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Anthrax
Case in New York City
Excerpts
from an article describing a case of cutaneous (skin) anthrax
occurring in a woman employed by NBC at 30 Rockefeller Center
in New York:
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An employee
of NBC News in New York has been diagnosed with a form of anthrax,
the company reported today, marking the fourth U.S. case of
exposure to the deadly bacterium in just over a week.
Anthrax
spores
The NBC
employee, a woman whose identity was not released, has a less
lethal form of the disease than the one that last Friday killed
Bob Stevens, a photo editor who worked for the tabloid newspaper
the Sun in Boca Raton, Fla.
She is
being treated with antibiotics and her prognosis is good. New
York health authorities suspect the infection may have been
caused by exposure to a powder when opening an envelope containing
a powdery substance on Sept. 18 or 25.
Health
and Human Services Secretary Tommy H. Thompson said there was
"no proof" that the NBC case was related to terrorism.
But the diagnosis immediately spurred concerns that a broad
bioterrorist attack might be underway, perhaps targeting news
organizations.
It was
not immediately clear whether, in the course of her news reporting,
the woman had recently visited the Sun offices in Boca Raton
– a possibility that could offer a much more benign explanation
for her infection.
... The
NBC employee has "cutaneous" anthrax, a form of the
disease that is caused by contact of the causative bacterium
with the skin. Stevens died of inhalation anthrax, the result
of the bacteria getting deep into the lungs. That form of the
disease kills about 80 percent of those infected.
The cutaneous
form kills about 20 percent but is easily treated with antibiotics.
Symptoms include dark lesions on the exposed skin.
Two other
employees of the Sun have been shown to have anthrax spores
in their nasal passages, a condition short of disease. They
are healthy and are being treated with antibiotics. ...
Florida
outbreak under investigation
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Source:
Attacks
by the B2 Spirit Bombers
Excerpts
from article describing the manner in which B2 Spirit Bombers
are being used in flights direct from the U.S. mainland to Afghanistan:
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Trim,
square-jawed and blue-eyed, an all-American brigadier general
named Tony Przybyslawski stands before a sleek B2 Stealth bomber,
Spirit of America, to announce that it has just broken the world
record for the longest combat sortie, 44 hours.
We are the first journalists to be allowed into the top-security
Whiteman Air Force Base in western Missouri since September
11. We have come to hear the commander of America’s B2
bomber fleet relate the exploits of the world’s ultimate
warplane in Afghanistan this week.
...
From the rolling green fields of heartland America, a B2 can
reach any corner of the globe undetected, drop its huge payload
of 16 2,000 pound bombs with pinpoint precision, and return
home in time for the two pilots to mow their lawns.
No
aircraft carriers are required, no bases in foreign lands, no
long deployments overseas. The plane’s only limit is its
pilots’ stamina.
...
We were taken into the inner sanctum of the 4,700- acre base
— a vast concrete apron lined by huge cream- coloured hangars,
one for each of the fleet’s 21 B2s whose combined worth
of $40 billion (£27.7 billion) is double Afghanistan’s
entire GDP. As we arrived, two B2s took off with roars like
rumbles of thunder.
...
six B2s took off some time last weekend. They flew more than
7,000 miles across two seas and three continents to the rugged
mountains of Afghanistan where each dropped 16 satellite-guided
Joint Direct Action Munitions — JDAM bombs costing $25,000
each (£17,338) — on airstrips and other targets.
In every case “the accuracy was perfect”, he said.
The
planes then flew another 2,900 miles to the British airbase
on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia where they landed
after 40 to 44 hours in the air and six aerial refuellings.
There
their engines were left running as the oil was checked and toilets
emptied. Fresh pilots took over for the 30-hour flight back
to Missouri where the planes landed with scarcely a scratch.
...
During flights the planes are on autopilot except during take-offs,
landings, bombing runs and aerial refuellings. “They are
designed to be monotonous and boring so all you are worrying
about is what you’re going to eat for lunch,” the
general said.
The
two pilots work in shifts. The one not flying can read, play
cards, do exercises or sleep in the back of the cockpit.
...
The Sparrow’s Nest Christian bookshop is selling T-shirts
with a picture of a B2 cradled by the Lord’s hands above
a verse from II Corinthians:
“The
weapons of warfare are not of this world, but mighty through
God.”
That
is about the only resemblance between this home of the world’s
costliest and most deadly warplane in Missouri’s farmlands
and the Taleban’s medieval warriors in their arid fastnesses.
Both firmly believe God is on their side.
Source:
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Attacks
by the Bunker Busters
Excerpts
from article describing the latest attacks in Afghanistan, including
the use of 5,000 pound penetrating bombs known as "bunker
busters":
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As
U.S. warplanes pounded the Afghan capital of Kabul yesterday
during the fifth straight day of bombing, Pentagon officials
reported that airstrikes had devastated mountain cave complexes
and may have struck Taliban leader Mohammad Omar's Chevrolet
Suburban with several as yet unidentified individuals inside.
Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday that cave
complexes, which he declined to further identify, had been hit
by an array of precision munitions, including GBU-28 "bunker
busters," 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs designed to penetrate
buried concrete structures.
(Click for large size image)
While Rumsfeld offered no indication whether the caves may have
been occupied at the time of the strikes, destroying the complexes
was an important objective because Osama bin Laden -- the terrorist
leader U.S. officials hold responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks
in New York and Washington -- has used fortified caves as residences
and headquarters.
Another
senior official, who asked not to be quoted by name, said U.S.
military imagery analysts believe that Omar's Suburban may have
been hit in Wednesday night's attacks. The vehicle was occupied
at the time, but analysts aren't sure who was in it, the official
said, adding that they believe it may have been Omar or members
of his family.
U.S.
Officials previously cited "credible" reports that
two members of Omar's family were killed in Kandahar on Sunday
when the U.S. bombing campaign began.
With
two U.S. aircraft carriers in the Arabian Sea launching strike
aircraft round-the-clock, a huge fire ball lit the sky over
Kabul. Heavy bombing was also reported around Kabul's airport.
Pentagon
officials said the air campaign had shifted from fixed targets
associated with the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist
network to troop concentrations and other "emerging targets."
Sir
Michael Boyce, chief of the British defense staff, said the
war, in which Britain is helping the United States, will stretch
into next year. "We must expect . . . to go through the
winter into next summer, at the very least," he said.
...
Unlike Iraqi and Yugoslav troops, which tried to scatter when
targeted by American air campaigns over the past decade, the Taliban
forces have appeared to hunker down and remain concentrated in
their encampments, the officials said.
"This
particular adversary is not reacting in ways we've seen in other
conflicts," a senior official said.
With
the bulk of the Taliban's combat power still arrayed in tactical
positions north of Kabul against the rebel Northern Alliance,
defense officials said the lack of movement they have observed
has involved units in garrison locations in the south and the
west.
"Some
forces have been moving to avoid targeting, but others either
have not dispersed when they have had an opportunity, or their
dispersal has been amateurish -- they haven't dispersed very
far," one official said.
In
the Pentagon's view, the Taliban military appears not to know
how to react to the aerial bombardment. While they had developed
effective guerrilla tactics against Soviet forces in the 1980s,
Taliban troops had become accustomed in recent years to fighting
more conventional fixed battles against opponents, the officials
said.
"For
all the fabled fighting qualities of the Afghans, they've never
had to deal with a modern air campaign," an official said.
...
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Source:
Continuum
of That Which Is, Known and Unknown
Before
we were here, there was nothing for us to know of as our perception
was not yet present. There was nothing other than the predecessors
of what we would some day become. We certainly knew nothing
of such things until we arrived and but for the interaction
of all that came before us, the we that we have become would
not be.
After
we are gone from this place, well, as most of the sleeping night,
our consciousness will be absent from this place, but we may
hope we'll live pleasantly forever, in a natural way. We don't
have evidence to suggest that our likely fate mates to that
which we would hope it to be.
All
that is surrounds us and we are a part of all that is. The natural
is ever present. We are a natural part of a natural world and
that which one calls self is a part of all that is and all that
is cannot be comprehended by the human mind.
Why
is there something or anything?
We
cannot fathom the answer because it entails every aspect of
every entity of every bit of every instance of every now - in
other words, the answer is far beyond the totality of that which
is each of us, the totality of every processing aspect of each
human brain.
If
any of us was enhanced to the 'n'th degree, capable of perceiving
/ grasping all that is, that individual would so 'not be what
he/she was' as to make such a journey futile as it would be
the end of the individual who sought to know all.
We
can know what we can know, in a natural way in a natural world,
and know that therein resides the answers that we can grasp
and the limits of that which we can know..
Beyond that, whatever that limit is, shall forever be the unknown
and the mysterious.
If
one calls the unknown, the mysterious, god, one has merely reduced
the unfathomable to a meaningless word which can only be grasped
by placing it in a box and setting limits for it based on human
imagination and experience.
In
other words, one has taken the unknown, defined operating instructions,
responsibilities, and tasks for it, all based solely on human
imaginations / experiences / desires / wants / fears / needs
/ emotions, and ended up with what one started with in the first
place, the unknown.
Source:
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