Video: Norman Foster Recreates Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Car

http://vimeo.com/21160399

“I was privileged to collaborate with Bucky for the last 12 years of his life and this had a profound influence on my own work and thinking. Inevitably, I also gained an insight into his philosophy and achievements,” shared Lord Norman Foster.

Recreating the legendary futuristic Dymaxion Car, Foster’s No. 4 version was a lengthy and expensive two year project, but was obviously a labor of love. Buckminster Fuller’s futuristic three wheeled car was brief, with a mere three actually built. Incredibly efficient the streamlined body with long tail-fin averaged 35 miles to the gallon and could achieve 120 mph. The Zeppelin inspired design with a V8 Ford engine was intended to fly as well, Fuller’s vision of revolutionizing how people traveled.

via Video: Norman Foster Recreates Buckminster Fuller’s Dymaxion Car | ArchDaily.



The Dymaxion car was a concept car designed by U.S. inventor and architect Buckminster Fuller in 1933.^[1] The word Dymaxion is a brand name that Fuller gave to several of his inventions, to emphasize that he considered them part of a more general project to improve humanity's living conditions. The car had a fuel efficiency of 30 miles per US gallon (7.8 L/100 km; 36 mpg_-imp). It could transport 11 passengers. While Fuller claimed it could reach speeds of 120 miles per hour (190 km/h), the fastest documented speed was 90 miles per hour (140 km/h). - wiki

Professor notices Abe Lincoln's signature on a picture hanging in his office

When Western Illinois University's University Television (UTV) Associate Director Roger Kent looked a bit closer at a picture that had been hanging in his office for a few years, he noticed what looked like a signature belonging to the nation's 16th president. Curiosity got the better of him, so he contacted a Lincoln authority: the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield.

And Kent's hunch proved to be right: the framed portrait included a piece of paper signed by Abe Lincoln.

Many years ago, when the University Union Lincoln Room changed its decor, UTV acquired a number of Lincoln artifacts to be used as props for set design. One of the framed portraits was stored in the prop room for three years until Kent "rescued" it to decorate his Memorial Hall office.

"This piece has been hanging on my office wall for two years, and one day, something just made me really look at it. That's when I noticed a handwritten note bearing the Lincoln signature in a small window in the portrait," Kent said. "I sent a message with a scanned image to Library Curator Dr. James Cornelius, who at first glance said the note appeared to be authentic."

Last month, Kent drove 90 miles to Springfield for Cornelius to examine the note in person. It was there that Cornelius and other archivists verified that the note was authentic, with an estimated value of $15,000-$20,000. Cornelius' staff created a high resolution scan to include in their official database, but turned the note back over to Kent. ...

via Professor notices Abe Lincoln's signature on a picture hanging in his office.

Dancing mania

Sometime in mid-July 1518 a woman stepped into one of Strasbourg’s streets and began dancing. Within a week another thirty four had joined her. By end of August, it is said that 400 people had experienced the madness, dancing uncontrollably around the city.

Local physicians were consulted. They excluded astrological and supernatural causes, declaring it to be a ‘natural disease’ caused by ‘hot blood’; treatment: more dancing. In an echo of the raves that would prove so popular five hundred years later, two guildhalls and an outdoor grain market were cleared so the afflicted could dance freely and uninterrupted. Musicians were provided.

When dancers began to die the governors rethought their strategy. A new diagnosis was made; the dancing was now attributed to a curse sent down by an angry saint. In contrition gambling, gaming and prostitution were banned and the dissolute banished. When this proved ineffective the dancers were despatched to a mountaintop shrine and divine intervention was requested. In the following weeks the epidemic finally abated.

The first major outbreak of dancing mania is thought to have taken place in Aachen, Germany on June 24 1374 after which it spread quickly through France, Italy, Belgium, Luxemburg and the Netherlands. Outbreaks virtually always struck close to earlier similarly effected sites. Maastricht, Trier, Zurich and Strasbourg each experienced two or more episodes. Thousands of people danced in agony for days or weeks, screaming of terrible visions and imploring religious leaders to save their souls.

It seems unbelievable today, but there is no question that these epidemics did occur. Dozens of reliable chronicles from several towns and cities describe the events of 1374.

No consensus exists as to the condition’s aetiology. One theory is that sufferers had ingested ergot, a mould that grows on stalks of ripening rye and can cause hallucinations, spasms, and tremors. Epidemics of ergotism are known to have occurred in mediaeval Europe when people ate contaminated flour. But it is unlikely that those poisoned by ergot could have danced for days at a time and nor would so many people have reacted to its psychotropic chemicals in the same way. ...

via Dancing mania | Frontier Psychiatrist.

1866 Letter: Honest Abe Lincoln was not a Christian

He won the Civil War, ended slavery, had his bust carved into Mount Rushmore and now beams from five dollar bills. But the God-fearing patriots of Middle America are about to receive a reminder that Abraham Lincoln had a strained relationship with one of their most respected institutions: organised religion.

A three-page letter highlighting the 16th president's unconventional relationship with the Almighty has just been put on sale. It offers a possible insight into why he was never baptised, did not attend a church and, in defiance of political protocol of the era, would refuse to publicly discuss his spiritual beliefs. Such was his reluctance to embrace piety that, if he were standing for office today, there is a good chance he would be unelectable.

The letter was written by William Herndon, a legal partner and close friend of "Honest Abe" in 1866, a year after Lincoln had been assassinated by John Wilkes Booth. And while the letter is at pains to stress that Lincoln did believe in "a God" at the time of his death, it reveals that he took a long time getting to that point. "Mr Lincoln's religion is too well known to me to allow even a shadow of a doubt; he is, or was, a Theist and a Rationalist, denying all extraordinary, supernatural inspiration or revelation," it reads, before detailing the president's spiritual evolution in the years after Herndon met him in Springfield, Illinois, in the 1840s.

"At one time in his life, to say the least, he was an elevated Pantheist, doubting the immortality of the soul as the Christian world understands that term. He believed that the soul lost its identity and was immortal as a force. Subsequent to this, he rose to the belief of a God, and this is all the change he ever underwent. I speak knowing what I say. He was a noble man – a good great man for all this."

Historians have long debated Lincoln's religious views, and how they affected his political career. He was born into a humble Kentucky family in 1809 and raised as a Baptist, but became sceptical and rejected organised religion. He never joined a church in his adult life. ...

A couple of decades after Lincoln's death, several biographers attempted to portray him as a Christian. They were helped by the fact that he often quoted the Bible during speeches.

In today's political environment, it is almost unthinkable that someone could be elected president without being a member of a congregation. Barack Obama, who cites Lincoln as a political hero, regularly attends churches in Chicago and Washington, even if roughly a half of Republican voters (according to several polls) believe he is a Muslim – despite the fact that he smokes, occasionally drinks, and eats pork....

via 'Pantheist' Lincoln would be unelectable today - Americas, World - The Independent.

Vaccine in Development Could Cure Cat Allergies

Sniffly-nosed kitten-lovers rejoice: A new vaccine could soon banish allergies to cats.

The vaccine isn't ready for prime time yet, but a new study finds that the shots are safe, researchers reported March 31 in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. They're also effective at reducing allergic reactions, the researchers reported.

About 10 percent of peopleare allergic to cats. Currently, the only solutions are to stay far away from felines or to get multiple injections of kitty allergens to help the body build up a tolerance. But that process can take years, wrote McMaster University immunologist and study researcher Mark Larche. [

Larche and his colleagues developed the vaccine by isolating the protein shed by cats that causes the most allergic reactions. They then used blood samples from people with cat allergies to determine which segment of the cat protein binds to and activates immune cells. (An allergic reaction occurs when the immune system interprets benign substances, such as cat dander, as invaders and launches an attack.)

Next, the researchers made synthetic versions of these segments, called peptides. A mix of seven synthetic peptides makes up the vaccine. The idea, the researchers wrote, is that the immune system will encounter these peptide strands, which fit into the immune cells like a key to a lock, and recognize them as harmless. That action stops the sniffling, sneezing inflammatory response in its tracks, even when the peptides are attached to real cat proteins.

An early clinical trial on 88 patients resulted in no serious side effects, the researchers reported. A single injection reduced the skin's inflammatory reaction to cat allergens by 40 percent, the researchers wrote. To get an equivalent response with current anti-pollen allergy treatments, they wrote, patients would have to get 12 weeks of treatment with pollen extract. ...

via Vaccine in Development Could Cure Cat Allergies | Pet Allergies | Immunology | LiveScience.

Great, so this way, more people can become infected with mycoplasma resulting in more Lupus, Scleroderma and Rheumatoid Arthritis. I think the bodies of some people react negatively to cats for a good reason.

Jack the Ripper was a German sailor, detective claims

Jack the Ripper was probably a German merchant seaman named Carl Feigenbaum. That’s the theory proposed by English former murder squad detective Trevor Marriott. ...

Between August and November 1888, five prostitutes were killed and horribly mutilated in and around London’s crowded, impoverished Whitechapel area.

Mary Ann Nichols, Annie Chapman, Elizabeth Stride, Catherine Eddowes and Mary Jane Kelly had their throats slashed and – with the exception of Stride – their abdomens mutilated. Then the killings stopped abruptly. The murderer was never identified. And the Jack the Ripper phenomenon began.

In the 123 years since, countless suspects have been proposed – and rejected – from various poor Polish immigrants to Queen Victoria’s physician William Withey Gull and even Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale.

But according to English former homicide detective Trevor Marriott, Jack the Ripper was most likely a German merchant sailor from Karlsruhe named Carl Feigenbaum.

Marriott, author of "Jack the Ripper: The 21st Century Investigation" and "The Evil Within: The World’s Worst Serial Killers," aired his theory in Germany this week in a ZDF documentary co-produced by National Geographic.

Marriott says he has used modern policing methods to overturn many of the old assumptions about the Ripper murders and gathered evidence that points to Feigenbaum, who was eventually convicted and executed for murdering Juliana Hoffmann in New York in 1894.

“There is a case for suggesting he might have been the first trans-continental serial killer,” Marriott says.

In 2002, the retired Bedfordshire policeman – who’d had a long-running interest in the Ripper case – decided to sift through the evidence, see what could be discounted, and determine what facts remained.

"When I looked through it, I thought, 'There are lots of things here that are not right, that are not factually correct'," he says. "The Ripper mystery is based on many wild, speculative, uncorroborated theories.'"

The police at the time believed the Ripper was a local man – and subsequent theories have generally assumed that he was at least a Londoner. But Marriot takes a novel approach, alleging that the murderer might have been a sailor.

“There were two merchant docks close to Whitechapel, and Whitechapel had hundreds of prostitutes and we all know that where seamen are, there are prostitutes as well,” he says. “It’s an area that hadn’t been explored by the police at the time back in Victorian times, so it was a totally new lead really.”

Hundreds of vessels came in and out of London every day. It was a “mammoth task,” he says, but he went through thousands of shipping records and found that there was a vessel, the Reiher, that was docked on all the dates of the murders save one. On that date, another vessel from the same line was docked.Around the same time, Marriott learned that what he calls a “Ripper-like murder” – of a woman named Juliana Hoffmann – had taken place in New York in 1894, six years after the five women in Whitechapel. The man convicted for that murder was German Carl Feigenbaum, who was also using aliases including Anton Zahn and Carl Zahn.  ...

via Jack the Ripper was a German sailor, detective claims - The Local.

Marriott’s case against Feigenbaum relies heavily on Lawton so he gives the lawyer’s theory full play. He goes beyond Lawton, however, when, instead of just saying that Feigenbaum travelled around Europe and the US, he adds a list of Ripper-like murders that occurred throughout Europe and the United States at a time when Feigenbaum was still living in Germany and sailing between Europe and North America on ships from Bremen:

October, 1889. Flensburg, Germany. Murder and dismemberment of a prostitute.

January, 1889. Managua, Nicaragua. Murder and mutilation of six prostitutes.

11 April, 1890, Hurley, Wisconsin, USA. The murder of prostitute “Lottie Morgan.”

28 April, 1890, Benthen, Germany. Murder and mutilation of a woman.

4 December, 1890. Berne, Switzerland. Murder and mutilation of “peasant girl.”

24 April, 1891, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA. Murder and mutilation of Carrie Brown.

25 October, 1891. Berlin, Germany. Murder and mutilation of prostitute Hedwig Nitsche.

31 January, 1892. New Jersey, USA. Murder of Mrs. Elizabeth Senior.

3 April, 1892. Berlin, Germany. Murder of a prostitute.

31 August, 1894. New York City, New York, USA. Murder of Mrs. Juliana Hoffman.

Marriott then adds to this list all of the Whitechapel victims starting from Martha Tabram, excluding Elizabeth Stride and Rose Mylett, and points out that after Feigenbaum’s execution reports of Ripper-like murders around the world stopped.

via casebook.org

How a penniless mystic won Russia the space race

Rocket man: Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space, aboard the Vostok spaceship in 1961

... the Soviet Union’s success in the “space race” was due not only to pioneering scientists, but also to a penniless 19th-century mystic.

Nikolai Fedorov was so poor that he rented not a flat but the corner of a room, and lived solely on bread, tea and water. It’s said that he died because one of his pupils gave him a fur coat – the coat made him sweat, the sweat led to a cold, and the cold turned into pneumonia. If anyone has ever died a death more Russian, I’d be fascinated to hear about it.

Fedorov’s philosophy, Cosmism, boiled down to the belief that man must conquer space. How this was to be achieved, he had no practical ideas – but he did inspire someone else to have them. He became the mentor of Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, a near-deaf teenager who’d struggled at school, and Tsiolkovsky, exhilarated by Fedorov’s dreams, set out to realise them. In 1903 – seven months before the flight of the first aeroplane, never mind the first spacecraft – he published detailed calculations explaining how to fire a rocket into space, at what speed it would have to travel, how much fuel it would need. Naturally, no one paid these calculations the least notice.

Years later, though, they were studied by Sergei Korolev, the leader of a group of space enthusiasts eager to build their own rocket. Stalin’s secret police, showing characteristic sagacity, sent him to the Gulag, but after his release he led the Soviet space programme, thanks to which, 50 years ago tomorrow, Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the Earth. ...

via How a penniless mystic won Russia the space race - Telegraph.

Fifty years ago today, on April 12, 1961, humanity finally overcame the gravity of our home planet and ventured for the first time into the space beyond. ...

To celebrate Yuri Gagarin's momentous journey aboard his Vostok 3KA spacecraft, a film has been created titled First Orbit. The movie is a real-time recreation of Gagarin's pioneering first orbit of the Earth, combining footage shot entirely in space from onboard the International Space Station with Gagarin's original mission audio and a musical score by composer Philip Sheppard.



via DailyGrail

J. Edgar Hoover's Saucer Crash Secrets

It is said that FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover could find out “anything about everything.” His deep and unrelenting investigation of the secret activities of politicians, military, celebrities and foreign leaders is legendary. When determined to do so, he could learn the facts about any event or subject of interest. His compulsion to find out about such hidden things was insatiable and often even bordered on the perverse. But did Hoover’s interest in “things concealed” extend to ET? Did Hoover indeed discover the truth about the retrieval of crashed craft from another world? New information -and a fresh examination of a body of relevant FBI documents from decades ago - says “Yes.” ...

via The UFO Iconoclast(s): J. EDGAR HOOVER’S SAUCER CRASH SECRETS by Anthony Bragalia.

Anthony finds that Hoover was suspicious of what we did learn and likely dug deeper until he found the truth. He is filing a FOIA request  to obtain the Roswell crash analysis that Hoover was promised in another document.

Parts of Bible's New Testament written by 'pretend apostles'

Parts of the Bible were written by people who lied about their identity, an author has claimed.

Bart D Ehrman claims many books of the New Testament were forged by people pretending to be the apostles Peter, Paul or James.

Writing in the Huffington Post, Professor Ehrman, best selling author of 'Misquoting Jesus' and 'Jesus, Interrupted', said religious scholars were well aware of the 'lies' of the Bible.

While some were happy to acknowledge them others refer to them as 'pseudepigrapha' - meaning a falsely attributed work -, he wrote.

In his new book , Why the Bible's Authors Are Not Who We Think They Are, Professor Ehrman claims The Second Epistle of Peter - or 2 Peter - was forged.

'...scholars everywhere - except for our friends among the fundamentalists - will tell you that there is no way on God's green earth that Peter wrote the book.

'Someone else wrote it claiming to be Peter,' he writes.

He then suggests scholars who say it was acceptable in the ancient world for someone to write a book in the name of someone else, are wrong.

'If you look at what ancient people actually said about the practice, you'll see that they invariably called it lying and condemned it as a deceitful practice, even in Christian circles,' Professor Ehrman writes.

Many scholars think six of the 13 letters allegedly written by Paul were actually authored by somebody else claiming to be Paul, Professor Ehrman claims.

'In the ancient world, books like that were labelled as pseudoi - lies,' he writes.

Professor Ehrman also claims the author of the book of 1 Timothy claimed to be Paul but in actual fact was someone living after Paul had died.

The author then used the apostle's name to address a problem he saw in church, according to Professor Ehrman.

'Women were speaking out, exercising authority and teaching men. That had to stop,' he writes.

'The author told women to be silent and submissive, and reminded his readers about what happened the first time a woman was allowed to exercise authority over a man, in that little incident in the garden of Eden.

'No, the author argued, if women wanted to be saved, they were to have babies (1 Tim. 2:11-15).'

Paul is known as one of history's great misogynists, largely based on this passage from the Bible.

But Professor Ehrman argues this label is not necessarily justified because he wasn't the one to write it.

'And why does it matter? Because the passage is still used by church leaders today to oppress and silence women,' writes Professor Ehrman. ...

via Bart D Ehrman: Parts of Bible's New Testament written by 'pretend apostles' | Mail Online.

 

Theory: Nephilim were Neanderthal man

I'd like to explore the idea that the Nephilim mentioned in the bible were Neanderthal man, a distant memory, or perhaps a clan of Neanderthal that actually survived and lived in Canaan. I have four points to support my theory.

#1. The first thing I'd like to point out is that people "of great size" does not necessarily mean tall "giant" people.

The term "Nephilim" occurs just twice in the Hebrew Bible, both in the Torah. The first is Genesis 6:1-4, immediately before the Noah's ark story:

... The Nephilim were on the earth in those days—and also afterward—when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown. ...

The second is Numbers 13:32-33, where the Hebrew spies report that they have seen fearsome giants in Canaan:

And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size.

We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them."

The reference could refer to strength, not height. Neanderthal men were of great size, and powerful. Even the women were powerful:

"... even Arnold Schwarzenegger at his muscular peak no match for a Neanderthal woman ... Regarding the inadequacy of Schwarzenegger, McAllister studied the remains of "La Ferrassie 2", a Neanderthal lass discovered in a French cave in 1909. She boasted ten per cent more muscle than modern European men, and her upper arm strength was more than enough to "slam him to the table without a problem”. - link

#2. The second point is the location of the sighting mentioned in the bible.

... The Mount Carmel caves outside Haifa set the geographical limits for Neanderthal fossils. One skeleton found buried in the Kebara cave is so well preserved that it has provided the best data yet on Neanderthal anatomy and led scholars to reassess the function of the Neanderthal pelvis and linguistic capabilities, following the discovery of the hyoid bone in the throat.  ... - link

The obvious question: Was Kebara Cave, Mt Carmel, Israel in what was known as  Canaan? According to this map, Mt. Carmel is very close to Galilee in ancient Israel. And according to worldatlas.com "Israel occupies about 75% of an area long known as Canaan."

Below is a map of Canaan. In what was called Asher, you can see Mt. Carmel where the Neanderthal bones were found. Neanderthal man was in Canaan, and so were the Nephilim!

 

#3. The third supporting point is that the bible states that some men were descendants of the Nephilim and we now know that Neanderthal man interbred at least twice with Homo sapiens. The bible says, "We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim)." Who was Anak?

Anak ... was a well known figure, and a forefather of the Anakites who have been considered "strong and tall," they were also said to have been a mixed race of giant people, descendants of the Nephilim. ' - wiki

"Using projected rates of genetic mutation and data from the fossil record, the researchers suggest that the interbreeding happened about 60,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean and, more recently, about 45,000 years ago in eastern Asia." - nature.com

Yes, Israel (Canaan) is considered to be in the eastern Mediterranean.

#4. Fourth the phrase "The land we explored devours those living in it." and "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them," I think, are references to cannibalism.  Having worked with locusts in some of my research, I can definitely tell you that they eat each other. It is revolting. It is something you never forget.  This would not have escaped the observation of early men, for whom locusts (super grasshoppers) devouring your crops were one of the worst things that could happen.

We now know from archaeological research that our ancestors ate Neanderthal men.

... fossil expert Fernando Rozzi of Paris's Centre National de la Récherche Scientifique, ... based [the conclusion that we ate Neanderthal men] on a jawbone from a Neanderthal clearly butchered for food by someone with Homo Sapiens tools...  - link

Ancient men seemed to be saying, "We are cannibals. We know it, and our food knows it." We ate them!

Did Neanderthal man eat Homo sapiens? Perhaps not. Perhaps the tricky Homo sapiens felt guilt at his behavior and blamed his own "sins" on the enemy he killed and ate.  The winners of a war get to rewrite history.

Once the giant Nephilim hybrids were born, these legendary warriors (Titans) of renowned fierceness began to kill off all the humans from the earth. In Numbers 11 we are told that they were not only giants but cannibals as well.  The book of Enoch states that they ate the flesh and drank the blood of the people on earth. They were also the number one enemy of Israel."

And I said, Hear, I pray you, O heads of Jacob, and ye princes of the house of Israel; Is it not for you to know judgment? Who hate the good, and love the evil; who pluck off their skin from off them, and their flesh from off their bones; Who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay their skin from off them; and they break their bones, and chop them in pieces, as for the pot, and as flesh within the caldron. Then shall they cry unto the LORD, but he will not hear them: he will even hide his face from them at that time, as they have behaved themselves ill in their doings

In fact, rather than them killing off all of the humans, it was our human ancestors who killed off all of the Titans, if "the Titans" is, as I suspect, another name for Neanderthal. And we at them.  I tend to think the book of Enoch is a guilty historical rewrite.

#5. The fifth point of evidence is the fate of Neanderthal and the meaning of the word "Nephilim".

"Nephilim" (נְפִילִים) probably derives from the Hebrew root npl (נָפַל), "to fall" which also includes "to cause to fall" and "to kill, to ruin". The Brown-Driver-Briggs Lexicon gives the meaning as "giants"[1] Robert Baker Girdlestone argued the word comes from the Hiphil causative stem. Adam Clarke took it as passive, "fallen", "apostates". Ronald Hendel states that it is a passive form "ones who have fallen", equivalent grammatically to paqid "one who is appointed" (i.e. overseer), asir, "one who is bound", (i.e. prisoner) etc.

via Nephilim - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The large powerful Neanderthal men were eventually wiped out. They were the fallen, the ruined, the killed, and it would not be a stretch to believe that they were once made prisoners by their more tricky, more deceptive, better planning Homo sapien cousins.  Genesis says, "The Nephilim were on the earth in those days". Now the Nephilim, like the Neanderthal, are no longer on the earth.

Arguments Against the Nephilim being Neanderthal Man

The major problem with my theory, if you accept that "giant" could just mean "a bit taller and much more muscular," is, of course, the timing.  Could a story in Genesis really be describing something that happened 60,000 years ago? When did the spies of Israel see the Nephilim in Canaan? One source puts the conquest of Canaan at 1406 to 1399 BC. Another says The Conquest of Canaan by Joshua took 6 years from 1487 to 1493 BC.

The 7 nations that confronted Joshua were GIANTS and they were like the sands of the sea in number. The Lord told Joshua to completely destroy these corrupt nations

 

Evidence suggests that dates in the bible must be wrong:

A 1401 BC date of the beginning of the conquest is supposed to violate the assured results of archeological findings in Palestine, notably at Ai, Lachish, and Debir. The problem of Ai is indeed acute, if the mound of et Tell is actually the biblical city. Excavation of the site by Mme. Judith Marquet-Krause in 1933 and 1934 has shown that there was an occupational gap in the history of the mound from about 2200 BC until after 1200 BC, so that supposedly there was nothing but a ruin there when Joshua and Israel are said to have captured and destroyed it... - theology.edu

For my theory to hold, the story of the Conquest of Canaan in Genesis would be drawn, in part, on more ancient sources than anyone has so far believed. Genesis, fantastically, may tell of the defeat of the last Neanderthals who survived as late as up to 24,000 years ago.

After wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, Moses handed over leadership to Joshua, whose responsibility it was to bring the nation of Israel into the promised land of Canaan. After entering Canaan, Joshua had to go to war with the people who occupied the land. - link

Perhaps Neanderthal man was around in the time of Moses, but there is, so far, no evidence for Neanderthal being around after 24,000 years ago. Another possibility is that an older story was woven into the real Conquest of Canaan.

Neanderthals, prehistoric cousins of humans, ate grains and vegetables as well as meat, cooking them over fire in the same way homo sapiens did. ... The squat, low-browed Neanderthals lived in parts of Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East for around 170,000 years but all evidence of them disappears some 28,000 years ago, their last known refuge being Gibraltar. Why they died out is a matter of debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man. - physorg

Neanderthal died out because they were out planned and because they were not deceptive cannibals like "modern" man.

 

RIP Elizabeth Taylor

YouTube - ELIZABETH TAYLOR DEAD AT 79.

God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost

God had a wife, Asherah, whom the Book of Kings suggests was worshiped alongside Yahweh in his temple in Israel, according to an Oxford scholar.

In 1967, Raphael Patai was the first historian to mention that the ancient Israelites worshiped both Yahweh and Asherah. The theory has gained new prominence due to the research of Francesca Stavrakopoulou, who began her work at Oxford and is now a senior lecturer in the department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter.

Information presented in Stavrakopoulou's books, lectures and journal papers has become the basis of a three-part documentary series, now airing in Europe, where she discusses the Yahweh-Asherah connection.

"You might know him as Yahweh, Allah or God. But on this fact, Jews, Muslims and Christians, the people of the great Abrahamic religions, are agreed: There is only one of Him," writes Stavrakopoulou in a statement released to the British media. "He is a solitary figure, a single, universal creator, not one God among many ... or so we like to believe."

"After years of research specializing in the history and religion of Israel, however, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife," she added.

Stavrakopoulou bases her theory on ancient texts, amulets and figurines unearthed primarily in the ancient Canaanite coastal city called Ugarit, now modern-day Syria. All of these artifacts reveal that Asherah was a powerful fertility goddess.

Asherah's connection to Yahweh, according to Stavrakopoulou, is spelled out in both the Bible and an 8th century B.C. inscription on pottery found in the Sinai desert at a site called Kuntillet Ajrud.

"The inscription is a petition for a blessing," she shares. "Crucially, the inscription asks for a blessing from 'Yahweh and his Asherah.' Here was evidence that presented Yahweh and Asherah as a divine pair. And now a handful of similar inscriptions have since been found, all of which help to strengthen the case that the God of the Bible once had a wife." ...

via God's Wife Edited Out of the Bible -- Almost : Discovery News.

God's wife was a unipod?

'Internationally significant' Roman altar stones are unveiled

Two rare Roman altars discovered when a cricket pavilion was dug up have gone on display.

The “internationally significant” stones were found in Lewisvale Park, Musselburgh last March and have been lying face down in storage ever since.

It was not until this month that the stones were turned over and the engravings revealed. It is hoped that the pictures will help uncover more about the Roman occupation of Inveresk.

They are the furthest north that dedications to the Mithras religion have been found and the altars are unique in Scotland.

The first stone has side panels showing a lyre and a griffon as well as pictures of a jug and bowl. The front is inscribed with the altar to the god Mithras.

The second stone shows female heads wearing headdresses which represent the four seasons. In the centre is a carving of the face of a God with holes for the eyes, mouth and solar rays. The rear shaft is hollow and would have had a light in it which would shine through the holes.

John Gooder, operations director at AOC Archaeology Group, is the archaeologist who discovered the altar stones.

He said: “It was a fantastic moment when I first realised that the stones we were cleaning were in fact ornately sculptured Roman altars.

“Their survival is testament to the merits of our statutory protection system and the planning process, which will also ensure that they are appropriately analysed, conserved and curated and that information about them is available to everybody in due course.”

Although the discovery of the altar stones held up the construction of the cricket pavilion it is now finished and will be open for the new season.

East Lothian Council said it is excited about the discovery of the stones as they reveal more about Inveresk’s past.

Councillor Ruth Currie said: “This is enormously exciting and its significance could be huge. These beautiful artefacts could reveal a whole new strand of East Lothian’s history and possibly even shed light on the way the Romans lived on an international scale. ...

via 'Internationally significant' Roman altar stones are unveiled | Edinburgh and East | STV News.

Mithra was the Roman sun god.  Read about some debated similarities between Mithra and Jesus.  Did the Roman sun god morph into the son of god over time? Jesus said, "I am the light of the world." and is not the sun also the light of the world?

Origin of SUN-day

... Sun worship infects ancient Israel: In the ancient world, 'sun worship' was one of the most common forms of pagan idolatry. Immediately after Israel left Egypt, God warned His people against being "driven to worship the sun." Deuteronomy 4:19…..' And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.' ….. Yet Israel later yielded to temptation, compromised with the nations around them, and dedicated their "horses ... to the sun." 2 Kings 23:11. During a time of revival, King Josiah purged much of Israel and "burned the chariots of the sun with fire." 2 Kings 23:11. Before the Babylonian captivity, many Israelite leaders rejected their Creator, yielded again to idolatry, and "worshipped the sun toward the east." Ezekiel 8:16……' And he brought me into the inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD, and their faces toward the east; and they worshipped the sun toward the east.' …… Sounds a lot like the 'sunrise service' many churches have at easter.

At the same time, God declared that they "hid their eyes from My Sabbaths." Ezekiel 22:26. Thus ancient Israel shifted from Sabbath keeping to sun worship.

Sun worship, the day of the sun, and Sunday: The Romans called the sun god Mithra and Apollo, and they especially worshiped the sun on "the first day of the week," also called "Dies Solis" (Latin), which means, day of the sun. The name Sunday was adopted because……'this day was anciently dedicated to the sun, or to its worship. The first day of the week.' Webster's Dictionary; 1929 edition.

"The retention of the old pagan name of Dies Solis, for Sunday is, in a great measure, owing to the union of pagan and Christian sentiment with which the first day of the week was recommended by Constantine to his subjects - pagan and Christian alike - as the 'venerable' day of the sun." Arthur P. Stanley, History of the Eastern Church, p. 184 …… "On the venerable day of the Sun let the Magistrates and the people residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed." Edict of Constantine A.D. 321

The names of days in today's English come from ancient paganism, where they were originally associated with celestial objects and heathen gods.

dies solis...................Sun day .......................................................Sunday
dies Lunae................Moon day....................................................Monday
dies Martis...............Mars's day...................Tiw's day...............Tuesday
dies Mercurii ...........Mercury's day............Woden's day..........Wednesday
dies Jovis..................Jupiter's day.............. Thor's day.............Thursday
dies Veneris..............Venus's day................ Frigg's day.............Friday
dies Saturni..............Saturn's day

via Endrtimes

6 beloved scientists who were actually total jerks

... Why Do We Love Him So Much?

Working sleepless hours in his lab, Edison made a light bulb that could be produced for the masses. Finally, people were able to stay awake late enough to watch The Tonight Show. His numerous patents changed human life and inspired this really creepy memorial page.

But He Was Actually a Total Jerk Because ...

He had a fondness for electrocuting animals.

Thomas Edison popularized and "sold" direct current for electric power. In what was probably the nerdiest battle in history, Edison got into it with George Westinghouse and Nikola Tesla in what was dubbed the "War of Currents." Judging solely by the name, one might think these men battled with strange devices that shot electricity at each other. But no, instead Edison toured the country using his competitor's "alternating current" to electrocute animals. In a famous video that is in absolutely no way safe for work at all, Edison electrocuted an adorable elephant named "Topsy."

Edison was propelled by furious rage coming from the fact that Tesla had once been Edison's employee but left because Edison didn't understand Tesla's alternating current experiments. In fact, the reason Tesla left was because Edison had promised him $50,000 but reneged on the deal. To get him back, Tesla harnessed Niagara Falls to produce alternating current, proving he had the superior electricity. Alternating current is now standard in American homes today and is never involved in accidental elephant deaths.

In addition to all this dickery, Edison also had film technicians steal copies of the groundbreaking film Le Voyage dans la lune. Edison distributed the bootlegs for a tidy profit, while the revolutionary director was left bankrupt, with no way to return his significant investments. It takes a lot to look like a jerk by Hollywood standards, but Edison definitely fit the bill. ...

... read the rest here: 6 beloved scientists who were actually total jerks | Blastr.

Did Edison invent the light blub? No.

in 1809, the English chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy, probably best known for his discovery of the anesthetic effects of nitrous oxide, invented the first incandescent light. Instead of employing a filament like the Edison lamp, it employed two carbon strip separated by a tiny gap. When connected to a powerful battery an electric arc spanned the gap producing a very powerful and intense light source. Based on this discovery, Davy invented the first Miner’s safety lamp in 1815. His miner’s safety lamp that allowed miners to work safely in deep mines filled with methane and other highly explosive gasses was called the “firedamp” or “minedamp” lamp. The first street lamps and movie projectors employed carbon arc lamps.

The next giant step on the road to the Edison lamp came in 1850 when another English scientist and inventor, Edward G. Shepard began experimenting with carbon filaments. In the same year, Joseph Wilson Swan started experimenting carbonized paper filaments. Using carbon as a filament was a major discovery and it was that discovery that later led to Edison’s success.

Many other men dedicated their lives to inventing a practical light bulb. Men like William Robert Grove, Frederik De Moleyns, W.E. Staite, John Daper, Heinrich Gobel, C. DeChagny, John T. Way, and Alexander D. Lodyguine, but the big breakthrough came in 1879 when both Joseph Wilson Swann and Thomas Alvin Edison both produced lamps that burned for 13.5 hours straight. Success finally arrived for Thomas Alvin Edison in 1880, when he discovered that by using carbonized bamboo as a filament he could produce a lamp that would last for 1200 hours. That was a reasonable life span. The electric light had finally become practical.

Not much change took place in the basic Edison Lamp for the next 26 years. Then, in 1906 General Electric introduced the Tungsten Filament to the incandescent light bulb.

via http://factoidz.com/the-history-of-the-incandescent-light-bulb/

Color pics of San Francisco after '06 quake found

A museum volunteer has unearthed what the Smithsonian Institution believes to be the first — and perhaps only — color photographs of San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake and fire that nearly leveled the city.

The six never-published images were snapped by photography innovator Frederick Eugene Ives several months after the April 1906 "Great Quake," the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Most were taken from the roof of the hotel where Ives stayed during an October 1906 visit.

They were stowed amid other items donated by Ives' son, Herbert, and discovered in 2009 by National Museum of American History volunteer Anthony Brooks while he was cataloguing the collection.

Although hand-colored photographs of the quake's destruction have surfaced before, Ives' work is probably the only true color documentary evidence, Shannon Perich, associate curator of the Smithsonian's photography history collection, told the Chronicle.

She says Ives was one of only a few photographers experimenting with color photography in the early 20th century and that his San Francisco images were meant to be viewed through a 3-D device he invented but which never became a commercial success.

"Can you imagine how shocking these were?" she said.

Ives is known to have visited San Francisco in October 1906, but it's unknown if he shot all the newly discovered photos during that trip or if he also made an earlier one.

The pictures are street-level shots of San Francisco's shattered downtown and rooftop views overlooking miles of ruins. They depict buildings damaged by fire and broken by the shaking ground. Some of the buildings still exist.

via Color pics of San Francisco after '06 quake found - Yahoo! News.

I can see these in stereo if I get about a foot away from my laptop and then let my eyes  cross.  Neat stuff. Can you do it?

Early humans began in southern Africa, study suggests

Modern humans may have originated from southern Africa, an extensive genetic study has suggested.

Data showed that hunter-gatherer populations in the region had the greatest degree of genetic diversity, which is an indicator of longevity.

It says that the region was probably the best location for the origin of modern humans, challenging the view that we came from eastern Africa.

The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Africa is inferred to be the continent of origin for all modern human populations," the international team of researchers wrote.

"But the details of human prehistory and evolution in Africa remain largely obscure owing to the complex histories of hundreds of distinct populations." ...

Co-author Brenna Henn, from Stanford University, California, said the team's study - the most comprehensive of its kind - reached two main conclusions.

"One is that there is an enormous amount of diversity in African hunter-gatherer populations, even more diversity than there is in agriculturalist populations," she told BBC News.

"These hunter/gatherer groups are highly structured and are fairly isolated from one another and probably retain a great deal of different genetic variations - we found this very exciting." ...

via BBC News - Early humans began in southern Africa, study suggests.

The great UFO hoax

Back in 1967 a group of students strategically placed UFOs across the country. Two 'landed' in Kent.  ... 1967 was a huge year for UFO sightings in the UK and a group of engineer apprentices at the Royal Aircraft Establishment in Farnborough decided to make the headlines.

Through meticulous planning they created a fleet of UFOs and planted them on the same line, the same distance apart, across the country from the Bristol Channel to the Kent coast. In Kent, one 'landed' on a golf course in Bromley and another on the Isle of Sheppey both to be found by members of the public.

The discoveries caused quite a stir and even Ministry of Defence was alerted before it was realised that the whole thing was an elaborate hoax. Here is some BBC archive footage of a Kent 'space ship' as it is being inspected by the authorities:

via BBC - Kent - History - The great UFO hoax.

A "war of the worlds" rag week hoax by aircraft engineering apprentices was treated as a real alien invasion of Britain – for a few hours at least, according to newly released Ministry of Defence files. The army's southern command, four police forces, bomb disposal units, RAF helicopters and the MoD's intelligence branch were all mobilised in the early hours of Monday 4 September 1967 to meet the threat.

They went into action after the police and RAF were flooded with calls from the public reporting the discovery of six small "flying saucers" in locations in a perfect line across southern England from Sheppey to the Bristol Channel. It was not until a Scotland Yard bomb disposal squad with orders to check one of the objects with portable X-ray equipment arrived at Bromley police station, south London, that the hoax was uncovered – the Ever Ready batteries were a bit of a giveaway.

Another of the "saucers" was sent to be examined by Home Office scientists at Aldermaston and a third was inspected by the chief designer of the guided weapons division of the British Aircraft Corporation. One saucer which was found at Chippenham, Wiltshire, was blown up in a controlled explosion. The Whitehall papers released at the National Archives show that within Whitehall the "1967 flying saucer hoax" was regarded at the MoD as an "obviously very successful practical joke". ....

via Alien invasion hoax fooled MoD, archive papers reveal | World news | The Guardian.

Are these articles purposely vague and frustrating? Who did the hoax being reported? How did they do it? What materials did they use? What did people see? Did they fly or where they all found on the ground? What is "rag week"? Who found the objects? Where are the interviews with the people from the time? What were the consequences for the hoaxers? Lets have some reporting.

 

 

Why many historians no longer see alchemy as an occult practice

No, wizards have not learned how to transmute lead into gold and they haven't found any rejuvenating elixir of life. But the scholars who write the history of science and technology no longer lump alchemy in with witchcraft as a pseudo-science.

Instead they see alchemy as the proper precursor to modern chemistry.

The modern word "alchemy" comes from the Arabic word "al kemia," which incorporated a spectrum of knowledge of chemical properties and practices from ancient times.

Chemist and historian Lawrence Principe of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland believes that the hardworking alchemists of the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance, a period stretching across the 14th to the 17th centuries, were defamed by being lumped in with charlatans of the 19th century, quacks that were often depicted wearing eccentric costumes and casting spells.

"We're in an alchemical revolution," said Principe during a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in February. Principe said that just in the past 30 years articles about alchemy were being accepted into Isis, one of the leading journals devoted to the history of science. Before that a prohibition on alchemical subjects had been in place.

The reason for this change is that historians are now recognizing the huge role alchemists had in producing valuable things, even if the alchemists never succeeded in turning lead into gold. By the way, making new gold was of great concern to kings since it would have interfered with the valuation of coins. This is why transmutation was considered a crime and why alchemists often had to do their research in secret.

Alchemists ... were instrumental in the development of many technologies during pre-modern times in Europe. For example, alchemists could be considered as an early form of industrial researcher. William Newman of the University of Indiana points out that alchemists ...  were active in assaying metals, refining salts, making dyes and pigments, making glass and ceramics, artificial fertilizers, perfumes, and cosmetics. An alchemists' shop was often the place in a town where you would go for medicine. Even today in many parts of Europe you go to "the chemist," for medicine, rather than to a "drug store."

Principe said that alchemists perfected the process of distillation, in which a mixed substance is boiled in such a way as to separate out one component by letting a vapor collect in a portion of the apparatus where it can be drawn off. Distillation is of course well known as the means of making spirits like whiskey. But it was also used by alchemists to make powerful acids, which in turn were important for a variety of industrial purposes, such as for separating metals from their ores. ...

via Why many historians no longer see alchemy as an occult practice.

Man Stops Car in Road, Tells Police He's From 33 A.D.

Police in Solon, Ohio, responded to calls early Monday of a car stopped in the middle of Richmond Road.

Why did the driver, a 32-year-old man from Poland, Ohio, tell police he stopped in the middle of the road? Because "his heavenly father" told him to.

The man said "he was busy talking to God" and that God told him to go to a dance club in the area.

When asked if he knew where he was, the man told police he was in Columbus.

He then said he was having a tough time adjusting because he was actually from the year 33 A.D.

The man agreed to seek treatment at St. Vincent Medical Center.

via Man Stops Car in Road, Tells Police He's From 33 A.D..

 

Perhaps he was from the vampire book 33 A.D.

"Jerusalem, 33 A.D. The vampires of the era have long sought to gain a foothold into Israel, but the faith of the local Jewish population has held them in check for centuries.  When one of their own betrays them to follow a young rabbi from Galilee, the elders of the vampire race send Theron, a nine hundred year old assassin, to kill them both."

How 'OK' took over the world thanks to the 8th US president

Allan Metcalf - "OK" is one of the most frequently used and recognised words in the world. It is also one of the oddest expressions ever invented. But this oddity may in large measure account for its popularity.

It's odd-looking. It's a word that looks and sounds like an abbreviation, an acronym. We generally spell it OK - the spelling okay is relatively recent, and still relatively rare - and we pronounce it not "ock" but by sounding the names of the letters O and K. ...

On 23 March 1839, OK was introduced to the world on the second page of the Boston Morning Post, in the midst of a long paragraph, as "o.k. (all correct)".

How this weak joke survived at all, instead of vanishing like its counterparts, is a matter of lucky coincidence involving the American presidential election of 1840.

One candidate was nicknamed Old Kinderhook, and there was a false tale that a previous American president couldn't spell properly and thus would approve documents with an "OK", thinking it was the abbreviation for "all correct".

Within a decade, people began actually marking OK on documents and using OK on the telegraph to signal that all was well. So OK had found its niche, being easy to say or write and also distinctive enough to be clear.

via BBC News - How 'OK' took over the world.

Martin Van Buren (December 5, 1782 – July 24, 1862) was the eighthPresident of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. Before his presidency, he was the eighthVice President (1833–1837) and the 10th Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson (1829–1831). He was a key organizer of the Democratic Party, a dominant figure in the Second Party System, and the first president not of British descent—his family was Dutch.

... Van Buren's unsuccessful reelection campaign in 1840 is regarded by etymologists as instrumental in the popularization of the word "OK". In the context of the campaign, the initialism was used as a nickname for Van Buren and stood for "Old Kinderhook," which was a reference to Van Buren's birthplace.

via Wikipedia

Kinderhook is a town in the northern part of Columbia County, New York, United States.

According to Woodford Heflin writing for American Speech in 1962:

"... the argument ran that the 'all correct' meaning begain when the Whigs fabricated a story to discredit the Democrats before they (the Whigs) actually knew what the Democrats meant by the expression. According to this Whig story, Andrew Jackson, the Democratic hero, was illiterate and he used the expression O.K. for Oll Korrect, which they said was his way of spelling "all correct". This story, although not necessarily told to be believed, had the effect, so the argument went, of supplying a meaning for the mysterious letters O.K. which the Democrats had not yet explained, although they were busy using the letters in headlines and shouting them in the streets.... "

The history is interesting. The Democrats, it seems, were keeping the 'Old Kinderhook' meaning secret, their own private code because this was attracting attention and arousing political interest. When the Whigs came forth with the story about Jackson, the Democrats were irked and boldly adopted the 'all correct' meaning to undo the damage by the Whigs.

First there was the Democratic Republican Party.

One faction of the party supported Andrew Jackson and it evolved into the Democratic Party. Another faction, led by John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay, was known as the National Republicans; it evolved into the Whig Party.

via Wikipedia