End Of Times

GMOs Called Food

2013-07-07T11:24:00.000-10:00

GMOs, or “genetically modified organisms,” are plants or animals created through the gene splicing techniques of biotechnology (also called genetic engineering, or GE). This experimental technology merges DNA from different species, creating unstable combinations of plant, animal, bacterial and viral genes that cannot occur in nature or in traditional crossbreeding. / GMO Myths and Thruths

Monsanto is the world’s leading producer of the herbicide “Roundup”, as well as producing 90% of the world’s genetically modified (GMO) seeds. Over Monsanto’s 110-year history (1901-2013), Monsanto Co (MON.N), the world’s largest seed company, has evolved from primarily an industrial chemical concern into a pure agricultural products company. Monsanto has been destroying our planet ever since THEY used agent orange in the Vietnam War.

Monsanto's dark history

Monsanto, best know today for its agricultural biotechnology GMO products, has a long and dirty history of polluting this country and others with some of the most toxic compounds known to humankind. From PCBs to Agent Orange to Roundup, we have many reasons to question the motives of this evil corporation that claims to be working to reduce environmental destruction and feed the world with its genetically engineered GMO food crops.

Monsanto traces its roots to John Francisco Queeny, a purchaser for a wholesale drug house at the turn of the century, who formed the Monsanto Chemical Works in St. Louis, Missouri, in order to produce the artificial sweetener saccharin for Coca-Cola. According to the Count in Venice, John Francis Queeny was a Knight of Malta. Queeny funded the start-up with his own money and capital from a soft drink distributor and gave the company his wife's maiden name (sounds better than Queeny). His father-in-law was Emmanuel Mendes de Monsanto, a wealthy financier of a sugar company active in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and based in St. Thomas in the Danish West Indies.

In the 1920s Monsanto expanded into basic industrial chemicals like sulfuric acid and PCBs, and Queeny's son Edgar Monsanto Queeny took over the company in 1928.

In 1926 the company founded and incorporated a town called Monsanto in Illinois (now known as Sauget). It was formed to provide a liberal regulatory environment and low taxes for the Monsanto chemical plants at a time when local jurisdictions had most of the responsibility for environmental rules. It was renamed in honor of Leo Sauget, its first Village President. The name Monsanto has since, for many around the world, come to symbolize the greed, arrogance, scandal and hardball business practices of many multinational corporations.

Monsanto operated the Dayton Project, and later Mound Laboratories, and assisted in the development of the first nuclear weapons (Manhattan Project).

Monsanto began manufacturing DDT in 1944, along with some 15 other companies. Due to DDT's toxicity, its use in the United States was banned in 1972. In 1946, Monsanto developed "All" laundry detergent and began to market it.

In 1954 Monsanto partnered with German chemical giant Bayer to form Mobay and market polyurethanes in the United States.

The 60's saw the development of chemical weapon ‘Agent Orange‘ (sprayed on American troops and Vietnamese civilians during the Vietnam War). In 1979 a lawsuit was filed against Monsanto and other manufacturers of agent orange. Agent orange contained a highly-toxic chemical known as dioxin, and the suit claimed that hundreds of veterans had suffered permanent damage because of the chemical. In 1984 Monsanto and seven other manufacturers agreed to a $180 million settlement just before the trial began.
Monsanto scientists became the first to genetically modify a plant cell in 1982. Five years later, Monsanto conducted the first field tests of genetically engineered crops. In 1985, Monsanto acquired G. D. Searle & Company, a life sciences company focusing on pharmaceuticals, agriculture, and animal health.

Toward the end of the 1980s, Monsanto faced continued challenges from a variety of sources, including government and public concern over hazardous wastes, fuel and feedstock costs, and import competition.

Monsanto restructured during the early 1990s to help cut losses during a difficult economic time. Net income in 1991 was only $296 million, $250 million less than the previous year. Despite this showing, 1991 was a good year for some of Monsanto’s newest products. Bovine somatotropin, (a hormore chemical marketed to increase milk production in cows that causes mastitis) finally gained FDA approval and was sold in Mexico and Brazil. Bovine somatotropin (abbreviated bST and BST), also known as bovine growth hormone, or BGH, is a protein hormone. BST is naturally occurring in cattle, and plays a role in the growth and development of the organism. Since 1994 it has been possible to synthesize the hormone using recombinant DNA technology to create recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH), or artificial growth hormone. Monsanto developed a recombinant version of BST, brand-named Posilac bovine somatropin (rBST/rBGH), which is produced through a genetically engineered GMO E. coli bacteria. Synthetic Bovine Growth Hormone (rBGH), approved by the FDA for commercial sale in 1994, despite strong concerns about its safety. FOX News unintentionally broke the story about how Monsanto is poisoning our milk and dairy products. Monsanto sells 'posilac' to farmers > farmers inject posilac into milk producing cows under the premise that the cows will produce more milk > the cows get sick and develop acne-like sores (including mastitis on their udders) > the farmers inject antibiotics to keep the sick cows from dying.

Meanwhile, children in American Schools are drinking milk from sick cows that STILL contains Monsanto's Posilac, the antibiotics, and pus that drips from open sores on their infected udders into the milk buckets...

Originally a chemical company, Until the late 1990s Monsanto was a much larger ‘lifesciences’ company whose business covered chemicals,polymers, food additives and pharmaceuticals, as well as agricultural products. All of these other chemical business areas have now been demerged or sold off. Monsanto sold its chemical business in 1997 to build a presence in biotechnology. The global Monsanto corporation has operated sales offices, manufacturing plants, and research facilities in more than 100 countries. Monsanto has the largest share of the global GMO crops market. In 2001 its crops accounted for 91% of the total area of GMO crops planted worldwide. Based on 2001 figures Monsanto was the second biggest seed company in the world, and the third biggest agrochemical company.

Monsanto’s business is currently run in two parts: Agricultural Productivity, and Seeds and Genomics. The Agricultural Productivity segment includes Roundup herbicide and other agri-chemicals, and the Animal Agriculture business. The Seeds and Genomics segment consists of seed companies and related biotechnology traits, and a technology platform based on plant genomics. In reality of course these two segments are inseparable, since the agri-chemicals are becoming increasingly dependent on the seeds segment for sales.

Roundup ready?

The "most popular" herbicide worldwide is called Roundup and it uses an active ingredient called glyphosate. Foods stuffs that are produced in fields that are sprayed by glyphosate carry residue of the chemical into the marketplace where they are consumed. In North America, bioengineered foods are ubiquitous and it is quite challenging for the average consumer to avoid them.

Monsanto developed and patented the glyphosate molecule in the 1970s, and has marketed Roundup since 1973.

Glyphosate cannot be washed off of plants and it has the ability to penetrate the roots and be taken up by the plant where residue sits inside the cellular material. All commonly sprayed foods such as soy, corn, cottonseed, canola, wheat, sugar, etc. carry glyphosate into our bodies. Animals raised on GM corn and soy carry glyphosate into their meat, dairy and eggs.

The active ingredient of Roundup is the isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Another important ingredient in some formulations of Roundup is the surfactant POEA (polyethoxylated tallow amine), which has been found to be highly toxic to animals and to humans. Laboratory toxicology studies have suggested that other ingredients in combination with glyphosate may have greater toxicity than glyphosate alone.

Our bees are dying!

Elmwood - Local beekeepers are finding millions of their bees dead just after corn was planted here in the last few weeks. Dave Schuit, who has a honey operation in Elmwood, lost 600 hives, a total of 37 million bees.

“Once the corn started to get planted our bees died by the millions,” Schuit said. He and many others, including the European Union, are pointing the finger at a class of insecticides known as neonicotinoids, manufactured by Bayer CropScience Inc. used in planting corn and some other crops. The European Union just recently voted to ban these insecticides for two years, beginning December 1, 2013, to be able to study how it relates to the large bee kill they are experiencing there also.

Local grower Nathan Carey from the Neustadt, and National Farmers Union Local 344 member, says he noticed this spring the lack of bees and bumblebees on his farm. He believes that there is a strong connection between the insecticide use and the death of pollinators.

What seems to be deadly to bees is that the neonicotinoid pesticides are coating corn seed and with the use of new air seeders, are blowing the pesticide dust into the air when planted. The death of millions of pollinators was looked at by American Purdue University. They found that, “Bees exhibited neurotoxic symptoms, analysis of dead bees revealed traces of thiamethoxam/clothianidin in each case. Seed treatments of field crops (primarily corn) are the only major source of these compounds.

Research is showing that honeybee disorders and high colony losses have become a global phenomena. An international team of scientists led by Holland’s Utrecht University concluded that, ”Large scale prophylaxic use in agriculture, their high persistence in soil and water, and their uptake by plants and translocation to flowers, neonicotinoids put pollinator services at risk.” This research and others rsulted in the Eurpean Union ban. (read more)

Pollinators are a critical link in our food system. More than 85% of earth's plant species – many of which compose some of the most nutritional parts of our diet – require pollinators to exist. Yet we continue to see alarming declines in bee numbers. The National Agriculture Statistics Service reported that there were 2.44 million honey-producing hives in the United States as of February 2008, down from 4.5 million in 1980, and 5.9 million in 1947. Virtually all of the genetically engineered Bt corn grown in the U.S. is treated with neonicoticoids and a 2012 study found high levels of clothianidin in pneumatic planter exhaust. In the study, it was found that the insecticide was present in the soil of unplanted fields nearby those planted with Bt corn and on dandelions growing near those fields.

You are eating insecticide

Most Americans remain blissfully unaware (or don’t care) they are eating genetically-modified (GM) organisms every day. Passivity and blind faith in the USDA, FDA and EPA have largely contributed to this attitude. Perhaps that will change now that a new study reveals an insecticide produced in GM corn actually gets absorbed into the human body.

If you haven’t been paying attention to your food lately, biotechnology giants such as Monsanto thank you for that. Because behind your back, they’ve succeeded in replacing 90% of US corn with their patented insecticide-producing “frankencorn”.

The industry name for this is “Bt corn” and the insecticide is actually produced inside the plant, so it is impossible to wash it off. This is accomplished by inserting genes from the bacteria Bacillus Thuringiensis into the corn.

Up until now, scientists and multinational corporations such as Monsanto and DuPont have spent billions in lobbying, campaign donations and “testing” in an attempt to convince world governments that GMOs are safe. In the case of Bt corn, they stated the insecticide produced within the corn posed no danger to human health because it was broken down in the digestive system.

Despite corporate assurances, many have been skeptical. Non-GMO advocates such as Jeffrey Smith from The Institute For Responsible Technology and the Organic Consumers Association have long been concerned about the potential impact this Bt toxin could have on human health.

Scientists from the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, proved the validity of these concerns when they detected the insecticidal protein, Cry1Ab, circulating in the blood of both pregnant and non-pregnant women. They also detected the toxin in fetal blood, suggesting that the toxin can be passed on to the fetus. The research paper has been peer-reviewed and accepted for publication in the journal Reproductive Toxicology.

Neither the women studied or their spouses worked in agriculture. All reported to be consuming a typical Canadian diet that is virtually identical to the American diet.

Are you pissed? You should be. We’ve let corporate interests turn us into poison-fed lab rats. It doesn’t end at corn either. 93% of both soy and canola are also genetically-modified. On top of that, Monsanto has acres of laboratories containing new mutant species awaiting to slip into your pantry.

Monsanto hires mercenary army

Remember the private mercenary army Blackwater that caused such a stir in Iraq during an unprovoked attack in 2007? Apparently, Monsanto and the controversial security firm are in bed together, described by blogger Randy Ananda as "a death-tech firm weds a hit squad." At this point, you might be wondering what in the world the GM seed giant needs with the services of a 'shadow army'? It appears as though the corporation found it necessary to contract with Blackwater in order to collect intelligence on anti-Monsanto activists as well infiltrate their ranks.

Notorious for the Iraqi Nisour Square Massacre, Blackwater "created a web of more than 30 shell companies or subsidiaries in part to obtain millions of dollars in American government contracts after the security company came under intense criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq," reports the New York Times. One of these subsidiaries became Total Intelligence, the company contracted by Monsanto between 2008-2010 to collect intelligence on activists rallying against GMO crops and other Monsanto activities

Journalist Jeremy Scahill states in The Nation:

"... entities closely linked to the private security firm Blackwater have provided intelligence, training and security services to US and foreign governments as well as several multinational corporations, including Monsanto, Chevron, the Walt Disney Company, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines and banking giants Deutsche Bank and Barclays, according to documents obtained by The Nation. Blackwater's work for corporations and government agencies was contracted using two companies owned by Blackwater's owner and founder, Erik Prince: Total Intelligence Solutions and the Terrorism Research Center (TRC). Prince is listed as the chairman of both companies in internal company documents, which show how the web of companies functions as a highly coordinated operation."

A spokesperson representing Monsanto admits the company hired Total Intelligence for information "... about the activities of groups or individuals that could pose a risk to company personnel or operations around the world which were developed by monitoring local media reports and other publicly available information. The subject matter ranged from information regarding terrorist incidents in Asia or kidnappings in Central America to scanning the content of activist blogs and websites."

However, what the spokesperson fails to address is that according to documents secured by Scahill, Monsanto was willing to pay a sizable sum (up to $500,000) for Blackwater agents to infiltrate anti-Monsanto organizations.

As the plot continues to thicken regarding Monsanto's tactics of domination, Ananda aptly notes:

"... Monsanto, by hiring a mercenary army and former CIA field agents, is deadly serious about protecting its deadly products. Yet, this contract further discredits the company. The public can now paint an even bleaker picture of the firm that brought us Agent Orange, PCBs, rBST, DDT, aspartame and, now, hit men."

Some bizarre examples of genetic engineering

Glow-in-the-dark cats
In 2007, South Korean scientists altered a cat’s DNA to make it glow in the dark and then took that DNA and cloned other cats from it — creating a set of fluffy, fluorescent felines. Here’s how they did it: The researchers took skin cells from Turkish Angora female cats and used a virus to insert genetic instructions for making red fluorescent protein. Then they put the gene-altered nuclei into the eggs for cloning, and the cloned embryos were implanted back into the donor cats — making the cats the surrogate mothers for their own clones.

Enviropig

The Enviropig, or “Frankenswine,” as critics call it, is a pig that’s been genetically altered to better digest and process phosphorus. Pig manure is high in phytate, a form of phosphorus, so when farmers use the manure as fertilizer, the chemical enters the watershed and causes algae blooms that deplete oxygen in the water and kill marine life.

So scientists added an E. Coli bacteria and mouse DNA to a pig embryo. This modification decreases a pig’s phosphorous output by as much as 70 percent — making the pig more environmentally friendly.

Venomous cabbage

Scientists have recently taken the gene that programs poison in scorpion tails and looked for ways to combine it with cabbage. Why would they want to create venomous cabbage? To limit pesticide use while still preventing caterpillars from damaging cabbage crops. These genetically modified cabbages would produce scorpion poison that kills caterpillars when they bite leaves — but the toxin is modified so "it isn’t harmful to humans".

Web-spinning goats

Strong, flexible spider silk is one of the most valuable materials in nature, and it could be used to make an array of products — from artificial ligaments to parachute cords — if we could just produce it on a commercial scale. In 2000, Nexia Biotechnologies announced it had the answer: a goat that produced spiders’ web protein in its milk.

Fast-growing salmon

AquaBounty’s genetically modified salmon grows twice as fast as the conventional variety. The company says the fish has the same flavor, texture, color and odor as a regular salmon; however, the debate continues over whether the fish is safe to eat. If the FDA approves the sale of the Genetically engineered Atlantic salmon, it will be the first time the government has allowed modified animals to be marketed for human consumption. According to federal guidelines, the fish would not have to be labeled as genetically modified.

Banana vaccines

People may soon be getting vaccinated for diseases like hepatitis B and cholera by simply taking a bite of banana. Researchers have successfully engineered bananas, potatoes, lettuce, carrots and tobacco to produce vaccines, but they say bananas are the ideal production and delivery vehicle.

When an altered form of a virus is injected into a banana sapling, the virus’ genetic material quickly becomes a permanent part of the plant’s cells. As the plant grows, its cells produce the virus proteins — "but not the infectious part of the virus". genetically engineered banana

Medicinal eggs

British scientists have created a breed of genetically modified hens that produce cancer-fighting medicines in their eggs. The animals have had human genes added to their DNA so that human proteins are secreted into the whites of their "disease-fighting eggs" along with complex medicinal proteins similar to drugs used to treat skin cancer and other diseases.

Spread the word, our only weapon is the truth.
There has been no long term human studies on the effect of GMO. Animal studies, however show that GMOs cause cancer, diabetes, allergies, gut disease and sterility...

"Genetic engineering is 40 years old. It is based on the naive understanding of the genome based on the One Gene – one protein hypothesis of 70 years ago, that each gene codes for a single protein. The Human Genome project completed in 2002 showed that this hypothesis is wrong. The whole paradigm of the genetic engineering technology is based on a misunderstanding. Every scientist now learns that any gene can give more than one protein and that inserting a gene anywhere in a plant eventually creates rogue proteins. Some of these proteins are obviously allergenic or toxic." / former pro GMO scientist Dr Thierry Vrain

TO BE CONTINUED...

Sources for this article include:

http://occupymonsanto360.org
http://www.wikipedia.org/
http://www.mnn.com
http://foodintegritynow.org
http://www.naturalhealth365.com
http://www.expressionoftruth.com

Acoma Pueblo - Ancient Sky City of Native Americans

2011-07-27T02:08:00.006-10:00

Strategically built atop a 357-foot sandstone mesa for defensive purposes, the Acoma Pueblo is more familiarly known as Sky City. Believed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the United States, the pueblo was built sometime between 1100 and 1250 A.D. The name "Acoma" means "People of the White Rock" in the Puebloan Kersan dialect. The pueblo, covering some 70 acres, is actually comprised of several villages including Acomita, McCartys, Anzac and Sky Line.
The site was chosen, in part, because it provided a defensive position for the tribe against raiders. Access to the pueblo was difficult as the faces of the mesa are sheer and before modern times, it could only be accessed by a hand-cut staircase carved into the sandstone. For centuries the Acoma people have farmed the valley below the Acoma Pueblo using irrigation canals in the villages closer to the Rio San Jose River. They were also actively involved in trading, not only with neighboring pueblos, but, also over long distances with the Aztec and Mayan peoples.
The pueblo was already well established when Francisco Vasquez de Coronado was the first European to lay eyes on it in 1540, describing it as: "One of the strongest ever seen, because the city was built on a high rock. The ascent was so difficult that we repented climbing to the top."
Almost fifty years later, Sky City was almost destroyed in 1598 when Governor Juan de Oñate, under orders from the King of Spain, invaded New Mexico, and began staging raids on Native American pueblos in the area, taking anything of value. When the Spanish soldiers arrived in the area, they made their headquarters at the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, formerly called the San Juan Pueblo, located about 25 miles north of Santa Fe. Upon their arrival, they removed the Tewa Indians who lived there and used it as a base to stage more raids on other Native American pueblos in the area. In December, 1898, a party of Spanish soldiers seeking food arrived at Acoma. Initially, they were welcomed and treated in a friendly manner until the soldiers turned aggressive and began to demand grain from the Acoma storehouses, which was needed for the tribe to survive the winter. Provoking a furious reaction, the Acoma attacked the soldiers, killing 13 of them, including their commander, Juan de Zaldivar, who was a nephew of Juan de Oñate.
In response, Oñate resolved to make an example of Acoma, and dispatched 70 of his best men, under the command of Vicente de Zaldivar, to attack the Acoma Pueblo. On January 21, 1599, the Spanish troops came into view of the pueblo and the tribe fanned out from their village to guard the edge of the mesa. As the Spaniards drew closer, the defenders unleashed a barrage of rocks and arrows down on them. Despite the defensive barrage coming from atop the mesa, the soldiers fought their way to the top over the next three days. During the battle, the Spaniards brought a small cannon up the back of the mesa and began firing into the village. The battle then became a massacre and when it was over, as many as 800 Acoma people were dead and their pueblo in ruins.
Afterwards, the survivors were marched to the Santo Domingo Pueblo (now known as the Kewa Pueblo), where all males over the age of 12 were condemned to 20 years' servitude. Of the few dozen Acoma men of fighting age who were still alive after the battle, they were sentenced to have one foot cut off. The surviving children under the age of 12 were taken from their parents, and given to Spanish missionaries to raise. However, most of them, as well as the women were sold into slavery. Oñate was later tried, convicted of cruelty to Indians and colonists, and was banished from New Mexico. However, he appealed the ruling and was later cleared of all charges. He lived out the rest of his life in Spain. In the end, the approximate population of the 2,000 people who had lived at the Acoma Pueblo was reduced to approximately 250 survivors. In time, some of the Acoma people managed to escape and made their way home, where they began the long process of rebuilding. Since that time, it has been continuously inhabited and never again fell to an invader.
Decades later, In 1629, as a "gesture of peace" and to attempt to Christianize the Indians, the Spanish began to build the San Estéban del Rey Mission, which included a church, convent, and cemetery. All of the building materials, including some 20,000 tons of earth and stone, were hand carried or hauled up the steep slopes of the mesa. The mission’s 30-foot beams were carried 30 miles from Mount Taylor and Kaweshtima. Under the guidance of Friar Juan Ramirez the pueblo was finally completed in 1640. However, according to Acoma oral tradition, the people were forced by Ramirez to build the mission. These abuses of power by both religious and political authorities eventually led to the Pueblo Revolt. On August 10, 1680, some 17,000 thousand Puebloans, including 6,000 warriors rose up in vengeance against 2,500-3,000 colonists. The tribes struck mission churches, killing 22 of 33 friars and demolishing and burning many of them. Warriors attacked isolated farms and haciendas, killing entire families. The Acoma participated in the Revolt by killing the Spanish friars who were living at the mesa at the time, but, did not destroy the church. It was one of the few Spanish missions to survive the revolt intact. The Puebloans were again forced to submit to Diego de Vargas in 1692. The Acoma joined in another uprising in 1696, but, were again subdued in 1699.
Today, the San Estéban del Rey Mission church houses the largest inventory of early 17th century building material of any structure in New Mexico. It features a large collection of Spanish colonial ecclesiastic art, an original hand-hewn circular staircase, hand-carved rails, and paintings.
Acoma is, along with the Hopi town of Oraibi, the oldest inhabited settlement in the United States. A federally recognized Indian Tribe, the Acoma Pueblo now has a land base covering 431,664 acres and is home to 4,800 tribal members. Both the San Estéban del Rey Mission and the pueblo itself have been proclaimed National Historic Landmarks.
Today's Acoma people continue the traditions of their ancestors who they trace to the former inhabitants of older ruins to the north and west of their present-day pueblo. Some also practice their ancient religion while others converted to Catholicism long ago when the first Spanish settlers arrived in the 1500's. Throughout the years celebrations and feasts are held for religious and historic occasions. While visitors are allowed to attend, they are encouraged to be respectful and aware of local protocol.
Today, fewer than 50 of the 3,000 Acomans live at the pueblo, the remaining residents choosing to live in the nearby villages. The Acoma Pueblo is known for its amazing pottery and a permanent exhibit, One Thousand Years of Clay, is housed in the Visitors Center located at the base of the mesa along with native food and crafts shops.

skycity today

Mistery of Puma Punku

2011-02-15T08:53:00.018-10:00

Pumapunku, also called “Puma Pumku” or “Puma Puncu”, is part of a large temple complex or monument group that is part of the Tiwanaku Site near Tiwanaku, Bolivia. In Aymara, its name means, “The Door of the Cougar”. The processes and technologies involved in the creation of these temples are still not fully understood by modern scholars. Even today, with all the modern advances in engineering and mathematics, we could not fashion such a structure. Our current ideas of the Tiwanaku culture hold that they had no writing system and also that the invention of the wheel was most likely unknown to them. The architectural achievements seen at Pumapunku are striking in light of the presumed level of technological capability available during its construction. Due to the monumental proportions of the stones, the method by which they were transported to Pumapunku has been a topic of interest since the temple's discovery. The initial construction of the Pumapunku dates at AD 536–600. At its peak, Pumapunku is thought to have been “unimaginably wondrous,” adorned with polished metal plaques, brightly colored ceramic and fabric ornamentation, trafficked by costumed citizens, elaborately dressed priests and elites decked in exotic jewelry. The Tiwanaku civilization and the use of these temples appears to some to have peaked from around 700 AD to 1000 AD, by which point the temples and surrounding area may have been home to some 400,000 people. It is hard to imagine how the ruins of Pumapunku did not come to be known as one of the wonders of the world like the Great Pyramid. Spectacular in its own right, the Great Pyramid is, yet it pales in comparison to the ruins of Pumapunku in Tiahuanaco, in South America.

Even with modern day technology and information, these structures defy logic, and confound those who seek to solve the mysteries that lie within them. The ruins of Pumapunku are said to be the most fascinating, and most confusing of all. Several construction blocks at the site weigh between 100 and 150 tons, some even more. The quarry for these giant blocks was on the western shore of Titicaca, some ten miles away. There is no known technology in all the ancient world that could have transported stones of such massive weight and size up a steep incline from a quarry to the sacred mountain. Closer inspection shows that these stone blocks have been fabricated with a very advanced technology. Even more surprising is the technical design of these blocks. All blocks fit together like puzzle , forming load-bearing joints without the use of mortar. All pieces look like they were pre-fabricated. They "click" into each other just like modern pre-fabricated building blocks. Stacked and "clicked" into each other they form walls, some four levels high. Many of the joints are so precise that not even a razor blade will fit between the stones. The cuts on these stones are perfectly straight. The holes cored into these stones are perfect, and all of equal depth. Notable features at Pumapunku are I-shaped architectural cramps, which are composed of a unique copper-arsenic-nickel bronze alloy. Some blocks in Pumapunku are made up of granite, and diorite, and the only stone that is harder that those two, is the diamond. If the people who built this place cut these stones using stone cutting techniques, then they would had to have used diamond tools. Such a discovery flies directly in the face of all our concepts of the construction skills of the ancients. With no previous examples of masonry at such a sophisticated level, nor on such great scale leaves one to wonder at the confidence and skills of their designers and masons...

Welthauptstadt Germania

2009-09-08T01:58:00.020-10:00

World Capital Germania was Hitler's pet project to reconstruct Berlin on a grand scale, with huge buildings, wide boulevards, and a reorganised transportation system. His chief architect Albert Speer produced many of the plans for the rebuilt city, only a small portion of which was realized before World War II. The Führer did not have one particular style; there was no official architecture of the Reich, only the neoclassical baseline that was enlarged, multiplied, altered and exaggerated, sometimes to the point of ludicrousness (Fascist Stripped Classical style). In Mein Kampf, Hitler states that industrialized German cities of his day lacked dominating public monuments and a central focus for community life. The New Berlin would be greater than London and Washington DC or any other city of that time... To name just a few of the monster buildings planned:

Olympic Stadium - The first step in these plans was the Olympic Stadium for the 1936 Summer Olympics. This stadium would promote the rise of the Nazi government. A much larger stadium, where all the other Olympic Games would take place, capable of holding 400,000 spectators was planned but only the foundations were dug before the project was abandoned. Had this stadium been completed it would remain the largest in the world today by a considerable margin.

The Avenue of Victory - Berlin was to be reorganized along a central 5 km-long boulevard known as the Avenue of Victory. This new North-South Axis would have served as a parade ground, and have been closed off to traffic. Vehicles would have instead been diverted into an underground highway running directly underneath the parade route; sections of this highway's tunnel structure were built, and still exist today.

Triumphbogen (The Arch of Triumph) - It would be almost a hundred metres high, and the Arc de Triomphe (in Paris) would have been able to fit inside its opening. The outbreak of War in 1939 caused the decision to postpone construction until after the war to save strategic materials. Again, Hitler himself did the sketching.

Große Halle (Great Dome) - Also known as Volkshalle, a huge assembly hall, inspired by Hadrian's Pantheon, with a dome which would have been over 210 m high, with floor space for 180,000 people. The sketch of the Volkshalle given by Hitler to Speer shows a traditional gabled pronaos supported by ten columns, a shallow rectangular intermediate block and behind it the domed main building. Speer's Monsterbau was to be the capital's most important and impressive building in terms of its size and symbolism. Visually it was to have been the architectural centrepiece of Berlin as the world capital. Its dimensions were so large that it would have dwarfed every other structure in Berlin. The oculus of the building's dome, 46m in diameter, would have accommodated the entire rotunda of Hadrian's Pantheon. The dome of the Volkshalle (250m in diameter) was to rise from a massive granite podium 315 by 315 metres and 74 metres high, to a total inclusive height of 290 metres. The resemblance of the Volkshalle to the Pantheon is far more obvious when their interiors are compared. The large niche (50 metres high by 28 metres wide) at the north end of the Volkshalle was to be surfaced with gold mosaic and to enclose an eagle 24 metres high, beneath which was situated Hitler's tribunal. The temple-like building was ultimately intended for the worship of Hitler and his successors.

Großer Platz - At the northern end of the avenue on the north side of the East-West Axis there was to be a large open forum known as Großer Platz with an area of around 350,000 square metres. This square was to be surrounded by the grandest buildings of all, with the Führer's palace on the west side, the 1894 Reichstag Building on the east side and the third Reich Chancellery and high command of the German Army on the south side (on either side of the square's entrance from the Avenue of Victory). It would have stand in front of The Great Dome. A square where Hitler could address ~500 000 of his followers, face to face.

The New Reich Chancellery - In January 1938, Hitler asked Speer to build a new Reich Chancellery on the same site as the existing structure, and said he needed it for urgent foreign policy reasons no later than his next New Year's reception for diplomats on January 10, 1939. This was a huge undertaking, especially since the existing Chancellery was in full operation. After consultation with his assistants, Speer agreed. Although the site could not be cleared until April, Speer was successful in building the large, impressive structure in nine months. The structure included the "Marble Gallery": at 146 metres long, almost twice as long as the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. The second Chancellery was destroyed by the Soviet army in 1945.

Führerpalast (Hitler's Palace) - Situated in the immediate vicinity of the dome. It was equipped only with loopholes and no windows. In addition to the offices it should include a dining room of nearly 3,000 square meters and a theater for about 1,000 spectators. /here's a picture of a model/

"Architecture is not only the spoken word in stone, but also is the expression of the faith and conviction of a community, or else it signifies the power, greatness and fame of a great man or ruler." Adolf Hitler

Hitler should have sticked with his building plans... instead of becoming the World's greatest city, Berlin was razed to ashes thanks to his other mad ideas.

NATIVE AMERICANS

2009-07-08T23:41:00.043-10:00

HOLOCAUST OF NATIVE AMERICANS

Whites have taken their land, killed all their buffaloes, burned their homes and put all Indians in concentration camps. Today they live in ghettos while across their homeland, they are portrayed as racist mascots. They are the FIRST NATION. America was theirs. Columbus did not discover America, nor did the Vikings, it was already populated, 12 to 18 million souls when whites had arrived.

"What would Spaniards of the sixteenth century have said, had Native Americans landed at Spain's shores and proclaimed to have discovered Europe? The incredible variety of cultures and the impressive achievements Native Americans had developed throughout the millennia was lost. How well known is the fact that most Native Americans were living in towns and villages as farmers, long before Columbus and that the majority of Native societies in Northern America was organized democratically, including women's right to vote, long before such an idea was conceivable to Europeans?" /American Holocaust: Columbus and the Conquest of the New World

They've been "relocated" from their homeland, their place of birth. That is called ethnic cleansing. Major Native American resistance took place in the form of "Indian Wars" which were frequent up until 1890s. They were "granted" U.S. citizenship, they didn't want, in 1924. They are the braves but they are not free. Epidemic diseases from Europe, enslavement, genocide and wars have almost wiped them out. Smallpox proved deadly to Native Americans and disease was used as a bio weapon (infected blankets and smallpox vaccines) against them. U.S. government had comitted the most massive act of genocide in the history of the world.

The Buffalo Hunt

Millions of buffalo once roamed North America, grazing the plains and prairies and populating the mountains. Historical documents around the time of Columbus's arrival describe the animals' importance to the indigenous people. According to early explorers, "the plains were black and appeared as if in motion" with buffalo herds. Until the hunters commenced to kill them off, their only enemies were the wolves and coyotes. A medium-sized herd, at that time, dotted the prairie for hundreds of miles, and to guess at the number in a herd was like trying to compute the grains of wheat in a granary. Woven into the fabric of Native American life for millennia, the buffalo was revered and honored. For thousands of Plains Indians—people like the Blackfeet, Gros Ventre, Assiniboin, Crow, Cheyenne, Shoshoni, Arapaho, various Sioux or Dakota people, Comanche, and others—the buffalo was unquestionably paramount. But the buffalo represented more than food. For many it provided over one hundred specific items of material culture. Extermination of the buffalo was an official policy of the US government in order to achieve extermination of the Native Americans, particularly those living in the Western Plains. In order to make migration to the west easier, the US government, through the Army, adopted a policy to exterminate the buffalo. Extermination of the buffalo would inevitably mean the demise of the Indians who so relied on them for almost every aspect of their existence.

The Battle of the Wabash 1791

It was a major Native American victory, and remains the greatest loss to Native American forces by the United States Army in history, indeed, in proportional terms of losses to strength it was the worst defeat that United States forces have ever suffered in battle. Of the 1,000 troops that General St. Clair led into battle, only 48 escaped unharmed. The 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the American Revolutionary War, recognized United States sovereignty of all the land east of the Mississipi River and south of the Great Lakes. The Indian tribes in the Old Northwest, however, were not parties to this treaty, and many of them, especially leaders such as Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, refused to recognize American claims to the area northwest of the Ohio River. President Washington, decided to use military force to pacify the region. At dawn on November 4, St. Clair's force was camped near the present-day location of Fort Recovery, Ohio, near the headwaters of the Wabash River. An Indian force consisting of around 1,000 warriors, led by Little Turtle and Blue Jacket, waited in the woods while the troops stacked their weapons and paraded to their morning meals. The natives then struck quickly and, surprising the Americans, soon overran their perimeter... In 1794, a new U.S. force achieved what St. Clair had not when it decisively defeated the Indians of the Old Northwest at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. The Western Confederacy, which had its roots in pan-tribal movements dating to the 1740s, came together to resist the expansion of the United States. Native Americans stood united to defend their lands against U.S. Army occupation.

The Massacre at Bad Axe 1832 /link

The Battle of the Little Bighorn 1876

A remarkable victory for the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne, led by Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake) "Now that we are poor, we are free. No white man controls our footsteps. If we must die, we die defending our rights." . The U.S. Seventh Cavalry, including a column of 700 men led by General Custer, was defeated. Five of the Seventh's companies were annihilated and Custer himself was killed as were two of his brothers, a nephew, and a brother-in-law. White men call it Custer's Last Stand. Modern documentaries suggest that there may not have been a "Last Stand," as traditionally portrayed in popular culture. Instead, archaeologists suggest that, in the end, Custer's troops were not surrounded but rather overwhelmed by a single charge. The battle reassessed American outlook on Native American fighting abilities, as well as public perception of the Great Sioux War. After the 1875 Sun Dance alliance, made by Sitting Bull between the Lakota and Cheyenne, thousands of Indians had slipped away from their reservations in early 1876. Chief Sitting Bull during this Sun Dance had a vision of soldiers falling from the sky meaning a victory was ahead. Military officials planned a summer campaign to force them back to the reservations. U.S. Army generals thought that it would be just another "catch them in their sleep and slaughter their women and children" kind of campaign, but they were about to realize that the Lakota and Northern Cheyenne were present "in force and not running away." and that they were outnumbered by approximately three to one, or roughly 1800 against 600. Interpretations of Custer's fight are conjecture, since none of his men survived the battle. David Humphreys Miller, who between 1935 and 1955 interviewed the last Indian survivors of the battle, wrote that the Custer fight lasted less than one-half hour. The Lakota asserted that Crazy Horse personally led one of the large groups of warriors that eventually overwhelmed the cavalrymen in a surprise charge from the northeast, causing a breakdown in the command structure and panic among the troops. Many of these men threw down their weapons while Cheyenne and Sioux warriors rode them down, "counting coup" with lances, coup sticks and quirts. Some Indian accounts recalled this segment of the fight as a "buffalo run."

The Wounded Knee Massacre 1890

Wounded Knee became a catch phrase for all the wrongs inflicted on Native Americans by the descendants of Europeans. The Massacre of Wounded Knee became a symbol for the Lakota Nation, of the lies and deceit of the "Great White Father in Washington" and the U.S. Government. The mass graves at Wounded Knee became a symbol to them to never forget and never to trust again... When the rain of ammunition ceased, over 300 Lakota people lay dead from gunfire, cannonfire, or manual butchering within the encampment and within adjacent ravines up to two miles away. The dead were Lakota men who had been disarmed before the weapons fire began, women, many with babes in arms or waiting to be born, and children. The soldiers walked away from their crime against humanity and left the dead where they lay. That night, the sky cried snow and the warm winter wind of peace was supplanted by the cold winter wind of grief. For four days, the dead laid where they were, frozen into grotesque shapes of lifelessness. Finally, the soldiers came and loaded the dead like cordwood in wagons, and hauled their loads to hastily dug mass graves, where the dead were thrown in - the bodies of men, women, and children whose spirits walked the encampment and ravines, wailing. The mass graves were filled and the soldiers left. Twenty seven Congressional Medals of Honor for "bravery" were awarded to the soldiers who participated in that heinous murder for their parts in fighting the allegedly hostile "war parties" attacking them that day.

"Now the U.S. Government wants to take from us 1,800 acres (including "lands, and all mineral rights, water rights, easements, permanent structures, and fixtures on such land") to turn our sacred site, the burial grounds, and "the historic landscape of Wounded Knee" into a national park. The government claims that it wants to do this so that it can " express its commitment to acknowledge and learn from our history, including the Wounded Knee Massacre, in order to provide a proper foundation for building an ever more humane, enlightened, and just society for the future (quoted from the enabling legislation). " To do so, the U.S. Government wants to remove and relocate any individuals and families living within that 1,800 acres and restore the landscape to the government's vision of 1890 historical conditions. Any buildings and fixtures currently within the 1,800 acres that are not found to coincide with that vision will be destroyed. The government also wants to build a visitors' center, an amphitheater, roads, and trails, and to relocate the three main roads that intersect at the current Wounded Knee memorial and one mass grave site. These activities are wholly inappropriate for a cemetery and burial site and will disturb the spirits of the people buried there... We stand opposed to the creation of this national park for all of the reasons given here and many others. We are asking you to help us in our fight to save this sacred site from development. "

NATIVE AMERICANS IN WWII

It is estimated that more than 3,600 young Navajo men and women joined the armed forces and over 10,000 Navajos went to work in the military factories during World War II. Proportionately, that figure represents one of the highest percentages of total population in the armed service of any ethnic group in the United States. A special group of Navajos were formed during World War II called the Navajo Code Talkers. The Code Talkers used a special code based on the unwritten Navajo language to transmit messages, making it futil for the Japanese enemy to decipher American battle messages about the time and place of attack. The complex syntax and complicated tonal qualities of the Navajo language could baffle even the most experienced linguists. Navajos were an integral part of the war effort even though they were not given the right to vote in Arizona until 1948, in New Mexico until 1953, and in Utah until 1957!

List of Native American Tribes and Languages

Photos of Native Americans

American Indian Holocaust

US Guilty of Genocide

American Indian Movement

Moon landing hoax? 40 years after

2009-07-02T02:54:00.027-10:00

U.S.A vs U.S.S.R. moon race begins

Americans were at 35,500 miles from the Moon, when Soviets had impacted on its surface 13 Sep 1959. 3 years after Soviets have brought images of far side of Moon, Americans still can't beat Earth gravity pull. Oct 18 1962: 5th US Lunar Impact attempt. Spacecraft malfunctioned in Earth orbit. Then in 1963 a setback year for Soviets. 1964 US Lunar impact but cameras failed ;) then a hit and another that transmitted first photographs from surface. 1965 USSR lost 5 of their Lunar soft landers. Another embarassment and disaster for Red team. But same year a USSR Probe photographed Moon during flyby on way to Mars... 1966 both US and USSR successfully landed their spacecrafts on Moon and put their Lunar orbiters! 1969 NASA mission Apollo 11... Americans have made it. They put a man on the Moon! American flag flaps in the wind... on Moon... but they didn't claim it, just to commemorate the journey of American astronauts. Hey wait. There is no wind on Moon, because there is no atmosphere ;)

1st question: what makes a flag flaps on Moon if there's no wind? This is just one of the myths of conspiracy theory that Americans in fact didn't land at all. Well I don't know, it's only that blueprints and telemetry data tapes from Apollo 11 are missing... and high quality moonwalk video is missing as well(the original before scan conversion). The Soviets were well ahead of U.S. regarding preparations They've already had a dog in space. Here's an interesting video. Nation that have won the space race would win the cold war. If you can't make it, fake it. With the technology of that time and moon budget, success is guaranteed. They (the astronauts) have taken off and spent 8 days in Earth's orbit. Earlier in studios in the desert, they've made a movie with happy ending. Russians took satellite pictures with moonlike features terain with craters inside Area 51. Why there's no blast crater beneath a Lunar lander? Why there are no stars? What about radiation belts and magnetic storms? Proofs of faked landing are in NASA's own photos and videos. Shadows intersect like there are multiple light sources not just from the Sun and objects in shadow are clearly visible. Question of lens crosshairs behind objects on those photos and many others, remain unanswered... America did land on the Moon, end of story! Or is it?

The truth is out there. All that junk must still be there. We just have to go back to prove it. However, NASA says that landing (again) on the Moon is out of the question, that we would have to wait some 20 or more years and that there is no money for that kind of adventure in NASA's budget. So... exactly how did they do it 40 years ago with crapy technology of the 60's?

mythbusters

Apollo 11 image galery

First Moon landing video

Did we go?

nice try

must see

Legendarni ZX Spectrum Sinclair

2009-05-05T23:54:00.005-10:00

Ja sam gamer od kada znam za sebe. Kada to kažem, mislim na onu generaciju gamer-a koji su ispratili gotovo sve najbitnije naslove od postanka video igrica do danas. Moj prvi lični kompjuter davnih osamdesetih bio je legendarni Sinclair ZX Spectrum 48k sa svojim neprevaziđenim gumenim tipkama. Tada još nismo imali floppy diskove ni HD, igre smo učitavali sa klasičnog kasetofona i sa kaseta a programirali u BASIC-u. Čekao sam često po 15 minuta da se igra učita a po elektronskom zvuku i šarenim linijama na tv ekranu znao unapred da li će me nakon toga razočarati poruka load error (eh stara dobra vremena :)) Današnji razmaženi klinci nemaju ni par sekundi strpljenja za igre i kompjutersku grafiku (koja je tada bila vrh) poput Space Invaders, Planetoids, Jumping Jack, Manic Miner, Ground Attack, Pogo, Chuckie Egg, Moon Cresta, Chequered Flag, Barbarian, Silent Service, Match Point, World Cup Football, Jetpac, Jet Set Willy, Hungry Horace, Commando, Pacman-a i sličnih uz koje smo mi pravi gameri rasli... Ne znam što sam se baš sada toga setio ali to je nešto kao jugo-nostalgija, samo oni koji me razumeju shvatiće ;)

ZX Spectrum loading screens gallery

play online spectrum games

world of spectrum

LEGALIZE IT ! don't criticize it...

2009-03-20T03:27:00.020-10:00

Dismissing these arguments just because of the fact that cannabis is an illegal substance is not only short-sighted but flat-out criminal!

Question 1 - What research has been done previously and what is currently known about the possible medical uses of marijuana?

There have been a series of six studies conducted by U.S. state health departments under research protocols approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The study was commissioned by the White House and Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey. In short, the reports verifies that marijuana does have medical benefit, and argues that it should be made available to patients who could benefit from its use now. Numerous published studies suggest that marijuana has medical value in treating patients with serious illnesses such as AIDS, glaucoma, cancer, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, migraines, arthritis, astma, PMS, Alzheimer's disease, hepatitis C and chronic pain (check the links below). Public opinion is also in favor of ending the prohibition of medical marijuana. According to a 1999 Gallup poll, 73% of Americans are in favor of "making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in order to reduce pain and suffering." In a 2004 poll commissioned by AARP, 72% of Americans ages 45 and older thought marijuana should be legal for medicinal purposes if recommended by a doctor. Medical marijuana has strong support from voters and health organizations. The federal government, however, has resisted any change to marijuana's illegal status at the federal level. In Europe, The Netherlands has led the way in cannabis reform since it amended its Opium Act in 1976 to distinguish among drugs according to levels of risk. Identifying cannabis as a "soft drug," the Dutch government decided to treat possession and cultivation of up to 30 grams as activities "not for prosecution, detection or arrest." This policy of tolerance paved the way for the "coffee shop system" of publicly distributing both marijuana and hashish. As clinical trials get started in the United Kingdom, as more Australian states lower penalties for personal possession and use, and as more continental European countries choose not to enforce criminal sanctions for personal possession, alternative ways of regulating cannabis will continue to develop. Whether individual governments choose to play a role in the drug's responsible regulation remains to be seen.

Question 2 - What is known about the possible uses of marijuana in food and textile industry?

Perhaps the most interesting fact about industrial hemp, especially when compared to trees or to other fibre crops, is its amazing versatility.
Cannabis as a food source. Cannabis can provide a cheap, renewable and abundant food source for the planet. Hemp seeds are one of the most nutritious grains on Earth, rich in high quality protein, very low in saturated fats and containing all of the essential fatty acids required by human beings. Cannabis grows almost anywhere and its cultivation does not require farmers in developing countries to purchase pesticides, herbicides and artificial fertilisers from agricultural corporations. The cannabis plant is being rediscovered for it environmental friendly applicability. As you might know hemp is one of the oldest crops domesticated by man. The history of cultivating hemp goes back for thousands of years. Cannabis cultivation appears to have evolved simultaneously in separate civilisations across Eurasia. Humankind’s earliest utilisation of cannabis was most likely in eating the seeds of the plant. Hemp seeds are among the most healthiest of grains on this planet.

The stalk of the hemp plant produces one of the world’s strongest natural ﬁbres and can be used to make things like rope, textile and paper. Industrial hemp remains one of the best sources for long fibres and textiles of all kinds. Hemp cloth can be every bit as soft and versatile as cotton and is stronger, more durable and more water absorbent. The same is true of hemp textiles versus synthetics such as nylon and its derivatives. Hemp textiles are both superior in quality and less ecologically damaging to produce. Hemp pulp is by far the most efficient, rational choice for paper production. A hectare of fibre hemp can yield over four times the pulp produced by traditional timber-pulp trees. Hemp can also compete with any of the faster growing trees (such as eucalypts) that are currently being considered as a source for pulp. Processing hemp pulp requires only a fraction of the chemicals necessary to process wood fibre into paper. Hemp is a bio fuel. Hemp is a viable, renewable alternative to petrochemical and other fossil resources. It can supply oils for fuel or lubrication, plastics, paints and varnishes. It is also the most productive and efficient known source of biomass. Why is it that our society is not using this environmentally friendly, versatile and abundant resource? Is it really because it might be a health risk or is it because its definitely a risk to big industry?

Question 3 - How addictive is marijuana?

Colin Blakemore, PhD, Chair of the Department of Physiology at Oxford University, and Leslie Iversen, PhD, Professor of Pharmacology at Oxford University, wrote in their editorial "Cannabis, Why It Is Safe," published in The Times [United Kingdom] on Aug. 6, 2001:

"For some users, perhaps as many as 10 per cent, cannabis leads to psychological dependence, but there is scant evidence that it carries a risk of true addiction. Unlike cigarette smokers, most users do not take the drug on a daily basis, and usually abandon it in their twenties or thirties. Unlike for nicotine, alcohol and hard drugs, there is no clearly defined withdrawal syndrome, the hallmark of true addiction, when use is stopped."

The Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy stated in Section 15, "Psychiatric Disorders," Chapter 195, "Drug Use and Dependence" and published on its website (accessed Nov. 20, 2002):

"Any drug that causes euphoria and diminishes anxiety can cause dependence, and cannabis is no exception. However, heavy use and complaints of inability to stop are unusual.
Cannabis can be used episodically without evidence of social or psychological dysfunction. The term dependence probably is misapplied to many users. No withdrawal syndrome occurs when the drug is discontinued, but some heavy users report disrupted sleep and nervousness when they stop."

Dusk falls on one of several hundred greenhouses that dot the northern California landscape, marijuana farmers anxiously await the harvest season...

Marijuana - the facts

Medical cannabis /scientific studies

Marijuana Inc

GROWmagazine

Industrial Cannabis Blog

RIO CARNAVAL the best party in the world

2009-02-24T02:58:00.005-10:00

Once a pagan celebration in ancient Rome, Carnival in Rio de Janeiro is now considered one of the greatest shows on Earth. The first festivals of Rio date back to 1723. The famous carnival parade has been going on since the 1930s. The parade starts Sunday evening and continues into early morning Monday of the celebration (at the end of february). The purpose of carnival is for samba schools to compete with fellow rival schools, it is the climax of the whole carnival festival. Street festivals are very common during carnival and are highly populated by the locals. Elegance and extravagance are usually left behind, but music and dancing are still extremely common. Anyone is allowed to participate in the street festivals. Bandas and bondos are very familiar with the street carnival especially because it takes nothing to join in on the fun expect to jump in. While female dancers can come out topless, judges draw the line when it comes to exposing genitalia. Nudity rules are often being breached, because it is a great chance to get naked and dance in the streets and have fun and there are also freaks from around the world joining the party... The show performed by drag queens and children is a must see!

Ancient robotics

2009-01-16T03:31:00.010-10:00

Leonardo da Vinci has built an automatic mechanical lion which was presented as a sign of homage to the new King Francis I of France in 1515. “He made a Lion, made with a marvellous mechanism, walk from its place in a room, and then it stopped and opened its chest, which was completely full of lilies and other flowers”. Fully automated wooden lion was performing different actions without electronics or wires. Recently it has been reconstructed from Leonardo's sketches and it worked! He also made a robot knight who could sit up, wave its arms, bend its legs, move its head, and open and close its jaw; a mechanical apparatus in the chest controlled arm movements, while an external crank moved the legs. An earlier drawing, from 1478, was thought for years to be the design for a spring-powered cart.

The clockwork dolls are regarded as Japan's first robots. Japanese were always interested in mechanics and robotics. Ancients were not stupid, they used technology of their times (springs, ropes, water mechanics...) and they had genious ideas. The manuscript called Karakuri Zui (sometimes read as Kikou Zui) or "Illustrated Machinery" was written by Hanzo Hosokawa, a mechanical engineer, astronomer and inventor from the domain of Tosa on Shikoku Island. The three-volume treatise details how to make four kinds of wadokei clocks and nine types of karakuri dolls including the famous tea-serving doll. Known as Japan's oldest mechanical engineering manuscript, the book has meticulously written notes on how to dress the dolls in kimono.

One thousand years ago, when Europe was still in the dark ages, China was at the forefront of technology. Whilst Europe's Renaissance is celebrated through the innovations of Leonardo da Vinci, Columbus and Renoir, few today realize that China experienced its own Renaissance fathered by the legendary Su Song five hundred years earlier.

An ancient Chinese book called, Stories of Government and the People (or Chao Ye Qian Zai), contains many fascinating tales that occurred during and before the Tang Dynasty, among which are interesting historical records about the ancient mechanical engineering technology. King Lan Ling, who lived during the Northern Qi Dynasty (550-577 A.D.), was ingenious in mechanical inventions. He once made a robot that could dance and that looked like a man of a non-Chinese ethnic group. When the King wanted to offer a drink to a man, the robot would turn to that man, and bow to the man with the drink in his hand. Nobody knows what secret mechanism was inside the robot. Yin Wenliang, a county magistrate from Luozhou was a very skillful mechanical engineer and liked drinking. He created a wooden man and dressed him with an outfit made of colourful silk. At every banquet, the small wooden man would propose a toast to each guest in order. Yin Wenliang also made a wooden woman. She could play the sheng (an ancient Chinese pipe with thirteen reeds) and sing, and she did them in perfect rhythm. If a guest did not finish the wine in his cup, the wooden man wouldn’t refill the cup. If a guest did not drink enough wine, the wooden singing girl would play the sheng and sing for him to urge him to drink more. Nobody could figure out the marvellous secret of these two wooden robots.

The ancient world is littered with mythical references about automatic robotic machines. Stories such as the mythical golden robot built by Hephaistos, which would roam the island of Crete three times a day, protecting its wealth. Today, knowing the possibilities of simple ancient technology, we are not so sure if those were only myths...

Tenochtitlan - rise and fall

2008-10-25T02:33:00.014-10:00

The Aztec city of Tenochtitlán (Teh-no-Chtiht-Laan), was built on an island in Lake Texcoco, the site of present-day Mexico City. It was the capital city of the Aztec civilization, consisting of the Mexica people, founded in 1325. It had about 200,000 to 300,000 people and covered approximately 20 square kilometers.

Legend says that their god of war, Huizilopochtli, told his people about the place where the city was to be established. He said it would be a place where they would find an eagle on a nopal (cactus) eating a snake. Legend says that the Aztec's came from Aztlan (an area located at the North-East of current Mexico). Thus, the symbol on the flag of Mexico.

It was connected to the mainland by causeways leading north, south, and west of the city. These causeways were interrupted by bridges that allowed canoes and other traffic to pass freely. The bridges could be pulled away if necessary to defend the city. The city itself was interlaced with a series of canals, so that all sections of the city could be visited either on foot or via canoe. Two double aquaducts, each more than four kilometres long provided the city with fresh water. This was intended mainly for cleaning and washing. For drinking, water from mountain springs was preferred. Most of the population liked to bathe twice a day. Moctezuma (Montezuma) was said to take four baths a day. They knew how to channel wastes out of their urban centers and knew the value of personal hygiene (at the same time, in Europe, people were dying from plague and lived in dirty and crowded cities). The Aztecs endeavoured to maximise any opportunity for dazzling engineering achievements: the lavish palace of Montezuma had 100 rooms, two zoos, a botanical garden and aquarium containing fish and aquatic birds, whilst commercial routes supplied exotic goods from the Pacific Ocean and even the Inca Empire. They invented chinampas or floating gardens. The floating gardens were constructed by bunching twigs together then stacking mud on top of the twigs. What this did, was allow the roots of the plants to grow down into the water, and anchor themselves into the lake floor. It saved space, because now the plants were growing in places where people could not build homes. The part of the city was used for annual sacrifices to appease the gods, and there is even a legend, that at one time 40,000 people were sacrificed in one day within the city.

The Templo Mayor (Great Temple aka Grat Pyramid) was dedicated to the god of water and the rain, Tlaloc, and the god of the War, Huitzilopochtli. It is the double pyramid which was probably largest and most significant of all prehispanic constructions. The Aztec architects designed the Great Temple as their model of the center of the universe, where the horizontal plane converged with the vertical plane. The horizontal plane was aligned with the four cardinal points or directions of the universe. The Great Temple was located at the point where these two axes crossed. On the vertical plane there were three celestial levels, the earth, and the nine levels of the underworld.
Regarding the construction techniques of the Aztecs: There were problems related to the muddy subsoil at Tenochtitlán, combined with the problem of the flooding that occurred when the lakes rose forced the Mexicas to adopt very special construction techniques.
The foundations were made by driving stakes from the ahuejote tree into the lake bed or into an island fortified with fragments of tezontle stone and mud. Thus the ground was prepared for laying the foundations, which consisted of a nucleus of earth and volcanic rock. This technique was so effective that the Spaniards adopted it in their first buildings.

Hernan Cortes arrived on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in 1519 with 650 men. Cortes’ army, though small in size, had the advantage of superior weapons. However, the Spaniards’ success was due to the Indian tribes who helped Cortes. In 1521 the Spaniards wasted no time destroying the besieged Tenochtitlan, and then building their own (technologically inferior) capital, Mexico City, on the rubble.

wanna know more ?

Great American History_ massacre at Bad Axe

2007-12-14T06:50:00.000-10:00

They call it battle of Bad Axe...but it was no battle, it was a massacre...
[massacre/The killing of a considerable number of human beings under circumstances of atrocity or cruelty, or contrary to the usages of civilized people]

One man Makataimeshekiakiak (Sauk "be a large black hawk") or Chief Black Hawk (1767-1838) stood against tirany of the white people. He refused to give up the lands of the Sauk Native American tribe in what is now Wisconsin (United States). He and his people were severely punished for their pride. After realizing the futility of fighting the U.S. troops, Black Hawk's followers attempted to surrender. Men waving a white flag were first to go down...
How it all began?

Saukenuk, at Rock Island Illinois, had been the Sauk village for nearly a century before the U.S. made the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Here, they farmed in the summer and went on annual winter buffalo hunts in Iowa. Following the Louisiana Purchase, tensions rose between the Sauk and American settlers, who began moving into the area. Wholesale slaughter went on when American colonists set out to exterminate the buffalo in order to deprive the hostile Indians of their primary source of food (sadly, this was so successful that by 1889, a population of some 75 million buffaloes was reduced to a mere 540). Soon thereafter, a party of Sauk killed several settlers. This was more than enough for bloody revenge.

August 2, 1832

"Early in the morning a party of whites, being in advance of the army, came upon our people, who were attempting to cross the Mississippi. They tried to give themselves up--the whites paid no attention to their entreaties--but commenced slaughtering them! In a little while the whole army arrived. Our braves, but few in number, finding that the enemy paid no regard to age or sex, and seeing that they were murdering helpless women and little children, determined to fight until they were killed! As many women as could, commenced swimming the Mississippi, with their children on their backs. A number of them were drowned, and some shot, before they could reach the opposite shore..." Black Hawk's account
When the Indians reached the Mississippi, they found a steam boat blocking escape. Driven into the water by their pursuers, the Indians - warriors, old people, women and children - were shot down or drowned as they tried to escape. Black Hawk succeeded in getting away, but was soon taken prisoner. Later, when asked about his ill-fated venture he said simply: "Rock River was a beautiful country; I loved my towns, my cornfields, and the home of my people. I fought for it."

The Black Hawk War of 1832 resulted in the deaths at least 70 settlers and soldiers, and hundreds of Black Hawk's band. The end of the war at Bad Axe ended the large-scale threat of Native American attacks in northwest Illinois, and allowed further settlement of Illinois. Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, was a captain in the Black Hawk War. Lincoln was given Sauk land and $250 which helped him began his political career in 1832, at age 23, with an unsuccessful campaign for the Illinois General Assembly.

7 Ancient Wonders of the World

2007-06-28T06:42:00.000-10:00

Mnogi su čuli za sedam čuda starog sveta ili Sedam Svetskih Čuda ali malo ko ih danas može imenovati. Kako se bliži izbor "Novih 7 Čuda", nije loše potsetiti se na originalnu listu. Lista 7 najvećih dostignuća u arhitekturi onog vremena je nastala oko drugog veka p.n.e. a prvi koji je pisao o toj ideji bio je Herodot tri veka ranije. Konačna Lista za koju danas znamo, nastala je u srednjem veku. Od svih sedam čuda opstala je jedino Keopsova Piramida u Egiptu, za ostala znamo da su postojala iz starih zapisa i arheoloških ostataka. Detaljni opisi ovih objekata izgoreli su sa Aleksandrijskom bibliotekom. Dakle evo liste (nije hronološki predstavljena):

1. Velika Keopsova Piramida
nastala u vreme faraona četvrte dinastije, Keopsa (Khufu) oko 2560. pre Hrista. Dakle samo je ona dospela na listu kao najznačajniji predstavnik piramida Gize i egipatskih piramida uopšte.

2. Artemidin Hram u Efesu
to nije bio bilo koji hram već najlepši i najveći hram onog vremena, posvećen grčkoj boginji lova i plodnosti, Artemidi, nastao oko 550. pre Hrista. Spalio ga je neki manijak, čije ime neću pominjati, 356. p.n.e. kako bi ostao upamćen.

3. Svetionik na ostrvu Farosu (Alexandria)
najviša građevina na svetu u ono vreme.Sostratus, savremenik Euklida, bio je arhitekta a statički proračun izvršila je Aleksandrijska Biblioteka/Mouseion. Projekat je nastao za vreme Ptolomeja Sotera 290 pre Hrista a izveo ga je njegov sin i investitor Philadelphus. Nestao je nakon serije zemljotresa u X i XIV veku n.e.

4. Kolos sa Rodosa
kolosalna statua boga Heliosa i ne samo to. Predstavljala je simbol jedinstva naroda koji su nastanjivali Mediteransko ostrvo Rodos. Izgradnja je trajala 12 godina, po završetku 282. p.n.e. bio je visok 33m i trajao je 56 godina. Kada su Arapi zauzeli ostrvo u VII veku n.e. još uvek je ležao na mestu gde je i pao. Arapi su ostatke prodali Jevrejinu iz Sirije.

5. Viseći Vrtovi Babilona
po opisu najlepši primer onovremene pejzažne arhitekture. Vrtovi su se nalazili na levoj obali reke Eufrat 50km južno od Bagdada(današnji Irak), stvorio ih je Nebuchadnezzar II (Nabukodonosor II) u VI veku p.n.e kako bi udovoljio svojoj ženi koja je žudela za planinskim krajevima (divna priča) pa su poznati i kao Semiramidini Vrtovi. Proces navodnjavanja bio je priča za sebe. Mnogi sumnjaju da su vrtovi uopšte postojali.

6. Mauzolej u Halikarnasusu
od 377. do 353. p.n.e. kralj Mauzolos (Mausollos of Caria) vladao je ovim krajem i premestio prestonicu u Halikarnasus (današnji Bodrum u Turskoj). Ništa posebno nije vezano za njegovu vladavinu osim izgradnje njegove grobnice po kojoj se danas monumentalne grobnice zovu mauzoleji.

7. Zevsova Statua u Olimpiji
bila je to ogromna statua grčkog boga u čiju čast su se održavale igre kasnije nazvane Olimpijskim. Hram u kome se nalazila statua, sagradio je arhitekta Libon oko 450 p.n.e. a skulptor je bio Fidija (Pheidias).

Ana Ivanovic - made in Serbia

2007-06-07T19:29:00.001-10:00

Ana Ivanović

Love Is...

2007-05-21T01:35:00.000-10:00

Serijal "ljubav je...(love is)" nastao krajem 60-ih kada je autorka Kim Casali nacrtala prvu sličicu sa dvoje detencadi u vidu ljubavne poruke svom budućem suprugu Robertu... Ostalo je istorija...
pa tako danas ljubav može biti i special e-mail attachment a sutra će biti nešto drugo...