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Falling from Great Heights.

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Falling from Great Heights By Roberto Vacca Translated and re-elaborated (a bit) by Leonardo Pavese Lieutenant Giovanni Badalini of the Italian Royal Air Force completed 180 bombing missions over Malta. He was awarded one gold medal and two silver medals for military valor. On July 13, 1943, his S.M. 79 tri-motor bomber was shot down by a British fighter and dove to the ground. Badalini was ejected from the aircraft and fell at a speed greater than 310 mph. His parachute opened almost immediately and decelerated his fall so abruptly it caused him serious internal injuries. Normally, airmen who are ejected at high speed wait for the air resistance to slow them down to about 120 mph before opening their parachutes. After spending about 15 hours in the sea, Badalini was rescued by a British ship. After the Armistice , he went back to fly for the Italian Royal Force, this time against the Nazis; but before that he had to carry out a liaison mission wit
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Ignoranza a prova di proiettile

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L'invincibile ignoranza di Thomas Sowell (Traduzione di L. Pavese). Ma è proprio inevitabile che ogni evento tragico, in cui qualcuno spara contro un gruppo di persone, faccia emergere la totale ignoranza di coloro che propongono il “controllo” delle armi da fuoco? L’errore chiave delle cosiddette norme di controllo delle armi è che certe leggi in realtà non le controllano affatto, ma non fanno altro che disarmare i cittadini rispettosi della legge, mentre coloro i quali sono più inclini alla violenza trovano tutte le armi che vogliono a loro disposizione. Se i fanatici della restrizione delle armi da fuoco avessero solo un po’ di rispetto per il dato di fatto lo avrebbero scoperto un bel po’ di tempo fa, perché nel corso degli anni sono stati fatti numerosi studi, i quali non lasciano più nessun dubbio sul fatto che le leggi intese alla limitazione delle armi da fuoco siano non solo futili ma anche controproducenti. Le località, e i periodi, in cui le norme sul
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The New Martyrs

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     The New 20th Century Martyrs of the Russian Church, killed by Communists, in the Icon of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow.      In 1917, the Russian Orthodox Church numbered about 210,000 members of the clergy (100,000 monks and more than 110,000 diocesan priests). More than 130,000 of them were shot in the period between 1917 and 1941, during the violent persecutions through which the communist regime tried to wipe out the Christian faith in the Soviet Union.      As many as 250 of the bishops present in Russia in 1917 were shot. The other ones survived in prisons or concentration camps, or in any case under severely restrictive conditions. In 1941 there were only four free bishops.      The persecution hit Catholics as well. In 1917 there lived in Russia about two million Catholics who could count on about one thousand priests, 600 churches and as many chapels, two seminaries and one theological university faculty. In 1940 there remained only two priests and two chur
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Cesare Sabelli and Giuseppe Bellanca for the record

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               An Attempted Transatlantic Flight     by Gianclaudio Polidori           Cesare Sabelli, born in 1896 in Montepulciano (Siena, Italy) to upper middle-class parents, after having completed his education joined the Italian Royal Army as non-commission infantry officer. Posted initially to the 9th Army Regiment, he applied and was assigned later to the Corpo Aeronautica Militare (Air Force Corps).      In the Battaglione Aviatori (Aviators Battalion) Sabelli earned his pilot brevet and soon after he began serving at San Giusto (Pisa), and later in Busto Arsizio and Malpensa.      During the First World War, he served honorably, earning several Italian as well as Allied decorations. He had the opportunity to meet various important people of that era and collaborated with Fiorello La Guardia . After his discharge from the Army in 1920, Sabelli moved to the United States, where he started a very profitable real estate business.      In the United States Sabelli maintain his pas
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