WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's code name for a crackdown on resistance in Iraq was also used by the Nazis for an aborted operation to damage the Soviet power grid during World War II.
"Operation Iron Hammer" this week launched the 1st Armored Division's 3rd Brigade into the roughest parts of Baghdad to ferret out the attackers who have killed scores of U.S. troops since Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was ousted in April.
A Pentagon official said the name was chosen because of the "Old Ironsides" nickname of the 1st Armored Division. He was unaware of any connection to any Nazi operation.
"Eisenhammer," the German for "iron hammer," was a Luftwaffe code name for a plan to destroy Soviet generating plants in the Moscow and Gorky areas in 1943, according to Universal Lexikon on the www.infobitte.de Web site.
A researcher at Britain's Imperial War Museum confirmed the existence of Eisenhammer.
The Nazi's long-range bombing operation was repeatedly postponed and was finally scrapped after an allied air assault destroyed many of the German planes on the ground in 1945, shortly before the defeat of Germany.
After it declared war on terrorism, U.S. officials changed the code name for its impending attack on Afghanistan to Operation Enduring Freedom.
The original name, Operation Infinite Justice, was jettisoned amid fears that the Muslim world, already leery of U.S. intentions, would object on the basis of Koranic teachings that only God can provide infinite justice.
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Mojave National Preserve (CA)
Explosives Found and Destroyed
On October 8th, a contractor working in the park came upon a metal silo at the Morning Star Mine which appeared to contain explosives. Rangers and the county bomb squad examined the silo and confirmed that it contained about 40,000 pounds of energized and active ammonium nitrate explosives. Around-the-clock security was begun and maintained at the site for nine days until the explosives could be destroyed. Rangers from Lake Mead, Santa Monica Mountains and the BLM assisted with the security. NPS explosives disposal experts from Yosemite and Sequoia-Kings Canyon destroyed the explosives in small amounts. The 40,000 pounds constituted about nine times as much of the same explosive as was used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
[Submitted by Kirk Gebicke, Park Ranger]
Bodies of Rock Climbers Found
IDYLWILD The bodies of two Southland rock climbers who plunged to their deaths have now been recovered.
The tragedy occurred Sunday at Taquitz Rock, near Idylwild in Riverside County, a popular rock climbing site.
Authorities say a rack and pinion climbers use to scale rocky terrain snapped and the two men fell 6-hundred feet to the bottom of a ravine.
The victims, 32 year old Kelly Tugo of Anza and 41 year old David Kellogg of San Diego, were experienced climbers.
X10 files for Chapter 11
By Paul Festa
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
[complete report at: http://news.com.com/2100-1014-5095260.html
Story last modified October 22, 2003, 3:16 PM PDT
The company that only last year billed itself as the world's largest online advertiser has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
X10 Wireless Technology, which marketed its Net cameras through a vast campaign of Web pop-under advertisements, made the filing on Tuesday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington.
The filing came one day before the company faced a hearing in Orange County Superior Court for punitive damages following its loss to a tiny ad start-up called Advertisement Banners.com, based in Anaheim, Calif. That company had alleged that X10 had stolen its method of serving pop-under ads, or ads that show up beneath a Web page and remain on the screen once the window is closed.
On Oct. 7, the jury in the case awarded Advertisement Banners $4.3 million in compensatory damages, according to court records. The judge issued a gag order Tuesday in the case that will last until the jury is dismissed.
"The conservative problem is (that) reality itself is radical. The third world really is poor and oppressed. The United States usually does side with third world oligarchs. Our tax system really is regressive. Millions of Americans do live in poverty. Public services really are being ruthlessly cut. Corporations do plunder and pollute the environment. Real wages for blue collar workers have declined. And the rich have dramatically increased their share of the pie."
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) - A judge granted sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad's surprise request Monday to represent himself, minutes before opening statements in the trial were to begin.
The proceedings had started nearly an hour late, and Circuit Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. immediately called a bench conference with Muhammad and defense and prosecuting attorneys. Muhammad and Millette spoke directly to each other for more than five minutes before the judge announced that defense lawyers Peter Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro would only be assisting Muhammad.
``His attorneys are now what is known as standby counsel,'' Millette told the jury. He did not explain why Muhammad chose to represent himself.
Prosecutors would not say why Malvo was summoned. He had refused to testify at a recent hearing and instead invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Bush insisted he was "not paying attention" to the Democratic race. He said he knew who the candidates are, but had not watched a Democratic debate.
Likewise, Bush's response to the Democrats' specific criticisms about his handling of the war in Iraq and the economy. "I repeat, I'm not really paying attention to it," he said.
Bush said he insulates himself from the "opinions" that seep into news coverage by getting his news from his own aides. He said he scans headlines, but rarely reads news stories.
"I appreciate people's opinions, but I'm more interested in news," the president said. "And the best way to get the news is from objective sources, and the most objective sources I have are people on my staff who tell me what's happening in the world."
"I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official," Bush said. "I don't have any idea. I'd like to. I want to know the truth."
But, Bush said, "This is a large administration and there's a lot of senior officials."
REDDICK, Fla. — Florida, the lightning capital of the nation, lived up to its reputation when 20 prized, pregnant cows were killed by a bolt that hit an oak tree they were huddled under at a north Florida farm, police said. Two others were euthanized.
"The hole in the tree was the size of a watermelon," said Rose Mary Cameron of Clover Leaf Farm. "The ones that were under the tree did not move. They just fell over each other. They were all tangled up."
She said two others appeared brain dead, "so the manager put them down."
Paul Resler of the National Lightning Protection Corp. in Denver said trees are the worst place to seek shelter in case of lightning.
"Of course we as humans know that, but the cows do not know that," Resler said.
French Government Bans Term 'E-Mail'
JAMEY KEATEN
Associated Press
PARIS - Goodbye "e-mail," the French government says, and hello "courriel" - the term that linguistically sensitive France is now using to refer to electronic mail in official documents.
The Culture Ministry has announced a ban on the use of "e-mail" in all government ministries, documents, publications or Web sites, the latest step to stem an incursion of English words into the French lexicon.
The ministry's General Commission on Terminology and Neology insists Internet surfers in France are broadly using the term "courrier electronique" (electronic mail) instead of e-mail - a claim some industry experts dispute. "Courriel" is a fusion of the two words.
"Evocative, with a very French sound, the word 'courriel' is broadly used in the press and competes advantageously with the borrowed 'mail' in English," the commission has ruled.
The move to ban "e-mail" was announced last week after the decision was published in the official government register on June 20. Courriel is a term that has often been used in French-speaking Quebec, the commission said.
The 7-year-old commission has links to the Academie Francaise, the prestigious institution that has been one of the top opponents of allowing English terms to seep into French.
Some Internet industry experts say the decision is artificial and doesn't reflect reality.
"The word 'courriel' is not at all actively used," Marie-Christine Levet, president of French Internet service provider Club Internet, said Friday. "E-mail has sunk in to our values."
She said Club Internet wasn't changing the words it uses.
"Protecting the language is normal, but e-mail's so assimilated now that no one thinks of it as American," she said. "Courriel would just be a new word to launch."
The July Fourth holiday is a time to stand up and show our patriotism. For those who are confused about what it means to be patriotic, here is what I've learned from our president, his administration and other True Patriots:
A true patriot never questions or criticizes their president; would gladly surrender their civil liberties for the purpose of security; would never be opposed to a just war; would never put plants or animals above economic prosperity; would never vote against increasing defense spending; would never support socialist ideas like guaranteeing health care for all; would never let their country be subject to the United Nations, international law or international efforts to do things like reduce greenhouse gases or ban land mines; knows that we are a Christian nation, subservient to the laws of God; does not believe in giving women, minorities and gays "special privileges;" understands that democracy is synonymous with capitalism; knows that it is wrong to regulate business or interfere with its ability to make money; knows that campaign contributions are free speech, burning a flag is not and, finally, a true patriot knows that their individual freedom is the most important thing -- with the following exceptions: when it interferes with "national security," what one does with their own body or anything that interferes with business.
Jon Glenn
Salt Lake City
THE ICONIC Volkswagen Beetle, the most popular car ever made, will cease production this summer, 69 years and more than 21 million sales after Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich first commissioned the durable, dome-shaped little “People’s Car.”
Volkswagen officials said earlier this month that the last Beetle assembly line in the world, in VW’s massive plant here in central Mexico, will shut in the coming weeks. They said sales had fallen dramatically because the $6,800 workhorse could no longer compete with slick little imported Fords and Chevys that are priced nearly the same but offer four doors, air conditioning and engines that don’t sound like can openers in distress.
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) - A San Jose State University professor who announced just weeks ago that he and a colleague had solved an important math problem now says he goofed. Daniel Goldston had worked on the problem for 20 years.
"Even if I had spent another year very carefully going over everything, I think I still would have missed that error," Goldston said Tuesday.
Goldston's advance in the field of prime numbers was called the most important breakthrough in that area of mathematics in decades.
Other experts say that regardless of the outcome, the work Goldston has done with Cem Yalcin Yildirim of Bogazici University in Istanbul is a success.
Goldston's work involves the twin prime conjecture, or the idea that there are an infinite number of pairs of prime numbers that differ only by two.
Prime numbers can be divided only by themselves or by 1 without leaving a remainder. The smallest twin primes are 3 and 5. The largest discovered so far are numbers with 51,090 digits each.
While no one has proved the twin prime conjecture itself, Goldston and Yikdirim tackled a related question: Can you find an infinite number of primes that may not be twins, but that are much closer together than average?
Their proof, or solution, seemed to say yes. But on April 23, a flaw emerged.
Goldston says he will work to fix the flaw over the next several months - mostly at his dining table, while his wife and three children watch television.
Cape Cod National Seashore (MA)
Unexploded Ordnance Found on Marconi Beach
On the morning of April 3rd, ranger David LaMere found what appeared to be an unexploded bomb, partially exposed near the top of a 100-foot-high dune on the outer beach north of Marconi Beach. From 1942 to 1944, this portion of the park, known then at Camp Wellfleet, was used by the military as an anti-aircraft artillery training center, and, through 1961, as a training center for National Guard and Reserve units. As a result, a wide range of munitions, from 50 caliber rounds to 1000-pound dove bombs have been located through exposure and cleanup efforts. A digital photo of the bomb and specific information was sent to the explosive ordinance disposal (EOD) unit at the Otis Air Force Base, located on Cape Cod. A three-person team arrived on scene to remove it. Due to the advanced state of deterioration, they were unable to determine if the bomb was real or a training device. They decided that they needed to "spank" the 750-pound bomb in place rather than risk detonation attempting to move it to another location. The explosive C4 was used to detonate the bomb, which was found to be a training bomb containing plaster. The remains, which were now in small pieces, were removed from the beach. The area had been secured for a mile in each direction along the beach and for 1000 yards behind the dune. Due to the time of year, visitors in the area was not a significant issue. If it had been summer, as many as a thousand or more visitors would have been on the beach within a quarter mile of the location.
[Submitted by Bob Grant, District Ranger]
Sheep Head Breaks Music Fan's Skull
March 10, 2003 12:23 PM EST
OSLO, Norway - A flying sheep's head hit a concertgoer and fractured his skull at a concert of metal band Mayhem.
The band, part of Norway's death metal music scene, was carving up a dead sheep as part of its stage act when the animal's head flew off lead singer Maniac's knife and struck Per Kristian Hagen, 25.
"My relationship to sheep is a bit ambivalent now. I like them, but not when they come flying through the air," Hagen told The Associated Press Monday from his hospital room. "I have a headache now." He is expected to recover.
Hagen, a Mayhem fan, filed involuntary assault and battery charges against the band. The charges carry a maximum sentence of six months in prison.
Mayhem member Rune Eriksen, whose stage name is Blasphemer, said the incident was unfortunate.
"The whole thing was an accident, but maybe it would be an idea for another show," he said.
Eriksen promised Hagen a free ticket to the group's next performance.
Safety is the first consideration in any sport, and the IFOCE insists that all competitive eating matches take place in a controlled environment with the proper safety measures in place. Speed eating is not a sport for the home.
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