"What We Are Seeing Is the Fall of America"

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:40:20 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Harold Bloom speaks...

Harold Bloom, Yale literature professor and cultural critic, is one of America's most prominent and provocative intellectuals.

Speaking at his home in New Haven where he is recovering from a recent health scare, a pale and weak Bloom seems to have symbolically embodied what he calls the "poor state of the nation."

"I am 77 years old and I have never seen this country in such a bad state. It is madness. What we are seeing is the fall of the Roman Empire, only now it is the fall of America, the glory of our Empire. This war is what Parthia was to Rome.

"We have caused a monstrous mess. We don't even count killed Iraqis. God knows how many Iraqi women, children and men have been killed by our accidental shootings, which we are such experts at, or by other Iraqis. No, 'Benito Bush' (Bloom's pet name for President George Bush) deserves, if we had a functioning civil law in the world, to be condemned for crimes against humanity. Bush is ultimately responsible for this war," Bloom says

Tags: iraq war, united states, middle east, chaos, war

"The most ancient star map ever found"

Tue, 15 Jan 2008 22:32:41 GMT

clipped by: invictus
clipper's remarks: Pleiades depiction from prehistoric Italy.

Clip Source: www.stonepages.com

Two groups of man-made cup markings carved on a pair of boulders found in the Italian Alps may represent the Pleiades star cluster, according to the archaeo-astronomer Guido Cossard. The carvings have been found near the Plan des Sorcières - literally 'The witches' plateau' - at Lillianes, in Val d'Aosta (Italy). According to Mr Cossard, who made the discovery, the series of cup markings have the same shape as the famous star cluster, and it may represent 'the most ancient star map ever found'. "Even the archaeo-astronomical orientation of the site is a confirmation, because it's clearly aligned to the rising point of the Pleiades," added Cossard.

Although the Pleiades are popularly termed the Seven Sisters, only six stars are easily visible to the naked eye, and a considerable mythology has grown up to account for the 'missing' Pleiad, since the times of Eratosthenes (276 BCE - 194 BCE). Additional details of the discovery will be presented in Lillianes City Council on January 17th

Tags: archaeology, archaeoastronomy, pleiades, star charts, prehistory, science

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"What We Are Seeing Is the Fall of America"

"The most ancient star map ever found"