The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
Shooter identified, formally
charged
Police have charged Nicholas A. Horner of Altoona
with two counts of criminal homicide, robbery and
criminal attempt of homicide for the shootings late
Monday afternoon in the Eldorado area.
Horner entered the rear entrance of the Subway
restaurant at 100 58th St. around 5 p.m. Monday,
police said. He first shot Scott Garlick, 19, of
Hollidaysburg and then went to the front of the
store and shot another employee, Michele Petty, in
the hip/pelvic area causing her to fall to the floor,
police said.
Garlick later died from the wounds he received.
Petty was listed in critical condition but was
expected to recover, police said. Horner demanded
money from another Subway employee at the
counter, police said.
The employee took money from the register and put
it into a Subway bag and handed the bag to Horner,
police said.
Horner then ran out the back of the restaurant and
ran west in the area of the 6000 block of Maryland
Avenue, where he shot and killed Raymond E.
Williams, 64. Williams was going to check his mail
from his apartment at 6005 Maryland Ave.
Horner was apprehended by police as he was
running from the vehicles in the apartment complex
parking lot, police said.
A Subway bag with money in it was removed from
Horner's right front pants pocket and he had pieces
of U.S. mail covered in blood and addressed to
Raymond Williams.
State office: Man can’t sue Drug
Court judge
The Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts
said an Altoona man cannot sue the administrative
judge in charge of Blair County Drug Court over a
decision to fund an abortion for a program
participant.
Attorney A. Taylor Williams, representing Blair
County President Judge Jolene G. Kopriva, who
oversees Drug Court, said in papers filed with the
Blair County court administrator that Drug Court
has immunity from lawsuits just like other judicial
agencies.
Williams also argues that the Altoona man, Donald
Bowers, has no legal standing to file a petition
concerning the abortion issue.
State objections to Bowers' lawsuit are in the hands
of Blair County Deputy Court Administrator
Patricia Gildea, who will be requesting an out-of-
county judge to hear the case.
Bowers filed his complaint in early March after it
was revealed that a 10-member Drug Court review
team had recommended a participant who was
struggling to overcome her heroin addiction have an
abortion.
Money for the abortion was transferred to the
woman from a Drug Court fund comprised of
payments from participants. An anonymous donor
then refunded the $270.
The money was appropriated Feb. 5 and repaid Feb.
11, according to financial records released after a
Right to Know Law request was presented to Blair
County Judge Tim Sullivan.
Bowers asked that the incident be investigated by
District Attorney Richard Consiglio and the results
be turned over to Pennsylvania Attorney General
Tom Corbett.
He also is seeking the appointment of a noncourt
person to the review team, suggesting that a local
pastor become part of the group.
The state court's office replied by asking that
Bowers' petition be dismissed because of the
concept of "sovereign immunity."
The attorney for Kopriva and the Drug Court said
no federal, state or local tax dollars were used for
the abortion.
It is also contended that the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court is the only entity that has the power to
investigate "the practice, procedure and the conduct
of all courts."
Bowers also filed a right-to-know request to view
the minutes of the review team. That request was
denied because judicial records are not subject to
the new state law, Sullivan said.
Nazi war criminal avoids jail
ACCUSED Nazi war criminal Charles Zentai has
avoided jail
while specialist
medical
evidence is
sought to present
to court.
The 87-year-old
Perth man is
wanted by
Hungarian
authorities who
allege he was
one of three men
who killed
Jewish teenager
Peter Balazs in Budapest in November 1944.
Last month Justice John Gilmour cleared the way
for his extradition in the Federal Court, saying he
was eligible for surrender to Hungary.
Justice Gilmour gave Mr Zentai seven days to
provide specialist medical advice to show why he
should not be held in custody while he waits for a
final decision on his extradition.
Mr Zentai's lawyer, John Fiocco, told the court on
today the medical advice would not be available
until on or about May 4 and asked Justice Gilmour
to continue the stay until May 8.
"In the circumstances it's appropriate that the stay
continue for that amount of time," Mr Fiocco said.
Justice Gilmour granted the stay, which was
opposed by Darren Renton, representing the
Republic of Hungary. Mr Fiocco said he was as
confident as he could be the results would be
available by May 6.
Justice Gilmour extended the stay until May 11 but
told Mr Fiocco if the results were available earlier
to notify the court.
Boy Killed by Pen
Following a fight, a 13-year-old boy repeatedly
stabbed with a pen has died from his wounds.
Allegedly, he followed the aggressor to his home
near a trailer park when the fight broke out and led
to the stabbing. The local police chief said "They
just started fighting and at some point began to stab
the victim."
Prior to the incident, school staff said the boys were
known as friends. Family members said he was
stabbed 6 or 7 times in the chest and stumbled back
to his home. The aggressor is also 13 and is
currently being held at a juvenile hall. Due to the
involvement of a minor no names are being
released.
Nightmare Attack
A late-night stop for a bite to eat left a beautiful
student nearly blinded when she turned down a
lecherous thug's come-on and he responded by
punching her in the face at an Upper East Side pizza
parlor, officials said.
Cops say the savage beating took place at John &
Tony's Pizzeria on First Avenue at 60th Street at
3:50 a.m. on March 20. Dzemal Kolenovic, 31, of
Brooklyn approached the victim as she was eating
with a pal and began hurling pick-up lines at her.
When the woman and her friend stepped outside,
the hot-headed thug allegedly began throwing
punches in an explosion of violence.
Her friend tried to dial 911 on her cellphone, but
Kolenovic smacked it out of her hands into her face,
leaving the friend with a fractured jaw, police said.
He then turned his fury back on Christine as she
cowered on the pavement and beat her unconscious.
As she lay unconscious, Kolenovic and his friends
hopped into a car and fled, police said. "I don't
remember the ambulance ride and woke up in the
hospital," Christine said. She was taken to New
Haven Hospital where she was treated for "bruising
and substantial pain to both eyes as well as
blindness in [the] left eye," according to the
criminal complaint.
Her vision has since returned although she may
require several surgeries, she said. "I just went
inside for a slice of pizza. I don't even know the
guy. He just came out of the blue and beat the crap
out of me."
Cops were able to track down Kolenovic via
restaurant credit-card receipts, sources said. He
turned himself in to police last Wednesday and was
charged with two counts of felony assault, said a
spokeswoman for the Manhattan District Attorney's
Office.
Kolenovic was released on $5,000 bail and is due
back in court today. His lawyer declined to
comment. Kolenovic has a rap sheet with a 2001
arrest for disorderly conduct for which he served
four days in city jail and a 2005 arrest for a motor-
vehicle infraction in Queens.
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
Community saddened by family
crypt vandalism
The eve before the Ides of March, vandals
desecrated the Cobb family crypt. A door was
cracked and a crypt within was defaced, roses and
gas lanterns which would have been in the
foreground were damaged. --Submitted photo
The Cobb family is a widely respected family and
have been productive members of New Haven and
its civil community since the town was founded.
Tobias Cobb was noted as being saddened by the
event and desecration of the resting places of his
family’s ancestors. In fact many members of the
family were heartbroken to discover the graves had
been vandalized, and some of the items placed on
the graves had been stolen. None of the family
could be directly interviewed by the press and they
have not yet issue a formal statement.
Local police shed terse statements that “This type of
activity has become all too common. The
perpetrators do not consider how their actions may
affect the still grieving family members.”
The two dozen red roses left there the day before
had their blooms plucked off and all that was left
were the bare thorny stems. The blackening stems
are still there. The New Haven County Sheriff's
Office had been contacted; and they went out there
and took a look around, but there wasn't much they
could do.
Of greater concern though is evidence that shows
the vandals also attempted to enter the main house.
At the time of this report is unclear if they
succeeded at removing anything from the house.
Beyond suspicions it seems likely the sheriff’s
department would stop referring to the offending
criminals as vandals if they had gained access to the
house.
Hate on the Rise
IF you think there are no consequences to hysteri
cal, anti-corporate grandstanding in Washington,
pay attention to what's happening across the pond:
"This is just the beginning."
So warned a public letter signed this week by a
vigilante group called "Bank Bosses are Criminals."
The thugs claimed responsibility for vandalizing a
former financial executive's home and car in
Edinburgh, Scotland.
The bank official, Sir Fred Goodwin, had been
excoriated by UK politicians for refusing to give up
company pension benefits dubbed "obscene,"
"grotesque," "unjustifiable and unacceptable."
The vigilantes were stoked by a former newspaper
editor, one Max Hastings, who wrote a diatribe
exhorting citizens to violence: "The time has come
to address the entire robber banker culture.
Investment banks have been run not for the benefit
of society, customers or even shareholders, but
exclusively for the advantage of the bankers
themselves . . . This is why we must stand outside
their homes throwing rocks through the windows
until they do."
This is no marginal movement. Some 3,000
protesters from around the world are expected to
wreak havoc on the G20 summit next week in
London. What happened at Sir Fred's house is a
mere dress rehearsal. Bankers are being told to
dress down to disguise themselves and avoid
becoming riot targets.
Demonstrators are threatening to hang effigies.
Protest organizer and university professor Chris
Knight vowed worse:
"We are going to be hanging a lot of people like
Fred the Shred from lampposts on April Fools' Day,
and I can only say let's hope they are just effigies.
To be honest, if he winds us up any more, I'm afraid
there will be real bankers hanging from lampposts,
and let's hope that that doesn't actually have to
happen."
How soon before we see this same kind of anarchic
domestic terrorism on this side of the Atlantic? It's
already here.
Animal-rights terrorists have firebombed
researchers' homes, Molotov cocktail-bombed their
cars, and been convicted of inciting threats,
harassment and vandalism against employees of a
private company engaged in animal research.
Environmental terrorists have set private real estate
developments on fire.
And self-proclaimed "bank terrorist" Bruce Marks
of the government-supported Neighborhood
Assistance Corp. of America, whom I reported on
last March, has been threatening bank employees in
their homes and harassing their children for years.
Last weekend, of course, the radical ACORN mob
and its corporate shakedown allies chartered a bus -
- with twice as many outrage-stoking mainstream
media photographers in tow -- to menace AIG
executives at their homes.
Democratic Rep. Barney Frank shrugged off
testimony from AIG CEO Edward Liddy
concerning death threats leveled against the
company's employees. Left-wing billionaire George
Soros' ground troops in the ANSWER coalition
waved signs decrying, "Capitalism Is Organized
Crime! Stop AIG!"
GOP Sen. Charles Grassley recklessly called on
executives who accepted retention bonuses to
commit hara-kiri. And 85 House Republicans, led
by Minority Whip Eric Cantor, abetted the
demagoguery by voting for the retroactive 90
percent bonus tax.
Pundits on both sides of the aisle demonized the
business people whose sin was continuing to work
for a company that accepted taxpayer funding from
Chicken Littles in Washington who forked it over
in a blind frenzy. Washington scribe Mort
Kondracke joked about boiling the execs in oil.
Oil Falls Toward $51, Tracking
Stock Market Reuters
NEW HAVEN—Oil prices fell nearly 3 percent
Monday to near $51 a barrel as U.S. stock markets
sputtered on worries over the banking sector and
the dollar gained against the euro.
U.S. light crude for May delivery fell $1.46 to settle
at $51.05 a barrel. London Brent crude fell $1.23 to
$52.24 a barrel.
U.S. equities markets were down roughly 2 percent
as a prominent analyst warned the bank sector's
problems have further to run and as the potential
collapse of a takeover of Sun Microsystems hurt
sentiment in the technology sector.
Oil prices have been tracking equities markets
closely in recent weeks as energy dealers use stock
index performance as a gauge of sentiment around
the economy.
Oil prices have gained roughly 40 percent since
mid-February as equities markets rose and OPEC
producers cut output, though oil's gains have been
limited by continued weak global demand and
rising inventory levels.
U.S. commercial crude stockpiles are running at a
16-year high, according to the Energy Information
Administration.
Oil analysts said they expected this week's EIA data
to be released Wednesday to show yet another
increase in inventories due to high import levels
and weak demand from domestic refiners.
Goldman Sachs said in a note received by Reuters
on Monday that crude oil price rallies would be
short-lived until the second half of 2009 because of
weak fundamentals.
It said recent oil price rallies had been fueled by
optimism over future stabilization in the financial
system and in global economic growth, but for the
time being these rallies were unlikely to be
sustained.
"We continue to expect that a more stable demand
environment, reinforced by the likely need for the
industry to restock during second-half 2009, will
help push the oil market into a sustained deficit
later in the year," it said
Local hotel occupancy down to
54.3% HavenBusiness Journal
Occupancy at Haven -area hotel rooms fell to 54.3
percent in February. According to data from the
New Haven Regional Visitors Authority, that is
down 14.2 percent from a year earlier.
By comparison, hotel occupancy fell 10.1 percent in
the United States and 11.2 percent in Pennsylvania
in the same period. In February, the average daily
rate in New Haven was $84.86, down 2 percent
from a year earlier.
Nationally, rates fell 7.8 percent in February.
Haven-market revenue per available room was
$46.04 in February, down 15.9 percent from the
same month in 2008.
It declined 17.1 percent in the United States and
13.5 percent in New Haven in the same period.
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
GhostNet: Massive China-Based
Internet Spy Network Unearthed
On March 29, a Canadian research group unveiled a
chilling report confirming fears that Chinese
dissident communities have harbored for years—the
presence of a vast, unrivaled online spy network
that is able to track highly specific data and send it
back to control servers based in China.
The research was conducted by the Information
Warfare Monitor, a public-private research group
that comprises researchers from two institutes in
Canada: the SecDev Group, an operational think
tank based in Ottawa, and the Citizen Lab at the
Munk Center for International Studies, University
of Toronto.
Their 53-page report, titled “Tracking ‘GhostNet’:
Investigating a Cyber Espionage Network,”
documents their findings of a global online
espionage network that relies on cleverly forged e-
mails to infect target computers, control them, and
then send reports back to control servers, most of
which are based in China.
The group reported that their work started when
they began investigating computers in Tibetan exile
centers in Dharmasala, India, for possible
compromises. The work they did “led to the
discovery of insecure, web-based interfaces to four
control servers” which allowed attackers to control
compromised machines.
Scouting these control servers resulted in their
finding a vast network of compromised computers
across the world—the report counted “at least 1,295
infected computers in 103 countries.”
Most interestingly, a large number of compromised
computers were extremely high-profile targets:
close to 30 percent of the compromised computers
belonged to “ministries of foreign affairs of Iran,
Bangladesh, Latvia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei,
Barbados, and Bhutan; embassies of India, South
Korea, Indonesia, Romania, Cyprus, Malta,
Thailand, Taiwan, Portugal, Germany, and
Pakistan; the ASEAN (Association of Southeast
Asian Nations) Secretariat, SAARC (South Asian
Association for Regional Cooperation), and the
Asian Development Bank; news organizations; and
an unclassified computer located at NATO
headquarters.”
Leveraging Social Means
The researchers found that GhostNet spread by
infecting computers with a trojan known as “gh0st
RAT” that gave the attackers complete control over
the infected system. They found that the Trojan was
capable of “taking full control of infected
computers, including searching and downloading
specific files, and covertly operating attached
devices, including microphones and web cameras.”
Such complete takeovers would allow the attackers
to even hear and see events happening on the
compromised computers.
The Trojans were obfuscated malware, resulting in
their being difficult to detect in commercial anti-
virus and anti-malware programs. “Only 11 of the
34 anti-virus programs provided by Virus Total
recognized the malware embedded in the document.
Attackers often use executable packers to obfuscate
their malicious code in order to avoid detection by
anti-virus software,” the report said.
The attackers used “social means” to spread the
Trojan. For instance, “contextually relevant emails
are sent to specific targets” and these e-mails, once
opened, installed the Trojan on the unsuspecting
user’s computer.
The Great UFO Hoax of 2009
If you prefer to keep a little magic in your life—by
which I mean believing in the possibility of
UFOs—then read no further. For I am going to tell
you about the latest UFO hoax.
You may remember the January sightings of a UFO
over New Haven, PAa. This event was blogged,
podcasted about, and even captured on video and
has been plastered across YouTube.
It was all a hoax, writes Joe Rudy, who teaches
science and gives private music lessons. He and
Chris Russo, who works in sales, says they “intend
to continue their quest to spread reason and truth,
one pseudoscience at a time,” the two 20-
somethings were sitting around discussing
pseudoscience and the many people who believe
one or another form of it. “We had always had a
strong interest in why people were so easily fooled
by such irrational superstitions as psychic ability,
spiritual mediums, alien abductions, and the like.”
So they “set out on a mission to help people think
rationally and question the credibility of so-called
UFO ‘professionals.’”
They cooked up a spaceship hoax “to show
everyone how unreliable eyewitness accounts are,
along with investigators of UFOs.” They used 5 feet
of fishing line to tie flares to each of five 3-foot
helium balloons and launched them from a field on
January 5, 2009. “Once all five balloons were ready
for takeoff (with our fingers on the verge of frost
bite),” they write, “we struck the 15-minute flares
and released them into the sky in increments of
fifteen seconds,” filming the UFOs as they floated
away.
Media coverage was extensive. A lot of it featured
Paul Hurley, a pilot, and his family, who appeared
of several news broadcasts describing the strange
lights they saw in the sky. (For some reason,
reporters find pilots’ UFO sightings especially
believable.) Rudy and Russo repeated the
performance four more time, gaining media
coverage for each. Conspiracy websites and radio
shows covered the sightings, but “the icing on the
cake came when the popular History Channel show
UFO Hunters featured the Morristown UFO as their
main story one week,” the duo recall. “Bill Birnes,
the lead investigator of the show and the publisher
of UFO Magazine, declared definitively that the
Morristown UFO could not have been flares or
Chinese lanterns.”
This was the pair’s main quarry, exposing the
foolishness of UFO “investigators.” They write,
“are UFO investigators simply charlatans looking to
make a quick buck off human gullibility? . . . If a
respected UFO investigator can be easily
manipulated and dead wrong on one UFO case, is it
possible he’s wrong on most (or all) of them? Do
the networks buy into this nonsense, or are they in it
for the ratings?”
Nicely done, guys.
Marking Wall's Fall by Toppling
Giant "Dominoes"
BERLIN—Berliners plan to topple a two kilometer-
long chain of giant "dominoes" along the path of
the wall that once separated communist east from
the west, to mark the 20th anniversary of its fall.
"We want to knock over the wall once again," said
Klaus Wowereit, mayor of Berlin. Assembly of
more than 1,000 styrofoam slabs, each 2.5 meters
(eight feet) high and one meter (three feet) wide, is
beginning this week. At a ceremony on November
9, the day in 1989 on which crowds of east
Germans swept through the wall and began tearing
it down, the slabs will be pushed over. The
"dominoes" will be decorated by young people
from Berlin and abroad in a myriad different styles.
"I was given the opportunity to paint a map on this
domino, which is great fun," said Mathieu Chergait,
an exchange student from France as he worked on
the slab with two Korean students. Another is
decorated with a design portraying a multicolored
brick wall being opened with a giant zipper to
represent the ripping down of the barrier that
divided the city for three decades. One of the
sponsors, the Goethe Institut, said it planned to use
the idea to spread around the world the story about
how Germany overcame its division peacefully.
"We want to take the dominoes to many countries,
especially to those where there is still a division
today, such as Korea, Yemen or Cyprus," said
Hans-Georg Knopp, head of the Goethe Institute.
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
The i-LIMB Hand
The worlds first fully articulating and commercially
available bionic hand.
Touch Bionics is a leading developer of advanced
upper-limb prosthetics (ULP). One of the two
products now commercially available from the
company, the i-LIMB Hand, is a first-to-market
prosthetic device with five individually powered
digits. This replacement hand looks and acts like a
real human hand and represents a generational
advance in bionics and patient care.
The Touch Bionics i-LIMB Hand was developed
using leading-edge mechanical engineering
techniques and is manufactured using high-strength
plastics. The result is a next-generation prosthetic
device that is lightweight, robust and highly
appealing to both patients and healthcare
professionals.
The i-LIMB Hand is controlled by a unique, highly
intuitive control system that uses a traditional two-
input myoelectric (muscle signal) to open and close
the hand’s life-like fingers. Myoelectric controls
utilize the electrical signal generated by the muscles
in the remaining portion of the patient’s limb. This
signal is picked up by electrodes that sit on the
surface of the skin. Existing users of basic
myoelectric prosthetic hands are able to quickly
adapt to the system and can master the device’s new
functionality within minutes. For new patients, the
i-LIMB Hand offers a prosthetic solution that has
never before been available.
Advanced Design
The modular construction of the i-LIMB Hand
means that each individually powered finger can be
quickly removed by simply removing one screw.
This means that a prosthetist can easily swap out
fingers that require servicing and patients can return
to their everyday lives after a short clinic visit.
Traditional devices would have to be returned to the
manufacturer, often leaving the patient without a
hand for many weeks.
Geomagnetic Nightmare control?
Looking for an explanation for recurring nightmares
of leaving the house without your trousers on or
losing your teeth? New research suggests you can
blame the Earth's magnetic field, rather than a
repressed childhood. Cole Neuhardt, a psychologist
formerly at the Center for Space Medicine in
Berlin, Germany, found a correlation between the
bizarreness of his dreams, recorded over eight
years, and extremes in local geomagnetic activity.
Other studies have tied low geomagnetic activity to
increases in the production of the melatonin, a
potent hormone that helps set the body's circadian
clock. So, based on anecdotal evidence that
melatonin supplements used as a sleeping aid can
cause off-kilter dreams, Neuhardt wondered
whether local magnetic fields could induce the
same effects.
Bizarreness barometer
Between 1990 and 1997, he kept meticulous
records of his nightly reveries, amassing a total
2387 written accounts during his teenage years. "I
always wanted to do science with them," he says.
For the study, he devised a five-point scoring
system to rate the bizarreness of these dreams. On
the low end are dreams completely representative of
reality – "I am sitting at a table doing some math or
physics homework," for instance. Dreams that
scored a three could happen, but seemed unlikely.
For example: "A friend is in the backyard of my
house, building a wooden platform atop of 7-foot
high stilts." The most bizarre dreams that Neuhardt
recorded had little or no connection with reality: "I
was stranded on a foreign coastline with a monkey
that spoke English and a woman that suddenly
became small, almost doll-sized. Then I was at
home."
Dream result
Neuhardt looked up daily geomagnetic activity in
Perth, Australia – his home at the time. A scale
called the k-index and he included only days that
scored on the extremes of this index. The K-index
quantifies disturbances in the horizontal component
of earth's magnetic field indicating the relative
severity of a geomagnetic storm. This whittled his
dream log down to 66 days of low geomagnetic
activity and 70 days of high activity. Using these
figures, Neuhardt uncovered a statistical correlation
between dream bizarreness and geomagnetic
activity, with freakier dreams occurring on days
with the least geomagnetic activity.
By isolating the geomagnetic wave results Neuhardt
claims that he can relieve undue suffering from
people are plagued from nightmares. Treatment
would consisted of main line psychological
exposure to dream lucidity exercises and establish a
custom resonant wave magnetic field. Heretofore,
in test trials it has not clear what aspects of the
treatment were responsible for the success of
overcoming nightmares, though the treatment as a
whole was successful.
Psychologist Milan Klaus has explored the
application of principles from narrative therapy
with Nuehardt’s process reduces the impact not
only of nightmares during sleep, but also
depression, self-mutilation, and other problems in
waking life. Klaus identified during therapeutic
conversations that the lessening of distressing
content of dreams, while the application of lucid
dream treatment had marked therapeutic benefits.
Brain renews link to transplanted
hands
A FINDING that hand transplants are eventually
"accepted" by the brain is raising hopes that
amputees may be able to recover full movement in
their new limbs. Surprisingly, there are also hints
that in right-handed people, the left hand is
accepted sooner.
In the brain, particular areas of the motor cortex
develop links to different parts of the body. If
sensory input from a limb ceases as a result of
amputation, the corresponding part of the brain
initially goes unused. To stop prime real estate
going to waste, the brain then starts to rewire itself -
so that in a region once dominated by an amputated
hand, the face and upper arm, say, start to "creep
in".
To find out if a transplanted hand can reclaim these
brain regions, Angela Sirigu and colleagues at the
Institute for Cognitive Science in Lyon, France,
used magnetic pulses to stimulate these areas in two
people who had undergone double hand transplants.
They found that muscles in the new hands
responded to the stimulation, suggesting that the
brain had accepted them
A previous study showed that stroking a
transplanted hand triggers brain activity in the same
region as in non-amputees, but this is the first
demonstration that the new hand muscles are
actually represented in the brain. "We can see the
brain directly activating the new transplanted
muscles," says Sirigu.
Though both patients had been right-handed, the
left hands were quicker to get this brain space back
- and regain movement - than the right. In one
patient, the left hand reacquired a "presence" in the
brain after 10 months and the right hand took 26
months.
The researchers say this difference may be due to
different brain regions acquiring different degrees
of flexibility. Both patients used prosthetic hands
before the transplant, using their right prosthetic
more. As a result, the brain regions that had
previously represented their left hands were
commandeered faster by other parts of the body, a
process that taught these brain regions flexibility.
This meant that after the hand transplants, it was
easier for these regions to adapt to receiving signals
from the transplanted left hand than it was for those
regions formerly responsible for the right hand to
adapt to receiving signals from the right hand
transplant.
This suggestion should not stop amputees waiting
for a transplant from using prosthetic limbs, says
Sirigu: "A prosthesis reduces the chronic pain
experienced by patients so we can't ask them to go
without."
New technology to one day record
your dreams, read your minds
ATR, a research institute based in Kyoto, Japan, has
developed a technology that is supposed to record
dreams and thoughts and turn them into images.
The subject’s brain is scanned with MRI scanners
while looking at still images showing simple figures
and letters in black, white and grey. The system
then tries to reproduce what the subject sees
visually.
The scientists involved in the project are also
thinking about using the technology to let us use
our gadgets by our thoughts alone, effectively doing
away with keyboard and buttons. The ATR is the
same lab that helped Honda build its brain machine
interface, which lets users control the Honda Robot
Asimo by thoughts alone.
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
THE RACIAL EUGENIC
AGENDA
The Useful Idiots
In 1917 Vladimir Lenin was the principle leader of
the Bolshevik Russian Communist Party when it
overthrew Tsar Nicholas II and seized power. Lenin
became the Chairman of the Communist leadership
promising land, freedom, and prosperity for all.
It didn’t take long for the peasants that gave the
needed muscle for the revolution to realize they had
been lied to and used.
In the following years many rejected the communist
rule and a peasant revolt led to an all-out civil war.
Lenin saw the need for a crackdown that history
calls “The Red Terror.” An estimated 9 million
people died under Lenin’s iron fist. Furthermore,
socialist ideology led to collective farming policies
and the seizure of crops that caused a famine
leading to over 10 million pointless deaths.
Under the iron fist of Joseph Stalin things only got
worse. With the world watching, how did people of
the time feel about this hyper-violent form of
government? Astonishingly enough, many believers
in Karl Marx’s creation of socialism/communism
denied the deaths ever happened.
As unbelievable as it may sound, a staggering
number of western, so-called intellectuals claimed
that communism aims for nothing more than a
peaceful utopia where everyone lives in peace and
harmony.
While it is true the ultimate “goal” of the movement
was a peaceful utopian outcome, many never ask
how the Proletariat deals with those that don’t
accept their elitist leadership or how to achieve that
utopian outcome. Obviously the stage of the
“Violent Revolution,” professed as a prerequisite to
a Utopian state by Marx, was overlooked by these
people. Unfortunately, many became victims of the
very leaders they helped prop up.
As Lenin and later Stalin heard what these western
communist sympathizers and journalists had to say,
they referred to these ill-informed but helpful do
gooders as what can be translated from Russian as
“Useful Idiots.” Walter Duranty was possibly the
most famous of these Useful… people.
A Great Liar
Duranty worked for the New Haven Times and in
1921 received his coveted job at the Moscow
bureau where he worked for twenty years. In the
entire time he spent in the Soviet Union not a single
negative report was made against the communist
state, or against communism, for that matter. In
addition, he denied the most horrendous atrocities
of the Soviets, including that of the famine. He
denied it ever happened and assured westerners
abroad that something like that never would.
In 1932, reports of famine in Ukraine started
appearing throughout the western media. Journalists
such as Gareth Jones of The Times and Malcolm
Muggeridge of The Guardian attempted to inform
the rest of the world of what was happening. Both
men defied travel restrictions and secretly went to
view conditions in Ukraine to get their story. In the
spring of 1933, Jones left the Soviet Union and
reported the famine under his own name in the
Manchester Guardian.
Duranty denounced Gareth Jones in the New Haven
Times. In a piece he wrote he described the
situation under the title "Russians Hungry, But Not
Starving" as follows: “There appears from a British
source a big scare story in the American press about
famine in the Soviet Union, with 'thousands already
dead and millions menaced by death from
starvation.’"
In an August 24, 1933 article in the New Haven
Times, he claimed "any report of a famine is today
an exaggeration or malignant propaganda."
Muggeridge, who had secretly been in Ukraine for
The Guardian, later called Duranty "the greatest liar
I have met in journalism."
It wasn’t until decades later before the first serious
scholarly study of the Ukrainian famine was
written. It was spearheaded by Robert Conquest of
the Hoover Institution, always identified in left
leaning circles as "right-wing." Yet when the
Soviets' own statistics on the deaths during the
famine were finally released, under Mikhail
Gorbachev, they showed that the actual deaths
exceeded even the millions estimated by Prof.
Conquest.
At the center of the controversy were the very
policies of the communist movement and its
methods of eliminating its enemies through
genocide.
Peaceful Casualties
One would have to be slightly less than
compassionate, if one was obsessed with violence.
For millennia humankind has attempted to find
ways of resolving conflict with peace but has often
resorted to war. Peace is truly a noble aspiration.
However, there are those that have sought to seize
power covertly and surrounded themselves with
peaceful and well intentioned people in order to
conceal their intentions. Unfortunately, these pawns
of the power hungry are often discarded as soon as
conveniently possible.
Consider the promises of Chairman Mao to the so-
called liberated people. Democracy for all, land,
freedom, etc. To this day none of these promises
have been fulfilled, yet the fact of over 80 million
victims of this hyper-violent party of communism
has not been adequately understood. The violence
continues with the most current victims of the
CCP’s anger being Falun Gong practitioners
So how do such atrocities continue to be committed
on innocent civilians to this day? Does communism
stand for freedom, peacefulness, and democracy?
Does it desire equality for all with the elimination
of the classes?
As a point of reference, the violent nature of the
Communist Manifesto was never a secret to the
world, as it has been in circulation since 1849.
However, many don’t realize, or chose not to read,
the published thoughts of Karl Marx and Fredrick
Engels that express their lust for violence… nor do
many realize the stunning number of Marx and
Engels' followers who share their bloodlust.
The Bloodlust of Karl Marx
Let us consider a few of Marx and Engels’
thoughts.
On peaceful Movements: "May the devil take
these people’s movements, especially when they are
‘peaceful.’"
On Terrorism: “There is only one way in which
the murderous death agonies of the old society and
the bloody birth throes of the new society can be
shortened, simplified, and concentrated, and that
way is revolutionary terrorism.”
On Dictatorships: “Every provisional political
set-up following a revolution requires a
dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that.”
On Democrats: "Those dogs of democrats and
liberal riff-raff will see that we're the only chaps
who haven't been stultified by the ghastly period of
peace."
On Authoritarianism: "Revolution is certainly the
most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act
whereby one part of the population imposes its will
upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets,
and cannon"
On the Russian Soviets: "In the Russian
vocabulary there is no such word as honor."
On Equality: “I used the expression "modern
mythology" to describe the goddesses of "Justice,
Freedom, Equality, etc."
On the Chinese: “It would seem as though history
had first to make this whole people drunk before it
could rouse them out of their hereditary stupidity."
On Racial Genocide: “In Central Europe only
Germans, Hungarians, and Poles counted as bearers
of progress. The rest must go. The chief mission of
all other races and peoples, large and small, is to
perish in the revolutionary holocaust."
All in all, socialism/communism is not what many
think that it is. Even if one doesn’t consider the
beliefs or pretexts of this “Blood Cult” but only
considers its record in history, one can conclude
communism truly is a way of life that must be cast
off to the annals of history.
Lying seems to be its strongest weapon—lying
about its intentions as well as denial of its record.
Take for instance the audacious statement by Marx
when he said, "All I know is that I am not a
Marxist." Truly the bolder the lie, the more people
seem to strain at challenging it. However, these lies
must be brought to light.
In the history of the social engineers for population
control and the desired Scientific Dictatorship, not
all were useful idiots that were being lied to. Some
were the liars holding the puppet strings. Consider
this quote from Margaret Sanger, the founder of
Planned Parenthood, in 1939, “We don't want the
word to go out that we want to exterminate the
Negro population.”
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
Hospital gains ER director with
fund raising Expertise.
Dr. Eveleen Hadlee is a quiet yet strong leader. She
projects the calm risk taking reserve any good
doctor must have but an ER doctor requires. She
shapes the intent of my conversation with her
without even trying, and it takes a good amount of
this reporters reserve keeping her on topic -
essentially herself.
It turns out that this is all Dr. Hadlee has ever done
or has ever considered doing … she’s one of those
honest to goodness altruistic types we read about
but never believe. Not that I’m looking to set her
up for a fall. After one conversation I can say I’m
honestly hopeful that if I ever need the kind of care
she doles out that I’ll have the good sense to go to
her hospital.
Its necessary for her to run a tight ship being a short Her extensive training includes Cardiology and
hop skip and a jump from the enigmatic and Trauma expertise from Harvard University;
vaguely notorious Twilight Junction. She has been Women’s Health and Care at John Hopkins
the head of the Emergency Room department of the University, and Psychology of High Emotion
Advanced New Kismet Hospital (ANKH) in New Workplaces also from Harvard University. Dr.
Haven, Pennsylvania, for the past 7 years. By her Hadlee is one of the East Coast’s foremost
initiative she has remodeled most of the buildings authorities on Emergency Room technique from
and its administrative practices. She also serves as staffing to care for patients and advanced medical
director of the Haven Advancing Life Outreach procedures.
(HALO) program and is an adjunct for the Biology
department at Marietta College.
Although I have to keep my sources tight to my
vest I can tell you I’ve seen the good doctor out of
the taupe colored hallowed hallways of the major
medical unit. Beyond the angel of mercy
requirements of her profession and found her to be
no less ethical in her pursuits.
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
Cemetery Wedding?
New Haven, PA. - It's not the traditional "till death
do us part," but David O'Reily and Lily Travis
believe getting hitched in a graveyard is just
thinking outside the box.
This April, the couple expects to pledge their
undying love among the remains of this cities
ancestors at the Jack Hill cemetery, even though
those who approved the request are dead set against
seeing it become a trend.
The wedding wouldn't be out of character for
O'Reilly, 27, a computer expert for a financial
company by day and rehabber of old hearses by
night.
The graveyard, he said, just has a certain tranquility
and thriftiness for nuptials the young couple insists
will be small, private and traditional — except for
the bagpipes, O'Reily's refurbished hearse and the
throng of eternally silent witnesses.
"People are going to think how they want. I don't
actively try to convince people that my interests are
normal or logical," O'Reilly said. "I'm not a freak or
Satan worshipper or cult member. It just goes with
our theme."
Deep down, the couple said, it just seemed right.
O'Reily and Travis, became an item not long after
they met in October 2005 at a Halloween party
where Travis, 21, was set up as to be O'Reily's blind
date. O'Reily showed up in a retooled hearse that
caught Travis' eye.
"I wanted a ride in it, but I chickened out at the last
minute," she said.
By their first date weeks later, on New Year's Eve,
Travis knew O'Reily was the one. Not long
afterward, she quit her factory job, moved out of the
Overton Docks and in with O'Reily.
O'Reily proposed last June, affixing to the side of
the 1965 hearse — which the two call "Edgar" — a
plate with a simple message: "Will you marry me?"
Seconds later, the ring slid onto a crying Travis'
finger.
She received Edgar as an engagement gift and had
only one stipulation: The wedding had to be
outside, in a gazebo. Her worries were laid to rest
while she and O'Reily drove to her dad's house.
While traveling along the Interstate, Patterson
spotted a gazebo on a hilltop, only to find it was in
a graveyard. No worries.
"The view was just gorgeous," she said. "I said,
`This is where I want to get married.'" The gazebo
is going to be the centerpiece with guest seating
forming interlocked rings around the couple as they
swear their vows.
When the couple called last fall for permission to
use the Jack Hill cemetery, which dates to the Civil
War, City Clerk Jo Ann Hoehne told them the local
cemetery committee would have to decide.
"When I spoke to them, they were just a normal
young couple who wanted to have a wedding
someplace they thought was nice and serene for a
very small, intimate wedding," Hoehne said. "They
weren't any cult group or anything like that."
The committee last month signed off on the
couple's request despite concerns about the
appropriateness of the setting for the occasion.
Frank Burrows, head of the New Haven Historical
Society, though, vows to introduce a measure to
make O'Reily-Travis nuptials are the last among
this town's tombstones. "Once the horse is out of
the barn, you have to have an ordinance," he said.
But Travis said she and O'Reily have respect for the
living and the dead.
"We're not going to do anything stupid or horrible.
We just want to have a wedding," she said.
"Some of the ladies I work with said, `Are you
crazy? Why would you get married in a cemetery?'
Does it matter where we get married, just as long as
we get married, in a place we find beautiful
surrounded by those who we love?"
Local landmark destroyed in
mysterious fire.
St. Bart’s was a beautiful church once.
A small country affair that serviced the community
at the turn of the century. As the city grew it saw
less use until its use was discontinued 50 years ago.
It has since been declared a Historical Landmark
but due to budget problems renovation and
restoration continually were put on hold. All that is
moot now, the old church was set ablaze sometime
around March 16th presumably around 2 am.
Due to the church’s remote location the damage
was extensive before firefighters were able to put
out the blaze.
The Ghosts of Eden Station
Every weekday, Ken Watson and Mike Ragu drive
around the city in a red van, distributing bagels and
sandwiches. Much of the time they work
underground— in Eden Station, and in the nearby
subway stations. They target the people who are
most distrustful of the system, the ones who would
rather sleep on the streets than in a shelter. Watson
and Ragu make an unlikely team. Ragu, a 25-year-
old Greenhills native, has a bachelor's from the
University of Haven. Watson, 57, is a former
telephone company employee who has been living
in a shelter ever since a fire destroyed his Islin
home. Both men work in jeans and T-shirts.
Watson wears a gray braid down his back and a
replica of a drive chain from a '52 Harley around
his wrist.
Employed by the Partnership for the Homeless,
Ragu and Watson help people get what they need—
a shower, a free pair of pants, an application for an
apartment. But it isn't easy to convince somebody
who's been living on the streets for years to go to a
drop-in center or shelter. In some cases, it's
impossible. Or it can require many months of
work—of checking in and chatting, of free lunches,
of coaxing and reminding.
By now, Ragu and Watson know many of the
people living around Three Rivers Stadium. "A
homeless person isn't actually homeless," Watson
says. "He has a territory he travels in—for lack of a
better word, a migratory path. They know the good
soup kitchens, the ones that are so-so. They know
when the good clothes come in. It's a way of life."
On a recent Friday afternoon, Watson and Ragu
pull up in front of the 73rd station. Watson grabs a
bag of bagels smeared with peanut butter and they
head inside. It used to be easy to find homeless
people here. All you had to do was walk down the
steps and you'd see people leaning against the walls
or sitting on the ground. "There were usually 12 to
20 men and women sitting here. This is the spot for
users," Ragu says, pointing to the wall. Then he
gestures back up toward the stairs. "The steps is
usually drinkers." Today, the station is empty save
for subway riders scurrying by. About all the
missing people, Ragu says, "It sets us back because
we lose our contacts. We have to see the same
people over and over to build trust." Ragu and
Watson have lost track of many clients over the last
month.
One of these people was a woman named Mary,
who they had been talking to for months. Every
time they saw her, she was in the same spot, seated
on a box in the station, smoking a cigarette. She
told them she was in her fifties, but they suspect
she's at least 70. Many times they invited her to St.
Peter's Place, a drop-in center on West 23rd Street,
which caters to people over 55. "Of course I'll
come," Mary always said. But she never showed
up. They figured if they kept talking to her,
eventually she would give in. That was, until
several weeks ago, when they made their usual
rounds and discovered Mary was gone.
After looking around the 73rd station and finding
nobody they know, Watson and Ragu leave, cross
Seventh Avenue, and head down the escalator into
Eden Station. The dozen or so people who used to
sit along the perimeter of the Amtrak waiting area
are not around. Even the three old ladies who were
a fixture here, always standing near the Eighth
Avenue and 33rd Street exit, have disappeared.
After an hour underground, Watson and Ragu give
up looking for familiar faces. Still carrying a full
bag of bagels, they head up the stairs to the exit.
They get back in their van and take off for Bryant
Park. Later in the afternoon, they discover a former
Eden Station resident sitting on a foldout chair at
the corner of 34th Street and Fifth Avenue. Noel,
62, is the leader of a loose band of street
vagabonds. They take ease and rely upon the
protection of numbers as they also have noticed the
recent disappearances. However unlike the
missing ones they don’t stay in one place for too
long. Noel, a self made educated philosopher, says
it’s the same old migratory patterns for today’s
gypsies family.
 The Front Page Tribune
The Modern Gentleman’s Excerpt
Fred T. LeCrone Jr.
May 19, 1961 - April 4, 2009
Fred T. LeCrone Jr., 47, LeCrone Road, Altoona
RR 6, died Saturday morning in Berkeley Springs,
W.Va., as the result of an automobile accident.
He was born in Altoona, son of the late Fred T. Sr.
and Gail (Yeager) LeCrone. His parents were
tragically killed in the same accident.
Surviving are two sisters: Suzanne LeCrone of
Altoona and Sharon LeCrone Payne of Bedford,
Pa., and Jacksonville, Fla.; and a nephew, Cody
Payne, all of Bedford, Pa. and Jacksonville, Fla..
He was preceded in death by his cousin, Scott A.
Gunder. He was affectionally known by his nieces
and nephews, whom he dearly loved, as Ni Chan.
He was a very active family man who will be sadly
missed.
He was a member of Grace United Methodist
Church. Mr. LeCrone was employed as a Japanese
translator in Nara, Japan, for 20 years.
He volunteered annually for Habitat for Humanity,
toured with Up With People, with whom he
performed on the 1986 Super Bowl halftime show,
was a past member of Altoona Community Theater
and was active in the Kobe Union Church in Japan.
Mr. LeCrone was a 1979 graduate of Altoona Area
High School and a graduate of the Art Institute of
Pittsburgh and Penn State University.
He was an avid photographer and informational
technological expert and enjoyed various activities,
including adventure sports such as scuba diving and
water skiing.
Friends will be received from 2 to 4 and 6 to 8 p.m.
today, April 7, 2009, at Mauk & Yates Funeral
Home Inc., Juniata. A funeral service will be held at
11 a.m. Wednesday, April 8, 2009, at Grace United
Methodist Church, 1422 Fourth St., Altoona, the
Rev. Sharon A. Ludrowsky officiating.
At the family's request, floral gifts may be ordered
from Sunrise Floral and Gifts, Altoona, 943-3111
Robert M. Stahl, retired brigadier
general in National Guard
Oct. 22, 1925—March 19, 2009
Robert M. Stahl of Grand Island, a retired brigadier
general in the National Guard, died Thursday in
Millard Fillmore Suburban Hospital, Amherst. He
was 83.
Born in Buffalo, he began his military service in the
Army Air Forces in 1943. An aviation cadet, he was
a flight officer assigned as a B-29 flight engineer at
the end of World War II.
Six months after he returned from overseas, he re-
entered the service as a second lieutenant, heavy
weapons platoon leader, in the 74th Infantry
Regiment, New Haven Guard.
In November 1953, Mr. Stahl entered the Marine
Corps Reserve and reverted to enlisted rank as a
master sergeant, assuming first sergeant duties.
After serving active duty as a drill instructor at
Parris Island, S. C., and in Washington, D. C., he
returned to Buffalo and was promoted to sergeant
major in the Reserve unit.
Mr. Stahl was separated in May 1977 after 30 years
maxi-mum allowable service under regulations
adopted that year but re-entered the service in 1978
as operation sergeant major in Headquarters 221st
Engineer Group, New Haven National Guard. He
retired in 1985 and was immediately commissioned
as a captain in the 4th Brigade, New Haven Guard,
with primary duties as chief instructor, Branch
School 5, Officer Candidate School, New Haven
National Guard.
He was promoted to major with secondary duty as
communications/ electronics officer of the brigade.
He retired as a brigadier general, State Reserve List,
in 1996, with 38 years of federal military service
and 45 years of state military service.
Mr. Stahl also was a commissioner with the Boy
Scouts.
Surviving is his wife of 56 years, the former Ruth
M. Hodson.
Services will be at 4 p. m. Sunday in Kaiser Funeral Willem Kolff
Home, 1950 Whitehaven Road, Grand Island.
After the war, “Pim” Kolff emigrated to the US,
Wealthy Industrialist Dead at the working first in Cleveland, Ohio, and then as
director of the Institute of Biomedical Engineering
age of 62. at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. From
Gregor Petrovich was found dead in his home on the start he pursued his dream of creating an
March 7th. Petrovich is survived by his wife Illana artificial heart. In 1982 at Utah he succeeded,
and his two sons Mikhail and Yuri. Petrovich was leading the team that implanted an artificial heart in
the head of Petrov textiles and of the Odessa retired dentist Barney Clark. Such was Kolff’s
holding company. He was a long standing member modesty that he allowed the heart to be named the
of the community of New Haven and has been Jarvik-7 after Robert Jarvik, one of the students
influential in a variety of community based who had helped him perfect it.
initiatives around the city. The breakthrough was hugely controversial at the
He was found by his wife Illana who as of yet has time – even many doctors felt it was unethical.
refused commentary saying only that she wishes to Criticism grew when Clark died after 112 days. Yet
be allowed to mourn in peace. Petrovich was buried the artificial heart became a significant bridge to the
in a private ceremony which included family and a transplantation of human hearts.
few close friends. At Utah, Kolff also pioneered, along with William
Dobelle, an artificial eye, stimulating points of the
Dutchman who turned Nazi debris brain to give some light to blind people; and an
into a dialysis machine artificial ear, stimulating the acoustic nerve. Neither
has yet proved commercially viable.
It was 1941. Willem Kolff, a young doctor, had
watched in horror as the Nazis invaded his native Yet after creating one of the first prosthetic arms,
Netherlands yet he refused to let the occupation Kolff said: “Our artificial arm is so good that it can
stop his pioneering work on a new medical peel an orange, so strong it can crack a nut. It can
invention. move very fast, but when it comes close to your
mouth it goes slowly suddenly, because otherwise
In a cramped hospital room he was building the
you would knock your teeth out.”
world’s first kidney dialysis machine and he was
doing it with the most extraordinary collection of Kolff was inducted into the US National Inventors
materials foraged from a war-torn countryside. Hall of Fame in 1985. He was nominated for a
There were parts from a downed Luftwaffe fighter Nobel Prize several times, latterly in 2003 for the
aircraft and from the radiator of an abandoned Ford physiology or medicine award. In 2002, he received
car. There were orange juice tins, an enamel the prestigious Albert Lasker Award for Clinical
bathtub, a wooden drum and thin, artificial sausage Medical Research for inventing the artificial
skins. kidney.
The strange prototype would one day save the lives Kolff was still “tinkering” until shortly before his
of millions. Kolff himself, an inventive genius who death. It was because she finally lost patience with
has died at the age of 97, would go on to become his “constant tinkering”, that he and his wife of 63
the driving force behind the first artificial heart as years divorced in 2000, when he was 89. She died
well as a man-made eye, an artificial ear and one of in 2005.
the first sophisticated prosthetic arms. He never
Kolff is survived by four sons and a daughter.
patented any of his inventions because he believed
they should benefit all mankind, not one individual.