Quote:'London Underground: Man 'sexually assaulted young boy, 10, at Leicester Square Tube station'
The victim's mum chased him through the station but was unable to catch him...'

Quote:'London Underground: Police hunt man after sex attacks on 2 women on Tube station escalators
Police would like to speak to a man in connection with two separate incidents...'

Quote:'Man 'exposed himself on train' from Clapham Junction and 'masturbated in front of woman'
British Transport Police officers have released this image and have appealed for information...'

Quote:'London crime: Police hunt man on bike who 'masturbated' in front of 4 women in South West London
Four women saw the man in the 'linked' series of indecent exposure offences...'

(03-11-2023, 09:15 PM)BIAD Wrote:

Not to be a Debbie Downer in a time of humour, but Mayor Khan's use of his city's money on posters
may have to be re-looked at. He may have cameras all over the place, but the crimes go unresolved.

Quote:What happened to the atomic test dummies?

St. Patrick’s Day always rocks in Las Vegas, but not like it did 70 years ago when a 16-kiloton atom bomb detonated atop a tower at the Nevada Proving Grounds, 65 miles north of the city.

The March 17, 1953 above-ground nuclear test destroyed or damaged various test objects placed at differing distances from ground zero, including houses, cars and mannequins meant to simulate real people who might get caught in a nuclear blast. The explosion sent a shock wave through southern Nevada and left behind an atom-age mystery: What happened to the life-like mannequins used in the test?

Doom Town

The code-name for the test was “Annie,” and it was the first experiment to gauge the effects of an atomic detonation on a mock American city. Among other things, scientists wanted to learn how people exposed to the blast might fare in their homes, cars or basement bomb shelters. This aspect of the test was known as “Operation Doorstep,” and it required the construction of a simulated small town.

“The construction people who were out there called it ‘Doom Town,’” remembered retired test site technician Al O’Donnell.

Before he passed away in 2015, O’Donnell spoke to the author about Doom Town and the people who put it together.

“They weren’t building it to be occupied,” O’Donnell said. “They were building it to be destroyed.”

Private industry furnished the materials to assemble Doom Town. Ford, Chrysler and General Motors donated cars to be blasted. The L.A. Darling Company of Michigan provided the mannequins to pose as people, and JCPenney of Las Vegas supplied clothing to dress the mannequins, although not all of the dummies were initially clothed, according to O’Donnell.

O’Donnell said some test site workers, during a free moment when the bosses weren’t looking,  placed “mom” and “dad” mannequins in compromising positions in the bedroom of a test house. The joke was that if nuclear armageddon was expected, this is what Mr. and Mrs. America would be doing the night before.

However, O’Donnell said a high-ranking test official, inspecting the site shortly before the blast, discovered the undressed dummies in their connubial positions.

“He went ballistic,” O’Donnell said. “He ordered us to put the dummies back where they were originally, with Dad sitting by the window reading his paper, while Mom worked in the kitchen.”

With the dummies dressed and in their original places, the atomic detonation went off as planned.
....
But where are the test dummies that faced a nuclear blast on St. Patricks’ Day, and later posed for shoppers at JCPenney? Did any of these mannequins survive? Are any resting silently, long forgotten, as macabre souvenirs in someone’s basement?

Without records regarding their fate, no one can be certain. We only know the mannequins left the test site for a brief stint as window dressing at JCPenney’s, where they stood in mute testament to the destructive power of the bomb.

What happened to them after that remains an enduring mystery of the atomic age.

Quote:“The skies over the Korean Peninsula on March 21, 2020, were clear and blue.” So begins this sobering report on the findings of the Commission on the Nuclear Attacks against the United States, established by law by Congress and President Donald J. Trump to investigate the horrific events of the next three days. An independent, bipartisan panel led by nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, the commission was charged with finding and reporting the relevant facts, investigating how the nuclear war began, and determining whether our government was adequately prepared for combating a nuclear adversary and safeguarding U.S. citizens. Did President Trump and his advisers understand North Korean views about nuclear weapons? Did they appreciate the dangers of provoking the country’s ruler with social media posts and military exercises? Did the tragic milestones of that fateful month—North Korea's accidental shoot-down of Air Busan flight 411, the retaliatory strike by South Korea, and the tweet that triggered vastly more carnage—inevitably lead to war? Or did America’s leaders have the opportunity to avert the greatest calamity in the history of our nation?

Although fewer than half of the nuclear warheads reached their targets, 1.4 million people were killed in South Korea and Japan and more than 5 million were severely injured. Following a robust but conventional US counterattack, North Korea launched 13 ICBMs at the United States.

Three missiles each were targeted on the large US Navy bases in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and San Diego, California, the White House in Washington, DC, and Trump Tower in New York City, with a single missile fired at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Six of the 13 failed to reach their targets.

Pearl Harbor was destroyed, as were Honolulu and New York City. Two warheads fired at Washington missed and landed in Northern Virginia. The two aimed at San Diego exploded far enough off the coast that no one died. The one aimed at Mar-a-Lago destroyed Jupiter, Florida, instead.

This (fictional) nuclear attack on the United States killed 1.4 million people. Another 2.8 million people were seriously wounded. Nearly half of the ~9 million people who were severely injured in South Korea, Japan, and the United States “slowly succumbed” within days to weeks.

The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States

Quote:Hidden history of Scotland's biggest nuclear bunker

Scotland's biggest Cold War bunker is buried deep beneath an Edinburgh hill - and its existence has remained unknown to most people for decades.

Barnton Quarry Nuclear Bunker was built in 1944 and expanded in 1951, but by 1955 it was defunct.

The secluded entrance to the building, which lies 100ft below Corstorphine Hill, can only be accessed down a rough private track.

Spread over three storeys, it was once Scotland's first line of defence against the threat of nuclear war.

It was equipped with a BBC broadcasting studio and would have housed Queen Elizabeth if the city had been attacked while she was in residence.

At its heart, surrounded by a maze of corridors and rooms, is the main operations floor, where information would have been gathered in the 1950s to locate any aircraft in Scottish air space.



But a former Home Office bunker official, who wanted to remain anonymous, told BBC Scotland that the radar operations centre only lasted 18 months.

"They spent all those millions on it, but technology in fighter jets then became more advanced than the radar systems in the bunker - so that was the end of that," he said.

The bunker, which is located on the same hill as Edinburgh Zoo, was declassified in 1955.

In 1960 it was taken over by the government and became a protected control centre in event of a nuclear attack.

But five years later this was moved to a bunker in the Kirknewton area of the city, before moving around several other locations.

The military closed the site and in 1983 transferred ownership to Lothian Regional Council for use as an emergency control centre.

However, the council later said the bunker was too big and was never really used.

MacGregor Properties bought it but failed to get planning permission to build retirement flats on the site.

Then in 1996, local businessman James Mitchell bought the bunker for £60,000.

He said: "They couldn't do anything with it because they weren't given planning permission for flats so I asked if I could buy it.

"They said they were in a board meeting and would call me back.

"I was in my car, and by the time I was driving over the Forth Road Bridge I had bought it."



However, when he was able to look inside he discovered "a terrible mess".

"Vandals had got in through the air vents and stolen a lot," he said.

"So I left it for a few years until I worked out what to do with it."

In the following years there were a number of fires, including one in 1998 which raged for two days and burnt out the whole of the bunker.

The former Home Office official said this had been carried out by an anarchist group called Edinburgh Bomby Group.

Its members had been convinced the government would use the bunker again in the event of a nuclear war.

"So they wrote their intentions on the doors of the bunker. They said they would chop down the telegraph poles, which they did, and number 10 on the list was to set fire to it.

"They used angle grinders and sledgehammers and set a motorcycle against the telephone exchange inside and set it on fire."

He estimated it would cost £20m to bring the bunker back to life.

The bunker's owner, Mr Mitchell, said he had spent £1m clearing more than 40 tonnes of debris, with help from volunteers.

Peter Gordon, the director of the Barnton Bunker Preservation Society, said very few people had been inside the bunker.

"When we first came down here there were dead rats everywhere and it smelled damp," he said.

"The fire had been an inferno that even caused the concrete to crack and pop, and you can still very much see evidence of this now."

Mr Mitchell, who also owns Scotland's Secret Bunker in Fife, said he wanted to bring the Category A Listed building back to life as a museum.

He has now secured charity status for the bunker and would like to offer "hard hat tours" to give people the chance to see it before it becomes a museum.

The Home Office advisor added: "I remember it in the days when your face reflected in the polished floors, but now it's a semi derelict building.

"It is unique and very interesting and exciting to visit.

"Although the bunker ceased to be secret in 1955, nobody talked about it."

Quote:Using Kelty's doodles as a guide, an Austin, Tex., firm called UMA Mirage produced the animation and mixed in the music and sound effects. A Boston company, Soundtrack, found a 7-year-old child actor named Kria Sakakeeny to read the script. "It was a little bit challenging," says Kria, who was paid $250 for her work. "I don't know, it tells you that you're growing up or something."

As for Kria's daddy, when asked, just like in the commercial, what this "Star Wars" stuff is all about, he gives a startling reply.

"I think it's counterproductive, personally," says Khalil Sakakeeny, a Boston documentary filmmaker. "It might be a good bargaining tool, which the president could use as leverage -- but mechanically, financially and politically, it seems to me like a white elephant."

The 'Star Wars' Soft Sell (November 4, 1985)