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CHENNAI: A broken storage jar with inscriptions in Tamil Brahmi script has been excavated at Quseir-al-Qadim, an ancient port with a Roman settlement on the Red Sea coast of Egypt. This Tamil Brahmi script has been dated to first century B.C. One expert described this as an “exciting discovery.” The same inscription is incised twice on the opposite sides of the jar. The inscription reads paanai oRi, that is, pot (suspended) in a rope net. An archaeological team belonging to the University of Southampton in the U.K., comprising Prof. D. Peacock and Dr. L. Blue, who recently re-opened excavations at...

Arnold Schwarzenegger entered office on a bold mission to overhaul California government, and voters expected nothing less of an actor who obliterated everything in his path onscreen. Schwarzenegger promised to "blow up the boxes" and "clean house." He described the job of governor as being "the leader of the legislators. You go in there and you tell them what you want to do." He made Sacramento the problem -- and himself the antidote. Three years later, Schwarzenegger's ambitious plans and in-your-face attitude have largely succumbed to the Capitol's political culture. "Sacramento really hasn't changed," said Jaime Regalado, executive director of...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is attempting a political comeback as he faces reelection this year, courting Democrats and independent voters by distancing himself from President Bush and pushing an expensive bond proposal to rebuild California's levees, schools and highways. Schwarzenegger, one of the nation's most prominent Republicans, has criticized Bush's plan to dispatch the National Guard to the Mexican border. He has appointed Democrats to key state jobs. In recent weeks, he helped engineer a bipartisan compromise to get the $37 billion bond proposal on the November ballot, traveling the state with Democratic legislative leaders to promote it. And he has...

I just finished reading another amazing novel by Dean Koontz, "Cold Fire". The afterword ... is hilarious: "Then, as is often the case when life is good, someone said, 'Hey, let's make a movie!' and life got strange, dark, and scary. "By this I do not mean to imply - although I can't stop you from inferring - that a lot of movie-industry executives are as brainless, voracious, and destructive as the flesh-eating bacteria ... I've met smart, fair, creative executives over the years...although I've noticed their kind either eventually get fired," (NOTE TO SELF: KELLY GOODE!!!) ... He goes...

...I wanted to address the Lifetime series of "The Dirty Girls Social Club" again. First, I should let you all know I haven't heard a peep from anyone at the network since I last posted. I have talked to my co-executive producer, Nely Galan, who talked to an exec at the network who, I am told, told her that they have no problem with me at the repitch meeting. Rather, they just want to meet with everyone but me in order to "bond". Okay. ... Basically, there's a thing that happens in Hollywood. Moneylust. They all want to make money,...

I pick up a copy of the NY Times yesterday, and read an arts brief with the headline "Diversity Still a Problem For Hollywood Writers." ... A few minutes after reading this story, I get a call from my TV agent at ICM, telling me that the new management of Lifetime is not very interested in The Dirty Girls Social Club TV show. That, in fact, they wanted to "kill" it immediately, but that they are willing to listen to a re-pitch. That means that even though Lifetime owns the option for now (meaning I can't do anything with it)...

German Scientists: Europe's Oldest Script Found in Bulgaria Lifestyle: 18 May 2005, Wednesday. Ancient tablets found in South Bulgaria are written in the oldest European script found ever, German scientists say. The tablets, unearthed near the Southern town of Kardzhali, are over 35-centuries old, and bear the ancient script of the Cretan (Minoan) civilization, according to scientists from the University of Heidelberg, who examined the foundings. This is the Cretan writing, also known as Linear A script, which dates back to XV-XIV century B.C. The discovery proves the theory of the Bulgarian archaeologists that the script on the foundings is...

A Monster on the Loose Beijing wanted to shake up Tokyo?but not like this. China Photos-Getty Images Unrest: Did protests start with the leadership's silent backing? By Melinda Liu Newsweek April 25 issue - If there was a script, this wasn't in it. China's president, Hu Jintao, convened an emergency session of the Politburo's powerful Standing Committee two weekends ago, just hours after anti-Japanese protests in the capital first turned violent. Thousands of marchers had converged on the Japanese Embassy, breaking windows and chanting "Kill the Japanese!" and "Come out, Japanese pigs!" Diplomacy aside, Hu's big worry was the...

A Wish List of Catholic Moviesby Peter W. MillerThe Passion of the Christ demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that a film could be successful and profitable, even if running contrary to the prevailing liberal ideological dogmas of the day. It also had the effect of giving traditional Catholics the first compelling reason in years (if not decades) to enter a movie theater. It is my hope that this experience has emboldened Mel Gibson and others like him to make The Passion just the first in a series of projects which Catholics can be proud to support. As an...

Kerry proves incapable of reading simple declarative sentences. He inserts dependent clauses and prepositional phrases until every sentence is a watery mess. Kerry couldn't read a Dick and Jane book to schoolchildren without transforming its sentences into complex run-ons worthy of David Foster Wallace. Kerry's speechwriters routinely insert the line "We can bring back that mighty dream," near the conclusion of his speeches, presumably as an echo of Ted Kennedy's Shrum-penned "the dream will never die" speech from the 1980 Democratic convention. Kerry saps the line of its power. http://slate.msn.com/id/2108429/ click the link or copy and paste.

Anyone still remember the mess all the news outlets made of reporting election results in 2000? Many of us still wonder if that wasn't a contrived deal to help Gore. Newscasters actually were calling the winner in states (like Florida) while citizens were still voting. The problem started with a company named Voter News Service. VNS was owned by the Associated Press and the television networks. It was a profit making organization, a business. The rabidly left AP ran a large part of VNS, so there's little surprise about how they reported things. Generally, through polls and exit polls, VNS...

WRITTEN BY LT.COLONEL CHARLES WADE Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Even before the primary elections, President Bush’s military service was a political issue as was Senator Kerry’s military service which he touted and others questioned. Reporters continue to seek comment from candidates, political operatives, and pundits. It seems that everyone is an expert, and everyone has an answer. Some of the more interesting responses have come from Republican senators who typically begin by asserting that they honor Senator Kerry’s Viet Nam service, but… Honor: What is that all about? What virtues are honorable? More important, what virtues are both militarily and...

21:05 - 03.08.2004Bulgarian Archaeologists Find 3,000 Year-old Pictograms, Say May Be Thracian Script SOFIA (bnn)- Archaeologists exploring remains of a Bronze Age fortress in southern Bulgaria said Tuesday they found traces of primitive scripture supposed to have been used by Thracian tribes that once lived in that area. The pictograms, painted on 3, 000 year-old ceramic utensils, were found near the ancient Perperikon fortress, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Sofia, archaeological team leader Nikolay Ovcharov told state TV. He said the discovery could back a still unconfirmed hypothesis that the Thracians, had a script of their own. The...

Skeletons, script found at ancient burial site in Tamil Nadu By T.S. Subramanian An urn containing a human skull and bones unearthed by the Archaeological Survey of India at Adhichanallur, near Tirunelveli town in Tamil Nadu. Twelve of these urns (below) contain human skeletons. Three of them, which may be 2,800 years old, bear inscriptions that resemble the early Tamil Brahmi script. -- Photos: A. Shaikmohideen CHENNAI, MAY 25. In spectacular finds, the Archaeological Survey of India, Chennai Circle, has unearthed a dozen 2,800-year-old human skeletons intact in urns at Adichanallur, 24 km from Tirunelveli in Tamil Nadu. Three of...

A new spec screenplay has created a lot of heat in Hollywood thanks to Mel Gibson's THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST. Bobby Florsheim and Josh Stolberg's THE PASSION OF THE ARK was sold to Columbia Pictures for $1.5 million dollars, with another million waiting for the two writers if the project gets greenlighted. It's a huge sale for the industry, especially for two previously unproduced screenwriters, but that's the kind of heat that high concept religious movie ideas have in the wake of Gibson's CHRIST film. THE PASSION OF THE ARK is set in the modern day and follows a...

Dispute: A heralded linguistic deciphering of an extinct hieroglyphic script accomplished in the 1990s is under attack by two researchers. FOR LINGUISTS, it's like hitting a home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the World Series. Terrence Kaufman and John Justeson struck that blast in 1993 when they cracked one of the planet's few remaining undeciphered writing systems - a hieroglyphic script from the mysterious Isthmian civilization, which occupied southern Mexico 2,000 years ago.

A mysterious ancient stone mask from Mexico has spoken but apparently only to say that its people's written language remains undeciphered. BYU's Stephen Houston holds a copy of ancient script from Mexico. He disagrees with claims that "Teo Mask" words have been deciphered.Stuart Johnson, Deseret Morning News A study by Brigham Young University archaeologist Stephen Houston and his colleague from Yale University, Michael D. Coe, say the mask disproves earlier claims that the language had been cracked. Their paper is to be published in "Mexicon," a journal about news and research from Mesoamerica. The title is "Has Isthmian Writing Been...

<p>The question was simple: "How are you going to end (California's) financial mess?" asked the pleasant- faced woman in an Arnold Schwarzenegger television campaign ad.</p> <p>"Here's my plan," the governor replied, his blue shirt and tie giving him a businesslike air. "Audit everything, open the books, and then we end the crazy deficit spending. It really comes down to this: If you're happy with the way things are, keep your current leaders. If you want to change this state, then join me."</p>

Conservatives and Republicans are getting hammered on the Sunday night movie. Scripted references by Bob Hansen (played by William Hurt) to Al Gore being a maniacal and un-American supporter of Bill Clinton, glad he wasn't elected, trying to link the traitorous Bob Hansen now to Republicans via 'the pot calling the kettle black'. Go figure, it's a CBS lamestream movie.

The Mysteries of Rennes-Le-Chateau. Perched on a dusty hilltop in Languedoc in the French Pyrenees lies the little village of Rennes-le-Château. Three little words, Rennes-le-Chateau…The passing millennia have produced many bizarre mysteries; the riddle of the Sphinx and the Pyramids on the Giza plateau are probably the most famous, but in recent years, perhaps the most engrossing of these enigmas concerns what transpired in the quiet village of Rennes-le-Chateau in the foothills of the French Pyrenees during the dying years of the 19th century. There have been many theories proffered to explain the events, but in essence, not one has...