Smart Bullets Coming Soon To An Army Near You

There is nothing like having an advantage over an enemy in war and smart bullets may be the ultimate advantage. The military is working on gaining such an edge with new technologies that will give future armies the ability to fight with smart bullets. Also known as EXACTO (Extreme Accuracy Tasked Ordinance) They are bullets that when fired will be able to sense air currents and zero in on moving targets by adjusting their positions in mid flight to stay on course to hit a target. Some types will be laser guided. What this will mean is that soldiers will be able to fire their weapons without having to visually sight their targets before firing. They will be able to stay physically out of harms way and shoot from around corners and from behind hills and buildings and the smart bullets will still be able to hit their targets. The technology is not unlike the current Predator drones that the military is utilizing now in Afghanistan which are completely computer driven and unmanned and are assigned a target and then use GPS technology to fly to and zero in on a target and strike it. Some of these technologies have small computers inside which are able to send and receive data to constantly update their information especially if they are fired at moving targets and need to adjust in order to hit them. Some of the research is being conducted at the University of Florida in Gainesville and is being funded by Military contractor Lockheed Martin.

Search For Original Darwin Notebook Goes On

November 24th, 2009 marks the 150th anniversary of the release of Charles Robert Darwin's controversial book about evolution "On The Origin Of Species." It first appeared on this date in 1859 and has been at the center of a controversy about creationism and evolution ever since. When Darwin first set out as a young man of 22 on his trip to the Galapagos Islands on board the H.M.S. Beagle in 1831 he took with him and ended up filling up a total of 15 notebooks worth of information and observations that he made while there about the wildlife forms in nature that he observed. What he wrote in these books changed the way human beings viewed the world. All 15 books were maintained at Darwin' s home named Down House in a section of southern England known as Kent. In the 1960's the books which were all on display there were microfilmed. By the early 1980's someone had noticed that one of the books about The Galapagos Islands was missing. It is suspected that someone stole it. The maintainers of Down House would not mind having it back and have been asking the public for some help in finding it. They say the book is notebook sized, square, bound in a red leather cover, and has a gold clasp. On the cover in Darwin's own handwriting are the words Galapagos and Lima.

Senator Robert Byrd Nears 57th Year In Congress

We all know that nothing lasts forever but West Virginia Democratic Senator Robert Byrd is sure making a real run at trying to dis-prove it. On November 18th, 2009 he served his 20,744th day in Congress which broke the record for longest service. He has now attended over 18,500 Senate roll calls. Has been elected to the Senate 9 times since 1958 and that was after he had served 6 years in the House Of Representatives beginning in 1953. He has now served under 11 presidents. There have been only 44 to date. Born on November 20, 1917 with the original name of Cornelius Calvin Sale Jr. His mother died one year later a victim of the Flu Pandemic of 1918. He was handed over as a child to an aunt and uncle who renamed him Robert Carlyle Byrd and raised him. He has been a democrat all his life but that is not to say that he has been liberal all that time, far from it. He especially seemed conflicted about the issue of race at times in his life. He joined the KKK in 1942 at the age of 24 and held two titles. One was Klegle, which is a recruiter, and the other was as an Exalted Cyclops which was a title he was elected to by the other members. A fierce southern racist by this time he wrote in 1944 "...I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side..." during World War Two. He quit the KKK in 1952 citing a dis-interest in the cause just before his election to the House for the first time. In 1965 he voted against the Voting Rights Act (which banned discriminatory practices against blacks with regard to voting) but voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (which banned discriminatory practices with regard to housing among other things based on race, religion, etc.) He supported The War In Vietnam in the 1960's but opposed the War In Iraq in 2003. Needless to say his health in recent years has been a bit concerning. Frequent trips to the hospital (the latest in May 2009 for what was described as "An Infection") have caused many to wonder about his fitness for service. He has at times appeared sluggish and confused on the floor of the Senate and has often been brought to the Senate floor in a wheelchair so that he could attend votes. On November 20, 2009 he will turn 92. On January 3, 2010 he is set to complete his 57th consecutive year of service.

Postscript -- Robert Byrd Died on June 28th, 2010 at age 92.

The Rise And Fall Of The Berlin Wall

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall the event is being marked everywhere it seems. It was a watershed moment which was overdue. The first signs of the wall were seen on August 15th, 1961. It was at first a simple barbed wire fence that was erected on the orders of Soviet General Secretary Nikita Kruschev as a response to the increasing number of East Germans who were fleeing to West Germany and causing embarrassment to the Soviets internationally. During the construction anything that was in the path of the wall was removed including houses, A church, and a cemetery. Over the years the wall grew to become a double wall actually. It was two parallel walls that ran side by side with a "no mans land" or "Death Zone" in between them. The final length of the wall was 155 kilometers which is about 100 miles. The space in between the two walls was fitted with all kinds of traps designed to prevent anyone from successfully making it across. The ground was fitted with spike strips that would pierce a persons feet or shoes if he walked or ran on them. This area was nicknamed "Stalin's Lawn." The dirt in the "Death Zone" was constantly raked and kept soft in order that a person's footprints would be left behind if anyone had been there. The Wall itself had alarm systems that would quickly alert the armed guards in their watchtowers of anyone trying to get across. There were 186 total watchtowers that had 6 guards each posted. The guards had orders to shoot to kill. There were even barriers to prevent motor vehicles from getting through. At certain points the zone was guarded by dogs and minefields that were triggered by trip wires that would also in certain sections set off auto-fire devices or "spring guns" that would shoot out shrapnel in all directions. The wall itself had doors every so many feet that the guards used to inspect the wall both from the inside and outside for maintenance purposes. These doors each had two separate locks that required two separate keys from two different guards in order to open them. It is estimated that several hundred individuals lost their lives between 1961 and 1989 trying to breech the wall. Over 10,000 were caught and prosecuted by the East Germans for attempting to flee. The wall was finally taken down by a protest that grew out of control on November 9th, 1989. Protesters began hacking at the wall with sledge hammers and picks and knocking pieces of the wall off. Almost immediately President Ronald Reagan was given the bulk of the credit for causing this to happen. He gave a somewhat famous speech in 1987 in which he urged then Soviet General Secretary Mikail Gorbachev to "...Tear Down This Wall." While he is rightly deserving of some of the credit he is not however deserving of all of it. More credit in fact belongs to Gorbachev who deliberately did nothing to squelch the rising protest which led to the collapse of the wall. He could have easily stopped it but chose not to. The end of the Berlin Wall opened up the possibility for East Germany and West Germany to be united again as one country. That is exactly what happened almost one year later on October 3rd, 1990.

Winningest Teams In Sports History

In sports it is as Vince Lombardi once said: "Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing." With the Yankees winning their latest title the other day it got me to wondering just who are the most successful teams in the history of their own sports. As it turns out the list contains the teams that you would figure it would contain. As far as baseball goes The Yankees are by far at the top of the list. With their win against the Phillies they captured their 27th title in the history of the team on November 4th, 2009. They are now officially 27 for 40 in terms of the number of World Series wins relative to the total number of Appearances in the fall classic. They have won the most by far but they have lost the most by far as well with 13 total World Series defeats. An interesting thing to note here is that by the time The Yankees won their first World Series in 1923 The Boston Red Sox had already won 5 including the first one in 1903.
In Hockey for the most part The Montreal Canadiens have been to their sport what the Yankees are to baseball but not so much lately. The Canadiens have won a total of 24 titles in 34 appearances between the years of 1916 to 1993. They have won nothing since.
Basketball has what turns out to be the most competitive rivalry going in sports. It is between the Boston Celtics and the L.A. Lakers respectively. The Celtics have won a total of 17 NBA titles in 20 appearances in the finals over the years. The Lakers, with their win last year raised their total to 15 titles in 28 appearances. With both teams still being very competitive this one is still going strong so stay tuned.
As far as Football goes it's a little complicated. If you go by the total number of Super Bowl wins then it would be The Pittsburgh Steelers with 6 including the one they won this year. If you go by the total number of NFL titles including before the Super Bowl existed then it would be The Green Bay Packers with 12 total titles. They have won 9 NFL titles and 3 Super Bowls. They have however only won once since 1967.

USAF Eyes Pilot less Planes For Future Dogfights

The U. S. Air Force fighter pilot might be going the way of the dinosaur in the near future due to the technological advancements that keep coming along. It has been obvious for a long time now that technology can in fact fly a jet fighter in a superior way to a human and do it without the hindrances and drawbacks that humans bring to any endeavour they embark upon. Probably the biggest and most limiting drawback has been that fighter pilots are not capable of tolerating the massive G - forces (Gravity forces) that are experienced while flying high performance fighter planes and this causes them to lose control of an aircraft and often leads to crashes. Human fighter pilots can usually tolerate about 5 G' s or so depending on the individual provided that they are wearing a G- Suit which is an outfit that is worn over their uniform that is designed to keep them from passing out and losing control of an aircraft in mid flight due to excessive exposure to G - forces. Sometimes G-forces during flight can exceed 9 G's. Without human pilots the jet fighters will be able to fly much faster and maneuver much more sharply in potential future dog fights with any enemy. The Pentagon is therefore looking to get the pilots out of the picture totally and replace them with computers that will not be susceptible to this issue. They are called U.A.V.'s (Unmanned Areal Vehicles) and they are the future of the Air Force. By using technologies like Satellite links and G.P.S. (Global Positioning Systems) unmanned aircraft will be able to fly anywhere in the world without the involvement of humans in the process. They will also be able to identify enemy targets and launch attacks without any people being directly involved as well. It may become total Robo-warfare. Probably the best known of these systems already exists and is in service. It is called Global Hawk. It is a pilot less aircraft, It does not even have windows on the front of the plane, it has a wingspan of about 120 feet, and flies totally on its own. Once all the data is entered into its on board computer systems it is sent off on its way to complete a mission it has been assigned. It is currently serving in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The airline industry in the civilian sector has had this technology available to it for a while now. It is in fact capable of replacing airline pilots with this kind of system. Planes can now be flown without pilots by using their auto pilot features. They could fire all of their human pilots and replace them with this technology. They have not done so because the general public has expressed a fear and a discomfort with the idea of flying in pilot less planes. The ability however is there to do it and safely too.