Mexico’s archaeology institute downplays theories that the ancient Mayas predicted some sort of apocalypse would occur in 2012, but on Thursday it acknowledged that a second reference to the date exists on a carved fragment found at a southern Mexico ruin site.
Most experts had cited only one surviving reference to the date in Mayan glyphs, a stone tablet from the Tortuguero site in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco.
But the National Institute of Anthropology and History said in a statement that there is in fact another apparent reference to the date at the nearby Comalcalco ruin. The inscription is on the carved or molded face of a brick. Comalcalco is unusual among Mayan temples in that it was constructed of bricks.
Arturo Mendez, a spokesman for the institute, said the fragment of inscription had been discovered years ago and has been subject to thorough study. It is not on display and is being kept in storage at the institute.
The "Comalcalco Brick," as the second fragment is known, has been discussed by experts in some online forums. Many still doubt that it is a definite reference to Dec. 21, 2012 or Dec. 23, 2012, the dates cited by proponents of the theory as the possible end of the world.
Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood has been accused of taking 10 billion Egyptian pounds (U.S. $1.5 billion) from the American government, according to claims by Egyptian lawyers.
An immediate investigation into the accusation was ordered by Prosecutor General Talaat Abdallah on Thursday.
The lawyers, Mohamed Ali Abd al-Wahab and Yasser Mohamed Sayab, filed the complaint against the Muslim Brotherhood for the allegedly illegal money transaction, Egypt’s private daily Al-Masry Al-Youm reported on Jan. 3.
Black Slaveowners: Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860
An analysis of all aspects and particularly of the commercialism of black slaveowning debunks the myth that black slaveholding was a benevolent institution based on kinship, and explains the transition of black masters from slavery to paid labor.
http://americancivilwar.com/authors/black_slaveowners.htm Robert M. Grooms
In an 1856 letter to his wife Mary Custis Lee, Robert E. Lee called slavery "a moral and political evil." Yet he concluded that black slaves were immeasurably better off here than in Africa, morally, socially and physically.
The fact is large numbers of free Negroes owned black slaves; in fact, in numbers disproportionate to their representation in society at large. In 1860 only a small minority of whites owned slaves. According to the U.S. census report for that last year before the Civil War, there were nearly 27 million whites in the country. Some eight million of them lived in the slaveholding states.
The census also determined that there were fewer than 385,000 individuals who owned slaves (1). Even if all slaveholders had been white, that would amount to only 1.4 percent of whites in the country (or 4.8 percent of southern whites owning one or more slaves).
In the rare instances when the ownership of slaves by free Negroes is acknowledged in the history books, justification centers on the claim that black slave masters were simply individuals who purchased the freedom of a spouse or child from a white slaveholder and had been unable to legally manumit them. Although this did indeed happen at times, it is a misrepresentation of the majority of instances, one which is debunked by records of the period on blacks who owned slaves. These include individuals such as Justus Angel and Mistress L. Horry, of Colleton District, South Carolina, who each owned 84 slaves in 1830. In fact, in 1830 a fourth of the free Negro slave masters in South Carolina owned 10 or more slaves; eight owning 30 or more (2).
According to federal census reports, on June 1, 1860 there were nearly 4.5 million Negroes in the United States, with fewer than four million of them living in the southern slaveholding states. Of the blacks residing in the South, 261,988 were not slaves. Of this number, 10,689 lived in New Orleans. The country's leading African American historian, Duke University professor John Hope Franklin, records that in New Orleans over 3,000 free Negroes owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free Negroes in that city.
Whether you're currently writing professionally or still looking to break into the field, formal writing courses can help you hone your skills. If you don't have the money or the time for campus-based courses, there are plenty of universities that offer free writing courses online.
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1. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (mit.edu)
Writing and Reading Short Stories
Writing and Reading the Essay
Writing and Reading Poems
MIT offers dozens of free undergraduate and graduate writing courses online through its MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative. Course topics include everything from writing fiction, poems and essays to analyzing all forms of literature. Lecture notes, videos, suggested reading lists and more will help you to become the writer you've always wanted to be. No registration is required.
2. Utah State University (usu.edu)
Intro to Writing Academic Prose
Intermediate Research Writing
Technology for Professional Writers
Utah State University's Department of English publishes three free courses devoted to the art of writing through the school's OpenCourseWare program. The courses are extensive and may take up to 16 weeks to complete if you study at the average pace. No registration is required. Courses are similar to the courses that might be found in a professional writing degree program.
Open University, the UK's largest academic institution, offers a number of different writing courses through their OpenLearn website. The free curriculum includes both undergraduate and graduate level writing courses that are available to everyone regardless of country of origin. No registration is required.
Divine Reserve No. 12 is the first of the limited-batch Saint Arnold releases to be packaged in a bomber. MSRP will be $7.99. (Ronnie Crocker / Beer, TX)
A Divine day approaches. Let us all be prepared.
Divine Reserve No. 12, which begins hitting the market Tuesday morning, is a delicious and smooth, deceptively sweet Old Ale that weighs in at 10 percent ABV. When I say it’s sweet, I mean that in the best possible regard — not the least bit cloying, with no perfumy aftertaste.
It really is a good beer to drink now and, as Brock Wagner suggests, it should age well if properly stored.
Divine Reserve 12
Veterans know what a treasure hunt it can be to track down a Divine-release beer. Saint Arnold has made that a little easier by increasing production, now that it has capacity to do so. The brewery also is making the beer available for the first time in 22-ounce bomber bottles, which should stretch the beer in the market further and alleviate some of the disappointment people have experienced in the past.
Still, the hunt can be challenging. (Fun, too, to most; frustrating for some, I realize.)
You can access any drives you wish with this method simply by replacing the drive letter:
A Drive, C Drive, D Drive, E Drive, Fictitious T Drive.
You can also use a form button instead of a text link. Simple place the link address into the form action:
<form action="file:///c:/">
<input type="submit" value="Access C Drive" />
</form>
Result:
Where can I use this? I use this as part of an active desktop. I use this same code to link to some important local and network drives which I need to access on a regular basis. It's better than a standard shortcut. Just one suggestion!
The first of its kind, and the only rifle you need to master the infinite number of extreme scenarios you'll face in the worlds of law enforcement and personal defense. Our new Bushmaster ACR redefines the term "modular" with the extraordinary ability to change calibers, barrel lengths and stock configurations in minutes – without the use of tools. Truly the most versatile and adaptive rifle ever conceived, it was born of a collaborative effort between Bushmaster, Magpul® and Remington® to create the ultimate military combat weapons system. We're proud to unveil the evolution you see here – built specifically for our law-enforcement and commercial markets. It's tested and proven reliable in the most brutal conditions on earth, truly ambidextrous and the uncompromising choice when you demand a rifle as mission-adaptable as you are. The Bushmaster ACR.
6 ½" cold hammer-forged barrel with melonite
coating for extreme long life
A2 birdcage-type hider to control muzzle flash
Adjustable, two-position, gas piston-driven system for firing suppressed or unsuppressed, supported by hardened internal bearing rails
Tool-less, quick-change barrel system available in 10.5", 14.5" and 16.5" and in multiple calibers
Multi-caliber bolt carrier assembly quickly and easily changes from 223/5.56mm NATO to 6.8mm Rem SPC (spec II chamber)
Free-floating MIL-STD 1913 monolithic top rail for optic mounting
Fully ambidextrous controls including magazine release, bolt catch and release, fire selector and non reciprocating charging handle
High-impact composite hand guard with heat shield — accepts rail inserts
High-impact composite lower receiver with textured magazine well and modular grip storage
Fixed high-impact composite A-frame stock with rubber butt pad and sling mounts (ORC & A-TACS®)
Ships in oversized hard case for accessory storage, includes 30-round PMAG™
One Year Bushmaster Warranty
Barrel Assemblies under the 16" legal minimum for semi-automatic rifles, per BATF Regulations, can only be installed on weapons registered as full autos or legal short barreled rifles.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Read this to 100 random people on the street and I'm willing to bet the majority of them would argue that you're some sort of Anarchist.
If so I stand with all of these "anarchists" from the following Colonies, which were to later call themselves States:
A newly discovered American culture was present during, or even before, the Clovis culture in western North America.
The Western Stemmed culture of at least 13,200 years ago is defined by its distinctive projectile points.
Evidence is mounting that multiple migrations led to the first populating of the Americas.
Bases of three Western Stemmed projectile points found in Oregon's Paisley Caves.
Jim Barlow
The first known people to settle America can now be divided into at least two cultures, the Clovis and the recently discovered "Western Stemmed" tradition, according to new research.
Researchers excavating an Oregon cave, found traces and unique tools made by a second people, who lived more than 13,200 years ago. The discovery, described in the latest issue of Science, strengthens the idea that that people moved into the Americas in several waves of migrations, not just one.
Texas Gov. Rick Perry ended his campaign for president today and endorsed Newt Gingrich as the best conservative to take on President Obama in the fall.
David Goldman, AP
Texas Gov. Rick Perry announces the end of his presidential campaign in North Charleston, S.C., on Thursday as his son, Griffin, and wife, Anita, look on.
Perry's departure two days before the South Carolina primary leaves four candidates vying for the GOP nomination.
"Newt is not perfect, but who among us is?" Perry said. "There is forgiveness for those who seek God. I have no question that Newt Gingrich has the heart of a conservative reformer" and "the ability to rally and captivate the conservative movement."
This is our second installment in our "Neverending line for Romney". We hav covered almost two blocks and probably at least a thousand men, women, an children. The question is much longer can it go?
Barack Obama shrugs off charges of socialism, but noted in his own memoir that he carefully chose Marxist professors as friends in college.
But Obama himself acknowledges that he was drawn to socialists and even Marxists as a college student. He continued to associate with Marxists later in life, even choosing to launch his political career in the living room of a self-described Marxist, William Ayers, in 1995, when Obama was 34.
Obama's affinity for Marxists began when he attended Occidental College in Los Angeles.
"To avoid being mistaken for a sellout, I chose my friends carefully," the Democratic presidential candidate wrote in his memoir, "Dreams From My Father." "The more politically active black students. The foreign students. The Chicanos. The Marxist professors and structural feminists."
Obama's interest in leftist politics continued after he transferred to Columbia University in New York. He lived on Manhattan's Upper East Side, venturing to the East Village for what he called "the socialist conferences I sometimes attended at Cooper Union."
After graduating from Columbia in 1983, Obama spent a year working for a consulting firm and then went to work for what he described as "a Ralph Nader offshoot" in Harlem.
"In search of some inspiration, I went to hear Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael of …Black Panther fame, speak at Columbia," Obama wrote in "Dreams," which he published in 1995. "At the entrance to the auditorium, two women, one black, one Asian, were selling Marxist literature."
Some numbers, such as your phone number or your Social Security number, are decidedly more important than others. But the numbers on this list are of cosmic importance—they are the fundamental concepts that define our universe, that make the existence of life possible and that will decide the ultimate fate of the universe. In this piece adapted from his new book Cosmic Numbers: The Numbers That Define Our Universe, California State University, Long Beach, mathematics professor James D. Stein reveals not only the effect each number has on our lives and our universe, but also the story of the people who discovered and worked with them. Here they are, in the order in which science first became aware of them.
James D. Stein
Three Images/Getty Images
1. The Universal Gravitational Constant
Maybe 2011 hasn't been such a great year, but 1665 was a whole lot worse—especially if you happened to live in London. That was the year of the last great outbreak of bubonic plague, and even though Londoners didn't know a whole about medicine, they knew that it was a good idea to get out of town. The court of King Charles II departed London for Oxfordshire, and Cambridge University shut down. One of its undergraduates, Isaac Newton, went back home to Woolsthorpe, where he spent the next eighteen months opening the door to the modern world.
We live in a technological era that would be impossible without the ability to make quantitative predictions. And the first great example of quantitative prediction was to be found in Newton's theory of universal gravitation. Starting from the hypothesis that the gravitational attraction between two masses is directly proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them, Newton figured out that the orbit of a planet was an ellipse with the sun at one of the foci. Johannes Kepler had reached this conclusion from years of painstaking observations, but Newton was able to do so with no more than the assumption of gravitational attraction and the mathematical tool of calculus (which he had invented for this purpose).
Curiously, though the gravitational constant, G, was the first constant to be discovered, it is the least accurately known of all 13 constants. That is because of the extreme weakness of the gravitational force when compared with the other basic forces. Consider that though mass of the earth is approximately 6 x 1024 kilograms, by 1957—about three centuries after Newton left plague-ravaged London—humans overcame the earth's gravitational attraction by using a simple chemical-powered rocket to place Sputnik, the first artificial satellite, in orbit.
- a surviving species from the Pleistocene Extinction (Video)
The Maned wolf is a very fascinating animal. Despite its name, the maned wolf is not a wolf at all, or a fox, coyote, or dog. It is the only member of the Chrysocyon genus, making it a truly unique animal, not closely related to any other living canid. It is believed that the maned wolf is the last surviving species of the Pleistocene Extinction, which wiped out all other large canids from the continent.
The maned wolf is native to South America, but is mainly found in Argentina, Paraguay, Bolivia and Peru. The ancestors of the maned wolf are thought to have spread from North to South America about two million years ago. Broken away from other wolf species in North America, the maned wolf evolved into the unique animal that it is today.
It is known as the "stilt-legged fox" because that is what it mostly resembles. It is around 3 feet high, and weighs around 50 pounds, with most of that height coming from the legs. It is also a beautiful red color, with black and white highlights, much like the red fox.
