StormWarning’s Counterterrorism

Blogging 24/7 can be stressful, and dangerous to your health. Some people take “it” (being first to scoop a story) so seriously, that they can’t do anything else but literally watch the AP wire.

Its the digital era sweat shop…the home computer!

A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.

Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.

Pay? I don’t get paid for what I write…(is it worth anything?). Is anything that people post, especially when its only a cut/paste of someone else’s work worth it? Ask the question. Why has nothing been posted here in a week? Its called work…real work.

But if you think that blogging is a high-stress job, go try to do what I’ve been doing.

The danger factor results from high levels of stress that come with 24-hour, nonstop, sedentary reading and writing. In the world of blogging, time means everything. If you can be the first one to find, analyze, and post the news, then you can reap the rewards of the traffic it will produce, and therefore make more money, as many professional bloggers are paid per click or per post.

Keep things in perspective, despite all of the hype that bloggers are citizen journalists.

blogging, health risks

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Bob Dylan’s “Blowing in the Wind” was an anthem of my college years, Today, however, no less than T. Boone Pickens has concluded, that in fact, the answer is blowing in the wind. Alterative, renewable energy…all from natural air currents. Of course, environmentalists object to the large propeller towers because birds that fly into them, don’t fly out. The fact that some people do not believe that the plan will work, the Pickens Plan is to unlock the country from dependence on foreign oil by harnessing wind power.

“Sometimes it takes a crisis to awaken us from our slumber,” … “But once aroused, the American people can accomplish miracles”

With $58 million of his own fortune, Pickens plans to build the world’s largest wind farm in West Texas. There are plenty of detractors. The question is whether anyone is capable of proving Pickens wrong.

However, I continue to wonder why so many people object to exploration of renewable energy to unshackle at least part of our oil dependency. And if that is the case, why we wouldn’t also be serious about exploring the enormous power and energy generated by the waves in the oceans of the world.

ocean power, T. Boone Pickens, wave power, wind power

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The Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer was egged by a “disenchanted” student while making a speech on entrepreneurship at Corvinus University of Budapest. As you watch the video, you will see that this Hungarian protester has a “micro” soft toss and see the normally out front MSFT CEO cower behind the lectern to avoid the chicken droppings.

The egg-tossing was in an apparent protest to get Microsoft to give back money to the Hungarian people.

After dodging the eggs, Ballmer shrugs, smiles and quips, “It was a friendly disruption” and the auditorium breaks into laughter. Ballmer then rubs his chin and says, “That broke my train of thought.”

The protester wore a shirt with “Microsoft = Corruption“ emblazoned across the back.

Ballmer, Budapest, egg tossing, Microsoft

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Buried chemical weapons have been discovered…in Washington DC and in Hawaii.

A section northwest of DC, Spring Valley, is also the location of American University.  During the first World War, the area was known as the American University Experimental Station.  Here, at Camp Leach, we had an R&D facility for chemical weapons…this is where American University is today, and where in 1993, a utility contractor unearthed First World War munitions.  Additional checking found chemical munitions on the Korean ambassador property abutting American University.  The cleanup was scheduled to begin in the fall of 2007.

Additionally, arsenic-contaminated soil was also removed from an area on American University.  AU is among 145 arsenic sites that will cost $11 million and take until 2011 to clean-up.  Also found at AU was a bottle containing a small amount of Lewisite, a blister agent and one containing mustard gas.  OOOPS!

Also, the U.S. Army is cleaning up some discovered phosgene munitions in Hawaii.  More than 70  WWII projectiles were discovered on an old Stryker brigade training range. All except one were filled with phosgene, which was a main chemical warfare agent for the U.S. Army during the Second World War.

The projectiles included a mix of 38 each 155 mm projectiles; 22 each 75 mm projectiles; 11 each 4-inch Stokes mortars; and a good number of liquid-filled (not chemical agent) mortar and artillery projectiles. The Army has been setting this disposal process up carefully over the past year.

As I wrote, buried WMD have been found. Double OOOPS!!!

American University, buried WMD, Hawaii, Washington DC

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A public forum was held in Southhold Long Island to guage community reaction to the possibility of resurrecting the National Bio Agro Defense Facility on Plum Island. Its probably accurate to say that hands down Long Islanders responded with a resounding, “Hell No!”

Plum Island is only 1.5 miles from Orient Point at the tip of Long Island. Its been there for 55 years. Some people believe that horrible things have happened there. Some people believe that man-life threatening diseases have escaped from the Plum Island facility - hoof and mouth, West Nile - to name just two.

The paramount question concerned safety procedures at Plum Island. If a new center were built there, they asked, what would protect against the failure of systems designed to keep dangerous organisms from getting out?

“The basic issue is very simple. They are trying to put a bio-level four laboratory in an area with just one egress,” said Sandra Sinclair, of Orient, pointing out that only one two-lane road is available for people trying to leave the area. “They don’t seem to have a realistic plan [for evacuation].”

The first environmental impact statement (EIS) on the new location is expected to be issued in the next few months with the final EIS should be released in the Fall. After the EIS is issued, a second series of public hearings will occur and then the final site selection will be made at least 30 days after the final environmental impact statement is released for public comment.

EDITORIAL COMMENT: I think that one of the important things to consider that many of the conspiracy theorists and “chicken littles” are ignoring is that the safeguards and securities measures being incorporated into the plans for the new NBAF incorporate knowledge of, and therefore correct all if not “just” many of the previous safety and security issues that have been disclosed. For example, does anyone really think that after last year’s power system shutdown at the CDC lab that certain backup power systems will not be built into the new facility? Undoubtably, opponents of the NBAF will raise the spectre of rampant virus and bacteria escapes into the local community. To think that the new facility will not be the most safe and secure BSL-4 in the World (if not the Universe) is beyond naive.

NBAF

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I had forgotten that I posted about John Kanzius and his machine last June, ““Man Invents Machine To Turn Saltwater Into Fire”,” until I noticed a visitor looking at the post. Tonight on CBS 60 Minutes there was another feature on this man who now has shown demonstrable progress of killing cancer cells (apparently of all kinds) with his radio wave machine.

What if we told you that a guy with no background in science or medicine-not even a college degree-has come up with what may be one of the most promising breakthroughs in cancer research in years?

[:]

His name is John Kanzius, and he’s a former businessman and radio technician who built a radio wave machine that has cancer researchers so enthusiastic about its potential they’re pouring money and effort into testing it out.

Here’s the important part: if clinical trials pan out-and there’s still a long way to go-the Kanzius machine will zap cancer cells all through your body without the need for drugs or surgery and without side effects. None at all. At least that’s the idea.

Here’s the video:

Invention through necessity. What they showed on CBS tonight seemed pretty compelling.

John Kanzius

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The concept is often taken for granted or is simply misunderstood.  Military folks understand, “duty, honor, country,” but it is more than that.  Citizenship is more than exercising one’s rights (of free speech for example in writing opinionated blogs) or voting in an election.  Senator McCain’s thoughts on the subject of citizenship were expressed at the U.S. Naval Academy as he described what he called a “corrosive cynicism” and commented that he felt that Americans had lost their sense of citizenship.  What do you do to serve your country?

He said he hoped that Americans would again commit themselves to service to the country, either in the military or by working for government.

“Although it exists apart from government, citizenship is the habits and institutions that preserve democracy,” he said. “It is the ways, small and large, we come together to govern ourselves. Citizenship is the responsible exercise of freedom, and is indispensable to the functioning of a democracy.”

What do you do to serve your country?  You can serve your country in many ways.  At least three ”friends of Storm” are HAM radio operators, all participating in emergency communications.  At least two “friends of Storm” are first responders.  I have many times said that I did not serve in the military (during the Vietnam era).  I have admitted that, in fact, I felt it my duty back then to demonstrate against the War in Vietnam, not to disrespect ever, in any way, those who fought, but to protest what was clearly seen as a police action in which the “will of the people” of Vietnam (to fill their bowls with rice and to feed their families) was transcended by America’s post-McCarthy era fear of Communism and the last vestiges of the “domino theory.”  I once felt it my duty as a citizen to speak out in open forum, much to my detriment, against clearly wrong policies and practices of one of the Departments of the Executive Branch.

Today I serve my country, not in military service, but in service through technology and the development of what are expected to be valuable tools for our country to use in the fight against terrorism.  Lofty statement perhaps that it is, and perhaps it can be disputed, but it is what it is.  As efforts evolve to complete these tasks, the methods developed will be deployed, and hopefully save lives and add to our arsenal of information in the great fight before us.  What do you do to serve our country?  Or are you someone on the sidelines of life chastising and insulting those who express views opposite of yours?  Are you someone who ignores one or more of the basic precepts of our Founding Fathers in the name of fighting terrorism in a war of words and rhetoric?

These are my thoughts this morning.  An overcast but warm day in April.  In support of our Nation, and supporting Senator John McCain for President of the United States.

citizenship, John McCain for President

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A very large percentage of you will never see anything like this (or care for that matter).  I am not interested at all in this one (I don’t even understand the subject).  For the uninitiated, this is what a request for a proposal from the government looks like. Without DARPA and other programs like it, this Nation’s technical and scientific requirements would go unmet. Some still do (go unmet).

FUNDING OPPORTUNITY DESCRIPTION
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency often selects its research efforts through the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) process. The BAA will appear first on the FedBizOpps website, http://www.fedbizopps.gov/, and Grants.gov website at http://www.grants.gov/. The following information is for those wishing to respond to the BAA.

DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of Quantum Entanglement Science and Technology (QuEST). Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the fundamental understanding of quantum information science related to “small” quantum systems. Specifically excluded is research which primarily results in incremental improvement to the existing state of practice or knowledge.

Considerable progress has been made in recent years in understanding the fundamentals of quantum information science on both experimental and theoretical sides. In spite of this progress, many fundamental issues remain unresolved and many fundamental challenges remain. The objective of the QuEST program is to identify and address the most important outstanding challenges and opportunities, both experimental and theoretical, related to “small” coherent quantum systems, and resolve or exploit them to enable revolutionary advances in the field. In this context, “small” refers to quantum systems with minimal quantum resources (e.g. number of coherent qubits, entanglement, quantum memory, etc.). Results of such research are expected to lead to revolutionary advances in quantum information science and technology.

It takes alot of experience to even understand how to write these things. My work isn’t anywhere near as complex as this subject matter. But, welcome to my “day job.”  Any questions?

BAA

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Avoiding a future deep impact syndrome…with the shooting down of the U.S. Spy Satellite, the question of dealing with a real life “Deep Impact” (1998), students in the Technion Institute’s Faculty of Aerospace Engineering recently developed a model for deflecting heavenly bodies that could damage Earth.  The model was developed out of fear that an asteroid (Apophis) could collide with Earth in 2036.

In the 1998 movie, “Deep Impact,” Robert Duvall sacrificed his life and his crew in a successful effort to destroy the larger of the two asteroids — The Technion model was been created and was presented at a competition of NASA and the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.  The plan?  Here’s a depiction of the spacecraft.

Check out the paper.

Apophis, Deep Impact, roids, Technion Institute

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Version two purportedly corrects poorly designed and breakable elements of V1.  And it was announced on the Al-Ekhlaas forum, hosted at a Web site based in Tampa, Fla.  It is time for the general public, and not just a few select counterterrorism “wonks” to pay attention.  These are not camel jockeys.

“The original Mujahideen Secrets used a weak methodology, it was not properly designed and it was breakable,” asserts Paul Henry, vice president of technology evangelism at Secure Computing. Henry notes that the first version of Mujahideen Secrets makes use of the RSA-based public-key cryptography.

The levels of sophistication of today’s cyber-jihadists is striking, and widely “misunderestimated” (see malaprop) by the uninitiated multitudes of global blogosphere commentators.

Washington, D.C.-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has also identified NOC4Hosts as the Web site provider for Al-Ekhlaas, noting that on Jan. 13 the Islamist forum “announced the imminent release of a new version of the ‘Mujahideen Secrets’ software.”
[:]
MEMRI stated that the first version of the Mujahideen Secrets encryption software released a year ago was described as “the first Islamic computer program for the secure exchange [of information] on the Internet,” providing users with “the five best encryption algorithms, and with symmetrical encryption keys (256 bit), asymmetrical encryption keys (2048 bit) and data compression [tools].”
[:]
…there’s cause to be concerned that Al-Qaeda may be bulking up its technologies.

The full story of the MEMRI analysis of this is found here, From MEMRI’S Islamist Website Monitor Project: Islamist Forums Take New Security Measures.  A partial list of web hosts harboring al Qaeda and jihadist websites, all providing access to Majahadeen Secrets Version 2 are show here, in Headline: Islamofacist Outreach Comes to the Net-In ENGLISH !

The following are some prominent Islamist forums and blogs in English, along with their URLs and ISPs:

The Al-Hesbah forum
http://www.alhesbah.net/v/forumdisplay.php?f=48
ISP: NOC4Hosts Inc.; Tampa, FL, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Shumoukh Al-Islam forum
http://shmo5alislam.net/vb/forumdisplay.php?f=53
ISP: TELEKOM MALAYSIA BERHAD; Malaysia (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Al-Ekhlaas forum
http://ekhlaas.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=109
ISP: NOC4Hosts Inc.; Tampa, FL, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Jund Al-Rahman forum
http://jondurrahmaan.com/vb/?styleid=30
ISP: Layered Technologies, Inc.; Plano, TX, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Shabkat Al-Akhbar forum
http://w-w-n.ws/forumdisplay.php?f=10
ISP: TIMETELEKOM; Malaysia (Data verified 11/20/07)
At-Tibyan Publications website [2]
http://tibyan.wordpress.com/tag/articles
ISP: Layered Technologies, Inc., Plano, TX, USA (Data verified 11/29/07)
The Sawt Al-Jihad blog
http://www.sawtaljihad.org/
ISP: New Dream Network LLC; Brea, CA, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Ignored Puzzle Pieces of Knowledge blog
http://inshallahshaheed.muslimpad.com/
ISP: ThePlanet.com Internet Services, Inc, Dallas, TX, USA (Data verified 11/29/07)
The Crusader Watcher blog
http://www.crusaderwatcher.blogspot.com/
ISP: Google Inc.; Mountain View, CA, USA (Data verified 11/20/07)
The Press Release blog
http://www.press-release.blogspot.com/
ISP: Google Inc.; Mountain View, CA, USA (Data verified 11/21/07)

Further, you have this excerpt: On December 17, 2007, the English section of the Islamist Al-Ekhlaas forum (www.ek-ls.org), hosted by NOC4Hosts Inc., Tampa, FL, USA, posted a message revealing further security measures being taken by Islamist forums in light of the intensifying campaign in the West against Islamist websites.

The message indicates that Islamists have created exclusive, invitation-only forums because of the fear of infiltration by non-Muslim Western agencies and organizations.

So what do the experts say about this?  People like Doug Farah and Evan Kohlmann are among those who follow this area closely.  I’m pretty much an interested third party as it relates to some of the work that I do, and the emerging tactics in this War on Terrorism continues to fascinate me.  On the Counterterrorism Blog, Farah writes in his post, The Jihadist Encryption Campaign

Dubbed Mujahadeen Secrets 2, the Ekhlaas website said the newer iteration is a “special edition of the software was developed and issued by … Ekhlaas in order to support the mujahideen in general and the (al Qaeda-linked group) Islamic State in Iraq in particular.”

This shows three things: that the outside world has grown increasingly better at monitoring their unencrypted communications; that the jihadists have the technological wherewithal to take their communications to the next level; and that they still apparently like to operate out of the United States.

Farah expands on his thoughts more in his own blog, Jihadists Move to Encryption on Internet Sights, his final observation warrants special attention:

The flat world of technology spread cuts many ways. This is one of the inevitable but costly ways our open systems can be exploited to make our lives more dangerous.

Just a bit less than a year ago, I among few others wrote a post, New Encryption Tool to Aid Terrorism.  Suprisingly few (or not) people recognized it back then, and in fact I know factually that even cyber-terrorism specialists at a specific 3-letter agency were not familiar with it back then.  Perhaps their awareness has risen since then.

For a “geeks” view of the released version 2, you can look at Mujahideen Secrets 2 Encryption Tool Released.

Those who somehow think that the Global War on Terrorism is coming to some sort of end, wake the hell up! As time passes, jihadist tactics are becoming more sophisticated. These are educated and intelligent people, motivated to destroy us through whatever means are at their disposal.

Al Ekhlaas forum, MEMRI, Mujahadeen Secrets 2

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The development is being hailed as a “stunning landmark achievement” by experts not involved in the Univ. of Minnesota breakthrough in which a beating heart of a rat was created by using healthy stem cells from baby rats.  By creating a “scaffold” (eliminating all of the cells of a dead rat’s heart) and using it to grow new cells, the team used “nature’s building blocks to build a new organ.”

With modifications, scientists should be able to grow a new human heart by taking stem cells from a patient’s bone marrow and placing them in a cadaver heart that’s been prepared as a scaffold, Dr. Taylor said in a telephone interview from her laboratory in Minneapolis. The early success “opens the door to this notion that you can make any organ: kidney, liver, lung, pancreas — you name it and we hope we can make it,” she said.

Even creating the scaffold took trial and error…in cleaing out the dead rat’s heart, Dr. Doris Taylor and her team used surfactants like those in shampoos into the rat’s arteries to wash out the heart cells and then injected neonatal cardiac cells…the first two “washes” failed…the thrid attempt worked, leaving a translucent scaffold that retained the heart’s architecture.

This process is called organ decellularization.

“Multiple things” must be done before a human trial can be attempted, Taylor said. “We are moving to larger organs, making sure we can get enough cells in to repopulate the entire heart, and also, if it is transplantable, to keep it alive for a long time,” she said.

The biotechnology might be able to bypass a major impediment to organ transplants, the need to use tissue that is compatible with a recipient’s immune system, Taylor said. “In theory, we could be able to use stem cells from a recipient’s body to regenerate a heart,” she said. “We could rebuild a heart that is immunologically similar to yours.”

We are on the door step of scientific discoveries that will challenge even today’s imagination.

Dr. Doris A. Taylor, organ decellularization, University of Minnesota

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The future will bring us closer and closer to tomorrow, and tomorrow is more and more today.  Pleo is the brainchild of Caleb Chung, cocreator of the Furby, whose new company, Ugobe, was intended to be the next step in the evolution of robotic toys that exhibit social behaviors and learn from experience.

Ugobe’s vision was “of life-forms that people could bond with,” says the company’s CTO, John Sosoka. Pleo, he says, “exhibits stunning organic movement and dynamic behaviors unlike other robots in the market.”

● It nuzzles its head against its owner’s cheek in an apparent display of affection.
● It crouches and wags its tail like a dog that wants to play
● It cranes its neck to let out long, plaintive cries.
● Pleo’s emotive states include joy, sorrow, and anger.
● It can also be drowsy or even sick

Expressive bot: Pleo exhibits “happy,” one of its several emotive states.
Credit: Ugobe

Pleo’s hardware consists of 38 sensors, 14 motors, and more than 100 custom-designed gears. Light sensors and a camera in Pleo’s nose help it detect objects, color, and edges. Sound sensors allow some degree of “hearing” when “[Pleo] is still, and it is quiet,” Ugobe says. Eight capacitive touch sensors line Pleo’s shoulders, back, legs, head, and chin.

Pre-orders for this robo-toy started in June 2007 and they became available last week for a price of $349 per dino. Of course, you’re buying a robot that looks dinosaur…according to Tom Hershner, event coordinator of Robot Village…”there’s nothing else of that caliber of realism,” partly, he says, because of “the look of it.”

Should also see Your Robotic Personal Assistant

Aside from the Roomba, robots haven’t made much progress infiltrating American homes. But researchers at Stanford University have developed software that overcomes one of the biggest challenges: teaching a robot how to pick up an object it has never encountered before. The robot’s software suggests that the best way to pick up something new is by determining the most grabable part of the object–the stem of a wineglass, the handle of a mug, or the edge of a book, for instance.

Other Storm posts on robots, robotics and bots.

dino bot, dinosaur robot, Pleo

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The future is now and its coming from Robotex, a Silicon Valley company with heritage from Dreamworks and Disney has developed its own killer robot that combines engineering skill and groundbreaking weaponry to create a new generation of soldiers; system designed with no government funding.  Teaming with Military Police Systems of Piney Flats Tennesee, Robotex armed its robotic soldier with an Atchisson Assault-12 (AA-12) shotgun.

AA-12:  Read the evaluator comments  |  View the weapon specs

In fairness to Baber, his use of the AA-12 name tag acknowledges the developmental work done by the gun’s original designer, the late Max Atchisson. Before Baber acquired the rights to his smoke-bringer in 1987, the gun was known as the Atchisson Assault-12. It is now Baber’s property and is available only through his company, Military Police Systems Inc. of Piney Flats, Tenn.

The robot is two feet tall, travels ten miles an hour, and spins on a dime. Remote-controlled over an encrypted frequency that jams nearby radios and cellphones, it’ll blow a ten-inch hole through a steel door with deadly accuracy from 400 meters.

But the question remains whether the Beltway and the military bureacracy is ready to permit Silicon Valley engineers and entrepreneurs to encroach on its turf.  Adam Gettings from Robotex says:

“This is the new defense, Silicon Valley-style…You build only what’s necessary, iterate quickly, and keep the price low.” It is low: Between $30,000 to $50,000. A similar bot, the Talon, which was developed by defense contractor Foster-Miller and is being tested in Iraq, costs six times that amount. “Our system does all the same things as the Talon, weighs half as much, and costs a fraction.”

Technology, the future and the warfighter merging in real time.

Gettings, robotic soldiers, Silicon Valley

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While you’re here, I’d appreciate it if you’d take a glance at some of the other entries on this blog, and also go over and visit my friend Moonage’s pages - just click on the right at the top.  Thanks so much!

This is bound to befuddle, but perhaps bemuse.  What country is better?  On what basis is this determined?  This morning I stumbled (out of bed) but across a unique website that, using statistical analysis, “plots” the countries of the World and provides insight into the gaps between countries on a variety of dimensions.  Keywords: Demographics, State Department, Developing Nations

Gapminder offers pictorial statistical analysis and shows the development of all countries by the indicators you choose.  For example, is Chile a developing country?  The answer, according to the Gapminder analysis, was surprising.

Watch this GapCast » Go to all GapCasts » Gapcast #6 - Chile a developing country? What’s the difference between Chile, Cuba and the USA? Well, it depends on what kind of factors you are looking at. In some factors USA and Chile are today very similar, factors that Cuba and USA were very close in 1962.

Perhaps beyond my understanding…but I will be going back to play with the mappings.  Check ou tthe Gapminder FAQs here.  Maybe y’all don’t care or it doesn’t matter, but did you know that on the basis of life expectancy and per capita income, the tiny country of Luxembourg beats the U.S. hands down?  With a per capita income 75% greater than ours?  Yet their life expectancy is the same?  But that the French and the Germans, along with the Japanese have a life expectancy pretty much longer than “us guys” in the U.S.?  If you actually spend the time and change some of the variables, the trends that emerge are quite revealing. 

 It is when you put the “map” in motion that you see the development of the various nations across a time span.  [Hat-tip to intelfusion.net]  Pretty heady stuff, huh?

Please see Shocking Facts About America at Right Truth.

Demographics, Developing Nations, gapminder, State Department

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The battles in the GWOT being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan and soon, probably elsewhere, are unlike any in our history.  Modern medical science allows these warriors to survive catastrophic injuries that would have killed them just a few years ago.  A recent report, United States Military Casualty Statistics: Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom makes the point clear:

Amputation and TBI statistics are provided to CRS by the Army Office of theSurgeon General. These injuries may overlap, that is, a single soldier may experience both a TBI and an amputation.

As of June 30, 2007, DOD reported 1,005 individuals who are amputees, of whom 708 suffered major limb amputations. Of the 1,005 total amputees, 488 (48.6%) were wounded by improvised explosive devices. 871 (87%) of the 1,005 amputees were wounded in OIF, 48 (5%) were wounded in OEF, and 86 (or 9%), were wounded in an unaffiliated conflict in the Global War on Terrorism or in training.

Battle injuries were the most common cause of amputations: 78% of amputees sustained their injuries in battle, another 16% sustained on-battle injuries, and 2% sustained injuries dueto disease. The cause of injury is unknown for 4% of amputees.

As of June 30, 2007, DOD reported a total of 3,294 soldiers suffering from traumatic brain injuries, or TBIs. Of those, 3,094 (or 94%) sustained their injury in OIF, while 200(6%) sustained their injury in OEF. Of the total injuries in OIF and OEF, 195 (6%) were counted as “severe,” and an additional 180 (5%) were counted as “penetrating.” Blasts caused 2,279 (69%) of the TBI cases; other causes include a fall (294 cases) and vehicular causes (284 cases).

Scientists and researchers at our universities are doing their part to serve the Nation and help our wounded soldiers to return to a “normal” life.  Two recent articles posted here illustrate this point:

Sensory Capable Prosthetics and Stopping Battlefield Bleeding.

amputations, catastrophic injuries

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