government

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March 20, 2016 - When Pierro asked the TV star why he endorsed The Donald, Baio replied @ScottBaio replied: "It's very simple… the things that he[Trump]'s saying are just common sense stuff." Actor Scott Baio, who last month endorsed Donald Trump for president, wants the billionaire in charge of the country because it does not take a "political decoder ring" to decode what the businessman is saying.
"He's a straight shooter when he talks to me," the 55-year-old "Happy Days" and "Charles in Charge" star said Sunday morning on Fox News. "When he talks, I understand him." "It's a very sort of direct language," Baio said. "I don't need a political decoder ring to understand what the guy is saying."  read more »

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On July 4, 1776, The Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Second Continental Congress meeting at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which announced that the thirteen American colonies, then at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain, regarded themselves as thirteen newly independent sovereign states, and no longer under British rule. Instead they formed a new nation—the United States of America. John Adams was a leader in pushing for independence, which was passed on July 2 with no opposing vote cast. A committee of five had already drafted the formal declaration, to be ready when Congress voted on independence. The term "Declaration of Independence" is not used in the document itself.

John Adams persuaded the committee to select Thomas Jefferson to compose the original draft of the document, which Congress would edit to produce the final version. The Declaration was ultimately a formal explanation of why Congress had voted on July 2 to declare independence from Great Britain, more than a year after the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War. The next day, July 3, John Adams wrote to his wife Abigail: "The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America." But the national birthday, Independence Day, is celebrated on July 4, the date that the Declaration of Independence was signed.  read more »

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NBC News 24 Jun 2016 While the prospect of a Brexit triggering other countries in Europe to follow suit and decide to leave is not an immediate one it would "certainly sow seeds of doubt," according to Paolo Dardanelli, senior lecturer in comparative politics and acting director of the Center for Federal Studies at the University of Kent.

"Denmark and Sweden would be the ones to watch in particular, as their position would be significantly weakened," Dardanelli added via email. "You could argue that the conversation about this could be different in a place like Denmark, or Sweden or the Netherlands, where you're looking at countries with well-functioning political institutions, and economies that are doing fairly well," Nickel said.

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Image courtesy VoxEurop and NBC News

Inset: In 1940, Princess Elizabeth, 14, featured in a radio programme called Children's Hour. She sent her best wishes to the children who had been evacuated from Britain to America, Canada and elsewhere as Britain was suffering the worst of the Blitz during World War Two.
Bottom: Elizabeth became a Girl Guide in 1937, her sister, Princess Margaret enrolled as a Brownie and their mother became the Patron of the Girl Guides. During WWii, Elizabeth did her part to boost public morale.

The Queen with her great-grandchildren and youngest grandchildren. From left: James, Viscount Severn; Lady Louise Windsor; Mia Tindall (holding the Queen's handbag); Princess Charlotte; Savannah Phillips; Prince George and Isla Phillips.

Top: April 2016 - as the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh walked the short distance from Windsor Castle, a spontaneous rendition of Happy Birthday rang out.
Bottom: Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh at the Bedaling Pass, on the Great Wall of China, on the third day of their state visit to the country. No British monarch had ever travelled to mainland China, let alone walked the Great Wall so the Queen's trip in October 1986 made history.

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Top: King George VI addresses the nation by radio on 4 Sept 1939, the day after Britain declared war on Nazi Germany.
Center: King George VI and Queen Elizabeth in rubble after Buckingham Palace bombed, 13 Sept 1940

Top: King George VI, Queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill
Inset: The King's brother, Prince George, Duke of Kent, killed on in 1942 (aged 39) on active service
Bottom: King and Queen with their daughter Princess Elizabeth visit the royal artillery during wwii

Left: Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip on their wedding day, 20 Nov 1947; Right: Queen's Diamond Jubilee, and Love and lasting 65-year marriage

By showing personal courage, King George VI and his wife (Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother) set extraordinary examples, became a symbol of national resistance. The royal family never left London, were sharing the same dangers and deprivations as the rest of the country, and leading his people through the hardships of World War Two (1939-1945).

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Sept 1939 - war declared on Nazi Germany, King George VI and his wife determined to stay in London, despite German air raids.
07 Sept 1940 - the first German air raid on London killed about one thousand civilians.
13 Sept 1940 - the King and Queen narrowly avoided death when two German bombs exploded in a courtyard at Buckingham Palace while they were there. In defiance, the Queen famously declared: "I am glad we have been bombed. It makes me feel we can look the East End in the face".  read more »

Glitch's prank. this guy's luck. Google-operated domain service on 29 Sept 2015 sold google.com to MBA student Sanmay Ved, charged his credit card for $12, emailed him the transaction confirmation. For a glitch-created historical minute, a guy owned google.com beyond Google.

Washington Post - Max Schrems, left, and his lawyer Herwig Hofmann, right, at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on Oct. 6, 2015. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert)

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For just $12, he bought Google.com - Babson College student, Sanmay Ved, briefly owns Google.com
For just one brief but unforgettable moment, a Babson College student owned the internet domain for the world's most heavily trafficked website. For just $12, he bought Google.com. Sanmay Ved is getting his MBA, but he used to work for Google. He was playing around with the website registration service, Google Domains. For fun, he entered "Google.com."

"I put in Google.com and it showed it was available," he said.
Much to his surprise, the domain he presumed would be unavailable, actually was. "I thought it was a mistake or something that should not happen, Google.net, is unavailable, but...(shows paperwork) as you see, Google.com is showing as available," he said, referencing screenshots.  read more »

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Sweden '[we] cannot cope' - closes borders to those without passports or ID cards: Sweden, with a population of 9.8 million, took 160,000 asylum seekers in 2015, a higher number of refugees per capita than any other country in the European Union. In September, prime minister Stefan Lofven said: 'My Europe takes in people fleeing from war', but by last month he admitted ' [we] cannot cope' - closing the borders to those without passports or ID cards.

Thousands of commuters traveling across the five-mile road and rail bridge and accompanying tunnel between the Danish capital Copenhagen and Malmo in Sweden were yesterday told to expect their journeys to take half an hour longer than the usual 40 minutes.

The decision to close the borders to those without passports or ID cards marks a massive turnaround for the Swedish government, which had been the most welcoming to migrants but changed course after more than 160,000 applied for asylum last year – the highest number per capita in Europe.  read more »