[NJ] A former Boy Scout leader from Morris Plains -- already accused of sexually assaulting two members of his troop -- has been indicted after allegedly showing a friend child pornography. You simply can't say anything about this stuff. You'll be dismissed as a homophobe. Boy Scouts start at the very ages when hormones start to kick in, and several years before judgment does. Letting wolves in among the adolescent sheep is way less than a good idea. If I was suddenly appointed Lord of the Boy Scouts, I'd spend full time concentrating on making things asexual and adult supervised. By asexual I mean that I'd pretend it didn't exist and dump any adult who even looked like he was going to "help someone" discover it. Kids get enough of that stuff watching TV.
Stephen Corcoran, 45, of Morris Plains, was indicted Tuesday on one count of second-degree distribution of child pornography and 10 counts of fourth-degree possession of child pornography.
He was arrested in January of last year after allegedly showing the pornography to a male, 18-year-old friend in October of 2011, Morris County Prosecutor Fredric M. Knapp, Parsippany-Troy Hills Police Chief Paul Philipps and Morris Plains Police Chief Scott Thompson said in a joint announcement.
Authorities seized Corcoran's computers and after a forensic examination, found he was in possession of child pornography, the announcement said.
Detective Carolina Moreno of the Morris County Prosecutor's Office, Detective Dan Cicala of the Parsippany-Troy Hills Police Department and Sgt. Jason Kohn of the Morris Plains Police Department launched an investigation in November 2011, the announcement said. Authorities invterviewed the 18-year-old and were told Corcoran had allegedly distributed and possessed child pornography, the announcement said.
Last year, the prosecutor's office filed other charges, accusing Corcoran of sexually abusing members of his troop more than a decade ago.
Those charges allege he assaulted two members of Parsippany-based Boy Scout Troop 173 between 1997 and 1999 on multiple occasions. The investigation was prompted by two former members of Troop 173 coming forward, according to a statement from the prosecutor's office at the time.
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04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Two naked seductresses separated by three centuries of history went face to face for the first time in Venice on Wednesday in an exhibition devoted to French painter Edouard Manet with his "Olympia" alongside Titian's "Venus of Urbino". Two (of three) virtually identical poses. Giorgione's Sleeping Venus is the third. Titian finished it, so I guess it's partially his as well.
Manet completed his painting of a prostitute being waited on by a black maid in 1863 -- a controversial masterpiece which caused a stir at the time but was largely inspired by old master Titian's own ground-breaking work from 1538. I don't think it stands comparison with the Titian and Giorgione works, though I confess I do like her face, and the treatment of her hands is very sensitive.
"Olympia" usually hangs in the Musee d'Orsay in Paris and the painting has never left France. It was driven to Italy for the show and then ferried across the Venice lagoon to St Mark's Square on a barge to be exhibited in the Ducal Palace.
The works were "scandalous" in their times, said Guy Cogeval, head of the Musee d'Orsay. And they still have the capacity to shock. They're pretty sexy the first dozen times you see them, but they're a nice illustration of the difference between "nude" and "naked."
"Olympia" was not used in publicity posters because of local sensitivities in Venice.
"I didn't want to put 'Olympia' next to St Mark's Basilica, out of respect," said Gabriella Belli, director of Venice's museums and a co-curator of the show together with the Musee d'Orsay. Ummm... Good move. Unexpectedly good for this day and age. Putting the picture of the nekkid hooker out in front of the church wouldn't have been whatcha call polite.
The exhibition entitled: "Manet: The Return to Venice" is organised by the city in conjunction with the Musee d'Orsay and features 23 paintings and 20 sketches by the French painter (1832-1883).
They are hung alongside 80 works by Italian Old Masters including Carpaccio, Guardi and Lotto -- a way of underlining Manet's Italian inspiration, which is only now being fully appreciated.
"Italy was a fertile, stable and permanent inspiration for Manet's genius," said Stephane Guegan, a consultant for the show. "It was impossible to say this for a long time since his influence by Spain is always put forward."
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04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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[An Nahar] Tina Turner, the U.S.-born singer famed for hits such as "Private Dancer" and "What's Love Got to Do With It", has become a Swiss citizen, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported. I knew she was gonna do that. She built my watch, you know.
The 73-year-old retired entertainer, who has lived in Switzerland for nearly two decades, received her red Swiss passport with its distinctive white cross on it on Monday, the publication said. She showed it to the press, gave a couple honks on her alpenhorn, yodeled a few bars, and then went back to her cheese making.
Swiss media reported in January that Turner was to hand in her U.S. passport when she got her Swiss one. She was quoted as saying that "I cannot imagine a better place to live" than in the European Alpine state, where privacy laws are strictly enforced. I understand they have numbered street addresses in Geneva.
Posted by: Fred ||
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[NATUREWORLDNEWS] A moderate earthquake in Afghanistan has killed or injured dozens of people. The U.S. Geological Survey reports the 5.6-magnitude quake occurred 62 km (39 miles) below the surface in the eastern region of Afghanistan not far from the Pakistani border.
The quake hit just before 2 p.m. local time (0930 GMT).
Citing the most recently available data from local news sources, the independent news site Earthquake-Report indicates at least 23 deaths and 120 injured, but anticipated the numbers to rise after daybreak when a clearer picture of the damage emerges.
Russia Today also reported on the earthquake, citing deaths in adjacent Nangarhar and Kunar provinces. The news outlet quoted a local spokesperson from Nangarhar, who said nearly two dozen in his town were hospitalized with injuries and that children are among the dead.
According Reuters, the region saw heavy rains Wednesday, which may have weakened the integrity of the mud-brick dwellings many Afghans live in. Hundreds of homes have reportedly collapsed.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
"Karzai blamed the citizen deaths on ISAF, and in particular the night-time ROE and drones, and 'other stuff'"
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/25/2013 11:48 Comments ||
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[Al Ahram] Egypt's Minister of Information Salah Abdel-Maksoud has once again caused a public uproar in both the Egyptian press and on social media sites, after more comments which critics describe as sexist. What's the Arabic word for "dork?"
While discussing the latest developments in the media during a presser, Abdel-Maksoud got into a heated conversation with a female news hound over whether or not state television ... and if you can't believe state television who can you believe?
has changed since the January 25 revolution.
The news hound was asking about the content aired on Egyptian televisions channels when the minister answered with the same comment that drew criticism against him last week.
"Come and I will show you where are the developments," he said to the Nahar television news hound, a phrasing that in Egyptian dialect is widely believed to bear sexual offence.
Abdel-Maksoud came under fire last week when a female Egyptian journalist accused him of harassment after he made the same comment in reply to a similar question. The conference was filmed and the slip-up was widely circulated via social media networks.
Prior to the two recent incidents, Abdel-Maksoud had been accused of sexually harassing a female Syrian television host during an interview. "I hope your questions are not as hot as you are," he said.
In Wednesday's conference, the minister spoke about how the revolution restored freedom of expression in Egypt, asserting that there are no restrictions on freedoms, especially the freedom of the media.
"For the first time in the history of the Egyptian constitution, newspapers are being licensed with more freedom," said the minister, who also denied that the ministry was thinking about renting out the national television and radio building known as Maspero.
The minister also spoke about the salaries of national television and radio employees, denying rumours that there would be salary cuts. "Egypt is a rich country...and we did not borrow to pay for the salaries," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
Working right from the "Joe Biden Book of Public Speaking For Dummies"
[Al Ahram] Representatives of Egypt's Coptic Orthodox Church met with a top interior ministry official and representatives of a number of political groups in an effort to contain possible unrest caused by the disappearance of a Mohammedan woman from Upper Egypt, who allegedly converted to Christianity and fled to Turkey with an Egyptian Christian.
The 21-year-old woman's father, Hatem El-Shazly, was present at the meeting, while the parents of the man who is accused of escorting the girl to Turkey, Zaki Tawfiq Andraous and Souad Akhnon, remain in police custody pending investigations into allegations of incitement to kidnap and concealing information about their son.
In Egypt, marriage between a Christian man and a Mohammedan woman is forbidden; Mohammedan men and Christian women are allowed to marry, however
Al-Ahram's Arabic news website reported that Beni Suef's security chief Ibrahim Hudeib said he met leaders from the Wafd Party, the Freedom and Justice Party, the Nour Party, the Salafist Watan Party and the Constitution Party as well as representatives of the Church and the family of the girl in order to resolve the issue.
Hudeib said at a presser that the woman, Rana Hatem El-Shazly, travelled to Turkey, escorted by Ebram Andraous.
The dispute began in February when members of the Salafist Nour Party and the Salafist organization Al-Gamaa Al-Salafaya gathered at Al-Wasti cop shoppe in the Upper Egypt province of Beni Suef to protest the alleged kidnapping and forced conversion of the woman.
The woman's relatives had reportedly found a number of Christian books in her personal library, which led them to suspect the involvement of the Church in her disappearance.
This is not the first protest against an alleged kidnapping in recent months. In February, festivities erupted in Kom Ombo in Aswan, also in Upper Egypt, after local Mohammedans accused Christians of kidnapping a middle-aged Mohammedan woman and forcing her to convert to Christianity.
In Egypt, marriage between a Christian man and a Mohammedan woman is forbidden; Mohammedan men and Christian women are allowed to marry, however.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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#1
The woman's relatives had reportedly found a number of Christian books in her personal library
The Embarrassment! The Horror!
In Egypt, marriage between a Christian man and a Mohammedan woman is forbidden
"Sounds like it's gonna be an 'Olde Timey Stoning', Mahmoud".
"Sure does, Hatem".
Hence the need for the couple to flee the country.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/25/2013 9:25 Comments ||
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Because marrying or escaping with an [ex-]muslim woman is Cattle Rustiling.... Islamic Style.
After all in Islam womem are treated much like cattle - except cattle are valued more.
[Al Ahram] Zim-bob-we's unity government has failed during its four-year tenure to carry out key reforms to guarantee upcoming elections will be fair and violence free, an opposition leader said Wednesday.
"The people of Zim-bob-we continue to be fearful everyday, we live in fear. All of us," said Simba Makoni, a former finance minister under President Bob Muggsy Mugabe Octogenarian President-for-Life of Zim-bob-we who turned the former Breadbasket of Africa into the African Basket Case...
"The highest priority of national action must be to eliminate or remove that fear."
In perhaps the strongest criticism of the Mugabe-Tsvangirai power-sharing government by a senior Zim-bob-wean politician, Makoni described the unity government as "pathetic" and "dismal".
"Among all the high issues that will make up conditions to free and fair elections none of them has been implemented, not a single one of them," said Makoni.
The 63-year-old Makoni, who came third in 2008 elections with 8.3 percent of the vote, urged Mugabe's opponents to forge a "coalition" to unseat the long-time ruler, who has been in office for 33 years, since Zim-bob-we gained independence.
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[An Nahar] The Catholic Church in Belgium on Wednesday angrily denounced Femen topless protesters who targeted its primate at a conference though the archbishop himself remained composed and apparently at prayer throughout. One suspects that the titty hustlers aren't even Catholic.
The four protesters leaped out of their seats at a debate on blasphemy and freedom of expression held at the Brussels' Free University (ULB) campus Tuesday evening, baring their breasts and squirting water at Archbishop Andre Leonard as they accused him of homophobia. Everybody's a homophobe, it seems, who's not in an active homosexual relationship.
Security guards threw the women out of the hall within minutes as the archbishop remained quietly seated, his hands crossed apparently in prayer. "Dead God, give me strength!"
The Belgian religious leader, a known conservative, has often been criticized for his stand on gay issues. No! Re-e-e-e-e-ally?
In March he said homosexuals should practice "a form of celibacy and abstinence" and welcomed protests in La Belle France against its gay marriage legislation. It's kind of Catholic policy that people who aren't married to each other should abstain from humping, isn't it? I know it's often honored in the breach, but them's the rules.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Lets see Femen try that in a Muslim Mosque.
Ditto for the PETA Babes + other.
Instead of the Muslim World becoming more liberalized + modernist, its the non-Muslim World thats adopting Hardline Sharia + the Burqua.
Making North America energy independent keeps the socialists from implementing their plans. That's the issue here.
Canadas minister for natural resources, Joe Oliver, said Wednesday that U.S. rejection of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline would represent a serious reversal in our long-standing energy relationship.
Mr. Olivers remarks at a Washington think tank Wednesday were the latest of a series of clear nudges to the Obama administration to approve the 875-mile pipeline that would carry oil sands from Alberta to Nebraska, and eventually to refineries on the Gulf Coast.
Make no mistake: Canadian resource development and export, including from the oil sands, will continue, Keystone or no Keystone, he said, taking direct aim at environmentalists who hope that blocking the high-profile pipeline will be a death knell for future development of Canadas heavy crude.
Anyone who equates the rejection of Keystone XL with some kind of body blow to the oil sands is just plain wrong, Mr. Oliver said, talking up the prospects of pipelines within Canada that could carry oil-sands crude to the East or West coasts where it could be exported.
Mr. Oliver directly confronted the main objections to Keystone in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
All the Keystone crude would displace Venezuelan and other heavy oil, he said. This means that shifting to Canadian oil will not increase greenhouse-gas emissions at all.
Posted by: Steve White ||
04/25/2013 00:00 ||
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Canada is (mostly) part of the Anglosphere, and as such, another target of Obama's Kenyan anti-British heritage.
[Ynet] The computer network on the US Navy's newest class of coastal warships showed vulnerabilities in Navy cybersecurity tests, but the issues were not severe enough to prevent an eight-month deployment to Singapore, a Navy official said on Tuesday.
A Navy team of computer hacking experts found some deficiencies when assigned to try to penetrate the network of the USS Freedom, the lead vessel in the $37 billion Littoral Combat Ship program, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
#1
Situation reminds me of August 1941. The Japanese did not like the sanctions being placed on them over their actions in China, and when they felt they were trapped by them they attacked Pearl Harbor etc.
[Ynet] Tehran mayor says controversial leader's conduct, conflating anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism, led to loss of credibility, damaging Paleostinian goal
"If it weren't for stupid Ahmadinejad, the juices and their Joooo-loving friends wouldn't hate us!"
A prospective Iranian presidential candidate issued strong criticism of his country's foreign policy Wednesday, saying President Mahmoud Short Round Ahmadinejad's denial of the Holocaust has caused the Islamic Theocratic Republic significant damage.
Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, incumbent mayor of Tehran and a leading candidate to replace Ahmadinejad, was quoted by Al-Monitor as saying "steps were taken and words uttered that not only did nothing to promote our cause, but enabled our enemies to turn others against us."
"Controversial and tasteless statements, slogans and charades damaged us and weakened our rightful position," said Ghalibaf, referring to Ahmadinejad's litany of controversies that included systematic Holocaust denial and a much-ridiculed statement to the effect that homosexuality doesn't exist in Iran.
While Ghalibaf pledged support for Iran's unsanctioned nuclear program, he had nothing but criticism of Ahmadinejad's conduct: "Our legal position can be realized only through smart, rational diplomacy," he said. "For example, what good did the issue with the Holocaust do for us? We were never against Judaism; it's a religion. What we opposed has always been Zionism."
"We were the greatest supporters of Paleostine for 30 years, but thanks to the wisdom of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei, nobody could accuse us of anti-Semitism. Suddenly, without thinking about the consequences and implications, the matter of the Holocaust was raised. Exactly how did it serve the revolution or the Paleostinians?"
"It has become an excuse for the biggest enemies, the Zionists and has affected the goals of the Paleostinian people. The protection of Paleostinian goals is one of the guiding principles of our foreign policy. Holocaust denial is not part of our foreign policy."
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.
[An Nahar] Tina Turner, the U.S.-born singer famed for hits such as "Private Dancer" and "What's Love Got to Do With It", has become a Swiss citizen, the Swiss newspaper Blick reported.
[Al Ahram] Zim-bob-we's unity government has failed during its four-year tenure to carry out key reforms to guarantee upcoming elections will be fair and violence free, an opposition leader said Wednesday.
Mahmoud 
