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Thursday, March 1, 2012
IAEA sees signs of "activities" at Iran site: diplomats (Reuters)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]Reuters - The U.N. nuclear watchdog believes unspecified "activities" may be taking place at an Iranian military site which make its request to visit the Parchin facility more urgent, Western diplomats said on Wednesday.
Report: UCLA players undermined discipline, morale (AP)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]AP - Players and staff members from the past four UCLA basketball teams say that coach Ben Howland allowed an influx of talented but immature recruits to undermine team discipline and morale as the once-proud program has struggled to live up to its storied history, Sports Illustrated reported Wednesday.
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Dinosaurs had fleas too _ giant ones, fossils show
This undated handout photo provided by Nature shows a female, left, and male, right, fleas from the Middle Jurassic. In the Jurassic era, even the measly flea was a beast. It was a super-sized bloodsucker that feasted on dinosaurs with a saw-lie siphon. (AP Photo/D. Huang, Nature)
This undated handout photo provided by Nature shows a female, left, and male, right, fleas from the Middle Jurassic. In the Jurassic era, even the measly flea was a beast. It was a super-sized bloodsucker that feasted on dinosaurs with a saw-lie siphon. (AP Photo/D. Huang, Nature)
This undated handout photo provided by Nature shows the male flea from the Early Cretaceous. In the Jurassic era, even the measly flea was a beast. It was a super-sized bloodsucker that feasted on dinosaurs with a saw-lie siphon. (AP Photo/D. Huang, Nature)
WASHINGTON (AP) ? In the Jurassic era, even the flea was a beast, compared to its minuscule modern descendants. These pesky bloodsuckers were nearly an inch long.
New fossils found in China are evidence of the oldest fleas ? from 125 million to 165 million years ago, said Diying Huang of the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology. Their disproportionately long proboscis, or straw-like mouth, had sharp weapon-like serrated edges that helped them bite and feed from their super-sized hosts, he and other researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Scientists figure about eight or more of today's fleas would fit on the burly back of their ancient ancestor.
"That's a beast," said study co-author Michael Engel, entomology curator at the Natural History Museum at the University of Kansas. "It was a big critter. I can't even imagine coming home and finding my miniature schnauzer with one or more of these things crawling around on it."
The ancient female fleas were close to twice the size of the males, researchers found, which fits with modern fleas.
But Engel said it's not just the size that was impressive about the nine flea fossils. It was their fearsome beak capable of sticking into and sucking blood from the hides of certain dinosaurs, probably those that had feathers.
These flea beaks "had almost like a saw running down the side," Engel said. "This thing was packing a weapon. They were equipped to dig into something."
While the ancient fleas were big, they had one disadvantage compared to modern ones: Their legs weren't too developed. Evolving over time, fleas went from crawling to jumping, Huang said.
"Luckily for the land animals of the Mesozoic, these big flat fleas lacked the tremendous jumping capacity that our common fleas have," said Joe Hannibal of the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. He wasn't involved in the study, but praised it as useful and interesting.
Just finding the fleas was a stroke of luck, Huang said. He first found one in a Chinese fossil market and mentioned it to someone at his hotel. The other guest showed him a photo of another fossilized flea, telling him it was from Daohugou in northeastern China, where there's a famous fossil bed from about 165 million years ago. Huang went there and found fleas preserved in a brownish film of volcanic ash. The grains of rock were so fine you could see antennae and other details of the fleas, he said.
Modern fleas get engorged after they feast on blood, but these didn't seem engorged, Engel said.
It shouldn't seem too surprising that there were large fleas more than 100 million years ago. If you go back even farther in time, ancestors of dragonflies and damsel flies had 3-foot wingspans, Engel said.
___
Online:
Nature: http://www.nature.com/nature
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Georgia, The Ten Commandments and Legal Loopholes | Al Stefanelli
?What would Jesus do?? ? Bracelets, bumper stickers and T-Shirts everywhere?
Christians Are Denied Nothing??
The United States is a nation with a lot of Christians, but our government is secular. The? First Amendment allows the same rights and privileges to all citizens, and for very good reasons. Christians, atheists, and the extremely wide and diverse belief systems of other United States Citizens are not prevented from worshiping their deities (or from not worshiping any), and the government sets no requirements as to means, mode and method of worship ? as long as no civil laws are broken, laws that pertain to all citizens, religious and non-religious.
As well, nobody is prevented from voicing his or her beliefs, proselytizing or evangelizing in the public square. The prevalence of street preachers, student-led religious groups and religious events that represent all belief systems, as well as non-believer events, in public parks and other venues is proof of the guarantee of freedom for and from religion within the confines of the First Amendment.
Those like myself do not seek to eliminate the right for individuals to express their beliefs. What we seek to do is to bring our government to what it was founded as, neutral with respect to personal ideologies. This is why we work so hard to remove all vestiges of religion from government ? because our government is by and for the people, and not all the people are Christian. A truly representative government cannot exist if it panders to one group over another. When a government ceases to represent all citizens and enact laws and regulations that favor a religion, it has started down the path to theocracy.
Legal Loopholes?
One needs to examine one of the main mantras of Christianity, which is the petition to God for redress of grievances (prayer), and waiting for an answer ? be it yes, no or wait. As well, their own doctrines speak volumes about involvement in government. I will not bore you again with long lists of scripture and exegesis on this subject.
If you are a Christian reading this, you should know what your god requires of you in matters of state and you should be ashamed of yourselves for using or supporting those Christians who choose to use the same methods that the Pharisees used.
It is decidedly un-Christian to use legal loopholes in the attempt to subvert any government that has been founded as representative, and that holds the citizenry as sovereign. God may be sovereign over the lives of individual Christians, but the United States Constitution does not give their god such a designation.
The use of legislation to bring into law any precept that favors religion over the individual rights of the citizen is not only an abrogation of individual civil rights, but violates the biblical precept of political neutrality as referenced by the refusal of the character portrayed as Jesus to rule the kingdoms of the world.
In fact, the bible reads that Jesus even refused to be made king of Israel because the he stated that earthly kingdoms are part of the world, and the world is allegedly ruled by the character portrayed as ?Satan.?
The bible reads that Christians are subjects of a kingdom that is ?not of this world,? and are to obey laws of the governments where they live. This includes not just the payment of taxes of the country in which they reside, but the active involvement in the legislative process for the sole purpose of creating a theocratic form of government, which includes the representation of said government as Christian and the installation of solely Christian artifacts, idols and graphical representations of their faith.
Georgia and the Ten Commandments?
From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper,
A copy of the Ten Commandments could be posted in all Georgia government buildings and schools under a bill passed unanimously Tuesday by House lawmakers.?
Rep. Tommy Benton, R-Jefferson, is seeking to expand a 2006 law that already permits the passage from the Old Testament to be displayed in judicial buildings and courthouses when accompanied by other historical documents deemed to have influenced the U.S. legal system.?
Georgia lawmakers passed that original law one year after the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 struck down Commandment displays in two Kentucky courthouses, ruling they appeared to be a government endorsement of Christianity.?
His latest bill passed by a vote of 161-0 and now heads to the state Senate. It has few vocal opponents and a strong chance of passing in the?Legislature.?
?If you look at the law of the United States, we have a lot of laws that are based on the Christian and Jewish Ten Commandments, so I felt that was a very appropriate item to be put in there,? Benton said.?
His opponents argue the bill would allow the Ten Commandments to be posted in school buildings, an area where courts typically draw a sharper line in favor of the secular in disputes over church and state.
This is an issue that I addressed last year with the Georgia Supreme Court. I wrote a letter to both the Georgia Supreme Court and Governor Deal, outlining why this was unconstitutional. The letter was ignored, which is par for the course here in Georgia ? as with many other bible-belt states. The issue has not been dropped, and the latest decision by the state of Georgia regarding this matter will also be addressed.
Here is an image of the letter, more commentary following?
?
More Commentary?
Barry Lynn, the executive director of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State said, in response to the passage of the bill,
?There?s a faulty premise there and that is that The Ten Commandments has anything to do with the civil laws of the United States ? it does not, of course. We don?t make it illegal to dishonor our mother and father. We don?t have blasphemy laws.??
Barry Lynn also predicted that these displays can provoke a lawsuit. According to Americans United, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky, South Dakota and Oklahoma also passed resolutions or laws promoting the display of the Commandments in public buildings.
Barry says,
?This is the kind of thing that raises a gigantic red flag, and on that flag are the words, ?Sue us,??
Other Infringements??
The presentation and display of the Ten Commandments is not the only issue here in Georgia and other states. It?s also the infringement on women and their right to choose, various blue laws that restrict the sale of alcohol during the times of Christian worship services, the teaching of religious myths such as creationism in the place of real science in our education system, the allowance of religious groups that purpose to proselytize to work with and within our school systems and a plethora of other legislation that is pending or has been enacted into law that favors Christianity instead of the sovereign rights of the individual United States citizen.
To be United States citizen means that we, each, should not be compelled to acquiesce to religious laws, statutes or the concept that any one religious group has regarding morality.
We should not, as individuals, be subject to the tyranny of the majority, nor should we be subject to the penalties and punishments as outlined by any religious group. Christianity or any other religion does not own the consequences of murder, rape, theft and fraud. The aversion to these crimes are the result of our evolution and the development of civilized societies, thus every community ? be it a small enclave or a major nation ? regardless of religious belief, has laws against these violations. They are not crimes against god, but crimes against humanity, and only secular laws should address these crimes.
The Christian community that seeks to integrate their religion into government is in violation of its own doctrine, and their bible speaks plainly of their efforts to do so.
And they accuse us of worshiping Satan?
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Ancient warrior's helmet is found off Israel
A Greek bronze helmet, covered with gold leaf and decorated with snakes, lions and a peacock's tail (or palmette), has been discovered in the waters of Haifa Bay in Israel. But how this helmet ended up at the bottom of the bay is a mystery.
The helmet dates back around 2,600 years and likely belonged to a wealthy Greek mercenary who took part in a series of wars, immortalized in the Bible, which ravaged the region at that time. Archaeologists believe that he likely fought for an Egyptian pharaoh named Necho II.?
Dredging discovery
The helmet was discovered accidentally in 2007 during commercial dredging operations in the harbor. After it was discovered, conservators with the Israel Antiquities Authority went to work cleaning it and archaeologists began to analyze it.
They discovered that it is very similar to another helmet found in the 1950s near the Italian island of Giglio, about 1,500 miles (2,300 kilometers) away. That helmet has been dated to around 2,600 years ago, something that helped the researchers arrive at a date for the Haifa Bay helmet.
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"The gilding and figural ornaments make this one of the most ornate pieces of early Greek armor discovered," writes Jacob Sharvit, director of the Marine Archaeology Unit with the Israel Antiquities Authority, and John Hale, a professor at the University of Louisville, in a summary of their research which was presented at a recent meeting.
This Greek warrior likely would have been a very wealthy individual, as few soldiers could afford such an ornate helmet. The researchers aren't sure where the helmet was made, though they suspect the warrior could be from one of the Greek colonies in Ionia, on the west coast of modern-day Turkey.
Greek warrior loses helmet
At the time the helmet was made, circa 600 B.C., Greek colonies dotted the Mediterranean coast, stretching from the Black Sea to southern France. Even so, there is no evidence of Greek colonies in Israel, indicating the warrior who ventured into Haifa Bay was likely the leader of a group of Greek mercenaries.
This warrior was likely one of Egyptian pharaoh Necho II's troops, which he sent through Israel accompanied by a fleet of ancient ships. The pharaoh was heavily involved in military campaigns in the region for nearly a decade, operations in which this warrior and his group likely were involved.
"They were not fighting for the Greeks, they were fighting for Egypt," Sharvit told LiveScience in an interview.
The series of wars engulfed Egypt, Judah (a Jewish kingdom), Assyria and Babylon, with Necho II of Egypt intervening on the side of Assyria.
?The result of these conflicts was the conquest of Judah and the rise of a resurgent Babylon led by King Nebuchadnezzar II. These events would be immortalized in the Torah (the Christian Old Testament).
At some point, amid all this history, the elite Greek warrior's helmet ended up at the bottom of Haifa Bay.
Bottom of the harbor
The simplest (albeit most embarrassing) explanation is as to how the helmet ended up at the bottom of Haifa Bay is that somebody dropped it while the warrior's ship was sailing into the harbor.
Another possibility is that the ship carrying the warrior sank, suggesting an ancient shipwreck awaits discovery. "We are planning to go back to the same site and to try to locate other (archaeological) material there," Sharvit said.
Yet another possibility (again, an embarrassing one for the warrior ) is that the helmet was lost during a retreat after Necho II's armies were defeated by the Babylonians.
The results of the researchers' work were presented in January at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America. The helmet itself is now on display at the National Maritime Museum in Haifa.
? 2012 LiveScience.com. All rights reserved.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46574945/ns/technology_and_science-science/
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Troops from Iraq, Afghanistan to be honored in DC (AP)
[unable to retrieve full-text content]AP - It took almost 60 years for World War II veterans to get a monument in Washington. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial opened less than a decade after their war ended. Now with the Iraq war just over, and Afghanistan continuing, there are already plans to honor those veterans in a new National Mall tribute in the works.
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