I found this to be quite the interesting (and somewhat surprising) choice for 2009’s Person of the Year. What are your thoughts and opinions on TIME’s choice?

Ben Bernanke named Time Person of the Year Read the full story

Houston Is Largest City to Elect Openly Gay Mayor Read the full story

The United States Marine Corps will turn 234 on Tuesday and birthday celebrations will be taking place at bases stretching from the halls of Montezuma all the way to the shores of Tripoli.

Marine Air Corps Station Yuma, however, got the party started a few days earlier by holding a formal ceremony at the base’s parade field on Friday morning.

“Happy 234th birthday. And most of you don’t look a day over 18,” MCAS Yuma Commanding Officer Col. Mark Werth said during the celebration. Read the full story

“The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.”

Benjamin Franklin

SCENARIOS-US Senate now in healthcare spotlight

WASHINGTON, Nov 7 (Reuters) – After a narrow win in the U.S. House of Representatives, President Barack Obama’s fight for a sweeping healthcare overhaul moves to the U.S. Senate where it faces a difficult path to approval. Read the full story

TERESA FORCADES, doctor in Public Health, reflects on the history, and gives scientific data, of A type flu and lists all the irregularities related to this subject.

She explains the consequences of the declaration of a PANDEMIC, the political consequences from this declaration and makes a proposal to keep calm. She calls for an urgent activation of all legal mechanism and the participation of all citizens in this matter.

Big thanks to Marta Cobos (gripeArtificial), Marina, Paula Hernandez and Amalia, whose help made it possible to publish this version with English subtitles.

Available at:
timefortruth.es
vimeo.com/ALISH
youtube.com/1ALISH

If a person extends his or her arm and index finger completely, the beginning of Earth is represented by the end of the nose and the present is the fingertip. Passing a file over the fingernail once would erase all of human history.

Source: http://facts.randomhistory.com/2009/09/17_earth.html

By Michael Buteau

Oct. 6 (Bloomberg) — Brett Favre’s performance in the Minnesota Vikings’ victory over Green Bay on ESPN likely produced the highest-rated show in cable-televison history.

Minnesota’s 30-23 win over the Packers drew a 14.2 rating, which may turn out to be the biggest audience for a cable- television program, according to the Walt Disney Co.-owned network. Each rating point represents 1.114 million homes.

Favre, who spent 16 of his 19 seasons with the Packers, threw three touchdown passes at the Metrodome in Minneapolis last night against his former team to become the only player to win against all 32 of the National Football League’s current teams.

“This one carried a little more weight,” Favre, 39, said in a televised interview after Minnesota improved to 4-0. “It was everything it was billed to be.”

ESPN spokesman Josh Krulewitz said that the rating is “expected” to be a record when final numbers come out this afternoon.

The largest cable audience for a Monday night game until now was 12.95 million for the Dallas Cowboys’ 41-37 victory over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sept. 15, 2008. That also was a record for any cable program.

Last year’s Vikings-Packers game on Monday Night Football, in the first week of the season, drew a 9.3 rating, 65 percent below last night’s number.

Favre won three NFL Most Valuable Player awards and a Super Bowl title with the Packers before being forced out in 2008 as Green Bay went with Aaron Rodgers at quarterback.

Facing many of his former teammates for the first time, Favre completed 24-of-31 passes for 271 yards. He threw touchdown passes of one yard to Visanthe Shiancoe in the first quarter, 14 yards to Sidney Rice in the second and 31 yards to Bernard Berrian in the third quarter.

To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Buteau in Atlanta at mbuteau@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: October 6, 2009 14:07 EDT

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Watch these (US Dollar Index and Currencies) today and check back for U.S. Government’s response as soon as a statement is made.

The demise of the dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading Read the full story

If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.

Henry David Thoreau

Read the full story

A slight change from the usual, today we have Quotes of the day today (09/23/2009).

Martin Luther King, Jr. Read the full story

This is a story about a nearly 100-year-old book, bound in red leather, which has spent the last quarter century secreted away in a bank vault in Switzerland. The book is big and heavy and its spine is etched with gold letters that say “Liber Novus,” which is Latin for “New Book.” Its pages are made from thick cream-colored parchment and filled with paintings of otherworldly creatures and handwritten dialogues with gods and devils. If you didn’t know the book’s vintage, you might confuse it for a lost medieval tome. Read the full story

Congratulations goes to Jay-Z. Very impressive milestone in music. Read the full story

By Steve Connor, Science Editor

Wednesday, 9 September 2009

The conventional view of human evolution and how early man colonised the world has been thrown into doubt by a series of stunning palaeontological discoveries suggesting that Africa was not the sole cradle of humankind. Scientists have found a handful of ancient human skulls at an archaeological site two hours from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, that suggest a Eurasian chapter in the long evolutionary story of man.

The skulls, jawbones and fragments of limb bones suggest that our ancient human ancestors migrated out of Africa far earlier than previously thought and spent a long evolutionary interlude in Eurasia – before moving back into Africa to complete the story of man.

Experts believe fossilised bones unearthed at the medieval village of Dmanisi in the foothills of the Caucuses, and dated to about 1.8 million years ago, are the oldest indisputable remains of humans discovered outside of Africa.

But what has really excited the researchers is the discovery that these early humans (or “hominins”) are far more primitive-looking than the Homo erectus humans that were, until now, believed to be the first people to migrate out of Africa about 1 million years ago.

The Dmanisi people had brains that were about 40 per cent smaller than those of Homo erectus and they were much shorter in stature than classical H. erectus skeletons, according to Professor David Lordkipanidze, general director of the Georgia National Museum. “Before our findings, the prevailing view was that humans came out of Africa almost 1 million years ago, that they already had sophisticated stone tools, and that their body anatomy was quite advanced in terms of brain capacity and limb proportions. But what we are finding is quite different,” Professor Lordkipanidze said.

“The Dmanisi hominins are the earliest representatives of our own genus – Homo – outside Africa, and they represent the most primitive population of the species Homo erectus to date. They might be ancestral to all later Homo erectus populations, which would suggest a Eurasian origin of Homo erectus.”

Speaking at the British Science Festival in Guildford, where he gave the British Council lecture, Professor Lordkipanidze raised the prospect that Homo erectus may have evolved in Eurasia from the more primitive-looking Dmanisi population and then migrated back to Africa to eventually give rise to our own species, Homo sapiens – modern man.

“The question is whether Homo erectus originated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migration? This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but today it seems not so stupid,” he told the festival.

The scientists have discovered a total of five skulls and a solitary jawbone. It is clear that they had relatively small brains, almost a third of the size of modern humans. “They are quite small. Their lower limbs are very human and their upper limbs are still quite archaic and they had very primitive stone tools,” Professor Lordkipanidze said. “Their brain capacity is about 600 cubic centimetres. The prevailing view before this discovery was that the humans who first left Africa had a brain size of about 1,000 cubic centimetres.”

The only human fossil to predate the Dmanisi specimens are of an archaic species Homo habilis, or “handy man”, found only in Africa, which used simple stone tools and lived between about 2.5 million and 1.6 million years ago.

“I’d have to say, if we’d found the Dmanisi fossils 40 years ago, they would have been classified as Homo habilis because of the small brain size. Their brow ridges are not as thick as classical Homo erectus, but their teeth are more H. erectus like,” Professor Lordkipanidze said. “All these finds show that the ancestors of these people were much more primitive than we thought. I don’t think that we were so lucky as to have found the first travellers out of Africa. Georgia is the cradle of the first Europeans, I would say,” he told the meeting.

“What we learned from the Dmanisi fossils is that they are quite small – between 1.44 metres to 1.5 metres tall. What is interesting is that their lower limbs, their tibia bones, are very human-like so it seems they were very good runners,” he said.

He added: “In regards to the question of which came first, enlarged brain size or bipedalism, maybe indirectly this information calls us to think that body anatomy was more important than brain size. While the Dmanisi people were almost modern in their body proportions, and were highly efficient walkers and runners, their arms moved in a different way, and their brains were tiny compared to ours.

“Nevertheless, they were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills,” he told the science festival, which is run by the British Science Association.

One of the five skulls is of a person who lost all his or her teeth during their lifetime but had still survived for many years despite being completely toothless. This suggests some kind of social organisation based on mutual care, Professor Lordkipanidze said.

http://www.independent.co.uk/

Ancient skeletons discovered in Georgia threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution

By David Derbyshire
Last updated at 1:26 PM on 09th September 2009

For generations, scientists have believed Africa was the cradle of mankind.

Now a stunning archaeological discovery suggests our primitive ancestors left Africa to explore the world around 800,000 years earlier than was previously thought before returning to their home continent.

It was there – hundreds of thousands of years later – that they evolved into modern humans and embarked on a second mass migration, researchers say.

Astonishing discovery: Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia

Archaeologists have unearthed six ancient skeletons dating back 1.8 million years in the hills of Georgia which threaten to overturn the theory of human evolution.

The Georgian bones  – which include incredibly well preserved skulls and teeth – are the earliest humans ever found outside Africa.

The remains belong to a race of short early humans with small primitive brains who walked and ran like modern people.

They were found alongside stone tools, animal remains and plants – suggesting that they hunted and butchered meat.

Professor David Lordkipanidze with one of the skulls from the Georgia site

Archaeologists now believe that our ancestors left for Europe at least 1.8million years ago, before returning to Africa and developing into Homo Sapiens

Prof David Lordkipanidze, the direct of the Georgian National Museum, said: ‘Before our findings, the prevailing view was that humans came out of Africa almost 1million years ago, that they already had sophisticated stone tools, and that their body anatomy was quite advanced in terms of brain capacity and limb proportions. But what we are finding is quite different’

He said Africa was still the unchallenged cradle of mankind. But he added: ‘Georgia may have been the cradle of the first Europeans.’

Their discovery muddies the already complicated history of mankind.

Archaeologists believe that the first true humans – a race of squat people called Homo habilis – evolved in Africa around 2.5 million years ago. The were followed by a taller athletic species called Homo erectus who migrated out of Africa to colonise Europe and Asia.

Outside Africa their descendents are thought to have died out. But in Africa, they turned into modern man who began a second wave of migration around 120,000 years ago.

The new finds suggest Homo erectus left Africa far earlier than was previously estimated and lived for a while in Eurasia.

Three skulls all found at the Dmanisi site

The new ancestors – found in Dmanisi – were around 150cm tall, and had brains half the size of modern people’s.

‘While the Dmanisi people were almost modern in their body proportions, and were highly efficient walkers and runners, their arms moved in a different way and their brains were tiny compared to ours,’ he told the British Science Festival at Surrey University.

‘Their brain capacity is about 600 cubic centimetres. The prevailing view before this discovery was that the humans who first left Africa had a brain size of about 1,000 cubic centimetres.

‘Nevertheless they were sophisticated tool makers with high social and cognitive skills.’

The first Dmanisi fossils were found in 2001. The most recent has only just been unearthed and its details have yet to be published in a scientific journal.

Prof Lordkipanidze said the Dmanisi bones may have belonged to an early  Homo erectus which lived in Georgia before moving on to the rest of Europe.

Or the early humans may then have returned to Africa, eventually giving rise to our own species, Homoe sapiens, he said.

‘The question is whether Homo erectus orginated in Africa or Eurasia, and if in Eurasia, did we have vice-versa migrations? This idea looked very stupid a few years ago, but not today,’ he told the British Science Festival.

www.dailymail.co.uk/

In 1808, the Portuguese court, fleeing from Napoleon’s invasion of Portugal during the Peninsular War in a large fleet escorted by the British, moved the government to Brazil ending a 308 year of colonial rule. Rio de Janeiro became the Empire Capital and the Portuguese king ruled his huge empire for 13 years from the Passo Imperial Palace, an old colonial building ocean front in Rio de Janeiro downtown, and there he would have remained for the rest of his life if it were not for the turmoil aroused in Portugal due, among other reasons, to his long stay in Brazil after the end of Napoleon’s reign. Read the full story

Amazing feats like this also cause me to question whether or not a civilization(s) existed in the past that could have been more advanced than we know of due to time covering up their tracks….

‘Massive’ ancient wall uncovered in Jerusalem

Story Highlights:
—Made of boulders weighing 4 to 5 tons, the 3,700-year-old wall is 26 feet high
—Archaeologist: “I don’t know how to do it today without mechanical equipment”
—The wall appears to have been used to defend path that led to spring
—Wall is believed to have been built by Canaanites

JERUSALEM (CNN) — An archaeological dig in Jerusalem has turned up a 3,700-year-old wall that is the largest and oldest of its kind found in the region, experts say. Read the full story