Grandma's House

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A Slovak man trapped in his car under an avalanche freed himself by drinking 60 bottles of beer and urinating on the snow to melt it.

Rescue teams found Richard Kral drunk and staggering along a mountain path four days after his Audi car was buried in the Slovak Tatra mountains.

He said: "I was scooping the snow from above me and packing it down below the window, and then I peed on it to melt it. It was hard and now my kidneys and liver hurt. But I'm glad the beer I took on holiday turned out to be useful and I managed to get out of there."

"It's about one kid winning, several making it to the top and leaving all others behind," Newman said of the competition, which culminates with the Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee in Washington, D.C. "That's contrary to No Child Left Behind."

A spelling bee, she continued, is about "some kids being winners, some kids being losers," which "sends a message that this isn't an all-kids movement."

She argues that professional organizations now encourage elementary school children to participate in activities that avoid winners and losers, which is why sports teams have been eliminated for that age group.

Building self-esteem is the emphasis.

"You have to build positive self-esteem for all kids, so they believe they're all winners," Newman told the Call. "You want to build positive self-esteem so that all kids can get to where they want to go."

Judging from the way he talked, the robber appeared to be a man in his 30s or 40s and was about 175 centimeters tall and of medium build.

The Holocaust, symbolized by Auschwitz, the worst of the death camps, occurred in the wake of consistent, systematic, unrelenting anti-Jewish propaganda campaign. As a result, the elimination of the Jews from German society was accepted as axiomatic, leaving open only two questions: when and how.

As Germany expanded its domination and occupation of Austria, Czechoslovakia, France, the Low Countries, Yugoslavia, Poland, parts of the USSR, Greece, Romania, Hungary, Italy and others countries, the way was open for Hitler to realize his well-publicized plan of destroying the Jewish people.

After experimentation, the use of Zyklon B on unsuspecting victim was adopted by the Nazis as the means of choice, and Auschwitz was selected as the main factory of death (more accurately, one should refer to the “Auschwitz-Birkenau complex”). The green light for mass annihilation was given at the Wannsee Conference, January 20, 1942, and the mass gassings took place in Auschwitz between 1942 and the end of 1944, when the Nazis retreated before the advancing Red Army. Jews were transported to Auschwitz from all over Nazi-occupied or Nazi-dominated Europe and most were slaughtered in Auschwitz upon arrival, sometimes as many as 12,000 in one day. Some victims were selected for slave labour or “medical” experimentation. All were subject to brutal treatment.

In all, between three and four million people, mostly Jews, but also Poles and Red Army POWs, were slaughtered in Auschwitz alone (though some authors put the number at 1.3 million). Other death camps were located at Sobibor, Chelmno, Belzec (Belzek), Majdanek and Treblinka.

Auschwitz was liberated by the Red Army on 27 January 1945, sixty years ago, after most of the prisoners were forced into a Death March westwards. The Red Army found in Auschwitz about 7,600 survivors, but not all could be saved.

For a long time, the Allies were well aware of the mass murder, but deliberately refused to bomb the camp or the railways leading to it. Ironically, during the Polish uprising, the Allies had no hesitation in flying aid to Warsaw, sometimes flying right over Auschwitz.

There are troubling parallels between the systematic vilification of Jews before the Holocaust and the current vilification of the Jewish people and Israel. Suffice it to note the annual flood of anti-Israel resolutions at the UN; or the public opinion polls taken in Europe, which single out Israel as a danger to world peace; or the divestment campaigns being waged in the US against Israel; or the attempts to delegitimize Israel’s very existence. The complicity of the Allies in WW II is mirrored by the support the PLO has been receiving from Europe, China and Russia to this very day.

If remembering Auschwitz should teach us anything, it is that we must all support Israel and the Jewish people against the vilification and the complicity we are witnessing, knowing where it inevitably leads.

Firefighters came to the rescue when a woman's foot was trapped in a massage machine that she tried out at a Hong Kong department store, police said Monday.

Female legislators in Israel have seen red after a leading rabbi compared women who wear the color to prostitutes.

Protesting against a ritual ruling by Rabbi Eliyahu Abergil, head of the rabbinical court in the southern city of Beersheba, banning Jewish women from dressing in red, several woman lawmakers wore the color in parliament Monday.

A Romanian tabloid said on Monday it had fired a reporter for making up a story about a couple who named their son Yahoo as a sign of
gratitude for meeting over the Internet.

"It was the reporter's child's birth certificate, which he modified," said Simona Ionescu, Libertatea's deputy editor-in-chief. "We fired him."

Battlestations! MAJOR snow's on the way. Here's the tenative timetable:

Another frigid night tonight. Lows a few degrees either side of zero. Hazy sun tomorrow as light snow continues out on Cape Cod.

Those snowshowers on Cape Cod join hands with a developing band of snow offshore and sweep into Boston in the afternoon. Meantime, the meat of the storm moves up from the southwest late day. We're in a pickle! The game is on!

Steady light snow turns heavy and ugly by midnight as the lines between ocean-effect and the main-storm blur. Sideways snow with near-blizzard conditions by the wee hours on Cape Cod and the Islands. Boston will be near whiteouts at times...classic nor'easter style.

The snow will be like baby powder: light and fluffy, but also dense in wind-driven snow banks. Try and keep it off your buns though.

Problems include the possibility of splashover at high tide on Sunday morning (see above) and the near-blizzard conditions on the Islands (ferry service may be halted) Sat. night and Sunday AM. Cape Cod/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket take it on the chin with this one.

Snow in Pittsburgh? Yeah tomorrow morning. Should be gone by game time with temps in the teens. Snow on the sidelines and maybe in the stands will give the Pittsburgh fans something to play with when the Pats are up by 30 in the fourth quarter.

FYI, I got dibbs on the english muffins in the bread isle - don't mess with me...I know Mr. Whipple.

GO PATS!

David Atkinson spent 18 years designing an experiment for the unmanned space mission to Saturn. Now some pieces of it are lost in space. Someone forgot to turn on the instrument Atkinson needed to measure the winds on Saturn's largest moon.

The man, who is now 52, said outside court that current laws make it possible to marry anyone - "even a baby" - because there is no minimum age. However, he also said "federal common law" puts the minimum age at seven years old.

He has acknowledged that Quebec law set the marriage age at 16 in 2001 but maintains the amendment doesn't apply to him because he had already wed the girl.

The man said he had the consent of the girl's mother, who is a single parent. He didn't know the whereabouts of her father at the time and still doesn't.

The man said he wants the case sorted out so he can also get on with his plans to minister to married couples.

"I need my wife at my side to do such a ministry," he said.

"I don't think that whatever Senator Byrd is doing has anything to do with his sad past," Pelosi told WWRL radio hosts Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter.

Instead, said the San Francisco Democrat, the one-time Grand Kleagel was acting out of concern that the advise-and-consent role of the Senate in presidential appointments was being overlooked.

The scoring was kept way down on purpose, a strategy made possible by the fact that Vermont high schools don't use a shot clock. No player went to the free-throw line as Milton committed five fouls and BFA had one.

BFA took a 5-0 lead and neither team scored in the second half.

"It was the ultimate deliberate stalemate," Milton coach Jim Smith said. "They didn't come out after us and we didn't go in against them."

Smith said the slowdown was implemented because BFA (7-4) has a strong scoring presence, while Milton (2-8) does not. The Milton players believed their best chance to be competitive was to just hold onto the ball.

The strategy almost worked.

"We had a shot go off the rim that would have tied it," Smith said. "We were one possession away to tie the game. We have not been in that position for quite some time."

Alex Weber's basket gave BFA a 2-0 lead in the first quarter. Shadoe Adams' 3-pointer made it 5-0 at the start of the second quarter. Brian Phelps scored later in the period and Milton trailed 5-2 at halftime.

"I've never had a player hit a game-winner in the second quarter before," BFA-Fairfax coach Glen Button Jr. said.

Pulling a man from his burning tractor-trailer cab, New York Marines helped save a man’s life Monday.

Pfc. William Patnode, Pfc. Charles Meskunas, Pvt. James Stewart and Pfc. Gregory Lafountain were driving south on Interstate 87 to check in for their Permissive Recruiters Assistance Program class here shortly after they graduated from Marine Corps Recruit Training in Parris Island, S.C.

Minutes after passing Exit 31, the group spotted flames through the fog on the North Country road. As the accident grew closer, the Marines were able to fully view the wreckage.

A nearly empty fuel tanker had rammed into the back end of a tractor-trailer truck in the southbound lane of the highway.

While Lafountain and Patnode went for help, Meskunas and Stewart, with the help of an unidentified truck driver, pulled the 57-year-old Cornelius J. Mahar from the burning vehicle. After the unidentified truck driver used a knife to cut away Mahar’s seatbelt, the Marines carried him on a sleeping bag to a spot about a quarter mile away and applied basic first aid to Mahar while waiting for emergency assistance.

When help arrived, the Marines continued doing their part at the scene of the accident by directing traffic and assisting with emergency vehicles.

“They were working on him when we arrived,” said Westport Fire Chief, Jim Westover to the Press- Republican. “They grabbed gear from the ambulance and kept working. They were incredible.”

All four Marines credited their life-saving action to the training they received from Senior Drill Instructors Staff Sgt. Norman, Staff Sgt. Collinson, and Staff Sgt. Lytle during recruit training at Parris Island, S.C. They said that training gave them the ability to handle a situation this critical.

“They definitely displayed their honor, courage and commitment,” said Yagle. “The purpose of my class here is to remind them of the positive image and roles they need to portray here on the home front. They did just that, they set a good example, and we’re proud of them.”

Starting Feb. 18, eBay said the monthly subscription fee for people who operate "Basic eBay Stores" will increase from $9.95 to $15.95.

The fee for a standard listing of 10 days will double, from 20 cents to 40 cents.

"It seems as though the larger eBay becomes, the more greedy they become," said Lynette McDonald of Alton, Ill., who has sold Barbie and baby clothes on eBay since 2001. She says she may close her eBay store entirely because of the fee hikes or raise prices she changes buyers.

"This site used to be a place where one could get a good deal," McDonald said. "Now that the starting prices on goods are higher to accommodate the growing fees incurred, there are no more deals to be had."

."Dayan has the best lineage to King David," several members of the Sanhedrin told The Jerusalem Post. They say he has two documented ancient sources which draw a direct line between him and the males in his family to King David some 3,000 years ago.

Some of the other ideas discussed at the Sanhedrin meeting included the construction of an altar on the Temple Mount to be used for the Passover Offering during the upcoming holiday. One of the ideas, members said, is to climb the Mount and build the altar within minutes and sacrifice the lamb before security forces can stop them.

"Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common - we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression," Eastwood was quoted as telling the National Board of Review awards dinner in New York Tuesday night.

With a cold glare Eastwood took notice of Moore sitting in the audience and said bluntly and without a smile: "But, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you."

The Daily News reports the audience erupted in laughter, and Eastwood grinned. "I mean it," Eastwood said again.

The new governor announced that he's closing the state's office in Washington D.C., saving $164,000 a year.

"We have nine members of the House, two members of the Senate," Blunt said at his first official news conference. "They comprise a delegation perfectly capable of representing our state's interest in the nation's capitol."

He also put a moratorium on purchases of new cellular telephones, office space and non-emergency vehicles.

"As you know, the state has not been able to determine how many state vehicles it has," Blunt said. "If we can't determine how many vehicles we own, we shouldn't be in the business of purchasing vehicles."

Blunt also repealed former Gov. Bob Holden's executive order of 2001 that expanded bargaining powers for state employee unions. He also has dismissed high-ranking employees in many executive departments. He says the firings are all part of his plan to change state government.