He is barely five inches high, with a stern little mouth and rather worn ears and paws – a scruffy little teddy bear that you would not give a second glance in a charity shop. He doesn’t even have a name.
But he has become quite an internet sensation, thanks to his owner, Jean Mellows, writing a letter to The Telegraph.
In full, the letter said:
“I was interested to read about the teddy bear that accompanied a Battle of Britain pilot as I too have a little bear, with my maiden name tape sewn on it, which I gave to my fiancé to take with him on his operations over Germany during the Second World War.
“He was a Mosquito nightfighter pilot and flew 50 ops accompanied by my bear, and together they won the DFC [Distinguished Flying Cross].
“We were married for 50 years but now, sadly, I just have the bear.”
With three sentences of perfect prose, Mrs Mellows had ensured readers of The Telegraph letters page were wiping their eyes over breakfast, clearing their throats and asking for the marmalade to be passed. Within 48 hours of its publication at the end of last week, her letter had been shared hundreds of times on social media, with many wanting to know more about the bear, the DFC – and Mrs Mellows.
"We cannot tolerate the proliferation of this paperwork any longer. It is useless to fight the forms. We must kill the people producing them."
- Attributed to Vladimir Kabaidze, Director of the Ivanovo Machine Works near Moscow, in a speech before the annual Communist Party Congress, 1936.
[SWAT navigates the mine field, crawls under the barbed wire, and slips past the mysteriously bloodstained crosses lining the walkway]
[ SWAT is about to breach the door with enough C4 to blow open a bunker]
[Tom Kratman, the Grant Strategikon himself, dressed like George Patton, using the voice of a drill Sargent meets George C. Scott ] TEN-HUT
[The SWAT members with military training immediately snapped to. The few non-veteran members look confused, until TK gets in their face.] I SAID TEN-HUT.
[The last of SWAT complies. TK drifts up and down the line, inspecting all of them.] I have never seen such an underequipped, slip-shod entry. Where are your wire clippers! Where are your sappers! Where are your sniper teams! My wife could have taken you out a dozen times by now!
[TK stops and turns, and waves off in one direction.] Hi honey, I love you!
[TK turns back to the SWAT team] Who trained you people? John Scalzi? Kurds?
[Junior SWAT member stammers] Buu-u-u-ut, aren't the Kurds supposed to be the good fighters--
[TK] SILENCE, FOOL. Drop and give me fifty. You there, drop your equipment on this man so he knows how to do a REAL push up!
[TK continues inspection] As I was saying, I have never seen a more pathetic attempt at entry. How appalled am I, Sergeant Major?"
[A non-com appears at TK's elbow, also in full uniform, but wearing more guns than the entire SWAT team put together.] Ve-ry Sir.
[TK] Alright. It ap-pears that the only way I'm ever going to get a decent SWATting is to train you myself. Every man, fall back to the FOB. We're going to do this again, and again, and a-gain, until we get it right. In this second run through, I'm going to use my defenses. On the third try, I will be using live ammunition. AM I UNDER-STTOOOOOOODDDD?
[SWAT] SIR! YES, SIR!
[TK] MOVE IT, MOVE IT, MOVE IT! AND WATCH FOR THE LANDMINES! THEY'RE STILL ACTIVE!
Scientists at Aarhus University in Denmark investigated the fact that the French tend to lead long and healthy lives while consuming diets high in saturated fats.
Though most explanations of this phenomenon, known as the 'French Paradox', focus on wine consumed and lifestyle, this new Danish research points to a simpler answer.
. . .
Hanne Bertram, a food scientist at Aarhus University in Denmark, compared urine and fecal samples from 15 men whose diets either contained cheese or milk, or ate a diet with butter but no other dairy products.
Bertram found that those who ate cheese had higher levels of butyric acid, a compound which has been been linked to reduced obesity and higher metabolism. The higher butyrate levels were linked to a reduction in cholesterol.
This, Bertram says, "suggests a role for gut microbes and further shore up the connection between cheese and the French paradox."
This, admittedly small, study isn't the only research to link cheese consumption to the French Paradox.
In 2012, research suggested it was specifically Roquefort cheese that helped guard against cardiovascular disease, leading to good health and longevity.
Dr Ivan Petyaev and Dr Yuriy Bashmakov said the cheese, known for its mould and green veins, had specific anti-inflammatory properties that contributed to the occurence of the French Paradox.
... the principle of peaceful, non-violent protest and the observance of the rule of law is of utmost importance in any society. MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, and all great opposition leaders throughout history have always preached this precept. Further, it is critical that in any democracy investigation must be completed and due process must be honored before any government or police members are judged responsible.
That said, my greater source of personal concern, outrage and sympathy beyond this particular case is focused neither upon one night’s property damage nor upon the acts, but is focused rather upon the past four-decade period during which an American political elite have shipped middle class and working class jobs away from Baltimore and cities and towns around the U.S. to third-world dictatorships like China and others, plunged tens of millions of good hard-working Americans into economic devastation, and then followed that action around the nation by diminishing every American’s civil rights protections in order to control an unfairly impoverished population living under an ever-declining standard of living and suffering at the butt end of an ever-more militarized and aggressive surveillance state.
The innocent working families of all backgrounds whose lives and dreams have been cut short by excessive violence, surveillance, and other abuses of the Bill of Rights by government pay the true price, an ultimate price, and one that far exceeds the importance of any kids’ game played tonight, or ever, at Camden Yards. We need to keep in mind people are suffering and dying around the U.S., and while we are thankful no one was injured at Camden Yards, there is a far bigger picture for poor Americans in Baltimore and everywhere who don’t have jobs and are losing economic civil and legal rights, and this makes inconvenience at a ball game irrelevant in light of the needless suffering government is inflicting upon ordinary Americans.
The Baltimore cops killed a man whose sole crime was not wanting to talk to them. They denied him medical attention, then they not only tuned him up a little in the back of a paddy wagon, they crushed his larynx and snapped his spine.
And people aren't happy with being beaten by the cops and yes, they don't believe that they'll get a fair shake from the justice system. Because they don't. When the cops don't act according to the rule of law, only a fool would expect that the people on the other side of the batons, the tasers, and the guns will respect the rule of law. Too many people, including cops, seem to confuse the meaning of the words "respect" and "fear".
. . .
Yes, a lot of what goes on in any riot is opportunism and hooliganism. Yet, one should not lose sight of how well the ground was prepared for it.
... it appears that from the standpoint of the cops it no longer mattered if you ... "arrest" that person under dubious circumstances that the cops will not disclose, shackle that person and throw them in a police van unrestrained (that is, no seat belt), causing in some form or fashion subsequent to arrest an injury so severe that this individual's spinal cord is virtually severed and he dies.
You couldn't get away with treating a dog this way; you'd go to prison for animal cruelty. But it's all ok in this case, right, and only "suspensions" (and paid ones at that) are warranted while what facially looks to be yet another whitewashed "investigation" is conducted. Nobody is sitting in the dock cooling their heels as would be the case if you had committed the same assault upon a dog, never mind that if anyone not in a magical blue costume had done that to another human they'd be facing at least manslaughter charges.
Does this mean that people ought to burn the city to the ground? No. But at what point do the citizens of this country come to the conclusion that this is not an isolated incident or rare thing; it is instead a pattern of intentional contempt for human decency and the protections allegedly afforded under the Constitution, petitioning for redress has failed, suing for money doesn't bring back the dead and the intentional destruction of people without cause, ending in their death by those in magical blue costumes must stop?
These events in Baltimore are not isolated. There is myriad evidence this sort of lawless conduct is not only endemic it facially appears to be formal and national policy.
Only a handful of conservatives have much to say about what policing ought to be like (although there is some hope that a Right On Crime approach will continue to find success in practice and support among voters.) Mostly, it seems like conservatives would rather go back to the era of “zero tolerance” policing under Martin O’Malley, when up to 100,000 arrests in a city of 636,000 people were made, precipitating a successful lawsuit from the NAACP and the ACLU. Despite costing billions of dollars and thousands of lives, decades after declaring a War on Drugs, it’s fairly safe to say that drugs are winning or have won. (Baltimore, to its credit, has put great effort into a less punitive drug court system that addresses some of this reality.) Conservatives also generally underestimate the degree to which police brutality is systemic, not anecdotal and have yet to commit to any program that holds police accountable. One of my patients who lives in the neighborhood showed me scars from his encounters with the police and described them as a “necessary evil” to keep drug dealers in check—often through stealing drugs or money from them. Stories of corruption are just frequent enough to make any police encounter a roll of the dice—everyone acknowledges that there are good cops who care about justice and will treat you fairly, but you never know if it’s one of them pulling you over.
Nonviolence worked for MLK Jr. because he had white allies, white allies who’d seen that apartheid and second class citizenship was wrong, white allies who were plentiful enough to get **** done at the national political level. But the black population of Baltimore — what allies do they got? Not the cops, the cops consider the black population of Baltimore to be porch monkeys, niggers, apes, whatever slur you want to talk about. Not the politicians, they’ve known about “black dog” runs for a long time, the city’s been sued over them dozens of times over the past two decades and paid out millions to people injured this way, the politicians don’t give a ****. What about the voters in Baltimore? You mean the same voters who keep putting those politicians who don’t give a **** into office? Yeah right. What about the Department of Justice? Suuuure, pull the other one, right?
So why *not* burn **** down? Will it distract people from the fact that cops in Baltimore can murder black men with impunity? But ****, people *already* don’t give a **** about the fact that cops in Baltimore can murder black men with impunity, so how can you make them care *less*?
As a returning WWII vet, if you made "six figures" [i.e. $100,000] in 1947, you were boss. It would be like making $743,000 today.
If you were a baby boomer, making "six figures" during Ford's administration, you were pulling down the equivalent of $300,000 today.
But sadly, with the effects of inflation, compound/exponential math, today's young "go getters" and "business leaders," "six figures" really doesn't mean anything anymore as it is now an obsolete metric of success, wealth, and income. You only make $67,700.
In 19.9 percent of American families in 2014, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), no one in the family worked.
A family, as defined by the BLS, is a “group of two or more persons residing together who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption. In 2014, there were 80,889,000 families in the United States, and in 16,057,000 of those families, or 19.9 percent, no one had a job.
Thankfully, regulatory transparency got a considerable boost Thursday when the Red Tape Reduction Act (C-21) received Royal Assent and became law. Minister Tony Clement, who has championed the bill, can be proud that Canada is now the first country in the world to require that for every new regulation introduced one of equivalent burden must be removed.
C-21, has been operating as policy for several years already, which means that the costs of new rules must be quantified and equal or greater costs removed. It essentially caps the cost of rules coming directly from regulations. Government rules can also come from legislation and policy so the one-for-one rule is not a cap on the cost of all government rules. Still, it is a very good start.
Why is this so important? Regulation, both necessary and unnecessary (red tape), are a huge hidden tax on all Canadians. The latest estimate from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business suggests that regulation costs $37 billion a year.
. . .
Prime Minister Harper calls red tape a “silent killer of jobs.” He’s right. One of the disturbing findings from CFIB’s recent report is that one in four of today’s business owners would not advise their kids to go into business given the current burden of complying with government rules. But discouraging businesses from starting is just the beginning of red tape’s negative impacts. Red tape wastes valuable time that could be spent doing any number of other things like serving customers, learning new skills, or enjoying family. For consumers, it increases prices and reduces choices.
Red tape’s most destructive impact is that it undermines the relationship between government and its citizens. Struggling with confusing language, getting put on hold for excessive periods of time, getting bad compliance advice from government agents or running up against a dumb, costly rule shakes one’s faith that the taxes we pay are working for us not against us.
The eminent historian and BBC broadcaster Tom Holland sums up full contact medieval combat during his visit to the 2014 IMCF World Championships at Castillo Belmonte, Spain, for BBC’s “Making History” show.
“The action was a whole dimension away from the staged minuet of battle re-enactments.
It was a bit like rugby – only played in full armor.
It was a bit like ice hockey – only with swords and maces.
It was a bit like boxing – only with any form of contact, up to and including smacking your opponent around the head with a pole-axe – permitted.
It was violent, it was intense, it was viscerally a sport.
Thirty seconds in and I knew I loved it.”
The sport began to take shape 15 years ago in Eastern Europe, where medieval re-enactors looked to find a way to truly re-live medieval combat. It is a revival of the medieval tournament fighting that was used to train and hone the skills of knights in the Middle Ages.
. . .
For team fighting and dueling, the fighters wear up to 35 kgs of fully authentic medieval armor and wield authentic weapons with rounded edges. Certain shapes of weapon are also prohibited for the sake of safety.
In keeping with all martial arts there are referees and rules for the sake of safety.
Welcome to the Garden State. Just leave your guns at the border, please. Local news outlets are reporting on a court case which has recently come to a close wherein a citizen, identified only as Z.L., had applied for a gun permit in 2013. Keep in mind that this is not a permit to carry… just to be able to purchase and own a gun. He was turned down because the background investigation revealed that he had been arrested on a domestic violence charge fifteen years earlier. But he was acquitted on the charge, so we should be able to clear this one up fairly quickly, right? Well, not in New Jersey, folks.
. . .
The case of Z.L. should serve as a warning of precisely how far off the constitutional beam things have gone in New Jersey and how badly they can go in other states with similarly unconstitutional views on the subject. Keep in mind that one of the bedrock principles of American justice is that every citizen is innocent until proven guilty. Simply being accused of something is not sufficient grounds for any sort of punishment and when you are found not culpable by a jury of your peers the matter is closed. Whatever incident spurred the action is no longer fodder to be held over your head at a later date. But in New Jersey, simply having an accusation raised against you – no matter how specious it may be – can be used as the rationale to punish you later if you seek to exercise your fundamental rights.
Leon Trotsky is not often invoked as a management guru, but a line frequently attributed to him would surely resonate with many business leaders today. “You may not be interested in war,” the Bolshevik revolutionary is said to have warned, “but war is interested in you.” War, or at least geopolitics, is figuring more and more prominently in the thinking and fortunes of large businesses.
Of course, multinational companies such as Shell and GE have long cultivated an expertise in geopolitics. But the intensity of concern over global instability is much higher now than in any recent period. In 2013, the private-equity colossus KKR named the retired general and CIA director David Petraeus as the chairman of its global institute, which informs the firm’s investment decisions. Earlier this year, Sir John Sawers, the former head of MI6, Britain’s CIA, became the chairman of Macro Advisory Partners, a firm that advises businesses and governments on geopolitics. Both appointments are high-profile examples of a much wider trend: an increasing number of corporations are hiring political scientists, starting their board meetings with geopolitical briefings, and seeking the advice of former diplomats, spymasters, and military leaders.“The last three years have definitely been a wake-up call for business on geopolitics,” Dominic Barton, the managing director of McKinsey, told me. “I’ve not seen anything like it. Since the Second World War, I don’t think you’ve seen such volatility.” Most businesses haven’t pulled back meaningfully from globalized operation, Barton said. “But they are thinking, Gosh, what’s next?”
EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy testified today before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee on EPA’s proposed carbon standards for existing power plants. Describing the goal of the proposed rule under Section 111 (d) of the Clean Air Act, McCarthy exclaimed:
“The great thing about this [111(d)] proposal is that it really is an investment opportunity. This is not about pollution control. It’s about increased efficiency at our plants, no matter where you want to invest. It’s about investments in renewables and clean energy.”
But in previous testimony last month before the House Energy and Power Subcommittee, one of McCarthy’s top deputies at EPA, Acting Assistant Administrator for Air and Radiation Janet McCabe had a much different description of the rule. She testified:
“Chairman Upton, this is not an energy plan. This is a rule done within the four corners of 111(d) that looks to the best system of emission reduction to reduce emission… The rule is a pollution control rule, as EPA has traditionally done under section 111(d).”
Kindstedt, author of the book Cheese and Culture, explained that about a thousand years before traces of cheese-making show up in the archaeological record, humans began growing crops ... for the first thousand years, toddlers and babies were the only ones consuming the milk. Human adults were uniformly lactose-intolerant, says Kindstedt. What's more, he told us that "we know from some exciting archaeo-genetic and genomic modeling that the capacity to tolerate lactose into adulthood didn't develop until about 5500 B.C."—which is at least a thousand years after the development of cheese.
... we now know that the real dawn of cheese came about 8,500 years ago, with two simultaneous developments in human history. First, by then, over-intensive agricultural practices had depleted the soil, leading to the first human-created environmental disaster. As a result, Neolithic humans began herding goats and sheep more intensely, as those animals could survive on marginal lands unfit for crops. And secondly, humans invented pottery: the original practical milk-collection containers.
In the warm environment of the Fertile Crescent region, Kinstedt explained, any milk not used immediately and instead left to stand in those newly invented containers "would have very quickly, in a matter of hours, coagulated [due to the heat and the natural lactic acid bacteria in the milk]. And at some point, probably some adventurous adult tried some of the solid material and found that they could tolerate it a lot more of it than they could milk." That's because about 80 percent of the lactose drains off with the whey, leaving a digestible and, likely, rather delicious fresh cheese.
With the discovery of cheese, suddenly those early humans could add dairy to their diets. Cheese made an entirely new source of nutrients and calories available for adults, and, as a result, dairying took off in a major way. What this meant, says Kindstedt, is that "children and newborns would be exposed to milk frequently, which ultimately through random mutations selected for children who could tolerate lactose later into adulthood."
My first 12 days [in Arsal, Lebanon] are spent distributing clothing, school text books, hospital operating gowns, water tanks and heating oil for schools and hospitals. All this while trying to avoid detection by the camp ‘roosters’ - informants who report on us directly to the militants.
We’re doing our best, with limited resources. But I meet misery every day; all day. A 9-year-old girl badly burnt in shelling with no money for medication. Destitute families about to be evicted from their filthy storeroom. No access to drinking water.
. . .
Then, suddenly, a whole new need opens up in front of me.
After almost two weeks here, I’m taken aside by a woman who manages one of the refugee camps.
She has a request. She seems desperate. But I can’t make out what she’s asking for.
My interpreter is a young, handsome Syrian student - a strict Muslim and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. But now – as this Syrian woman pleads with me - he looks mortified. He can’t seem to form the words.
Frantic now, the woman ushers me to the back of the tent and picks up a grubby white bra and a sanitary towel.
I understand. Every woman here needs underwear. There’s plenty of donated soap and toothpaste - but no knickers. No sanitary protection. Imagine coping with your period using rags. How would you wash and dry them in three feet of snow, or summer temperatures of 95 degrees when water is so scarce? How do you do this discreetly in camp life?
I decide we have to help. I’m a woman too and - although far removed from what they have to cope with - I instantly grasp how hard it must be.
I jump in a van but alone, running the gauntlet of Hezbollah checkpoints, and take the one hour trip down to the town of Baalbeck with $800 from EDA in my pocket.
My heart begins to sink as I enter the haberdashery shop.
How to do this? How do I buy this much underwear? How do I shop in Arabic with no interpreter?
A bold attack, I decide, is the only way. I grab a handful of knickers and bras and wave them madly above my head.
At first, people back away in fear at this crazy western woman.
I refuse to be cowed – it’s too late to back off now – I briefly wonder if they have lunatic asylums in Lebanon. Waving the underwear around my head, I shout: ‘more knickers – I need more knickers!’
Middle Earth Organics is known for their organic pasta sauces, each label featuring a famous Italian painting. While this would normally be an NBD, the painting they chose for their Tomato and Porcini Mushroom Sauce has been stirring up controversy online.
The woman in the painting above is not staring with intense concentration at a pot of delicious, simmering sugo.
The image, as Middle Earth Organics would know if anyone had done ANY research whatsoever, is Judith Beheading Holofernes, a 1598 painting by Caravaggio. Judith, seen above, is not making an al dente delight. Judith is cutting off some dude’s head.
No lowball offers. Don't tell me what it's worth or what you can get one for. I know what I paid and I won't give it away.
It’s hard [to] muster raw sexual energy when you think foreplay consists of sobbing to your life partner about how you can’t bear the weight of your undeserved phallocentric privilege.
For most of the 1990s and the subsequent decade, a substantial majority of Americans believed it was more important to control gun ownership than to protect gun owners’ rights. But in December 2014, the balance of opinion flipped: For the first time, more Americans say that protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership, 52% to 46%.
. . .
Over the past 25 years or so, there has been a divergence between American perceptions about crime and actual crime rates. And those who worried about crime had favored stricter gun control; now, they tend to desire keeping the laws as they are or loosening gun control. In short, we are at a moment when most Americans believe crime rates are rising and when most believe gun ownership – not gun control – makes people safer.
In the 1990s, the rate of violent crimes plummeted by more than half nationwide. Public perceptions tracked right along, with the share saying there was more crime in the U.S. over the past year falling from 87% in 1993 to just 41% by 2001.
In the new century, however, there’s been a disconnect. A majority of Americans (63%) said in a Gallup survey last year that crime was on the rise, despite crime statistics holding near 20-year lows.
. . .
And among the public at large, the latest Gallup survey finds that 63% of Americans now say having a gun in the home makes it a safer place compared with 30% who say it makes a home more dangerous. Fifteen years ago, more said the presence of a gun made a home more dangerous (51%) than safer (35%).
While the market for action adventure is bigger than for hard SF, I've always been a fan of the science-oriented story. The limitations of reality, combined with speculations within them, is a rewarding challenge.
Of course, I didn't realize when I started writing A Long Time Until Now that there hasn't been much research about Paleolithic Central Asia. I also had an almost impossible time finding knowledgeable people to talk to. In fact, even with introductions from friends in other sciences, I didn't hear back at all from most of the scholars I was referred to.
I sought professional papers on the subject. They're sparse. Still, I read what there was, and quite a bit on other parts of Eurasia.
. . .
I may have read most of the scholarly papers on that location and era, which tells you how few there are. Other parts of the world have been studied extensively. Large chunks of Asia are still wilderness, as far as prehistoric study goes.
So then I had to fake it, which frustrated and concerned me. This is supposed to be hard science fiction, not fantasy. Then I realized that if we don't know what happened at given times and places, I can't be expected to be exact. So I did the best I could based on the nearest cultures and environments to that timeframe and location.
Next, I started experimenting. I learned or refreshed quite a few skills while writing this. I made fire by friction with a firebow and fire plow. I tried several types of bugs, and prefer them cooked. Emily Baehr brought a bag of weeds (that's plural, okay?) and showed me how to find an entire salad's worth of greens in temperate biomes, even in residential lawns. I used primitive weapons to bag a few targets. I use bows regularly, and have thrown spears. I tried atl-atls and slings. I knapped some bottle glass.
Then I developed several recipes that will appear in my next collection of stories and articles. How do you cook a tasty meal with minimal spices and no cooking utensils? Well, it turns out you can create quite a few spices and seasonings from plants in the carrot family.
There are a lot of edible plants and quite a few spices in the Apiaceae family. In fact, almost all edible plants come from about six families, and do so in the last 7000 years or so. Before that, there's some evidence of rice and wheat, and occasional possible evidence of fruit domestication (versus actual agriculture).
However, it's obvious from the evidence that vegetarianism is just a modern ideal. No matter how many believers bleat about it being "natural," it not only wasn't natural then, it was a complete myth. There just aren't plants in the temperate or boreal latitudes that you can gather for enough protein, fat and calories to stay alive. Even if you could, you won't find them in December. This is a world nothing like our own. No domesticated grains, no herded animals. Even modern "wild" berries are usually contaminated, and sweeter, because of cross-pollination with domestic breeds. I've had vegetarians insist we were mostly vegetarian at the time, but they're unable to name the plant species we allegedly derived our calories from, especially fat. I'll save you time: There are almost none. Gathering non-fruit comestibles is a net calorie loss and a waste of time.
Most of the Paleo diet people won't be happy either. There was a lot of meat, but most of it was stringy and lean. Humans need fat for brain development and to maintain the skin, among other organs. When you can't get gorged, winter-ready animals with a layer of fat to eat, you wind up eating brains, livers and kidneys. They also provide salt, minerals and flavor. Hunter gatherers cherish the organ meats for nutrition. You'll want a lot of fatty fish, too.
After a week of this diet, I was ready to kill someone for some french fries or a peanut butter sandwich.
A British man working as a professional hunter on a private game reserve in Zimbabwe has been killed by a wounded buffalo he was trying to shoot.
Owain Lewis, 67, had been tracking the animal for three days to finish it off after it was shot and injured by a visiting American hunter he was escorting.
Paul Smith, the owner of Chifuti Safaris in the lower Zambezi Valley, said Mr Lewis was "very tough and experienced" but had been caught unawares when the buffalo charged from the undergrowth and tossed him in the air.
"It turned on him and attacked him and unfortunately the apprentice hunter with him could not shoot the animal as Owen's body was in the way," he said.
"It was a very tough fight. Owain's neck was broken but the apprentice did manage to kill the buffalo.
"We are very shocked. This is the first time we have had an incident like this."
A young bull elephant killed professional hunter Ian Gibson early on Wednesday as he tracked a lion for an American client in a rugged part of north-east Zimbabwe.
Mr Gibson, 55, one of Zimbabwe's best known big game hunters, died scouting for prey in the Zambezi Valley after a young bull elephant charged, then knelt on him and crushed him to death.
"We don't yet know the full details of how 'Gibbo' as we called him, died, as the American client and the trackers are still too traumatised to give us full details," said Paul Smith, managing director of Chifuti Safaris' which employed Mr Gibson for the hunt.
. . .
Mr Gibson's trackers said the young bull had been in a musth period, which means it was producing much more testosterone then usual.
"We know 'Gibbo' shot it once, from about 10 yards away, with a 458 [rifle]. He would never have fired unless he had no alternative. He was a hunter, yes, but he was also a magnificent wildlife photographer and conservationist.
"He was so experienced and this is a most unexpected tragedy."
William F. Buckley Jr. - Boston Globe
An estimable critic writing for National Review, after seeing Presley writhe his way through one of Ed Sullivan's shows ... suggested that future entertainers would have to wrestle with live octopuses in order to entertain a mass American audience. The Beatles don't in fact do this, but how one wishes they did! And how this one wishes the octopus would win...
The Beatles are not merely awful; I would consider it sacrilegious to say anything less than that they are god awful. They are so unbelievably horrible, so appallingly unmusical, so dogmatically insensitive to the magic of the art that they qualify as crowned heads of anti-music, even as the imposter popes went down in history as "anti-popes".
Resting in 2,600 feet of water off California's Farallon Islands, the carrier is "amazingly intact," said NOAA scientists, with its hull and flight deck clearly visible, and what appears to be a plane in the carrier's hangar bay.
. . .
"After 64 years on the seafloor, Independence sits on the bottom as if ready to launch its planes," said James Delgado, chief scientist on the Independence mission and maritime heritage director for NOAA's Office of National Marine Sanctuaries. "This ship fought a long, hard war in the Pacific and after the war was subjected to two atomic blasts that ripped through the ship. It is a reminder of the industrial might and skill of the "greatest generation' that sent not only this ship, but their loved ones to war."
. . .
Scientists and technicians on the sanctuary vessel R/V Fulmar followed the AUV as it glided 150 feet above the wreck and successfully surveyed the carrier's nearly intact hull. The survey determined that Independence is upright, slightly listing to starboard, with much of its flight deck intact, and with gaping holes leading to the hangar decks that once housed the carrier's aircraft.
