This Weekend's Schedule

Tuesday - 7:00pm - Grizz v. Chicago Bulls - FedExForum
Tuesday - 7:30pm - The White Stripes: Under the Great White Northern Lights ($5) - Studio on the Square
Wednesday - 7:30pm - Grizz @ Rockets - SportsSouth
Wednesday - 8:00pm - Tigers v. St John's - FedExForum
Wednesday - All Day - St Patrick's Day - Multiple events on Beale St / Downtown bars and restaurants - check local listings
Thursday - 7:30pm - 2 Across - Beignet Cafe
Friday - 6:00pm - Steve + Alexis Going Away Party - Maloney's
Friday - 7:00pm - John Mayer w Michael Franti and Spearhead - FedExForum
Saturday - 7:00pm - Grizz v. Warriors - FedExForum
Sunday -

Amelia Earhart Resting Place Found, Maybe Eaten by Giant Coconut Crabs

Researchers believe they have found the final resting place of Amelia Earhart, the world-famous aviator. Bones were found in the tiny coral atoll, Nikumaroro was some 300 miles southeast of Earhart's target destination.

A woman's shoe, an empty bottle and a sextant box whose serial numbers are consistent with a type known to have been carried by Fred Noonan, her navigator, were all found near the site where the bones were discovered.

But only partial bones were found. Many of the bones were carried off by giant coconut crabs and there is a remote chance some of the bones might still survive deep in the crab burrows.

The coconut crab is the largest land-living arthropod in the world. Many island nations considered the coconut crab a delicacy and an aphrodisiac.


Sources:
http://news.discovery.com/history/amelia-earhart-resting-place.html
http://moarrawr.com/coconut-crabs-natures-worst-thing/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coconut_crabs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amelia_Earhart

US Invasion of Canada

In an actual war plan drawn up in the 1930's known as "War Plan Red" (obsoleted in 1939 and declassified in 1974), US military strategists planned to invade Canada. The scenario goes:

• A joint Army-Navy overseas force to captures the port city of Halifax, cutting the Canadians off from their British allies.
• US forces seize Canadian power plants near Niagara Falls, so they freeze in the dark.
• The U.S. Army invades on three fronts -- marching from Vermont to take Montreal and Quebec, charging out of North Dakota to grab the railroad center at Winnipeg, and storming out of the Midwest to capture the strategic nickel mines of Ontario.
• The U.S. Navy seizes the Great Lakes and blockades Canada's Atlantic and Pacific ports.

On the other hand, Canadian military strategists developed a similar plan to invade the United States in 1921 -- nine years before their American counterparts created War Plan Red.

A noted Canadian psychologist and author conjectured whether Fort Drum, the huge Army base in Upstate New York was a staging ground for a US invasion. "Why would the Americans put an Army base in such a wretched, frigid wilderness? he wondered. Could it be there to . . . fight Canada?"

In 1935, the largest peacetime manuevers occurred at Fort Drum and surrounding areas. Approximately 36,500 soldiers came from throughout the Northeast to take part in war games.

The dream of invading Canada lives on in the American psyche, occasionally manifesting itself in bizarre ways. Movies and cartoons for instance like Canadian Bacon (1995) starring Alan Alda and South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut (1999).




Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Drum
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/29/AR2005122901412.html

Nikola Tesla - The Forgotten Father of Wi-Fi

This sounds like the Internet and Wi-fi world we live today being described here:

• Secure government communications service
• Voice communications around the globe
• Universal distribution of stock tickers, news and weather
  
• World musical distribution
• Synchronization of clocks around the world with astronomical precision
• Worldwide transmission of texts
  
• Global positioning for navigators
• World printing on land and sea
• Worldwide distribution photos and drawings

Actually, in fact, these features came from a promotional brochure of Nikola Tesla's "World System" in 1906.

In 1900, Tesla began construction of a wireless broadcasting tower on Long Island, New York. Tesla intended to use it to link the world's telephone and telegraph and to transmit data. A lot of mystery and controversy came about Tesla's tower. It was never completed and was believed to have been sold as scrap metal during World War I.

Nikola Tesla (b. 1856), an inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer, immigrated from Serbia into the US in 1884. He is quite possibly the one of the greatest inventors in modern history. But he is a virtual unknown in the textbooks and the general public.

He was the first to demonstrate wireless and long-distance communication via radio 10 years ahead of Marconi. In his lifetime, Tesla produced 800 patents and numerous inventions which include Alternating Current (AC) which is the basis of all electrical distribution as we know today.

He spent the last 10 years of his life living in a hotel room and died penniless. He tore up a Westinghouse contract that could have made him the world's first billionaire partly because of the implications that would have in his future inventions and his friendship with George Westinghouse. Thomas Edison spent the rest of his life trying to discredit Tesla in what was known as "War of the Currents".

Some of his ideas were so far-fetched during his time and people just didn't get it and considered him a mad scientist. Lacking money, he wrote his ideas in countless notebooks. However, upon his death in 1943, the U.S. authors confiscated his files, classifying them Top Secret, and they spent years making copies proving the value of his ideas. It is only now that his works are being appreciated and put into modern, useful technological innovations.

Here are some of this ideas way ahead of his time.

• Remote Control. In 1898, Tesla demonstrated a radio-controlled boat to the US military, believing that the military would want things such as radio-controlled torpedoes.

• Wireless Energy Transfer. Tesla was able to power 200 light bulbs without wires 26 miles away! Today, inductive coupling technology can wirelessly power toothbrushes, cell phones and gadgets.

• Free Energy. Tesla envisioned using the earth and sun as renewable energy. Today, we have solar power and microwave technology.
  

• Death Ray. Tesla designed a directed-energy super weapon using charged particles to project beams capable of destroying 10,000 enemy planes from a distance of 250 miles! In recent times, the US has delved into developing "Star Wars" weaponry aka SDI as Tesla substantively anticipated.

Sources:
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/wireless-power1.htm
http://everythingishistory.com/2010/03/04/5-nikola-tesla-innovations-way-ahead-of-their-time/
http://www.electroherbalism.com/Bioelectronics/Tesla/TeslaversusEdison.htm
"Tesla, Master of Lightning" by Margaret Cheney & Robert Uth. B&N Publishing, 1999.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_tesla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wardenclyffe_Tower
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_Defense_Initiative

This Weekend's Schedule

Monday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies v New Jersey - FedExForum
Tuesday - 6:00pm - SMA March Meeting - Local GastroPub
Wednesday - 6:30pm - Grizzlies @ Boston - FSTN
Thursday- 9:30pm - SnoZBerry - Flying Saucer
Friday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies v New York Knicks - FedExForum
Saturday - 4:00pm - St Patrick's Day Parade - Beale St
Saturday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies v Denver - FedExForum
Saturday - 9:00pm - Pacquiao v Clottey - PPV
Saturday - 12:00pm - River City Brewers Festival - Handy Park
Saturday - 10:00pm - Melanie Miller's Going Away - Downtown
Sunday - 5:00pm - March Madness Selection Sunday - CBS

This Weekend's Schedule

Monday - 5:30pm - 9:00pm - Memphis Music Monday - Hard Rock Cafe
Monday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies v Portland - FedExForum
Monday - 7:00pm - Jazz Collective LIVE - Majestic Grille
Tuesday - 7:00pm - Cross Canadian Ragweed - Minglewood Hall
Wednesday - 8:00pm - Tigers @ UAB - CSS
Wednesday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies @ New Orleans - FSTN
Thursday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies @ Chicago - SportSouth
Thursday thru Sunday - Various times - Ruchee Madness 2010 - Downtown
Friday - 7:30pm - Eric Clapton w Roger Daltrey - FedExForum
Saturday - 12:00pm - Tigers v Tulsa - FedExForum
Saturday - 6:00pm - BrianC + RebS Birthday Bash - Downtown
Saturday - 7:00pm - Grizzlies v San Antonio - FedExForum