The Shoe's on the Other Foot, or Rather, the Rally Flag is in the Other Hand  

      As I was listening to news reports today it made me start to ponder (yes, I know that can be dangerous).  It was another story about Syria.  The French are urging us, and even goading us a bit to go to action of some kind there.  They have again stated that they have absolute, and undeniable proof that the Syrian government has used weapons of mass destruction - poison gas against its citizens.  The official response from the US is that they need more solid proof.  WOW!  The tables have turned 180 degrees.  
      Just a little over ten years ago the US was the one trying to convince France to join into the fight.  Our people in Washington were telling everyone that they had absolute and undeniable proof that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.  Remember that?  When France wanted more proof, the media went into a huge shaming campaign, and accused the French of being cowards.  Every talk show host had jokes and one-liners for the occasion, and the internet was filled with jokes mocking the French.  
      I think it was Regis, or Letterman, (I can't remember which one), who said "The last time the French wanted proof, it came marching into Paris carrying a German flag."  There was the internet joke that cycled and recycled repeatedly about the French military being crippled due to a fire at the white flag factory.  
      There were people who wouldn't buy or sell French fries, or French toast, and instead they called them "Freedom fries" and "Freedom Toast" instead.  

                                    Liberty Leading the People, by Eugene Delacroix

      Now it's the French who are all gun ho and leading the charge, while it's the US who are being cautious, and demanding more proof.  I just think that irony is funny.  Are the French people going to refuse to buy or sell American Fries and American cheese now?  Or would they rename these things?  Well, I don't know about the American fries, but I know that with all the varieties of cheese they have there they detest the flavor of American cheese.  They have already renamed it.  They call it "yuck" (or perhaps it is "yuque").  They can't reuse the white flag factory joke either, because our people have been fighting out in that part of the world for well over ten years now. 
      Nevertheless, the French are investigating in Syria, and declare that they have proof that the Syrian government used poison gas against the rebels.  The US is responding that they want more proof.  

The French:  "We have found residue of the gas."  
The US response:  "Maybe it was really something else.  We need more proof."  
The French: "We found poison gas in the tox screen of the victims."  
The US response:  "Maybe they poisoned themselves.  We need MORE proof." 
The French: "We found the government there shipping the poison gas."  
The US response: "there must be a reasonable explanation for that.  We need even more proof."  

      The real point is that for many different reasons Obama and his administration had absolutely no intention whatsoever, under any circumstances whatsoever to get into this conflict in any way whatsoever.  When he stated that the only thing that would make him get into the conflict would be the use of poison gas or other weapons of mass destruction against the rebels, he never thought in a million years that President Bashar Al-Assad would ever really use poison gas against his own people.  Obama thought he was completely safe in making such a statement.  When he declared that as the line to cross, he never thought it would actually happen.  When Bashar Al-Assad actually did use poison gas Obama was backed into a corner that he didn't want to be in.  

       
      Now the only ay he can stay out of the Syrian conflict is to continuously demand more proof, no matter how much proof they have already provided.  He just does not want to get into this one.  He should just say that.  His reasons are numerous.  One, we just don't have enough money to get into any more conflicts.  He's desperately trying to get out of the ones we're in already.  Our soldiers are tired after more than a decade of fighting.  Soldiers deployed and redeployed again and again have lost their marriages over this.  Many have been severely wounded and some have lost their minds.  There isn't much public support for going there for these and other reasons.  Also, they don't want any US weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists.  Finally, no matter how many allies ask, urge, plead and even beg us to go in there, Russia is against it, and there are still enough military people and politicians left over from the Cold War era, who don't want to do anything to make the Russian government mad.  Why was Libya important enough to go in there and help their rebels, but not Syria?  We were in and out of Libya in short order.  The answer:  the Russian government didn't care about Libya, but they don't want us to even think about having any involvement in Syria. 
      France wants to go right in there and help the rebels in their fight for freedom, and stop the slaughter against the civilians.  Our regional ally Turkey is pleading with us to go in there and stop this madness so that Bashar Al-Assad's rockets will stop shelling Turkey's border towns, as he tries to kill any who would escape.  The people of Syria are begging us to help.  An NPR reporter was out there near one of the border towns interviewing refugees after the gas attacks.  The refugees, some sobbing, begged for US intervention and help.  The reporter told them that this just isn't US policy right now.  The refugees then said, "We will never forget this."  That's one potential ally lost forever.  But, as long as Russia doesn't want us to get involved there, that's a price we will have to pay.  

      I am leaving this morning to go camping for a few days.  I will not have a laptop with me, and that wouldn't help anyway.  The place I'm going to doesn't even have decent cell phone service, let alone something like wyfy.  I will be purely vacationing, and enjoying every moment of it (despite the fact that it's supposed to rain - I have a tent stove, and I'm not afraid to use it).  There will be no posts therefore, until I get back on Saturday.  Sorry, there won't be a Science Fridays post this week - maybe I'll post Saturday's as a Science post.  
      This will give some of you, particularly the newer readers a chance to go through the archive and read older posts.  Some of them have long videos attached.  Have a great few days.  I will.   

Sesklo, Starcevo, and Vincas

Sesklo, Starčevo, and Vinčas

      In my posts about early migrations, and the people of the Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, and Neolithic, it may seem that I have been hopping around like a wood tick on a stove top.  I have touched on a culture here and there, and made passing references to others in relation to other subject matters, such as farming, or mass migrations.  I feel it's time to post some of these in chronological order.  I will even post an ongoing timeline to assist with this.  I will be using the accepted dates for these.  

      Let's review.  The hunter gatherers of Europe, who are all genetically tied have lived in those frozen wastes throughout the Pleistocene Glacial maximum.  At their height, one tribe of them, the Solutreans of western France, blocked by glaciers on three sides and by the ocean, turned to the sea ice in search of food.  Many of them got blown off course and ended up in North America.  
      Glaciers began to melt during Boller Interstadial Warming Period, opening the way into North America from the west (the far west - so far west that people call it the far east).  Some Asians from Siberia migrate through the passage.  Some of Jomon Culture moves into China, introducing Ceramics to the rest of the world.  A group of people leave northern Kenya and settle into the Fertile Crescent.  They are now known as the Natufians,  There they harvested wild grains.  
      After this, the Cooling period known as the Younger Dryas began.  The ice sheets grew again, and all the regions around the earth experienced a heavy drought.  The Younger Dryas lasted for about 1500 years.  During this time the cultures that had been harvesting wild grain, planted those grains to survive.  They were successful enough at this that the first cities were built in southern Turkey at Catal Hoyuk, and Asikli Hoyuk.  In the Zagros Mts. Hunter-gatherers captured and bred goats, the first domesticated animals.  After that others tried and succeeded in domesticating sheep, cattle, chickens, and donkeys. 
      When the Younger Dryas ended so did the drought.  As water returned, farming spread out from the river systems.  This caused a huge population bloom, due to an ample, steady supply of food.  Between 8000 and 7000 BC descendants of the Natufians had spread out to all arable land throughout the Fertile Crescent, to the Indus River Valley on one side, and all the way across Asia Minor on the other, and all the way down the Nile River Valley.  
      With nowhere else to go, some of them crossed over to Greece near the present day town of Sesklo.  They had to use new techniques there.  All of Europe was a dense forest that had to be cleared away to do anything.  Therefore they couldn't just sweep through their new land.  They could only settle in pockets and spread out from there.  On the plus side of things, rain was plentiful enough that they didn't have to irrigate.  In Europe other plants were added to their farming repertoire.  They had various vegetables that were native to the area, which they also learned to plant.  After about a thousand years or so, Sesklo itself became a huge city, and smaller farming communities filled the region.  As they spread out, it was time again for some of them to move out farther.  
      New colonies were established in Serbia, and Hungary.  During this phase, these farmer descendants of the Natufians hacked colonies out of the thick forests all the way to the Atlantic coast - to Spain, France, England, Ireland, Skara Brae, and Doggerland.  One would like to think that these people mingled readily with the hunter-gatherers who already lived there, but genetic evidence shows that this wasn't the case.  There was some mingling that went on, but the percentage of their genetic markers among the farming people who invaded them is not high enough to regard such a notion.  Most likely the hunter-gatherers were wary of these newcomers, and for the most part avoided them, as they wandered along in search of game.  There was enough mingling, however for some of their religious rituals to be adopted and adapted by the farming cultures. 
      The first two expansion colonies were in Hungary and Serbia, and are known as the Starčevo, and Vinčas Cultures.  By about 5000 BC these two cultures were thriving.  They each developed their own distinct styles of pottery (pottery didn't arrive that far west [from the Jomon Culture] till after Sesklo had been established as a full fledged city - once it did, it spread through Europe like a wildfire). Their pottery was somewhat acorn shaped with a wide rim for hanging.  The rim was decorated with two variations of a flame motif (one style for Vinčas, another style for Starčevo).  When viewed from above they looked like the sun.  They also made little anthropomorphic and zoomorphic statuettes.  Each of them also had statuettes in different versions of the "mother" or "Doni" figure, which had been an important part of worship for the hunter-gatherers before them. 
      In the Vinčas Culture they also developed what is regarded by some as the first alphabet (this includes myself - I have read arguments for both sides, and the alphabet evidence seems most valid).  Writing didn't reach Egypt or the Harappan Culture of the Indus River Valley until a couple thousand years later.  The Vinčas Civilization had a full set of symbols that they used.  Artifacts such as the Tatania Amulet show that these symbols were used in a way that is not just mere decoration, but rather as a system of writing.  
      What I find extremely interesting about this is that there is not one of these symbols that is not also found among Native American petroglyphs.  These can be seen in the images below.  People crossed over before.  There's no evidence to say that other people didn't cross over again.  Actually the evidence shows that many people throughout the ages made the Atlantic crossing. 

This amulet from Vinčas is what is known as the Tatania Amulet.  Here you can see that the Vinčas symbols were used as a form of writing. 

Bright Flash On the Moon

      In March a bright flash was visible on the moon.  The flash didn't last long, but according to NASA it was as bright as a 4th magnitude star.  It was caused by a meteor impact.  During the same period as the impact, there were also several meteors visible in the Earth's skies.  The Earth-Moon system had passed through a debris field of some kind.  

 
       These chunks of space rock weren't very large, not scary large anyway.  They were about the size of  large rocks and the one that struck the moon was the size of a boulder.  It was about 90 pounds (40 kg), and about a foot wide.  If that one would have hit the Earth's atmosphere, it would have been seen as a very long and bright streak.  
      Having no atmosphere to burn these up, the moon gets pelted by even the smallest meteors.  The atmosphere of the Earth protects us from most meteors.  Except for the very large ones, they all just burn away as a bright flash in the sky.  
      This meteor was seen by a video analyst of the Marshall Space Flight Center's monitoring system, a part of NASA's Lunar Monitoring Program.  Started in 2005, NASA put the Lunar Monitoring Program into place to watch the Moon for impacts.  Since the program began they have recorded over 300 strikes to the Moon's surface.  According to the NASA spokesman of the project, March's impact was so far the largest. 

                                           Artist's rendition of a lunar impact

                      All the recorded lunar impacts since the monitoring program began


      You can watch this impact, and get more of the details right from NASA in the video below.  

Dollars and Scents 

      As we move into an increasingly cashless society having real, actual money in your pocket seems to be less alluring as it once was.  It is written right on our money "This is legal tender for all debts, public and private."  Nevertheless, there are a few places of business that refuse to accept cash (these same won't accept checks either).  This really isn't the norm (yet), but they have signs displayed in their establishments saying something on the order of "Credit Card Transactions Only."  I think that these places are afraid of being robbed.  Of course, online purchases are cashless.  Just try to pay a fine at the courthouse with cash (I know someone who tried).  If you protest it by showing them the quote written right on the bills, you will be escorted to someplace you don't want to go.  
      There are people who just aren't as enthusiastic about cash as they once were.  Our cash here used to always be just the same shade of green, with black printing on the front, and a dark green ink on the back.  We used to look at all the colors of money from other countries and jokingly call it "Monopoly Money."  Then in an attempt to make counterfeiting more difficult, and make our cash more appealing the mints started to revamp our money, so that now we also have "Monopoly Money."  

      All over the world there are little things being done to make money look better.  There are ghost images, watermark type images, and even some cases of holographic images being added to the bills.  Images of famous artists, scientists, explorers, and such are put on their bills, rather than just political leaders.  Up in Canada they have raised the bar for making cash more attractive again, or so many people insist.       
      Up here in Northern Minnesota, we love the Canadians (or Cannucks, as we call them).  They talk the same way as us (with the exception that they have a few people up there in Thunder Bay region, for instance who have a heavy Scottish brogue, or the French speakers living near Winnipeg - and yes there is that entire province that speaks French only, but they're SO different that it's hard for me to think of them as Canadians).  Up here, their coins at least are accepted the same as our own.  It is not at all uncommon to get Canadian dimes or quarters in our change.  They even have the same denominations as we do (they don't have nickels though).  They like fishin', eh, and so do we.  We are a huge hockey state, and the Cannucks love their hockey too.  We have many other similar likes, dislikes, and interests; including, and not limited to snowmobiles, walleyes, northern pikes and muskies, moose, deer, a disgust for interfering political schemes, guns, rivers, lakes, and lots of trees, and delicious maple syrup.  

      We are only a little over 100 miles from the border here.  I have discussed this very thing before with friends of mine from the former, but still great Canadian rockin', folk band Tanglefoot.  While sitting around at a mutual friend's house one evening they mentioned that most of the Canadian population lives within 100 miles of the border.  I told them that I think of Canada as the very northern part of Minnesota, and they replied that they consider Minnesota to be one of their long lost provinces. 
      This is why I find this story so interesting.  People in Canada are claiming that the Royal Canadian mint has added a scent to their money.  They say that their larger denomination bills smell like maple syrup.  They go on to say that the smell is increased if you scratch or wrinkle the money.  Officials, on the other hand insist that no such thing has been done, but the "believers" are not so easily dissuaded.  Officials are getting calls from all over the country with questions about the maple syrup smell to their cash.  An official stated in an interview that he was asked by a woman if her bill was still good if the smell went away, or if it had expired.  

      Actually I kind of wish they did really put a maple smell in their money.  A possible theory (my own theory) is that maple actually came out of the pores on people's skin while handling the money.  

     _________________________________________________________________

      Related, but not related to this, there was a neighborhood in some eastern city (sorry, I don't remember which one) that was evacuated for a possible gas leak.  after searching all over for the leak, they found the culprit.  Several cases of scratch and sniff cards with the smell of natural gas had been thrown into a dumpster.  After the garbage truck picked them up, the crusher made them all activate.  The cards had been part of a failed attempt to make people aware of the smell of natural gas. 

A Simple One Pot Meal

      Again, with camping season upon us we need to think about preparing for the trip.  If you're able to drive to your camp site, and can therefore bring more things (as opposed to packing in, when you are forced to meals of dried foods), you can bring a cooler full of fresh foods.  Once the chore of setting up a camp is done you can enjoy the rest of the time relaxing (except for hauling wood, and water to camp all the time and chopping the wood for cooking, for wash water, and for the sheer relaxation value of a nice fire at night).

      Although the main goal is relaxing and reconnecting with good friends, you still have to eat.  Here's a fairly easy, yet tasty recipe you can cook in one pot, or dutch oven.  I don't have a name for it so call it whatever you want to.  
      Start of with enough chicken for everyone you're going to be feeding.  You better have a pot big enough to start off with then too.  
      Put enough flour into the pot to cover all the chicken well.  Mix your spices right in with the flour.  I might suggest things like sage, thyme, oregano, basil, celery seed, salt, pepper, and of course garlic.  Add to or subtract from this list as you like, and use concentrations according to your own liking.  
      Roll the pieces of chick in the flour mixture.  
      Throw a half stick of butter into the pot.  
      Hang the pot low to the fire (use enough s-hooks to get the pot just above the flame) - and having a hotter fire is good at this point. 

     (or those of you who don't know what an s-hook is, they are for hanging pots over the fire.  They come in different sizes, and can be strung together to form a long chain to reach all the way down to the fire.  You can adjust the height of you pot up or down by adding/removing s-hooks.  In other words, to have camp cooking success, you adjust the pots, not the fire.) 
      Brown the chicken a bit.  You don't have to worry about cooking it all the way through at this point, because there is much more cooking to come.  As you are browning the meat throw in some chopped onions to saute.  
      Cut up some carrots and throw them into the pot as well, along with enough potatoes to feed everybody.  Don't chop the potatoes, just cut them in half.  
      Pour White Zinfandel into the pot, covering the mixture, and place the lid onto the pot.  Let it reach a boil, then raise the pot up high (use just your smallest s-hook) to simmer for about an hour to an hour and a half.  Check for tenderness with a fork.  It should be done by this time.  
      Serve it up!  If you want to, you could mash up the potatoes with a fork, and pour the gravy over them. 

Where the Modern Meets the Ancient

Science Fridays

      Today's post is so late, due to a thunderstorm, and accompanying power outage.  Power's back on, so here it is.  

      Many of my Science Friday posts have been about either, space exploration, technologies, or palaeontology.  The subject of today's post combines all three.  The studies of palaeontology have been getting quite a boost with help from the other branches of science. 
      The space program has been extremely helpful by turning some of their cameras and equipment inward and looking at the Earth.  Using satellites they have been able to discover ancient cities, that have been lost and forgotten about for millennia.  Even some novices have found as yet undiscovered ancient structures just using Google Earth.  They have been spotted in clearings out in the middle of wild places. 

      In jungle regions such as the Yucatan, in Mexico, where the foliage is too thick to see anything through it the satellite images don't find anything.  That's where other cameras come in handy.  Looking down from space they use infrared imaging to scan the jungle and forest landscapes.  Many of the ancient cities were made of stone.  Being much colder than the surrounding vegetation these ancient, abandoned cities, and other structures.  South-east Asia has many ancient sites (in phenomenal numbers) that have not been discovered yet.  Unfortunately for the world of palaeontology, some of these countries aren't too keen on having any western surveillance aircraft flying over their airspace, nor even surveillance satellites pointing at them. 

      While looking for settlements even more ancient than the first cities researchers have utilized such techniques as seismic imaging.  Using technologies such as this they have been able to locate ancient foundations and even 10,000 year old post holes.  
      Chemical spectral analysis has been used to determine where exactly a person has lived or even traveled.  "Otzi," the mummified corpse they found in a glacier in the Alps was analyzed in this way to determine his place of origin, and to learn where he had traveled.  Both he and the grain he was carrying (and had eaten before he died) where run through chemical spectral analysis.  Plants pick up the local chemicals in the soil they grow in.  Anything that eats those plants picks up those specific chemicals and unique isotopes too.  In this way it works as a fingerprint to pinpoint location.  

      DNA research has made great leaps and strides in the last two decades.  Looking at minor differences between DNA strains, the palaeontologist can understand who various people groups are related to.  In this way migrations of people groups have been tracked.  In fact, due to DNA studies much of what was previously written on the subject has been turned on its head, and needs to be rewritten.  Through DNA research we have learned for instance that all Native Americans have Asian DNA, which they had always suspected, but they also found out that the very first people to come to America were hunter-gatherers from western France.  They learned that the Semitic races all came out of sub-Saharan Africa, and that groups of them went out to over run all of Europe.  Through these studies they also learned that all the Indo-European peoples came out of north-central Asia.  
      Even ages of various people groups can be determined through DNA analysis.  This is because mitochondrial DNA has a very specific rate of change.  This way they can tell when one group separated from another.  

      _______________________________________________________________  

      In other science news for this week, the World Science Festival started in New York this week.  Major topics for discussion at this years festival include such things as the study of extra-solar planets, the studies of cosmic sands to understand the origins of the Solar System, and multiple universes, or as they call it "The Multiverse." 

The Results of Unsatisfactory Results  

      Today I heard a very funny news report.  It wasn't intended to be funny I think, but I have an affliction wherein I think things through, and I have a very warped mind.  The result of that is I find things funny that most people wouldn't.  In fact most people would never even consider joking about some of the things that I find as funny.  The picture below illustrates this point well. 

      The story I laughed at today was about Frosted Mini Wheats.  They have become the target of a class action lawsuit.  "So how is that funny?", you might ask. 

      They are being sued for false advertising.  Yes.  Over the last several years they have had commercials where they say something like, "Breakfast is the most important meal of the day.  Frosted Mini Wheats have all the vitamins and minerals your child needs.  They will give your child energy that will last through the morning.  A good breakfast with Frosted mini Wheats will help your child to pay attention and help your child's memory."  

      They are not being sued for the first statement, for that statement is true.  Breakfast IS the most important meal of the day.  Many well paid off scientists have said so.  They are not being sued for the second statement either, for that is also true.  They do contain all that FDA daily requirement stuff.  Even the third statement is true.  Whole wheat (especially with all the bran) is a complex carbohydrate, and takes longer to break down in the digestive system.  The result of that is it provides energy over a longer period of time.  Even the last statement is bathed in truth.  A good breakfast will help keep a person's mind operating at its optimum.  The problem is that "its" in this context is a relative term.  

      The brain will operate at "its" optimum, meaning its own optimum.  Each brain is different, and each brain has its own level that would be called optimum.  The brain of a garden slug for instance, while operating at its optimum would make that slug eat slimy things and make much slime of its own.  Sheldon Cooper's brain, just like the brains of some real life geeks who are just like him operating at optimum would think up some really cool physics formulas for string theory, or something, and severely annoy everyone within his spheres of contact. 
      They are being sued for the claim that Frosted Mini Wheats will help your child's memory and attention span.  The chief lawyer for the prosecution in this case was being interviewed, and he was asked how this case originated.  

      He said there were a few parents who were unsatisfied with the results (now that's the part that's real funny).  When I heard that while driving along I burst out in laughter.  I visualized  a family (possibly from a trailer court) saying (and with a Forest Gump accent), "Our kids are idiots and they forget stuff all the time.  We fed them Frosted Mini Wheats for two years, and they're still morons.  I want my money back." 
      And that's all the plaintiffs in the case will get - enough money to pay for a few boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats.  The judge presiding over the case should have thrown it right out of court.  He should have looked the parents right in the eye and said, "Frosted Mini Wheats won't help your kids.  Nothing will.  Your children's problem is genetic." 
      The principle is simple enough.  If you plant corn seed, you're going to get corn for your harvest.  If you plant wheat, you're going to get wheat.  And what you get from the seed from a couple of idiot morons is more idiot morons.  Dum Basses.  'Nuff said.  

      And one more thing; the results of the court case.  Kellogs not only lost the case, but they were ordered to reword their commercials.  They can still say that breakfast is important, but they could no longer say that Frosted Mini Wheats will improve anything.  They can only say that eating Frosted Mini Wheats is better than eating nothing at all.  Seriously.