History may be seen as a series of trying and tumultuous events—tragic times of loss and sorrow.
The United States has certainly had its share of such experiences. And each time our people have responded with resolve and resilience.
Nothing reflects that resilience more than our Constitution, signed by 39 of the Framers on Sept. 17, 1787—a day now celebrated nationally as Constitution Day.
It is a remarkable document.
It set forth a series of guiding principles that organized power so that we have a workable government that would not unduly encroach on our liberties but would, instead, preserve freedom and order for generations to come.
To that end, it limited the powers vested in the federal government, divided those powers among several branches, and incorporated a series of checks and balances to limit the power of each branch, and established an independent judiciary that would ensure that those boundaries were observed.
Once the Constitution was drafted, people took the time to study and debate it in town halls, public squares, and ratifying conventions in the 13 states. There was profound civic engagement as they discussed the pros and cons of the document that had been sent to them for their consideration.
That debate, while surely contentious, was also a blessing. As Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1789, “Whenever the people are well-informed, they can be trusted with their own government.” The clear corollary of this statement, also noted by Jefferson, is that a civilized nation cannot expect to be both “ignorant and free.”
If Jefferson is correct (and we believe he is), then America today is in trouble. A 2017 poll conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center revealed the American people know precious little about even the most essential elements of our government and the Constitution that formed it.
For example, only 37% of Americans can name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. Barely a quarter (26%) can name all three branches of the federal government.
In modern America, more people know more about the Kardashians than they do about those who govern them or would seek to govern them. Imagine going to the polls with only the faintest of ideas about the powers exercised by those we are voting for and the control they have over our lives.
Ignorance and complacency foster a feeling of powerlessness. Over time, this can lead to acquiescence to an expanded role for government—and an undue reliance upon government—at the expense of our freedom and individual liberties.
Widespread ignorance of how the Constitution helped establish “a more perfect Union” designed to “secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity” is a dangerous development which must be corrected. Samuel Adams once wrote that our nation would be free and prosperous “[i]f virtue and knowledge are diffused among the people.”
“Now the nation no longer lacks what it has long needed, a slender book that lucidly explains the intensity of conservatism’s disagreements with progressivism. For the many Americans who are puzzled and dismayed by the heatedness of political argument today, the message of Timothy Sandefur’s The Conscience of the Constitution: The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Liberty is this: The temperature of today’s politics is commensurate to the stakes of today’s argument.”
—George Will, The Washington Post
Now in paperback, this book provides a dramatic new challenge to the status quo of constitutional law and argues a vital truth: our Constitution was written not to empower democracy, but to secure liberty. Yet the overemphasis on democracy by today’s legal community has helped expand the scope of government power at the expense of individual rights. Now, more than ever, the Declaration of Independence should be the framework for interpreting our fundamental law. It is the conscience of the Constitution.
To provide for the general welfare, is an abstract proposition, which mankind differ in the explanation of, as much as they do on any political or moral proposition that can be proposed; the most opposite measures may be pursued by different parties, and both may profess, that they have in view the general welfare; and both sides may be honest in their professions, or both may have sinister views. Those who advocate this new constitution declare, they are influenced by a regard to the general welfare; those who oppose it, declare they are moved by the same principle; and I have no doubt but a number on both sides are honest in their professions; and yet nothing is more certain than this, that to adopt this constitution, and not to adopt it, cannot both of them be promotive of the general welfare.
It is as absurd to say, that the power of Congress is limited by these general expressions, "to provide for the common safety, and general welfare," as it would be to say, that it would be limited, had the constitution said they should have power to lay taxes, &c. at will and pleasure. Were this authority given, it might be said, that under it the legislature could not do injustice, or pursue any measures, but such as were calculated to promote the public good, and happiness. For every man, rulers as well as others, are bound by the immutable laws of God and reason, always to will what is right. It is certainly right and fit, that the governors of every people should provide for the common defence and general welfare; every government, therefore, in the world, even the greatest despot, is limited in the exercise of his power. But however just this reasoning may be, it would be found, in practice, a most pitiful restriction. The government would always say, their measures were designed and calculated to promote the public good; and there being no judge between them and the people, the rulers themselves must, and would always, judge for themselves.
By rewriting America’s history and 'recontextualizing' her founding documents, Biden’s National Archives is seeking to undermine our country's founders. //
Words matter, and few words have mattered more in the history of the United States than those contained within the U.S. Constitution, Bill of Rights, Declaration of Independence, and other founding-era documents stewarded by the National Archives.
Protecting and celebrating the most important works in U.S. history isn’t only important because the Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as other documents in the National Archives, are still legally binding, but also because they tell a story of who we are as a nation and what it means to be American. Today leftists, including many officials in the Biden administration, are actively working to rewrite that story, and to undermine every part of America’s exceptional past. //
Since the National Archives contains more than 100 million records, there are bound to be some that are offensive. But rather than identify prominent documents that are indeed offensive as such, the Archives chose to issue a “Harmful Language” warning across the board, knowing full well the documents read most often on its website and in its halls are founding-era materials like the Constitution.
You might be tempted to chalk up the Archives’ warning label to pure laziness. Being woke and accurate is hard when you’re in charge of maintaining millions of records, I’m sure. But it’s worth noting that the warning label emerged from the National Archives’ radical Task Force on Racism, which has developed dozens of other plans meant to give the impression that America’s history is full of racism, hatred, and violence, rather than highlight the nation’s incredible achievements.
In a 105-page report issued by the task force in April 2021, the National Archives suggested it, like the United States, is full of “structural racism,” including “a Rotunda in our flagship building that lauds wealthy White men in the nation’s founding while marginalizing BIPOC [black, indigenous, people of color], women, and other communities.” Since the report’s release in April, Archivist of the United States David Ferriero has “accepted the recommendations in full.” //
Additionally, the Archives will transform its famous Rotunda to “create a more inclusive and historically accurate tribute to the nation’s founding.” Its “Reimagine the Rotunda” plan includes “contemporary views on the men who framed the founding documents and their participation in and positions on slavery,” new sculptures, and a “recontextualizing” of the murals now in the Rotunda.
His latest, which attests to his status as one of the most intellectually game writers of our time, is a totalized counterfiction of post-1492 world history.
“Civilizations” opens as a heroic Norse legend about the exploits of Freydis Eriksdottir. In Binet’s telling, she leaves behind her father, Erik the Red, to lead a 10th-century crew of loyal Greenlanders to Lambayeque, in northern Peru, where they settle peaceably with the locals. Moving ahead 500 years, Binet works up entries from Christopher Columbus’s God-besotted and misery-filled diary after he and his men cross the Atlantic and begin exploring the Caribbean, only to be fatally outmaneuvered by Taíno royals and warriors. //
Then come the life and exploits of the early-16th-century Incan emperor Atahualpa. According to the established historical account, he was executed in Cajamarca, present-day Peru, by the Spanish not long after defeating his own brother, Huáscar, in a continent-spanning civil war. In Binet’s version, young Atahualpa faces only his brother in this conflict and manages to escape Huáscar’s forces by boat. His companions: a pet puma, a small group of fellow Quitonians and the multilingual Cuban princess Higuénamota, his most beloved and politically astute wife. Inspired by distant memories of the otherwise forgotten Columbus, they sail east, eventually arriving in a strange new place: “All of them — men, women, horses, llamas — had survived the great sea. They had reached the land of the rising Sun,” otherwise known as Portugal.
- Fourteen uranium cubes are what remain of Nazi Germany's nuclear arms effort.
- The Nazis had more than 1,000 of these cubes to start, but what happened to most of them remains a mystery.
- Researchers Tim Koeth and Miriam Hiebert have been tracking the history of these cubes. //
On someone's desk, one of the little gray cubes wouldn't raise an eyebrow. To the untrained eye, they look like paperweights.
"Marie Curie's granddaughter has one. She uses it as a doorstop," Miriam Hiebert, a historian and materials scientist, told Insider.
The weight of the 2-inch objects might be surprising, though — each is about 5 pounds. That's because they're made of the heaviest element on Earth: uranium.
The cubes were once part of experimental nuclear reactors the Nazis designed during World War II. As far as researchers know, only 14 cubes remain in the world, out of more than 1,000 used in Nazi Germany's experiments with nuclear weapons. Over 600 were captured and brought back to the US in the 40s. But even after that, what happened to most of the cubes is still unclear. //
Hiebert and Timothy Koeth, a professor of material science and engineering at the University of Maryland, are writing a book about the cubes. After years of research, they told Insider they think they know what happened.
Koeth describes the cubes as "the only living relic" of Nazi Germany's nuclear effort.
"They are the motivation for the entire Manhattan project," he said.
Clive Robinson • September 3, 2021 6:14 PM
@ ALL,
“In fact, it was arguably the most secure rotor machine ever built.”Probably not the most secure rotor machine ever built, but probably the most secure rotor machine ever put into production even if for a very very small number (The British / Canadian Rockex was after TEMPEST issues were sorted out more secure than any rotor cipher machine ever envisaged and would still be secure today).
Some have heard of the US SIGABA / ECM II Cipher Machine[1] it had some interesting features including the way stepping was done. Because of this it was considered unbreakable at the time (but is breakable today).
One feature that the US thought was unknown to others was the ability to make wheels step not just forwards but backwards as well as not rotate at all etc.
The British had a problem the stalwart Typex was long over due for a full replacment. Unfortunately the British did not have the mechanical manufacturing capability at the time[2]. It was hoped that under the BRUSA arangment, the British could use either the US SIGABA or get parts manufactured secretly in the US.
As normal the “Special Relationship” rapidly hit the rocks. The US did not want the secret of the rotor wheel steping to be known to the British so the use of SIGABA was vetoed. The resulting cludge to enable a Typex and SIGABA to inter opperate evolved and became the CCM.
So one of the greatest brains at Bletchly Gordon Welchman was called upon to design an unbreakable and future proof rotor system which he went ahead and did.
The US did not want it built, they would not be able to eves drop on it and much backwards and forwards happened. As part of it the Brirish revealed their secret of independent rotor steping that would not just do all the US had tried to keep hidden but a few tricks more (lets be honest folks such rotor behaviour is kind of obvious and it turned up in other places).
What killed Welchman’s machine in the end was the US Navy that adamantly refused under any circumstances to have it aboard their ships… Thus as a more secure replacment for the CCM it was not to be, thus it was as far as British Civil Servants were concerned pointless continuing with it’s development.
It was without doubt a beast and yes it is doubtful that it’s reliability would have been good enough.
[2] Lack of mechanical manufacturing was one of the reasons the British designed the Rockex system that used Post Office relays valve/tube electronics using standard parts and standard teleprinter readers and punches. Another issue was that the US were pushing a voice scrambler X-Ray at the British on the notion it was easy to use. However those “in the know” were not just deeply suspicious they were fairly certain that the US would be able to evesdrop on the system. So bad was the situation that Churchill who was Prime Minister had to personally authorise which system should be used abd Rockex got the nod of approval because Churchill did not trust the US in the slightest at that time.
Der Firmensitz der ehemaligen Crypto AG im zugerischen Steinhausen produzierte jahrzehntelang Chiffriermaschinen. Der deutsche Auslandsnachrichtendienst BND und die US-amerikanische CIA kauften das Unternehmen 1970 heimlich auf. Sie veranlassten, dass vielen Staaten Maschinen mit einer schwächeren Verschlüsselung geliefert wurden, die von BND und CIA entschlüsselt werden konnten. Zuletzt war dort das Nachfolgeunternehmen Crypto International AG ansässig.
Rotor-based cipher machine - wanted item
HX-63 was an electromechanical rotor-based cipher machine, introduced in 1964 by Crypto AG in Zug (Switzerland). It features nine electrically wired permutations wheels, or rotors, that have more contacts than the 26 letters of the alphabet. It was patented by Boris Hagelin, and uses an operating principle that is very similar to that of the – also patented – American AFSAM-7 (KL-7).
The image on the right shows the HX-63, which is housed in a molded plastic enclosure. At the front right is the keyboard. The 9 cipher wheels are visible through a narrow window at the top.
The machine was developed during the 1950s, and is mentioned in reports filed by NSA cryptographer William Friedman in 1955 and again in 1957 [2]. It is likely though, that it was not finished before 1963, and that it was first sold in 1964 [A]. The first and only customer was the French Army, who ordered 12 units [4]. It is very likely that no more than 15 init were ever made.
Apart from the TKG-35, a joint development of Boris Hagelin and Dr. Edgar Gretener, the HX-63 was first and only rotor-based cipher machine that was ever built by Crypto AG. Around 1964, Crypto AG made the transition to electronic shift-register-based designs, and moved away from (electro)mechanical cipher machines. In 1970, the HX-63 was succeeded by the electronic H-460.
How this gadget figured in the shady Rubicon spy case //
In 1976, during a visit to the Polish Army Museum in Warsaw, I saw an Enigma, the famous German World War II cipher machine. I was fascinated. Some years later, I had the good fortune of visiting the huge headquarters of the cipher machine company Crypto AG (CAG), in Steinhausen, Switzerland, and befriending a high-level cryptographer there. My friend gave me an internal history of the company written by its founder, Boris Hagelin. It mentioned a 1963 cipher machine, the HX-63.
Like the Enigma, the HX-63 was an electromechanical cipher system known as a rotor machine. It was the only electromechanical rotor machine ever built by CAG, and it was much more advanced and secure than even the famous Enigmas. In fact, it was arguably the most secure rotor machine ever built. I longed to get my hands on one, but I doubted I ever would. //
Most professional cryptographers have never heard of it. Yet it was so secure that its invention alarmed William Friedman, one of the greatest cryptanalysts ever and, in the early 1950s, the first chief cryptologist of the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA). After reading a 1957 Hagelin patent (more on that later), Friedman realized that the HX-63, then under development, was, if anything, more secure than the NSA's own KL-7, then considered unbreakable. During the Cold War, the NSA built thousands of KL-7s, which were used by every U.S. military, diplomatic, and intelligence agency from 1952 to 1968.
The reasons for Friedman's anxiety are easy enough to understand. The HX-63 had about 10^600 possible key combinations; in modern terms, that's equivalent to a 2,000-bit binary key. For comparison, the Advanced Encryption Standard, which is used today to protect sensitive information in government, banking, and many other sectors, typically uses a 128- or a 256-bit key.
Boris Casear Wilhelm Hagelin (2 July 1892 - 7 September 1983) was a Russia-born Swedish engineer, inventor of cipher machines and businessman. He developed his first cipher machine in 1925, as a colleague of Arvid Gerhard Damm at A.B. Cryptograph in Stockholm (Sweden), of which his father, Karl Wilhelm Hagelin, and the Nobel family were investors. Hagelin eventually founded one of the largest and most successful manufacturers of cipher machines — Crypto AG.
USS Almaack (AKA-10)
(Gareth Wiederkehr)
Chances are, you probably take things like stop signs and traffic circles for granted. At least, I know I’ve never sat at a stop sign and wondered, “Who on Earth decided to make us stop in situations where there may be oncoming traffic or pedestrians?” But someone had to have done it. That someone is William Phelps Eno.
Eno was born in New York City in early June of 1858 and died in December of 1945, so he was around to witness the evolution of the automobile from simply not existing to becoming an incredibly commonplace form of travel. And that also meant he witnessed those lawless early days of the road. //
So, in 1900, Eno worked to set down his thoughts on traffic safety, which he titled Reform in Our Street Traffic Urgently Needed. Three years later, he wrote a city traffic code for New York, the very first of its kind.
Among his many inventions were the stop sign, the traffic circle, one-way streets, taxi stands, and medians. He set down clear rules on passing, turning, right of way, parking, following, and backing up. Eno designed the Arc de Triomphe, Piccadilly Circus, and Rond Point on the Champs-Élysées — some of the busiest and most iconic pieces of road in the world. Basically, the whole goal was to keep traffic flowing as smoothly as possible and prevent accidents and deaths.
It's been 30 years since Finnish graduate student Linus Torvalds drafted a brief note saying he was starting a hobby operating system. The world would never be the same.
In a tunnel 40 feet beneath the surface of the Greenland ice sheet, a Geiger counter screamed. It was 1964, the height of the Cold War. U.S. soldiers in the tunnel, 800 miles from the North Pole, were dismantling the Army’s first portable nuclear reactor.
Commanding Officer Joseph Franklin grabbed the radiation detector, ordered his men out and did a quick survey before retreating from the reactor.
He had spent about two minutes exposed to a radiation field he estimated at 2,000 rads per hour, enough to make a person ill. When he came home from Greenland, the Army sent Franklin to the Bethesda Naval Hospital. There, he set off a whole body radiation counter designed to assess victims of nuclear accidents. Franklin was radioactive.
The Army called the reactor portable, even at 330 tons, because it was built from pieces that each fit in a C-130 cargo plane. It was powering Camp Century, one of the military’s most unusual bases
The best stories are the ones which are told the best, with all those wonderful literary keystones fitted neatly together. They are the ones we learn of in creative writing: can we see ourselves in the characters, are they flawed, do they make the right choice or the easy one, can we relate to their difficulties?
Tolkien and his characters reflect, whether he would like them to or not, how the times during which one lives tend to vacuum them up, obscuring thoughts of the future or of the past. COVID-19 has been compared to many great crises, sometimes fairly, sometimes comedically, but we can learn from the great writer and his characters that the correct way out of a crisis is to never believe the current disaster is somehow unique in its dreadfulness. //
Tolkien became a man in perhaps the worst single moment in history to do so, around 1914, at the dawning of World War I.
“In those days chaps joined up, or were scorned publicly,” he wrote in a letter to his son Christopher later in life. “It was a nasty cleft to be in for a young man with too much imagination and little physical courage.”
He was a junior officer at the Battle of the Somme, one of the most tragic events in human history, notable for the sheer empty-headedness of it all. Catching trench fever, he was shipped back to England, after which nearly every young man in his battalion was killed. Talk about a Hobbit’s luck.
It’s been nearly five decades since the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar entered service. Operators such as TWA praised the aircraft as one of the safest in the world, while powerhouses such as Delta Air Lines were also massive fans. Those flying on the plane following its introduction in the 1970s would have noticed that there was a curved row of lavatories at the back of the widebody trijet. //
The Lockheed L-1011 came with numerous cabin innovations. For example, it had full-sized hideaway closets for jackets, glare-resistant windows, and even a below-deck galley. Inflight meals made their way up to the main cabin via a pair of elevators. //
Airline Secrets Exposed
on Friday
The Lockheed L1011 had 6 lavatories in the rear in a circular configuration wrapped around the rear bulkhead. They were just under the intake to number 2 engine. The noise was sometimes deafening and the sucking sound of the intake was a little off putting.
As events unfold in Afghanistan with thousands of Americans and allies tragically needing rescue, 245 years ago this week, an American general successfully executed an extraordinary rescue–an “American Dunkirk”—that saved the Revolution. Washington’s army faced potential annihilation–all could have been lost. However, leadership, daring, and initiative transformed that critical moment into one of the greatest evacuations in history. //
The extraordinary story of how a small unit of men from Marblehead, Massachusetts transported Washington’s men and matériel across the East River under the cover of darkness is now told in the new bestselling book, The Indispensables: Marblehead’s Diverse Soldier-Mariners Who Shaped the Country, Formed the Navy, and Rowed Washington Across the Delaware. The book is a Band of Brothers-style treatment of this unique regiment, a largely unknown group of Americans who changed the course of history.
Chemicals used to prevent worms and rot seems to have changed the wood's structure. //
Some of the most sought-after violins on the planet may owe their sounds to deworming chemicals used by their Italian manufacturers 300 years ago. //
The authors are quick to note that they were working with wood shavings, not an entire instrument, so how a little sprinkle of metal changes, or even improves, sound remains to be seen. But what’s clear is that the violins are different from anything made since.
THE GRAND PORTUGUESE TRADITION OF azulejo, hand-painted, glazed ceramic tilework depicting scenes, dates back hundreds of years. Artwork made with these ornamental tiles can be found everywhere from churches and palaces to schools and train stations. These tiles have even become a part of the history of Pan-American World Airway (1927-1991) advertising. //
The Pan Am billboard is located in Reguengo do Fetal, Batalha, on a slope of the mountain by the EN356 road that connects Batalha to Fátima. It was created in the 1960s, Pan Am’s golden era, and it was made by the historic Fábrica Aleluia azulejo company. (The same company also made another Pan Am billboard located near Aveiro.)
The billboard is composed of around 4,000 azulejos that sit in a frame of 92 square meters. The background is Pan Am’s distinctive shade of blue, the company’s lettering is on the center in its traditional font. There is one logo on either side of the lettering, and a tagline at the bottom that reads, “TORNA A SUA VIAGEM MARAVILHOSA” (“Makes your journey wonderful”).