Madame Butterfly
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King David's fabled palace: Is this it?
By Steven Erlanger The New York Times
FRIDAY, AUGUST 5, 2005
JERUSALEM
An Israeli archeologist says she has uncovered in east Jerusalem what she believes may be the fabled palace of the biblical King David. Her work has been sponsored by the Shalem Center, a neoconservative think tank in Jerusalem, and funded by a American Jewish investment banker who would like to help provide scientific support for the Bible as a reflection of Jewish history.
Other scholars who have toured the site are skeptical that the foundation walls Eilat Mazar has discovered are David's palace. But they acknowledge that what she has uncovered is rare and important - a major public building from around the 10th century BC with pottery shards that date from the time of David and Solomon and a government seal of an official mentioned in the book of Jeremiah.
For nearly 10 years, Mazar thought she knew where the fabled palace built for King David, as described in the Bible, might be - just outside the walls of the ancient city of Jerusalem. Now she thinks she's found it, and if she's right, her discovery will be a new salvo in a major dispute in biblical archaeology - whether or not the kingdom of David and Samuel was of historical importance.
For that idea, the Bible is a relatively accurate guide, but some question whether they were more like small tribal chieftains, reigning over another dusty hilltop.
Her discovery is also bound to be used in the other major battle over Jerusalem - whether the Jews have their deepest origins there and thus have some special hold on the place, or whether, as many Palestinians believe - including the late Yasser Arafat - that the notion of a Jewish origin in Jerusalem is a religious myth used to justify occupation and colonialism.
Hani Nur el-Din, a professor of archaeology at Al Quds University, says that Palestinian archaeologists consider biblical archaeology as an effort by Israeli archaeologists "to fit historical evidence into a biblical context," he said. "The link between the historical evidence and the biblical narration, written much later, is largely missing," he said. "There's a kind of fiction about the 10th century. They try to link whatever they find to the biblical narration. They have a button and they want to make a suit out of it."
Other Israeli archaeologists are not so sure that Mazar has found the palace - the house that Hiram, king of Tyre, built for the victorious king, at least as Samuel II, Chapter 5, describes it. It may also be the Fortress of Zion that David conquered from the Jebusites, who ruled Jerusalem before him, or some other structure about which the Bible is silent.
But Mazar's colleagues know that she's found something extraordinary - the partial foundations of a sizable public building, constructed in the Phoenician style, dating from the 10th-9th centuries BC, the time of the united kingdom of David and Solomon.
"This is a very significant discovery, given that Jerusalem as the capital of the united kingdom is very much unknown," said Gabriel Barkay, a renowned archaeologist of Jerusalem from Bar-Ilan University. "Very carefully we can say that this is one of the first greetings we have from the Jerusalem of David and Solomon, a period which has played a kind of hide-and-seek with archaeologists for the last century."
Mazar, 48, is the granddaughter of Benjamin Mazar, a famous archaeologist with whom she trained. She got her doctorate from Hebrew University, is the widow of an archaeologist and has worked on and supervised dozens of digs on her own.
"Archaeology is technical, but you dig with a mind open to historical sources, and anything can help," she said, as she clambered over massive stones at bedrock. "I work with the Bible in one hand and the tools of excavation in the other, and I try to consider everything."
Based on the chapter from Samuel II, but also on the work of a century of archaeology in this spot, Mazar speculated that the famous stepped-stone structure excavated previously was part of the fortress David conquered, and that his palace would have been built just outside the original walls of the cramped city, to the north, on the way to what his son, Solomon, built as the Temple Mount.
"When the Philistines came to fight, the Bible said that David went down from his house to the fortress," she said, her eyes bright. "Maybe it meant something, maybe not. But I wondered, down from where? Presumably from where he lived, his palace. So I said, maybe there's something here," and in 1997 wrote a paper proposing a new excavation in the spot, which is in east Jerusalem.
Mazar is building on the archaeologists who went before her, especially Robert Macalister in the 1920s, Kathleen Kenyon in the 1960s and Yigal Shilo in the 1970s and 1980s. Kenyon had found evidence of well-worked stones and protoaeolic capitals, which decorated the tops of columns, evidence of a large, decorative building.
David's palace was the topic of a last conversation she had with her famous grandfather, who died 10 years ago, she said. "He said, 'Kenyon found the protoaeolic capitals, so go and find where she found them, and start there."' Five months ago, with special funding and permissions from the Ir David Foundation, which controls the site (and also supports Jews moving into east Jerusalem), and academic sponsorhip from Hebrew University, she finally began to dig - finding evidence of this monumental public building dating from the time of David and Solomon.
Amihai Mazar, a renowned professor of archaeology at Hebrew University, and Eilat Mazar's second cousin, calls the find "something of a miracle." He believes the building may be the Fortress of Zion that David is said to have conquered, and where he lived for a time, and which he renamed the City of David. "The interpretation will be debated," he said. "But the achievement is great. What she found is fascinating whatever it is."
There is a debate among archaeologists "to what extent Jerusalem was an important city or even a city in the time of David and Samuel," he said. "Some believe it was tiny and the kingdom unimportant."
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Updated: 03:21 PM EDT
Wildlife Moves to Stay Cool in a Warmer World
By Alister Doyle, Reuters
OSLO, Norway (Aug. 8) - Salmon swim north into Arctic seas, locusts plague northern Italy and two heat-loving bee-eater birds nest in a hedge in Britain.
Signs of global warming fed by greenhouse gases produced by human activity, or just summertime oddities?
In the United States, some warblers are flying north to Canada. In Costa Rica, toucans are moving higher up into the mountains, apparently because of rising temperatures.
In July, a Norwegian man fishing in a fjord had a shock when he landed a John Dory, a fish more usually found in temperate waters off southern Europe or Africa.
"There's a long list of migratory species ending up further north. It's certainly a sign of warmer temperatures," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy director at the Greenpeace environmental group.
He said salmon had been swimming through the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia into the Chukchi Sea, apparently because the frigid water had warmed up.
Such shifts could have vast long-term implications for farmers and fishing fleets.
However, some experts are skeptical that unusual sightings of everything from bears to butterflies support theories that temperatures are rising because of a build-up of heat-trapping gases emitted by cars, factories and power plants.
"If you want to measure temperatures, you use a thermometer, not a bird," said Fred Singer, who heads the U.S. Science and Environmental Policy Project. "Birds have all sorts of reasons for moving north, south, sideways or whatever."
Singer says people and creatures have adapted to unexplained changes in temperature, linked to natural variation, throughout history. Some species simply move in unexpected directions or unwittingly stow away on trucks, planes or ships.
ROBINS IN ARCTIC
However, U.N. data show that the warmest year since records began in the 1860s was 1998, followed by 2002, 2003 and 2004. Most scientists link the rise in temperatures to human emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, rather than natural change.
The panel that advises the United Nations says that rising temperatures may drive thousands of species to extinction and cause more storms, floods and deserts while raising sea levels, perhaps by one meter (three feet) by 2100.
Inuit peoples have noted southerly species of wildlife reaching the Arctic in summertime in recent years, including robins, hornets and barn owls.
Anecdotal evidence from further south is piling up.
Two yellow, green and brown bee-eater birds, usually found in southern Europe, have nested in a hedge in southern England -- the fourth time a bee-eater nest has been found in Britain.
"It looks as if it's linked to climate change," John Lanchbery, head of climate policy at Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, said of a general shift northwards of birds in Europe.
Growing seasons have extended and seas have become warmer, he said.
However, some examples are misleading.
In the Piedmont region of northern Italy this summer, residents were surprised by swarms of locusts, suspecting they had flown over from Africa.
Insect experts said they were an Italian species and did not migrate over long distances. Still, an exceptionally hot summer in 2003 has meant more parched ground, ideal conditions for the pests to lay their eggs.
"Global warming could also be a reason," said Vincenzo Girolami, an entomologist at Padua University. If there were more hotter, drier summers, there were likely to be more swarms of locusts in Italy, he said.
HEADACHE FOR RANGERS
In the United States, birds such as the Cape May warbler and Blackburnian warbler are moving north into Canada, causing a headache for forest rangers.
If the birds leave, spruce forests in the United States could be vulnerable to attacks by spruce budworm caterpillars, normally eaten by the birds. If the caterpillars are left to thrive they will eat, and dry out, the trees.
"The trees could be more stressed which could lead to more fires," said Terry Root, a professor at Stanford University in the United States. "We could really have a difficult situation."
In Costa Rica's Monteverde cloud forest, toucans, with their brightly-colored, banana-shaped bills, are threatening another species, the spectacular green quetzal, by moving to higher altitudes where the quetzals nest, she said.
Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in New York, Robin Pomeroy in Rome and Ed Stoddard in Johannesburg
08/08/05 09:55 ET
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Updated: 03:34 PM EDT
New Mars Orbiter Set for Wednesday Launch
Craft Will Try to Spot Landing Sites for Future Missions
By ALICIA CHANG, AP
NASA/AP
LOS ANGELES (Aug. 7) - A year and a half after twin robot rovers thrilled space fans with their hijinks on Mars, NASA is heading there again.
A fourth Mars orbiter is set to blast off Wednesday, carrying some of the most sophisticated science instruments ever sent into space. Circling the Red Planet, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will scan the desolate surface in search of sites to land more robotic explorers in the next decade.
"It's time we start peeling back the onion layer and start looking at Mars from different vantage points," said project manager James Graf of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena.
Like the three current spacecraft flying around Mars - including a European orbiter - the latest probe will seek evidence of water and other signs that the planet could have hosted life. The $720 million mission, which launches from Cape Canaveral, Fla., will also serve as a communications link to relay data to Earth.
Its powerful camera can snap the sharpest pictures yet of the planet's rust-colored surface, with six times higher resolution than past images.
NASA took its first close-up pictures of Mars in 1965 when the Mariner 4 spacecraft zipped past the planet and snapped fewer than two dozen photos.
Since then, numerous probes that have landed, orbited or passed the planet have shot tens of thousands more images. But only about 2 percent of the planet has been viewed at high resolution.
"There are many unanswered questions about Mars," project scientist Richard Zurek said.
The two-ton reconnaissance orbiter will be NASA's last Mars orbiter this decade. Belt-tightening forced the space agency to cancel a $500 million mission planned for 2009.
However, two more landing attempts are set during the next four years. Scientists hope to use the orbiter's detailed mapping to scout safe landing sites for the Phoenix Mars and Mars Science Laboratory missions slated for 2007 and 2009, respectively.
The information gleaned by the spacecraft could also help scientists decide where to send a lander during the next decade to return the first samples of Martian rocks and soil to Earth.
The stationary Phoenix lander will use a long robotic arm to explore the icy plains of the planet's north pole. Later, the mobile Mars Science Laboratory will analyze rocks and soil in finer detail than the rovers Spirit and Opportunity, which have uncovered geologic evidence of past water activity since parachuting to opposite ends of Mars last year.
The solar-powered rovers are still trekking across the Martian surface, even though scientists had not expected the six-wheeled machines to last more than three months in the hostile Martian environment.
The reconnaissance orbiter will also try to find two ill-fated spacecraft - NASA's Mars Polar Lander and Britain's Beagle 2 lander - which lost contact during separate landing attempts. Earlier this year, the company that operates a camera aboard one of the current Mars orbiting spacecraft - the Global Surveyor - found what appeared to be the wreckage of Polar Lander based on grainy black-and-white images.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter will launch aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas V rocket for its two-year mission. It will adjust its flight path until it reaches Mars' orbit in mid-March next year. Then it will use the friction of the atmosphere to lower itself to about 190 miles above the surface.
Along with its telescopic camera, the orbiter's payload includes ground-penetrating radar that can probe up to a third of a mile beneath surface rock and ice for evidence of water. Other instruments can track daily weather changes and identify minerals.
Today, Mars is cold and dry with large caps of frozen water at its poles. But scientists think the planet was a wetter and possibly warmer place eons ago - conditions that might be conducive to life.
After the imaging phase, the orbiter will switch to its other role as a communication relay for Mars lander missions. It will be equipped with a powerful high-gain antenna that can transmit 10 times more data per minute than the current trio of satellites that includes NASA's Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey and the European Space Agency's Mars Express.
"We will have a fire hose of data coming back instead of bringing it back through a little garden hose," Graf said.
The spacecraft's primary mission ends in 2010, but scientists say it has enough fuel to last until 2014.
08-07-05 15:42 EDT
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Talking to my Beloved.
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It depends on how thick the fillets are
I always sprinkle garlic and black powder on fish fillets, and then give them each a few shakes of soy sauce and then some butter pats on them.
I grill them until the color has all changed to the same consistancy
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Hey pretty baby with the
High heels on
You give me fever
Like I’ve never, ever known
You’re just a product of
Loveliness
I like the groove of
Your walk,
Your talk, your dress
I feel your fever
From miles around
I’ll pick you up in my car and we’ll paint the town
Just kiss me baby
And tell me twice
That you’re the one for me
The way you make me feel
(the way you make me feel)
You really turn me on
(you really turn me on)
You knock me off of my feet
(you knock me off of
My feet)
My lonely days are gone
(my lonely days are gone)
I like the feelin’ you’re
Givin’ me
Just hold me baby and i’m
In ecstasy
Oh I’ll be workin’ from nine
To five
To buy you things to keep
You by my side
I never felt so in love before
Just promise baby, you’ll
Love me forevermore
I swear I’m keepin’ you
Satisfied
’cause you’re the one for me
The way you make me feel
(the way you make me feel)
You really turn me on
(you really turn me on)
You knock me off of my feet
Now baby-hee!
(you knock me off of
My feet)
My lonely days are gone-
A-acha-acha
(my lonely days are gone)
Acha-ooh!
Go on girl!
Go on! hee! hee! aaow!
Go on girl!
I never felt so in love before
Promise baby, you’ll love me
Forevermore
I swear I’m keepin’ you
Satisfied
’cause you’re the one for
Me . . .
The way you make me feel
(the way you make me feel)
You really turn me on
(you really turn me on)
You knock me off of my feet
Now baby-hee!
(you knock me off of
My feet)
My lonely days are gone
(my lonely days are gone)
The way you make me feel
(the way you make me feel)
You really turn me on
(you really turn me on)
You knock me off of my feet
Now baby-hee!
(you knock me off of
My feet)
My lonely days are gone
(my lonely days are gone)
Ain’t nobody’s business,
Ain’t nobody’s business
(the way you make me feel)
Ain’t nobody’s business,
Ain’t nobody’s business but
Mine and my baby
(you really turn me on)
Hee hee!
(you knock me off of
My feet)
Hee hee! ooh!
(my lonely days are gone)
Give it to me-give me
Some time
(the way you make me feel)
Come on be my girl-i wanna
Be with mine
(you really turn me on)
Ain’t nobody’s business-
(you knock me off of
My feet)
Ain’t nobody’s business but
Mine and my baby’s
Go on girl! aaow!
(my lonely days are gone)
Hee hee! aaow!
Chika-chika
Chika-chika-chika
Go on girl!-hee hee!
(the way you make me feel)
Hee hee hee!
(you really turn me on)
(you knock me off my feet)
(my lonely days are gone)
(the way you make me feel)
(you really turn me on)
(you knock me off my feet)
(my lonely days are gone)
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Just finished talking to my sister on the phone.
Playing some cards online against a friend.
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Talking to some friends on MSN
Getting ready to go to the pool soon.
Watching something really interesting unfold on a web site I discovered today, and apparently someone I thought I knew posts there, and I really don't know them at all.
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It's very very soothing.
I always include it in my baby shower gifts, and never had anyone not comment on how much the love it.
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For my sister, and nieceTheme from the movie "THe Last Unicorn" - song by America
When the last eagle flies over the last crumbling mountain
And the last lion roars at the last dusty fountain
In the shadow of the forest though she may be old and worn
They will stare unbelieving at the last unicorn
When the first breath of winter through the flowers is icing
And you look to the north and a pale moon is rising
And it seems like all is dying and would leave the world to mourn
In the distance hear the laughter of the last unicorn
I’m alive, I’m alive
When the last moon is cast over the last star of morning
And the future has passed without even a last desperate warning
Then look into the sky where through the clouds a path is torn
Look and see her how she sparkles, it’s the last unicorn
I’m alive, I’m alive
I love that song.
Kenny Loggins did it on a lullaby CD, Return to Pooh Corner, and when I have difficulties sleeping, I always pop that in.
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Songbird
For you,
there'll be no more crying,
For you,
the sun will be shining,
And I feel that when I'm with you,
It's alright, I know it's right
To you, I'll give the world
to you, I'll never be cold
'Cause I feel that when I'm with you,
It's alright, I know it's right.
And the songbirds are singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you,
I love you,
I love you,
Like never before.
And I wish you all the love in the world,
But most of all,
I wish it from myself.
And the songbirds keep singing,
Like they know the score,
And I love you,
I love you,
I love you,
Like never before,
like never before.
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Go Your Own Way
Loving you
Isn't the right thing to do
How can I ever change things
That I feel
If I could
Maybe I'd give you my world
How can I
When you won't take it from me
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You an call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
Go your own way
Tell me why
Everything turned around
Packing up
Shacking up is all you wanna do
If I could
Baby I'd give you my world
Open up
Everything's waiting for you
You can go your own way
Go your own way
You an call it
Another lonely day
You can go your own way
go your own way
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U.S. researcher in mission anew for Atlantis in Med Thu Aug 4, 2:51 PM ET
NICOSIA (Reuters) - An American researcher on the trail of long-lost Atlantis said on Thursday he will lead an expedition next year to prove the mythological civilisation lies in the watery deep between Cyprus and Syria.
Robert Sarmast believes Atlantis did exist and that his quest is not a wild goose chase inspired by the ramblings of an ancient Greek philosopher thousands of years ago.
"All the evidence points here. This is where civilisation started," he said in Cyprus. Sarmast lives in Los Angeles.
Plato suggested that the civilisation of Atlantis was destroyed in a deluge around 11,500 years ago. The Mediterranean island of Cyprus is its pinnacle, says Sarmast.
Sarmast, an architect, says he has found evidence suggesting man-made structures on an initial expedition some 80 km (50 miles) off the south-east coast of Cyprus in November 2004.
The outlines of what he says is a long wall which forms a right angle were detected by sonars, scanners which use sound pulses to map the sea bed.
He plans to return to the site for a closer look by May, 2006 with remote operated vehicles which will attempt to blast away sediment on a selected site lying 1.5 km below sea level.
"There is not one scientist in the world who can explain these formations as natural ones," said Sarmast, who said he had clinched a contract with a Hollywood production house to produce a two hour documentary next year.
According to Plato, Atlantis was an island where an advanced civilisation developed some 11,500 years ago. Some also believe it to be Garden of Eden, where mankind fell from God's Grace.
Theories abound to why it disappeared, from Atlantis being hit by a cataclysmic natural disaster -- an event which is accounted in many of the world's varied ancient civilisations, to being destroyed by the wrath of Zeus because it became too powerful.
It is invariably placed in the Atlantic Ocean, the Greek island of Santorini, Portugal's Azores and even farther afield in the South China Sea.
But the skeptics suggest Atlantis never existed anywhere but in Plato's long decayed brain.
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Updated: 09:13 AM EDT
Russian Sailors Survive Submarine Scare
Crew of Seven Trapped for Days at the Bottom of the Sea
By VLADIMIR ISACHENKOV, AP
PETROPAVLOVSK-KAMCHATSKY, Russia (Aug. 7) - Seven people on a submarine trapped for nearly three days under the Pacific Ocean were rescued Sunday after a British remote-controlled vehicle cut away undersea cables that had snarled their vessel, allowing it to surface.
The seven, whose oxygen supplies had been dwindling, appeared to be in satisfactory condition when they emerged, naval spokesman Capt. Igor Dygalo said. They were examined in the clinic of a naval ship, then transferred to a larger vessel to return to the mainland.
About five hours after their rescue, six of them were brought to a hospital on the mainland for examination, waving to relatives as they went in; the seventh was kept aboard a hospital ship for unspecified reasons.
The mini-sub's commander, Lt. Vyacheslav Milashevsky, was pale and appeared overwhelmed when he got off the ship that brought the men to shore. But he told journalists he was ''fine'' before climbing into a mini-van to take him to the hospital.
His wife, Yelena, earlier said she was overjoyed when she learned the crew had been rescued.
''My feelings danced. I was happy. I cried,'' she told Channel One.
The sub surfaced at 4:26 p.m. local time Sunday, some three days after becoming entangled in 600 feet of water off the Pacific Coast on Thursday and after a series of failed attempts to drag it closer to shore or haul it closer to the surface. It was carrying six sailors and a representative of the company that manufactured it.
''The crew opened the hatch themselves, exited the vessel and climbed aboard a speedboat,'' said Rear Adm. Vladimir Pepelyayev, deputy head of the naval general staff.
''I can only thank our English colleagues for their joint work and the help they gave in order to complete this operation within the time we had available - that is, before the oxygen reserves ran out,'' he said.
The men aboard the mini-sub waited out tense hours of uncertainty as rescuers raced to free them before their air supply ran out. They put on thermal suits to insulate them against temperatures of about 40 F inside the sub and were told to lie flat and breathe as lightly as possible to conserve oxygen.
To save electricity, they turned off the submarine's lights and used communications equipment only sporadically to contact the surface.
''The crew were steadfast, very professional,'' Pepelyayev said on Channel One television. ''Their self-possession allowed them to conserve the air and wait for the rescue operation.''
In an echo of the Kursk sinking, President Vladimir Putin had made no public comment by Sunday on the mini-sub drama. Putin remained on vacation as the Kursk disaster unfolded, raising criticism that he appeared either callous or ineffectual.
But in sharp contrast to the August 2000 Kursk disaster, when authorities held off asking for help until hope was nearly exhausted, Russian military officials quickly made an urgent appeal for help from U.S. and British authorities. All 118 people on board the Kursk died, some surviving for hours as oxygen ran out.
As U.S. and British crews headed toward the trapped sub, Russian officials considered various ways of freeing the vessel.
Russian ships had tried to tow the sub and its entanglements to shallower water where divers could reach it, but were able to move it only about 60-100 yards in the Beryozovaya Bay about 10 miles off the coast of the Kamchatka peninsula, which juts into the sea north of Japan.
But by Sunday afternoon, a British remote-controlled Super Scorpio cut away the cables that had snarled the 44-foot mini submarine and it was able to come to the surface on its own.
Even the British rescue was hampered though. A mechanical problem with the Super Scorpio forced workers to bring the rescue vehicle to the surface, just after the discovery of a fishing net caught on the nose of the submarine, Russian officials said.
The United States also dispatched a crew and three underwater vehicles to Kamchatka, but they never left the port.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who went to Kamchatka to supervise the operation, praised the international efforts.
''We have seen in deeds, not in words, what the brotherhood of the sea means.''
Officials said the Russian submarine was participating in a combat training exercise and got snarled on an underwater antenna assembly that is part of a coastal monitoring system. The system is anchored with a weight of about 66 tons, according to news reports.
The sub's propeller initially became ensnared in a fishing net, they said.
The events and an array of confusing and contradictory statements - with wildly varying estimates of how much air the crew had left - darkly echoed the sinking of the Kursk.
Russia's cash-strapped navy apparently lacks rescue vehicles capable of operating at the depth where the sub was stranded, and officials say it was too deep for divers to reach or the crew to swim out on their own.
The submarine's problems indicated that promises by Putin to improve the navy's equipment apparently have had little effect. He was criticized for his slow response to the Kursk crisis and reluctance to accept foreign assistance.
The new crisis has been highly embarrassing for Russia, which will hold an unprecedented joint military exercise with China later this month, including the use of submarines to settle an imaginary conflict in a foreign land. In the exercise, Russia is to field a naval squadron and 17 long-haul aircraft.
New criticism arose within hours of the mini-sub's crew being rescued. Dmitry Rogozin, head of the nationalist Rodina party in the lower house of parliament, said he would demand an assessment from the Military Prosecutor's Office of the navy's performance in the incident, the Interfax news agency reported.
Rogozin said he wants to know why Russia has not acquired underwater vehicles similar to the ones provided by Britain and the United States and ''why fishing nets and cables litter the area of naval maneuvers.''
''It appears the naval command is not in control of the area of naval exercises,'' he said, according to Interfax.
08-07-05 0635EDT
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Peacock blue yoga pants
Scooped neck yoga top with spaghetti straps, pale blue background with images of India in different colors superimposed over it.
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Counting down the minutes until I'm allowed to sleep.
Feeling tipsy after having some marguerita's with friends.
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The most beautiful thing I saw today, was the sunrise, knowing that last night I may not have seen another one if the accident had been worse.
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I'm sure that some day in the future, those there will find our practices primative.
Just consider how they used to use bloodsuckers on people to "make them well" not that long ago.
I'm all for the stuff though, as it came in handy for me recently.
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hypocrisy
(noun) 1 : a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion; 2 : an act or instance of hypocrisy
I see you use that word alot PeeWee, are you sure you are using it in the right context?
If you don't understand the Nazi reference, it's a reference to the closemindedness of book burning. You can destroy or with hold many things in the world but it won't stop other people from desiring them or searching them.
You may destroy anything you own, I myself destroyed some old diaries my Mother had dug up on vacation.
, but to burn a book because it offends you is going to extremes.What would have burning the book have accomplished?
Would it have erased what you read from your memory?
Would it have done anything positive at all?
Not likely.
It's an extreme reaction to something that you most likely shouldn't have completed reading if it had offended you so early on.
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In all the hubbub about witchcraft in Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, blah, blah, blah, I typically roll my eyes at how silly people get over that kind of thing. All these fundamentalists and the like getting all up in arms over these fantasy books that are no different or any more dangerous than The Wizard of Oz IMO.Don’t forget; it’s the same people talking as the people that put us back into the dark ages for the EXACT same reason. If a book disturbs you so much you fell like burning it (or anything equivalent) you need mental help.
I'd have to agree to a point.
Just reminds me of seeing the Nazi's burning the books on film.
What may seem that way to you now, may in fact in hundreds of years have been proven fact or just a myth.
Written word shouldn't be destroyed just because it causes you to have fear with in your own beliefs or insults what you believe to be true.
The book wasn't written to do such a thing. It was a take on the Knights Templar and what it really meant, in this authors imagination.
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Broad Environmental Damage Seen From Shuttle
By Jeff Franks, Reuters
HOUSTON (Aug. 4) - Commander Eileen Collins said astronauts on shuttle Discovery had seen widespread environmental destruction on Earth and warned on Thursday that greater care was needed to protect natural resources.
Her comments came as NASA pondered whether to send astronauts out on an extra spacewalk to repair additional heat-protection damage on the first shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.
Discovery is linked with the International Space Station and orbiting 220 miles above the Earth.
"Sometimes you can see how there is erosion, and you can see how there is deforestation. It's very widespread in some parts of the world," Collins said in a conversation from space with Japanese officials in Tokyo, including Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.
"We would like to see, from the astronauts' point of view, people take good care of the Earth and replace the resources that have been used," said Collins, who was standing with Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi in front of a Japanese flag and holding a colorful fan.
Collins, flying her fourth shuttle mission, said the view from space made clear that Earth's atmosphere must be protected, too.
"The atmosphere almost looks like an eggshell on an egg, it's so very thin," she said. "We know that we don't have much air, we need to protect what we have."
While Collins and Noguchi chatted, NASA officials were deciding whether a torn insulation blanket protecting part of the shuttle surface could rip off and strike a damaging blow to Discovery when it re-enters the atmosphere.
They said it could require another spacewalk to fix, which would take place on Saturday if needed. A decision was expected on Thursday afternoon.
Noguchi and astronaut Steve Robinson already have done three spacewalks, including a landmark walk on Wednesday to remove loose cloth strips protruding from Discovery's belly. NASA feared the strips could cause dangerous heat damage when the shuttle lands on Monday.
COLUMBIA TRIBUTE
The combined crew of Discovery and the space station, nine in all, paid tribute on Thursday to the Columbia crew and other astronauts who have died in space accidents. They took turns speaking while television shots from the shuttle showed it passing over a sunlit Earth, then into night.
"Tragically, two years ago, we came to realize we had let our God down. We became lost in our hubris and learned once more the terrible price that must be paid for our failures," said mission specialist Charles Camarda. "In that accident, we not only lost seven colleagues, we lost seven friends."
Columbia broke apart before landing on Feb. 1, 2003, and the seven astronauts on board died.
Loose insulation foam from the fuel tank struck the wing heat shield at launch 16 days before, causing a hole that allowed superheated gases to penetrate and destroy the shuttle when it descended into the atmosphere.
NASA spent 2 1/2 years and $1 billion on safety upgrades after Columbia, but videos showed loose tank foam at Discovery's launch last week. The agency suspended shuttle flights until the foam problem is fixed.
A report in The New York Times suggested NASA was not as careful as it could have been about the foam issue.
The Times said an internal NASA memo, written in December by a retired NASA engineer brought back to monitor the quality of the foam operation, complained that deficiencies remained in the way foam was being applied to the fuel tank and warned "there will continue to be a threat of critical debris generation."
A spokesman at Johnson Space Center in Houston told Reuters he had not yet seen the Times report and could not comment.
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"Everything" By Alanis Morisette
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The Great Mars Hoax:
Will Mars really loom bigger than the full moon in the night sky this month? There's a wave of e-mail messages that say so, but don't believe it.
The truth is less spectacular, but still worthy of note.
It's true that the Red Planet is getting closer to Earth, but when Mars makes its close approach in late October and early November, it won't be as close or as bright as it was during 2003's history-making sky show.
The e-mail that's currently going around appears to be a garbled replay of the advance notices for the 2003 encounter, which reached its climax in August of that year. Here's an excerpt the bogus text:
"The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!
"This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.
"The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. ..."
Some of the folks who received the message read even more significance into the text, thinking that Mars might look as big as the full moon even without the aid of a telescope. But taken at face value, the message pretty much describes what happened in 2003.
This year, Mars is due to come closest to Earth on Oct. 29, and on Nov. 7 it will reach opposition (which means the sun, Earth and Mars will be in a straight line). Mars will be 43 million miles from Earth at its closest, with a width of about 20 arc seconds.
By that measure, the viewing conditions will be slightly worse than they were in 2003 — but they're still the best we'll see until 2018.
There's another consolation this year: Mars will be higher in the sky than it was in 2003, meaning that the atmosphere will create less wobble in the image you see through your telescope. And you'll need a telescope to see Mars as anything other than a bright reddish "star" in the sky. So you might want to start checking into what your local astronomical society has on tap for this fall.
For more on the mixed-up Mars e-mail, consult Sky & Telescope or Earth & Sky. The Shallow Sky has a pretty good guide to this year's Mars encounter, and refers to the bogus e-mail as well.
You don't have to wait until fall to see the Red Planet: Mars is shining right now in early morning skies. To find out the where and the when, consult Space.com or Heavens Above. And stay tuned for more information about this month's featured sky show, the Perseid meteor shower, which hits its peak next week
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Huge ocean wave towered nearly 100 feet
Study finds giant waves are more common than first thought
Updated: 3:59 p.m. ET Aug. 4, 2005
WASHINGTON - Last year's Hurricane Ivan generated an ocean wave that towered higher than 90 feet at one point, says a study that also suggests such giants may be more common than once thought.
Research indicates these are not "rogue waves but actually fairly common during hurricanes," said David Wang of the Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, Miss.
The giant wave was detected 75 miles south of Gulfport, Miss., by instruments on the ocean floor that measure the pressure of water above them. Using those readings, scientists can calculate the height of waves from trough to crest.
Last Sept. 15, as Hurricane Ivan passed through the area, the instruments measured 146 large waves, including 24 higher than 50 feet and one at 91 feet, Wang and his colleagues report in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
The giant wave did not reach land. Unlike a tsunami, which reaches down to the sea floor, this was a wind wave, generated on the ocean surface by the powerful forces of the storm.
Because shipping tends to try to avoid hurricanes, many large waves are unseen by humans, let alone measured.
Scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have a different way of calculating wave heights, using buoys at sea.
Hendrik Tolman, an ocean wave expert at the NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, said a wave such as the giant one measured during Ivan is within expected limits.
Ocean researchers generally focus on "significant wave height," which is the average of the highest one-third of waves, he said. Within that average, there can be a much larger waves.
The highest significant wave height in Ivan was 52 feet as calculated by the NOAA buoys and 58 feet as calculated by Wang's group.
In a short-lived storm such as Ivan, a maximum wave of twice the significant height can occur, said Tolman, who was not part of Wang's research group.
Wang, however, said Ivan's towering wave exceeds those measured in other infamous storms.
"In 1969, Hurricane Camille produced a 44-foot wave by an oil rig near the storm's center," he said. "Only two other buoy reports exceed the 52-foot mark set by Ivan, both of which occurred in the North Pacific where winter storms are larger than hurricanes," Wang said.
With forecasters expecting continued high hurricane activity in the next few years, this report should be a good starting point to increase wave-height research, Wang said.
On Tuesday, meteorologists at the National Weather Service increased their storm forecast for this year. There have already been eight named storms and they said there could be as many as 11 to 14 more tropical storms, including seven to nine more hurricanes, by the end of November.
Also, on Monday, Kerry Emmanuel of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology published a report indicating that global warming is making hurricanes stronger.
Wang's research was funded by the Office of Naval Research and the Interior Department's Minerals Management
Becoming A Monk Or Nun
in Off Topic Discussions
Posted
There's the key part of that sentence :lol: