IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Travel (General/Chat)
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The white-colored outlines of rectangular shapes could very well be the markings of a construction site, albeit one that was undertaken more than 700 years ago... Those outlines mark the walls of a Hohokam pit house, part of an ancient city that was uncovered by archaeologists in mid-April at the site of a major road and park project in Marana... A large, 18-inch thick adobe wall was discovered in the area, along with a host of pit houses and ancient Hohokam artifacts. Several pit houses were also uncovered at the southeast corner of Ina and Silverbell roads... "One of the...
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Customs officials in Gothenburg were at a loss as to how to deal with Jacques Abdelaziz and his two four-legged pack animals when the trio wandered off a ferry boat from Denmark on Sunday afternoon. * Dropped French bid hits TeliaSonera shares (30 Jun 08) * France Telecom ups bid for TeliaSonera (30 Jun 08) * Gothenburg club and concert tips - June 27 - 29 (26 Jun 08) Abdelaziz, who hails from Brittany in northwestern France, has been wandering around Europe for the past two months with his two donkeys, Nounou and Toutoune, according to the Göteborg-Posten (GP) newspaper....
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Learn something new every day entry: this image and accompanying article (click the source link above) told me about Nea Kameni, which is in the Santorini lagoon and which had volcanic activity in 1950. I never knew the name of the island and that it was recently active until yesterday. Click for full-size. Here's a view taken from Santorini. And this image is just to put everything into proper perspective.
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A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by Jean-Paul Raynal... This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa's possible role in first populating southern Europe. A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context... The morphology of these remains is different from the three mandibles found at the Tighenif site in Algeria that were used, in...
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"These coffins were found in the tombs of senior officials of the 18th and 19th dynasties," near Saqqara, Zahi Hawass, the director of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities said on Thursday. "Some coloured unopened coffins dating back to the sixth century BC were found as well as some coffins dating back to the time of Ramses II," who ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC, he said... The Saqqara burial grounds which date back to 2,700 BC and are dominated by the massive bulk of King Zoser's step pyramid -- the first ever built -- were in continuous use until the...
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When people hear the name Salome, they immediately think of the infamous dancing girl of the Gospels... At her mother's urging, Salome asked for the head of Herod's most famous prisoner on a platter. Fearful of breaking his word before his guests, Herod granted Salome's request and ordered John the Baptist beheaded. In antiquity there was a considerably more famous Salome, however, who was revered for centuries. She was so admired that generations of mothers, Herodias apparently among them, named their daughters Salome in her honor. This Salome was the only woman ever to govern Judea as its sole ruler....
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...Amid unprecedented protests from tour guides, travel companies and tourists irritated by conditions at prime archaeological sites, the ruling conservatives last week rushed hundreds of additional personnel to staff museums and open-air antiquities... The move follows embarrassing revelations over the upkeep of Greece's ancient wonders and mounting public disquiet, voiced mostly by foreigners in the local press, over visitor access to them. Yesterday, the authoritative newspaper Sunday Vima disclosed that the Cycladic isle of Delos - the site of Apollo's mythological sanctuary and one of Greece's most important ancient venues - resembled an "archaeological rubbish dump". Recently, it emerged that...
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EDWARDS AFB - Encompassing 301,000 acres of desert land, the vast reaches of Edwards Air Force Base are a treasure trove for much more than its well-known cutting-edge aviation history. Although many are fluent in the historic milestones achieved in the skies over the storied base, fewer are familiar with the history on its grounds. "People have been occupying this area for 10,000 years," said Kathleen Loetzerich , an environmental resource specialist with the base's Environmental Management office. Loetzerich presented some of the base's little-known history Monday as part of a tour for 20 members of the Edwards Civilian-Military Support...
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Take, for instance, this one: "The human race is too young for it to have evolved into distinct species-like units." No, it isn't, and Malik provides good, if not overwhelming, reasons why not. Or this one: "Distinctions between races are arbitrary." No, they aren't. In a famous experiment in 2002, a computer program was able to "blindly" sort genetic data from individuals around the world into five populations that were nearly identical to the traditional races... The middle section of Malik's book recaps his cultural history of the European concept of race, covered in his book The Meaning of Race...
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While watching CSpan yesterday they were debating a bill to pour more dollars into mass transit. I got to wondering how the majority of CongressCritters and their staff get to work. Do you think they utilize DC's mass transit system?
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At first sight, the statistics are positively wine-dark. As part of school education, countries may maintain it in theory but rarely in practice. Portuguese pupils have it as an option in their final year; in Sweden fewer than 100 schoolchildren study it, in Belgium around 800. In Britain, of a mere 241 entrants for Greek A-level (typically taken at 18) in 2007, fully 226 were from independent (private) schools... Though some classics departments in the United States have had to close or merge, the number of students enrolled in Greek has been going up since the 1990s. In 2006 fully...
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Sorry for the vanity. I was doing some research this morning, went to Google Maps and noticed the "street view" option isn't on the menu. Has it been deleted? I know there have been some privacy issues and some communities have asked that street view not be used but has google caved and scrapped the whole thing? FWIW I think the privacy issues are mostly unfounded. If it's a public street and anyone can take a picture then google should be able to make street view available. If Google has pulled it, there could be wide ranging effects. What about...
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Cell-phone-driving ban takes effect July 1 in Washington On July 1, the new law takes effect in Washington that bans driving while using a hand-held cell phone. OLYMPIA, Wash. — On July 1, the new law takes effect in Washington that bans driving while using a hand-held cell phone.Drivers caught holding a mobile phone to their ear risk a $124 ticket. To talk on a phone drivers should use a handsfree headset or speaker phone. But, the law allows exceptions for people reporting an emergency or crime.The violation is a so-called secondary offense. That means an officer must...
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14 months in the making, 42 countries, and a cast of thousands. Thanks to everyone who danced with me. Make sure to click "watch in high quality" right underneath the video.
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Let us save you from hotel hell Check out TripAdvisor's 2008 top 10 Dirtiest Hotels, chosen by our members as beyond scummy, and prepare to be utterly disgusted (....And why they're on this list) Dirtiest Hotels - U.S. Hotel Carter, New York, NY Ramada Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls, NY (Hotel now closed) Nashville - Days Inn Vanderbilt / Music Row, Nashville, TN Red Carpet Inn, Fort Lauderdale, FL Regency Inn & Suites, New York, NY St. Augustine Beachfront Resort, Saint Augustine, FL Travel Inn Civic/Medical Center, Miami, FL Eden Roc Motel, Wildwood, NJ Days Inn Lancaster, Lancaster, PA Pacific...
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I can't post any of the pictures that I want to, but they're remarkable. 13 June 2008: Strong Activity at the Fissure in Valle del Bove Here's another site from Volcano Discovery on the May 2008 eruptions that's similar. From: Etna eruption May 2008 Here's a couple of context images. The first shows where the Valle del Bove is. The second is from space, and the Valle del Bove is the broad dark-brown area to the right (east) of the summit craters.
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It’s been a tough year for the Spitzer family, to say the least. Now that the legislative session is coming to a close, and he’s no longer responsible for steamrolling lawmakers into achieving reforms anyway, papa Eliot is taking the whole gang on a summer vacation. On Monday, according to sources, the disgraced ex-governor, wife Silda and their three girls will depart for Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. A spokeswoman for the Spitzers, Anna Cordasco, confirmed the trip and said the family was going to Southeast Asia but didn’t know the specific countries. Spitzer is still under investigation by the Feds...
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A forty-year-old speed camera operator in Victoria, Australia was frightened yesterday by a man armed with an ax. The operator parked on Wedge Road in Carrum Downs at around 7:30pm. After turning on the camera, he relaxed in the passenger's seat as the automated machinery proceeded to generate citations ready for mailing to the owners of passing vehicles. At 10:30pm, the operator was startled by the sight of an ax shattering the driver's side window of his vehicle. The axman poked his ax toward the operator a few times before leaving the scene. The operator was unharmed, only suffering a...
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My father travels for work every now and again. He’s always complaining about the airlines and getting stuck sitting next to a big guy, that smells and loves to talk. I think he just likes to exaggerate. Then this morning I get up and read this story as I’m downing my cup a joe. Maybe air travel really does suck. (MIAMI - An uninvited passenger created a smelly situation on a plane in Miami. American Airlines Flight 915 from Miami to Bogota, Colombia, was delayed Wednesday night after a skunk was found in the back of the cargo hold, discharging...
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We will be sending our current Rescue Pooch on, on Saturday. We'll be meeting his next Humans near St Joseph, MO. I need quick advice on a SWAP spot. We want to lunch or picnic with "Vinnie's" next set of Humans. This is a Summer Swap. We can't just let Vinnie nap in a cooling car, as we do with Winter meets. We want time to tell HIS story, rather than a "drop & dash" at PetCo send off. Something near I-29, and easy to find; would be best. A Subway, or similar, that allows pooches at their OUTSIDE tables...
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I plan to buy my wife a GPS in the $400 to $500 range. Any suggestions?
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The next Northern Hemisphere ride is June 7th 2008. Some rides go ahead rain or shine, but some cities have a backup date just in case the weather is not good for them on that day. There are some rides held on different dates - Chicago, Brussels, London, Seattle, Thessaloniki, Denver, and Toronto. The following is a list of World Naked Bike Ride (WNBR) upcoming events around the world. You can also browse the list of rides in other formats:
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[snip] Michael Tellinger, author of "Slave Species of god" talks about the discovery of the oldest man-made structure on Earth, around 75,000 years old. A new book by Johan Heine and Michael Tellinger outlines the events that led to this discovery in South Africa by explorer/pilot Johan Heine. [end]
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Ancient Italian villages are being turned into a new kind of hotel, where the rooms are spread out across town and you share the streets with residents. One of the best of these alberghi diffusi is Sextantio, in the Abruzzi mountains. by Reid Bramblett | July/August 2008 issue On the day he found Santo Stefano di Sessanio, the ancient Italian village that would change his life, Daniele Kihlgren was lost. He had set out on his motorcycle to explore the Abruzzi mountains, two hours east of Rome, and was trying to locate a back road from the ruins of a...
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Full-size (for full effect). Basaseachi is a 312 meter waterfall.
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A replica of the Argo, the ship that according to legend carried Jason and the 50 Argonauts in search of the Golden Fleece, sailed Saturday from the central Greek city of Volos on a two-month journey to Venice in Italy. Turkey's refusal to guarantee the 93.5-foot (28.5-meter) wooden ship safe passage through the Bosporus Strait meant that the ship will not reach its ancient predecessor's destination of Colchis, in what is modern-day Georgia, at the eastern end of the Black Sea. Its route, instead, will retrace part of the Argonauts' return trip... The ship's crew comprises 50 oarsmen with another...
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Archaeologists from Cardiff University today began excavating part of the remains of the 2,000 year old Roman Fortress in Caerleon, Newport. Led by Dr Peter Guest, of the School of History and Archaeology, the team of 50 archaeologists from Cardiff and University College London will excavate the remains of a monumental courtyard building in the south-western corner of the fortress. The building's existence was discovered during geophysical surveys undertaken by staff and students from the University and was investigated during trial excavations in 2007. This year's excavation will open a large trench over the building, which is believed to be...
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When fossils of a diminutive, recently extinct race of humans were discovered in a cave on Flores, one of the most easterly islands of the Indonesian archipelago, researchers can be forgiven for assuming they were down-sized by the peculiar selection pressures that act upon insular species. On Flores, natural selection has morphed several familiar species to unfamiliar sizes. There be dragons: three metre, 200kg monitor lizards, also known as the Komodo dragon, plus the fossilised remains of an extinct giant rodent, Spelaeomys, and extinct Stegodon pigmy elephants. The tiny skulls of the Flores fossils ignited a heated, sometimes ad hominin,...
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I'm going to be in Kansas City this weekend as a summer vacation. Since I've never been there, I would like to hear some of your recommendations on what to do--besides th e primary reason why I'll be in KC--if there are restaurants, places to see and/or avoid, dive bars, and so on. Any suggestions are always appreciated (even from Chiefs fans) :) Thanks in advance.
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The show is on now if anyone is interested.
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If you believe Mr. Edward Said and his numerous supporters, Sir William Jones was actually a racist pig who invented comparative linguistics in order to establish his dominance over "the Other." It's strange that Muslims didn't think of this when they ruled other peoples for centuries. After all, Persian, which they knew, is an Indo-European language, as is Sanskrit, as well as Greek, Armenian and the tongues of many of their subjects. Muslim scholars had access to a number of Semitic languages, from Arabic and Hebrew to Aramaic, in addition to languages of other Afro-Asiatic branches in North and East...
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A dinosaur bone discovered in Australia has defied prevailing wisdom about how the world's continents separated from a super-continent millions of years ago, a new study said. The 19-centimetre bone was found in southeastern Australia but it comes from a very close cousin to Megaraptor, a flesh-ripping monster that lorded over swathes of South American some 90 million years ago. The extraordinary similarity between the two giant theropods adds weight to a dissident view about the break-up of a super-continent, known as Gondwana, that formed the continents of the southern hemisphere, the authors said on Tuesday. Gondwana broke up during...
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U.S. Coast Guard Tall Ship Eagle If you've ever wanted to tour a tall ship, now is your chance. Starting Thursday, the U.S. Coast Guard will sponsor free tours of the only square-rigged sailing ship in the U.S. fleet when it docks in Astoria at the Maritime Museum, 1792 Marine Drive. The tall ship Eagle, also known as the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Barque Eagle, has been under way for the past two months, serving as a hands-on classroom for Coast Guard cadets at the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. According to Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Adam...
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Archaeologists have dug up the skeletons of 16 horses and a two-wheeled chariot in a grave dating back to the Roman Empire in north-east Greece, the culture ministry announced today. Half of the horses were buried in pairs, whilst two human skeletons were also discovered in a dig near Lithohori, in the Kavala region. Near to the remains of six of the horses archaeologists found a shield, weapons and various other accessories... diggers found a grave and four tombs covered with a ceramic lid, which contained four bronze coins dating back to the fourth century AD. The chariot, dating from...
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James Cuno, president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago, posits in his new book Who Owns Antiquity? (Princeton University Press, $24.95) that the UNESCO treaty and laws enacted around the world aimed at applying its principles have done nothing to stop looting and have succeeded only in inhibiting the global movement of art. UNESCO, he argues, has impoverished our understanding of one another and contributed to a stale, narrowly nationalistic view of culture. More specifically, these laws have prevented museums like his from acquiring antiquities as they have in the past. He calls them "nationalist retentionist cultural property...
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READY TO DEFEND TULLY CASTLE. . . . Armed and willing to assist "The Musketeeer" Aias Boyd Rankin to fight of the enemies of Tully castle are Matthew Armstrong, Derrygonnolly Primary and Shauna Gileece, St.Patrick's Primary, Derrygonnolly. The Castle will be the setting for a Living History event on Sunday where members of the public can meet the Musketeer and his wife.
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This discovery offers a unique view of the social world nearly 4,300 years ago at Nagar, a city that belonged to Mesopotamia's Akkadian Empire, say Joan Oates of the University of Cambridge in England and her colleagues. Nagar's remnants lie within layers of mud-brick construction known collectively as Tell Brak (SN: 2/9/08, p. 90). The earliest layers date to more than 6,000 years ago. Evidence suggests that this Nagar sacrifice immediately followed a brief abandonment of the site because of some sort of natural disaster. Residents appeased their gods by surrendering valued individuals, animals and objects in a building formerly...
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This video and its song, I Have Everything, sung by Evangelist Ezekiel Cash, from Jamaica, has a beautiful scenic mountain river view in autumn and graced with a butterflies flight.
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Bo (woof) In Commentary: How do you know you’re having a bad day? When you’re on vacation in Australia, and you stop to do your business and then this happens to you. Fortunately it happened to a human and not a canine, but even I feel embarrassed for this guy. ( A ROADSIDE toilet stop ended in pain, embarrassment and almost death for a tourist when a highly venomous snake bit the end of his penis. The deadly brown snake slithered between his legs and lunged at his manhood as he crouched on a roadside near Laura, 300km northwest of...
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A team of forensic scientists at the University of Copenhagen has studied human remains found in two ancient Danish burial grounds dating back to the iron age, and discovered a man who appears to be of arabian origin. The findings suggest that human beings were as genetically diverse 2000 years ago as they are today and indicate greater mobility among iron age populations than was previously thought. The findings also suggest that people in the Danish iron age did not live and die in small, isolated villages but, on the contrary, were in constant contact with the wider world. On...
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Best show on TV starts tonight...The Ice Road Truckers are back for a new challenge: Killer storms, monster loads, and this year, they're on the Arctic Ocean!!!
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Wings made out of cardboard, parts attached with chicken wire – these are some of the features of the gimmicky ‘flying machines’ that took off from a 20-foot ramp and then plunge into the chilly waters of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, London, on Saturday. Red Bull’s “Flugtag 2008” is a competition in which home inventors “fly” their machines as far as they can off the starting ramp, while winning points for style, in an homage to the pioneers of aviation, the Daily Telegraph reported. But no matter how far they go, all will eventually meet a cold, watery end....
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DUANESBURG, N.Y. - A 29-year-old man leaped out of a plane at 10,000 feet with a camera but no parachute Saturday. His body was found next to a house with a damaged roof, police said. Sloan Carafello of Schenectady, who was observing on the flight, followed an instructor, student and videographer out the door, wearing no skydiving gear, officials said. Police said they did not suspect foul play but would not elaborate. Robert Rawlins, pilot and owner of the Duanesburg Skydiving Club, said he was flying the single-engine plane and had begun to close the door when Carafello jumped. His...
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Where would you like to visit if you decided to go to china ? Is there anybody here who has been to Beijing China? which scenery spot is the most attractive one ?
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If you've ever had your ***** cut off and/or been executed while on holiday, you'll probably know that it's easy to offend people from other cultures. Unless you learn the ways of the place you're visiting, even the most well-meaning tourist can regularly find his oesophagus stuffed with burning goat. But surely just plain common sense and good manners will save you, right? Wrong. [WARNING: Foul language. Lots of foul language. Lots of really, really foul language.]
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Just as the official Summer Olympics get underway in Beijing on June 21, an ancient athletic stadium at a UC Berkeley archaeological site in Greece that was home to the original Panhellenic Games will once again come alive with competition. The Nemean Games revived footraces held in the village of Ancient Nemea every four years since 1996, are not for trained athletes, but for anyone worldwide who wants to run. There will be a 100-meter sprint on the fourth-century clay track on June 21 and a 7.5- kilometer race the following day from the ancient temple of Herakles near the...
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My wife has a converter that can be set for either 50w or 1600w. I realize (I think) that e.g. a hair dryer uses higher wattage. I suspect that if she plugs in the hair dryer but sets the converter at 50w, she will have a problem. However, what if she sets it at 1600w but plugs in a low wattage device, such as telephone charger? Is that a problem as well? If not, why couldn't she just leave it always at 1600W? Thanks.
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In a back office of Portland City Hall almost 40 years ago, a young aide to then Portland City Commissioner Neil Goldschmidt took pen to pad and wrote "Disincentives to the Automobile." This left-wing blueprint of environmental social engineering became the bible of Portland's urban utopian planning. Eventually, when Goldschmidt became the U.S. Secretary of Transportation in the Carter Administration, the dogma of "disincentives" went global. The aim of "Disincentives to the Automobile" was to make the driving of cars so cost-prohibitive, so miserable and so inconvenient that the populace would minimize or stop driving altogether. Meanwhile, the liberal "smart...
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WELLFLEET — Local historians for decades thought the 30-foot tall lighthouse that once overlooked Wellfleet Harbor had been taken down and destroyed in 1925. Turns out, it had just been moved to the California coast. The fate of the cast-iron tower was uncovered last year by lighthouse researchers and reported by Colleen MacNeney in this month's edition of Lighthouse Digest. MacNeney told the Cape Cod Times in Wednesday's edition it was her most exciting discovery. Wellfleet historian Helen Purcell says the discovery of the lighthouse at Point Montara at the southern end of San Francisco Bay was a genuine shock....
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LEONA VALLEY - Hundreds of cherry lovers wound their way into the hills west of Palmdale on Saturday to gather some of the first fruit of the cherry season. A handful of cherry growers have opened their orchards for the season. Many more are expected to open within the week, said Joe Lucida, the owner of Amber's Sweet Cherries on Leona Avenue and vice president of the Leona Valley Cherry Growers Association. "It's been kind of cool. It's slowed the ripening process," Lucida said. Amber's could open its gates for the "u-pick" season on Saturday because about 30% of his...
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