Low Down

With his regime secure at home, Hussein next sought to increase his power in the Arab world and on the international stage. His first action in this new direction came in 1980, when Iraq attacked Iran.   Although Iran and Iraq had a history of rivalry, a serious dispute began in 1979, when the Islamic Revolution in Iran stirred up anti-Baath sentiments among Iraq’s Shia Muslims, who had been long excluded from political or economic power in Iraq despite their majority status. As early as the mid- 1970s, Iraqi Shias, united by a Muslim group called Al Daawa al Islamiya (meaning the Islamic Call), began to openly demonstrate against the Baathist regime. Saddam Hussein, realizing the threat to his rule, responded by banning the Daawa Party and executing Daawa leaders. In April 1980, “the people and army of Iraq must turn their backs on the Ba’ath regime and overthrow it.” After numerous border skirmishes between the two countries, Iraq attacked Iran on September 22, 1980, leading t...

If you have to look up every word you do not know, you are probably working with material that is too difficult. That is, its difficulty level is requiring you to spend more time in preparing to learn by finding meanings than in actually learning. This is an inefficient use of your time. It is best to try to guess at the meaning of the paragraph or passage, then of the sentences before looking up much of anything. We call this a “top down” approach, as opposed to a “bottom up” approach in which the reader uses the meaning of words to put together an understanding of the whole text. A top-down approach is essentially synoptic, but it is an approach that all learners will probably need when you are using language in real life, not in class or for homework. After you have taken whatever guesses you can, then select one or two words that, if you knew what they meant, might clarify large chunks of the passage. Look those up. If you are doing “intensive” reading or listening, in which you ne...

England has always played the most powerful part in the history of the British Isles. However, the o t her three countries, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, have a different history. Until recently few historians looked at British history except from an English point of view. But the stories of Wales, Ireland and Scotland are also important, because their people still feel different from the Anglo - Saxon English. By the eighth century most of the Celts had been driven into the Welsh peninsula. They were kept out of England by Offa's Dyke, the huge earth wall built in AD 779. These Celts, ca l led Welsh by the Anglo-Saxons, called themselves ‘ cymry ’ , "fellow countrymen". Because Wales is a mountainous country, the cymry could only live in the crowded valleys. The rest of the land was rocky and too poor for anything except keeping animals. For this reason the population remained small. It only grew to over half a million in the eighteen...

Rifles and handguns have rifled barrels, that is, spiral grooves have been cut the length of the interior or bore of the barrel. Rifling consists of these grooves and the metal left between the grooves—the lands. The purpose of rifling is to impart a rotational spin to the bullet along its longitudinal axis. This gyroscopic effect stabilizes the bullet’s flight through the air, preventing it from tumbling end over end. This spin does not, however, stabilize the bullet after it enters the body due to the greater density of tissue compared to air. The term “twist,” as it pertains to rifling, refers to the number of inches or centimeters of bore required for one complete rifling spiral. All modern weapons have a twist which is constant for the entire length of the barrel. Some weapons manufactured in the beginning of the 20th century, had a “gain” twist; in this type of rifling, the rate of twist increases from breech to muzzle. Muzzle velocity is allegedly increased 5 to 6%. Ballistic co...