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Man's inhumanity to man.
Lampshades made from human skin were produced in the German concentration camps. Our German neighbour's parents were forced by The Allies to view a display of Nazi attrocities which included such a table lamp lampshade. Tattoo decorated human skin was also found in a collection in one of the camps.
Not so long ago, we in the so called civilised world were not much better; tobacco pouches made from tanned human skin were used by American soldiers. This took place in the 19th Century. Usually they were made from native women's breasts. There are accounts available of such pouches being traded and being found among soldier's effects. They may also have tanned and used famous Indian warriors scrotums. It was not until later in the century that public opinion stopped such barbarity. Several major libraries have books bound in human skin; these are usually anatomy textbooks, one volume has a tattoo visible. AK January 2010
Nuclear and Gordie's Brer
Would the UK be going nuclear hell for leather in the power generating game if Gordon Brown's brother - Andrew Brown worked in the recycling industry instead of the nuclear business.
So daft to be spending our money on a non-renewable energy source.
Money aside (and nuclear is NOT cheap) we do not get the true picture about the health hazards. We get the spin from the bought politicians and the corporate press, but more worrying is the fact that MI5, MI6 and others tasked with protecting us from terrorist attacks are not allowed the true picture either. Here in the UK we have 36,000 cubic metres of highly radioactive graphite in storage, carbon life forms on this planet should be scared - very scared at having all this deadly material in one place. Every day we have more plutonium produced in reactors around the world - several hundred kilograms of the stuff. Lots of other deadly radioactive elements are created in these reactors and in stored material and no one tells us clearly what the disposal and storage plans are.
The two substances mentioned earlier; Carbon 14 has a half-life of 5600 years and Plutonium 293 a half-life of 24,000 years. Half-life does not mean that only half of the radioactivity remains, for the half that has decayed can have turned into something else, in the case of carbon, some of it could be transformed into an isotope of chlorine with a half life of 300,000 years.
My fears are not only confined to the terrorist threat; I do not believe for a minute that the steadily increasing piles of dangerous materials building up around the world will be carefully tended over the long term. The same politicians who are so keen on nuclear power will more likely than not have other plans for the pretty large sums of our taxes -- AK July 2009
THE FATWA
Everyone has heard of the Iranian fatwa against WMD, right, you can't have missed it? Surely something as important must have been plastered all over the headines!
We all read about the one against Salman Rushdie, but the newsworthyness of the Supreme Leader's 2005 edict scarcely reached the west; are we so sold on the idea that the evil Persians are feverishly building Islamic Bombs to flatten our cities that such an idea seems almost ridiculous? That the mullahs gathered in the Iranian city of Gom are actually people who espouse a morality condemning mass killing? Is this idea quite inconceivable?
Our politicians would have us believe that we are hated by the Iraniians. We seem to be so sold on these ideas, that many in the west expected to see a million people cheering in the streets of Tehran when the Twin Towers came down? - The reverse was actually true, vast crowds of people expressing their sympathy thronged the streets and filled a sports stadium, considerably more than in any western city. Some Western media did briefly show Iranian sympathisers carrying candles, however there was considerably more coverage of the other kind from other parts of the Middle East.
Note: There were edicts against the development and use of WMD during the Gulf War between Iraq and Iran, however it was not until August 9th 2005 that Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei actually issued the fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of chemical biological and nuclear weapons. .AK June 2009
THE GHASTLY POLITICIANS
Online petition - The Queen to Dissolve Parliament and call a General Election
The very obvious outrage of the population of Britain against their politicians is a new thing, true, they have been getting worse over the last few years, but it seems to me that the anger of the people and the willingness of the press to vilify them is a change in direction. Is this the Obama effect? are we starting to expect things like honesty and integrity from our elected leaders?
Here in the UK we have given the monarch powers to limit excessive abuses by the politicians, the Queen can at any time call a general election. The electorate can then vote in new set of politicians.
I say "LET's DO IT" we can petition Her Majesty to call for an election. Here is a link that will take you to where you can directly lobby for the shaking up of our dodgy system.
http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/27778.html
Do your bit for Democracy, get rid of them. If that does nothing we could always come out in the streets in such numbers that they would have to call an election themselves. AK May 2009
THE SHIRAZ GRAPE
Checked with Wikipedia the other day on the Syrah grape and was mildly amused at the article. It was suggested that the magnificent Shiraz grape, so beloved of travellers to Iran and grown extensively in Australia and around the world is possibly little more than a mispronunciation of the word Syrah. It is true that the Syrah grape produces some really good red wines but even a cursory scan of the accounts of visitors to the country will bring up the mention of the legendary wines of Shiraz. Bring back Encyclopedia Brittanica. Wikipedia - so easy to use so open to abuse
Whatever happened to the true Shiraz grapes, can we bring them back? Robert Byron, who visited Iran in the 1830s described drinking a red, a sweet white wine and a rose that gave a delicious warm after-effect. He sampled them when he was in the city that gave its name to the fruit, He did not mention any other region's wine. Other travellers have remarked on its qualities; Edward Granville Brown, in his work 'A year amongst the Persians' noted that although many consumed good quantities of the Shiraz wine that there was little apparent 'after effect' and that the following day the revellers would rise both fresh and lively. - AK 6th May 2009
THE LEGACY - - DESECULARIZATION
It is usual for politicians to wish to leave behind some kind of legacy; some footprints in the sands of time, as it were. George W Bush and Tony Blair are no different. I set myself to thinking about what their greatest achievements were, George Bush was behind the US's donation of several billion dollars to combat Aids and HIV in Africa, Tony fought against the 'Crescent of Evil' as he saw it.
My conclusion is regrettably a very negative one, and there are several ugly deeds to chose from. It is not failing to halt the destruction of the planet, as few politicians have the courage to grasp the nettle. it could have been the ruination of Iraq, dreadful as it is, but to my mind it is the desecularization of societies, particularly the Middle East and Pakistan. The cumulative effect of their policies have reversed progress by such a degree that I fear for our children and their descendants. We will be living with the effect of their foolishnesses and wickedness for a long time to come.- AK April 09
POLITICIANS ARE WORSE THAN BANKERS
Politicians claiming special treatment scare me - we as a people fought long and hard to establish Rule of Law, especially the equality in the eyes of the law between politicians and the ordinary people. Overcoming the politician's reluctance to hand over power took a heroic effort on the part of people such as Thomas Paine and Erskine against the then Prime Minister Pitt the Elder. Paine's book 'Rights of Man' should be compulsory reading for all politicians - and citizens, especially citizens. I thought we has seen the last of this kind of thing when Mr Blair was sent packing.
My disquiet came about when in early December 2008 the House of Commons offices of Damien Green, a Conservative minister had his offices raided. There were shennannigans on both side with leaking to the press from Mr Green being the cause of the furore and New Labour as usual attempting to use powers well over and above the ones we gave them, this time misusing the police force, however the really important point - as I saw it - was the attitudes displayed by some of the Tories, that politicians should somehow be exempt to police investigation, or that their offices were sacred because they were sited in the palace of Westminster - as the parliament building is sometimes known. No politician should be immune to investigation.
I have been waiting patiently to hear some condemnation of the attitude but so far, four months later not a squeak, the story has faded away, but the self-righteous response of the politicians and the terrifying complacency of the press and citizenry is *$+!?#~ daft and more than a little scary.
We have seen a massive transfer of public money to shore up a rotten system of deregulated banking and investment, all achieved by bribes handed out by 'lobbyists' for the financial services 'industry' to the politicians, the amount of money doled out to achieve the removal and weakening of regulatory controls of the organisations is in excess of five billion dollars ($5,000,000,000) over the last decade. The current hatred of the bankers should also be directed at the pols.
Some of our anarchist demonstrators were carrying signs suggesting that we eat the bankers, perhaps we should be less delicate and feed the politicians to the crocodiles. (just a throw-away line, honestly I didn't mean we actually should) It probably would be a wasted effort as the bankers would be unpalatable to the crocs. - AK April 09
THE KENNEL CLUB RELENTS (AGAIN)
Blame Axel if you like,winging does sometimes have an efffect! The the nice people at the Kennel Club have at long last turned their attention to the British Bulldog - or more correctly, to the modern version of the breed - Many breeders are up in arms at what they see as unwarranted interference in their cosy little club,
The practice of incestuous breeding has resulted in some of the animals suffering poor health throughout their unhappy lives, most animals are delivered through Caesarian section as the large head and skinny hips make normal birth impossible. Steve Jones, the eminent Professor of Genetics at University College London, is quoted as saying “It’s insane from the point of view of the health of the animals. In some breeds they are paying a terrible, terrible price in genetic disease.” The males are often unable to mate and so require artificial insemination.
The original breed produced handsome dogs that could jump fences and were nimble and strong enough to catch bulls for their butcher keepers, provide sport in bull baiting spectacles - and protect the family and see off poachers. Lets hope that sanity reigns and we get rid of the caricature of a noble breed and replace it with something much better. I wonder if the caricatures touted by Victorian periodicals actually had something to do with the problem; images appearing in 'Punch' were nothing like the bulldog of the day, it looks as if the imagination of a nineteenth century cartoonist has been rendered in flesh. bones and blood. Life imitating art if you like.
The dog breeders will put up a fight especially if some of the "Press" take up the reactionary breeder's cause. Robin Searle, the chairman of the British Bulldog Breed Council is threatening legal action. I am sure that there will be more on this topic in the future, battle lines are drawn and big guns are being brought in. On the side of those who want a return to the original type is the chief vet of the RSPCA and Sir Patrick Bateson, who is another leading scientist and animal expert
Perhaps a way forward is to reintroduce a strain derived from the working dogs still found in the USA, they are still used for cattle wrangling an hog catching. Klystron Jan 09.
GAZA IS ANOTHER WARSAW GHETTO?
No! - No! - No! In Warsaw the residents, prisoners actually, were every one of them destined for the gas chambers and were fighting with that knowledge in mind. The Holocaust was by far the worst of crimes. It is astonishing though, that so many people in the west do not see that there is a wickedness in the treatment of the Palestinian people and that something quite evil is taking place in that part of the middle east.
A much more appropriate comparison with the Siege of Gaza would be the Siege of Leningrad, the defenders are not quite the same kind of people, but in time and in the eyes of many, they are seen as such. No comparisons are perfect, for Gaza is also a gigantic refugee camp which Leningrad was not. This is surely not one of the intended consequences of the Israeli rulers. A military victory, yes but time will tell whether it is a political one. Hamas could emerge stronger and with more legitimacy.
Another sad comparison with Leningrad is the media coverage; we are prevented from seeing the true extent of the horrors of using modern high explosives and other weaponry in one of the most densely populated territory on earth, and so much of what newspaper coverage there is, must resemble closely the German newspaper coverage of the time; "civilian deaths are regretable but we must root out the problem".
We in the west all share some culpability for the Holocaust despite the fact it happened half a century ago, but should our feelings of guilt over something that happened more than half a century ago still blind us to the misery of so many innocent people? ~ Klystron Jan 09
THE GREAT DETOX FRAUD
So many Products and plans do not match up to expectations, why is this? Is there some product or a plan out there that can help me to eliminate toxins and improve my health. Why do the experts have PhDs but seem to have difficulty understanding basic science and logic. ~ Klystron Dec 08.
HIDDEN KILLERS
We are well aware that smoking kills and that every day people die on our roads. The other day I read a news article that stated that OBESITY is the new 'Hidden Killer'. Fortunately I am not one of those affected by the problem but what I find troubling is quite different threat.
There is a NEW NUMBER TWO KILLER - here in the UK it was predicted only last year that deaths caused by this problem would overtake road deaths by 2010. It is not yet 2009 and the deaths from this source have already overtaken road deaths, which have fallen somewhat. What is this killer? - ASBESTOS,
Asbestos kills 20 to 30 carpenters in the USA every week. 12-15 plumbers and probably a similar number of electricians and many other contractors, and will be responsible for 5 million plus deaths in the US before the epidemic has run its course. Fatalities will not start decreasing until 2020 or possibly later. More deaths than the 1918 flu pandemic and getting scarcely a mention in the mass and corporate media. Obesity is bad and it really is a killer, but as yet it is nothing like the Asbestos problem ~ Klystron Nov 08.
News Flash - Georgia's ruler Shakasvilli using Putin's visit to Beijing, Medvedev's holiday and the opening of the Beijing Olympics to launch a sneak attack on the Ossetian region's city of Tsvingali. Several UN mandated Peace Keepers killed and some of the city in ruins with many killed.
Arrived back in UK and find out that really old Shak is the good guy and wicked old Ivan had been up to his usual tricks - Thats it then I suppose. Silly Me! DE Aug 08
A PLEA TO JEWISH AMERICANS
You do have power in shaping world events, true it is much less than the total control of the media and the banking system that the conspiracy theorists would have us believe, but the Jewish lobbies in America have enormous influence, certainly well beyond what one would expect from a minority that numbers no more than two percent of the population.
American Jews can help create positive outcomes for Israel and the Middle East by words and actions. The image of the USA also could also do with a bit of buffing up.
In my opinion you should be using your influence on Israeli and American politicians to engage in dialogues with the perceived enemies of Israel. Ahmedinejad is not the ogre that he is made out to be, demonizing such people and the Iranian Nation by association only makes future normalization processes more difficult and reduces the possibility of a secure future for Israel and its people. Iranians are not violent people, anything but, and the majority would like better relations with the West, and would, in my estimation be happy to do business with Israel once they see attempts to restore a measure of justice to the Palestinian populations under their control.
Do not allow yourselves to be seduced by short term considerations or promises of easy military fixes. Look at a map of the Middle East There are dozens of states surrounding Israel, Keeping them all backward, poor and militarily incapable is just not feasible, it has worked for Iraq but at painful cost to Israel's allies and millions of innocent Iraqis.
Iran is a bridge that has not yet been burned, please, please don't let the crazies make things worse.
'Building bridges is much better than erecting barriers'. - DE April 2008
A MOVABLE FEAST
Easter can take place as early as 22nd of March and as late as 25th of April.Dating of Easter is based on a Jewish lunar calendar and is derived from the feast of Passover. Easter falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox.
This year is the earliest Easter for a long long time. You will have to be pretty old to have experience the last one (1913 was the last time). Nobody living is likely to see the next one that is this early for it will take place in AD 2228
Even less frequent than this year's event is an earlier Easter - March 22nd - the last occurrence was in 1818 and the next one will be in 2285
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PANDEMICS, ISLAMIC RADICALISM AND MEMES
The development and proliferation of Nazism in 1930s Germany bears striking similarities to pandemics and epidemics. There is little doubt that self-replicating phenomena have common factors.
There are several ways of combating threats resulting from religious extremism and other doctrines, one that I believe could yield results is to adopt an epidemiological approach.
We are taking about Memes. These are very real phenomena and they can perhaps be viewed as similar to biological and computer viruses. Just as attempts to limit computer virus proliferation benefit from approaches developed by methodologies created by experts from the Medical profession; e.g. Doll and others, so can the propagation of memes. Multiple approaches, especially those derived from studies of the 1918 and 1957 flue pandemics can be used to limit, slow down and even halt proliferation.
Opportunistic bacteria accompanied the 1918 pandemic and probably caused many of the fatalities and damage. The immune response and resulting cytokine storm (Link) in younger persons caused more deaths than the virus. If we look at what happened in the wake of Sept 11th 2001 then along comes the equivalemt of an immune responses and and the WoT (War on Terror) and other opportunistic phenomena causing considerably more damage than the attacks and infection itself..... Uncanny similarities..Tackling medical plagues does bring in the real experts but what can happen when there is a terrorist attrocity is that the people capable of directly tackling the roots of the problem are swept aside and are replaced by populist mouths offering revenge and an inevitable worsening of the situation by adding more of what caused the attrocity in the first place. DE March 1st 2008
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MORE CLEVER ITALIANS
Another interesting experimenter and pioneer was an English born inventer of Italian parentage: Sebastian De Ferranti, his main claim to fame was in perceiving the advantages of using Alternating Current over Direct Current for the transmission of electrical power. At the age of fourteen, he defeated the great scientist Sir Humphrey Davy in debate in the Royal Society, Davy, like Thomas Edison was an advocate of DC. Sebastian de Ferranti went on to found the British company Ferranti Ltd.
Both Ferranti and Marconi founded highly successful companies in the technology fields, both of the companies were wrecked by technology illiterate accountants who were conned by other smarter bean counters. Sir Derek Alun-Jones, managing director of Ferranti took the company further away from its core business and bought into an arms dealership that looked good on paper but had no real assets. He was the victim of a $368 million fraud involving bogus contracts at International Signal and Control Ltd. The chief at Marconi, Lord Simpson did an equally daft purchase of American companies that had no hope of doing anything other than dragging Marconi down. Both companies were leaders in several fields when they were at their peak -- DE October 27 2007
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BAM BAMBAM - BAM BAN IRAN
The War Party in the US and France are still beating the drum. I for one am worried that they will have their day. Could the generals say no to Dick and George? Their refusal to go to war appears to be the only thing standing in the way of the Loonicons.Here in Europe they are talking about a sanctions regime that is BOUND to make the Iranians abandon their cooperation with the IAEA and possibly withdraw altogether from the NPT. Messieurs Kouchner and Sarkozy may not be posturing when they talk abut an attack being an appropriate response to failing to halt uranium enrichment. Such withdrawals by Iran would be a gift to the War Party Their whoops and chanting will be echoing round the globe. The argument for action would then be seen by many of the decision makers to be insuperable.
What I find most troubling is that so many of the people in the US think tanks are so focused on a military/intelligence based approach that they can overlook the presence of large numbers elephants in their rooms, great bloody herds of them, defecating, trumpeting and leaving muddy footprints in the expensive carpets in the chambers and conference halls of their 'Centers'.
If only the experts in Brookings, Cato and other similar establishments could really know the people and situations of the Iranian people. Read Robert Byron, Edward Granville Brown, Jean Chardin and Richard N. Frye. A people who have an abhorrance of violence' (Robert Byron) Whose supreme leader has issued a Fatwa against weapons of Mass Destruction, who when they had WMDs used against them refused to retalliate in kind and who have a record of non-interference in other countries that goes back for over two hundred years. Leave the alone, I say. Who knows what the response would be to an unprovoked attack on their country. They are the only country in the Middle East whose people are, in the main pro-American. They are a patient people, make carpets that take up to a decade to complete, they play chess, - in fact they invented modern chess. You really do not want to annoy them without a genuine cause.
Also please stop deliberately misrepresenting their current president, stop generating and believing in dodgy 'evidence' and return the elephants to the jungle where they belong. DE October 03 2007
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Self Fulfilling Prophecies
Anyone who knows anything about the Middle East knows that the assertions that Sadam and Al Quaida were in cahoots are quite risible, but now, a few years on, we have an indigenous Terror Organisation; people born and bred in Baghdad calling themselves AlQuaida who go around merrily attacking the 'infidel invader'.
Is it not likely that similar irresponsible rubbish about Iran arming the Taliban may one day come to pass? not to mention the unsusubstantiated narrative that Anti-American elements in Iran are producing penetrator weapons for use in Iraq. If the Iranians were to decide to get active in aiding the insurgencies we would know about it I am convinced that there would be several orders of magnitude more casualties among the coalition. DE August 11th 2007
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Is Walid Junblatt still the ArchDruid?
I find the news that Rupert Murdoch has added The Wall Street Journal to his media portfolio worrying to say the least. On the other hand another of his enterprises is one of my favourites and always good for a giggle.I regularly check up on what our cousins on the other side of the pond are being fed by the Fox 'News' channel. No ill will felt to their viewers only pity, it is surely garbage of the worst kind.
A while back when I felt that I needed some amusement I switched over to Fox and sure enough, Mr Murdoch's finest were living up to their comic expectations; an ex military 'expert' on the Middle East was giving the lowdown on the various ethnic groupings, to be found in the Lebanon, he listed the Sunni and Shia and in his short list mentioned the DRUIDS - Could he be referring to the Druze?
Sometimes it is not so funny when it sinks in just how dangerous the people producing the entertainme-oops sorry News on Fox really are. We in the UK have the example of the Times of London, this was bought by Rupert in 1981. It took a year or before the good journos started leaving and the reporting became a little more than a reflection of the great leader's attitudes and politics. As for using the paper to further his business interests, I worked for London Weekend Television when he was trying to gain control of the organisation, we were the target for a campaign of dis and misinformation from the Times even though he had only owned the organ for only a short time. In the UK our experience of assurances of editorial independence from the 'Rupert' leads me at least to believe that they are of the consistency of pie crusts - be warned.
An interesting nugget; Murdoch had three conversations with Tony Blair in the nine days before the Iraq invasion.Here in Britain we sometimes refer to the man as the 'Dirty Digger' - a reference to his antipodean roots and the sex scandal based rag - 'News of the World' which gave him a foothold in the UK newspaper market. His power and influence are definitely not to be underestimated, our new Prime Minister Gordon Brown was very quick to pay Rupert a visit when it became obvious that his Tonyness was on the way out. DE 11th August 2007
Engendering misperceptions is the game Murdoch's the name
DE 11th August 2007
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More on Alexander Bell and the invention of the telephone.
The first demonstrations of speech at a distance took place in Italy, The land where where Galvani and Volta carried out the first experiments in electric current generation.To me, by far the more interesting of the notable two Italian experimenters was Innocenzo Manzetti. It was he who constructed a 'Speaking Telegraph'. This was a means to give a voice to an automaton he built. The flute playing automaton had over 500 parts and could roll its eyes. The notes produced by the flute could also be controlled from an organ type keyboard. Manzetti, almost certainly was the first to use electrically powered remote speech transmission system. He had many many other achievements and like Bell was not at all interested in business or making money from his inventions. The Bell company driving force was his father-in-law and others who used his name and good lawyers to monopolise telephony in the USA.
Like Bell he would, very probably be astounded at the controversy raging about who 'invented' the telephone. He would also have been disappointed that Meucci was attempting to patent a device that incorporated his ideas. Manzetti's achievements were widely publicised around the world, in fact Alexander Bell, his father and grandfather visited Sr. Manzetti in Italy. Sr. Meucci, the other Italian telephone pioneer was given details of the Manzetti invention by Bell himself. Meucci's original speech transmission systems were mechanical
The Bell patent is obviously designed to promote ideas from Bells current work; tone transmissions and not to gain a business advantage, although that is clearly what Bell's father-in-law intended, for it was he who submitted the patent when Bell himself was out of the country. The Bell patent does, in addition to the main section dealing with speech synthesis using tones of different frequencies, mention an active (using a power source) system that was never ever going to be a practical device. The section dealing with the device seems to have been inserted in the patent as an afterthought - or by someone else? DE 1st August 2007
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Scottish Ruffian or Telephone Pioneer?
Last night I was watching an amusing Television programme QI. The presenter asked the question - "Who invented the telephone?"
The reply Alexander Graham Bell was given - NO WRONG shrieked the quizmaster for it was he, the otherwise wonderful Stephen Fry....."he was at the time a young engineer working for Western Electric and he learned of the work of a poor Italian, a Mr Meucci and promptly nicked the idea".
Bell was actually a Professor of Vocal Physiology and the co-founder of the National Geographic Magazine and the Journal 'Science'. Among the many inventions and contributions to science and technology were methods of teaching the profoundly deaf-blind to communicate and achieving the world water speed record in his patented hydrofoil. He also experimented with thermal solar panels and tested out an idea of laying down magnetic information on rotating disks.
His patent makes no mention of inventing the telephone only "Improvements to Telegraphy" He did also seem to have a grasp of the basics of speech synthesis, in fact the patent is more to do with the use of sound sources carrying harmonics - or 'overtones' as he called them. He did devise a method of producing voice-like sounds but not intelligible speech. Towards the end of the patent there is a description of Bell's active device. Bell had been aware of Manzetti and Meucci's achievements and unlike Meucci was not attempting to patent the fruits of someone else's work.
It is almost certain that there were at least two pioneers who demonstrated devices which could carry speech electrically over a distance but Professor Bell was a brilliant development technician. Bell and his assistant Thames A. Watson made an analogue device which used a resistive device (liquid based) to modulate the flow of current and a signal of an order of magnitude greater than the simple magnet and inductor type of Mr Meucci who expanded on the work of the earlier pioneer, Innocenzo Manzetti.
It is a sad comment on the IEEE that they were unable to make a distinction between the active devices (using a source of power which was controlled by sound pressure) produced by Bell, Gray, Reis and others and the simple generator/transducer demonstrations of the earlier generation. - DE 29th July 2007
It is a sad comment on the IEEE that they were unable to make a distinction between the active devices (using a source of power which was controlled by sound pressure) produced by Bell, Gray, Reis and others and the simple generator/transducer demonstrations of the earlier generation. - Axel 29th July 2007
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Pit Bulls and Staffordshire Bulls - Am I going mad or has the traditional Staffordshire Bull Terrier been transfected with the pit bull DNA and if so what has happened to the traditional Staffs terrier. To me it looks as if the Pit Bull people have hijacked the breed to get round the ban on Pit Bulls in the UK.
The victim of this sorry tail is a noble breed, but then it has always seemed to me that the competitive dog breeders have often been shown to have a vandalistic streak. Axel 28th February 2007
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Just back from a holiday in Berlin - UberKool!
The most impressive experience was the Pergamon Museum. Among other sights, a visit to the Jewish Museum was also well worth the trek; we missed the turn off but found it eventually.
Well laid out, airy and somehow not made oppressive to me with the memory of the Holocaust. That was my verdict, I was moved and felt a slight prickling behind the eyes, but the positivity that was clearly present overrode the negative aspects. and I did learn new things about the origins and achievements of the European Jews.
It was easy to feel empathy for the displaced and persecuted Jews who were forced to suffer near extinction and desperately restricted freedoms Axel 28th February 2007
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I used to drive small and fuel efficient cars because as a Green I was saving the planet, now my main concern is that blood is being spilled to keep me on the road. I sometimes check to see that the liquid pouring in to my tank is not red and sticky. - DE 18th Dec 2006
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