US President Barack Obama has sent up Donald Trump's presidential ambitions, joking that the real-estate mogul would turn the White House into a casino.

During the White House correspondents' annual dinner Mr Obama showed a picture of a White House with girls in bikinis sipping cocktails in a hot tub.

The president also made fun of rumours that he was not born in the US.

Mr Trump, a potential Republican presidential candidate, had recently revived the conspiracy theory.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13251819

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Meanwhile at the head office for spiritual comedians:

Royalty and presidents attended a Vatican ceremony for John Paul II on Sunday, including controversial Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and EU leaders who came under fire for taking part.

Mugabe, a practising Catholic, flew into Rome on Saturday with his wife Grace under a special exemption from a European Union travel ban imposed against him in 2002 for multiple human rights abuses under his rule.

Italy has been criticised by rights activists for letting the 87-year old leader transit through Rome to the Holy See. The Zimbabwean leader previously stirred controversy when he attended John Paul II's funeral in 2005.

Rights activists and liberals also condemned the presence of Hungary's right-wing prime minister Vicktor Orban, criticised for a new constitution which includes references to Christianity and traditional family values.

Eighty-seven official delegations in total attended the ceremony.

Seven prime ministers and 16 heads of state looked on as Pope Benedict XVI celebrated mass, including President Bronislaw Komorowski of Poland at the head of a large delegation from John Paul II's native country.

O how wonderful it is to live in such an enlightened age! Just think: not long ago, the U.S. government was seen as little more than a vast war machine -- brutal, murderous, inhumane, bent on global domination. Yet now, by some marvelous, miraculous twist of fate, that same government is being led by a Nobel Peace Prize laureate! It's as if Lyndon Johnson had been turfed out of office back in the day and replaced by Martin Luther King Jr.!

So what the modern-day MLK up to today? In what way was the Laureate in the White House advancing the vision and practice of peace? Why, he was murdering children in a "targeted assassination," of course! He was escalating an increasingly savage "regime change" operation in blatant contradiction to the UN mandate supposedly governing the latest of his escalations and surges around the world.

Yes, on Saturday -- just days after the Peace Laureate's administration announced it was sending unmanned drone bombers into the Libyan civil war, the residence of Libyan leader Moamar Gadafy was torn apart by a precision missile attack. The attack on a residential area of Tripoli missed Gadafy, but killed his youngest son, Saif al-Arab, and three of the leader's grandchildren.

With this great act of peace, Obama surpassed one of his favorite presidents, Ronald Reagan, who only managed to kill a single infant adopted daughter of Gadafy back when he was bombing Libya. The Laureate now has four Gadafy family members -- and blood members, too! -- notched on his gun belt.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2121-annals-of-a-golden-age-peace-laureate-surpasses-reagan-in-killing-gadafy-kin.html

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8601

Biggie & Tupac is a 2002 feature-length documentary film about slain rap icons Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, made by Nick Broomfield. It is an investigation of the deaths of the two icons, which some people claim were orchestrated by Suge Knight, head of Death Row Records.

Gus: Let say on the record that I had no idea who "Biggie & Tupac" were... But in the light of the death of Bin Laden and the attempt on Gaddafi's, I can see a parallel here... The President might have been cryptic...

US tycoon Donald Trump says he will not run for the US presidency in 2012, declaring he is not ready to leave the private sector.

On Monday, he said he could win but "business is my greatest passion".

In recent months, the real estate mogul and reality television star had loudly questioned whether President Barack Obama was born in the US.

The media attention that gained and his already high name recognition boosted him to the top tier of candidates.

In a statement on Monday, Mr Trump said that through his "unofficial" campaigning, he had come to realise that "running for public office cannot be done half heartedly".

Mr Trump, who hosts the reality television programme Celebrity Apprentice, made his announcement on Monday as the NBC television network rolled out its line-up of forthcoming shows.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13418636