Pagans believe that nature is
sacred and that the natural cycles of birth, growth and death observed
in the world around us carry profoundly spiritual meanings. Human
beings are seen as part of nature, along with other animals, trees,
stones, plants and everything else that is of this earth. |
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Mound Builders Many pre-Columbian cultures in North America were collectively termed "Mound Builders", but the term has no formal meaning. It does not refer to specific people or archaeological culture but refers to the characteristic mound earthworks that indigenous peoples erected for an extended period of more than 5,000 years. The "Mound Builder" cultures span the period of roughly 3500 BCE (the construction of Watson Brake) to the 16th century CE, including the Archaic period (Horr's Island), Woodland period (Caloosahatchee, Adena and Hopewell cultures), and Mississippian period. Geographically, the cultures were present in the region of the Great Lakes, the Ohio River Valley, Florida, and the Mississippi River Valley and its tributary waters. Mound usage: Conical mounds were frequently constructed primarily for mortuary purposes. Rectangular, flat-topped mounds were primarily built as a platform for a building such as a temple or residence for a chief. Many later mounds were used to bury important people. Mounds are often believed to have been used to escape flooding. |
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According to Guinness World
Records, the title of world's oldest pyramid is shared between the
Djoser Step Pyramid of Saqqara, Egypt, built in approximately 2630 B.C.
and the Caral Pyramids of Caral, Peru, built between 2700 and 2600 B.C. |
The 8000-Year-Old Dufuna Canoe
Note the following: the design of the Dufuna Canoe with its SHARP Prow and Streamline shape is far advanced of anything else in the World for perhaps thousands of years to come. Sadly, noting the deteriorated condition of the boat in the museum, the modern people are not as advanced. The Dufuna Canoe was found on May 28, 1987 by a local Fulani herdsman, who, in search of pastures, entered one of the barren valleys in the northern Yobe State region of Northern Nigeria. Dufuna is next to the Komadugu Gana River in Yobe State’s Fune local government area. The boat was located five metres below the surface of the land. It had various changes towards the top and measured 8.4 metres long, 0.5 metres wide, and roughly 5 cm thick. It is said to be the oldest boat in both Africa and the entire world, dating back at least 8000 years (6000 BC). The boat was successfully removed from the ground in March 1998 due to the efforts and cooperation of archaeologists from German and Nigerian universities. The Dufuna Canoe was found water-logged on a sandy base with intermittent intervals of clay and inaccessible to oxygen; circumstances most favourable for most organic materials, as described by Abubakar Garba, an associate professor of archaeology at the Centre for Trans-Saharan Studies, University of Maiduguri in Borno state. The National Commission for Museums and Monuments (NCMM) constructed a museum complex in Damaturu, the capital of Yobe State, where the unearthed canoe is displayed. |
Words for Crackers to ponder while perusing the Trump years:
A people that elect corrupt politicians, imposters, thieves and traitors are not victims... but accomplices. George Orwell, 1903-1950, British writer. |
After the GOP lost the presidential election in 2012, the Republican National Committee mounted an autopsy that it called the “most comprehensive post-election review” ever made of an electoral loss. That postmortem concluded that the party had a weak message and a lousy ground game and needed to better pitch its policies to reach out to women, voters of color, and gay Americans. Of course, the party did none of that and in 2016 allowed itself to become a cult that celebrated a bigoted and misogynistic demagogue with little allegiance to principle or policy. Now in the aftermath of the GOP’s 2020 loss, rather than conduct another dissection, the party is feasting on its own entrails, as it reconfirms it is mostly a party for pissed-off white people who are obsessed with grievances, real or imagined. Following Joe Biden’s victory, no GOP leader has suggested the party ought to take a hard look at itself. Donald Trump continues to reign supreme within Republican and conservative circles. The RNC retained Ronna McDaniel, a Trump loyalist, as its chairperson. Congressional Rs act as if the Trump-inspired attack on the Capitol didn’t happen. (Though Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell blamed Trump for inciting the seditious riot, he subsequently said he would support Trump should he become the GOP’s presidential nominee in 2024.) It’s no surprise that Republican pols who acted cravenly during the Trump years are continuing to genuflect before the former president, who still holds sway with their party’s base. But the real sign of the party’s debasement is that base. Many of these people, to put it kindly, are living within a world of paranoid psychosis. And the GOP has become a vehicle to exploit and fuel their irrational resentment. Look at this survey that came out a few days ago. The Pew Research Center surveyed Americans on their beliefs about discrimination. Asked if there is “a lot” of discrimination against Black people, 17 percent of Republicans agreed. Yet 26 percent of Republicans said there is “a lot” of bias against white people. An additional 37 percent of Republicans noted that there is “some” discrimination against white folks. Hold on. Republicans, as a group, think white people more than Black people are the targets of racism? That’s what the poll indicates. And a quarter of Republicans also believe evangelical Christians confront “a lot” of discrimination, and only 12 percent said Hispanic people have to deal with this level of bias. (Seventy-one percent of Democrats said there was a great amount of discrimination against Black people, and a negligible amount of Ds concurred that whites face significant bias.) About 83 percent of Republicans are white (with 3 percent or so Black), and one out of four Republicans believe that white people have to contend with powerful forces of discrimination. This is 50 percent more than the number of GOPers who recognize that Black people encounter substantial discrimination. That is a stark departure from reality—and a disturbing view into the mindset of many Republicans. As far as they see it, they (or white people in general) are the injured party. And with that distorted perspective, these Americans, naturally, will turn to champions who signal that they realize this. This grievance—we are the victims—has become the core notion of the GOP. |
Donald Trump is trying to leverage a Supreme Court decision holding that presidents are immune from federal prosecution for official actions to overturn his conviction in a New York State criminal case. A letter to the judge presiding over the New York case was made public on Tuesday. It was filed Monday after the Supreme Court's landmark holding further slowed the former president's criminal cases. "[T]he Trump decision confirmed the defense position that [the district attorney] should not have been permitted to offer evidence at trial of President Trump's official acts," Trump attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote. "The verdicts in this case violate the presidential immunity doctrine and create grave risks of 'an Executive Branch that cannibalizes itself,'" the wrote, quoting from the Supreme Court's decision. "After further briefing on these issues beginning on July 10, 2024, it will be manifest that the trial result cannot stand." Lawyers from Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg's office responded in a letter of their own on Tuesday, telling the judge they disagreed with the Trump attorneys' argument but did not oppose delaying Trump's July 11 sentencing date. They asked for a deadline of July 24 to respond to the defense's motion. Trump's criminal case in New York is the only one of four against him to go to trial. On May 30, a unanimous jury concluded Trump was guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in an effort to cover up reimbursements for a "hush money" payment to an adult film star. Trump signed off on falsifying the records while he was in the White House in 2017. Monday's Supreme Court decision extended broad immunity from criminal prosecutions to former presidents for their official conduct. But the issue of whether Trump was engaged in official acts has already been litigated in his New York case. Trump sought in 2023 to move the case from state to federal jurisdiction. His lawyers argued that the allegations involved official acts within the color of his presidential duties. That argument was rejected by a federal judge who wrote that Trump failed to show that his conduct was "for or relating to any act performed by or for the President under color of the official acts of a president." "The evidence overwhelmingly suggests that the matter was purely a personal item of the president — a cover-up of an embarrassing event," U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein wrote. "Hush money paid to an adult film star is not related to a president's official acts. It does not reflect in any way the color of the president's official duties." Trump initially appealed that decision, but later dropped it. His case went to trial in April, and soon after the jury's unanimous decision finding him guilty, Trump vowed to appeal the conviction. |
Judge dismisses classified documents case against Donald Trump. Mon July 15, 2024. A federal judge on Monday dismissed the classified documents case against Donald Trump, a shock ruling that clears away one of the major legal challenges facing the former president. In a 93-page ruling, District Judge Aileen Cannon said the appointment of special counsel Jack Smith violated the Constitution. She did not rule on whether Trump’s alleged mishandling of classified documents was proper or not. “In the end, it seems the Executive’s growing comfort in appointing ‘regulatory’ special counsels in the more recent era has followed an ad hoc pattern with little judicial scrutiny,” Cannon wrote. The ruling by Cannon, a judge Trump appointed in 2020, comes on the first day of the Republican National Convention and as the nation reels from the failed attempt on Trump’s life over the weekend. Even though a trial before the presidential election was considered highly unlikely, many legal experts had viewed the classified documents case as the strongest one of the four cases that were pending against the former president. Trump on Truth Social said the dismissal “should be just the first step” as he called for the other cases facing him also to be dismissed, claiming that the charges were “political attacks.” In a statement Monday evening, Peter Carr, spokesman for the special counsel’s office, said that the Justice Department has approved plans to appeal. “The dismissal of the case deviates from the uniform conclusion of all previous courts to have considered the issue that the Attorney General is statutorily authorized to appoint a Special Counsel,” Carr said. “The Justice Department has authorized the Special Counsel to appeal the court’s order.” The White House referred requests for comment to the Justice Department. Smith had charged Trump last year with taking classified documents from the White House and resisting the government’s attempts to retrieve the materials. He pleaded not guilty. In a separate criminal case brought by Smith against Trump in Washington, DC, the special counsel was pursuing federal charges stemming from Trump’s attempts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Trump also faces a state-level election subversion case in Georgia and he was convicted of state crimes in New York earlier this year for his role in a hush money payment scheme before the 2016 election. Trump’s efforts to dismiss the case under the appointments clause was seen as a long shot, as several special counsels – even during his own presidential administration – were run the same way. But the fringe argument gained steam when Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas threw his support behind the theory, writing in a footnote in the high court’s presidential immunity decision that there are “serious questions whether the Attorney General has violated that structure by creating an office of the Special Counsel that has not been established by law. Those questions must be answered before this prosecution can proceed he said. |
In 1971, Marco Defunis, a twenty-two-year-old Sephardic Jew and native of Seattle, Washington, brought suit against the University of Washington Law School (UWLS) over its refusal to admit him. An investigation by Defunis’ attorneys into the UWLS’ admission record revealed that the University employed “preferential admissions policies” for minorities, also known as affirmative action policies. Defunis claimed that these policies created a situation in which unqualified minorities were admitted above him, therefore making affirmative action discriminatory against non-minorities. By the time Defunis v Odegaard reached the United States Supreme Court, the issue of the use of affirmative action in university admissions had been catapulted into national debate, with minorities and non-minorities arguing over the validity, necessity, and constitutionality of such policies. In the midst of this debate, the Jewish community found itself in an incredibly tenuous position. Jews, who for decades had been subjected to quotas limiting their participation in education, were now proportionally over-represented in both undergraduate and graduate studies in colleges and universities throughout the nation, thus creating the fear on the part of some that Jews’ hard-won gains might be negatively affected by affirmative action. However, supporting Defunis pitted the Jewish community against other minorities, especially African Americans, who were strong supporters of affirmative action, and threatened the longstanding alliance between Jews and African Americans on issues of civil rights and social justice. |
Picture: Blum and Fisher. In 23-year-old Abigail Noel Fisher they've put forward their version of the perfect plaintiff to challenge the use of race in college admissions decisions. Publicly, Fisher and her supporters, chief among them the conservative activist who conceived of the case, have worked to make Fisher the symbol of racial victimization in modern America. As their narratives goes, she did everything right. She worked hard, received good grades, and rounded out her high school years with an array of extracurricular activities. But she was cheated, they say, her dream snatched away by a university that closed its doors to her because she had been born the wrong color: White. The daughter of suburban Sugar Land, Texas, played the cello. Since the second grade, she said, she dreamed of carrying on the family tradition by joining her sister and father among the ranks of University of Texas at Austin alumni. And the moment for her to lend her name to the lawsuit might never be riper: The Supreme Court has seated its most conservative bench since the 1930s. The Court is expected to issue a decision any week now in what is considered one of the most important civil rights cases in years. On a YouTube video posted by Edward Blum, a 1973 University of Texas graduate whose nonprofit organization is bankrolling the lawsuit, she is soft-spoken, her strawberry blond hair tucked behind one ear. Not even a swipe of lip gloss adorns her girlish face.
"There were people in my class with lower grades who weren't in all the activities I was in, who were being accepted into UT, and the only other difference between us was the color of our skin," she says. "I was taught from the time I was a little girl that any kind of discrimination was wrong. And for an institution of higher learning to act this way makes no sense to me. What kind of example does it set for others?" It's a deeply emotional argument delivered by an earnest young woman, one that's been quoted over and over again. Except there's a problem. The claim that race cost Fisher her spot at the University of Texas isn't really true. In the hundreds of pages of legal filings, Fisher's lawyers spend almost no time arguing that Fisher would have gotten into the university but for her race. If you're confused, it is no doubt in part because of how Blum, Fisher and others have shaped the dialogue as the case worked its way to the country's top court. Journalists and bloggers have written dozens of articles on the case, including profiles of Fisher and Blum. News networks have aired panel after panel about the future of affirmative action. Yet for all the front-page attention, angry debate and exchanges before the justices, some of the more fundamental elements of the case have been little reported. Race probably had nothing to do with the University of Texas's decision to deny admission to Abigail Fisher. In 2008, the year Fisher sent in her application, competition to get into the crown jewel of the Texas university system was stiff. Students entering through the university's Top 10 program — a mechanism that granted automatic admission to any teen who graduated in the upper 10 percent of his or her high school class — claimed 92 percent of the in-state spots. Fisher said in news reports that she hoped for the day universities selected students "solely based on their merit and if they work hard for it." But Fisher failed to graduate in the top 10 percent of her class, meaning she had to compete for the limited number of spaces up for grabs. She and other applicants who did not make the cut were evaluated based on two scores. One allotted points for grades and test scores. The other, called a personal achievement index, awarded points for two required essays, leadership, activities, service and "special circumstances." Those included socioeconomic status of the student or the student's school, coming from a home with a single parent or one where English wasn't spoken. And race. Those two scores, combined, determine admission. Even among those students, Fisher did not particularly stand out. Court records show her grade point average (3.59) and SAT scores (1180 out of 1600) were good but not great for the highly selective flagship university. The school's rejection rate that year for the remaining 841 openings was higher than the turn-down rate for students trying to get into Harvard. As a result, university officials claim in court filings that even if Fisher received points for her race and every other personal achievement factor, the letter she received in the mail still would have said no. It's true that the university, for whatever reason, offered provisional admission to some students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Five of those students were black or Latino.Forty-two were white. Neither Fisher nor Blum mentioned those 42 applicants in interviews. Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher's who were also denied entry into the university that year. Also left unsaid is the fact that Fisher turned down a standard UT offer under which she could have gone to the university her sophomore year if she earned a 3.2 GPA at another Texas university school in her freshman year. In an interview last month, Blum agreed Fisher's credentials and circumstances make it difficult to argue — as he and his supporters have so ardently in public — that but for her race Fisher would have been a Longhorn. "There are some Anglo students who had lower grades than Abby who were admitted also," Blum told ProPublica. "Litigation like this is not a black and white paradigm." Blum started his one-man nonprofit, the Project on Fair Representation, in 2005. The organization is funded by deep-pocketed conservatives to, according to its website, influence "jurisprudence, public policy, and public attitudes regarding race and ethnicity" in voting, education, contracting and employment. To do so, Blum — who is not a lawyer — helps arrange pro bono representation to fight race-based policies that were meant to address inequalities. According to a Reuters profile, Blum has brought at least a dozen lawsuits against such programs and laws — including four that made it to the Supreme Court. He has two on the current docket, Fisher and the Shelby County, Ala., case challenging a key provision of the Voting Rights Act. In the Fisher case, while the young woman may have lent her name to the lawsuit, the case before the Court has very little to do with her. Her name appears just five times in the thousands of words that make up the body of the complaint. She has already gone on to graduate from Louisiana State University, her second choice, and is working in finance at a firm in Austin. Asked by a news reporter what harm she had suffered, she cited only her inability to tap into UT's alumni network and possibly missing out on a better first job. If she wins, Fisher seeks only the return of her application fee and housing deposit — a grand total of $100 in damages. So while the Fisher case has been billed as a referendum on affirmative action, its backers have significantly grander ambitions: They seek to make the case a referendum on the 14th Amendment itself. At issue is whether the Constitution's equal protection clause, drafted by Congress during Reconstruction to ensure the rights of black Americans, also prohibits the use of race to help them overcome the nation's legacy of racism. The Supreme Court has never ruled that the Constitution bars any and all laws and government programs that consider race. But Blum and his supporters, seeing an opening with the current Court, seek to overturn more than a century of precedent. The true crux of the suit is not Fisher's failed application, but that government officials violate the constitutional rights of white Americans when they consider race in a way that might help African-Americans and Latinos. "An argument can be made that it is simply impossible to tease out down to the last student who would have been admitted, and who would have not been admitted, had they been a different skin color," Blum said. "What we know is skin color is weighed and ethnicity is weighed by the University of Texas in their admissions process, and that alone is enough to strike down the plan." Blum and his supporters say the reasoning is simple. The Constitution is colorblind and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits the government from treating people differently because of race. It's an argument first successfully championed by the NAACP and other civil rights groups, most notably in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, in which the Supreme Court declared the notion of "separate but equal" to be a fallacy. "In its history, colorblindness has this progressive, anti-racist push behind it," said Ian Haney-López, a constitutional scholar at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. But following the Brown decision, the very groups that had ardently — and violently — defended laws mandating separation by race used the notion of a colorblind Constitution to challenge court orders to integrate schools. "They began to say, yes, the Constitution is colorblind, and so the state cannot distinguish between races when it tried to remedy segregation," he said. |
...do with race: Fisher, 23 years old and very white, has been suing the University of Texas since 2008, alleging that the affirmative action process kept her out of UT Austin. The case is bankrolled by the Project on Fair Representation, the brainchild of a 60-year-old former stockbroker named Edward Blum. According to a Reuters profile, Blum sought out Fisher, persuaded her to file suit, found her an attorney, and secured thousands in funding from a few sympathetic conservative donors to make sure the case could be appealed to the highest level. (He's done the same for a dozen or so other suits, including Shelby County vs. Holder, which seeks to strike down a law requiring a few select states — Texas among them — to check with the feds before changing election rules.) Fisher's case is currently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, with a decision expected soon. In the meantime, ProPublica took a stroll through thousands of pages of court documents and education records and found that Fisher's public story — about being a hardworking, high-achieving student who was unfairly shut out of her dream school because of her ethnicity— has a few large holes. Nikole Hannah-Jones writes that in 2008, the year Fisher applied, 92 percent of freshman spots in the UT system were claimed by in-state high school students who graduated in the top 10 percent of their classes. That didn't include Fisher, who finished high school in Sugar Land with a 3.59 GPA and 1180 on her SATs, according to court docs. So Fisher and the other remaining applicants were instead evaluated based on two scores: one for her grades and test scores, and the other based on a "personal achievement index," which ProPublica explains awarded points for two required essays, as well "leadership, activities, service and 'special circumstances.' Those included socioeconomic status of the student or the student's school, coming from a home with a single parent or one where English wasn't spoken. And race." School officials say that this is where Fisher's mediocre grades and test scores really dinged her, Hannah-Jones writes: "[E]ven if Fisher received points for her race and every other personal achievement factor, the letter she received in the mail still would have said no." And yet: the school did offer "provisional" admission to students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Black and brown kids, surely, right? Wrong. Five of those "provisional" students, according to court docs, were black or Latino. The rest of them —42 in all — were white. As Hannah-Jones points out, neither Fisher nor her backer Blum saw fit to mention those 42 accepted white kids in interviews: Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher's who were also denied entry into the university that year. Also left unsaid is the fact that Fisher turned down a standard UT offer under which she could have gone to the university her sophomore year if she earned a 3.2 GPA at another Texas university school in her freshman year. In an interview last month, Blum agreed Fisher's credentials and circumstances make it difficult to argue — as he and his supporters have so ardently in public — that but for her race Fisher would have been a Longhorn. "There are some Anglo students who had lower grades than Abby who were admitted also," Blum told ProPublica. "Litigation like this is not a black and white paradigm." Hannah-Jones also does an excellent job showing how Blum's group has used civil rights-era tactics to advance an agenda that, if successful, would drastically roll back civil rights gains in the U.S. They've chosen the right historical moment to take this case before the Supreme Court, she writes: "[A]s the Supreme Court's make-up has grown more conservative, it has taken up a steady stream of so-called reverse discrimination cases, in which white plaintiffs have argued that race-specific measures born of the civil rights movement discriminate against white Americans and violate the 14th Amendment." Fisher, meanwhile, graduated from Lousiana State University last year. She recently took a job at an Austin finance firm. Her name appears a grand total of five times in the lengthy complaint with the Supreme Court filed on her behalf. But as the Supreme Court's make-up has grown more conservative, it has taken up a steady stream of so-called reverse discrimination cases, in which white plaintiffs have argued that race-specific measures born of the civil rights movement discriminate against white Americans and violate the 14th Amendment. Supreme Court decisions have eroded programs and laws that use race to remedy inequalities, but not eliminated them altogether. And in a 2003 opinion written by centrist Sandra Day O'Connor, the justices narrowly upheld affirmative action in college admissions when it is the only means to ensure diversity. But the Court's make-up changed in what scholars consider a significant way when Samuel Alito, considered the third most conservative Supreme Court justice since 1937, replaced O'Connor in 2006. Since then, several justices have made their constitutional disdain for race-conscious programs known. In a controversial 2007 decision, Chief Justice John Roberts sent a clear message when he used the equal protection argument at play in Brown v. Board of Education to strike down voluntary desegregation plans in schools. Evoking a colorblind Constitution, Roberts said, "The way to stop discriminating on the basis of race, is to stop discriminating on the basis of race." And just last month during oral arguments over the constitutionality of a key aspect of the Voting Rights Act, Justice Antonin Scalia derisively called what's considered the most successful civil rights law in history a "racial entitlement." Public opinion on race has changed over time as well. In the 1950s, surveys show, most white Americans believed that black Americans faced substantial discrimination but that they themselves experienced little. Today, despite gaping disparities between black and white Americans in income, education, health care, homeownership, employment and college admissions, a majority of white Americans now believe they are just as likely, or more likely, to face discrimination as black Americans. Blum chose the University of Texas to mount what could be a decisive challenge to affirmative action in college admissions because it already had what was regarded as a "race-neutral" process — the Top 10 program. Since many Texas high schools remain segregated, taking the top 10 percent of students from black and Latino high schools ensured a substantial population of students of color at the UT. As a consequence, Blum believed he could challenge whether the additional use of race to fill out the entering class passed constitutional muster. To get standing in court, Blum needed a victim. That's when he started looking for a version of the Brown family, someone who could represent the arguable hurt caused when public officials used race. This approach, too, mirrors an NAACP tactic from half a century ago. Then, knowing the Supreme Court was unlikely to throw out segregation in one fell swoop, the civil rights group brought a narrower challenge to segregated school facilities first. One of those cases, ironically, targeted the same university as Blum — the University of Texas at Austin. The university, which had been closed to black students since its founding, denied the law school application of Heman Marion Sweatt because the state constitution required that black and white students attend separate schools. Because Texas had no black law school, the NAACP sued, arguing that the state violated the constitutional mandate to provide equal facilities for black and white students. The Supreme Court ruled that the hastily put together black law school created to avoid admitting Sweatt could not possibly be equal. It ordered Texas to admit Sweatt as its first black student in 1950. That suit launched the stone that would shatter separate but equal just four years later when the Court struck down segregation in schools in Brown. Blum and his supporters hope to use the Fisher case, and the 14th Amendment challenge to the Voting Rights Act that Blum is also behind, in the same way. According to Blum, the Constitution sees affirmative action policies — in college, in contracting, in employment — and Jim Crow laws as twin evils. "I don't see the distinction," he said. But several constitutional scholars interviewed for this piece dispute this notion. Neil Siegel of Duke University called this interpretation of the 14th Amendment "perverse." Georgetown law professor Girardeau A. Spann called it "discriminatory." While the 14th Amendment doesn't mention race, the drafters went on to pass race-specific legislation aimed at helping former slaves and other black Americans overcome more than a century of racial oppression. Erwin Chemerinsky, founding dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, said that the concept of colorblindness holds great rhetorical appeal but that "there is no basis for concluding that the 14th Amendment equal protection clause requires colorblindness." In drafting the 14th Amendment, he said, Congress recognized "an enormous difference between a white majority disadvantaging minorities and a white majority acting to remedy past discrimination." Conservatives challenging these types of programs purport to champion the legacy of the civil rights movement, Haney-Lopez said, but the historical roots of their efforts are much more cynical. "I think that is incredibly important that people realize that today's proponents of colorblindness pretend that they are the heirs to Thurgood Marshall and John Marshall Harlan," he said. "But that is a lie. They are the heirs of Southern resistance to integration. And the colorblindness arguments that they use come directly from the Southern efforts to defeat Brown v. Board of Education." Ilya Shapiro, a senior constitutional studies fellow at the Cato Institute, which filed an amicus brief supporting Fisher, thinks otherwise. "I am not going to speak to anyone else's motives. It is unfair to paint people with the Jim Crow brush because they have those kinds of arguments," he said. "I don't like people being judged based on the color of their skin." If a program "treats people different because one has a different skin color, I find that offensive and I think the Constitution does as well." But when asked why the drafters created programs targeted to black Americans if they did not intend the Constitution to allow the government to use race to help minority groups, Shapiro said, "It was a curious period." At the same time Congress drafted the equal protection clause, he said, it also "voted for segregated schools in the District of Columbia." That example is the very same one that segregationists Strom Thurmond and Richard Brevard Russell used when they drafted the 1956 Southern Manifesto urging officials to resist the Supreme Court's use of the equal protection clause to overturn school segregation. The impact of a ruling that bans all racial considerations by universities, employers and governments "could have devastating impact on the ability to overcome past inequalities," Siegel said. Few experts think Blum and his supporters are apt to win that big a victory in the Fisher case. And so he will likely be on the hunt again for another case, and another perfect plaintiff. |
Modern Map of Turkey (since 1923) Headquarters of Ottoman Empire before WW-1: Anatolia and Kingdoms before that. Note the location of Harran, the Home of Abramaic Religious peoples: i.e. Hebrews, Christians, Muslems. |
Possible routes to Canaan
A map showing possible routes taken by Abraham from Mesopotamia to Canaan, and by Moses and the Hebrews in their exodus from Egypt to Canaan. Encyclopĉdia Britannica, Inc. |
Please remember that the Bible is not a history book, it is a book about the Christian Religion.
Other Religions have their own Bibles, often calling theirs by other names. And be SURE to understand that it is NOT about the real HEBREW religion; if it were, then the Albinos in the Vatican and in Israel would have shared the contents of "The Dead Sea Scrolls" long ago, because then they would MATCH, which they DON'T. The evidence indicates that what the Albinos offer is quite different from the original Hebrew Religion. Genesis 11: King James Version
11:10 These are the generations of Shem: Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after the flood: 11 - And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years, and begat sons and daughters. Skip 12 - 23 (Note: Terah's Son and the City they call Home are Both called Haran/Harran) 24 - And Nahor lived nine and twenty years, and begat Terah: 25 - And Nahor lived after he begat Terah an hundred and nineteen years, and begat sons and daughters. 26 - And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 - Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran ; and Haran begat Lot. 28 - And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees. 29 - And Abram and Nahor took them wives: the name of Abram's wife was Sarai; and the name of Nahor's wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran, the father of Milcah, and the father of Iscah. 30 - But Sarai was barren; she had no child. 31 - And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran his son's son, and Sarai his daughter in law, his son Abram's wife; and they went forth with them from Ur of the Chaldees, to go into the land of Canaan; and they came unto Haran, and dwelt there. 32 - And the days of Terah were two hundred and five years: and Terah died in Haran. Genesis 12 - King James Version 12:1 Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee: 2 - And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: 3 - And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed. 4 - So Abram departed, as the Lord had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran. 5 - And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came. 6 - And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. 7 - And the Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him. 8 - And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord, and called upon the name of the Lord. 9 - And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south. 10 - And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land. 11 - And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon: 12 - Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive. 13 - Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee. 14 - And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair. 15 - The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house. 16 - And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels. 17 - And the Lord plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife. 18 And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife? 19 - Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way. 20 - And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.
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Just
to make your head hurt: The main Gods of the Canaanite religion was EL
and BAL or Ba'al as in The Great Carthaginian General Hannibal. Worst
yet, the name "Israel" means "God Contended" in the Phoenician
language. Israel history: The Phoenician kingdom of Tyre, was made an ally through the marriage of Omri's son Ahab, to the Tyrian princess Jezebel. However, the establishment of a temple to the pagan god Baal (one of the main Canaanite gods), for Jezebels use. And Jezebels attempts to spread the cult of Baal, aroused great opposition on the part of the zealous Yahwists (Yahway - the Hebrew name for God), among the common people. There was also resentment at the despotic manner of Ahabs rule, which was though to have been incited by Jezebel. She and her cult were challenged by the prophet Elijah - One of Elijah's disciples Elisha, organized the slaughter of Jezebel, Ahab and the whole royal family, as well as all worshippers of Baal. This put a stop to the Baalist threat. "Jehu" Elisha's co-conspirator, and Jehoram's general, who had led this massacre. Became king and established a dynasty that lasted almost a century (842–745 B.C.), the longest in the history of Israel. |
Surely we do not need to point out that the figures of Hebrews are figures of Black People. |
These seem to have been a nomadic desert people, who moved systematically in from the west. Their homeland was northwest of Sumer in the area stretching from the west bank of the Euphrates River on westward along the northern fringe of the Syrian Desert. The Sumerians called this land "Tidnum". From the early part of the second millennium B.C. onward, these people became more aggressive.
These Amorites were already well known to the Sumerians. They described them as, "people who know not grain and do not live in houses". These Amorite people will come to have a great impact in Mesopotamia, and in Egypt - where they will become known as Habiru or Hebrew!Sumerian History: After Shulgi died, his son Shu-Sin (2038 B.C.),
became king, he also had himself deified. More wars were fought with
the Amorites. Shu-Sin lost Assyria and erected a huge wall between the
Tigris and Euphrates rivers, just north of Babilla, to help keep out
the Amorites. The wall was 170 miles long, and breached the banks of
both rivers. He also campaigned in the Zagros mountains and defeated a
coalition of local tribes there. He had extensive trade relations with
the Indus Valley and elsewhere. Later he had to build additional walls
around the cities of Ur and Nippur, to protect against the Amorites.
It was later, during the reign of Ibbi-Sin, the fifth ruler of Ur III, that raiders from the Mardu tribe (Amorites), finally broke through the walls. This resulted in widespread panic, and a general breakdown in communications throughout the Empire. Even before that, Ibbi-Sin's situation was insecure and even pathetic at times, throughout much of his reign. With this Amorite attack, the realm began to disintegrate almost immediately. Much of the time Ibbi-Sin was left confined to his capital city of Ur.
The Elamite city of Eshnunna, broke away in 2028 B.C,
and the rest of Elam the next year. The Ensi's of most of his cities
deserted him, and fended for themselves against the Amorites who were
ravaging Sumer. Seeing this, one of Ibbi-Sin's generals, Ishbi-Erra,
rebelled and was given rule over the city of Isin in an attempt to
placate him.
As time goes on, ever more wars are fought. Then in the previously unimportant Amorite city of Babilla, (later called Babylon), in the northern part of Sumer, One "Hammurabi" became's king. When Hammurabi succeeded his father, "Sin-muballit" as king of Babylon in 1792 B.C, he was still young. But as was customary in Mesopotamian royal courts of the time, he probably already had been entrusted with some official duties in the administration of the city.
So when he became king, he was ready to hit the ground running. He spent the next 29 years building coalitions and conquering other cities and territories, thereby building Babylon into a powerful state. The next 20 years were a time of relative calm. But the last 14 years of his life were spent in almost constant warfare. It should be understood that Amorite rule in Sumer, was not the result of invasion and conquest alone, but rather, the result of coalition building and conquest, as attested to by this excerpt of a letter found in Mari.
“There is no king who is powerful for himself: with Hammurabi, ‘the man of Babylon,' go 10 or 15 kings, so with Rim-Sin, ‘the man of Larsa'; with Ibalpiel, ‘the man of Eshunna,' go 20 kings.”
Samsuiluna, the son of Hammurabi, took control even before the death of his father, who had a long illness. But an outburst of revolts followed the death of Hammurapi, and this led to the disintegration of the Amorite Empire. Although he fought vigorously, Samsuiluna lost all but Babylonia proper, but Babylon still had some power.
It appears that whatever arrangements and coalitions Hammurabi had made which allowed for Amorite rule, also died with him. For the Sumerians, revolt was in order, not only because of their ancient tradition of independence, but also because of the heavy-handedness of Babylon's policy's and the economic drain on the people.
Soon after, Samsuiluna also had to fight an adventurer who called himself Rim-Sin II of Larsa - for five years. Most of this fighting took place on the Elam/Sumer border, finally Rim-Sin II was captured and executed. The Elamite city of Eshnunna had sided with him, and so it's ruler "Anni" was also captured and strangled in Babylon.
During this war, Samsuiluna had pulled down the walls of Ur, set fire to the temples and partially destroyed the city. He did the same to Uruk. It's assumed that these cities also had sided with Rim-Sin II. Once again Elam, upon seeing weakness, invaded and sacked the two of them, taking away a statue of Inanna from Uruk.
A few years later (1732 B.C.), One Iluma-Ilu - pretending to be a descendent of Damiq-Ilishu, the last King of Isin, took the throne of Isin and declared independence. He ultimately gained the freedom of Sumer south of Nippur, and founded the Dynasty of the “Sealand” (the southern region of Sumer). Also called Chaldea, (see; biblical Ur of the Chaldees). When the Hatti had sacked Babylon, the Amorite dynasty of Hammurabi was at an end.Sadly, but as one would expect, Hammurabi's code as Translated by L. W. King, and which is the translation universally cited by Whites - Is A Racist Lie. << Click Here for an explanation and the correct translation. >> |
The Code of Hammurabi
The Code of Hammurabi is one of the oldest deciphered writings of length in the world (written c. 1754 BCE), and features a code of law from ancient Babylon in Mesopotamia. The Code consisted of 282 laws, with punishments that varied based on social status (slaves, free men, and property owners). It seems that anything to do with the origins of JEWS is strictly off-limits. Just try to get the "Etymology of Hammurabi" - all of the Google responses are nonsense. Hammu no doubt refers to a God: Rabi/Rabbi in Judaism is a person qualified by academic studies of the Hebrew Bible and the Talmud to act as spiritual leader and religious teacher of a Jewish community or congregation. Relating back to Hammurabi's code, there can be no doubt that the tradition of a Rabbi being a teacher instead of a Priest is rooted in Hammurabi's example. |
There had been a big building boom in Egypt during the 12th dynasty. Many temples were built and much other construction work was done. This created a need for more workers, and many of the workers that answered the call, were the highly skilled workers of Mesopotamia. Prominent among these, would be the Amorites, (who are now out of work). They are known in Egypt as "Hapiru" (one who sells his services), this word Hapiru will later become "Hebrew". The large-scale immigration of these foreigners into the Nile Valley during the Middle Kingdom, eventually spelled the end of the Middle Kingdom in Egypt.
Because these foreigners had maintained their identity as "Asiatic's" and had not become Egyptians, they felt empowered to establish their own communities and live by their own laws. Eventually, as their numbers increased, they challenged the power of the Egyptian monarchy itself, and Egypt fell into disarray. We do not known exactly how the "Hyksos" took northern Egypt, but took it they did. The middle and last part of the Second Intermediate Period (15th-17th dynastys) saw northern Egypt ruled by these foreign kings for hundreds of years.
During this time, Egypt was never under the control of a single monarch, but consisted largely of independent states under a variety of kings. The Egyptians called the foreign kings of northern Egypt - Heka-Khaswt - there is argument as to whether this translates to "Shepherd Kings" or "Rulers of the Foreign Lands." The Greeks later perverted this word to Hyksos. It might be of interest to note that in Sumer, the king was known in their hymns and poems as "the good Shepherd".
This second intermediate period, lasted for hundreds of years, until king "Tao" of Thebes took to battle in order to re-unify Egypt. After he fell in battle, his son Kamose carried on. King Kamose's throne name, Wadj-kheper-re means: "Flourishing is the Manifestation of Re". As Kamose picked up the battle-axe from his father, in the war against the Hyksos, he tried to motivate the Egyptian people to break the status quo, but it was a hard task, their fighting spirit wasn't high. The Hyksos had apparently been good neighbors, they had incorporated Egyptian gods into their religious pantheon, and had many commercial agreements with Egyptians in upper Egypt. They were people who had lived in Egypt for hundreds of years, and aside from their desire to build their nation with the Pharaohs land, were in all other ways tolerable.
In order to hold-off the oncoming Egyptian army, the old Hyksos king, "Apepi I" tried to make an alliance with the Nubians (people south of Egypt), and engage King Kamose in a two-front war, but it didn't work out as planned. Instead the Nubians joined forces with Kamose and headed north to expel the Hyksos. However, all Egyptians did not support expulsion of the Hyksos, and these people were treated as traitors.
This answer suggests that it took the Hebrews 350 years to finally settle in Canaan. It is a sad joke to see Turk Albinos and their Mulattoes try to find believable lies to associate themselves with Palestine. Then of course once one group of Albinos or Mulattoes have found such a lie, the entire Albino world will jump-on in support. After all, the turning of Black history into Albino history is everybody's business. Palestine was a CITY and the home of the Philistines, as sanctioned by Ramesses III who defeated them. It did NOT become a geographical area until 1988. Note the map, There is no Palestine and the Philistine States occupied the area that is now the Gaza Strip. |
Watch out for Racist Translations!Here we must pause and caution against using any translation of ancient texts without crosschecking it with others. In this case, the Racist Degenerates at the University of Chicago once again reveal their vile nature by conveniently leaving out Ethiopian as a possible origin of the Hebrews. The reason is quite simple, though the simple-minded might be fooled into believing that Cretans, Egyptians, Assyrians and Solymi were Albinos: Even the dumbest knows that Ethiopians are Black. Do NOT use this Translation! http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Histories/5A*.html _____________________________________________________________________ This translation at Tufts University seems Okay. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0080%3Abook%3D5%3Achapter%3D2 |
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Seljuk Az Dingling Bulgars Esegel Barsils Alat Basmyl |
Onogurs Saragurs Sabirs Shatuo Ongud Göktürks Oghuz Turks |
Kanglys Khazars Kipchaks Kurykans Kumans Pechenegs Karluks Tiele |
Tukhsi Yenisei Kirghiz Chigils Toquz Oghuz Orkhon Uyghurs |
Yagma Nushibi Duolu Kutrigurs Utigurs Yabaku Yueban Bulaqs |
Xueyantuo Torks Chorni Klobuky Berendei Yemeks Turgesh |
There are TWO main types of Jews/Khazars: Ashkenazi and Sephardi.
Ashkenazi is Jewish person of central or eastern European descent, traditionally speaking Yiddish. About 80 percent of Jewish people today are Ashkenazim. Sephardi - In the narrower ethnic definition, a Sephardi Jew is one descended from the Jews who lived in the Iberian Peninsula in the late 15th century, immediately prior to the issuance of the Alhambra Decree of 1492 by order of the Catholic Monarchs in Spain, and the decree of 1496 in Portugal by order of King Manuel I. Mizrahi (in Hebrew, “Eastern” or “Oriental”) Jews come from Middle Eastern ancestry. Their earliest communities date from Late Antiquity, and the oldest and largest of these communities were in modern Iraq (Babylonia), Iran (Persia), and Yemen. Today, most Mizrahi Jews live either in Israel or the United States. Crypto-Jews. Crypto-Judaism is the secret adherence to Judaism while publicly professing to be of another faith; practitioners are referred to as "crypto-Jews" (origin from Greek kryptos – κρυπτός, 'hidden'). The term is especially applied historically to Spanish and Portuguese Jews who outwardly professed Catholicism, also known as Conversos, Marranos, or the Anusim. The phenomenon is especially associated with medieval Spain, following the Massacre of 1391 and the expulsion of the Jews in 1492. After 1492 in Spain and 1497 in Portugal, officially they no longer existed. The Spanish Inquisition and the Portuguese Inquisition were established to monitor converted Jews and their descendants for their continued adherence to Christian faith and practice, with severe penalties for those convicted of secretly continuing to practice Judaism. Information about secretly observant Jews largely survives in Inquisition cases against individuals. |
The Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls, also called the Qumran Caves Scrolls, are a set of ancient Jewish manuscripts from the Second Temple period. They were discovered over a period of 10 years, between 1946 and 1956, at the Qumran Caves near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the northern shore of the Dead Sea. Dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest surviving manuscripts of entire books later included in the biblical canons, along with extra-biblical and deuterocanonical manuscripts from late Second Temple Judaism. At the same time, they cast new light on the emergence of Christianity and of Rabbinic Judaism. Almost all of the 15,000 scrolls and scroll fragments are held in the Shrine of the Book at the Israel Museum, located in the city of Jerusalem. The Israeli government's custody of the Dead Sea Scrolls is disputed by Jordan and the Palestinian Authority on territorial, legal, and humanitarian grounds—they were mostly discovered following the Jordanian annexation of the West Bank and were acquired by Israel after Jordan lost the 1967 Arab–Israeli War—whilst Israel's claims are primarily based on historical and religious grounds, given their significance in Jewish history and in the heritage of Judaism. He, he: just one PROBLEM - These AREN'T HEBREWS - THEY ARE KHAZARS TURKS! |
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Herodotus on Colchis:
Book-2 [2.104] There can be no doubt that the Colchians are an Egyptian race. Before I heard any mention of the fact from others, I had remarked it myself. After the thought had struck me, I made inquiries on the subject both in Colchis and in Egypt, and I found that the Colchians had a more distinct recollection of the Egyptians, than the Egyptians had of them. Still the Egyptians said that they believed the Colchians to be descended from the army of Sesostris. My own conjectures were founded, first, on the fact that they are black-skinned and have woolly hair, which certainly amounts to but little, since several other nations are so too; but further and more especially, on the circumstance that the Colchians, the Egyptians, and the Ethiopians (Nubians), are the only nations who have practised circumcision from the earliest times. |
The Beta Israel, or Ethiopian Jews, are an African community of the Jewish diaspora. They coalesced in the Kingdom of Aksum and the Ethiopian Empire, which is currently divided between the Amhara Region and Tigray Region in modern-day Ethiopia. |
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Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6
million Soviet Jews and their relatives left Russia. About 979,000, or
61%, were received by Israel under the Law of Return, which allows Jews
and their non-Jewish spouses to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli
citizenship. When asked about this loss of trained and educated population, Putin of Russia indicated that the problem was that when Jews asked for something: quote - it must be for "Him and Him Alone" which of course is Antithetical to communism. Communism: a political theory derived from Karl Marx advocating a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs. Hate to "Down" a fellow Black Man, but this theory never worked, could never work, and will never work. It is Antithetical to "Human Nature". There is an old quote from Rabbi Hillel that goes, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? Sounds altruistic doesn't it? Actually what it means is that One Jew is For Another Jew and so on and on. Rarely will you find a "Goyim" in the chain in any meaningful way. Jews do know how to play "Holier than Thou" while Bullshitting you. |
Jim Crow
Jim Crow was the name of the racial caste system which operated primarily, but not exclusively in southern and border states, between 1877 and the mid-1960s. Jim Crow was more than a series of rigid anti-black laws. It was a way of life. Under Jim Crow, African Americans were relegated to the status of second class citizens. Jim Crow represented the legitimization of anti-black racism. Many Christian ministers and theologians taught that white people were the Chosen people, black people were cursed to be servants, and God supported racial segregation. Craniologists, eugenicists, phrenologists, and Social Darwinists, at every educational level, buttressed the belief that black people were innately intellectually and culturally inferior to white people. |
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