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Chris Bangle: Hero of Modern Car Design

2009-02-26T20:14:00.000-08:00

For 10 years Chris Bangle has been the car designer everyone loves to hate. Here was the man who gave us flame surfacing, who totally reshaped BMW form language and in the process tore up the car design rulebook.

As design director of BMW, more than any other car designer Chris Bangle made the headlines. Not just in the automotive media, but in all forms of media. He eloquently espoused his contentious design direction for what was once the doyen of reserved German sports sedans, while simultaneously deflecting or ignoring more criticism than any other car designer has ever received.

And now, as he embarks upon his final day at the German company (indeed, his last day of working within the car industry) the media is reminding us of his accomplishments: from Fiat Coupe, through flame-surfaced X-Coupe, third-generation 'Bangle-butt' 7 Series and the fabric-surfaced Gina, to a range of cars that's very far removed from the sobriety of early '90s BMW design. We've also been reminded of his peers' criticisms of his designs - not least J Mays' derogatory view of the 1 Series - as well of his charisma and intellect.

But there is an unusual ambiguity about the public farewell Chris Bangle is receiving, just as there often is when the wider media focuses its gaze on car design. As the rest of the media second-guessing his status as villain or hero of car design, Car Design News wanted to hold up to the community a few unarguable truths that Bangle's time at BMW should perhaps be best remembered for.

In the early 1990s the BMW range comprised what were generally regarded as near faultless designs in harmonious coexistence. When Bangle became design director in 1992, he was bound by BMW management to continue this conservative ‘cookie cutter' approach. But with the BMW sedan aesthetic so mature, and with the 7 Series looking like a large 5 Series, which appeared in turn resembled an enlarged 3 Series, Bangle succeeded in persuading management that it was time to innovate and also change its design strategy, regardless of the reaction this might cause among customers, BMW executives and other car designers.

This new approach, to make step-change design innovation and to move away from a monolithic design strategy, is unarguably the cornerstone of Chris Bangle's achievements at BMW. It underpins the brand's position today, generating the most progressive design identities of any car range on the market and a disparate, but connected, line-up of vehicles that appeals to a far wider customer base than ever before. And yet all of this innovation and diversification has been achieved while consistently maintaining distinctive BMW design cues, from the trademark kidney grille, quad circular headlamps, Hofmeister kink, front-engined rear-wheel-drive proportions, to an overall ‘premium sports' identity.

But this design innovation, if not the new design strategy, has been extensively criticized. Off-record, about half the design directors we know are critical of the approach Chris Bangle took at BMW, and these criticisms are often expressed strongly. At the heart of this is a view that many of ‘his' BMW designs are ugly, or have unnecessarily ugly aspects to them - the 1 Series, X3 and previous-generation E65 7 Series being the most frequently cited examples.

Dig a little deeper and the disquiet so many of Bangle's peers have with his work stems from the way they think he changed what wasn't broken, in the process side-stepping the unspoken assumption that car design is all about chasing beauty. They might also have been a little piqued at the world's interest in his work. Google 'Chris Bangle' and, at the time of writing, there are over two million results - more than for any other car designer by a significant margin.

Speak with younger car designers and a different picture emerges. They don't focus on the form of individual designs but instead on the bigger picture of BMW and of the wider discipline of car design. For most of those we spoke with, BMW now stands as a brand that is innovative, modern, diverse, rich, and very much of-its-time. They find individual BMW designs generally fresh, engaging and attractive. When pushed, many agree that there are some aspects of the designs they're not totally convinced by, but most see this as a necessary part of pushing forwards; avant-garde design cannot please all the people all of the time.

It must be tough to have so much personal and professional criticism leveled at you, to have a 'Stop Chris Bangle' petition created and face threats of violence because of your work. There would have undoubtedly been considerable internal pressure on the American designer as a result of this, yet his decisions are arguably vindicated by the sales performance of the company and, even more demonstrably, by the large influence BMW design continues to exert on other brand's designs.

Perhaps the jury will forever remain out on the more expressive and contentious designs that have emerged from BMW during the last 10 years of Bangle rule. But there can be little doubt of his contribution to the progression of car design, or of his skills as a leader. Only with the respect and hard work of his colleagues has he been able to effect such radical change in the face of adversity and criticism.
Bangle has also championed the value of design inside and outside the company, as a result moving design further up the automotive industry's agenda to the benefit of all car designers. And if he is not a hero of car design for all these reasons, then perhaps he is for a more prosaic reason: If the common man has one singular, oft heard, criticism of car design it is that ‘they all look the same nowadays'. By listening to the needs and wants of the wider automotive design audience instead of those in the industry, he's played a huge part in addressing this complaint.

Clay Aiken comes out: ‘Yes, I’m gay’ ‘Idol’ runner-up says ‘I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things’

2009-02-26T19:03:00.000-08:00

NEW YORK - Clay Aiken appears on the cover of the latest People magazine holding his infant son, Parker Foster Aiken, with the headline: “Yes, I’m Gay.”

The 29-year-old former “American Idol” runner-up, multiplatinum recording artist and Broadway star credits his son, conceived by in-vitro fertilization with friend and producer Jaymes Foster, with making him realize that he could no longer hide his homosexuality from the world.

“It was the first decision I made as a father,” Aiken told the magazine, which arrives on newsstands Friday. “I cannot raise a child to lie or to hide things. I wasn’t raised that way, and I’m not going to raise a child to do that.”

Aiken, who rose to fame on “Idol” in 2003, has long been the subject of rumors and tabloid fodder that he was gay, but usually refused to acknowledge them. In an interview with The Associated Press two years ago, he said of the talk: “I don’t really feel like I have anybody to answer to but myself and God and the people I love.”

Aiken said he only told his family that he was gay four years ago. He recalled a tearful discussion with his mother in a car after dropping off his brother, who was being sent to Iraq, at a military base.

“It was dark. I was sitting there, thinking to myself. I don’t know why I started thinking about it ... I just started bawling. She made me pull over the car and it just came out,” he said. “She started crying. She was obviously somewhat stunned. But she was very supportive and very comforting.”

Aiken said his mother “still struggles with things quite a bit, but she’s come a long way.”

The magazine cover features Aiken holding his son, who was born in August. The baby’s mother is Aiken’s record producer, whom he met while performing on “Idol.”

Aiken, who considers himself a born-again Christian, said he knows he may turn off some fans — known as Claymates — with his admission and his decision to have a child outside traditional marriage.

“I’ve never intended to lie to anybody at all,” he said. “But if they leave, I don’t want them to leave hating me.”

Gay groups applauded Aiken’s public admission.

“We congratulate Clay for making this decision and for setting an example for others and his family,” said Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation. As we’re seeing, more and more gay people, including celebrities, are living openly and honestly, and this has tremendous impact in terms of creating awareness, understanding and acceptance.”

Aiken’s hardcore fans — known as Claymates — are taking the news very seriously. As of Wednesday afternoon, there were reportedly more than 2,000 entries on the message board for Aiken’s official Web site.

“We’ll ‘talk’ more later, but, suffice it to say, for the first time in recent memory, I am speechless,” Aiken writes on his Web site’s fan page ClayOnline, according to People. “I’m so proud to know and love all of you.”

To read Aiken’s newest blog and post a message, the site requires you to join his fan club. Membership fees range from $14.99 plus tax to $29.99, plus shipping and handling for a Clay Aiken tote bag, lip balm and set of Clay Aiken buttons.

Meanwhile, the Aiken fan site ClayManiacs was open for viewing. Response in a thread on the site’s “ShoutBox” was generally supportive, though at least one fan was shaken by Aiken’s public confession.

ShiMao Olive Garden in Beijing

2008-12-12T19:50:00.000-08:00

Shimao Olive Garden is situated to the north of the Olympic Forest Park, the north end of Beijing axle line. There are infinite mountain ranges to the north, while the south provides the view of the national Olympic Forest Park. Residents will be able to enjoy a bird-eye view of Olympic stadiums and Olympic torch.

Shimao Olive Garden is an international luxury residential community. Shimao Olive Garden is formed by 6 luxury houses, which are 40-90 meters high and plate-style construction. Internal Gardening is designed by British designer Atkins. There are 6 themed gardens. The inspiration comes from the Aegean Sea, sport passions from Athens, and the Chinese Royal Graden. The 324,000 square feet garden surrounds the 108,000 square feet lake.

Shimao Olive Garden adopts slab-type building based on a 26 stories in design. The apartments have an open hall, spacious bedrooms, open kitchen, open bathroom and several balconies. The apartment is also furnished with a large glass window facing the Forest Park and one-step balcony, expanding your vision to the maximum extent and combining the internal space with external field of vision. It adopts luxury-based design with three elevators for two households. A special elevator is accessible to nurses, who directly enter the operating room. With an IC card, the owners directly reach the special elevator hall for owners in the story where the owners live. It guarantees privacy and safety for the owners.

Luxurious world-class amenities include:
-ALNO cupboard from Germany
-Valenti electric appliances from Italy
-Kohler cleaning devices from USA
-Roca cleaning devices from Spain
-Hans Grohe sprayer from Germany
-Lennox air-conditioner from USA
-Otis elevator
-24 Hour Security System
-British Style Housekeeper
-Tropical Landscape Club

In order to hold the 2008 Olympic Games, about RMB 280 billion yuan has been invested into the Beijing real estate. According to the statistics of business departments, some of the world's top 500 enterprises are looking have relocated their office closer to the Olympic Garden area. These companies include Samsung, Siemens, Philips and Morgan Stanley.

The Olympic Park, 867 hectares 2.5 times bigger than the one in New York Central Park Olympic Forest Park, will be the No 1 eco-garden in Asia.

Past Olympic Games Facts and Figures

Beijing Olympic Game Facts and Figures

Sales for these home have already begun! Please call 626-964-8302 to reserve a unit today!

ShiMao Convention Schedule:
September 9-11 (Friday- Sunday) 10AM-5PM
Location: Wilshire Grand Hotel (Downtown LA)
930 Wilshire Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90017

James Bond Quantum of Solace Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean unveiled

2008-11-17T22:08:00.000-08:00

The new James Bond movie Quantum of Solace release draws closer. Omega now announced a limited edition Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean carrying the Quantum of Solace James Bond signature on the dial.
The dial of the new James Bond watch features a Walther PPK grip structure pattern.
Only 5,007 James Bond Quantum of Solace Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean watches will be made. The features of the James Bond Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean are the same as the standard 45mm Planet Ocean.
Via TimeZone.

Some People Think Dwayne Jarrett Is Too Slow

2008-11-08T17:02:00.000-08:00

I can't blame USC's Dwayne Jarrett getting tired of the questions: "So, how does it feel to be really slow? And how much money do you think it will cost you on Draft Day." Alright, no one has asked him these specific questions, but he's heard every variation thereof.

Dwayne Jarrett doesn't understand it. He found the end zone 41 times during his three years at Southern California - the fourth-most for a receiver in NCAA history. But as the NFL draft approaches, all he has heard this spring are questions about his speed, or the perceived lack thereof.

Yeah, it's hard to dismiss 41 touchdowns, and I don't have a problem with Jarrett being slow (he ran a 4.62 and 4.67 in the forty at his Pro Day). Like he points out, Jerry Rice ran a 4.5-forty back in the day, and his NFL career turned out okay.

But it will be the question about Jarrett's speed -- specifically, his ability to get off the line of scrimmage -- that could haunt him on Draft Day. And then there are the endless -- and mindless -- comparisons to former USC Trojan, Mike Williams.

Williams was the 10th-overall pick of the Lions in 2005, but he has, to put it kindly, struggled in the NFL because he's slow-footed (though, I suspect, a lot of that has to do with being one of the league's fattest wideouts ... apparently, by design). I don't think Jarrett will "pull a Williams in the NFL," but I think he might have a tough time adjusting to the pro game. Not because he's slow, but because NFL teams often overvalue height and put too much emphasis on speed. I guess we'll see in three weeks.

California high-speed train system to link NorCal and SoCal at 220mph

2008-11-08T16:53:00.000-08:00

Like it or not California, it's about time you folks ponied up for a serious rail system. With the recent passage of Proposition 1A, the wheels have started to churn on a sophisticated bullet train system that will eventually link San Diego in the south with Sacramento in the north, with stops at most every major city in between (LA and San Francisco included). The 800-mile network of trains would operate at upwards of 220mph and cost around $45 billion to construct, but it'll create 320,000 permanent jobs by 2030 and reduce the state's reliance on fossil fuel by 12.7 million barrels of oil per year. Unfortunately, there's no set time frame for completion just yet, but we wouldn't be surprised to see this one finished before that Anaheim - Las Vegas maglev project even gets off the ground.

www.engadget.com

Kentucky College Locked Down After False Reports of Shots Fired

2008-10-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

A Kentucky college campus was on lockdown for several hours Wednesday after false reports of armed men at the school.

Kentucky State Police told FOXNews.com that police were not able to corroborate earlier claims of shots being fired or gunmen on the loose at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green — after initial reports of an incident near Pearce Ford Tower on the school's main campus.

"What we think happened was a group of individuals got in a fight, somebody called guns, we ran, no guns, no indication of guns," Lt. Phil Crumpton of the Kentucky State Police told FOXNews.com. "Meanwhile this group moves to another location for a fight, someone calls guns again. We all go running over there, hold the first location, nothing."

A third call off campus also yielded no evidence of weapons or shots fired, he said.

Earlier, police and school officials received reports of armed men spotted in a building on the school's South Campus and of gunshots near the tower.

"No one was shot," university spokesman Bob Skipper told FOX News.

Crumpton told FOXNews.com that police believe someone may have brandished a gun during the altercation, but weren't immediately able to confirm that either.

The incident prompted an advisory for students to remain indoors in secure areas until an "all clear" could be issued, according to the school's Web site. An earlier text message also falsely said that shots were fired near the Tower.

"Police have confirmed that there was a physical altercation not involving weapons between individuals that occurred in or near PFT, but the police are interviewing witnesses on the scene to determine if weapons were or are present, or if shots were fired," a message on the school's Web site said.

Students who called a local newsroom said there were two announcements over the university's P.A. system warning them that they were in immediate danger and should take shelter.

Classes were canceled for the day as police investigated.

www.foxnews.com

Body of Lies - Synopsis & Movie Info

2008-10-15T18:39:00.000-07:00

Fresh off of their success with director Martin Scorsese's The Departed, star Leonardo DiCaprio and screenwriter William Monahan team with director Ridley Scott for this screen adaptation of David Ignatius' novel Body of Lies. When CIA operative Roger Ferris (DiCaprio) uncovers evidence indicating that a major terrorist leader may be operating out of Jordan, he enlists the aid of CIA veteran Ed Hoffman (Russell Crowe) in infiltrating the elusive saboteur's vast underground network. During the course of his dangerous mission, Ferris gradually comes to question how much he can trust his presumed allies -- who include not just Hoffman, but the outwardly helpful head of Jordanian intelligence as well. - Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Reviewed By: S. Jhoanna Robledo

Roger Ferris (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a hotshot CIA operative running shotgun on covert maneuvers in the Middle East. Edward Hoffman (Russell Crowe) is the paunchy, headstrong boss who has his back -- most of the time -- back in Langley, Virginia. Their mission is to stop the terrorists in their tracks and capture their fearsome leader, Al-Saleem (Alon Aboutboul). But they're foiled repeatedly ... until Ferris hatches a scheme to create a new, fictitious leader vying for prominence with Al-Saleem. It's a bloody plan aimed at trying the guilty, but it ends up sacrificing the innocent. Ferris isn't sure whether his allies -- including Jordanian intelligence -- are truly behind him, or whether his newfound friendship with an Iranian doctor (Golshifteh Farahani) will put everything, including himself, in jeopardy.

The tension begins from the first moment and rarely lets up in Ridley Scott's BODY OF LIES. The quick camera cuts and the rough, gritty terrain add to the pressure. All good to be sure. But couple that with the movie's nearly unrelenting violence (bombs exploding, machine guns firing, bodies bleeding) and you end up with a thriller that flirts dangerously with being overdone (this is not a film for anyone prone to migraines). Although it offers a fascinating (if labyrinthine) look at the intricacies of running covert operations, in the end, it focuses too much on serving up stylized fare when all we really long for is a good, old-fashioned spy movie. Or at least one that illuminates or adds depth to what we already know -- from the news and from other movies that have taken on the subject -- about the war on terror.

But Body of Lies does do one thing perfectly: give viewers a chance to see two fine actors go toe to toe. DiCaprio is intense, but his Titanic-like charms add much-needed levity when he comes a-courting at his beloved physician's home. And Crowe is arrogant but compelling in a role that has him dispensing murderous orders while at his child's soccer game buffet and swinging by school for a drop off.

Fans may also enjoy Traitor, Blood Diamon, or the Bourne series, starting with The Bourne Identity.

Where Are The World's Coolest Hotel Pools?

2008-10-14T18:50:00.000-07:00

We really do take swimming pools for granted. Lounging poolside at the hotel, swimming a few laps at the health club, or dipping into the Jacuzzi at the spa — we are used to pools but we want them fabulous. Scary-blue tubs with tepid, chlorinated water just don’t do it.

Right now, we are hunting for the best and most amazing hotel swimming pools in the world and we’d like you to help us. Please let us know where your favorite, cool pool is. ( \n This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it "> tips@thecoolhunter.net )

While you are at it, you might be interested in some history of the pool. Bathing pools, of course, predate swimming pools, and we have all heard of the lavish and sophisticated ancient baths. But the swimming pool has a long history, too, dating back to ancient times.

Already in 2500 B.C., Egyptians knew swimming as an organized activity and depictions of swimming from India are equally old. Ancient Romans constructed artificial pools for athletic training, nautical games and military exercises. Swimming was also part of boys’ education.

Extravagant swimming pools with live fish entertained Roman emperors, and gave the pool its Latin name piscina. Ancient Greeks did not include swimming in their early Olympic games but they did practice the sport and built swimming pools as part of their baths. The first heated swimming pool was built in Rome in the first century BC.

England’s first indoor swimming pool, the 40-foot-long Bagnio in Lemon Street, Goodman's Fields in London, opened in 1742. King Ludwig II of Bavaria built the first-ever wave pool with electrically heated water and light, in his Linderhof castle in 1879.

In the U.S. the earliest public swimming pools were small indoor pools built with the intention of encouraging better hygiene among the poor. By the 1920s, the American public pool had become a large public place of amusement and recreation for thousands at a time. Home swimming pools became popular in the U.S. after WWII and Hollywood films made the backyard pool an important status symbol.

All of this historical stuff is really rather exhausting when all we really want is serious pleasure – superior amenities, spectacular views, impeccable details, breath-taking eye candy. Let us know where such pools are, so that we can let the rest of the world know, too. By Tuija Seipell

Cake Coffee Receipt

2008-10-12T23:37:00.000-07:00

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Our dark roast cafe europa coffee and italian raspberry espresso cake evokes aromas of a little cafe in contact us; order status; about your order; gift certificates; receipt. Cake serving sets (14) favors - coffee (7) personalized items are returnable within days of receipt.

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Nowhere In San Francisco 90-Minute

2008-10-09T21:36:00.000-07:00

Which may enjoy all the corners of the city of San Francisco, the beautiful city with many interesting attractions in 90 minutes? What if you have to put up with business partners, friends or family who stop to San Francisco and they do not have much time? Dizzy? More spin, as if your host can not accompany them, as your work or school.

Many solutions that can be given to the streets in San Francisco in a short time. Both modes of transportation, attractions and tour price. One way out could be a part of San Francisco City Tour with a double-decker bus ride. One and a half hours long, which is generally offered a tour of cities in this category. There are two tour companies that offer tours in the city of San Francisco with a bus ride this level. Gray Line and Citysightseing. Two companies that operate in various world-class tourist city this is also in San Francisco. Gray Line bus level have closed, while Citysightseeing operate the bus with the roof open.

tell the operator successfully met pro double-decker bus origin working in Indonesia Citysightseeing Tour. Due to the Amrik has been living in, day-to-call name is Joseph day. For ease and practicality English speaker, he said. Full name is Joseph Dharmawan. During the meeting Joseph, one person can have, and the "suspect" as a member of GI, the TNI will Amrik. Perawakannya the plucky and energetic, but always ready smile and friendly, so tell the effect of the find. Joseph have lorn cross long enough to drive a vehicle in the world in a professional. He has a permit to drive a number of types C, B and A, several class drivers.

For many years this man Ennis original drive large trucks, trailers, far from family and penetrated many cities from the West Coast to East Coast United States. Occasionally get the confidence to drive trucks propelled bahanbahan chemicals. Joseph rush menyergah, "Please note yes, I am not a terrorist cadres too." Ketawa not split the rigid atmosphere. Because of the desire to be close to the family, Joseph chose to live and work in the Bay Area, bringing foreign tourists, including from Indonesia, to revel in the city of San Francisco.
There are two types of tours that take him often. First, a tour to see the Golden Gate Bridge, the bridge reportedly the most familiar with the beautiful scenery across the world because of the architecture and the frequency of this bridge as an icon in various fi lm, and even video games. Also famous, because the bridge is often used where suicide. With fee of U.S. $ 20, wisawatan usually brought the world to see beautiful scenery in San Francisco, that is, around the Golden Gate Bridge, including across the bridge and Slick in the Vista Point.

From the top of the open deck bus level, people can watch and take photos of beautiful horizon city of San Francisco, Alcatraz, Angel Island, Marin Headlands, Baker Beach, which dilaluinya. In the bus, there are also tour guides who provide stories about the places passed. Touring the second is a favorite tourist melihatlihat downtown San Francisco during the one and a half hours. According to Joseph, there are 12 places dismissal during this tour, including Fisherman Wharf (famous pier in San Fran), Fisherman Wharf Canery (former Seafood Canning Sardin), Barbary Coast, South of Market, Ferry Building (where the new Farmers Market), Nob Hill (where the performance theater), City Hall (City Hall of San Francisco), Union square (City Square), Chinatown Gate (Chinese Gate), the Financial District (Financial Center), North Beach (Italian city), Lombard Street (Road terbengkok the world). Tickets canal tour ticket valid 24 hours. And if you just sit in the bus, long tour around 90 minutes. Interested?

www.kabarinews.com

Asus Introduces the World's First Quad Core Gaming Notebook

2008-10-08T18:12:00.000-07:00

Asus's G71, the world’s first quad core gaming notebook specially designed for gamers.
It comes with a 17’’ Crystal Shine High Brightness display, Intel's new QX9300 Core 2 Extreme processor, an NIVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT GDDR3 512MB graphics card, 4GB of DDR3, up to 1TB of HDD (500GB x2), 2Mpix web camera, Bluetooth V2.1, and Blue-ray writer.

Taipei, Taiwan, October 6, 2008 – Consistent with the tradition of breaking new grounds, ASUS is proud to present the world's first Intel® Quad Core™ Gaming notebook—the G71. Specifically designed with gamers in mind, the G71 is the first in ASUS' planned series of Quad Core™ gaming notebooks and an addition to its expanding G Series. The G71 delivers a total gaming experience in a highly portable package, with an emphasis on audio clarity and stunning graphics performance.

The World's First Quad Core™ Gaming Notebook

The ASUS G71 is the world's first Quad Core™ gaming notebook, powered by the new Intel Core™ 2 Extreme processor QX9300. The removal of the Overspeed Protection means that the G71 is capable of extreme performance through overclocking, pushing the envelope of computational processing power and thus allowing users to multitask extensively.

Superior Gaming Performance

As a dedicated gaming notebook, the G71 sports an impressive array of high performance components, such as a 17” Crystal Shine high brightness display with a quick response time of 8 ms, powered by a NVIDIA GeForce 9700M GT GDDR3 512 MB graphics card. The G71 also features up to 4 GB of DDR3 1066MHz system memory coupled with dual hard disk drives of up to 1 TB (500 GB x 2)—enabling users to enjoy multimedia entertainment and games while on the move.

Direct Console 2.0

Direct Console 2.0 is an all-in-one gaming control interface that allows users to select from three processor speed settings depending on their mode of usage. The same interface also includes controls for Direct Messenger, enabling communication utilities such as Instant Messaging (MSN™), Meeting and E-mail notification. The gaming hotkeys enable users to launch their favorite games with a single touch and execute in-game commands on-the-fly. The chassis of the G71 also features a programmable lighting system, which lights up and blinks during in-game events. These lights can be configured through the Direct Console 2.0, providing the user with a pyrotechnic-like ambience while in the game.

Direct Messenger

Users can now read their emails and communicate via Instant Messaging (MSN™) through the Direct Messenger. Acting as a secondary display, it displays email notifications, instant messages, battery reserves and system loadings in real-time even during a game in progress. This allows users to keep in touch with their friends and family while multitasking between various applications.

Entertainment and Style on the Move

The G71 incorporates several entertainment features that promise to give users a gaming experience like none other. Altec Lansing speakers equipped with a subwoofer deliver excellent sound reproduction, further complimented by Dolby™ Home Theater. A 2.0 megapixel webcam allows users to communicate visually through Skype™ or MSN™; while a dedicated game keyboard layout provides them with strategically placed movement keys on a full-sized keyboard—granting them quick access to their in-game inventories and allowing them to issue commands in the shortest time possible. These features combine to provide an entire host of gamer-centric features for users to immerse themselves in a world of audio and visual entertainment with style.

Fun for Everyone

The G71 may have the sheer power to sate the needs the most serious of gamers, but it is also very suitable for those who prefer to play games on a more casual basis. Attaching ASUS' innovative Eee Stick—a simple plug and play gaming solution that allows users to interact with the game by translating their hand motions into corresponding movements onscreen—for example, will instantly transform the G71 into a mobile gaming console. The easy-to-use and family-friendly Eee Stick—which works with all of ASUS' notebooks—consists of an Activation stick, a Navigation stick and a 2.4GHz RF dongle. It has a broadcast range of up to 10 meters, allowing users more leeway for physical movement. Boasting three modes of operation, the Eee Stick can be used with a myriad of game genres, ranging from sports and shooting, to action and beat 'em up games.

Useful Tips for Effective Web Design

2008-09-24T19:42:00.000-07:00

Neat and Easy Navigation: Navigation of links on your site plays a big role in determining the stickiness of your site (how long your visitor stays and explores your site). Ask yourself this, What do visitors do as soon as they open your site? They would probably read the content of the present page and then look around to find any other page that interests them. Read our article on Web site Navigation Tips.

Clean Layout Design: A clean layout that uses a lot of white space enhances a site's looks. Try to keep the focus on your content, use a template for this. Use fonts that will be available on all computers to prevent your site looking messed up.

Optimum Load Time: Make sure your load time is low. For this you must:
Minimize Graphics, Flash and scripts: They hugely increase your file size.
Optimize your HTML & script code: Make sure that your site doesn't have any unwanted tags or unused scripts.
Use Server Side Include (SSI) files where ever possible. SSI files once called from the web server reside in its cache so on subsequent requests they load faster.
Read our article Tips for a Fast Loading Site for more.

Design for all Screen Resolutions: A site that is easy-to-use always encourages visitors to stay and read your content. For site with long pages of content this is very crucial as the amount of scrolling required is reduced. Suppose your site doesn't look good for a particular resolution it is very probable that the visitor will close the browser window feeling that the web page is not for their viewing. Designing stretch layouts that fit any screen resolution ensures that you know all your visitors see a visually appealing and professional site.
Read our article Designing for all Screen Resolutions for more.

Ensure Web site scalability: Make sure your code and design is scalable. As technology advances and configuration of computers & their monitors keep increasing and varying it is impossible to test your site in all screen sizes and platforms.

Cross Browser Compatible: Make sure you check your site for Internet Explorer 5+, Mozilla Firefox 1.0, Opera 7.0 and Netscape Navigator 6+ as they constitute 95% of the worlds browsers.

www.smartwebby.com

Fashion in Japan

2008-09-23T17:52:00.001-07:00

Photos via www.fashioninjapan.com
Fashion in Japan - www.fashioninjapan.com, is a website which provides fashion snapshots of Japanese streets and stores. They cover all the market segments and trends per product, age, sex and area.

The founder of Fashion in Japan, Loic Bizel, 36 years old, Frenchman, has been working in the fashion industry in Japan for the past 11 years. He has been dealing with the Japanese fashion market "from the inside", being involved in wholesale and retail activities, as well as consulting for foreign brands and Japanese companies. His experience and connections with the fashion distribution, together with his knowledge of the retailers therefore helps you to tackle the Japanese market in the right way.

Loic Bizel also launched Lebiz Tokyo in 2001, which is well-known in the fashion industry for its two original concepts:

- Tokyo Fashion Tour (shopping at the trendiest "select shops")

- Fashion in Japan (live fashion pictures from Tokyo).

Since 2006, Lebiz Tokyo develops exclusive Benchmark and Trends Reports for clients from all over the world.

Please visit Fashion in Japan to see the latest Japanese fashion trends with “the foreign eyes of Japanese Fashion” as Loic prefers to be described as.

www.fashioninjapan.com [Edited by Senay Gokcen-www.fashiontrendsetter.com]

Most Expensive Men’s Shoes

2008-09-23T00:18:00.001-07:00

While some will always consider hand made shoes the best and probably most expensive men’s shoes in the world, distinguished brands have come out with quite expensive ready made shoes. What is the most expensive men’s shoe?
Forbes published a year ago a list of most expensive shoes for men that were ready made and their list included names such as Salvatore Ferragamo, Prada, Edward Green, John Lobb, New & Lingwood, and Berluti. Topping the list were the distinctive Berluti shoes which fetch a mere $1,830 per pair.
Still when considering the cost of the more elaborate designs in women’s shoes, these expensive men’s shoes do not seem all that pricey. Maybe its that modern day men will just not accept shoes with jewels adorning them.

Download MP3 music from MP3Fiesta without the iTunes DRM restrictions

2008-09-21T22:44:00.000-07:00

MP3Fiesta is a music download service for those who want the latest music tracks for cheap and without any digital rights restrictions. Personally, I don’t like iTunes because it’s simply too restrictive with my music: songs can only be played on my computer or iPod. If you want to move them to another computer, you have to go through all kind of hoops that are either too complicated for a normal user or too time-consuming.

MP3Fiesta has 19,214 artists, 79,592 albums, and 867,366 tracks in it’s music database! Over 300 albums are added to the collection every day! It’s complete with new releases, charts, ratings, and has a large number of music genres, including International music from the UK, Euro, and World.

All music that you download from the site is in the universal MP3 format, so you can play it on your computer, iPod, mobile, etc. Another nice feature of the site is the ability to preview any song before you download it, up to 30 seconds with good sound quality.

However, the main reason to buy music from this site and not iTunes is because the price for tracks and albums is GREAT! Most tracks on the site are on average only 10 cents. That means you can download an entire album for about $0.99!! That’s cheap! Even most of the new releases are $0.99 for the entire album!

MP3Fiesta also gives you useful information (for tech people) about the tracks, such as bit rate, time, and the size of the MP3.

And as mentioned above, once you download the music, you can freely copy it onto any other device that you like as many times as you want!

Photography For Beginners - Using a Tripod

2008-09-21T21:56:00.000-07:00

Digital cameras offer a level of technology that was unimagined only a few short years ago. The funny thing is, the old techniques are still as important as ever.

A tripod is still an essential piece of equipment for good photography. For beginners, the purchase of a tripod is usually a sign that one is ready to move beyond the snapshot stage and get more serious about photography. But if you have managed without a tripod in the past, perhaps you have wondered if you should take the plunge, or continue to get by without. So here is the first question you need to answer: "Do I need a tripod?"

The answer depends on how seriously you take your photography. If you are happy with simple snapshots, and have no ambitions of delving into more serious photography, you would probably be wasting your money. Tripod photography takes a little more time, thought and effort; if good photography is not important to you, you will not get value out of a tripod and probably would not use it even if you had one.

Now for the second question: "Why do I need a tripod?"

A tripod keeps your camera completely still, so you can take photos that will not be blurred by any movement of the camera caused by an unsteady hand.

There are two reasons why you might use a slow shutter speed for your photos. Sometimes the light is very low, and you need a slow shutter speed to get a good exposure. Or you may choose to use a slow shutter speed to capture a special effect. In either situation, your tripod will ensure that the camera is perfectly still and the photo will not be blurred.

An additional benefit is that the tripod allows you to compose a photo carefully, without having to concentrate on keeping the camera still in your hand. It is much easier to check that the horizon is level, and all parts of the photo are as you want them before you press the button.

Let's assume for a moment that you have a tripod. Now for our third and final question: "When do I use my tripod?"

Some people will tell you you should never take a photo without a tripod below a certain shutter speed. The trouble is, different people recommend different speeds. Some photographers will tell you 125/sec is the lower limit; other will recommend 60/sec or 30/sec.

So who is telling you the truth? Actually, all of them. Because the truth is, it's not that simple.

When you use a large lens to magnify your subject, you also magnify the effect of any camera movement. So if you use a telephoto lens, a shaky camera will affect your photo much more than if you use a wide-angle lens. So it could be that a photo you could take hand-held with a wide angle lens would require a tripod with a telephoto lens.

How do you know, then, when to use a tripod? This is a guideline that was recently told to me, and it is a good one to keep in mind.

Let your choice of shutter speed match the size of the lens. For example, if you are using a 200mm lens, you should be able to take photos without a tripod at speeds of 200/sec or faster. Once your speed drops below 200/sec, be sure to use your tripod.

For a smaller lens, you can go with a slower shutter speed to match. So if you are using a standard lens (around 50-60mm) you could set your cutoff point at 60/sec. Faster, and you can take the photo hand-held; slower, and you should use a tripod.

With a wide angle lens of 28mm, your cutoff point would be 30/sec. There are some photographers who insist that all photos should be taken with a tripod, no matter what lens or shutter speed you use. This is simply not practical, but it does point to the simple fact that the tripod is always steadier than the hand. If a photo is important to you, it is worth going to some extra effort and leaving nothing to chance. So if in doubt, use a tripod, even when the shutter speed suggests you can get by without it.

Oh, and one more thing. Never, ever, ever take a photo slower than 1/30sec without a tripod.

Andrew Goodall's top selling ebooks on photography for beginners have already helped thousands of people learn the skills better photography. Find them at http://www.naturesimage.com.au and sign up the online newsletter for even more tips...it's free!

Don Rickles: At 81, Still Adding Insult to Comedy

2008-09-21T21:44:00.000-07:00

"Hurwitz -- you're Jewish?" Don Rickles asks. Of course, I say, adding that my fiancee is Mexican. Rickles is concerned: "Is your family happy about the Mexican girl?" Yeah, no problem. "Oh, all right. On Yom Kippur, we'll give her a taco and send her home early."

Bingo. My own personal Don Rickles insult. "It's not really an insult," the 81-year-old comic explains. "It's just an exaggeration. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been headlining for 50-odd years."

And for that 50-odd years, "he has essentially done the same material. . . .," director John Landis says. "And what's amazing is: one, it's still shocking; two, it's still funny; and three, he doesn't really offend anybody."

Even more incredible, says actor and pal Sidney Poitier, "people come looking for it."

And they continue to come looking for it, as seen in Landis's new HBO documentary, "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project," which premieres tonight. The movie contains live performance footage of the comedian at Las Vegas's Sahara Hotel -- something he has never previously allowed to be filmed -- and interviews with more than 50 friends and colleagues, including Clint Eastwood, Robin Williams, Chris Rock, Martin Scorsese, Joan Rivers, Sarah Silverman and others, including his best buddy, Bob Newhart.

"No one can steal Don's material," Newhart says. "Because Don is just doing Don. And no one can do Don."

Not that people don't try. "It's like being at the zoo and watching kids taunt the leopard," Newhart continues. "The zookeeper says, 'Kid, I wouldn't do that if I were you.' Well, the equivalent with Don is when people come up to him and try to 'do' him. You want to go, 'Please. . . . don't do that. You're going to regret doing that -- trust me. You're just playing with fire.' "

For all his fame as a comic, Rickles began his career as an actor. After getting out of the Navy in the '40s, he studied at New York's American Academy of Dramatic Arts alongside the likes of Jason Robards and Anne Bancroft. "I auditioned for [the academy] and they accepted me -- ask me why, I don't know," he says. He spent the next few years working Broadway, finally deciding to take a whack at comedy.

Like most comics of the day, he first worked in burlesque, entertaining the audience in between performances by strippers. "They were called 'striptease joints,' but by today's standards, they're nothing," he says. "Just little tassels on the boobs, and that was a big deal."

Although he could do a few impressions, telling jokes was not his forte. "To this day, if you gave me $1,000, I can't tell a joke. But I can make it a joke, out of an exaggeration," which he did, poking fun at the drunken sailors in the audience.

He began to make a name for himself in such places as Washington's old Wayne Room on then-seedy 14th Street NW before graduating to shows in Miami and, eventually, Las Vegas, in the early '50s.

Rickles built his career playing in such venues as the lounge at the Sahara, doing shows throughout the night -- 2, 4 and 5 a.m. "It was always a lot of fun," he recalls. "But, hey, when you're in your young 30s . . . If I had to do it today, we might have to call the paramedics."

"You'd get through with your show at 1:30, and, naturally, the adrenaline is still pumping," Newhart remembers. "You'd say, 'Hey, let's go catch Keely Smith and Louis Prima or Vic Damone.' " And, of course, Don Rickles.

Even the era's big names would pop in to see Rickles fairly regularly, including Nat King Cole (for whom Rickles would later serve as a pallbearer) and members of the Rat Pack -- most notably Frank Sinatra. Upon Sinatra's first visit, Rickles famously greeted him with, "Make yourself at home, Frank -- hit somebody."

"Everyone looked to see what Frank would do," Landis says. "Because there were those 12 guys over there with guns." Thankfully, Frank laughed -- and all the guys laughed with him. "If he didn't laugh, I'd be on the Jerry Lewis telethon," Rickles says now.

Vegas at the time was run by "the guys," as mobsters were known. "They really knew how to run the town," Newhart says. "It was virtually crime-free. They made sure that any transgressions were . . . taken care of immediately. One thing you learned was never to ask the owners, 'What did you do before this?' "

Rickles and Newhart became fast friends, having been introduced by their wives, and have remained close, even traveling the world together. Their relationship is particularly intriguing given the differences in their humor and personalities. "Don is all touchy-feely, hugging, etc.," says Landis, who first met Rickles in 1969 working as a gofer on the film "Kelly's Heroes." "Bob, though, is probably the whitest person you'll ever meet. He defines the word 'gentile.' "

"We're like apples and oranges," Rickles says. "Our humors are two different ballparks. But when we're together socially, we fall on the floor laughing at the same stuff."

"People will say, 'Geez, how can you go on vacation with Rickles? I mean, 24 hours a day?' " Newhart says. "I just tell them it's like elevator music. It's just kind of a din in the background -- you don't pay a lot of attention to it. Otherwise you'd go crazy. You just kind of tune in every so often to see what subject he's ranting on."

It is Newhart who probably understands Rickles best. "There's a part of all comedians that remains a child, while other people get civility pounded into them," he says. "But somehow comedians don't. This is particularly evident in Don. Whatever he sees, he says. And it's what we all think, but we're too civilized to say."

Newhart recalls watching one of Rickles's Sahara shows with his wife, noting one particularly obvious target for Rickles's abuse sitting in the front row, though the comic didn't appear to notice. "There was a guy sitting in the front row with . . . with this really bad hairpiece -- I mean, it looked like a divot that somebody threw on somebody's head," he recalls. "Don kept walking past the guy, but he didn't say anything. I turned to my wife, and I said, 'Geez, he's gotta see that guy in the front row.' Finally, he looks at the guy, and he says, 'No one would ever guess, sir.' "

In more than 50 years of performing, Rickles has never regretted anything he's said in jest. "I'm like a fighter," he says. "I always throw my best punch, and I never take it back or apologize for what I said. I never take it back, because when I say it, I believe it. And I believe it's funny."

Shuttle D10 desktop features built-in touchscreen, little else

2008-09-21T21:43:00.000-07:00

The D10 is a barebones rig with the classic Shuttle form factor, but the addition of a 7-inch (800 x 480) touchscreen out front makes things a little more interesting. Intel Core 2 Duo, Core 2 Duo E4000 series, Dual-Core E2000 series and Celeron 400 series processors are all supported with up to 4GB RAM, and the kit ships with an Intel GMA 3100 GPU, 5.1 channel audio and SATA II support. A base configuration is offered on Shuttle's Japanese site with a 1.6GHz Celeron processor, 1GB RAM and a 80GB hard drive for ¥69,800 (about $648), but no -- it isn't available in the States.

David Cook's Debut Album & Site

2008-09-19T17:47:00.000-07:00

David Cook’s debut album will be released on November 18th, 2008 on 19 Recordings / RCA Records. Cook has teamed with Grammy winning producer Rob Cavallo (Green Day, Kid Rock) on the album.

Today marks the launch of DavidCookOfficial.com, Cook’s official social networking site where fans can interact with David, his music and each other. Fans can create their own profiles, make friends and contribute their own blogs, photos, videos and connect with other fans in their towns by various search functionality.

David describes the site as a place where he and his fans can communicate with each other. He will be hugely involved in all interactive aspects of the site. David personally welcomes fans to his site via video blog and fans can communicate with him by sending an email to David@DavidCookOfficial.com, David’s personal mailbox. Those that sign up to his newsletter will be the first to be notified of the title of his first single in the coming weeks. Additionally, David will regularly message his fans so they are the first to know breaking news and album updates.
DavidCookOfficial.com will be the home of exclusive content, unique and exciting contests and will allow fans to keep track of David's upcoming events and appearances with an interactive map feature. It will also incorporate a point system that will allow fans to compete for points which will earn them special prizes.
David Cook checked in with americanidol.com while touring with his AI peers this summer.
Read the article to find out David's thoughts on the whirlwind tour!
Prefer the David Cook visual? Watch our interview with him as he was just about to embark on the summer tour.
Finally, see the many looks of David Cook in our exclusive Transformation Gallery!

Christopher Nicholas Sarantakos

2008-09-17T22:39:00.000-07:00

Criss Angel is the star and creator of the A&E Network show Criss Angel Mindfreak. Seasons 1 and 2 were filmed at the The Aladdin in Las Vegas, with Season 3 at the Luxor Hotel. Premiering on July 20, 2005, the illusions have included walking on water, levitating above the Luxor Hotel (in the light of 62 lightbulbs that can be seen from space), floating between two buildings, causing a Lamborghini to disappear, surviving in an exploding C4 Crate, cutting himself in half in full view of an audience and getting run over by a steamroller while lying stomach down on a bed of glass.Season 4 of Mindfreak debuted on July 23, 2008, and the show is scheduled to run for two more seasons after that.

He attempted to jump out of a prisoner transport vehicle before it fell off a cliff in season 3. Criss made it but, as revealed at the end of the episode, injured his neck. Production was stopped for two weeks while he recovered and Criss has sworn never to attempt this stunt again.

Criss Angel (Stangel) performed World Of Illusion at Madison Square Garden in 1998. Criss then scored an off Broadway show titled "Criss Angel Mindfreak," which ran up until January 6, 2003 and was the IMS Magician of the year in 2001 and 2004.

He has even revealed the methods for many of his tricks to viewers at home on cinema and in videos, although the effects revealed are usually very simple such as making a toothpick disappear, picking a pocket, or making a Styrofoam cup float. Angel discusses magic and his life in Mindfreak: Secret Revelations (published April 24, 2007), which became a Los Angeles Times best seller.

Angel is scheduled to appear in a new illusion-based Cirque du Soleil production at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas entitled Criss Angel: Believe, with an expected opening date in October 2008. The countdown clock featured on Angel's official website is counting down to September 12, 2008 as a premiere, however Cirque du Soleil has confirmed that the opening is delayed due to 'technical difficulties'. Preview performances that were scheduled to begin September 1st, will now begin September 12th and the Grand Gala Opening has been rescheduled to October 10th, 2008. Angel has recently stated that there are plans for this attraction to run for 10 years, including 4,600 shows with a possible 5 year renewal option of his contract.

In July 2007, NBC signed Angel and Uri Geller for Phenomenon, a show airing on October 24 that searches for the next great mentalist.Angel does not believe Geller has any paranormal abilities.

Verizon's BlackBerry Storm page goes live

2008-09-17T00:28:00.000-07:00

It was redirected for most the of the day, but Verizon's BlackBerry Storm page just went live, hopefully meaning we'll be see RIM's first touchscreen phone make its debut sometime soon. All you can do at the moment is sign up for an email alert, but we've got you covered with the internal promo video, box art, talking points, and even a ninja-themed hands-on -- yeah, let's get this released, guys.

[Thanks, Nick]

Quick car rendering in Photoshop

2008-09-16T21:32:00.000-07:00

This tutorial shows how to quickly render a car in Photoshop with a marker rendering style. The author is Pankaj Dhamane, Senior Designer at Maruti Suzuki India.

Tutorial by Pankaj Dhamane

Step 1. Select one of your thumbnail sketches and refine it. Scan it and do some cleaning in Photoshop. For any type of rendering whether it is handmade or digital the base sketch must be good enough in terms of perspective and line quality.

Step 2. Here we are ready with clean line work.Now you can use this sketch image for any type of rendering. Fill black colour in the areas like air dam, wheel spoke negative space etc.

Keep this layer at the top and in multiply state so that you can render the car without loosing the line work.

Step 3. You have to decide the light source and depending on that think of shadow and highlight of the scene.

It will be helpful if you are clear about the reflection in sketch itself.

That will help put right contrast of colour while rendering. I have decided the light source is at front and directing at an angle towards the car.

Keep the Surfaces blank (White) facing the light source so that more contrast is achieved. I have decided body colour to be red.

Use the Watercolor Textured Surface brush and select the color (in this case Pantone 1788C), then darken the areas of reflection and shadow.

Go over it again and again to achieve the contrast in shadow area and defining the depth in the surfaces. Do not worry about excess colour going out of the outline, you can always erase it.

Step 4. When I am through with the body colour, I go for Cladding parts which are dark colour, may be dark gray or black. Add little highlights to the surfaces exposed to the light source to give depth to the parts.

You can use the Dodge and Burn tools to add highlights and to create shadow. The wheels are rendered in warm gray with again leaving some black area to create contrast. To create more contrast and depth in the scene I have added some shadows.

You can run dark gray or simply black colour to create the shadow effect. If you feel the black is getting too dark you can play with layer opacity.

Step 5. Go on filling the interior with a colour which mateches the exterior; adding depth by going over again and again to create contrast.

You can create different layers, one for each step, like body, interior, cladding etc. Layer management is very helpful for a better rendering result.

Step 6. Give glass effect by playing with the transparency effect. You can go dark towards shadow side and keep immediate portion transparent to create contrast.

Same thing can be done with the DLO(*), where the bottom can be dark and the upper half transparent. Add blue to the shadows on the hood, glass and roof to give a sky reflection effect. Details like this help in adding depth to the rendering.

(*) DLO = Daylight opening: The perimeter of the windows area.

Step 7. The final stage is adding more details. Add warm gray colour for the headlamps and then add more white to create reflective effect. The transparent effect can be achieved by adding some blue and playing with the layer opacity.

The chrome grille is the last part I like to do.

To create a highly reflective effect I have created an horizon line, with the upper part reflectingo the sky and the lower part in warm grrey, showing ground reflections is treated with warm gray.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial.

This tutorial is copyright of Pankaj Dhamane

10 Photoshop Techniques You Can't Work Without:

2008-09-16T20:46:00.000-07:00

Once in a blue moon there comes along a Photoshop technique that's so simple yet effective that it makes you gasp, "OMFG! Why didn't anyone tell me about that!" The following 10 techniques every Photoshoper should know:

1. One-Click Selection:

Summary: CTRL+Click a layer's thumbnail to select all contents on that layer. This one's going to speed up your workflow several fold, and you won't worry about deselecting because its so easy to reselect.

Shown: Here we have a non-empty layer containing the black leaf graphic.

Step 1: CTRL+Click the "Layer 2" thumbnail icon. Notice the selection outside that appears around the leaf. Everything contained in "Layer 2" has been selected.

Shown: The selection is clearly visible now with "Layer 2's" visibility turned off.

Tip: CTRL+Click also works on Path layers. Quickly generate selections by CTRL+Clicking a path's thumbnail.

Tip: Store selections you don't immediately need by creating a new layer and filling the selection with black. When you want to recall the selection, just CTRL+Click the layer's thumbnail.

2. Rasterize Styled Layers:

Summary: Layer styles are great because they're parametric (defined mathematically), but they're also limited in that you can't modify them on the pixel level with tools like the eraser, pencil, etc. Wouldn't it be nice if Adobe offered a "Rasterize" option for styled layers like it does with text? Well, no such luck, but the next best thing is to manually rasterize using Merge Down.

Shown: Here we have a styled layer that we want to rasterize. It contains the silver button.

Step 1: Select the layer directly below "Layer 2".

Step 2: Click the "New Layer" icon to create a blank layer.

Shown: "Layer 3" is the new blank layer.

Step 3: Right-click the silver button layer and choose "Merge Down".

Shown: The silver button layer is now rasterized; it was merged into "Layer 3" and now consists purely of pixels rather than parameters.

Shown: "Layer 3's" pixels can now be directly modified with Photoshop's standard pixel-editing tools, like the paintbrush.

3. Knock Out Layer Colors:

Summary: Ever find an image that's merged with an undesirable background? Typically we can use selection tool to extract parts of it, but if the image is intricate and doesn't have clearly defined edges, selection tools can leave ugly, jagged edges. Luckily, layer blending options allow us to to knock out undesirable solid colors with smooth results in seconds.

Shown: Here we have a layer containing an image of colored leaves on a black background. The leaves and background are merged together. Our goal is to isolate the leaves from the background.

Step 1: With the leaves layer selected, left-click the "Add A Layer Style" icon and select "Blending Options".

Step 2: In the "Layer Style" pop-up, ALT+Click the right half of the black slider arrow and drag it towards the right. Notice how black is gradually knocked out of the image the farther you drag.

Caution! Be sure to ALT+Click the RIGHT HALF of the slider arrow. Not the whole thing!

Tip: Other colors can be knocked out besides black. Dragging the white slider arrow in a similiar way knocks out white. Use the "Blend If" drop-down to switch color mode from "Grey" to "Red", "Green", or "Blue" to knock out those colors.

Shown: Slider arrow as it appears after dragging.

Shown: Original image with the black background knocked out.

4. Scale Layer Styles:

Summary: Ever apply a layer style and wonder why it doesn't look quite right? It's often the case that one style looks great at one scale but horrible at another. Effects like a 1px outline look completely different on a 100 pixel diameter button than on a 1000 pixel diameter button. Scaling a style to the size of a layer's content is the key to getting the result you want.

Shown: Here we have a layer containing a yellow dot. The dot is defined with a style.

Step 1: Right-Click on the "Layer 2" up arrow and select "Scale Effects".

Caution! Be sure to Right-Click on the UP ARROW specifically (outlined in the image), otherwise "Scale Effects" won't appear in the context menu.

Step 2: Click on the scale % arrow in the Scale Layer Effects pop-up menu.

Step 3: Drag the Scale % slider left to reduced the style's scale to 50%. Notice how the style changes.

Step 4: Drag the Scale % slider right to increase the style's scale to 200%. Notice how the style changes.

Step 5: Drag the Scale % slider right to increase the style's scale to 500%. Notice how the style changes.

Shown: Here the dot's diameter was doubled. To keep the original effect intact, the style is scaled to 200%.

Tip: Experiment with style scales to find a different look. If you download a style and it doesn't look as good as you expected, tweak its scale.

5. Convert to Smart Object:

Summary: Every scale and transform operation done on a raster image (jpg, gif, bmp, etc.) in Photoshop reduces its quality. If you plan to scale or transform an image multiple times, convert it to a smart object first. Smart objects degrade only once no matter how many times they're scaled or transformed.

Tip: As soon as you import a high-resolution source image into a composition, transform it in smart object. This way you don't have to worry about when it comes time to rescale, and unless you're perfect, you'll always want that flexibility.

Shown: Here we have a layer containing an image of a $100 bill stack.

Step 1: Right-Click on "Layer 2" and select "Convert to Smart Object".

Shown: This layer is now a smart object. Notice the smart object icon visible in the layer's thumbnail.

Step 2: Scale and rotate the smart object. The diagonal lines indicate that the image is no longer a bitmap but a vector.

Shown: The $100 bill stack has been transformed twiced, but degraded in quality only once.

Shown: The $100 bill stack has been transformed again (a fouth time), but has still degraded only once.

6. Styles with 0% Fill:

Summary: When developing your own layer styles, the base color with which you fill the layer can often interfere. Setting a layer's Fill to 0% hands off all authority over the final effect to the layer style, which is a good thing because the color with which you filled that layer becomes irrelavent.

Shown: Here we have a layer containing an image of a black circle.

Step 1: Apply a 3px red stroke style and make sure the "Fill" is at 100%.

Step 2: Set the "Fill" down to 50% by dragging the Fill slider arrow to the left. Notice the base color (black) is half-way negated.

Step 3: Set the "Fill" down to 0% by dragging the Fill slider arrow all the way left. Notice the base color (black) is completely negated.

Shown: Even though the base color appears to be visible, the black cirlce here is actually defined in the style's "Color Overlay". Notice that Fill is still at 0%. Factoring out the base color offers greater flexibility when creating new effects.

Caution! Don't confuse a layer's Fill with its Opacity. Opacity affects the base color AND the style effect while Fill only affects the base color.

Tip: Transparent or translucent effects can be created with low Fill values.

7. The Colorize Checkbox:

Summary: The Hue/Saturation pop-up menu is great for creating quick color varitions of any image. But, what if you want to colorize a grey, or monochromatic image? That's where the colorize checkbox comes into play. The "Colorize" checkbox adds color to regions of an image that lack it.

Shown: Here we have a layer containing an image of silver button. Notice the image has no inherent color.

Step 1: Hit CTRL+U or go to Image >> Adjustments >> Hue/Saturation to open the "Hue/Saturation" pop-up menu. Click the "Colorize" checkbox.

Tip: If you want to change the color of an non-monochrome image, do not check the "Colorize" checkbox. Doing so is typically undesirable because grey or white areas -- like a white background -- will receive tint.

Tip: Black, or very dark portions of an image are difficult to colorize without first lightening them.

Step 2: Notice how a red tint has been added the monochromatic image. Increase "Saturation" to 50 by dragging the Saturation slider to the right. Notice the red tint becomes more apparent.

Step 3: Play with the "Hue" slider to change the color of the tint. Here the Hue is set to 207 for a blue tint.

8. Space-Drag Selections:

Summary: Perfectly positioning a selection marquee can be frustrating, especially in the case of elipses. But, did you know you could nudge a selection marquee while dragging it out? Just hold the space bar and achieve the perfect fit.

Shown: Here we have an image of a globe on a black background. We'd like to select and isolate the blue globe.

Step 1: With the Selection Marquee tool active (press M to activate), click and drag outward from the point shown and release. The result isn't quite what we wanted.

Step 2: Rather than using trail-and-error, this time we click and drag out again, but hold down the Space bar while dragging to re-position the marquee. Release the Space bar and you can continue to grow or shrink the elipse. Repeat until you get the perfect selection.

Tip: Holding ALT while dragging out a selection marquee will center it around the cursor. To select a circle, hold ALT while clicking and dragging out from its epicenter.

Tip: Hold SHIFT while dragging to add to an existing selection. Hold ALT while dragging to subtract from an existing selection. Hold SHIFT+ALT obtain the intersection of two selections.

9. Layer Mask Instead of Eraser:

Summary: Ever erase part of an object early on in a project only to regret it much later? The eraser is a useful tool, but a better technique is layer masking. Once a layer mask is applied, paint on it with black or white to reversibly erase or unerase parts of the image.

Shown: Here we have a logo image layer. Our goal is to remove 5 of the spikes on its left-hand side.

Step 1: With "Layer 2" selected, Click the "Add Layer Mask" button. A new layer mask thumbnail will appear, as shown.

Step 2: Select the Brush Tool (shortcut "B") and set the foreground color to black (#000000). Start painting away the unwanted spikes.

Shown: All 5 spikes have been masked out.

Shown: This is what the layer mask looks like. Black portions mask out the original image, white portions allow the original image to show through.

Step 3: Switch foreground color to white (#FFFFFF) and repaint the spike tips. Notice the flexibility of switching colors to erase/unerase the original image.

10. Warp:

Summary: Ever needed to stretch an image into an organic shape? How about pinching corners or folding edges? The Warp transformation makes it easy.

Shown: Here we have an image we'd like to warp. The grid is just a visual aid, representing what we'd like the final shape of the image to take.

Step 1: The colored image is moved over the visual aid.

Step 2: Once the image is in place, go to Edit >> Transform >> Warp.

Step 3: Notice the warp grid overlaying the image. Drag the outer top and left nodes inward as shown. When you get the shape you want, hit Enter to exit the Warp transform mode.

Shown: The original image is now warped into the desired shape.

Tip: Use warp to create curled page edges.

Improve a photo from a mobile phone

2008-09-02T19:12:00.001-07:00

Today I will show as from anything actually to make though something normally perceived by an eye, this full achievement of an ideal shot but though something is better than a source code is final not
Lesson for version CS 2 and above

I prefer to do each new transformation on a new layer, duplicating that already is (Ctrl-J) so be not frightened if on sreens you see a heap of layers

1. At us is photo which should be retouched, in my understanding this the worst that could make with shape of the person light and camera expansion:

2. First, we will get rid of a noise considerable quantity: At us a lot of colour noise so it is better to make take off noise on all colour channels (Red, Dark blue, Green who not in a course) we will pass in editing of channels here, for example, so looks:
3. Now the filter is by turns applied to channels Filter – Noise - Reduse Noise (the Filter – Noise - to Clean Noise) I have applied everyone some times it has not turned out to clean yet all stains, but left as you can see here so, but granularity, undoubtedly, was gone. A kind of the same red channel after the filter applied two times:

The image after taking off noise on channels looks so

4. Further it is necessary to clean, the remained lacks. Accurately we wash away sites on which there was a noise. We take the tool degradation (Such droplet on a toolbar) For it in the menu of options of the tool which usually under the main menu we expose Property force

Strength – Force
It is less, than by default than 100 %, I for example usually take 30-35 %. Remember, the retouch is as mejk-ap better two times to take in one place on small force of a shading, than once жахнуть how many it is necessary, as here as well as there not all sites need identical quantity to become comprehensible.
After that the step should achieve approximately here such result, do not wash away strongly sharp transitions of colour, then clearness to direct is hard.

5. On this step starts to correct colour scale of the image.
By means of levels we will correct a few brightness:

Further we will clean all those reflected lights green which is in a photo.
Let’s choose the tool a brush (to choose round with dim edges better) and in mode Color (Colour)

Just as for degradation in the top panel tools we will choose
mode-Color (Mode-colour) Opasity (transparency) of 15-20

Let’s choose normal colour for a skin, from a site where it more or is less similar on natural, I have chosen from area near to an ear, there is painfully ruddy on other sites somehow (pipette)

And gradually we paint over spending a brush twice on places where it is necessary, and even it is more. And so a face at this stage:

6. Further we edit a shirt and hair, for a shirt colour blue too from a site near to edited as in a shade white sees as blue is taken, and for hair colour is taken from other photo (to me so easier, than a trial and error method to select a natural shade for a shading). And eyes a little too should be edited, Where fibers.
Further already, I think, to improve difficult enough business so I suggest to stop on this step and in general to go and teach a retouch of photos, but it, notice, where it is better than the original. Well unless very accurately to make clearness.

I not undertake to say that this is ideal result, but it already is a quite good basis for the further retouch if the person though something understands it.

The Chronology Of Earth History

2008-08-18T05:50:00.001-07:00

This chart shows important moments in Earth history based on information from the Pleiadians. Dates are only estimates to show the chronology of events.

* 22 Million B.C. The first Lyrans come to Earth and colonize.
* 387,000 B.C. 144,207 Lyrans come to Earth and settle here, forever changing the genetics of Earthman.
* 228,000 B.C. A Lyran leader named Asael leads 360,000 Lyrans to a new home in the Pleiades.

This chart shows important moments in Earth history based on information from the Pleiadians. Dates are only estimates to show the chronology of events.

* 22 Million B.C. The first Lyrans come to Earth and colonize.
* 387,000 B.C. 144,207 Lyrans come to Earth and settle here, forever changing the genetics of Earthman.
* 228,000 B.C. A Lyran leader named Asael leads 360,000 Lyrans to a new home in the Pleiades.
* 226,000 B.C. Asael dies and his daughter Pleja becomes ruler. The system is now called the Plejas.
* 225,000 B.C. Pleja scout ships discover Earth, and colonies are founded here and on Mars and Milona.
* 196,000 B.C. War breaks out on Earth and its people are evacuated to the Plejas. Forty years later Milona destroys itself and becomes the asteroid belt. Mars is thrown out of orbit and all life is gone.
* 116,000 B.C. For the past 80,000 years several small colonies have been tried by the Lyrans-mostly exiled criminals.
* 71,344 B.C. The Great Pyramids are built in Egypt, China, and South America by Lyrans.
* 58,000 B.C. The Great Plan. The Pleiadians build a great society on Earth that lasts for almost 10,000 years.
* 48,000 B.C. Ishwish Pelegon comes to Earth and builds a wonderful society that lasts for around 10,000 years.
* 31,000 B.C. Atlantis is founded by a man named Atlant, who comes with his people from the Barnard Star system.
* 30,500 B.C. The great city of Mu is founded by Muras, the father of Atlant's wife, Karyatide. His empire is sometimes called Lemuria.
* 30,000 B.C. The black race comes from Sirius.
* 16,000 B.C. Arus is exiled from Earth for trying to start wars. He hides out with his followers in the Beta Centauri star system.
* 14,000 B.C. Arus and his men return to Earth and settle in Hyperborea, which is the current location of Florida.
* 13,000 B.C. The scientist Semjasa, the second in command to Arus, creates two Adams, who bear a child named Seth. This becomes the legend of Adam and Eve.
* 11,000 B.C. Arus II attacks the Sumerians, who flee into the mountains.
* 11,000 B.C. A group of ETs of unknown origin arrive, led by a leader named Viracocoha, who controlled the city of Tiahuanaco. His base was on an island named Mot. He provided the inhabitants of Easter Island the tools to build the strange statues there which represent him.
* 9500 B.C. The Pleiadians cause the old spirit-form from Lahson to come to Earth - later the incarnation of Meier.
* 9498 B.C. Atlantis and Mu destroy each other and ruin the planet. The air is not breathable for 50 years. All survivors are driven underground.
* 9448 B. C. Jehovan, the third son of Arus II, takes over the three remaining tribes left on Earth and becomes the ruler.
* 8239 B. C. The Destroyer Comet passes closely by Earth and causes the Atlantic ocean to part.
* 8104 B.C. The Biblical Flood.
* 6000 B.C. Venus is pulled out of its orbit around the planet Uranus by the Destroyer Comet and is in orbit around the sun.
* 5981 B.C. The Destroyer Comet comes close to Earth, causing great destruction. It also changes the orbit of Venus.
* 4930 B.C. The Destroyer Comet once again passes close by Earth, causing tidal waves of destruction.
* 5000 B.C. Jehav, the son of Jehovan, takes over rulership.
* 1500 B.C. The Destroyer Comet passes by Earth, causing the Santorini Volcano to erupt. It also pulls Venus into its current orbit around the sun.
* 1320 B.C. Jehav is murdered by his son, Arussem, who has two sons named Salem and Ptaah.
* 1010 B.C. Arusseam is driven out of power by his sons and hides out under the Great Pyramid with his followers. They call themselves the Bafath. This rest of this chart shows important moments in Earth history after procreating the spirit-form of Jmmanuel to carry on the teachings of creation.
* 32 A. D. Jmmanuel is crucified on the cross.
The purpose of this extract is to give you a summary - but it is to recommend to read the original material.

http://www.semjase.net/semjeng10.html

The Billy Meier Chronicle 1978

Australian Ghost Ship is Mary Celeste Mystery

2008-08-18T05:38:00.000-07:00

An inquest is being conducted into an Australian ghost ship that was discovered off the coast of Queensland. Read about it below, see photos of ghost ships and videos of the story of the Mary Celeste.

Ghost Ship

Three men from Perth, Australia set sail for the tri of a lifetime back in April 2007. They planned to sail from Perth in Western Australia around the northern end of Australia. The trip was expected to take six to eight weeks. They set sail on a Sunday and on the following Wednesday the vessel was found adrift. When rescuers boarded the ship, they found a very eerie, ghostly ship with few, if any, clues as to the whereabouts of the crew.

A year later, the Queensland Coroner is conducting an inquest into the case of the ghost ship.

The yacht is a 12-meter catamaran named Kaz II. The men on board were the skipper Derek Batten (56-years-old), Peter Tunstead (69-years-old) and his brother James Tunstead (63-years-old). The circumstances of their ship and their disappearances has been compared to the Mary Celeste mystery of 1872. Just like the Mary Celeste, the ship was found intact and functioning properly, there was no evidence of struggle or harm coming to the crew, food was prepared and laid out on the table for a meal, personal items were placed around as if the crew would step out to use them at any moment, but no one was there. They had just vanished into thin air.

In the case of Australia’s ghost ship, dinner was on the table, laptops were set out and working, GPS devises were functioning, the engine was running in neutral, personal items were sitting out and there was absolutely no indication of what happened to the crew. One of the more eerie finds was a video tape of the three men laughing, joking, fishing and generally enjoying their trip. The tape was in a video camera that was found on the ship. Exhaustive searches by boat and plane didn’t produce any clues.

At this point, the coroner has ruled out that the three faked their deaths for insurance fraud. The options seem to be that the three were victims of piracy, got into a fight with each other, were swept overboard by winds and waves, went swimming off the back of the boat and weren’t able to get back to the boat for whatever reason.

Whatever the explanation, it is likely to remain a mystery in much the same way as the famous ghost ship, Mary Celeste.

Book Bound in Human Skin

2008-08-18T05:37:00.001-07:00

We've all heard of leathery skin, but this macabre object is the real thing: a book bound in human skin.
The 300-year-old ledger was found in downtown Leeds, England

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We've all heard of leathery skin, but this macabre object is the real thing: a book bound in human skin.
The 300-year-old ledger was found in downtown Leeds, England (map). A burglar apparently dropped the tome, police announced Saturday.
Human-skin books are rare. But they appear to have been not quite as rare during the French Revolution, which is why it's not surprising that the Leeds book is in French, says Anthony Bliss, curator of rare books at the University of California, Berkeley's Bancroft Library.
The Bancroft Library, Bliss added, has a book that was bound in skin during the French Revolution of the 1790s.
"[The cover] was put on a book that was over a hundred years old at the time," he said. "Ironically enough, it's a prayer book."
And no, there are no belly buttons, nipples, tattoos, or other distinguishing marks on the Bancroft book. The donor who gave the book to the library authenticated it by taking it to a dermatologist, Bliss said.
An Internet search will find many stories of criminals' hides being used to bind their own trial proceedings, or of people who, in their wills, requested that their memoirs be bound in their own skins.
Bliss cautions about accepting such stories on blind faith. For the most part, he said, "they're nothing but hearsay, from a scholar's position."
Making books from human skin rather than cow leather wouldn't have been all that difficult, Bliss added. That's because the leather is merely a veneer over a stiffer underlying backing.
"Leather for bookbinding isn't like shoe leather," he said. "It's about as thick as three pieces of paper."
Macabre or not, such objects are fascinating slices history. "We don't make history," Bliss said. "We document it. It's not up to us to suppress it."
But, he added, "what possessed anyone to do this is beyond me."

Bathing Beauties

2008-08-18T05:36:00.001-07:00

Carved in Stone
Santa Fe artist Michael Zimber has brought the wonders of nature into the bathroom with his collection of tubs and sinks hand-carved from single blocks of natural stone. Part of his Stone Forest Bathtub collection, this granite piece juxtaposes the roughness of a boulder on the outside with a smoothly polished shell within. Available at Union Hardware in Bethesda, Marblex in Fairfax and Ferguson showrooms throughout the region. Visit www.stoneforest.com.
Custom Shower
Grohe’s custom showers let homeowners mix and match showerheads, body spray and hand showers, providing an endless combination of spray patterns. Temperature controls deliver safety and comfort for the whole family. Visit www.groheamerica.com.
Smooth Surface
Lacava’s new Tatami shower base system replaces unsightly floor drains with a clean new solution to draining shower spaces. The system is comprised of two to five porcelain bricks, which can be configured to accommodate any shower size. Water vanishes between the bricks. Visit www.lacava.com.
Low Profile
WaterTile, a new shower fixture by Kohler, boasts a sleek, streamlined design installed nearly flush with the wall. WaterTiles can be placed in a myriad of ways on walls, ceilings or angled surfaces. The line also includes a complementary wall-mounted showerhead. Both bodyspray and showerhead are available in two spray intensities. Visit www.kohler.com.
Asian Inspiration
Santa Barbara designer Susan Hugo of Terra Acqua creates exquisite basins handcrafted from stone and copper. The Fuera, part of the Montecito Stone Collection, is shaped by hand from a single block of stone. It’s available in two sizes in Black Pearl (granite), Green (onyx) and Honey (onyx, pictured on a Sable Granite counter). Visit www.terracqua.net.
Corinthian Order
Ancient Greek artifacts inspired the design of Stone Forest’s Corinthian sink. This drop-in vessel reflects the capitol portion of a classical Corinthian column. It’s made of papiro cream marble imported from Egypt. Custom pedestal sinks are also available in the same style. Visit www.stoneforest.com
Flight of Fancy
Kohler’s Take Wing lavatory utilizes a new glazing technique to achieve its detailed paisley design evocative of a cluster of butterflies. Available in indigo (pictured) and sepia, Take Wing is part of Kohler’s Artist Editions collection. Visit www.kohler.com.
Ahead of the Curve
Part of Sonia’s collection of bath storage solutions and vessels, Venecia marries classic and modern styles. Pictured here in beechwood with a frosted glass basin, it also comes in wenge. Available at the Bath and Kitchen Showroom in Rockville (301-816-2990), or visit www.sonia-sa.com.

On the Surface
Italian tiles and vanity surfaces from Domani utilize a glass laminate created in a patent-pending process that yields an amazing array of colors and textures. Styles evoke the look of rare gemstones, from tiger’s eye to titanium. Visit www.domanitile.com.
A Clean Approach
Marking his tenth year of collaborating with Duravit, Philippe Starck has released the Starck X collection. Marked by clean lines and high-gloss surfaces splashed with bright colors, the line includes sculptural bathtubs, washbasins (pictured), furniture pieces and more. For more information, visit www.duravit.us.
Foot Fetish
Aficionados of professional pedicures can now enjoy the pampering experience at home with MTI Whirlpool’s new Jentle Ped Foot Bath. The foot spa uses heat, massage and whirlpool jets to soothe aching feet. Adjustable jets target trouble spots. The spa is available in more than 50 colors to fit into any color scheme. Nail polish not included. Visit www.mtiwhirlpools.com.
Mirror Image
The morning news or late-show standups are there when you want them in your bathroom with Séura’s new Television Mirror. Concealed unobtrusively behind a mirror until it’s turned on, this LCD TV saves space and blends seamlessly into any bathroom décor. It’s available at Ferguson showrooms throughout DC, Maryland and Virginia. Visit www.seura.com.
Jacuzzi’s Salon line brings new technology to the company’s original whirlpool baths. Pure Air bath technology circulates air through a heated blower and releases it through channels in the bottom of the bath, surrounding bathers with thousands of effervescent bubbles. Pure Air can be used on its own or in tandem with the traditional water-jet action. The Salon line comes in a number of designs, including the Fuzion bath, which boasts a teak or wenge wood surround (pictured). Visit www.jacuzzi.com.
Ultimate Bathroom Design by Barcelona-based architect Alejandro Bahamón approaches the loo as a refuge for those seeking purification, warmth and respite. More than 700 color photographs of bathrooms around the world illustrate how aesthetic values can be combined with functionality. This multi-lingual edition includes text in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian. (teNeues Publishing Company, 2005, New York, NY; $39.95)
Creating Your Dream Bathroom: How to Plan & Style the Perfect Space by Susan Breen sets out to show readers how they can create their own “pamper space” with spa-like amenities in their own home using available space and a budget. The

WaterTile by Kohler

author examines dozens of interesting bathrooms and surveys myriad design choices and materials, from colors and floors to soothing multiple shower heads and furniture-style vanity units. (Sterling Publishing Co., Inc., New York, New York, 2006; $24.95).The Bronzed Look
Ann Sacks, in collaboration with California-based tile artisan Tres Feltman, has created pillowed bronze tile treated with a metallic bronze glaze. Available in multiple dimensions, the tiles are available in 80 custom colors, including jewel and earth tones or exotic metallics. Visit www.annsacks.com for details.

Music Search

2008-08-18T05:35:00.001-07:00

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Recent Project

2008-08-18T05:34:00.000-07:00

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MP3Fiesta: Download Legal MP3s: Cheap

2008-08-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

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Ad Gallery

2008-08-18T05:32:00.000-07:00

Carrie Underwood

2008-08-18T05:30:00.000-07:00

Carrie Underwood was born March 10, 1983. Her family already owned the farm in Checotah, Okla., though Underwood was born in the next town over, the one made famous in Merle Haggard's song, "Okie From Muskogee." Her father, Stephen, worked at a
paper mill, and her mother, Carole, was an elementary school teacher.

Carrie Underwood was born March 10, 1983. Her family already owned the farm in Checotah, Okla., though Underwood was born in the next town over, the one made famous in Merle Haggard's song, "Okie From Muskogee." Her father, Stephen, worked at a
paper mill, and her mother, Carole, was an elementary school teacher. Underwood is the youngest of three sisters. Shanna is 13 years older and Stephanie is 10 years older. Underwood was just 4 years old when Shanna moved out on her own but says her siblings have always been there for her.

Music didn't run in the family, but Underwood started singing at church when she was 3. Once she was in school, she sang solo roles in student plays. By the seventh grade, people were taking more notice of her voice as she entered local talent shows. She was told she had a "big voice" for "such a little girl."

Her taste in music was varied, thanks to her parents (who liked oldies) and sisters (who favored '80s pop). She started listening to country music in the car.

She was involved in her high school music program, but she kept telling people she was going to become a famous singer. Then she enrolled at Northeastern State University in Tahlequah, Okla., and became more serious about her career choice. She chose broadcast journalism for her major and produced a student-run television program and wrote for the school paper, The Northeastern.

Music wasn't completely out of the picture. While in college, she had a role in a country music show where she learned about country legends like Patsy Cline and the Carter Family. She was still taking her college classes when friends encouraged her to audition for American Idol. At first, she resisted. However, she soon realized if she didn't audition, she would graduate, get a job and may never have a chance to try out for the show again. So one night after wrapping an appearance in the college country music show, she piled into the car with her mom, a friend and her mother and drove all night, arriving in St. Louis at 6 a.m. They had to be at the stadium by 8 a.m. to receive wristbands to be eligible for the auditions. Then she waited eight hours before singing Martina McBride's "Phones Are Ringing All Over Town" for American Idol supervising producer James Breen.

Underwood didn't think she sang it well although she was invited to come back the next day and sing for executive producer Nigel Lythgoe. She sang another McBride song for Lythgoe, "Independence Day." On the next round, Underwood sang Bonnie Raitt's "I Can't Make You Love Me" for the show's judges, who sent her to Hollywood on her first-ever airline flight. As the weeks went by, the other contestants were voted off the show one by one, until the finale on May 25, 2005, when it was Underwood vs. Bo Bice. When Ryan Seacrest announced the winner, Underwood became America's new idol.

She signed to 19 Recordings/Arista Records and released the single "Inside Your Heaven", which debuted as the best selling song in the nation with sales of 170,000. She broke Billboard chart history as the first country music artist ever to debut at No. 1 on the Hot 100. Underwood's "Inside Your Heaven" also became the first song from a country artist to go to No. 1 on the Hot 100 since Lonestar's "Amazed" did so in 2000. However, the single was scarcely played on country radio.

Following her win, she performed on the American Idol tour and signed advertising deals for Hershey's chocolate and Skechers shoes. She released the single "Jesus, Take the Wheel" to country radio later that year; her debut album Some Hearts followed in November, less than six months following her Idol win.

Some Hearts proved to be a huge hit, leading to the No. 1 hits "Jesus, Take the Wheel," "Don't Forget to Remember Me" and "Before He Cheats." She toured with Kenny Chesney as well as Brad Paisley in 2006. She also won her first CMA Awards in 2006, in the Horizon and female vocalist categories.

The Mystery Of Atlantis

2008-08-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

The Indies — that is, India and Indonesia — are truly the sites of the two Atlantises, commemorated under the names of Atlantis and Lemuria by both Atlantologists and Occultists. Though grossly distorted by all sorts of exaggerations and misrepresentations, both Atlantises are indeed very real, and left unequivocal traces of their former existence in these remote regions of the terrestrial globe.

Those vestiges are of two sorts: traditional and archeological, and permeate every field of human endeavor. The tradition of Atlantis is very much alive in both India and Indonesia, disguised under the cover of their rich mythology and religious traditions. So is also the archeological evidence that confirms the origin of Civilization and even of humanity itself in the Indies. The Indies are indeed the site of the Terrestrial Paradise of the ancient traditions. They are also the Golden Islands, the Eldorado so ardently sought by the ancient mariners.

Note: The cataclysms of fire and water of worldwide extent of which we speak in this essay are strictly scientific. They are widely attested in the geological record, being generally accepted by modern Geology. So are the massive extinctions of all sorts of species, and particularly of the large mammals which took place at the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, some 11,600 years ago. Some 70% of the former species of great mammals which existed in the former era became extinct then, including, in all probability, two species of humans, the Neandertals and the Cro-Magnons, which became extinct more or less at this epoch.

Only the mechanism for the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — which is a certain fact, but is so far unexplained by Science — is new and our own. We propose that this dramatic event was caused by a huge explosion of the Krakatoa volcano (or perhaps another one), which opened the Strait of Sunda, separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, in Indonesia.

[FOOTNOTE: This text was written some ten years ago, and is only now being revised and updated (Jan. 2002). Many of its finds and predictions have recently been empirically confirmed by Science since, then. One such is the dramatic confirmation of the existence of a now sunken giant continent to the south of Southeast Asia and China, precisely as predicted by ourselves. This confirmation was obtained by the spy satellites of NASA an NOAA, and was only recently declassified, as we comment in this site. Moreover, as we now discuss, its shape and features are precisely the ones predicted by ourselves on entirely different grounds (bathymetric soundings).

Another important fact was the discovery that the date of the cataclysm which caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — very probably a Heinrich Event, as is fast becoming clear — was not only sudden and brutal, but occurred at the date stipulated by Plato, that of 11,600 years ago. So, it seems the old philosopher was right after all, despite the fact that scientists still adamantly refuse to believe in the reality of the Flood cataclysm. The nature of the cataclysm which caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age — the Heinrich Events just mentioned — also seem to be the result of the events preconized by ourselves some 20 years ago, that is, the result of giant maritime invasions caused by giant tsunamis, themselves caused by explosive supervolcanic eruptions, as discussed in this text.

Scientists have not yet realized the real cause of Heinrich Events, but I am sure they soon will, when they realize the utter impossibility of the mechanism now held to have been responsible for them: the breaking open of giant lakes dammed by the glaciers themselves. As some geologists of note have remarked, this damming is impossible for several good reasons, one of them the lack of mechanical resistance on their part. The reduction of glacier albedo by soot deposition has also been proposed as a possible cause, just as we predicted it would be. In other words, though no prophets, our predictions turned out to be quite accurate. In fact, they are obvious on hindsight, since they are so logical. And they are, though non-canonical, all strictly scientific, as I am a professional scientist myself, and quite used to doing science, conventional or not. In time, my theory will create a new paradigm for both Science and Religion that seems to be on the coming for this new millennium of ours. It is a bit poignant, however, to be some sort of Cassandra, fated to be disbelieved by one and all, despite the correctness of my prophecies. Domine, non sum dignus.]

This giant explosion is widely attested in all sorts of myths and traditions such as those concerning Atlantis and Paradise, indeed located in this region of the world. It is universally remembered as the explosion of the Mountain of Paradise (= Mt. Krakatoa, Atlas, Sinai, Zion, Alborj, Qaf, Golgotha, Meru, etc.) and of the deluge it caused, of which they all speak obsessively as the Universal Flood and the Universal Conflagration.

The explosion of Mt. Krakatoa caused a giant tsunami, which ravaged the lowlands of Atlantis and Lemuria. It also triggered the end of the last Ice Age by covering the continental glaciers with a layer of soot (fly ash) which precipitated their melting by increasing the absorption of sunshine. The giant tsunami it caused also resulted in a maritime invasion of the continents surrounding the Pacific region and, above all, of the Antarctic region. The result was that the glaciers were floated by these invading waters and carried back to the ocean, when these waters returned to it. This process has recently been confirmed by geological and oceanographic research, and is called Heinrich Events. These are associated with the cataclysm end of the Pleistocene Ice age, and are sudden and brutal.

The meltwaters of these glaciers — covered by soot or carried off as glaciers and banquises — flowed into the oceans, raising sea-level by about 100-150 meters. This huge rise in sea level created tremendous strains and stresses in the crust of the earth due to the extra weight on the seafloor and the isostatic rebound of the continents, alleviated of the colossal weight of the mile-thick glaciers which formerly covered them. The crust then cracked open in the weak spots, engendering further volcanic eruptions, and further earthquakes and tsunamis which fedback (positively) the process, furthering it to completion. The result was the dramatic end of the Pleistocene Ice Age and the so-called Quaternary Extinctions which we mentioned above.

introduction

All nations, of all times, believed in the existence of a Primordial Paradise where Man originated and developed the fist civilization ever. This story, real and true, is told in the Bible and in Hindu Holy Books such a the Rig Veda, the Puranas and many others. That this Paradise lay "towards the Orient" no one doubts, excepting some die-hard scientists who stolidly hold that the different civilizations developed independently from each other even in such unlikely, late places such as Europe, the Americas or the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. This, despite the very considerable contrary evidence that has developed from essentially all fields of the human sciences, particularly the anthropological ones. It is mainly on those that we base our arguments in favor of the reality of a pristine source of human civilization traditionally called Atlantis or Eden, etc..

[FOOTNOTE: We emphasize, once again, that our theory, though superficially reembling those of the Theosophists, the Velikovskians, Pole-Shiftists and son, has nothing to do with them, as they are all strictly scientific and founded on actual fact, rather than on religion or Tradition alone. Theosophists derive their wisdom from Mme. Blavatsky, a Russian lady who, in the 1860's moved to India, where she founded the theosophical Society, which had a considerable following among the intellectuals of the time. Blavatsky was an extremely intelligient person, and soon amassed an immense mass of knowledge of Hindu and other esoteric tradition, which she published in books such as The Secret Doctrine and the Veil of Isis, which became extremely popular, even today. But her writings seem an undigested version of the esoteric doctrines of Buddhism, Hinduism, and other religions and Occult doctrines,mingled to some pseudo-science which she obtained from the geological textbooks of the time, which would allprove wrong in the course of time.

Pole Shift is sheer unscientific bumcombe that holds no water. It is impossible on both physicaland geological grounds, as we explain elewhere in detail. These ideas were originally ppularized by Charles Hapgood, and survive in writers such as John White and Graham Hancock. Rather than scientists, these authors are journalists, whose specialty is precisely rendering palatable to the public what are usually government lies and propaganda. White has — as indeed most such proponents of the theory, Hapgood included — publicly recanted from his former views on PoleShift, which henow recognizes as an unscienific concept. We hope Graham Hancock will soon do the same, particularly because he now dropped his proposalof an Antarctic Atlantis, in favour of our own hypothesis of a Far Eastern one.

Velikovsky is another unusual character. A Russian Jew and an emigré to the US, his books became the delight of all inquisitive persons who, in the 1950's,were discontent with the obscurities of Academic Science. Among these, I should be counted, as his books opened my eyes to the inconsistencies of theories such as Darwin's Uniformitarian Geology and his theory ofEvolution, based on precisely this false premise. The problem of Velikovsky was taking the catastrophic events he proposed as the literal truth. Moreover, as an orthodox Jew, Velikovsky also believed the dates and events of the Bible — ridiculously small by geological standards — to be actual facts which should be implicitly believed by all. Of course, most of his proposals proved to be false, excpt insofar as Catastrophism seems indeed to be one important feature not only of Evolution, but also of geology, in contrast to what Drawin and Lyell so emphatically argued. But his books — like the ones of Blavatsky and even Graham Hancock are a good read even today, as long as they are considered what they indeed are: pleasant Sci Fi, based on ill-digested pseudo-Science.

]

It was in the Orient, and beyond, that agriculture (of rice and grains) and animal domestication were invented. These two crucial inventions allowed Man's fixation to the soil, and the resulting prosperity led to civilization and the founding of the first cities. It is exactly this fact that is related in the Bible, that attributes the foundation of the first city — called Henok or Chenok, ("the Abode of the Pure", in Dravida) — to Cain (Gen. 4:17). This end at the completion of its allotted time is what is meant by Henok's lifespan of "365 years".

This name ("Pure Land") of the very first of all cities is the same in Hindu traditions (Shveta-dvipa, Sukhavati, Atala, etc.). Even in the Amerindian traditions, Yvymaraney "the Land of the Pure", is the legendary birthplace of the Tupi-Guarani Indians of Brazil, just as Aztlan is the land of origin of the ancient Aztecs of Mexico, and Tollán is the one of the Mayas of Yucatan. Man — or, more exactly, the anthropoid simians that were our ancestors — in fact arose in Africa some 3 million years ago. But these anthropoids soon spread all over Eurasia and beyond, reaching the Far Orient and Australia, inclusive, by about 1 million years ago or even more.

indonesia, the site of eden

It was in Indonesia and the neighboring lands that Man, after emigrating from the semi-desertic savannas of Africa, first found the ideal climatic conditions for development, and it was there that he invented agriculture and civilization. All this took place during the Pleistocene, the last of the geological eras, which ended a scant 11,600 years ago. Though long by human standards, this is but a brief moment in geological terms.

The Pleistocene — a name which is Greek for "most recent" — is also called Anthropozoic Era or Quaternary Era or, yet, the Ice Age. During the Pleistocene and, more exactly, during the glacial episodes that happened at intervals of about 20 thousand years, sea level was about 100-150 meters (330-500 feet) below the present value. With this, a large coastal strip — the so-called Continental Platform (with a width of about 200 km = 120 miles) — became exposed, forming land bridges that interconnected many islands and regions.

The most dramatic of such exposures took place in the region of Indonesia, precisely the spot where humanity first flourished. The vast expansion of the South China Sea then formed an immense continent, indeed "larger than Asia Minor and Libya put together". This is, as we shall see below, precisely what Plato affirms in his discourse on Atlantis, the Critias.

With the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, the immense glaciers that covered the whole of the northern half of North America and Eurasia melted away. Their waters drained to the sea, whose level rose by the estimated amount of about 100-150 meters quoted above. With this rise, Atlantis sunk away and disappeared for good, along with most of its population, which we estimate, based on Plato's data, at about 20 million people, huge for the epoch in question.

eden was the same as lemurian atlantis

More exactly, this sunken continent was Lemurian Atlantis, the larger of the two Atlantises mentioned by Plato. Lemuria was the vast prairie which the Greeks called Elysian Fields and which the Egyptians named "the Field of Reeds" (Sekhet Aaru) or, yet, "the Ancestral Land" (To-wer), the overseas Paradise where they formerly lived, in Zep Tepi ("Primordial Time"). The sunken continent became the Land of the Dead, the dreadful, forbidden region where no mariner ever ventured to go, for it was "the Land of No Return".

Interestingly enough the name "Ancestral Land" (or Serendip) is precisely the Dravidian name of Taprobane (Sumatra), the island where the Hindus placed their pristine Paradise, likewise sunken in a cataclysm. The gloomy, pestilential place that remained above the water was named Sheol ("Hell") by the Jews, and, in the spared spots, "Island of the Blest" (Makarion nesos) or Hades by the Greeks, Amenti or Punt by the Egyptians, Dilmun by the Mesopotamians, Hawaiki by the Polynesians, Svarga by the Hindus, and so on.

The Celts — whose legends are perhaps the best recollection of the sunken golden realm — called the place Avallon, Emain Abbalach or, yet, Ynis Wydr ("Island of Glass"). They also associated the eerie place with the Holy Grail and the resurrection of their dead heroes, as we detail in other, forthcoming articles of ours. And we already mentioned above the Yvymaraney of the Tupian Indians of Brazil, or the Aztlan or Aztatlan of the Aztecs of Mexico, or the Tollán of the Mayas of Yucatan, the submerged land from which these Indians were obliged to flee, when it sunk underseas, disappearing forever.

the seminal exodus

The greatest of all Lemurian colonies was Atlantis, founded in India, already during the heydays of Lemuria, and which, in time, reached the apex of human grandeur. Atlantis and Lemuria had prospered for a full zodiacal era (2,160 years), when the great cataclysm destroyed their common world, at the end of the Pleistocene, some 11,600 years ago.

The scant survivors of the cataclysm that sunk Lemuria away were forced to flee their destroyed Paradise, moving first to India, the site of Atlantis, which had been spared in its northern, loftier portion. But the global catastrophe had also caused the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age, and the melting of the Himalayan glaciers caused huge floods of the rivers of Asia, rendering the region unfit for human habitation. These floods ravaged this remainder of Atlantis, already greatly destroyed by the original cataclysm, the giant conflagration of the Indonesian volcanoes and the huge tsunamis they caused, as well as by the plague that ravaged their country in their wake.

Again, this doomed people was obliged to flee, emigrating, along the ensuing millennia, to remote places such as Egypt, Mesopotamia, Palestine, North Africa, Europe, North Asia, the Near Orient and even Oceania and the Americas. Some came on foot, in huge hordes like those of the Israelite exodus. Others came by ship, like Noah in his Ark or Aeneas with his fleet, to found the great civilizations of the ancient world.

The great civilizations that we know of, in the Indus Valley, in Egypt, in Mesopotamia, Asia Minor, Greece, Rome, Mexico and even the Americas were all Atlantean colonies founded by the survivors of the cataclysm that destroyed the twin Paradises of Atlantis and Lemuria. These colonists, of course, attempted to recreate their Eden in their new homeland.

The newcomers named each topographical feature after the archetypes of the pristine abode just as immigrants will do the same nowadays. Such is the reason why we keep finding vestiges of Atlantis everywhere, from Brazil and North America to Spain, Crete, and even Africa and North Europe. All these ancient civilizations spoke of Civilizing Heroes such as Manu, Noah, Aeneas, the Oannés, Hotu Matua, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, Bochica and, of course, Atlas and Hercules, the omnipresent Twins that founded civilizations everywhere.

the reality of the civilizing heroes

Interestingly enough, the only place so far unclaimed among the literally hundreds of sitings of Atlantis is Indonesia. Of course, no solid evidence of the existence of Atlantis and, even more so, of Lemuria, has ever been found. The reason for this absence is easy to explain: the experts have all been searching Atlantis in the wrong sides of the world.

The legends of all peoples tell of Civilizing Heroes, Angels, Gods, or even Demons and Monsters who were their civilizers and who taught them religion, law, agriculture, metallurgy and the alphabet. These are the Fallen Angels, the same all too human heroes who fell desperately in love with the beautiful native girls, the Daughters of Man (Gen. 6). These fallen gods were not Astronauts, nor Sprites, but saintly men who came as missionaries from Atlantis. How else could they mate with human females and breed children?

The mysterious "Sons of God" (ben Elohim) of Gen. 6 are precisely the same ones identified by Plato with the Atlanteans. Their sin with the Daughters of Men — and, more probably, the rejection and enslavement of their hybrid offspring — led to the Flood. This is indeed the mysterious Original Sin that resulted in the destruction of Paradise (Atlantis) and the Fall of Man. This sin is the one ritually "washed" by the Baptism, itself an allegory of the Flood, as St. Jerome and other Church Patriarchs explicitly acknowledge.

Plato quotes precisely this cause for the destruction of Atlantis by God (Zeus) in his (unfinished) dialogue on Atlantis, the Critias. And the same story, in allegorized form, is also told by Homer concerning the Phaeacian "Sons of God". It also figures in the Celtic myths concerning Mererid, the sinful daughter of King Gradlon, whose scabrous conduct led to the sinking of the land of Ys. So, in the Americas (Bochica, etc.) and elsewhere.

If we read the Bible attentively, we note that it also speaks of two creations, exactly as Plato also tells of two different Atlantises (cf. Gen. 1 and 2). Moreover, the Bible also tells of two destructions of the world by the Deluge. These two different narratives are quaintly embroidered on each other in Gen. 6, and comprise the Elohist and the Jahvist accounts of the Flood, which relate two visibly different events.

the bible is right after all

We see, then, that the tradition (or traditions) narrated by Plato exactly coincides with the Biblical lore. Moreover, as we said above, the two traditions also exactly agree with the prehistoric events observed in the geological and the archaeological records. And, when we trace the worldwide legends to their source, we always end up in India and Indonesia, the two Atlantises of legend, no matter where we start from.

In truth, continents don't sink. It is the sea that rises, flooding entire continents, as it did in Lemurian Atlantis and, to a great extent, in the Indus Valley, the site of the second Atlantis. Relativists will say that both events — sea level rise and continental sinking — are one and the same thing, at least from the point of view of the observers. But geologists will hotly debate the issue, and claim, as they have long done, that actual sunken continents are a geological impossibility. It is all a matter of perspective, of relativistic illusion. But the best ancient sources — say, for instance that magnificent Hindu saga, the Mahabharata — speak of sea level rising rather than of continents sinking.

the elusive sunken continent revealed

However, anyone who inspects a chart of the oceanic bottoms in the region of Indonesia such as the Ice Age Map of Indonesia shown in Fig. 1 below, will readily concede that the South China Sea encircled by Indonesia indeed formed a continent during the last glaciation, which ended some 11,600 years ago. This chart clearly shows the sunken continent of Lemurian Atlantis in Indonesia, as well as the extensive sunken strip of Indian Atlantis at the Indus Delta.

The map leaves no room for doubt about the reality of what we are affirming concerning Lemurian and Indian Atlantis, one almost wholly sunken, and the other sunken to a very considerable extension. We remark that this map — in contrast to most others presenting proposed sites for Atlantis and/or Lemuria — is purely scientific, rather than an invention of ours or of others. It is based on the detailed geophysical reconstruction of the seafloors in the region in question, and portrays the areas of depth under 100 meters, which were obviously exposed during the Ice Age, when sea level dropped by that amount and even more.

In fact, several strictly scientific, similar maps exist, and can be seen elsewhere, inclusive in the Internet. One of these maps, was published in the National Geographic Magazine (vol. 174, No. 4, Oct. 1988, pg. 446-7) and is reproduced, for comparison, in Fig. 2 below. It shows the world as it was some 18,000 years ago, at the peak of the last glaciation of the Pleistocene Ice Age. As can be seen, this map corresponds quite closely with ours, shown in Fig. 1.

In particular, please note the huge chunk of land, of continental dimensions, to the south of Southeast Asia, and which became sunken when sea level rose, at the end of the Pleistocene. Another sizable piece of land in the Indus Delta, the site of the second Atlantis, also disappeared likewise, at that occasion. No other regions of the world display a similar event, including the Americas (not shown). The conclusion is that Atlantis, if Plato was in fact speaking truthfully, could only have been located in that region of the world.

As both maps above show, a huge extension — of continental size — prolonged Southeast Asia all the way down to Australia. This continental-sized land was indeed "larger than Asia [Minor] and Libya [North Africa] put together", exactly as Plato affirms. It is seen to have been about two or three times larger than continental-sized India. It was also far larger than Australia, shown exaggerated due to the peculiarities of the projection utilized.

The Indonesian Islands and the Malay Peninsula that we nowadays observe are the unsunken relicts of Lemurian Atlantis, the lofty volcanic mountains that became the volcanic islands of this region, the true site of Paradise in all ancient traditions. The sunken portion of continental extension now forms the muddy, shallow bottoms of the South China Sea. It is encircled by Indonesia and forms the boundary of the Indian and the Pacific Oceans.

Then, as now, Indonesia formed the divide of the New and the Ancient Worlds; what the ancients called Ultima Thule ("Ultimate Divide"). Thule also corresponded to what our elders named the Pillars of Hercules, which, according to Plato, were placed "just in front of Atlantis" (hyper ten Heraklei Nyssai).

The Pillars of Hercules were also the impassable frontier between the Old and the New Worlds, also called Orient and Occident. These two are sundered by the volcanic island arc of Indonesia, truly the boundary of the Tectonic Plates that form the Ancient and the New Worlds. This barrier to navigation, in the region of Atlantis is also insistently mentioned in Plato and other ancient sources on Atlantis.

the great rift and the khasma mega of hesiod

The great rift that came to separate the islands of Java and Sumatra, caused by the subsidence of the Krakatoa volcano turned into a giant submarine caldera, which now forms the Sunda Strait. This great rift was very well known of the ancients. Hesiod called it Khasma Mega ("Great Rift"), a designative he learnt from the Hindus. This people called it (in Sanskrit) by names such as Abhvan ("Great Abyss"), Kalamukha ("Black Hole"), Aurva ("Fiery Pit") Vadava-mukha ("Fiery Submarine Mare"), and so on. This Great Abyss is also the same one that the Egyptians called Nun, and which the Mesopotamians named Apzu ("Abyss").

Hesiod and several other ancient authorities place this Khaos ("Divide") or Khasma Mega ("Giant Abyss") at the world's divide, at the very entrance to Hell (Tartarus). Hesiod also places Atlas and his Pillar (Mt. Atlas) at this gloomy spot where the ancient navigators such as Ulysses and the Argonauts met their doom. As we said above, this terrifying Black Hole — the archetype of all such that haunt Man's imagination — is indeed the Krakatoa's fiery caldera, ready to revive at doom, at least in Hindu traditions on the Vadava-mukha.

what happened during the pleistocene?

Let us recapitulate what happened during the Pleistocene Ice Age, for its true significance seems to have escaped the notice of all Atlantologists thus far.

This is how Ice Ages start. Converted into clouds by the sun, sea water is carried into the continents by the wind, where it pours down as either rain, hail or snow. If conditions are right, as they were then, this downfalling water is retained in glaciers that end up covering the temperate regions with a shroud of ice that is one or two miles thick. Sea level consequently drops by 100-150 meters or even more, exposing the shallow bottoms of the sea.

Such was the case of the South China Sea, whose depth seldom exceeds 60 meters or so, as we show in the Map of Fig. 1. When the Ice Age ends, the process is reverted. The glaciers melt away, and their meltwater quickly drains into the sea. In consequence, the bottoms previously exposed as dry land become submerged once again.

As we see, the world works as a kind of flip-flop or swing, forever oscillating between the extremes of cold and heat. Interestingly enough, it is Life itself that equilibrates the balance, introducing a negative feedback that counteracts the tendency for the world to freeze or to sizzle. For instance, if carbon dioxide (CO2) increases in the atmosphere, the temperature tends to go up with the so-called Hothouse Effect. This is precisely what we observe in sizzling Venus, whose atmosphere is almost pure CO2. In gelid Mars, whose atmosphere (and Life) was almost all lost in a tremendous cataclysm - probably caused by the fall of a meteorite of planetoidal size — the opposite swing took place.

Wherever Life exists, as on Earth, increased CO2 contents of the atmosphere also results in increased photosynthesis. Plants grow more luxuriously, fixing the excess carbon dioxide in themselves, and alleviating the situation. The opposite process happens if the CO2 content of the atmosphere is reduced for some reason. Photosynthesis is consequently reduced and plant matter - mainly the plankton in the seas, rather than the tropical forests — decreases, liberating CO2. This increases the atmospheric content, tending to increase earth's temperature back to its normal value.

However, this compensation only works within rigid limits, and any excessive perturbation can trigger an Ice Age or a Hot Age. Like with flip-flops and balances, the transition is enhanced by positive feedback, and quickly leads to the extreme situations that are, again, stable and permanent until triggered back on again. For instance if the seas warm up, the solubility of CO2 is decreased, and its atmospheric content increases, tending to further increase earth's temperature, and vice-versa.

Moreover, an ice cover effectively reflects sunlight back towards outer space, reducing the amount of solar heat absorbed by the earth. Its temperature consequently drops, and the glaciers further increase, until they cover all the temperate regions of earth. In the absence of Life, we have the two extremes instanced by our two neighboring planets, Venus and Mars. As we said above, Venus is as hot as hell, whereas Mars is completely frozen up, as if to vividly exemplify to us all the two extremes of lifeless conditions.

the cause of the ice ages

The causes of the Ice Ages and of the periodic advance and retreat of the continental glaciers is not well known. But, to believe the myths, the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age was due to the cataclysmic explosion of Mt. Atlas, the one which wiped the twin Atlantises out of the map.

Mount Atlas — "the Pillar of Heaven" that decorated Lemurian Atlantis — was an immense volcanic peak in the region that now corresponds to the island arc of Indonesia. To be more precise, this volcano was the terrible Krakatoa, even today still alive and very active, despite its monumental explosion in Atlantean times. After its colossal explosion, the Krakatoa volcano sunk away underseas, becoming the giant caldera that now forms Sunda's Strait between Java and Sumatra.

This giant caldera — fully 150 km across — is the "Fiery Submarine Mare" (Vadava-mukha) that we commented above. The giant explosion of the Holy Mountain is attested not only by the worldwide myths that recount the end of Paradise (Atlantis). Similar cataclysms in this remote region of the world are also testified by the tektite belt and the volcanic ash layer that covers most of the South Indian Ocean, Australia, Indonesia and Southeast Asia.¹

The ashes and dust liberated by the gigantic explosion were carried away by the winds, and covered the glaciers of North Asia and North America with a dark veil of carbonized matter. The result was an increased absorption of sunlight and a quick melting away of the glaciers that covered the continents beyond the Tropical Regions.

thermal runaway and the quaternary extinctions

The process of glacier melting was far from uniform, as many geologists of the Darwinian school tend to think. The meltwater of the glaciers quickly flowed into the seas, creating huge stresses between the overloaded sea bottom and the alleviated continents. Earth's crust cracked and rifted at many places, originating volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis of unprecedented proportions. And the violent process continued, impelled by its own momentum, until it was finally complete and the earth had quit the Ice Age. In this terrible event — the same one that the myths call the Flood — some 70% of the species of great mammals became extinct.

This self-sustaining, degeneratively increasing process is what physicists call "positive feedback", and is identical to the one that causes the transitions of electronic flip-flops in electronic computers and such. It also corresponds to another physical process called "thermal runaway", which happens, for instance, on a global scale in the Hothouse Effect. Increased temperature of the earth tends to liberate the CO2 (carbonic gas) dissolved in sea water to the atmosphere, since its solubility decreases with temperature.

The extra atmospheric CO2 further tends to increase global warming, liberating further amounts of CO2, and so on until all of it is liberated to the atmosphere, and the earth becomes overheated. This is possibly what happened on sizzling Venus, perhaps billions of years ago. And it may well be the case that Venus also had Life, as Mars apparently did too, as we are starting to learn.

Geologists call the widespread mortality that took place at the end of the Pleistocene by the name of Quaternary Extinctions. But they are foiled at explaining their cause, and none of the literally dozens of scientific theories hereto proposed to explain the cause of Ice Ages have been consensualy accepted by the scientific community. Among the extinct species we had several magnificent animals: the mammoth, the mastodon, the saber-toothed tiger, the cave bear, the giant sloths, dozens of species of camelids, cervids, cavalids and, very probably, the Neandertal and the Cro-Magnon men, who became extinct at about this date for some unexplained reason that can only have been linked to this one.

No, the ancient myths in no way overstate the universal extent and violence of the Flood cataclysm. The worldwide mass extinctions of the end of the Quaternary (the Pleistocene Ice Age) attest, most unequivocally, that the brutality of the cataclysm was truly Velikovskian in extent, if not in nature.

And the instances of both Mars and Venus are Celestial witnesses of what may indeed happen to the Earth if we persist in abusing her the way we presently do. Are these two planets the Two Witnesses mentioned in the Book of Revelation (11:8), "their corpses exposed in the streets of the Great City (the skies?) for all to see and marvel"? I would not know, but I fear they could well be so. Aren't these witnesses of permanent death on a planetary scale indeed perhaps the scariest thing in the entire sky?

the collapse of the holy mountain of osiris

Mount Atlas is the same Holy Mountain of Paradise represented by the Great Pyramid. Osiris dead, reposing inside the Holy Mountain, represents the dead Atlantis or, rather, the dead of Atlantis, buried and entombed by the gigantic explosion of the Holy Mount Atlas. Mount Atlas is the same as the Mount Meru of the Hindus, the pyramid-shaped mountain that there served as the sky's support.

Indeed, the Egyptian word for pyramid, M'R was most probably read MeRu as in the Hindu name of the mountain simulated by the monument. The ancient Egyptians did not spell out the vowels in their hieroglyphs, so the above reading probably corresponds to the actual one of Mt. Meru, the exploded Mountain of Paradise.

In Hindu traditions, Mt. Meru served as the Stambha, the Pillar of Heaven. Mt. Meru (or Kailasa = "Skull" = Calvary") also served as the support of the Cosmic Tree where the Cosmic Man (Purusha) was crucified, like Christ on the Cross. Mt. Meru is also the Holy Mountain of Paradise, endlessly portrayed in India during its explosion, in beautiful mandalas such as the Shri Yantra. By the way, the Golden Lotus often shown with them portrays the "atomic mushroom" of the cosmic explosion, as we argue in detail in our work entitled "The Secret of the Golden Flower".

In consequence of the giant explosion, Mt. Meru (or Atlas), voided of its magma, collapsed like a sort of punctured balloon. Its enormous peak sunk underseas, turning into a giant caldera. Our researches into the ancient world legends have shown that this volcano is indeed the Krakatoa, the same one that still castigates the region whenever it again erupts explosively, as it did in 1883 and other occasions.

the meaning of the primordial castration

The Krakatoa is now a submarine volcano located inside the gigantic caldera that now forms the Sunda Strait separating Sumatra from Java. In Hindu myths, its explosion and subsequent fate are allegorized as the Primordial Castration which turned the Cosmic Phallus (Linga) into the Cosmic Yoni (or Vulva). And Earth's Yoni is the same as the Khasma Mega of Hesiod, mentioned further above.

We see how the apparently absurd traditions of the ancients indeed make far more sense than those of the crude attempts at explanation by the modern experts of all sorts. It is also precisely to this fact that refers the legend of Atlas, the Pillar of Heaven. Unable to bear the load of an earth overpopulated with gods, Atlas collapsed, and let the sky fall dawn over the earth, destroying it.

The name of Atlas indeed derives from the Greek radix tla meaning "to bear", preceded by the negative affix a, meaning "not". Hence, the name of Atlas literally means "the one unable to bear [the skies]". Such is the reason why Atlas (and other Titans like himself) are often portrayed with weak, serpentine legs. The collapse of the skies is, of course, a clever allegory of the fall of volcanic dust and debris from the afar explosion of Mt. Atlas. In Hindu myths, one layer buries the former one, giving rise to a new heaven and a new earth, just as we read in Revelation.

atlantis and the rising of the phoenix

The above is, of course, exactly the message of St. John's Revelation (21:1) concerning the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is Atlantis, reborn from its cinders, as a sort of Phoenix, the bird that personifies Paradise in Greek myths. These myths were indeed copied from Egypt who, in turn, cribbed them from India. India and, more exactly, Indonesia, is the true land of the Phoenix, as is relatively easy to show, since it is from there that comes the name of the Benu bird of the Egyptians and that of the Phoenix of the Greeks.

This mystic bird was called Vena in the Rig Veda. So, if the Phoenix indeed symbolizes Atlantis-Paradise resurging from its own cinders, as we believe it does, there can be little doubt that the legend is originally Vedic, and originated in the Indies. The name means nothing that makes sense in either Egyptian or Greek. But in the holy tongues of India it means the idea of Eros (Love) and, more exactly, the Sun of Justice that symbolizes Atlantis rising from the waters of the primordial abyss. This myth forms the essence of the one of the Celestial Jerusalem, as well as, say, those of the Orphic Cosmogonies, those of the Egyptians, and those of most other ancient nations.

egypt and the origin of the legend of atlantis

Plato concedes that he learnt the legend of Atlantis from Solon who, in turn, got it from the Egyptians. But those, in their turn, learnt it from the Hindus of Punt (Indonesia). Punt was the Ancestral Land (To-wer), the Island of Fire whence the Egyptians originally came, in the dawn of times, expelled by the cataclysm that razed their land. From there also came the Aryans, the Hebrews and Phoenicians, as well as the other nations that founded the magnificent civilizations of olden times.

It is from the primordial Lemurian Atlantis that derive all our myths and religious traditions, the very ones that allowed the ascent of Man above the beasts of the field. From Atlantis derive all our science and our technology: agriculture, cattle herding, the alphabet, metallurgy, astronomy, music, religion, and so forth. These inventions are so clever and so advanced that they seem as natural as the air we breath and the gods we worship. But they are all incredibly advanced inventions that came to us from the dawn of times, from the twin Atlantises we utterly forgot.

It is in India and in Indonesia, that, even today, we find the secret of Atlantis and Lemuria hidden behind the thick veil of their myths and allegories. The crucial events are disguised inside the Hindu and Buddhic religious traditions, or told as charming sagas like those of the Ramayana and the Mahaharata. The error that led the ancients, along with the modern researchers, into believing that Atlantis lay in the Atlantic Ocean is easy to understand now that we know the true whereabouts of the sunken continent. When humanity moved from Indonesia into the regions of Europe and the Near East, the "Occidental Ocean" of the Hindus became the Oriental Ocean, for it then lay towards the east.

The (Hindu) myths that told of Atlantis sinking in the Occidental Ocean became interpreted as referring to the Atlantic Ocean, western in regards to Europe, their new residence. The Hindus called the sunken continent by the name of Atala (or Atalas) a name uncannily similar to that of Atlas and of Atlantis (by the appending of the suffix tis or tiv = "mountain", "island", in Dravida, and pronounced "tiw"). It is from this base that names such as that of the mysterious Keftiu of the Egyptians, the "Islands in the Middle of the Ocean (the "Great Green")" ultimately came (Keftiu = Kap-tiv = "capital island" or "Skull Island" = "Calvary" in Dravida, the pristine language of Indonesia). But this is a long story which we tell elsewhere, presenting the detailed evidence for this uncanny allegation of ours.

the reversal of the oceans and the cardinal directions

It is to this "reversal" of the Cardinal Directions just mentioned that Plato and Herodotus make reference, along with other ancient authorities. Interestingly enough, even the Amerindians — who came in, at least in part, from Indonesia into South America via the Pacific Ocean impelled by the Atlantean Cataclysm — often confuse the direction of their primeval homeland, which they sometimes place in the east, sometimes in the west. But, strangely enough, they never place it towards the north, as they should, if they came in via the Bering Strait.

The ancient Greeks attempted to mend their myths calling, by the name of "Atlantic", the whole ocean that encircles Eurasia and Africa. But the result was even worse than before and the confusion only grew. Herodotus used to laugh at this ridiculous attempt by the geographers of his time (Hist. 2:28). Aristotle, in his De Coelo, is also very specific on the fact that the name of "Atlantic Ocean" — that is, the "Ocean of the Atlanteans" — was the whole of the circular, earth-encompassing ocean.

So, we able to conclude that Atlantis can legitimately be localized either in the ocean we presently call by that name, or, even more likely, in the ocean where the ancients placed their legends and their navigations, the Indian Ocean. This ocean they named Erythraean, Atlantic, and so on, names which are indeed related with that of Atlantis, "the land of the Reds", the Primordial Phoenicia or Erythraea, whose names mean "the red one".

It should perhaps be emphasized that it is the name of the Atlantic Ocean (or "Ocean of the Atlanteans") that derives from that of Atlantis, and not vice-versa. And that name far predates Plato, being mentioned, f. i., by Herodotus, who wrote his History fully a century before Plato wrote the Critias. Moreover, as Herodotus explains, the name of "Atlantic Ocean" originally applied to the Indian Ocean, rather than the body of water now so named. So, it is on that side of the world, and not on ours that we should expect to find Atlantis.

atlas, hercules, atlantis, and the itinerary of the heroes

Greek myths often embody the confusion of east and west that we just pointed out. The itineraries of Greek heroes such as Hercules, Jason, Ulysses and the Argonauts are all absurd when placed in the Mediterranean or even in the Atlantic Ocean. But they all make a lot of geographical and mythical sense if we place them in the Indian Ocean, as we should. And that is indeed what we do, in other more specialized works of ours on this fascinating subject.

Likewise, the Titan Atlas and his mountain, Mt. Atlas, were placed just about everywhere, from Hesperia (Spain), the Canaries and Morroco to the Bosporus and the Far Orient, at the confines of Hades (Hell). The result was a profusion of Atlantises and of Pillars of Atlas (or of Hercules) that makes no sense al all. Indeed, the two heroes who personified the World's Pillars represented the two Atlantises we discussed further above. They are personified as Atlas and Hercules, the primeval Twins whom we encounter in all Cosmogonies.

In Plato's dialogues concerning Atlantis (the Critias and the Timaeus), Hercules is called Gadeiros or Eumelos, names that correspond to something like "Cowboy" or, rather "Fencer of Cattle". This name is a literal translation of that of Setubandha, the Sanskrit appellation of Indonesia. This name is due to the fact that Indonesia indeed "fences out" the seas, dividing the Pacific from the Indian Ocean.

the ultima thule, the twins, and the war of doomsday

Indonesia was, as we said above, the Ultima Thule (or "Ultimate Boundary") of the ancients, the last frontier which should not be crossed by the navigators. There lay the Pillars of Hercules and of Atlas, the two primordial Twins. In another guise, the two correspond to the twins of Gemini (Castor and Pollux), directly derived from the Ashvin Twins of the Hindus. In Egypt they corresponded to Seth and Osiris, and were commemorated by the two obelisks posted at the entrance of Egyptian temples.

Hercules is, of course, a Phoenician deity (Baal Melkart), in turn derived from Bala or Bala-Rama ("the Strong Rama"), the twin brother of Krishna. Bala means "Strong" or "Strength" in Sanskrit, being called the same (Bias = "Strength") in Greek and other tongues. Krishna is the World's Pillar, clearly the personification of Atlantis.

More exactly, the Twins personify the two races of blondes (Aryo-Semites) and brunets or "reds" (Dravidas), fated to fight wherever they meet. Both shades are originally from Eden (Lemuria), the primordial Paradise where humanity originally arose. Osiris, the Egyptian god, also played the role of Cosmic Pillar (Djed), a role he shared with Seth, his twin and dual. But this mythical symbolism ultimately derives from that of Shiva as the Sthanu, the "Pillar of the World" and that of Shesha (or Vritra), the Cosmic Serpent who was the archetype of Seth-Typhon.

the battle of the sons of light and the sons of darkness

The Twins — like the Devas and Asuras of the Hindus and the Sons of Light and the Sons of Darkness of the Essenians — are always the personifications of the two races that dispute world hegemony since the dawn of times. It was their war, according to Plato — who calls them "Greeks" and Atlanteans — that led to the destruction of Atlantis.

There is no reason to doubt that the great philosopher was indeed transmitting ancient traditions faithfully. For, we are starting to learn all over again that global wars can indeed lead to the world's end. In fact, it is the same endless war that menaces us now as it did at the dawn of times. This frightening reality is told in the Ramayana, in the Mahabharata and in the Iliad, not to mention the other myths and traditions.

But the war of Atlantis is also the War of Armageddon narrated in the Book of Revelation. This war is in reality a repetition or replica of the worldwide, primordial battle between Gods and Devils. These mighty beings were the same as the so-called Titans (or Giants) in Greece. Their war was, as Plato and his commentators explain in detail, the same as the one of Atlantis.

Armageddon means (in Hebrew) the same as Shambhalla (in Sanskrit), "the Plains of Gathering". There the armies of the world will gather, in the end of times, for "the war that is to end all wars", for it will close the Kali Yuga. The perspective indeed seems frighteningly real, doesn't it indeed? Fables or Reality? Religion or Profanity? Science or Superstitious Nonsense? We are inclined to believe that our ancestors spoke in earnest, and that the war of Armaggedon and the end of the world are fast becoming all too real possibilities.

are mars and venus a celestial example?

We do not want to seem alarmists, as our message is indeed one of hope and salvation, and not of "Bible thumping". The recent discovery of vestiges of extinct life in Mars brings a memorable lesson that is worth detailing. Earth has been, in the past, the victim of countless catastrophes that nearly wiped out Life altogether. These cataclysms were due to different causes such as cometary and asteroidal falls or volcanic cataclysms bringing on or off the Ice Ages. Not impossibly, wars such as the War of Atlantis and the Battle of the Gods can have indeed happened in a far, utterly forgotten past that lives on in our myths and holy traditions from everywhere.

Perhaps our wars just continue these and others that possibly took place on Mars and Venus, destroying Life there, if not in other Solar Systems as well. It may even be the case that Big Bangs and Creations are indeed cyclic processes that recur periodically, just as the traditions of the Hindus on Cyclical Eras affirm in detail. The extinction of the dinosaurs, and the origin of the Moon — pulled out of the Earth by a planetoidal impact — are instances of such sobering cataclysms. Thousands of giant craters — as large as those on the Moon, though almost effaced by erosion — are still observable on the earth, as scientists are starting to discover. Hundreds of times in the past we have had massive extinctions of Life on earth.

Many times in the past our world nearly became as "empty and dark and devoid of form" as at Creation, when God reshaped the earth for the last time. The Uniformitarianism of Darwin and Lyell is no more than a naive belief in the Panglossian doctrine that "all things only happen for the better, in the best of all possible worlds".

Fossils and extinctions are here to prove, just as do Geology and other sciences, that Catastrophism is a feature of Nature as much, and possibly even more, than Uniformitarian phenomena. Thousands of Apollo and Amor objects swarm across earth's orbit, ready to strike us at a moment's notice with a force of a million Megatons and over. The idea that God favors humans "above the beasts of the field" is just our own naive, self-centered notion of what God should look like. More likely, He regards all Life as sacred, as His own handiwork, if He exists at all. That is what Nature indisputably demonstrates in practice all the time.

Mars, with its dead residues of Life, with its oceans empty and dry, with its terrible dust storms sweeping across the endless void and devastation, is here to prove to all that God — or, as some will, Nature or Mother Earth — sometimes loses his/her temper and extinguishes Life altogether. This almost happened at the Flood, as the myths tell us. The victimizing of Atlantis — perhaps because they sinned, perhaps because they warred — almost took the rest of us along. Venus is another instance, in reverse, that planets can indeed die and become as sterile as the Moon. And perhaps, earth itself was just "reset back to zero" some four billion years ago, when the Moon was pulled out of it by a giant meteoritic impact of planetoidal size.

atlantis and the illusion of darwinian uniformitarianism

As we just said, Darwin's Theory of Uniformitarian Evolution is just an illusion of die-hard scientists. What the world presents us daily is an endless series of ever larger cataclysms, ranging from atom smashing to the Big Bang. We recently watched a comet hitting Jupiter and opening a gash on that planet as big as the whole earth. Mars shows all signs of having been hit by a planetoidal sized body, which opened a huge crater on one side and pushed up Olympus Mons on the opposite one. Perhaps it was this cataclysm that extinguished Life on the Red Planet. Venus too presents vestiges of similar catastrophes. Perhaps we are only stranded here on earth, fated to become extinct when our allotted time expires who knows when?

Life is an illusion, as all things, as the Hindus teach us. According to them, even the gods eventually die, and are replaced by better, more evolved godly forms. An illusion is also the suprematist theory that affirms that Civilizations first arose in an Occidental Atlantis that never was, out of Europoid stock. But Civilization evolved at a time when the whole of Europe was almost fully covered by a mile thick glacier that rendered survival very meager and scant.

Plato's Atlantis is, in contrast, described as a luxurious tropical Paradise, bedecked with metals, horses, elephants, coconut, pineapples, perfumes, aromatic woods and other features that were an exclusivity of India and Indonesia in the ancient world. Was the great philosopher dreaming, or was he indeed basing himself on Holy Books now lost in the bonfires of the Holy Inquisition ?

The Atlantic Atlantis is an illusion too, just as are the Cretan, the African, the American, the North European and the Black Sea ones. The true Atlantis, the archetype of all other Atlantises is Indonesia, or rather, the extensive sunken continent rimmed by this island arc. It is there that we had Plato's "innavigable seas", the same one mentioned by navigators. such as Pytheas, Himilco, Hanno and others. It was this primordial Atlantis that served as a model for the second Atlantis — the one of the Indus Valley — as well as for the myriad other similar Paradises that we encounter in all ancient religious traditions and mythologies.

the krakatoa volcano and the "innavigable seas" of atlantis

Another central, unique feature of Atlantis were its seas, rendered "innavigable" as the result of the cataclysm, as reported by Plato and other ancient authorities. As we mentioned further above, the seas of Atlantis were innavigable because they were covered thick with giant banks of floating, fiery pumice-stone. This pumice was ejected by the giant explosion of volcanic Mt. Atlas, the one which caused the foundering of the Lost Continent..

A similar phenomenon indeed happened — in a far lesser scale, but one big enough to be one of the world's largest catastrophes — at the explosion of the Krakatoa volcano that we mentioned further above. The formation of pumice — a sort of stony "froth" made of siliceous glass — is characteristic of the Indonesian volcanoes, and is indeed the cause of their explosive eruptions of incomparable force. The phenomenon is quite similar to the "popping" of popcorn. The water-soaked siliceous magma of the submarine volcano (the primeval Krakatoa) built up tremendous pressures under the weight of the crust and the overlying sea water. Eventually, the topping crust which formed the volcanic peak gave, and the eruption occurred, explosively.

Thus released, the overheated water dissolved in the hot magma turned instantly into vapor, literally bursting like popcorn, except that in a worldwide scale. The sea was impelled, in a huge tsunami that was the event mythified as "the Flood from below". Simultaneously, the ashes and debris were thrown up into the stratosphere, as "soot". This fly ash eventually fell back to the earth and the sea, choking all life in the region, and causing the enormous quantities of rain, "the Flood from above". Further away, it settled over the Ice Age glaciers, causing their melting and triggering the end of the Pleistocene, precisely as related above.

Interestingly enough, the Hindus associate this sort of stuff — this vitreous "seafroth" — with Krishna and Balarama, the archetypes of Hercules and Atlas. Balarama is the alias of the Serpent Shesha, whose name means (in Sanskrit) "residue" and, more exactly, the kind of foam such as ambergris or pumice stone thrown over the beaches by the seas. The whole story is a clever allegory of the explosion of Mt. Atlas, the World's Pillar, ejecting the huge amounts of pumice stone and fly ash that covered the soil and the seas of Atlantis, and choking out all its paradisial forms of life.

The Titans — and Atlas in particular — were likened to Serpents (or Dragons), and to "weak-legged", anguipedal, Civilizing Heroes such as Erychthonios, Cadmus, Hercules, Quetzalcoatl, Kukulkan, etc.. All such indeed derive from the Nagas ("Serpent-people", "Dragons") of India and Indonesia, as we argue elsewhere.

the illusory, chimerical atlantises

As we said above, the Cretan "Atlantis" of certain authorities is an illusion, as are all others outside the two Indies. Nevertheless, the explosion of the Thera volcano closely parallels the one of the Krakatoa of 1883, as some have noted. But it is far too small and far too wrongly sited in relation to the Pillars of Hercules for to be the right time and the right place.

Moreover, Crete lacked the size and the importance that Plato attributes to Atlantis, being puny in comparison to, say, the contemporary civilizations of Egypt, Babylon and Mycenian Greece. And the Theran cataclysm never sunk Crete underseas, or even hampered its existence in any notable way. In fact, the name of Crete (Kriti) means "swept", rather than "sunken one", as does the name of Atlantis in the holy tongues of India. So, Crete was recognizedly "swept" by the Theran cataclysm, but not indeed "sunken" by it, as Atlantis was.

The prehistoric explosion of the Krakatoa volcano that sundered open the Strait of Sunda was, by comparison a million times stronger. If the Theran explosion could sweep away the considerable extent of Minoan Crete, we are led to conclude that the one of the Indonesian volcano could well have wiped out an entire continental-sized civilization, and have triggered the chain of events that culminated in the end of the Pleistocene Ice Age.

Equally illusory are the Atlantises of the Bosporus (Moreau de Jonnés), of Spain (R. Hennig), of Libya (Borchardt), of Benin, in Africa (Leo Frobenius) and the even less likely one of the North Sea (Olaus Rudbeck), the Americas (several authors) and Antactica (idem). Even more impossible are the Atlantises located in sunken islands of continents of the Atlantic Ocean and, particularly, the Sargasso Sea, for they are not even geophysical possibilities.

the mid-atlantic ridge and donnelly's atlantis

There are no sunken continents at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, as an extensive study of this region has unequivocally shown. What this detailed research disclosed is the existence of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a vast submarine cordillera that divides the Atlantic Ocean at the middle. This feature corresponds to the rift from whence the Tectonic Plates issue, causing the continents to drift away from the spot, at the rate of a few centimeter per year.

Hence, despite the brilliant plea of Ignatius Donnelly, this ridge corresponds not to a sunken continent, but to land that is slowly rising out of the sea bottom. Such rifts and ridges in fact exist in all oceans. They rise above sea level in certain spots forming island arcs, as in Indonesia and at the Indus Valley. Where they do, they cause the kind of terrible volcanoes and earthquakes that we have been discussing above. It is no coincidence that the two Atlantises we mentioned are located precisely at such spots where the Mid-Oceanic Ridges rise above the surface of the sea.

When we inspect the map of Fig. 1, we also note that a sizable chunk of India disappeared at the end of the Ice Age at the Indus Delta. This region is now known as the Rann of Kutch ("Marshes of Death") and is in fact still sinking underseas, even today. This region is deemed a sort of Hell, and has been clearly flooded by some sort of terrible cataclysm that also took place at the end of the Pleistocene, just as did the one of Lemurian Atlantis.

lemurian atlantis and the four rivers of paradise

At this occasion, that of the demise of Atlantis, the Himalayan glaciers melted in the greater part, pouring its waters down the Indus Valley, in floods that were hundreds of times larger than the ones of today, even when the monsoon storms castigate the region. Such is clearly the record left by the tempest that swept away the second Atlantis (Hesperus), throwing it into the sea during the second of the Biblical Floods.

The same thing also happened at the other side of the Himalayas, whence issue the rivers that irrigate South Asia, China and Southeast Asia, such as the Huang-ho, the Yangtzé, the Mekong, the Irrawaddy, the Brahmaputra, the Ganges. These are indeed the Four Rivers of Eden (Lemurian Atlantis), as we argue in detail elsewhere. There can be very little doubt that the Lemurian Atlantis — as well as its successor, the Indian Atlantis — are sacred traditions based on real facts which were in no way exaggerated by our ancestors.

the civilizing heroes and heroines are atlantean escapees

The cataclysms in question caused the mass migrations of nations which later were to form civilizations of the past such as those of the Egyptians, the Greeks, the Cretans and the Mesopotamians. These also included the Jews, the Phoenicians, and the Aryans, driven away from their ancestral lands in Indonesia and Southeast Asia. At first they settled in India, but were driven out by the locals, moving to the places just mentioned.

Such mass migrations are told in the Bible and in similar Holy Books of all nations, in legends such as those of Moses and the Israelites, Aeneas and the Romans, Hercules and his Greek "cattle" (armies), of Cain's expulsion from Eden, of Quetzalcoatl's arrival in Mexico, of that of Viracocha and the Incas in Peru, of the Fomorians and the Tuatha de Danaan arriving in Britain, and so on.

These legends disguise real facts under the veil of allegories, and personify or deify the nations in question under the figures of heroes such as Noah, Manu, Hercules, Kukulkan, Abraham, Quetzalcoatl, and a myriad others, or in heroines like Venus, Demeter, Dana, Danu, Vesta, Hathor, Isis, Hecate and so on. Lemuria was indeed the Great Black Mother of Gods and Men. She is the same goddess that we know by names such as Kali, Parvati, Demeter, Hera, Isis, Ishtar, Venus, Cybele and even the Virgin Mary.

The paradoxical virginity of the Great Mother refers to the fact that she bore the Lemurian civilization on her own, in an autochthonous manner, without the help of an "inseminator" civilization. In contrast, all other civilizations evolved by being seeded from outside by the Civilizing Heroes, the Angels, the Gods, the Devils, etc.. These were the Lemurian Sons of God that, though , illuminated the world with the Light of our Great Mother.

The second Atlantis, India, is our Great Father. The Father is the inseminating god known as Shiva in India, Jahveh in Israel, Zeus in Greece, Viracocha in Peru, Quetzalcoatl in Mexico, Bochica in Colombia, and so on. He is the god that is castrated and dies but who resurrects from among the dead, whole and virile as ever. The image is not without analogy with an immortal volcano such as the Krakatoa that explodes and vanishes from sight, but keeps shining underneath the ocean, until the time comes for it to rise and shine again, perhaps at God's command.

the many aspects of god

As we just said, myths work at several levels, and a parallel such as the Atlantean one is just a facet of God's myriad aspects. In other words, volcanoes are manifestations of God's power, the weapon he often chooses to castigate the nations and to force Evolution to follow its course. The Hindus call this force by the name of vajra, a Sanskrit word meaning both "hard as diamond", as well as "thunderbolt". The vajra is the thunderbolt weapon used by almighty gods such as Baal (Hercules' archetype), Zeus, Indra, Haddad, and a myriad others. In fact, God is neither the vajra nor the volcano, but the force behind it, its impeller and wielder.

For the vajra is indeed the flail of the gods, the Celestial weapon He uses in order to quicken Evolution and to stir Nature into action, in the endless parade of life forms that characterizes Life. Perhaps all this has a purpose in the divine conscience, though I don't really know for sure. But there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that Catastrophism is God's way, if He indeed has any. Moreover, it is also Nature's way, let no one doubt it. The ancients well knew that, and so do I, having learnt from them. For instance, they often portrayed the vajra as a flail or a lash, or even a hammer or a mace wielded by the god in order to stir Nature into action.

Gods like Christ are not the only ones to die and to rise again from the dead. By the way, Christ too is the wielder of the "iron rod", the hardest of metals being a metaphor for "diamond" and, hence, for the vajra. Christ was preceded by many aliases, and the conception of "dying-resurrecting" gods akin to the Sun of Justice dates from oldest antiquity. Among the many archetypes of Christ we can mention, offhand, Osiris, Attis, Tammuz, Adonis, Shiva, Kronos, Saturn, Dionysos, Serapis, Mithra and, of course, Krishna, in his infinite series of avatars, and Hercules, the great hero, in his fiery apotheosis that figured the Atlantean Conflagration.

¹ Tektites are glass beads and concretions resulting from giant meteoritic (or cometary) falls or, perhaps, from gigantic volcanic explosions as well. These collisions scatter tektites far and wide, as in the above case. The ones in question are called Indochinites, in an allusion to the region where they abound the most. The Indochinites were dated at 700 kyears (one kiloyear = one thousand years). The explosion of Lake Toba took place 75 kyears ago. The even larger one of Lake Taupo took place at some 100 kyears ago or so.

These giant explosions — which all occurred in the region of Indonesia, volcanically the most active in the whole world — are easily large enough to trigger an Ice Age. However, whether one is indeed caused depends on other conditions, probably dictated by insolation and other variables, astronomical or not. As we just said, the region of Indonesia has literally hundreds of active or dormant volcanoes, and has been very little researched so far, due to its remoteness.

Further research of the Indonesian region will, now that its connection with the birthplace of Mankind is being pointed out, certainly confirm the reality of what we are claiming. Our research is based on very detailed local traditions and is the fruit of many years of study of the myth of Atlantis-Eden from a scientific though unbiased, point of view. We push no religious, scientific, philosophic or mercenary point, and our interest lies solely in establishing Truth. As the Romans used to say, Amicus Plato, magis amica Veritas.

The imagery may show the former locations of major buildings and rings

Map of Atlantis by the 17th-century German scholar Athanasius Kircher. Kircher based his map on Plato's description of Atlantis as an island west of the Pillars of Hercules - the Strait of Gibraltar - and situated Atlantis in the ocean that has since been named after the legendary land. Unlike modern cartographers, he placed south at the top of the map, which puts America at the right.

Loch Ness Monster Was an Elephant?

2008-08-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

Throwing a bit of cold water onto the legend of Loch Ness, paleontologist and painter Neil Clark says the monster was perhaps a paddling pachyderm.
Clark noticed similarities in the hump-and-trunk silhouettes of swimming Indian elephants and the serpentine shapes of 1930s Nessie descriptions and photographs, such as the famous 1934 image shown as an inset above.
Why would an elephant be swimming in a chilly Scottish lake? "The reason why we see elephants in Loch Ness is that circuses used to go along the road to Inverness and have a little rest at the side of the loch and allow the animals to go and have a little swim around," Clark told CBS News.
And there's one more wrinkle in this elephantine mystery. In 1933 a circus promoter in the area—acting perhaps on inside information that the monster was really a big top beast—offered a rich reward for Nessie's capture, says Clark, a curator at the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow.
Clark's theory is published in the current edition of the journal of the Open University Geological Society.