Friday, September 21, 2007

The call of the Wild!



Some photos of my visits to Algonquin Provincial Park
(in Canada)


As some of you might know, I enjoy camping and the outdoors in general. Well, around Memorial Day and Columbus Day weekends a few of us brave souls pack-up our camping gear, grab a canoe and head out to the wilds of Algonquin park about 4-5 hours drive north. I thought I would share a few of those photos with you.... because of my knee problems last year I missed going, so I hope to make up for it this season!

...Want to join us?

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Unusual views of Shuttle launch

Checkout this unusual view of the
Shuttle STS-118 Booster Camera Launch Views
Pretty cool footage!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Are folks in Peru suffering from an Alien Space Illness?

It appears that Star wars has started according to THIS Article

Mon Sep 17, 11:23 PM ET

LIMA (AFP) - Villagers in southern Peru were struck by a mysterious illness after a meteorite made a fiery crash to Earth in their area, regional authorities said Monday.

Around midday Saturday, villagers were startled by an explosion and a fireball that many were convinced was an airplane crashing near their remote village, located in the high Andes department of Puno in the Desaguadero region, near the border with Bolivia.

Residents complained of headaches and vomiting brought on by a "strange odor," local health department official Jorge Lopez told Peruvian radio RPP.

Seven policemen who went to check on the reports also became ill and had to be given oxygen before being hospitalized, Lopez said.

Rescue teams and experts were dispatched to the scene, where the meteorite left a 100-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) and 20-foot-deep (six-meter-deep) crater, said local official Marco Limache.

"Boiling water started coming out of the crater and particles of rock and cinders were found nearby. Residents are very concerned," he said.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

Feeling Crummy today?

That's the way the cookie crumbles!
Maybe you have the "Cookie Blues"??


The Cookie Blues

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Careful, or I'll go thermobaric on you! ...or is it yet " Another Arms Race"????


Russia tests giant fuel-air bomb

The Russian air force has tested a giant fuel-air bomb which the military says is the biggest non-nuclear explosive device in the world.

Russian TV showed a Tupolev bomber dropping the bomb over a test range, a powerful explosion and a four-storey building reduced to rubble.

Claims it is bigger than the Moab, a US device of similar destructive power, seem plausible, analysts say.

Such bombs are mainly designed to destroy underground targets.

Fuel-air bombs, technically known as thermobaric devices, generally detonate in two stages: a small blast creates a cloud of explosive material, which is then ignited with devastating effect.

"The Russians have a long and proven history of developing weapons in the thermobaric class"

Robert Hewson
editor of Jane's Air-launched Weapons


The name Moab officially stands for Massive Ordnance Air Burst but has unofficially been interpreted as Mother Of All Bombs.

The Russian bomb, which has no known official name, has been dubbed Father of All Bombs by its designers, Russia's Channel One News says in its report.

It contains about seven tons of high explosives compared with more than eight for the Moab but is four times more powerful because it uses a new type of explosives developed with the use of nanotechnology, according to the channel.

"Test results of the new airborne weapon have shown that its efficiency and power is commensurate with a nuclear weapon," Gen Alexander Rukshin, Russian deputy armed forces chief of staff, told the channel.

It has, he says, "no match in the world".

Psychological value

Robert Hewson, editor of Jane's Air-launched Weapons, believes that the Russian claims are plausible given the country's track record in developing, and using, fuel-air devices.

"I think the likelihood is that this is the world's biggest non-nuclear bomb," he told the BBC News website.

"You can argue about the numbers and how you scale this but the Russians have a long and proven history of developing weapons in the thermobaric class."

Russia used such weapons in Afghanistan and Chechnya, Hewson says, and he suspects that the bomb shown on TV was conceived for the Chechen conflict but never actually used because of the sheer scale of the destruction it could wreak.

He believes that the test blast was a "statement" by Russia comparable in its psychological effect to America's demonstration of the Moab just before the 2003 invasion of Iraq - a demonstration never followed up by its actual use.

"The Russians are in a phase of needing to make statements at the moment and have done the same thing," Hewson says.

The giant bomb was transported by a Tu-160 "Blackjack" supersonic bomber, itself in the news recently when Russia revived the Soviet practice of sending heavy bombers out on long-range flights.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Web-Based Email :: Download :: dunktank.mpg

Web-Based Email :: Download :: dunktank.mpg