Servicemen unloading the remains of a U.S soldier at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. (Photo by Steve Ruark/AP via NYTimes.com)

The New York Times reports that it took almost 7 years to reach 500 and the second 500 in fewer than two years.

A resurgent Taliban active in almost every province, a weak central government incapable of protecting its people and a larger number of American troops in harm’s way all contributed to the accelerating pace of death.

Also interesting and sad to note is the lowering average age of killed servicemen. From ’02 to ’08, the average age of killed service members was roughly 28. It dropped to 26 last year and in 2010, more than 125 troops killed in action averaged 25 years of age. Additionally, military records show that more are dying right after boot camp.

On top of that, in the last two years, improvised explosive devices (I.E.D.’s) have taken the highest number of American lives.

Understandably, the number of casualties is bound to rise with the troop surge in Afghanistan and increased Taliban activity. However, I believe the DoD should take note of how are troops are loosing their lives.

The most prevalent mode of engaging the enemy, as well as working with the civilian population, is for our troops to leave the safety of their posts and bases. This creates a “target-rich opportunity” as my comrades and I used to say in the Army. On the few shows and documentaries on combat troops in Afghanistan that I’ve seen, soldiers are on foot with bomb detectors, bomb-sniffing dogs or are using satellite and other surveillance methods of catching bomb-layers in action. All these are effective in their own right, but obviously not 100%.

I do hope that the Obama Administration, the DoD and military experts continue to look closely at how to fight the IED problem. With each major American conflict—Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq—IEDs continue to stymie many of our tactics.

©2010 Blog de Puree. All Rights Reserved.

Try out the Albania Victory Dance with some pals after your next triumph.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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This video of a 1981 KRON report predicts the future of news reporting on the future of the Internet.

And the best part? An S.F. Examiner editor mentions how they’re not in it to make money, when referring to his newspaper’s experimentation of an electronic version of the news. “…we’re probably not going to lose a lot but we aren’t going to make much either.”

Oh, if they only knew…

Click here to view the embedded video.

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A couple of Internet sources explain that the lake’s name is Nipmuc (Algonquian) for “You fish on your side; I fish on my side; nobody fishes in the middle.” I suspect that the Native American name of the lake stems from fishing disputes among local Nipmuc Indian villages and how they resolved border and fishing disputes. (It’s a shame politicians these days can’t come up with such a logical solution. We stand to learn a lot from our Native American cultures.)

Today, the lake is commonly known as Lake Webster, but honestly, that’s no fun at all. If you go to the lake, there’s a large sign with the lake’s Nipmuc name on it and it claims to be the home of the Nipmuc Indians, although the tribe covered a large area in the New England region.

Some info about the Nipmuc Indians

“Nipmuc Indians are the original people of central New England, and are among the “Eastern Woodlands” or Algonquian Indians of the Eastern United States. Before the arrival of European settlers in the 1600s, the Nipmuc (or “Fresh Water People”) lived in numerous band encampments, or ‘villages’, near bodies of fresh water in a territory (called ‘Nipnet’) which extended from the present day Vermont and New Hampshire borders, through Worcester County in Massachusetts, into northern Rhode Island, and into northeastern Connecticut as far south as Plainfield”  – Nipmuc Indian Association of Connecticut

Who can say that lake’s name five times really fast?

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Governor Richardson believes that the agreement, which came a few days after the FAA “issued a launch license to the New Mexico Spaceport Authority,” will make New Mexico the home of commercial space travel.

The signing of the agreement coincides with the start of Virgin Galactic’s test program of the WhiteKnightTwo launch vehicle in the Mojave Desert.

This is pretty cool news on many levels and I’m excited to see a commercial space program get off the ground. Virgin Galactic is one step closer to bringing space travel to the common citizen.

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Here’s a great website for a lot of information about one of the most historic invasions in the history of the world. American Experience/D-Day on pbs.org.

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The exhibit, named Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship, features artifacts recovered from the wreck of the Whydah off the shores of Cape Cod. Filled with treasure from a successful sea-roving trip, the ship sank in a storm in 1717. Now museum visitors in Ohio can see some of that loot on display.

The exhibition is sponsored by National Geographic, whose website does a good job of creating a multimedia experience surrounding the ship, it’s crew and fate. Although it doesn’t work as well as I’d have hoped, having some dead links and incomplete pages. Regardless, it was interesting to read about different members of the crew, see photos of the ship’s artifacts, and learn about the slave trade, which was often directly and indirectly affected by piracy. Anyone looking for a factual overview of piracy should poke around the site for a bit.

I also recommend that anyone in the Cape Cod area, take a few hours to visit the Expedition Whydah Sea Lab & Learning Center in Provincetown, Mass. This is the home of the world’s only     pirate shipwreck treasure. I know nothing about this museum and welcome any comments from anyone who has visited.

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The Newburyport Daily News reports that McKay, studying marine archaeology at the University of Bristol, England, is investigating the ruins of a ship that is half submerged in mud on the Merrimack River in Haverhill, Mass. as part of his thesis for a master’s degree. The hulk has been lying on the bank so long that trees, shrubs and grass are growing from it.

The working theory at this point is that the ship is a circa-1855 Nantucket lightship. McKay is trying to determine what ship it is and how it came to its final resting place, just downriver from the bridge that connects Haverhill to Groveland. According to official documents, it’s the LV-1 Lightship, 103 feet long, built in Portsmouth in 1855, and stationed for many years on the South Shoals of Nantucket. The problem for McKay is that the wreck on the Merrimack is only 80 feet from bow to stern.

He’s got his work cut out for him, and he’s been busy taking measurements and observations with Victor Mastone, director of the state’s Board of Underwater Archaeological Resources.

We wish you smooth sailing, Graham.

Graham McKay takes notes from the deck of the wreck. (Photo by Roger Darrigrand/Newburyport Daily News)

Anyone with any information on the ship is asked to contact McKay at grahamamckay@yahoo.com.

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