Visiting Dura Europos

I look forward to visiting Dura Europos myself one day.  Here’s a fun travel-logue by a traveler: 

Dura Europos was certainly the most attractive archaeological site I visited in Syria. A ruined citadel sits atop a ridge overlooking the river and a large city wall that is still defined in several places bounds the entire site. Numerous temple remains dot the site but virtually nothing remains of any of them, with the notable exception of the Christian church, which I was able to find. This is rather exciting because it is the oldest church of certain date in the world. Overall, the site is really quite impressive, and aesthetically, it was my favourite ancient site in Syria.

nathanaels: The Desert, the Euphrates, and Mesopotamia

Chupacabra Found??

Chupacabras are a popular part of the (fascinating) cryptozoology scene.  This looks more like a coyote or feral dog to me, but I’m no expert…

But the roadkill she found last month outside her ranch was a new one even for her, worth putting in a freezer hidden from curious onlookers: Canion believes she may have the head of the mythical, bloodsucking chupacabra.

Has a Mythical Beast Turned Up in Texas? – AOL News

Money Means More than Our Nation’s Health to Some Republicans

Thanks, Bush… 

In an attempt to raise the nation’s historically low rate of breast-feeding, federal health officials commissioned an attention-grabbing advertising campaign a few years ago to convince mothers that their babies faced real health risks if they did not breast-feed. It featured striking photos of insulin syringes and asthma inhalers topped with rubber nipples.

Plans to run these blunt ads infuriated the politically powerful infant formula industry, which hired a former chairman of the Republican National Committee and a former top regulatory official to lobby the Health and Human Services Department. Not long afterward, department political appointees toned down the campaign.

The formula industry’s intervention — which did not block the ads but helped change their content — is being scrutinized by Congress in the wake of last month’s testimony by former surgeon general Richard H. Carmona that the Bush administration repeatedly allowed political considerations to interfere with his efforts to promote public health.

HHS Toned Down Breast-Feeding Ads – washingtonpost.com

Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian Translator Created

Wow… great news: 

“A new online translator that can translate Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian and Egyptian hieroglyphics (1 of the 3 types anyway) has been developed. This is the first time I ever saw a translator for cuneiform. Something like this would be great for translating interesting historical records like the Amarna Letters.”

Slashdot | Assyrian, Babylonian, Sumerian Translator Created

ABC Drops Linux Support for Online Viewer

I really enjoyed catching up on shows that I missed via ABC’s streaming online viewer.

However, I use Ubuntu (a flavor of Linux) and now ABC has dropped it’s support of that…

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That’s just stupid.  It’s a flash based player, and they are actually having to do work to exclude Linux users since it’s an OS agnostic player.  Wonder how much Microsoft payed them?

As the users in this Digg thread about the subject point out, Pirate Bay and tvtorrents.com are still working on my Linux world wide web, so I guess I’ll be watching ABC’s shows that way (and without the ads).