- It took nearly two decades, but two former Bosnian Serb officials have
finally been tracked down by justice. More than 17 years after the end of the
Balkan country's 1992-95 war, Mico Stanisic and his subordinate Stojan
Zupljanin were sentenced to 22
years in prison for their roles in a campaign to rid Bosnia of Muslims, Croats
and other non-Serbs. The pair were convicted by the Yugoslav war crimes court
at the Hague, Nertherlands on Wednesday. "The trial chamber hereby
sentences Mico Stanisic and his subordinate Stojan Zupljanin to a single
sentence of 22 years in prison," International Criminal Tribunal for the
former Yugoslavia (ICTY) judge Burton Hall said. Stanisic is a former minister
in the Bosnian Serb Ministry of Internal Affairs and Zupljanin was his stool
pigeon/regional security services chief. The two men aced war crimes and crimes
against humanity charges including murder, torture and cruel treatment of
non-Serbs in municipalities and detention centers during Bosnia's war which
left 100,000 people dead and some 2.2 million homeless. "The chamber finds
that the goal of these actions was the establishment of a Serb state as
ethnically pure as possible," Hall said. "Through these acts and
omissions both intended and significantly contributed to the plan of removing
Muslims and Croats from the territory of the planned Serbian state.” Zupljanin
somehow managed to land a gig as an advisor to former Bosnian Serb leader
Radovan Karadzic, who is himself facing charges of war crimes, crimes against humanity
and genocide before the ICTY, after Stanisic left power. Stanisic finally gave
himself up in March 2005 and has remained free while awaiting trial. Zupljanin
was apprehended in 2008 after more than nine years on the run, but he remained
in custody because for some odd reason, the court considered him to be a flight
risk. Now, the two convicted war criminals can finally spend some quality time
together……….
- Two of the newest technologies on the market are combining
forces to give fans a better gaming experience. MakerBot, maker of 3-D printers and
scanners, is partnering with OUYA, which is set to release its new gaming
console on Thursday. Even with consoles set to begin shipping tomorrow, OUYA is
still tweaking its product and to enhance what it already offers, has announced
a partnership that will see the release of the 3D design files for the console’s
case. The template and specifications for the OUYA’s case are already available
and the small segment of the population that owns a MakerBot 3D printer will be
able to make their own case for the gaming console. The companies are calling
their effort the “OUYA MakerBot 3D Printing Development Kit” and it can be
downloaded from MakerBot’s Thingiverse website. From there, users can design
their own personalized OUYA shell. The kit allows individuals to add their own
patterns and colors to the cases, which can then be printed using PLA plastic
on the MakerBot Replicator 2 Desktop 3D Printer or using ABS plastic on a
MakerBot Replicator 2X Experimental 3D Printer. Perhaps the next step in the
open sourcing of technology, OUYA is also unique in that the company is
producing the consoles using the profits from a Kickstarter campaign.
Kickstarter backers will be the first to receive their consoles, while the
general public will have to wait until June to buy them. OUYA plans to sell
them at retail stores, as well as on Amazon and its own website, all for an
affordable $99………
- Don’t sweat the small stuff…and next to 6-foot-6, 265-pound
New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski, it’s all small stuff. The man
known simply as Gronk has taken plenty of criticism this offseason simply for
being himself. After breaking his arm
in a game against the Indianapolis Colts on Nov. 18, missing five games,
returning for the regular-season finale and breaking the arm again early in the
first quarter of the Patriots' divisional-round loss to the Baltimore Ravens,
he entered the offseason with his arm in a cast. He then showed up on TMZ.com
in a grainy video from a Las Vegas
nightclub in February, dancing on stage and executing a wrestling move on a
friend – all while shirtless, of course. The video led to criticism from fans,
media members and former players, all of whom grouped around the same basic
idea: Gronk needed to grow up and stop acting like a glorified frat boy. Rather
than get hooked by the haters, Gronk chose to lay low and say very little about
the incident or about any conversations between himself and the team about it.
He finally addressed it in an interview Wednesday morning, insisting he would
never do something he thought would put his health at risk. "They're my
fans," he said. "They're looking out for and they're big fans of the
Patriots and they just want to see the team do well. I totally understand where
the fans are coming [from], where they don't want [me] to put myself in
jeopardy of getting hurt. I totally understand that. I would never do that, put
myself in jeopardy.” In other words, fans pay my salary and like me, they love
to get drunk and act like idiots, so I don’t mind them worrying about me
because their opinion doesn’t really matter at the end of the day. When asked
about whether the team has spoken to him about the incident, Gronk read
straight from the official Patriots playbook for dealing with potential
controversies. "Whatever I talk to [with] the Patriots, we stay
confidential. We really don't give anything out," Gronk said.
"Basically, just coming from myself, [I] just have to watch out who's out
there, who's watching and everything, and basically just keep doing what I've
been doing since Day 1. That's what got me here this far." Of course, if
he really felt bad about the Vegas incident, he probably would not have shown
up shortly thereafter posing in a "Sorry For Partying" T-shirt………
- Ripping stories from the headlines and turning them into
another formulaic, predictable episode of one of the longest-running TV
franchises around is a staple of “Law & Order” and its spin-offs. The show
has already done an episode, “Funny Valentine,” on domestic abuse, almost certainly be based on
the troubled relationship of singers Chris Brown and Rihanna. Another episode, “Excalibur,” a
governor apparently based on former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer is involved in
an upscale prostitution ring. Oh, and there was “Scorched Earth,” an episode in
which a maid claims a foreign prime minister candidate (presumably Dominqiue
Strauss Kahn) raped her in a hotel room. So who’s the next target for the
scribes of “Law & Order: SVU” and how can they possibly top that trio? That
target would be failed Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin, best known as the
idiot who cost himself a shot at the Senate by suggesting that a woman’s body
has ways of shutting down its reproductive system and preventing pregnancy in
the event of a “legitimate rape.” Aiken lost to Sen. Claire McCaskill and
became a national punch line for his remarks, both in his native Missouri and
beyond. Now, the case has inspired a “Law & Order: SVU” episode titled
“Legitimate Rape.” A promo for the show begins with the words “ripped from the
headlines, words that set off a national controversy” and goes on to show a man
in a suit and tie appearing in court declaring, “It’s nearly impossible for a
victim of legitimate rape to become pregnant.” McCaskill responded to the “Law
& Order” episode, tweeting “now this is surreal.” Of course, all “Law &
Order” episodes begin with the tongue-in-cheek disclaimer that their stories
are fictional and do not depict any real person or event……
- West Springfield (Mass.) Mayor Greg Neffinger is an effing genius.
Neffinger is two steps ahead of a problem that has vexed humanity for as long
as the family pet has existed and he has designs on remedying a blatant and
unfair double standard that has existed for far too long. Neffiner, the mayor
of a city 28,391, isn’t using his city’s small-town status to excuse the
continued overlooking of the daily hazards posed by a truly contemptible group:
cats. The mayor recently sent a
letter to Town Council President Kathy
Bourque asking the council to consider a statute that would force lazy
cat owners to finally accept responsibility for outdoor cats. The proposed ordinance
would require cats to be on a leash in
public spaces and require cat
owners to clean up cat poop, two areas where cats have been allowed to skate in
communities across America for years. Bourque, who could just be Crazy Cat Lady
based on her response to the idea, argues that the ordinance would be
hard to enforce and may not be realistic. She is choosing to ignore the fact
that West Springfield already has a similar law for dogs and the fact that the
town's health director did ask the council to approve some language so
complaints can be enforced to some degree. Forcing cat owners to leash their
aloof, trouble-causing felines and pick up after them if they take a dump on
the sidewalk only seems fair. Just imagine how much of a wonderfully hilarious
strain such a law would place on all of the Crazy Cat Ladies out there whose
homes are overrun by hundreds of cats and who cannot possibly keep all of those
cats inside all of the time. Hopefully, Mayor Neffinger sets an example that
mayors and city councils across the United States follow because if Michael
Bloomberg can go nanny state on Manhattan’s six million residents, then
anything is possible………
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