Spanish Tragedy

Underneath the main square in Ecija, Spain archeologists found a historical treasure. They found well-persevered bath houses, statues, mosaics, temples and more. They had located the lost city of Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi. The city had a population of 30,000 and ruled the olive oil trade during the time of the Roman Empire. Products from Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi where found as far away as Britain and Rome.

So what did the socialist city council decide to do with this find? They decided to destroy it for an underground car garage. The council’s one concession to scientists was that a small section would be spared to show off to tourists. Shame!

The London Times wrote about this horror which made me sick. Sure they were digging at first for the car garage but keeping the ruins could have been much more advantageous for the city. Archeologists and others would have flooded the area, brining money along with them, to see and study the ruins. Some of the art work could have been donated to museums or sold. There were many historical, economic, and other benefits that have been lost.

Then again this should not be surprising from Spain. The Socialists' motto should be: Monkeys over people, cars over science.

For those wanting to know how exciting archeological discoveries can be I recommend Eyewitness to Discovery. The book has over fifty, first-person accounts by archeologists as they discovery ruins all across the world. It is a great read. I can only picture what Colonia Augusta Firma Astigi's story would be called, probably something like "Lost, Found, Destroyed."

Bias note: I was a tourist participant in an archeological dig of an early-1800s town dump. One of the most interesting things we found was pieces of old dishware. The dishware we found we marked "York." The head scientist told us that dishware from England was popular for those on the outer edges of American civilization. British industries had extremely fast shipping to the hinterlands in order to please their customers. I learned all this from one fragment of a dish and a wise archeologist. Because of this experience I have love of archeology.

Category: Archaeology

NASA World Wind

Mars in NASA World Wind

Google Earth has called down the thunder; NASA will reap the whirlwind. World Wind that is. Without my knowing until very recently I had no idea NASA had an open-source competitor to Google Earth name World Wind.

I have been trying the software and here are my thoughts:

Positive: Not only does this thing have Earth but it also has globes for the Moon, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, one of Jupiter’s moons, and a star map. Multiple layers can be used to show different colors and details. The 3D imagery is better than Google's so-so 3D. The transition from far away to close up is done with multiple graphics giving a smooth look rather than Google's jagged look.

Really Positive: One can upload real-time weather effects. One can also adjust the time, day, and year of the globe in order to view eclipse shadows on the surface the Earth. An added layer on the Earth is topographic maps! Do you know how cool that is?

Bad: The menu system can be confusing as heck. Do I want pseudo-color or urban area orthographic? Many people, including me sometimes, just don't know. Zooming in is disorientating at first with load times taking forever. When one looks at other planets in the program confusion reaches fever pitch. Finally, if anyone figures out star map please tell me. I have no idea what is going on (see comments for help on this).

I think I'll stick to Google Earth for the time being as my primary map software but World Wind will have its place for topographic and extra-terra exploration.

Final Review Grade: 3.5 out of 5

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Update: Load times are a pain but they are getting better.

Spanish Socialists’ Mixed Up Priorities

I have some Spanish readers: Tell me what you think of this.
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Some members of Spain's ruling Socialist Party are petitioning the government in general to grant human rights to great apes. The Socialists claim since apes and humans are 99% similar and genetic material and are emotional beings they should be granted human rights.

Now Catholicgauze has no problem with increased protections for animals. I believe that since humans are the owners of the Earth we have been ordained to be the lesser creatures manager. The problem begins with granting animals human rights.

Problem 1) With human rights come human responsibilities. Are they apes now subject to criminal and civil law? Can they be jailed? Since Europe does not have free speech can making fun of a monkey be considered a hate crime?

Problem 2) With human rights come human privileges. Will apes be allowed to vote? Not allowing them would make them second-class citizens.

Problem 3) Not all humans have rights. Racism and other issues are problems in Spain as elsewhere. Most importantly, abortion is legal in Spain. The hypocrisy of claiming close genetic material is shown when human beings are denied the right to live out of convenience! The Catholic Church in Spain has pointed this out.

Spain elected this government out of fear of al Qaeda. It seems this madness is deep rooted.

Virtually Traveling the World

As readers know I am a fan of panoramic photography of places around the world. Places like San Juan Mountains, Pairs, and Mecca have been covered by me and that does not include the photograph project of the United Kingdom blogged by me.

I wanted to find some panoramic images of Eastern Europe but then I found World Wide Panorama. This has place has tons of panoramic images from around the world. One can either view and select pictures via their map or download their Google Earth placemarks file.

There are way too many to even create a sampling for you so just go to the site or click on the random selection. Enjoy, because I sure did!

Category: Virtually Travelling the World

Catfishing with RPGs!

This blog needs a little humor so I present to you this video which has been going around the internet.

The video shows Afghan security forces fishing with a rocket propelled grenade! Usually this type of hardwire is used to shoot down Black Hawk helicopters but I guess Afghanistan is the Arkansas (no offense) of the terrorist world.

I don't think I'll be using this technique next time I go fishing.

France needs babies!

Depopulation in France and the rest of Europe is finally getting people's attention. The government is offering money and tax incentives to have three or more children. Right now France has a relatively high (for European standards) birth rate of 1.9. That includes; however, the non-Frenchified immigrants (read: those who like to burn cars) who have large families which skew the average. Only time will tell if the effort to begat more French will work.

The Medieval Christianity Cosmos

Almost all of us are familiar with the zodiac and the cosmos according to the ancient Western civilizations and maybe even the Chinese zodiac. And while I was well aware of Christian cosmetology I never knew about any Christian efforts to completely co-opt the constellations and zodiac.

That is until I was given the chance to go on a private tour of the Library of Congress' Map Collection (very poor online version). During the tour I saw an atlas which depicted the heavens in the most vivid color with saints, angels, and Noah's Ark included.

I forgot the title of the atlas and thought my new found knowledge was lost. But because of the power of Google I can now tell you the title of the book was the Harmonia Macrocosmica, which was created by Andreas Cellarius. Some of the book can be viewed here. Another work of Christian cosmetology was Coelum Stellatum Christianum by Julius Schiller. A complete copy of the atlas can be found here with the maps starting here and a complete sky map here.

The efforts to Christianize the heavens have failed, or so many think. Anyone who points out the constellation of Orion believes this. However, in some places including South America, Orion is named after the three Mary’s of the New Testament. The reason is religious geography. These two efforts to baptize the stars were made in the 1600s, well after the Protestant reformation and Church of England split. Traditional Catholic areas like South America would adopt these heavenly ideas, the Protestant countries would ignore them as being the work of "Papists," and areas hit by the Renaissance would have favored the classical depiction and forgot about the Christian efforts during the Age of Enlightenment.

Maps and atlases are always an interesting way to view not only their depictions but also the world in which the works were created.