The Triple Crown - the mark of a champion - is California Chrome one?

.

California Chrome wins Kentucky Derby

As California Chrome enters the starting gate in the number 2 pole position, it will make the third straight race in which this invader from California will have the exact pole position in each race as the greatest Triple Crown winner of all time, Secretariat in 1973.  Both Secretariat and California Chrome were assigned post position #5 in the Kentucky Derby, #3 in the Preakness and #2 in the Belmont.  Destiny?  Fate?  Or luck?

The Triple Crown has three races of over a mile against the best horses in the world during a five week period and is the true test of champions. In the 140 years since the Kentucky Derby began only 11 horses have won the coveted Triple Crown. It has been 36 years since the last Triple Crown champion, Affirmed in 1978, the longest drought ever between Triple Crown champions.

Secretariat wins Belmont by mile

Since Affirmed won in 1978 eleven horses have won both the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes but none won the Belmont Stakes to claim the Triple Crown. The closest was Real Quiet in 1998 who lost by a nose in the Belmont.  In fact, more people have walked on the moon than there have been horses winning the Triple Crown.

Secretariat at play in Kentucky

Now no horse will ever be the champion like Secretariat in 1973 who blazed to glory winning the three races by a record total of 36 lengths. It had been 25 years since the previous Triple Crown winner and to this day Secretariat holds the records in the Derby and Belmont, and would be the record holder in the Preakness except for a freak breakdown of timing devices in the race.

Affirmed  beats Alydar by nose in Belmont

As for the last winner, Affirmed, his legendary races against Alydar rank as the best competition of all time. Alydar was the only horse to ever finish 2nd in all three races and in the Belmont when Affirmed was going for the Triple Crown they were nose to nose at the finish line with Affirmed winning in a photo finish by a nose. In all three races the two horses finished just two lengths apart.

According to Fox News this will be a banner year for the Belmont track and the State of New York.

Here is some of what Fox had to say about the Triple Crown excitement.

California Chrome is the 12th horse to reach Long Island with wins in the first two legs of the Triple Crown, the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness Stakes, since Affirmed won all three in 1978.

Attendance for those 11 races averaged nearly 30,000 more than in years without a contender -- going from a low of 37,171 in 1995 when Thunder Gulch and Timber Country split the Derby and the Preakness, to a record 120,139 in 2004 when Birdstone upset Smarty Jones in the last of a three-year stretch of Triple Crown contenders in the Belmont Stakes.

On-site wagering on the race-day program also surged in those years, according to track records, jumping from $6.8 million in contender-less 1996 to $9.2 million the following year when Silver Charm took the first two races, and from $8.8 million in contender-less 2007 to $13.3 million when Big Brown raced for history in 2008.

I'll Have Another's wins in Louisville and Baltimore sent attendance for the 2012 Belmont Stakes to nearly 86,000 and on-site wagering to $13.8 million even though the horse was withdrawn the day before the race due to a leg injury.

The head of the track's management team said ticket sales for this year's Belmont Stakes, with its emphasis on high-level racing and daylong entertainment, were already brisk before California Chrome broke from the gate at Churchill Downs in May.

More than 70 percent of tickets and premium tables for the race were sold before the Derby and all were gone before the Preakness, according to New York Racing Association president and chief executive officer Christopher Kay.

After the Preakness, Kay said, they added a trackside tent and additional seating to accommodate the surge of interest in a potential California Chrome coronation.

General admission and grandstand tickets costing $10 remained available through the track late in the week and more than 3,000 tickets, ranging from $12 for grandstand to $2,300 for a table for two at the Garden Terrace Restaurant, were available on the secondary ticket sales website StubHub.com.

Good weather -- 82 degrees and sunny, according to the National Weather Service -- could push the crowd into record territory.

"Our intent is to make Belmont Stakes day an important day year in and year out," Kay said.

This year it has been an important day -- and week -- for business.

The largest hotel on Long Island, a Marriott with more than 600 rooms in Uniondale, and the ornate Garden City Hotel --  where management said all of the owners, trainers and jockeys in the Belmont Stakes were staying and where the menu includes a cocktail named for each horse -- have sold out under race-related demand.

Other hotels were also booked solid, officials said, forcing some out-of-town fans to find lodging in Suffolk County, about 20 miles east, or stay in Manhattan, about 15 miles west.

"This Triple Crown opportunity doesn't come too often," state hotel association chairman John Tsunis said. "But, whoever wins in the race, the real winners will be Long Island and New York State

Singing Nun Wins Italy The Voice - Sister Cristina Scuccia

.

Over a month ago we warned you about Sister Cristina Scuccia, the worldwide sensation from Italy who already had over 50 million views before the finals last night in Rome.  Well if The New York Times does a major story on a Catholic nun that is news.  So here is a reprint of the NYT report on the singing sensation from Italy. You have got to watch the video.  (Be sure to click or double click on the video for larger screen.)   

Singing Nun Wins Italian TV Talent Show

By ELISABETTA POVOLEDOJUNE 6, 2014

ROME — She trilled and thrilled millions of YouTube viewers with songs by Alicia Keys, Cyndi Lauper and Bon Jovi. She belted out a duet with Kylie Minogue, both of them clad in black, albeit with vastly different approaches to style.

And just after midnight Thursday, Sister Cristina Scuccia, the Sicilian singing nun who has become a worldwide sensation, won the second edition of the TV talent competition “The Voice of Italy” after singing a rousing version of “What a Feeling,” the Oscar-winning song from the 1983 film “Flashdance,'’ accompanied by a chorus line of dancers dressed as monks, who threw off their habits to reveal pastel-colored suits.

“My dream is to recite Our Father together,” she said upon winning, intoning the Lord’s Prayer, while the show’s judges shuffled their feet and mumbled, visibly embarrassed. The show’s host noted her “very original way” of accepting.

On the wave of the global success of her video singing Ms. Keys’s “No One,” viewed online by 51 million people since it was posted in March, Sister Cristina’s victory — with more than 60 percent of the votes cast — came as little surprise, even as Italian media unfailingly jibed that she may have had a little help from above.

The bigger question mark in a country where some polls suggest that a majority of Italian women aspire to television fame is whether success will go to the head of the 25-year-old nun, possibly leading her astray from her calling. Winning the competition, after all, comes with a recording contract.

“There are plenty of people guiding her who will help organize her artistic activity. I think she has a lot of support,” said Claudia Koll, an actress who enrolled Sister Cristina at the drama school she runs at a nunnery in Rome after hearing her perform. “She is supported by prayer and by people, so she’s not as much at risk as people think,” Ms. Koll said in a telephone interview.

At a news conference on Wednesday with the finalists of ‘'The Voice,'’ Sister Cristina said that she would follow the orders of her superiors regarding her future, which could include tours or recording contracts. She said that if asked to, she was ready to return to the church choir where she sang before becoming a sensation.

A spokesman for the show said Friday that Sister Cristina would not be giving interviews.

Sister Cristina beat out four rivals on Thursday to arrive at the title, and the final came down to the diminutive nun and a 28-year-old rocker channeling a 1970s heavy metal look.

“I want to thank everyone who has helped me during this difficult period, thanks for having protected me many times, " Sister Cristina said after winning, citing her fans; the middle-aged nuns who have religiously followed her performances in the audience; and her coach J-Ax, a 41-year-old rapper. The odd couple was redubbed “the devil and the holy water,” an Italian idiom for a most unlikely alliance.

“I hope you can make a change out there, and be an example,” said J-Ax, although he professed that he remained an atheist.

In an interview in the Milan daily Corriere della Sera, J-Ax expressed his hope that Sister Cristina would make a record. “It’s a great opportunity,” he said. “But the earnings, all the earnings have to be earmarked to build a hospital or an orphanage in Brazil,” where Sister Cristina worked with poor children. “No one can earn a penny from it,” he said.

. 

D Day June 6, 1944 - The Invasion of Normandy - Beginning of the End of WWII

.

The greatest invasion in the history of warfare took place when the Allies attacked the beaches of Normandy in the push to liberate Europe from Hitler.

Yet what a price to pay for war as the following excerpt from the book, Saviors of the 20th Century - Hitler & Stalin - The War of Annihilation Between the Nazis and Communists points out.

Deaths in the European War

Deaths in the European War

Between 1942 and 1945 the mass killings of millions of Russians, Poles, Catholics, Jews and others took place.  Himmler and his death squads generated staggering death totals.  While it took many years to assess the death totals for various countries, the following military and civilian deaths are the most accurate and current to this day.

                        European Campaign

                  Russia              25.6 million    

                  Poland               6.8 million                            

                  Yugoslavia        1.7 million

                  Romania            1.0 million

                  Germany           7.0 million

                  Allies                 1.5 million

Besides these numbers another ten million Soviets were missing after the war.  The combined death toll of the allied alliance, the United Kingdom, United States and France, was just 1.5 million, military and civilians.

The death total for all nations was 18.4 million military and an astounding 41.6 million civilians, for a final count of 60 million deaths.  The staggering results of the campaigns of extermination undertaken by Germany, Japan and the Soviet Union are clear in the incredible record of war casualties.

(Excerpt from Saviors of the 20th Century)

SAVIORS OF THE 20^TH CENTURY

 Hitler & Stalin

The War of Annihilation between the Nazis & Communists

  

“If they (Hitler & the Nazis) want a war

of extermination, they shall have it!”

Josef Stalin

November 6, 1941

Author Jim Putnam

  

Ivy Hollow Productions

Saviors of the 20^th Century - Hitler & Stalin

Published by

Ivy Hollow Productions

20276 Park Place

PO Box 21

Coltons Point, Maryland 20262

Copyright Ó 2004 by Jim Putnam

Front Cover Art Ó 2004 by Ceci

Back Cover Art Ó 2004 by Olga Sheymov

Library of Congress Control Number: 2004095812

ISBN 0-9645993-1-7

 Ivy Hollow Third Edition

September 2010

All rights reserved.  No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information or storage retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

. 

Health Care Reform - When does it start? When does the hemorrhaging end?

.

Here in the United States we already pay far more per capita for health care than any other country in the world yet our health care system ranks far down the list in terms of quality of care.  Doesn't that seem odd to you?

For the past six years our political system has ground to a halt because of the partisan bickering between political parties over Obamacare.

And the many candidates running for the House and Senate in this year's midterm elections are all over the place in terms of whether they support Obamacare, want to fix Obamacare or want to dump Obamacare.

Obamacare is really called the Affordable Care Act and there is nothing affordable about it.  In terms of the health care industry, the cost of nothing has gone down but the premiums, profits, bonuses and kickbacks have sure gone up.

If we were really interested in hearing the truth the story would be a whole lot different. You see, Obamacare did nothing to fix the health care system, it only extended an already broken system to the millions of Americans who are uninsured.

The truth is far more brutal than worrying about the consequences of Obamacare.  The truth consists of the following:

Nothing is being done in Washington to improve the quality of health care service.

Nothing is being done in Washington to reduce the criminally high cost of health care.

Nothing is being done in Washington to stop the unnecessary and excessive amount of patient testing to determine the cause of health problems, many of which are never confirmed.

Nothing is being done in Washington to stop the millions of dollars in kickbacks to doctors for prescribing their drugs for patient treatment.

Nothing is being done in Washington to stop the corrupt influence of hundreds of millions of dollars being spent by the current health care system to legally bribe our politicians through campaign contributions.

Nothing is being done in Washington to stop the insurance companies from denying coverage for many types of health care treatment that could drastically lower the cost through alternative health techniques.

Nothing is being done in Washington to stop the FDA, our federal regulatory agency, from favoring applications for New Drug Approval from super rich pharmaceutical companies over a host of low cost and time proven techniques to improve health that are being kept off the American market.

Nothing is being done to stop the runaway cost of court litigation relating to medical malpractice and class action health cases.

In the meantime billions of dollars are being wasted every year paying for the nonsense we call health care.  If we need more proof of the incompetence of our health care providers and corrupt nature of our health care system just look at the Veterans Administration scandal that is just beginning to unfold.

The Obama Administration claims to have done more to reform the health care system than any president since George Washington (that is a joke), at least it wants to be given such credit, yet for six long years the very people Obama sent to war have been cheated, lied to, ignored and killed by the very same saviors of health care, the Obama administration.

What is the logic in that?  We can  reduce the cost of health care by killing off those who were sent to risk their lives fighting for our country?  America needs to wake up.  Our federal government, all of it, is under the control of the White House, not just the parts that seem to work.

If our federal government knew how to provide better health care then why did thousands of veterans get cheated for the past six years.  Thanks in large part to the health care and related industries Obama spent over $2 billion to get elected two times.

It seems to me the only health care insurance that works in America was the investment by the health care providers, big pharmaceutical corporations, Wall Street, big banks, the insurance industry, the trial lawyers and financial institutions of $2 billion in the Obama campaign because they are the only ones financially benefiting from the health care fraud and abuse sanctioned by the Obama Administration and Congress.

People have got to wake up, demand more from their elected officials, throw out those who protect the status quo and encourage those with no strings attached to find ways to make it work.  In short, people deserve a return on their investment in so called democracy and holding all those responsible for our broken system accountable is the first step.

.

Rock Star Pope Francis takes his people's pilgrimage to Holy Land

.

"Invoke from God the gift of peace"

From the speech of Pope Francis at the Western Wall in Jerusalem on the second and final day of his visit to the Holy Land. He reiterated messages of fraternity, mutual respect and tolerance

President Peres welcomes Pope Francis. Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO

Pope Francis in the Holy Land

Pope Francis arrived in Israel and implored its leaders to leave no stone unturned in their quest for peace

The Pope with Prime Minister Netanyahu. Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO

POPE Francis has denounced arms dealers and appealed for an urgent end to the Syrian civil war as he began his three-day trip to the Middle East.

Photo: Avi Ohayon, GPO

By William Booth and Ruth Eglash, Published: May 26

JERUSALEM — Proving himself to be a shrewd diplomat, Pope Francis on Monday reached out to Jewish Israelis by kissing the hands of elderly Holocaust survivors at a memorial, praying at the holiest Jewish site in Jerusalem — the Western Wall — and later placing a wreath at the grave of the founder of Zionism.

Meeting the Chief Rabbis of Israel at Heichal Shlomo. Photo: Haim Zach, GPO

And at the invitation of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the pontiff added an unplanned stop at an Israeli monument to commemorate the civilian and military victims of terror attacks.

Photo: Haim Zach, GPO

The pope’s unscheduled trip to the terror victims memorial was added by the Vatican after Israeli authorities privately complained about the pontiff’s photo op Sunday at a controversial security barrier in Bethlehem separating Israel and the West Bank, according to an account from a Western diplomat in Jerusalem.

The new pope, 15 months into his job, demonstrated a canny ability to calm emotions in a region beset by religious and political frictions on a three-day trip to the Holy Land that ended Monday. The pontiff had said his visit would be “strictly religious,” but it was not.

The Pope lands in Jerusalem. Photo: Kobi Gideon, GPO

The Pope with Patriarch Bartholomew. Photo: Mark Nyman, GPO

Francis on Sunday secured a promise from Israeli President Shimon Peres and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to meet with him at the Vatican next month to pray together and talk peace.  While his efforts may lead to nothing, Francis at least has gotten the two sides to start talking again after Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s negotiations collapsed in a round of bitter recriminations in April.

. The Pope at the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO

Asked what the three men might discuss, a Vatican spokesman said: “The pope does not have a political agenda and does not have a proposal for diplomatic dialogue. This is not his mission. This is not what he desires.”

The Pope at the Dome of the Rock. Photo: Haim Zach, GPO

In a marathon schedule that saw the 77-year-old pontiff attend more than 30 events in 55 hours, the pope seemed willing to acknowledge the often-conflicting narratives of suffering from both Israelis and Palestinians.

At the Western Wall. Photo: Kobi Gideon, GPO

Photo: Kobi Gideon, GPO

He also was a gracious guest in Jordan, showering Jordan’s ruling monarch, King Abdullah II, himself a direct descendant of the prophet Muhammad, with praise for his people’s generosity. There are about 600,000 registered Syrian refugees and 250,000 Iraqis who live in Jordan after fleeing war and chaos in their homelands.

At the memorial for victims of terror. Photo: Avi Ohayon

Meeting Holocaust survivors. Photo: Amos Ben Gershom, GPO

On Sunday, the pontiff prayed in Bethlehem at a section of the high cement wall that recently had been spray-painted with graffiti reading “Free Palestine” and comparing Bethlehem, surrounded by barriers on three sides in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, to the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during the reign of the Nazis.

The photograph of the pope at the wall was published widely in news reports and social media around the world, and Vatican and Israeli officials acknowledged that Netanyahu was troubled by the stop.
. 

God Bless the People of the Ukraine for Taking Care of Themselves

.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Maybe it's time to leave the Ukraine to the Ukrainians

Three months ago I wrote the above story and there has been nothing but chaos in the Ukraine since as Russia, the European Union, NATO and the USA have undertaken a battle of wits, sanctions, threats, land grabs and political posturing that left the people of the Ukraine in dire straights.

Sunday, May 25, the people of the Ukraine finally took control of their own destiny by holding an election under very difficult circumstances and may just have taught all those trying to tell them what to do that the people of the Ukraine can take care of themselves if we just leave them alone.

I salute the people of the Ukraine and the rest of the world should learn more about them and their long battle for independence that included invasions by Hitler and Stalin, millions of deaths, survival within the Soviet Union and from outside terrorists, anarchists or whatever you want to call them.  All the while the Ukraine remains the breadbasket for the world and the conduit for Russia natural gas to fuel Europe.

Here is a report on the election from the CBC (Canadian) News Network and the results, well stock markets throughout Europe are up today.  When the people with money are happy that means things may be good for awhile and when people can speak for themselves that is even better.

CBC News Canada

Exit polls suggested candy tycoon Petro Poroshenko won Ukraine's presidential election in the first round Sunday, a ballot that took place amid weeks of fighting in eastern regions where pro-Russia separatists have seized government buildings and battled government troops.

The rebels had vowed to block the ballot in the east and less than 20 per cent of the polling stations were open there. But nationwide, about 60 per cent of the electorate turned out, the central elections commission said.

Poroshenko, viewing the exit polls as definitive evidence of victory, said his first steps as president would be to visit the eastern industrial region of Donbass — home to Ukraine's coal mines — and "put an end to war, chaos, crime and bring peace to the Ukrainian land."

Long lines of voters snaked around polling stations in Kyiv, the pro-Western capital, but heavily armed pro-Russia rebels in eastern Ukraine intimidated locals by smashing ballot boxes, shutting down polling centres and issuing threats.

Putin vowed to recognize new leader

The exit poll for Sunday's election, conducted by three respected Ukrainian survey agencies, found the 48-year-old candy tycoon Poroshenko getting 55.9 per cent of the vote.

After the polls closed, Poroshenko appeared on a stage beside former boxing champion Vitali Klitschko, who at one point last year was leading in national polls for president. He later decided to support Poroshenko and run for Kyiv mayor instead. Results of that race were not available Sunday, but Poroshenko told journalists that their own private survey showed Klitschko winning the race.

.