Machinery

Oswiecim, Poland -- In the executive suites of Nazi genocide, it must have seemed in 1942 that every angle was covered. Requisitioners and clerks were scribbling busily, architects and chemists were smoothing operational kinks, logistical wizards were plotting train schedules and peak-load capacities, and careful lawyers were drawing up contracts for the world's largest industrial incinerator.The payoff for this planning hit its stride in the spring of '44 atAuschwitz-Birkenau, when the smoke of 12,000 bodies per day floated darkly from the chimneys.

Imagine the job announcement: "State of Maryland seeks temporary employees to safeguard democracy. Candidates must be willing to work for below the minimum wage without benefits or gratitude, enjoy inflexible and long workdays, attend multiple training sessions, and be prepared to deal with angry voters. Interested? We want you to be a Maryland election judge." As the General Assembly considers how to regain the trust of Marylanders in the way elections are conducted, it would do well to look beyond early voting, paper trails and Diebold machine flaws.

WASHINGTON -- The National Security Agency is running out of juice. The demand for electricity to operate its expanding intelligence systems has left the high-tech eavesdropping agency on the verge of exceeding its power supply, the lifeblood of its sprawling 350-acre Fort Meade headquarters, according to current and former intelligence officials. Agency officials anticipated the problem nearly a decade ago as they looked ahead at the technology needs of the agency, sources said, but it was never made a priority, and now the agency's ability to keep its operations going is threatened.

ONCE A YEAR the Mason-Dixon Historical Society Inc. offers young and old a chance to learn about our past with its Steam and Gas Roundup, an event that showcases antique farm equipment and machinery.Have your children ever seen a horse pull a plow? At the Roundup, held at the Carroll County Farm Museum, they can see the progress we've made from horse power to steam power to gas engines.Last year, 212 gas engines registered for the show. This year Shane Ey will return with his 1933 Ford truck.

The State House dome - elegant, nautical and historic - might also conjure a less lofty image: the lid on a pressure cooker. Members of the General Assembly's Democratic majority are so happy to be back to Democratic rule in Annapolis that they can hardly get the smiles off their faces. They're happy to delay anything that might be contentious while their party's new governor, Martin O'Malley, collects himself. And happy to let the pressure build. Maryland needs comprehensive tax reform, legislation that could easily devour the time and energy of an entire 90-day session.

Most of the people who write about computers for newspapers and magazines are very knowledgeable about all the blips and beeps and other techie stuff.On the other hand, I'm not a computer whiz, although my job has forced me to learn how to use them. I can muddle through most programs and even fool the totally blip-deprived into thinking I'm some kind of hacker.In a strange way, that makes me better qualified than most experts to give advice to those who don't have a computer, know little about them, but are thinking of making the leap.

Charles R. Higdon Jr., a retired engineer and former owner of Machinery and Equipment Sales Inc., died Monday of complications after heart surgery at Washington Hospital Center. The Mays Chapel resident was 87. Born and raised in Baltimore, Mr. Higdon was a 1941 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, and two years later, enlisted in the Army Air Forces, where he served as a flight engineer aboard B-29 Superfortress bombers. After the war, he enrolled at the Johns Hopkins University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in engineering in 1949.

Boosted by a sharp increase in construction equipment and paper products, general cargo moving through Maryland Port Administration terminals increased 9 percent during the first quarter.Cargo during the first three months of the year was 1.6 million tons, up from 1.4 million tons in the first quarter of 1997."Roll-off/roll-on" cargoes, the category that includes construction equipment and heavy machinery, increased 19 percent to 127,200 tons. Paper products almost tripled, to 46,096 tons.

WASHINGTON - International inspectors visiting Iran last week were shown a network of sophisticated machinery to enrich uranium, spurring concerns that Iran is making headway in its suspected program to develop nuclear weapons, Western officials and international diplomats said yesterday. The site in question, near the city of Natanz, was visited Friday by Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, who went to Iran to assess the status of its nuclear program.