Mafia Boss Second Hideout Found

A second hideout used by Italy's most wanted mobster Matteo Messina Denaro has been discovered at the back of a wardrobe with a sliding base, Italian police have said.  The newly-discovered armoured bunker is in a house about 300m from the Mafia boss's first hideout in the Sicilian town of Campobello di Mazara.


He was arrested on Tuesday at a private clinic in Sicily's capital, Palermo.  Police had been hunting Messina Denaro for three decades.
How Mafia boss was caught at a clinic after 30 years.  Messina Denaro was undergoing treatment for cancer at the clinic, and had made the appointment under a false name.


The alias, Andrea Bonafede, aroused the suspicion of police when they realised it was the name of deceased Mafia boss Leonardo Bonafede's nephew.  Phone-mapping showed the real Bonafede's mobile was not in Palermo in 2020 and 2021 when a man using the name had surgery in the city.


During his time at the top of the Cosa Nostra organised crime syndicate, Messina Denaro oversaw racketeering, illegal waste dumping, money-laundering and drug-trafficking.  READ MORE...

Random Acts & Words

 

Looking into 2023

What is 2023 going to be like for those of us who do not earn $150,000 annually?

• We will have higher gasoline prices.
• We will have higher grocery prices.
• We will have higher clothing prices.
• We will have illegal immigrants who live all around us that speak no English.
• We will have increased crime and violence in our larger cities.
• We will have our children being told they should seriously consider their gender.
• We will have blacks wanting reparations because they are the descendants of slavery.
• We will have claims of equity being expressed over the claims of equality.
• We will have politicians continuing to lie to us, expecting us not to notice.
• We will continue to live in the turmoil of a divided nation.

HOWEVER...  life will continue to continue and we will continue to survive as we have always done...  and, we may bitch a little and complain, but life for us will be managable.  Some of us will envy those who have more than us...  but, regardless of the situation, those same people have always had more than us, and we were able to survive just fine.

For my wife and I...

• we have a debt free life
• we have plenty of clothes
• we have reliable vehicles
• we have plenty of food
• we go out to eat often
• we have interests that keep us busy
• we have friends to see
• we exercise regularly
• we eat healthy
• we want for nothing even with increase prices...

NOTHING FOR US WILL REALLY CHANGE...   but, that is not the case for many others...  I feel sorry for them...

Words of Wisdom

 

Porn Star Declared Incompetent

US adult film star Ron Jeremy has been declared mentally incompetent to stand trial for alleged sex crimes.m Mr Jeremy was indicted on 34 counts of sexual assault - including 12 of rape - over a period of more than 20 years.


A Los Angeles judge said on Tuesday that Mr Jeremy could not face the charges, as he was in a state of "incurable neurocognitive decline".  The 69-year-old has been in prison since his arrest in 2020. He denied any wrongdoing and vowed to clear his name.  He was not present for the latest hearing.


Mr Jeremy - whose legal name is Ronald Hyatt - became one of the most prolific performers in the adult film industry during a career that began in the 1970s.  He is believed to have featured in hundreds of titles, and looked to extend his profile in the world of showbiz more widely.


Prosecutors said he attacked 21 women - who ranged in age from 15 to 51 - between the years 1996 and 2019.  The alleged offences took places at bars and nightclubs in the Los Angeles area, and at Mr Jeremy's home.


He was first charged in 2020. Other allegations emerged, resulting in the indictment issued the following year through a grand jury - a similar tactic to that used against Harvey Weinstein.  Mr Jeremy denied the charges against him.


Court proceedings were suspended last year after Mr Jeremy's lawyer said his client had not been able to recognise him during a visit to his cell.  The Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that Mr Jeremy had "severe dementia".


Following the judge's declaration on Tuesday, the same lawyer told the AP news agency: "It is unfortunate due to mental condition he will not go to trial and have the the opportunity to clear his name."  A hearing on whether to put Mr Jeremy in a state-run hospital was set for next month, AP reported.

Croatia

 

Three Waterfalls

 

Levels of Consciousness

Job Automation Risks

The Great Resignation led businesses everywhere to face dire labor shortages, from retail to the supply chain and logistics industries enabling them. The figures are bleak, with 40% of workers in 31 global markets quitting in record numbers. Despite over 75 million Americans being hired in 2021, nearly 70 million still quit. (Deloitte, 2022) This then begs the question: is the job loss that the University of Oxford in 2013 finally coming true? Perhaps not.

Americans quit their jobs due to low pay, the lack of opportunities for advancement, and feeling disrespected (Parker & Juliana Menasce Horowitz, 2022). Whereas the University of Oxford, in their study, The Future of Employment: How Susceptible Are Jobs to Computerisation? predicted the job loss will be due to computerization and automation. (Frey & Osborne, 2013). Records so far show that workers are leaving on their own accord, not forced out because of robots, machine learning, and automation.

But we cannot deny that automation is here to stay. So, in the face of these developments, does the original prediction still hold? Are our jobs really under threat from automation?

The Oxford study has been challenged, critiqued, and scrutinized for possible gaps many times over. In 2018, its authors themselves even said this study only tackles one aspect of work and cannot determine how many jobs will be automated or if other factors will come into play. While automation is indeed taking over certain human tasks, the World Economic Forum says how people handle the change will determine its impact. That task now is not to protect occupations that computers can do better, but to train the workforce for future work. (Advaithi, 2022) As such, people must be trained to succeed in this new environment.  READ MORE...

Interlude Two

 

IN LIEU of Reparations

As a Caucasian male, I did not participate in slavery and I do not know if any of my relatives did, but if they were involved, it is not my frigging responsibility, it is theirs and why should I feel guilty because of something they did?  Logically, makes no sense.

If my father was a seriel killer, should I be held accountable for his crimes?  NO...  I should not!!!

However, I sympathize and empathize with the descendants of slaves and I would like to propose that our US Government, give these descendants of slaves, LAND...  just like we gave the Native Americans for the damage we did to their relatives.  I would also suggest that we allow these descendants to build, own, and operate casinos, just like the Native Americans, and use the profits as reparations to be distributed as these descendants decree...

The other opportunity that I would like to suggest is to let these slavery descendants SELL ILLEGAL DRUGS LEGALLY and use those profits to be distributed on the basis of equity.  However, I would stipulate that sense these drugs are illegal at the present time, that the US Government be allowed to regulate and oversee their manufacture to minimize the harm to other Americans.

These are unusual times and as such, they require unusual solutions...

Interlude One

 

Switch Off Streetlights to Save Energy

A draft budget in the U.K. city of Newport is proposing to switch off streetlights to cut back on costs, but officials are concerned that the move would put residents at risk.

The city, located in South Wales, included the measure in its 2023/2024 draft budget. If implemented about half of the town’s lights would be off between midnight and 6 a.m., BBC News reported.

Newport’s Green Party councilmember Lauren James said it was imperative that safety considerations be considered.
"I hope that the council is looking into it, and make sure that there are things like high-visibility strips on steps, so it’s safe for those who do have to be out at those times," she said.

Another council member, Andrew Sterry, said his constituents had expressed concerns over a possible increase in crime.

"I am against this proposal as I received many comments from my residents and they’re extremely concerned about crime rates going up," he said. "It wasn’t that long ago that all the street lights were changed to LED to save costs."

A draft budget was made available to the public on Dec. 15, 2022. It is due to close on Feb. 2, 2023.

Among the other plans is a 9.5% council tax hike because of "increasing costs and pressures faced by the council."

Costs of living in the U.K. have soared in recent months. Late last year, inflation in the U.K. hit a 41-year-high of 11.1%, driven by sharply rising energy and food costs.

___________________________
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
By Bradford Betz is a Fox News Digital breaking reporter covering crime, political issues, and much more.

Bird Catches Fish

 

Flowers

 

What Will A Recession in 2023 Look Like?

Recessions, like unhappy families, are each painful in their own way.

And the next one -- which economists see as increasingly possible by the end of next year -- will probably bear that out. A US downturn may well be modest, but it might also be long.

Many observers expect any decline to be a lot less wrenching than the 2007-09 Great Financial Crisis and the back-to-back downturns seen in the 1980s, when inflation was last this high. The economy is simply not as far out of whack as it was in those earlier periods, they say.

While the recession may be moderate, it could end up lasting longer than the abbreviated, eight-month contractions of 1990-91 and 2001. That’s because elevated inflation may hold the Federal Reserve back from rushing to reverse the downturn. READ MORE...

Flashback

 

Teach Your Children Well

Opinions are like assholes, everybody has got one...  and I am no exception...  most of my opinions people do not agree with but sometimes I made a comment or two that resound with people and they support my thoughts but those times are rare...

On January 16, 1919, booze by Congressional Law was banned in the United States and guess what happened?  Over 80% of Americans broke the law in one way or another simply because they did not like the law and refused to obey it...

CIVIL DISOBEDIANCE is the term that refers to these characters...

It seems that the USA has a history or disobeying laws they do not really care for or support.  In other words, Americans always find a way around the law, sometimes legal and sometimes not so legal...  but the law is ignored nonetheless.

What do parents tell their children when that happens???

Parents support the breaking of laws but only when the are breaking it.  They teach their children it is ok to break the law if and when you do not agree with it.

How many of us take pens and paper home from work?

Do we ask our bosses if we can do this?  NO...

Do we brag about it to our friends and neighbors?  YES...

Do we get upset when people steal from us?  YES...

The Artist And His Art

 

Tech Trends in 2023

Alibaba’s research arm Damo Academy has recently published a list of top trends that are likely to shape the technology landscape this year.

Chief among them is the rise of generative AI, which recently set the world abuzz with ground-breaking applications like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, alongside promises of faster and better quality decision-making through the use of machine learning (ML).

Here’s a round-up of top trends from Alibaba, which was put together by analysing public papers and patent filings over the past three years and conducting interviews with nearly 100 scientists, entrepreneurs and engineers around the world.

Generative AI
Generative AI generates new content based on a given set of text, images, or audio files. Currently, Generative AI is mainly used to produce prototypes and drafts and is applied in scenarios like gaming, advertising and graphic design.

As the technology advances and becomes available at a lower cost, generative AI will become an inclusive technology that can enhance the variety, creativity and efficiency of content creation. In the next three years, Alibaba expects business models and the ecosystem around generative AI to emerge and mature, helping people to take on more creative tasks.  READ MORE...