WTF Is It Now?!?

My cat drinks out of the turtle tank - is it OK to kiss him after that?

Help save Skara Brae!

Erosion washes away Orkney's heritage - by Gillian Harris, Scotland Correspondent, from The UK Times

ARCHAEOLOGISTS fear that coastal erosion will destroy important prehistoric landmarks in Orkney and elsewhere in Scotland unless urgent action is taken. Waves crashing on to the beach below Skara Brae, a World Heritage Site in Orkney, provide a spectacular backdrop to one of the most important archaeological sites in Europe but the sea battering the foot of the 5,000-year-old settlement is now the cause of international concern. When Skara Brae was built on the west side of the Orkney mainland around 3,500 BC it was a sheltered inland settlement, close to a loch but more than a mile from the sea. Today, storm-tossed seas regularly soak the neolithic houses with their stone furniture linked by narrow passages.
The settlement, preserved under layers of sand until it was discovered in 1824, attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year. A seawall built in 1926 to protect Skara Brae is crumbling at both ends under the force of the waves. Sea water is eating into the sand dunes and eventually it will flow around the back of the settlement, effectively turning Skara Brae into an island, open to the elements on all sides and in danger of disintegration. With more than 500 archaeological landmarks on the islands at risk, Orkney Archaeology Trust is urging the Government to spend more money protecting them. At present the annual budget for archaeological rescue administered by Historic Scotland is £1.8 million for the whole country.


Silbury Hill's spiral may reveal its secrets
The latest scanning techniques may have solved some of the mysteries of one of Europe's largest prehistoric structures. Ground surveys of Silbury Hill in Wiltshire have revealed it was built up in a spiral and not layer by layer like a wedding cake. Britain's Stone Age people saw the spiral as a sacred symbol and archaeologists are now beginning to believe Silbury may have been a ceremonial site. The chalk hill would have been brilliant white when it was built around 4,500 years ago and it still stands 120ft high. - from Ananova


So that "Pearl Harbor" movie was just fiction!
from Hypocrites.com:
"Is Bush telling a deliberate and historically monumental lie - or is he simply the stupidest man on the entire planet? You decide, because the Washington Press Corps doesn't have the balls to ask B$#@ why he scrubbed World War II from world history in his address to the Japanese Parliament. "My trip to Asia begins here in Japan for an important reason. It begins here because for a century and a half now, America and Japan have formed one of the great and enduring alliances of modern times. From that alliance has come an era of peace in the Pacific." Hey Shrub - your own DAD was shot down over the Pacific in WWII during your "era of peace in the Pacific"! Do we need to demand an investigation of B%$#'s brain???
"By the way, this gaffe has nothing to do with the one the day before, where he sent the yen down by screwing up 'deflation' and "devaluation'..."