The hacker group Anonymous appears to be setting its next target on the Federal Reserve, calling in a video uploaded on YouTube for Chairman Ben S. Bernanke to resign.
In the video, the hacker group said that Tuesday would be a “first step” for “public protests” until Bernanke steps down.
The hacker group has been responsible for cyberattacks that took down Web sites for the Spanish police last week and divisions of the Turkish government.
“The Federal Reserve gave trillions of American taxpayer dollars, in secrecy, to the people who were most responsible for causing our economic crisis,” the group said in the video.
It was the second call for a “nonviolent” protest of Bernanke and the Fed’s policies. The group has criticized the growing gap between the rich and poor and monetary policies that they call crimes against humanity.
The Turkish government said Monday that it had detained 32 members who are allegedly part of Anonymous. The group is described as nonviolent cyberactivists who have taken down the sites of Sony, Mastercard and Amazon.
Related stories: LulSez targets FBI affiliate, Nintendo Anonymous hacker collective takes emails from Iranian government
With shells screaming overhead and German snipers only 75 yards away, just staying alive was a remarkable achievement. Yet huddled in the mud-filled trenches, Sapper John T French found the time to compile a remarkable diary. Its pencil-written pages, in immaculate copperplate, give an astonishing insight into life on the front line between 1915 and 1917.
A photo of John French beside his war diaries and medals
It details how the opposing trenches were sometimes so close that the two sides would call a temporary truce to exchange friendly insults across No Man's Land. In one 'rather curious' incident, a British soldier stood above the parapet to shout: 'Come on over, Fritz' in a comedy German accent. One of the enemy then called back - in a perfect English accent - 'No blooming fear'.
Both sides then put their heads above the trench for half an hour to 'laugh and shout' at each other before 'heads went down and the war went on the same as usual'. The three volumes were discovered among the possessions of Mr French's sister Emily following her recent death at the age of 99.
An entry in one of John French's pencil-written war diaries
'Lost' journals: John's daily log of experiences on the front line between 1915 and 1917 have been discovered after the death of his sister
Post war: John French's family photo from 1918. Top row: Jim, Leonard, John, Dorothy, Harold, Eddie, Hyelma. Seated: May, mother Emily Anne, father John Hayne, Audrey. Front row: George and Ernie
They describe the horror of the trenches, such as removing 'piles of men' killed in action and 'shifting and ducking' bullets which scream 'like ten thousand devils on the loose'. But Mr French, a tin miner from Redruth in Cornwall, also writes about the enticing smell of frying bacon, the relief of a good 'sing song', and discovering watercress growing in a stream which 'went all right with bread and cheese'.
The sapper, who was awarded the Military Medal and the Military Cross for conspicuous bravery, even says the war is 'rather exciting' because 'you never know what's coming next'.
'Immensely proud': John's niece Wendy Dawe found three volumes of the journals after the death of his sister
Mr French was eventually promoted to second lieutenant. Although he was wounded in action, he survived the war, but developed TB and died in 1929 aged 37.
He married a young pianist named Eve during a spell in the U.S., but they are believed not to have had any children. The diaries are now on display at the Redruth Old Cornwall Society Museum.
In the running: John pictured winning a half-marathon before the war
Mr French, one of 11 children, was born in 1892. He was a keen runner and before joining the Army was pictured winning a half-marathon - for which he was awarded a trophy worth five guineas. He was sent to France in 1915 as a member of the 254th Tunnelling Company of the Royal Engineers. His diaries describe some of the bloodiest battles of the Great War. He spends his days and nights 'up to my knees in water' digging trenches just 75 yards away from Germans who throw a hail of bombs and grenades which 'go hizzing' around his head.
Vivid memories: John describes mortars which look like 'big sausages'
The men are forced to work in whispers as their tunnels weave between those of the Germans and they flee when chemical weapons descend like 'thick yellow fog'.
Award: John French, here pictured in his uniform, was awarded the Military Cross for Conspicuous Bravery
Enemy snipers, including one particular 'smart and hot' shooter, regularly kill his comrades. Mr French describes the 'awful mess' of limbs sticking out of the ground and times when he is called to dig out men who have been trapped in mud and collapsed trenches. Three days after the 'come on over, Fritz' incident, he writes: 'Up in orders today that any German looking over the parapet is to be shot and any man found talking to them is to be placed under arrest. 'This is the result of the affair a few mornings ago.' Mr French served at Ypres in 1917 - where one battle saw half a million men die - and he talks of the regular 'big pushes' and how 'there won't be many of us left at this rate'. His entry for August 16, 1917, reads: 'Had a rather narrow escape. Shell hit me full in the left side, ripped through my tunic but was stopped by my thick leather belt.
Escaped with nothing worse than a bruise.' Yesterday his niece Wendy Dawe, of Illogan, near Redruth, said his journals make her 'immensely proud'. She added: 'It is in diaries such as this, made by men trying to do their bit, that we see how brave they were and what it was like trying to fight and survive.'
When millions would have done anything to get out, one remarkable British soldier smuggled himself into Auschwitz to witness the horror so he could tell others the truth.
Denis Avey is a remarkable man by any measure. A courageous and determined soldier in World War II, he was captured by the Germans and imprisoned in a camp connected to the Germans' largest concentration camp, Auschwitz.
But his actions while in the camp - which he has never spoken about until now - are truly extraordinary. When millions would have done anything to get out, Mr Avey repeatedly smuggled himself into the camp.
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Now 91 and living in Derbyshire, he says he wanted to witness what was going on inside and find out the truth about the gas chambers, so he could tell others. He knows he took "a hell of a chance".
"When you think about it in today's environment it is ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous," he says.
"You wouldn't think anyone would think or do that, but that is how I was. I had red hair and a temperament to match. Nothing would stop me."
He arranged to swap for one night at a time with a Jewish inmate he had come to trust. He exchanged his uniform for the filthy, stripy garments the man had to wear. For the Auschwitz inmate it meant valuable food and rest in the British camp, while for Denis it was a chance to gather facts on the inside.
Evil
He describes Auschwitz as "hell on earth" and says he would lie awake at night listening to the ramblings and screams of prisoners.
"It was pretty ghastly at night, you got this terrible stench," he says.
He talked to Jewish prisoners but says they rarely spoke of their previous life. Instead they were focused on the hell they were living and the work they were forced to do in factories outside the camp.
"There were nearly three million human beings worked to death in different factories," says Mr Avey. "They knew at that rate they'd last about five months.
"They very seldom talk about their civil life. They only talked about the situation, the punishments they were getting, the work they were made to do."
He says he would ask where people he'd met previously had gone and he would be told they'd "gone up the chimney".
"It was so impersonal. Auschwitz was evil, everything about it was wrong."
He also witnessed the brutality meted out to the prisoners, saying people were shot daily. He was determined to help, especially when he met Jewish prisoner Ernst Lobethall.
'Bloody marvellous'
Mr Lobethall told him he had a sister Susana who had escaped to England as a child, on the eve of war. Back in his own camp, Mr Avey contacted her via a coded letter to his mother.
He arranged for cigarettes, chocolate and a letter from Susana to be sent to him and smuggled them to his friend. Cigarettes were more valuable than gold in the camp and he hoped he would be able to trade them for favours to ease his plight - and he was right.
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Auschwitz prisoner's sister meets man who helped save him
Mr Lobethall traded two packs of Players cigarettes in return for getting his shoes resoled. It helped save his life when thousands perished or were murdered on the notorious death marches out of the camps in winter in 1945.
Mr Avey briefly met Susana Lobethall in 1945, when he came home from the war. He was fresh from the camp and was traumatised by what he'd witnessed and endured.
At the time both of them thought Ernst was dead. He'd actually survived, thanks - in part - to the smuggled cigarettes. But she lost touch with Mr Avey and was never able to tell him the good news.
The BBC has now reunited the pair after tracing Susana, who is now Susana Timms and lives in the Midlands. Mr Avey was told his friend moved to America after the war, where he had children and lived a long and happy life. The old soldier says the news is "bloody marvellous".
'Ginger'
Sadly, the emotional reunion came too late for Ernst - later Ernie - who died never even knowing the real name of the soldier who he says helped him survive Auschwitz.
But before he died Mr Lobethall recorded his survival story on video for the Shoah Foundation, which video the testimonies of Holocaust survivors and witnesses. In it he spoke of his friendship with a British soldier in Auschwitz who he simply called "Ginger". It was Denis.
Ernest Lobethall moved to the US
He also recalled how the cigarettes, chocolate and a letter from his sister in England were smuggled to him in the midst of war.
"It was like being given the Rockefeller Centre," he says in the video.
Mr Avey traded places twice and slept overnight in Auschwitz. He tried a third time but he was almost caught and the plan was aborted.
He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder when he came back from the war and has only recently been able to speak about what he did and what he saw.
He admits some may find it hard to believe and acknowledges it was "foolhardy".
"But that is how I was," he simply says.
An inquisitive family have uncovered a bizarre church which has been hidden under their Victorian home in Shropshire for 100 years.
The Farla family made the discovery while investigating what was under a metre-long rectangle metal grid in their hallway.
The hole under the grid was just big enough for son Gareth, 20, to squeeze down and see what was under their living room.
And he couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the dark chapel complete with a large wooden cross on the floor.
But that was nothing compared the the shock the rest of the family got when he followed a staircase in the chapel and came out of a cupboard in the dining room.
There was also large chest which was filled with old newspapers dating back to the early 1900's and old wine and sherry bottles.
Speaking of the find Matthew Lathan, who also managed to squeeze down, said: "We only discovered it because we were drunkenly fooling around and decided to have a look at what was beneath the grid - It was amazing.
"The first thing we came across in the middle of the basement was an old, open chest and in it were old newspapers and bottles dating back to the 1930s.
"There were also some sort of brick seats around the walls which looked like something you might find in a church."
It's thought the room dates back to the 1700s and could have been used as a clandestine Catholic church.
Steven Wright once said that he wished the first word he spoke was "quote." Then, right before he died he could say, "Unquote." While that would be the greatest last word ever uttered, we have to be realistic here and admit no one could be that cool, lest the universe implode. Nonetheless, here are some valiant efforts worth remembering, last words such as:
1. "This is no time to make new enemies."
These are supposedly the last words of the philosopher Voltaire, uttered when a priest asked him to renounce Satan. Voltaire had been a critic of the church for years and, according to some accounts, his last words, directed at a priest, were actually an angry cry: "For God's sake, let me die in peace!"
Apparently back in the day, the church wouldn't even let you die on your own terms. And it sure as heck wouldn't bury you in its cemetery after such a deathbed quote. Which is exactly why Voltaire's friends, in a final ironic twist, snuck in and buried his corpse in the Abbey of Scellières. Take that, church!
2. "My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has to go."
Oscar Wilde said these last words, referring to the walls of a French hotel where he eventually passed away. What better final quote for a man who debated about the meaning of beauty and art for the better part of his life? However, whereas the first round was won by the wallpaper, in the end, Oscar Wilde fans tore the place apart and refurnished it in the style of a British flat. We like to imagine that somewhere in heaven Oscar Wilde was laughing manically as a mob armed with torches burned the offending French wall decoration.
3. "How's this for a headline? 'French Fries.'"
These are the last words of James D. French, just before he was executed via the electric chair. Get it? We'll take a break here, so everyone can re-read that joke and truly appreciate its genius. But, whereas we love a good pun as much as the next guy, the true reason this sentence is remarkable is the length to which Mr. French went to get himself executed. He was the last man to be sentenced to death in Oklahoma and the only person to get the electric chair in all of the U.S. in the year 1966. In fact, his original sentence was life in prison, but Mr. French then murdered his cellmate, allowing him to share his joke, and the rest of the world to groan at one lousy pun. It's a win-win scenario ... sort of.
4. "One last drink, please."
Jack Daniel said these words just seconds before dying from a blood infection -- a problem that started when one morning he kicked his safe in anger and broke his toe. The moral of the story, printed on a 2006 marketing poster is: You should never go to work early in the morning. We think a better moral is: Use some of the whiskey you're producing by the gallons to disinfect your toe before it kills you. But, you know, that's just us.
5. "... and now for a final word from our sponsor ..."
Not many people remember Charles J. Gussman, but he was the brains behind countless old-school radio shows, as well as the show "Days of Our Lives" -- and even some episodes of "Gilligan's Island." Gussman lived for media and went out the same way he ended most of his shows, placing the spotlight on whoever bankrolled his show.
6. "They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
Just one out of countless morbidly ironic last remarks, this one belongs to General John Sedgwick, who was trying to encourage his troops during the Civil War. If you can't predict what happened seconds after he finished saying this, you've never seen a comedy sketch. Suffice it to say that his troops were extremely motivated -- if by "motivated." you mean scared sh**less because they just saw their leader sniped by the enemy.
7."Only you have ever understood me ... and you got it wrong."
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel was just one of the many philosophers who tried to create a logical system that would encompass all of existence. Apparently, he came pretty close. But, no one could follow his logic for long enough to make any sense of his claims about the universe. These were his last words to his favorite student before dying and leaving hundreds of philosophy majors to wonder what exactly he meant in his books. After which, they wondered what the hell they are going to do with a philosophy degree.
8."Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub."
When you ask someone like Conrad N. Hilton, the man behind the Hilton Hotel Empire, if he has any final wisdom to share with the world, well, you kinda expect something a tad bit more profound than stuff your mom told you every time you took a shower. Then again, this is the family that gave birth to Paris Hilton, so maybe this isn't so bad after all.
9."I should never have switched from scotch to martinis."
Humphrey Bogart was the equivalent of Harrison Ford, George Clooney and Johnny Depp all rolled up into one stone-cold, rugged piece of pure awesomeness. For someone as manly as he, there was no other way to end it all but denounce mixed, fruity drinks and join Jack Daniel in ordering another glass of good old whiskey, be it Scottish or American. We can only raise our glasses and join in a toast -- a toast to all the memorable, funny last words ever uttered.
Computers mimic human reasoning by building on simple rules and statistical averages. Test your strategy against the computer in this rock-paper-scissors game illustrating basic artificial intelligence. Choose from two different modes: novice, where the computer learns to play from scratch, and veteran, where the computer pits over 200,000 rounds of previous experience against you.
Note: A truly random game of rock-paper-scissors would result in a statistical tie with each player winning, tying and losing one-third of the time. However, people are not truly random and thus can be studied and analyzed. While this computer won't win all rounds, over time it can exploit a person's tendencies and patterns to gain an advantage over its opponent.
