Today, the famous pyramids of Giza are known as sand-colored monuments that seem to blend into the surrounding desert, but they were originally built to stand out in spectacular fashion. When the pyramids were first erected about 4,500 years ago to mark the tombs of Egyptian pharaohs, they were covered with a polished white limestone that would have sparkled in the sun and made the already-imposing structures even more dazzling.
According to ancient papyrus scrolls written by people who actually participated in the construction of the pyramids, workers transported boats filled with limestone up the Nile River to the building site in Giza. The limestone casing stones were thoroughly polished in order to increase their luster, and each one weighed upwards of 15 tons. The fact that these massive polished stones were used to encase the entirety of each pyramid, fitted together perfectly to create a nearly seamless white exterior, is a testament to the engineering genius of the ancient Egyptians. Over the centuries, most of the limestone exterior of the pyramids has been destroyed, worn away, or stripped for use in other construction projects, but faint remnants of weathered white limestone can be seen toward the top of Giza’s Pyramid of Khafre — the last remaining architectural evidence of what pyramids looked like in the days of the pharaohs.
If you know one thing about Daniel Boone, it’s probably that he wore a raccoon-skin fur cap. But alas, it turns out you might know zero things about the legendary frontiersman, as Boone never wore such a head covering at all. “My father, Daniel Boone, always despised the raccoon fur caps and did not wear one himself,” his son Nathan Boone said in an 1851 interview with historian Lyman Draper. The elder Boone instead preferred a wide-brimmed, Quaker-style hat made of felt or beaver fur, which would have offered better protection from the elements and shielded his eyes from the sun during his many long hunting trips.
We may have an actor named Noah Ludlow (1795–1886) to thank for the myth of Boone’s raccoon-skin cap. He was hired to make frames for prints of a portrait of Boone first painted by artist Chester Harding in 1820. Later, he played a character in a performance called “The Hunters of Kentucky” and drew inspiration from Boone to create his look, which included the cap we now associate with the storied frontiersman. The performances were a hit, which was good for Ludlow, but not so much for historical accuracy.
That dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago is pretty common knowledge. Not as well known, but just as fascinating, is the fact that Earth was on the other side of the galaxy when most of them were alive. It takes the sun (and thus the rest of the solar system) around 250 million years to orbit the center of the Milky Way. The first dinosaurs appeared at the dawn of the Triassic Period around 250 million years ago, and for most of their very long reign — namely the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods — our humble planet was in a completely different neighborhood of the galaxy. That means, of course, that the stars the dinosaurs saw in the sky would have looked different from the view we have today.
Though not new information, this knowledge made something of a splash a few years ago when NASA astronomer Dr. Jessie Christiansen created an animation showing which part of the Milky Way our prehistoric predecessors resided in. Perhaps the most intriguing part of the video is its ending, which asks what our planet might be like the next time we complete a trip through the Milky Way. Fortunately, our solar system stays far, far away from the inhospitable galactic center (and its supermassive black hole) as it moves through space. If it didn’t, there’d be no life on Earth whatsoever — human, dinosaur, or otherwise.
It is sad that entire departments would walk out but I suppose that even the Police can feel that they are being mistreated. When we look at the recent history in some departments we see that a very cavalier attitude has been adopted and that instead of serving the community the feeling is “them or Us”. Is this what has brought about the issues in Seattle?
Have there been a few too many cases of excess force or shoot first and think of a way to justify it afterwards? Police officers that believe like Donald Trump that they are above the law need to be replaced. If immigrant candidates are who apply and they qualify then why not put them on the street. They probably harbor far fewer preconceived ideas of who to contact than the ones leaving. The other issue is that this is a nation of immigrants some have just been here a while longer.
The people that were born elsewhere and have come here have either been welcomed because they were needed or vilified because someone felt they were here to steal jobs, or they were criminals, or different. Look at history and you will find this true of the Irish that came here during the potato famine, the Chinese that came to build the railroads, the Mexicans that have come to harvest fruit. There is always someone to make an issue of why they are here and tell you they have come because they are ________ pick your term.
All kinds of things have been attributed to them and all sorts of things have been done to them because they came. They have been killed, had their children taken from them, put in jail for no reason, and that is just three of the punishments they have been given because they came here.
These issues are but a couple of our on going turmoil of what is or isn’t good for us. Now we have religion back in public schools, at least in one state, soon to be followed by others. The issue of drafting for the military and drafting women is again being debated.
Examine that one for a minute and then try to make a case for drafting women. Laws have been struck down regarding the right to choose to have a baby or not. Women’s health, their right to vote, place in society all have been put back on the table as pawns in a chess game. Now comes the idea to draft women and do we make them equal or are the intentions to have them in the ranks as maids or as I heard one guy say, “Every platoon needs a whore”. Get real if the current propaganda preaches that the highest destiny a woman can attain is to die to give birth if you are a woman would you want to be drafted?
Other nations have a policy of drafting women and for good or bad they are treated as equal to the men they serve with. Note to legislators, the needs of the nation and the Constitutional operation of this nation are not found while your sitting in church reading the bible or while your head is up your backsides looking for your glasses. Women currently serve in the military and have done so for many years so if we need to reinstitute the draft then it makes sense to draft women as well.
Here is the kicker, if you cannot offer equal treatment in all matters then we have a problem that seems to be most notable in a certain segment of the population and that segment is older, wealthy white men that sit in seats of power. It would seem the time has come to look for intelligent, compassionate and forward thinking younger people to fill those seats of power. We need legislators that are not corrupt by bias, ego or excessive wealth. Checks need to be put back into the system to ensure that issues are resolved for the common good not a for profit reason.
The lost city of Atlantis has been a source of intrigue and curiosity for centuries. The enigmatic sunken island, however, is not a vanished land awaiting discovery so much as an enduring myth.
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The story of Atlantis first appeared in Plato’s dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias,” written around 360 BCE. The Greek philosopher described Atlantis as a sophisticated civilization that became corrupt under its own might, angering the gods and causing the city to disappear underwater. Despite the legend’s intrigue, no historical or archaeological evidence has ever confirmed the existence of Atlantis. Instead, it is widely regarded as a fictional allegory used by Plato to explore themes such as power, virtue, and society.
According to Plato’s myth, Atlantis was an island of demigods located beyond the Pillars of Hercules (in the modern-day Strait of Gibraltar), which in Greek mythology represent the boundary of the known world. The half-god, half-man Atlanteans let their greed surpass their ethics, and as they pushed to conquer more territory, the gods sent catastrophic earthquakes and floods that sank Atlantis into the ocean within about a day. While Plato’s account is widely considered a philosophical allegory for his ideas about the ideal state and moral decay, some have taken the story literally, sparking centuries of speculation and searches for the so-called lost civilization.
So why is Plato’s fable often taken as historical fact? The belief that Atlantis really existed is widely attributed to 19th-century American writer and congressman Ignatius L. Donnelly (who also went on to write a book aiming to prove that English philosopher Francis Bacon was the true author of William Shakespeare’s plays). In his 1882 book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, Donnelly argued that the mythical island described by Plato was not only real but also the cradle of all ancient civilization. Donnelly’s idea captured the imagination of the public, and while it has since been debunked as pseudoscientific, it inspired additional research and theories over the years.
One such theory links Atlantis to the disappearance of the architecturally and artistically advanced Minoan civilization that lived on the Greek islands of Crete and Thera (modern Santorini) around 3000 BCE to 1100 BCE. A catastrophic earthquake resulting in a volcanic eruption and subsequent tsunamis most likely contributed to the end of the Minoans, and, some think, align with Plato’s account of a sudden disappearance of a thriving civilization.
Proponents of the Atlantis myth also point to an underwater discovery known as Bimini Road as evidence of the ancient city. Discovered in 1968 off the coast of North Bimini, an island in the Bahamas, the submerged rock formation consists of a series of rectangular limestone blocks whose symmetry and layout appear to be human-made. Despite the attention the diving discovery received at the time, carbon dating concluded that the Bimini stones were a natural geological occurrence created by erosion.
Woolly mammoths seem old-school. Hunted by Neanderthals for tens of thousands of years, these elephantlike mammals, some with tusks up to 15 feet long, evolved hair and layers of fat to withstand the frigid temperatures of the ice age tundra as they roamed the northern reaches of Asia, Europe, and North America. Although they’re no longer among us, their bones — and in some cases mummified remains — fill natural history museums around the world. But these ancient beasts aren’t as ancient as you might think. In fact, it’s estimated that the last woolly mammoth died around 1700 BCE — some 800 years after ancient Egyptians built the Great Pyramid of Giza.
As the Earth began transitioning out of the last ice age some 12,000 years ago, a warming world altered the woolly mammoth’s ecosystem. Melting glaciers created a wetter planet that destroyed the vegetation mammoths relied on for food, and this dramatic shift — along with continued human predation — led to complete extinction of the creatures in most areas around 8000 BCE. However, small pockets survived on some islands that benefited from both cold-weather vegetation and protection from human hunters.
Some of the last known mammoths lived in isolation on Wrangel Island, a Russian possession in the Arctic Ocean just northwest of Alaska, and they didn’t have an easy go of it. Scientists who compared a 4,300-year-old mammoth bone from Wrangel Island to mammoth specimens 10 times older and from the Siberian mainland found that these final woolly mammoths experienced what scientists call a “genetic meltdown” due to the limited gene pool on the island, with mutations that likely made it harder to mark territory and choose mates. As for the ancient Egyptians, they kept chugging along until the death of Cleopatra, in 30 BCE. With its transformation into a Roman province, the 3,000-year-old dynasty also went the way of the woolly mammoth.
This nation has been the witness to school violence with the first big incident being the Columbine High School in Colorado. We have had numerous incidents since then and today it has become almost a common event. Why do we need this kind of tragedy? There may be several factors involved. One is the push to provide guns in every home, almost in every hand and that would serve the NRA very well as that organization pushes gun ownership. Not everyone wants a gun but at some point when all your neighbors are armed do you what to be the one without? The pitch that we must be ready to protect ourselves from, pick an enemy, Russia, North Korea, China, invasion of aliens, the take over of our government by the opposing political party, whatever. Stock up on survival goods and guns cause you are going to need them. Even the most level headed people can get tangled up in this web. Violence is the answer, at all levels. Shoot first and ask afterwards. The roaring twenties had gangs roaming around robbing banks, killing rivals and just generally shooting up everything. These gangs were involved in illegal booze and prostitution and other crimes, but they were fighting one another and trying to stay away from federal agents. Today the agencies that are doing the most damage to secure power are members of or followers of a politician that once held the highest office in the nation, and hopes to again. He advocates violence as a means to regain that position and also promosies to use violence on those that oppose him. Apparently this is fine with many people because he has support from some very wealthy people, who I assume hope he does not intend to harm if he wins. He also is not being called out by most of the nation’s news agencies, but that may be because those agencies are controlled by his donors. It is telling that this level of violence and advocacy of violence is viewed as acceptable by teens and if the grown ups (?) can do it? Why should I do it differently? Violence covers our news with wars in multiple places. Movies depicting violence so they sell at the box office, even cartoons that depict fighting as the method to resolve differences. Then we turn on the nightly bull shit about the political crap and hear about threats of death being sent to members of juries that convicted and the beat goes on. Teachers are leaving the classroom and lack of teachers is causing school districts to close schools. Without education we fall further behind in everything. Do we need to have a dictator that rules with an iron fist? Now we need to get back to civility and solving problems with the use of common sense. We need to take back our dignity and decency and rid ourselves of things that are destroying our society and way of life
The advocacy for bad attitude and violent reaction to issues has been promoted by the lack of honesty from all our political representatives. This has been an issue since they managed to take “We The People” out of the loop that determines their wages and benefits.
That occurred in the 1960’s and since then we have seen more and more corruption and bribery at all levels of government. At present we have some super rich people that are doing everything they can to improve their lot by buying political representatives. They are destroying the middle class of the nation and thinking they are improving their position.
The realization will someday set in that without someone to buy the products they are making that the money tree will no longer be producing money. When the system has only two classes, the very rich and the very poor, no one wins. History has shown that when the imbalance gets to the critical stage the overthrowing of power usually follows.
Are we at that stake? Very possibly only the need to realign our system will not be done by someone with only self serving greed as their driving motivation. Regardless of the hope about making the country great again, the intention is to see how much more can be stolen before our life ends.
The attempt to cheat the state of New York out of millions in revenue, the lying to cover actions that are viewed as immoral and all that was what got 34 guilty verdicts brought. Has it changed anything in the play book? Not a chance, the suckers supported through that and will continue to as long as the spin makes it seem like victim hood is our lot.
If the nation puts him back in power we will become the victims of even greater cuts than we have seen so far. All social support systems will be scrapped. Everything that can be exploited to discover mineral wealth will be exploited. For the few years he has left no major shift will be catastrophic but the policies that will be put in place will ultimately send this nation down the toilet. The only saving grace of that is that the rich will not survive either, without someone to support you and your lifestyle then all will come to an end.
Our representatives and government officials need to have a code of ethics that does not allow for the crap we see today. This is of course, looking for the best from our fellow men and that is nothing more than a hope. The best has not been shown from any venue be it political or religious as power and greed seem to be the weakness that all succumb to eventually.
I ask the question because Dear Leader has proposed eliminating the income tax and instituting a base line 10% tariff on all imported products. This is essentially a regressive tax on middle and lower income people. I get the thought of no income tax sounds good but much to the dismay of the public a tariff is not a liability to importers because the corporations only pass the import tariff on to consumers. So let’s say your state has a sales tax of 7% and inflation is 3% that in itself is 10% to everything you buy now let’s add another 10% to that because as we know must of the things we buy are imported.
How tariffs are supposed to work is by causing an increase on the price of an imported product to encourage the purchase of non imported products leveling the playing field so to speak. The best way to impose tariffs is through federal legislation not by executive order because no company or industry will ramp up production of a product to compete with a tariffed import if that tariff only last 3-4 years. The mistake effective tariff lasts 10 years or more and also subsidizes the U.S. market of the tariffed product. Solar Panels is a prime example… tariff Chinese solar panels @100% but in turn subsidized American solar industry to ramp up production here so that in 10 years the American made panels are abundant more technology advanced and less expensive than the imported panels.
Tariffs are supposed to be designed to support local industry, not hurt local consumers.
Esoteric Meandering Shouting Into the Void 
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