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POPS10 ancient Greek writers you should know Archimedes was a mathematician, engineer, inventor, physicist and astronomer. He is known for the invention of The Archimedes’ Screw, a mechanism for moving water that is still in use today. He also calculated the value of pi very precisely. Archimedes discovered how to define the volume of irregular objects by submerging them in water. According to legend, this discovery made him run out on the street naked (he was so excited that he forgot to get dressed) and cry “Eureka!” – I have found it.
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POPSHiking Into History: England’s Ancient Ridgeway Trail More: The full 87 miles of the official Ridgeway National Trail can easily be divided into shorter segments, depending on time available. It can be cut more or less in half, by deciding to walk only the older, original western section, which passes all the great prehistoric sites. Day hikes, and half-days centered on the Uffington White Horse, or Wayland’s Smithy, or the Avebury Stone Circles, can easily be devised by studying the map. The trail’s excellent Web site (www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ridgeway) is full of advice, and possibilities for accommodations and meals.
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POPS1964: Malcolm X on Zionism 
"The ever-scheming European imperialists wisely placed Israel where she could geographically divide the Arab world, infiltrate and sow the seed of dissension among African leaders and also divide the Africans against the Asians. Zionist Israel's occupation of Arab Palestine has forced the Arab world to waste billions of precious dollars on armaments, making it impossible for these newly independent Arab nations to concentrate on strengthening the economies of their countries and elevate the living standard of their people. And the continued low standard of living in the Arab world has been skilfully used by the Zionist propagandists to make it appear to the Africans that the Arab leaders are not intellectually or technically qualified to lift the living standard of their people ... thus, indirectly "educing" Africans to turn away from the Arabs and towards the Israelis for teachers and technical assistance. "They cripple the bird's wing, and then condemn it for not flying as f
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POPSCalifornia's old-growth redwoods: Tree therapy amid ancient coastal giants More: The national spotlight is being cast on the park again this month with the Redwood Empire featured in National Geographic magazine. The centerpiece is a fold-out photograph of one of the park's giants, the Iluvatar Tree, the world's third-largest coast redwood at 20 1/2 feet in diameter and 320 feet tall… Of the trails that provide access to old-growth in California, the James Irvine Loop is one of the best. This loop is a 7.5-mile round trip that provides a route past a succession of giants. It's easy enough that most anybody can simply walk a half mile and back to get a feel for an ancient forest. It's long enough that the entire loop delivers a sense of discovery and awe with each grove, and the good, clean feeling that comes with hiking a few hours in a pristine landscape. This trip can change how you feel about things for a long time. Big trees can do that.
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POPSBye Bye Birdie: Famed Fossil Loses Avian Perch just one of several species of feathered dinosaurs preceding modern birds. It may not even be a direct ancestor. Such revisions make paleontology a science of second thoughts. Reconstructing the history of life, researchers thrash out theories of ancestry, behavior and biomechanics guided by hints from ancient bones. Archaeopteryx -- combining the feathers, wishbone and wings of a bird with the reptilian tail, teeth and claws of a dinosaur -- had already become a question mark. Newly discovered fossils have prompted scientists to revamp their assumptions about archaeopteryx's distinguishing features over the last decade. A cornucopia of fossil finds in China demonstrated that feathers coated many dinosaur species, not just birds. The newest finding, though, demonstrates that our understanding of even well-studied fossils like archaeopteryx -- scrutinized, measured, modeled for 150 years -- can still be upended.
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POPSNobel Tops 'SNL' for Obama Joke by Mark Steyn
What "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy" did he make in those first 12 days? Bowing to the Saudi king? Giving the British prime minister the Walmart discount box of "Twenty Classic Movies You've Seen A Thousand Times"? "Er, Barack, I've already seen these." "That's OK. They won't work in your DVD player anyway." For these and other "extraordinary efforts" in "cooperation between peoples", President Obama is now the fastest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history. Alas, the extraordinary efforts of those first 12 days are already ancient history. Reflecting the new harmony of U.S.-world relations since the administration hit the "reset" button, The Times of London declared the award "preposterous," and Svenska Freds (the Swedish Peace and Arbitration Society) called it "shameful." Why, only the other day, very conversationally, the administration floated the trial balloon that it could live with the Taliban returning to government in Afghanistan.
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POPS'Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi' cont (more at source): And this drama was at the heart of a place we now call Cahokia, ancient America's one true city north of Mexico—as large in its day as London— and the political capital of a most unusual Indian nation. At that time all the stars and planets in the Northern Hemisphere's night sky were visible above Cahokia, situated in a broad expanse of Mississippi River bottomland just east of what is now St. Louis, Missouri. Cahokia's people looked to the Morning and Evening stars for guidance and— inspired by ideas from Mesoamerica, possibly brought back from Cahokian rulers' travels or priests' vision quests— incorporated them into a religion that would displace traditions across the American Midwest, South, and Plains.
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POPSRoman Polanski Has a Lot of Friends Debra Winger, president of the Zurich Film Festival jury, wearing a red "Free Polanski" badge, called the Swiss authorities action "philistine collusion." Frederic Mitterand, the French cultural minister, said it showed "the scary side of America" and described Polanski as "thrown to the lions because of ancient history." French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Doctors Without Borders, called the whole thing "sinister." Closer to home, Whoopi Goldberg explained on The View that his crime wasn't 'rape rape,' just, you know, rape. Oh, that! Conservative columnist Anne Applebaum minimized the crime in the Washington Post. First, she overlooks the true nature of the crime (drugs, forced anal sex, etc), and then claims "there is evidence Polanski did not know her real age." Talk about a desperate argument. Polanski, who went on to have an affair with 15-year old Nastassja Kinski, has spoken frankly of his taste for very young girls
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POPSMosul From the New York Times archives BY REV. DR. BACON. March 20, 1852, Wednesday Page 1, 1249 words Dr. BACON gave his second lecture on Eastern Travels at the Tabernac'e last evening, The lecturer proposed briefly to speak of the Euphrates, the Tigris, and the adjacent countries. Tile section attended to embraces nearly all the countries noticed in the New Testament as having been visited by the Apostles of Christ--the regions most celebrated in ancient history Babylon and Tyre, the first of tile great empire cities and the Syrian kingdoms. From Diarbakir you descend the Tigris to Mosul ... The scenery is far surpassed by any ever seen by the lecturer. It banks are covered by ancient tombs and cities, and in one place where the ruins of a massive bridge, with some arches and towers, that in its time must have surpassed in strength and beauty, the bridges that span the Thames in London.
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POPSMore Polanski defense Oh Debra! The more I read about this, the angrier I get. He pleads guilty then runs away from his sentence. But... oh, it was so long ago... I guess Europe is considered as good as prison? Time served? VOMIT
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POPSGiants Worthy to read: ° Giants in Scripture ° Book of Enoch – new translation ° Book of Enoch ° Epic of Gilgamesh ° Ancient & Lost Civilizations ° Gilgamesh Tomb Found! ° Gog ° Floods Stories from Around the World ° The Book of Giants ° Ancient Egyptian Treasures in Grand Canyon ° The Karankawa ° Lost City of the Grand Canyon
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POPSUnique Golden Chariot from Ancient Thrace Found more (at source): t is both the decoration and the gold-copper alloy that make the chariot on display in downtown Sofia without any analogy among similar finds from ancient times. The decorative plaque is 52 cm long and 12 cm wide, and 0,3 cm thick. It was placed on the lower back part of the chariot, which was actually a luxury passenger car rather than a war chariot. It pictures what appears to be an ancient building, most likely a temple. Other decorations on the chariot include a bust of Heracles (Hercules), and two heads of Medusa, the mythical gorgon monster. Over 200 chariots dated back to Thracian and Roman times have been discovered in Bulgaria so far by both archaeologists and treasure hunters. In comparison, only 2 more chariots have been found in the rest of Roman Empire - one in Pompeii, and another one in Ephesus; and about 20 chariots have been discovered in Hungary.
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POPSDecoding Antiquity: Eight Scripts... in 1823, they extended the span of recorded history by around 2000 years and allowed us to read the words of Ramses the Great. The decipherment of the Mayan glyphs revealed that the New World had a sophisticated, literate civilisation at the time of the Roman empire. So how do you decipher an unknown script? There are two minimum requirements. First, there has to be enough material to work with. Secondly, there must be some link to a known language. It helps enormously if there is a bilingual inscription or identifiable proper names - the Rosetta Stone (see image), for example, is written in both ancient Egyptian and ancient Greek, and also contains the name of the Ptolemy dynasty. If there is no clear link, an attempt must be made to relate the concealed language to a known one.
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POPSEurope's 1st Farmers Were Segregated, Expert Immigrants Central and western Europe's first farmers weren't crafty, native hunter-gatherers who gradually gave up their spears for seeds, a new study says. The two lineages "don't look like the complete set of ancestors necessary to build the modern gene pool," Burger said.
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POPSEuropeans Descended From Hunters, Not Farmers, Study Says The team investigated mitochondrial DNA"a permanent genetic marker passed from mothers to their offspring"recovered from the teeth and bones of 24 skeletons from 16 central European sites. These ancient humans all belonged to cultures that can be linked to the introduction of farming practices that began in present-day Israel, Jordan, and Syria around 12,000 years ago. The researchers identified which cultures the subjects belonged to by the decorations found on their pottery.
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POPS'Massive' ancient wall uncovered in Jerusalem "This is the most massive wall that has ever been uncovered in the City of David," Reich and Shukron said in a joint statement about the find. It marks the first time "that such massive construction that predates the Herodian period has been discovered in Jerusalem." It appears to be part of a "protected, well-fortified passage that descends to the spring tower from some sort of fortress that stood at the top of the hill," according to the joint statement. The spring "is located in the weakest and most vulnerable place in the area. The construction of a protected passage, even though it involves tremendous effort, is a solution for which there are several parallels in antiquity, albeit from periods that are later than the remains described here."
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POPSIs Glenn Beck lying about Van Jones?
I found some interesting quotes from Jones that some people try to attribute to his college days. While attending a protest after the Rodney King beating by Los Angeles police, Jones was arrested. Speaking about his time in jail Jones said, "I met all these young radical people of color, I mean really radical, communists and anarchists. And it was, like, 'This is what I need to be a part of.' I spent the next ten years of my life working with a lot of those people I met in jail, trying to be a revolutionary." Jones also said that "the incident deepened my disaffection with the system and accelerated my political radicalization." He also said that before the King verdict he was "a rowdy nationalist". By August of that year, he said, "I was a communist." Some websites say he made those statements while still in college. Not so. He said those things in 2002. 2002 isn't exactly ancient history. But there are things that are even more recent. I'll get to those.
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