Italians With a Cement Company: A Family Tradition?

New Hope, Pennsylvania — Human remains are being discovered in a 12+-foot grave dug on the 90-acre Bucks County property of Antonio and Sandra DiNardo, owners of a cement and construction company.

Their son "Cosmo" DiNardo has been arrested on suspicion of murder.

One body has been identified as 19-year-old Dean Finocchiaro. Still missing are three other young men between 19 and 22.

The son was arrested on the charge of stealing and attempting to sell the vehicle of Thomas Meo, another of the missing men.

SEE: "Team keeps digging after 1 of 4 missing Pennsylvania men found dead"

Claiming Scalps With Fake News

When the Left decide they want to eliminate someone from relevance in the socio-political sphere, they use fake news. Here are the steps they use to destroy someone:

1) Spin something out of nothing

Start with a wisp of something that can be spun into something BIG. Spin it in such a way that it will predictably whip up an emotional storm. Best to:

1. Use a word that is an un-deconstruct-able flashpoint, one that can't be argued against without the arguer losing his position in society (e.g., pedophilia).
2. Label from the standard Leftist list: e.g., racist, sexist, homophobe. 
3. Ensure there be no actual, factual basis for the charge, that it's been spun into something completely, dimensionally out-of-touch with all reality.

In the latter phase of the scalping, when the emotional froth is winding down and cooler heads try to unravel the initial accusation, it is critical that they have no way of taking it apart factually—because no factual basis exists for it. With absolutely no factual basis to support the charge, denials add weight to it.

2) Foment an hystericalized tsunami of fake news

Whip up a frenzy in the public using the fake news media network—otherwise known as the Leftist Media Bloc—to create a fait accompli destructive force that not only can't be stopped. Make it appear so massively powerful, and moving at such a speed, that no thinking person would try to stop it.

3) Claim your scalp

By the time the hysterical tsunami recedes, and the flopping fish and sand and debris do not add up to a substantial basis for the initial charge—the job, position in society, and life contentment of the target has been irremediably destroyed. What was created without a factual basis cannot be turned back by checking facts, putting things into perspective, and considering the actual harm the target was guilty of. 

4) Repeat

Woman Lights Boyfriend On Fire

Mayra Crespo is on the run

NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT — Police are looking for Mayra Crespo, who they say threw alcohol on her boyfriend then lit him on fire.

Patrick O'Conner, 57, suffered burns to about 40 percent of his body, including his face, arms, and torso. Portions of his skin had burned off. He was screaming from the pain when police arrived.

O'Conner was initially treated at Yale-New Haven Hospital, but was transferred to the burn center at Bridgeport Hospital, where he was listed in critical condition.

Crespo, 46, is wanted on charges of first-degree arson, first-degree assault, first-degree reckless endangerment, second-degree breach of peace and violation of a protective order.


SEE: Hartford Courant

"Downright Bizarre"

“Megyn is on a pre-planned, annual summer vacation with her family, which is much deserved. To imply otherwise as Donald Trump and his campaign operatives have is not only wildly irresponsible, but downright bizarre.”

Fox News spokesman

'Poet Boss' Nabbed

Camorra boss Aldo Gionta arrested in Pozzallo, Italy

Italian police have arrested a fugitive mafia boss Aldo Gionta, whose reputation for cross-dressing
and eloquent notes to his son earned him the nickname 'the poet boss'.

Gionta, fugitive boss of a Naples Camorra mafia clan, was cornered by plain clothes police at the Sicilian port of Pozzallo as he tried to board a ferry for Malta using false papers. The 42-year-old son of revered boss Valentino Gionta, Aldo was believed to have risen to prominence while his father served hard time.

While on the run, Gionta wore wigs and dressed in women's clothing to avoid capture, leading one investigator to claim "Camorra mobsters aren't what they used to be." Earlier in his career the crime chief earned a reputation as a 'poet' thanks to secret notes he wrote his son from a jail cell, though hardly the stuff of classic verse. ("Learn to shoot with a machine gun, shotgun and Kalashnikov" read a note seized by
investigators.)

His lyrical reputation was garnished when Tony Marciano, a Naples singer*, used some of Gionta's messages in the lyrics to his song 'Nun ciamm arrennere' (We Must Not Surrender) which criticizes
mafiosi who talk to the police.

SOURCE: Telegraph Media Group Limited 2014

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*Marciano was a staple of the Naples Neomelodic scene, crooners who sing passionate love songs in the Neopolitan dialect.

What the News is About

My News Sources These Days

Where I get my news from mostly nowadays . .

1. Caledonian News Record: the local-regional paper based in St. Johnsbury, Vermont is not only quite vibrant and engaging on local news—staying alive as a small newspaper in an Internet world—it also presents a fair number of sensible voices on state and national issues through its opinion pages.
2. Drudge Report: this keeps me up on most matters of importance nationally and internationally with a quick read.
3. Townhall Talk Radio: a sensible gathering of conservative talk show hosts, streamed live weekdays all-day long—e.g., Bill Bennett, Mike Gallagher, Dennis Prager, Hugh Hewitt. All have a way of talking that has a chance of "changing minds so we can save the country."
4. The Mark Levin Show: The Great One creates the intellectual framework the rest of the sensible commentators work from. His rants are monumental. If I can't catch him live, I listen to his podcasts, especially on weekend days when other radio sources either go dead or switch format.
5. WABC Radio: I switch here at 3pm to catch Michael Savage (and to miss Michael Medved on Townhall). Admittedly over-the-top sometimes, he's right on so many things others either don't see or aren't willing to say that he merits a listen. Mark Levin comes on at 6pm and John Batchelor 9pm-1am (with a mix-in of Larry Kudlow).
6. The Wall Street Journal: tells the good news of the American story, particularly from a business standpoint, with mostly sensible opinion pieces. Their weekend edition is top-rate (with an excellent automobile review to boot).

Stuck up in Moose Country, as I am, with nothing over the airwaves but PBS, the propaganda is only interrupted by a couple breaths of fresh air. 

• Charlie Rose's willingness to have conservative guests on his show, and lack of any statement of his own political, social, and economic views suggest he's conservative to me. Leftist commentators on PBS proudly proclaim it. 
• The McLaughlin Group has only one Leftist commentator on regularly, the others counterbalancing her. McLaughlin himself, as time goes on, reveals his Inner Conservative more and more.

John McLaughlin

Weekends are filled by playing "audio rewinds" of Mark Levin shows, Larry Kudlow on Saturdays, John Batchellor at night, and a sprinkling of Red State Radio.

With All That Yankee Cash . .

With all that Yankee cash he's been earning from Jeep and Ram sales in the U.S., Sergio Marchionne can finally start to rebuild his dream Alfa Romeo unit in earnest.  According to Germany's Auto Bild magazine, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) will unveil a slew of new Alfa Romeo models hoping to increase sales from 100,000 per year to 500,000.

In addition to the 4C sports car, to be seen here later in 2014, new models include a:

• convertible Spider* by 2016 (think The Graduate).
• sedan and wagon versions of the Giulia sports sedan in 2017 (to rival BMW 3-Series).
• sedan and wagon versions of the Alfetta sports sedan in 2018 (against BMW 5-Series).
• compact crossover sport utility vehicle (SUV) in 2017.
• larger crossover SUV for 2018

The MiTo and Giulietta hatchbacks not in production will not be replaced (no great loss here, Alfa fans). Fiat acquired Alfa Romeo in 1986, but has failed to restore it to glory despite repeated attempts. Plans to boost sales to half a million by 2014 have been ditched as the car market in Europe has gone into reverse for several years.

The relaunch of the 104-year-old Alfa Romeo brand, along with Maserati, drives FCA's return to profitability in Europe. All Alfas and Maseratis will be produced in Italy.

SEE: Reuters

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*which was to be shared with the new Mazda Miata MX-5 until Marchionne changed his mind about that.

Willie Watson to Release Solo Album

Willie Watson

Willie Watson's solo album Folk Singer Vol. 1 will be released May 6, 2014 through Acony Records—record company of Gillian Welch and her husband's Dave Rawlings Machine. Produced by Dave Rawlings, the release will "feature 10 songs that run the gamut from folk standards to obscure tunes."

Rawlings said in a recent news release that: "Willie is the only one of his generation who can make me forget these songs were ever sung before."

Watson will be in Nashville for a record release at Grimey’s on May 6, and will perform the following night at Music City Roots. On May 8 he wraps up his Nashville run at the Station Inn.

FROM: "Willie Watson confirms tour dates and details on ‘Folk Singer Vol.1′" by Travis Swann; March 4, 2014.

Parrot Solves Murder in India

A talking parrot helped police in India identify the killer of a woman and her dog. The 45-year-old woman and her pet were found murdered at her residence in the western Indian city of Agra in Uttar Pradesh state.

The victim's husband, Vijay Sharma, is editor of a Hindi daily. The parrot showed a change in behavior whenever his nephew Ashutosh visited the house after the incident: ". . whenever Ashutosh's name was mentioned, the parrot would start screeching. This raised my suspicion and I informed the police," Sharma told the Times of India.

"We checked his call details and took him in custody," said the city's senior superintendent of police, Shalabh Mathur. "He accepted his crime . ."

Ashutosh, who entered with an accomplice with the intention of stealing cash and valuables, stabbed his aunt so she wouldn't recognize him. He stabbed her dog when it started barking. He failed to notice the parrot who was silently watching the whole thing.

SOURCE: International Business Times

Married in Seattle

HONOLULU -- Jim Nabors, 82, best known for playing Gomer Pyle on TV in the 1960s, has married his longtime male partner Stan Cadwallader, 64, in Seattle on January 15. They traveled from Honolulu to Washington state, where gay marriage became legal last month.

The couple met in 1975 when Cadwallader was a Honolulu firefighter.

"I'm 82 and he's in his 60s and so we've been together for 38 years and I'm not ashamed of people knowing, it's just that it was such a personal thing, I didn't tell anybody. I'm very happy that I've had a partner of 38 years and I feel very blessed. And, what can I tell you, I'm just very happy."

Nabors said he's been open about his homosexuality to co-workers and friends but never acknowledged it to the media before. He doesn't plan to get involved in the issue politically.

"I'm not a debater. And everybody has their own opinion about this and actually I'm not an activist, so I've never gotten involved in any of this."

Nabors became an instant success when he joined "The Andy Griffith Show" in spring 1963. The character of Gomer Pyle - the unworldly, lovable gas pumper who would exclaim "Gollllll-ly!" - proved so popular that in 1964 CBS starred him in "Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C." In the spinoff, which lasted five seasons, Gomer left his hometown of Mayberry to become a Marine recruit. His innocence confounded his sergeant, the irascible Frank Sutton.

FROM: "Jim Nabors, Stan Cadwallader Marry In Seattle", January 30, 2013.

Cloning Neanderthal

Scientist with Neanderthal skull.

Harvard Medical School professor George Church, 58 – pioneer in synthetic biology who helped initiate the Human Genome Project that mapped our DNA – believes he can reconstruct Neanderthal DNA and resurrect the species. His analysis of Neanderthal genetic code using samples from bones is complete enough to reconstruct their DNA, but Professor Church’s ambitious plan requires a human volunteer. As he puts it . .

"It depends on a hell of a lot of things, but I think it can be done. Now I need an adventurous female human."

Professor Church’s plans to create Neanderthal DNA artificially based on genetic code found in fossil remains. This DNA would then go into stem cells, which would be injected into cells from a human embryo. The stem cells would steer the development of the hybrid embryo on Neanderthal lines, rather than human ones – at least that's the hope. After growing in the lab for a few days, the ‘neo-Neanderthal’ embryo would be implanted in the womb of a surrogate mother – the human volunteer.

To volunteer, go here.

A $30-million happy ending

Qianlong

A family who saw their dreams of a £43 million windfall disappear after the auction of their Chinese vase went wrong, are finally getting their due. Tony Johnson and his mother Gene thought they had sold the 18th-century piece back in 2010. A Chinese billionaire bid £43 million but balked at paying the auctioneer fees, which would have brought the price to a record £51.6  million.

Peter Bainbridge, who owns the provincial auction house that “sold” the vase, tried to save the deal by negotiating with the buyer but with no success. After a two-year stalemate, the international auctioneer Bonhams was approached by an interested party to broker a deal. The unidentified buyer from the Far East is believed to have paid up to £25 million for the vase, the bulk of the money going to the Johnson family.

The 16-inch porcelain vase was made for the Chinese emperor Qianlong, who ruled from 1736 to 1795. It was looted from the Imperial Summer Palace during raids by the British and French in 1860. Johnson, 56, from the Isle of Wight, and his elderly mother inherited it from her late sister, Patricia Newman, in January 2010. It had belonged to Patricia’s late husband who had in turn inherited it from an uncle who brought it back from China.

The object attracted great interest from Chinese bidders at the auction in November 2010 where it sold for 40 times its estimate before the dispute erupted. Ivan Macquisten, the editor of Antiques Trades Gazette, called the object “one of the finest pieces ever made in China.”

SOURCE: "Couple’s broken dreams over Chinese vase have a £20 million happy ending" January 16, 2013.

Corleone apologizes for decades of Mafia murders

ROME--Corleone, the Sicilian hill town synonymous with Mafia, seeks forgiveness for the murders, shootings and intimidation committed by its godfathers. Leoluchina Savona, mayor of the town, apologized to victims of the Mafia's vendettas, bombings and killings on behalf of the inhabitants of the town, immortalized by The Godfather book and subsequent films starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.

The appeal was made on the 20th anniversary of the arrest of a Corleone-born mafia leader, Toto Riina, nicknamed "The Beast" for his ruthlessness and brutality. The mayor stated during a related ceremony:

"I apologize in the name of all the people of Corleone. I ask forgiveness for the blood that was spilled. To the Mafia, I ask you to leave this land, to abandon the struggle. I ask them to admit defeat, to surrender."

To remind that politicians, police, and ordinary people killed by the Mafia, including prominent prosecutors Paolo Borsellino and Giovanni Falcone, did not die in vain, she said: "In the 20 years since the arrest of Toto Riina, their blood reminds us all that there can only be one path to choose in this war (that of legality)."

Once the capo di tutti capi (boss of bosses) of the powerful Corleonesi faction of the Mafia, Riina is serving multiple life-sentences for several murders, including assassination of rival gangsters. He was succeeded by Bernardo "The Bulldozer" Provenzano, who in turn was arrested in 2006 after more than 40 years as a fugitive.

References to The Godfather in Corleone are everywhere – a bar on the main street offers a bitter aperitif called "Don Corleone Amaro", while just across the road, the walls of a pastry shop are covered in black and white pictures of Brando and Pacino in scenes from the films.

SOURCE: "Corleone apologises for decades of Mafia murders" by Nick Squires in Rome; January 16, 2013.

Russia’s reputed top criminal boss killed

MOSCOW--Aslan Usoyan, Russia’s top criminal boss was shot dead by a sniper in broad daylight in the center of Moscow on Wednesday, in what law enforcement officials said was a dispute with a rival Georgian gang.

Usoyan, who went by the nickname “Grandpa Hasan”, was leaving the Karetniy dvor (Carriage House) - which he used as his "office" - when an assassin opened fire with a rifle from a stairwell of a building across the street. He was hit with a single shot to the head, dying a few minutes later at the same hospital where his life was saved after he was shot in a similar 2010 attack.

Usoyan was an ethnic Kurd of the Yezidi faith who hailed from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. He was the highest-ranking vor v zakone – literally “thief in law” or code-bound criminal – in Russia. The vory are a caste of professional criminals formed in the Soviet gulags of the 1930s. The highest rank is given to men of respect who sit at the top of Russia’s criminal hierarchy, follow the thieves’ common code of ‘law’, and act as unofficial adjudicators of disputes.

“They are dinosaurs, the old Soviet gulag-era crime lords,” says Mark Galeotti, professor at New York University - and expert on the Russian underworld - adding the vory had been steadily giving way to more agile and less principled criminal “authorities” since the fall of Communism.

In 2006, in the only television interview Usoyan ever gave, he said: “I am a pensioner, I live on a pension. I live modestly, I don’t touch anyone, I just mind my own business.”

SOURCE: Charles Clover, Financial Times; January 16, 2013.

'Zerilli Says Hoffa Left In Shallow Grave'

DETROIT--Mob underboss Anthony Zerilli, 85, says he knows where Detroit’s most notorious missing person, Jimmy Hoffa, is buried.

Zerilli told WDIV in Detroit Hoffa’s killers buried him in a shallow grave and were going to move him to a hunting lodge in northern Michigan after they offed him 37 years ago. But Zerilli – who was in prison at the time on a racketeering charge – said they left him where he was.

Local mob expert and author Scott Burnstein thinks this is the biggest break in the Hoffa case since the union boss’ disappearance.

“I think this is the most credible person to ever come forward to talk about this story,” Bernstein said, adding Zerilli is the son of Detroit mafia founder Joe Zerilli and served as the Detroit mob underboss from 1979 to 2002.

Why would Zerilli tell this story now?

“It’s a combination of he’s looking for a payday and he’s upset with the leaders of the family for taking him out of the loop a couple of years ago,” said Burnstein, author of “Motor City Mafia” and the documentary “Detroit Mob Confidential”.

Zerilli hasn’t yet publicly said where the shallow grave is, but reports say the area he’s discussing is in northern Oakland County, about 20 miles away from Hoffa’s last sighting.

On July 30, 1975, Hoffa disappeared from the Machus Red Fox restaurant in Bloomfield Hills. Searches for Hoffa’s body have included digs at a football stadium, at a Milford farm, and under a Roseville driveway.

Burnstein made a video several years ago called “Gangland Detroit Mob” where he explained the Zerilli situation, saying boss “Black Jack” Tocco blamed Zerilli for the big bust in the 1970s that essentially shut down the Detroit mafia. Burnstein said Tocco “took Zerilli’s stripes” when he got out of jail, and “put him on the shelf.”

CBS Detroit January 14, 2013.

Chilean Artist Found Dead on His Rio Masterpiece

RIO DE JANEIRO — The candy-colored steps of a staircase in Rio’s bohemian neighborhood of Lapa were the life work of Chilean artist Jorge Selaron and a symbol of his adopted city. On this gray, rainy Thursday, they became his memorial.

The painter, who turned the 215 steps into a kaleidoscope of brightly hued tiles from all over the world, transforming a dingy, urine-scented alley and stairs into a rambunctious 'tribute to the Brazilian people,' was found dead on his masterpiece.

Neighbors, friends and strangers alike were in shock over the death of a man who may have been born abroad, but whose open, carefree manner and riotous use of color came to represent the best of Rio. In 2005, the staircase became a city landmark and the artist was declared an honorary Carioca, as Rio residents are known.

'We can speak of Lapa before and after Selaron. He changed the face of Rio,' said Jocimar Batista de Jesus. The staircase project began in 1990, when Selaron, born in 1947, began tiling the steps and collecting old porcelain bathtubs to use as planters along the sides. Said Jesus:

'He had no resources, no support from the city. The neighbors helped as they could. I brought him tiles from my trips, from Spain, Holland, as I traveled. As it grew, people began to contribute, to send him tiles, to bring them to Rio when they came to visit.'

Selaron meant the work to last a lifetime. 'I will only end this mad and singular dream on the last day of my life,' he wrote on the wall.

FROM: "Artist Jorge Selaron found dead in Brazil on iconic, multi-colored steps bearing his name" by Associated Press, January 10, 2013.