How The United States Got More Than Even With Iran Over The Hostage Crisis.

The Iranian hostage crisis began on November 4, 1979. Radical Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held captive 52 U.S. hostages until January 20th, 1981, which was the day that President Reagan was sworn into office for his first term. Ever since that crisis there are some Americans that seen unaware of exactly how the U.S. went about punishing the Iranians for their actions. Briefly, here is how The U.S. did it.
The U.S. reacted to the crisis by freezing billions of dollars of Iranian assets that resided in western banks. The executive order was signed by President Jimmy Carter days after the start of the crisis. That was the American first step. These assets total about 12 billion dollars today and are only now about to be released finally to the Iranian government but not all in one big piece at the same time.
The U.S. has denied these funds to Iran for 37 years and it is money than Iran could desperately use.
The second, and certainly more damaging, reaction that the U.S. had was to support Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. The Iran-Iraq war began in September of 1980, less than a year after the Hostage crisis began, and lasted until August of 1988. During the conflict The United States supported the war efforts of Saddam Hussein and the results for Iran were harsh. Some estimates place the number of Iranian war dead at anywhere between 400,000 to 800,000 but I have seen estimates that claim the number to be over 1 million. These estimates are just war dead and do not include the additional hundreds of thousands that were wounded.
As far as economic losses for Iran related to the war, most estimates place that number at or around 600 billion. Some other estimates place it even higher.
Some Americans have lamented for decades about the Iranian hostage crisis believing that Iran got the better of the U.S. and that we never properly responded to Iran or ever "Got Even" with them for what it was that they did. The truth is The U.S. got more than even with Iran over the hostage crisis many moons ago.

How Mercury Gets Into Your Tuna Fish

   Every time you go to your local grocery store or supermarket and reach for a can of tuna fish you are not just getting the tuna that is in the can but also a chemical that if ingested in sufficient quantities could be fatal.

That chemical of course is Mercury. Have you ever wondered how it is that it gets into your tuna fish in the first place?

The first step in the process is a product of industry. All the emissions from all the factories from all the companies that are either manufacturing something or refining something contribute to the cause.

The thousands of factories both nationwide and worldwide that have giant smoke stacks that rise high into the sky and release tons and tons of waste product from their manufacturing process. The thick smoke from these factories is released into the atmosphere where it rises into the sky and just drifts for miles on the natural air currents. Some of it carries over the oceans of the World. Once this toxic soot is over the oceans the next step in the process involves rain.

When it rains the droplets of water will fall from the clouds and will hit this toxic soot and become a mix of water and chemicals which will fall into the ocean. Once it is in the ocean it is ingested by the fish that are there. Then come the large fishing boats to scoop up all the fish in their nets and take them back to a factory to can them. The canned fish are then loaded on to trucks and delivered to your local grocery store where they are stacked on the shelves and available for sale.

It is not just Mercury that exists in these worldwide clouds of soot that are injected into the atmosphere by industrialization. There are thousands of chemicals. None of which are particularly healthy for humans beings. The atmosphere of the Earth is a self contained Eco system that is continually being polluted. What is described here is just one of the many adverse effects.

The U.S. Military Today

Many People know that the U.S. military is currently deployed in countless places around the world today. Few Americans know exactly how large the U.S. armed forces are and what the breakdown is of those who now serve. How many soldiers are in the U.S. military today? How many women serve? How old are they on average? Here is a quick look at some of the details. The U.S. armed forces are currently 86% male and 14% female. Current troop strength is 1,447,000. This is down from 2,065,000 in 1990. 53% of those serving are married. This is up from 40% in 1972. 45% of the enlisted are between the ages of 18-25. 21% are between the ages of 26-30. 13% are between ages 31-35. 11% are between 36-40. 10% are over 40 years old.
The decline in troop strength from over two million in 1990 to the current about 1.5 million is due in large part to the famous "Peace Dividend" that many Americans have been hearing about for about twenty years. After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 it was thought that the United States did not need to maintain such a large military force any longer and so it was reduced in numbers during the Clinton administration in order to save money and help balance the U.S. budget. The move worked and without any real sacrifice to the quality of the fighting force. President Clinton left office in 2001 with not only a balanced fiscal budget but a surplus in fact.

How Fast Is The World's Population Growing?

Unless you have been living under a rock someplace you already know that the world is in the midst of a population explosion. The number of human beings on this planet has increased alarmingly. So too are the worries from government officials all around the world about how much of a strain that is going to take on the planet's food and water resources, which are already strained in some areas. Just how quickly has the world's population increased? Here is a small chart that tracks the progress over the last two hundred years:

1805 - The World reaches 1 billion human inhabitants.

1927 - 2 billion reached.

1960 - 3 billion

1974 - 4 billion

1987 - 5 billion

1999 - 6 billion

2011 - 7 billion

Tons Of Trash From Japanese Tsunami Headed For U.S.

The Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami that hit Fukushima, Japan on March 11th, 2011 was devastating in many ways. For Japan itself it resulted in 15,000 dead, over 130,000 forced from their homes, and countless billions in damage, which will take years to repair, and not the least of which is an ongoing Nuclear disaster involving multiple power plants. As it turns out there will also be consequences for the west coast of the United States as well.
A giant mountain of debris from the Tsunami was swept out to sea and with it went millions of tons of trash and garbage that is now floating on the surface of the Pacific Ocean. Included in the debris fields are the remains of thousands of homes that were destroyed along with countless numbers of cars, boats, furniture, tv's, refrigerators, bottles and corks, and other assorted junk. The stuff is now floating in the middle of the Pacific where ocean currents are slowly drifting it towards the west coast of the United States. Some of the debris fields are reported to be larger than the size of the state of Texas. The debris has been spotted in the Pacific by fishing boats that have reported back what they have encountered. It is now causing problems for U.S. Naval ships at sea also because it is forcing them out of their usual shipping lanes in order to steer around the floating garbage to avoid potential damage to vessels. Some of the skins of modern day Navy ships are only about 2 inches thick and are not designed to be crashing into giant fields of metal junk in the middle of the ocean. It would be potentially millions of dollars in damage otherwise so that must be avoided.
Some of the stuff is expected to hit the Hawaiian Islands by as early as January 2012 and possibly hit the west coast of the U.S. by 2013.

FDR And His Secret Train Car

Not a lot of people know about it or have ever even heard about it. Underneath the Grand Central Terminal in New York City, just under the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel sits a long abandoned armored train car. It was built for the use of only one person, President Franklin Roosevelt.
It is something of a little known fact to many Americans today but back when FDR was President between 1933 - 1945 there were very few Americans then that knew about the fact that he suffered from Polio and he in fact was without the ability to walk or even stand on his own. His administration would go to great lengths to keep this fact a secret and did so in many ways. Often when FDR was seen standing with other officials to be photographed by the press he always had bulky leg braces on to keep him from collapsing in a heap to the floor. Very often there would be Secret Service agrents standing next to him on either side who would be holding on to the president to further prevent him from falling to the ground.
The most elaborate length that his government ever went to in order to prevent him from being seen unable to walk in public has got to be the construction of this rail car that now sits under the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel. It was constructed with double wide doors that would be wide enough for his armored Pierce Arrow Limosine to be driven on board the car and then be able to drive off when they arrived in NYC without anyone ever having to witness FDR struggling to be removed from the car looking helpless. An elevator at the Hotel was even made extra wide in order to fit the whole car on to it and lift the President up to the ballroom of the Hotel where he would not be seen coming out of the car.
The train car was operated until FDR died in April of 1945. The car still remains there today at the Grand Central Terminal. The FDR museum is currently trying to raise the funds nessassery to have the train car moved and possibly in the future publicly displayed in some way as a piece of significant American history.

Space Junk In Earth Orbit Now Worse Than Ever

Officials at NASA now say that the amount of "Space Junk" that is in Earth's orbit is now greater than ever before. They are currently tracking about 22,000 pieces of space debris that they categorize as "big objects," which are pieces of space junk that are larger than about one half of an inch, and countless thousands of smaller objects that are less than one half of an inch in size.
Since 1957 when the Russians launched the first satellite "Sputnik" mankind has been littering the orbit of the Earth with bits and pieces of debris from rocket launches and satellite launches. Much of the stuff over time falls back into Earth's atmosphere and is burned away but some debris achieves too high an orbit in space for that to happen and so it just circles around the Earth for years causing a hazard for space missions and expensive communications satellites. Even the International Space Station from time to time has to adjust its orbit in order to avoid a tracked piece of space junk from hitting it and causing devastating damage.
The amount of space debris increased greatly in 2007 when the Chinese government conducted an anti satellite weapons test. The Chinese launched a missile into orbit to destroy an old weather satellite. When the missile hit its target it shattered it into an estimated 150,000 new pieces of space debris.

Ground Zero Finally Rising from the Ashes

It took until about 2006 for all the squabbling and fighting that went on between the various authorities and owners of the site known as "Ground Zero" to finally settle on a plan and move forward with it but now on the Tenth anniversary of the 9-11 attacks the site has largely taken shape.
The building known as One World Trade Center (formerly The Freedom Tower) is now, as of this writing, 80 stories high and can claim to be already the tallest building in New York City. The design that was settled upon comes from architect David Childs. The building starts off at the base as a square shape and as it rises morphs into an eight sided obelisk type structure and then resolves back to a square shape at the top of the building. It will in the end top off at 1776 feet ( The year the U.S. was Founded.)
The entire complex of Ground Zero takes up 16 acres and 8 of those were set aside for commemoration of the 9-11 attacks. The center pieces of the memorial will of course be the "Footprints" which are the two square shapes in the plaza where the two towers once stood. They take up both one acre each. These areas have both been converted into reflecting pools. A total of 26,000 gallons per minute of recycled water rises from the sides of these pools everyday and then spills over into the base of the pools and creates a waterfall as the water goes down. It is a beautiful effect which will be most stunning at night. The waterfalls are lighted from the inside with white light which gives it this illuminating beacon like glow against the darkness of the night.
Out of the 17,000 people that worked in the World Trade Center that day almost 14,000 made it out alive.There were a total of 2981 victims of the attack on 9-11. There was not a trace found of over 50% of them. It is believed that they were simply pulverized in the collapse of the buildings. The names of the victims have all been etched along the edges of the waterfalls. The names were not just placed in any which way. Individual names were etched deliberately next to the names of either friends, spouses, and co workers who were known to be friends. The names of the victims of the World Trade Center attack in 1993 were also added and grouped in a similar way.
The trees that are used in the plaza only came from the three places where the attacks happened. The New York City area, The D.C. area, and the area around the crash site of flight 93 in shanksville, Pennsylvania. In a little bit of a high tech move a computer chip has been placed in the dirt under each tree in order to monitor and ensure that they all get enough water and remain healthy in order to avoid having to constantly replace dying trees.

The President And His "Beast"

One of the perks of becoming the Commander in Chief is that the gig comes with what must be the most "tricked out" ride on the planet. The Presidential limo has a couple of names already. The best known ones are probably "The Beast" and "Cadillac One." Here are some of the features included in the President's new tank/car:

Gas Tank - A special foam is added to the gas and mixed into the tank. What the foam does is that it prevents the gasoline from exploding even if the tank suffers a direct hit in an attack.

Doors - They are armour plated and eight inches thick. They are also the same weight as the cabin door on a Boeing 757 jetliner.

Driver Side Window - Can resist armour piercing bullets. The driver's window is the only window in the car that can be opened. It will only roll down about three inches though so that the driver can communicate with Secret Service Agents running along side the vehicle and or to do things like pay tolls.

Body Work - The skin of the car is made out of double thick steel and Titanium.

Tires - The wheels are made out of Kevlar. They are shred and puncture resistant.

Boot (the rear of the car) - It holds an oxygen supply and also a fire fighting system.

Accessories On Board - Night vision cameras, pump action rifles, and tear gas cannons. There is also a generous supply of the President's blood on board maintained in bottles in case the President suffers injury in an attack and requires blood.

Sometimes Even Presidents Don't Get Good Health Care

You would think that a sitting President of the United States would get the finest health care all the time. While that is what they strive for it is not always the case. Consider the situation of the 20th President of the United States, James Garfield. On July 2nd, 1881 Garfield was shot twice by a disgruntled assassin. One of the bullets grazed his arm pit. The other shot was more of a direct hit. It was a shot to his mid section that ended up lodged between his spine and one of his lungs. Garfield managed to live for two and a half months after the shooting when on September 19, 1881 his heart stopped due to an infection that he had received related to the shooting. What was the reason some historians now speculate that he got an infection? Many now believe that it was due to his doctors constantly sticking their fingers deep inside the bullet hole he had in his stomach because they were fishing around in there trying to find the bullet. It is believed that this led to his infection. The bullet turns out to have been harmlessly lodged in a section of his body whereby if he had not suffered the complication of infection, which weakened his heart, he could have recovered.

Brief History About The Debt Cieling

The debt ceiling in the United States has been around for a while. Since 1939 the debt ceiling has been raised a total of 84 times. 55 of those times it has been raised by a Republican President. The biggest offender? Ronald Reagan. Reagan raised the debt ceiling a total of 18 times during his 8 years in the White House. Which President skyrocketed the national debt the most? George W. Bush. He raised it a total of seven times in his eight years. When George W. Bush entered the office in 2001 the national debt stood at about 5.5 trillion dollars. When he left in 2009 he had raised it to 11.8 trillion dollars. That's a record increase by far for a single president.
Just in case you were wondering the budget submitted by Republican senator Paul Ryan, which would replace Medicare with "Block Grants" would raise the National debt ceiling 8 times if it were enacted. The progressive budget that was submitted by President Obama's Budget Committee, which was made up by both Republican and Democratic former politicians, would raise the debt ceiling not even once if it were enacted. It would pay down the national debt but it would take decades. By 2021 the progressive budget would be running surpluses in the annual federal budget all without any devastating cuts to either Social Security or Medicare.

The Most Profitable Sports In The U.S.

There are a good many different sports that are practiced in The United States but only really a hand full that are profitable and popular. The biggest of them all in the U.S. is Football. Annual revenues for the NFL now exceed 9.5 billion dollars every year. The second most profitable is Baseball with annual revenues of about 7 billion dollars. After these two major sports you get a little bit of a trail off. In third place you have Basketball which takes in about 3.8 billion every year. Finally in fourth place you have Hockey which grosses about 2.7 billion a year.

The Most Nuclear Powered Countries On Earth

In the wake of the nuclear disaster that took place and is taking place in Japan with its power plants after the earthquake and Sunami that hit there in March it might be an interesting question to ponder just how many nuclear reactors there are currently in the World and what countries they exist in. The current total is 438 that are active and producing energy today. The country with the most reactors by far is the U.S. with a current total of 104. The United States however has not licenced a new one in over thirty years. The second most nuclear country is France with 58. Third is Japan with 54. Russia has 32. South Korea has 20. India and the U.K. both currently have 19 each. Canada has 18. Germany has 17. The Ukraine has 15. China has 11 working reactors at this time but has an additional 23 under construction.

Nasa Rover "Spirit" Feared Dead On Mars

Nasa this week has decided it will no longer make any attempts to contact it's long silent Martian rover known as "Spirit." The rover has failed to respond to radio communications and instructions from Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Control Center in Florida since March 22, 2010. Daily attempts since that date have been made to reach the rover via UHF radio signals and the only reply has been silence. On May 25, 2011 all attempts to revive the rover ceased. "Spirit" was launched in January of 2004 along with its sister rover "Opportunity" to explore the surface of Mars and radio back data and images in what was expected to be a three month mission. "Spirit" ended up lasting over 6 years and "Opportunity" is still going strong. "Spirit" is believed to have gotten stuck in some kind of a sand trap on the surface of Mars which limited it's ability to roam. It is further believed that it suffered damage to its internal electronics systems while trying to survive it's last Martian winter where it was exposed to temperatures of 55 degrees below zero for extended periods of time.

The Missing Girls Of India

A crisis is evolving in India and it has gone on for decades. The preference for Indian families to have male children is becoming so epidemic that there is now a lack of females in the culture and society that is leading to problems. Some estimates are that over 8 million female children have become victims of infanticide in India since 1986. The reason for male preference in having children is economic in nature. Males are preferred due to the fact that when they grow up they often bring money into the families that they belong to. They also help retain property that is owned by their families. With females in India the opposite is true. They do not help a family gain wealth, in fact the family of the female must often present a huge dowry to the family of the male when a marriage takes place and also surrender property to their daughters new husband. Indian couples often believe that it is not worth it to have and raise a female child for these reasons. The use of Ultrasound techniques in India is widespread in order to determine the sex of the child before it is born. Often after the female child is born it is either killed or abandoned somewhere and left to die. There is now beginning the makings of a crisis in that adult males in India are now finding it harder to find suitable females to marry when the time comes. Some adult males now indicate that they have to look farther and farther beyond their home villages in order to find women of their own age that they can marry due to the shortage.

The Cost Of Bin Laden

Now that the U.S. finally got it's man and dispatched the leader of Al Queda it might be a good time to try and figure out at what cost it all came to. So exactly how much money has the U.S. spent on the war on terror since 9-11-01? Lets start with both of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To date both conflicts have been estimated to have cost about 1.3 trillion so far. Some experts say that by the time we untangle ourselves from both of those messes it might be well over 2 trillion. If you count Homeland Security spending that figure to date is somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 billion dollars. Let us not forget the Annual Defense budget for the Pentagon. Before 9-11 the defense budget was at about 365 billion a year. This years defense budget is in excess of 700 billion a year. If you factor in other results of the war on terror that are not monetary such as longer waiting lines at the airports for security, invasions of privacy with scanners at airports and body searches that can be invasive and uncomfortable, the increased cost for an airline ticket in order to pay for the new security layers, the PTSD that many Americans have developed in the wake of the 9-11 attacks and the accompanying health issues and health bills than you can easily add up the total to be in excess of 3 trillion and more and the whole matter is far from over as we all know. That 3 trillion total by the way does not even include the 60 million dollar Black Hawk Helicopter that we lost during the raid on Bin Laden's house. Osama Bin Laden had said on several occasions that one of his goals was to economically damage the United States by forcing it to spend serious amounts of money in order to defend itself against Al Queda and its terror tactics. On that score Al Queda is doing well. 3 trillion dollars is currently about 20% of the total U.S. National debt as of this writing.

Facebook Facts And Figures

Don't look now but the Internet website Facebook has taken over the known universe. Kudos to the new boy king Zuckerberg. In case you are not sure just how dominant and ubiquitous Facebeeok has become here are just a few facts about the site:

• In 2010 Facebook signed up profile number 500,000,000. That is 1 out of every 13 people currently on this planet who are now also on Facebook.


• 48% of 18-34 year old's say that they check Facebook right after they wake up everyday.


• 72% of the U.S. web audience is now on Facebook.


• 57% of people questioned say that they now talk more on Facebook than they do in real life.


• 48% of Americans say that they find out news for the first time on Facebook.


• 750 million photos were uploaded to Facebook over last New Years eve.


• Every 20 minutes on facebook there are:


• 1,000,000 links shared


• 1,484,000 event invites


• 1,323,000 tagged photos


• 1,851,000 status updates


• 1,972,000 friend requests accepted


• 2,716,000 photos uploaded


• 10,208,000 comments made.

The Failure Steve Jobs And Henry Ford Have In Common

We all know that Steve Jobs and Henry Ford have a lot of success in common. They both created something that the world went crazy for that made them both uncounted millions. In Henry Fords case it was the car of course and in Steve Jobs case it was the earliest personal computer systems. In both cases they revolutionized the world for better or for worse.
One failure that they have in common is that they both tried to create a new version of their original invention that was named after one of their children and in both cases it was a failure. In Henry Fords case it was the "Edsel." It was first released in 1958 and it was named after his son Edsel Ford who had died in May 1943. The model lasted less than three years and after selling poorly finally disappeared from showrooms nationwide. One of the biggest complaints that some consumers had about the "Edsel" was that its front nose design to some people resembled a toilet bowl.
For Steve Jobs the failure first began in 1978 shortly after the birth of his daughter Lisa. He got the idea to name the new computer system he was building "The Lisa." It took about 4 years and it cost an estimated 50 million dollars to develop and it debuted in early 1983 at a cost of $10,000 a copy. After two years and only about 100,000 units sold and many revisions to the original design the project was largely abandoned and replaced with a new computer system called "The Mackintosh" which after it debuted sold over 70,000 units in three months and went on to be much more of a success.

What Is The Point Of Daylight Savings Time?

It is springtime again as i write this article and it is time again for me to get up on a ladder and climb up to my big clock on the wall and turn it over one hour. Have you ever wondered why we bother to do this? Well as it turns out there is more than one reason. The biggest one that is usually given is that it saves energy. How does it do that you might ask? Well the government says that by increasing the number of daylight hours in a persons workday it saves energy because things like the street lights in the city don't have to come on as early and they don't have to stay on as long. People driving in their cars don't have to turn on their headlights as early and it saves them energy and money. It also helps with traffic safety. There are fewer auto accidents in the daylight hours than at night because drivers can see better so it actually saves lives as well. It also reduces crime. Criminals prefer committing crimes at night it seems so with fewer night time hours available to them they commit fewer crimes. Probably the biggest and best reason of all is that it provides the public with more daylight hours after work so they can go out and shop or go dine or engage in other after work activities so it is also actually good for certain industries like retail and restaurants. The original reason for daylight savings time was in order to provide farmers with more daylight hours to work their farms and grow more food and it still does this.

So How Do You Spell That Libyan Guy's Name?

While the people of Libya struggle to remove a dictator that has ruled over their country for over 40 years the media in the United States struggles to figure out exactly how to spell his name properly. As it turns out there is no one correct way to do it but several hundred ways it seems. The problem is that there are no exact letters or equivalent sounds in English for spelling several parts of his name ergo you get the numerous variations. Here are just some of the many different spellings that I came across in researching this article on how to spell that guy's name, what's his face:

• Muammar Qaddafi



• Mo'ammar Gadhafi



• Muammar Kaddafi



• Moammar El-Kadhafi



• Muammar Qadhafi



• Moammer El-Kazzafi



• Moamar Al-Gaddafi



• Muammar Al-Qathafi



• Moamer El-Kadhafi



• Muammar Qadafi



• Moamar Gaddafi



• Mu'ammar Qadhadafi



• Mu'ammar Al-Qadhafi



• Muammar Quathafi



• Muammar Al-Khaddfi



• Mu'ammar Al-Qadhdhafi



• Mu'amar Kadafi



• Muammer Gheddafi



• Muamar Khadafy



• Muammar Ghaddafi



• Mu'ammar Al-Qaddafi



• Mohammer Q'udafi

POST SCRIPT: On October 20, 2011 Muammar Qaddafi was captured by rebels in Libya and brutally beaten, tortured, and finally shot at close range in the head. His death ended a 42 year reign as the leader of Libya.