Hampton Roads Publishing Company Blog

Via the ever-interesting schwartzreport from LiveScience, an article that speaks for itself.

Farewell, Wires? Power Beamed Through Air

CHARLES Q. CHOI - LiveScience

Power cables and even batteries might become a thing of the past using a new technique that can transmit power wirelessly to cell phones, laptops, MP3 players, household robots and other electronics.

Scientists lit a 60-watt light bulb from a power source 7 feet (2 meters) away with their new technique, with no physical connection between the source and the appliance. The researchers have dubbed their concept “WiTricity,” as in “wireless electricity.”

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This from The Japan Times, http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/ed20070607a1.html

Thursday, June 7, 2007

EDITORIAL
Six Day War left mixed legacy

Forty years ago, Israel won one of the most unlikely military victories in history. The Jewish nation’s triumph over its Arab neighbors in the Six Day War was a stunning blow from which the world is still reeling. Sadly, four decades have not made Israel more secure, and many Israelis now concede that they are better warriors than peacemakers. But they should not shoulder the blame alone for the continuing violence in that troubled part of the world: Palestinians and other Arabs have been more interested in nurturing grievances than laying a foundation for peace.

It is hard to remember how Israel was seen by the world 40 years ago. The tiny nation was considered a country of victims, survivors of the unspeakable horrors of the Holocaust. They were surrounded by hostile neighbors who had never accepted Israel’s right to exist and, armed with the most modern Soviet weapons, vowed to drive them into the sea. Israel’s very existence was in doubt.

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A quirky little story I came across in mercopress: http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=10671&formato=HTML

It reads like a ship’s information officer’s press release, and maybe it is. Interesting, though. Those too young to remember the Falkland Islands war of 1982 may wish to Google it.

HMS Dumbarton Castle: Small Ship, Big Name

The longest ship name in the Royal Navy is not always an advantage. In fact, it can sometimes weigh a few hundred tons. In this case, the name is longer than the ship herself. When you stand on Victory Green in the heart of Stanley, you can see it. The white name of the final Royal Navy Castle Class Ship set quite literally in stone surrounded by boggy, green undergrowth.

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We’re a long way down the road, just as Sinclair Lewis predicted 70 years ago in “It Can’t Happen Here,” and just as FDR among others feared.

Are the Hitler Parallels Too Close for Comfort?
June 6, 2007
By John W. Whitehead

“Those who do not remember the past are condemned to relive it.”
–George Santayana

On May 9, 2007, with little attention from the snoozing media, George W. Bush issued a “presidential directive” that allows him to assume control of the federal government following a “catastrophic emergency.”

Although the directive doesn’t specifically identify the types of emergencies that would qualify as “catastrophic,” it is vague enough to encompass “any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function.” As Matthew Rothschild of The Progressive noted, it could include “another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California.” In fact, the language is so broad that it could include almost anything the public is led to believe might have a major impact on the country. Not surprisingly, the president’s order comes neatly packaged within the trappings of national security and safety.

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Gertruda Grzebski with her husband, Jan, who was sent home to die after being left in a coma by a railway accident in 1988. “For 19 years, she did the job of an experienced intensive care team,” their doctor said. Picture: EPA

The man who fell asleep for 19 years
ALLAN HALL

AS HIS fellow Poles sought to break the Soviet Union’s grip on the country and the threat loomed large that Moscow would send in the tanks, the world suddenly went black for Jan Grzebski when an accident left him in a coma.

Now, 19 years later, he has woken to a radically different world. Gone are the meat shortages, the stench of poorly refined petrol, the drab drudgery of life behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1988, when he was hit by a train and sent home to die, Poland was a Communist state under prime minister General Wojciech Jaruzelski. Dissidents and activists for the Solidarity union, led by Lech Walesa, were harassed by the authorities amid a state of martial law.

Since then Mr Walesa has been elected president and ousted by the electorate, the Soviet Union has collapsed and Poland has become a member of the European Union.

Mr Grzebski missed a lot more besides the political upheaval - not least seeing his children growing up to have their own children. He woke to discover he was a grandfather 11 times over.

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Someday someone may make a bunch of good movies about the unbelievable stupidities perpetrated by the small bunch of neocons who motivated this maladministration. Of course, you are free to believe their denials that any of this happened. Would they lie to you? (Try to keep a straight face while saying “no, they wouldn’t.”) This story, via truthout, from Congressional Quarterly, http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002523531.html

Defense Officials Tried to Reverse China Policy, Says Powell Aide
By Jeff Stein, CQ National Security Editor

The same top Bush administration neoconservatives who leap-frogged Washington’s foreign policy establishment to topple Saddam Hussein nearly pulled off a similar coup in U.S.-China relations—creating the potential of a nuclear war over Taiwan, a top aide to former Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the U.S. Army colonel who was Powell’s chief of staff through two administrations, said in little-noted remarks early last month that “neocons” in the top rungs of the administration quietly encouraged Taiwanese politicians to move toward a declaration of independence from mainland China — an act that the communist regime has repeatedly warned would provoke a military strike.

The top U.S. diplomat in Taiwan at the time, Douglas Paal, backs up Wilkerson’s account, which is being hotly disputed by key former defense officials.

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Close up of the photo that is shown next page. Story via a friend, from http://channels.aol.ca/news/article.adp?id=20070605095809990001

Photos Show Mystery Skeleton in Iceberg

By TARA BRAUTIGAM, Canadian Press

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. (CP) - Marine scientists in Canada and abroad are puzzled by bizarre photographs that appear to show the skeleton of a large mammal jutting out of an iceberg that recently drifted past Newfoundland’s east coast.

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Billy Graham is a great man and has given great service all these decades. I can’t think of anybody like him in our time. Unlike the televangelists like Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, and so many others whose names at the moment I can’t even recall, there was never a hint of scandal either financial or sexual about his long career. This from http://www.heraldonline.com/109/story/40061.html. the Herald OnLine

Ex-presidents recall Graham’s years of advice

By Mark Washburn and Tim Funk · The Charlotte Observer
Updated 06/01/07 - 12:28 AM

CHARLOTTE — They reunite rarely, usually at funerals of state or grand pageants of the republic.

But Thursday, the nation’s three surviving ex-presidents — George Bush, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton — gathered to honor a man who’d served each one in his time as friend, adviser and spiritual guide.

The Rev. Billy Graham, said Bush, has been “a constant radiant of light, light of truth.”

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I suppose that a whole generation — two generations perhaps — scarcely even recognizes the name Adolph Eichmann, but I can remember when he was kidnapped by Israeli agents, returned to Israel from Argentina, tried for war crimes and hung. It was perhaps the first indication of Isreali efficiency at such operations. It might also have served to indicate how along they were in seeking justice, how little they could count on help from the international community — as this story from mercopress — http://www.mercopress.com/vernoticia.do?id=10598&formato=html — demonstrates.

Eichmann´s passport, issued by the Italian Red Cross

False passport of Nazi Eichmann found in Buenos Aires court

The false passport used by high-ranking Nazi Adolf Eichmann in 1950 to escape to Argentina was accidentally discovered in an old court record in Buenos Aires.

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This report from Reuters — http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSL3147787120070531?src=053107_1120_TOPSTORY_missile_shield_reply&pageNumber=3 — shows the latest results of the imperialist folly being practiced and preached by the neocons in Washington, D.C. You don’t have to believe in Putin’s sincerity to see that he has been handed very good talking points by the belligerent nitwits who have been running things (into the ground) since January 20, 2001.

BTW you have to laugh wearily — or cry — when you see a sentence like this said apparently in all seriousness: “Relations between Russia and the United States are strained by issues that also include U.S. concerns that human rights and democracy are backsliding in Russia.” In RUSSIA? What about in The United States, that used to be a free country?

U.S. “imperialism” means new arms race: Putin

Thu May 31, 2007 11:39AM EDT

By Oleg Shchedrov

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a scathing attack on the West on Thursday, accusing Washington of imperialism and of starting a new arms race.

Speaking a week before he meets leaders of the Group of Eight (G-8) industrial nations in Germany, Putin said Russia’s tests on Tuesday of a two new missiles were a direct response to U.S. moves to create a missile defense system.

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