On 13 December the ships sighted each other and closed. Admiral Graf Spee, despite having correctly identified Exeter, initially suspected that the two light cruisers were smaller destroyers and that the British ships were protecting a merchant convoy, the destruction of which would be a major prize. Since Admiral Graf Spee's reconnaissance aircraft was out of service, Langsdorf relied on lookouts for this information. He decided to engage despite having received a broadly accurate report from the German naval staff on 4 December outlining British activity in the River Plate area. This report included information that Ajax, Achilles, Exeter and Cumberland were patrolling the South American coast. Langsdorf realized too late that he was facing three cruisers. . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
12/13/2008 10:54 ||
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French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is taking a clothing company to court to stop it from selling a shopping bag featuring a photo of the former supermodel in the nude, a lawyer said Friday.
The white canvas bags went on sale this month on the French island of Reunion, produced by local clothing firm Pardon which plans to sell them throughout France soon, said Pardon manager Peter Mertes. A court in the Reunion capital of Saint-Denis is to hear the request from President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife to ban sales of the bag on Monday. "This bag makes use of Mrs Bruni-Sarkozy's image without her consent and for commercial gain," said Iqbal Akhoun, a spokesman in Saint-Denis for the first lady's lawyer Thierry Herzog.
The 40-year-old former supermodel is also seeking 125,000 euros ($167,000) in damages from Pardon, which she would donate to charity, he added. The bag features a black-and-white picture of Bruni-Sarkozy taken from a famous 1993 photo of the model standing upright in the nude that fetched $91,000 at a New York auction earlier this year. A talk bubble on the bag next to the first lady reads "My boyfriend should have bought me Pardon". The item sells for three euros.
Pardon boss Mertes told AFP his company had manufactured 10,000 'Carla' bags and that most of them were gifts to clients who bought other products. Mertes said he was entitled to use the photo because Bruni-Sarkozy is a public figure.
The case comes two weeks after a Paris appeals court ordered that a Sarkozy voodoo doll be sold with a label describing it as offensive to the president, but refused to ban the novelty. That decision overturned a lower court ruling that found the doll sold with needles and an instruction manual fell "within the authorized limits of free expression and the right to humor."
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2008 00:00 ||
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British archaeologists have unearthed an ancient skull carrying a startling surprise -- an unusually well-preserved brain. Scientists said Friday that the mass of gray matter was more than 2,000 years old -- the oldest ever discovered in Britain. One expert unconnected with the find called it "a real freak of preservation."
The skull was severed from its owner sometime before the Roman invasion of Britain and found in a muddy pit during a dig at the University of York in northern England this fall, according to Richard Hall, a director of York Archaeological Trust.
Finds officer Rachel Cubbitt realized the skull might contain a brain when she felt something move inside the cranium as she was cleaning it, Hall said. She looked through the skull's base and spotted an unusual yellow substance inside. Scans at York Hospital confirmed the presence of brain tissue.
Hall said it was unclear just how much of the brain had survived, saying the tissue had apparently contracted over the years. Parts of the brain have been tentatively identified, but more research was needed, he said. He said it was a mystery why the skull was buried separately from its body, suggesting human sacrifice and ritual burial as possible explanations.
The existence of a brain where no other soft tissues have survived is extremely rare, according to Sonia O'Connor, an archaeological researcher at the University of Bradford in northern England who helped authenticate the discovery. "This brain is particularly exciting because it is very well preserved, even though it is the oldest recorded find of this type in the U.K., and one of the earliest worldwide," she said.
The old brain is unlikely to yield new neurological insights because human brains aren't thought to have changed much over the past 2,000 years, according to Chris Gosden, a professor of archaeology at Oxford University unconnected with the find.
He confirmed it was the oldest brain found in Britain. He noted that far older preserved brains, thought to be approximately 8,000 years old, were found in 1986 when dozens of intact human skulls were uncovered buried in a peat bog in Windover Farms in Florida. "It's a real freak of preservation to have a brain and nothing else," Gosden said. "The fact that there's any brain there at all is quite amazing."
Hall said the brain found at York University was being kept in its skull in an environmentally controlled storage facility for further study.
Posted by: Fred ||
12/13/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The pic is of Marty Feldman. IMO the best British comic from the golden age of British comedy in the 60s and 70s. Watch Every Home Should Have One, if you get a chance.
#5
The description of the offense seems mighty tame after four decades of "Great Satan" and other slanders. The Producers should mock whomever made the claims. We are not mocking Iran or the great Iranian people but specifically the Ayotallahs who have ruined the country.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
French first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy is taking a clothing company to court to stop it from selling a shopping bag featuring a photo of the former supermodel in the nude, a lawyer said Friday. 
British archaeologists have unearthed an ancient skull carrying a startling surprise -- an unusually well-preserved brain. Scientists said Friday that the mass of gray matter was more than 2,000 years old -- the oldest ever discovered in Britain. One expert unconnected with the find called it "a real freak of preservation."
