'Most Expensive Christmas Tree Ever'

Christmas came in extravagant fashion to the Muslim desert emirate of Abu Dhabi as a glitzy hotel unveiled a bejewelled Christmas tree valued at more than 11 million dollars on Wednesday. It is the "most expensive Christmas tree ever," with a "value of over 11 million dollars," said Hans Olbertz, general manager of Emirates Palace hotel, at its inauguration.

The 13-metre (40-foot) faux evergreen, located in the gold leaf-bedecked rotunda of the hotel, is decorated with silver and gold bows, ball-shaped ornaments and small white lights. But the necklaces, earrings and other jewellery draped around the tree's branches are what give it a record value. It holds a total of 181 diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires and other precious stones, said Khalifa Khouri, owner of Style Gallery, which provided the jewellery.

"The tree itself is about 10,000 dollars," Olbertz said. "The jewellery has a value of over 11 million dollars -- I think 11.4, 11.5."

Asked if the tree might offend religious sensibilities in the United Arab Emirates, where the vast majority of the local population is Muslim, Olbertz said he did not think it would. "It's a very liberal country," he said.

Like other hotels in the United Arab Emirates, it has had a Christmas tree up in previous years. But this year, "we said we have to do something different," and the hotel's marketing team hatched the plan, said Olbertz.

SOURCE: "UAE hotel erects 11-million-dollar Christmas tree", December 15, 2010.

Copyright AFP 2008, AFP stories and photos shall not be published, broadcast, rewritten for broadcast or publication or redistributed directly or indirectly in any medium.

'Storm in Israel unearths Roman statue'

ASHKELON, Israel, Dec. 15 (UPI) -- The massive storms that hit Israel earlier this week unearthed a white marble Roman statue of a woman in Ashkelon, officials said.

The 4-foot statue of a woman with her head missing, thought to be 1,650- to 1,800-years-old, was discovered when a cliff crumbled at an archaeological dig in Ashkelon, Dr. Yigal Israel of the Israel Antiquities Authority told Haaretz.

"It is a lovely white statue that is missing its head and part of a hand. It was apparently imported from Italy, Greece or Asia Minor and may have represented the goddess Aphrodite," he said.

"The woman depicted in the statue is wearing a toga and leaning on a square stone column. Her clothing was chiseled meticulously -- her toes are delicate. We see her sandals and her small emphasized bosom. Simply a stunningly beautiful statue," he said.

A passerby alerted the authorities after spotting the statue in seawater, he said, noting it was in remarkably good condition despite the fall.

© 2010 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Illinois man dies in crash; wife leaves car, vanishes

(CNN) -- An Illinois woman walked away from a car crash that killed her husband, authorities believe, but they have found no trace of her other than footprints in the snow leading to a road.

Shannon was last seen along with her husband Dale Shannon, 41, at a Christmas party Saturday night in Streator, about 17 miles west of Ransom.

"They were dancing together, really cutting up a rug," Dale Shannon's sister Donna Baker, who was at the party, told the Tribune. She said the couple -- married 20 years with four daughters ages 4 to 15 -- left the party arm in arm.

Her brother was sober, she told the newspaper, and was driving his wife's car.

About 1:45 a.m. Sunday, a deputy on patrol in a rural area of Brookfield Township found a one-car traffic accident, the sheriff's office said in a statement. "The deputy found a male occupant of the vehicle in the driver's seat deceased," the statement said. "Evidence at the scene indicated that a second person was also in the vehicle at the time of the accident. Further investigation revealed that the second person was possibly the wife of the deceased driver."

The car slid backwards into a pole, Templeton said, with enough force to break the backs of both the front seats. A relative told the Tribune Dale Shannon's back was broken.

Footprints were reportedly found leading from the car to a nearby road. But there, Tanya Shannon's trail ends.

The crash site was remote. A nuclear power plant lies to the north, but the area is surrounded by farmland.

By the CNN Wire Staff, December 7, 2010.

Napoleon's soldiers buried again after 200 years

The remains of 18 soldiers of the Grand Army of Napoleon Bonaparte were buried again in Lithuania on Monday. Nearly 200 years after the failure of the siege of Moscow, the men were obliged to flee to the west in the midst of extreme cold. The remains were found last year outside the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius. Experts are of a view that the soldiers were members of the infantry, hussar and dragoon units.

A small group of representatives, diplomats, French military and Lithuanians attended the burial of the remains in a cemetery in the Lithuanian capital. A mass re-burial of 3,500 Napoleon's soldiers was held in 2003, but the remains of these soldiers were found elsewhere.

"These men were soldiers of Napoleon's army who participated in the Russian campaign and were returning to Moscow. They died of hunger and cold here in Lithuania," Michael Bourlet told Reuters, a military historian of the French military school of St. Cyr.

On June 24, 1812, ignoring the advice of his closest advisors, Napoleon invaded Russia. Never in living memory had so large an army been assembled, more than 600,000 men from every corner of his empire. Napoleon prophesied the war would be over in twenty days. Beware of false prophets!

When Napoleon's attempt to defeat Czarist Russia collapsed in the winter of 1812, the soldiers of his army retreated, covering 1,100 kilometers under freezing temperatures.

"Between 20,000 and 30,000 soldiers died in the Vilnius region in early December 1812. It's hard to make a more accurate estimate, because the Army was so disorganized," Bourlet said. The men were dropping off all along the path of retreat.

The French emperor, who would suffer his final defeat at Waterloo only three years later, left for Vilnius on December 5, leaving his soldiers just days before the arrival of Russian forces.

Pravda; November 30, 2010.

Mystery surrounds man in publicist killing

LOS ANGELES (AP) - He was named a "person of interest" in the killing of a Hollywood publicist, and he shot himself to death as detectives tried to question him - but police say it's still not clear if he played any role in the murder.
What is certain about Harold Martin Smith is that he was an armed career criminal possibly looking at another stretch in prison.

Documents obtained Friday by The Associated Press reveal that Smith, who acquaintances say had boasted of killing Ronni Chasen for money, was a convicted, two-strikes felon with a long criminal history.

Smith, 43, had most recently been released from prison in 2007 after a robbery conviction. He was discharged from parole last year and had told neighbors at the seedy Los Angeles apartment building where he lived that he would never return to prison.

Beverly Hills police detectives, armed with a search warrant, approached him Wednesday in the shabby lobby of the Harvey Apartments, told him to take his hands out of his pockets and said they were there to talk about Chasen's killing.
Smith pulled a gun from one of those pockets and shot himself in the head.
Police say it's possible Smith had no connection to the murder.

"Here's Harold talking all this (expletive). Cops are standing there looking at him, he's thinking, I didn't kill Ronni but I'm standing here with a gun in my pocket," speculated private investigator John Nazarian, a former sheriff's deputy who has investigated homicide cases. "He's going to go back to prison, for life probably. So he just decided to check out."

A third felony conviction could have brought a life sentence for Smith under California's three-strikes law.

By JOHN ROGERS and THOMAS WATKINS; December 4, 2010.

Disney town sees death for 2nd time in week

CELEBRATION, Fla. (AP) - Authorities were investigating another death Friday in the town Disney built just days after reporting its first homicide in its 14-year existence. This time it was a man who apparently killed himself after shooting at deputies.

Craig Foushee, 52, barricaded himself in a home Thursday for more than 14 hours, according to an Osceola County Sheriff's Office report. He shot at deputies several times, but deputies never returned fire because they were unable to acquire a target and no deputies were injured, authorities said.
Deputies entered the home early Friday and found him dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Sheriff's spokeswoman Twis Lizasuain said there was no connection between Foushee and Matteo Patrick Giovanditto, who was found slain in a condominium Tuesday. That homicide was the first for Disney's master-planned, picture-perfect central Florida community with 11,000 residents.

Giovanditto lived alone with his Chihuahua and had been slain over the long Thanksgiving weekend, authorities said. Neighbors hadn't seen him for days, so they filed a missing person's report, then went into his condo a day later and found him.

Giovanditto's death was an isolated incident, Lizasuain said.

December 3, 2010. My Way News.

Mexico Nabs 14-Year-Old Cartel Hitman

(AFP) - Mexican authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy accused of serving as a drug cartel hitman and beheading the victims, the army said Friday.

The youth, identified as Edgar Jimenez and nicknamed "El Ponchis," had been wanted since October, and was arrested at an airport in central Morelos state as he attempted to board a plane to Tijuana, a city at Mexico's border with the United States.

"He was arrested around midnight" late Thursday, an official of military zone 24 located in the city of Cuernavaca near where the arrest occurred, told AFP.

He had earlier been arrested along with six suspected hitmen for the South Pacific Cartel.

The suspects, including Jimenez, allegedly confessed in videos posted on the Internet that they had killed several men found hanging from bridges in Cuernavaca, less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of Mexico City.

They said the boy was in charge of cutting the victims' heads and genitalia, local media said.

According to the videos broadcast on Mexican media, the boy acted in complicity with his sisters, who sometimes served as decoys to lure victims.

Cuernavaca, where many wealthy families from the capital keep a secondary residence, is also the site of a fierce battle between rival drug traffickers fighting for control of the Arturo Beltran Leyva cartel after its leader of the same name was killed by military forces last December.

Published: Friday, 03 Dec 2010. Copyright 2010 AFP. All rights reserved.

'Boy, 6, Misses Bus, Takes Mom's Car Instead'

10-Mile Trip to Va. School Ends With Crash but Without Injury

The word "miracle" can be overused. But when a 6-year-old boy drives a Ford Taurus for more than 10 miles, weaving in and out of oncoming traffic, slams into a utility pole and no one gets hurt, well, maybe miracle is appropriate.

That's what happened on Virginia's Northern Neck on Monday morning, when the first-grader missed his school bus and decided to drive his mom's car to elementary school so he wouldn't miss breakfast and PE, authorities said yesterday.

The boy's parents were arrested and charged with felony child endangerment.

Sgt. Thomas A. Cunningham Jr. of the Virginia State Police said the boy is not particularly tall for his age and was "possibly standing" while driving the Taurus. Wilkins said the child had an idea about how to start, propel and steer the car from playing video games.

Once he got going, the boy navigated his way along Route 200 (Dupont Highway), across a bridge spanning the Great Wicomico River and then turned west on Northumberland Highway, which is about 140 miles from Washington. He made it through two intersections, Wilkins said, and then was "doing a pretty great rate of speed" as he passed cars on the two-lane road while not wearing a seat belt.

The boy had gone 10.4 miles, the sheriff said, and was about a mile and a half from his school in Heathsville when he decided to cross the double line and pass again. But this time, he saw a tractor-trailer coming toward him in the other lane.

He quickly whipped the car back into his lane, but, unlike in video games, the car swerved out of control, skidded into an embankment and then struck a utility pole on the rear passenger side.

Briney said he unzipped the boy's coat to check for injuries, found none and zipped it back up -- and the boy turned and walked away. "I said, 'Where are you going?' " Briney said. "He said: 'My school's right over there. I'm late.'

"He was just bound and determined," Wilkins said, "he did not want to miss breakfast and PE." The sheriff said the boy told him that he had trained on video games such as Grand Theft Auto and Monster Truck Jam.

By Tom Jackman, Washington Post Staff Writer, January 7, 2009

Hooked on classics

Every Saturday afternoon, a dozen students meet at the canteen of Renmin University of China in Beijing. They do not come for food or tea as others do. Instead, they gather for a Chinese classic, called The Book of Odes. Undistracted by noise and the smell of food, they spend four hours reading, debating and sharing views on the ancient poetry, which dates back to the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476BC). The students are pursuing their major, Chinese Classics, a two-year labor of love.

Ji Baocheng, president of Renmin University, says the rediscovery of Chinese Classics has become "necessary to restoring China's cultural confidence".

The school set up a four-year bachelor's degree and two-year master's degree in 2005, and has enrolled around 130 undergraduates and 30 graduates to date.

"As opposed to Chinese language learning, the Chinese Classics is a combination of Chinese literature, history and philosophy as an integrated whole,"

says Chen Junchan, a senior student at the school.

When she was young, Liu Fang's parents asked her to recite Chinese classical poems. By primary school, she had already read A Dream of the Red Chamber, the most popular Chinese classic novel, almost 20 times. At secondary school, Liu started to compose her own poems.

Like Liu, many of the students in the school were nurtured on Chinese literature or traditional art.

One of the features of the course is a series of reading courses analyzing about 20 traditional classics, including Lao-Ztu, Chuang-Ztu, Mencius, The Odes of Chu, Yimutology, The History of the Han Dynasty and poetry of different dynasties, all of which were written by China's most distinguished writers, philosophers or historians. In the past, they were the required reading for Chinese scholars.

"The students must be patient and know the original readings by heart," says Deputy Dean Sun Jiazhou.

However, it is not easy to either teach or learn these works. Liang Tao, an associate professor of the history of ideology, considers it a long-term mission. "Every classic book deserves lifelong digestion and can be increasingly internalized into one's personal wisdom."

The students also come up with different methods to digest the classics. Wu Qinli, a senior, for instance, joined Yi Dan Xue Tang, a Beijing-based organization dedicated to the sharing and spreading of traditional Chinese culture. One of its modes is reading classics aloud in the morning. "Breathing fresh air and learning through reading is a wonderful experience," says Wu.

The school emphasizes self-study. For the History of China's Historiography, the class divides into groups, and each is asked to prepare a group presentation.

Chen Junchan's group was responsible for introducing three types of historical works. For a whole week, they spent hours each night reading the materials sentence by sentence and discussing every detail. "We seemed to act like the ancient scholars, the only difference was that we did not put on long gowns," she says.

The students also leave the classroom to walk. This year the school initiated a program called "learning by traveling", as there is a Chinese saying, "Knowledge comes from thousands of books and ten thousands of miles".

In June and July, the senior students visited the provinces of Shandong, Zhejiang, Hunan and Jiangxi, traditional places of culture where scholars studied or lived, like Qufu, the home of Confucius.

Students regard it as an effective combination of knowledge and practice. "I couldn't help pondering philosophical questions in places where ancient scholars had stood. It was fantastic," says 21-year-old Chen Chanzhi.

They also composed a host of poems and essays based on their reflections during the journey.

No matter what they do after graduation, the lessons of Chinese Classics have already influenced on their personal development. As Yuan Lei, a senior student, says: "What we actually harvest is sincerity, goodness and tolerance."

Source: People's Daily Online, December 04, 2007.

Anthology of Chinese Literature: Volume I: From Early Times to the Fourteenth Century (Anthology of Chinese Literature)

Legendary prophetess never afraid of death

One winter night a knight in shining armor appeared in a village. He entered a house and uttered:

“The world is on the threshold of disaster. Millions of people will die. And you will stand here and prophesy. Do not be afraid! I’ll tell you what you should say.”

This phantom visited 30-year-old Vangelia Pandeva Dimitrova in January, 1941.

Just like this Vanga started making predictions.

Vanga was known in Bulgaria and abroad, she helped many people from different countries. Her house in Rupite at the joint border of Bulgaria, Macedonia and Greece is believed to be a source of incredible cosmic energy. This energy must have fed the human phenomenon of Vanga.

Her father was conscripted into the Bulgarian Army during World War I, and her mother died when Vanga was quite young. The family was living a hard life after the war. Her father had an animal farm, and Vanga had to drive the milk-can.

A terrible storm occurred one day. The sky was dark and strong wind blew. Lumps of mud, leaves and branches created an enormous vortex. The storm lifted 12-year-old Vanga up and threw her in the field. She was found after a long search. Her eyes were covered with sand. Afterwards, she began to lose sight. No healing gave results. Vanga prayed to God. Soon she became blind but acquired another vision.

Vanga started making predictions when she was 16. She helped her father to find a sheep stolen from his flock. She provided a detailed description of a yard where the animal was being hidden by the thieves.

Vanga had dreamed about some distressing events even before the knight appeared. All these events unfortunately came true.

During World War II Vanga attracted more believers — a number of people visiting her, hoping to get a hint about whether their relatives are alive, or seeking for the place where they died. She advised people how to protect themselves on the battlefields, how to cure themselves with herbs, clay and beeswax, where to find lost things.

Long before world-wide fame Vanga was put in prison because she predicted Stalin’s death. But in a year set at liberty – Stalin died. Though, she entrusted such important data as leaders’ obits and global disasters only to a limited group of people. She did not want to scare anyone.

When her brother Vasil joined a partisan party, Vanga cried and begged him not to go, telling him that he would be cruelly killed at the age of 23. But Vasil did not believe her. In October of the same year he surrendered. He was terribly tortured and then shot down. It was very difficult for her to know the destiny and have no means to resist it.

Vanga was not afraid of death. She said that there is no death:

"I have told you that after death the body decomposes like anything living, but a part of the body – the soul, or something I don’t know how to call, does not decompose. But what remains from a man is his soul. It does not decompose and continues to develop to reach higher states. This is the eternity of soul.”

Vanga believed that people are born for good works. Bad works never escape punishment. She always tried to do good for people.

© 2007 «PRAVDA.Ru», translated by Ksenia Sedyakina.

Predicting the Future

Half-Evolved Turtles

Millions of people are taught in schools and textbooks all over the world that the fossil record furnishes scientific proof of evolution. But, where are there fossils of half-evolved dinosaurs or other creatures?

Fully Formed

The fossil record contains fossils of only complete and fully-formed species. There are no fossils of partially-evolved species to indicate that a gradual process of evolution ever occurred. Even among evolutionists there are diametrically different interpretations and reconstructions of the fossils used to support human evolution from a supposed ape-like ancestry. In fact, all of the fossils, with their fancy scientific names, that have been used to support human evolution have eventually been found to be either hoaxes, non-human, or human, but not both human and non-human.

Lying Bones

Yet, many modern school textbooks continue to use these long disproved fossils as evidence for human evolution. Evolutionists once reconstructed an image of a half-ape and half-man (known as The Nebraska Man) creature from a single tooth. Later they discovered that the tooth belonged to an extinct species of pig. The "Nebraska Man" was used as a major piece of evidence in the famous Scopes Trial in support of Darwin's evolutionary theory.

Scattered Bones

At times evolutionists have used various bones gathered from many yards of each other and classify them as belonging to the same creature (even when there's no proof). They then reconstruct from these bones whatever will support their hypotheses. The fossil case "Lucy" is an excellent example of this. Scientists have only forty percent of the bones for Lucy. The bones were found yards from each other, some were found even a mile or more away. The knee joint (the main evidence used) was found two hundred feet below ground from the rest of the bones. Many of the leading scientists doubt that the bones all belong to the same species or individual. And, some of the key bones are crushed. Yet, from all of this evolutionists have reconstructed a drawing of an ape-man creature (in full color) for display in textbooks and museums. Many experts are not convinced that Lucy was an ape-man because they're not convinced all of the bones belong to the same individual or even the same species. Many leading authorities have said that "Lucy" is really an extinct ape, but not an ape-man. Those scientists who are convinced that Lucy was an ape-man are the ones that receive all the attention from the mainstream media.

No Partially-Evolved Species

Even if evolution takes millions and millions of years, we should still be able to see some stages of its process. But, we simply don't observe any partially-evolved fish, frogs, lizards, birds, dogs, cats among us. Every species of plant and animal is complete and fully-formed.

Another problem is how could partially-evolved plant and animal species survive over millions of years if their vital organs and tissues were still in the process of evolving? How, for example, were animals breathing, eating, and reproducing if their respiratory, digestive, and reproductive organs were still incomplete and evolving? How were species fighting off possibly life-threatening germs if their immune system hadn't fully evolved yet?

Scientist Dr. Walt Brown, in his fantastic book "In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood",makes this point by saying "All species appear fully developed, not partially developed. They show design. There are no examples of half-developed feathers, eyes, skin, tubes (arteries, veins, intestines, etc.), or any of thousands of other vital organs. Tubes that are not 100% complete are a liability; so are partially developed organs and some body parts. For example, if a leg of a reptile were to evolve into a wing of a bird, it would become a bad leg long before it became a good wing."

A lizard with half-evolved legs and wings can't run or fly away from its predators. How would it survive? Why would it be preserved by natural selection? Imagine such a species surviving in such a miserable state over many millions of years waiting for fully-formed wings to evolve.

No Transitional Links

Some evolutionists cite the fossil of an ancient bird known to have claws as an example of a transitional link. However, there are two species of birds living today in South America that have claws on their wings, but even evolutionists today do not claim that these birds are transitional links from a reptilian ancestry. These claws are complete, as everything else on the birds.

Recently it was thought they had discovered fossils of dinosaurs with feathers until they found out that the so-called feathers were really scales which only had the appearance of feathers. Scientists theorize the scales took upon a feather-like appreance during some brief stage of decomposition before being fossilized. Even if they were feathers, this still wouldn't be any kind of evidence to support macro-evolution unless they can show a series of fossils having part-scale/part-feather structures as evidence that the scales had really evolved into feathers.

Common Designer

Many times, evolutionists use similarities of traits shared by different forms of life as a basis for claiming a transitional link. But, the problem for evolutionists is that all the traits which they cite are complete and fully-formed. And evolutionists are not consistent. The duck-billed platypus, for example, has traits belonging to both mammals and birds but even evolutionists won't go so far as to claim that the duck-billed platypus is a transitional link between birds and mammals.

Evolutionists claim that the genetic and biological similarities between species is evidence of common ancestry. However, that is only one interpretation. Another possibility is that the comparative similarities are due to a common designer who designed similar functions for similar purposes in all of the various species and forms of life. Neither position can be scientifically proved.

Punctuated Equilibrium

In fact, it is precisely because of these problems that more and more modern evolutionists are adopting a new theory known as Punctuated Equilibrium which says that plant and animal species evolved suddenly from one kind to another and that is why we don't see evidence of partially-evolved species in the fossil record. Of course, we have to accept their word on blind faith because there is no way to prove or disprove what they are saying. These evolutionists claim that something like massive bombardment of radiation resulted in mega mutations in species which produced "instantaneous" changes from one life form to another. The nature and issue of mutations will be discussed later and the reader will see why such an argument is not viable.

Natural Selection

Although Darwin was partially correct by showing that natural selection occurs in nature, the problem is that natural selection itself is not a creative force. Natural selection is a passive process in nature. Natural selection can only "select" from biological variations that are possible and which have survival value. Natural selection itself does not produce any biological traits or variations.

The early grooves in the human embryo that appear to look like gills are really the early stages in the formation of the face, throat, and neck regions. The so-called "tailbone" is the early formation of the coccyx and spinal column which, because of the rate of growth being faster than the rest of the body at this stage, appears to look like a tail. The coccyx has already been proven to be useful in providing support for the pelvic muscles.

Abortion clinics have been known to console their patients by telling them that what they're terminating isn't really a human being yet but is only a guppie or tadpole.

Single Cell

But, didn't we all start off from a single cell in our mother's womb? Yes, but that single cell from which we developed had all of the genetic information to develop into a full human being. Other single cells, such as bacteria and amoeba, from which evolutionists say we and all other forms of life had evolved don't have the genetic information to develop into humans or other species.

Biological variations are determined by the DNA or genetic code of species. The DNA molecule is actually a molecular string of various nucleic acids which are arranged in a sequence just like the letters in a sentence. It is this sequence in DNA that tells cells in the body how to construct various tissues and organs.

Mutations Harmful

The common belief among evolutionists is that random mutations in the genetic code produced by random environmental forces such as radiation, over time, will produce entirely new genetic sequences or genes for entirely new traits which natural selection can act upon resulting in entirely new biological kinds or forms of life . Evolutionists consider mutations to be a form of natural genetic engineering.

However, the very nature of mutations precludes such a possibility. Mutations are accidental changes in the sequential structure of the genetic code caused by various random environmental forces such as radiation and toxic chemicals.

Almost all true mutations are harmful, which is what one would normally expect from accidents. Even if a good mutation occurred for every good one there will be thousands of harmful ones with the net result over time being disastrous for the species.

Most biological variations, however, occur as a result of new combinations of previously existing genes - not because of mutations, which are rare in nature.

Mutations simply produce new varieties of already existing traits. For example, mutations in the gene for human hair may change the gene so that another type of human hair develops, but the mutations won't change the gene so that feathers or wings develop.

Sometimes mutations may trigger the duplication of already existing traits (i.e. an extra finger, toe, or even an entire head, even in another area of the body!). But mutations have no ability to produce entirely new traits or characteristics.

Furthermore, only those mutations produced in the genes of reproductive cells, such as sperm in the male and ovum (or egg cell) in the female, are passed on to offspring. Mutations and any changes produced in other body cells are not transmitted. For example, if a woman were to lose a finger it would not result in her baby being born with a missing finger. Similarly, even if an ape ever learned to walk upright, it could not pass this characteristic on to its descendants. Thus, modern biology has disproved the once-held theory that acquired characteristics from the environment can be transmitted into the genetic code of offspring.

Science cannot prove we're here by creation, but neither can science prove we're here by chance or macro-evolution. No one has observed either. They are both accepted on faith. The issue is which faith, Darwinian macro-evolutionary theory or creation, has better scientific support.

For more, see . .

--an article by scientist and biochemist Dr. Duane T. Gish "A Few Reasons An Evolutionary Origin of Life Is Impossible".

--articles by scientists at Institute for Creation Research in San Diego, California.

The author, Babu G. Ranganathan, has an B.A. with academic concentrations in Bible and Biology from Bob Jones University. He has been recognized in the 24th edition of Marquis Who's Who In The East.

© 1999-2006. «PRAVDA.Ru».

Dog brings home part of mammoth

2007/10/04

A miniature dachshund out for a walk on a beach found a bone which turned out to be part of a woolly mammoth's leg.

Daisy spotted the fossilized remains sticking out of a beach near the low tide mark, reports the Daily Mirror.

Her owner Dennis Smith said:

"Daisy just stood staring at it so I went over to see what it was. She looked quite pleased with herself."

The retired turf salesman, 69, from Witham, Essex, showed the 13ins find to a geologist who identified it as part of a two million year old giant woolly mammoth.

The 8 lb section of leg is believed to have lain hidden at Dunwich, Suffolk, for centuries until uncovered by storms.

Woolly mammoths were 14ft tall and weighed up to eight tons. They died out 11,000 years ago.

The Great Unknown

Guitarist Dies Before Show

After Thanksgiving dinner with his family in Ohio, Hawthorne Heights guitarist Casey Calvert boarded a bus with his band mates Friday morning to start their "Wintour 07," a grueling schedule of back-to-back concert dates that was to include a show in Washington on Saturday night.

But the fast-rising pop-punk group, which finished up a show in Detroit on Friday night, never got a chance to perform for local fans. D.C. police were called to the 9:30 Club in Northwest Washington about 2:30 p.m. Saturday and found Calvert unconscious on the band's tour bus, according to Officer Junis Fletcher, a police spokesman.

Calvert, 25, was pronounced dead at the scene, Fletcher said. Police are awaiting the results of an autopsy.

Family, friends and fans were reeling from the news.

Fan tributes poured in at the Hawthorne Heights Web site, www.hawthorneheights.com, where band members Eron Bucciarelli, Micah Carli, Matt Ridenour and JT Woodruff announced that their "quirky and awesome" best friend had "passed away in his sleep."

"At this time we're not sure what exactly happened. Just last night he was joking around with everyone before he went to bed," the band members wrote in a posting dated Saturday.

The group sought to head off any rumors about Calvert's death. The band's posting said:

"We can say with absolute certainty that he was not doing anything illegal. . We don't want his memory to be tainted in the least."

Hawthorne Heights formed in 2001 and has released two albums. Buzz on MySpace helped boost the first album, "The Silence in Black and White." The second, "If Only You Were Lonely," entered the Billboard charts at No. 3, and the single "Saying Sorry" got play on MTV and VH1.

Calvert picked up a love of music from his father, Greg, a member of Gary and the Hornets, a 1960s band that once performed on "The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson." His father played bass, but the younger Calvert preferred guitar, his stepmother said.

He loved Dr. Seuss books and Tim Burton films and was so fastidious about his health that he was a vegetarian, she said.

He married about a year ago. His wife is a schoolteacher, his stepmother said.

"He was a very good and kind young man, and right now there aren't any answers."

"Guitarist Dies Before Show at 9:30 Club" by Theola Labbé, Washington Post Staff Writer, Monday, November 26, 2007.

Engineered Poorly

Two University of Virginia students snatched a man off a street corner in the Tysons Corner area, tied him up in a Falls Church motel bathroom and demanded a $500,000 ransom.

The kidnappers used the victim's cellphone to make their demands, and police were able to pinpoint the motel after AT&T provided an approximate location in Falls Church as the origin of the calls, court records show.

Fairfax County police and the FBI staked out a motel in that area and spotted two men going in and out of a room there. When an officer and an FBI agent knocked on the door, they were allowed into the room and found the victim bound and gagged with duct tape in the bathtub, a search warrant affidavit states.

Police charged Guanyu Lu, 19, and Baichuan Shu, 19, both of Charlottesville, with abduction with intent to extort money. Both were arraigned yesterday in Fairfax County General District Court and ordered held without bond.

The suspects were second-year engineering students at Virginia, university spokesman Jeff Hanna said. Both are Chinese nationals, as is their victim, a 20-year-old man who was living with a host family in McLean, Fairfax Officer Don Gotthardt said.

Someone called the victim's host family that night and demanded, in Chinese, $500,000 for the victim's life, Allen wrote. The caller also threatened to blow up the family's home if they contacted police, the affidavit states.

Gotthardt said:

"This is not a random crime. We think this particular victim was targeted."

Shu lives in an apartment on campus, and Lu lives off campus, said a friend of Shu's from U-Va. who also knew him in Shanghai and who spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals:

"That's unbelievable. I couldn't imagine this kind of stuff would happen. He plays sports. He plays basketball. He has a lot of friends."

© 2007 The Washington Post Company, "Two U-Va. Students Charged in Kidnapping", by Tom Jackman, Washington Post Staff Writer, Tuesday, November 27, 2007.

Chinese Playground : A Memoir

UFOs in Russia

An unidentified flying object appeared in the sky above the village of Molebka in the Perm region of Russia 15 years ago. The anomalous phenomena that have been observed in the area ever since have earned the reputation of the Russian Bermuda Triangle for the village. Foreign ufologists dubbed the place as Zone-M.

Local residents believe the anomalous stories told across villages and towns in the area. Pavel Gladyshev, a specialist in nuclear physics, a native of Molebka, lived in the city of Perm and returned to his home village after retirement.

“I have seen the strange objects in the sky on several occasions. As a physicist I can say that they do not look like man-made objects. I didn’t believe any of those stories until I saw the flying ball myself. That year I was working in the field making hay. We started early in the morning at 4 a.m. All of a sudden we saw another moon in the sky above the field. The ball was throwing dim light on the field, which game shivers to me and my partner. I counted seven beams of light coming down from the ball. When the ball disappeared we came to our senses and tried to work but it seemed all so hard and heavy. I became physically weak for two days."

UFOs have not honored Molebka with their presence for quite a while, but the anomalous zone continues to attract people’s attention. An esoteric company charges about 60 dollars for a trip to the zone. Local residents do not understand those people who come to their village from cities to conduct training sessions on ufology. Old-timers say that their native village has turned into a place of Sabbath.

"Small village in Russian province becomes great attraction to ufologists" 21.11.2007, Elena Trokhova, Pravda.ru

Alien Agenda: Investigating the Extraterrestrial Presence Among Us

American Gulag Survivor Dies

John Noble, an American who never knew why the Soviets imprisoned him in their notorious gulag, but not only lived to write books on the grim, decade-long experience but also recovered his family's company and castle in the former East Germany, died on Nov. 10 in Dresden, Germany. He was 84.

Noble's story surfaced in the early years of the cold war, as the United States repeatedly asked the Soviet Union about him, only to be told that the Russians knew nothing. President Dwight Eisenhower personally intervened and won his release in January 1955 after nine and a half years of captivity.

His incarceration included backbreaking labor; minimal water and food; temperatures that regularly plunged 50 degrees below zero; and solitary confinement — first in Russian prisons in Germany, including Buchenwald, the former Nazi concentration camp. Then Noble was sent to Russia's slave labor camps, the notorious gulag. He was Slave No. 1-E-241.

For all the physical pain, the most agonizing experience was never being told why he was arrested in 1945 on charges of espionage. When he was finally tried in 1950, he was summarily sentenced to 15 years of hard labor and given a confession to sign. If he refused, he was told, someone else would sign it.

Noble's path to freedom began with smuggling out a cryptic message taped to the postcard of a prisoner with mailing privileges. His family enlisted the help of a Michigan congressman who met with President Eisenhower, who leaned on the authorities in Moscow.

Soon after Noble's release, The New York Times reported on his reunion with his family in New York on Jan. 17, 1955. Contrary to his later accounts, he said he had been treated well, and the article said he appeared to be in excellent health.

But he soon spoke more darkly of his experiences in many interviews, speeches and writings, which included a series of articles in The New York Times and books that included "I Was a Slave in Russia" (1958) and "I Found God in Soviet Russia" (1959), written with Glenn D. Everett, with an introduction by the Rev. Billy Graham.

He long charged that the Soviet Union continued to hold many American prisoners. In 1968, he said at a mock trial of international Communism organized by anti-Communist groups that the Soviets had held 3,000 Americans in 1955 and still had many. The State Department replied that it knew of no such captives.

He fueled his message with religious conviction annealed in Soviet jails, and an anti-Communism so fierce that he went on a speaking tour for the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society in the mid-1960s. He was founder and director of the Faith and Freedom Forum, which sold recordings of his books, among other things.

Noble was born on Sept. 4, 1923, in Detroit, where his father, a former Christian missionary, had moved from Germany, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported in its obituary. In Detroit, his father, Charles, took over a photo-finishing company that became large and profitable. Because of poor health, Charles took his family to Dresden to be near German hot springs.

In 1938, the elder Noble bought a camera manufacturer in Dresden, exchanging his own American company as part of the deal. The German company's two founders were Jewish and no longer felt safe in Nazi Germany.

The company, Kamera Werkstatten, in 1939 introduced an early 35 millimeter single-lens reflex camera, the Praktica. Partly because the new camera was immediately popular, the Germans permitted the company to operate through the war. The Nobles, though, were restricted to Dresden.

The family tried to leave under a Swiss-brokered exchange of nationals but were inexplicably turned back at the border, BusinessWeek reported in 1994. When the war ended, the Soviets seized the plant and merged it with other German companies.

The Nobles were advised by the American military to sit tight because the Soviet Union was an ally. They did, and Charles and John were arrested as spies. John's brother and mother were not.

As father and son were shuttled among prisons in eastern Germany, John came up with religious services, exercise programs and other activities to occupy fellow prisoners. One pastime involved counting the number of bodies hauled away, 200 one Christmas Day, BusinessWeek reported.

"It was impossible to block out the screams," Noble said.

His father died in 1952. Noble is survived by his wife and five children, The Telegraph reported.

Money grew tight in the 1970s, and he reluctantly set up an Amway distributorship. He had less and less time for speeches.

"I was trying to save the country," he told BusinessWeek. "I had no intention of selling soap."

In 1990, after the Berlin Wall fell, Noble regained control of part of the German company, but not of its Praktica trademark. He recovered the family castle overlooking Dresden. He introduced new products, including the Noblex, a new panorama camera with a lens that rotates 360 degrees. He was honored with a French knighthood.

But he failed in his attempt to build a robust capitalist enterprise in the former Soviet bloc. In 1997, as his company teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, he sold it to his employees.

International Herald Tribune "John Noble, 84, gulag survivor" by Douglas Martin, Monday, November 26, 2007.

The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror (Annals of Communism Series)

Hand in the Cookie Jar

NEW YORK - Broadway producer Anthony D. Marshall, the son of philanthropist Brooke Astor, has been indicted on charges of plundering her $198 million estate.

An indictment unsealed Tuesday charges Marshall, 83, with grand larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, forgery, scheme to defraud, falsifying business records, offering a false instrument for filing and conspiracy.

The top count, grand larceny, is punishable by up to 25 years in prison.

Marshall's former attorney, Francis X. Morrissey Jr., also was indicted on those charges.

"The indictment charges that Marshall and Morrissey took advantage of Mrs. Astor's diminished mental capacity in a scheme to defraud her and others out of millions of dollars," said District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.

Marshall's son, Philip, prompted the criminal investigation last year after he accused his father of neglecting Astor's care and stealing her money. Astor died in August at age 105.

Anthony Marshall, a former diplomat and Tony award winning producer, has denied all allegations that he abused his mother's trust — saying that he cared about her more than anyone else.

Astor, known for decades as the grande dame of New York society and philanthropy, gave away nearly $200 million to institutions such as the New York Public Library and Carnegie Hall and to other causes.

In the final year of her life, the nasty family feud over her care was splashed all over the city's tabloids — including allegations that she was forced to sleep in a torn nightgown on a couch that smelled of urine while subsisting on a diet of pureed peas and oatmeal.

Astor's friends, Annette de la Renta, the wife of designer Oscar de la Renta, and David Rockefeller, the banker and philanthropist, both signed affidavits supporting Philip Marshall's claims.

The grand jury heard testimony for almost a month on how Marshall and Morrissey managed Astor's estate and documents related to it. Philip Marshall, a professor at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island, testified before the grand jury, according to his spokesman, Frazier Seitel.

Yahoo! News "Astor's son indicted in estate case" by SAMUEL MAULL, Associated Press Writer, November 27, 2007.

Warming Fix

LONDON (Reuters) - A series of giant pipes in the oceans to mix surface and deeper water could be an emergency fix for the Earth's damaged climate system, the scientist behind the Gaia theory said on Wednesday.

James Lovelock, whose Gaia hypothesis that planet Earth is a living entity has fuelled controversy for three decades, thinks the stakes are so high that radical solutions must be tried -- even if they ultimately fail.

In a letter to the journal Nature, he proposes vertical pipes 100 to 200 meters long and 10 meters wide be placed in the sea, so that wave motion pumps up water and fertilizes algae on the surface.

This algal bloom would push down carbon dioxide levels and also produce dimethyl sulphide, helping to seed sunlight-reflecting clouds.

"If we can't heal the planet directly, we may be able to help the planet heal itself," Lovelock, of the University of Oxford, and co-author Chris Rapley, from London's Science Museum, said.

The two scientists argued it was unlikely any of the well-intentioned technical or social schemes for limiting carbon would restore the planet's status quo.

International climate experts have warned that global warming, blamed mainly on greenhouse gases emitted by burning fossil fuels, will bring more droughts, heatwaves, floods and rising sea levels.

Commenting on Lovelock's idea, Brian Hoskins, professor of meteorology at the University of Reading, said it was scientifically sound but there were huge unknowns.

"This is the latest in a line of geo-engineering solutions," he said. "In my opinion, our uncertainties over the likely regional impact of what our greenhouse gas emissions may do is high. The uncertainties over what these solutions may do is an order of magnitude higher."

© Reuters 2007, by Ben Hirschler.

Toward a More Perfect Espresso

Italian roaster Illycaffè will introduce this month a coffee machine in the U.S. Called Hyper Espresso, it pairs a custom machine produced by Illy, which runs $600 to $800 for home versions, with a coffee-filled plastic capsule, also made by Illy.

Like other single-serve systems, including Nestle's Nespresso and Kraft's Tassimo, it's meant to make it easier for groggy consumers or harried waiters to make a serviceable cup.

But it also represents a departure: Current one-cup setups take the familiar brewing process of an espresso or drip coffee maker and put it inside a disposable disc or cartridge.

Illy's system, on the other hand, tweaks the espresso recipe--changing parameters like temerature and pressure that baristas and jittery espresso geeks long considered absolute.

From an article appearing August 31, 2007 in The Wall Street Journal by Jeff Grocott.

Irish Gangster in Sicily?

The fugitive gangster James "Whitey" Bulger and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, may have been spotted in Sicily in April by a vacationing federal Drug Enforcement Administration agent who shot a brief video of the couple before they slipped away.

Among 'Ten Most Wanted'

The FBI posted the video and a still photo today on its website and launched a media blitz in Italy and throughout Europe in an effort to boost the international profile of Bulger, 78, one of the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted," and Greig, 56, who is believed to be traveling with him.

The video taken April 10 shows a white-haired couple strolling past shops in the seaside resort town of Taormina. The man is wearing Bulger's trademark sunglasses and baseball cap and dressed in khaki pants and a sweater over a plaid shirt. He's accompanied by a woman with short hair, also wearing sunglasses.

Investigators who have been tracking Bulger for years agree it's "a very good look-alike, probably the best they've seen in a very long time."

Warned to Flee

Bulger, a longtime FBI informant, was warned to flee just before his January 1995 federal racketeering indictment in Boston by his former handler, retired FBI agent John J. Connolly Jr.

Bulger has eluded authorities ever since, despite a worldwide manhunt. Since he fled, he's been charged with 19 murders. The FBI is offering a $1 million reward for information that leads to his capture.

Obstruction of Justice

Connolly was convicted in 2002 of racketeering and obstruction of justice for protecting Bulger from prosecution and is serving 10 years in prison. The former agent is also awaiting trial in Florida on charges that he helped Bulger and fellow informant, Stephen "The Rifleman" Flemmi, orchestrate a 1982 gangland slaying.

From an article printed in the International Herald Tribune by Shelley Murphy of the Boston Globe on September 14, 2007.