Anubis, god of dead, floats down Thames

By RAPHAEL G. SATTER Associated Press Writer

LONDON (AP) -- A giant statue of the ancient Egyptian god of the dead floated down the Thames on Monday, turning heads as it crossed under London's Tower Bridge. AP Photo/Geoff Caddick The 25-foot fiberglass representation of the jackal-headed god was taken down the river on the back of a cargo ship to Trafalgar Square, where it will stand for three days before moving to various locations around the capital. Anubis' arrival is part of an effort to promote an exhibition of the treasures taken from the tomb of the ancient Egyptian King Tutankhamun. The show, "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs," opens Nov. 15 at London's O2, previously known as the Millennium Dome. Tutankhamun ascended to the throne more than 3,000 years ago - during Egypt's 18th dynasty period - while still a child. He reigned for only nine years and had no surviving children. His two stillborn babies were buried with him. The exhibit, which has previously been touring the United States since June 2005, includes the golden diadem worn by the mummified king when archaeologist Howard Carter uncovered his the tomb in 1922 and four miniature gold coffinettes that held Tutankhamun's internal organs. Items from other royal 18th-dynasty graves will also be on display. Organizers said the presence of the 5.6-ton black-and-gold statue was a nod to ancient Egyptian belief that Anubis escorted the dead to the underworld and protected them on their journey. "That's really his role here, today: He's protecting the Tutankhamun exhibition as it leaves America and heads for the U.K," said Ken Kelling, spokesman for Visit London, the city's tourism authority. More than 300,000 tickets already have been sold or reserved for the exhibition, which runs until Aug. 30, organizers said.   Quoted from http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/ART_ANUBIS?SITE=KYLOU&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT: courier-journal.com » The Courier-Journal » Louisville, KY

Technorati Tags:Cool,History,International

How Concorde idea took off – as a model made from folded paper

 

Buyers gearing up to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on Concorde memorabilia this weekend might be surprised to learn that the apotheosis of supersonic travel began life as a paper aeroplane.

Engineers and designers who worked on the Concorde project from its inception in 1959 were not averse to taking their models outside at the British Aircraft Corpopration in Bristol at lunchtime to see how they performed.

Alan Perry, 77, who worked at BAC until the aircraft’s retirement in 2003, said: “There’s no better way to test an idea than to take it outside and see if it flies. Sometimes we’d even use our punch cards. We’d fold them up, take them outside at lunchtime if the weather was nice and see who could fly them farthest from the hanger.

“It may seem strange by today’s standards, but those simple trials were a great help at the time. Bigger and more complex models were used throughout the design process.” Among them were a variety of prototypes for the famous drooping snout, tested at length in a wind tunnel.

These long-forgotten models have been rescued from obscurity in a storeroom belonging to the Science Museum in London as part of a bid for £50 million of lottery funding. The museum wants to bring out of the closet more than 200,000 items for which it has no room to display.

Mr Perry now takes tours round the last Concorde built, which is on show at the Concorde Museum at Filton, Bristol.

Half an hour’s flight – by Concorde, of course – to the south, hundreds of parts from the aircraft, ranging from flight deck gauges to lavatory seats, will go on sale this weekend to enthusiasts keen to own a piece of aviation history.

Hundreds of potential bidders are expected at the old Corn Hall in Toulouse, from where the Franco-British jet made its maiden flight in 1969, for the sale. There are 834 lots with estimates ranging from a few dozen euros for temperature sensors to €3,000 (£2,000) for a 1.25-tonne nose-wheel assembly. But previous auctions have drawn bids far in excess of estimates.

A pair of seats (unused), engineered to high specification for Concorde’s cramped lavatories, are set at €400-€600.

Among the more coveted items are flight deck Mach-meters – estimated at up to €2,500 – which registered the aircraft’s passage through the speed of sound and up to Mach 2 as it crossed the Atlantic in three hours.

Most of the parts, stored by Airbus, the successor to the Aérospéciale company that built Concorde with BAC, never flew. Unused and packed in its wooden box, the wheel strut, without tyres, would have cost British Airways or Air France €1 million to fit.

Proceeds from the sale will go to Aeroscopia, an aviation museum park planned for Toulouse, the home of the French aircraft industry.

Also on sale – probably for under €100 – is a stall-warning sensor of the type that must have blared throughout the brief, fatal flight of the Concorde that crashed after take-off from Charles de Gaulle airport, Paris, in July 2000. Legal actions and prosecutions to attribute blame for the deaths of 113 people are still grinding through the French courts.

Viewing the items for sale offers a glimpse of pure 1960s design, with fine examples of what pilots call the “steam gauge” era. This was the precomputer age when needles pointed at numbers and the all-video readouts of modern jets were still science fiction. One of Concorde’s bulky mechanical artificial horizons is displayed at the residence of the British Ambassador in Paris. Another is on sale in Toulouse for an estimated €1,500.

The sale includes pieces of wing and flight deck windows, but it lacks a trademark drooping nose. One of these sold for nearly £400,000 at an auction in 2003 after being valued at under £10,000.

It is all a long way from those early days and models in Bristol. Frank Nutbeen, 75, an engineer who worked on Concorde from 1959 to 1994, said: “There was a whole think-tank that spent all day folding paper planes and scribbling plans to achieve what most people at the time thought would be impossible.”

With lottery funding in mind – the Science Museum is bidding against five other projects for the £50 million – he added: “These are an important part of human history, and should be available for everyone to see.”

Peter Turvey, 53, head curator, said: “We hope to win the funding we need so the next generation of inventors can be inspired by all these great achievements mankind has made.”

How Concorde idea took off – as a model made from folded paper

Technorati Tags: Cool , History

Sept. 11, 2001: The Day the Earth Stood Still

2001: Militants from al-Qaida, a network of Sunni jihadists under the nominal leadership of Osama bin Laden, hijack four California-bound commercial airliners and use them to stage suicide attacks in New York City and Washington D.C. Nearly 3,000 people are killed in the most carefully orchestrated attack against U.S. targets since Pearl Harbor.

The fallout from what has become known, simply, as 9/11 continues to reverberate internationally, throughout all spheres of life. In the tech world, 9/11 and President Bush's subsequent declaration of a "war on terror" led to some nice profits in some sectors, especially among businesses involved in communications, surveillance, security and weapons technology.

Probably the most conspicuous tech impact on the average citizen involves the security measures now in place at virtually every major airport on Earth. Almost six years of trial and error, and an improvement in scanning equipment and training, have streamlined the process of screening every single passenger on every single flight, but this technology, like any, is hardly foolproof. It is, however, likely to remain a permanent fixture of airline travel.

More insidious is the intrusion of sophisticated surveillance technology into everyday life. Some of it -- like the Bush administration's controversial domestic spying program -- can be tied directly to 9/11. Under provisions granted by the Patriot Act, the government began actively spying on the communications of its own citizens, including the inspection of cell-phone records and e-mail logs.

Federal law enforcement officials, in the name of ferreting out terrorists (as well as more garden-variety criminals like child molesters and online fraudsters), have also pressured ISPs into providing customer information that allows them to track an individual's whereabouts on the internet. The result of all this has led many Americans, and some of their politicians, to begin questioning how much government intrusion is permissible in the name of homeland security.

Since it led directly to the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, 9/11's impact on military technology has also been profound, but not necessarily to the good. Rather, these conflicts have exposed the limitations of high-tech warfare on battlefields lacking a static front or a concentrated enemy force. If anything, the guerrilla war that followed the collapse of Saddam Hussein's conventional army seems better suited to low-tech ordnance: Roadside bombs and portable rocket launchers, for example, have been used to devastating effect against the Americans and their Iraqi allies.

In the end, though, 9/11's immediate effect on technology probably has had less to do with the development of new surveillance toys and weapons than it has with the mindset of the people using what's already available.

(Source: Various)

 

Quoted from http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2007/09/dayintech_0911:

Sept. 11, 2001: The Day the Earth Stood Still

Technorati Tags:History,Privacy,Sad,Scary,War

Odd clothes and unorthodox views - why MI5 spied on Orwell for a decade

· 1984 author suspected of being a communist
· Newly released files reveal Special Branch blunders

Stephen Bates
Tuesday September 4, 2007
The Guardian

'This man has advanced communist views ... He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours ... ' Photograph: Vernon Richards Estate

The extent to which Special Branch police monitored George Orwell as a suspected communist has been revealed in papers disclosed for the first time today at the National Archives in Kew. The documents, which include details of surveillance between the 1920s and 60s, indicate not only the wide range of groups and individuals being watched by police but also officers' spectacular ability to misjudge what they saw. The obtuseness of some exasperated their superiors.

A Sergeant Ewing of Special Branch, monitoring Orwell's attempt to recruit Indians to work for the BBC's India service in January 1942, noted: "This man has advanced communist views ... He dresses in a bohemian fashion both at his office and in his leisure hours." A Home Office official named W Ogilvie - whose pencil was probably responsible for a question mark against Ewing's statement - responded a few days later: "I spoke to Inspector Gill of Special Branch asking whether his sergeant could elaborate on the question of Blair's 'advanced communist views'. Mr Gill rang me up this morning to say that Sergeant Ewing described Blair as being 'an unorthodox communist' apparently holding many of the views but by no means subscribing fully to the party's policy.

"I gathered that the good sergeant was rather at a loss as to how he could describe this rather individual line, hence the expression ... This fits in with the picture we have of Blair@Orwell [sic]. It is evident from his recent writings ... that he does not hold with the Communist party, nor they with him."

The authorities finally decided Orwell was not a communist from his answers to a questionnaire posed to leading leftwing figures and published in Left magazine, including the question: "Should Socialists support the British war effort?" to which he answered, "yes".

By then, Special Branch had been monitoring Orwell for more than 10 years.

Orwell, who was born Eric Arthur Blair in India in 1902, worked for the Burma police in the 1920s before heading to France, where the then penniless writer first came to the attention of MI6.

The file on "Orewell", as his name is spelt at least once, starts with him as Mr EA Blair in January 1929, when he was offering to work as Paris correspondent of the Workers' Life, the forerunner of the Daily Worker. Within a month Scotland Yard noted he was also claiming to be Paris correspondent for the Daily Herald and Daily Express.

It continues in the 30s as he helped out at a leftwing bookshop, Booklovers' Corner in Hampstead, where he was a friend of the owner, Francis Westrope: "[He] and Blair are on friendly terms and the latter is known to spend a good deal of time at the shop. He has on occasion conducted the business. Westrope is known to hold socialist views and considers himself an 'intellectual'."

The file contains a cutting from the Manchester Guardian in September 1938, noting that Orwell had signed the Joint Peace Manifesto alongside the Peace Pledge Union, the Quakers and the Labour party. Two years earlier, the chief constable of Wigan had requested information about the writer, who had been seen addressing Communist party meetings in the town.

There are also details from his passport application, noting: "height 6ft 2ins, eyes grey, hair brown, tattoo marks on the backs of both hands".

The police never found enough on the author of Animal Farm and 1984 to prevent him obtaining a passport or being accredited as a war correspondent for the Observer. A record in the file, dated 1942, describes him as someone who "has been a bit of an anarchist in his day and in touch with extremist elements". It adds that he had "undoubtedly strong leftwing views, but he is a long way from orthodox Communism".

Among others kept under watch in the 1950s was the American folk song collector Alan Lomax, who appeared regularly on the BBC.

Special Branch monitored the programmes, noting his association with the Scottish singer Ewan McColl "who is connected with Theatre Workshop, a dramatic company with communist connections", and even the film director Joseph Losey (left), labelled a communist sympathiser. A concert in St Pancras town hall in December 1953 was deemed suspicious because its theme, Songs of the Iron Road, with "melodies originating on the railway system" was advertised in the Daily Worker.

The BBC was asked to keep an eye on Lomax, but he was allowed to continue broadcasting and his folk song programme preceded the Queen's Christmas Day message in 1957.

A file from 1941 contains 13 pages of reports on a strike by dockyard apprentices in Chatham which followed a complaint about the standard of canteen food.

It includes a report by Sergeant Ivan Smith of the Kent police, who hid himself in the gents' toilet at a working men's club in Gillingham to listen to the speakers at a union meeting: "I was unable to hear the majority of the proceedings owing to my obscure position in the lavatory and to the fact that a boy was standing in the cloakroom door the whole time," it says. "I heard someone say that the best thing would be to have all the big fellows for that job [on the picket line]. The reply was that all present at the meeting should take their share and no shirking. The meeting closed at 1630 hours but I was unable to leave until 1655 as some of the apprentices were in the hall until that time."

The interrogation files of suspected spies and German agents have also been released, including, in that of a Norwegian seaman, a copy of the Naturist magazine of March 1945 whose photographs of nude women and advertisements for breast enhancement and "the Vitaman iodised jockstrap" were combed to see whether they contained writing in invisible ink.

One bulky file contains interviews over years with a Russian defector, Leon Helfland, who had been a KGB officer and assassin, and charge d'affaires in the Soviet embassy in Rome for seven years until he fled to the US in 1940. Helfland told an astonished British consular official named WH Gallienne over lunch in New York in 1941 that the Soviets, Italians and Germans had read every telegram and document from the British embassy in Rome from 1933: "Mr H said they often marvelled at our laxity."

Helfland never named the spy involved, but it is known to have been the Italian valet of the British ambassador, Sir Eric Drummond, who refused to believe that his servant could have betrayed Britain.

Quoted from http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2161853,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=11:

Technorati Tags: Celebrity, History, International, Lame, Politics, Privacy, Scary

Surnames that reveal Pirate ancestry

By Nick Britten With all that pillaging and looting, it could be one of the bloodiest reunions in history when descendants of six of Britain's famous pirates are invited to a get-together. People with the surnames Morgan, Rackham, Bonny, Read, Kidd or Teach, are being invited to discover possible connections with the likes of Blackbeard and Calico Jack, in a series of events by English Heritage. Dressing as a sea dog is optional. Proving your lineage with a real-life buccaneer, however, may prove difficult. Abigail Baker, of the genealogy research organization Achievements Ltd, said: "What could be more exhilarating than finding you are related to one of Britain's most colorful characters?" advertisement However, said Miss Baker, due to their nefarious backgrounds, pirates rarely kept records of their activities. So proving a link can be tricky. The six most famous British pirates are: Sir Henry Morgan (a privateer, or legal pirate), born in 1635 in Glamorgan, Wales, who went on to rule Jamaica. William Kidd, born around 1645 in Renfrewshire, Scotland, and executed for piracy after returning from a voyage to the Indian Ocean. Edward "Blackbeard" Teach was thought to be born in Bristol around 1680. He wove slow-burning fuses into his beard to create clouds of smoke around his scowling face. He is said to have had 14 wives and died in battle, his head being cut off and hung from the rigging. John "Calico Jack" Rackham's was born in 1682, and so named for his penchant for brightly colored clothing. He is remembered for employing two female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Rackham was executed in Jamaica in 1720. Anne Bonny, born around 1698 near Cork, met Rackham in the Bahamas and started an affair with him, before eloping and joining his crew. She was said to be intelligent, attractive, and quick-tempered. Mary Read, born in 1695 in London. She joined Calico Jack's crew and became one of history's most fearsome female pirates. She spent much of her life dressed as a man, and died in 1721. The English Heritage events start this weekend at Dover Castle in Kent and continues next weekend at Whitby Abbey, North Yorks. Anyone who can prove they share the name of one of the six most feared pirates will get in free. Ten pirate facts 1. The idea of buried treasure is mostly a mythical one which is romantically portrayed in books such as Treasure Island. However, one pirate who was known for burying his treasure was Captain Kidd and it is believed he may have started the myth. 2. The notion that pirates only plundered gold, silver and exotic treasure is unfounded. Records suggest a normal haul was far more mundane and involved stealing linens, cloths, food, anchors, rope and sometimes medical supplies. 3. Pirates were therefore very selective about which boats they targeted, to be certain the booty was worth the risks of battle. 4. Most pirates were extreme squanderers and rarely accumulated enough treasure to bury. Due to the danger and uncertainty of their profession, they were usually determined to live for the present rather than save for the future. 5. The Jolly Roger is the pirates' most famous flag, flown to induce their target to surrender. The history of the terms is the subject of great conjecture, a popular theory being it stemmed from the word “rogue”. “Old Roger” is also the term for the Devil. 6. There is no evidence that pirates ever made their victims walk the plank; there was far too much sport of another kind to be had. A favorite method of dealing with prisoners was to tie them to the mast and then pelt the unfortunate victim with broken bottles. 7. In pirate language, “splice the mainbrace” means to have a drink and “to dance with Jack Ketch” means to go to the hangman. 8. Pirate hooks, a popular addition to any costume, probably stemmed from the story of Peter Pan and his arch enemy Captain Hook, who replaced his hand lost in battle with a hook. However, pirates often lost hands in battle and it was common for them to search the ship for something to use as a replacement. 9. Port Royal, Jamaica, became a safe haven for pirates, a place of great wealth and debauchery known as “the wickedest city on Earth”. 10. Modern day pirates exist, especially in the waters off Indonesia and Somalia. Rather than relying on cannons and swords though, they tend to prefer using AK-47 rifles and speed boats. Quoted from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/08/17/npirate117.xml: Surnames that reveal Pirate ancestry - Telegraph

Technorati Tags:History,Weird

Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven'

By Mark Kinver
Science and nature reporter, BBC News

The idea that the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear power plant has created a wildlife haven is not scientifically justified, a study says.

Recent studies said rare species had thrived despite raised radiation levels as a result of no human activity.

But scientists who assessed the 1986 disaster's impact on birds said the ecological effects were "considerably greater than previously assumed".

The findings appear in the Royal Society's journal, Biology Letters.

In April 1986, reactor number four at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant exploded.

After the accident, traces of radioactive deposits were found in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere.

The paper's authors, Anders Moller of University Pierre and Marie Curie, France, and Tim Mousseau from the University of South Carolina, US, said their research did not support the idea that low-level radiation was not affecting animals.

"Recent conclusions from the UN Chernobyl Forum and reports in the popular media concerning the effects of radiation from Chernobyl has left the impression that the exclusion zone is a thriving ecosystem, filled with an increasing number of rare species," they wrote.

Instead, they added: "Species richness, abundance and population density of breeding birds decreased with increasing levels of radiation."

The study, which recorded 1,570 birds from 57 species, found that the number of birds in the most contaminated areas declined by 66% compared with sites that had normal background radiation levels.

It also reported a decline of more than 50% in the range of species as radiation levels increase.

The findings build on a previous study of barn swallows in the affected area, which showed that the number of the birds declined sharply in contaminated areas.

The birds' decline was probably the result of depressed levels of antioxidants after its long migration back to the area, making it more vulnerable to the low-level radiation, the researchers concluded.

"It suggests to us that barn swallows are not alone; there are many other species that appear to be affected in a similar way," Professor Mousseau told BBC News.

"This paper also suggests that birds feeding on insects that are living in the upper surface of the soil, where contaminates are highest, seem to be most likely to be missing or depressed."

He added that they were currently carrying out research to find out whether the decline was a result of the birds eating contaminated insects, or whether it was a result of fewer insects living in affected areas.

"We are also looking for funding to expand the range of ecological studies to include invertebrates, as well as plants and animals."

Radioactive retreat

A recent paper published in the American Scientist magazine suggested that plants and animals were better off in the exclusion zone than specimens outside the 30km radius surrounding the site of the destroyed nuclear reactor.

One of the paper's co-authors, Robert Baker from the Texas Tech University, said that the benefits for wildlife from the lack of human activity outweighed the risks of low-level radiation.

Writing on his university web page, Professor Baker said: "The elimination of human activities such as farming, ranching, hunting and logging are the greatest benefits.

"It can be said that the world's worst nuclear power plant disaster is not as destructive to wildlife populations as are normal human activities."

Professor Mousseau acknowledged Professor Baker's description: "It is true that the Chernobyl region gives the appearance of a thriving ecosystem because of its protection from other human activities.

"However, when you do controlled ecological studies, what we see is a very clear signature of negative effects of contamination on diversity and abundance of organisms.

"We clearly need to be applying scientific method to ecological studies before we can conclude, based on anecdotal observations, that there are no consequences."

Quoted from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6946210.stm:

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven'

On watch at atomic history

By TOM BERG

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

HUNTINGTON BEACH - It was 50 years ago this month the two men defied death in the Nevada desert.

One hour before dawn, the young Marines were placed in an open trench, then ordered to kneel and cover their eyes.

Three miles away, what would be the largest atomic device detonated over U.S. soil was about to explode. Test shot Hood was five times greater than the bomb that killed 90,000 people in Hiroshima, Japan. And no one was sure what would happen this close to ground zero.

The blast blew doors off hinges 14 miles away, rattled homes all the way to Santa Ana and was seen by pilots near Hawaii. And that's not all.

“It was the dirtiest test stateside in terms of radiation fallout,” says R.J. Ritter, national commander of the National Association of Atomic Veterans. “And they walked about 2,200 Marines right into ground zero.”

This included the two men in the closest trench. One was Gary King, now 70, of Huntington Beach, a rough-and-tough Marine who still calls the blast “no big deal.” The other was a former Santa Ana Marine, who saw it quite differently. Darel Brower's memoirs, posted online, describe the eerie pre-dawn silence, the panicky Marines, the silvery-white explosion and the trek through 100-degree heat to ground zero with no masks.
When King read this, he tried to e-mail his former platoon mate. It bounced back. Then he tried to phone, but there was no listing.

He knew they'd both survived the blast 50 years ago. He was left to wonder if they'd both survived the fallout.

BOMB PARTIES

In retrospect, the audacity of 1957's Operation Plumbbob was stunning: a series of 29 aboveground atomic explosions witnessed at close range by 18,000 men testing their ability to fight on a nuclear battlefield.

Planes flew through radioactive clouds. Marines marched through radioactive sand. Paratroopers jumped through radioactive skies. Assaults were launched. Objectives taken. The military measured blast effects on pigs, dogs, rabbits, mannequins, tanks, trucks and the psyches of men witnessing unparalleled power.

Sixty-five miles south, Las Vegas was measuring how to cash in on the mushroom-cloud spectacle with “dawn bomb parties” on hotel rooftops.

Knowledge of radiation was still in its infancy.

“At the time, we were all very cavalier about it,” says King, whose specialty was atomic, biological and chemical warfare. “Nobody really talked about radiation too much. It wasn't a big thing. From the military standpoint, an A-bomb was nothing more than a high-explosive bomb.”

Both King and Brower had to monitor radiation at three detonations: Priscilla, Diablo and Hood. Their observations could not be any more different.

“People ask, ‘Weren't you scared?' ” King says. “The answer is no. We were macho. It was just another assignment.”

Marines climbed out of trenches after each blast and smoked, he says. Or ate. Or napped.

“Most ignored the devices,” he says.

Brower was positioned several miles from the blast, facing away so as not to go blind. He describes the 37-kiloton Priscilla test this way:

“I'm not sure anyone was breathing, as it surely could have been heard,” he wrote. “When the count went from 10 to zero, everything lost its color, including the olive, drab truck parked in front of us. It all turned brilliant silver-white. The air around us was alive with the sizzling and crackling of electrical charges. My neck, which was the only thing exposed to the light, felt as if someone was holding a blowtorch to it.”

A few days later, both men were brought to the trenches for Diablo. It would prove stranger than Priscilla.

Countdown to nothing

Before you're sent to the bottom of a 6-foot-deep trench, three miles from an atomic explosion, you get a warning to close your eyes tight and place an arm in front of them. If they open, you may go blind. You are also warned that if you lift a finger in the air, it will be scorched.

So when the loudspeakers count down – 3, 2, 1, 0 … – and nothing explodes, what should you do?

“No one dared move,” wrote Brower. “For close to 20 minutes we held those positions.”

Legs went numb. Expletives were shouted. Men feared crawling out of the trenches, but Diablo was a dud. Eventually, they were ordered up and trucked away. For King and Brower, that left only the granddaddy of atmospheric tests, the 74-kiloton Hood.

About it they would later agree on something. With eyes clenched tight, kneeling at the bottom of a trench, they both saw the same thing at detonation – the bones in their arms.

21 Cancers

We'll never know what Marine Maj. Charles Broudy saw in the trenches when Hood exploded. Or what he breathed when he marched – like King and Brower – to ground zero. He died of lymphoma in 1977.

We do know that the Veterans Administration denied him benefits, saying he couldn't prove he was there. And that his widow later showed he received more than 5,000 times the 13-millirad dose the government said his film badge read.

Broudy's widow Pat Broudy, 83, of Dana Point, fought an 11-year battle to help win benefits for atomic veterans, who now can claim relief for 21 kinds of cancers.

For many, however, it's too little, too late.

“Most of our guys are old,” she says. “And they don't have the fight or will or knowledge to confront our government agencies anymore.”

The number of living atomic veterans is hard to place. But the National Association of Atomic Veterans estimates that more than 900,000 men and women took part in about 1,000 nuclear tests from 1945 to 1992. And more than 140,000 may have suffered cancer or other illnesses as a result.

So far King is not among them.

“I have prostate cancer, but it's not attributed to that,” says the still macho Marine. “It's because I'm 70 years old. All men get it.”

Which leaves us wondering about his old battalion-mate Darel Brower, whose memoirs prompted King to reflect on the nuclear war games they played 50 years ago. What about him?

Godlike and demonic

Darel Brower, it turns out, is 76 and living in Jacksonville, N.C.

“For an old duff, I'm in good shape,” he says, suffering only heartburn and a slight heart arrhythmia.

The blasts remain vivid in his mind: The greens and blues, the beautiful hues glowing around the fireball, once he could look up, were both godlike and demonic.

That is the lesson he took from those long-ago tests.

“We are definitely part of something deeper,” he says, as if he were still in that trench. “And we are very fragile.”

 

This was found at The Orange County Register.

Technorati Tags: Energy, History, Lame, Sad, Scary, Science

Executive Order: Blocking Property of Certain Persons Who Threaten Stabilization Efforts in Iraq

 

Message to the Congress of the United States Regarding International Emergency Economic Powers Act

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, as amended (50 U.S.C. 1701 et seq.)(IEEPA), the National Emergencies Act (50 U.S.C. 1601 et seq.)(NEA), and section 301 of title 3, United States Code,

I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, find that, due to the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States posed by acts of violence threatening the peace and stability of Iraq and undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq and to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people, it is in the interests of the United States to take additional steps with respect to the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 of May 22, 2003, and expanded in Executive Order 13315 of August 28, 2003, and relied upon for additional steps taken in Executive Order 13350 of July 29, 2004, and Executive Order 13364 of November 29, 2004. I hereby order:

Section 1. (a) Except to the extent provided in section 203(b)(1), (3), and (4) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(1), (3), and (4)), or in regulations, orders, directives, or licenses that may be issued pursuant to this order, and notwithstanding any contract entered into or any license or permit granted prior to the date of this order, all property and interests in property of the following persons, that are in the United States, that hereafter come within the United States, or that are or hereafter come within the possession or control of United States persons, are blocked and may not be transferred, paid, exported,

withdrawn, or otherwise dealt in: any person determined by the Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense,

(i) to have committed, or to pose a significant risk of committing, an act or acts of violence that have the purpose or effect of:

(A) threatening the peace or stability of Iraq or the Government of Iraq; or

(B) undermining efforts to promote economic reconstruction and political reform in Iraq or to provide humanitarian assistance to the Iraqi people;

(ii) to have materially assisted, sponsored, or provided financial, material, logistical, or technical support for, or goods or services in support of, such an act or acts of violence or any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order; or

(iii) to be owned or controlled by, or to have acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order.

(b) The prohibitions in subsection (a) of this section include, but are not limited to, (i) the making of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services by, to, or for the benefit of any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order, and (ii) the

receipt of any contribution or provision of funds, goods, or services from any such person.

Sec. 2. (a) Any transaction by a United States person or within the United States that evades or avoids, has the purpose

of evading or avoiding, or attempts to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

(b) Any conspiracy formed to violate any of the prohibitions set forth in this order is prohibited.

Sec. 3. For purposes of this order:

(a) the term "person" means an individual or entity;

(b) the term "entity" means a partnership, association, trust, joint venture, corporation, group, subgroup, or other organization; and

(c) the term "United States person" means any United States citizen, permanent resident alien, entity organized under the laws of the United States or any jurisdiction within the United States (including foreign branches), or any person in the United States.

Sec. 4. I hereby determine that the making of donations of the type specified in section 203(b)(2) of IEEPA (50 U.S.C. 1702(b)(2)) by, to, or for the benefit of, any person whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order would seriously impair my ability to deal with the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, and I hereby prohibit such donations as provided by section 1 of this order.

Sec. 5. For those persons whose property and interests in property are blocked pursuant to this order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States, I find that, because of the ability to transfer funds or other assets

instantaneously, prior notice to such persons of measures to be taken pursuant to this order would render these measures ineffectual. I therefore determine that for these measures to be effective in addressing the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13303 and expanded in Executive Order 13315, there need be no prior notice of a listing or determination made pursuant to section 1(a) of this order.

Sec. 6. The Secretary of the Treasury, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense, is hereby authorized to take such actions, including the promulgation of rules and regulations, and to employ all powers granted to the President by IEEPA as may be necessary to carry out the purposes of this order. The Secretary of the Treasury may redelegate any of these functions to other officers and agencies of the United States Government, consistent with applicable law. All agencies of the United States Government are hereby directed to take all appropriate measures within their authority to carry out the provisions of this order and, where appropriate, to advise the Secretary of the Treasury in a timely manner of the measures taken.

Sec. 7. Nothing in this order is intended to affect the continued effectiveness of any rules, regulations, orders, licenses, or other forms of administrative action issued, taken, or continued in effect heretofore or hereafter under 31 C.F.R. chapter V, except as expressly terminated, modified, or suspended by or pursuant to this order.

Sec. 8. This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right, benefit, or privilege, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, instrumentalities, or entities, its officers or employees, or any other person.

GEORGE W. BUSH

THE WHITE HOUSE,

July 17, 2007.

 

This was found at The Freakin' White House.

Technorati Tags: Business, History, International, Justice, Laws, Politics, Sad, Scary, War

Blame that bad back on your ancestors

Technorati Tags: Health, History, Science

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A spine specialist trying to figure out why people so often have bad backs says he has come up with a new theory about when and how early humans evolved the ability to walk upright.

The uncannily human-looking backbone of a 21 million-year-old precursor of humans and apes gives the first clue, said Dr. Aaron Filler of the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.

A major change in the vertebrae that allowed this pre-human to stand upright and carry things also made it easier to crush and strain the spongy discs between each vertebra, Filler, a medical doctor with a doctorate in anthropology proposes.

That, in turn, explains why back pain is a leading cause of disability, he said.

Writing in the journal Neurosurgical Focus on Sunday, Filler said one main clue was a bone feature called the transverse process, which sticks out from the side of the hollow, round vertebrae, Filler said in a telephone interview. This is where muscles attach to the spine.

"The vertebra is transformed in a way that literally reverses the mechanics of the spine," Filler said. "The bone lever of the vertebrae gets switched from bending the spine forward to bending the spine back."

Most vertebrates are oriented forward, to walk on all fours. The transverse process is at the front of each vertebra, facing the animal's belly. This is true of monkeys, too.

But in humans and in the 21 million-year-old fossil of a creature called Morotopithecus bishopi, a tree-dwelling, ape-like creature that lived in what is now Uganda, the transverse process has moved backward, behind the opening for the spinal cord.

Great apes, such as chimpanzees, share this feature.

'THE UPRIGHT APE'

The fossil was discovered in the 1960s but no one noticed the important change until 1997, when paleontologist Laura MacLatchy of the State University of New York at Stony Brook reported on the remarkable features of Morotopithecus.

"That means that upright posture bipedalism goes back 20 million years, not just 5 or 6 million years," said Filler.

In his study and in a book published last week called "The Upright Ape -- a new origin of the Species," Filler argues that this common ancestor, and ancestors going back many millions of years before, walked upright. Homo sapiens, the human species, continued upright, while apes evolved back toward all fours, he argues.

"When you look at most ape species, their spines and most of their bodies still look pretty monkey-like," Filler said.

He also said humans evolved a new structure of muscles that pull the body from side to side while standing.

"This is very important for carrying an infant or child," Filler said. "From the point of view of back pain, now we have big muscles doing this heavy work that never did before. They can get torn and strained."

The backward orientation also allows the cushiony discs to get crushed, Filler said. "In most animals the vertebrae get spread apart when they carry infants on their backs when on all fours," he said.

What further differentiates humans from apes is the positioning of the place where the spine attaches to the hips, said Filler, who dissected the backbones of dead gibbons, chimpanzees and macaque monkeys and compared them to bones from living and extinct species of other animals and fossils from various pre-humans.

 

This was found at Reuters.

On this day 1955

1955: Albert Einstein dies
Albert Einstein has died in hospital in Princeton, New Jersey, aged 76.
The eminent scientist and originator of the theory of relativity was admitted to hospital three days ago with an internal complaint.

In recent years Dr Einstein had lived a secluded life although he was still a member of staff at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton University.

In a statement issued following the scientist's death, US President Dwight Eisenhower said: "No other man contributed so much to the vast expansion of the 20th century knowledge.

"Yet no other man was more modest in the possession of the power that is knowledge, more sure that power without wisdom is deadly.

"To all who live in the nuclear age, Albert Einstein exemplified the mighty creative ability of the individual in a free society."

'Disruptive' behaviour

Albert Einstein was born on 14 March 1879 to Jewish parents at Ulm, Wurttenburg in Germany.

Soon afterwards the family moved to Munich where the young Einstein began his education at the Luitpold Gymnasium.

His early academic career was notable only for the fact he was asked to leave his school for "disruptive" behaviour.

But he had always excelled at mathematics - a subject which would later make him the most renowned scientist in the world.

In 1896 Einstein entered the Swiss Federal Polytechnic School in Zurich to train as a physics and maths teacher.

But he struggled to get a job, largely due to the fact he was German, so, in 1902, he accepted a job as a technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office.

It was during his seven years at the Patent Office that, in his spare time, he worked on his mathematical theories which would eventually take the world by storm.

The Special Theory of Relativity, which describes the motion of particles moving close to the speed of light, was published in 1905.

In the years that followed, Einstein took up senior academic posts in Berne and Zurich. In 1911 he became Professor of Theoretical Physics in Prague but returned to Zurich a year later.

However, well-known German physicists, Walter Nernst and Professor Planck, were eager for Einstein to return to Berlin.

In 1913 they persuaded him to take up the position of director of the projected research institute for physics in the University of Berlin and become a member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Science.

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was published in 1916. In 1921 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for physics.

He kept the positions in Berlin until 1933, when he accepted a part-time post at Princeton University in America.

His plan was to divide his time between Germany and America but in the same year the Nazis came to power and Einstein, being a Jew, never returned to his birthland.

This was found at BBC.