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Stock Down

Trump Shuttle: Opulence to crash landing

Trump airlines
© PAM BERRY/GLOBE STAFF/FILEThe Trump Shuttle prepared to take off from Logan Airport in 1989.
When Donald Trump's new airline, the Trump Shuttle, launched on a summer day in 1989, tuxedoed waiters with white gloves passed out smoked salmon, honey chicken skewers, and chocolate truffles. It was early in the day, but champagne flowed at Logan Airport.

After a string quartet rested its bows, Trump took the microphone and struck a discordant note: He railed against Pan Am, his rival in the shuttle business. He suggested Pan Am's flights were unsafe, that the company was strapped for cash and couldn't spend as much to maintain planes as Trump Shuttle.

"I'm not criticizing Pan Am," Trump said that day. "I'm just speaking facts."

Executives at Trump's newest venture were aghast. In a highly competitive business, one in which Trump had no experience, the new boss had tossed decorum to the wind and made claims he had no evidence to support.

Comment: See also:
Drunk uncle Trump: Chastises Obama for not bringing up Pearl Harbor in Japan
Trump's bullying a reflection of a bully nation


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Indus valley civilization at least 8,000-years-old say Indian scientists

Indus Valley civilization
© TOI Photo by Sanjay HadkarA painting on Indus Valley civilization.
Kolkata: It may be time to rewrite history textbooks. Scientists from IIT-Kharagpur and Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) have uncovered evidence that the Indus Valley Civilizationis at least 8,000 years old, and not 5,500 years old, taking root well before the Egyptian (7000BC to 3000BC) and Mesopotamian (6500BC to 3100BC) civilizations. What's more, the researchers have found evidence of a pre-Harappan civilization that existed for at least 1,000 years before this.

The discovery, published in the prestigious Nature journal on May 25, may force a global rethink on the timelines of the so-called 'cradles of civilization'. The scientists believe they also know why the civilization ended about 3,000 years ago — climate change.

"We have recovered perhaps the oldest pottery from the civilization. We used a technique called 'optically stimulated luminescence' to date pottery shards of the Early Mature Harappan time to nearly 6,000 years ago and the cultural levels of pre-Harappan Hakra phase as far back as 8,000 years," said Anindya Sarkar, head of the department of geology and geophysics at IIT-Kgp.

The team had actually set out to prove that the civilization proliferated to other Indian sites like Bhirrana and Rakhigarrhi in Haryana, apart from the known locations of Harappa and Mohenjo Daro in Pakistan and Lothal, Dholavira and Kalibangan in India. They took their dig to an unexplored site, Bhirrana — and ended up unearthing something much bigger. The excavation also yielded large quantities of animal remains like bones, teeth, horn cores of cow, goat, deer and antelope, which were put through Carbon 14 analysis to decipher antiquity and the climatic conditions in which the civilization flourished, said Arati Deshpande Mukherjee of Deccan College, which helped analyse the finds along with Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad.

Eye 1

The Nazi origins of the European Union

EU Nazi
The European Union is now considered to be the standard of democracy, liberalism and human rights. Yet even though everything might be in order with the component of liberalism, and there might even be an excess of this phenomenon, there is clearly a lack of democracy. The structure of decision-making in the European Union is complicated and lacks mechanisms which hold the top leaders of the EU accountable to nations. The European Parliament, the only democratic institution of the union, has only an advisory status and is therefore not a real legislature. In fact, the ordeal of European integration is in the hands of only a narrow circle of people. Moreover, this feature is inherent to the system ever since the beginning of the post-war process of European integration. On the eve of the EU referendum, British media has even revealed an important fact concerning the EU's past which explains a lot about its present: the process of EU integration, from the outset, was coordinated by the CIA to create an anti-Russian geopolitical bloc in Europe.

But the CIA did not build the European Union from scratch. The most important contributions were made earlier by the Nazis. From a geopolitical point of view, the Third Reich, with its occupied countries of Europe and satellite states, represented a version of "united Europe." Many Nazi achievements were later used by the Americans, which determined the aggressive anti-national and anti-Russian character of the modern European Union.

German historians have repeatedly published the Nazis' documents containing plans for European integration. Gerhardt Haas and Wolfgang Schumann's collection of documents was released in 1972 in East Berlin, titled The Anatomy of Aggression: New documents concerning the military goals of German imperialism during the Second World War. This book primarily cited evidence of large-scale plans for the economic integration of Europe under the Nazi leadership in the interest of European financial capital. In particular, such plans were hatched in the Reich Ministry of Economics, the Reich Industrial Group, and the Reich Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Another German collection of documents on the relationship between the Third Reich and the process of European integration was released in West Germany in Munich in 1987. It was called Europe and the Third Reich and was composed by Hans Werner Neulen. It paid special attention to the political plans of the Nazi leadership to unify Europe. In 1985, Michael Zalewski, published the first volume of Documents the history of European integration, titled Plans for a Continental European Union: 1939-1945. It is not difficult to guess what kind of integration was at stake.

Historians have noted that such linguistic constructions as "European Union", "European Economic Community", and "European Confederation" which fill European media were first announced as official elements of state policy in the documents of the Third Reich.

Flashlight

Archaeologists discover hidden gallery of 14,500 year old cave paintings deep within Spanish cave

cave art atxurra spain
The cave paintings were discovered by archaeologist Diego Garate and caver Iñaki Intxaurbe. They span roughly 100 meters, and largely represent horses, bison, goats, and deer. Cave paintings of horses can be seen above
Archaeologists have discovered a hidden gallery of ancient paintings deep within the Atxurra cave in northern Spain.

At least 70 cave paintings have been found at the site, which reveals the 'final moments' of the Upper Paleolithic, dating as far back as 14,500 years ago.

Images of animals cover the walls of the sanctuary, including one which shows a bison impaled by the many spears of ancient hunters.

Atxurra cave is situated 50km from the Basque city Bilbao, in a village called Berriatua.

Local officials now say that the site is considered to hold the largest number of ancient paintings in Basque Country.

The cave paintings were discovered by archaeologist Diego Garate and caver Iñaki Intxaurbe.

They span roughly 100 meters, and largely represent horses, bison, goats, and deer.

Nuke

Hiroshima bombing changed the world - but it didn't end WWII

Hiroshima
© Daily Mail
President Obama's visit to Hiroshima on Friday has rekindled public debate about the U.S. atomic bombings of Japan — one largely suppressed since the Smithsonian canceled its Enola Gay exhibit in 1995. Obama, aware that his critics are ready to pounce if he casts the slightest doubt on the rectitude of President Harry S. Truman's decision to use atomic bombs, has opted to remain silent on the issue. This is unfortunate. A national reckoning is overdue.

Most Americans have been taught that using atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 was justified because the bombings ended the war in the Pacific, thereby averting a costly U.S. invasion of Japan. This erroneous contention finds its way into high school history texts still today. More dangerously, it shapes the thinking of government officials and military planners working in a world that still contains more than 15,000 nuclear weapons.

Comment: Hiroshima and Nagasaki - 70 years ago the US 'elite' murdered 500,000 Japanese civilians to 'send a warning' to Russia


Info

Lost tomb of Aristotle found in Greece

Aristotle
© Wikimedia CommonsBust of Aristotle. Marble, Roman copy after a Greek bronze original by Lysippos from 330 BC; the alabaster mantle is a modern addition.
A group of archaeologists in Greece say they have found the lost tomb of Aristotle, the Greek philosopher and likely world's first true scientist.

The Greek newspaper Ekathimerini reported Thursday that the finding will be announced at a press conference, as a capstone to a Aristotle-themed conference in Thessaloniki.

The archaeologists had been digging for 20 years at a site in the ancient northern Greece city of Stageira, where Aristotle was born in 384 B.C. Aristotle died 62 years later in Chalcis, about 50 miles north of Athens.

Ahead of the official announcement, the Greek Reporter has some more details on the tomb, saying that "literary sources" say that Aristotle's ashes were transferred there after his death. It is located near the ancient city's agora, apparently intended to be viewed by the public.

From the Greek Reporter:
The top of the dome is at 10 meters and there is a square floor surrounding a Byzantine tower. A semi-circle wall stands at two-meters in height. A pathway leads to the tomb's entrance for those that wished to pay their respects. Other findings included ceramics from the royal pottery workshops and fifty coins dated to the time of Alexander the Great.
Not much is known about Aristotle's life, aside from what he left in his own writings. It took over 2,300 years, but at least we're starting to learn more about his death.

2 + 2 = 4

Exposing U.S. hypocrisy on South China Sea: Washington has done worse for centuries

island workers
While the Pentagon and US State Department continue to issue forth missives and warnings to China about its activities in staking territorial claims to disputed islands in the South China Sea, Washington has its own sordid history of retaining control of islands claimed by other nations.

Navassa Island is a small 5.2 square kilometer outcropping in the Caribbean Sea between Haiti and Cuba. In 1857, US President James Buchanan unilaterally annexed the island to the United States. Before the American Civil War, the island had previously been the virtual private domain of the Navassa Phosphate Company of Baltimore, which sent African-American contract workers (the American Union's quaint term for slaves) to Navassa where they worked to mine phosphate-rich guano. In 1889, the workers rebelled against their horrible working conditions and killed five of their white bosses.

The US Navy quelled the rebellion and returned eighteen of the workers to stand trial for murder. In 1890, the US Supreme Court ruled the Guano Islands Act of 1856, which provided the legal framework for the annexation of Navassa by the United States, constitutional. The high court also upheld death sentences for three of the eighteen arrested black miners from Navassa. The United States also ignored nearby Haiti, which had laid claim to Navassa before the American unilateral annexation.

Sherlock

Centuries-old artifacts discovered beneath Malcolm X's childhood home

hole dug house
© City of Boston Archaeology Program
In May 2016, ahead of planned restoration work at the Malcolm X House in Boston, excavators conducted an archaeological investigation.
The boyhood home of influential black activist Malcolm X has turned out to be a fascinating archaeological site.

An excavation at the house in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood ended last week. In trenches around the home's foundations, archaeologists unearthed thousands of artifacts, including a vinyl record of American folk songs from the 1950s, as well as toys and housewares from Malcolm's lifetime. They also discovered the remains of a previously unknown 18th-century home.

The house, located at 72 Dale Street, was built in 1874 and has been owned by Malcolm's family since the 1940s. Malcolm lived there with his older half sister Ella Little-Collins after his father died and his mother was institutionalized. Rodnell Collins — Ella's son, who owns the house today — plans to restore the home, possibly to turn it into apartments for graduate students studying civil rights, social justice or African-American history, according to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. But before work could begin on the foundation, archaeologists had to conduct an investigation because of the home's landmark status.

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DNA from ancient Phoenician shows European ancestry

Ancient Phoenician
© M.Rais/Creative CommonsThis reconstruction shows what Ariche might have looked like.
Researchers have sequenced the complete mitochondrial genome of a 2,500-year-old Phoenician, showing the ancient man had European ancestry.

This is the first ancient DNA to be obtained from Phoenician remains.

Known as "Ariche," the young man came from Byrsa, a walled citadel above the harbor of ancient Carthage. Byrsa was attacked by the Roman general Scipio Aemilianus "Africanus" in the Third Punic War. It was destroyed by Rome in 146 B.C.

Ariche's remains were discovered in 1994 on the southern flank of Bursa hill when a man planting trees fell into the ancient grave.

Analysis of the skeleton revealed the man died between the age of 19 and 24, had a rather robust physique and was 1.7 meters (5'6″) tall. He may have belonged to the Carthaginian elite, as he was buried with gems, scarabs, amulets and other artifacts.

Now genetic research carried out by a team co-led by Lisa Matisoo-Smith at New Zealand's University of Otago has shown the man belonged to a rare European haplogroup — known as U5b2cl — that likely links his maternal ancestry to the North Mediterranean coast, probably on the Iberian Peninsula.

Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the findings provide the earliest evidence of the European mitochondrial haplogroup U5b2cl in North Africa, dating its arrival to at least the late sixth century BC.

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Neanderthals built mystery cave rings 175,000 years ago researchers say

Circles in French Cave
© Etienne Fabre/SSACANCIENT RING A new study finds that Neandertals built structures out of stalagmites. Here, a researcher takes measurements of a circular arrangement of stalagmites created in a French cave around 176,500 years ago.
In at least one part of Stone Age Europe, Neandertals were lords of the rings. Humankind's close evolutionary cousins built large, circular structures out of stalagmites in a French cave around 176,500 years ago, researchers say.

Neandertal groups explored the cave's dark recesses, where they assembled stalagmite pieces into complex configurations, archaeologist Jacques Jaubert of the University of Bordeaux in France and colleagues report online May 25 in Nature. Two ring-shaped formations and four smaller stalagmite arrangements, situated 336 meters inside France's Bruniquel Cave, all display traces of ancient fires on stalagmite chunks.

These ancient constructions were discovered in the early 1990s, but limited access to Bruniquel Cave delayed dating of the finds until 2013. Jaubert's team calculated the age of these creations based on the decay of uranium variants in seven stalagmites from the two circular structures. Neandertals inhabited Europe and Asia from around 400,000 to 40,000 years ago. Homo sapiens did not leave Africa until about 60,000 years ago. That leaves Neandertals as the only candidates for builders of the stalagmite circles.