
At alst check, PHIL = desire to emplace NINE [anti-PLA]RADARS on NINE SPRATLYS ISLES.
POSTERS - as Manila identifies the intruding aircraft as MIG-29 FULCRUM'S, the latter may actually be MALAYSIAN MIG-29 FULCRUMS, NOT "CHINESE" PER SE, AS CHINA DOESN'T OPER "FULCRUMS" IN THIS AREA???
The rape charges against former IMF Chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn who, like Dominique deVillepin, is a man...
are headline news across the world, but as Strauss-Kahn prepares for what could be a lengthy legal battle, France is preparing for a 2012 presidential election -- suddenly without the leading challenger to President Nicolas Sarkozy.
Strauss-Kahn, a prominent member of the Socialist Party in France, was predicted to be his party's candidate in 2012 and would have faced off against Sarkozy and his UMP party. Sarkozy, who has been floundering in polls, has been seen as a weak and ineffective president -- a man who promised big change and has failed to deliver. But with Strauss-Kahn almost certainly out of the 2012 race, Sarkozy's biggest challenge could come from Marine Le Pen, a candidate known for her nationalistic and anti-Muslim views.
#1
No mention that Marine is also tapping into a very deep pool of resentment among French women about how elitist men mistreat them. This is bound up with resentment against the elites of both parties in general, but it has never been given strong play before.
[Al Jazeera] A Belarusian court has handed down suspended two-year prison terms to two opposition politicians who ran against Alexander Lukashenko, the country's president, in last year's election.
Vladimir Neklyayev, 65, and Vitaly Rymashevsky, 36, were found guilty on Friday of "actions disrupting social order". Sentences for both were suspended by two years, the Frunze district court of Minsk ruled.
Last week, leading opposition figure Andrei Sannikov of the Charter 97 rights group, who also stood against Lukashenko, was sentenced to five years in a high-security prison on the more serious charge of organising mass disturbances.
Neklyayev linked his relatively soft sentence to pressure from the West and popular support.
"If it was not for the support from the US and the European Union, I would not be standing here in front of you but would rather sit (in a KGB prison) answering the question about who I am spying for," he told news hounds. "This is (also) a result of people's solidarity."
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] The corruption trial of La Belle France's former president Jacques Chirac can go ahead, a top appeals court ruled Friday, rejecting a constitutional challenge.
Lawyers for one of the co-defendants of Chirac, who is accused of embezzling public funds as mayor of Gay Paree in the 1990s, had argued that some of the charges were unconstitutional under the statute of limitations.
The country's highest appeals court ruled however that the constitutional concerns raised, which caused the trial to be postponed on its second day in March, were not valid.
The court "decided that there was no grounds to refer these questions to the Constitutional Council," the body that would have ultimately ruled on the challenge, the judges said in a statement.
Chirac, 78, the first former French president to go on trial, is accused of using public funds to pay people working for his party ahead of his successful 1995 election bid. He has denied knowledge of any illegal payments.
A court on March 8 suspended the trial so that constitutional authorities could examine whether certain charges that date back nearly two decades were still admissible. The postponement drew criticism from anti-corruption campaigners.
Chirac is one of La Belle France's most popular political figures, best known abroad for opposing the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
He is the first French former head of state to face criminal charges since the leader of the collaborationist wartime regime, Marshal Philippe Petain, was convicted of treason after World War II.
If found guilty, Chirac faces up to 10 years in jail and a fine of 150,000 euros ($210,000) on charges including embezzlement and breach of trust.
State prosecutors, who are under the hierarchical authority of the government, have called for the case to be dismissed, raising the likelihood that Chirac will avoid conviction.
Gay Paree city hall last year dropped its civil charges against him in return for a payment of more than 2.2 million euros, from him and the right-wing UMP party.
Chirac paid more than half a million euros of this from his own pocket but did not acknowledge any wrongdoing.
The presiding judge in March proposed that trial hearings be rescheduled for around June 20.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Iran Press TV] Tens of thousands of students, social groups and unemployed people have taken to the streets across Spain to protest against the financial crisis in the country.
Countrywide peaceful protests have been organized through social media networks such as Twitter. Hundreds of demonstrators have been camping out at Madrid's Puerta del Sol square since May 15 to demand a 'real democracy' and political and social change in Spain, The Guardian reported on Friday.
Other similar protests have been held in Barcelona, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao, Zaragoza and other Spanish cities.
"The economy and unemployment are key to the protest because that binds all of us together," Jon Aguirre Such, a front man for the Real Democracy Now movement, said.
"In this crisis, while some have gotten rich, most people have less income," he added.
The protests come in the closing days of the campaign for local elections set for Sunday. The ruling Socialist party is widely expected to suffer heavy losses over its inefficient management of the economic crisis.
Speaking in an interview with Cadena Ser radio station on Friday, Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that ongoing youth protests across the country are "understandable."
However, The essential However...
he said that Spain must stick to its austerity measures and continue with its economic policies.
Spain has the highest jobless rate of 21.3 percent in the eurozone and has a record 4.9 million people unemployed.
Although Spain has so far managed to stave off a bailout, economists expect that the eurozone's fourth largest economy will inevitably follow Portugal, Ireland and Greece, and will be forced to accept a financial rescue package.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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[Dawn] A man threw acid on her wife after she refused to withdraw a plea submitted to a local court seeking (divorce), police said on Thursday.
Nagina Bibi, who works as a maid, was intercepted by her husband Mohammad Irfan at Shahzad Town when she was going to her employer`s house. He asked her to review her decision to seek and return to his house but she refused.
As a result, Irfan pulled out a bottle of acid and sprinkled it on her. The woman sustained acid burns in her head, face, neck, chest, abdomen and back. The accused beat feet from the scene while the victim was shifted to hospital by some passersby.
Doctors in the hospital said her condition was critical and efforts were being made to save her life.
Police said Nagina Bibi along with her children migrated to Islamabad from Multan after getting Khula from her first husband when he contracted second marriage. She settled in Shahzad Town and started working as a maid.
About a year back, she married Irfan against the will of her parents living in Multan.
After getting the news of Nagina`s second marriage, her former husband reached the capital and took his children to Multan. Shortly after her marriage in the capital, Nagina came to know that her new husband was an addict. Besides, some months later he relinquished his job.
As a result, the couple frequently engaged in quarrels and Irfan used to beat her. About two months back, Nagina left Irfan and started living in the house of a retired banker in Shahzad Town as a maid. Khula
Two months back, she moved the family court seeking from Irfan. Though Irfan made several attempts to settle the issue and assure his wife that he would give up his addiction and start working, she did not trust him.
Posted by: Fred ||
05/21/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
"Will Nagina survive the attack? Will the banker need a new maid? Will the police catch Mohammad? Be sure to tune in next week, for 'As The Acid Burns', on your local CBS station."
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
A Canadian senator was hospitalized after his car struck a moose overnight on a road near his rural home in St. Bride's, Newfoundland, public broadcaster CBC reported Friday.
The corruption trial of 
[Dawn] A man threw acid on her wife after she refused to withdraw a plea submitted to a local court seeking (divorce), police said on Thursday.
