Earth's Jihad

The Army National Guard: Always Ready?

The motto of the U.S. Army National Guard is "Always Ready - Always There" but, are they really ready?

A Feb. 14, 2008 report by the Government Accountability Office on current operations readiness suggests otherwise.

Equipment Shortages Affect Availability of Items for Nondeployed Units

The GAO report cites, "As we have reported, ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan combined with harsh combat and environmental conditions are inflicting heavy wear and tear on equipment items that, in some cases, are more than 20 years old.

In response to the sustained operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army and Marine Corps developed programs to reset (repair or replace) equipment to return damaged equipment to combat-ready status for current and future operations.

We also have reported that while the Army and Marine Corps continue to meet mission requirements and report high readiness rates for deployed units, nondeployed units have reported a decrease in reported readiness rates, in part due to equipment shortages.

Some units preparing for deployment have reported shortages of equipment on hand as well as specific equipment item shortfalls that affect their ability to carry out their missions.

The Army Chief of Staff has testified that the Army has had to take equipment from nondeployed units in order to provide it to deployed units.

The Marine Corps has also made trade-offs between preparing units to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan and other unit training.

In addition, the Army National Guard and Army Reserve have transferred large quantities of equipment to deploying units, which has contributed to equipment shortages in nondeployed units.

As a result, state officials have expressed concerns about their National Guard’s equipment that would be used for domestic requirements."

106th Aviation Illinois Army National Guard

Just three months after the GAO report, on May 21, 2008, the American Forces Press Service reports a different story.

“Today, the Department of Defense -- active, reserve and National Guard -- is better prepared to assist civil authorities than at any other time in our nation's history,” said Paul McHale, assistant secretary of defense for homeland defense and Americas’ security affairs.

“Our men and women in military uniform are well prepared to provide substantial life-saving assistance to FEMA,” McHale said. “And with a sense of urgency, we will do so if called upon during the 2008 hurricane season.”

Who's right? Let's hope it won't take a hurricane or worse to find out.

Sources: Testimony Before the Armed Services Committee House of Representatives United States Government Accountability Office, MILITARY READINESS, Impact of Current Operations and Actions Needed to Rebuild Readiness of U.S. Ground Forces - PDF (02/14/2008)

Military Better Prepared Than Ever for Disaster Relief, Official Says (5/28/2008)

Ode to the Captain of the Enterprise

At only 25 years of age, Commodore Stephen Decatur, Jr. (1779 – 1820) was the youngest man to reach the rank of captain in the history of the United States Navy.

Given his first command, the brig Argus in 1803, he took it to the Mediterranean for service in the First Barbary War against Tripoli.

Once in the combat zone, then Lieutenant Decatur commanded the schooner Enterprise and, on 23 December 1803, captured the enemy ketch Mastico.

Renamed Intrepid, that vessel was used by Decatur on February 16, 1804 to execute a night raid into Tripoli harbor to destroy the former U.S. frigate Philadelphia, which had been captured after running aground at the end of October 1803.

Admiral Lord Nelson is said to have called this "the most bold and daring act of the age."

"Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia in the Harbor of Tripoli, February 16, 1804", by Edward Moran (1829-1901), 1897.

To honor Decatur after Tripoli was vanquished in 1805, Francis Scott Key wrote the following verse:

Song

When the warrior returns, from the battle afar,
To the home and the country he nobly defended,
O! warm be the welcome to gladden his ear,
And loud be the joy that his perils are ended:
In the full tide of song let his fame roll along,
To the feast-flowing board let us gratefully throng,
Where, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Columbians! a band of your brothers behold,
Who claim the reward of your hearts' warm emotion,
When your cause, when your honor, urged onward the bold,
In vain frowned the desert, in vain raged the ocean:
To a far distant shore, to the battle's wild roar,
They rushed, your fair fame and your rights to secure:
Then, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

In the conflict resistless, each toil they endured,
'Till their foes fled dismayed from the war's desolation:
And pale beamed the crescent, its splendor obscured
By the light of the star-spangled flag of our nation.
Where each radiant star gleamed a meteor of war,
And the turbaned heads bowed to its terrible glare,
Now, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Our fathers, who stand on the summit of fame,
Shall exultingly hear of their sons the proud story:
How their young bosoms glow'd with the patriot flame,
How they fought, how they fell, in the blaze of their glory.
How triumphant they rode o'er the wondering flood,
And stained the blue waters with infidel blood;
How, mixed with the olive, the laurel did wave,
And formed a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Then welcome the warrior returned from afar
To the home and the country he nobly defended:
Let the thanks due to valor now gladden his ear,
And loud be the joy that his perils are ended.
In the full tide of song let his fame roll along,
To the feast-flowing board let us gratefully throng,
Where, mixed with the olive, the laurel shall wave,
And form a bright wreath for the brows of the brave.

Brushed up and revised a little for the War of 1812, and set to the same music (To Anacreon in Heaven), it has enjoyed considerable success since.

The Star-Spangled Banner

Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's early light,
What so proudly we hail'd at the twilight's last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, thro' the perilous fight,
O'er the ramparts we watch'd, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof thro' the night that our flag was still there.
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore dimly seen thro' the mists of the deep,
Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam,
In full glory reflected, now shines on the stream:
'T is the star-spangled banner: O, long may it wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash'd out their foul footsteps' pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

O, thus be it ever when freemen shall stand,
Between their lov'd homes and the war's desolation;
Blest with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n-rescued land
Praise the Pow'r that hath made and preserv'd us as a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause. it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust"
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

How to Tell if You're Being Bugged

Warning Signs of Covert Eavesdropping or Bugging - By Granite Island Group

1. Others know your confidential business or professional trade secrets.
   This is the most obvious indicator of covert eavesdropping activities. Theft of confidential information is a multi-billion dollar underground industry in the United States. Often the loss of your secrets will show up in very subtle ways so you should always trust your instincts in this matter. When your competitors know things that are obviously private, or the media finds out about things they should not know, then it is reasonable to suspect technical eavesdropping or bugging.
2. Secret meetings and bids seem to be less than secret.
   Confidential meetings and bids are very popular targets for corporate spies. How would you like the plans for the corporate takeovers you're planning to become public knowledge? Would copies of your product designs be of any use to your competitors? Would it be beneficial for your competitors to know how much you're quoting for the same project?
3. People seem to know your activities when they shouldn't.
4. You have noticed strange sounds or volume changes on your phone lines.
   This is commonly caused by an amateur eavesdropper when they attach a wiretap, or activate a similar listening device. Surveillance devices often cause slight anomalies on the telephone line such a volume shift or drop-out. Professional eavesdroppers and their equipment usually do not make such noises; so if this is going on it could indicate that an amateur eavesdropper is listening in. On the other hand you could simply be experiencing a flaw in the line, but you should check it out.



VHF phone bug - 33x14x3mm, no need for additional power, up to 200m transmitted range.

5. You have noticed static, popping, or scratching on your phone lines.
   This is caused by the capacitive discharge which occurs when two conductors are connected together (such as a bug or wiretap on a phone line). This is also a sign that an amateur eavesdropper or poorly trained spy is playing with your phone lines. It could be nothing more then a problem with your phone line or instrument, but a TSCM person should evaluate the situation to make sure.
6. Sounds are coming from your phones handset when it's hung up.
   This is often caused by a hook switch bypass, which turns the telephone receiver into a eavesdropping microphone (and also a speaker). There is probably somebody listening to everything you say or do within twenty feet of the telephone (if this is happening).
7. Your phone often rings and nobody is there, or a very faint tone, or high pitched squeal or beep is heard for a fraction of a second.
   This is an indicator of a slave device, or line extender being used on your phone line. This is also a key indicator of a harmonica bug, or infinity transmitter being used. Of course it may also be nothing more then a fax machine or modem calling the wrong number (but a TSCM person should evaluate the situation to make sure).



Phone Parallel TX-1600 - uses its own power and having an input impedance of more than 9 Mohm it is not detectable by most sophisticated detectors.

8. You can hear a tone on your line when your phone is on the hook (by using an external amplifier).
   To check for something like this you would have to obtain a "recorder starter" interface (with a VOX option), or some kind of a high gain audio amplifier such as a uAmp or Kaiser 1059. Then with the phone hung-up listen to your telephone wiring. If you hear a faint solid dual tone it is a dead giveaway of someone using a "slave" eavesdropping device on your (or one of your neighbors) telephone lines. Such devices create a "command tone" when the subject hangs up the phone (so you must ensure that all of your phones are hung-up). On an added note: the most common command tones for illicit eavesdropping devices are 2100 Hz and DTMF-C, but any tone combination may be used.
9. Your AM/FM radio has suddenly developed strange interference.
   Many amateur and spy shop eavesdropping devices use frequencies within or just outside the FM radio band, these signals tend to drift and will "quiet" an FM radio in the vicinity of the bug. Look for the transmissions at far ends of the FM radio band, and at any quiet area within the FM band. If the radio begins to squeal then slowly move it around the room until the sound become very high pitched. This is referred to as feedback detection or loop detection and will often locate the bug. The "stereo" function should be turned off so the radio is operating in "mono" as this will provide a serious increase in sensitivity. If you find a "squealer" in this manner then immediately contact a TSCM and get them to your location FAST.
10. Your car radio suddenly starts "getting weird"
    Keep in mind that the antenna your car radio uses may be (and often is) exploited by an eavesdropper, and that such usage may interfere with radio reception (so be concerned if you automobile radio suddenly starts getting weird).



Nanny cam - wireless surveillance inside a child's toy.

11. Your television has suddenly developed strange interference.
    Television broadcast frequencies are often used to cloak a eavesdropping signal, but such a devices also tends to interfere with television reception (usually a UHF channel). Televisions also "suck in" a lot of RF energy and because of this are very sensitive to any nearby transmitters (this is technically called "Bandwidth, and TV signals use a lot of it). A small handheld television with a collapsible antenna may be used to sweep a room. Carefully watch for interference around channel numbers 2, 7, 13, 14, 50-60, and 66-68 as these frequencies are very popular with eavesdroppers.
12. You have been the victim of a burglary, but nothing was taken.
    Professional eavesdroppers often break into a targets home or office, and very rarely leave direct evidence of the break-in; however, occupants of the premises will often "pickup on something not being right" such as the furniture being moved slightly.
13. Electrical wall plates appear to have been moved slightly or "jarred".
    One of the most popular locations to hide eavesdropping devices is inside, or behind electrical outlets, switches, smoke alarms, and lighting fixtures. This requires that the wall plates be removed. Look for small amounts of debris located on the floor directly below the electrical outlet. Also, watch for slight variations in the color or appearance of the power outlets or light switches as these are often swapped out by an eavesdropper. Also note if any of the screws which hold the wall plate against the wall have been moved from their previous position.



Measuring a miniscule 2x2x2cm, this little camera can be inserted inside your shirt. It can monitor activities 100 meters away and has a very good quality colour lens with a sensitive microphone.

14. A dime-sized discoloration has suddenly appeared on the wall or ceiling.
    This is a tell tale sign that a pinhole microphone or small covert video camera has been recently installed.
15. One of your vendors just gave you any type of electronic device such as a desk radio, alarm clock, lamp, small TV, boom box, CD player, and so on.
    Many of these "gifts" are actually Trojan horses which contain eavesdropping devices. Be very suspicious of any kind of pen, marker, briefcase, calculator, "post-it" dispenser, power adapter, pager, cell phone, cordless phone, clock, radio, lamp, and so on that is given as a gift. That little gift the salesman left for you may be a serious hazard.
16. A small bump or deformation has appeared on the vinyl baseboard near the floor.
    Strong indicator that someone may have concealed covert wiring or a microphone imbedded into the adhesive which holds the molding to the wall. Such deformation will often appear as a color shift, or lightening of the color.
17. The smoke detector, clock, lamp, or exit sign in your office or home looks slightly crooked, has a small hole in the surface, or has a quasi reflective surface.
    These items are very popular concealment for covert eavesdropping devices. Often when these devices are installed at a target location they are rarely installed straight. Also watch out for things like this that "just appear", or when there is a slight change in their appearance.



The Digital Spy Camera Pen is compact enough to fit in your pocket. The device can take images and stores them on its built-in 2MB memory and transfers images to your PC using a serial cable.

18. Certain types of items have "just appeared" in your office of home, but nobody seems to know how they got there.
    Typical items to watch for and beware of are: clocks, exit signs, sprinkler heads, radios, picture frames, and lamps.
19. White dry-wall dust or debris is noticed on the floor next to the wall.
    A sign that a pinhole microphone or video camera may have been installed nearby. It will appear as if someone has dropped a small amount of powdered sugar either on the floor, or on the wall.
20. You notice small pieces of ceiling tiles, or "grit" on the floor, or on the surface area of your desk. Also, you may observe a cracked, chipped, or gouged ceiling tiles, or ones that are sagging, or not properly set into the track.
    Prime indicator that a ceiling tile has been moved around, and that someone may have installed a hidden video camera or other eavesdropping device in your office or near your desk. Also watch for cracks or chips in the ceiling tiles. Amateur and poorly trained spies tend to crack or damage acoustical tiles. The ceiling tiles in any executive areas should never contain any cracks, nicks, gouges, or stains. Any ceiling tile that becomes damaged (for what ever reason) should immediately replaced and the cause of the damage documented. In such cases it is also wise to have a TSCM specialist inspect the area around the chipped, broken, or damaged tile to determine if a hostile eavesdropping device may have been introduced.
21. You notice that "Phone Company" trucks and utilities workers are spending a lot of time near your home or office doing repair work.
    If you see the same or similar vehicles more then three times then you may have a serious problem (at least according to the U.S. State Department training course on counter surveillance).



The SC4142 sprinkler camera blends in with virtually any office, warehouse, restaurant or other public interior environment without giving any sign of surveillance.

22. Telephone, cable, plumbing, or air conditioning repair people show up to do work when no one called them.
    A very common ruse which eavesdroppers use to get into a facility is to fake a utility outage, and then show up to fix the problem. While they are fixing "the problem" they are also installing eavesdropping devices. Some of the more popular outages involve power, air conditioning, telephone, and even the occasional false fire alarm.
23. Service or delivery trucks are often parked nearby with nobody (you can see) in them.
    These vehicles are commonly used as listening posts, be very cautious of any vehicle which has a ladder or pipe rack on the roof. Also, be wary of any vehicle which has tinted windows, or an area which you cannot see though (like a service van). The listening post vehicle could be any vehicle from a small Geo Tracker, Suburban, Blazer, Trooper, or Cargo Van. Look for any vehicle which could conceal a person in the back or has tinted windows. Also, keep in mind that the eavesdropper may relocate the vehicle several times, so look around. Typically, eavesdroppers like to get within 500-750 feet from the place or person they are eavesdropping on.
24. Your door locks suddenly don't "feel right", they suddenly start to get "sticky", or they completely fail.
    Prime evidence that the lock has been picked, manipulated, or bypassed. Try to always use biaxial locks with sidebars (such as ASSA or Medeco). Also, only use double sided deadbolts in all doors, and good quality window bars on all windows, and a good quality door bar on all doors not used as a primary entry doors.



Found in a major food distributor's conference room. It was purchased on Ebay for $23.00.

25. Furniture has been moved slightly, and no one knows why.
    A very popular location for the installation of eavesdropping device is either behind, or inside furniture (couch, chair, lamp, etc.) People who live or work in a targeted area tend to notice when furnishings have been moved even a fraction of an inch. Pay close attention to the imprint which furniture makes on rugs, and the position of lamps shades. Also watch the distance between furniture and the wall as eavesdroppers are usually in a hurry and rarely put the furniture back in the right place.
26. Things "seem" to have been rummaged through, but nothing is missing (at least that you noticed).
    A "less than professional spy" will often rummage through a targets home for hours, but very rarely will they do it in a neat and orderly fashion. The most common "rummaging" targets are the backs of desk drawers, the bottom of file cabinets, closets, and dresser drawers.
27. An eavesdropper sends you a copy of your private conversations.
    As simple as it seems this is the strongest indicator, and solid proof of eavesdropping. An eavesdropper will sometimes send a victim a copy of a private conversation they intercepted in an attempt at blackmail, or in an attempt to terrorize, or to just stalk the victim. This is commonly seen in civil lawsuits, criminal court cases, marital problems, shareholder disputes, custody battles, and other situations were one side has a position of weakness and is trying to physiologically undermine their opponent.

Who Gets Bugged?

High Threat Business Situations

• Your company has stock which is publicly traded (or will be soon)
• Your company is having labor problems, union activities, or negotiations
• Your company is involved in any type of litigation or lawsuit
• Your company has layoffs pending (or they have just happened)
• Your company is involved in the fashion, automotive, advertising, or marketing industry

Anyone can be the target of covert eavesdropping, however; some people are under greater risk than others because of financial position, occupation, legal, or domestic situation.

• Spouses bug each other on a regular basis
• Parents bug children
• Businessmen bug other businessmen
• Scientists bug other scientists
• Students bug professors
• Attorneys bug other attorneys (and their clients)
• Insurance companies bug accident victims, and other claimants
• Construction companies bug other construction companies
• Salesmen bug clients
• Collection agencies bug debtors
• Police officers bug suspects
• Executive recruiters bug personnel directors
• Rock fans bug rock musicians
• Department stores bug customers and merchandise

High Threat Personal Situations (when to be seriously concerned)

You (or someone close to you) have been:

• Involved in any type of litigation or lawsuit
• Been questioned, arrested or arraigned by the police
• In the process of getting married, divorced, or separated
• A minister or religious leader (i.e.: priest, rabbi, deacon, bishop, elder...)
• Running for any type of elected public office
• Elected to any public office (i.e.: mayor, selectman, school principal)
• Executive or scientist at any large company
• Recently filed a insurance claim
• Engaging in political demonstrations or activism
• Employed by a defense contractor, Department of Energy, etc...
• Private Investigators have been "poking" around
• You are in the upper income bracket

Keep in mind that anybody with Money, Power, Influence, or access to sensitive, classified, or personal information is at serious personal risk.

On a related note: If you work (or have worked) for any kind of military, governmental, law enforcement or judicial agency the possibility of you being targeted for eavesdropping is very high. Such eavesdropping can come from either side of the law, and is rarely legal or court sanctioned.

Additionally, people married to, associated with, divorced from, getting divorced from, dating, or getting intimate with a member of law enforcement, private security, PI, or any level of the judicial system should be concerned about illegal eavesdropping (yes, cops love to bug their wives and girlfriends).

If any of the above warning signs apply and you are concerned about covert eavesdropping or wiretapping then it would be wise to immediately contact a Technical Surveillance Counter Measures firm and schedule a "Bug Sweep" or TSCM inspection. However, do not call from a suspect telephone, cellular telephone, or cordless phone.

GHOST: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent, Chapter 1

This is the first chapter of Fred Burton’s new book, GHOST: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent. Burton is vice president for counterterrorism and corporate security at Stratfor. He is the former deputy chief of the Diplomatic Security Service, the Department of State’s counterterrorism division.

Chapter One: The Buried Bodies

0500

February 10, 1986

Bethesda, Maryland

On my morning run through February’s chilly darkness, my chocolate Lab, Tyler Beauregard, sets the pace. This is our routine together, though we always vary our route now. At agent training, which I just completed, they drilled into us the notion that in our new lives, routines will get us killed. When you join the Dark World, you must become unpredictable. Erratic. We must strip away all the conventions of our old lives and fade into the background. We’ve been trained. We’ve practiced. Today, I begin my life as a ghost.

These morning runs will be my one tip to the old life I’m leaving behind. Still, today I take new precautions, such as the snubby Smith & Wesson Model 60 .38-caliber revolver tucked away under my belt.

I love these morning runs with Tyler. She is a remarkable animal, my familiar, a canine that intuits more about loyalty and honor than most of the people I encountered as a police officer in Montgomery County, Maryland. She pads along, tongue lolling, breathing steady. She’s a pro. She could run marathons of her own.

My footfalls echo across the empty Bethesda neighborhood. The tidy brick houses and apartments are dark. In my new life, I’ll be spending a lot of time in darkness. I’ve learned to be paranoid. I’ve learned to look around corners and watch my back. Our instructors warned us that the KGB opens a file on every one of us new agents as soon as we graduate. Then they probe our lives and backgrounds in search of weaknesses, skeletons, or any sort of leverage by which to exploit or co-opt us. Sooner or later, they will make contact with an offer. Or a threat.

I glance behind me, half expecting to see some Eastern Bloc thug in a trench coat shadowing me. But all I see is a thin layer of fog and an empty suburban block.

I look behind me a lot these days. It goes with the job. Situational awareness is essential if we are to stay alive. I don’t run with a Walkman banging out Springsteen’s Born to Run anymore. My ears are unbound and tuned to the street. Every little sound, every shuffle or distant downshift of an automobile on MacArthur Boulevard registers with me. I file each new noise away in my mind, cataloging it so I’ll notice anything out of the ordinary. I’ve been trained to be an observer. Since I started my training last November, I hone and refine this skill on every morning run.

Tyler picks up the pace. She’s taking me toward Glen Echo, a small town on the Potomac. We reach a little jogging trail that runs along Reservoir Road. Here, we escape the suburbs and plunge into the woods. Just before we enter the tree line, I steal a sidelong glance behind me again. I practice this move every day; it is something we learned in training. The trick is to be unobtrusive, to not reveal that you’re clearing your six. It has become automatic for me now.

No tails. We’re not being followed.

Today my life changes forever. I have no idea what is in store for us new guys. I just know that a year ago, I was a Maryland cop. I protected my community. I loved law enforcement, but I wanted something more. So I applied for federal service, and the Diplomatic Security Service offered me a job. Until last fall, I’d never even heard of the DSS.

I started my training in November 1985, just a few weeks after terrorists hijacked the cruise liner Achille Lauro and executed Leon Klinghoffer for the crime of being an American citizen-and a Jew. They shot him then dumped him overboard in his wheelchair.

The world needs more cops.

Only three out of every hundred who start the training get to the finish line. I felt lucky just to be there. After the ceremony, we stood in alphabetically arranged lines waiting to receive our first assignments. Our class coordinator, Special Agent Phil Whitney, began reading off our names and telling us what we’d be doing for the next phase of our lives. Some of us picked up overseas assignments in our embassy field offices. Some landed protective security tours, guarding our diplomats and the secretary of state. Whitney told a few they’d be assigned as diplomatic couriers, where they would carry our nation’s most-guarded secrets from one place to another all around the globe.

When he got to me, Whitney paused. He stared at his clipboard for a moment before saying, “Burton, Counterterrorism Branch.”

I’d had no idea what that was. When Whitney reached the middle of the alphabet he called out, “Mullen, Counterterrorism Branch.”

I looked down the rows of agents to John Mullen. His flaming red hair was easy to spot. I could see him searching me out. We were the only two to be sent to this puzzling assignment. We exchanged confused glances. What had we gotten into?

At least I’d be going into it with a rock-steady veteran. Before he joined the DSS, Mullen had been an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, battling the growing narco-criminal element and cocaine cartels on the streets of New York City. Legend had it that he’d been in a nasty shoot-out and had run out of ammunition in the midst of the fray. After that, he always carried two guns. One he tucked away in a shoulder holster. The other he wore strapped to his ankle. He prepared for the worst and trusted in firepower. I swear we all thought he slept with those weapons. They were his pacifiers.

A light rain drizzles down on us now. Tyler shakes her coat in midstride, sending water droplets flying. I wish I could do that. We’re still on a course that is taking us away from our little redbrick apartment, a fact that I sense is starting to disappoint my dog. I hurry forward until I’m even with her and bend down to run my hands through her damp fur. She looks up at me with pure love. I’ve already told my wife that when I die, Tyler’s ashes will be buried with me.

Back home, my wife, Sharon, is probably just getting up to face her own Monday. We were high school sweethearts and have known each other most of our lives. Up until now, we’ve lived an average DINK life (Double Income, No Kids). She’s an accountant, a damned good one. She’s aggressive and driven and works long hours. Now, I’m a spook. Secrecy is our watchword. I realize with a grin that we’ll have nothing to talk about at cocktail parties.

Tyler Beauregard dashes ahead of me again until she reaches a narrow footbridge. She waits for me to catch up. She knows this bridge. We’ve investigated it before. It is top on the list of Dark World sites to see in Washington, D.C. Of course, there are no plaques or markers noting this piece of spy history. To the average workaday American-guys like me until four months ago-it was just a little bridge over a small creek.

But now I know its dark side. This was Kim Philby’s dead-drop point. Philby was the KGB’s first true superspy, a British intel operative who embraced Communism while at Oxford in the thirties. He compromised hundreds of agents, destroyed scores of operations, and sold out the lives of countless patriots. When his cover was finally blown in the sixties, he escaped to Moscow and got what he deserved: a hellish life under the regime he had helped sustain. In the dingy concrete apartments he later called home, he devolved into a bitter, broken alcoholic given to frequent bouts of complete incoherence. His conscience became his enemy. He died in shame, his name a byword for treason.

In the late 1940s, Philby was posted to Washington, D.C. It was said that he somehow learned the true size of our atomic stockpile, which was not large at the time. He passed that vital tidbit of national security on to the KGB by taping a tube full of documents under this bridge. Legend has it that the information the Russians retrieved here emboldened Stalin to blockade Berlin in 1948.

This is my world now. The days of chasing speeders, driving drunken high school kids home, and taking down burglars is over. At least for me.

Tyler senses I’m brooding and sets off again. This is her way of telling me it is time to return to the warmth of our apartment. I trail along behind her, my breathing easy. As I watch her galloping for home, it strikes me that she too has a connection to the Dark World. She’s from Winchester, Virginia. I bought her from a breeder there in town when she was just a pup. That’s John Mosby country. He was a Confederate colonel, a renegade guerrilla nicknamed the “Gray Ghost” who struck terror into the hearts of Union rear-area types during the height of the Civil War.

Now I’m counterterror. Whatever that means. I suppose like every American who watches the evening news, I’ve seen Americans abroad fall victim to political violence. One terror attack after another has darkened the nightly broadcasts-the Achille Lauro, plane hijackings, car bombings, Beirut. We’re a nation still scarred by the Iran hostage crisis and that 444-day nightmare. Will I be fighting against this sort of criminal now? I’m not sure, but I hope so.

Time to find out. We run through the morning, never retracing our steps. Periodically, I check my rear. No KGB agent picks up my tail. When we reach the apartment, we’re still alone. A half hour out in the neighborhood and we never saw another soul. It is refreshing to have such privacy.

A quick shower and a hastily downed breakfast soon follow our arrival home. I dress carefully. I toss my Casio watch onto the nightstand. I use it only for running. In its place, I strap on a black-faced Rolex Submariner. There’s no way I could afford such a luxury at retail price on my salary. A government special agent makes $22,000. But on our honeymoon to the Virgin Islands a few years ago, I snagged this one for $750.

In the closet, I find my Jos. A. Bank suit. Brown. Standard spook issue. The company gives us agents a discount. I button up a white dress shirt and throw on the one thing that will give me any distinction among my colleagues: a duck-patterned Orvis tie. No sense in totally obliterating my identity with my government threads.

Finally, I reach down to find my Johnston & Murphy lace-up shoes. I used to wear loafers when I wore a suit, but that’s a no-no in the Dark World. Our instructors taught us to always wear lace-up shoes. Why? If you have to kick someone while wearing loafers, chances are your shoe will fly off. Lace-ups stay on through hand-to-hand combat.

I wonder who I’ll need to kick in the months to come.

I slip a Parker rollerball into my shirt pocket, then check my briefcase. Inside is a small black pouch with the Holy Grail of our business: five little pins designed to be affixed to our left lapels. Each one is color-coded: black, red, blue, green, and gold. Depending on the day and the mission, they denote to other agents that the wearer is on protective security duty. That’s basically bodyguard detail, like what the Secret Service does for the president. In agent training, we were told that if we lose these pins, it would automatically trigger an internal affairs investigation.

In the briefcase next to the pouch is my custom-made radio earpiece. It was molded specifically for me and my left ear. When in the field, this will be my lifeline to my fellow agents.

I pull my credentials out of the briefcase. They look like an average wallet until you open them. Inside, they’re marked “This special agent holds a Top Secret clearance and is worthy of trust and confidence.” Our gold badge sits next to those words. I fold the creds up and tuck them into my left jacket pocket. I’m agent number 192.

Last, I strap on my belt holster. It holds two speed loaders for my Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum. I slide the ebony weapon into its sheath and snap the strap in place. With the two speed loaders, I’ve got eighteen rounds. That should be enough. If you can’t get the job done with eighteen shots, you’d better run.

I’m ready for work. Well, almost. It’s a cold day and I’ll need a jacket. Inside my closet hangs a green Barbour Beaufort. This is a standard-issue piece of cold-weather gear for the British MI5 and several other intelligence services. They’re warm and have inner pockets that are perfect for hiding an extra revolver or a small radio. The pockets are lined and keep hands toasty, even on a snowy day. This allows us to forgo gloves, making it easier to draw our weapons.

Or so the veteran spooks have told me.

Back in the day, special agents preferred tweed. Look around D.C. in the sixties and seventies, and the spooks from Langley and the Hooverite FBI agents all wore brown tweed with elbow patches. They looked a bit like college professors, only cooler and in better shape. And well-armed.

That’s old-school now. We new guys go with the Barbour Beauforts. One of my instructors told me just before graduation that in a pinch, if you need help while out on the street during an assignment, look for the Barbour Beaufort jackets. Chances are they’ll be keeping a spook warm.

But for which side?

By now it’s almost six. Sharon’s coiffed and ready for work. We kiss and both of us depart, leaving the apartment to Tyler. She’ll take good care of it.

My gold Jetta awaits. It is not James Bond’s Aston Martin, just the best we could do on our salaries. I climb aboard and head for MacArthur Avenue. I check my rearview mirror every few seconds, memorizing the cars behind me. Are any following? I merge onto Canal Road and pass along the outskirts of the Georgetown University campus.

It seems like such a normal commute in an average part of America. Yet I know that today is going to be different. The life here on the surface, the life 90 percent of us lead, is going to be a mere reflection from now on for me. Already there have been changes. I have a false driver’s license. I’m Fred Booth to people in the normal world. We keep our first names so we respond naturally when somebody uses it. I stole my uncle’s last name for my pseudonym.

There’s another distinction. The plates on my Jetta are standard- looking Maryland issue, but they are blanks in the state’s computer system. If anyone runs a trace on them, the Maryland DMV will alert our office. If the KGB wants info on us newbies, our license plates will be a dead end.

Through the predawn darkness, I drive and watch my tail in the light traffic. Seventeen minutes later, I reach the Harry S Truman Building. This is the State Department’s home base. Located a short ways off the National Mall, it is an imposing edifice.

I flash my creds to the guard. He nods. I’m new; he recognizes it. I ask him where the Counterterrorism Branch is located. He shrugs. Even the guards don’t know where it is. It takes me a few minutes to find my way down to the investigations section, located deep inside the bowels of the building. I find myself underground. No windows, poor air circulation. Government-issued desks abound. Someone takes pity on me and leads me to a narrow corridor, past a set of restrooms, where I am left in front of an oversized wooden door, painted blue. Embedded inside the wood is an S&G combination lock. I knock tentatively.

The door opens, and I come face-to-face with … not James Bond. Medium length, salt-and-pepper hair, mustache, ruddy, rugged features make this man look more like a patrol sergeant than James Bond. For a moment, I’m rooted in place with astonishment. All I can do is stare as he swings back out of the doorway and sits behind a weather-beaten old desk, cigarette dangling from his lips. He ignores me and picks up two phones, sticking one in each ear. Piled on the desk in front of him are stacks of paper. He seems to be reading as he talks. Using a red pen, he scribbles something across a piece of paper even as he shouts into one of the phones. Then he slams it down, takes a long drag on the smoke, and stares up at me.

I look around the room. The walls are bare. The office is tiny, made even smaller by the fact that there are three oversized wooden desks in it. Not Bond’s sits slightly off to one side, but the other two are back-toback. Mullen is perched in an ancient chair that looks like it could have gone government surplus sometime before the Spanish-American War. He appears completely dumbfounded. He’s already surrounded by stacks of paperwork and file folders. He’s gamely making an effort to read something, but I can tell his attention is really on Not Bond, who has returned to chewing somebody out over the other phone while crushing his cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray. He nods at me and points at the remaining desk. Apparently, I get to sit face-to-face with Mullen all day. Privacy is not a luxury we will enjoy here.

A couple of fans blow the dusty air around. Already, it carries a whiff of body odor, tinged with that musty smell yellowing documents give off. They mingle to create a totally new sort of odor, one part locker room, one part dingy, dank document repository, like a high school football team has set up shop in the basement of the National Archives.

Mullen gives me a weak grin, as if to say Welcome to Oz, Burton.

I step to my desk. Around it, in every nook and cranny, tan burn bags are stacked and double stacked. Apparently, we’ll be turning much of the paperwork in here into ashes at some point or another. More burn bags slump against a series of five paint-flecked, industrial gray file cabinets. I wonder what those contain. I glance over at Not Bond. He waves at me and points to my chair. Dutifully, I sit in it. He’s jabbering a mile a minute. Words spill out of his mouth, but I can’t understand what he’s saying. He seems to have his own language. I hear him use Fullback, POTUS, Eagle 1, LIMDIS, and NODIS all in the same series of sentences. Is this English or is Not Bond a Navajo code talker? And will I have to learn all this stuff, too? Who starts a new job that requires a new language?

I try not to stare by keeping my eyes on the file cabinets. It takes me a minute to realize that stacked around us are piles of plastic explosives, some of which are labeled in Russian Cyrillic.

Not Bond lights another cigarette and sticks another phone in his ear. I wonder if smoking around stuff that blows up is all that wise of an idea.

One of the fans blows a big waft of tobacco smoke across my desk. I try not to cough. Mullen studiously avoids eye contact. He looks like a frazzled redheaded college student cramming for a midterm.

Not Bond slams one of his phones down onto its cradle. It’s an old rotary, like something from the seventies. Minutes later, he cradles the other one. This is a mixed blessing. Now all his multitasking attention is riveted on me. We stare at each other. I try not to look panicked, but the truth is I can already see I’m in way over my head. I’m in an office full of bombs.

“Steve Gleason,” says Not Bond. “Sorry about that. Talking with the Folks Across the River.”

I give him a blank look.

“The CIA. This is an unsecured line. We have to talk around things.” He guffaws, takes a deep drag on his smoke, then adds, “As if the Reds couldn’t figure out who the ‘Folks Across the River’ are.”

I stay silent. It seems like the prudent thing to do.

“See those cabinets?” He points his cigarette at the line of gray boxes on the far wall.

I nod.

“That’s where the bodies are buried.”

I hope that’s not literal. At this point, given the plastique, the burn bags, the smells, all bets are off.

He reaches over his desk and grabs a couple of files. He tosses them at me. They slide across my desk. “Beirut I and II. Read them.” I look down. The files are coded with numbers and letters. They offer me no clue as to what they contain.

He lunges for more paperwork. “Open a case number on these two. Then go draw some travel money. We take turns running to FOGHORN to pick up the latest cables.”

I don’t understand any of this. I want to ask what FOGHORN is, but I decide it would be more prudent to remain silent.

“Look, what we do here is very secret. Hardly anyone here at State knows what we do. Keep it that way. What we do here stays in this room, clear?”

“Yes.”

“Read these.” He launches a raft of diplomatic cables my way. The top ones are marked “SECRET” in red letters. I’d never read a secret document in my life. Now, I’m trapped in a blizzard of them. It’ll take me hours to read this stuff.

“Check out the cold cases. Dissect them. Find ways we can keep our people alive in the future, okay?” He stabs the air with his cigarette, pointing at the file cabinets again.

His phone rings. He snatches it up, his attention on me broken. It is time to get to work.

I look down at the pile of paper and wonder where to start.

Chapter Two: Down the Rabbit Hole

Flying into a Hurricane: First-Hand Account

NOAA hurricane research meteorologist Shirley Murillo aboard on one of NOAA's WP-3D Orion hurricane hunter aircraft. Credit: Paul Leighton, NOAA/AOML/HRD.

Flying into a Hurricane: First-Hand Account - By Annaliese Calhoun, SOARS Program Associate.

Shirley Murillo is a research meteorologist at the NOAA Hurricane Research Division in Miami, Fl., an expert on the behavior of hurricanes when they reach landfall. Murillo specializes in examining how hurricane wind fields change as they approach land, and as part of her job, she gets to fly directly into the storms she studies.

In this interview, Murillo discusses what it's like to fly into the eye of a Category 5 hurricane, and how she first became interested in researching weather.

What is flying into the eye of a hurricane like?

It's a once in a lifetime experience! We fly aboard NOAA WP-3D four engine turbo prop research planes. Flying into a hurricane can be turbulent at times. You feel like you're on a roller-coaster -- for 10 hours. I have flown in a variety of storms, from tropical storms that have winds speeds in the range of 34-63 knots (39-73 mph) to powerful category 5 hurricanes with winds speeds that exceed 136 knots (156 mph)!

A lot of people have the misconception that we fly above the storms, but we actually fly into the thick of it, about 10,000-12,000 feet above sea level.

The most turbulence is experienced in the eyewall. The eyewall is a ring or band of strong deep convective clouds that surrounds the eye of a hurricane. The highest wind speeds are found in the eyewall. Once you go through the eyewall to the eye—the storm's center— it can be fairly calm. It's an amazing sight to see; it's almost like being in the center of a football stadium where the seats surrounding you are made out of clouds. At the same time, you look above you can see the bluest color of sky and if you look below you see the ocean roiling with huge waves crashing.

While I've flown into numerous storms, usually a few each year, I always have a sense of excitement and curiosity about how the storm is changing and evolving while we're in there collecting data.

Inside the eye of hurricane Katrina.

Why do you fly into hurricanes when radars and satellites already give us images of the storm?

There's nothing that can replace the type of data that we gather straight from the storm!

During our 8-hour-long flights, we have several flight patterns that we follow to collect various data sets. We're also dropping an instrument called the GPS Dropwindsonde throughout the storm, and even in the eye. This instrument essentially gives us a 3D vertical profile of the storm, including its temperature, wind speed, wind direction, humidity, pressure and location every half second. The data is transmitted instantaneously from the GPS Dropwindsonde to the aircraft where I process the data and quality control it.

This information shows us what's going on inside the storm, and how it's changing or intensifying. The data is transmitted via satellite to the National Hurricane Center and other NOAA agencies that use the data in their computer forecast models to improve track and intensity predictions for the hurricanes.

The data that we collect during these flights often plays a critical role in helping hurricane forecasters to produce accurate and timely warnings. These warnings can save lives and reduce property losses.

The data we've gathered has certainly improved our understanding of the structure of storms. Over the course of a single flight, we can see how quickly the storm evolves in a matter of hours. As we fly back and forth through the eye we can track the pressure dropping and the storm intensifying. You may think you know what the storm is doing, but when you sample it you discover it's a whole different animal.

How did you first become interested in hurricanes and meteorology?

It all began with hurricane Andrew in 1992. It was the first storm I ever experienced firsthand. I was young and I tracked the storm from my home in Florida.

Fortunately my family and I didn't experience the strongest winds and rain so there was not much damage afterwards. Once the electricity came back on and we watched the news, I was really struck by all the images of destruction in southern Florida caused by the category 5 storm. I was intrigued by the strength and power that nature can hold.

You've come a long way since your initial experience with hurricane Andrew. How did you go from observing a hurricane's destruction to flying into its very center?

When I was in high school I decided that I wanted to be a meteorologist and got an internship at the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, Fl. I thought that since I was a high school student the scientists would give me busy-work, but they didn't. They gave me actual data that had been collected in a storm, and when I finished my project they asked for my opinion and conclusions on what the data meant. They even used my findings for some of their research! It struck a chord with me that they valued my work, and since I enjoyed the research atmosphere and community so much I knew I wanted to pursue a career in this field.

~ ~ ~

Ride the Hurricane Hunter into Wilma - YouTube link

How Many Diggers Does It Take to Change a Light Bulb?

One to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed.

Fourteen to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently.

Seven to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs.

Seven more to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs.

Three to correct spelling/grammar errors.

Six to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb".

Another six to condemn those six as stupid.

Fifteen to claim experience in the lighting industry and give the correct spelling.

Nineteen to post that Digg is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb (or light bulb) forum.

Eleven to defend the posting to Digg saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to Digg.

Thirty six to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty.

Seven to post URLs where one can see examples of different light bulbs.

Four to post that the URLs were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL.

Three to post about links they found from the URLs that are relevant to Digg which makes light bulbs relevant to Digg.

Thirteen to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too".

Five to post to Digg that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy.

Four to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"

Thirteen to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs."

Three to tell a funny story about their cat and a light bulb.

AND

One Digg lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now with something unrelated and start it all over again.

The Sirens Remain the Same

Ulysses and the Sirens, Herbert Draper

As we departed Circe's Island, she warned me of the impending danger ahead as we passed the island of the Sirens. She instructed me to plug up all of the ears of my crewmen and to have them tie me to the mast as the beauteous melodies that came from the Sirens cast a spell over those who hear it. Their tunes cause men to thrust themselves overboard into the sea and ultimately to their death.

I vowed to myself that this would not be the fate of my crew. I obeyed Circe’s advice and filled all of my seamen’s ears with wax. They then bound me to the mast tightly. I instructed them to keep me tied up, even if I begged and pleaded with them to untie me. The Sirens weren’t going to get another ship.

As we sailed by, I became desperate to lunge into the sea, but my crew obeyed my previous orders and just pulled me tighter to the mast. Then, as we sailed away, the music becoming fainter, I gave the signal to unseal their ears and untie me. We had conquered the Sirens.

-- by the Greek poet Homer in his Epos Odyssey, circa eighth century BC.

~ ~ ~

"Song of the Sirens" scene from O Brother, Where Art Thou?, 2000 AD.

An American Gorbachev

The following excerpt is from an interview with Lebanese Sunni cleric Sheik Muhammad Abu Al-Qat', which aired on Al-Manar TV on May 10, 2008: (watch it here)

"We say that Allah willing, within 10 to 12 years, America will collapse. This won't happen as a result of war. Not at all. Allah will send to America an American Gorbachev, from within. Gorbachev, who brought about the USSR collapse, was one of them. Everybody knows this story. An American Gorbachev will surface in America, and he will destroy this empire."

Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. - speaks

Smaller Asteroids: A Greater Danger than Previously Believed

Incineration Possible - Fine points of the "fireball" that might be expected from an asteroid exploding in Earth's atmosphere are indicated in a supercomputer simulation devised by a team led by Sandia researcher Mark Boslough. (Photo by Randy Montoya )

The stunning amount of forest devastation at Tunguska a century ago in Siberia may have been caused by an asteroid only a fraction as large as previously published estimates, Sandia National Laboratories supercomputer simulations suggest.

“The asteroid that caused the extensive damage was much smaller than we had thought,” says Sandia principal investigator Mark Boslough of the impact that occurred June 30, 1908. “That such a small object can do this kind of destruction suggests that smaller asteroids are something to consider. Their smaller size indicates such collisions are not as improbable as we had believed.”

Because smaller asteroids approach Earth statistically more frequently than larger ones, he says, “We should be making more efforts at detecting the smaller ones than we have till now.”

The new simulation — which more closely matches the widely known facts of destruction than earlier models — shows that the center of mass of an asteroid exploding above the ground is transported downward at speeds faster than sound. It takes the form of a high-temperature jet of expanding gas called a fireball.

This causes stronger blast waves and thermal radiation pulses at the surface than would be predicted by an explosion limited to the height at which the blast was initiated.

“Our understanding was oversimplified,” says Boslough, “We no longer have to make the same simplifying assumptions, because present-day supercomputers allow us to do things with high resolution in 3-D. Everything gets clearer as you look at things with more refined tools.”

Sandia is a National Nuclear Security Administration laboratory.

The new interpretation also accounts for the fact that winds were amplified above ridgelines where trees tended to be blown down, and that the forest at the time of the explosion, according to foresters, was not healthy. Thus previous scientific estimates had overstated the devastation caused by the asteroid, since topographic and ecologic factors contributing to the result had not been taken into account.

“There’s actually less devastation than previously thought,” says Boslough, “but it was caused by a far smaller asteroid. Unfortunately, it’s not a complete wash in terms of the potential hazard, because there are more smaller asteroids than larger ones.”

Boslough and colleagues achieved fame more than a decade ago by accurately predicting that that the fireball caused by the intersection of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter would be observable from Earth.

Simulations show that the material of an incoming asteroid is compressed by the increasing resistance of Earth’s atmosphere. As it penetrates deeper, the more and more resistant atmospheric wall causes it to explode as an airburst that precipitates the downward flow of heated gas.

Because of the additional energy transported toward the surface by the fireball, what scientists had thought to be an explosion between 10 and 20 megatons was more likely only three to five megatons. The physical size of the asteroid, says Boslough, depends upon its speed and whether it is porous or nonporous, icy or waterless, and other material characteristics.

“Any strategy for defense or deflection should take into consideration this revised understanding of the mechanism of explosion,” says Boslough.

One of most prominent papers in estimating frequency of impact was published five years ago in Nature by Sandia researcher Dick Spalding and his colleagues, from satellite data on explosions in atmosphere. “They can count those events and estimate frequencies of arrival through probabilistic arguments,” says Boslough.

The work was presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco on Dec. 11, 2007. A paper on the phenomenon, co-authored by Sandia researcher Dave Crawford and entitled “Low–altitude airbursts and the impact threat” has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Impact Engineering.

~ ~ ~

Supercomputer Movie Clips

Movie 4 (11.4 MB)
A 62 thousand ton stationary asteroid explodes with an energy of 5 megatons at 5 km above the surface. The movie window is 15 km wide and about 8 km high. Bright colors of the fireball indicate temperature, ranging from steam (dull red) to rock vapor (white). Gray background indicates air density and shows a spherical blast wave that reflects from the ground. The fireball rises buoyantly and cools as it recedes, limiting the thermal effects on the surface. This simulation shows what happens when momentum is ignored to simplify the problem as scientists have done in the past. The airburst is approximated by a "point source" explosion similar to a nuclear detonation.

Movie 1 (11.4 MB)
This simulation shows what happens when momentum is not ignored, an approach that is allowed with modern supercomputers and codes. The same asteroid is now moving through the atmosphere at a typical impact velocity (20 km/s). For illustration purposes, extra energy is deposited into the asteroid when it reaches 5 km, for a total of 5 megatons. Momentum carries the hot fireball down to the surface, which enhances heat and wind effects on the ground.

Movie 8 (9.8 MB)
Close-up of the previous simulation. The box dimensions are 4 km wide and 3 km high. The colors indicate the energy associated with vorticity, the swirling, tornado-like eddies generated by the downward motion. High velocity winds can be sustained at ground level by vortex flow.

Movie 7 (5.3 MB)
Tracking of 5 megaton asteriod that begins exploding at 20 km above the surface, but carries its energy down to about 8 km. Axes are labeled in cm, and colors indicate velocity in cm/s.

Movie 3 (4.8 MB)
3D simulation of a 15 megaton explosion that is initiated 18 km above the surface, for an asteroid entering at an angle of 35 degrees above the horizontal. Box dimensions are 40 km wide, 20 km high. Colors indicate speed. The hot fireball decends to the surface and slides downrange at high velocities, subjecting the landscape to blast-furnace condtions. This did not happen at Tunguska.

Movie 5 (4.2 MB)
Map view of blast zone from 3-D simulation of a 15 megaton explosion. Axes are labeled in centimeters, and colors indicate wind speed. Expanding oblong shape is the blast wave moving along the surface, blowing down trees with wind speeds decreasing from high hurricane force of 60 m/s (magenta) to below 20 m/s (yellow). Blast-furnace conditions are sustained downrange (left) of the origin where the fireball contacted the surface. This did not happen at Tunguska, so the asteroid must have been smaller (less energetic).

Movie 2 (4.8 MB)
3D simulation of a 5 megaton explosion that is initiated 12 km above the surface, for an asteroid entering at an angle of 35 degrees above the horizontal. Box dimensions are 40 km wide, 20 km high. Colors indicate speed. The hot fireball does not reach the surface, but descends to an altitude of 5 km before buoyantly rising. At ground zero, the blast wave comes from directly above, consistent with observations of standing trees at the Tunguska epicenter.

Movie 6 (3.4 MB)
Map view of blast zone from 3-D simulation of a 5 megaton explosion. Axes are labeled in centimeters, and colors indicate wind speed. Expanding oblong shape is the blast wave moving along the surface, blowing down trees with wind speeds decreasing from high hurricane force of 60 m/s (magenta) to below 20 m/s (yellow). Because the fireball stops at high altitude, there is no blast furnace zone near the epicenter and trees remain standing as observed at Tunugska.

~ ~ ~

Sandia is a multiprogram laboratory operated by Sandia Corporation, a Lockheed Martin company, for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. With main facilities in Albuquerque, N.M., and Livermore, Calif., Sandia has major R&D responsibilities in national security, energy and environmental technologies, and economic competitiveness.

7 Reasons a Gun is Better than a Woman

#7. You can trade an old .44 for a new .22

#6. Your primary gun doesn't mind if you keep another gun for a backup.

#5. Your gun will stay with you even if you run out of ammo.

#4. A gun doesn't take up a lot of closet space.

#3. If you admire a friend's gun and tell him so, he will probably let you try it out a few times.

#2. A gun doesn't ask, "Do these new grips make me look fat?"

And the number one reason a gun is favored over a woman....

#1. You can buy a silencer for a gun. : X

Microbial Threats to Health: The Threat of Pandemic Influenza

Microbial Threats to Health: The Threat of Pandemic Influenza

By Mark S. Smolinski, Margaret A. Hamburg, and Joshua Lederberg, Editors, Committee on Emerging Microbial Threats to Health in the 21st Century.

Microbes live in every conceivable ecological niche on the planet and have inhabited the earth for many hundreds of millions of years. Indeed, microbes may be the most abundant life form by mass, and they are highly adaptable to external forces. The vast majority of microbes are essential to human, animal, and plant life. Occasionally, however, a microbe is identified as a pathogen because it causes an acute infectious disease or triggers a pathway to chronic diseases, including some cancers. Certainly, humankind remains ignorant of the full scope of diseases caused by microbial threats, as only a small portion of all microbes have been identified by currently available technologies.

Microbial threats continue to emerge, reemerge, and persist. Some microbes cause newly recognized diseases in humans; others are previously known pathogens that are infecting new or larger population groups or spreading into new geographic areas. Within the last 10 years, newly discovered infectious diseases have emerged in the United States (e.g., hantavirus pulmonary syndrome from Sin Nombre virus) and abroad (e.g., viral encephalitis from Nipah virus). During the same time, the worldwide resurgence of long-recognized infectious diseases (e.g., tuberculosis, malaria, cholera, and dengue) has gained in force. The United States has seen the importation of infectious diseases, such as West Nile encephalitis, measles, multidrug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, and cyclosporiasis, from immigrants, U.S. residents returning from foreign destinations, and products of international commerce.

The realization of just how quickly newly discovered infectious diseases can spread has generated a heightened appreciation of the inherent dangers of microbial pathogens. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) has become the fourth-leading cause of death worldwide in a mere 20 years since its discovery. Today, more than 40 million people are living with infection from the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), and 20 million people have died from AIDS. In just 3 years since West Nile virus was discovered in the Western Hemisphere, the virus has spread from its epicenter in New York to 39 states (including California), infecting thousands and killing hundreds.

Can a focus on naturally occurring microbial threats be maintained in the face of expanded efforts to contain the threat of intentional biological attacks? Some may ask which is the greater risk—the intentional use of a microbial agent to cause sudden, massive, and devastating epidemics of disease, or the continued emergence and spread of natural diseases such as tuberculosis, AIDS, malaria, influenza, and multidrug-resistant bacterial infections. It is a tragic reality that hundreds of people die from naturally occurring infections every hour, whereas until now, intentional biological attacks on a major scale have remained a theoretical risk, rife with political as well as technical uncertainties. HIV/AIDS has taught us the importance of remaining vigilant to the devastation of naturally arising epidemics, which can have profound effects not only on individuals, but also on whole nations and regions. The economic and social disruption that often follows an infectious disease outbreak and typically accompanies the persistent burden due to endemic infectious diseases can be a major destabilizing force for any nation. The challenge is to keep our concerns and responses in reasonable balance.

Throughout history, humans have struggled to control both the causes and the consequences of infectious diseases, and we will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. Disease control for many pathogens includes vaccines and pharmaceuticals, but how long these controls will remain effective or even available is uncertain. We appear less able (or willing) to develop new antimicrobials and vaccines than once was the case, especially for infectious diseases that affect developing countries disproportionately.

A variety of technical, political, social, and economic issues challenge our ability to develop and deploy new antimicrobials and vaccines. The burden of infectious diseases has become further compounded as resistance to vector-control agents and antimicrobials has grown pervasive not only in the United States, but also worldwide.

Factors in Emergence

The convergence of any number of factors can create an environment in which infectious diseases can emerge and become rooted in society. A model was developed to illustrate how the convergence of factors in four domains impacts on the human–microbe interaction and results in infectious disease.

The Convergence Model. At the center of the model is a box representing the convergence of factors leading to the emergence of an infectious disease. The interior of the box is a gradient flowing from white to black; the white outer edges represent what is known about the factors in emergence, and the black center represents the unknown (similar to the theoretical construct of the “black box” with its unknown constituents and means of operation). Interlocking with the center box are the two focal players in a microbial threat to health—the human and the microbe. The microbe–host interaction is influenced by the interlocking domains of the determinants of the emergence of infection: genetic and biological factors; physical environmental factors; ecological factors; and social, political, and economic factors.

Ultimately, the emergence of a microbial threat derives from the convergence of (1) genetic and biological factors; (2) physical environmental factors; (3) ecological factors; and (4) social, political, and economic factors. As individual factors are examined, each can be envisioned as belonging to one or more of these four domains.

Microbial adaptation and change.
Microbes are continually undergoing adaptive evolution under selective pressures for perpetuation. Through structural and functional genetic changes, they can bypass the human immune system and infect human cells. The tremendous evolutionary potential of microbes makes them adept at developing resistance to even the most potent drug therapies and complicates attempts at creating effective vaccines.

Human susceptibility to infection.
The human body has evolved with an abundance of physical, cellular, and molecular barriers that protect it from microbial infection. Susceptibility to infection can result when normal defense mechanisms are altered or when host immunity is otherwise impaired by such factors as genetically inherited traits and malnutrition.

Climate and weather.
Many infectious diseases either are strongly influenced by short-term weather conditions or display a seasonality indicating the possible influence of longer-term climatic changes. Climate can directly impact disease transmission through its effects on the replication and movement (perhaps evolution) of pathogens and vectors; climate can also operate indirectly through its impacts on ecology and/or human behavior.

Changing ecosystems.
In general, changes in the environment tend to have the greatest influence on the transmission of microbial agents that are waterborne, airborne, foodborne, or vector-borne, or that have an animal reservoir. Given today’s rapid pace of ecological change, understanding how environmental factors are affecting the emergence of infectious diseases has assumed an added urgency.

Economic development and land use.
Economic development activities can have intended or unintended impacts on the environment, resulting in ecological changes that can alter the replication and transmission patterns of pathogens. A growing number of emerging infectious diseases arise from increased human contact with animal reservoirs as a result of changing land use patterns.

Human demographics and behavior.
An infectious disease can result from a behavior that increases an individual’s risk of exposure to a pathogen, or from the increased probability of exchange of a communicable infectious disease between humans as the world’s population increases in absolute number. Additional factors include demographic changes such as urbanization and the growth of megacities; the aging of the world’s population and the associated increased risk of infection; and the growing number of individuals immunocompromised by cancer chemotherapy, chronic diseases, or infection with HIV.

Technology and industry.
Infectious diseases have emerged as a direct result of changes in technology and industry. Advances in medical technologies, such as blood transfusions, human organ and tissue transplants, and xenotransplantation (using an animal source), have created new pathways for the spread of certain infections. Even the manner in which animals are raised as food products, such as the use of antimicrobials for growth production, has abetted the rise in infectious diseases by contributing to antimicrobial resistance.

International travel and commerce.
The rapid transport of humans, animals, foods, and other goods through international travel and commerce can lead to the broad dissemination of pathogens and their vectors throughout the world. Microbes that can colonize without causing symptoms (e.g., Neisseria meningitidis) or can infect and be transmissible at a time when infection is asymptomatic (e.g., HIV, hepatitis B, and hepatitis C) can spread easily in the absence of recognition in traveling or migrant hosts. Pathogens in meat and poultry, such as the agents of “mad cow disease,” can also be delivered unintentionally across borders, while the vectors of tropical diseases can be transported in cargo holds or in the wheel wells of international aircraft.

Breakdown of public health measures.
A breakdown or absence of public health measures—especially a lack of potable water, unsanitary conditions, and poor hygiene—has had a dramatic effect on the emergence and persistence of infectious diseases throughout the world. The breakdown of public health measures in the United States has resulted in an increase in nosocomial infections, difficulties in maintaining adequate supplies of vaccines in recent years, immunization rates that are far below national targets for many population groups (e.g., influenza and pneumococcal immunizations in adults), and a paucity of needed expertise in vector control for diseases such as West Nile encephalitis.

Poverty and social inequality.
At the same time that infectious diseases have significant and far-reaching economic implications, social inequality, driven in large part by poverty, is a major factor in emergence. Mortality from infectious diseases is closely correlated with transnational inequalities in income. Global economic trends affect not only the personal circumstances of those at risk for infection, but also the structure and availability of public health institutions necessary to reduce risks.

War and famine.
War and famine are closely linked to each other and to the spread of infectious diseases. Displacement due to war and the fairly consistent sequelae of malnutrition due to famine can contribute significantly to the emergence and spread of infectious diseases such as malaria, cholera, and tuberculosis.

Lack of political will.
If progress is to be made toward the control of infectious diseases, the political will to do so must encompass not only governments in the regions of highest disease prevalence, but also corporations, officials, health professionals, and citizens of affluent regions who ultimately share the same global microbial landscape. The complacency toward the threat of infectious diseases that has become somewhat entrenched in developed countries must reverse in direction if we are to avoid losing windows of opportunity to reduce the global burden of infection.

Intent to harm.
The world today is vulnerable to the threat of intentional biological attacks, and the likelihood of such an event is high. The U.S. public health system and health care providers should be prepared to address various biological agents that pose a risk to national security because of their potential to cause large numbers of deaths and widespread social disruption.

Recognizing and addressing the ways in which the factors in emergence converge to change vulnerability to infectious diseases is essential to the development and implementation of effective prevention and control strategies.

Detecting and responding to global infectious disease threats is in the economic, humanitarian, and national security interests of the United States and essential to the health of its people.

~ ~ ~

Excerpt from: Microbial Threats to Health: The Threat of Pandemic Influenza. ISBN: 978-0-309-09717-8, 48 pages, 6 x 9, paperback (2005). Available through The National Academies Press.

Tech Support: Who Ya Gonna Call?

Phone lines...

in India.

No wonder...

20% of InformationWeek 500 companies say they've taken back offshored work in the past year.

Foamy - Tech Support [NSFW]

Short Film Festival

Star - video link

The BMW M5 and Madonna with Clive Owen as her driver.

~ intermission ~

Copy - video link

When Glenn tries to create a copy of the girl he secretly loves, he finds his problems only multiply.

Winner of Brisbane International Film Festival Fast Film 2006 for Best Film and Audience Prize, Best Film at the Queensland Short Film Festival 2006 and the Encouragement Award at the 2007 Melbourne International Comedy Festival.

A short film by Michael Griffin and Sean Dowling, and starring Sean Dowling, Sarina Downey, David Massingham, the cast of sketch show The Sexy Detective, and a lot of friends. Music by Thomas Griffin.

~ intermission ~

Goodbye to the Normals - video link

Young Magnus has decided to leave home. He is all packed, he has planned his trip to America, and it's now time to say farewell to Mum and Dad. Amused by these juvenile escape plans his parents wave him off down the street, knowing he will soon come running back... won't he?

The actor playing Magnus is a very talented young man by the name of Alfie Field. Goodbye to the Normals was his first ever film role.

3 Really Good Reasons for Learning to Speak German

#3. It makes it fun to watch your favorite DVDs in German.

This scene auf Deutsch (in German) from Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me is funny in any language.

#2. The Food.

Too artery-clogging, you say? Here's some good advice from the Joker (yes, the one from Batman): "If you gotta go... go with a smile."

German food is hardy, savory, pickled, warm and always accompanied by a starch and some sort of fabulous gravy or sauce. Let's not forget the amazing desserts: Apflestrudel, Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte (black forest cake - pictured below,) cheesecakes, hazelnut cakes and tortes of all kinds.

O.K., you don't need to speak German to enjoy German food, but it sure helps when ordering.

Note: Many restaurants will have an English menu so feel free to ask for "eine Englisches carte, bitte."

And the best reason to learn to speak German?

#1. The Beer.

German beer is highly diverse and an important part of Germany's culture. There are around 1,300 breweries in Germany, more than in any other country except the United States which has 1,500.

Especially during Oktoberfest, (a sixteen-day festival held during late September and running to early October,) it is important to know a few beer drinking songs. Here's one of my favorites:

Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken

Mein Hut, der hat drei Ecken,
Drei Ecken hat mein Hut,
Und hätt er nicht drei Ecken,
So wär es nicht mein Hut.

~

My Hat Has Three Corners

My hat has three corners,
Three corners has my hat,
Had it not three corners,
It wouldn't be my hat.

(It's beer drinking music -- it doesn't have to be good.)

Remember if you are with a German that it is impolite not to raise your glass and say "Prost" before you take a sip.

(the beer, continued)

(and for you ladies... I sure hope he's old enough to drink)

(So, he's no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but he isn't German anyway.)

A note of advice: If you plan to impress a German with your newly acquired language skills, make sure you can speak more than just a few cute phrases. Unlike with the Japanese, just a little doesn't go a long way.

If you enjoyed this article, you might also like (from the same series):

3 Really Good Reasons for Learning to Speak Japanese

Auf wiedersehen!

Appease Iran?

Appease Iran? by James Lyons, The Washington Times

In a German editorial last year, Mathias Dapfner, CEO of the huge German publisher Axel Springer AG, wrote a scathing attack in Die Walt, Germany's largest daily paper, against Europe's failure to grasp the extent of the Islamic threat.

He noted that Henry Broder wrote in Welt am Sonntag that "Europe — your family name is appeasement" because it is so true. Looking at history, he reminds us how "appeasement" costs millions of Jews and non-Jews their lives, as England and France tried the "comfortable" diplomatic tack to negotiate away the problem with a ruthless dictator who only used agreements to further his objectives.

How is Germany reacting to the escalating violence by Islamic fundamentalists in the Netherlands, the Middle East and elsewhere today? Believe it or not, the response is to suggest there should be a "Muslim Holiday" in Germany that will somehow spare Germany from the wrath of the Islamic fanatics. Incredible!

With our ability to communicate, why can't Europe and a good part of the population in the United States understand that there is an Islamic fundamentalist movement under way directed toward Western civilization's utter destruction?

It is a conflict conducted by an enemy that cannot be brought under control by "tolerance" and "accommodations." Such gestures only spur them on, and are taken as a sign of weakness.

Here in the United States, we have some responsible leaders who actually recognize what Iran is doing throughout the Middle East and freely admit that what Iran, Syria and the proxy Hezbollah group did in its attempt to take over Lebanon was an outrage. This most recent aggression occurred on the eve of President Bush's trip to Israel and was obviously planned to show not only the weakness of his efforts to prevent such acts but total disdain for his Mideast peace efforts.

Nonetheless, some of these same leaders believe we need to offer the rogue regime in Tehran more incentives to make it act responsibly. This even though we have solid evidence Iran continues to wage war against the United States by fueling violence in Iraq through support of proxies. These leaders dismiss Iran's continued training and arming of the special militia groups with the most effective Iranian weapons, including the lethal roadside bomb called "explosively formed projectile" (EFP) that has caused so many American fatalities. We should now reward Iran for killing thousands of Americans dating from Beirut in 1983 to the current Iraq conflict. Nor does it matter that Iran has directed assassination operations in Iraq against officials who oppose Iran, according to Army Col. H.R. McMaster.

As pointed out by Ehud Yaari in the Jerusalem Report, Iran has developed a sophisticated deterrence strategy using proxies. Some think that will prevent our attacking Iran. It needs to be pointed out that this so-called sophisticated deterrence strategy only exists because we and our allies have failed to act. Those who believe Iran can be deterred from using nuclear weapons fail to grasp the point that it will not be Iran that uses the weapon but its proxies.

With the continued legislative action by the U.S. Congress and the call by two Democratic candidates for president to withdraw our forces from Iraq, why should Iran negotiate? With Iran awash in petrodollars, it can continue to ignore United Nations sanctions (albeit limited), plus other economic sanctions and travel restrictions.

It would be very statesmanlike if this conflict could be resolved diplomatically, economically and politically. Iran's leaders have spurned all incentives to date. But our capitulation is not an acceptable price. In order for Iran to change direction, there must be a direct threat to the survival of the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei regime.

Further, we should recognize they will only negotiate to "buy" time. Their fundamentalist objectives will not change. The key to defeating the broader Islamic fundamentalist threat is winning in Iraq. If the price for winning in Iraq is regime change in Iran, better now before they acquire the ultimate weapon.

~ ~ ~

About the author: James Lyons, U.S. Navy retired admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations, and deputy chief of naval operations, where he was principal adviser on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters.

~ ~ ~

more Cox & Forkum editorial cartoons related to Iran

The Brain That Wouldn't Die

By The City

Goat Cheese Summer

Goat Cheese Summer? O.K. folks, before you think I've lost my mind, let me give you a little insight into how it works -- my mind, that is. The phrase, "goat cheese summer" is one of my favorite mnemonics. It helps me to remember a very important sentence in Japanese -- "Gochiso (goat cheese) sama (summer) deshta. Arigato gozaimasta." Which just happens to translate to: "Thank you very much for the food." So, thank the crazy workings of my mind for today's goat cheese recipes. I'm off to ponder the connections between Japanese language and Greek food. ;)

Bon Appétit!

Chévre Mini Boules

Prep/Total Time: 50 Minutes · Serves: 6

The classic "cheese ball" appetizer is elevated to visual and flavorful new heights with the switch to soft, fresh tasting goat cheese and zesty spring herbs.

Ingredients:

• 1 large head garlic
• 1 small shallot
• 1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 31/2 Tbsp. minced fresh parsley
• 11/2 Tbsp. black sesame seeds
• 1 Tbsp. sesame seeds
• 2 Tbsp. champagne vinegar
• 11/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh rosemary
• 11/2 tsp. finely chopped fresh thyme
• Dash ground black pepper
• Dash sugar
• 12 oz. Ile de France® La Búchette Goat cheese
• French baguette, sliced

Directions:

• Separate garlic cloves from the head, leaving the skin on, and boil for four minutes. Drain, peel and mince garlic and shallot, and sauté in oil until golden.
• Keep garlic mixture in pan, and drain and discard oil or save for another use. Add vinegar, rosemary, thyme, pepper and sugar to pan and cook for 3 minutes until liquid is evaporated.
• Crumble goat cheese in medium bowl, add garlic mixture and stir until combined. Shape into 22 balls.
• Place parsley, peppercorns and sesame seeds in 3 separate bowls, and roll balls in mixtures as desired. Serve with crusty French bread slices.

Recipe Notes: Boiling the garlic makes peeling easier; more importantly, it reduces the strong garlic impact while enhancing its natural nutty, sweet garlicky flavor.

Creamy Asparagus & Goat Cheese Risotto

Prep Time: 15 minutes · Total Time: 50 Minutes · Serves: 6

Luscious, tangy goat cheese creates a fresh, creamy sauce, while Parmigiano Reggiano adds nutty flavor.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tbsp. butter or olive oil
• 4 oz. pancetta, diced
• 1 large onion, finely chopped (1 cup)
• 2 cups Arborio rice
• 1/2 cup dry white wine
• 6 cups chicken broth, heated to a simmer and kept warm
• 1 1/4 lbs. asparagus, trimmed and cut into 1/2" lengths
• 4 oz. Ile de France® Goat cheese, crumbled
• 3 oz. Il Villaggio® Parmigiano Reggiano cheese, finely shredded (1 cup)
• Freshly ground black pepper and Parmigiano Reggiano for serving

Directions:

• In a large (4 qt.) nonstick stockpot, melt butter over medium heat. Add pancetta and cook, until lightly browned, about 4 minutes. Add onion and cook until tender, about 8 minutes.
• Add rice and cook, stirring constantly, 2 minutes. Add wine and cook just until absorbed. Add enough broth to just barely cover rice. Bring to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally and adding broth as needed, 12 minutes.
• Add asparagus; cook, continuing to gradually add broth and stirring more frequently, 10 minutes or until asparagus is tender and rice is cooked through but still has "bite." Remove from heat and stir in goat cheese and Parmigiano Reggiano. Cover and let stand 3 minutes. Stir well before serving with freshly ground black pepper and additional Parmigiano Reggiano.

Mediterranean Fresh Herbed Focaccia

Prep Time: 25 minutes · Total Time: 1 hour 50 minutes · serves: 8

Ingredients:

• 1 pkg. (1/4 oz.) rapid rise yeast
• 2 tsp. sugar
• 1/4 cup packed fresh oregano leaves, divided
• 1/4 cup packed fresh mint leaves, divided
• 1/4 cup packed fresh parsley leaves, divided
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, divided
• 1 1/2 tsp. kosher salt, divided
• 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil, divided
• 1/2 cup gourmet mixed olives, pitted and sliced (or use black olives)
• 2 oz. Ile de France® Chèvre en Salade crumbled goat cheese (1/2 cup)

Directions:

• In a small bowl, combine 1 cup warm water (see tip below), yeast and sugar. Set aside until yeast starts to foam, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, in a food processor, mince the herbs and set aside.
• In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 2 cups flour, 1/3 cup herbs and 1 tsp. salt. (Reserve remaining quantities of these ingredients until the last step.) With machine running on low, add yeast mixture and 1/4 cup oil, and beat until mixed. Add remaining flour and mix just until flour is incorporated. Replace paddle attachment with dough hook, scraping paddle to remove all dough. Process on medium high for 10 minutes, occasionally scraping dough from the side of the bowl.
• Drizzle 1 tsp. oil over the surface of the dough. Rub to coat completely. Cover and let rest 30 minutes in a warm location.
• Lightly spray 2 sheet pans with cooking oil spray. Cut dough into four even sized pieces. Place dough in the pans and spread by hand to make four 9"x5" rectangles. Brush surfaces with 1 tsp. of oil, cover and let rest 20 minutes in a warm location. Preheat oven to 425°F.
• Brush dough again with remaining oil. Using fingers or the end of a wooden spoon, make indentations over the entire surface of the dough. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 tsp. salt. Bake for 12 minutes. Sprinkle with olives, remaining herbs and Chévre. Bake for 3-5 more minutes or until golden brown, slice each piece into fourths and serve warm. Refrigerate leftovers.

Tip: The water should be between 120°F and 130°F to allow the yeast to grow. In a 2-cup microwave-safe measuring cup, heat 1 cup water on HIGH for 50 seconds.

The Nuclear Winter

The Nuclear Winter by Carl Sagan

Except for fools and madmen, everyone knows that nuclear war would be an unprecedented human catastrophe. A more or less typical strategic warhead has a yield of 2 megatons, the explosive equivalent of 2 million tons of TNT. But 2 million tons of TNT is about the same as all the bombs exploded in World War II -- a single bomb with the explosive power of the entire Second World War but compressed into a few seconds of time and an area 30 or 40 miles across…

In a 2-megaton explosion over a fairly large city, buildings would be vaporized, people reduced to atoms and shadows, outlying structures blown down like matchsticks and raging fires ignited. And if the bomb were exploded on the ground, an enormous crater, like those that can be seen through a telescope on the surface of the Moon, would be all that remained where midtown once had been. There are now more than 50,000 nuclear weapons, more than 13,000 megatons of yield, deployed in the arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union -- enough to obliterate a million Hiroshimas.

But there are fewer than 3,000 cities on the Earth with populations of 100,000 or more. You cannot find anything like a million Hiroshimas to obliterate. Prime military and industrial targets that are far from cities are comparatively rare. Thus, there are vastly more nuclear weapons than are needed for any plausible deterrence of a potential adversary.

Nobody knows, of course, how many megatons would be exploded in a real nuclear war. There are some who think that a nuclear war can be "contained," bottled up before it runs away to involve much of the world's arsenals. But a number of detailed analyses, war games run by the U.S. Department of Defense, and official Soviet pronouncements all indicate that this containment may be too much to hope for: Once the bombs begin exploding, communications failures, disorganization, fear, the necessity of making in minutes decisions affecting the fates of millions, and the immense psychological burden of knowing that your own loved ones may already have been destroyed are likely to result in a nuclear paroxysm. Many investigations, including a number of studies for the U.S. government, envision the explosion of 5,000 to 10,000 megatons -- the detonation of tens of thousands of nuclear weapons that now sit quietly, inconspicuously, in missile silos, submarines and long-range bombers, faithful servants awaiting orders.

The World Health Organization, in a recent detailed study chaired by Sune K. Bergstrom (the 1982 Nobel laureate in physiology and medicine), concludes that 1.1 billion people would be killed outright in such a nuclear war, mainly in the United States, the Soviet Union, Europe, China and Japan. An additional 1.1 billion people would suffer serious injufles and radiation sickness, for which medical help would be unavailable. It thus seems possible that more than 2 billion people-almost half of all the humans on Earth-would be destroyed in the immediate aftermath of a global thermonuclear war. This would represent by far the greatest disaster in the history of the human species and, with no other adverse effects, would probably be enough to reduce at least the Northern Hemisphere to a state of prolonged agony and barbarism. Unfortunately, the real situation would be much worse.

In technical studies of the consequences of nuclear weapons explosions, there has been a dangerous tendency to underestimate the results. This is partly due to a tradition of conservatism which generally works well in science but which is of more dubious applicability when the lives of billions of people are at stake. In the Bravo test of March 1, 1954, a 15-megaton thermonuclear bomb was exploded on Bikini Atoll. It had about double the yield expected, and there was an unanticipated last-minute shift in the wind direction. As a result, deadly radioactive fallout came down on Rongelap in the Marshall Islands, more than 200 kilometers away. Most all the children on Rongelap subsequently developed thyroid nodules and lesions, and other long-term medical problems, due to the radioactive fallout.

Likewise, in 1973, it was discovered that high-yield airbursts will chemically burn the nitrogen in the upper air, converting it into oxides of nitrogen; these, in turn, combine with and destroy the protective ozone in the Earth's stratosphere. The surface of the Earth is shielded from deadly solar ultraviolet radiation by a layer of ozone so tenuous that, were it brought down to sea level, it would be only 3 millimeters thick. Partial destruction of this ozone layer can have serious consequences for the biology of the entire planet.

These discoveries, and others like them, were made by chance. They were largely unexpected. And now another consequence -- by far the most dire -- has been uncovered, again more or less by accident.

The U.S. Mariner 9 spacecraft, the first vehicle to orbit another planet, arrived at Mars in late 1971. The planet was enveloped in a global dust storm. As the fine particles slowly fell out, we were able to measure temperature changes in the atmosphere and on the surface. Soon it became clear what had happened:

The dust, lofted by high winds off the desert into the upper Martian atmosphere, had absorbed the incoming sunlight and prevented much of it from reaching the ground. Heated by the sunlight, the dust warmed the adjacent air. But the surface, enveloped in partial darkness, became much chillier than usual. Months later, after the dust fell out of the atmosphere, the upper air cooled and the surface warmed, both returning to their normal conditions. We were able to calculate accurately, from how much dust there was in the atmosphere, how cool the Martian surface ought to have been.

Afterwards, I and my colleagues, James B. Pollack and Brian Toon of NASA's Ames Research Center, were eager to apply these insights to the Earth. In a volcanic explosion, dust aerosols are lofted into the high atmosphere. We calculated by how much the Earth's global temperature should decline after a major volcanic explosion and found that our results (generally a fraction of a degree) were in good accord with actual measurements. Joining forces with Richard Turco, who has studied the effects of nuclear weapons for many years, we then began to turn our attention to the climatic effects of nuclear war. [The scientific paper, "Global Atmospheric Consequences of Nuclear War," was written by R. P. Turco, 0. B. Toon, T. P. Ackerman, J. B. Pollack and Carl Sagan. From the last names of the authors, this work is generally referred to as "TTAPS."]

We knew that nuclear explosions, particularly groundbursts, would lift an enormous quantity of fine soil particles into the atmosphere (more than 100,000 tons of fine dust for every megaton exploded in a surface burst). Our work was further spurred by Paul Crutzen of the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, West Germany, and by John Birks of the University of Colorado, who pointed out that huge quantities of smoke would be generated in the burning of cities and forests following a nuclear war.

Croundburst -- at hardened missile silos, for example -- generate fine dust. Airbursts -- over cities and unhardened military installations -- make fires and therefore smoke. The amount of dust and soot generated depends on the conduct of the war, the yields of the weapons employed and the ratio of groundbursts to airbursts. So we ran computer models for several dozen different nuclear war scenarios. Our baseline case, as in many other studies, was a 5,000-megaton war with only a modest fraction of the yield (20 percent) expended on urban or industrial targets. Our job, for each case, was to follow the dust and smoke generated, see how much sunlight was absorbed and by how much the temperatures changed, figure out how the particles spread in longitude and latitude, and calculate how long before it all fell out in the air back onto the surface. Since the radioactivity would be attached to these same fine particles, our calculations also revealed the extent and timing of the subsequent radioactive fallout.

Some of what I am about to describe is horrifying. I know, because it horrifies me. There is a tendency -- psychiatrists call it "denial" -- to put it out of our minds, not to think about it. But if we are to deal intelligently, wisely, with the nuclear arms race, then we must steel ourselves to contemplate the horrors of nuclear war.

The results of our calculations astonished us. In the baseline case, the amount of sunlight at the ground was reduced to a few percent of normal -- much darker in daylight than in a heavy overcast and too dark for plants to make a living from photosynthesis. At least in the Northern Hemisphere, where the great preponderance of strategic targets lies, an unbroken and deadly gloom would persist for weeks.

Even more unexpected were the temperatures calculated. In the baseline case, land temperatures, except for narrow strips of coastline, dropped to minus 25 Celsius (minus 13 degrees Fahrenheit) and stayed below freezing for months -- even for a summer war. (Because the atmospheric structure becomes much more stable as the upper atmosphere is heated and the low air is cooled, we may have severely underestimated how long the cold and the dark would last.) The oceans, a significant heat reservoir, would not freeze, however, and a major ice age would probably not be triggered. But because the temperatures would drop so catastrophically, virtually all crops and farm animals, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, would be destroyed, as would most varieties of uncultivated or domesticated food supplies. Most of the human survivors would starve.

In addition, the amount of radioactive fallout is much more than expected. Many previous calculations simply ignored the intermediate time-scale fallout. That is, calculations were made for the prompt fallout -- the plumes of radioactive debris blown downwind from each target-and for the long-term fallout, the fine radioactive particles lofted into the stratosphere that would descend about a year later, after most of the radioactivity had decayed. However, the radioactivity carried into the upper atmosphere (but not as high as the stratosphere) seems to have been largely forgotten. We found for the baseline case that roughly 30 percent of the land at northern midlatitudes could receive a radioactive dose greater than 250 rads, and that about 50 percent of northern midlatitudes could receive a dose greater than 100 rads. A 100-rad dose is the equivalent of about 1,000 medical X-rays. A 400-rad dose will, more likely than not, kill you.

The cold, the dark and the intense radioactivity, together lasting for months, represent a severe assault on our civilization and our species. Civil and sanitary services would be wiped out. Medical facilities, drugs, the most rudimentary means for relieving the vast human suffering, would be unavailable. Any but the most elaborate shelters would be useless, quite apart from the question of what good it might be to emerge a few months later. Synthetics burned in the destruction of the cities would produce a wide variety of toxic gases, including carbon monoxide, cyanides, dioxins and furans. After the dust and soot settled out, the solar ultraviolet flux would be much larger than its present value. Immunity to disease would decline. Epidemics and pandemics would be rampant, especially after the billion or so unburied bodies began to thaw. Moreover, the combined influence of these severe and simultaneous stresses on life are likely to produce even more adverse consequences -- biologists call them synergisms -- that we are not yet wise enough to foresee.

So far, we have talked only of the Northern Hemisphere. But it now seems -- unlike the case of a single nuclear weapons test -- that in a real nuclear war, the heating of the vast quantities of atmospheric dust and soot in northern midlatitudes will transport these fine particles toward and across the Equator. We see just this happening in Martian dust storms. The Southern Hemisphere would experience effects that, while less severe than in the Northern Hemisphere, are nevertheless extremely ominous. The illusion with which some people in the Northern Hemisphere reassure themselves -- catching an Air New Zealand flight in a time of serious international crisis, or the like -- is now much less tenable, even on the narrow issue of personal survival for those with the price of a ticket.

But what if nuclear wars can be contained, and much less than 5,000 megatons is detonated? Perhaps the greatest surprise in our work was that even small nuclear wars can have devastating climatic effects. We considered a war in which a mere 100 megatons were exploded, less than one percent of the world arsenals, and only in low-yield airbursts over cities. This scenario, we found, would ignite thousands of fires, and the smoke from these fires alone would be enough to generate an epoch of cold and dark almost as severe as in the 5,000 megaton case. The threshold for what Richard Turco has called The Nuclear Winter is very low.

Could we have overlooked some important effect? The carrying of dust and soot from the Northern to the Southern Hemisphere (as well as more local atmospheric circulation) will certainly thin the clouds out over the Northern Hemisphere. But, in many cases, this thinning would be insufficient to render the climatic consequences tolerable -- and every time it got better in the Northern Hemisphere, it would get worse in the Southern.

Our results have been carefully scrutinized by more than 100 scientists in the United States, Europe and the Soviet Union. There are still arguments on points of detail. But the overall conclusion seems to be agreed upon: There are severe and previously unanticipated global consequences of nuclear war -- subfreezing temperatures in a twilit radioactive gloom lasting for months or longer.

Scientists initially underestimated the effects of fallout, were amazed that nuclear explosions in space disabled distant satellites, had no idea that the fireballs from high-yield thermonuclear explosions could deplete the ozone layer and missed altogether the possible climatic effects of nuclear dust and smoke. What else have we overlooked?

Nuclear war is a problem that can be treated only theoretically. It is not amenable to experimentation. Conceivably, we have left something important out of our analysis, and the effects are more modest than we calculate. On the other hand, it is also possible -- and, from previous experience, even likely -- that there are further adverse effects that no one has yet been wise enough to recognize. With billions of lives at stake, where does conservatism lie in assuming that the results will be better than we calculate, or worse?

Many biologists, considering the nuclear winter that these calculations describe, believe they carry somber implications for life on Earth. Many species of plants and animals would become extinct. Vast numbers of surviving humans would starve to death. The delicate ecological relations that bind together organisms on Earth in a fabric of mutual dependency would be torn, perhaps irreparably. There is little question that our global civilization would be destroyed. The human population would be reduced to prehistoric levels, or less. Life for any survivors would be extremely hard. And there seems to be a real possibility of the extinction of the human species.

It is now almost 40 years since the invention of nuclear weapons. We have not yet experienced a global thermonuclear war -- although on more than one occasion we have come tremulously close. I do not think our luck can hold forever. Men and machines are fallible, as recent events remind us. Fools and madmen do exist, and sometimes rise to power. Concentrating always on the near future, we have ignored the long-term consequences of our actions. We have placed our civilization and our species in jeopardy.

Fortunately, it is not yet too late. We can safeguard the planetary civilization and the human family if we so choose. There is no more important or more urgent issue.

~ ~ ~

Carl Sagan, a modern-day Renaissance man of science, was born in 1934 in New York. After graduating with both a B.A. and a B.S. degree from the University of Chicago, Sagan completed his M.S. in physics and earned a Ph.D. in astronomy and astro-physics in 1960. Sagan was nominated to join the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in 1962. At the same time, he also worked with the Nobel-prize winner Joshna Lederberg, investigating the origins of life on earth, and taught genetics at Stanford. Sagan then taught astronomy at Harvard until 1968, when he became professor of astronomy and space sciences at Cornell University. He was then appointed director of the laboratory for Planetary Studies. Sagan was awarded the NASA medal for exceptional scientific achievement in 1972, after his hypotheses about Mars were validated by data obtained from the 1971 Mars Mariner expedition. Beginning in 1968, Sagan was editor of Icarus, the international journal of astronomy, and wrote many distinguished books. His works include The Cosmic Connection (1973), which received the Campbell Award for best science book; the Pulitzer-prize winning Dragons of Eden (1977); Broca's Brain (1979), on developments in neurophysiology; and Cosmos (1980), which accompanied his widety-acclaimed television series. In The Nuclear Winter (1983), Sagan explored the unforeseen and devastating physical and chemical effects of even a small-scale nuclear war on the earth's biosphere and life on earth.

The Time Traveler

Thucydides the ancient Greek historian, fresco in the Church of Monastery of Filanthropinon, 16th c., Ioannina.

The Time Traveler’s Tale by Dan Simmons

The Time Traveler appeared suddenly in my study on New Year’s Eve, 2004. He was a stolid, grizzled man in a gray tunic and looked to be in his late-sixties or older. He also appeared to be the veteran of wars or of some terrible accident since he had livid scars on his face and neck and hands, some even visible in his scalp beneath a fuzz of gray hair cropped short in a military cut. One eye was covered by a black eyepatch. Before I could finish dialing 911 he announced in a husky voice that he was a Time Traveler come back to talk to me about the future.

Being a sometimes science-fiction writer but not a fool, I said, “Prove it.”

“Do you remember Replay?” he said.

My finger hovered over the final “1” in my dialing. “The 1987 novel?” I said. “By Ken Grimwood?”

The stranger – Time Traveler, psychotic, home invader, whatever he was – nodded.

I hesitated. The novel by Grimwood had won the World Fantasy Award a year or two after my first-novel, Song of Kali, had. Grimwood’s book was about a guy who woke up one morning to find himself snapped back decades in his life, from the late 1980’s to himself as a college student in 1963, and thus getting the chance to relive – to replay – that life again, only this time acting upon what he’d already learned the hard way. In the book, the character, who was to experience – suffer – several Replays, learned that there were other people from his time who were also Replaying their lives in the past, their bodies younger but their memories intact. I’d greatly enjoyed the book, thought it deserved the award, and had been sad to hear that Grimwood had died . . . when? . . . in 2003.

So, I thought, I might have a grizzled nut case in my study this New Year’s Eve, but if he was a reader and a fan of Replay, he was probably just a sci-fi fan grizzled nut case, and therefore probably harmless. Possibly. Maybe.

I kept my finger poised over the final “1” in “911.”

“What does that book have to do with you illegally entering my home and study?” I asked.

The stranger smiled … almost sadly I thought. “You asked me to prove that I’m a Time Traveler,” he said softly. “Do you remember how Grimwood’s character in Replay went hunting for others in the 1960’s who had traveled back in time from the late 1980’s?”

I did remember now. I’d thought it clever at the time. The guy in Replay, once he suspected others were also replaying into the past, had taken out personal ads in major city newspapers around the country. The ads were concise. “Do you remember Three Mile Island, Challenger, Watergate, Reaganomics? If so, contact me at . . .”

Before I could say anything else on this New Year’s Eve of 2004, a few hours before 2005 began, the stranger said, “Terri Schiavo, Katrina, New Orleans under water, Ninth Ward, Ray Nagin, Superdome, Judge John Roberts, White Sox sweep the Astros in four to win the World Series, Pope Benedict XVI, Scooter Libby.”

“Wait, wait!” I said, scrambling for a pen and then scrambling even faster to write. “Ray who? Pope who? Scooter who?”

“You’ll recognize it all when you hear it all again,” said the stranger. “I’ll see you in a year and we’ll have our conversation.”

“Wait!” I repeated. “What was that middle apart . . . Ray Nugin? Judge who? John Roberts? Who is . . .” But when I looked up he was gone.

“White Sox win the Series?” I muttered into the silence. “Fat chance.”

~

I was waiting for him on New Year’s Eve 2005. I didn’t see him enter. I looked up from the book I was fitfully reading and he was standing in the shadows again. I didn’t dial 911 this time, nor demand any more proof. I waved him to the leather wingchair and said, “Would you like something to drink?”

“Scotch,” he said. “Single malt if you have it.”

I did.

Our conversation ran over two hours, but the following is the gist of it. I’m a novelist by trade. I remember conversations pretty well. (Not as perfectly as Truman Capote was said to be able to recall long conversations word for word, but pretty well.)

The Time Traveler wouldn’t tell me what year in the future he was from. Not even the decade or century. But the gray cord trousers and blue-gray wool tunic top he was wearing didn’t look very far-future science-fictiony or military, no Star Trekky boots or insignia, just wellworn clothes that looked like something a guy who worked with his hands a lot would wear. Construction maybe.

“I know you can’t tell me details about the future because of time travel paradoxes,” I began. I hadn’t spent a lifetime reading and then writing SF for nothing.

“Oh, bugger time travel paradoxes,” said the Time Traveler. “They don’t exist. I could tell you anything I want to and it won’t change anything. I just choose not to tell you some things.”

I frowned at this. “Time travel paradoxes don’t exist? But surely if I go back in time and kill my grandfather before he meets my grandmother . . .”

The Time Traveler laughed and sipped his Scotch. “Would you want to kill your grandfather?” he said. “Or anyone else?”

“Well . . .Hitler maybe,” I said weakly.

The Traveler smiled, but more ironically this time. “Good luck,” he said. “But don’t count on succeeding.”

I shook my head. “But surely anything you tell me now about the future will change the future,” I said.

“I gave you a raft of facts about your future a year ago as my bona fides,” said the Time Traveler. “Did it change anything? Did you save New Orleans from drowning?”

“I won $50 betting on the White Sox in October,” I admitted.

The Time Traveler only shook his head. “Quod erat demonstrandum,” he said softly. “I could tell you that the Mississippi River flows generally south. Would your knowing about it change its course or flow or flooding?”

I thought about this. Finally I said, “Why did you come back? Why do you want to talk to me? What do you want me to do?”

“I came back for my own purposes,” said the Time Traveler, looking around my booklined study. “I chose you to talk to because it was . . . convenient. And I don’t want you to do a goddamned thing. There’s nothing you can do. But relax . . . we’re not going to be talking about personal things. Such as, say, the year, day, and hour of your death. I don’t even know that sort of trivial information, although I could look it up quickly enough. You can release that white-knuckled grip you have on the edge of your desk.”

I tried to relax. “What do you want to talk about?” I said.

“The Century War,” said the Time Traveler.

I blinked and tried to remember some history. “You mean the Hundred Year War? Fifteenth Century? Fourteenth? Sometime around there. Between . . . France and England? Henry V? Kenneth Branagh? Or was it . . .”

“I mean the Century War with Islam,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “Your future. Everyone’s.” He was no longer smiling. Without asking, or offering to pour me any, he stood, refilled his Scotch glass, and sat again. He said, “It was important to me to come back to this time early on in the struggle. Even if only to remind myself of how unspeakably blind you all were.”

“You mean the War on Terrorism,” I said.

“I mean the Long War with Islam,” he said. “The Century War. And it’s not over yet where I come from. Not close to being over.”

“You can’t have a war with Islam,” I said. “You can’t go to war against a religion. Radical Islam, maybe. Jihadism. Some extremists. But not a . . . the . . . religion itself. The vast majority of Muslims in the world are peaceloving people who wish us no harm. I mean . . . I mean . . . the very word ‘Islam’ means ‘Peace.’”

“So you kept telling yourselves,” said the Time Traveler. His voice was very low but there was a strange and almost frightening edge to it. “But the ‘peace’ in ‘Islam’ means ‘Submission.’ You’ll find that out soon enough.”

Great, I was thinking. Of all the time travelers in all the gin joints in all the world, I get this racist, xenophobic, right-wing asshole.

“After Nine-eleven, we’re fighting terrorism,” I began, “not . . .”

He waved me into silence.

“You were a philosophy major or minor at that podunk little college you went to long ago,” said the Time Traveler. “Do you remember what Category Error is?”

It rang a bell. But I was too irritated at hearing my alma mater being called a “podunk little college” to be able to concentrate fully.

“I’ll tell you what it is,” said the Time Traveler. “In philosophy and formal logic, and it has its equivalents in science and business management, Category Error is the term for having stated or defined a problem so poorly that it becomes impossible to solve that problem, through dialectic or any other means.”

I waited. Finally I said firmly, “You can’t go to war with a religion. Or, I mean . . . sure, you could . . . the Crusades and all that . . . but it would be wrong.”

The Time Traveler sipped his Scotch and looked at me. He said, “Let me give you an analogy . . .”

God, I hated and distrusted analogies. I said nothing.

“Let’s imagine,” said the Time Traveler, “that on December eighth, nineteen forty-one, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke before a joint session of Congress and asked them to declare war on aviation.”

“That’s absurd,” I said.

“Is it?” asked the Time Traveler. “The American battleships, cruisers, harbor installations, Army barracks, and airfields at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in Hawaii were all struck by Japanese aircraft. Imagine if the next day Roosevelt had declared war on aviation . . . threatening to wipe it out wherever we found it. Committing all the resources of the United States of America to defeating aviation, so help us God.”

“That’s just stupid,” I said. If I’d ever been afraid of this Time Traveler, I wasn’t now. He was obviously a mental defective. “The planes, the Japanese planes,” I said, “were just a method of attack . . . a means . . . it wasn’t aviation that attacked us at Pearl Harbor, but the Empire of Japan. We declared war on Japan and a few days later its ally, Germany, lived up to its treaty with the Japanese and declared war on us. If we’d declared war on aviation, on goddamned airplanes rather than the empire and ideology that launched them, we’d never have . . .”

I stopped. What had he called it? Category Error. Making the problem unsolvable through your inability – or fear – of defining it correctly.

The Time Traveler was smiling at me from the shadows. It was a small, thin, cold smile – holding no humor in it, I was sure -- but still a smile of sorts. It seemed more sad than gloating as my sudden silence stretched on.

“What do you know about Syracuse?” he asked suddenly.

I blinked again. “Syracuse, New York?” I said at last.

He shook his head slowly. “Thucydides’ Syracuse,” he said softly. “Syracuse circa 415 B.C. The Syracuse Athens invaded.”

“It was . . . part of the Peloponnesian War,” I ventured.

He waited for more but I had no more to give. I loved history, but let’s admit it . . . that was ancient history. Still, I felt that I should have been able to tell him, or at least remember, why Syracuse was important in the Peloponnesian War or why they fought there or who fought exactly or who had won or . . . something. I hated feeling like a dull student around this scarred old man.

“The war between Athens and its allies and Sparta and its allies – a war for nothing less than hegemony over the entire known world at that time – began in 431 B.C.,” said the Time Traveler. “After seventeen years of almost constant fighting, with no clear or permanent advantage for either side, Athens – under the leadership of Alcibiades at the time – decided to widen the war by conquering Sicily, the ‘Great Greece’ they called it, an area full of colonies and the key to maritime commerce at the time the way the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf is today.”

I hate being lectured to at the best of times, but something about the tone and timber of the Time Traveler’s voice – soft, deep, rasping, perhaps thickened a bit by the whiskey – made this sound more like a story being told around a campfire. Or perhaps a bit like one of Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon stories on “Prairie Home Companion.” I settled deeper into my chair and listened.

“Syracuse wasn’t a direct enemy of the Athenians,” continued the Time Traveler, “but it was quarreling with a local Athenian colony and the democracy of Athens used that as an excuse to launch a major expedition against it. It was a big deal – Athens sent 136 triremes, the best fighting ships in the world then – and landed 5,000 soldiers right under the city’s walls.

“The Athenians had enjoyed so much military success in recent years, including their invasion of Melos, that Thucydides wrote – So thoroughly had the present prosperity persuaded the Athenians that nothing could withstand them, and that they could achieve what was possible and what was impracticable alike, with means ample or inadequate it mattered not. The reason for this was their general extraordinary success, which made them confuse their strengths with their hopes.”

“Oh, hell,” I said, “this is going to be a lecture about Iraq, isn’t it? Look . . . I voted for John Kerry last year and . . .”

“Listen to me,” the Time Traveler said softly. It was not a request. There was steel in that soft, rasping voice. “Nicias, the Athenian general who ended up leading the invasion, warned against it in 415 B.C. He said – ‘We must not disguise from ourselves that we go to found a city among strangers and enemies, and that he who undertakes such an enterprise should be prepared to become master of the country the first day he lands, or failing in this to find everything hostile to him’. Nicias, along with the Athenian poet and general Demosthenes, would see their armies destroyed at Syracuse and then they would both be captured and put to death by the Syracusans. Sparta won big in that two-year debacle for Athens. The war went on for seven more years, but Athens never recovered from that overreaching at Syracuse, and in the end . . . Sparta destroyed it. Conquered the Athenian empire and its allies, destroyed Athens’ democracy, ruined the entire balance of power and Greek hegemony over the known world at the time . . . ruined everything. All because of a miscalculation about Syracuse.”

I sighed. I was sick of Iraq. Everyone was sick of Iraq on New Years Eve, 2005, both Bush supporters and Bush haters. It was just an ugly mess. “They just had an election,” I said. “The Iraqi people. They dipped their fingers in purple ink and . . .”

“Yes yes,” interrupted the Time Traveler as if recalling something further back in time, and much less important, than Athens versus Syracuse. “The free elections. Purple fingers. Democracy in the Mid-East. The Palestinians are voting as well. You will see in the coming year what will become of all that.”

The Time Traveler drank some Scotch, closed his eyes for a second, and said, “Sun Tzu writes – The side that knows when to fight and when not to will take the victory. There are roadways not to be traveled, armies not to be attacked, walled cities not to be assaulted.”

“All right, goddammit,” I said irritably. “Your point’s made. So we shouldn’t have invaded Iraq in this . . . what did you call it? This Long War with Islam, this Century War. We’re all beginning to realize that here by the end of 2005.”

The Time Traveler shook his head. “You’ve understood nothing I’ve said. Nothing. Athens failed in Syracuse – and doomed their democracy – not because they fought in the wrong place and at the wrong time, but because they weren’t ruthless enough. They had grown soft since their slaughter of every combat-age man and boy on the island of Melos, the enslavement of every woman and girl there. The democratic Athenians, in regards to Syracuse, thought that once engaged they could win without absolute commitment to winning, claim victory without being as ruthless and merciless as their Spartan and Syracusan enemies. The Athenians, once defeat loomed, turned against their own generals and political leaders – and their official soothsayers. If General Nicias or Demosthenes had survived their captivity and returned home, the people who sent them off with parades and strewn flower petals in their path would have ripped them limb from limb. They blamed their own leaders like a sun-maddened dog ripping and chewing at its own belly.”

I thought about this. I had no idea what the hell he was saying or how it related to the future.

“You came back in time to lecture me about Thucydides?” I said. “Athens? Syracuse? Sun-Tzu? No offense, Mr. Time Traveler, but who gives a damn?”

The Time Traveler rose so quickly that I flinched back in my chair, but he only refilled his Scotch. This time he refilled my glass as well. “You probably should give a damn” he said softly. “In 2006, you’ll be ripping and tearing at yourselves so fiercely that your nation – the only one on Earth actually fighting against resurgent caliphate Islam in this long struggle over the very future of civilization – will become so preoccupied with criticizing yourselves and trying to gain short-term political advantage, that you’ll all forget that there’s actually a war for your survival going on. Twenty-five years from now, every man or woman in America who wishes to vote will be required to read Thucydides on this matter. And others as well. And there are tests. If you don’t know some history, you don’t vote . . . much less run for office. America’s vacation from knowing history ends very soon now . . . for you, I mean. And for those few others left alive in the world who are allowed to vote.”

“You’re shitting me,” I said.

“I am shitting you not,” said the Time Traveler.

“Those few others left alive who are allowed to vote?” I said, the words just now striking me like hardthrown stones. “What the hell are you talking about? Has our government taken away all our civil liberties in this awful future of yours?”

He laughed then and this time it was a deep, hearty, truly amused laugh. “Oh, yes,” he said when the laughter abated a bit. He actually wiped away tears from his one good eye. “I had almost forgotten about your fears of your, our . . . civil liberties . . . being abridged by our own government back in these last stupidity-allowed years of 2005 and 2006 and 2007. Where exactly do you see this repression coming from?”

“Well . . .” I said. I hate it when I start a sentence with ‘well,’ especially in an argument. “Well, the Patriot Act. Bush authorizing spying on Americans . . . international phonecalls and such. Uh . . . I think mosques in the States are under FBI surveillance. I mean, they want to look up what library books we’re reading, for God’s sake. Big Brother. 1984. You know.”

The Time Traveler laughed again, but with more edge this time. “Yes, I know,” he said. “We all know . . . up there in the future which some of you will survive to see as free people. Civil liberties. In 2006 you still fear yourselves and your own institutions first, out of old habit. A not unworthy – if fatally misguided and terminally masochistic – paranoia. I will tell you right now, and this is not a prediction but a history lesson, some of your grandchildren will live in dhimmitude.”

“Zimmi . . . what?” I said.

He spelled it out. What had sounded like a ‘z’ was the ‘dh.’ I’d never heard the word and I told him so.

“Then get off your ass and Google it,” said the Time Traveler, his one working eye glinting with something like fury. “Dhimmitude. You can also look up the word dhimmi, because that’s what two of your three grandchildren will be called. Dhimmis. Dhimmitude is the system of separate and subordinate laws and rules they will live under. Look up the word sharia while you’re Googling dhimmi, because that is the only law they will answer to as dhimmis, the only justice they can hope for . . . they and tens and hundreds of millions more now who are worried in your time about invisible abridgements of their ‘civil liberties’ by their ‘oppressive’ American and European democratically elected governments.”

He audibly sneered this last part. I wondered now if the fury I sensed in him was a result of his madness, or if the reverse were true.

“Where will my grandchildren suffer this dhimmitude?” I asked. My mouth was suddenly so dry I could barely speak.

“Eurabia,” said the Time Traveler.

“There’s no such place,” I said.

He gave me his one-eyed stare. My stomach suddenly lurched and I wished I’d drunk no Scotch. “Words,” I said.

The Time Traveler raised one scar-slashed eyebrow.

“Last year you gave me words about 2005,” I said. “The kind of words Ken Grimwood’s replayers in time would have put in the newspaper to find each other. Give me more now. Or, better yet, just fucking tell me what you’re talking about. You said it wouldn’t matter. You said that my knowing won’t change anything, any more than I can change the direction the Mississippi is flowing. So tell me, God damn it!”

He began by giving me words. Even while I was scribbling them down, I was thinking of reading I’d been doing recently about the joy with which the Victorian Englishmen and 19th Century Europeans and Americans greeted the arrival of the 20th Century. The toasts, especially among the intellectual elite, on New Year’s Eve 1899 had been about the coming glories of technology liberating them, of the imminent Second Enlightenment in human understanding, of the certainty of a just one-world government, of the end of war for all time.

Instead, what words would a time traveler or poor Replay victim put in his London Times or Berliner Zeitung or New York Times on January 1, 1900, to find his fellow travelers displaced in time? Auschwitz, I was sure, and Hiroshima and Trinity Site and Holocaust and Hitler and Stalin and . . .

The clock in my study chimed midnight.

Jesus God. Did I want to hear such words about 2006 and the rest of the 21st Century from the Time Traveler?

“Ahmadenijad,” he said softly. “Natanz. Arak. Bushehr. Ishafan. Bonab. Ramsar.”

“Those words don’t mean a damned thing to me,” I said as I scribbled them down phonetically. “Where are they? What are they?”

“You’ll know soon enough,” said the Time Traveler.

“Are you talking about . . . what? . . . the next fifteen or twenty years?” I said.

“I’m talking about the next fifteen or twenty months from your now,” he said softly. “Do you want more words?”

I didn’t. But I couldn’t speak just then.

“General Seyed Reza Pardis,” intoned the Time Traveler. “Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three. Tel Aviv. Baghdad International Airport, Al Salem U.S. airbase in Kuwait, Camp Dawhah U.S. Army base in Kuwait, al Seeb U.S. airbase in Oman, al Udeid U.S. Army and Air Force base in Qatar. Haifa. Beir-Shiva. Dimona.”

“Oh, fuck,” I said. “Oh, Jesus.” I had no clue as to who or what Shehab One, Two, or Three might be, but the context and litany alone made me want to throw up.

“This is just the beginning,” said the Time Traveler.

“Wasn’t the beginning on September 11, 2001?” I managed through numb lips.

The one-eyed scarred man shook his head. “Historians in my time know that it began on June 5, 1968,” he said. “But it hasn’t really begun for you yet. For any of you.”

I thought – What on earth happened on the fifth of June, 1968? I’m old enough to remember. I was in college then. Working that summer and . . . Kennedy. Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination. “Now on to Chicago and the nomination!” Sirhan Sirhan. Was the Time Traveler trying to give me some kind of half-assed Oliver-Stone-JFK-movie garbled up conspiracy theory?

“What . . .” I began.

“Galveston,” interrupted the Time Traveler. “The Space Needle. Bank of America Plaza in Dallas. Renaissance Tower in Dallas. Bank One Center in Dallas. The Indianapolis 500 – one hour and twenty-three minutes into the race. The Bell South Building in Atlanta. The TransAmerica Pyramid in San Francisco . . .”

“Stop,” I said. “Just stop.”

“The Golden Gate Bridge,” persisted the Time Traveler. “The Guggenheim in Bilbao. The New Reichstag in Berlin. Albert Hall. Saint Paul’s Cathedral . . .”

“Shut the fuck up!” I shouted. “All these places can’t disappear in the rest of this century, your goddamned Century War or not! I don’t believe it.”

“I didn’t say in the rest of your century,” said the Time Traveler, his torn voice almost a whisper now. “I’m talking about your next fifteen years. And I’ve barely begun.”

“You’re nuts,” I said. “You’re not from the future. You escaped from some asylum.”

The Time Traveler nodded. “That’s more true than you know,” he said. “I come from a place and time where your grandchildren and hundreds of millions of other dhimmi are compelled to write ‘pbuh’ after the Prophet’s name. They wear gold crosses and gold Stars of David sewn onto their clothing. The Nazis didn’t invent the wearing of the Star of David . . . the marking and setting apart of the Jews in society. Muslims did that centuries ago in they lands they conquered, European and otherwise. They will refine it and update it, not toward the more merciful, in the lands they occupy through the decades ahead of you.”

“You’re crazy,” I cried, standing. My hands were balled into fists. “Islam is a religion . . . a religion of peace . . . not our enemy. We can’t be at war with a religion. That’s obscene.”

“Have you read the Qur’an and learned your Sunnah?” asked the Time Traveler. “It would behoove you to do so. Dhimmi means ‘protection.’ And your children and grandchildren will be protected . . . like cattle.”

“To hell with you,” I said.

“Your dhimmi poll tax will be called jizya,” said the Time Traveler. His voice suddenly sounded very weary. “Your land tax for being an infidel, even for fellow People of the Book – Christians and Jews – will be called kharaz. Both of these taxes will be in addition to your mandatory alms – the zakat. The punishment for failure to pay, or for paying late, a punishment meted out by your local qadi, religious judge, is death by stoning or beheading.”

I folded my arms and looked away from the Time Traveler.

“Under sharia – which will be the universal law of Eurabia,” persisted the Time Traveler, “the value of a dhimmi’s life, the value of your grandchildren, is one half the value of a Muslim’s life. Jews and Christians are worth one-third of a Muslim. Indian Parsees are worth one-fifteenth. In a court of the Eurabian Caliphate or the Global Khalifate, if a Muslim murders a dhimmi, any infidel, he must pay a blood money fine not to exceed one thousand euros. No Muslim will ever be jailed or sentenced to death for the murder of any dhimmi or any number of dhimmis. If the murders were done under the auspices of Universal Compulsive Jihad, which will be sanctioned by sharia as of 2019 Common Era, all blood money fines are waived.”

“Go away,” I said. “Go back to wherever you came from.”

“I come from here,” said the Time Traveler. “From not so far from here.”

“Bullshit,” I said.

“Your enemies have gathered and struck and continue to strike and you, the innocents of 2006 and beyond, fight among yourselves, chew and rip at your own bellies, blame your brothers and yourselves and your institutions of the Enlightenment – law, tolerance, science, democracy – even while your enemies grow stronger.”

“How are we supposed to know who our enemies are?” I turned and growled at him. “The world is a complex place. Morality is a complex thing.”

“Your enemy is he who will give his life to kill you,” said the Time Traveler. “Your enemies are they that wish you and your children and your grandchildren dead and who are willing to sacrifice themselves, or support those fanatics who will sacrifice themselves, to see you and your institutions destroyed. You haven’t figured that out yet – the majority of you fat, sleeping, smug, infinitely stupid Americans and Europeans.”

He stood and set the Scotch glass back in its place on my sideboard. “How, we wonder in my time,” he said softly, “can you ignore the better part of a billion people who say aloud that they are willing to kill your children . . . or condone and celebrate the killing of them? And ignore them as they act on what they say? We do not understand you.”

I still had not turned to face him, but was looking over my shoulder at him.

“The world, as it turns out,” continued the Time Traveler, “is not nearly so complex a place as your liberal and gentle minds sought to make it.”

I did not respond.

“Thucydides taught us more than twenty-four hundred years ago – counting back from your time – that all men’s behavior is guided by phobos, kerdos, and doxa,” said the Time Traveler. “Fear, self-interest, and honor.”

I pretended I did not hear.

“Plato saw human behavior as a chariot pulled by precisely those three powerful and headstrong horses, first tugged this way, then pulled that way,” continued the Time Traveler. “Phobos, kerdos, doxa. Fear, self-interest, honor. Which of these guides the chariot of your nation and your allies in Europe and your surprisingly fragile civilization now, O Man of 2006?”

I stared at the bookcase instead of the man and willed him gone, wishing him away like a sleepy boy willing away the boogeyman under his bed.

“Which combination of those three traits -- phobos, kerdos, doxa -- will save or doom your world?” asked the Time Traveler. “Which might bring you back from this vacation from history – from history’s responsibilities and history’s burdens – that you have all so generously gifted yourselves with? You peaceloving Europeans. You civil-liberties loving Americans? You Athenian invertebrates with your love of your own exalted sensibilities and your willingness to enter into a global war for civilizational survival even while you are too timid, too fearful . . . too decent . . . to match the ruthlessness of your enemies.”

I closed my eyes but that did not stop his voice.

“At least understand that such decency goes away quickly when you are burying your children and your grandchildren,” rasped the Time Traveler. “Or watching them suffer in slavery. Ruthlessness deferred against totalitarian aggression only makes the later need for ruthlessness more terrible. Thousands of years of history and war should have taught you that. Did you fools learn nothing from living through the charnel house that was the 20th Century?”

I’d had enough. I opened my eyes, turned, reached into the top left drawer of my desk, and pulled out the .38 revolver that I had owned for twenty-three years and fired only twice, at firing ranges, shortly after it was given to me as a gift.

I aimed it at the Time Traveler. “Get out,” I said.

He showed no reaction. “Do you want more than words?” he asked softly. “I will give you more than words. I give you eight million Jews dead in Israel – incinerated – and many more dead Jews in Eurabia and around the world. I give you the continent of Europe cast back more than five hundred years into sad pools of warring civilizations.”

“Get out,” I repeated, aiming the revolver higher.

“I give you an Asian world in chaos, a Pacific rim ruled by China after the vacuum of America’s withdrawal – this nation’s full resources devoted to fighting, and possibly losing, the Century War – a South America and Mexico lost to corruption and appeasement, a resurgent Russian Empire that has reclaimed its old dominated republics and more, and a Canada split into three hateful nations.”

I cocked the pistol. The click sounded very loud in the small room.

“We were speaking about ruthlessness,” said the Time Traveler. “If you fail to understand it at first, you learn it quickly enough in a war like the one you are allowing to come. Would you like to hear the litany of Islamic shrines and cities that will blossom in nuclear retaliatory fire in the decades to come?”

“Get out,” I said for a final time. “I’m ruthless enough to shoot you, and by God I will if you don’t get out of here.”

The Time Traveler nodded. “As you wish. But you should hear two last words, two last names . . .religious judge Ubar ibn al-Khattab and rector-imam Ismail Nawahda of New Al-Azhar University in London, part of the 200,000-man Golden Mosque of the New Islamic Khalifate in Eurabia.”

“What are those names to me or me to them?” I asked. My finger was on the trigger of the cocked .38.

“These religious officials were on the Islamic Tribunal that sentenced two dhimmis to death by stoning and beheading,” said the Time Traveler. “The dhimmis were your two grandsons, Thomas and Daniel.”

“What was . . . will be . . . their crime?” I was able to ask after a long minute. My tongue felt like a strip of rough cotton.

“They dated two Muslim women – Thomas while he was in London on business, Daniel while visiting his aging mother, your daughter, in Canada – without first converting to Islam. That part of sharia, Islamic law, is called hudud, and we know quite a bit about it in my time. Your grandsons didn’t know the young women were Muslim since they both were dressed in modern garb - -thus violating their own society’s ironclad rule of Hijab — modesty. The girls, I hear, also died, but those were not sharia sentences. Not hudud. Their brothers and fathers murdered them. Honor killings . . . I think you’ve already heard the phrase by 2006.”

If I were to shoot him, I had to do it now. My hand was shaking more fiercely every second.

“Of course, the odds against one sharia court in London sentencing both your grandsons to death for crimes committed as far apart as London and Quebec City is too much of a coincidence to believe in,” continued the Time Traveler. “As is the fact that they would both be introduced to Muslim girls, without knowing they were Muslim, and go on a single dinner date with them at the same time, in cities so far apart. And Thomas was married. I know he thought he was having a business dinner with a client.”

“What . . .” I began, my arm holding the pistol shaking as if palsied.

The Time Traveler laughed a final time. “All of your grandsons’ names were on lists. You wrote something . . . will soon write something . . . that will put your name, and all your descendents’ names, on their list. Including your only surviving grandson.”

I opened my mouth but did not speak.

“According to their own writings, which we all know well in my day,” continued the Time Traveler, “ ‘Hadith Malik 511:1588 The last statement that Muhammad made was: "O Lord, perish the Jews and Christians. They made churches of the graves of their prophets. There shall be no two faiths in Arabia.’ And there are not. All infidels – Christians, Jews, secularists -- have been executed, converted, or driven out. Israel is cinders. Eurabia and the New Khalifate is growing, absorbing what was left of the old, weak cultures there that once dreamt of a European Union. The Century War is not near over. Two of your three grandsons are now dead. Your remaining grandson still fights, as does one of your surviving granddaughters. Two of your three living granddaughters now live under sharia within the aegis of New Khalifate. They are women of the veil.”

I lowered the pistol.

“Enjoy these last days and months and years of your slumber, Grandfather,” said the scarred old man. “Your wake-up call is coming soon.”

The Time Traveler said three last words and was gone.

I put the pistol away – realizing too late that it had never been loaded – and sat down to write this. I could not. I waited these three months to try again.

Oh, Lord, I wish that some person on business from Porlock would wake me from this dream.

It was not the horrors of his revelations about my grandchildren that had shaken me the most deeply, shaken me to the core of my core, but rather the Time Traveler’s last three words. Three words that any Replayer or time traveler visiting here from a century or more from now would react to first and most emotionally – three words I will not share here in this piece nor ever plan to share, at least until everyone on Earth knows them – three words that will keep me awake nights for months and years to come.

Three words.

~ ~ ~

(Note: Books commented on in this essay include – The Peloponnesian War by Donald Kagan, The Book of War: 25 Centuries of Great War Writing edited by John Keegan, While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam Is Destroying the West from Within by Bruce Bawer, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order by Samuel P. Huntington, Civilization and Its Enemies: The Next Stage of History by Lee Harris, The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History by Philip Bobbit, and Replay by Ken Grimwood.)

~

Follow-up commentary from the author, Dan Simmons

The Time Traveler’s Tale—a C- for Reading Comprehension:

No one likes being misquoted, but especially on so short a piece as the Time Traveler’s story in the April Message that certainly could have been thoroughly attacked and/or disagreed with without it being read poorly or actively misquoted.

People wrote dismissive postings on this forum and elsewhere explaining how absurd it was that the story said that the Islamic world, armed with nothing more than terrorist tactics and C-4, could conquer and occupy the United States as per the Time Traveler’s story…but the Time Traveler never said that the U.S. had been conquered or occupied. Indeed, several times through the tale, the Time Traveler referred to the U.S. as fighting the Long War against Islam all on its own. But this is no prediction; this is precisely the fact of the global struggle now in 2006.

People sneered at the idea of Europe being "overrun" and of a "Eurabia" coming into existence there, but there was no report from the Time Traveler of a Europe that had been overrun by military forces, merely his statement—"I give you the continent of Europe cast back more than five hundred years into sad pools of warring civilizations." In other words, a Europe of divided cities and divided nations in which the one common thread is an expanding Muslim presence which refuses to abide by local and national laws. Some would say that this is almost the case in 2006.

As Bruce Bawer writes—
"In many places in Europe, agitation for the transfer of sovereignty has already begun. In France, a public official met with an imam at the edge of Roubaix’s Muslim district out of respect for his declaration of the neighborhood as Islamic territory to which she had no right of access. In Britain, imams have pressed the government to officially designate certain areas of Bradford as being under Muslim, not British, law. In Denmark, Muslim leaders have sought the same kind of control over parts of Copenhagen. And in Belgium, Muslims living in the Brussels neighborhood of Sint-Jans-Molenbeek already view it not as part of Belgium but as an area under Islamic jurisdiction in which Belgians are not welcome."

Whether this trend is a fact or a wild distortion can be debated, but even during the month the April Message was online, some Canadian visitors to the forum told of laws being introduced to both provincial and Canadian parliaments in which Muslim communities were demanding sovereignty and rule of sharia Islamic law in their neighborhoods.

Other people responding to the April Message sneered at the idea of a nuclear war with radical Islam—Islam has no atomic weapons!—despite the existence of a Pakistani nuclear arsenal and this month’s dramatic developments of an Iran rejecting all IAEA inspections and international pressure to cease its uranium enrichment as well as its public and clandestine nuclear programs. During the weeks the April Message was online, few who read or view the news could have missed the elaborate televised ceremony—complete with costumes, dances, and rampant religious symbolism—that Iran’s President Ahmadenijad led in which a few grams of "enriched uranium" were held up to the nation as if Prometheus had just brought them Holy Fire.

A very few astute readers -at least one—did notice that the list of names in the Time Traveler’s first litany are current enrichment or nuclear development sites in Iran and that the "Shehab-one, Shehab-two, Shehab-three" in the litany are the three generations of ballistic missiles—a gift from North Korea—developed to carry Iranian nuclear warheads to the list of in-range targets in the Mid East, beginning with Tel Aviv, that are mentioned next in the Time Traveler’s tale.

The Time Traveler did not specify the "Samson Option"—Israel’s very real plan to lash out with nuclear weapons against all surrounding Arab and Islamic nations should any Islamic country explode a nuclear weapon in or above its territory—but at least one knowledgeable person responding to the subtext of the Time Traveler’s tale did so.

Does anyone now doubt the seriousness of this topic?

Whatever our opinions, we all need to read better. And to repeat Dr. Samuel Johnson’s injunction on learning how to be a good reader—"First, clear your mind of cant."

Where'er We Tread 'tis Haunted, Holy Ground

"Where'er we tread 'tis haunted, holy ground."
- Lord Byron

Guns N' Poetry

for Chuck

~ ~ ~

a handgun nearby

loving mother rests her feet

children sleep soundly

~ ~ ~

early morning fog

goblins seek easy repast

man with Glock fears not

~ ~ ~

her first bullseye scored

daughter's smile is luminous

gun culture lives on

~ ~ ~

empty the beer can

set up sixty feet downrange

carefully take aim

~ ~ ~

gun dog stops on dime

tail upright, body frozen

I'd better not miss

~ ~ ~

friends go to the range

air thick with smoke, brass on floor

work is forgotten

~ ~ ~

history teaches

you take away my weapon

you will call me : SLAVE

~ ~ ~

from Yamabushi Gun Haiku

Covert Action

Two members of a U.S.-led covert operations team stand in front of a downtown store in Kandahar, Afganistan in March, 2002. AP

Chapter 12 - Covert Action

Most U.S. presidents have made use of covert action as an instrument of foreign policy; under appropriate and limited circumstances, it serves as a more subtle and surgical tool than acknowledged employment of U.S. power and influence.

In the future, when the threats of proliferation and terrorism loom large, covert action may play an increasingly important role.

The Commission conducted a careful study of U.S. covert action capabilities, with attention to the changing national security landscape and the special category of missions that involve both CIA and U.S. Special Operations Forces.

Because even the most general statements about the Intelligence Community’s capabilities in this area are classified, the Commission’s assessments and four specific findings cannot be discussed in this report.

The Commission has, however, incorporated the lessons learned from its study of covert action in all of our recommendations for reform of the Intelligence Community.

Excerpt from Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction -- Report to the President, March 31, 2005. (PDF 3.3 MB ) or read chapter by chapter at GlobalSecurity.org.

This report includes discussions on: China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea Russia and al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Spread A Little Happiness: Dance

"If you play a tune and a person don't tap their feet, don't play the tune." Count Basie

The Soft Shoe is a form of tap only done with soft soled shoes without metal taps attached. Performers originally wore all kinds of shoes to perform the Soft Shoe and as time went on the term soft shoe was applied to many eccentric styles of tap. The characteristics of the soft shoe however was the humor, wit, and delicate nature of the tapping performed with a very smooth and leisure cadence. Occasionally this is referred to as the Sand Dance. By TheaterDance.com

Sting - Spread A Little Happiness

This song was featured over the closing credits of the movie Brimstone and Treacle. If you've seen the film, the irony of this song is devastating. Sting actually does a pretty decent soft-shoe in this video (though as a dancer, he's no Christopher Walken.)

Christopher Walken - Dancin' Pimp

Christopher Walken plays a dancing pimp in the film Pennies from Heaven.

Of course, when you have one of the world's foremost bongo players backing you up, dance steps become a little more lively.

Dinah Shore Chevy Show Ann Miller Jack Costanzo Bongos! Tap!

Here she is, Miss Ann Miller, punishing the parquet as she vows "I'm Gonna Live 'Till I Die" in a unique tap/bongo duet with the legendary Jack Costanzo on the skins from the December 27, 1957 episode of The Dinah Shore Chevy Show.

Cartel Wars

President Calderon at the funeral of the General Coordinator of Regional Safety Eusebio Millán Gómez.

Mexico: Examining Cartel War Violence Through a Protective Intelligence Lens By Fred Burton and Scott Stewart, Stratfor.com

Mexico’s long and violent drug cartel war has recently intensified. The past week witnessed the killings of no fewer than six senior police officials. One of those killed was Edgar Millan Gomez, acting head of the Mexican federal police and the highest-ranking federal cop in Mexico. Millan Gomez was shot to death May 8 just after entering his home in Mexico City.

Within the past few days, six suspects have been arrested in connection with his murder. One of the ringleaders is said to be a former federal highway police officer. The suspects appear to have ties to the Sinaloa cartel. In fact, Millan Gomez was responsible for a police operation in January that led to the arrest of Alfredo Beltran Leyva, the cartel’s second-in-command. Mexican police believe Beltran Leyva’s brother Arturo (who is also a significant player in the Sinaloa cartel structure) commissioned the hit.

The arrest of Arturo Beltran Leyva.

During the same time period, violence from the cartel war has visited the family of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, the Sinaloa cartel leader who has the distinction of being Mexico’s most-wanted drug kingpin. On May 8, Guzman Loera’s son Edgar Guzman Beltran and two companions (pictured below) were killed by a large-scale ambush as they left a shopping mall in Culiacan, Sinaloa.

In addition to discussing the geopolitical implications of this escalation in the violence, we thought it would be instructive to look at the recent wave of violence through the lens of protective intelligence. Such an effort can allow us not only to see what lessons can be learned from the attacks, but also provide insight on how similar attacks can be avoided in the future, which is the real aim of protective intelligence.

Tactical Details of the Recent Attacks

On the evening of May 1, Roberto Velasco Bravo, director of investigations against organized crime for Mexico’s state public security police (SSP), was gunned down as he returned to his Mexico City home. Two assailants reportedly approached Velasco Bravo as he parked his sport utility vehicle and shot him in the head at close range before fleeing the scene. Although the incident initially was believed to have been a robbery attempt gone bad, the discovery of a .380 caliber handgun fitted with a suppressor near the crime scene suggests the shooting was actually a professionally targeted assassination. Local press also reported that Velasco Bravo died on his day off and that his bodyguard had been ordered to stand down because he was planning to travel outside the city.

On May 2, less than 24 hours after the Velasco Bravo shooting, inspector Jose Aristeo Gomez Martinez, the administrative director of the Federal Preventative Police (PFP), was gunned down in front of his home in the wealthy Coyoacan neighborhood of Mexico City. Gomez Martinez and a woman were talking in front of the house around midnight when two armed men surprised them and reportedly attempted to force Gomez Martinez into the back seat of his own car. Gomez Martinez struggled with the men and was shot in the arm and chest. Mexican authorities say the motive for the Gomez Martinez killing remains murky. However, the circumstances surrounding the case –- he was shot with a suppressed .380 pistol outside of his residence — are certainly very similar to the Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez killings.

In the Millan Gomez attack, alleged members of a murder-for-hire gang shot and killed the federal police chief as he returned to his home in the early hours of the morning. Millan Gomez was reportedly shot eight times at close range by a gunman armed with two handguns — one of which was a .380 with a suppressor. The gunman was reportedly waiting inside Millan Gomez’s apartment building. The victim apparently struggled with his assailant and attempted to grab the suppressed weapon from the gunman. During the struggle, the gunman reportedly shot Millan Gomez in the hand once with the suppressed weapon and then several times in the torso with his back-up weapon, which was not suppressed. Millan Gomez’s two-man protection team, who had just dropped him off at the door, heard the nonsuppressed shots and returned to the apartment building to investigate. One member of the protection team was wounded in the chest by the fleeing gunman, but the team was able to wound and apprehend him alive. The interrogation of the gunman and the investigation of the equipment and other items found in his possession led to the recent arrest of the five other suspects allegedly tied to the assassination gang.

News reports indicate that YouTube administrators are monitoring and removing these Mexican drug cartel "terror videos" as they come, but there does seem to be a lot of related footage still available. For instance, "The Sinaloa Cartel Presents el Chapo," a video celebrating the leader of the Sinaloa cartel. The uploader's name translates to "Long live the Mexican Mafia."

Also on May 8, Edgar Guzman Beltran, the son of Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera, was killed at 8:50 p.m. local time in Culiacan, Sinaloa state. Guzman Beltran was leaving a local shopping mall with two friends — one of whom was Arturo Meza Cazares, the son of Blanca Margarita Cazares Salazar, reputed to be the cartel’s top money launderer — when the three were caught in a heavy hail of gunfire. Reports from the scene indicate that the team that attacked Guzman Beltran may have involved as many as 40 gunmen from a rival cartel who opened up on the three men with AK-47 rifles and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. Other reports put the number of ambushers at around 20. In any event, even 20 men armed with AKs and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is a significant force, and something one would expect to see in a war zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan rather than in Mexico.

A forensic expert takes photos of a bullet casing at the site where a high level Mexico City police officer was shot by armed assailants in Mexico City, Friday, May 9, 2008. Esteban Robles Espinoza, who was former head of the anti-kidnapping unit of Mexico City, died from his injuries en route to the hospital.

On May 9, Esteban Robles Espinosa, commander of Mexico City’s investigative police force, was attacked by a group of armed men shortly after he left his house at about 8:30 a.m. Four gunmen traveling in a truck and another in a compact car opened fire on him at an intersection near his home. The attack appears to be a classic vehicular ambush involving a blocking vehicle and an assault team. Robles Espinosa apparently attempted to avoid the attacks and flee the site, but his escape attempt ended when his vehicle struck a tree. Robles Espinosa was shot seven times — four times in the throat, once in the neck, and twice in the head. He died shortly after arriving at a hospital. Authorities reportedly found 20 casings from 9mm and .40 caliber cartridges at the scene of the attack. The placement of the shots in this case appears to be uncharacteristically controlled for Mexico, where victims are normally wounded in various parts of their bodies. The concentration of wounds in the head and neck would appear to indicate that at least one of the shooters was an accomplished marksman. The shot placement might also indicate that Robles Espinosa was wearing a protective vest, and the assailants, being aware of the vest, directed their fire toward his head.

Common Themes

The Millan Gomez, Velasco Bravo and Gomez Martinez shootings were all similar in that they involved suppressed .380 handguns and were intended to be clean and discreetly conducted events. They stand in stark contrast to many of the cartel killings in Mexico, which tend to be more like the killings of Beltran Guzman and involve massive firepower and very little precision or discretion. Even though the Millan Gomez killing got messy, and the shooter was caught, it was intended to be a very quiet, surgical hit — until Murphy’s law kicked in for the assassin.

It is notable that the killing of the four police officials all occurred in proximity to their homes, and that all four attacks were conducted during an arrival or departure at the home. It has long been common for terrorists and criminal kidnappers or assassins to focus on the home or office of their prospective target, because these are known locations that the potential victim frequently visits with some regularity. Also, homes are often preferable to offices, because they usually have less security, and criminals or terrorists can operate around them more easily and with less chance of being caught. Arrivals and departures are prime times for attacks, because the target is generally easier to locate and quickly acquire when on foot or in a car than when in a building.

Furthermore, the objective of preoperational surveillance is to detect the target’s patterns and vulnerabilities so that an attack can be planned. Historically, one of the most likely times for an attack to occur is when a potential victim is leaving from or returning to a known location. The most predictable move traditionally is the home-to-office move; however, the team that conducted the surveillance on Velasco Bravo, Gomez Martinez and Millan Gomez apparently found them to be predictable in their evening moves and planned the attacks accordingly. Robles Espinosa was attacked during the more-stereotypical morning move. Attacking in the evening could also give the assailants the cover of darkness. The low-key assassination cell behind the Velasco Bravo, Gomez Martinez and Millan Gomez attacks seemed to prefer that kind of cover. It is also possible that in the Guzman Beltran case, the shopping mall was a known place for him to frequent and that he had established a pattern of visiting there in the evening.

All five of the attacks also occurred in close proximity to vehicles. Millan Gomez, Gomez Martinez and Guzman Beltran were attacked while outside their vehicles; Robles Espinosa and Velasco Bravo were attacked while in theirs, though neither of the men had an armored vehicle.

Protective Intelligence Lessons

A former federal police officer was arrested in connection with the Millan Gomez case, and he was found to have a list of license plates and home addresses; but such information alone is not enough to plan an assassination. Extensive preoperational surveillance is also required. From the careful planning of the Velasco Bravo, Gomez Martinez and Millan Gomez hits, it is apparent that the targets were under surveillance for a prolonged period of time. The fact that Robles Espinosa was hit during his morning move from home to work also tends to indicate that he had an established pattern that had been picked up by surveillance. Even in the Guzman Beltran killing, one does not amass a team of 20 or 40 assassins at the drop of a hat. Clearly, the operation was planned and the target had been watched.

Founded in 1531 by the Spanish captain Nuno Beltran de Guzman and named San Miguel de Culiacan, today the city is still a commercial center for nearby gold, silver, iron, lead, copper, and cobalt mines and has a population of over 700,000.

The fact that surveillance was conducted in each of these cases means that the people conducting that surveillance were forced to expose themselves to detection. Furthermore, preoperational surveillance is normally not that sophisticated, since people rarely look for it. This means that had countersurveillance efforts been used these efforts likely would have been detected, especially since countersurveillance efforts often focus on known, predictable locations such as the home and office.

Another important lesson is that bodyguards and armored cars are no guarantee of protection in and of themselves. Assailants can look for and exploit vulnerabilities — as they did in the Velasco Bravo and Millan Gomez cases — if they are allowed to conduct surveillance at will and are given the opportunity to thoroughly assess the protective security program. Even if there are security measures in place, malefactors may choose to attack in spite of security and, in such a case, will do so with adequate resources to overcome those security measures. If there are protective agents, the attackers will plan to neutralize them first. If there is an armored vehicle, they will find ways to defeat the armor — something easily accomplished with the rocket-propelled grenades, LAW rockets and .50 caliber sniper rifles found in the arsenals of Mexican cartels.

Video of Sinaloa Cartel. WARNING: Graphic Violence. YouTube link.

Unfortunately, many people believe that the presence of armed bodyguards — or armed guards combined with armored vehicles — provides absolute security. This macho misconception is not confined to Latin America, but is pervasive there. Frankly, when we consider the size of the assault team employed in the Guzman Beltran hit (even if it consisted of only 20 men) and their armaments, there are very few protective details in the world sufficiently trained and equipped to deal with that level of threat. Executive protection teams and armored cars provide very little protection against dozens of attackers armed with AK rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, especially if the attackers are given free rein to conduct surveillance and plan their attack.

Indeed, many people — including police and executive protection personnel — either lack or fail to employ good observation skills. These skills are every bit as important as marksmanship — if not more — but are rarely taught or practiced. Additionally, even if a protection agent observes something unusual, in many cases there is no system in place to record these observations and no efficient way to communicate them or to compare them to the observations of others. There is often no process to investigate such observations in attempt to determine if they are indicators of something untoward.

Mexican police officers with wreaths fall in line for the motorcade carrying the body of Tijuana Police Chief Alfredo de la Torre Marquez, February 29, 2000 in Tijuana, Mexico. Marquez, who was cracking down on Tijuana drug cartels, was killed in a gangland- style ambush as he drove home from church. (Photo by David McNew)

The real counter to such a threat is heightened security awareness and a robust countersurveillance program, coupled with careful route and schedule analysis. Routes and traveling times must be varied, surveillance must be looked for and those conducting surveillance must not be afforded the opportunity to operate at will and with impunity. Suspicious events must be catalogued and investigated. Emphasis must also be placed on attack recognition and driver training to provide every possibility of spotting a pending attack and avoiding it before it can be successfully launched. Action is always faster than reaction. And even a highly-skilled protection team can be defeated if the attacker gains the tactical element of surprise — especially if coupled with overwhelming firepower.

Ideally, those conducting surveillance must be made uncomfortable or even manipulated into revealing their position when it proves advantageous to countersurveillance teams. Dummy motorcade moves are a fine tool to add into the mix, as is the use of safe houses for alternate residences and offices. Any ploy to confuse, deceive or deter potential scouts that ultimately make them tip their hand are valuable tricks of the trade employed by protective intelligence practitioners — professionals tasked with the difficult mission of deterring the type of assassinations we have recently seen in Mexico.

~ ~ ~

Scenes from a shootout in Tijuana, Mexico over the weekend. Note the body armor, large caliber weapons, and high-capacity magazines.

Stephen King's New Career

Music Video Producer

Education and Training: Varies
Salary: Varies
Employment Outlook: Fair

Definition and Nature of the Work

The enormous success of music videos has opened a new and highly creative field to producers. Video producers are now in demand by record companies and recording artists who want visual interpretations of the songs they are promoting. A music video producer is responsible for seeing that the visual effects complement the musical piece and effectively highlight its performer or performers, who generally "star" in the video.

Kate Bush - Army Dreamers

Energy Problem? Walk It Off.

Andrew Daw, 16, from Klamath Falls, Ore. shows his proposed solution to the energy crisis at the 2008 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair: a sneaker that generates electricity as you walk. The 1,557 Intel Science Fair participants this year come from 51 countries, regions and territories.

NASA Announces Discovery of Super Nova

Silly NASA. It was in my driveway all along!

Introducing the 1964 Super Nova Show Car

The Super Nova show car made its debut at the New York Auto show in April of 1964, revealing the design ideas being kicked around for the upcoming Chevy II restyle. The proportions of the car anticipated the major styling themes that would become popular among youthful drivers in the mid '60s, specifically the longer hood and shorter deck. Chevy II script along the bottom of the front fender of this show piece indicates Chevrolet had a sportier future in mind for its compact economy car. This car was also used to create the Camaro. For more information, check out Don Coffman's Super Nova show car page.

If you were looking for the real NASA supernova story, about today's discovery, click here.

What Is NASA's Big Announcement?

On May 8, 2008, NASA scheduled a media teleconference for Wednesday, May 14, 2008, at 1 p.m. EDT, to announce:

"the discovery of an object in our Galaxy astronomers have been hunting for more than 50 years. "

This finding was made by combining data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory with ground-based observations.

Since the release of this media advisory, amateur astronomers across the internet have been wondering, "What is NASA's big announcement?" Let's examine three of the sky watcher's more entertaining guesses:

1. Black Hole - Nope. Been there, done that. Watch how Chandra helped to discover the protecting black hole of the Sagittarius A Star.

Beyond the Light: Black Holes - Chandra X-ray Observatory

2. Osama Bin Laden - Highly unlikely... Unless he's stolen someone's mojo, traveled back in time and is currently in a rocket orbiting the Earth. Not!

3. Class M Planet - Maybe. In January, the Epoxi Mission to Comet Hartley 2 was re-programmed to point the larger of its two telescopes at nearby previously discovered extrasolar planetary systems. Could it have passed on data that needed to be verified by Chandra?

Mums the word at NASA -- until Wednesday, that is.

To participate in the teleconference, reporters must contact the Chandra Press Office at 617-496-7998 or e-mail mwatzke@cfa.harvard.edu.

Live audio of the teleconference will be streamed online at 1 p.m. EDT: http://www.nasa.gov/newsaudio (audio finished - link dead for this conference)

A video file about the discovery will air on NASA Television on May 14. NASA TV is carried on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. NASA TV is available in Alaska and Hawaii on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization.

For information about NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory on the Web, visit:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/chandra/main/index.html

~ ~ ~

The truth is out there. -- And now it's here!

~~~ teleport through time to May 14, 2008 ~~~

IMAGES!!!

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2008/g19/media/#

Media Telecon:

DISCOVERY OF MOST RECENT SUPERNOVA IN OUR GALAXY
May 14, 2008 (1 p.m. EDT)

Scientists have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and NRAO's Very Large Array to discover the most recent supernova explosion in our Galaxy, as measured in Earth's time frame.

Press Release

May 14, 2008

JD Harrington
Headquarters, Washington
202-358-5241
j.d.harrington@nasa.gov

Jennifer Morcone
Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala.
256-544-7199
jennifer.j.morcone@nasa.gov

Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
617-496-7998
cxcpress@cfa.harvard.edu

RELEASE: 08-126

DISCOVERY OF MOST RECENT SUPERNOVA IN OUR GALAXY

WASHINGTON -- The most recent supernova in our galaxy has been discovered by tracking the rapid expansion of its remains. This result, using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array, will help improve our understanding of how often supernovae explode in the Milky Way galaxy.

The supernova explosion occurred about 140 years ago, making it the most recent in the Milky Way. Previously, the last known supernova in our galaxy occurred around 1680, an estimate based on the expansion of its remnant, Cassiopeia A.

Finding such a recent, obscured supernova is a first step in making a better estimate of how often the stellar explosions occur. This is important because supernovae heat and redistribute large amounts of gas, and pump heavy elements out into their surroundings. They can trigger the formation of new stars as part of a cycle of stellar death and rebirth. The explosion also can leave behind, in addition to the expanding remnant, a central neutron star or black hole.

The recent supernova explosion was not seen with optical telescopes because it occurred close to the center of the galaxy and is embedded in a dense field of gas and dust. This made the object about a trillion times fainter, in optical light, than an unobscured supernova. However, the remnant it caused can be seen by X-ray and radio telescopes.

"We can see some supernova explosions with optical telescopes across half of the universe, but when they're in this murk we can miss them in our own cosmic backyard," said Stephen Reynolds of North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who led the Chandra study. "Fortunately, the expanding gas cloud from the explosion shines brightly in radio waves and X-rays for thousands of years. X-ray and radio telescopes can see through all that obscuration and show us what we've been missing."

Astronomers regularly observe supernovae in other galaxies like ours. Based on those observations, researchers estimate about three explode every century in the Milky Way.

"If the supernova rate estimates are correct, there should be the remnants of about 10 supernova explosions that are younger than Cassiopeia A," said David Green of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, who led the Very Large Array study. "It's great to finally track one of them down."

The tracking of this object began in 1985, when astronomers, led by Green, used the Very Large Array to identify the remnant of a supernova explosion near the center of our galaxy. Based on its small size, it was thought to have resulted from a supernova that exploded about 400 to 1000 years ago.

Twenty-two years later, Chandra observations revealed the remnant had expanded by a surprisingly large amount, about 16 percent, since 1985. This indicates the supernova remnant is much younger than previously thought.

That young age was confirmed in recent weeks when the Very Large Array made new radio observations. This comparison of data pinpoints the age of the remnant at 140 years - possibly less if it has been slowing down - making it the youngest on record in the Milky Way.

Besides being the record holder for youngest supernova, the object is of considerable interest for other reasons. The high expansion velocities and extreme particle energies that have been generated are unprecedented and should stimulate deeper studies of the object with Chandra and the Very Large Array.

"No other object in the galaxy has properties like this," Reynolds said. "This find is extremely important for learning more about how some stars explode and what happens in the aftermath."

These results are scheduled to appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory controls Chandra's science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center in Cambridge, Mass.

Additional information and images about this discovery is available on the Web at:

http://www.nasa.gov/chandra
http://chandra.harvard.edu/

Instant replays are generally available one hour after a call ends, and will be through MAY-21-08 10:59 PM (CT)
Toll Free :866-501-2957
Toll: 203-369-1825


A video file about the discovery will air on NASA Television on May 14 at noon and 1pm (check the NASA TV schedule for additional times). NASA TV is carried on an MPEG-2 digital signal accessed via satellite AMC-6, at 72 degrees west longitude, transponder 17C, 4040 MHz, vertical polarization. NASA TV is available in Alaska and Hawaii on AMC-7 at 137 degrees west longitude, transponder 18C, at 4060 MHz, horizontal polarization.


Panelists:
Dr. Stephen Reynolds, North Carolina State University
Dr. Dave Green, University of Cambridge
Dr. Robert Kirshner, Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Bios Page

Graphics

Figure 1.1985 VLA and 2007 Chandra images of the supernova remnant G1.9+0.3, with a circle for size comparison.

Figure 1. (Cont'd). Blink between 1985 VLA and 2007 Chandra images.

Figure 2. Optical image of the plane of the Milky Way, with G1.9+0.3 labeled.

Figure 3.1985 VLA (radio) and 2008 VLA (X-ray) images of the supernova remnant G1.9+0.3.

Figure 3. (cont'd). Blink between 1985 and 2008 VLA images.

Figure 4. Chandra images of historical supernova remnants in the Milky Way.

Figure 5. An artist's impression of the Milky Way with positions of historial supernovas and G1.9+0.3.

Supplementary Graphics

Figure 6. A composite image of G1.9+0.3 with Chandra X-ray (2007, orange); VLA Radio (1985, blue)

Figure 7. An artist's close-up view of the supernova that caused G1.9+0.3.

Figure 8. An animation showing a flight into the Milky Way's center and a supernova explosion there. PLAY

Figure 9. A movie showing a large 2MASS image, with zooms to the Galactic Center and G1.9+0.3. PLAY

Figure 10. A Chandra X-ray mosaic of the Milky Way's plane (galaxy center in middle; G1.9+0.3 is outside this two degree wide field).

Figure 11.This extraordinarily deep Chandra image shows Cassiopeia A, the previous record holder for the youngest Galactic supernova remnant.

Figure 12. Landscape photo of the Very Large Array antenna with the moon.

Figure 13. Chandra X-ray Observatory - Spacecraft Illustration with Galactic Center Background.

Additional Information

Paper Title: THE YOUNGEST GALACTIC SUPERNOVA REMNANT: G1.9+0.3 (pdf format)

Full Author List: Stephen P. Reynolds(Department of Physics, North Carolina State University), Kazimierz J. Borkowski (Department of Physics, North Carolina State University), David A. Green (Cavendish Laboratory; Cambridge, UK), Una Hwang (NASA/GSFC), Ilana Harrus (NASA/GSFC) & Robert Petre (NASA/GSFC).

VLA radio confirmation paper:
The radio expansion and brightening of the very young supernova remnant G1.9+0.3 (pdf format), David A. Green et al. 2008, MNRAS Letters

Scientist Contact Information:
Steve Reynolds: reynolds@ncsu.edu, 919-515-7751
Dave Green: dag@mrao.cam.ac.uk, +44 1223 337305
Bob Kirshner: rkirshner@cfa.harvard.edu, 617-495-7519

Links:
Image captions
Animation captions
Image release
Press release

A380: Big Ol' Jet Airliner

Steve Miller Band - Jet Airliner

The Inside & Out of the A380 Flying Palace

The luxuriously designed Airbus A380 includes a fully-equipped interior office or board room, a curvy cocktail bar which boasts a super-size TV screen, cozy seating and private dining or relaxing zone.

Click here for a 360 degree cockpit view.

WWII Transformed the Art of Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Yasuo Kuniyoshi, Japanese-born American, 1893-1953. Photo by Arnold Newman, 1941.

On December 8, 1941, Yasuo Kuniyoshi, a prominent émigré Japanese artist in New York, awoke to find himself an “enemy alien” after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.

“A few short days has changed my status in this country, although I myself have not changed at all,” Kuniyoshi wrote. (see letter below)

His statement reveals astute foresight into a new historical period in which he would have to grapple with his racial and national identity vis-à-vis Japan, the country of his birth, and the United States, his adopted home.

A social realist during much of his career, Kuniyoshi experimented with hard-edged volumetric form and distorted space as well as fluid strokes and soft edges.

Circus performers were a major motif during the 1920s and again in the years just before his death, but the later canvases are more intense in color and sardonic in expression.

By 1930 his work, both as a graphic artist and as a painter in oils, was included in almost all national exhibitions of American art, and in 1935 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Life Saver, 1924.

Self Portrait, 1927.

Circus Girl Resting, 1931.

Japanese Toy Tiger and Odd Objects, 1932.

Girl Wearing Bandana, 1936.

Photograph of Yasuo Kuniyoshi, ca. 1940, taken in his studio during his work for the Federal Art Project, NYC. Photographed by [Max] Yavno for the FAP, NYC, Photographic Division. Archives of American Art, Photographs of Artists Collection I.

Kuniyoshi's view from this window is featured in his 1951 work, Across the Street. (below)

Yasuo Kuniyoshi's letter to George Biddle, Dec. 11, 1941.

Torture, is one of two works the Office of War Information purchased from Yasuo Kuniyoshi to use in U.S. propaganda posters during World War II.

Revelation, 1949.

Fish Kite, 1950.

Fakirs, 1951.

Across the Street, 1951.

Mr. Ace, 1952.

EOD Drop Outs

This thermal footage was recorded from an AC-130 gunship that was a mile or more away. No rounds were fired by the aircraft. Some jihadists were trying to conjure up an IED made from a 155mm artillery shell. Evidently, they lost the instruction manual. Problem resolved with no U.S. intervention required.

These guys should have been more attentive in Explosive Ordnance Disposal school.

Atheists Riot

Atheists Riot 2

Hizballah Shows Its Face

A masked Shi'ite gunman laughs as Hizballah fighters seized control of west Beirut on May 9, 2008. The Hizballah-led opposition seized control of the western sector of the Lebanese capital on Friday after a third day of battles with pro-government foes in the Lebanese capital pushed the nation dangerously close to all-out civil war.

America's Most Extreme Mom

SheKnows.com has announced Lisa Stevenson as winner of America's Most Extreme Moms contest by an overwhelming vote from online community readers.

Stevenson lives in Alaska, fighting to preserve the wilderness against potential coal strip mine infiltration. "We're trying to derail a division of the State of Alaska from surrounding our entire community with a 35,000 acre metallurgical coal strip mine," said Stevenson. "The pristine air we breathe, silence and solace of our wilderness neighborhood and clean mountain water that sustains life for the people and animals that call this home are at stake."

Stevenson not only strives for environmental justice, but is a true extreme mom, dealing with the lifestyle challenges of motherhood in the remote Alaskan wilderness. Stevenson, husband Ben and nine month old daughter Taslyn live in a spot so remote it can only be reached by foot or ATV. They resourcefully use solar power and cook meals on a wood burning cook-stove. Water for the cabin is hauled from a spring, and the bathroom is an outhouse perched over a cliff.

Far out, Lisa! Happy Mother's Day.

The Future's So Bright

Nathaniel Hipsman, 17, of Marietta, GA, a finalist at the 2008 Intel Science Talent Search (STS) displays his research, which may improve the precision of atomic clocks, such as those used in GPS devices, at the National Academy of Sciences. The 40 Intel STS finalists are in Washington, DC, this week, competing for more than $500,000 in scholarships.

Hannah Haas, 13, of Charlotte, N.C., used Bubble Wrap(r) cushioning to create wallpaper to engage and comfort children afflicted with autism, and was named the Grand Prize Winner in Sealed Air Corporation's second annual Bubble Wrap(r) Competition for Young Inventors.

Lucas Tambaiolli, 17, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, displays his project at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF). Lucas created a device to potentially help the blind see through transcranial stimuli.

The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades by Timbuk3

The Sexy Diet

Can certain foods turn you on?

If you’re cooking a romantic meal do you slip in some oysters in the hope they might excite more than your partner’s taste buds?

If so, you’re not alone. Foods classified as aphrodisiacs have been well documented throughout history. Hippocrates suggested using honey to help one’s libido and in the seventeenth century it was claimed asparagus "stirreth up bodily lust in man or woman."

It has been suggested that man's universal attribution of libidinous effects to certain foods originated in the ancient belief that if an object resembled the genitalia, it posessed sexual powers. Thus the legendary aphrodisiac powers of ginseng root and powdered rhinoceros horn.

Darn! You're pantry is fresh out of rhinoceros horn? Don't despair. Here's a list of some more common aphrodisiacs to help jump start a sexy mood:

Asparagus
Given its phallic shape, asparagus is frequently enjoyed as an aphrodisiac food. Feed your lover boiled or steamed spears for a sensuous experience. The Vegetarian Society suggests eating asparagus for three days for the most powerful affect.

Almond
A symbol of fertility throughout the ages. The aroma is thought to induce passion in a female. Try serving Marzipan (almond paste) in the shapes of fruits for a special after-dinner treat.

Arugula
Arugula, or "rocket seed," has been documented as an aphrodisiac since the first century A.D. This ingredient was added to grated orchid bulbs and parsnips and also combined with pine nuts and pistachios. Arugula greens are frequently used in salads and pasta.

Avocado
The Aztecs called the avocado tree "Ahuacuatl," which translated means "testicle tree." The ancients thought the fruit hanging in pairs on the tree resembled the male's testicles. This is a delicious fruit with a sensuous texture. Serve in slices with a small amount of Balsamic vinegar and freshly ground pepper.

Bananas
The banana flower has a marvelous phallic shape and is partially responsible for popularity of the banana as an aphrodisiac food. Bananas are rich in potassium and B vitamins, necessities for sex hormone production.

Basil (Sweet Basil)
Is said to stimulate the sex drive and boost fertility. It is also said to produce a general sense of well being for body and mind.

A rhinoceros horn -- falsely believed by some to have aphrodisiac properties. In fact, this particular Chinese medicine is not an aphrodisiac, but an antipyretic (reduces body temperature.)

Chocolate
The Aztecs referred to chocolate as "nourishment of the gods." Chocolate contains chemicals thought to effect neurotransmitters in the brain and a related substance to caffeine called theobromine. Chocolate contains more antioxidant (cancer preventing enzymes) than does red wine. The secret for passion is to combine the two. Try a glass of cabernet with a bit of dark chocolate for a sensuous treat.

Carrots
Another good reason to eat carrots -- believed to be a stimulant to the male. The phallus shaped carrot has been associated with stimulation since ancient times and was used by early Middle Eastern royalty to aid seduction. Carrots are high in vitamins and beta-carotene. Perhaps a justification for a piece of carrot cake?

Coffee
Caffeine is a well-know stimulant, but remember, too much and it becomes a depressant. Serve small amounts of rich, dark espresso in special little demitasse cups. Coffee stimulates both the body and the mind, so partake of a little in preparation for an all-nighter.

Coriander (Cilantro seed)
The book of The Arabian nights tells a tale of a merchant who had been childless for 40 years and but was cured by a concoction that included coriander. That book is over 1,000 years old, so the history of coriander as an aphrodisiac dates back far into history. Cilantro was also known to be used as an appetite stimulant.

Fennel
In the 1930's, fennel was found to be a source of natural plant estrogens. Use of fennel as an aphrodisiac dates back to the Egyptian times where it was used as a libido enhancement.

Figs
An open fig is thought to emulate the female sex organs and traditionally thought of as sexual stimulant. A man breaking open a fig and eating it in front of his lover is a powerful erotic act. Serve fresh Black Mission figs in a cool bowl of water, as it is done in Italy, and be sure to eat with your fingers!

Garlic
The "heat" in garlic is said to stir sexual desires. Make sure you and your partner share it together! Garlic has been used for centuries to cure everything from the common cold to heart ailments. This is a good time for moderation. Enjoy a pasta with a lightly garlicky sauce and it might lead up to something later.

Ginger
Ginger root raw, cooked or crystallized is a stimulant to the circulatory system. Perhaps a stir-fry with freshly grated ginger can stir something spicy up.

Honey
Many medicines in Egyptian times were based on honey, including cures for sterility and impotence. Medieval seducers plied their partners with Mead, a fermented drink made from honey. Lovers on their "honeymoon" drank mead as it was thought to sweeten the marriage.

Licorice
The Chinese have used licorice for medicinal purposes since ancient times. The essence of the Glycyrrhiza glabra (licorice) plant, glycrrhizin, is 50 times sweeter than sugar. Chewing on bits of licorice root is said to enhance love and lust. It is particularly stimulating to women.

Mustard
Believed to stimulate the sexual glands and increase desire. Prepare a tenderloin roast (filet mignon) for two with a mustard and peppercorn sauce.

Nutmeg
Nutmeg was highly prized by Chinese women as an aphrodisiac. In quantity, nutmeg can produce a hallucinogenic effect. A light sprinkling of the spice in a warm pumpkin soup can help spice up your evening.

Oysters
Oysters were documented as an aphrodisiac food by the Romans in the second century A.D., as mentioned in a satire by Juvenal. He described the wanton ways of women after ingesting wine and eating giant oysters. An additional hypothesis is that the oyster resembles the female genitals. In reality, oysters are very nutritious and high in protein.

Pine Nuts
Zinc is a key mineral necessary to maintain male potency and pine nuts are rich in zinc. Pine nuts have been used to stimulate the libido as far back as medieval times. Serve pine nut cookies with a dark espresso for a stimulating dessert.

Pineapple
Rich in vitamin C and is used in the homeopathic treatment for impotence. Add a spear to a sweet Rum drink for a tasty prelude to an evening of passion.

Raspberries and Strawberries
Perfect foods for hand-feeding your lover. Both invite love and are described in erotic literature as "fruit nipples." Both are high in vitamin C and make a sweet light dessert.

Truffles
The Greeks and the Romans considered the rare Truffle to be an aphrodisiac. The musky scent is said to stimulate and sensitize the skin to touch. (I personally swear by the dark chocolate variety by Godiva.)

Vanilla
The scent and flavor of vanilla is believed to increase lust. According to the Australian Orchid Society, Old Totonac lore has it that Xanat, the young daughter of the Mexican fertility goddess, loved a Totonac youth. Unable to marry him due to her divine nature, she transformed herself into a plant that would provide pleasure and happiness. Fill tall champagne glasses to the rim and add a vanilla bean for a heady, bubbly treat.

Wine
A glass or two of wine can greatly enhance a romantic interlude. Wine relaxes and helps to stimulate our senses. Drinking wine can be an erotic experience. Let your eyes feast on the color of the liquid... Caress the glass... Savor the taste on your lips. Do remember that excessive alcohol will make you too drowsy for the after-dinner romance. A moderate amount of wine has been said to arouse, but much more than that amount will have the reverse effect.

Still need a little help putting these aphrodisiacs in play? Check these tasty recipe links:

• Sex and the Kitchen
• Aphrodisiac Recipes from Star Chefs
• Aphrodisiac Love Potions

Bon Appétit!

Mess With the Best... Die Like the Rest [WARNING: Graphic Violence]

Insurgents plan an attack... but have their brains paint the desert.

WARNING: Graphic Violence [NSFW]

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Music: Let the Good Times Roll by The Cars (banged up blooper video) and One Step Closer by Linkin Park (music video)

I Think There's a Spy Among Us

pant...pant...pant...meow?

Scores Killed, Hundreds Wounded in Domestic Terror Attack

Scores Killed, Hundreds Wounded in Domestic Terror Attack

BOSTON – Police and National Guard units seeking to confiscate a cache of recently banned assault weapons were ambushed Sunday by elements of a para-military right wing extremist faction.

Military and law enforcement sources estimate that 72 were killed and more than 200 injured before government forces were compelled to withdraw.

Speaking after the clash, Massachusetts Governor Thomas Gage declared that the extremist militia faction has citizens who have links to the radical right wing tax protest movement.

Gage blamed the militia for recent incidents of vandalism directed against internal revenue offices.

The governor who described the group's organizers as "terrorists," issued an executive order authorizing the summary arrest of any individual who has interfered with the government's efforts to secure law and order.

The law enforcement team, augmented by elements of the National Guard, were sent to raid a militia arsenal after widespread refusal of right wing extremists to turn over recently outlawed assault weapons.

This decision followed a meeting in early July between government and law enforcement which authorized the confiscation of the illegal arms, known as the weapons of choice among criminals and militias.

One government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, pointed out "that none of these people would have been killed had right wing extremists obeyed the law and turned over the weapons voluntarily."

Police and government forces initially succeeded in confiscating a large supply of outlawed weapons and ammunition.

However, troops attempting to seize arms and ammunition in Lexington met with resistance from heavily armed militia extremists who had been tipped off regarding the government's plans.

During a tense stand-off in Lexington's town park, National Guard Colonel Francis Smith, commander of the government operation, ordered the armed group to surrender and return to their homes.

The impasse was broken by a single shot, which was reportedly fired by one of the right wing extremists.

Eight civilians were killed in the ensuing exchange.

Ironically, the local citizens blamed the government forces rather than the extremists for the civilian deaths.

Before order could be restored, heavily armed militia groups from surrounding areas had descended upon the police and guard units.

Colonel Smith, finding his forces over matched by militia mobs, ordered a retreat.

Governor Gage has called upon citizens to support the state/national joint task force in its effort to restore law and order.

The governor has also demanded the surrender of those responsible for planning and leading the attack against the government.

Samuel Adams, Paul Revere, and John Hancock, who have been identified as "ringleaders" of the extremist militia faction, remain at large.

"The American Revolution Begins" -- as reported by Associated Press, compiled by Charles Norton and New American Magazine.

Terrorists: When Will We See Them Again and Where?

When

Terrorist groups, particularly religious groups, place a high premium on historical dates that are significant to their religion or their community. Other types of historical dates are also significant.

In the case of the bombings of the World Trade Center, for example, 11 September may have been especially significant because the conspirators who carried out the 1998 African embassy bombings were to be sentenced the following day for their crimes. During that period, the conspirators were in a holding cell at a courthouse near the World Trade Center.

Significant historical dates that are likely to trigger al-Qaeda attacks include:

• 17 January - the commencement of Operation Desert Storm


• 19 March - Jerusalem Day proclaimed by Ayatollah Khomeini to demand the “liberation” of Jerusalem


• 30 March - referred to by Israeli Arabs as “Land Day,” it annually features protests against alleged expropriation of Arab property


• 7 May - Israeli Independence Day


• 31 May - the annual pilgrimage in Mecca begins


• 5 June - the beginning of the 1967 Six Day War between Israel and her Arab neighbors


• 4 July - U.S. Independence Day


• 31 December-1 January - New Year's Day
  

Excerpt from How to Forecast the Next Waves of Catastrophic Terrorism by Joshua Sinai, Ph.D., ANSER.

Where

To better understand where the next terrorist attack is likely to occur, let's look at several past terrorist incidents directed against the United States or its interests.

We focus our efforts on two target types: passenger rail and commercial aviation. While there are other target categories (e.g., maritime, fixed target, or industrial infrastructure), these two stand out because of:

• Demonstrated terrorist intent to attack these targets
• Demonstrated terrorist capability to conduct such attacks
• Potential for mass casualties
• Particular aspects inherent in the design of these targets which could impact the success or failure of attempted attacks

Passenger Rail

1. Aum Shinrikyo attack on Japanese subway trains, March 20, 1995. Although this event occurred over a decade ago, it remains highly informative. This incident demonstrates one of the only terrorist attacks to use chemical weapons with a modicum of success. This event is also one of the first terrorist attacks on trains or subways; as such, it illustrates possible terrorist organizational learning for future attack planning.

2. Suicide bombing plot, New York City subway system, July 1997. While this plot never reached the execution phase, trains—especially high-volume urban subway systems—are particularly vulnerable and attractive targets to terrorists. While there have been other similar attempts (many successful) overseas, this case is of interest because it involved a system in the United States.

3. Attacks on the London transit system, July 7, 2005. This successful series of attacks suggests that attacks on rail systems pose a significant future threat. This case is instructive due to significant similarities between London mass transit and mass transit systems across the United States. It also demonstrates potential terrorist organizational learning, building upon similar events in Madrid and elsewhere. Furthermore, the case displays a shift in terrorist trends toward the use of attackers who were born and raised in the target country.

4. Plan to attack the London transit system, July 21, 2005. This unsuccessful attempt occurred only two weeks after the successful attack and against the same target system. It is useful to contrast this case with the successful attacks of July 7, 2005. The case demonstrates potential terrorist organizational learning, although in this case, perhaps a failure to do so.

Commercial Aviation

1. Air France Flight 8969, December 1994. In this case, terrorists from the Armed Islamic Group successfully entered the execution phase by hijacking an airliner and forcing it to fly to France. The case exhibits a precedent for terrorist organizational learning. It was the first planned attempt to use a commercial aircraft as a weapon in and of itself, and subsequent efforts, such as the attacks of September 11, may have been informed by mistakes made by the terrorists that prevented them from ultimately reaching their target. The case also demonstrates successful counterterrorism methods: although the terrorists succeeded in entering the execution phase, counterterrorist forces were able to free all hostages.

2. The Bojinka Plot, December 1994-January 1995. This plot had several elements: an attempt to kill Pope John Paul II in Manila, a plan to crash an aircraft into the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, and an effort to simultaneously destroy 11 or 12 U.S.-flag airliners in flight over the Pacific Ocean. None of these components reached the execution phase. This case illustrates potential terrorist organizational learning as a precedent. It was the first attempt to destroy multiple airliners simultaneously in flight, it was the first significant attempt to use liquid explosives to circumvent existing screening technology, and (like the Air France plot) it was an early attempt to use an aircraft as a weapon by crashing it into a target.

3. The attacks of September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda succeeded in entering the execution phase of this plan, using four commandeered airliners to destroy targets of significant symbolic and material value and kill nearly 3,000 Americans. This case exhibits organizational terrorist learning, with commercial aircraft being used as weapons successfully for the first time. It also demonstrates a significant shift in terrorist and counterterrorist trends: not only was it the largest, most complex terrorist attack on U.S. soil to date, but it led to major changes in security measures.

4. The plot to destroy U.S. airliners with liquid explosives, August 2006. British authorities successfully prevented a group of approximately 20 terrorists from destroying multiple U.S.-flag airliners en route from the United Kingdom to the United States. The case illustrates terrorist organizational learning: like the Bojinka plot, this plan called for the use of liquid explosives. The method for smuggling the explosives on board was more sophisticated than in the Bojinka plot. The use of liquid explosives also exhibits a significant shift in terrorist trends, in that it has forced a major adjustment to screening procedures for commercial aircraft. Finally, the effective international and interagency information sharing that disrupted this plan is a useful “lessons learned.”

Be Aware

One phenomenon stands out: terrorists are rarely caught in the act during the execution phase of an operation, other than instances in which their equipment or weapons fail. Rather, plots are most often foiled during the pre-execution phases. Therefore, there must be an observant and sensitive public that recognizes potential indicators of terrorist planning.

Excerpt from Underlying Reasons for Success or Failure in Terrorist Attacks by The Homeland Security Institute (PDF Download 907.79 KB)

Survival Use of Plants 2 of 3: Edible Plant Identification

Note: This post is under construction. Plant descriptions and usage information is being added. This may take many days to complete. If you found this post through Digg, I'll send a shout when the article is fully updated. Thanks for your patience. - covertress

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"Do not let the fear of being poisoned deter you from experimenting with wild edible plants. Cases of fatal poisoning are extremely rare. Of the thousands of species of plants that grow wild in eastern North America, only a handful can be considered dangerously poisonous. These should present no problem if you are careful and follow a few simple rules." - Lee Allen Peterson, Peterson Field Guides.

1. Learn to recognize and avoid the common poisonous plants in your area. Be aware also of those that commonly cause dermatitis.
2. Teach children not to put plants in their mouths; keep all plants away from infants. Most cases of poisoning involve small children. Parents should learn what poisonous plants grow in or near their homes and warn their children to leave them alone.
3. Do not use any plant that you cannot positively identify as edible. If you have even the slightest doubt about the identity of a plant, leave it alone. This is particularly important when dealing with roots, shoots, and berries. Mushrooms and members of the Carrot Family often defy precise identification and should be approached with extreme caution; mistakes can be fatal.
4. Do not assume that plants that superficially resemble edible plants are themselves edible. Unfamiliar members of the Lily Family (6 petal-like flower parts, parallel-veined leaves) and the Pea Family (pealike flowers, pods) may be particularly tempting in this respect. They are just as likely to be poisonous as not.
5. When collecting an edible plant, make sure not to include parts from nearby poisonous plants.
6. Do not collect plants that have recently been sprayed with insecticides, or that grow in contaminated water or along the margins of heavily traveled highways. Although washing will frequently remove most of the toxic substances from these plants, it is safer and wiser to collect elsewhere.
7. Be absolutely certain which parts of a plant should be collected and at what season, and the proper way to use them. Pay close attention to warnings and caution notes in the field guides you use to identify edible plants. Some species are edible when cooked but poisonous when raw, or edible when young but toxic later. Note that certain plants become toxic if eaten in excess.
8. Sample unfamiliar edible plants sparingly at first. Refer to the Universal Edibility Test outlined in part one of this series (link below.) Body chemistries vary from individual to individual; a plant may be safe for one person te eat, but not for another.
9. There are no foolproof lists for determining either edible or poisonous plants. Animals are not reliable indicators of edibility.

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In addition to the information in part one of this series, on plant edibility and preparation, you should keep the following in mind when you are looking for plant food:

• There are no known poisonous grasses, so you should consider wild grains as an important emergency food source. Grains are edible raw, but roasting or boiling improves the food quality.

CAUTION: Many grasses are infected by the ergot fungus, which is extremely toxic. Ergot forms a dark black hornlike growth on the grain. This growth is about one inch long and persists through winter. Do not eat any plant that has this fungus on it.

• Some cacti are not edible. If the cactus grows close to the ground (not more than five inches tall) and does not have padlike segments, avoid it.
• The young leaves of all ferns uncoil from a fiddleheadlike structure, and it is at this stage that ferns are best for eating.

CAUTION: Limit the amount of fern leaves you eat as some species contain a material that may destroy vitamins in the body.

• Eating large quantities of some moss (lichen) may cause sickness.
• Water lilies, cattails, and water fern - although edible raw - should be washed in water suitable for drinking since th water they grow in may be contaminated.
• The roots of some root crops (taro, arrowroot, malanga, yam) should not be eaten raw as most contain mildly poisonous compounds. Boiling or baking destroys these compounds. It also destroys harmful bacteria that may be present on the root surface.
• Many trees have edible fruit. Some trees may be a source of water. Most are an excellent resource for building materials.
• If you are unsure of the edibility of a plant, apply the Universal Edibility Test (see part one of this series - link below.)

As you look at the plant illustrations, note the habitats and distributions of these plants to find out if they grow in your area. Learn to spot and identify them immediately. Keep in mind, however, that in another area the same plants, certainly different species of the same plants, may vary in size and structure.

Temperate Zone Food Plants

Amaranth (Amaranthus retroflexus & other species)

Description: There are various species of Amaranth that vary from 6 inches to 6 feet in height. These plants are coarse, hairy weeds with stout stems. The leaves are dull green, ovate to lance shaped and long-stalked. Flower clusters vary from dense and bristly to slender and nodding.

Habitat and distribution: Amaranths can be found along roadsides, in fields and in waste grounds across America.

Edible parts: The tender leaves can be eaten raw or added to salads. Cooked tender leaves can be boiled and eaten as vegetables. The tiny black seeds can be ground to make a nutritious flour.

Arrowroot (Sagittaria species)

Description: This plant grows up to 5 feet tall. Its leaves are 1 foot long and 4 inches wide. The leaves fold at night.

Habitat and distribution: This plant is a native of South America but is now brown on a wide scale in the humid tropics. Look for it in open sunny areas.

Edible parts: The rootstock is a rich source of high quality starch. Boil the rootstock and eat it as a vegetable.

Asparagus (Asparagus officinalis)

Beechnut (Fagus species)

Blackberries, Raspberries & Dewberries (Rubus species)

Description: These plants have prickly stems (canes) that grow upward, arching back toward the ground. They have alternate, usually compound leaves. The fruits may be red, yellow or orange in color.

Habitat and distribution: These plants grow in open sunny areas at the margin of woods, lakes, streams and roads throughout temperate regions.

Edible parts: The fruits and peeled young shoots are edible.

Other uses: Use the leaves to make tea. To treat diarrhea, drink a tea made by brewing the dried root bark of the blackberry bush.

Blueberries and Huckleberries (Vaccinium species & Gaylussacia species)

Description: These shrubs vary in size from 1 foot to 12 feet tall. All have alternate, simple leaves. The fruits may be dark blue, black or red with many small seeds.

Habitat and distribution: These plants prefer open, sunny areas. They are found throughout much of the North Temperate regions and at higher elevations in Central America.

Edible parts: Fruit. Eat raw, cooked or dried.

Burdock (Arctium lappa)

Description: This plant has wavy-edged leaves and flower heads in bristly receptacles.

Habitat and distribution: It is found growing in open wastelands during spring and summer.

Edible parts: Peel the tender leaf stalks and eat them raw or cook them like greens. The roots are also edible.

Other uses: A liquid made from the roots will help to produce sweating and increase urination. Dry the root, simmer it in water, strain the liquid and then drink the strained liquid. Fiber from the dried stock can be used to weave cordage.

Cattail (Typha latifolia)

Description: Cattails are grasslike plants with strap-shaped leaves 1/2 inch to 2 inches wide and growing up to 6 feet tall. There are several species, but all are recognized as cattails. The male flowers are borne in a dense mass above the female flowers. These last only a short time, leaving the female flowers that develop into the brown cattail. Pollen from the male flowers is often abundant and bright yellow.

Habitat and distribution: Cattails are found throughout most of the world. Look for them in full sun at the margins of lakes, streams, canals, rivers and brackish water.

Edible parts: The young tender shoots are edible raw or cooked. The rhizome is often very tough but is a rich source of starch. Pound the rhizome to remove the starch and use as a flour. The pollen is also an abundant source of starch. When the cattail is immature and still green, the female portion may be boiled and eaten like corn on the cob.

Other uses: The dried leaves are an excellent source of weaving material and can be used to make floats and rafts. The cottony seeds make good pillow stuffing and insulation. The pollen makes excellent tinder.

Chestnut (Castanea species)

Chicory (Cichorium intybus)

Description: This plant grows up to 6 feet tall. It has leaves clustered at the base of the stem and some leaves on the stem. The base leaves resemble those of the dandelion. The flowers are sky blue but remain open only on sunny days. Chickory has milky juice.

Habitat and distribution: Look for chickory in old fields, waste places, weedy lots and along roads. It is a native of Europe and Asia but is found in Africa and most of North America where it grows as a weed.

Edible parts: All parts are edible. Eat the young leaves raw as a salad or boil to eat as a vegetable. Cook the roots as a vegetable. For a coffee substitute, roast the roots until they are dark brown and then pulverize.

Chufa (Cyperus esculentus)

Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale)

Description: The leaves have a jagged edge, grow close to the ground and are seldom more than 8 inches long. The flowers are bright yellow. There are several species of dandelions.

Habitat and distribution: Dandelions grow in open, sunny locations throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Edible parts: All parts are edible. Eat the leaves raw or cooked. Boil the roots. Roots roasted and cround are a good coffee substitute.

Other uses: The white juice in the flower stems can be used as glue.

Daylily (Hemerocallis fulva)

Nettle (Urtica species)

Oaks (Quercus species)

Persimmon (Diospyros virginiana)

Plantain, Broad Leaf Lawn (Plantago Major, P. Rugelii)

Description: These plants have borad leaves, over 1 inch across, that are borne close to the ground. The flowers are on a spike that arises from the middle of the cluster of leaves.

Habitat and distribution: Look for these plants in lawns and along roads in North Temperate regions.

Edible parts: The young leaves are edible raw or boiled.

Other uses: To relieve pain from wounds and sores, wash and soak the entire plant for a short while and apply it to the injured area. To treat diarrhea, drink tea made from 1 ounce of the plant boiled in 1 pint of water.

Pokeweed (Phytolacca americana)

Prickly pear cactus (Opuntia species)

Purslane (Portulaca oleracea)

Sassafras (Sassafras albidum)

Sheep sorrel (Rumex acetosella)

Strawberries (Fragaria species)

Thistle (Cirsium species)

Water lily & lotus (Nuphar, Nelumbo, & other species)

Wild onion & garlic (Allium species)

Wild rose (Rosa species)

Wood sorrel (Oxalis species)

Tropical Zone Food Plants

Bamboo (various genera including Bambusa, Dendrocalamus, Phyllostachys)

Description: Bamboos are woody grasses that grow up to 50 feet tall. The leaves are grasslike and the stems are the familiar bamboo used in furniture and fishing poles.

Habitat and distribution: Look for bamboo in warm, moist regions in open or jungle country, in lowland, or on mountains. Bamboos are native to the Far East, both temperate and tropical zones, but have been widely planted around the world.

Edible parts: The young shoots of almost all species are edible raw or cooked. Raw shoots have a slightly bitter taste that is removed by boiling. To prepare, remove the tough protective sheath, which is coated with tawny or red hairs. The seed grain of the flowering bamboo is also edible. Boil the seeds like rice or pulverize them, mix with water and make into cakes.

Other uses: Use the mature bamboo to build structures or to make containers, ladles, spoons and various other cooking utensils. Bamboo can also be used to make tools and weapons. You can make a strong bow by splitting the bamboo and putting several pieces together.

Bananas and Plantains (Musa species)

Description: These are treelike plants with several large leaves at the top. The flowers are borne in dense hanging clusters.

Habitat and distribution: Look for bananas in open fields or margins of forests where they are grown as a crop. They grow in the humid tropics.

Edible parts: The fruits are edible raw or cooked. They may be boiled or baked. The flowers can be boiled and eaten like a vegetable. The rootstalks and leaf sheaths of many species can be cooked and eaten. The center or "heart" of the plant is edible year round, cooked or raw.

Other uses: Layers of the lower third of the plant can be used to cover coals to roast food. The stump of the plant can be used to obtain water.

Breadfruit (Artocarpus incisa)

Description: This tree may grow up to 30 feet tall. It has dark green, deeply divided leaves that are 2-1/2 feet long and 1 foot wide. The fruits are large, green, ball-like structures up to 1 foot across when mature.

Habitat and distribution: Look for this tree at the margins of forests and homesites in the humid tropics. It is native to the South Pacific region but has been widely planted in the West Indies and parts of Polynesia.

Edible parts: The fruit pulp is edible raw. The fruit can be sliced, dried and ground into flour for later use. The seeds are edible cooked.

Other uses: The thick sap can be used for glue and caulking material. It can also be used for birdlime. Entrap small birds by smearing the sap on twigs where the birds usually perch.

Cashew nut (Anacardium occidental)

Coconut (Cocos nucifera)

Description: This tree has a single, narrow, tall trunk with a cluster of very large leaves at the top. Each leave may be over 20 feet long with over 100 pairs of leaflets.

Habitat and distribution: Coconut palm are found throughout the tropics. They are most abundant near coastal regions.

Edible parts: The nut is a valuable source of food. The milk of the young coconut is rich in sugar and vitamins and is an excellent source of liquid. The nut meat is also nutritious, but is rich in oil. To preserve the meat, spread it in the sun until completely dry.

Other uses: Use coconut oil for cooking; for protecting metal objects from corrosion; for treating saltwater sores, sunburn and dry skin; and for improvising torches. Use the tree trunk for building material and the leaves for thatching. Hollow out the large stump to use as a food container. The coconut husks are good for flotation and the husk fibers for weaving ropes and other items. Use the gauzelike fibers at the leaf bases as strainers or use them to weave a bug net or to make a pad to use on wounds. Husk makes a good abrasive. Dried husk fiber is an excellent tinder. A smouldering husk helps to repel mosquitoes. Smoke caused by dripping coconut oil in a fire also repels mosquitoes. To render coconut oil, put the coconut meat in the sun, heat it over a slow fire, or boil it in a pot of water. Coconuts washed out to sea are a good source of fresh liquid for the sea survivor.

Mango (Mangifera indica)

Palms (various species)

Papaya (Carica species)

Sugarcane (Saccharum officinarum)

Taro (Colocasia species)

Desert Zone Food Plants

Acacia (Acacia farnesiana)

Description: This is a spreading, usually short tree with spines and alternate compound leaves. The individual leaflets are small. The flowers are ball-shaped, bright yellow, and very fragarant. The bark is a whitish grey color. The fruits are dark brown and podlike.

Habitat and distribution: Acacia grown in open, sunny areas. It is found throughout all tropical regions.

NOTE: There are about 500 kinds of acacia. These plants are especially prevalent in Africa, southern Asia, and Australia, but many kinds occur in the warmer and drier parts of America.

Edible parts: The young leaves, flowers, and pods are edible raw or cooked.

Agave (Agave species)

Description: These plants have large clusters of thick, fleshy leaves borne close to the ground and surrounding a central stalk. The plants flower only once, then die. They produce a massive flower stalk.

Habitat and distribution: Agaves prefer dry, open areas. They are found throughout Central America, the Caribbean, and parts of the western deserts of the United States and Mexico.

Edible parts: The flowers and flower buds are edible. Boil before eating.

CAUTION: The juice of some species causes dermatitis.

Other uses: Cut the huge flower stalk and collect the juice for drinking. Some species have very fibrous leaves. Pound the leaves and remove the fibers to use for ropes and weaving. Most species have thick, sharp needles at the tops of the leaves. These can be used for sewing or making hooks. The sap of some species contains a chemical that makes it suitable for use as a soap.

Cactus (various species)

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera)

Desert amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri)

Milesian world map, circa 510 BC. (Included here because it's interesting -- and one should be able to locate an ocean without a map.)

Seaweeds

Dulse (Rhodymenia palmata)

Green seaweed (Ulva lactuca)

Irish moss (Chondrus crispus)

Kelp (Alaria esculenta)

Laver (aka Nori) (Porphyra species)

Mojaban (Sargassum fulvellum)

Sugar wrack (Laminaria saccharina)

Excerpt from the US Army Survival Manual FM 21-76

Previously:

• "Survival Use of Plants 1 of 3: Edibility"

Coming Soon:

• "Survival Use of Plants 3 of 3: Plants for Medicinal and Other Uses"