The American Police State is the 'New Normal'
The American Police State is the 'New Normal'
COMMENTARY | According to The New York Times, the FBI just raided a data center in Virginia and seized many of its servers, causing websites owned by "tens of clients" to go offline -- including those belonging to people who hadn't broken a law, and were not suspected of any crime.
It may seem silly to get upset about the police taking down websites you don't use. A certain quote may come to mind, though, as we look at other ways that the police in America abuse their power.
Tasering nonviolent people to death
A 72-year-old woman named Kathryn Winkfein got tasered not too long ago after she lost her temper at the cop who pulled her over. Her offense? Shouting at him.
Luckily, she "learned her lesson" about talking back to America's authority figures. She was also awarded $40,000 in damages, which her County Constable, Richard McCain, complained was a reward for "bad behavior." Apparently putting 50,000 volts through the heart of someone's great-grandma is not bad behavior, as long as you wear a police uniform.
Winkfein was lucky. In what Digby calls the "Taser Atrocity Of The Day," a man who took groceries without having paid for them was tasered continuously for 37 seconds, after he became "aggressive and was communicating loudly." He died in the hospital.
The police officer who killed him was suspended for five days.
Stealing your cellphone (and its data)
Recordings of government workers performing their duty are, by law, in the public domain. So if you think a police officer is going to do something untoward, try filming him so you have evidence. Right?
Not so fast. Prepare to have your cellphone taken from you and stomped on. The Miami Beach, Fla., police in particular have a history of doing this, and they aren't alone. But the people who have their phones stolen and vandalized by the police are lucky; a man named Michael Allison faces up to 75 years in prison for trying to record a judge, and was arrested without any warning.
Meanwhile, the Michigan State Police is taking people's cellphones when they pull them over for traffic violations, and using "extraction" devices on the phones. The ACLU is trying to find out why they're doing that, but the police department placed a price tag of over $500,000 on their Freedom of Information request. How much justice can you afford?
Arresting nonviolent activists
Want to feed homeless people free meals in the park? Prepare to be arrested. Or how about dancing in front of the Jefferson Memorial? Prepare to get tied up and beat up.
Our country's police has a long history of suppressing nonviolent activists, and it hasn't stopped with the Civil Rights Era. Environmental activists like Tim DeChristopher are served 10-year prison sentences for civil disobedience, that harms no one but impedes oil companies' profits. Meanwhile, the FBI labels nonviolent activists as "domestic terrorists."
They were recently granted more power to go through your trash and your data, so expect things to only get worse. Actually, expect things to get worse in general. The police state is the new normal.
New San Francisco bridge built in China to be shipped to US
New San Francisco bridge built in China to be shipped to US
First, China made cut-price clothes and knick-knacks. Then it learned how to make mobile phones and iPads. Now it is making a 2,050ft-long bridge spanning the San Francisco bay.
Image 1 of 2
By Malcolm Moore, Shanghai
Next month, four enormous steel skeletons, the last of the 12 segments of the
bridge, will be shipped 6,500 miles from Shanghai to San Francisco before
being assembled on site.
The bridge, which will connect San Francisco to Oakland on the other side of
the bay, is a sign of how China
has moved on from building roads and ports in Africa and the developing
world and is now aggressively bidding for, and winning, major construction
and engineering projects in the United States and Europe.
After building forests of skyscrapers in Beijing and Shanghai, showpiece
buildings like the Bird's Nest stadium and the Guangzhou Opera House, and a
high-speed rail network that is the envy of the world, Chinese construction
companies are flush with cash and confidence. This week, Wen Jiabao, the
Chinese premier, lobbied David Cameron to give the contract for the UK's new
high speed rail link to a Chinese company.
According to Engineering News Record, five of the world's top 10 contractors,
in terms of revenue, are now Chinese, with likes of China State Construction
Engineering Group (CSCEC) overtaking established American giants like
Bechtel.
CSCEC has already built seven schools in the US, apartment blocks in
Washington DC and New York and is in the middle of building a 4,000-room
casino in Atlantic City. In New York, it has won contracts to renovate the
subway system, build a new metro platform near Yankee stadium, and refurbish
the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem river.
In Europe, meanwhile, China has signed deals with Serbia for a bridge over the
river Danube and a connecting road to Belgrade. A £215 million deal will see
Chinese firms refurbishing and upgrading a Serbian coal-fired power plant,
while China is building a new mobile phone network in Hungary and wants to
sell Bulgaria a nuclear power plant, built from a French design.
"The European construction market is huge and the Chinese are very
interested in it," said Werner Buelen at the European Federation of
Building and Woodworkers, an umbrella organisation for Europe's construction
trade unions. "At the moment, they seem to be running a pilot programme
to decide whether to access the market directly by bidding on contracts or
whether to buy European construction companies and then use those to access
the market," he added.
"They have a very clever mechanism, with several advantages. The first is
financing, which they have better access to because Chinese companies are
mostly state-owned. It is getting more and more difficult for European
contractors to access financing, and you need to have a lot of finance in
the construction industry," he said.
"Then they have managed to transfer Chinese workers, who are cheaper.
They can also use construction machinery they have built in China.
Finally, because they can generate still profit despite their low bids, they
use that money to hire famous architects and demonstrate they can deliver a
project above the normal standard".
However, earlier this month, China was fired from its first major prestige
project in Europe, the new A2 motorway in Poland for the Euro 2012 football
championships. After bidding 44 per cent lower than the Polish government
had budgeted for the road, a Chinese state-owned building company found it
was unable to pay its workers to finish the job.
"It is difficult for Chinese companies," said Wang Shouqing, a
professor at the International Engineering research department at the elite
Tsinghua university. "They are not familiar with Western culture, law
or standards. What happened in Poland was a very bad example for other
Chinese companies. It could take another decade or even 20 years to put our
footprint on Europe and the US." The embarrassment in Poland led
China's State Council to publish a notice on Monday warning the heads of
China's state-owned companies that they would be "punished" if
their companies negligently lost money on overseas projects.
Norman Haste OBE, an engineer whose projects include the second Severn
crossing and the design of Heathrow’s Terminal 5, said he had encountered
Chinese firms bidding aggressively in the Middle East and that he had a
“high regard for what they have done in recent years".
He said: “Their capabilities are second to none, and they are able to finance
projects. There is a big demand for new investment in Eastern Europe and
similarly in the United States and they will do well there.” But he added
that the history of protectionism in the French, German and UK markets might
be harder to break.
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2,000-year-old ossuary authentic, say researchers
2,000-year-old ossuary authentic, say researchers
confirming the authenticity of a recently obtained ancient ossuary with unique
historical implications that was plundered by antiquities robbers.
2,000-year-old ossuary, a stone chest used for secondary burial of bones,
belonged to a daughter of the Caiaphas family of high priests.
of the ossuary bears an Aramaic inscription from the time of the Second Temple
saying “Miriam Daughter of Yeshua Son of Caiaphas, Priests of Ma’aziah from Beth
Imri.”
The high priest Yehosef Bar Caiaphas is known for his involvement
in the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, but the prime importance of the
inscription is the discovery that the Caiaphas family was related to the
Ma’aziah priestly course, one of the 24 divisions of Kohens that took turns
maintaining the schedule of offerings at the Temple in Jerusalem.
This is
the first reference to the Ma’aziah course in an epigraphic find from the Second
Temple period, which was the last of the twenty-four priestly courses that
served in the First Temple.
The list of courses was formulated during
King David’s reign and appears in the Bible in I Chronicles 24:18.
The
ossuary was discovered by antiquities robbers who looted a Jewish tomb of the
Second Temple period.
Three years ago, it was acquired by the Antiquities
Authority Unit for the Prevention of Antiquities Robbery.
Since the
ossuary was not found in a controlled, archeological excavation, and due to its
extraordinary historical significance, the authenticity of the artifact was
tested by Dr. Boaz Zissu of the Department of the Land of Israel Studies and
Archaeology at Bar-Ilan University and Prof. Yuval Goren of the
Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures at Tel Aviv
University.
The examinations determined that the ossuary and its
inscription are genuine and ancient, and came from a burial cave in the area of
the Valley of Elah, in the Shephela.
in the Israel Exploration Journal, Volume 61, confirming its authenticity and
summarizing the importance of the find.
The Antiquities Authority has
expressed distress that this important find, stolen from its original
provenance, was removed from its exact archeological context, so it is not
possible to know the full story of the burial cave.
The ending of the
inscription “from Beth Imri” can be interpreted to mean that Beth Imri is the
name of a priestly family – the sons of Immer as described in Ezra 2:36-37 and
Nehemiah 7:39-42, whose descendants include members of the Ma’aziah
course.
The second possibility is that it refers to the place of origin
of the deceased or of her entire family, which may have been preserved in the
name Beit Ummar, a village in the North Hebron Hills.
In that village and
in nearby Khirbet Kufin, remains of a Jewish settlement were identified from the
Second Temple era and the time of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.
First Temple period archeological site unveiled in Jerusalem
City of David - Gone but not forgotten
Temple Mount Faithful petitions for excavation report
The Osiris Legend and It's Symbolism in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda
 . . . . The story of Osiris is one of Egypts most ancient myths. So old, it's origins have been lost in time. It was an important story to the Egyptians because of Osiris' role as the king of Egypt who is resurrected as the "King of the dead". A king that every Egyptian, from the mightiest pharaoh to the lowliest peasant, hoped to join in the afterlife. Other important themes that we find in the story are; the trials of Isis in which she is idolized as a dutiful wife and protective mother. And the revenge of Horus the son of Osiris against his evil uncle Seth, which is a powerful struggle of good verses evil. In an effort to avoid confusion you should be aware that there are two forms of the god Horus in this story, first we find him as the brother of Osiris, then later we find him called Harpocrates or Horus the infant son of Osiris.. . . . It may be worth noting that in all the vast amount of text that we have from the ancient Egyptians, we find no complete version of this tale. We find only pieces, references and additions to it. This version of the story comes to us from a Greek writer named, Plutarch, who lived in the first century A.D. |
- In the beginning, there was the mighty god Ra and his wife Nut. Nut was in love with the god Geb. When Ra found out about this union he was furious. In his rage, he forbid Nut to have children on any of the 360 days that currently made up the year. Nut was very sad. She called on her friend, Thoth, to help her. He knew that Ra's curse must be fulfilled, but he had an idea. Thoth engaged the moon goddess, Silene, in a wager. At the time, Silene's light (the moon) rivaled the light of Ra (the sun). Thoth was victorious, he was rewarded with one seventh of Silene's light. This is why the moon now wanes each month. Thoth took this light and added five days to the calender, bringing the year from 360 days to 365. This gave Nut 5 days on which she could have children, while at the same time obeying Ra's commandment. On the first of these days, Nut gave birth to Osiris. On the second day Horus was born, Seth on the third, Isis the fourth, and Nephthys on the fifth day. At the time of Osiris' birth, a loud voice was heard all over the world, saying, "The lord of all the earth is born."
Osiris the mighty king.
- Osiris grew and became a mighty king. He went about the job of civilizing his people. He taught them agriculture and animal husbandry. He gave them a code of laws to live by and showed them the proper ways in which to worship the gods. Egypt became a mighty land under his kind and gentle rule. His subjects gladly worshiped the ground on which he walked. When Egypt was civilized, Osiris left to bring his teachings to other lands. While Osiris was away, he left his wife, Isis, in charge. She ruled the country in the same fashion. But Osiris had an enemy, his bitter and jealous brother Seth.
Seth plots against the king.
Seth began scheming against the great king. He aligned himself with Aso, the queen of Ethiopia, and 72 other conspirators. But nothing could be done while Isis ruled the country, Her authority was unquestionable. Upon Osiris' return, an evil plot was put into motion. Seth secretly acquired the measurements of Osiris and began having a wonderfully decorated box built to fit those measurements. When the box was finished, Seth had a great feast to which he invited Osiris and the 72 conspirators. Having absolutely no evil in him, Osiris suspected nothing. When the feasting was done, Seth had the box brought out. He offered it as a gift to anyone whom the box fit. One at a time they tried to fit into the box until it was Osiris' turn. He layed in the box suspecting nothing. The conspirators slammed the lid, nailed it closed, and poured molten lead in the seam to seal his fate. They threw the great chest into the Nile river. Osiris was never seen again, walking in the land of the living.
George Washington as the risen Osiris on his thrown surrounded by other pagan deitiesThe 72 stars surrounding the heavenly seen are the 72 conspiratorsThe 5 divisions of the 360 degree zodiac = 72Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis and Nephthys are the 5 Points of the pentagram
Isis grieves for Osiris.
- This news reached Isis and she was grief stricken. She put on her dress of mourning and set about trying to find the body of her husband. She knew well, the dead could not rest until they have had a proper funeral. Isis searched long, but found nothing. She asked every man and every woman if they had seen the giant box that contained her husband, but no one had. Finally, Isis asked some children who were playing by the Nile. They told her where Seth and the conspirators had thrown the chest into the river. After further investigation, and consultation with some demons, Isis learns that the chest had floated out to sea, to the land of Byblos and become lodged in a tamarisk bush. As if by magic the bush shot up and became a magnificent tree. The towering tree enclosed the ornate box within its huge trunk. The king of Byblos admired the great tree so much that he had it cut down and made into a giant pillar to support the roof of his palace.
Isis in the land of Byblos.
Meanwhile, Isis makes her way to the land of Byblos to recover the body of her husband. In Byblos Isis sits by a fountain and talks to no one, except the queen of Byblos' maidens. To these maidens she is quite pleasant, she braids their hair and breaths on them a wonderful perfume sweeter then the most fragrant flowers. Upon their return to the palace, the queen asks them, how they came by such wonderful perfume. They told her of the beautiful stranger they had met. The queen requested that Isis be brought to the palace where she was treated most graciously. She was appointed to be the nurse of one of the young princes.Isis fed the young prince by giving him her finger to suck. Each night when the palace had retired Isis piled logs on a great fire, into which she would thrust the child. Then she would change into a swallow and flutter about mournfully chirping for her dead husband. Word of these strange happenings reached the queen. She could not believe these tales, so she decided to see for herself. That night, she hid herself, and sure enough, Isis built a fire and thrust the child in it. The queen squealed in terror and scrambled to save the child. Isis turned on the queen and rebuking her sternly, revealed her true identity. Explaining to the queen that with her magic she was tempering the child to be a god. But now his immortality was lost. Isis explained to the queen why she had made the journey to Byblos and her desire to have the giant pillar in which her husband was encased. The queen granted her wish.
Isis Returns to Egypt.
- The pillar was taken down, cut open, and the great box was revealed. Isis took the chest and returned to Egypt but the mighty pillar remained in Byblos and was worshiped from that day forward. When she arrived, she opened the box and wept over her dead husband. She was joined by her sister, Nephthys in her sorrow. The sisters turn into Kites and circle the chest screeching in mournful tones. But Isis' thoughts soon turned to her infant son, Harpocrates, Horus the younger. She had left him in Buto and now had to retrieve him. She hid the box in a secret place, and went after her son.
Seth's evil revisited.
- That night, while hunting by the light of the moon, Seth stumbled upon the finely decorated box. He was blinded with rage at the sight of his brother. He ripped Osiris into fourteen pieces and scattered them throughout Egypt. Isis learns of this new crime, and her grief is renewed. She once again sets out to find her husbands remains. She used a boat made out of papyrus reeds to conduct her search. It was believed that, because of this, a crocodile would never attack a papyrus boat, fearing that it might contain the mighty goddess. Where ever she finds a piece of Osiris, she buries it, and builds a shrine in that place. This is the reason that Osiris has so many tombs in Egypt.
The revenge of Horus.
- In the meantime, Harpocrates has grown to manhood, and he is called Horus. Osiris has been resurrected as the king of the dead in the underworld. One day, Osiris appears to Horus in the land of the living. He convinces Horus to avenge the wrongs that have been committed by Seth. So, Horus tracks down Seth and a huge battle begins. Victory is elusive and the battle turns first to one side, then to the other. It is said that this battle of good verses evil still rages, but some day, Horus will be victorious and on that day, Osiris will return to rule the world.
Ideas in the Osiris myth.
- The lord of all the earth is born.
Osiris the mighty king.
Seth plots against the king.
Isis grieves for Osiris.
Isis in the land of Byblos.
Isis Returns to Egypt.
Seth's evil revisited.
The revenge of Horus.
These links are within the legend of Osiris.
Cast of Deities:
- Ra..............King of the gods.
Nut............Sky goddess, mother of Osiris.
Geb............Earth God, father of Osiris.
Thoth..........God of wisdom.
Silene..........Moon goddess.
Osiris..........King of the dead
Horus..........Brother of Osiris.
Seth............Evil brother of Osiris.
Harpocrates...Horus the infant, son of Osiris.
Isis............Sister & wife of Osiris.
Nephthys......Sister of Osiris.
My Redneck Story
Funny!!!
My Redneck Story
I found out how to become famous
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