Madame Butterfly
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it's the change in vowel sounds that throws people off.
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Midwest Drought Threatens Crops and Shuts River
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO, The New York Times
CHICAGO (Aug. 14) - Rick and Rhonda Richards drove two and a half hours last Monday from Nashville to Metropolis, Ill., to hit the slot machines there, only to find that Harrah's riverboat casino had closed two nights before for the most unexpected of reasons: low water levels on the Ohio River. A drought ravaging parts of the Midwest this summer had left the boat nearly on the river bottom, making it difficult to board and disembark.
he couple had planned the two-day trip a month before to celebrate their 33rd wedding anniversary. But they never got word that Harrah's had closed because of low water - the first time that has happened since the casino opened in 1993. "We didn't know what was going on," Mr. Richards said. "The parking lot was empty, the town was empty."
As the worst drought since 1988 has deepened across parts of the Midwest, low-water levels are doing more than just inconveniencing gamblers. They are turning parts of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers into virtual sandbars, causing towboats and barges to run aground and delaying shipments of petroleum products, coal, chemicals, agricultural goods and road-paving materials.
The delays are threatening construction projects throughout the region, and the higher transportation costs could ultimately make this year's harvest of corn and other crops too expensive for some international markets, commodity analysts and barge-shipping officials said.
"There is high anxiety that we are close to shutting down the river," said Lynn Muench, vice president for the mid-continent region of the American Waterways Operators, a trade group representing tugboat, towboat and barge operators. "This is looking as bad or worse than 1988." Her fear was realized on Friday, when the Coast Guard ordered a seven-mile stretch of the Ohio River closed, north of its intersection with the Mississippi River.
The drought, which has mostly affected parts of Illinois, Missouri and Wisconsin, has also dried up wells, caused insect infestations and wreaked havoc on corn and soybean fields. A government report on Friday confirmed that corn in Illinois, the second-biggest producer after Iowa, had suffered irreversible harm, with production down 12 percent from last year's record harvest.
While showers have been falling across parts of the Midwest, including Chicago, in recent days, meteorologists from the National Weather Service are predicting more hot, dry weather in the eastern Corn Belt.
As the parched-earth conditions continue in southern Illinois, barge operators and the Coast Guard are becoming increasingly concerned about how long they can keep the river traffic moving if the water levels continue to dip. Despite efforts by the Army Corps of Engineers to dredge trouble spots, barges continue to struggle to make their way through the river system. A towboat plying the Mississippi on Friday near Memphis struck the river bottom, causing its rudder to break off, Ms. Muench said. And near Cairo, Ill., where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers cross, a towboat pushing 13 barges carrying stone materials ran aground early Friday, finally freeing itself eight hours later.
The Coast Guard restricted barge traffic through one seven-mile stretch of the Ohio River where it meets the Mississippi on Aug. 7 after the water level dropped to nine feet. A day later, the water dropped another foot and a half. Over the next three days the Guard worked with the shipping industry to lighten the loads of more than 40 vessels that were eventually eased through the trouble spot.
The Coast Guard opened up traffic after a brief surge of water on Wednesday. But after consulting with the industry on Friday morning, it closed the river again, except for extreme need on a case-by-case basis. As of Sunday night, 43 towboats with an average of 15 barges each were immobilized in the area.
"We got a good bump of water, but it wasn't long lasting," said Commander Denise L. Matthews, who heads the Coast Guard unit in Paducah, Ky. "Everything is going badly from a Mother Nature perspective."
The Paducah office has been getting calls lately from construction firms in Indiana concerned about delayed asphalt shipments, and even from a British grain futures-trading firm wanting to know how long the low water levels would last. (Agricultural exports are typically shipped downriver between August and November.)
Coast Guard officials are holding daily telephone conferences with industry representatives and the Army Corps of Engineers to develop strategies for finding at least a 180-foot-wide path for towboats to navigate through. Officers use a dry-erase board in the command center's main conference room to chart the size and draft of various barges trying to make it through the Ohio. Commander Matthews said she was hoping an Army Corps of Engineers boat that began dredging more of the area on Sunday would make a difference. The operation could take up to two weeks, she said.
Lightening the barge loads is costly. The barge operators have been forced to load at 9 to 10 feet of draft, the depth of a boat's hull under the surface, down from a typical loading of about 12 feet. Losing one inch of draft typically means losing 17 tons of cargo on a single barge, and 255 tons on a typical 15-barge tow. A typical tractor-trailer truck rig carries about 26 tons. Idle towboats cost shipping companies $5,000 to $10,000 a day. "Eventually the cost gets passed on to consumers," Ms. Muench said.
Meanwhile, some companies are stockpiling coal, salt and sand ahead of winter, anticipating that the drought will continue to worsen over the next month, making the rivers impassable, Ms. Muench said.
Meanwhile, crops have suffered in the relentless sun. In its report on Friday, the Agriculture Department said it expected corn yields to be lower this year in 29 of 33 corn states, with the largest decreases in Missouri, Illinois and Kansas. Soybean yields are also lower than last year, especially in Illinois and Missouri. "These rains right now will help the soybean crop," said Dave Lehman, managing director of commodities at the Chicago Board of Trade. "It is too late for corn."
This year's drought is more localized than the severe ones in 1988 and 1997. With farmers in Iowa, Minnesota and Nebraska having a good year for corn, prices should remain relatively stable at the supermarket, said Dennis Vercler, a spokesman for the Illinois Farm Bureau.
As the drought has deepened, farmers in Illinois have seen more damage from weeds and insects like aphids and Japanese beetles this year. Plants are under stress and cannot fight off the pests as well, and there has not been enough water to activate chemicals that would have warded them off, Mr. Vercler said.
In general, however, farmers are not likely to suffer as much as in previous droughts, which led to widespread consolidation of farms and the thinning of rural populations. Farmers today have more federal crop insurance and generally less debt than they did in the mid-1980's. Still, Mr. Vercler said, "It's just been no fun to be a farmer in Illinois this year."
Nor has it been fun to be a riverboat casino operator. Late Wednesday the Harrah's casino reopened after workers made adjustments to the emergency stairs and an entrance. The riverboat is connected to land by a floating barge, and as the water level dropped, the barge came to rest on the river bottom. The boat, which is moored further out, continued to drop with the falling waters. As a result, the entrance to the riverboat had dropped more than a foot further than the barge, forcing any customer taller than 5-foot-8 to duck on the way in.
The three days Harrah's was closed cost the casino an estimated $975,000 in lost revenues, said Robin Ryan, a Harrah's spokeswoman. The casino has closed before after flooding on the river, most recently in January.
Gretchen Ruethling contributed reporting for this article.
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Girls, your dad is just looking out for your best interests
Forget the professional gurus. In 'Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal,' Phillip Van Munching shares his feelings on raising two girls. Read an excerpt
Daughters and dads are known to have a special relationship. But when daddy's little girl starts to turn into a woman, fathers often find themselves at a loss for words. In his latest book, "Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal (So They Can Look Up Your Skirt): A Dad's Advice for Daughters," Phillip Van Munching shares advice based on personal experience for tackling both difficult-to-discuss topics and everyday life. Read an excerpt.
Boyfriends (or, Three Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter)
I have to go get fingerprinted.
See, in New York City, owning a big ol' pump-action shotgun requires a license, which requires fingerprinting, so I have to go get it done. Then I'll be ready when the first boy comes to my door to pick up one of my daughters for a date. I want him to find me sitting in my chair, oiling up the barrel. That way he'll be in the right frame of mind when I ask the question, "What time were you planning on having her home, son?" Maybe I'll jack a round into the chamber (with that satisfying chick-CHICK noise) just for effect.
Just about every father of a teenage girl in the world has had a similar thought: substitute the words pistol, hunting knife, sword or heat-seeking nuclear device for shotgun, and I figure you have all of us dads covered. We live in fear of your dating. We know boys — we were boys — and now that we're the old guys in the situation, we have a pretty good idea of exactly what goes through the minds of the young guys. So we fantasize about arming ourselves.
What we don't know, of course, is what goes on in your mind. We didn't then and we don't now. That's why we can't ever seem to give you enough credit for being able to take care of yourself. But don't hold that against us, because no matter how terrible we are at conveying it, we really do just want you to be happy and safe. Even if that means we have to remove a few boys, along the way. (Sorry. The "I'm gonna hunt down and kill any boy that tries to touch you" joke is an automatic thing, for fathers. The best version ever is in the movie "Clueless," when Alicia Silverstone's father tells a boy, "Anything happens to my daughter, I've got a .45 and a shovel. I doubt anybody would miss you.")
It doesn't help us dads that we barely even recognize the boys who show up at the door. What's with the gobs of hair product. Are all those sharp, gel-created points on their heads meant as some bizarre form of self-protection? And is it really necessary to wear pants so baggy that they would safely hold a family of five? Boys look so different from what we looked like at their age that it confuses us; it makes us wonder what else it is we don't know about the boys you hang around with.
Most of all, though, we're freaked out by the boys that you'll go out with because they represent the beginnings of your independence. Deciding who you'll date is maybe the first big decision you'll make entirely without us. (Oh, we'll try to make suggestions, but you won't listen. And you'll be right not to. Mostly.) We look at these boys who come into our homes — and your life — and we search them for clues about you. About what you're looking for and what kind of woman you'll become. In some ways, your choices about boys tell us more about you than anything else.
So have a little patience with your dad, okay? This dating stuff is hard on us.
It's no picnic for you, either, because while we're getting all weird and making jokes about shotguns, you're taking your first steps toward romantic relationships, and as often as not, those steps feel like they're taking place in a minefield. How do you know if you're choosing the right guys? Why don't they just come out and tell you what they're thinking, like your girlfriends do? How serious should you let yourself get with someone?
These are all things you're going to have to sort out for yourself, but that doesn't mean your folks can't give you a little guidance. As tempting as it will be for me to comment on every boy who comes through my door, I'll try to hold my tongue. Except, that is, for offering three little rules that might make the dating minefield a little more manageable.
First, make sure that you date boys because you honestly like them. Duh, right? Well, as obvious as it may seem, it's advice a lot of people don't follow. You'll watch plenty of relationships spring up for motives other than romantic attraction. You'll see girls pick guys based on their popularity, their car, or any one of a hundred other reasons that have nothing to do with a real spark. And while it's undoubtedly fun dating a guy just because he can spend a ton of money on you, it's also not very smart. When you make money the basis for a relationship, the only important person in that relationship is the one who has the money, you know? You become just another object that money brings, like an mp3 player or great clothes. And, like those things, you'll be replaceable.
Second, date guys within a year or two of your own age. My friend Alana always went out with much older guys. "I was so impressed with their confidence," she told me, "and my friends thought I was really sophisticated, because these guys chose me."
In junior high, she dated high school boys. In high school, she dated college boys. By the time she graduated, she found herself going out with guys a decade older than she was. She also found herself miserable. Because no matter what her friends thought, she wasn't that sophisticated, and her boyfriends didn't mind letting her know it. "I always felt inferior, because they seemed to know so much more than I did about everything, and while they loved to show me off to their friends, they had no patience around my friends." The last straw came when she was having dinner with a 31-year-old lawyer she'd been dating and his friends, and she voiced an opinion about politics. "No offense," her boyfriend said, "but you're 22. What could you know about it?" He was her ex-boyfriend before dessert was served.
What Alana realized was that relationships are supposed to be about sharing experiences, about learning things together. Looking back at her whole dating life, she suddenly felt stupid. "Everything I was going through, the guys I dated had been through years before me. The stuff they were going through, I was too young for. We had nothing to talk about!"
But while holding a conversation with Alana seemed too challenging for her boyfriends, they didn't have the same problem with sex. Being sexual with them became her way of trying to feel like their equal. It didn't work very well. She lost her virginity to a guy who couldn't wait to take her home as soon as it was over, so he could get back to his friends. "I was so not ready, and I got very shaky, afterward. He kept saying, 'What's the big deal? It's just sex.' And for him, it was. Been there, done that. For me it was something that should have been incredibly intimate and special, and I threw it away to hang on to a college guy."
Still, she kept dating older guys. Alana had gotten so used to the way they treated her — which was lousy — that she came to believe it was all she deserved. "By college, I had zero self-esteem," she says. "These guys basically wanted me for sex and to show off to their friends, and I thought I was lucky! If I had a time machine, I'd go and find myself at the age of 14, I'd shake that girl by the shoulders, and say 'Why should guys respect you when you don't even respect yourself?' "
Which brings me to the third, most important rule of dating: make sure that your boyfriends treat you with respect. Always. If they take you for granted, dump 'em. If they try to pressure you into something you don't want to do, dump 'em. If they ever touch you in any way that isn't invited and affectionate, dump 'em. (Then tell an adult. If you can't tell your folks, tell a teacher or an aunt or anyone with enough experience to help you handle it.)
Ever heard of a zero-tolerance policy? It's a fancy way of saying "no second chances." Zero-tolerance is a great rule to have in place when it comes to your love life. That doesn't mean you can't argue with a guy you're dating, or even forgive him for being immature, at times. What it does mean is that no matter what's going on between the two of you — good or bad — you always feel respected. You always feel valued for what you bring to the relationship.
If you have to exercise the zero-tolerance policy, and actually dump a guy, you'll feel lonely for a bit. You'll worry that no other boy is going to want to date you, because you're such a pain. And yes, the boys you break up with because they don't treat you well will tell their friends you're a pain. (Or a (I'm trying to say a bad word but can't), which is the Official Favorite Word of Guys-Who-Treat-Girlfriends-Like-Dirt™.) The thing is, you won't get the reputation you'll worry about getting. At least not among the guys who deserve your time. They'll see a girl who knows what she's worth, and isn't willing to accept any less. And deep down in a place most guys don't even know they have, they'll think, "If a girl that self-confident chooses me, it must mean I'm worth something, too." Any boy who makes that realization is a boy you can bring home to meet your dad.
I'll try to remember to wash the fingerprinting ink off before I shake his hand.
Excerpted from “Boys Will Put You on a Pedestal,” by Philip Van Munching. Copyright © 2005 by Philip Van Munching. Published by Simon and Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt can be used without permission of the publisher.
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Space shuttle program begins last chapter
Born of compromise, 35-year project offers lessons on what not to do
By Brian Berger
Updated: 2:13 p.m. ET Aug. 15, 2005
Space Shuttle Discovery’s return-to-flight mission marks the beginning of the end for a program whose design evolution exemplifies the pitfalls NASA is seeking to avoid as it embarks on a new direction in space exploration.
Thirty-five years ago, when NASA was struggling to make the case for a new space transportation system, it promised to build a reusable vehicle that would haul all of the nation’s civil, military and even commercial satellites into orbit and eventually help construct a space station.
The melding of civil and military requirements — coupled with the budgetary and political pressures that affect all large aerospace programs — produced the engineering compromises that haunt the space shuttle program to this day. These include the use of an external fuel tank whose foam-shedding problems doomed Space Shuttle Columbia in 2003 and cast a cloud over Discovery’s mission.
"The decision in 1972 to build the future of the space program around the shuttle has had consequences that still constrain NASA a third of a century later," said John Logsdon, director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University here and a member of the Columbia Accident Investigation Board. "[NASA Administrator] Mike Griffin and his associates are working hard to make sure that the choices they are making now enable a productive exploration program, not limit their successors’ flexibility."
The beginning of the end
The February 2003 loss of the Space Shuttle Columbia set in motion a change in U.S. space policy that few would have predicted in the immediate aftermath of NASA’s second shuttle disaster in about 17 years. By going beyond simply finding the technical root cause of the accident and recommending engineering remedies, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board laid important groundwork for the White House to announce the following year a new space exploration vision that called for replacing the shuttle and returning to the Moon.
While NASA continues to struggle with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s top return-to-flight recommendation — modify the space shuttle external tank to prevent it from shedding insulating foam — the agency has taken to heart the board’s advice that the shuttle be replaced.
NASA now plans to retire its shuttle fleet in 2010 or earlier and build a replacement system that, in accordance with the Columbia Accident Investigation Board’s advice, will be based on existing technology and designed to launch crew and cargo separately.
Today, even as it celebrates the space shuttle’s return to flight after a two-and-a-half-year hiatus, NASA is once again trying to sell a wary public on a new space transportation system.
In the world of aerospace engineering, tradeoffs and compromises are inevitable. And the budgetary and political pressures that attended the birth of the shuttle remain on hand today. This time, however, NASA is not proposing a vehicle that will be all things to all people, but rather a set of vehicles to suit its own unique needs
Before Project Apollo had achieved its first lunar landing, NASA began charting a future that included orbital outposts — space stations — stretching from low Earth orbit to the Moon. The massive Saturn 5 rocket was to launch the space stations, and a reusable space plane was to transport the astronauts back and forth.
NASA’s early space shuttle concepts envisioned a two-stage fully reusable vehicle capable of taking off and landing like an airplane. "That’s a far cry from what we got," Logsdon said.
By 1970, the White House had lost its appetite for large space programs, Logsdon said. Production of the Saturn 5 was ended, and NASA was told to forget about a space station for the time being.
That forced NASA to seek allies to justify building the shuttle. "The key ally was the national security community," Logsdon said.
The Pentagon agreed to get behind the shuttle provided it had certain characteristics, Logsdon said.
"One of those characteristics was the ability to launch classified payloads that could be up to 60 feet (18 meters) in length" and weigh up to 18,200 kilograms, Logsdon said. "The width of the payload bay was driven by NASA’s desire to eventually build a space station."
Another Defense Department-driven requirement, Logsdon said, was the ability to take off and return to a West Coast launch site after a single polar orbit. Because of the Earth’s rotation, a single polar orbit would not bring the shuttle back directly over its launch site, meaning it would have to glide farther through the atmosphere to land than otherwise would be the case. That drove NASA to add large delta-shaped wings and a more robust — not to mention heavier — thermal protection system to its space shuttle design.
The space shuttle had evolved from a dedicated crew transport to a brawny, all-purpose vehicle that would be so busy hauling the nation’s civil, military and commercial payloads that it would have to fly some 50 times a year. At the start of 1971, NASA told the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) that it could build such a fully reusable two-stage workhorse for $10 billion. OMB told NASA it could have $5 billion.
Thus began a six-month effort to find design alternatives that could be built for the available budget. The first cost-cutting design change, Logsdon said, was to move the fuel tanks to the outside of the vehicle. The second was to augment the liquid-fueled main engines with solid-propellant strap-on boosters, which generally are cheaper to develop but more expensive to operate.
NASA ended up with a shuttle design that fit within the $5 billion ceiling for development, but would prove far more costly to operate and entail greater risks than initially promised.
Logsdon said the White House made a policy mistake in 1972 by "putting NASA in a position where it had to promise more than it could achieve" in order to sell the space shuttle program and ensure a post-Apollo future for human space flight.
"The consequences of that mistake, Logsdon said, "still constrain today’s NASA leaders."
Rather than repeat the mistakes of the past, Logsdon said NASA today appears "determined to propose an approach to the next-generation system for carrying people to space that learns from shuttle’s history."
Lessons learned
NASA has yet to formally unveil plans for its next space transportation system, but the agency has said it intends to build a Crew Exploration Vehicle for transporting astronauts to and from orbit and a second unmanned system for launching cargo.
In addition, NASA and the Pentagon have no plans to meld their requirements into a single system, a point made clear in an Aug. 5 letter the two agencies sent to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. That letter, signed by Griffin and U.S. Air Force Undersecretary Ronald Sega, the Pentagon’s top space official, says the "[Defense Department] and NASA believe that separating human-rated space exploration from unmanned payload launch will best achieve reliable and affordable assured access to space while maintaining our industrial base in both liquid and solid propulsion systems."
The letter goes on to say that while the Defense Department would consider using the 100-metric-ton-class heavy-lift launcher that NASA says it needs to hurl cargo toward the Moon, it has no interest in the smaller rocket the agency intends to use to launch the Crew Exploration Vehicle.
NASA’s intends to use the space shuttle’s major components for both vehicles.
Three decades ago, NASA envisioned a shuttle so robust and cheap to operate it would eventually launch 50 times a year. In reality, the shuttle has proven costly and difficult to operate, and took more than 10 years to mark its 50th launch in September 1992.
Griffin, in a television interview several days after Discovery’s less-than-perfect liftoff, acknowledged the shuttle’s unfulfilled promise. "The shuttle has been a step along the road to allowing humans routine access to space, but it did not reach that goal," he said. "We need to keep at it."
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Puzzling hot spot found on Saturn moon
Dead moon now appears to be geologically active
A dramatic warm spot (shown in the right panel) centered on the south pole of Saturn's icy moon Enceladus.
NASA / JPL / GSFC / SWRI
Space.com
By Ker Than
Updated: 1:53 p.m. ET Aug. 15, 2005
In July, NASA's Cassini spacecraft made its latest flyby of Saturn's moon Enceladus, revealing an unexpected hot spot on the moon's south pole.
The finding flipped everything scientists knew about Enceladus on its head, because what should have been a dead moon appeared to be geologically active and what was supposed to be the moon's coldest region turned out to be its warmest.
"This is as astonishing as if we'd flown past Earth and found that Antarctica was warmer than the Sahara," said John Spencer, an astronomer from the Southwest Research Institute in Colorado and a co-investigator of the Cassini mission.
The finding could explain an old mystery concerning Enceladus, but it also presents a new puzzle of its own.
Discovered in 1789 by a British astronomer, Enceladus is named after a mythological Greek giant. Despite its namesake, it is a tiny moon, only about 300 miles in diameter, and small enough to fit snugly inside the state of Arizona.
The surface of Enceladus is coated in a thin layer of ice that reflects back nearly all of the sunlight striking it, making it the brightest object in the solar system apart from the Sun.
Cassini's July flyby of Enceladus had it dipping within 109 miles of the moon's icy surface, its closest approach yet. In addition to the south pole hot spot, Cassini also revealed that the "icy veins" were actually a series of fractures on the moon's surface. Even more surprising, the fractures appeared to be active, violently spewing a slushy jet of warm water and ice into space.
Together, the venting fractures and the hot spot provide strong evidence for geologic activity on Enceladus. If true, the findings could explain the moon's connection with one of Saturn's rings, a relationship that has puzzled scientists for years
Saturn's E ring stretches nearly 200,000 miles from its inside edge to its outer bound and is made up of microscopic particles of ice and dust. The ring is so faint that scientists didn't discover it until about 30 years ago, but when they did, they noticed a curious thing: the ring was brightest around Enceladus, which, along with some of Saturn's other moons, wades through the E ring's plane of debris while circling the planet.
This observation caused some scientists to suspect that Enceladus was somehow supplying material for the ring. It was a strange idea, but the fact that the E ring existed at all was evidence for it.
"The particles are so small they should not last very long," Spencer told Space.com. "You couldn't have the E ring just sit there for the age of the solar system. It had to be regenerated somehow."
There were two possibilities for how Enceladus could supply material for the ring. According to one scenario, impacts from cosmic particles were blasting tiny bits of Enceladus off into space, providing Saturn with fodder for a ring.
In the second scenario, geysers or water volcanoes on the surface of Enceladus spewed out clouds of ice and dust into the moon's atmosphere, and because the moon is so small and its gravity so weak, the ice and dust soon float off into space. Like drifting steam from a tugboat, Enceladus would deposit a trail of microscopic debris in its wake as it orbited Saturn — debris that Saturn's gravity would then rope in to make a ring.
Based on what scientists knew about Enceladus, the first scenario seemed more likely. Enceladus was thought to be geologically dead, and without geologic activity, there could be no spouting fountains of water and ice on the moon's surface.
That's why the discovery of the hot spot on the moon's south pole is so important, because it provides the moon with an engine to drive the geysers and volcanoes.
Why the south pole is so active is still a mystery. One theory is that radioactive material left over from the moon's formation billions of years ago is acting as a heat source, said Linda Spilker, Cassini's deputy project scientist.
Another theory is that a change in the moon's spin rate caused fractures to form on the moon's surface.
Like many moons, Enceladus takes as long to rotate on its axis as it does to make one orbit around Saturn, thus only one of its hemispheres faces Saturn.
"If Enceladus moved in closer, then it would have to try to spin more quickly to keep one side facing Saturn," Spilker said. "And maybe that change in spin might have caused the cracking seen at the south pole."
How or when this might have occurred is still unknown.
Cassini is scheduled to make an even closer pass of Enceladus in 2008, during which scientists hope to gather new pieces for the puzzle.
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I have to agree with King on that one.
Though I think religious topics here often get way too heated over petty things, this is science.
And while it's provable by science, it doesn't necessary prove God.
What it does prove is that especially in the old testiment, the science of archaelogy is proving some of the stories in it.
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Relaxing after a frantic "fee" day.
I really need a neck massage in a bad way.
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Sorry to see you go but we all gotta do what we gotta do.
I should have expected someone would find a way to bring the topic up again. Just letting it rest for a time wasn't good enough; finding a way to use it as a reason to leave was bound to happen and I should have known that card would be played.
Three times I posted in different places saying Kronos would be back but I wonder if some of you payed any attention.
I'm quickly losing my desire to bring it back.
I think that those threads were actually good for the site.
People were able to express their opinions on what they'd like to have happen in Kronos.
Pretty easy way to hold them up to "standards" if they go off on a tangent isn't it?
I am not questioning your decision AE, but I do think it was somehow theraputic for those threads to be there.
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Elvis Costello sang this at the end of that julia roberts hugh grant film.
I've always loved it
She may be the face I can't forget
The trace of pleasure or regret
Maybe my treasure or the price I have to pay
She may be the song that summer sings
May be the chill that autumn brings
May be a hundred different things
Within the measure of a day
She may be the beauty or the beast
May be the famine or the feast
May turn each day into a Heaven or a Hell
She may be the mirror of my dreams
A smile reflected in a stream
She may not be what she may seem
Inside her shell....
She, who always seems so happy in a crowd
Whose eyes can be so private and so proud
No one's allowed to see them when they cry
She maybe the love that cannot hope to last
May come to me from shadows in the past
That I remember 'till the day I die
She maybe the reason I survive
The why and wherefore I'm alive
The one I care for through the rough and ready years
Me, I'll take the laughter and her tears
And make them all my souvenirs
For where she goes I've got to be
The meaning of my life is
She....She
Oh, she....
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Eating my favorite cereal.
Drinking my favorite juice.
Talking to a "long lost" friend on msn.
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My name can be both male or female.
The female version is a nickname for the name of a saint, and has no meaning.
The male name is a "warrior"
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Dig backs biblical account of Philistine city of Gat
By Amiram Barkat
New evidence regarding the bitter end of Gat, the largest and most important Philistine city, was recently unearthed at a dig at Tel Zafit near the Masmia intersection in the Lachish region. According to Kings II (12:18), Gat was conquered by King Hazael of Aram. He intended to capture Jerusalem as well, but King Jehoash of Judah saved the capital while losing treasure taken from the Temple (Kings II 14:14). Findings at the dig support the biblical version of Gat's demise as described in Kings II.
An enormous trench surrounded by towers was found at the dig, which was apparently built during the siege of the city. The archaeologists say that findings at the site reveal the unique method employed by the Arameans to seize the city and the destruction that Aramean soldiers left in their wake. Other artifacts shed light on the culture of the Philistines, one of the most fascinating peoples that lived in ancient Israel.
The Philistines controlled the southern coastal plain for close to 600 years. Their best-known contribution was to the Roman name for the Land of Israel, "Palestina," which is derived from the Greek name "Paleshet," the land of the Philistines. (There is no connection between the Philistines and modern Palestinians.)
Battles between the Philistines and their Jewish neighbors are mentioned in biblical stories of David and Goliath, King Saul and Samson. Modern Hebrew words such as kova (hat) and argaz (crate) are apparently derived from the Philistine language.
The Philistine people are particularly interesting to researchers because they were Indo-Europeans, while the people of Israel and others in the area were Semites. The language, culture and origins of the Philistines were thus different from that of their neighbors. Unlike Semitic peoples, the Philistines did not practice circumcision and were therefore referred to as "foreskins" in ancient sources. Their lesser-known customs included eating puppies and pigs.
Gat, the city of Goliath, was the most important of five local cities built by the Philistines, including Ekron, Ashkelon, Ashdod and Gaza. Gat apparently was a significant city, whose leader was called a king. Leaders of other Philistine cities were called rulers. At its peak, Gat had a population of 10,000 residents, like the population of Jerusalem on the eve of the destruction of the First Temple.
The most impressive finding uncovered in the dig at Gat is a 2.5-kilometer moat carved in stone that surrounded the walls of the city at a radius of 300 meters. Professor Aaron Meir, who directed the dig on behalf of Bar-Ilan University, estimates that it took thousands of workers many months to dig the stone moat, which is five meters deep and four meters wide. The moat, flanked along its entire length by guard towers, was erected to prevent besieged residents from breaking out to get food or mount a surprise attack on their captors.
An estimated 60,000 cubic meters of rock were chiseled to create the moat. According to Meir, this is the most ancient blockade discovered in this part of the world. He says that the structure exactly fits a description in an Aramean text from this period discovered in the city of Zahor in Syria.
The ruins of houses that fell in their entirety were found inside the city of Gat, which covered about 500 dunams. A large variety of vessels and a vast array of artifacts used in writing and rituals were found, revealing various aspects of Philistine culture.
One of the most important discoveries is a text in clay that includes Philistine names. While the text is written in local Phoenician, the names appear to be Greek in origin. According to Meir, this is rare proof of assimilation in Philistine society. "On one hand, they preserved their religion, language, and other central, distinguishing characteristics but, on the other, they adopted local customs and styles to a significant extent," says Meir.
The end of the Philistines came about 200 years after the destruction of Gat. Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzer conquered their land and dispersed their nation throughout Babylon. Their neighbors, the Judahites, were also dispersed. But unlike the Jews, evidence of the Philistines vanished in Babylon
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Best of luck to you.
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New Internet worm affects Windows users
Fast spreading ZOTOB virus gives remote access to attackers
MSN Tech & Gadgets
Updated: 8:22 a.m. ET Aug. 15, 2005
SINGAPORE - A new Internet virus has been detected that can infect Microsoft's Windows platforms faster than previous computer worms, said an anti-virus computer software maker.
The ZOTOB virus appeared shortly after the world's largest software maker warned of three newly found "critical" security flaws in its software, including one that could allow attackers to take complete control of a computer.
The latest worm exploits security holes in Microsoft's Windows 95, 98, ME, NE, 2000 and XP platforms and can give computer attackers remote access to affected systems, said Trend Micro Inc.
"Hundreds of infection reports were sighted in the United States and Germany," Tokyo-based Trend Micro said in a statement released late last week. "Since most users may not be aware of this newly announced security hole so as to install the necessary patch during last weekend, we can foresee more infections from WORM_ZOTOB," it said.
The latest virus drops a copy of itself into the Windows system folder as BOTZOR.EXE and modifies the system's host file in the infected user's computer to prevent the user getting online assistance from antivirus web sites, Trend Micro added.
It can also connect to a specific Internet relay chat server and give hackers remote control over affected systems, which can be used to infect other unpatched machines in a network and slow down the network performance.
Last Tuesday, Microsoft issued patches to fix its security flaws as part of its monthly security bulletin. The problems affect the Windows operating system and Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browser.
Microsoft has warned that an attacker could exploit a vulnerability in its Internet Explorer Web browser and lure users to malicious Web pages, and could run a software code on the user's PC giving the attacker control of the affected computer.
Computer users should update their anti-virus pattern files and apply the latest Microsoft patches to protect their computer systems, Trend Micro said.
More than 90 percent of the world's PCs run on the Windows operating system and Microsoft has been working to improve the security and reliability of its software
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Ok LMP, I'll bite.
You keep saying that.
Who do you want to see in that movie
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FAvorite shirt right now?
Two of them actually.
i don't like shirts that are t shirts or have logos.
One is a halter top from Forever 21, a deep cranberry red with large print paisley over it.
The other is from Ann Taylor Loft, stripped top, low cut, empire waisted. Very stunning with white slacks or shorts.
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I think it would depend on what I was being tortured over.
If it had to do with protecting my family, then yes, I'd be able to survive.
To things that have screwed me over, not been honest with me, hurt me, I'd most likely take it for a time and then give them up.
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Individual's who take the bait all the time, and yet fail to take responsiblity for their own actions/reactions.
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He's a movie director who sees a conspiracy in everything.
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I think you've been seeing too many Oliver Stone movies Wally.
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What I'm saying is I believe there is a very high level of intolerence regarding religious matters on this site, and until somehow it's proven to have "matured" than it needs to be handled in very strict terms or not at all.
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What offends me is some people who insult my religion. I don't care if you insult me, but leave me religion out of this. As someone who I don't know (coulda been me...) said once... "Make A Mockery Of Me, I Don't Care. Make A Mockery Of My Religion, I'll Have To Kick Your *buttocks*"...Wally, it's a two way street.
In fact, I think there are many here who can mock others religions, but can't handle it when some one disagrees or doesn't embrace theirs.
Tis why I think religion shouldn't be spoken here.
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Another thing is when someone posts something that seems to suggest this...
"My beliefs/opinions make me right, and since your beliefs/opinions are very different, they're obviously dumb, so are you." Then the alledged "proof" follows, all a matter of opinion and interpretation. I've never seen successful conversions made this way, but many successful grudges have been created on several message boards.
I must say I strongly agree to this and I believe I have witnessed it on ALL levels of participants on this site.
It doesn't matter how many years, months, days or hours you have been at this site, everyone has a right to their own beliefs and opinions on this site. It doesn't matter how old or young you are, or what rank you are.
Everyone's opinions need to be taken as something new, not something offensive.
While I realize someone's opinion may be offensive to you, inquiring as to why they feel that way, may help you understand why they've come to that opinion.
It doesn't mean you find it right, or that you will change your opinion, it just means you're broadening your understanding of other people.
Dig backs biblical account of Gat
in Science & Technology
Posted
thank you Boozehound, much appreciated.