text:
"The Owls Are Not What They Seem"
Genesis 6
King James Version (KJV)
6 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.
VI-XI. The Fall of the Angels: the Demoralisation of Mankind: the Intercession of the Angels on behalf of Mankind. The Dooms pronounced by God on the Angels: the Messianic Kingdom (a Noah fragment).
CHAPTER VI.1. And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters.
2. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them, and said to one another: 'Come, let us choose us wives from among the children of men and beget us children.'
3. And Semjâzâ, who was their leader, said unto them: 'I fear ye will not indeed agree to do this deed, and I alone shall have to pay the penalty of a great sin.'
4. And they all answered him and said: 'Let us all swear an oath, and all bind ourselves by mutual imprecations not to abandon this plan but to do this thing.'
5. Then sware they all together and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.
6. And they were in all two hundred; who descended ⌈in the days⌉ of Jared on the summit of Mount Hermon, and they called it Mount Hermon, because they had sworn and bound themselves by mutual imprecations upon it.
7. And these are the names of their leaders: Sêmîazâz, their leader, Arâkîba, Râmêêl, Kôkabîêl, Tâmîêl, Râmîêl, Dânêl, Êzêqêêl, Barâqîjâl, Asâêl, Armârôs, Batârêl, Anânêl, Zaqîêl, Samsâpêêl, Satarêl, Tûrêl, Jômjâêl, Sariêl.
8. These are their chiefs of tens.
Numbers 13
King James Version (KJV)
13 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,2 Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel: of every tribe of their fathers shall ye send a man, every one a ruler among them.
3 And Moses by the commandment of the Lord sent them from the wilderness of Paran: all those men were heads of the children of Israel.
4 And these were their names: of the tribe of Reuben, Shammua the son of Zaccur.
5 Of the tribe of Simeon, Shaphat the son of Hori.
6 Of the tribe of Judah, Caleb the son of Jephunneh.
7 Of the tribe of Issachar, Igal the son of Joseph.
8 Of the tribe of Ephraim, Oshea the son of Nun.
9 Of the tribe of Benjamin, Palti the son of Raphu.
10 Of the tribe of Zebulun, Gaddiel the son of Sodi.
11 Of the tribe of Joseph, namely, of the tribe of Manasseh, Gaddi the son of Susi.
12 Of the tribe of Dan, Ammiel the son of Gemalli.
13 Of the tribe of Asher, Sethur the son of Michael.
14 Of the tribe of Naphtali, Nahbi the son of Vophsi.
15 Of the tribe of Gad, Geuel the son of Machi.
16 These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land. And Moses called Oshea the son of Nun Jehoshua.
17 And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan, and said unto them, Get you up this way southward, and go up into the mountain:
18 And see the land, what it is, and the people that dwelleth therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many;
19 And what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad; and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents, or in strong holds;
20 And what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether there be wood therein, or not. And be ye of good courage, and bring of the fruit of the land. Now the time was the time of the firstripe grapes.
21 So they went up, and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath.
22 And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
23 And they came unto the brook of Eshcol, and cut down from thence a branch with one cluster of grapes, and they bare it between two upon a staff; and they brought of the pomegranates, and of the figs.
24 The place was called the brook Eshcol, because of the cluster of grapes which the children of Israel cut down from thence.
25 And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.
26 And they went and came to Moses, and to Aaron, and to all the congregation of the children of Israel, unto the wilderness of Paran, to Kadesh; and brought back word unto them, and unto all the congregation, and shewed them the fruit of the land.
27 And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey; and this is the fruit of it.
28 Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
29 The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.
30 And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
31 But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
32 And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
33 And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.
Genesis 14:5-6
King James Version (KJV)
5 And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emins in Shaveh Kiriathaim,
6 And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.
15 As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses.
15 And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died.
16 And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain theLord's anointed.
17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son:
18 (Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.)
19 The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!
20 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.
22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
Fragments from The Book of Giants 4Q203, 1Q23, 2Q26, 4Q530-532, 6Q8
Tablet nine opens with Gilgamesh roaming the wild clothed in animal skins, grieving for Enkidu. Fearful of his own death, he decides to seek Utnapishtim ("the Faraway"), and learn the secret of eternal life. Among the few survivors of the Great Flood, Utnapishtim and his wife are the only humans to have been granted immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh crosses a mountain pass at night and encounters a pride of lions. Before sleeping he prays for protection to the moon god Sin. Then, waking from an encouraging dream, he kills the lions and uses their skins for clothing. After a long and perilous journey, Gilgamesh arrives at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of the earth. He comes across a tunnel, which no man has ever entered, guarded by two terrible scorpion-men. After questioning him and recognizing his semi-divine nature, they allow him to enter it, and he passes under the mountains along the Road of the Sun. In complete darkness he follows the road for 12 "double hours", managing to complete the trip before the Sun catches up with him. He arrives at the Garden of the gods, a paradise full of jewel-laden trees.
6 And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.
Joshua 11
King James Version (KJV)
15 As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord commanded Moses.
16 So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain, and the mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same;
17 Even from the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under mount Hermon: and all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them.
18 Joshua made war a long time with all those kings.
19 There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites the inhabitants of Gibeon: all other they took in battle.
20 For it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly, and that they might have no favour, but that he might destroy them, as the Lord commanded Moses.
21 And at that time came Joshua, and cut off the Anakims from the mountains, from Hebron, from Debir, from Anab, and from all the mountains of Judah, and from all the mountains of Israel: Joshua destroyed them utterly with their cities.
22 There was none of the Anakims left in the land of the children of Israel: only in Gaza, in Gath, and in Ashdod, there remained.
23 So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that theLord said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war.
15 And David called one of the young men, and said, Go near, and fall upon him. And he smote him that he died.
16 And David said unto him, Thy blood be upon thy head; for thy mouth hath testified against thee, saying, I have slain theLord's anointed.
17 And David lamented with this lamentation over Saul and over Jonathan his son:
18 (Also he bade them teach the children of Judah the use of the bow: behold, it is written in the book of Jasher.)
19 The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!
20 Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
21 Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain, upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil.
22 From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty.
The Book of Giants Dead Sea Scrolls
It is fair to say that the patriarch Enoch was as well known to the ancients as he is obscure to modern Bible reaclers. Besides giving his age (365 years), the book of Genesis says of him only that he "walked with God," and afterward "he was not, because God had taken him" (Gen. 5:24). This exalted way of life and mysterious demise made Enoch into a figure of considerable fascination, and a cycle of legends grew up around him.
Many of the legends about Enoch were collected already in ancient times in several long anthologies. The most important such anthology, and the oldest, is known simply as The Book of Enoch, comprising over one hundred chapters. It still survives in its entirety (although only in the Ethiopic language) and forms an important source for the thought of Judaism in the last few centuries B.C.E. Significantly, the remnants of several almost complete copies of The Book of Enoch in Aramaic were found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, and it is clear that whoever collected the scrolls considered it a vitally important text. All but one of the five major components of the Ethiopic anthology have turned up among the scrolls. But even more intriguing is the fact that additional, previously unknown or little-known texts about Enoch were discovered at Qumran. The most important of these is The
Book of Giants.
Enoch lived before the Flood, during a time when the world, in ancient imagination, was very different. Human beings lived much longer, for one thing; Enoch's son Methuselah, for instance, attained the age of 969 years. Another difference was that angels and humans interacted freely -- so freely, in fact, that some of the angels begot children with human females. This fact is neutrally reported in Genesis (6:1-4), but other stories view this episode as the source of the corruption that made the punishing flood necessary.
According to The Book of Enoch, the mingling of angel and human was actually the idea of Shernihaza, the leader of the evil angels,who lured 200 others to cohabit with women.The offspring of these unnatural unions were giants 450 feet high. The wicked angels and the giants began to oppress the human populationand to teach them to do evil. For this reason God determined to imprison the angels until the final judgment and to destroy the earth with a flood. Enoch's efforts to intercede with heaven for the fallen angels were unsuccessful (1 Enoch 6-16).
The Book of Giants retells part of this story and elaborates on the exploits of the giants, especially the two children ofShemihaza, Ohya and Hahya. Since no complete manuscript exists of Giants, its exact contents and their order remain a matter of guesswork. Most of the content of the present fragments concerns the giants' ominous dreams and Enoch's efforts to interpret them and to intercede with God on the giants' behalf. Unfortunately, little remains of the independent adventures of the giants, but it is likely that these tales were at least partially derived from ancient Near Eastern mythology. Thus the name of one of the giants is Gilgamesh, the Babylonian hero and subject of a great epic written in the third millennium B.C.E.
This story is better told in The Book of Enoch Beginning Here
A summary statement of the descent of the wicked angels, bringing both knowledge and havoc. Compare Genesis 6:1-2, 4.
1Q23 Frag. 9 + 14 + 15 2 [ . . . ] they knew the secrets of [ . . . ] 3 [ . . . si]n was great in the earth [ . . . ] 4 [ . . . ] and theykilled many [ . . ] 5 [ . . . they begat] giants [ . . . ]
The angels exploit the fruifulness of the earth.
4Q531 Frag. 3 2 [ . . . everything that the] earth produced [ . . . ] [ . . . ] the great fish [ . . . ] 14 [ . . . ] the sky with all that grew [ . . . ] 15 [ . . . fruit of] the earth and all kinds of grain and all the trees [ . . . ] 16 [ . . . ] beasts and reptiles . . . [al]l creeping things of the earth and they observed all [ . . . ] |8 [ . . . eve]ry harsh deed and [ . . . ] utterance [ . . . ] l9 [ . . . ] male and female, and among humans [ . . . ]
The two hundred angels choose animals on which to perform unnatural acts, including, presumably, humans.
1Q23 Frag. 1 + 6 [ . . . two hundred] 2 donkeys, two hundred asses, two hundred . . . rams of the] 3 flock, two hundred goats, two hundred [ . . . beast of the] 4 field from every animal, from every [bird . . . ] 5 [ . . . ] for miscegenation [ . . . ]
The outcome of the demonic corruption was violence, perversion, and a brood of monstrous beings. Compare Genesis 6:4.
4Q531 Frag. 2 [ . . . ] they defiled [ . . . ] 2 [ . . . they begot] giants and monsters [ . . . ] 3 [ . . . ] they begot, and, behold, all [the earth was corrupted . . . ] 4 [ . . . ] with its blood and by the hand of [ . . . ] 5 [giant's] which did not suffice for them and [ . . . ] 6 [ . . . ] and they were seeking to devour many [ . . . ] 7 [ . . . ] 8 [ . . . ] the monsters attacked it.
4Q532 Col. 2 Frags. 1 - 6 2 [ . . . ] flesh [ . . . ] 3al [l . . . ] monsters [ . . . ] will be [ . . . ] 4 [ . . . ] they would arise [ . . . ] lacking in true knowledge [ . . . ] because [ . . . ] 5 [ . . . ] the earth [grew corrupt . . . ] mighty [ . . . ] 6 [ . . . ] they were considering [ . . . ] 7 [ . . . ] from the angels upon [ . . . ] 8 [ . . . ] in the end it will perish and die [ . . . ] 9 [ . . . ] they caused great corruption in the [earth . . . ] [ . . . this did not] suffice to [ . . . ] "they will be [ . . . ]
The giants begin to be troubled by a series of dreams and visions. Mahway, the titan son of the angel Barakel, reports the first of these dreams to his fellow giants. He sees a tablet being immersed in water. When it emerges, all but three names have been washed away. The dream evidently symbolizes the destruction of all but Noah and his sons by the Flood.
2Q26 [ . . . ] they drenched the tablet in the wa [ter . . . ] 2 [ . . . ] the waters went up over the [tablet . . . ] 3 [ . . . ] they lifted out the tablet from the water of [ . . . ]
The giant goes to the others and they discuss the dream.
4Q530 Frag.7 [ . . . this vision] is for cursing and sorrow. I am the one who confessed 2 [ . . . ] the whole group of the castaways that I shall go to [ . . . ] 3 [ . . . the spirits of the sl]ain complaining about their killers and crying out 4 [ . . . ] that we shall die together and be made an end of [ . . . ] much and I will be sleeping, and bread 6 [ . . . ] for my dwelling; the vision and also [ . . . ] entered into the gathering of the giants 8 [ . . . ]
6Q8 [ . . . ] Ohya and he said to Mahway [ . . . ] 2 [ . . . ] without trembling. Who showed you all this vision, [my] brother? 3 [ . . . ] Barakel, my father, was with me. 4 [ . . . ] Before Mahway had finished telling what [he had seen . . . ] 5 [ . . . said] to him, Now I have heard wonders! If a barren woman gives birth [ . . . ]
4Q530 Frag. 4 3 [There]upon Ohya said to Ha [hya . . . ] 4 [ . . . to be destroyed] from upon the earth and [ . . . ] 5 [ . . . the ea]rth. When 6 [ . . . ] they wept before [the giants . . . ]
4Q530 Frag. 7 3 [ . . . ] your strength [ . . . ] 4 [ . . . ] 5 Thereupon Ohya [said] to Hahya [ . . . ] Then he answered, It is not for 6 us, but for Azaiel, for he did [ . . . the children of] angels 7 are the giants, and they would not let all their loved ones] be neglected [. . . we have] not been cast down; you have strength [ . . . ]
The giants realize the futility of fighting against the forces of heaven. The first speaker may be Gilgamesh.
4Q531 Frag. 1 3 [ . . . I am a] giant, and by the mighty strength of my arm and my own great strength 4 [ . . . any]one mortal, and I have made war against them; but I am not [ . . . ] able to stand against them, for my opponents 6 [ . . . ] reside in [Heav]en, and they dwell in the holy places. And not 7 [ . . . they] are stronger than I. 8 [ . . . ] of the wild beast has come, and the wild man they call [me].
9 [ . . . ] Then Ohya said to him, I have been forced to have a dream [ . . . ] the sleep of my eyes [vanished], to let me see a vision. Now I know that on [ . . . ] 11-12 [ . . . ] Gilgamesh [ . . . ]
Ohya's dream vision is of a tree that is uprooted except for three of its roots; the vision's import is the same as that of the first dream.
6Q8 Frag. 2 1 three of its roots [ . . . ] [while] I was [watching,] there came [ . . . they moved the roots into] 3 this garden, all of them, and not [ . . . ]
Ohya tries to avoid the implications of the visions. Above he stated that it referred only to the demon Azazel; here he suggests that the destruction isfor the earthly rulers alone.
4Q530 Col. 2 1 concerns the death of our souls [ . . . ] and all his comrades, [and Oh]ya told them what Gilgamesh said to him 2 [ . . . ] and it was said [ . . . ] "concerning [ . . . ] the leader has cursed the potentates" 3 and the giants were glad at his words. Then he turned and left [ . . . ]
More dreams afflict the giants. The details of this vision are obscure, but it bodes ill for the giants. The dreamers speak first to the monsters, then to the giants.
Thereupon two of them had dreams 4 and the sleep of their eye, fled from them, and they arose and came to [ . . . and told] their dreams, and said in the assembly of [their comrades] the monsters 6 [ . . . In] my dream I was watching this very night 7 [and there was a garden . . . ] gardeners and they were watering 8 [ . . . two hundred trees and] large shoots came out of their root 9 [ . . . ] all the water, and the fire burned all 10 [the garden . . . ] They found the giants to tell them 11 [the dream . . . ]In Enoch, The Watchers, Chapter Seven, when they made the women acquainted with the plants and cutting roots the women became pregnant."In the Dead Sea text entitled the Book of Giants, the Nephilim sons of the fallen angel Shemyaza, named as 'AhyÄ and 'OhyÄ, experience dream-visions in which they visit a world-garden and see 200 trees being felled by heavenly angels. Not understanding the purpose of this allegory they put the subject to the Nephilim council who appoint one of their number, Mahawai, to go on their behalf to consult Enoch, who now resides in an earthly paradise. To this end Mahawai then:[... rose up into the air] like the whirlwinds, and flew with the help of his hands like [winged] eagle [... over] the cultivated lands and crossed Solitude, the great desert, [...]. And he caught sight of Enoch and he called to him...Enoch explains that the 200 trees represent the 200 Watchers, while the felling of their trunks signifies their destruction in a coming conflagration and deluge. More significant, however, is the means by which Mahawai attains astral flight, for he is said to have used `his hands like (a) [winged] eagle.' Elsewhere in the same Enochian text Mahawai is said to have adopted the guise of a bird to make another long journey. On this occasion he narrowly escapes being burnt up by the sun's heat and is only saved after heeding the celestial voice of Enoch, who convinces him to turn back and not die prematurely - a story that has close parallels with Icarus's fatal flight too near the sun in Greek mythology. Resource
Someone suggests that Enoch be found to interpret the vision.
[ . . . to Enoch] the noted scribe, and he will interpret for us 12 the dream. Thereupon his fellow Ohya declared and said to the giants, 13 I too had a dream this night, O giants, and, behold, the Ruler of Heaven came down to earth 14 [ . . . ] and such is the end of the dream. [Thereupon] all the giants [and monsters! grew afraid 15 and called Mahway. He came to them and the giants pleaded with him and sent him to Enoch 16 [the noted scribe]. They said to him, Go [ . . . ] to you that 17 [ . . . ] you have heard his voice. And he said to him, He wil1 [ . . . and] interpret the dreams [ . . . ] Col. 3 3 [ . . . ] how long the giants have to live. [ . . . ]
After a cosmic journey Mahway comes to Enoch and makes his request.
[ . . . he mounted up in the air] 4 1ike strong winds, and flew with his hands like a [gles . . . he left behind] 5 the inhabited world and passed over Desolation, the great desert [ . . . ] 6 and Enoch saw him and hailed him, and Mahway said to him [ . . . ] 7 hither and thither a second time to Mahway [ . . . The giants await 8 your words, and all the monsters of the earth. If [ . . . ] has been carried [ . . . ] 9 from the days of [ . . . ] their [ . . . ] and they will be added [ . . . ] 10 [ . . . ] we would know from you their meaning [ . . . ]
11 [ . . . two hundred tr]ees that from heaven [came down . . . ]
Enoch sends back a tablet with its grim message of judgment, but with hope for repentance.
4Q530 Frag. 2 The scribe [Enoch . . . ] 2 [ . . . ] 3 a copy of the second tablet that [Epoch] se [nt . . . ] 4in the very handwriting of Enoch the noted scribe [ . . . In the name of God the great] 5 and holy one, to Shemihaza and all [his companions . . . ] 6 1et it be known to you that not [ . . . ] 7 and the things you have done, and that your wives [ . . . ] 8 they and their sons and the wives of [their sons . . . ] 9 by your licentiousness on the earth, and there has been upon you [ . . . and the land iscrying out] 10 and complaining about you and the deeds of your children [ . . . ] 11 the harm that you have done to it. [ . . . ] 12 until Raphael arrives, behold, destruction [is coming, a great flood, and it will destroy all living things] 13 and whatever is in the deserts and the seas. And the meaning of the matter [ . . . ] 14 upon you for evil. But now, loosen the bonds bi [nding you to evil . . . ] l5 and pray.
A fragment apparently detailing a vision that Enoch saw.
4Q531 Frag. 7 3 [ . . . great fear] seized me and I fell on my face; I heard his voice [ . . . ] 4 [ . . . ] he dwelt among human beings but he did not learn from them [ . . . ]
Tablet nine
Tablet nine opens with Gilgamesh roaming the wild clothed in animal skins, grieving for Enkidu. Fearful of his own death, he decides to seek Utnapishtim ("the Faraway"), and learn the secret of eternal life. Among the few survivors of the Great Flood, Utnapishtim and his wife are the only humans to have been granted immortality by the gods. Gilgamesh crosses a mountain pass at night and encounters a pride of lions. Before sleeping he prays for protection to the moon god Sin. Then, waking from an encouraging dream, he kills the lions and uses their skins for clothing. After a long and perilous journey, Gilgamesh arrives at the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of the earth. He comes across a tunnel, which no man has ever entered, guarded by two terrible scorpion-men. After questioning him and recognizing his semi-divine nature, they allow him to enter it, and he passes under the mountains along the Road of the Sun. In complete darkness he follows the road for 12 "double hours", managing to complete the trip before the Sun catches up with him. He arrives at the Garden of the gods, a paradise full of jewel-laden trees.
Tablet ten
Meeting the ale wife Siduri, who assumes, because of his disheveled appearance, that he is a murderer or thief, Gilgamesh tells her about the purpose of his journey. She attempts to dissuade him from his quest, but sends him to Urshanabi the ferryman, who will help him cross the sea to Utnapishtim. Gilgamesh, out of spontaneous rage, destroys the stone-giants that live with Urshanabi. He tells him his story, but when he asks for his help, Urshanabi informs him that he has just destroyed the only creatures who can cross the Waters of Death, which are deadly to the touch. Urshanabi instructs Gilgamesh to cut down 300 trees, and fashion them into punting poles. When they reach the island where Utnapishtim lives, Gilgamesh recounts his story asking him for his help. Utnapishtim reprimands him, declaring that fighting the common fate of humans is futile and diminishes life's joys.
Tablet eleven
Gilgamesh observes that Utnapishtim seems no different from himself, and asks him how he obtained his immortality. Utnapishtim explains that the gods decided to send a great flood. To save Utnapishtim the god Ea told him to build a boat. He gave him precise dimensions, and it was sealed with pitch and bitumen. His entire family went aboard, together with his craftsmen and "all the animals of the field". A violent storm then arose which caused the terrified gods to retreat to the heavens. Ishtar lamented the wholesale destruction of humanity, and the other gods wept beside her. The storm lasted six days and nights, after which "all the human beings turned to clay". Utnapishtim weeps when he sees the destruction. His boat lodges on a mountain, and he releases a dove, a swallow, and a raven. When the raven fails to return, he opens the ark and frees its inhabitants. Utnapishtim offers a sacrifice to the gods, who smell the sweet savor and gather around. Ishtar vows that just as she will never forget the brilliant necklace that hangs around her neck, she will always remember this time. When Enlil arrives, angry that there are survivors, she condemns him for instigating the flood. Ea also castigates him for sending a disproportionate punishment. Enlil blesses Utnapishtim and his wife, and rewards them with eternal life. This account matches the flood story that concludes the Epic of Atrahasis (see also Gilgamesh flood myth).
The main point seems to be that when Enlil granted eternal life it was a unique gift. As if to demonstrate this point, Utnapishtim challenges Gilgamesh to stay awake for six days and seven nights. Gilgamesh falls asleep, and Utnapishtim instructs his wife to bake a loaf of bread on each of the days he is asleep, so that he cannot deny his failure to keep awake. Gilgamesh, who is seeking to overcome death, cannot even conquer sleep. After instructing Urshanabi the ferryman to wash Gilgamesh, and clothe him in royal robes, they depart for Uruk.
As they are leaving, Utnapishtim's wife asks her husband to offer a parting gift. Utnapishtim tells Gilgamesh that at the bottom of the sea there lives a boxthorn-like plant that will make him young again. Gilgamesh, by binding stones to his feet so he can walk on the bottom, manages to obtain the plant. He intends to test it on an old man when he returns to Uruk. Unfortunately, when Gilgamesh stops to bathe, it is stolen by a serpent, who sheds its skin as it departs. Gilgamesh weeps at the futility of his efforts, because he has now lost all chance of immortality. He returns to Uruk, where the sight of its massive walls prompts him to praise this enduring work to Urshanabi.


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Our Nation Once to Build Radiation Shelters and now we have Full Body Identification Radiation Chambers with Little Alternative to Travel
TSA Targets Tyner In Effort To Chill Nationwide Backlash
Government Mandated and Authorize; Pornography or Molestation – Full Body Scan or Enhanced 'Pat'-Down
Choose one for your Wife, for your daughters and sons, for your baby boy or girl.
What kind of Nation have we become?
TSA: No Fondling, Groping Or Squeezing Is Taking Place At Airports
Radiation Chamber the Gas Chamber of the Future
Get the Death Chamber to Work for You with Vertical Death Integration Systems
(Those that travel through or go to Radiation Chamber secured events and services will be identified with a full body biometric scan, correlated with ticketed licensed information, at this time they are also given the Individualized Targeted Radiation Dose that will cause optimal extraction of resources at custom end of life deterioration rates. Don't get caught with 20th century problems and 20th century cleanup.)
Contact you Global Concierge Representative Today.
Catalogue Item #………………………………00000000031422
The following contains certain factors which could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition or future results, and have been set forth under Item 1A. "Risk Factors"
#9 The Company could incur substantial costs as a result of product liability claims and adverse publicity if its X-ray inspection systems fail to detect bombs, explosives, weapons, contraband or other threats to personal safety…The failure of the Company's systems to detect the presence of these dangerous 'materials' may lead to personal injury, loss of life, and extensive property damage and may result in potential claims against the Company.
#10 The Company's insurance may be insufficient to protect it from product liability claims. The Company's product liability and umbrella liability insurance may be insufficient to protect it from product liability claims. Moreover, there is a risk that product liability insurance will not continue to be available to the Company at a reasonable cost, if at all. If liability claims exceed the Company's current or available insurance coverage, its business and prospects may be harmed. Regardless of the adequacy of the Company's product liability insurance protection, any significant claim may have an adverse affect on its industry and market reputation, leading to a substantial decrease in demand for its products and reduced revenues.
Enhanced pat–down and full body biometric microwave radiation chamber
The Total Invasion and Utter Rap of the Person, mother, wife, child, the Private Individual; in Entering, Exiting and Accessing the Free, Just and Equitable Public Domain is in violation of the Constitutional Individual and Fundamental Natural Rights.
The Jews were stripped Naked Many times before they were stripped naked before the final gassing (Mass showering/delousing had become ritual) and didn't know that this would be the last strip. "Your Body is the States Property for the Purpose of Security within the HomeLand"
Meg Mclain – 'I've never had so man grown men with guns shouting at me for no reason.'
The Invasions that can exist with today's technology and the long marriage of MIC/RanD Corp, Global Financing and 'Charity' Fund Agendas could enslave the human body, mind, will and the very consciousness of man.
President George W. Bush he personally approved the use of waterboarding, A method of torture in the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation techniques that has since been banned by the Justice Department.
'Mr President, Did you Order the Code Red? '
'You Don't have to answer that!'
'Ill answer it!'
'Did you order the Code Red?!'
"Damn right," Bush says that he said.
a source close to Bush says he would have done the same thing again "to save lives," though there's been no proof produced that the torture technique has.
"Bush previously had acknowledged endorsing what he described as the CIA's "enhanced" interrogation techniques – a term meant to encompass irregular, coercive methods.
Brut Force and Ruling by Fear is Terrorism.
– sovereignthink
Population Radiation Chamber Deployment Headlines

subset: commoncrawl


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Bread According to Ezekiel 4:9
I am curious if anyone has tryed making sourdough bread according to Ezekial 4:9. I know there is a company that does it, but has anyone actually tried making sourdough bread that way?
Here's the verse:
But as for you, take wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt, put them into one vessel and make them into bread for yourself. Ezekiel 4:9a


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Tuesday, April 17, 2007
NASCAR TV Partners At The Crossroads
April is working hard to bring-in May, and things in "NASCAR land" are about to change as well. Now, the reality of the first critical stretch of racing stands before teams who can still remember Daytona's cold weather. Those in the know understand that during the stretch of the next four weeks, the season will begin in earnest. Gone will be the easy smiles, the polite answers, and the hype. This stretch, beginning with next weekend's race in Phoenix, will also test the NASCAR TV partners like never before.
While the "NASCAR on Fox" gang will carry the NEXTEL Cup races themselves, there are big issues to be solved with this veteran group. The Daly Planet has been flooded with email addressing the decision of Fox Sports not to show all the lead lap drivers finishing the race. Only the first and second place drivers are seen, and absolutely no one else. This has been a conscious decision by the NASCAR on Fox production team. Fans can actually watch their driver battle for over three hours, have him finish in the top five, and never see him cross the line. No Earnhardt, no Stewart, no Johnson, no Gordon, not one driver will be seen finishing unless they are first or second. Why?
In the Hollywood Hotel, the antics of Chris Myers and the goofy cross-promotions for Fox Network programming has almost ruined the pre-race show. Last week from Texas, it was embarrassing. Rather than focus on NASCAR as a serious major sport in the US, Myers and Fox go out of their way to poke fun at everything associated with it. Myers "LA cool" personality has long been a fish-out-of-water at places like Talladega. Maybe, a fresh face like Krista Voda might be a nice change of pace for the viewers, and the announcing crew.
SPEED Channel continues its struggle to determine how much of a NASCAR partner they really want to be this season. Even as they announce a two day marathon of NASCAR programming surrounding the All-Star race, they have never replaced the Monday night multi-hour line-up or the Wednesday night prime-time race replays. The Daly Planet emailers point to NBS 24/7 as a show they sorely miss, and Inside NEXTEL Cup Racing as a show they sorely want to fix.
ESPN is only going to provide support programming for the NEXTEL Cup Series during this stretch, with their NASCAR Now series continuing on ESPN2. The network just expanded the Monday show to one-hour with less-than-stellar results. The Daly Planet has referred to this show as "bi-polar," depending on who is assigned the hosting duties. Veteran ABC Radio hip-hop DJ Doug Banks, ESPN Sports Radio talk show host Erik Kuselias, and ESPN News anchor Ryan Burr currently share the hosting duties. It is certainly easy to pick which host The Daly Planet emailers believe is best. If Mr. Burr was given this assignment five days a week, this show might improve its dismal ratings and awful on-air presentation.
So, here we go. This next month is going to be the first real endurance test for these TV "players," both new and old. When we add-in the availability of video from websites, pay-per-view race packages, and old stand-bys like YouTube.com, these next four weeks may prove to be as critical to the NASCAR TV partners as the NEXTEL Cup teams themselves. Good luck to all involved...we'll be watching.
The Daly Planet welcomes your thoughts and comments on the current NASCAR TV situation and the programs and people involved. Please use the COMMENTS link below to leave your response to this post.
6 comments:
- Anonymous said...
Great column. I have never liked the Fox coverage. Some good people, Mike Joy, Larry Mac, Dick B, Jeff Hammond. The rest are a bunch of clowns. Remember, DW whas hated when he drove. Hated. His use of "we" and "us" trying to be one of the guys. Ask Cale Yarborough or Richard Petty about him.
I get tired of not seeing the whole result of the race. That's why the only race I watch to conclusion is one I'm attending.
Speed is horrible. Unique Whips? Give me a break. The person who came up with that and other ideas not racing-related needs to go to the Fashion Channel or MTV. The did, at one time, a good job with dirt and motorcycle racing. I do, however, enjoy F-1.
Keep up the good work. Someone needs to point out what is going on in broadcasting!
- April 18, 2007 at 9:54 AM
- Anonymous said...
I personally like Inside Nextel Cup. Sometimes a little goofy, but most of the time you get some "inside" info that you wouldn't get elsewhere. Wind Tunnel is great as is Dave Despain. Should be on more. I agree about Fox and not showing more than the top 2. Another peeve is not showing the intervals on the position ticker. This is especially critical towards the end of the race. Sometimes it is the only way you know if your driver has a chance of gaining positions. Nascar Now...enough said, it needs major help with the hosts and trying to make mountains out of mole hill incidents.
- April 18, 2007 at 12:36 PM
- Anonymous said...
I wish someone would post the names and photos of the producers from ESPN and Fox. Those are the folks responsible for the crappy NASCAR shows we now see. When Fox started broadcasting NASCAR racong 6 years ago, they did their best to change our sport into a TV show. They did a good job. Now the current crop of producers are trying to change it from a TV show to a TV COMMERCIAL! I still watch F1 because the broadcast on SPEED is terrific, but not the clowns on Fox and ESPN.
- April 18, 2007 at 2:21 PM
- Anonymous said...
So, you never said what you thought about NASCAR Now last night with the return of Doug Banks. You have trashed him every night that he has hosted but didn't mention anything about him last night. Come on...my curiousity is killing me!!!
- April 18, 2007 at 3:11 PM
- Anonymous said...
Did anybody notice that Tuesday night's NA$CAR NOW was almost completely clips from the night before?
- April 18, 2007 at 6:05 PM
- Anonymous said...
I miss Bob Jenkins.
- April 19, 2007 at 4:22 PM


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April 19, 2012, the Detroit Branch NAACP Young Adult Committee met to set its path for the upcoming year and beyond. Members of the committee are extremely concerned about out impact in the lives of young people as we provide mentorship for young children and strategic programming to attract young adults to the Association.
As we lay out our calendar of events for the year we highly encourage others to become involved. Thus far the committee has adopted that our objectives will address the need for economic and educational reform, while focusing on mentorship to our youth council and addressing health issues in our community. We encourage members to work in areas they are passionate about and provide a support system to help them make a difference.
The Young Adult Committee meets every 1st and 3rd Thursday at 6:00pm at the Detroit Branch NAACP office (8220 Second Ave. Detroit, MI 48202.)


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These are a few decorative pieces I made for a surf shop.
For this sign, I cut the base out of plywood, it's about 6ft. long
These pieces are pre cut wooden circles that I had picked up a while back
I decided to mosaic them with broken blue ceramic tiles and mirror pieces
for decorative accents on the walls
I made this mosaic surfboard by cutting the base out of plywood
and using hand cut stained glass for the mosaic
The edges are tiled too...it's about 5ft tall
These are mosaic waves also cut from wood and I used the same tile that is on the sign.
These are in the window so this is not the best picture...
A pic of one of the dressing rooms.
They were basically an empty box when I started...
pretty colorful now!
I built these benches to fit the back walls out of plywood.
I painted with funky patterns and applied a mosaic on the front using glass beads
Top view


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Compact Kahler manifolds have the property that surjective maps induce injections on cohomology with coefficents in $\mathbb{Q}$ (That is, if $X,Y$ compact Kahler, then a surjective map $\phi: X \rightarrow Y$ induces injections $\phi^*: H^i(Y, \mathbb{Q}) \rightarrow H^i(X, \mathbb{Q})$ for all $i$, [Voisen, Hodge Theory I, p 177]).
Question: I'm wondering if I should think of this as a property of compact Kahler manifolds, or as an instance of something more general. For example, can the Kahler condition be replaced with a more general class of manifolds (not dropping the compactness hypothesis). Perhaps one that includes not just complex manifolds but maybe a few manifolds of odd (topological) dimension? I know that if we require that $\dim X = \dim Y$ then the fact above is true more generally just for compact oriented manifolds, for formal reasons.


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Having a strict immigration policy is not a sign of intolerance, according to the UKIP candidate for Harrow East.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Stanmore Politics before the general and local elections this Thursday, Abhijit Pandya emphasised that critics have no basis for calling UKIP intolerant.
"A strict immigration policy in fact can ensure social cohesion and preserve toleration," he said.
Pandya, a tutor of international law at LSE who grew up in the Harrow area, added he supported a strict cap on immigration.
"People must have secured employment to come into the UK, or they will be a burden on social security."
However, as the son of immigrants, he agreed there have been 'huge benefits' to immigration in Britain, mentioning 'hard-working decent people seeking to assimilate and participate in Britain."
"Immigrants contribute to all areas of national life, have contributed to the armed services and the post second world war economic recovery."
Following on from the furore of a hustings event last week, he said there were huge differences between UKIP and the BNP.
"The fundamentals of our understanding of Britishness is not based on ethnicity but on common shared values of liberalism, toleration and democracy," he said.
The former Conservative campaigner said UKIP could offer a clear position on Europe which was not anti-European 'in a derogatory or prejudiced way'.
He said he wanted to make people aware 'that we are not a one issue party' and called for more vocational training for children and an economic revival for small and large businesses.
"I also want a Harrow that is free of property related crime, like burglary and thefts," he said. "This is by ensuring that police are not burdened with administrative difficulties.
Pandya went on to describe a 50 per cent tax as 'simply nationalised theft' and called for a Royal Commission on climate change 'to ensure Government spending in that area is used honestly'.
"We should not have the inordinate overseas aid budget that the Conservatives and Labour have signed up to in a time of economic crisis," he said.
He said that politicians put too much emphasis on soundbites trying to please the public, rather than facing difficult arguments.
"Politics has become far too simplistic in its image, whereas the process of Government is ever more complex," he said. "This leads to a misleading of the public's expectations."
Acknowledging UKIP face an uphill challenge, having polled just 757 votes in Harrow East in 2005, he said if he did lose he wanted the party to grow in Harrow 'by listening to the real concerns of people from all areas of society.'
Still not decided who you're going to vote for? Read the Stanmore Politics interview with incumbent Labour MP, Tony McNulty, here.


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In this FREE event, you will discover:
- How to remove any bugs in your internal programming, which are seriously limiting your success and are holding you back.
- How to unlock your true potential, so you can finally charge what you are worth to your clients and build a widely successful coaching business working from home.
- How to create an abundance and a wealth mentality which will serve you for the rest of your life.
- How to do all of this without working a stupid amount of overtime, without lowering your prices, budgeting like crazy, or even living off bread and water for the rest of your life.
*This is a free online event. There are no costs, but seats are very limited.
**You will receive an email with joining instructions after your event registration.
However if you want to keep the zoom link safe now, it is: https://zoom.us/j/230970518
» Inline Ad Purchase: Intext Link


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Detalle de sellado de las cabezas de los pilotes. VOLTEX no se instala sobre los planos de carga.


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In a press release from Hasbro, in step with the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back, there will be a mail-away Boba Fett figure.
The mysterious Boba Fett played a key role in the original STAR WARS trilogy, firmly establishing him as a favorite villain for generations of fans. ... Additionally fans are also encouraged to collect five of the marked figures in the new vintage lineup to send away for their very own "Rocket Firing" BOBA FETT action figure, identically styled after the 1980 mail-away figure.
The original "rocket firing" Boba Fett never was mailed out because it was deemed dangerous for children. Only a few prototypes were made.
More recently, there was a Boba Fett figure made with a giant rocket firing contraption on its back, which is apparently not a danger for poking your eye out.
Thanks to @yakface for the tip.


text: Personality and authenticity resonate when you gaze at this selection of possibilities. Rustic pieces, wooden sensations, and a number of original items are a way for you to originate your home. Have a home that exudes your taste and your spirit. View our site for additional items to accent your home and look at through our many furniture sets for your home.


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Thanks also for your notes of congrats on my projects being included on the Amy Butler CD. I wish I could respond to everyone individually, but the giveaway has my Inbox overrun with comments. I promise to be better about responding to your comments once things slow down!
So apart from the giveaway and the excitement surrounding the CD, May has been an extremely busy month and has really flown by. Besides the Bookkeeper, my sewing has been limited to my many quilting bee commitments. Here is a rundown of the blocks I made this month:
In my SewConnected group, Amy (parkcitygirl) sent out fabrics from one of my all-time favorite fabric lines from one of my fave designers, "Chestnut Hill" by Joel Dewberry. I have a stash of these myself that I haven't cut into yet, so I had great fun working on Amy's blocks! Amy asked for large, 15" blocks. My first is a sort-of quarter log cabin design, with smaller blocks adapted from the free "Woodland Garden" quilt pattern by Scott @ Blue Nickel Studios. I even added in a few prints from the collection that Amy didn't send!
Here's a block for Jennifer (quayandco), who is a member of the SewConnected 3 group and wants a quilt made from scrappy log cabin blocks:
Finally, two blocks for Tine (Sodeste) in the SewConnected 2 group. Tine sent out solid fabrics, which are always so much fun to work with. Tine (from Denmark) is currently studying library sciences, so I knew exactly the type of block I wanted to make for her:
I had enough fabric left over to make another block, so I resorted back to my recent favorite go-to technique -- strings!! I love how this one came out.


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11 (Allegedly) Haunted Western New York Locations
Does the thought of haunted places give you the creeps? Or does it make you intrigued? Buffalo has plenty of well-known haunted locations for the willing to research or even take a trip to. Ghosts aren't that scary...right?
For those who find these kind of places interesting, here are 10 places around Buffalo that have haunted pasts:
- 1
Central Terminal495 Paderewski Dr., Buffalo
The Central Terminal was used a lot after being built in the 1920s, especially during World War II. Many have seen floating orbs and vanishing spirits throughout the station; they're said to roam around and also play games.
- 2
Delaware RoadDelaware Road, Clarence
Many people believe that driving down this sketchy, unlit road is a rite of passage. Evil has been connected with the road -- for example, KKK lynchings and lantern-carrying ghosts.
- 3
H. H. Richardson Complex400 Forest Ave., Buffalo
This complex was built in 1870 and is also known as the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. There have been captured images and anomalies at the complex, and it is a place of many horrors of the early mental health profession.
- 4
Holiday Inn100 Whitehaven Rd., Grand Island
The hotel opened in 1973 and has had many visitors report seeing a young girl skipping around and jumping on the beds. The little girl was supposed to have died on the ground of the hotel in the 1800s. This place has the most constant hauntings in the area.
- 5
Lancaster Opera House21 Central Ave., Lancaster
This is the supposed resting place to spirits William and Priscilla, who were lovers and actors at the Opera House. There have been reports of seeing these ghosts turning off lights and following people.
- 6
Old Fort Niagara Castle4 Scott Ave., Youngstown
Built in 1726, the castle served as a trading post and is one of the most haunted places in the area. A headless ghost is reported to wander the castle, creating eerie sounds and unexplained light.
- 7
Pigman RoadHolland Road, Angola
This road is the supposed home to a serial killer by the name of "the Pigman". He allegedly resembles a pig or wore a mask of pig parts. Shadowy figures have been seen, along with the sound of squealing pigs being heard.
- 8
Shea's Performing Arts Center646 Main St., Buffalo
Michael Shea built the theater in 1925 but passed away in 1934. His ghost allegedly haunts the theater and approaches people who are by themselves; he says something friendly to them and vanishes not long after doing so.
- 9
St. Mary's School for the Deaf2253 Main St., Buffalo
The school, originally known as Le Couteulx St. Mary's Benevolent Society for the Deaf and Dumb, was created in 1853. There have been reported sightings of nuns wandering the third floor, and also, even though it doesn't function anymore, the school bell has been seen to move by itself.
- 10
Town Ballroom681 Main St., Buffalo
The Town Ballroom used to be a speakeasy during the Prohibition. Al Capone frequented the establishment, as the basement was used for meetings and gambling. There have been reported sounds of parties coming from the basement rooms, along with the security alarms going off unexpectedly and ghost sightings.
- 11
USS The Sullivans1 Naval Park Cove, Buffalo
Docked at the Erie County Naval and Military Park since 1977, USS The Sullivans is said to house spirits. The ship was named in honor of the five Sullivan brothers, who served in World War II. The eldest brother is said to haunt the ship, searching for his lost brothers. People have allegedly seen objects thrown across the room and ghostly images of burned bodies.


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Our History
The Dublin Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was established in 1840 and is the oldest and largest animal charity in the Republic of Ireland.
In its early days the Society was known as the Dublin Auxiliary of the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals and it was founded the year the RSPCA received Royal Patronage, over the years it has had many names including "The Dublin Home for Starving and Forsaken Cats".
The Society was based at Grand Canal Quay in Dublin City from its formation in 1840 up until 1990, and generations of Dublin people were familiar with it as "The Dogs and Cats Home" and at times as "The Cats & Dogs Home".
In 1990 the Society moved to the Potterton Restfields at Stocking Lane in Rathfarnham, a suburb of Dublin. The land was bequeathed to the Society in the 1930s as a place to graze retired working horses.
In 2003 the Society moved to its new premises on Mount Venus Road, Rathfarnham where state of the art facilities were built to continue the work of the Society. The DSPCA continues to care for the sick, injured and cruelty treated animals in Dublin city and county.
In 2010 the DSPCA commenced work on a new unique sustainable charity model for animal welfare. The new Pet Boarding Centre opened in November 2010 and the private Vet Clinic opened in February 2011.
The DSPCA is the only animal welfare charity in the city that cares for all animals, domestic and wild. This is a tradition the staff at the DSPCA are very proud of.


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First off, guess what? I was in another quilting magazine! And not just any quilting magazine, but American Patchwork & Quilting ... the one magazine that I actually have a subsription to! (Not that I don't buy the others -- I usually just get them at Barnes & Noble : )
Yep, there I am in the Moda Bake Shop ad ... forming a Bermuda Triangle of sorts with my buddies Julie & Rachel. I can't thank Lissa, Angela, and Moda Fabrics enough for the opportunity to contribute to such a fabulous blog as the MBS. And if you haven't been there yet, you should go check it out. I have something coming out of the oven shortly ...
I'm also excited because I just booked a ticket to go to Minneapolis! No, silly, not to shop at the Mall of America (even though I sure hope I'll have the chance to do that). It's to attend Quilt Market! Yep, those two troublemakers above (Rachel & Julie, NOT Lissa & Angela!) have convinced me to come check it out. Super neat-o! I am over the moon excited to go and meet so many of my virtual friends in person. If you're going to be there, PLEASE let me know! And if not, don't worry -- I'll be sure to take lots of pictures and provide round-the-clock blog updates.
Another piece of exciting news? One of my quilt blocks was featured on the ever-growing Quilting Bee Blocks site. Wicked neat-o! I know I've mentioned this site before, but it's a really great site for anyone new (or old) to the world of block swaps and it's worth mentioning again. Erin's going a fantastic job building a strong, supportive community within the world virtual quilting bees and I really appreciate all that she is doing. Even though the Grand Opening giveaways are over (boo!), I am sure there will be more soon ...
So I have come into possession of this gorgeous little mix of Timber fabrics (designed by Jessica Levitt of Juicy Bits fame). I got it from a great online fabric shop, Hart's Fabric that Tina introduced me to. Neat-o! The problem? I can't decide what to make with them! It's not that I am at a loss for ideas -- I've come up with about 100 already -- but I can't seem to make a decision. It's VERY unlike me. So here's where you come in -- please help me decide what to make with these prints!
Triangle Modern Quilt Guild last night, I also went roller skating. Yep, roller skating. At a rink. It rocked. I escorted my 5 year-olds to a birthday party and, after about 5 minutes of watching all of the activity, I couldn't take it anymore and rented these sweet old skool 4-wheelers. Groovy ... er, I mean neat-o! I had a blast -- not only skating, but having fun chatter with all of my Twitter friends who I helped live vicariously through my tweets. (PS. are you on Twitter? Be sure to follow me!) The way I see it, I figured I'd enjoy the time when my daughters actually enjoy having me hang out with them & their friends, because I am sure it won't be too long before they are begging me to wait in the car.
OK, the {Urban} HOME Goods swap. Have you seen this one? It's where we'll be swapping finished goods that will allow us to feature our favorite fabric lines throughout our homes. Neat-o! We recently received our partners, and once again Heather & Kerri did a fantastic job of pairing like-minded swappers. My partner gave me a LOT to work from in her preferences, and I'm considering using the combination you see here on the right: my favorite prints from one of my favorite lines ever (Chestnut Hill by Joel Dewberry) and some classic linen. Right now it's shaping up to be a table runner, and/or some napkins and placemats. What do you think?
Are you guys familiar with the Explore feature on Flickr? No, me neither ... but from what I can gather, it's where the people that work behind-the-scenes at Flickr select interesting photos each day to feature on their Explore pages. Since you're never really notified if one of your pictures has been selected, it's possible to be featured and never know it!
Well, the BigHugeLabs site has a pretty nifty little app called "Scout" that can show you all of your photos that have hit the Explore pages. Take a look at my collection:
Finally, I wanted to share some of the neat-o pieces of embroidery that my group members have been making for me over in the Hoop Up swap. The swappers in that group are crazy mad talented and have really blown me away. The quality of work happening in that group is nothing short of genius and has exceeded all of my expectations when starting the group. Even if you are not an embroiderer, I highly encourage you to peruse the amazing gallery that has been built over there.


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This was published 7 years ago
Fairfax dominates Walkley nominations
FAIRFAX journalists have dominated nominations in print and online categories for this year's Walkley Awards, the highest honours in Australian journalism.
The Herald's investigative reporter Kate McClymont received three nominations. McClymont was a finalist in the Investigative Journalism category for a report uncovering the alleged abuse of credit cards by senior members of the Health Services Union including the former general secretary Michael Williamson and sitting MP Craig Thomson.
For the same story, McClymont was also nominated in the Print News Report category.
She was also a joint finalist with Linton Besser in the Investigative Journalism category for their investigation into the complex network of business interests owned by the family of former NSW minister Eddie Obeid.
Fairfax swept all three nominations for the Best Digital Journalism category.
The Herald's Stuart Washington, Tom Allard and Conrad Walters were nominated for an investigation into the gifts received by federal politicians. That story was accompanied by an online database of gifts, compiled by UTS journalism students.
Asher Moses, Simon Morris, Tom McKendrick and Tim Mummery were nominated for their video series Digital Dreamers, which focused on aspiring Australian tech entrepreneurs trying to make it big in the US.
Other finalists included the Canberra bureau political correspondent Katharine Murphy and photographers Andrew Meares and Alex Ellinghausen for their coverage of Labor leadership challenges on The Pulse - Fairfax's online politics blog.
Fairfax's Middle East correspondent, Ruth Pollard, was nominated in the category of Sustained Coverage of an Issue or Event, for her reporting on the torture of Syrian dissidents.
The Herald cartoonist John Shakespeare was a finalist for best artwork, while Ellinghausen was a finalist for Daily Life/Feature Photography for his photo of Australia's Paralympic swimming team.
Jane Cadzow received nominations for two features written for Fairfax's Good Weekend magazine, on the mining magnate Gina Rinehart and the Australian author Bryce Courtenay.
Between them, the Herald and The Age had 21 nominations. Investigative journalists Richard Baker and Nick McKenzie from The Age picked up three and four nominations respectively, for stories including their expose on corruption within subsidiaries of the Reserve Bank of Australia.
The Age photographers Jason South and Justin McManus were finalists for the Nikon-Walkley Press Photographer of the Year.
Click here for a full list of this year's Walkley finalists.
James Robertson was a reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.


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Zhuanyong wrote:Ok, you got a team full of gods. And someone said my kingdom was overkill...
Well, my serious picks were on page 1.
Anyone want to play lowball?
Ruler: Ala ad-Din Muhammad II
Grand Commander: Douglas Haig
Generals: George McClellan, Gaius Terentius Varro
Diplomat: Joachim von Ribbentrop
Ministers: Robert Mugabe, Nicolae Ceaușescu


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President Jones Moves UAlbany Community Engagement Forward
President Jones chats with an old colleague, Dr. Andrew Furco, associate vice president for public engagement at the University of Minnesota, in the Campus Center Assembly Hall on April 2.
ALBANY, N.Y. (April 9, 2013) – University at Albany President Robert Jones recently completed a series of campus conversations to advance the University's progress as a community-engaged research university. The sessions, which featured Dr. Andrew Furco, associate vice president for Public Engagement, University of Minnesota, and a global scholar in the field, helped the campus explore what the next level of community engagement at UAlbany might look like.
"One of UAlbany's core values - community and public engagement - is in my DNA," said President Jones. "Many of the economic and societal issues facing our communities, universities and country are too large for a single institution to solve in isolation. I believe that our faculty and administration possess the knowledge and expertise to help our communities solve these issues."
An audience of approximately 200 people attended the Uptown Campus forum "Strengthening University Impact through Public Engagement" on April 3. President Jones commended the outstanding programs at UAlbany which he said are essential for providing a framework for engaged work.
President Jones addresses a large University audience in the Campus Center Ballroom on April 3, in a forum entitled "Strengthening University Impact Through Public Engagement." (Photos by Mark Schmidt)
He also indicated the importance of systems, collective effort, and reciprocal partnerships for institutionalization. He suggested the idea of an urban agenda to help revitalize the region and beyond, and indicated his desire to continue dialogues about UAlbany's engagement.
Dr. Furco discussed engagement not as an end in itself, but as a strategy that can help achieve academic and research goals, student recruitment and retention, and other critical parts of our mission, illustrating the possibilities in UAlbany's strategic plan. Dr. Furco, a faculty member at UMN, presented to audiences of about 100 participants each in sessions on "Teaching with Impact," and "Scholarship with Impact." He noted how a research university and the public both benefit from work that addresses critical issues in society and students who study outside the classroom.
The overall series was co-hosted by the offices of the President and the Provost, the Campus Committee on University Community-Engagement (CCUCE), and the Executive Committee of the University Senate. For the two special sessions, Senate Councils joined in as additional co-hosts for Teaching with Impact: The University Senate Undergraduate Academic Council and the Graduate Academic Council, and Scholarship with Impact: The University Senate Council on Promotions and Continuing Appointments and the Council on Research.
The next step is for the CCUCE , co-chaired by Miriam Trementozzi, Associate Vice President for Community Engagement in the President's Office, and Robert Bangert-Drowns, Dean of the School of Education, to develop recommendations drawing on the series of discussions. CCUCE works to improve systems, coordination and culture for advancing engaged work with local-to-global impact.
In addition to this critical internal discussion, President Jones is conducting a nine-county tour of the Capital District to become better acquainted with the region's educational, cultural, business, civic, and recreational assets. He kicked off the tour on March 27 in Greene County, visited Schenectady County on April 8, and will continue through June with visits to Warren, Washington, Columbia, Rensselaer, Saratoga, Schoharie, and Albany counties.
During each tour, President Jones and a delegation of University faculty, students, staff, and alumni will meet with community colleges, high schools, businesses, and community organizations, as well as University scholarship programs.
Currently, President Jones is inviting campus nominations for the President's Awards for Exemplary Community Engagement. These awards will honor individuals and projects and programs that have made "exemplary contributions to addressing a significant societal need and enhancing public well-being through community-engaged research, creative activity, teaching, academic study and/or public service."
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About the University at Albany
A comprehensive public research university, the University at Albany offers more than 120 undergraduate majors and minors and 125 master's, doctoral, and graduate certificate programs. UAlbany is a leader among all New York State colleges and universities in such diverse fields as atmospheric and environmental sciences, business, criminal justice, emergency preparedness, engineering and applied sciences, informatics, public administration, social welfare, and sociology taught by an extensive roster of faculty experts. It also offers expanded academic and research opportunities for students through an affiliation with Albany Law School. With a curriculum enhanced by 600 study-abroad opportunities, UAlbany launches great careers.


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Today is World Intellectual Property Day which means that rather than focusing on creativity or on policies that meet the needs of creators and users, we get a private function for MPs and Senators on Parliament Hill sponsored by Senator Joseph Day, where the RCMP will display counterfeit batteries and […]
Archive for April 26th, 2007
World Intellectual Property Day
April 26, 2007 — 14 comments — News
CRIA Responds to Copyright Column
The Toronto Star has published a response from CRIA's Graham Henderson to this week's column on copyright and USTR pressure.
April 26, 2007 — Comments are Disabled — Must Reads
Episode 58: "An Earth Shattering Decision" – Marina Pavlovic on the Supreme Court of Canada's Uber v. Heller Ruling
by Michael Geist
Episode 57: Julia Reda on What Canada Should Learn from the European Battle over a Copyright Link Tax
June 29, 2020
Michael Geist
June 22, 2020
Michael Geist
June 15, 2020
Michael Geist
June 8, 2020
Michael Geist
Recent Posts
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 58: "An Earth Shattering Decision" – Marina Pavlovic on the Supreme Court of Canada's Uber v. Heller Ruling
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 57: Julia Reda on What Canada Should Learn from the European Battle over a Copyright Link Tax
- Pay to Link?: Canadian Heritage Minister Guilbeault Backs Bringing the Link Tax to Canada
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 56: Eloïse Gratton on Quebec's Plan to Overhaul its Privacy Law
- The LawBytes Podcast, Episode 55: Mutale Nkonde on Racial Justice, Bias, and Technology
Open Books
Law, Privacy and Surveillance in Canada in the Post-Snowden Era (University of Ottawa Press, 2015)
The Copyright Pentalogy: How the Supreme Court of Canada Shook the Foundations of Canadian Copyright Law (University of Ottawa Press, 2013)
From "Radical Extremism" to "Balanced Copyright": Canadian Copyright and the Digital Agenda (Irwin Law, 2010)
In the Public Interest: The Future of Canadian Copyright Law (Irwin Law, 2005)


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The curt knock on the door of his hotel room woke Alan Huang with a start. He looked at the clock: 5:30 am. Huang had been in Shenzhen, China, for only a few days; who could be looking for him at this hour? He groggily undid the lock—and found a half-dozen police officers in the corridor. The cops were there, they said, because the 37-year-old software engineer was a follower of the Falun Gong spiritual movement. It was December 1999, and the Beijing government had outlawed the sect just months earlier.
In fact, that's why Huang had left his home in Sunnyvale, California, to come to Shenzhen. A Chinese computer programmer who had long ago emigrated to the US, Huang was back in China to protest the government's jailing of thousands of his fellow practitioners. He hadn't expected to join them.
Huang ended up packed into a cold cell with 20 other men, sleeping on the floor in shifts and forced to clean pigpens every day. Huang's wife, back in California with their 3-year-old daughter, was terrified. After a very long two weeks and the help of a few American politicians, Huang and two other US-based Falun Gong practitioners who had accompanied him were released. "I got lucky because I was a US resident," he says. "Others were not so lucky."
It was Huang's first experience with prison, but not with Communist Party repression. When he was an electrical engineering student at Shanghai's Fudan University in the 1980s, Huang marched in the pro-democracy protests that roiled China. But the heady days in the streets came to a bloody end when the government sent tanks into Tiananmen Square. Huang wasn't arrested, but some of his acquaintances disappeared. And he was shocked by the way the government's ensuing propaganda barrage convinced many Chinese that the protesting students were themselves to blame for the bloodshed. Disillusioned, Huang left China, got his graduate degree at the University of Toronto, and moved to Silicon Valley in 1992. He spent most of the 1990s quietly living the immigrant-American dream, starting a family and building a career. Along the way, he also became one of the Bay Area's hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners, leading study sessions and group exercises. So when Beijing launched its crackdown on the sect, it felt to Huang like 1989 all over again: The government was brutalizing a peaceful movement while painting its adherents as dangerous criminals. This time, he was determined to fight back. His aborted trip to China and frightening weeks in jail only left him more resolute. "My experience told me that the persecution was more severe than what we can imagine," Huang says in accented English. "I felt I needed to do something."
Huang has hunched shoulders and a round face thatched with bushy black hair; his bashful mien occasionally retreats into a nervous giggle. He's no charismatic revolutionary. But by 2002, he had assembled a dozen like-minded Falun Gong-practicing colleagues. In the small garage attached to his four-bedroom bungalow, they developed a digital weapon for their compatriots back in China: a program designed to foil government censorship and surveillance. Dubbed UltraSurf, it has since become one of the most important free-speech tools on the Internet, used by millions from China to Saudi Arabia.
A separate group of Falun Gong practitioners, it turned out, was working on something similar, and in 2006 the two groups joined forces as the Global Internet Freedom Consortium. Most GIFC members spend their days as cubicle-bound programmers and engineers at places ranging from Microsoft to NASA. But off the clock, at night and on weekends, they wage digital guerrilla warfare on the Chinese government's cyberpolice, matching their technical savvy, donated computers, and home-office resources against the world's second-largest superpower. Again and again, Beijing has attacked the firewall-beating programs; again and again, the scrappy band of volunteers has defeated those attacks.
The victories don't come easily. Huang quit a lucrative job to devote all his time to the cause. He has drained almost all of his savings. He had to sell his home and move his family into a rental, where he now works out of a spare room, making ends meet with freelance consulting gigs. Most days he sits in an armless swivel chair, bent over computers set up on a folding table. But there is one major consolation. "More and more people are using our technology," he says. "And that's the force that will tear down the Great Firewall."
China maintains what is probably the world's most advanced system for controlling digital communication. Authorities and opponents call it the Great Firewall, and the Chinese take it extremely seriously. At least 72 Chinese citizens—more than in any other country—are currently locked up for things they said online. Firewalls typically block access to certain sites, but the centerpiece of the Chinese system, called Golden Shield, does much more. It's essentially a national digital surveillance network that monitors China's estimated 420 million online citizens. This titanic task is facilitated by the fact that all international Internet traffic passes through just a handful of state-run pipelines.
A censor—be it a government, school, or corporation—has several options for preventing people from visiting places on the web. The simplest is to block a site's Internet protocol address, the numbers that identify the computer hosting the site. A similar trick is to block DNS names, the text versions of IP addresses. Both tactics place an entire website off-limits. More technically difficult is keyword filtering, which blocks any traffic—search request, URL, or email—containing specific words or phrases. The Golden Shield does all those things so well that China reportedly exports the technology to other authoritarian countries, including Cuba and Belarus. And it's supplemented by thousands of human censors who scour blogs, chat rooms, and everything else for offending content. China even jams seditious text messages.
Programs designed to defeat those measures are called circumvention tools. That's what UltraSurf is: Operating through a web browser, it drops search queries or emails into an encrypted tunnel that scrambles the data to make it unreadable. Then the data gets routed to a network of computers—proxy servers—located in the US or some other unrestricted country. Though the circuitous path slows the connection a bit, it also provides access to sites like CNN, YouTube, and Twitter and leaves no record on the user's computer.
But building robust circumvention tools is tough—as David Tian, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, knows well. Like Huang, Tian left China after narrowly avoiding arrest as a pro-democracy protester. He emigrated to the US and started practicing Falun Gong. Following the Beijing crackdown, at about the same time Huang started working on UltraSurf, Tian teamed up with a North Carolina programmer named Bill Xia and others via Falun Gong chat rooms. They planned to create a newsletter to counter Beijing's propaganda, but they had to work carefully; six students and professors at Tsinghua University had been imprisoned in 2001 for posting Falun Gong materials. (Like all other GIFC members I met, Tian politely refused to let me see where he actually does his work. They're a secretive bunch, afraid that the Chinese government might find out too much about them. Most don't even want their names known. So despite the thumping midsummer humidity, we spoke at an outdoor lunch spot in the Maryland suburbs.)
The Great Escape
The computer scientists behind the Global Internet Freedom Consortium supply circumvention tools to people all over the world. Here's how those users scale the Great Firewall of China.
—Rachel Swaby
The sites that host these programs tend to get blocked, but lots of users obtain a copy via email, in a zip file over IM, or passed hand to hand on a thumb drive.
With every use, the software opens a new, encrypted connection to a computer somewhere abroad—a "proxy server" that connects to the net free of surveillance.
YouTube searches, BBC comments, and other proscribed online actions join all the rest of the encrypted traffic coming out of China—too much for censors to block en masse.
Chinese censors instead try to quash the proxy servers—if they can find them. The GIFC cycles its IP addresses 10,000 times an hour (constantly updating users).
All that hoop-jumping slows the connection, but it does free users to watch a dancing dog on YouTube or leave a comment on Voice of America.
Initially, Tian and company just gathered email addresses in China from relatives and friends and started sending out news items and commentary. The list grew quickly, and soon they were generating millions of emails a week. "That triggered the alarm," Tian says. Subscribers said the messages weren't getting through; China's Internet-censoring apparatus was blocking them. So Tian's group started coming up with tricks to sneak their emails in. They converted the text into images, for example, or scrolled it vertically rather than horizontally to make it unreadable to the censoring software. And they broke the address list into chunks that they parceled out to dozens of volunteers, rather than sending everything in one massive, readily spotted blast from a central server.
But simply helping Chinese citizens passively receive emails wasn't enough. "We wanted to let people read Western media, Falun Gong sites, whatever they wanted, and to respond," Tian says. His group ended up developing software very similar to UltraSurf—they called theirs Freegate—and released it around the same time Huang's group released its version.
At first, the proxy servers that both groups used were just the private computers of volunteers who offered up spare bandwidth from their businesses, schools, and homes. Huang would set up a connection node on, say, a laptop in someone's living room in San Jose and some UltraSurf user in Shanghai would be routed through it, traffic running invisibly in the background. Several thousand volunteered computers still carry such traffic, Huang says, but now he also rents bandwidth in server farms.
While UltraSurf and Freegate aren't the only circumvention tools out there, they caught on quickly and continue to spread. There's no way to know exactly how many people have acquired the programs, since most of the sites they're downloaded from get blocked and copies are often emailed from friend to friend. And naturally, people using these programs don't want to advertise the fact. But GIFC members say their logs record around a million unique users daily and several times that many every month. A 2007 study by Harvard Law School's Berkman Center for Internet and Society that field-tested circumvention software declared UltraSurf "the best of any tool tested in filtering countries."
Of course, most UltraSurfers are not distributing samizdat or organizing hunger strikes. They just want to do the same stuff the rest of us do on the net. This becomes clear when Huang, sitting in a generic chain cafè9 in Cupertino, opens up his laptop to show me a random hour's worth of UltraSurf's user logs.
Lines of text zoom by, showing thousands of IP addresses and web pages visited. A search reveals that only a tiny handful of users went to Falun Gong-related sites. Pulling out a few others at random, we see that somebody in Beijing visited Dolce & Gabbana's site, somebody in Turkey hit Facebook, and somebody in the United Arab Emirates spent quality time at ShemaleTubeVideos .com. We check out that site, and Huang grimaces at some biologically baffling photos. "We don't want to spend our money supporting that," he says. In a hard-to-miss irony, the GIFC tools block access to many video sites, especially pornographic ones. That's partly because their network lacks the bandwidth to accommodate so much data-heavy traffic, but also because Falun Gong frowns on erotica.
Still, it's clear that many people—perhaps even transgender-porn aficionados—also use the tools as an antidote to propaganda. "Whenever something happens, like the SARS outbreak or the Tibet unrest, our user base grows, because people don't trust the official information," Tian says. And the programs let important news flow out as well as in: Burmese dissidents used them to post videos of police beating protesters during the 2007 "Saffron Revolution."
The fact that administrators like Huang can see data about where users are coming from and going to, however, makes privacy fundamentalists leery of the GIFC tools. They favor similar software like Hotspot Shield and Tor, which can't gather user data. Logs could be hacked into or turned over to US law enforcement—something Xia and Huang say they'd do if ordered by a court. "I know plenty of people in China who don't like what their government does to the Falun Gong, but they don't want to entrust their data to the Falun Gong either," says Rebecca MacKinnon, a New America Foundation fellow specializing in global Internet policy and human rights. Xia and Huang insist their logs are secure and, in any case, are deleted after a couple of weeks at most. They keep them for that long, they say, to analyze the traffic for signs of interference or surveillance.
Which happens all the time. "UltraSurf and Freegate are blocked very aggressively in China," says Hal Roberts of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. "In response, they've gotten into a very sophisticated arms race."
The battle rages in a strange silence. There has been only one alleged violent incident, when a handful of Asian men burst into a GIFC member's home outside Atlanta in 2006, roughed him up, and stole two laptops. Huang and his colleagues are convinced that this was a warning from Beijing. Other than that, the programmers know they are under attack only when the traffic through their servers drops suddenly.
Sometimes the censors manage to recognize patterns in an encryption header—a notice indicating which algorithms they're employing. The government agents can't read the encrypted information but will block anything carrying that header. Sometimes they find distinctive patterns in how the tools split up data into packets, and then they block anything with those signatures. And they're constantly gathering the IP addresses of the proxy servers by pirating their own copies of UltraSurf and Freegate.
The GIFC programmers struggle constantly to stay one step ahead—fast-moving mice to Beijing's powerful cat. They revamp their encryption header protocols. They disguise their transmission patterns by inserting fake data with their packets. They mask their users' traffic as some other form of data—say, a Skype phone call. Most important, they have come up with ways to change the IP addresses of their proxy servers up to 10,000 times an hour. The programs automatically retrieve a handful of those fresh IP addresses for users when they start up; by the time the censors find and block a server's IP address, that server has already been given 10 new, unblocked ones.
"There have been many, many rounds of blocking and upgrading," says Xia, who is so uptight about security that he refused to meet me in person. "It's a constant back-and-forth war." When access is blocked, the users themselves alert the programmers and help to diagnose the problem. "Some of them are very good programmers," Xia says. "We're not vendors and customers—we're a big team."
One of the biggest strains on that team, however, has been money. Huang almost went broke getting UltraSurf off the ground. He quit his job, hoping he could make a living fighting firewalls through his one-man company, UltraReach. But apart from a few small contracts helping Voice of America and a human rights organization get information into China, no money has come in. That's why he had to move and start taking part-time contract jobs in database management and network administration. He still spends about half his week on UltraSurf, unpaid.
Huang says his wife is supportive, but she's interested in neither technology nor Falun Gong. It's not an easy life. On a tour of Sunnyvale and nearby Cupertino to see his old home and the park where his Falun Gong group exercises, Huang gets a bit morose as we pass Apple's sprawling headquarters. One of his friends who works there, he says, recently built a million-dollar house—with cash. "A lot of my college mates have done very well. Some are successful entrepreneurs. Some are already retired," he says. "I don't expect to be rich. But I sometimes feel like my wife and daughter deserve better."
Those money woes are among the reasons Tian and Huang, along with a couple of smaller Falun Gong-affiliated outfits, established the nonprofit GIFC. Together, they figured, they had a better shot at getting some real money from the world's biggest free-speech funder: the US government. As computer geeks who speak English as a second language, GIFC members aren't exactly skilled Beltway operators. They have, however, attracted some key allies—most important, a pair of well-connected conservative true believers for whom battling the world's last great Communist autocracy is the highest calling. The first is Mark Palmer, a onetime speechwriter for Henry Kissinger and the Soviet-relations point person in President Reagan's State Department. Today he's a pro-democracy advocate in DC. "I was amazed at what they'd done with chewing gum and baling wire," he says.
Palmer knows that simply routing around firewalls won't end Internet censorship. But he believes circumvention tools can play a critical role. "If you ask dissidents from the Soviet days what were the best things the West did to help them, they all say Radio Free Europe and the BBC made an enormous difference. They were ways for them to get information and communicate with one another," he says. "The Internet is the modern version of those programs, but of course it goes much further."
Palmer brought in Michael Horowitz, a Reagan administration official who has since become a freelance paladin on a head-spinning range of issues, from the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries to prison rape and sex trafficking. The pair set about putting the group on the capital's radar. It was a tough sell at first; Falun Gong has a bit of a nutty, Scientology-like reputation, especially in Washington, DC, where it's a visible presence. They're the guys in yellow T-shirts outside the Chinese embassy, waving gruesome pictures of torture victims and yowling crazy-sounding allegations about Communist officials harvesting the organs of imprisoned Falun Gong members.
"Their eagerness to persuade you about how bad their situation is makes them their own worst PR enemy," Horowitz says. "Sometimes they overstate things because they're so anxious to get coverage." But the religious-freedom angle got traction with pols who supported Horowitz's crusade for Christian-minority rights. Among other things, he secured a Senate subcommittee hearing for GIFC member Shiyu Zhou, a Rutgers computer science professor. With $50 million, Zhou testified, the GIFC could attract and serve 23 million users in China. "Imagine the possibilities," he continued, "of the Pope being able to conduct an interactive worship service with millions of Chinese Catholics, or members of this committee being able to conduct seminars in democracy with tens of thousands of Iranian students."
A handful of Communist-hating members of Congress were persuaded. In 2008, they passed a bill appropriating $15 million to efforts to defeat firewalls in "dictatorships and autocracies." But the State Department gave almost all of the money to a group that mainly trains journalists abroad. "The goddamn State Department just pissed that money away," the normally diplomatic Palmer fumes. "I'm virtually certain the reason was fear of Beijing." He and Horowitz maintain that the State Department doesn't want to anger China by funding a Falun Gong-related organization.
Michael Posner, head of the State Department's human rights branch, declined to respond to that charge, saying he didn't "want to get into the details of any of the grants." Still, it's a fact that the mere mention of the sect makes Communist Party officials practically foam at the mouth. "This organization preaches heretical fallacies that are anti-humanity and antiscience," says Wang Baodong, spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy. "It is a cult that seriously violates human rights and is a cancer in the body of the modern, civilized society."
Falun Gong isn't a religion per se. It's a modern variant of the ancient Chinese practice of qigong, similar to the exercises and meditation of tai chi, which had a massive resurgence in the 1980s. A decade later, a former grain clerk named Li Hongzhi mixed it with Buddhism and Daoism and called it Falun Gong. By 1998, the movement had 40 million followers by the government's count, including thousands of Communist Party members and military officers. But China has a long history of quasi-religious movements arising to threaten the country's rulers. So on April 25, 1999, when 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners surrounded the Communist Party's compound in the heart of Beijing, the government freaked out. China declared Falun Gong an "illegal, evil cult." Since then, say human rights advocates, many Falun Gong members have been tortured, and hundreds—perhaps thousands—have died in custody.
Though that cause has always been the GIFC's main motivation, its biggest public relations coup came last year in Iran. The group wasn't doing a thing to promote its tools there, but somehow they started spreading rapidly in 2008. The Voice of America helped develop a Farsi interface for the programs, and by year's end they had as many users in Iran as in China—between half a million and a million daily. Then came the chaotic green movement protests surrounding the June 2009 election. "People were using circumvention tools to find out where the demonstration routes were, download posters, and repost news on their own sites," says Iranian-American cyber activist Cameran Ashraf. Freegate and UltraSurf were especially popular, and the tsunami of Iranian traffic overwhelmed the GIFC servers. "A lot of us worked through the night to get the servers back online," Zhou says. "We understood the Iranians' pain." They were up the next day, but since then the GIFC has had to impose limits on traffic from Iran to keep its cobbled-together network from being overwhelmed. Unfortunately, that forces some users to wait hours for a connection.
Nonetheless, the performance of the group's tools that summer won them plaudits from members of Congress and columnists at The New York Times and The Washington Post. The hype about the "Twitter revolution" helped firewall-busting pick up momentum as a cause in Washington. "Nations that censor the Internet should understand that our government is committed to helping promote Internet freedom," secretary of state Hillary Clinton said last January. The US is "supporting the development of new tools," she added, "that enable citizens to exercise their rights of free expression by circumventing politically motivated censorship."
A few months later, the State Department promised $1.5 million in funding for the GIFC. That's peanuts by Washington standards, of course. The budget for Voice of America alone is more than $200 million. Nonetheless, Palmer says, the fact that the US government is now funding the GIFC gives the group a certain legitimacy and an acknowledgment that its tools work. That will be important in the months ahead, when the Feds decide who will get a portion of the $30 million in Internet freedom funding that Congress has approved for this fiscal year.
More money could let the GIFC expand its server network enough to lift the cap on Iranian traffic and accommodate millions more users. It could also let it hire programmers to develop Mac, Linux, and iPad versions of UltraSurf and Freegate. And it could allow Alan Huang to quit his consulting gigs and do battle full-time with the censors. "Sometimes," he says, "I joke that Falun Gong may not be a religion, but Internet freedom has become a religion for me."
In a way, it has indeed become the faith that defines his life. After an hours-long interview, Huang gets in his road-worn Camry and heads home for dinner with his family. Later, after they're in bed, he'll sit down at the folding table in the spare room, open his laptop, and throw himself once again at the Great Firewall.
Vince Beiser (firstname.lastname@example.com) wrote about laser guns in issue 18.08.Go Back to Top. Skip To: Start of Article.


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MARK FREEMAN – FINDING INCOME WITHOUT TAKING UNDUE RISK – Transcript 11/22/2013 #1022
CONSUELO MACK: This week on WealthTrack: Where can you find income in a low yield world without taking on too much risk? Morningstar favorite Mark Freeman of Westwood Income Opportunity Fund shows us where he is finding that illusive income catch, on the next Consuelo Mack WealthTrack.
Hello and welcome to this edition of WealthTrack, I'm Consuelo Mack. Don't fight the Fed is a long-held investment maxim because over the years it has frequently worked. But in recent months it has seemed like a particularly difficult rule to follow because no one has been quite sure


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Skill Game Tournaments At Stan James Brag
Online three card brag is still very much in its infancy, with just a handful of operators offering online multiplayer games of brag. However, at sites that do offer games of three card brag online, such as Stan James Brag, you will also find other skill games to play along with other exciting ways to play. Other ways such as the skill game tournaments at Stan James Brag, where you can fight your way through the tables in a bid to walk away as champion.
This evening, for example, you are able to play in a range of skill game tournaments, each with buy-ins of £5.00 or £5.50. If you're a fan of Gin Rummy, Backgammon, Blackjack or Poker Dice there's a skill game tournament for you today at Stan James Brag. Below are today's skill game tournaments, the starting times and the buy-ins.
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