Legacy: A Search for the Origins of Civilization

Here is another great documentary produced in the year 1991 concerning the origin of civilization and hosted by the renowned BBC journalist Michael Wood.

Host Michael Wood traces the rise of both Asian and Western civilization in one global perspective in these thought-provoking videos. From the crumbling ruins in the Iraqi desert to those of Greece and Rome, viewers contemplate thriving cities and complex societies that have vanished, a reminder that other nations prospered for thousands of years. Now all that remains is their legacy.

After thousands of years as a hunter/gatherer, man built the first cities 5,000 years ago on the banks of the Euphrates River. Civilization as we know it began with the glorious cultures of Ur, Nineveh, and Babylon.

Iraq: The Cradle of Civilization

German classical liberals do well

I’m told the T-Shirt slogan means “make love, not tax forms.” 

The Free Democrats, Germany’s classical liberal party, has had its best election result ever, increasing its vote to 14.5%.:

Given these unsolved problems, economic reform could hardly be more urgent. This is why Sunday’s election is such a significant event because the big winners of the election were the Free Democrats. In Germany’s political landscape, they were the only party to resist the general shift to the Left. They stood by their earlier commitment to economic modernisation, which made them attractive to everyone who opposed the standstill of the Grand Coalition years. Their reward was the best election result in the Free Democrats’ history.

Sticking to your principles and can lead to political rewards. there’s a lesson there for someone.

Stories from the Stone Age

Stories From The Stone Age is a three-part documentary that attempts to explain why and how humans abandoned the nomadic hunting and gathering existence they had known for millennia to take up a completely new way of life – the decisive move to farming.

The series utilises detailed re-enactments and short interviews with key archaeological experts. The series asks some intriguing questions. Why did some of our ancestors never become farmers at all? Why do some still continue hunting and gathering despite their contact with farming people and advanced technologies? How and why did our paths become uniquely shaped after emerging as a species from a single genetic family in Africa?

Stories from the Stone Age – Ep 1: Daily Bread

A fascinating journey throughout the Ages of Man – from primitive hunter to urban man. In episode one Daily Bread we examine the changes in people from hunter-gatherers to farmers in the Middle East. One of the Greatest Developments of the Neolithic Revolution, the discovery of agriculture and the cultivation of grains.

The Middle East has always produced some of the most fascinating cultures within its history and none so more than the Natufians. The Natufians emerged in the Late Epipaleolithic, generally dated around 12,000 – 9600 BCE and have been one of the most researched cultures in the Levant.

The culture was first identified by Dorothy Garrod (1892 – 1968) in 1928 when she excavated the cave site of Shuqbah in the dry valley called Wadi en-Natuf in the Mount Carmel hills of northern modern day Israel.

Stories from the Stone Age – Ep 2 Urban Dream

In episode two, Urban Dream we look at the development of urban living in the Middle East and the move to farming in Europe.

Shows the early Europeans 12,000 years ago, living a hard life in nomadic bands. For hundreds of generations they had followed the wild herds, depending on them for survival. But they were about to face a new challenge. This series is about one of the most exciting periods of Human History – The Dawn of civilization.

Stories from the Stone Age – Ep 3: Waves of Change

In this final episode we look at the development of trade in the Middle East and its impacts in Europe throughout the Bronze Age and into the Iron Age.

Joseph’s Era Coins Found in Egypt

An Egyptian paper claims that archaeologists have discovered ancient Egyptian coins bearing the name and image of the Biblical Joseph.

The report in Al-Ahram boasts that the find backs up the Koran’s claim that coins were used in Egypt during Joseph’s period. Joseph, son of the Patriarch Jacob, died around 1450 B.C.E., according to Jewish sources.

“One coin had an inscription on it, and an image of a cow symbolizing Pharaoh’s dream about the seven fat cows and seven lean cows, and the seven green stalks of grain and seven dry stalks of grain”.

End Day

How will our world end and just which existential threats facing humanity are the most plausible? End Day is an exciting docu-drama produced by the BBC that depicts various doomsday scenarios and will hold you on the edge of your seat throughout its entire fifty-five minutes of suspense.

The documentary follows the fictional scientist Dr. Howell, played by Glenn Conroy, as he travels from his London hotel room to his laboratory in New York City, and shows how each scenario affects his journey as well as those around him, with various experts providing commentary on that specific disaster as it unfolds.

The following descriptions of the program were released by the BBC:

“Imagine waking up to the last day on Earth…”

“Inspired by the predictions of scientists, End Day creates apocalyptic scenarios that go beyond reality. In a single hour, explore five different fictional disasters, from a giant tsunami hitting New York to a deadly meteorite strike on Berlin.”

Polanski finally arrested

Todays good news story, after 31 years child rapist Roman Polanski is finally arrested.:

FILM director Roman Polanski has been arrested in Switzerland on a 31-year-old US warrant, AP reports.

Organisers of the Zurich Film Festival said Polanski was detained by police yesterday.

Zurich police did not immediately confirm the information to AP.

It is understood he traveled to Switzerland to receive a lifetime award for his work as a director.

Polanski fled the United States for France in 1978 after pleading guilty to unlawful sex with an underage girl.

Polanski was originally indicted on six charges, including rape, for having sex with a 13-year-old girl after plying her with champagne and drugs.

He insisted the sex was consensual but pleaded guilty to a single count of having sex with a minor, punishable by up to 20 years in prison…

 Lets see how long it will take the arty farty types to come out excusing him for his actions. As far as I’m concerned he can take his Oscar and stick it.

Why Ancient Egypt Fell

This one-hour documentary examines the possible causes behind Egypt’s downfall. Select images from NASA, along with global climate models and mapping reveal how changes half a world away triggered a chain of events that destroyed ancient Egypt.

Watch Why Ancient Egypt Fell in Educational | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Obama: the European view

It seems that many in Europe are increasing forming a negative view of President Obama. First their’s French President who basically told him to get real:

: “President Obama dreams of a world without weapons … but right in front of us two countries are doing the exact opposite. Iran since 2005 has flouted five security council resolutions. North Korea has been defying council resolutions since 1993. I support the extended hand of the Americans, but what good has proposals for dialogue brought the international community? More uranium enrichment and declarations by the leaders of Iran to wipe a UN member state off the map.”

An then theres his relation ship with Russia:

His latest achievement has been to restore the former satellite states to dependency on Moscow, by wimping out of the missile defence shield plan. This follows on his surrender last July when he voluntarily sacrificed around a third of America’s nuclear capability for no perceptible benefit beyond a grim smile from Putin. If there is one thing that fans the fires of aggression it is appeasement.

Despite propaganda to the contrary, 58 per cent of Poles were in favour of the missile shield. But small nations must assess the political will of larger powers. Thanks to President Pantywaist’s supine policies, the former satellite states can see that they are fast returning to their former status. The American umbrella cannot be relied upon on a rainy day. They have been here before. Poles remember how a leftist US president sold them out to Russia at Tehran and Yalta. The former Czechoslovakia was betrayed twice: in 1938 and1945.

Its sounding more and more like a Carter re-run every day.

Getting on the LFTR

There an energy source that can produce all the energy we need with even less problems then nuclear from uranium.  :Thorium reactors. 

Sounds good to me, and in my view, a lot more realistic then Solar Power Satellites.

Water on the Moon

We at Discovery Enterprise are elated with the recent discovery, announced at the close of last week, of water on the Moon. We have always maintained our support for a vigorous space exploratory program with the clear goal of establishing a permanent human presence in space that will eventually pave the way for the colonization of the Moon, Mars and beyond. The discovery of water on the Moon only strengthens our belief that it will serve as our stepping stone in creating a Spacefaring Civilization and play an important role in humanity’s future expansion into space.

While scientists have suspected for the over a decade that water ice deposits could be found in the coldest spots of south pole craters that never saw sunlight, the consensus became that the rest of the moon was bone dry.

But new observations of the lunar surface made with Chandrayaan-1, NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, and NASA’s Deep Impact probe, are calling that consensus into question, with multiple detections of the spectral signal of either water or the hydroxyl group (an oxygen and hydrogen chemically bonded).

Today’s video selection is NASA’s Science News Conference on September 24^th, 2009 announcing this exciting discovery.