Sunday Reads: D-Day + 67 Years… Tiananmen Square + 22 Years… Fukushima @ 4000 Millisieverts

June 6, 1944 file picture, some of the first assault troops to hit the Normandy, France beachhead take cover behind enemy obstacles to fire on German forces as others follow the first tanks plunging through the water towards the German-held shore during World War II.

Good Morning, today is June 6^th, 2011…67 years ago allied forces landing on the beaches of France.

File Photo: Under heavy German machine gun fire, American infantrymen wade ashore off the ramp of a Coast Guard landing craft on June 6, 1944, during the invasion of the French coast of Normandy in World War II.

I tried to find some news articles about D-Day, any special events or even an acknowledgment that today is the anniversary.  Would you believe I only found four articles?  One from MSNBC, written by Rick Steves was a “travel piece.”

So here are a couple of links for you to take a look at.

NewsObserver.com | Nation/World :  This link from the News Observer is a photo gallery with lots of photographs.

D-Day June 6, 1944:  This is a direct link to the Army D-Day page.

This past week has been a busy one, full of Wieners and Edwards. Hey, take it easy… I ‘m not gonna link to anything about that.

It appears that Yemeni President Saleh injuries were a bit more dangerous that he led the world to believe.  Saleh left the country to get  treatment for wounds he received in a rocket attack on his presidential palace.  Wounded Yemeni president in Saudi Arabia – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

Yemen’s president Ali Abdullah Saleh is in Riyadh for medical treatment, after he was injured in an attack on his compound on Friday, the Saudi royal court said in a statement.

“The Yemeni president has arrived along with officials and citizens who had received different injuries for treatment in Saudi Arabia,” the royal court said on Sunday.

[…]

Yemen Live Blog

Al Jazeera has learned that Saleh arrived at King Khalid Air Base in Riyadh and was transferred to a military hospital.

The embattled leader suffered “burns and scratches to the face and chest,” an official said, after the ruling General People’s Congress said he was “lightly wounded in the back of the head”.

The Yemeni Vice President Hadi is now in control and has been in contact with the White House.  White House in touch with Yemen’s vice president | Reuters

President Barack Obama’s top counterterrorism aide spoke on Saturday with Yemen’s vice president, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, the White House said, amid deepening turmoil in that country.

[…]

Al Jazeera television said Yemen’s vice president, largely a figurehead, was taking over as acting president and head of the armed forces.

A senior Obama administration official said separately that Washington believed Hadi was viewed very positively within Yemen.

I guess we’ll see what happens. It seems to me that once Saleh left the country…he has lost it. I wonder if he will stay in exile in Saudi Arabia.  I mean, it worked for Michael Jackson…for a little while.

*Quick update, as I was finishing this post up at 3:19am…the following article was published at AJE: Is Saleh gone for good? – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in the Saudi capital Riyadh to ostensibly seek medical treatment for injuries sustained during an attack on his presidential palace, but his departure from Sanaa has raised speculations over whether he is gone for good.

Saleh had initially clung on to power, remaining defiant despite growing protests sweeping the country against his 33-year rule. He had even refused to sign a plan worked out by other Gulf Arab nations for a peaceful transfer of power.

But since the embattled president took a plane to Riyadh on Saturday, accompanied by several of his family members, there has been growing talk that he might not return to Yemen.

That his deputy, Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, has already taken over as the acting president, has further fuelled the speculations.

Analysts like Saudi Arabia’s Khalid al-Dakhil believe that Saleh would not have travelled to Riyadh unless he had intended to seek an exit.

So, there are lots of people thinking Saleh won’t be back.  Place your bets!

In Hong Kong, Thousands gather to mark anniversary of Tiananmen Square crackdown – CNN.com

Thousands of people take part in a candlelight vigil at Victoria Park in Hong Kong on Saturday.

Thousands of people filled Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on Saturday to mark the 22nd anniversary of the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Tiananmen Square.

The candlelight vigil comes after recent efforts by the Chinese government to quash would-be demonstrators from holding anti-government protests. About 26 people were arrested between February and March, according to a Hong Kong-based human rights group, when an anonymous group began an internet campaign calling for anti-government protests in China similar to ones that have taken hold in the Middle East.

Wow, 22 years? It does not seem like it has been that long…

One thing is for sure, time must be dragging on for those workers at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.  Think about it.  They have been stuck there for months, and things still look bad.

Radiation in No. 1 reactor building at highest level yet | The Japan Times Online

Where there’s smoke: A video image from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant shows steam rising from an opening in the floor of the No. 1 reactor building Friday. TEPCO / AP

Tokyo Electric Power Co. said Saturday it has detected radiation of up to 4,000 millisieverts per hour in the building housing the No. 1 reactor at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear plant.

The radiation reading, which was taken when Tepco sent a robot into the No. 1 reactor building on Friday, is believed to be the highest detected in the air at the plant so far.

Are you ready for just how bad the level of radiation is…

The radiation is so high now that any worker exposed to it would absorb the maximum permissible dose of 250 millisieverts in only about four minutes. Tepco said there is no plan to place workers in that area of the plant and said it will carefully monitor any developments.

Four minutes? Geez, I really feel for those workers. It is like they have been literally sentenced to death.

Of course the MSM isn’t picking up the new radiation levels, its got to be that Weiner thing. I honestly can’t believe that stuff is still getting play…well, yeah I can.

On to the latest volcanic eruption. This time in Chile:  Chile volcano eruption forces mass evacuation – Americas – Al Jazeera English

The eruption in the Puyehue-Cordon Caulle volcanic chain, about 920km south of the capital, Santiago, also prompted Chilean authorities to shut a heavily traveled border crossing into Argentina.

‘Constant seismic activity’

It was not immediately clear which of the chain’s four volcanoes had erupted because of ash cover and weather conditions. The chain last saw a major eruption in 1960. Local media said the smell of sulfur hung in the air and there was constant seismic activity.

“The Cordon Caulle [volcanic range] has entered an eruptive process, with an explosion resulting in a 10-kilometre-high gas column,” ONEMI, the state emergency office, said. The government said it was evacuating 3,500 people from the surrounding area as a precaution.

I wonder who is going to be next in line for another big earthquake along that Ring of Fire?  It all has to be connected in some way, right?

From Minx’s Missing Link File:  Could a birth control pill for men be on the horizon? Retinoic acid receptor antagonist interferes with sperm production

Researchers at Columbia University Medical Center are honing in on the development of what may be the first non-steroidal, oral contraceptive for men. Tests of low doses of a compound that interferes with retinoic acid receptors (RARs), whose ligands are metabolites of dietary vitamin A, showed that it caused sterility in male mice.

Hmmm, a rusty butter knife can achieve the same thing…

Seriously, why work on any male birth control pill, when women and girls are meant to be nothing more than incubators for all these fertilized eggs…oh, I mean a fertilized egg people person.  What the hell do the Fetus Fanatics call those clump of cells? I even think one of the crazies said it’s a person/life/baby immediately at the moment the sperm scores with an egg.  Ugh…

Sistah Clara...wow, she is smoking hot...and check out the Birkenstocks on the Priest as he is about to give her an asymmetrical bob, what a trendsetter!

Easy Like Sunday Morning Link of the Week:  It seems fitting that this link will take you to a paper about Medieval Nuns…it is almost like a Desperate Housewives…only these women are “married” to God and the Church.  Medieval Nuns knew their fashion, historian finds – Medievalists.net

Recent research on medieval nuns shows that many of them were dressing in the latest fashions instead of simple religious habits. And while their were efforts by the church to make nuns dress more humbly, by the 14th and 15th centuries these rules were becoming less and less adhered to.

[…]

Ecclesiastical officials often made and repeated rules for nun’s clothing, especially when they when left the convent. At the Council of Vienne (1311-12) they commanded that nuns should “not wear silk gowns, fur trim, sandals, long or swept-up hairstyles, or plaid or striped veils.” The fact that these rules were being repeated again and again makes it clear that many nuns were not following them. This can be seen in the visitation reports of clerics to nunneries. In 1249, Eudes Rigaud wrote that the nuns at Villarceaux were wearing pelisses of rabbit, hare, and fox fur; they wore their hair long and curled, scented their veils with saffron, and adorned their belts with silver- and steeled-work clasps. The nuns were also not following other monastic rules either – Rigaud noted that everybody in the convent seemed to have a lover, and several had children.

Cool huh?

So what are you reading about today?