There's only ONE way to STOP the far-left Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) from possibly hi-jacking our electoral system.
The actions you take (or do not take) RIGHT NOW as you read this urgent appeal may well determine whether or not ACORN will succeed.
Powerline.com went so far as to write: "It is reasonable to ask whether ACORN is in fact a criminal conspiracy to subvert the voting rights of Americans."
ACORN's actions, which are currently under investigation in 12 states, may actually strike at the very heart of the freedoms we cherish and enjoy in the United States of America!
This is probably the most urgent and pivotal letter we've ever put before you.
These are desperate times and simply listening to Sean Hannity or Rush talk about this evolving scandal on the radio WILL NOT STOP ACORN!
Hearing allegations about ACORN on FOX News WILL NOT STOP ACORN!
Simply shooting off an angry e-mail IS NOT going to STOP ACORN!
And no, threatening "legal action" AFTER the fact IS NOT going to STOP ACORN!
Frankly, RIGHT NOW, talk is cheap.
There's only ONE way to STOP the apparent massive voter fraud that may be taking place right under your nose.
Simply put, if the voter registration allegations against ACORN are true, that means thousands of fraudulent votes could be cast in pivotal swing states and make a farce of our entire electoral process!
Most everyone has heard the old story about dead people voting in Chicago.
Imagine such a thing happening on a much larger scale. ACORN presently operates in 38 states!
But there is a simple solution to this potential problem!
Congress must be called back into session IMMEDIATELY and emergency legislation must be passed that simply states that voters must produce a valid state or federal ID at the polls or have their votes counted only provisionally until legitimacy can be verified.
Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent, separate and distinct Blast Faxes to President George W. Bush and each and every Member of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.
Tell them to call Congress back into session immediately and demand that they pass emergency legislation that will require all voters to present valid state or federal IDs at the polling place or have their votes counted only provisionally until legitimacy can be verified. Tell them that the cherished privilege to vote is pivotal to our way of life and MUST be protected from ALL illegitimate challenges whether they come from the political left or the political right!
Demand they do it NOW! Threatening to cut off federal funds from ACORN AFTER the election is simply too little too late. ACORN's actions constitute a clear and present danger to our system of government. While such actions should and must be taken, cutting off funding and issuing court challenges and indictments after the fact does not address the threat we now face and only destabilizes our government, sets a dangerous precedent and encourages future threats!
If the above hyperlink does not appear to function, you should copy and paste it into the address bar of your browser.
We MUST flood our legislative officials with high-impact faxes and calls. After you take action, please forward this urgent and time sensitive alert to at least 10 of your friends. Our system of government hangs in the balance!
ACORN "Wiseguys" Laugh At Criminal Indictments!
Some will say that criminal investigations are already in progress and since authorities already plan a nationwide sweep of ACORN offices there is no need to panic.
In other words, the system will handle the problem.
But the sad truth of the matter is that such Pollyanna pronouncements will do NOTHING to STOP ACORN.
Quite frankly, if past performance is any indication of future results, CRIMINAL INDICTMENTS OR LAWSUITS MAY NOT STOP ACORN!
According to some reports, ACORN, in the past, has actually recruited convicted felons.
The Associated Press recently reported that the Milwaukee ACORN office hired at least seven felons who were convicted of crimes ranging from drug possession to robbery.
According to the Washington Post: "Nevada Secretary of State and Attorney General who alleged in an application for a search warrant that ACORN had hired 59 felons through a work release program as canvassers..." [Emphasis Mine]
ACORN's Wisconsin political director Carolyn Castore rather matter-of-factly told the Associated Press: “We have a lot of folks with felony records and, frankly, they need jobs.”
And yes, there is a history of complaints against ACORN.
Michael Gaynor with Canada Free Press recounts an article published in the Wall Street JournalTWO YEARS AGO:
“These are recent complaints, but ACORN’s history is riddled with criminal activity. During the last major election, the Wall Street Journal did a story about ACORN. Four ACORN workers had been indicted by a federal grand jury for submitting false voter registration forms to the Kansas City, Missouri, election board; other ACORN workers were convicted in Wisconsin and Colorado and investigations, at the time the article was written, were under way in Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania."
Gaynor also writes of more recent indictments and investigations:
"Last year, The Seattle Times reported the biggest voter-registration fraud scheme in Washington history. Three ACORN employees pleaded guilty, and four more were charged for filling out and submitting more than 1,800 fictitious voter-registration cards during a 2006 registration drive in King and Pierce counties.’ (Keith Ervin, ‘Three plead guilty in fake voter scheme,’ 10-30-2007)"
"This year, an ACORN employee in West Reading, PA, was sentenced for up to 23 months in prison for identity theft and tampering with records. A second ACORN worker pleaded not guilty to the same charges and is free on $10,000 bail.
"There are also examples of indictments this year, such as the four ACORN employees in Kansas City charged with identity theft and filing false registrations during the 2006 election and the Reynoldsburg fellow indicted on two felony counts of illegal voting and false registration, after being registered by ACORN to vote in two separate counties. And there are current investigations into ACORN for voter fraud all over the map..." [Emphasis Mine]
Ask yourself the following (assuming these most recent allegations are credible), if criminal indictments have not deterred ACORN in the past, why should the prospect of criminal indictments deter ACORN NOW?
Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent, separate and distinct Blast Faxes to President George W. Bush and each and every Member of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.
Tell them to call Congress back into session immediately and demand that they pass emergency legislation that will require all voters to present valid state or federal IDs at the polling place or have their votes counted only provisionally until legitimacy can be verified. Tell them that the cherished privilege to vote is pivotal to our way of life and MUST be protected from ALL illegitimate challenges whether they come from the political left or the political right!
Demand they do it NOW! Threatening to cut off federal funds from ACORN AFTER the election is simply too little too late. ACORN's actions constitute a clear and present danger to our system of government. While such actions should and must be taken, cutting off funding and issuing court challenges and indictments after the fact does not address the threat we now face and only destabilizes our government, sets a dangerous precedent and encourages future threats!
If the above hyperlink does not appear to function, you should copy and paste it into the address bar of your browser.
We MUST flood our legislative officials with high-impact faxes and calls. After you take action, please forward this urgent and time sensitive alert to at least 10 of your friends. Our system of government hangs in the balance!
Too Little Too Late...
Investors' Business Daily (IBD) recently made the following suggestion to John McCain:
"McCain would be wise to start preparing a challenge to voter registration rolls should he lose the race in a close contest. He'd be crazy not to contest the results in light of these events."
With all due respect to IBD, the only "craziness" would be to wait. This is NOT a Republican vs. Democrat or Liberal vs. Conservative issue.
IF ACORN has already violated our system of government and IF they plan to continue violating our system through election day with impunity, closing the barn doors after the horses have gone is not a sound strategy.
Some of our elected officials are starting to talk tough but again, talk is cheap.
According to Politico.com, House Minority Leader John Boehner is already talking about cutting off federal funding to ACORN.
But his proposed actions fall short of the mark.
“Election cycle after election cycle, this organization has been at the forefront of breaking the law in order to promote their left-wing agenda. All the while, they have been the recipients of millions of dollars of federal funding through various federal programs and third-party groups. House Republicans took a stand recently to cut off funding to an ACORN slush fund created by their allies in the House Majority, but now more must be done."
“All federal funding to ACORN must be stopped. The ACORN slush fund must be disbanded. Sources of federal funding through the Department of Housing and Urban Development or any other agency must be stopped. Contracting for services between candidates for federal office and ACORN, as Senator Obama has done, must end. Now that the taxpayers own Fannie Mae, any funding from Fannie Mae’s nonprofit foundation to ACORN must stop.
“ACORN spent decades promoting the housing policies that brought America’s economy to the brink, and similarly over the years has committed fraud on our system of elections, making American voters question the fairness and accuracy of the exercise of their most fundamental right under the Constitution. Now it is time to cut off ACORN before it grows even more destructive.”
No Congressman Boehner!
Now is not the time to just cut off funding (frankly, that should have happened years ago).
NOW is the time to protect our electoral process!
Boehner does however, bring up a valid point. Your tax dollars ARE STILL going to ACORN. You're actually paying them just as surely as if you wrote the check yourself!
Yes, we should cut off ALL funding to ACORN NOW as Boehner states. Yes, we should have Congressional investigations. And yes, if the allegations are true, we shouldn't stop with ACORN... heads should roll in Congress as well!
But that's not enough to STOP the clear and present danger we all face today!
In a day and age when we have to present valid identification to board an airplane, it's not a stretch to ask someone to simply prove their identity to vote.
It does not present a "constitutional crisis" or deny anyone access to a polling place to ask them to either present valid identification or vote provisionally. If their identity can be verified later, then their vote is counted.
Free societies actually institute such requirements.
Tyrannies and Banana Republics DO NOT!
It's unfortunate that our conservative leaders often lack the imagination and the forethought to understand the gravity of the threats we face.
We shouldn't have to ask that our liberties be protected. Our elected leaders should be calling upon us to take action... not visa-versa.
But do it we must.
If we don't send the message NOW, the message will not be sent... at least not until it is TOO LATE!
Join us by acting NOW!
Use the hyperlink below to send your urgent, separate and distinct Blast Faxes to President George W. Bush and each and every Member of the Leadership of the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives.
Tell them to call Congress back into session immediately and demand that they pass emergency legislation that will require all voters to present valid state or federal IDs at the polling place or have their votes counted only provisionally until legitimacy can be verified. Tell them that the cherished privilege to vote is pivotal to our way of life and MUST be protected from ALL illegitimate challenges whether they come from the political left or the political right!
Demand they do it NOW! Threatening to cut off federal funds from ACORN AFTER the election is simply too little too late. ACORN's actions constitute a clear and present danger to our system of government. While such actions should and must be taken, cutting off funding and issuing court challenges and indictments after the fact does not address the threat we now face and only destabilizes our government, sets a dangerous precedent and encourages future threats!
If the above hyperlink does not appear to function, you should copy and paste it into the address bar of your browser.
We MUST flood our legislative officials with high-impact faxes and calls. After you take action, please forward this urgent and time sensitive alert to at least 10 of your friends. Our system of government hangs in the balance!
P.S. Please help us reach as many concerned Americans as possible by forwarding this e-mail to at least 10 of your friends and family members.
Center for Individual Freedom 113 S. Columbus St., Suite 310 Alexandria, VA 22314 703-535-5836 Fax:703-535-5838
CFIF is a 501(c)(4) not-for-profit constitutional advocacy organization with the mission to protect and defend individual freedoms and individual rights.
Contributions to CFIF are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Contributions may be deductible as a business expense.
Archeologists have unearthed the tomb of a Roman general thought to have inspired the character played by Russell Crowe in the film 'Gladiator'.
By Nick Squires in Rome Last Updated: 3:32PM BST 17 Oct 2008
The 1,800-year-old stone mausoleum on the banks of the River Tiber was hailed by experts as an "extraordinary discovery" and one of the most important Roman finds for decades.
It was built to contain the remains of Marcus Nonius Macrinus, a proconsul and a favourite of Marcus Aurelius, who ruled as emperor from 161 AD to his death in 180 AD.
Macrinus was born in Brescia, in northern Italy, and won victories leading Roman legions into battle.
He became a confidant of Emperor Aurelius, being appointed a proconsul in Asia Minor and describing himself as "chosen out of the closest friends".
Elements of his life were incorporated into Maximus Decimus Meridius, the fictional character for which Crowe won an Oscar in the 2000 film Gladiator, directed by Ridley Scott.
In the award-winning film, Maximus is a battle-hardened general and a protégé of the emperor, just as Marcus Nonius Macrinus was.
The intricately carved marble tomb, complete with a stone inscription identifying it as that of Macrinus, was found near the Via Flaminia, one of the arterial roads which led in and out of ancient Rome.
The jumble of broken columns, friezes and stone blocks was discovered during the demolition of a warehouse, along with remarkably intact parts of the original Roman road.
"It's been at least 20 or 30 years since a relic of this importance has come to light in Rome," said a senior archeologist, Daniela Rossi.
Over the centuries parts of the tomb crumbled into the Tiber but enough has been recovered during months of painstaking excavation work that experts are discussing the possibility of reconstructing it as the focus of an archeological park.
In the award-winning film, Emperor Marcus Aurelius, played by Richard Harris, is murdered by his ruthless son Commodus, who declares himself emperor and sets about destroying Maximus, ordering the murder of his wife and child.
Slave traders take the shattered Maximus to North Africa, where he is sold to a gladiator school and trained as a fighter.
Returning to Rome seeking revenge, he eventually kills Commodus in a bloody showdown in the Colosseum, which was famous for its gladiatorial contests.
The film's scriptwriters also based the character of Maximus on Spartacus, who led a slave revolt against Rome in the 1st century BC, and Narcissus, a wrestler who brought Commodus' reign as emperor to an abrupt end by strangling him.
Commodus is believed to have been the only Roman emperor to have taken part in gladiatorial contests.
Last year archeologists in Rome found a mosaic which they believe depicts a favourite sparring partner of the emperor, named Montanus.
The mosaic shows the gladiator holding a trident over a prone opponent who he has apparently defeated in hand-to-hand combat.
Raxa Rubra: i dettagli e le foto dell’eccezionale ritrovamento archeologico di via Flaminia
Come accennato ieri, il nostro Rodolfo Bosi ha partecipato alla conferenza stampa sulla presentazione della straordinario ritrovamento archeologico di via Vitorchiano nei pressi di via Flaminia. Ecco il suo resoconto:
Alla presenza di un folto stuolo di giornalisti e di addetti ai lavori, soprattutto delle Soprintendenze interessate, giovedì 16 ottobre 2008 si è svolta la conferenza stampa nel corso della quale l’On. Francesco Maria Giro, sottosegretario di Stato per i Beni e le Attività Culturali, ed Angelo Bottini, soprintendente per i beni archeologici di Roma hanno presentato gli ultimi 4 importanti ritrovamenti archeologici avvenuti a Roma e precisamente nel Palatino, presso lo stadio Flaminio, nella zona di Castel di Guido (via Aurelia) e sulla via Flaminia (via Vitorchiano): questi ultimi, sono stati illustrati da Daniela Rossi, che ha seguito i saggi di scavo iniziati nel 2007.
La genesi degli scavi sull’area di via Vitorchiano è dovuta all’Accordo di Programma per cambio di destinazione d’uso del complesso immobiliare via Flaminia Km. 8,500 proposto dalla S.p.A. “Villa Immobiliare 89″, società di costruzione del gruppo Bonifaci: i suoi contenuti in Variante del nuovo P.R.G. di Roma sono stati approvati dal Consiglio Comunale con deliberazione n. 49 del 20 febbraio 2006, quando si stava ancora discutendo delle controdeduzioni alle osservazioni presentate da cittadini ed associazioni: in data 27 marzo 2007 è stato sottoscritto dal Presidente della Giunta Regionale del Lazio e dal Sindaco di Roma l’Accordo di Programma, che è stato poi ratificato dal Consiglio Comunale con deliberazione n. 62 del 23 aprile 2007.
L’accordo ha consentito:
di trasformare in totalmente residenziali le volumetrie dapprima previste per un albergo da 1.000 posti letto (poi arrotondate a 100.000 mc.) su un edificio situato tra via Flaminia Nuova e la collina dei Saxa Rubra, che è stato già demolito e ricostruito;
di realizzare ex novo 76.115 mc. in terreni di proprietà del proponente nell’ambito del Piano di lottizzazione convenzionato Acqua Acetosa Ostiense;
di realizzare ex novo ulteriori 20.000 mc. sul fronte opposto della via Flaminia Nuova, in un’area di complessivi 24.580 ma. lungo via Vitorchiano di proprietà del gruppo Bonifaci (vedi il sottostante fotomontaggio del luglio 2003) .
Per ottenere di costruire tutte le suddette volumetrie, la S.p.A. “Villa Immobiliare 89” si è dichiarata disposta a realizzare la sede del XX° Municipio su un’area di ca. 12.695 mq. antistante l’edificio inizialmente destinato ad albergo.
Dal momento che l’area di mq. 24.580 ricompresa tra via Vitorchiano il rilevato della pista ciclabile e la ferrovia Roma-Civitacastellana, su cui la “Immobiliare 89” vorrebbe realizzare 3 fabbricati residenziali di 4 piani per 20.000 mc. complessivi, è interessata dal presumibile tracciato della antica via Flaminia, segnalata da molte fonti antiche, nel 2007 - subito dopo la ratifica dell’Accordo di Programma - sono iniziate delle indagini archeologiche preventive: le operazioni di scavo e restauro sono state finanziate dallo stesso gruppo Bonifaci.
Nel 2007 è stato riportato alla luce un tratto basolato dell’antico tracciato della via Flaminia attestato ad una quota di 7 metri più bassa dell’attuale piano di calpestio.
Questa depressione in antico deve aver provocato frequenti ed abbondanti episodi di allagamento quando le esondazioni del vicino fiume Tevere ricoprivano la via Flaminia ed i monumenti che si affiancavano lungo di essa: non a caso infatti nel 1500 la viabilità è stata spostata più ad ovest, oltre la Flaminia attuale, subito sotto le rupi tufacee dei Saxa Rubra, chiamate Monte delle Grotte sul fronte opposto proprio a via Vitorchiano.
Nell’ultimo mese di quest’anno, in seguito alla demolizione di parte dei manufatti industriali fatiscenti presenti sull’area, sono venuti alla luce accanto al tracciato della via Flaminia i resti di un grandioso monumento funebre, che si ritiene che si trovino ancora in condizione di giacitura quasi primaria a seguito del crollo e che siano stati sigillati (e quindi ancora perfettamente conservati) nei limi da una particolare piena del fiume.
Così come riportato nella scheda distribuita a tutti i partecipanti alla conferenza stampa, lo spettacolo del rinvenimento risulta particolarmente sensazionale in quanto i grandi blocchi marmorei pertinenti a colonne, capitelli, timpani, lastre decorate ed iscrizioni sono venute alla luce in gruppi monumentali scomposti, ma di facile connessione con un sorprendente effetto scenografico da stampa settecentesca.
Sensazionali sono anche i dati desunti dall’epigrafe dedicatoria messa in luce che consentono di identificare il mausoleo come appartenente ad un importante personaggio storico, quale è stato Marco Nonio Macrino, prestigioso esponente di una delle più famose famiglie bresciane del II° secolo d.C. che svolse parte della sua luminosissima carriera sotto Antonino Pio, concludendola poi con Marco Aurelio, di cui fu compagno nella guerra contro i Quadi ed i Marcomanni.
Nel corso della sua illustrazione, la dott.ssa Daniela Rossi ha fatto sapere che proprio il giorno prima della conferenza stampa è stato fatto un ultimo rinvenimento stavolta sul lato opposto dell’antico tracciato della via Flaminia.
Quando saranno finiti tutti i saggi di scavo, ai sensi del 1° comma dell’art. 14 del “Codice dei Beni Culturali e del Paesaggio”, emanato con D. Lgs. n. 42/2004, la Soprintendenza dovrà avviare il procedimento di vincolo per la dichiarazione dell’interesse culturale, dandone comunicazione al gruppo Bonifaci.
Il provvedimento di imposizione del vincolo (“dichiarazione dell’interesse culturale”) sarà adottato dal Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali: ci sarà da vedere se tra vincolo diretto e vincolo indiretto (quest’ultimo finalizzato ad assicurare una fascia di rispetto dei beni vincolati) il gruppo Bonifaci potrà ancora edificare una parte o tutti i 20.000 mc. (inizialmente previsti) sull’area rimanente che non sarà stata fatta oggetto di alcun vincolo.
Il sottosegretario On. Giro ha fatto riferimento al D.L. n. 112, poi convertito nella legge n. 133, da lui definito assolutamente dovuto per risanare i conti dello Stato, che ha comportato però tagli anche abbastanza cospicui anche per il Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali (- 15,7 %) e che costringono ad essere “razionali”: ha fatto sapere che per il 2009 il Ministero ha in dotazione 1.718.607.326 € complessivi (comprensivi di stipendi, spese fisse ecc.) e che a fronte di questa scarsa disponibilità si sta tentando di “rimodulare” gli interventi secondo le rispettive priorità.
Il sottoscritto, Rodolfo Bosi, che ha partecipato alla conferenza stampa per conto di Vejo.it, si è unito alle domande degli altri giornalisti e, dopo aver fatto presente che il ritrovamento di via Vitorchiano va ad arricchire il già ricco patrimonio archeologico della via Flaminia, di cui l’allora funzionario della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma dott. Gaetano Messineo aveva redatto assieme all’arch. Maria Gloria Leonetti una proposta di sistemazione e valorizzazione del parco archeologico dell’intera via Flaminia da Ponte Milvio a Malborghetto (che se realizzato farebbe concorrenza al parco dell’Appia Antica), ha ricordato che nel 1991 la proposta era stata approvata fra i progetti di Roma Capitale con tanto di finanziamento, che non è stato poi mai erogato: ha quindi chiesto se, pur nell’ambito delle poche disponibilità economiche messe a disposizione del Ministero, ci fosse la possibilità di riesumare e mandare in attuazione quel progetto, sfruttando al limite le eventuali risorse che verrebbero messe a disposizione di Roma Capitale nell’ambito delle legge di riforma in senso federalista, oltre che quelle ulteriori risorse che potrebbero essere erogate dalla Regione Lazio.
Senza sbilanciarsi né in un senso né nell’altro, il sottosegretario Giro ha risposto con un laconico “mai dire mai“, per specificare subito dopo che bisogna avere al riguardo le idee chiare e scegliere in base alle priorità, cercando comunque di non perdere il finanziamento del 1991.
Speriamo bene.
Categorie: Notizie, Top (1) - Etichette: Data pubblicazione: 17 October 2008 - Scritto da Vejo.it
Tamara Korošec (Znanstvenoraziskovalni center SAZU, Inštitut za arheologijo)
Motif:
Bone Flute from Divje Babe Cave
Printed by:
Oriental Press, Bahrain
Printing technique:
4-colour offset
Sheet:
miniature sheets of 1 stamp
Paper:
GSM 102 g/m2
5)Description
The Oldest Flute
In 1995, the excavations of the archaeologists of the Scientific Research Centre of the Slovene Academy of Sciences and Arts (SRC SASA) unearthed a perforated thigh bone (femur) of a juvenile cave bear (Ursus spelaeus) from the cave bear bone accumulations of the Divje Babe I Cave Site situated over the hamlet of Reka in western Slovenia. The artefact discovered was later recognised as possibly the oldest flute in the world, dating back to the middle of the last Ice Age, which began 115,000 years ago and ended with a long-lasting warming 10,000 years ago. Slovene and American scientists determined its age by analysing the succession of cave sediment layers containing other artefacts from that period and climate records, and by using the Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) dating. The sediment layer housing the bone flute was thus estimated at about 55,000 years. The last Glaciation was the age of Neanderthal man. Until the arrival of modern humans 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals were the only human occupants of Europe, which means that the flute could only be produced by them. This sheds new light on Neanderthals and their cultural capacity, bringing them closer to our direct ancestors - fully modern humans - who manufactured and used similar bone flutes after their arrival to Europe. While the capacity of modern humans to manufacture musical instruments is an uncontested fact, many doubt that the Neanderthal man possessed the same ability. This is the reason why the Slovene archaeological find, which is 10,000 years older than the oldest uncontested bone flute, unleashed a long national and international debate among scholars, shaking the very foundations of some of the common perceptions of the Neanderthal man. The status of the artefact as a flute became disputable. Doubts were voiced about the explanation of the artificial (human-made) origin of the holes. It was suggested that they are more likely to be the result of natural causes, in particular bites from ancient carnivores rather than Neanderthal construction, which is a complete nonsense in this case. Still, no matter how we interpret this unexpected find, which is admittedly unique both in time and place, it is the fact that it is truly the oldest of its kind, and the possibility that the find could be the flute cannot be ruled out based on the current evidence. Ivan TURK, Institute of Archaelogy, SRC SASA, Ljubljana
The silverware was perfectly preserved by volcanic ash and mud
A set of ancient silverware has been dug up from Pompeii, the Roman city destroyed by a volcano 2,000 years ago.
The hand-crafted goblets, plates and trays had been bundled into a wicker basket by an inhabitant fleeing the erupting Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.
The tableware, well preserved in ash and mud, was discovered five years ago and archaeologists have used the latest techniques to separate 20 pieces.
Experts say it is the most important find of this kind for 70 years.
Thousands of inhabitants of Pompeii gathered up what few possessions they hoped to save and tried to escape from the firestorm and the clouds of volcanic ash and mud which descended upon their city.
Pietro Giovanni Guzzo, in charge of the excavations at the world's first scientifically excavated archaeological site, told a news conference that the remains of up to 2,000 citizens of Pompeii out of a population of 10,000 to 15,000, trapped by the eruption have so far been recovered.
"But no-one knows exactly how many managed to escape," he said.
Silverware stashed
One man bundled his family silverware into a wicker basket and ran for his life.
He hid the basket in a stairwell in some public baths on the outskirts of the city before being overcome by fumes.
Archaeologists checking on the building of a new motorway near Pompeii dug it up, next to the man's skeleton.
The wicker basket and its contents were congealed into a solid block.
The set is the most important find of this sort in more than 70 years
Working with the latest archaeological techniques, including x-ray, experts have managed to separate the silverware, remove the heavy encrustations of the eruption and salvage them.
The remains of the basket are currently being treated with chemicals to preserve the vegetable fibre and are also expected to be put on show eventually.
The solid silver plates and goblets - all beautifully polished - were brought to Rome under heavy security guard for a private viewing. Together they weigh more than 4kg (9lbs).
I saw two exquisitely engraved wine cups, a set of small dishes, a large serving plate with an elaborately chased border, a spoon, plus some tiny, finely worked silver trays for appetisers.
Two other similar and larger hoards of table silver excavated in Pompeii during the 19th and 20th Centuries are on show in the Louvre museum in Paris and at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples. But no new treasure trove of this quality from Pompeii has been seen for more than 70 years. It will be put on show at the Naples museum during 2006.
Pompeii pottery may rewrite history
Heather Catchpole
ABC Science Online
Monday, 8 November 2004
A broken plate is one of the pieces in the puzzle of how ancient cultures traded (Image: Jaye Pont)
Archaeologists may need to change their view of Pompeii's role in trade and commerce, after a ceramics expert's recent discovery.
Australian researcher Jaye Pont from the Museum of Ancient Cultures at Sydney's Macquarie University says people who lived in Pompeii bought their pottery locally and didn't import it.
Pont said the find could "make waves" among archaeologists looking at trade in the Mediterranean.
And she said researchers may have to rethink shelves of museum pottery once thought to be from the eastern Roman Empire.
Pont looked at a particular type of red pottery from a city block in Pompeii that had been buried beneath rubble from the Mount Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD.
The city block had been inhabited since the 4th century BC. And an international group of researchers, known as the Anglo American Project in Pompeii, found thousands of samples of red slip pottery there.
This type of pottery was made by dipping a partly dried plate or bowl into a water-and-clay mix called slip. The vessel would then be fired to give it a red, shiny colour.
Previously, archaeologists had thought much of this pottery was imported from the eastern Roman Empire based at Constantinople, with the rest coming from northern Italy and Gallic France.
But Pont, who is doing her PhD on the pottery and is a potter, has found that all the "imported" pottery was local.
Who did Pompeii trade with?
Pont said her research would "turn upside down" old notions of commerce and trade between Pompeii and the eastern Roman Empire.
Inhabitants of Pompeii and other areas such as northern Africa, where the pottery is also found, were thought to have traded extensively with the eastern Roman Empire.
"The fact that I have not found one piece that has been imported I think will have quite large implications for trade and commerce in that area," Pont told ABC Science Online.
A red slip bowl (Image: Jennifer Stephens, Anglo American Project in Pompeii)
Pont and Macquarie University geologist Dr Patrick Conaghan examined 200 thin sections of the pottery under a microscope and looked at tiny flecks in the clay.
The flecks, which contained the mineral leucite, were identical in composition and unique to the Bay of Naples region, where Mount Vesuvius is found.
Most scientific analysis has been done chemically but not through thin section analysis, Pont said. But she said thin section analysis was "very clear cut": either the pottery is from the area or it isn't.
Pont said archaeologists made the mistake of thinking the pottery was imported because there was a lot of variation in the colour and quality of the local pottery compared to the pottery from northern Italy.
And archaeologists had based their classification of the pottery on these variations, she said.
"As a potter, perhaps I could see things archaeologists couldn't," said Pont. "In general archaeologists don't understand how [pottery] is made. They can't identify manufacturing techniques within a vessel."
She said archaeologists rely a lot on colour to differentiate vessels.
"I could understand that even in one kiln, what you get at the top and at the bottom of the kiln can be very different in colour."
Pottery is also classified by form, yet pottery "isn't an exact science", said Pont.
"But whole assemblages have been grouped by rim shape ... When I looked at [the pottery] I couldn't see the difference. It turns out there wasn't a difference."
She said the red slip pottery, known as terra sigillata, was also differentiated on the condition of the slip that coloured the vessel.
"It is read as gospel that eastern sigillata didn't have a slip that worked well. But if you have a potter with greasy fingers, that slip will peel off," she said.
Pont said although she has only excavated one city block, the fact that she was yet to find one piece that has been imported could make archaeologists reconsider shelves of museum pottery.
THE BLACKS ARE ABOUT TO EMBARACK ON THE SUBSIDY OF AFRICA AT THE TAXPAYERS' EXPENSE.
What is there left for the class of working whites to do, while the government is an accomplice in the triple crime?
THE ENEMY IS WITHIN AND HAS TAKEN OVER. THE WORKING WHITES ARE BEING ENTERTAINED BY SPORTS, INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY, TELEVISION TRASH, AND CHURCH CLOWNS, SO THAT THEY WILL NOT RISE AND KILL THEM ALL.
LOS ANGELES - Firefighters backed by water-dumping helicopters and planes gained ground Sunday on a wildfire that destroyed two homes and forced the evacuation of about 1,200 people in a rugged area 20 miles north of downtown.
Los Angeles County Fire Department spokesman Ron Haralson said the blaze charred up to 750 acres and also burned a garage, several sheds and three motor homes.
No one was seriously injured. A firefighter and one resident reported minor breathing problems.
Haralson said firefighters are "getting a really good handle" on the blaze that started early. Sunday. But powerful Santa Ana winds are expected to arrive in the evening, and gusts could spread embers igniting brush, grass and chaparral in the area.
About 450 homes were evacuated early Sunday when the blaze moved southeast toward city limits, said U.S. Forest Service spokesman Stanton Florea.
"It burned right down to a couple of neighborhoods," Florea said.
The fire was burning south of the Wildlife Waystation, an animal sanctuary and rehabilitation facility set on 160 acres. The nonprofit agency houses more than 400 animals, including lions, bears and deer. Officials were loading up the animals in case the fire switched direction.
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
Elsewhere in California, firefighters halted the spread of a wildfire that burned about 300 acres of heavy brush, destroyed a home and threatened several wineries in Napa Valley.
More than 1,500 firefighters were called in to work the blaze, which state fire officials said was fully contained by Sunday morning.
Investigators said Saturday a rock struck by a car ignited the wildfire Friday afternoon. Strong winds in the hills near the wine country town of St. Helena caused the fire to spread quickly.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said all evacuation orders had been lifted, allowing 100 people to return home after the flames forced them to flee.
FBI Investigates U.S. Financial Crisis - Where Did $1 Trillion Go?
The high-risk subprime mortgage social engineering community service experiment by left-wing ACORN and Obama has created the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression.The full reach of the corruption and scandal may never be known but those who created it must not be rewarded.The architects, primarily left-wing Democrats, created laws, took donations, looked the other way and instead were too busy overseeing donations to their own presidential campaigns and robbing main street blind.Now these same left-wing Democrats blame everyone else and get up on their high horses and say, "we are here to save you" from the crises they created.
Yes, Mr. Obama knows a great deal about the mess.He is a central figure in the left-wing ACORN exploitation of financial institutions and pressuring them to make high risk loans.The very same left-wing ACORN was guilty of voter fraud in the last presidential election.
Now these same Democrats want to do another high risk "community service," social engineering experiment. They want to elect a high-risk, low experience, socialist one of the same community organizers that created the mess to be our next president.We cannot experiment with the office of president and learn as we go. Barack Obama is not qualified and has no history of success as a leader in government or business.
The FBI investigation
An FBI investigation is under way at Lehman Brothers and three other contributors to America 's financial crisis to determine whether they put pressure on ratings agencies to award top ratings to securities they issued.
Concerns that Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG or Lehman may have sought to encourage agencies to inflate their ratings - by offering higher fees or the promise of more work - form part of a broad inquiry by the bureau.
The agencies are widely regarded as having failed debt holders by attributing the top ratings to many securities that turned out to be extremely risky and have lost investors hundreds of billions of dollars.
The FBI, which is also investigating whether any of the four institutions deliberately misled investors about the true health of their assets, is expected to demand that they "hold all papers and e-mails under lock and key" as it sifts through the evidence, a source said.
FOLLOW THE MONEY AND CORRUPTION!A Lending Policy created by democrats for democrats run by democrats monitored by democrats enforced by community organizer democrats and profited from by democrats.
The following information is condensed from an article by Stanley Kurtz. O's Dangerous Pals.
Fannie and Freddie acted in response to Clinton administration pressure to boost homeownership rates among minorities and the poor. However compassionate the motive, the result of this systematic disregard for normal credit standards has been financial disaster.ONE key pioneer of ACORN's subprime-loan shakedown racket was Madeline Talbott - an activist with extensive ties to Barack Obama. She was also in on the ground floor of the disastrous turn in Fannie Mae's mortgage policies.
Obama Trains ACORN Staff in Shakedown Tactics
It would be tough to find an "on the ground" community organizer more closely tied to the subprime-mortgage fiasco than Madeline Talbott. And no one has been more supportive of Madeline Talbott than Barack Obama.
When Obama was just a budding community organizer in Chicago , Talbott was so impressed that she asked him to train her personal staff.
He returned to Chicago in the early '90s, just as Talbott was starting her pressure campaign on local banks. In those years, he also conducted leadership-training seminars for ACORN's up-and-coming organizers. That is, Obama was training the army of ACORN organizers who participated in Madeline Talbott's drive against Chicago 's banks.
Obama Funds ACORN
More than that, Obama was funding them. As he rose to a leadership role at Chicago 's Woods Fund, he became the most powerful voice on the foundation's board for supporting ACORN and other community organizers. In 1995, the Woods Fund substantially expanded its funding of community organizers - and Obama chaired the committee that urged and managed the shift.
That committee's report on strategies for funding groups like ACORN features all the key names in Obama's organizer network. The report quotes Talbott more than any other figure; Sandra Maxwell, Talbott's ACORN ally in the bank battle, was also among the organizers consulted.
More, the Obama-supervised Woods Fund report acknowledges the problem of getting donors and foundations to contribute to radical groups like ACORN - whose confrontational tactics often scare off even liberal donors and foundations.
Indeed, the report brags about pulling the wool over the public's eye. The Woods Fund's claim to be "nonideological," it says, has "enabled the Trustees to make grants to organizations that use confrontational tactics against the business and government 'establishments' without undue risk of being criticized for partisanship."
Obama Aware of Intimidation Tactics
The Woods Fund report makes it clear Obama was fully aware of the intimidation tactics used by ACORN's Madeline Talbott in her pioneering efforts to force banks to suspend their usual credit standards. Yet he supported Talbott in every conceivable way. He trained her personal staff and other aspiring ACORN leaders, he consulted with her extensively, and he arranged a major boost in foundation funding for her efforts.
And, as the leader of another charity, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, Obama channeled more funding Talbott's way - ostensibly for education projects but surely supportive of ACORN's overall efforts.
In return, Talbott proudly announced her support of Obama's first campaign for state Senate, saying, "We accept and respect him as a kindred spirit, a fellow organizer."
In short, to understand the roots of the subprime mortgage crisis, look to ACORN's Madeline Talbott. And to see how Talbott was able to work her mischief, look to Barack Obama.
HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of faxes are needed to be delivered to EACH AND EVERY Congressman right away. Be sure to send this Alert to EVERYONE you know who wants to help FORCE our government to STOP the EXCUSES and Save Main Street Not Wall Street!
Tell the Congress to Stop the Wall StreetBailout and Prosecute!
Keep calling your Congressmen today, toll free numbers include 1.877.851.6437 and 1.866.220.0044, or call toll 1-202-225-3121 AND REGISTER YOUR OUTRAGE at increasing oil prices!
DO NOT BE SILENCED - MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD!
NOTE:We need HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of FAXES and PHONE CALLS delivered to ALL Congressmen right away!
Together, we can preserve the Constitutional rights our Founding Fathers intended our people to have forever.
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Tell us you agree that our nation would be jeopardized by the radical changes being advocated by Barack Obama and his far left friends. Send your contribution to help defeat Barack Obama and restore the Republican majority in Congress in the upcoming November election.
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"Indeed, I spent many long hours thinking about whether I should study chemistry or open up my own drag racing shop out on Long Island. Well, chemistry it was." Louis J. Ignarro, Les Prix Nobel, 1998.
A native New Yorker, Louis J. Ignarro was born to immigrant Italian parents on May 31, 1941. He studied at Columbia University in New York City and received a Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Wisconsin. He performed his postdoctoral work at the Laboratory of Chemical Pharmacology at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, under Elwood Titus. As a scientist at Geigy Pharmaceuticals, Ignarro worked on anti-inflammatory drugs. He returned to academia at Tulane University in New Orleans and worked on the question of NO as a signal molecule. He moved to the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine where he continued to work on the effects of NO.
Louis Ignarro receives award from D. Wink at National Cancer Institute - NIH
He is currently a distinguished professor of pharmacology at the UCLA School of Medicine's department of molecular and medical pharmacology in Los Angeles, which he joined in 1985. Before relocating to California, he was a professor of pharmacology at Tulane University School of Medicine, New Orleans, for 12 years. Ignarro has also previously worked as a staff scientist, research department, for the pharmaceutical division of CIBA-GEIGY Corporation in New York.
Ignarro has published numerous articles on his research. He received the Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association in 1998, in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the advancement of cardiovascular science. That same year, he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences and the following year, into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
He is the founder of the Nitric Oxide Society, and founder and editor-in-chief of “Nitric Oxide Biology and Chemistry.” Ignarro holds a B.S. in pharmacy, Columbia University, 1962, and a Ph.D. in pharmacology, University of Minnesota, School of Medicine, 1966. He also received a postdoctoral fellowship in chemical pharmacology from National Institutes of Health in 1968. He is a member of the scientific committee of Nicox, a French pharmaceutical company, a member of the Board of Directors of Antibe Therapeutics[1], a Canadian drug discovery company, a member of the Board of Directors of Operation USA, a non profit organization, and a member of the Nutritional Advisory Board for Herbalife, a nutrition and weight-loss company.
By 1998 Ignarro was the winner of 11 consecutive Golden Apples, the award UCLA medical students give to the year's best teacher.[1]
[]Nitric Oxide
Not to be confused with nitrous oxide (a gas used in anesthesia), nitric oxide is a colorless, odorless gas that, now has widespread potential including the treatment of heart disease, shock, cancer, impotence, and pulmonary hypertension. In 1994, the respected journal Science declared nitric oxide as its "molecule of the year."
Nitric oxide is now known to play a key role in many biological functions including inflammation, blood flow regulation, cell growth, smooth muscle relaxation, and preserving memory. Each year, thousands of research papers are written about the molecule. [2]
[]Herbalife Relationship
Ignarro worked with Herbalife to develop Niteworks, a dietary supplement designed to boost the body’s own production of nitric oxide, and later became a member of the company’s Scientific Advisory Board. Ignarro's undisclosed "conflict of interest." ......
[]National Bestseller
In 2005, Ignarro published through St Martin's Press the book "NO More Heart Disease: How Nitric Oxide Can Prevent - Even Reverse - Heart Disease and Strokes". It includes a regimen for boosting naturally occurring nitric oxide in the body.
______________________________
"If anyone you love is suffering from..."
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Wins Nobel Prize, Then Gets Buried!
Cuts artery plaque by an incredible 50%...
Drops high blood pressure as much as 60 points...
Nobel Prize winner Dr. Louis Ignarro made a special appearance on the Hugh Downs broadcast to reveal the covered-up truth about this astonishing breakthrough. He's discovered a "miracle molecule" that could make bypass surgery, angioplasty and blood pressure drugs obsolete.
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No doubt you're wondering, "I don't get it. He won the Nobel Prize. Why haven't I heard about it?" I'm afraid the reason is that this amazing discovery has been...
Killed by big-money medicine, because it's too cheap!
As you'll see on page 485 of your FREE-Preview volume, all you need to unleash Dr. Ignarro's molecule are a couple of safe, natural supplements. Isn't that outrageous? This secret won the NOBEL PRIZE, for heaven's sake! It could be saving millions of lives every year—at absurdly low cost—and nobody even knows it exists!
This new secret alone was worth stopping our presses and expanding The World's Greatest Treasury of Health Secrets. But as you'll see as you read on, this is just the tip of the iceberg. So don't delay. Learn how to use this breakthrough and 2,618 more lifesaving secrets for FREE...
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HEART ATTACK
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First, our medical team will teach you some tremendously effective new secrets for lowering your blood pressure. Like how to...
"CURE" HIGH BLOOD PRESSURE IN HOURS, without diet, drugs, supplements or exercise. This alone could drop your blood pressure as much as 23%! Page 74
IF YOU'RE SALT SENSITIVE, you're probably avoiding sodium. But did you know there are some delicious foods proven to flush sodium out of your system? You could soon see a significant added benefit. Page 41
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OUTRAGED JUDGE LIFTS BAN On World's Best Cholesterol Cure!
Suppressed discovery could cost drug firms $10 billion a year
The courageous Dr. Jay S. Cohen of the University of California, San Diego, made a special appearance on the Hugh Downs TV program—defying a huge campaign to suppress this discovery. He's found an exotic food that contains a huge array of natural cholesterol-cutting compounds. More effective than statin drugs, more reliable than other alternatives, it works too well to suit big-money medicine...
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RAISE YOUR "GOOD" HDL CHOLESTEROL BY A STAGGERING 30%. Scientists are saying this is even more important than lowering your LDL cholesterol. But statin drugs can't do it! Let Dr. Michael Mogadam of George Washington University School of Medicine show you his natural, 5-cent secret. Page 487
GROW YOUR OWN ARMY OF CHOLESTEROL-CUTTING MICROBES IN YOUR GUT. These friendly bacteria normally help us digest our food and keep our cholesterol down. Discover the little-known supplement that restores them to healthy levels. Page 49
WOULDN'T IT BE GREAT IF YOU COULD JUST THINK YOUR CHOLESTEROL DOWN? Intriguingly, now you can. Directions on page 461.
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WHY THE MEDIA BLACKOUT?
Top cancer researcher Dr. Michael Morse of Duke University Medical Center made a special appearance on the Hugh Downs TV program—to put an end to the deadly mass media blackout about this magnificent breakthrough. What you're about to read may sound like science fiction, but...
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OCTOBER 8, 2008
THE SHAME OF NOBEL PRIZE AWARDING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Half of this year’s Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Yoichiro Nambu for his work on spontaneous symmetry breaking, the other half to Kobayashi and Maskawa for the CKM matrix as an explanation of CP breaking. A detailed explanation of the scientific context of the prizes is here.
The prize for Nambu is well-deserved and rewards one of the deepest, surprising, and most important ideas in particle theory, that of spontaneous symmetry breaking. In 1960 Nambu realized that non-invariance of the vacuum state under an axial symmetry could explain the existence of pions and determine many of their properties. He also realized that this phenomenon is closely related to what happens in various condensed matter models (including the BCS model of superconductivity), where the ground state is not invariant under a symmetry of the theory. Nambu has often been mentioned as a candidate for the award, and it’s surprising that it has taken nearly 50 years for it to come about. I’m a bit curious about how often Nobel Prizes in other fields are awarded for work done a half-century ago. Unfortunately the rather difficult times particle physics has found itself in the last few decades may mean that the best way for a particle theorist to get the prize is to have been around during the field’s heyday, and to remain in good health.
The Kobayashi-Maskawa award is a somewhat less obvious one, since it didn’t involve a surprising breakthrough, and it is about something completely different than Nambu’s work. In the early-mid 60s, starting with work by Nicola Cabibbo, it had been shown that (in modern language…) flavor mixing matrix for two generation models of the weak interactions is governed by a single angle, now known as the Cabibbo angle. In 1972, Kobayashi and Maskawa pointed out that for three generations the matrix is determined by three angles and a complex phase. The complex phase makes this a possible source of CP violation, and it seems to be the main if not only source of observed CP violation. The Nobel committee text makes the claim that:
This is in fact a result known in mathematics since around 1950, but the contacts between mathematics and physics were not great around 1970.
This is a rather odd description of the situation, since the mathematical facts involved here are quite simple ones about which 3×3 unitary matrices satisfy certain conditions, and presumably could have been derived by mathematicians who first worked with such matrices in the 19th century if this particular condition had come up. I can’t think of anything mathematicians learned around 1950 that is needed to solve the problem, and, once stated physicists could easily solve it without help from mathematicians (who perhaps would have been more likely to just have been a hindrance in this case…)
The quark mixing matrix embodies most of the unknown parameters of the Standard Model, and as such is a crucial object for experimental studies of particle physics. Because of this, the KM paper is the second most highly cited paper in particle physics (after Weinberg’s “A Model of Leptons”), but this ranking doesn’t reflect the depth or importance of the ideas.
Lots of other blogs are also covering this. Tommaso Dorigo points out that it’s a bit anomalous that a Nobel Prize for the CKM (Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa) matrix doesn’t include Cabibbo, who is still around. Lubos Motl thinks that what is important here is that Nambu is also a string theorist, and that one of the people on the committee making this choice was a string theorist, Lars Brink.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 7th, 2008 at 9:17 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
the transitions with change in strangeness had amplitudes equal to 1/4 of those with no change in strangeness.
Cabibbo solved the first issue by postulating weak universality, which involves a similarity in the weak interaction coupling strength between different generations of particles. He solved the second issue with a mixing angle θc, now called the Cabibbo angle, between the down and strange quarks.
Maria Pallavicini Dean, School of Natural Sciences University of California, Merced
Dr. Pallavicini is a Professor of Cell Biology and Founding Dean of the School of Natural Sciences at UC Merced. She is internationally recognized for her work in stem cell biology, particularly stem cells in leukemia (blood cancer) and breast cancer. Dr. Pallavicini received a B.A. from UC Berkeley in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. from the University of Utah in Pharmacology. After completing a post-doctoral fellowship at the Ontario Cancer Institute in Toronto, she joined the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where she worked for more than 12 years in the Biomedical Sciences Division. She was a professor at UCSF for 12 years in the School of Medicine before becoming the Founding Dean at UC Merced. She is Past-President of the International Society of Analytical Cytology, ISAC and is a member of numerous advisory boards. She has been leading the planning effort for the Medical School at UC Merced.
It would be tough to find an "on the ground" 
_-
