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Residents in the eastern German city of Jena were in for a rude awakening on Friday, after pranksters planted alarm clocks around town to quite literally ring in December 21, a date doomsdayers associate with the apocalypse. The prank appeared to be based on a tongue-in-cheek "apocalypse agenda" that was posted online and quickly went viral. The first item on the list, at 5 am, called for "waking up the world." A police spokeswoman said official-looking flyers from a so-called "special protection office" had been making the rounds since Thursday. The letters warned of "acoustic disturbances" throughout Jena the following...

France's attractiveness as a place to do business has plummeted in the eyes of US businesses active in the country after the change to a Socialist government, according to a survey released Thursday. The survey among the heads of the French units of US companies found that only 22 percent saw France as an attractive place to do business, down from 56 percent in 2011. Conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Paris and consulting firm Bain and Company, the survey questioned 52 leaders of French operations of US companies that had 39,000 employees and generated €32 billion ($42...

Veteran French actress Catherine Deneuve launched a strong defence of Gérard Depardieu on Friday, calling a virulent critic of her fellow thespian's bid for tax exile a petty-minded pygmy. Deneuve's defence came after the reclusive French film legend Brigitte Bardot castigated attacks on a man who is arguably France's leading actor with roles in nearly 170 films. The hulking 64-year-old star's move to Belgium has been derided as "pathetic" by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault while another top French actor, Philippe Torreton, publicly accused him of sulking like a playground creep. Deneuve, a chiselled blonde actress whose career spans nearly a...

After a video appeared of a croc-teasing Swedish tourist being hit in the face by a “flying” crocodile, Australian experts claim the Swede was never in danger. “Everywhere we went we saw signs warning for crocodiles,” amateur cameraman and tourist Jakob Hellberg told The Local. Hellberg was swimming with his two friends Ulrik and Felix at the Litchfield National Park in far northern Australia. “When Ulrik spotted the crocodile on the cliff just by the water, I swam closer, thinking it would just run away when I got too close. “But then the crocodile decided to take a leap out...

Guns are a sad fact of life in American culture and are a major topic in modern journalism. A good Journalist has a duty to get involved and make a difference in this important societal debate. By following certain guidelines, the concerned Journalist can be assured of having the maximum impact on this shameful problem. The first principle to remember is that subtle use of terminology can covertly influence the reader. Adjectives should be chosen for maximum anti-gun effect. When describing a gun, attach terms like "automatic," "semi-automatic," "large caliber," "deadly," "high powered," or "powerful." Almost any gun can be...

Assad built 10-15 mobile chemical labs a year ago – Syrian defector Washington Post columnist David Ignatius quotes US intelligence sources on a revelation by a Syrian defector that in late 2011, the Syrian army started building special trucks able to transport and mix chemical weapons. Inside the Mercedes or Volvos, which looked outwardly like refrigerator trucks, mobile labs were installed to combine and activate “binary” chemical weapons agents. The defector said that, six weeks ago, the Syrian opposition secretly handed Lebanese officials a description of the trucks so that they could watch the border to make sure they did...

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's snout has been immortalised in movies, books and song. But until now, no-one has offered a scientific explanation for the glow that allows the world's most famous antlered herbivore to guide Santa's sleigh through the night before Christmas. In a study released on Monday, researchers in Norway and the Netherlands used a hand-held microscope to examine the nasal lining of five healthy humans, two reindeer and a sixth person with a non-cancerous nasal growth. Reindeer noses have 25 percent more blood vessels than human noses, according to the tongue-in-cheek investigation, published by the British Medical Journal...

During his press conference today, called to announce his new gun control task force, President Obama invoked the Newtown massacre to apply pressure on congressional Republicans in the fiscal cliff standoff.

In the department’s view, these covered towns and townships have met the requirements necessary for bailout.

The Syrian Air Force is again firing Scud missiles, this time to stem the general offensive Syrian opposition forces, including jihadis, launched Friday, Dec. 21, to capture the Syrian army’s military-industrial complex at al Safira and the big chemical and biological weapons store adjoining the facility. It is there, that Scud D missiles stand ready for launching, loaded with chemical weapons. Rebel forces are converging on Al Safira from the east, the west and the south. Among them are brigades of the Jabhat al-Nusra which the US has designated part of al Qaeda in Iraq. Military sources report extremely heavy...

Magnificent "Magnificat"              Mary's song of praise (Luke 11, 46-55) has been a source of inspiration to Christians for centuries.  Many composers,  in every period of music history,  as diverse as the early French Baroque Marc-Antoine Charpentier, the staunch Lutheran J-S Bach, the high priest of Romanticism Franz Liszt, and the contemporary Estonian mystic Arvo Pärt  have set the words of this canticle to music.             Luke, the author of the third Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles was a companion of Saint Paul. He wrote his Gospel in excellent Greek. The name "Magnificat" given to this canticle of...

Looting leaves 2 dead in Argentina-link to article Its not as if some looting surprises anyone in Argentina anymore. Its pretty much a fact of life for Argentines. But it has been three days now of widespread looting across the country, from Buenos Aires and its suburbs, to smaller provinces as far as Bariloche where incidents first started. As always supermarkets, gas stations and smaller stores are favorite targets by looters and there’s also been reports of assaults and robberies as well. Two people have been killed in Rosario during the lootings and the government is deploying military personal across...

December 22, 2012 Saturday of the Third Week of Advent   Reading 1 1 Sm 1:24-28 In those days,Hannah brought Samuel with her,along with a three-year-old bull,an ephah of flour, and a skin of wine,and presented him at the temple of the LORD in Shiloh.After the boy's father had sacrificed the young bull,Hannah, his mother, approached Eli and said:"Pardon, my lord!As you live, my lord,I am the woman who stood near you here, praying to the LORD.I prayed for this child, and the LORD granted my request.Now I, in turn, give him to the LORD;as long as he lives, he...

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What are the sources or inspiration for these subjects?Basically they are inspired by the documents of the Holy See, and in particular by the Catechism of the Catholic Church and its Compendium. This was a deliberate choice so as to create an awareness of the vast richness, completeness and beauty of these documents which are, in some circles, hardly known at all. In this way, it is possible to present the essential and fundamental contents of the faith which are professed, not just by the individual Catholic, but by the Catholic Church throughout the world as it adheres to the...

Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) has introduced legislation that calls for an investigation into violent video games and their impact on children in the wake of last week’s horrific Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting. In a statement released yesterday, Rockefeller said that his legislation enlists the National Academy of Sciences to “investigate the impact of violent video games and other content on children’s well-being.” If the organization is given the green light, it will present its findings within 18 months to Congress, the FTC and the FCC. … The impact of violent video games on youthful behaviors has been debated for...

The Mayan has come to pass. John Kerry is now state secretary. http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/12/on-the-day-of-the-mayan-apocalypse-john-kerry-now-in-line-of-succession-to-the-presidency/

President Barack Obama tabbed Senator John Kerry (D-Mass) as the person he wants to succeed the ailing Hillary Clinton as the nation's Secretary of State. While the move was not unexpected, the President said “it is imperative that the transition be accelerated before Secretary Clinton's memory loss becomes too severe and the encroaching dementia of an elderly woman erases or muddles vital knowledge that needs to be passed on.” The President also cited the recently released report critical of massive dereliction of duty by key State Department personnel in the September terrorist attack on the Benghazi Consulate as a spur...

CHICAGO — Police arrested 18 gang members in a West Side drug bust. Investigators recovered more than $85,000 worth of cannabis, heroin and crack cocaine in Austin during the three-month investigation, police said in a statement issued Thursday. Police attributed recent violence in the area to the drug market controlled by the Conservative Vice Lords gang, police said. The offenders were charged with various crimes, including delivery of a controlled substance, a felony. Ten of those arrested were felons with “extensive criminals backgrounds,” including arrests for homicide, aggravated battery and other violent crimes, police said.

So now we have it: what appears to be hard, irrefutable evidence of Rupert Murdoch's ultimate and most audacious attempt – thwarted, thankfully, by circumstance – to hijack America's democratic institutions on a scale equal to his success in kidnapping and corrupting the essential democratic institutions of Great Britain through money, influence and wholesale abuse of the privileges of a free press. In the American instance, Murdoch's goal seems to have been nothing less than using his media empire – notably Fox News – to stealthily recruit, bankroll and support the presidential candidacy of General David Petraeus in the 2012...