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Former President Ford dies
[Quote:]
Gerald R. Ford, who picked up the pieces of Richard Nixon’s scandal-shattered White House as the 38th and only unelected president in America’s history, has died, his wife, Betty, said Tuesday. He was 93.
Minutes of the second meeting of the Target Committee
Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945
[Quote:]
6. Status of Targets
A. Dr. Stearns described the work he had done on target selection. He has surveyed possible targets possessing the following qualification: (1) they be important targets in a large urban area of more than three miles in diameter, (2) they be capable of being damaged effectively by a blast, and (3) they are unlikely to be attacked by next August. Dr. Stearns had a list of five targets which the Air Force would be willing to reserve for our use unless unforeseen circumstances arise. These targets are:
(1) Kyoto – This target is an urban industrial area with a population of 1,000,000. It is the former capital of Japan and many people and industries are now being moved there as other areas are being destroyed. From the psychological point of view there is the advantage that Kyoto is an intellectual center for Japan and the people there are more apt to appreciate the significance of such a weapon as the gadget. (Classified as an AA Target)
(2) Hiroshima – This is an important army depot and port of embarkation in the middle of an urban industrial area. It is a good radar target and it is such a size that a large part of the city could be extensively damaged. There are adjacent hills which are likely to produce a focussing effect which would considerably increase the blast damage. Due to rivers it is not a good incendiary target. (Classified as an AA Target)
(3) Yokohama – This target is an important urban industrial area which has so far been untouched. Industrial activities include aircraft manufacture, machine tools, docks, electrical equipment and oil refineries. As the damage to Tokyo has increased additional industries have moved to Yokohama. It has the disadvantage of the most important target areas being separated by a large body of water and of being in the heaviest anti-aircraft concentration in Japan. For us it has the advantage as an alternate target for use in case of bad weather of being rather far removed from the other targets considered. (Classified as an A Target)
(4) Kokura Arsenal – This is one of the largest arsenals in Japan and is surrounded by urban industrial structures. The arsenal is important for light ordnance, anti-aircraft and beach head defense materials. The dimensions of the arsenal are 4100′ x 2000′. The dimensions are such that if the bomb were properly placed full advantage could be taken of the higher pressures immediately underneath the bomb for destroying the more solid structures and at the same time considerable blast damage could be done to more feeble structures further away. (Classified as an A Target)
(5) Niigata – This is a port of embarkation on the N.W. coast of Honshu. Its importance is increasing as other ports are damaged. Machine tool industries are located there and it is a potential center for industrial despersion. It has oil refineries and storage. (Classified as a B Target)
(6) The possibility of bombing the Emperor’s palace was discussed. It was agreed that we should not recommend it but that any action for this bombing should come from authorities on military policy. It was agreed that we should obtain information from which we could determine the effectiveness of our weapon against this target.
B. It was the recommendation of those present at the meeting that the first four choices of targets for our weapon should be the following:
a. Kyoto b. Hiroshima c. Yokohama d. Kokura Arsenal
C. Dr. Stearns agreed to do the following: (1) brief Colonel Fisher thoroughly on these matters, (2) request reservations for these targets, (3) find out more about the target area including exact locations of the strategic industries there, (4) obtain further photo information on the targets, and (5) to determine the nature of the construction, the area, heights, contents and roof coverage of buildings. He also agreed to keep in touch with the target data as it develops and to keep the committee advised of other possible target areas. He will also check on locations of small military targets and obtain further details on the Emperor’s palace.
[end quote]
Hiroshima re-enacted with CGI.
Done by the BBC as part of the documentary “Hiroshima”. Part 2
Scrooge and intellectual property rights
[Quote:]
At Christmas, we traditionally retell Dickens’s story of Scrooge, who cared more for money than for his fellow human beings. What would we think of a Scrooge who could cure diseases that blighted thousands of people’s lives but did not do so? Clearly, we would be horrified. But this has increasingly been happening in the name of economics, under the innocent sounding guise of “intellectual property rights.”
Intellectual property differs from other property—restricting its use is inefficient as it costs nothing for another person to use it. Thomas Jefferson, America’s third president, put it more poetically than modern economists (who refer to “zero marginal costs” and “non-rivalrous consumption”) when he said that knowledge is like a candle, when one candle lights another it does not diminish from the light of the first. Using knowledge to help someone does not prevent that knowledge from helping others. Intellectual property rights, however, enable one person or company to have exclusive control of the use of a particular piece of knowledge, thereby creating monopoly power. Monopolies distort the economy. Restricting the use of medical knowledge not only affects economic efficiency, but also life itself.
We tolerate such restrictions in the belief that they might spur innovation, balancing costs against benefits. But the costs of restrictions can outweigh the benefits. It is hard to see how the patent issued by the US government for the healing properties of turmeric, which had been known for hundreds of years, stimulated research. Had the patent been enforced in India, poor people who wanted to use this compound would have had to pay royalties to the United States.
In 1995 the Uruguay round trade negotiations concluded in the establishment of the World Trade Organization, which imposed US style intellectual property rights around the world. These rights were intended to reduce access to generic medicines and they succeeded. As generic medicines cost a fraction of their brand name counterparts, billions could no longer afford the drugs they needed. For example, a year’s treatment with a generic cocktail of AIDS drugs might cost $130 (£65; {euro}170) compared with $10 000 for the brand name version.1 Billions of people living on $2-3 a day cannot afford $10 000, though they might be able to scrape together enough for the generic drugs. And matters are getting worse. New drug regimens recommended by the World Health Organization and second line defences that need to be used as resistance to standard treatments develops can cost much more.
Developing countries paid a high price for this agreement. But what have they received in return? Drug companies spend more on advertising and marketing than on research, more on research on lifestyle drugs than on life saving drugs, and almost nothing on diseases that affect developing countries only. This is not surprising. Poor people cannot afford drugs, and drug companies make investments that yield the highest returns. The chief executive of Novartis, a drug company with a history of social responsibility, said “We have no model which would [meet] the need for new drugs in a sustainable way … You can’t expect for-profit organizations to do this on a large scale.
What We Wanted to Tell You About Iran
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HERE is the redacted version of a draft Op-Ed article we wrote for The Times, as blacked out by the Central Intelligence Agency’s Publication Review Board after the White House intervened in the normal prepublication review process and demanded substantial deletions. Agency officials told us that they had concluded on their own that the original draft included no classified material, but that they had to bow to the White House.
Indeed, the deleted portions of the original draft reveal no classified material. These passages go into aspects of American-Iranian relations during the Bush administration’s first term that have been publicly discussed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage; a former State Department policy planning director, Richard Haass; and a former special envoy to Afghanistan, James Dobbins.
These aspects have been extensively reported in the news media, and one of us, Mr. Leverett, has written about them in The Times and other publications with the explicit permission of the review board. We provided the following citations to the board to demonstrate that all of the material the White House objected to is already in the public domain. Unfortunately, to make sense of much of our Op-Ed article, readers will have to read the citations for themselves.
Flaws Are Detected in Microsoft’s Vista
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Microsoft is facing an early crisis of confidence in the quality of its Windows Vista operating system as computer security researchers and hackers have begun to find potentially serious flaws in the system that was released to corporate customers late last month.
On Dec. 15, a Russian programmer posted a description of a flaw that makes it possible to increase a user’s privileges on all of the company’s recent operating systems, including Vista. And over the weekend a Silicon Valley computer security firm said it had notified Microsoft that it had also found that flaw, as well as five other vulnerabilities, including one serious error in the software code underlying the company’s new Internet Explorer 7 browser.
[..]
Microsoft has spent millions branding the Vista operating system as the most secure product it has produced, and it is counting on Vista to help turn the tide against a wave of software attacks now plaguing Windows-based computers.
Vista is critical to Microsoft’s reputation. Despite an almost four-and-half-year campaign on the part of the company, and the best efforts of the computer security industry, the threat from harmful computer software continues to grow. Criminal attacks now range from programs that steal information from home and corporate PCs to growing armies of slave computers that are wreaking havoc on the commercial Internet.
Upgrading the International Space Station
Credit: STS-116 Shuttle Crew, NASA
The International Space Station (ISS) will be the largest human-made object ever to orbit the Earth. The station is so large that it could not be launched all at once — it is being built piecemeal with large sections added continually by flights of the Space Shuttle. To function, the ISS needs trusses to keep it rigid and to route electricity and liquid coolants. These trusses are huge, extending over 15 meters long, and with masses over 10,000 kilograms. Pictured above earlier this month, astronauts Robert L. Curbeam (USA) and Christer Fuglesang (Sweden) work to attach a new truss segment to the ISS and begin to upgrade the power grid.
Pope issues Christmas call to protect children
Joyeux Noel
Legendary singer James Brown dies at 73
[Quote:]
James Brown, the dynamic, pompadoured “Godfather of Soul,” whose rasping vocals and revolutionary rhythms made him a founder of rap, funk and disco as well, died early Monday, his agent said. He was 73.
Brown was hospitalized with pneumonia at Emory Crawford Long Hospital on Sunday and died around 1:45 a.m. Monday, said his agent, Frank Copsidas of Intrigue Music. Longtime friend Charles Bobbit was by his side, he said.
America’s worst office Christmas parties, gifts, and bonuses.
[Quote:]
Our appeal for corporate Scrooges—tales of office parties canceled, miserly bonuses, and pathetic gifts—generated a generous response. Nearly 200 Slate readers wrote in, providing enough fodder for several episodes of The Office. We heard from employees of car dealerships, doctors, and small law firms, but also from blue workers at blue chips, including Burberry, Dow Jones, Goldman Sachs, Disney, Wells Fargo, and Wal-Mart.
[..]
The winner: A contract consultant sends word that the company to which he is currently assigned recently sent out an e-mail to some 2,000-odd consultants. The company would give away two $100 gift cards—to two of the brave souls who would commit to work 80 hours between Dec. 18 and Dec. 31. As our correspondent noted: “Hey, if you work Christmas, we’ll put you in a pool of 2,000 other folks to maybe win a hundred bucks.”
Campaign against real life
Some of you probably know this Dove commercial:
Well, check this response:
Religion does more harm than good
[Quote:]
More people in Britain think religion causes harm than believe it does good, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows that an overwhelming majority see religion as a cause of division and tension – greatly outnumbering the smaller majority who also believe that it can be a force for good.
The poll also reveals that non-believers outnumber believers in Britain by almost two to one. It paints a picture of a sceptical nation with massive doubts about the effect religion has on society: 82% of those questioned say they see religion as a cause of division and tension between people. Only 16% disagree. The findings are at odds with attempts by some religious leaders to define the country as one made up of many faith communities.
Women said peer was ‘demonically oppressed’
[Quote:]
Two women fired from UT-Arlington told supervisors that they prayed and rubbed religious oils on a co-worker’s cubicle because they believed she was “demonically oppressed,” according to personnel records the university released Friday.
Evelyne Micky Shatkin and Linda Shifflett filed a lawsuit against the University of Texas at Arlington on Tuesday alleging that they were fired illegally last spring based on their religion, age and gender.
Shatkin has said they and a male co-worker prayed for a female colleague in a nondisruptive way after work hours March 3.
In an e-mail to supervisors, the male co-worker said he was invited to witness the praying and cleansing but became uncomfortable when Shatkin began to chant loudly and rub perfumed oil on the absent co-worker’s cubicle wall.
The man quoted Shatkin as praying, “You vicious evil dogs. Get the hell out of here in the name of Jesus. … I command you to leave.”
The man wrote that he was not an active participant and that he saw the two women rub the oil on other employees’ work areas as well.
CGSphere
The CGSphere Project is simply this: What can you do with a round object in your 3D world?
Gallery here
Triplane Madness
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Although most people who have even a passing familiarity with First World War aircraft can identify a Fokker Dr1 and perhaps even the Sopwith Triplane, exceedingly few are aware of the tremendous number of aircraft that were designed, built and tested that had more than the usual 2 wings.
Study of this era of aviation shows that most firms that were engaged in aeroplane production tried at least one triplane design and some just couldn’t seem to let go of the idea ( Euler for instance).
During this heady era, with no computer modeling or even a goodly amount of past experience, the only way to find out if an idea would work was to actually build the plane and see if it flew.
Accu Terror Forecast
Discovery of dazed stowaway grounds flight
[Quote:]
A man scaled a security fence at Raleigh-Durham International Airport and boarded a Delta jet in the wee hours of Tuesday morning, landing himself in jail while preventing a flight to Cincinnati from taking off.
Gregory S. Wester of Fuquay-Varina walked onto the Boeing 737-800 and quietly took a seat while a cleaning crew was working on the plane about 3:30 a.m., airport spokeswoman Mindy Hamlin said.
[..]
“It blows my mind that you can’t get 3.5 ounces of toothpaste on a plane,” he said, “yet somebody can sneak on a plane and take a nap.”
Evil Christmas Carols
[Quote:]
Your favorite Christmas songs… played in minor key.
Can you tell what each of these ominous tunes is? Play it with your friends like a sacrilegious quiz game! (The answers are below, in white – highlight them with your mouse to see them!)
1) Jingle Bells (from Hell)
2) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (of Death)
3) Silent Night (Because You’re Dead)
4) Deck the Halls (With Buckets of Blood)
5) Here Comes Santa Claus (to Kill You While You Sleep)
6) The Twelve Days of Christmas (Each More Horrifying than the Last)
7) Away in a Manger (and Other Ways to Abduct a Child)
Joy to the World (but Death to Everyone in it)
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The Ghosts of Internet Time
Welcome back!
Best of wishes….
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all; and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2007, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures, and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of the wishees.
By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.
‘Raamambtenaar’ is herkenbaar fenomeen
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Vier op de tien hogere ambtenaren kennen iemand in hun werkomgeving die weliswaar aanwezig is maar nauwelijks presteert, een zogenoemde raamambtenaar. Dat blijkt vrijdag uit onderzoek van het weekblad Binnenlands Bestuur.
Een raamambtenaar is iemand die ‘s ochtends niet uit het raam mag kijken omdat hij anders ‘s middags niets meer te doen heeft…
‘I’d rather die in a terrorist attack than suffer through an uncomfortable shower’
[Quote:]
Back in September, The Daily Show’s Jason Jones sat down with Paul Cameron, one of the nation’s leading anti-gay activists, to ask about a defense for the “don’t ask, don’t tell? policy. Specifically, Jones asked about Bleu Copas, a decorated sergeant and Arabic language specialist who joined the Army after the 9/11 attacks, but was thrown out for being gay, despite his role in helping translate intercepted messages from possible terrorists.
Cameron said, “I think the country, on the aggregate, is safer without Bleu in the military.? Asked why, Cameron explained, “Guys don’t want to think about other guys, other fellas, ogling them in the shower or whatever.? Jones responded, “I know I’d rather die in a terrorist attack than suffer through an uncomfortable shower with a gay.? Cameron grudgingly responded, “Yes.?
As it turns out, a new Zogby poll shows that men and women in uniform disagree.
A new poll reveals that 73% of military members say they are comfortable around lesbians and gays. And 23% say they know an active duty soldier in their unit who is lesbian or gay…. More than half — 55% — of the troops who know a gay peer said the presence of gays or lesbians in their unit is well known by others. […]
“Those who defend the law have argued that openly gay personnel harm military readiness. This research highlights the absurdity of such a hypothesis,? said C. Dixon Osburn, executive director of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network.
Only 5% of troops said they are “very uncomfortable? around gays.
For years, conservatives have said allowing gay people to wear a uniform and put their lives on the line for their country would undermine troop morale and lead to fewer Americans signing up for military service, because soldiers are ill at ease around gay people. The claim was always weak, but with poll results like these, it’s pretty thoroughly debunked.
First Thing I Saw In Venice
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Americans traveling abroad right now can’t help but be aware that our national profile is not at its best. We’ve gone from Le Monde saying “We Are All Americans” on September 12, 2001 to a situation in which the British — the British! — believe the United States a greater threat to world peace than the North Koreans.
So when Europeans meet an American for the first time these days, they’re looking and trying to make a judgment. Basically, they’re trying to decide if you’re OK or one of the crazy ones.
[..]
I checked into my hotel at about three in the afternoon. I took a nap, like I always do after a transcontinental trip, and after two or three hours, I woke up feeling great; I got ready, got dressed and went out. By now it was about six in the evening, beautiful warm night. I walked out of the hotel, turned left onto a street alive with people. And the first thing I saw was this:
Two young men, early twenties, swaying and swaggering up the street. They were laughing out loud, and even though they were about seventy or eighty feet away, something about them immediately identified them to me as American. Maybe it was because they looked like Brad Pitt. I should add that something about them made me hope that they weren’t American.
As I got closer, I could tell that they were drunk — not reeling, not staggering, not out of control, just drunk and feeling good about it. Everything about their manner commanded attention. They were talking about girls, and in really loud voices — cursing about them, actually, or about some specific girl. And then one said to the other, “Hold on.” He took two or three steps to a gate that separated a garden from the pedestrian walkway. And he pulled down his zipper and started peeing through the fence onto this beautiful garden.
I looked to my right and saw a man from India look and register puzzlement — followed by immediate, all too immediate, comprehension. I saw the Italians in front of me take in the situation with full understanding and then go about their business, neither happy about it nor willing to be provoked into a reaction. I believe that everyone on the street knew that those young men were Americans, and I also believe, though I can’t prove, that that’s why no one on that street looked surprised.
To many outside the United States, that is what Americans have become: Immature, swaggering, stupid as hell, vulgar, heedless, calling attention to ourselves, acting like the world belongs to us, announcing our Americanness everywhere, wrongly convinced that we’re lovable, without respect for anybody, without a capacity for shame, and pissing all over everything.
Iraqi Women’s Bodies Are Battlefields for War Vendettas
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The Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq (OWFI) recently issued a frightening report documenting the growing practice of public executions of women by Shia Militia. One of the report’s more grisly accounts was a story of a young woman dragged by a wire wound around her neck to a close-by football field and then hung to the goal post. They pierced her body with bullets. Her brother came running trying to defend his sister. He was also shot and killed. Sunni extremists are no better: OWFI members estimate that no less than 30 women are executed monthly for honor related reasons.
[..]
Before the U.S. invasion, Iraqi women had high levels of education. Their strong and independent women’s movement had successfully forced Saddam’s government to pass the groundbreaking 1959 Family Law Act which ensured equal rights in matters of personal law. Iraqi women could inherit land and property; they had equal rights to divorce and custody of their children; they were protected from domestic violence within the marriage. In other words, they had achieved real gains in the struggle for equality between women and men. Iraqi women, like all Iraqis, certainly suffered from the political repression and lack of freedom, but the secular — albeit brutal — Baathist regime protected women from the religious extremism that denies freedom to a majority of women in the Arab world.
The invasion of Iraq, however, changed the status of Iraqi women for the worse. Iraq’s new colonial power, the United States, elevated a new group of leaders, most of who were allied with ultra conservative Shia clerics. Among the Sunni minority, the quick disappearance of their once dominant political power led to a resurgence of religious identity. Consequently, the Kurds, celebrated for their history of resistance to the Iraqi dictator, were able to reclaim traditions like honor killings, putting thousands of women at risk.
U.S. to declassify secrets aged 25 and older
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It will be a Cinderella moment for the band of researchers who study the hidden history of American government.
At midnight on Dec. 31, hundreds of millions of pages of secret documents will be instantly declassified, including many FBI cold war files on investigations of people suspected of being Communist sympathizers. After years of extensions sought by federal agencies behaving like college students facing a term paper, the end of 2006 means the government’s first automatic declassification of records.
Secret documents 25 years old or older will lose their classified status without so much as the stroke of a pen, unless agencies have sought exemptions on the ground that the material remains secret.
Historians say the deadline, created in the Clinton administration but enforced, to the surprise of some scholars, by the secrecy-prone Bush administration, has had huge effects on public access, despite the large numbers of intelligence documents that have been exempted.
And every year from now on, millions of additional documents will be automatically declassified as they reach the 25-year limit, reversing the traditional practice of releasing just what scholars request.
Greenpeace
The Year’s Most Interesting Sports Pictures
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Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy of Vietnam serves the ball in a match against China in the game of Sepak Takraw during the Asian Games in Qata
Monica Lewinsky Gets London Economics Degree
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Former White House intern Monica Lewinsky, remembered for her sexual relationship with former President Bill Clinton, has received a Master’s of Science degree in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics, her publicist has announced.
Congratulations! Give that woman a cigar!
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Bye bye James!
James Brown was a great soul music singing legend and the foundation upon which soul music was built.