Vibrations always good for Mike's Beach Boys

BY WARWICK MCFADYEN

Mike Love is still surfing the waves of success at 68 years of age. Those waves, more nostalgic than anything else these days, will deposit him and the band in Australia this month.

Some may take umbrage at the band's name, but it depends on one's definition of a band. Some might argue: how could a group that does not include its iconoclastic genius pop songsmith Brian Wilson, who is off doing his own thing, or his brothers Carl and Dennis, who are both dead, still be called the Beach Boys? Surely, it should be the Beach Boy (Love) and guests - although Bruce Johnston, who is in the band, has been there almost from the start.

However, Love owns the name. It's for this reason that former Beach Boy Al Jardine tours with a group called Endless Summer and Brian Wilson tours as Brian Wilson.

Still, the Beach Boys name, at least, celebrates its 50th anniversary next year. In 1961, the brothers Wilson and Love recorded Surfin'. Love still has a copy of the debut single, and he often uses part of it as the introduction, in all its primitive crackling glory, to their concerts before the band segues into the rest of the song.

Pop stars can burn across the sky in an instant or they can explode, flicker or fade. That the Beach Boys - despite the ins and outs of the band members - have been doing all three for half a century is an astonishing achievement. It is especially so when you consider their rivals in the mid- '60s for title of masters of the universe, the Beatles, lasted but seven years. Only the Rolling Stones, led by the Peter Pan of music Mick Jagger, can boast similar staying power.

Love allows himself a slight laugh at their longevity, and of their music's popularity. ''We never could've foreseen still doing music going on 50 years later,'' he says. ''That's pretty remarkable.''

Retirement isn't in his vocabulary. He looks to two giants in the industry, B.B. King and Tony Bennett, both of whom don't know the meaning of the word. Love is on the road for 150 shows a year - ''We've been watching B.B. very closely,'' he says. ''If people ask if I'm going to retire I say, 'Well, I'm going to ask Tony Bennett, he's in his 80s and he looks good and he sounds great.''

As for his voice, the more you exercise it, he believes, the better shape you keep it in. That voice, the instruments and the four-part harmonies will be enfolded in a multi-stringed symphonic lushness this month. If there is a band's oeuvre that is perfect for such treatment it is the Beach Boys' and yet, says Love, the Beach Boys in concert previously played with a symphony orchestra 20 years ago in Denver, Colorado. The same orchestral charts will be used for Australia.

Part of the genius of Brian Wilson was to bring four-part harmony into the world of pop. Phil Spector, who was king of the pop world when the Beach Boys were starting out, famously described his productions as ''a Wagnerian approach to rock and roll: little symphonies for the kids''.

Wilson wasn't so much Wagner as Bach on a surfboard - not so much The Ride of the Valkyries as the Well-Tempered Clavier. Until the drugs and mental health problems surfaced and Wilson swapped the metaphorical board - he didn't actually surf - for a sandpit, which was real. He covered a floor in his house with sand and put a grand piano in it.

The harmonies, says Love, are what set the group apart. ''Others can do two or three, but not many can do four.''

The four-part harmony is a distinguishing feature in the vocal structure of hymns. The Beach Boys turned songs of praise from God-worship to adoration of the sun, surf, cars and girls.

To Love, ''it's a wonderful thing to see multiple generations discover the Beach Boys. We have children to seniors in our audiences - that's pretty phenomenal. We, as musos, feel validated doing songs from 40 years ago. It's pretty special and it's like that when we go out and do these songs regardless of who's there and who isn't there.''

As to contact with Wilson, Love says there's not a lot of that - ''He's on his own surfing safari doing his own touring and albums and I'm doing 150 shows a year''.

But even if Wilson is not in the band in which he crafted pop jewels, his spirit through the songs will always be in the room. This time around, there'll be strings attached.

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New spider found in giant sand dune in Israel

A new species of spider has been discovered in the dune of the Sands of Samar in the southern Arava region of Israel, scientists from from the department of biology at the University of Haifa-Oranim said this week.

With a leg span of up to 5.5 inches (14 centimeters), the new spider is the largest of its type in the Middle East, the scientists said.

Its habitat is endangered. "It could be that there are other unknown species [in the dune] that will become extinct before we can discover them," said Uri Shanas of the University of Haifa, who is heading research in the area.

"The discovery of this new spider illustrates our obligation to preserve the dune," Shanas said.

The Sands of Samar are the last remaining sand dune in Israeli territory in the southern Arava region, the university said. In the past, the sands stretched some three square miles (seven square kilometers), but due to the rezoning of areas for agriculture and sand quarries, the sands have been reduced to less than half that.

The spider is a member of the Cerbalus genus. Since it was found in the Arava, it was been given the name Cerbalus aravensis.

"Even though details are still lacking to enable a full analysis of its biology and of its population in the sands, the scientists know that this is a nocturnal spider, mostly active in the hottest months of the year, and that it constructs an underground den which is closed with a 'lifting door' made of sand particles that are glued together to camouflage the den," the university explained.

The Israel Land Administration intends to renew mining projects in the Sands of Samar in the near future, which will endanger the existence of the newly discovered spider, Shanas said.

It is possible that there are additional unknown animal species living in the sands, and therefore efforts should be made to preserve this unique region in the Arava, the researcher added.

"The new discovery shows how much we still have to investigate, and that there are likely to be many more species that are unknown to us. If we do not preserve the few habitats that remain for these species, they will become extinct before we can even discover them," Shanas said.

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Suzuki Motorcycle Assembles Itself

Watch a Suzuki GSXR assemble all by itself!
Total film time was roughly over 30 hours.
The bike ran on first start-up too!
Music: Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer

Why Humans Are Never Satisfied

Can A Car Drive Upside Down, Defying Gravity?

Replicating the classic Hot Wheels set, Fifth Gear TV attempts to perform a full 360 degree loop in a full size car.

The Amazing Lyre Bird - Unlike Any Bird You've Ever Heard!

David Attenborough presents the amazing lyre bird, which mimics the calls of other birds - and chainsaws and camera shutters - in this video clip from The Life of Birds. This clever creature is one of the most impressive and funny in nature, with unbelievable sounds to match the beautiful pictures. From the BBC.

The ABSOLUTE worst thing that could happen in 2012

2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame

The Sweatshop Hall of Shame 2010 highlights apparel and textile companies that use sweatshops in their global production. Hall of Shame inductees are responsible for evading fair labor standards and often are slow to respond or provide no response at all to any attempts by the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF), workers, or others to improve working conditions.

The official inductees of the 2010 Sweatshop Hall of Shame are: Abercrombie and Fitch, Gymboree, Hanes, Ikea, Kohl’s, LL Bean, Pier 1 Imports, Propper International, and Walmart. This list also includes an Honorable Mention to the American Apparel and Footwear Association, a national trade association representing apparel and footwear companies. This association has exhibited a flagrant disregard for workers’ rights by primarily focusing on maintaining trade with Honduras in the middle of a military coup.

Most of the companies listed employ laborers who toil for long hours under dangerous working conditions for poverty wages. When these workers attempt to form a union to voice their collective concerns, they face threats from management and risk being fired or even beaten. Many of this years’ inductees use suppliers that practice illegal tactics to suppress workers’ rights to organize. Some of the companies mentioned weave shame into their clothing by continuing to use cotton sourced from Uzbekistan where harvesting is accomplished through forced child labor.

Though this list highlights the most abhorrent of companies, they are certainly not the only offenders. They represent a mere sample of a global industry in which brands have persistently flouted the rights of workers for more than a decade.

Don’t despair - not all is bad news in the clothing industry. For many years, the International Labor Rights Forum and SweatFree Communities have published the Shop with a Conscience Consumer Guide – a list identifying “sweatfree” options for the ever-increasing number of consumers interested in buying clothing made under ethical and worker-friendly conditions. You can find out more at www.Sweatfree.org/shoppingguide.

sweatshop_hall_shame_2010.pdf

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Canada's Top Health Official says "the mortality rate from this [H1N1] is no worse than seasonal flu"

by Sharon Kirkey



Despite the recent surge in H1N1 deaths, the nation's chief public health officer says the pandemic virus appears no deadlier than regular seasonal influenza and that there could actually be substantially fewer flu deaths than normal this season.

Although H1N1 is disproportionately infecting more children and otherwise healthy young adults "the mortality rate from this [H1N1] is no worse than seasonal flu," Dr. David Butler-Jones said in an interview with Canwest News Service.

"The individual risk of severe disease or dying if you happen to get the flu is very similar today as it was back in June. It's just that we're starting to see a lot more people affected," he said.

"The fact that we haven't had more deaths and more people in [intensive-care units] I think is a testimony to people doing the right things to both prevent and reduce the severity of disease," Dr. Butler-Jones said. People are following public health advice to cough and sneeze into their sleeves, stay home if they're sick and get on anti-virals if symptoms are worsening, he said.

"When you do take this disease seriously, you can actually dramatically reduce the number of people with severe illness and death," Dr. Butler-Jones said. "So the usual 2,000 to 8,000 range [of flu-related deaths] that we see with seasonal flu, we might actually be able to reduce that substantially."

Experts said the rates of serious illness and death are far from the levels predicted for a novel pandemic virus and that, based on the information available up until now, H1N1 is not on track to causing disease and death on the scope or scale of the flu pandemics of the 20th century.

Given the delays in getting people vaccinated, that's a good thing, said Dr. John

Granton, president of the Canadian Critical Care Society.

"If this was a more deadly virus, we would be in big trouble."

Canada's national pandemic plan estimated a flu outbreak could cause 15% to 35% of the population to fall clinically sick, and force the hospitalizations of 34,000 to 138,000 people.

So far, an estimated 7% to 8% of the population has been infected between the first and second wave, Dr. Butler-Jones said.

While the number of hospitalizations jumped twofold in the week ending Nov. 7 compared with the previous week, to 1,324 from 661, according to the latest analysis from the Public Health Agency of Canada, there has been a drop in severe infections.

As well, the proportion of ICU admissions and deaths among those admitted to hospital with H1N1 is falling.

The number of new reported deaths were up fourfold in the same reporting period (35 versus eight).

But some say relying on deaths and hospitalizations can lead to what seems a sudden surge in population-wide sickness that does not paint a true picture.

It can take two to three weeks in many cases for people with influenza to get sick enough to end up in hospital or an intensive-care unit, and even longer for them to die, said Dr. Richard Schabas, a former chief medical officer of health for Ontario.



During the SARS outbreak in 2003, "people had the impression right through April of 2003 that the SARS outbreak was still roaring along, because they kept reporting deaths," Dr. Schabas said. "But what they didn't say was that these were people who got their SARS back in March, and it took them two, three, four, five weeks to die.

"It's the same thing with influenza. Most people with influenza don't die quickly. They die slowly. Continuing to report [deaths] as if it's a way of judging what the outbreak is doing is wrong." He said school absenteeism and emergency rooms visits are more timely indicators.

Estimating the death rate for swine flu is difficult, because the denominator -- how many people have been infected -- is missing. Canada, like most countries, stopped counting confirmed cases in July, and H1N1 causes mild symptoms in the majority of people it infects, so many people never see a doctor.

Reporting in this month's Harvard Health Letter, Harvard University researchers said data from the United States shows the death rate for H1N1 is one death for every 2,000 people who develop symptoms. The death rate for seasonal flu is about one death for every 1,000 to 2,000 infections.

During the 1957 flu pandemic, the death rate was elevated fourfold over regular seasonal flu, said University of Ottawa virologist Earl Brown.

In other words, for every person who dies of seasonal flu, the mortality rate was-four during the pandemic in 1957. "If you take 1968, where if you had one person dying per year, it went to two," Mr. Brown said.

"If we're looking here at 2009, one is going to, one? Less than one?" The data is incomplete, he said.

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Watch water bounce on water!

Let Us Always Remember

Fine, I'll fight the rebel alliance. But not before naptime.

20 Years Ago The Wall Came Tumbling Down...

Vanished Persian army said found in desert

By Rossella Lorenzi

The remains of a mighty Persian army said to have drowned in the sands of the western Egyptian desert 2,500 years ago might have been finally located, solving one of archaeology's biggest outstanding mysteries, according to Italian researchers.

Bronze weapons, a silver bracelet, an earring and hundreds of human bones found in the vast desolate wilderness of the Sahara desert have raised hopes of finally finding the lost army of Persian King Cambyses II. The 50,000 warriors were said to be buried by a cataclysmic sandstorm in 525 B.C.

"We have found the first archaeological evidence of a story reported by the Greek historian Herodotus," Dario Del Bufalo, a member of the expedition from the University of Lecce, told Discovery News.

According to Herodotus (484-425 B.C.), Cambyses, the son of Cyrus the Great, sent 50,000 soldiers from Thebes to attack the Oasis of Siwa and destroy the oracle at the Temple of Amun after the priests there refused to legitimize his claim to Egypt.

After walking for seven days in the desert, the army got to an "oasis," which historians believe was El-Kharga. After they left, they were never seen again.

"A wind arose from the south, strong and deadly, bringing with it vast columns of whirling sand, which entirely covered up the troops and caused them wholly to disappear," wrote Herodotus.

A century after Herodotus wrote his account, Alexander the Great made his own pilgrimage to the oracle of Amun, and in 332 B.C. he won the oracle's confirmation that he was the divine son of Zeus, the Greek god equated with Amun.

The tale of Cambyses' lost army, however, faded into antiquity. As no trace of the hapless warriors was ever found, scholars began to dismiss the story as a fanciful tale.


Striking evidence
Now, two top Italian archaeologists claim to have found striking evidence that the Persian army was indeed swallowed in a sandstorm. Twin brothers Angelo and Alfredo Castiglioni are already famous for their discovery 20 years ago of the ancient Egyptian "city of gold" known as Berenike Panchrysos.

Presented recently at the archaeological film festival of Rovereto, the discovery is the result of 13 years of research and five expeditions to the desert.

"It all started in 1996, during an expedition aimed at investigating the presence of iron meteorites near Bahrin, one small oasis not far from Siwa," Alfredo Castiglioni, director of the Eastern Desert Research Center (CeRDO)in Varese, told Discovery News.

While working in the area, the researchers noticed a half-buried pot and some human remains. Then the brothers spotted something really intriguing — what could have been a natural shelter.

It was a rock about 114.8 feet long, 5.9 feet in height and 9.8 feet deep. Such natural formations occur in the desert, but this large rock was the only one in a large area.

"Its size and shape made it the perfect refuge in a sandstorm," Castiglioni said.

Right there, the metal detector of Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat of Cairo University located relics of ancient warfare: a bronze dagger and several arrow tips.

"We are talking of small items, but they are extremely important as they are the first Achaemenid objects, thus dating to Cambyses' time, which have emerged from the desert sands in a location quite close to Siwa," Castiglioni said.

About a quarter-mile from the natural shelter, the Castiglioni team found a silver bracelet, an earring and few spheres which were likely part of a necklace.

"An analysis of the earring, based on photographs, indicate that it certainly dates to the Achaemenid period. Both the earring and the spheres appear to be made of silver. Indeed a very similar earring, dating to the fifth century B.C., has been found in a dig in Turkey," Andrea Cagnetti, a leading expert of ancient jewelry, told Discovery News.

A different route?
In the following years, the Castiglioni brothers studied ancient maps and came to the conclusion that Cambyses' army did not take the widely believed caravan route via the Dakhla Oasis and Farafra Oasis.

"Since the 19th century, many archaeologists and explorers have searched for the lost army along that route. They found nothing. We hypothesized a different itinerary, coming from south. Indeed we found that such a route already existed in the 18th Dynasty," Castiglioni said.

According to Castiglioni, from El Kargha the army took a westerly route to Gilf El Kebir, passing through the Wadi Abd el Melik, then headed north toward Siwa.

"This route had the advantage of taking the enemy aback. Moreover, the army could march undisturbed. On the contrary, since the oasis on the other route were controlled by the Egyptians, the army would have had to fight at each oasis," Castiglioni said.

To test their hypothesis, the Castiglioni brothers did geological surveys along that alternative route. They found desiccated water sources and artificial wells made of hundreds of water pots buried in the sand. Such water sources could have made a march in the desert possible.

"Thermoluminescence has dated the pottery to 2,500 years ago, which is in line with Cambyses' time," Castiglioni said.

In their last expedition in 2002, the Castiglioni brothers returned to the location of their initial discovery. Right there, some 62 miles south of Siwa, ancient maps had erroneously located the temple of Amun.

The soldiers believed they had reached their destination, but instead they found the khamsin -- the hot, strong, unpredictable southeasterly wind that blows from the Sahara desert over Egypt.

"Some soldiers found refuge under that natural shelter, other dispersed in various directions. Some might have reached the lake of Sitra, thus surviving," Castiglioni said.

Mass grave discovered
At the end of their expedition, the team decided to investigate Bedouin stories about thousands of white bones that would have emerged decades ago during particular wind conditions in a nearby area.

Indeed, they found a mass grave with hundreds of bleached bones and skulls.

"We learned that the remains had been exposed by tomb robbers and that a beautiful sword which was found among the bones was sold to American tourists," Castiglioni said.

Among the bones, a number of Persian arrow heads and a horse bit, identical to one appearing in a depiction of an ancient Persian horse, emerged.

"In the desolate wilderness of the desert, we have found the most precise location where the tragedy occurred," Del Bufalo said.

The team communicated their finding to the Geological Survey of Egypt and gave the recovered objects to the Egyptian authorities.

"We never heard back. I'm sure that the lost army is buried somewhere around the area we surveyed, perhaps under 16.4 feet of sand."

Piero Pruneti, editor of Archeologia Viva, Italy's most important archaeology magazine, is impressed by the team's work.

"Judging from their documentary, their hypothesis of an alternative route is very plausible," Prunetic told Discovery News. "Indeed, the Castiglioni's expeditions are all based on a careful study of the landscape...An in-depth exploration of the area is certainly needed!"

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"Oh great, now we've disturbed the final resting place of the last people to have been cursed by the oracle at the Temple of Amun.

This will not end well."

Roger Ebert : "I don't see how a movie can very easily cover more than this in 74 seconds."

"Definetely worth watching till the end - never underestimate the power of a great story!"

Kari from Mythbusters wants you to say hello to her leetle friend

Fresh from the Twitter feed of Grant Imahara we see Kari from Mythbusters going nuts with a sniper rifle taller than her. I hope it’s for an experiment and not a Discovery-channel sponsored “Deadliest Game” reality show where the prey will be hosts of various Food Network programs.

The Cable Song -Dave Carroll

From the guy who brought you "United Break Guitars" - The Cable Song.

http://www.localtvmatters.ca Millions on American news services To pay for Canadian news You pay for local channels Cable pockets all that money While local Canadian channels go broke. Rates should be regulated. Force cable companies to pay for Canadian TV. You're already paying for it... localtvmatters.ca

Marc Emery: The Sacrificial Goat of Canada’s US-Dictated Drug Policy

By Chris Bennett

After witnessing the slow-moving tentacles of the Federal courts wrap around and consume my friend and fellow Canadian pot activist Marc Emery after a 4-year extradition process for US-based charges regarding the sale of marijuana seeds into the USA, I can’t help seeing Marc as a sacrificial offering that was given by Canada to the White House officials who set Canadian drug policy at the end of the Chretien era.

I have known Emery for over 15 years, writing for his magazine Cannabis Culture, and managing his popular video streaming website Pot-TV from 2000-2005, until a US DEA raid in Vancouver forever altered our lives, and our feelings of sovereignty.

The time of Emery’s bust in July 2005, had been preceded by considerable talk in Canada about liberalizing cannabis restrictions on the Federal level, including a Senate committee report in 2002 that recommended the legalization and regulation of cannabis, and a House of Commons report in 2004 that called for decriminalization.

Such talk caused considerable concern south of the border, where George W. Bush’s White House was determined to continue with America’s military-style drug war that was championed by both his father, and his father's predecessor Ronald Reagan. A 2004 Parliament report recorded the White House’s feelings about the Canadian discussion on loosening the restrictions of cannabis:

The reports of the House of Commons and Senate Special Committees in relation to cannabis in 2002 caused some immediate concern in the United States. The Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, John Walters, warned that relaxed marijuana laws would lead to an increase in drug abuse in Canada, stating, "When you weaken the societal sanctions against drug use, you get more drug use. Why? Because drugs are a dangerous addictive substance." The United States also expressed concern that liberalized marijuana laws in Canada would lead to more drugs crossing into the United States. For example, Colonel Robert Maginnis, a drug policy adviser to U.S. President George W. Bush, asserted that the United States would not look kindly on changes to Canadian marijuana laws and warned that it would be forced to take action. He stated, "It creates some law enforcement problems and I think it creates some trade problems and some perception problems, especially in the U.S., with regard to whether Canada is engaged in fighting drug use rather than contributing to drug use" and "We’re going to have to clamp down even stronger on our border if you liberalize and contribute to what we consider a drug tourism problem."

After Canada introduced its initial marijuana bill in May 2003, John Walters, the U.S. Drug Control Policy Director, warned that if the bill passed, the result would be increased security and lengthy delays at the border. He was quoted as saying, "We don’t want the border with Canada looking like the U.S.-Mexico border," "You expect your friends to stop the movement of poison toward your neighbourhood" and "We have to be concerned about American citizens … When you make the penalties minimal, you get more drug production, you get more drug crime." David Murray, special assistant to Mr. Walters, stated that the proposed decriminalization initiative was "a matter we look upon with some concern and some regret" and "We would have no choice but to respond." Mr. Murray was also quoted as saying, "We have a working partnership that has been mutually beneficial with enormous amounts of trade. Eighty-five percent of Canada’s exports go into the United States. ... That trade is mutually beneficial, but we might have to make sacrifices for the integrity of the border on both sides if we recognize that drug trade is hurting us."

Also in 2003, Asa Hutchinson, Under Secretary for Border and Transportation Security for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, was quoted as saying, "We don’t want the northern border to be a trafficking route for drugs" and "If countries have divergent policies on drugs, then that increases the potential of the borders becoming a trafficking route." Will Glaspy, spokesman for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, was quoted as saying, "Liberalizing drug laws will lead to an increase in drug use … and drug supplies. They will lead to increased security at the border." - (Canada's Proposed Decriminalization of Marijuana: International Implications and Views, 2004)

The US pressures were so extreme that in 2003, the then Canadian Justice Minister, Liberal MP Martin Cauchon, who largely championed Canada’s proposed decriminalization legislation, took the Canadian bill to the White House , where after a discussion with then US Drug Czar John Ashcroft, he returned with a vastly changed proposal. Jack Layton, leader of the NDP, who was somewhat more outspoken on the issue at the time, responded to this visit, saying, "There goes Canadian sovereignty up in smoke. [...] Here's the American government advising on what Canadian policy will be before the House of Commons even has a look at it. It's quite astounding."

In 2005, deeply concerned by threats of a Canadian shift in pot policy, the US Drug Czar John Walters, who called BC Bud the "crack of marijuana" decided to find the source of Canada’s movement towards legalization, and visited the liberal city of Vancouver to attack this 'problem' head-on. It was there, while giving a presentation hosted by the Vancouver Board of Trade, that Walters met his match in the persona of Vancouver resident and pot maverick, Marc Scott Emery, who had made millions selling cannabis seeds internationally via his website emeryseeds.com, and spent equal millions in efforts directed at promoting the legalization of the said herb.

Emery, and a crew of hand-picked pot activists, which included this author, attended the $750-a-table gala event, where they heckled an astounded John Walters, who was further insulted for his Republican views on drug policy in media coverage of the event by then outgoing Vancouver Mayor Phillip Owen, and then incumbent Larry Campbell.

After the event, Vancouver Police chaperoned John Walters on a guided tour of Vancouver’s lower east Side, known for its hard drug problem and legal injection site, and Pot cafes, where the disgruntled Walters literally had marijuana blown in his face by cocky local pot smokers. The VPD, who were in obvious awe of Walters, were miffed that their honored guest had been insulted by Vansterdam’s Prince of Pot and tried to encourage Canadian Crown prosecutors to issue a search warrant on Emery’s cannabis seed shop, one of a number of such businesses that had operated unmolested for some years in Vancouver (many remain), but the Crown refused.

Unhappy with the decision of their own Federal Prosecutor, the Vancouver Police took it upon themselves to report back to US Drug Czar, John Walters. Walters, angered at Canada’s lack of motivation on the issue, took the unprecedented action of overriding the Canadian decision and approaching the Canadian Government with a US-based arrest warrant against Emery for the sale of seeds in the US over the Internet and through the mail.

By this time the Canadian federal Government was already feeling the shock and awe of US threats over Canadian plans to decriminalize cannabis, and Cauchon’s replacement, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler, who had suffered personal insults from Emery in the press after the activists 3-month jail term for passing a joint in Saskatoon, was only eager to sign off on both the US request for a search warrant and the later extradition of Emery. Indeed, it can be seen that in a sense, Emery himself became a sacrificial offering from the Canadian federal government to their American masters, in appeasement for their earlier attempts to decriminalize the plant, as all further talk of decimalization faded into the mists of Ottawa’s disjointed politics.

Clearly, the US DEA considered Emery’s arrest a victory in smashing the marijuana legalization movement in Canada, but also internationally. As the DEA press release regarding the case stated:

Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture Magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group- is a significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement.

His marijuana trade and propagandist marijuana magazine have generated nearly $5 million a year in profits that bolstered his trafficking efforts, but those have gone up in smoke today.

Emery and his organization had been designated as one of the Attorney General’s most wanted international drug trafficking organizational targets – one of only 46 in the world and the only one from Canada.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars of Emery’s illicit profits are known to have been channelled to marijuana legalization groups active in the United States and Canada. Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely on.

The DEA's own press release makes it infinitely clear that Emery’s case was politically motivated from the get-go. Canada’s own shift away from the popular discussions on the decriminalization of cannabis after this time period, along with the Canadian Government’s eagerness to ship Emery off, and recent embracing of American-style penalties for cannabis make it equally clear who is in control of Canadian policy. In their compliance with their apparent American masters, the Canadian Government, has in a very real sense offered up one of its own citizens to the behemoth of America. In so doing, they have turned Emery into a marijuana martyr, or at the very least, a sacrificial scapegoat for Canada’s failed attempt at loosening the noose of its own outdated and unjust cannabis laws.

The laws against cannabis have turned the image of a prohibited leaf into a world symbol of natural liberty that people proudly display despite the harshest prohibitions of the plant itself. Likewise, the American Government’s persecution of Marc Scott Emery, and the Canadian Government’s abandonment of him (even refusing to allow Emery to serve his prison time in Canada), have turned Emery into a powerful human symbol of the plant liberation movement he has so selflessly stood behind.

This scapegoating of Emery is rife with symbolism. The term scapegoat comes from the ancient Greek word Pharmakos. In the Ancient Greek religion the Pharmakos was a human scapegoat chosen and expelled from the community when purification was needed at times of disaster or upheaval. In some cases these victims were sacrificed; in others beaten and expelled from the community to carry off their collective sin.

The word 'pharmakos' later became the term 'pharmakeus', which refers to "a drug, spell-giving potion, druggist, poisoner, by extension a magician or a sorcerer," a description that in many ways fits our Prince of Pot. A variation of this term is "pharmakon" either a herbal remedy, poison, or drug and from this, the modern term "pharmacology" emerged.

In Christianity, this symbolism of the Pharmakos scapegoat filtered into the concept of the sacrificial lamb. Jesus as the sacrificial lamb, carrier of the sins of the community - but in Emery’s case as a scapegoat, they may find that their sacrifice turns around to buck them in the ass. In the imprisonment of Emery, the system has in a sense ingested the drug man. At the moment, they savor his sweet taste in their victory, but as Emery descends into the great belly of the American prison system, they will truly begin to feel his effects.

They will feel these effects as countless activists stand up to carry the torch of freedom in his honor, as the debate rages on regarding the most asked question of the Obama administration, as more States try to override Federal laws regarding medical marijuana, and as California opens the debate for full legalization and taxation, potentially giving birth to a billion dollar industry that may be indebted to genetics Emery provided through his seed business.

By burying Emery in prison they have turned him into one of his own seeds, and if there is one thing that can break through the concrete Hell he has been placed in, it's a weed. Ironically, it may be from a prison cell that Emery witnesses the realization of his own long-time battle cry of "Overgrow the Government"!

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2012 isn't the end of the world, Mayans insist

By MARK STEVENSON

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly "running out" on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it's not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. "I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff."

It can only get worse for him. Next month Hollywood's "2012" opens in cinemas, featuring earthquakes, meteor showers and a tsunami dumping an aircraft carrier on the White House.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

It may sound all too much like other doomsday scenarios of recent decades — the 1987 Harmonic Convergence, the Jupiter Effect or "Planet X." But this one has some grains of archaeological basis.

One of them is Monument Six.

Found at an obscure ruin in southern Mexico during highway construction in the 1960s, the stone tablet almost didn't survive; the site was largely paved over and parts of the tablet were looted.

It's unique in that the remaining parts contain the equivalent of the date 2012. The inscription describes something that is supposed to occur in 2012 involving Bolon Yokte, a mysterious Mayan god associated with both war and creation.

However — shades of Indiana Jones — erosion and a crack in the stone make the end of the passage almost illegible.

Archaeologist Guillermo Bernal of Mexico's National Autonomous University interprets the last eroded glyphs as maybe saying, "He will descend from the sky."

Spooky, perhaps, but Bernal notes there are other inscriptions at Mayan sites for dates far beyond 2012 — including one that roughly translates into the year 4772.

And anyway, Mayas in the drought-stricken Yucatan peninsula have bigger worries than 2012.

"If I went to some Mayan-speaking communities and asked people what is going to happen in 2012, they wouldn't have any idea," said Jose Huchim, a Yucatan Mayan archaeologist. "That the world is going to end? They wouldn't believe you. We have real concerns these days, like rain."

The Mayan civilization, which reached its height from 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., had a talent for astronomy

Its Long Count calendar begins in 3,114 B.C., marking time in roughly 394-year periods known as Baktuns. Thirteen was a significant, sacred number for the Mayas, and the 13th Baktun ends around Dec. 21, 2012.

"It's a special anniversary of creation," said David Stuart, a specialist in Mayan epigraphy at the University of Texas at Austin. "The Maya never said the world is going to end, they never said anything bad would happen necessarily, they're just recording this future anniversary on Monument Six."

Bernal suggests that apocalypse is "a very Western, Christian" concept projected onto the Maya, perhaps because Western myths are "exhausted."

If it were all mythology, perhaps it could be written off.

But some say the Maya knew another secret: the Earth's axis wobbles, slightly changing the alignment of the stars every year. Once every 25,800 years, the sun lines up with the center of our Milky Way galaxy on a winter solstice, the sun's lowest point in the horizon.

That will happen on Dec. 21, 2012, when the sun appears to rise in the same spot where the bright center of galaxy sets.

Another spooky coincidence?

"The question I would ask these guys is, so what?" says Phil Plait, an astronomer who runs the "Bad Astronomy" blog. He says the alignment doesn't fall precisely in 2012, and distant stars exert no force that could harm Earth.

"They're really super-duper trying to find anything astronomical they can to fit that date of 2012," Plait said.

But author John Major Jenkins says his two-decade study of Mayan ruins indicate the Maya were aware of the alignment and attached great importance to it.

"If we want to honor and respect how the Maya think about this, then we would say that the Maya viewed 2012, as all cycle endings, as a time of transformation and renewal," said Jenkins.

As the Internet gained popularity in the 1990s, so did word of the "fateful" date, and some began worrying about 2012 disasters the Mayas never dreamed of.

Author Lawrence Joseph says a peak in explosive storms on the surface of the sun could knock out North America's power grid for years, triggering food shortages, water scarcity — a collapse of civilization. Solar peaks occur about every 11 years, but Joseph says there's evidence the 2012 peak could be "a lulu."

While pressing governments to install protection for power grids, Joseph counsels readers not to "use 2012 as an excuse to not live in a healthy, responsible fashion. I mean, don't let the credit cards go up."

Another History Channel program titled "Decoding the Past: Doomsday 2012: End of Days" says a galactic alignment or magnetic disturbances could somehow trigger a "pole shift."

"The entire mantle of the earth would shift in a matter of days, perhaps hours, changing the position of the north and south poles, causing worldwide disaster," a narrator proclaims. "Earthquakes would rock every continent, massive tsunamis would inundate coastal cities. It would be the ultimate planetary catastrophe."

The idea apparently originates with a 19th century Frenchman, Charles Etienne Brasseur de Bourbourg, a priest-turned-archaeologist who got it from his study of ancient Mayan and Aztec texts.

Scientists say that, at best, the poles might change location by one degree over a million years, with no sign that it would start in 2012.

While long discredited, Brasseur de Bourbourg proves one thing: Westerners have been trying for more than a century to pin doomsday scenarios on the Maya. And while fascinated by ancient lore, advocates seldom examine more recent experiences with apocalypse predictions.

"No one who's writing in now seems to remember that the last time we thought the world was going to end, it didn't," says Martin, the astronomy webmaster. "There doesn't seem to be a lot of memory that things were fine the last time around."

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God is not the Creator, claims academic

The notion of God as the Creator is wrong, claims a top academic, who believes the Bible has been wrongly translated for thousands of years.

By Richard Alleyne

Professor Ellen van Wolde, a respected Old Testament scholar and author, claims the first sentence of Genesis "in the beginning God created the Heaven and the Earth" is not a true translation of the Hebrew.

She claims she has carried out fresh textual analysis that suggests the writers of the great book never intended to suggest that God created the world -- and in fact the Earth was already there when he created humans and animals.

Prof Van Wolde, 54, who will present a thesis on the subject at Radboud University in The Netherlands where she studies, said she had re-analysed the original Hebrew text and placed it in the context of the Bible as a whole, and in the context of other creation stories from ancient Mesopotamia.

She said she eventually concluded the Hebrew verb "bara", which is used in the first sentence of the book of Genesis, does not mean "to create" but to "spatially separate".

The first sentence should now read "in the beginning God separated the Heaven and the Earth"

According to Judeo-Christian tradition, God created the Earth out of nothing.

Prof Van Wolde, who once worked with the Italian academic and novelist Umberto Eco, said her new analysis showed that the beginning of the Bible was not the beginning of time, but the beginning of a narration.

She said: "It meant to say that God did create humans and animals, but not the Earth itself."

She writes in her thesis that the new translation fits in with ancient texts.

According to them there used to be an enormous body of water in which monsters were living, covered in darkness, she said.

She said technically "bara" does mean "create" but added: "Something was wrong with the verb.

"God was the subject (God created), followed by two or more objects. Why did God not create just one thing or animal, but always more?"

She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.

"There was already water," she said.

"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."

God came later and made the earth livable, separating the water from the land and brought light into the darkness.

She said she hoped that her conclusions would spark "a robust debate", since her finds are not only new, but would also touch the hearts of many religious people.

She said: "Maybe I am even hurting myself. I consider myself to be religious and the Creator used to be very special, as a notion of trust. I want to keep that trust."

A spokesman for the Radboud University said: "The new interpretation is a complete shake up of the story of the Creation as we know it."

Prof Van Wolde added: "The traditional view of God the Creator is untenable now."

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