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Eisenhower rejected military chiefs' demand for nuclear war on China, classified account of '58 Taiwan Strait crisis reveals

Gareth Porter
The Gray Zone
Thu, 27 May 2021 00:00 UTC
US Navy Plane and ship
© UnknownUS Navy • Taiwan Strait • 1958
A previously censored account of the 1958 Taiwan Strait crisis that was sponsored by the Pentagon has been published in full by the leaker of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg. The report provides a hair-raising portrait of a reckless US military leadership relentlessly pressing President Dwight Eisenhower for the authority to carry out nuclear attacks on communist China.

After holding the still-classified version of the account in his possession for fifty years, Ellsberg said he decided to release it because of the growing threat of US war with China over Taiwan, and the danger that such a conflict could escalate into a nuclear exchange.

A May 22 New York Times report on the account offered only general details of the role the US Joint Chiefs of Staff played in the run-up to the 1958 Taiwan crisis. However, it is now clear from the original highly classified documents as well as other evidence now available that from the beginning, the Joint Chiefs aimed first and foremost to exploit the tensions to carry out nuclear strikes against Chinese nuclear military targets deep in highly-populated areas.

Chiang Kai-shek's nationalist Kuomintang regime and the Joint Chiefs were allies in wanting to embroil the United States in a war with China.
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Evil Rays

How The Unthinkable Became Thinkable: Eric Lander, Julian Huxley And The Awakening of Sleeping Monsters

Matthew Ehret
Strategic Culture Foundation
Mon, 24 May 2021 00:00 UTC
sleeping monsters
Will we see biotechnology serve the interests of humanity under a multipolar paradigm that cherishes national sovereignty, human life, family, and faith?

As much as it might cause us a fair deal of displeasure and even an upset stomach to consider such ideas as the hold eugenics has on our presently troubled era, I believe that ignoring such a topic really does no one any favors in the long run.

This is especially serious, as leading World Economic Forum darlings like Yuval Harari flaunt such concepts as "the new global useless class" which Artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, automation and the Fourth Industrial Revolution is supposedly ushering in. Other Davos creatures like Klaus Schwab call openly for a microchipped global citizenry capable of interfacing with a global web with a single thought while Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg promote 'neuralinks' to "keep humanity relevant" by merging with computers in a new epoch of evolutionary biology.

Leading Darwinian geneticists like Sir James Watson and Sir Richard Dawkins openly defend eugenics while a technocracy consolidates itself in a governing station using a "Great Reset" as an excuse to usher in a new post-nation state era.
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Hiliter

Oldest known tattoo tools found at an ancient Tennessee site

Bruce Bower
Science News
Tue, 25 May 2021 06:00 UTC
tattoo turkey bone
© A. Deter-Wolf, T.M. Peres and S. Karacic/Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 2021Two previously unearthed turkey leg bones with sharpened tips (top) are the oldest known tattooing tools. Two other turkey bones from the same site (bottom) may also have been used for tattooing but lack tips for analysis.
Ancient tattooing tools are tough to find or even recognize as implements for creating skin designs. But new microscopic studies of two turkey leg bones with sharpened ends indicate that Native Americans used these items to make tattoos between around 5,520 and 3,620 years ago.

These pigment-stained bones are the world's oldest known tattooing tools, say archaeologist Aaron Deter-Wolf of the Tennessee Division of Archaeology in Nashville and his colleagues. The find suggests that Native American tattoo traditions in eastern North America extend back more than a millennium earlier than previously thought (SN: 3/4/19). Ötzi the Iceman, who lived around 5,250 years ago in Europe, displays the oldest known tattoos (SN: 1/13/16), but researchers haven't found any of the tools used to make the Iceman's tattoos.

Comment: See also: And check out SOTT radio's:

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Info

Archaeologists identify 4,000-year-old war memorial in Syria

Michael Marshall
New Scientist
Fri, 28 May 2021 00:13 UTC
Tell Banat North in Syria was submerged in 1999.
© New ScientistTell Banat North in Syria was submerged in 1999.
An earthen mound in what is now Syria may be the oldest known war memorial in the world, constructed before 2300 BC. The remains of foot soldiers and charioteers were buried in distinct clusters in a monument made of piled-up soil. However, it is not clear if they belonged to the winning or losing side, or what the conflict was about.

The finding comes from a re-examination of remains from the White Monument, which was excavated in the 1980s and 1990s. The area was submerged in 1999 by the construction of the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River, and has not been investigated since.

Anne Porter of the University of Toronto in Canada was one of the leaders of the excavations. "It was a salvage project," she says. The flooding was "a really traumatic experience" because the area was "the most fabulous site you could imagine working on".

Immediately to the north of a small mountain called Jebel Bazi, Mesopotamian people built a settlement that archaeologists call the Banat/Bazi complex. It was occupied between about 2700 and 2300 BC. The site included a set of earthen mounds called Tell Banat, and slightly further north a single large mound called Tell Banat North or the White Monument.

The White Monument got its name because it was coated in a chalky mineral called gypsum. Porter says it was built in three stages. The first was a smooth mound, which the team never managed to excavate due to the flooding. Later, people built smaller mounds on top of it, containing human bones. "Imagine upside-down ice cream cones on the outside of a pudding," says Porter. "That's what it must have looked like."
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Blue Planet

Largest images ever made by humans found in India

Peter Dockrill
Science Alert
Wed, 26 May 2021 12:00 UTC
Boha
© C & Y Oetheimer, Archaeological Research in Asia, 2021Boha 3's meandering lines.
Hidden in the vast, arid expanses of India's Thar Desert lie mysterious old drawings carved into the land.

These newly discovered designs are of such immense scale, they were likely never able to be glimpsed in their entirety by those who made them, researchers say.

The huge motifs are examples of geoglyphs - giant hand-made depictions and patterns built upon or carved into the land, often occupying such scope that the true appearance of their forms can only be appreciated from far above.

Amongst all known geoglyphs of historical relevance - including the famous Nazca Lines of Peru - the Thar Desert formations appear to stand alone, however, representing what may actually be the largest-ever graphical depictions designed by humans.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: MindMatters: America Before: Comets, Catastrophes, Mounds and Mythology

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Info

Ancient Chinese kingdom pits filled with artifacts shed light on rituals

Owen Jarus
Live Science
Wed, 26 May 2021 12:58 UTC
Excavation Site
© VCG via Getty ImagesArchaeologists excavate one of the six newly discovered pits at the site of Sanxingdui in China.
Archaeologists have discovered six sacrificial pits containing about 500 artifacts, including gold and bronze masks, in the ancient Chinese city of Sanxingdui, according to news reports.

The site is located about 930 miles (1,500 kilometers) southwest of Beijing, Xinhua, China's state-run press agency, reported.

The artifacts date back around 3,000 years, to a time when the ancient kingdom of Shu ruled this part of China. In addition to the masks, the archaeologists uncovered bronze artifacts with dragon and cow engravings, miniature ivory sculptures, silk, carbonized rice (rice that has turned into carbon) and tree seeds, Xinhua reported.

"Surprisingly, we have unearthed some never-heard-of-before bronze ware items," Lei Yu, an archaeologist with the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, told Xinhua. "For instance, some large and delicate bronze ware items have bizarre-looking dragon or cow designs on them."

The researchers haven't turned up any human remains in the pits, and they don't know what function the pits may have served.

Even so, the discovery of the six pits may provide clues about the rituals the people of the Shu kingdom practiced at that time.
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Info

Researchers unearth oldest gold find in southwest Germany


Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Tue, 25 May 2021 18:25 UTC
Ancient Gold Artifact
© Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, TübingenThe gold wire spiral was found in the grave of an Early Bronze Age woman in Ammerbuch-Reusten, Tübingen district.
Archaeologists working in the district of Tübingen in southwest Germany have discovered the region's earliest gold object to date. It is a spiral ring of gold wire unearthed in autumn 2020 from the grave of an Early Bronze Age woman. It is about 3,800 years old, according to analyses. Precious metal finds from this period are very rare in southwestern Germany. The gold probably originates from Cornwall in southwest Britain. The archaeologists say it is unusually early proof of the far-reaching trade in luxury objects of the people of that time. The excavation was led by Professor Raiko Krauss from the Institute of Prehistory and Medieval Archaeology at the University of Tübingen and Dr. Jörg Bofinger from the Baden-Württemberg State Office for Cultural Heritage Management, based in Esslingen.
Dig Site
© Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, TübingenThe Early Bronze Age female burial as found. The green pin (top center) marks the place the gold spiral was uncovered.
During the excavation, the researchers found that the woman was buried in a fetal position, facing south. This type of burial is typical of the late Neolithic period in Central Europe. The only object found in the grave was the spiral roll made of gold wire, located behind the woman's remains at about hip height. It may have been a hair ornament and indicates that the wearer was of high social status. Radiocarbon dating of the bones puts the burial between about 1850 and 1700 BCE - the Early Bronze Age.
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Arrow Down

Flashback Supreme Court rejects 'Israeli' nationality status

Tia Goldenberg
The Times of Israel
Fri, 04 Oct 2013 03:09 UTC
2 men israel
© AP/Greg MarinovichOrthodox man follows Palestinian man on a street in walled Old City of Jerusalem
June 12, 1997
Israel's population registry lists a slew of "nationalities" and ethnicities, among them Jew, Arab, Druse and more. But one word is conspicuously absent from the list: Israeli.

Residents cannot identify themselves as Israelis in the national registry because the move could have far-reaching consequences for the country's Jewish character, the Israeli Supreme Court wrote in documents obtained Thursday.

The ruling was a response to a demand by 21 Israelis, most of whom are officially registered as Jews, that the court decide whether they can be listed as Israeli in the registry. The group had argued that without a secular Israeli identity, Israeli policies will favor Jews and discriminate against minorities.

In its 26-page ruling, the court explained that doing so would have "weighty implications" on the State of Israel and could pose a danger to Israel's founding principle: to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people.

The decision touches on a central debate in Israel, which considers itself both Jewish and democratic yet has struggled to balance both. The country has not officially recognized an Israeli nationality.

Comment: The road not taken: Identification choices offered a turning point that might have changed everything.

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SOTT Focus: MindMatters: Woke Revolution, Mass Hysteria, and the Fourth Turning

Harrison Koehli and Adam Daniels
Sott.net
Mon, 24 May 2021 00:00 UTC
good times
The 2010s and 2020s are a crisis point in Western societies - a time that has the potential to give birth to something better than what came before, or something much, much worse. Today on MindMatters we're going cyclical. The hysteroidal cycle from Lobaczewski's Political Ponerology, generational theory from Strauss and Howe's The Fourth Turning. And along the way, we take a gander at some of the sparks of mass hysteria in recent years, culled from James Lindsay's article, "The Rise of the Woke Cultural Revolution."


MindMatters on LBRY

Running Time: 01:00:18

Download: MP3 — 56.7 MB


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Muffin

Prehistoric farmers in Switzerland contributed to the domestication of the opium poppy


University of Basel
Sat, 22 May 2021 20:30 UTC
poppy
© Raül Soteras, AgriChange ProjectFlower and capsule of opium poppy.
Fields of opium poppies once bloomed where the Zurich Opera House underground garage now stands. Through a new analysis of archaeological seeds, researchers at the University of Basel have been able to bolster the hypothesis that prehistoric farmers throughout the Alps participated in domesticating the opium poppy. Although known today primarily as the source of opium and opiates, the poppy is also a valuable food and medicinal plant. Its seeds can be used to make porridge and cooking oil. Unlike all other previously domesticated crops, which are assumed to have been domesticated in south-west Asia (various grains, legumes and flax), experts believe that the opium poppy (Papaver somniferum L.) was domesticated in the western Mediterranean, where its presumed progenitor Papaver somniferum subsp. setigerum (DC.) Arcang is native and still grows wild today.

Comment: See also:

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