Bracing for a hard landing

This sobering article from Scientific American paints a fairly dismal picture of the future, strongly stating we have passed the point of no return on our planet.  It's unfortunate that greed and power lust has won out....if you can call that "winning."

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=apocalypse-soon-has-civilization-passed-the-environmental-point-of-no-return

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the left wing -- what's that?

Obama has carried out most of Cheney's plans, and he's even given us RomneyCare-- so, what could possibly be the reason why he is so hated by the right?  Hmmm.....put on your thinking cap and you might come up with the right answer.

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The Real Reason Why Obama Is Hated

Each person who hates Obama will have to look deeply inside him/herself to see whether Obama's bi-racial genes are a problem for them. I suspect most of them, not wanting to appear being prejudiced, will say, "Of course not."  Yet...yet....it is a question only they can answer honestly to themselves.  There are many in the southern and midwestern states who make no bones about why they hate Obama -- and why they hate homosexuals -- and why they hate anyone of a different color, or a different religion.  These people often refer to themselves as "good Christians." Romney is playing to these people for their votes, walking a line of hatred and bigotry.  There is no doubt he will get their votes.  Though they don't really like Romney or his religion, they would rather have a Mormon in the White House than a black man, even one who is half-white.  These are the people who send out e-mails ridiculing Obama and his wife in dark racist overtones.  It's obvious that their hatred is fueled by fear.  They hate his color, they believe he is a Muslim, they believe he was not born in the U.S. -- oh, the things they believe would fill a book -- and none of their beliefs are true.  But they will defend those bubble beliefs to the death if you provide them with factual truth.  Witness Donald Trump and his kamikaze adherence to the "birther" lies.  There is no way to get these people to look at the truth.  They are cemented into their own belief system. 

There will always be politicians like Romney who will use the fear of the ignorant and the prejudiced to get votes.  Fear makes people easy to control and manipulate.  We've seen it happen time and time again on this planet.  We Earth humans are not known for rapid soul growth.  Jack Lessenberry makes some good points in his column below:

WHY THEY HATE OBAMA
By Jack Lessenberry, Detroit Metro Times

Earlier this month I received a shiny red, white and blue flyer from something called the Save America Foundation, otherwise known as "Patriots in Action!" They want to save the country, which sounds like a pretty good idea to me, owning a house and all.

And they think they know just how to do it: Get rid of President Obama in November. The flyer told me that we have a problem, and that "it is a huge, monumental, fundamental crisis, because Obama, given another four years in office, will effectively destroy the fabric of everything good that set America apart from the rest of the world."

Well, it's nice to finally know why my garage door sticks. It's the fault of that black bastard "BHO," as the flyer calls him. (You'd think they'd prefer just BO.) That quote comes from a Joseph Farah, who, I am helpfully informed, is the "editor and founder of WND."

Huh? Whazzat? Weapons of No Destruction? Turns out WND is short for "WorldNetDaily," an Internet nut-right publication, and Farah is a longtime journalist and extreme evangelical Christian with a degree in communications from a small college in New Jersey.

Farah is a "birther," someone who believes the president wasn't really born in America. No, never mind that it has been proven time and time again that Baby Barack came into the world in Hawaii.

Never mind that his long-form birth certificate is now available for inspection on the Internet. Never mind that a conservative Republican governor of Hawaii has said there was no doubt he was born there. She's part of the conspiracy too. Never mind that there is no way that two poor students stuck out in the middle of the ocean could have gotten anywhere else, especially back in August 1961.

Nope; the irrational just "know" Obama had to be born elsewhere. But that's not the only reason he shouldn't be president, according to many other nuts nationwide, of whom Farah is only one of the more enterprising and eloquent spokesmen.

They also question "his Social Security card, his status as a college student, his adoption by an Indonesian, etc. etc. etc. They don't question his religion; they are all sure that he is secretly a radical Muslim, or, as one chain e-mail I have gotten over and over for years says: His mother's second husband "educated his stepson as a good Muslim by enrolling him in one of Jakarta's Wahabbi schools."

Why, he is so devious that he had Osama bin Laden killed, presumably to throw true patriotic Americans off the scent!

None of this is true. None of these things are even remotely true. Yet millions of Americans actually believe much of this. One survey this year showed a majority of voters in Mississippi, and almost that many in Alabama, think our president is a Muslim.

What's going on here?

Very simple, children, though nobody will say it out loud:

There are millions who still can't stand the thought that we have a nigger in the White House. Sorry for the shocking word.

But that's what they think. I've even heard a very few admit it openly; that's one of the advantages of being an old, white male.

That we have a black president drives them crazy, just crazy. The racists know, however, they can't say that publicly. They also know he didn't steal the election; Obama won by nearly 10 million votes in a landslide four years ago. They can't face that either.

The only way they can cope with this is to believe that there is something wrong with him. He can't be legitimate. He can't be a real president – this all has to be a horrible nightmare that must be purged from the history books, or we are all doomed.

Some of them even believe he is the Antichrist. My favorite moron in Toledo soberly assured me that the Book of Revelation predicted that the evil one would be a young, charming Muslim.

Never mind that it says no such thing, or that Islam wasn't invented till more than 500 years after Revelation was written.

What's scary is how desperate some of these people are. Joe Farah, who ironically is himself of Syrian and Lebanese descent, is a good example. In his warped brain, having Obama as president is having the same effect on us that Gollum's melting down the Ring of Power had on Sauron, just a little more slowly.

"We have no more anchor for self-government, the rule of law and governance through the will of the people," Farah said.

"The Constitution is being rendered meaningless."

Evidently, however, he doesn't think the almighty dollar is meaningless, at least not quite yet. The enterprising Mr. Farah wants us all to send him money – a cool million or so would do – to help put up billboards "to plaster this message across the country so it cannot be ignored." Send him a second million, and he vows "to produce and air hundreds of television ads about the eligibility issue."

Right. My guess is that you'd have better luck investing your money with those rich Nigerian widows who are always spamming us.

Hopefully, the government or someone will inspect or audit the WND's books. What worries me is what will happen if the American people ignore all these voices that the nuts hear in their heads.

Suppose the people sensibly conclude that President Obama is a good man who has done a pretty good job, and instead of destroying our nation, saved the auto industry instead.

Suppose we re-elect him. What will the nuts do then?

Right from the start, many of us have been scared that someone would try to kill this president. Possibly nobody has made a serious effort yet, partly because they don't want to risk making him a martyr.

That may give the wackos more intellectual credit than they deserve. Yet I worry they may become desperate. Hopefully the Secret Service, no longer partying with hookers, worries sufficiently too.

* * *

And, speaking of intolerance: The Michigan Catholic Conference, together with other Roman Catholic groups across the nation, has filed a federal lawsuit against the Obama administration on a health care issue that's not related to the Affordable Care Act.

The Catholics are upset because President Obama's Department of Health and Human Services has a rule requiring all employers who provide health care to have that coverage include contraceptives.

The Roman Catholic Church opposes any use of contraception, (even though most of their members ignore this.) They have plenty of employees, not all of them Catholic, and they say that being forced to cover the cost of birth control violates their religious freedom.

BS. The government is not saying that the church or anyone else has to use contraception, or even approve of it. What they are saying is that insurance plans have to cover the cost of birth control.

There's evidence indicating they should. Back in 1965, in a case called Griswold v. Connecticut, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in essence that contraceptives were a right that couldn't be outlawed.

Denying the right to insurance that covers birth control would be violating the principle of church and state separation. The Catholics aren't having their freedoms violated; they want to squelch the freedoms of others, something the church has attempted for centuries.

Let's hope the courts quickly dismiss this case.

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Mississippi Kills Roe v. Wade -- Just listen to Bubba

I predict that this Bubba will have to be born in a female body next time around -- and will be married off to a Bubba just like the one he is now, who will keep her oft-pregnant and oft-beaten in the kitchen.  How else could a hard-hearted ignoramus learn what it is like to walk in someone else's shoes but by his (her) own experience?

A BUBBA FOR ALL SEASONS
By Laura Harrison McBride

First, the man goes by the name Bubba. One might stop there. But one would miss the chance to expose the essential misogyny in what passes for public servants in Mississippi. And to expose and decry yet another Republican juggernaut against slightly more than 50 percent of humanity.

Second, one would miss the chance to expose elitism at its most naked, cruel and despicable. Bubba's elitism was in full view when he gave his assessment of a recent Mississippi anti-abortion law that effectively disenfranchises lower income women from pregnancy termination. Describing those who rallied against the law, Bubba said of his opponents, "They're like, 'Well, the poor pitiful women that can't afford to go out of state are just going to start doing them at home with a coat hanger'."

Bubba, by the way, is Republican state Rep. Bubba Carpenter.

And in truth, of course, Bubba has no pity for those women, or ostensibly for any women. I would pity his poor wife, but pity is wasted on such as they. She chose him; she'll have to stew in those juices. Unfortunately, so will the women of Mississippi.

EMT: Short for empty?
It might be actually a good thing that this particular ethics-free human shifted from his original profession, EMT (Emergency Medical Technician) to politics. Who would want to be 'saved' by an EMT (a synonym for paramedic, although there may be slightly different standards for certification between the two) who didn't realize it would be all but physically impossible for a woman to perform a pregnancy termination on herself with a coat hanger? Only the most limber--circus acrobats and such--might achieve such a thing. Otherwise, of course, the coat hanger procedures will need to be accomplished by others. Who would the others be? Not doctors; no mentally sound doctor would skirt the law and risk his or her license in violation of state law, with or without coat hanger, or even curette. So the coat hanger abortions would need to be done by a helpful friend willing to take another woman's life in her hands without benefit of education, and risk herself--her mentality and even her freedom--if things do not go well.

Bubba must have been a heck of an EMT.

De facto closure
To be fair, Bubba's pet bill doesn't close the only abortion clinic in Mississippi; it simply gives it until July 1 to ensure that its physicians are both board-certified in obstetrics and gynecology and have privileges at the local hospital. It is inconceivable that Bubba and Co. are not aware of the time frames involved in board certification, not to mention expense.

Still, at first glance, this sounds not too bad in its intent. One would like competent physicians, after all. But here's the crux of it: While a woman wielding a coat hanger inside another woman's womb is a bad idea, a qualified physician can certainly manage an early term termination without undue difficulty. (Early term terminations are all that's available in Mississippi, anyway.)

Unlike EMT Bubba, any person graduating from a US medical college would have a pretty good idea where the parts of a woman's body were, and how they worked. Requiring the standards Bubba endorses is about similar to requiring junior high school algebra teachers to have presented papers providing the definitive answer to Brocard's problem, a number theory dilemma identified in 1876 and still lacking resolution, despite the fact that countless graduate students in mathematics will surely have attempted it; think genius Prof. Charlie Eppes on the TV show Numbers. Nope, you don't need that to teach algebra to pre-teens, anymore than you need double board-certified physicians to do what is not much more, early term, than a menstrual extraction done with instruments rather than suction.

A what?

How to wave off the stork, pre-Roe v. Wade style
Menstrual extraction , which simply removes the uterine lining about to slough off anyway in a menstruating woman via a suction syringe, was all the rage in the Northeast for a while. I knew a few people who engaged in it, especially those with horrendously long and/or painful menses. This was after Roe v. Wade, so it wasn't nominally needed any longer, especially in liberal Connecticut where I lived at the time, for pregnancy termination, a mission it can also accomplish in early days. Still, there were probably a lot of "oops" dealt with before anyone knew the stork was circling.

It is doubtful Bubba or that gormless shill who governs the most ignorant state in the union (by several measures) know about menstrual extraction. It is quite safe and can be accomplished by a woman and a friend with very blunt equipment. Apparently, it is so safe, it isn't even regarded as practicing medicine without a license for one woman to help another in this way. One of the founders of the ME movement was found not guilty of practicing medicine without a license many years ago when she inserted yogurt into the vagina of another woman to cure yeast.

That procedure can be done by one's self, as it does not go past the vagina which is easily accessible, and it does cure yeast. But Big Pharma doesn't get to sell all those nasty chemicals, which is probably the real reason the ME founder was hauled into court. Apparently, and thankfully, the court finding served to protect the self-help groups from further useless legal incursions. After all, what they are doing, since no surgery is involved, is little more than cleaning a minor wound, something no one would be taken to court for in most jurisdictions...except perhaps in fascist states like Mississippi, Arizona, or any state beholden to Big Pharma and, in this case to a lesser degree perhaps, to the AMA. (Note: It is rare that I give quarter to the AMA at any time, but in this case, they are almost as much under siege by imbeciles as are women.)

The women's self-help groups, then, would continue to offer the same glimmer of hope they offered before Roe v. Wade. I suspect there are not many such groups in Mississippi, though. The women's self-help information train probably refused to cross the mighty Mississippi for fear of being derailed by beefy Bubba and his Marauding Mississippians.

Perhaps it will trundle westward, though, now that the Bubba contingent has effectively killed Roe v. Wade in Mississippi, and returned women to the untender mercies of a male-dominated parliament of fools.

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War on Terror Manipulations: Two Powerful Documentaries and My Own Experience as a Presidential Interpreter

INTERESTING INFORMATION -- WELL WORTH FOLLOWING UP ON by viewing the documentaries.

Subject: War on Terror Manipulations: Two Powerful Documentaries and My Own Experience as a Presidential Interpreter  by Fred Burks

This message is available online at http://www.WantToKnow.info/powerofnightmares

WantToKnow.info: Reliable, verifiable information on major cover-ups,
and a call to work together for the good of all

Two excellent documentaries, BBC's Power of Nightmares and Robert Greenwald's Unconstitutional, expose blatant manipulations in the war on terror. Power of Nightmares and Unconstitutional are among the best documentaries ever made using highly reliable sources to expose major government manipulations orchestrating war behind the scenes. Both are briefly described below with links given for free viewing online.

As further evidence, my own revealing experiences witnessing these manipulations firsthand while working as a language interpreter in secret meetings with Presidents G.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and other top officials are described. For verification purposes, links to major media articles on my whistleblowing testimony are provided. Empowering suggestions are also given on what you can do to help build a brighter future for us all.

The Power of Nightmares

The revealing BBC documentary The Power of Nightmares digs deep into the roots of the war on terror, only to find that much of the widespread fear in the post-9/11 world has been fabricated by those in power for their own interests. The intrepid BBC team presents highly revealing interviews with top officials and experts in combating terrorism who raise serious questions about who is behind all of the fear-mongering. These experts and riveting footage also show how the media have been manipulated to support secret war and power agendas.

This eye-opening documentary shows that, especially after 9/11, fear has been used widely in the media to manipulate the public into giving up civil liberties and turning over power to elite groups with their own hidden agendas. The Power of Nightmares clearly demonstrates that the nightmare vision of a powerful, united terrorist organization waiting to strike our societies is largely an illusion. Wherever the BBC team looked for al-Qaeda, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the sleeper cells in America, they found that we are chasing a phantom enemy. For all citizens who care about the future of our world, this is a must-watch video.

View All Three Parts of the BBC Documentary Power of Nightmares

Each episode is one hour. Part 3 is the most revealing. A 22-minute summary is also available.

For 22 minutes of the best excerpts from this three-hour documentary, click here.

For a high quality version of the most revealing third part of Power of Nightmares, click here.

Click here to watch all three parts and read reviews of Power of Nightmares on archive.org.

For an excellent review of Power of Nightmares in the Los Angeles Times, click here.

For a full written transcript of each part of Power of Nightmares: Part 1  Part 2  Part 3

For transcripts, audio and video downloads, and other excellent information on the series, click here.

To order all three parts of Power of Nightmares on one DVD, click here.

Another excellent, revealing BBC/Adam Curtis documentary, Century of the Self, delves into the history of mass propaganda and its power to shape public perception. Click here to purchase. Click here to watch it free.

Unconstitutional by Robert Greenwald

A second eye-opening documentary available online for free viewing is Unconstitutional. In this most excellent work, interviews with ranking members of Congress, top legal experts, and even a former CIA chief describe many insidious efforts to take away freedoms guaranteed under the constitution for over 200 years.

Compelling video footage shows U.S. citizens, from law-abiding store clerks to a U.S. Olympian, who have been the victims of unconstitutional policies established under the Patriot Act. Members of Congress describe the replacement of the previously agreed upon Patriot Act by another version quietly slipped into its place just hours before the final vote in Congress, leaving no one time to read the many devastating changes inserted at the last minute.

Call your friends together to watch this engaging film, and to join in the growing movement to uphold democracy and the U.S. Constitution.

Unconstitutional: Purchase or view free at http://www.WantToKnow.info/unconstitutionalcivillibertiesloss

Personal Experience of Presidential Interpreter Fred Burks

In my own experience as a language interpreter for U.S. and foreign presidents, I personally witnessed some of the manipulations mentioned in the Power of Nightmares and Unconstitutional. After resigning in late 2004 from my work as an Indonesian interpreter with the U.S. Department of State for over 18 years, in January 2005 I testified to this in the widely publicized trial of Indonesian Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir.

Among other things, Ba'asyir was accused by U.S. authorities of being the mastermind behind JI (Jemaah Islamiah), which is alleged to be a sister organization of Al Qaeda. Many Indonesians were quite skeptical of these allegations. Like me and the Power of Nightmares documentary, they questioned whether JI was largely fabricated by powerful elite groups with hidden agendas.

At Ba'asyir's trial, I testified about a September 2002 secret meeting at which I interpreted for a top secret meeting between the president of Indonesia, Megawati Soekarnoputri, and three American representatives: US Ambassador to Indonesia Ralph Boyce, National Security Council representative Karen Brooks, and a special assistant sent personally by President Bush (who revealed privately to me that she was a CIA agent).

At a key moment in this unusual meeting, the "special assistant" put heavy pressure on President Megawati to render (secretly capture and turn over) Ba'asyir to the United States. Even under intense pressure, Megawati politely declined, much to the surprise of the Americans. Yet publicly, U.S. officials have repeatedly denied putting pressure on Indonesia regarding Ba'asyir. To read my full account of this intriguing meeting, click here.

To read articles about my court testimony in the Wall Street Journal and BBC, and to read the surprising results of this testimony and other fascinating experiences from my interpreting work:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/4170629.stm - BBC article on my court testimony

http://www.WantToKnow.info/050226fredburkswsj - Wall Street Journal on my testimony and lots more

http://www.WantToKnow.info/050418fredburksinterpretingstories - Stories from my experiences interpreting

http://www.WantToKnow.info/fredburksresigns - My resignation from State Dept. due to excessive secrecy

http://www.WantToKnow.info/050129fredburkscelebrity - Miracles resulting from this testimony

Over a year before this secret meeting, a trusted friend gave me some powerful, disturbing information which opened my eyes to large-scale manipulations around the intriguing issue of UFOs and extraterrestrial intelligence, matters of which I had previously been completely unaware. This information involved the public testimony of over 20 senior government and military witnesses whose credentials could not be questioned.

The astounding information revealed in their testimony clearly did not benefit these witnesses personally. In fact, it threatened their careers. Yet though these brave individuals testified in public with large numbers of major media reporters present, mainstream news sources in the U.S. gave little significant coverage to this major occurrence. The media was clearly complicit in downplaying this disturbing information.

Since my eyes were opened in 2001 to a major cover-up of the UFO issue and much, much more, I have dedicated myself to uncovering all that is going on behind the scenes. I discovered and became deeply involved with an informal international network of researchers who are committed to researching numerous major cover-ups of which very few are aware, and to spreading the word, so that we might all work together to return to a full, open democracy which supports all people in our good world.

In early 2003, I established the website WantToKnow.info in order to make the results of this research available to the public. On this website, you will find concise summaries of reliable facts and information on a number of major cover-ups. Almost all information is verifiable using the links provided to reliable sources.

To understand why all of this vitally important information isn't getting extensive media coverage, I invite you to spend some time exploring the powerful, reliable information available at www.WantToKnow.info. Take a look at our "Best Information" page, and our carefully compiled information centers and news article summaries listed in the left column of each webpage. To learn more about the dedicated international team of researchers involved with WantToKnow.info, click here.

For empowering suggestions on what we can do about all this, see the list below. And for a penetrating and inspiring essay on all that is happening behind the scenes and how we can build a brighter future together, click here. If you are not already a subscriber, consider also subscribing to our WantToKnow.info email list of reliable cover-up information (one email every few days – subscribe here).

Thanks for caring. Please help to spread this vitally important news by sharing this message with your friends and colleagues. You can easily do this by clicking on the "Share" icon at the top or bottom of this or any page on WantToKnow.info, or by copying and pasting the page to your email. I have no doubt that together, we can and will strengthen democracy and build a brighter future for us all.

With gratitude and very best wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info Team
Former language interpreter for Presidents Bush and Clinton

 

What you can do:

• Inform your media and political representatives of this important information and ask them to work for greater transparency in government. To contact those close to you, click here.


• Explore the abundant resources of our highly informative War Information Center at this link.


• Read summaries of reliable major media articles on war deceptions available here.


• To read the astounding two-page summary of a top U.S. general describing how he realized he was deceived and manipulated into supporting war, click here.


• For a powerful online lesson on war, manipulation of public perception, and what we can do to transform our world using the power of the Internet, see this free Insight Course lesson.


• Spread this news to your friends and colleagues, and bookmark this article on key news websites using the "Share This" icon on this page, so that we can fill the role at which the major media is sadly failing. Together, we can make a difference.

 

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Preaching pastors in the south

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/21/north-carolina-pastor-gay-rant-starvation_n_1533463.html?ref=mostpopular

The ignorance that prevails on this planet is astounding.  Hatred, judgment and bigotry posing as "Christian" teachings are being taught in the churches.  And just look at the self-righteousness of the men spewing out their rabid speeches from the pulpit in the videos.  Are these the kind of people with whom you would even want to mingle, much less follow?  This is representative of Tea Party ideology.  Sadly, this is where the Republican party has come in our lifetime.  And, even sadder: millions staunchly support this ideology and line up at the polls to vote for it. 

In my childhood, the Democrats were the party of hatred and bigotry, especially in the South.  That all changed when Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964 (perhaps the only good thing that man ever did in his life).  Gradually, the Democrats began to accept civil rights for all human beings.  In opposition, the Republicans began to spurn civil rights for "defective" people like homosexuals and blacks -- and, to this day, they remain in that camp. Most of them would never think of themselves as prejudiced -- but the kinds of e-mails they send speak to their real beliefs. 

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Easter Island heads have bodies

Easter Island archaeology project digs up island's secrets

Published May 16, 2012

• 

  The first methodical investigation of the statues at Rapa Nui, which many think of as simple heads, reveals the complete figures buried over centuries by natural forces. (Easter Island Statue Project / Jo Anne Van Tilburg)

New photographs reveal what lies beneath the surface of Easter Island, one of the most remote places in the world -- the carved bodies of the island's 887 famous guardians.

Most people think of the 63-square-mile Pacific island’s silent stone sentinels as simple heads. But the heads all have bodies -- and a backstory that's only now being pieced together, explained Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project.

“Those statues which are the most photographed are standing in the quarry. They’re buried up to mid-torso level. So it’s understandable that the general public didn’t have a clue that those statues had bodies,” she told FoxNews.com.

Current belief is that the statues were carved between A.D.1100 up until the 1800s, when an influx of Westerners transformed the culture. Van Tilburg, a fellow with The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, has only been coming to Easter Island (called Rapa Nui) to do research for twenty years, since 1992. But she first came more than thirty years ago -- and stayed for one clear reason.

'It’s understandable that the general public didn’t have a clue that those statues had bodies.'

- Jo Anne Van Tilburg, director of the Easter Island Statue Project

“I fell in love with the statues,” she said simply.

“I came to Easter Island in 1981. I was impressed with the number of statues and that they seemed accessible to me, they were on the surface. I wanted to know what was below the surface.”

First Van Tilburg documented the island’s statues and those that have been removed to museums; there are 887 inventoried, though she says the number is closer to 1,000. Then she began the next phase of work to reveal what lay beneath the ground -- covered up not intentionally by men, but through centuries of exposure to the environment.

That process has taken 12 years so far, and may take a lifetime of work.

“It’s the first time that one has been excavated in such a way that the documentation was complete and scientific,” she told FoxNews.com. Other groups have dug in the past, and looters have found their way to the remote island as well.

“People have been treasure hunting there for a long time.”

Van Tilburg is conducting a far more thorough examination, however, working in collaboration with a staff of three in California and ten Rapa Nui natives who are doing all of the excavation work. She is currently gearing up for the sixth scheduled dig on the island, which should run from October through November 2012.

Work so far has revealed evidence of ceremonies and very large quantities of paint; the archaeologists believe the workers painted the statues as well as their own bodies.

She found evidence of human burials nearby as well.

And recent digs have revealed just how the massive heads were carved -- some of which tower more than 30 feet in height, from base to top, and weigh more than 80 tons.

“We found over 500 stone tools. The statues were carved with different types, big heavy picks and finer basalt and obsidian tools to finish details,” she explained. Other tools were used to rub surfaces and burnish the statues. Van Tilburg found evidence of post holes as well, big enough for a tree trunk, and rope guides carved in some statues to elevate them into standing position.

But the intent of the giant sculptures, their reason for being, is still not totally clear.

“Think of China where they buried an army of standing warriors. That group was intended to be together as part of a burial feature. Here, on Easter Island, each statue is individually constructed by groups.”

A signed stone recently discovered beneath one of the heads held a petroglyph of a Polynesian style canoe, and a clue: It was meant to signify identity, Van Tilburg said.

“It was meant to identify that statue either to a family group of people or a subgroup, either carvers or the family unit the carvers came from, or beyond that, to the chief,” she told FoxNews.com. The giant sculptures were most likely relatives and not guardians, in other words.

Later sculptures were far more realistic and individualistic, she noted, which also reveals something about the changing culture, as native peoples moved from highly controlled fiefdoms to a society allowing for more individual expression.

“It’s always important to get beneath the surface of things,” she said.

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Fewer white babies being born

http://inamerica.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/17/census-2011-data-confirm-trend-of-population-diversity/?hpt=hp_bn13

The direction we are headed:  Within another generation or so, most people being born will be a beautiful coffee color.  Eventually racism will become a thing of the distant past, with our descendants wondering why there was such a big deal made about skin color (and sexual orientation) way back in the "old days."  The Tea Party's ideology will be studied in history classes as the model of ignorance and bigotry, and everyone will be stunned that people could ever have thought that way.  Most of today's old white men's beliefs will have died out with the old white men, making way for a more open-minded society that welcomes new ideas, instead of automatically opposing them (like today's "we don't want no new things around here" Republicans).

All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
—Arthur Schopenhauer, German philosopher (1788 – 1860)

'First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.'
--Mahatma Gandhi

There is a principle which is proof against all information, which is proof against all arguments, which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance; that principle is contempt, prior to investigation. --Herbert Spencer

New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason but because they are not already common.
--John Locke, 1690, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

 

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EASY TICK REMOVAL -- IMPORTANT MESSAGE

Definitely worth a try!

 

TICK REMOVAL IMPORTANT MESSAGE A nurse discovered a safe, easy way to remove ticks where they automatically withdraw themselves when you follow her simple instructions.  Read this one as it could save you from some major problems.   Tick Removal:  Spring is here and the ticks will soon be showing their heads.  Here is a good way to get them off you, your children or your pets.  Give it a try.   A School Nurse has written the info below--good enough to share--and it really works!   "I had a pediatrician tell me what she believes is the best way to remove a tick.  This is great because it works in those places where it's sometimes difficult to get to with tweezers:  between toes, in the middle of a head full of dark hair, etc.   "Apply a glob of liquid soap to a cotton ball.  Cover the tick with the soap-soaked cotton ball and swab it for a few seconds (15-20); the tick will come out on its own and be stuck to the cotton ball when you lift it away.  This technique has worked every time I've used it (and that was frequently), and it's much less traumatic for the patient and easier for me.   "Unless someone is allergic to soap, I can't see that this would be damaging in any way.  I even had my doctor's wife call me for advice because she had one stuck to her back and she couldn't reach it with tweezers. She used this method and immediately called me back to say, "It worked!"   Please pass on. Everyone needs this helpful hint.

 

--
Tom

 

 

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