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News Briefs 01-08-2006

I wonder if Mel Gibson realises that Jesus was a Jew…

  • Another new tomb in the Valley of the Kings? Fresh news, straight from exiled Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves (hat-tip to Chris Ogilvie-Herald).
  • Meanwhile, KV-63 holds a mystery fit for a Pharaoh.
  • France’s new Stonehenge: secrets of a neolithic time machine.
  • Nobel Prize winner Brian Josephson takes on Nature over its article attacking government funding of bubble fusion research.
  • Steven Greer repeats his assertion that SETI has made alien contact.
  • The Washington Times reviews George Basalla’s controversial ‘anti-SETI’ book, Civilized Life in the Universe: Scientists on Intelligent Extraterrestrials (Amazon US and UK).
  • Panspermia gets new life breathed into it with the electromagnetic bug transfer theory.
  • Will our Google future allow instantaneous Akashic records-like recall of information?
  • National Geographic have images depicting that giant dinosaur mentioned in Rick’s news yesterday.
  • Did the Red Baron just get lucky?
  • Rosslyn ghost sighting spooks festival actors.
  • Does the Holy Grail lie under Lincoln Cathedral. And the bigger question – is this BBC news story about our own Spearjig?
  • The secret is out: Da Vinci mania is fading.
  • Forget all those first-person shooters, here’s the real excitement in virtual reality gaming: become the French minister of budget. I can feel the adrenaline pumping already…
  • First ever world map of happiness produced. Funny how it seems to correlate with the areas which are well off financially. What’s that saying about money and happiness?
  • Leaked memo reveals coal industry’s global warming propaganda plan.
  • Arizona man lifts car off trapped cyclist.
  • The 40 year tradition of knocking people over with a big eel has been banned. Damn fish-huggers!
  • It’s a bird, it’s a crashed plane, it’s….a log.
  • Scorpion venom attacks brain tumours.
  • Invisibility: It’s closer than you think. Shhh, I think it’s behind you.

Thanks Chris.

Quote of the Day:

Observing the work currently being carried out in the Valley my fears for this and other aspects of the site’s archaeological legacy have grown. As an informed third party no longer engaged in fieldwork I am able to speak freely on the current situation and indeed feel a strong responsibility to do so – to provide the sort of independent voice which has for too long been lacking and which like-minded colleagues, fearful for their own concessions, are loath to venture.

Nicholas Reeves

Editor
    1. I don’t know about the jerk part.
      But he’s proved that he is alcoholic. I hope he finds sobrity one day at a time. When people are drunk, and I include myself, as a person in recovery. You do and say very stupid things. That the Hollywood Jewish community has come down so hard on Mel because of his drunken remarks, shows that there may really be a problem. And very little forgiveness and understanding. I also find that it is stange that it has taken so much news time on TV, taking away from the atrosities that Israel is inflecting on Gaza and Lebenon. That we in the US have sponsered, by suppling Israel, and using our veto power in the UN.

      1. time away from the news of atrocities
        >>I also find that it is stange that it has taken so much news time on TV, taking away from the atrosities that Israel is inflecting on Gaza and Lebenon.

        Reminds me of this nytimes op/ed by Frank Rich, The Peculiar Disappearance of the War in Iraq, especially the part where Rich quotes Bill O’Reilly as saying, “It is depressing to pay attention to this war on terror. I mean, it’s summertime.”

        excerpts:

        “The steady falloff in Iraq coverage isn’t happenstance. It’s a barometer of the scope of the tragedy. For reporters, the already apocalyptic security situation in Baghdad keeps getting worse, simply making the war more difficult to cover than ever. The audience has its own phobia: Iraq is a bummer. “It is depressing to pay attention to this war on terror,” said Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly on July 18. “I mean, it’s summertime.” Americans don’t like to lose, whatever the season. They know defeat when they see it, no matter how many new plans for victory are trotted out to obscure that reality.

        “The sad truth is that the war’s architects always cared more about their own grandiose political and ideological ambitions than they did about the Iraqis, and they communicated that indifference from the start to Iraqis and Americans alike.

        “From “Shock and Awe” on, the fate of Iraqis was an afterthought.

        “The contempt our government showed for Iraqis was not just to be found in our cavalier stance toward their casualties, or in the abuses at Abu Ghraib. There was a cultural condescension toward the Iraqi people from the get-go as well, as if they were schoolchildren in a compassionate-conservatism campaign ad.

        “The most dangerous figure in Iraq, the home-grown radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, is an acolyte of neither Osama bin Laden nor Saddam but an ally of Iran who has sworn solidarity to both Hezbollah and Hamas. He commands more than 30 seats in Mr. Maliki’s governing coalition in Parliament and 5 cabinet positions. He is also linked to death squads that have slaughtered Iraqis and Americans with impunity since the April 2004 uprising that killed, among others, Cindy Sheehan’s son, Casey. Since then, Mr. Sadr’s power has only grown, enabled by Iraqi “democracy.”

        “That the latest American plan for victory is to reposition our forces by putting more of them in the crossfire of Baghdad’s civil war is tantamount to treating our troops as if they were deck chairs on the Titanic. Even if the networks led with the story every night, what Americans would have the stomach to watch?” [my bold]

        Out of sight, out of mind – as the old saying goes – keeps public awareness, discussion and dissent to a minimum, which sounds like one part of the strategy for the upcoming midterm elections in November.

        Kat

        1. There’s a number of oddities, don’t you think?
          It hardly seems odd that US news sources would lower their coverage of the Iraq quagmire and not merely because Americans don’t want to hear of how badly their Goon-in-Chief has screwed up…it’s not like it’s “News” anymore. This crap has been going on long enough that all but the staunchest and blindest Republicans have to admit that the US might have erred in its Iraq plans and partisans on either side will never change their opinions anyway. Another example of the perils of partisan politics, were such needed.

          Similarly less than odd that anyone would be surprised by the US administration’s lack of concern for the welfare of the Iraqis…in what engagingly naive world did someone imagine that the welfare of the Iraqis was of concern to anyone in the government?

          You say: “”From “Shock and Awe” on, the fate of Iraqis was an afterthought.”” Pardon me but it was never a thought and as such couldn’t have ever been an afterthought. In much of the world there’s a vast gulf between how Americans see themselves and how the world sees them and one thing Americans are unlikely to be willing to pay for is further evidence of how self-centered they are.

          A large part of the problem is the US’s inability to grasp the simplest aspects of the situation in Iraq…such as there is no such thing as “an Iraqi”. There are Sunnis living in the geographical area currently called Iraq, and Shi’ias living there and others of different stripes or no stripe at all…”Iraq” as a country didn’t exist until the Brits created it for lack of anything better to do and the best example of just how badly they phucked up in doing so is to be found in the number of people who now lament the incarceration of Sodamn Insane.

          In truth, one could only believe that news coverage of the Iraqi situation were lacking if one thought that certain US news sources were the only ones in the world…because it doesn’t take any particular effort to hear about what’s going on there, just a desire to find out and a minimal amount of effort. I grant that such minimal effort may be beyond the desire and ability of most Americans but then again that’s hardly surprising either; Americans aren’t generally keen on learning of any way in which they aren’t the center of the Universe. For heaven’s sake, are there really so many Americans who think the only real news is on American networks? Even Pravda has been known to let the truth out for some air from time to time…

          There’s another thing I find pretty odd…just how often people will refer to “the atrosities that Israel is inflecting on Gaza and Lebenon.” (sic) without making the slightest mention of what the other side is doing. The website of the Lebanese embassy in Canada currently has a few pages devoted to the conflict, including heart-rending pictures of wounded or dead children, one page headed “From Israel to Lebanon”…but strangely there’s no page headed “From Lebanon to Israel”. How anyone can refer to the situation in such a one-sided way really does expand one’s view of the possible and how anyone can be unashamed of themselves in so doing is quite as bad.

          Many Arabs and many of their apologists are fond of saying that Israel lashes out blindly at various innocents without any regard for who really performed whatever dreadful actions. Whenever I see such a comment I cannot help but wonder…if the source of such a comment were running Israel, what exactly would they do differently?

          If you were running Israel and you’d just heard that more of your children had been turned into pink mist by a Syrian rocket fired out of Lebanon by Hezbollah, what rational course of action would you follow? Would you be swayed by the Lebanese government’s assertions that they have no control over Hezbollah or would you think that the Lebanese government tacitly condones Hezbollah’s actions by not preventing them form embedding their rocket-launchers in the homes of Lebanese civilians?What would you think of the civilians who allow such a thing? Are you, like many others, going to say that the government and the general populace have no choice, that they must allow Hezbollah to do as they wish for fear of retaliation? I hope not, because such a comment would be morally bankrupt and not just because it proposes a moral equivalence between the state of Israel and Hezbollah but because it assumes that Hezbollah has similar power over the government and people of Lebanon….and as such Hezbollah is as much of a threat to Lebanon as it is to Israel.

          Here’s what I will propose as an axiom: the primary responsibility of a state is to protect its citizens from harm and as such I find it difficult to fault the government of Israel’s wish to not have its citizens blown up by Hezbollah rockets. Similarly, I have no problem with the Lebanese government’s unhappiness with Israeli actions…with this proviso: them merely saying “We don’t control Hezbollah” is not an excuse, it’s just a de facto admission that they do not control Lebanon. If the Lebanese government has broad support, they should be able (and willing) to shut Hezbollah down; their unwillingness-and their inability- to do so provides all the evidence that I need to see who’s actually running Lebanon. Until or unless the situation changes the populace of Lebanon will have to bear the consequences of their support-tacit or otherwise-of Hezbollah; for Israel to do otherwise than she is would amount to national suicide. Or was that your point, that Arab states have a right to exist but Israel does not? If so, reality has over-taken your opinion…many Arab children are not only taught that Israel has no right to exist, they are taught that it does not…Palestinian school-children are, for example, educated with globes and atlases that do not depict the state of Israel; where do you think that leads?

          Israel, like the US, currently has a chickenhawk government; leadership without military expertise, and I’m pretty sure that Israeli general officers are as unimpressed with the venture into Lebanon as many US generals were with the US’s foray into Iraq…trouble is that the US is increasingly likely to cut and run from Iraq, just as Israel may cut and run from Lebanon, and the other side in both places is more likely than not to be emboldened by such actions, and, just as the US lacks the balls to truly pursue its agenda in Iraq, the Israelis may well withdraw from Lebanon while the nest of vipers called Hezbollah still exists…unsurprisingly, since the Arab world will not soon run out of those willing to martyr themselves, even if the supply of virgins has dried up.

          For more than half a century there have been those calling upon Israel to apologize for its existence; that aside from those who say she has no right to exist at all. Even when three Arab countries attacked her at once, Israel defended herself and was condemned for it, even as she won. Palestinians have worked towards their independence and rejected it; even when they were offered 97% of what they wanted, as they were under Clinton’s administration, it wasn’t enough…apparently Arabs must get all they want while Israel should be content with nothing. Most people, confronted with an all-or-nothing choice, would accept 97% as an acceptable compromise…damn those Jews for not accepting extinction as the reward for Palestinian independence.

          Feel free to start here for the current opinion of the Lebanese government:

          http://leb-monitor.com/pages/main.htm Click on “Enter”

          When you’re done with that I’d be happy to upload the previous site, the one that was up before the Lebanese government figured out that the whole world wasn’t buying their crap.

          In the meantime I will say a prayer of mourning for those who have died on both sides, the adults and especially the children. I may even try to voice the wish that there be a special corner of Hell reserved for the creatures who thought that killing children was the way to accomplish anything…how sad that Israel’s actions in Lebanon will only create more martyrs, just as the US’s actions in Iraq will only create more hatred. The saddest part of this whole tragedy is that the Middle East was largely just a meaningless freak-show until the West tried sticking its nose into the mess…what goes around comes around, one sows the wind and reaps the whirlwind…the only question remaining is how many more babies will die.

          Good day

          http://leb-monitor.com/pages/main.htm

          So many idiots…so little time.

          1. both sides
            You don’t have to have any particular religious beliefs to see that both sides in the conflict you’re alluding to are wrong.

            Kat

          2. Maybe for you and me, Kat

            I am not saying Binro is wrong about what he believes.
            In all honesty I have been trying to work out that business in the Middle East for years and I still haven’t come close to it.

            But I do not see why Israel bombing civilians is not condemned.
            I suppose some of those Lebanese kids could be dangerous though ;specially some of those real little tackers still in nappies.
            Who knows what they could be carrying in there, stink bombs,kalyshnikovs etc.

            Over the past week I have seen dozens of dead kids carried out of bombed buildings;kids with limbs blown off, kids with most of their heads missing,kids whom you cannot see are kids because of the blood.

            And they are in Lebanon.

            Someone please explain it to me, because I need to know why this is happening and why these kids are expendable.

            shadows

          3. To all I wrote,
            that’s your response? How sad for you… And then in your later post, speaking of dead Lebanese children, with no mention of dead Israeli children; are you genuinely incapable of seeing dead children as a horror, regardless of which country they lived in? How doubly sad for you.

            Damn those pesky Israelis for not placidly accepting the slaughter of their people. How depressingly predictable that another jew-hater will sympathize with Arabs when the net result on both sides is more dead children. Do you know the major difference between Israelis and Arabs who kill children? There’s a pretty good chance that an Israeli will feel deep regret, to the extent that the Israeli government may abandon its efforts against Hezbollah, while many Arabs are dancing in the streets every time they hear of another bloody “success” against Israel. I still haven’t heard what anyone would do differently, in Israel’s shoes, but then again who cares about a few more dead Jews, right?

            So many idiots…so little time.

          4. yet again……
            just another religious war…….inocents are always the sufferers.

            The middle east will never settle, too many factions fighting for their own little bit of reconition. It is far too complicated for any of us to understand completely. All we can do is watch and hope suffering ends soon. Taking sides or trying to point a finger at the aggressor is a waste of time……it’s like trying to pick the correct position of a pendulum……generations have grown up only knowing hatred…..you can’t change that over night.

          5. both sides
            Anyone who doesn’t think Binro makes a valid point here should check out Wiki’s article on Hezbollah, especially the section on Hezbollah Ideology:

            Hezbollah supports the destruction of the state of Israel and has co-operated with other militant Islamic organizations such as Hamas in order to promote this goal. Hezbollah has vowed, “It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth.”

            Hezbollah is currently led by its Secretary General, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, who, with regard the future of the State of Israel, has said:

            “Everybody talks nowadays about accepting the reality and coexistence, or any other form of settlement with Israel.” However, he views “realism in a different way”. To him, “Israel is an illegal usurper entity, which is based on falsehood, massacres, and illusions, and there is no chance for its survival.”

            “if they all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.”

            Nasrallah has ruled out “co-existence with” the Jews or “peace”, as “they are a cancer which is liable to spread again at any moment.” “There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.”

          6. OK Binro
            Let’s get this straight right from the beginning.I am NOT anti-Semitic!
            You either have a short memory or you have not read the large numbers of posts I have made here on this forum denouncing the Holocaust Deniers.
            I won’t go to Rense.com because of his blatant anti-Semitism.
            I have vested interests in the Holocaust,I lived for 25 years with a European who lost his best friends in the gas chambers, I worked with Poles who escaped the death chambers and I saw the numbers tattoed on their arms and the nightmare still behind their eyes.
            My partner and his family are famous in their country for hiding hundreds of Jews in caves dug in under their home, thus saving them from the Nazis.
            My grandmother was Jewish but I did not know her but I know that by Hitler’s laws that would qualify me for the death chamber.
            So don’t go there Binro, because you’re walking the wrong dog.

            However.
            What I did say was that I only saw dead and injured Lebanese babies on TV.I have not seen Israeli babies dead or injured.
            When you say that only Israelis could grieve for Arab dead I think you are being a bit subjective.
            How do you know that?
            You don’t.

            I have been a supporter of Israel all my life.I have researched for a very long time why the world has behaved towards Jews the way they have.
            I cheered for them having their own state in 1948.
            I decried the Catholic Church and the likes of Mel Gibson for their one-eyed hysterical hatred of the Jews and the damage it has done to the world.

            I DON’T KNOW what to do about the situation in the MIddle East.Each party has a reason to be angry.But at present I see Lebanese civilians being killed and maimed, and made homeless.
            If this is happening to the Israelis I HAVE NOT SEEN IT.

            So calm down Binro.I’m sorry if I offended you.I have a pretty heavy hand sometimes I know.
            Add a prayer from me to your prayer of mourning;for all those poor bastards being killed in a stupid situation in which there is no right and only wrong.

            shadows

      2. Mel’s done his part for this war
        by making that movie that said Jews were guilty of killing Christ.
        Anyone who contributes in that over the top way to any of the religious debate is adding fuel to the religious wars that flourish on this earth.

        I saw something funny on the Simpsons last night.The TV bloke who does the news said the next item would be ‘Which god is the only true god’.

        In my opinion the only true god on this earth is power and the money that gives it to you.

        shadows

  1. OUR Spearjig?
    Our very own Spearjig?

    Crikey, that’s wonderful!

    I am going to re-read all his blogs and get up to date on all the information so that I know what is happening.
    I forget things sometimes as everyone knows.

    Gee Steven Greer is telling it like it is.Good on him!

    shadows

  2. Red Baron lucky??
    I doubt this. It is a common fact that he was not a great pilot but an excellent marksman and that is what is was all about. To survive that long in an aerial conflict is remarkable and whether his opposition were newbie’s or not is quite irrelevant.

    The guy was and is a legend when aircraft were made of wood and rags with nil protection against bullets. He too was shot down and recovered from injuries, only to fly again and eventually die. The same could not be said for Herman Gering who left the red baron’s squadron before the end of the war and survived to reak havoc for the next three decades.

    To be classified as an ace needed five kills and the allies in both world wars celebrated aces with five kills. Many Germans and Russians had many many more kills and are not even known by name.

    The name Adolf Galand also comes to mind.

    AAiek

  3. Great distraction
    Mel’s current problems are a wonderful way to distract the general public from the horrors that are happening in the Middle East. Probably why this disgusting event has received so much coverage.

    Regards, Kathrinn

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