Oh noes!
STOCKHOLM Princess Madeleine of Sweden has broken off her engagement with attorney Jonas Bergstrom, the Royal Court announced Saturday.
They have decided that the best for them is to go their separate ways,' the palace said in a brief statement.
The court asked for the media to leave the princess and her former fiance alone.
They need peace and quiet in this difficult situation. The heavy coverage does not ease the situation for them,' it said, adding it would not comment further on the issue.
The couple announced their engagement in August last year, but a date had not yet been set for the wedding.
The reasons for the break up were not disclosed, but Norwegian magazine Se og Hoer published an interview this week with a woman named Tora Uppstroem Berg who claimed she had spent a night with the princess' fiance at a popular Swedish skiing resort last year.
The court has not commented on the report.
According to the Royal Court calendar, the princess is set to spend the next few weeks in the U.S. to work with the World Childhood Foundation.
Madeleine, 27, is third in line to the Swedish throne, after her sister Crown Princess Victoria and brother Prince Carl Philip. After completing an undergraduate degree in art, history and ethnology in 2006, she has combined studies in social affairs with work for the World Childhood Foundation in Stockholm.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
Well, at least now we have a legit reason for cheesecake in this thread. She is one fine lookin human bean.
#5
"Breaking news - Tiger Woods forfeits 'World's Stupidist Man' award to Jonas Bergstrom."
No shit. This guy takes "thinking with the wrong head" to new heights. Sweden's English-language daily, TheLocal.se, has an article on the Danish babe he went astray with:
#11
Uppstrøm Berg said she met Bergström at a nightclub in Åre, where he was attending a friend's stag night.
Whatever happened to the rule: "whatever happens at a stag night, stays at the stag night"
This talking out of school could lead to the end of a venerated tradition.
I hope someone spills the beans about her hen's night if she ever is lucky enough to have one.
#16
This is one thing I really don't get about guys. Why is it when they go out catting around they almost always get someone who is at least two notches below what they have waiting for them at home?
#18
From the comment section at the link provided by Dave D.
15:34 April 21, 2010 by texasgubbar
Last time I saw a face like that it had a hook in it.
Posted by: Secret Asian Man ||
04/25/2010 15:32 Comments ||
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#19
According to my fiance, who met Madeleine at a function in Sweden and has been following this story, that's a really bad picture of the 'strange'.
She dated this guy, who came from 'higher society', and was approved of by her parents.
Her sister, who's dating a 'low society' boyfriend, is not so approved, but then again he's not pulling a Tiger Woods.
I can't tell you how much the Swedes love their royal family. More than the Brits, definitely.
This guy might swim with cement overshoes.
#23
This is one thing I really don't get about guys. Why is it when they go out catting around they almost always get someone who is at least two notches below what they have waiting for them at home?
#25
Cornsilk Blondie --- M'Lady and I were talking about this type of thing last week. Some guys are not satisfied with a beautiful, smart, wise lady. They like the high intensity of certain relationships. The amazing high, though followed by bad sh*t arguments and fighting. They like the bad girls, so to speak. I think Lawyer Boy is probably this type. A Front of Respectability can only carry you so far. Madeline could do better.
I vote for Deacon, Melvin votes for Deacon. It is unanimous. Send a letter of introduction.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
04/25/2010 16:14 Comments ||
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#26
if I went two notches lower, I'd be going with the lesser of the hunchbacks....damn
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/25/2010 16:38 Comments ||
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#28
Thanks for the vote AP. By the way, Melvin found out about digging today. He dug a very righteous hole down where the tractor shed blew down.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
04/25/2010 17:53 Comments ||
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#29
When Bergström met Uppstrøm Berg at the nightclub, I bet he said to her:
"hey, if we transpose your name, we end up with my name and guess what I'm doing?"
At that she should have slapped his face and walked away.
#31
Madeleine can take comfort that her near-sighted alley-cat of an ex-fiancee is now a global laughingstock.
Of course, she could also find comfort at my house. (Hey, I'm old but not dead and it never hurts to extend the invitation.)
As historical memories sadly fade...
Russian officials have scrapped a calendar celebrating the Red Army's victory over Hitler in the Second World War after designers used photographs of Nazi German troops in battle instead of Soviet soldiers.
Veterans reacted furiously when a poster appeared in schools in the Urals region of Perm before the 65th anniversary of the end of what Russians call the Great Patriotic War.
The publishers who designed the calendar admitted that they had been unable to tell the difference between the Nazi and Soviet armies. They had downloaded images from the internet to illustrate the poster after deciding that pictures provided by a local veterans' committee were not interesting enough.
It's not called by the Russians, it damn sure was The Great Patriotic War, in the west it's merely WWII. We won and invented American Motors and Fritos.
The Japanese government indicated Friday that it would broadly accept a plan to relocate a U.S. Marine Corps base on Okinawa, a move that could ease months of discord between the two allies, U.S. and Japanese officials said.
Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada presented U.S. Ambassador John V. Roos with a proposal to settle the dispute, telling him that Japan was moving toward accepting significant parts of a 2006 deal to move the Futenma air station from the center of a city of 92,000 to a less populated part of Okinawa, the sources said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Okada, however, suggested some changes, including altering the design of the runway at the new air station, planned for the town of Henoko, and moving parts of the Marine Corps facility to an island about 100 miles from Okinawa, the sources said. U.S. officials said they were pleased by the proposal but stressed that it was a first step and that Japanese officials would be providing more details next week.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
59 years since they started it...................
#3
Germany has been working on how to tax American expat incomes since 1946 or so. Democracies aren't good at this kind of thing, that only a few petty bureaucrats in a corner of the 27th floor of the secondary annex building really care about.
#4
All things equal, IMO the CORE ISSUE here is REGIONAL + INTERNATIONAL TRUST, ACCEPTANCE OF A NUCLEAR-ARMED OR "RE-MILITARIZED" JAPAN, ALBEIT DEMOCRATIC. Wid the end of the Cold War, Tokyo now deems US Milbases in Japan as a de facto COST BURDEN.
CHINA > on its part deems its "EAST/NORTH ASIA NAVAL PROBLEM", i.e. breakout from the "FIRST ISLAND CHAIN" vee US, as "MAKING-OR-BREAKING" its rise to true global superpower status.
THERES ALWAYS 2012 + Pert(s)-forecasted MASSIVE SOLAR STORMS.
To wit,
WMF > SEPTEMBER 22, 2012: US ECONOMIC, GEOPOL POWER MAY BE HEAVILY DAMAGED BY ANTICIPATED MASSIVE SOLAR STORMS. UP TO 1.0MILYUHN AMERS DEAD AFTER ONE YEAR. US DEGRADED TO "THIRD WORLD NATION" STATUS AFTER 4-10 YEAR RECOVERY PERIOD?
IOW, US = THIRD WORLD NATION? after Year 2022-2025 [ r.o.]???
Year 2022-2025 is AFTER the projected Year 2018-2020 timeline [MSM-Net] for US deployment of reliable/effective GMD-TMD around the World.
As many as 400,000 nonprofit organizations are weeks away from a doomsday.
At midnight on May 15, an estimated one-fifth to one-quarter of some 1.6 million charities, trade associations and membership groups will lose their tax exemptions, thanks to a provision buried in a 2006 federal bill aimed at pension reform.
It's going to be an unholy mess once these organizations realize what's happened to them,' said Diana Aviv, president of the Independent Sector, a nonprofit trade group.
The federal legislation passed in 2006 required all nonprofits to file tax forms the following year. Previously, only organizations with revenues of $25,000 or more or the vast majority of nonprofit groups had to file.
The new law, embedded in the 393 pages of the Pension Protection Act of 2006, also directed the Internal Revenue Service to revoke the tax exemptions of groups that failed to file for three consecutive years. Three years have passed, and thus the deadline looms.
The I.R.S. has long complained it lacks adequate data on nonprofit groups because so many of them did not file tax forms. Without basic facts about organizations, the agency has little chance of overseeing one of the most generous tax breaks the federal government offers.
The I.R.S. would rather not revoke exemptions, either, and it has made a Herculean effort to let organizations at risk know it. For example, in 2007, it sent 665,000 letters to nonprofit groups that fell below the $25,000 threshold and those above that level that had not filed.
Lois G. Lerner, director of the exempt organizations division of the I.R.S, said that while groups would lose their exemptions effective May 16, the I.R.S. would probably not send out notices until January to give nonprofits a chance to bring themselves into compliance with the law. Donors to affected groups will be able to take a deduction for gifts until formal notification is received by the recipient organization.
Small organizations are the most likely to be hit. Experts say it is likely that many of them are inactive and were unaware of the requirement that they inform the I.R.S. when they closed their doors.
We are moving very cautiously,' Ms. Lerner said. The last thing we want to do is revoke the exemption of someone who has already filed.'
#3
I'm sure ACORN, the Tides Foundation, etc, filed with the IRS as required. I'm equally sure that ACORN, at least, had a number of unnoticed errors in the figures they submitted, which made the results look much lower than the amounts in the unlisted bank accounts.
Even 45B Euros will just delay the inevitable. There is no point in the future when Greece's debt stops growing. It's merely a matter of how fast it grows and how soon they default. And over the last week the finacial markets seem to have woken up to this fact. Greece is now paying as much to borrow as that paragon of fiscal and political stability, Pakistan.
Talks over Greece dominated annual International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings, a day after Athens bowed to market pressure and asked to tap a rescue package from the European Union and the IMF.
"Some countries think it's not enough," Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters when asked about the amount of aid being negotiated. "Some of the G20 countries, including some of the European countries," he said when asked which countries were concerned. "There is concern about making sure that the package is enough so that it's a one-time event."
Flaherty said Group of 20 rich and emerging nations agreed that the Greece crisis could be contained, if dealt with quickly, with little risk of a spread across Europe.
#4
When the rowboat has a grapefruit sized hole in the bottom, you aren't going to have much luck bailing it out with a Dixie cup. You have to plug the hole.
#5
Flaherty said Group of 20 rich and emerging nations agreed that the Greece crisis could be contained, if dealt with quickly, with little risk of a spread across Europe.
Still only delaying the inevitable. Most of Europe is in the same boat. They are borrowing more than they are making.
#8
We soon get to see what happens when the boat has a California + Illinois + Michigan + New York sized hole in it...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/25/2010 9:20 Comments ||
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#9
Even 45B Euros will just delay the inevitable.
You can throw money at the a failed state but it won't get any better unless the root causes of its failure are addressed. We have plenty of Greece problems going on in the U.S.
#10
We have plenty of Greece problems going on in the U.S.
Problem here is that it's very easy/tempting/inevitable that these problems will be federalized, with the cost quietly spread out across the nation.
Ironically, America's federal-state bailouts have less transparency than the EU's bailouts of its member states. Economist and investment manager David Malpass has more here.
Gist: If we knew today that Congress, New York or California would roll back spending, we might be cautiously optimistic. However, when governments negotiate budgets the taxpayer usually takes a backseat. More likely is the Greek model, in which government spending cuts generate such massive public protests that the politicians engaged in the negotiation concede, providing little true reform. Like as not, our large, cheaply financed federal government will be generous to cash-strapped state and local governments. The defense is that it's the taxpayers' money, and the debt won't have to be paid for years. Live a little
Longer term, the critical question is what the interest rate will be to finance the new mountain of federal debt. Will the $20 trillion in national debt be financed at today's 4% rate or will it require 7%? It matters a lot to the budget and financial markets.
In the near term the financing rate depends on the Fed (though it denies that it controls bond yields). Over the next few years, however, the financing rate will depend on the market's perception of the U.S.' ability to pay all the debt on time and with dollars that still have value. .
Party Affiliation Gap in U.S. Narrowest Since 2005
Democratic advantage shrinks as more independents lean to the Republican Party
The advantage in public support the Democratic Party built up during the latter part of the Bush administration and the early part of the Obama administration has all but disappeared. During the first quarter of 2010, 46% of Americans identified as Democrats or leaned Democratic, while 45% identified as or leaned Republican.
The latest results, based on aggregated data from Gallup polls conducted from January to March of this year, show the closest party division since the first quarter of 2005, when the parties were tied at 46%. Democrats enjoyed double-digit advantages in party support in 11 of 12 quarters from the second quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2009.
The six-point rise in Republican support since the first quarter of 2009 is due entirely to a growing proportion of independents who lean to the Republican Party, rather than an increase in the percentage of Americans who identify as Republicans outright. (Gallup measures party identification by first asking Americans whether they identify as Republicans, Democrats, or independents. Those who are independent or express no party preference are then asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or the Republican Party.)
In fact, the 28% of Americans who initially identify as Republicans today is identical to the figure Gallup measured in early 2009, when the Democrats still had a double-digit advantage in support. Since then, there has been a three-point reduction in the proportion of Democratic identifiers, and a three-point decline in the percentage of Democratic-leaning independents.
Survey Methods
Results are based on telephone interviews with 4,095 national adults, aged 18 and older, conducted from January to March 2010. For results based on the total sample of national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones (for respondents with a landline telephone) and cellular phones (for respondents who are cell phone only).
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
Gallup interviews adults, not registered voters or likely voters, and so their results tend more strongly toward Democrats than do some other polls... which is what makes this so interesting. But for an overall feel, I prefer the averages across polls that the Real Clear Politics people calculate.
Ay Pee, so here's the summary: Back when all those videos came out of various ACORN staffers in various cities advising how to get mortgages for brothels providing underage foreign girls, Congress voted to freeze all federal funding to ACORN. ACORN sued, and a judge agreed they were entitled to the money. However, the appeals court disagreed with the lower court judge, freezing all disbursements. ACORN appealed to the Supreme Court, which on Friday refused to hear the case, thus upholding the appeals court ruling... and incidentally supporting the idea that Congress acted constitutionally.
#1
Bravo SCOTUS! BTW there is a RICO lawsuit pending against ACORN in Ohio. If it wins, despite ACORN's efforts to conceal assets and reorganize, there will be open season on ACORN spinoffs from ambitious lawyers all over the country.
An explosion in a steel factory in Iraq's northern Kurdish region killed five workers on Sunday after they accidentally tried to melt down a live mortar round, police and authorities said. The privately owned plant uses scrap metal to make steel reinforcing bars. Two Indian nationals were among the dead in the explosion, which wounded 10 others.
The mill, in the southwestern suburbs of Arbil, 310 km (190 miles) north of Baghdad, is owned by Iraqis and Turkish investors, according to a factory spokesman.
Hamas police have broken up the Gaza Strip's first major hip-hop concert.
The B Boy Gaza group had just started a lively dance set late on Saturday in a crowded auditorium when police from the Islamist Hamas group that rules the Gaza Strip ended the performance with shouts of "the show is over", witnesses said.
"I told one of the policemen that rap meant respect for all people, but he didn't seem to be listening. He said it was an immoral dance," one of the dancers said.
Hamas officials said the performance, in a conservative enclave where most musical shows strike a nationalistic note, was shut down only because organizers had not applied for a police permit for the gathering.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said police confiscated cameras and tapes at the venue and arrested six of the performers. They were released after signing a pledge not to hold further performances without police permission.
Bangkok, Thailand (CNN) -- Thailand's prime minister Saturday rejected a call from anti-government protesters to dissolve the country's parliament in 30 days, a close aide to the leader told CNN, saying that other groups' political opinions must be taken into consideration before any such action is taken.
The demand from the anti-government protesters, known as the "Red Shirts," was the latest in a long list issued since the group stormed parliament in early April and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva declared a state of emergency. Violent demonstrations and clashes between protesters and the military in the days that followed left more than two dozen demonstrators and military personnel dead.
Red Shirt leaders offered Friday to return to the negotiating table -- but only if the government meets certain demands, including lifting a state of emergency and accepting responsibility for the deaths of protesters earlier this month, said Weng Tojirakarn, a co-leader of the group.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2010 00:00 ||
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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.
Hamas police have broken up the Gaza Strip's first major hip-hop concert. 
