Saturday, October 5, 2013
Mount Nemrut
Crowning one of the highest peaks of the Eastern Taurus mountain range in south-east Turkey, Nemrut Dağ is the Hierotheseion (temple-tomb and house of the gods) built by the late Hellenistic King Antiochos I of Commagene (69-34 B.C.) as a monument to himself.
With a diameter of 145 m, the 50 m high funerary mound of stone chips is surrounded on three sides by terraces to the east, west and north directions. Two separate antique processional routes radiate from the east and west terraces. Five giant seated limestone statues, identified by their inscriptions as deities, face outwards from the tumulus on the upper level of the east and west terraces. These are flanked by a pair of guardian animal statues – a lion and eagle – at each end. The heads of the statues have fallen off to the lower level, which accommodates two rows of sandstone stelae, mounted on pedestals with an altar in front of each stele. One row carries relief sculptures of Antiochos’ paternal Persian ancestors, the other of his maternal Macedonian ancestors. Inscriptions on the backs of the stelae record the genealogical links. A square altar platform is located at the east side of the east terrace. On the west terrace there is an additional row of stelae representing the particular significance of Nemrut, the handshake scenes (dexiosis) showing Antiochos shaking hands with a deity and the stele with a lion horoscope, believed to be indicating the construction date of the cult area. The north terrace is long, narrow and rectangular in shape, and hosts a series of sandstone pedestals. The stelae lying near the pedestals on the north terrace have no reliefs or inscriptions.
The Hierotheseion of Antiochos I is one of the most ambitious constructions of the Hellenistic period. Its complex design and colossal scale combined to create a project unequalled in the ancient world. A highly developed technology was used to build the colossal statues and orthostats (stelae), the equal of which has not been found anywhere else for this period. The syncretism of its pantheon and the lineage of its kings, which can be traced back through two sets of legends, Greek and Persian, is evidence of the dual origin of this kingdom's culture.
Criterion (i): The tomb of Antiochos I of Commagene is a unique artistic achievement. The landscaping of the natural site of Nemrut Dağ is one of the most colossal undertakings of the Hellenistic period (some of the stone blocks used weigh up to nine tons).
Criterion (iii): The tomb or the Hierotheseion of Nemrut Dağ bears unique testimony to the civilization of the kingdom of Commagene. Antiochos I is represented in this monument as a descendant of Darius by his father Mithridates, and a descendant of Alexander by his mother Laodice. This semi-legendary ancestry translates in genealogical terms the ambition of a dynasty that sought to remain independent of the powers of both the East and the West.
Criterion (iv): More so than the tombs at Karakus and Eski Kahta, the tumulus at Nemrut Dağ illustrates, through the liberal syncretism of a very original pantheon, a significant, historical period. The assimilation of Zeus with Oromasdes (the Iranian god Ahuramazda), and Heracles with Artagnes (the Iranian god Verathragna) finds its artistic equivalent in an intimate mixture of Greek, Persian and Anatolian aesthetics in the statuary and the bas-reliefs.
Friday, October 4, 2013
The Boys Are Back In Town
"The Boys Are Back In Town"
Guess who just got back today?
Those wild-eyed boys that had been away
Haven't changed, haven't much to say
But man, I still think those cats are great
They were asking if you were around
How you was, where you could be found
I told them you were living downtown
Driving all the old men crazy
The boys are back in town
You know the chick that used to dance a lot
Every night she'd be on the floor shaking what she'd got
Man when I tell you she was cool, she was red hot
I mean she was steaming
That night over at Johnny's place
Well this chick got up and she slapped Johnny's face
Man we just fell about the place
If that chick don't want to know, forget her
Friday night they'll be dressed to kill
Down at Dino's bar and grill
The drink will flow and blood will spill
If the boys want to fight, you'd better let them
That jukebox in the corner blasting out my favorite song
The nights are getting warmer, it won't be long
It won't be long till summer comes
Now that the boys are here again
The boys are back in town
The MSM’s not-so-surprising lack of curiosity about the new poster boy for Obamacare
Of all the people who have signed up (or at least tried to) for health insurance on an Obamacare exchange, the media and administration officials seems to be focused on only one person: His name is Chad Henderson.
Henderson is just a regular, random 21-year-old guy, so we’re told, who is apparently being prepped for his close-up as a sort of male counterpart to Sandra Fluck.
Search his name combined with “Obamacare” and you’ll find a laundry list of articles and mentions by Obama administration officials, holding him up as a random example of somebody rescued by Obamacare.
Here’s Henderson describing his wild, totally coincidental ride so far:
I’ve now been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Huffington Post, Enroll America, and POLITICO!! Those stories will be published in the coming days. I have a press conference call with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services later tonight. Also, local folks….. my interview with Kimberly Barbour Wrcb-tv will be aired TONIGHT at 5:30pm on WRCB Channel 3 Eyewitness News so be sure to check it out thanks for all your support!
One of Henderson’s glowing reviews of Obamacare was also re-tweeted by Kathleen Sebelius.
As Mediaite pointed out, the press doesn’t really seem to have much interest in this item in Henderson’s LinkedIn profile:
It’s been called “Organizing for Action” since January, so they go back a ways. Henderson’s bio on the page also lists some of his activities within the Democratic Party in Tennessee. None of those things are mentioned in articles such as this one in the Washington Post. Ditto for this HuffPo articleabout Henderson. “Reporters” can be incredibly incurious when they apply themselves.
You’d think these things might warrant at least a tiny “full disclosure” kind of mention in some of the many profiles of Henderson. If the Republicans were passing this guy off as a “Joe Sixpack” type who was being helped by one of their programs, and his bio mentioned an affiliation with, say, Crossroads GPS, not only would that get mentioned in MSM stories, it would be the story.
*****
But let’s wipe all that off the table for a moment. Using Henderson as an Obamacare “success story” is a joke in and of itself regardless of his background, according to Michael Cannon at Cato:
Kliff reports that after a three-hour ordeal, Chad bought an Obamacare plan that cost him $175 per month – pretty steep, considering he makes less than $11,500 per year. His Obamacare premium comes to least 18 percent of his income. And no, Chad is not eligible for subsidies.
Compare that to what Chad could have paid if he bought one of the pre-Obamacare plans still available on eHealthInsurance.com until December 31. The cheapest such plan for someone meeting Chad’s profile is just $44.72 – as little as 5 percent of his annual income and about one-quarter of his Obamacare premium.
I can’t yet say whether Chad’s $175 premium is the lowest-cost plan available to him through the Exchange. (I’m in the process of researching that. Let’s just say it’ll probably take a few hours.) But it’s probably close. The cheapest plan available to him through eHealthInsurance.com after Obamacare’s community-rating price controls take effect in 2014, and drive up premiums for young, healthy people market-wide, is $190.23. That’s with the maximum cost-sharing allowed under Obamacare. So it appears Obamacare quadrupled Chad’s premiums, and Enroll America thinks that is a success story.
Forward!
**Written by Doug Powers
Henderson is just a regular, random 21-year-old guy, so we’re told, who is apparently being prepped for his close-up as a sort of male counterpart to Sandra Fluck.
Search his name combined with “Obamacare” and you’ll find a laundry list of articles and mentions by Obama administration officials, holding him up as a random example of somebody rescued by Obamacare.
Here’s Henderson describing his wild, totally coincidental ride so far:
I’ve now been interviewed by The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Chattanooga Times Free Press, The Huffington Post, Enroll America, and POLITICO!! Those stories will be published in the coming days. I have a press conference call with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services later tonight. Also, local folks….. my interview with Kimberly Barbour Wrcb-tv will be aired TONIGHT at 5:30pm on WRCB Channel 3 Eyewitness News so be sure to check it out thanks for all your support!
One of Henderson’s glowing reviews of Obamacare was also re-tweeted by Kathleen Sebelius.
As Mediaite pointed out, the press doesn’t really seem to have much interest in this item in Henderson’s LinkedIn profile:
It’s been called “Organizing for Action” since January, so they go back a ways. Henderson’s bio on the page also lists some of his activities within the Democratic Party in Tennessee. None of those things are mentioned in articles such as this one in the Washington Post. Ditto for this HuffPo articleabout Henderson. “Reporters” can be incredibly incurious when they apply themselves.
You’d think these things might warrant at least a tiny “full disclosure” kind of mention in some of the many profiles of Henderson. If the Republicans were passing this guy off as a “Joe Sixpack” type who was being helped by one of their programs, and his bio mentioned an affiliation with, say, Crossroads GPS, not only would that get mentioned in MSM stories, it would be the story.
*****
But let’s wipe all that off the table for a moment. Using Henderson as an Obamacare “success story” is a joke in and of itself regardless of his background, according to Michael Cannon at Cato:
Kliff reports that after a three-hour ordeal, Chad bought an Obamacare plan that cost him $175 per month – pretty steep, considering he makes less than $11,500 per year. His Obamacare premium comes to least 18 percent of his income. And no, Chad is not eligible for subsidies.
Compare that to what Chad could have paid if he bought one of the pre-Obamacare plans still available on eHealthInsurance.com until December 31. The cheapest such plan for someone meeting Chad’s profile is just $44.72 – as little as 5 percent of his annual income and about one-quarter of his Obamacare premium.
I can’t yet say whether Chad’s $175 premium is the lowest-cost plan available to him through the Exchange. (I’m in the process of researching that. Let’s just say it’ll probably take a few hours.) But it’s probably close. The cheapest plan available to him through eHealthInsurance.com after Obamacare’s community-rating price controls take effect in 2014, and drive up premiums for young, healthy people market-wide, is $190.23. That’s with the maximum cost-sharing allowed under Obamacare. So it appears Obamacare quadrupled Chad’s premiums, and Enroll America thinks that is a success story.
Forward!
**Written by Doug Powers
Thursday, October 3, 2013
The IRS Targets Free Speech And Goes After Ben Carson To Try To Shut Him Up
National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year.
“I had my first encounter with the IRS this year, unsurprisingly after the prayer breakfast,” Carson told an audience that at the annual Business Council of Alabama Chairman’s Dinner, according to a report from Cliff Sims of the Montgomery, Ala.-based Yellowhammer News.
Carson’s February speech February made him a conservative darling for criticizing President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care reform law, while Obama was sitting just a few feet away.
During the event, which also featured former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, Carson spoke about the potential presidential candidacy of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. relations with Russia and the Environmental Protection
Agency.
Obama's National Park Service Cynically Orders Closure of Park that Receives No Federal Funding
The National Park Service has ordered the closure of a Virginia park that sits on federal land, even though the government provides no resources for its maintenance or operation.The Claude Moore Colonial Farm announced on Wednesday that NPS has ordered it to suspend operations until Congress agrees to a deal to fund the federal government.
According to Anna Eberly, managing director of the farm, NPS sent law enforcement agents to the park on Tuesday evening to remove staff and volunteers from the property.
“You do have to wonder about the wisdom of an organization that would use staff they don’t have the money to pay to evict visitors from a park site that operates without costing them any money,” she said.
The park withstood prior government shutdowns, noting in a news release that the farm will be closed to the public for the first time in 40 years.
“In previous budget dramas, the Farm has always been exempted since the NPS provides no staff or resources to operate the Farm,” Eberly explained in an emailed statement.
“In all the years I have worked with the National Park Service … I have never worked with a more arrogant, arbitrary and vindictive group representing the NPS,” Eberly said.
The farm is an historical reenactment site, which “authentically portrays the life of an 18th Century American family building a life on the nearer edges of civilized society,” according to its website.
Farm staff repeatedly asked the NPS to allow the farm to remain open. “Every appeal our Board of Directors made to the NPS administration was denied,” Eberly said.
She called the decision “utter crap.”
“We have operated the Farm successfully for 32 years after the NPS cut the Farm from its budget in 1980 and are fully staffed and prepared to open today. But there are barricades at the Pavilions and entrance to the Farm,” Eberly explained.
Previous federal funding battles have threatened the farm’s operations. A group of citizens in 1980 formed the Friends of Turkey Run Farm, established a $500,000 endowment for the farm, and negotiated a 30-year no-fee lease.
According to Eberly’s statement, farm staff have been in contact with Reps. Frank Wolf (R., Va.) and Jim Moran (D., Va.) in an attempt to reverse NPS’ decision. Neither congressman returned a request for comment.
News of the farm closure comes as controversy rages over the closure of the World War II memorial on the National Mall.
WWII veterans in Washington as part of the Honor Flight Network stormed
Top 10 Countries Censoring the Web
When the World Wide Web was created in 1989 by Tim Berners-Lee (not to be confused with the Internet itself, which is the core network developed many years earlier), its main objective was to enable the free exchange of information via interlinked hypertext documents.
Almost 20 years later, that objective has been accomplished on most parts of the world, but not in all of them. Some countries are trying hard to keep an iron hand over the flow of information that takes place on the Web. Below you will find the most controversial ones.
10. Pakistan
The rundown
Pakistan started censoring the web in 2000, when the main target was anti-Islamic content. Over the time, it seems, they liked the possibility to control the Internet traffic, and have been increasing the scope of their censorship system ever since.
How does the censorship work?
There are only three international gateways on the country, and all of them are controlled by the Pakistan Telecommunication Company. The government, therefore, is able to monitor and block most unwanted traffic using filtering software (although their technical apparatus is not sophisticated).
Internet service providers are also required by law to monitor the activity of their clients to make sure that they are not accessing prohibited websites.
What kind of content is blocked?
In the first years of the web censorship in Pakistan, the main target was anti-Islamic content and websites that were related to political autonomy movements (e.g., the Balochi one). In 2003, however, the Pakistan Telecommunication Company declared that they would also officially block all pornographic websites.
In 2006 mainstream western websites, including Wikipedia and several newspapers, got blocked as well. The intensification of the censorship was propelled by the episode of the Danish cartoons that contained images of the Prophet Muhammad.
9. Burma
The rundown
Burma, officially the Union of Myanmar, is a country characterized by severe human rights problems, so it would be hard to expect an open and reliable Internet adoption. It is estimated that less than 1% of its population has access to the web, and this happens via a handful of cybercafes, and always under tight surveillance.
How does the censorship work?
Burma relies on a heavy regulatory framework to control the access to the Internet. Computers that want to access the web need to be registered with the Myanmar Posts and Telecom company, and a fee must be paid as well.
The price of the Internet connections is also prohibitive for the largest part of the population, and broadband connections are almost nonexistent among the general public.
Additionally, they also have a filtering system at the ISP level, targeting mainly independent media websites.
What kind of content is blocked?
Myanmar has an official Intranet, which is the only content available for many of its Internet users (the ones using dial-up connections). Only a small number of pre-approved websites are present there.
Free email services are also blocked, so people must use the state-owned service which is always monitored for keywords and sensitive content.
The main target of the censorship is political content that might go against the current government ideology.
8. Yemen
The rundown
The Yemen government is very hostile to the freedom of the media in general, and the Internet is no exception. Political and social issues are always under their radar, although the digital infrastructure for the censorship here is not as advanced as in some of the other countries on our list.
How does the censorship work?
The underdeveloped telecom infrastructure on the country acts as a natural obstacle to the free flow of information over the Internet. Just like Burma, less than 1% of Yemen’s popular can access the Internet.
The ones who are able to pay for an Internet subscription face severe limitations nevertheless. Service providers often prohibit the access to audio and video content, for example, because it would put an excessive load on their network.
The largest ISP on the country, controlled by the government, also makes use of content filtering software to block specific types of websites. It is interesting to note that they only have a limited number of user licenses for the software, and if many people connect at the same time, some will get an unfiltered version of the web!
What kind of content is blocked?
The censorship in Yemen is concerned mainly with blocking websites and material attacking the Yemeni revolution and it is political regimen.
Additionally, any website publishing anti-Islamic and pornographic content is also blocked on most Internet connections.
7. North Korea
The rundown
North Korea has managed to accomplish a really tough task given our time: they kept the Internet outside of the country borders! For a country that has no independent media at all, however, it makes sense.
How does the censorship work?
Basically there is no Internet in North Korea. No servers. No service providers. Nothing. Zip.
Only a handful elite members of the government have an Internet connection, and they have it via a satellite link that is connected with German servers.
Part of the population is trying to escape this iron curtain by using 3G mobile phones and Chinese connections. This is not an effective solution, though, and even when it works the users would be subject to the Chinese censorship on the other end….
What kind of content is blocked?
Everything. North Korea didn’t even have a top level domain extension until a while ago. Now they do, and there are two websites registered on it. Both governmental….
Truth be told, they do have an Intranet which is accessible to a tiny part of the population. Those amount to 50 or so web pages, however, and they are filled with content proclaiming the wonders of Kim Jung Il and his political ideals.
6. Syria
The rundown
The Syrian government admits that it automatically blocks websites with pornographic content and with politically sensitive information. In reality the situation is much worse, and many journalists from around the world consider Syria to be one of the most repressive countries as far as the Internet is concerned.
How does the censorship work?
Syria’s first barrier to the information coming via the web are the social-economic problems of the country. It is estimated that less than 2% of the whole population subscribe to Internet services.
On top of that, they also exert a strong control over all the Internet Service Provides. Crazy as it sounds, Internet users there are only allowed to use the the port 80 (i.e., the one used by your browser).
If you want to use other types of connections you need to have an authorization and pay a fee. Want to setup a website and upload your files via FTP? Perhaps use Skype for VoIP? Forget it!
What kind of content is blocked?
Any topic criticizing the current political ideology is heavily targeted by the censors. Additionally, religious and pornographic content gets blocked at ISP level.
Syrya also blocks some mainstream websites like Hotmail, and there are reports that many blogs hosted on free services like Blogger were blocked in the past.
5. Cuba
The rundown
The Reporters Without Borders organization considers Cuba “one of the world’s 10 most repressive countries” when it comes to online content.
The local access to the Internet is so controlled, and the punishment to dissent so severe, that they managed to create a state of self-censorship, where people don’t even try to access prohibited material out of fear.
How does the censorship work?
The Cuban government owns all the Internet Service Providers in the country, so they have access to all the traffic that goes around. By employing a filtering software, they are able to block sensitive information.
Both websites and email messages get controlled before people can have access to them.
If that was not enough, the economic and social problems on the country make it generally difficult for anyone to have access to the Internet in the first place. The sales of personal computers used to be illegal on the country until some months ago for example.
What kind of content is blocked?
The main target of the Cuban censorship is political content that is against its socialist ideology.
In 1996 they already had a law banning from the Internet any material “in violation of Cuban society’s moral principles or the country’s laws.”
4. United Arab Emirates
The rundown
The United Arab Emirates is one of the most connected countries in the Middle East. Despite that fact, the country tries to control heavily the flow of information on the web. Virtually any website containing ideas or information that goes against the political, moral or religious values of the country is blocked.
How does the censorship work?
All the telephone and Internet services used to be provided by the state-owned company Etisalat. In 2006 The United Arab Emirates started liberalizing the telecommunications market, but they still have a strong hand on it.
They are therefore able to control and filter most of the Internet traffic. Curiously enough, in 2002 a survey found out that 60% of the Internet subscribers approved the filtering of online content at ISP level.
What kind of content is blocked?
The United Arab Emirates is concerned with protecting the moral and religious values of the country mainly.
As such, they extensively filter websites that contain pornography, that are related to alcohol and drug use, gay and lesbian issues, online dating and gambling.
3. Saudi Arabia
The rundown
Saudi Arabia introduced the Internet on its country many years after other Arab countries, exactly because they didn’t know how they would be able to control the content. Today they have a complex censorship system in place, and they even have laws criminalizing the access to websites that violate Saudi laws or Islamic values.
How does the censorship work?
The censorship is carried by the Internet Service Unit (ISU), which controls all the gateways of the Internet Service Providers on the country.
There is basically no Internet specific law on Saudi Arabia, so it falls under the press law, which states that the all publications need to have a governmental approval before publishing anything (i.e., they can shut pretty much anything down at will).
The technical part of the censorship is handled with the SmartFilter software.
What kind of content is blocked?
The Saudi Arabia government states that is blocks around 400,000 websites from around the world. Their main target anti-Islamic content, although pornography, gambling and women rights are also usually restricted
2. Iran
The rundown
The censorship of the web in Iran started several years ago, and today they are one of the most efficient countries on this respect. The target? All non-Islamic websites, making Iran probably the country with the most extensive web censorship in the world.
How does the censorship work?
Iran has an advanced semantic filtering system in place that identifies specific keywords and terms. Working parallel with this system they have an official committee that is responsible for identifying and reporting any website that violates the Iranian laws and regulations.
The government is also trying to slow down, and sometimes even to ban the spread of broadband Internet connections on the country.
The objective is to “protect” its citizens from western cultural influences (e.g. music, video and movies).
What kind of content is blocked?
In 2006 the Iranian government was already blocking the access to several popular western websites, including YouTube, Amazon and Wikipedia.
Today, anything that contains sex, politics and religion is not allowed. The number of blocked websites is estimated at over 10 million.
There are actual laws that require the media and online content providers to produce material goes promotes the state objectives and the Islamic culture as a whole.
Over 100 print and online publications have been shut down in the past for not complying with those laws.
1. China
The rundown
If you think that The Great Wall of China was already an incredible thing, you should take a look at what critics from around the world call “The Great Firewall of China.” China has undoubtedly the most sophisticated censorship system in the world.
In the past they have been able to block all sorts of unfriendly websites, and even to silence movements like the pro-Tibet protest as if they never existed.
And don’t think that only small bloggers are subject to China’s power. Even the almighty Google was forced to cooperate by creating a censored version of its search engine to be used by the Chinese.
How does the censorship work?
The Great Firewall of China, contrary to other censorship systems, is decentralized and flexible. They don’t target whole domain extensions (i.e. .com or .us) or specific types of websites (i.e. pornographic websites), but rather keywords.
In order to accomplish the herculean task of monitoring what the 220 million Chinese Internet users are doing, they have one of the biggest network of servers in the world, and a human task force that is estimated at over 30,000 heads.
The government also monitors closely the activity of Internet service provides and Internet cafes. Over the last couple of years over 2,000 Internet cafes were indeed closed, and very few of them were able to re-open.
What kind of content is blocked?
Politically sensitive content is the main target of the censorship in China. Hot topics include Tibet, Taiwan and Tiananmen. Many western content portals like BBC and Voice of America, for instance, are blocked by Chinese ISPs.
Pornography and terrorism related websites are also blocked.
Apart from blocking websites and restricting the access to specific types of websites, however, the Chinese government also invests a lot of money to promote the state-owned websites and to use the Internet as a propaganda vehicle.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY
GUARANTEED TO MAKE YOU SMILE..... ESPECIALLY SINCE IT'S A TRUE STORY.
ON JULY 20, 1969, AS COMMANDER OF THE APOLLO 11 LUNAR MODULE, NEIL ARMSTRONG
WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET FOOT ON THE MOON.
HIS FIRST WORDS AFTER STEPPING ON THE MOON, "THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP
FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND," WERE TELEVISED TO EARTH AND HEARD BY MILLIONS.
WAS THE FIRST PERSON TO SET FOOT ON THE MOON.
HIS FIRST WORDS AFTER STEPPING ON THE MOON, "THAT'S ONE SMALL STEP
FOR MAN, ONE GIANT LEAP FOR MANKIND," WERE TELEVISED TO EARTH AND HEARD BY MILLIONS.
BUT JUST BEFORE HE REENTERED THE LANDER, HE MADE THE ENIGMATIC REMARK
"GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY."
"GOOD LUCK, MR. GORSKY."
MANY PEOPLE AT NASA THOUGH IT WAS A CASUAL REMARK CONCERNING SOME
RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY IN
EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAMS.
RIVAL SOVIET COSMONAUT. HOWEVER, UPON CHECKING, THERE WAS NO GORSKY IN
EITHER THE RUSSIAN OR AMERICAN SPACE PROGRAMS.
OVER THE YEARS MANY PEOPLE QUESTIONED ARMSTRONG AS TO WHAT THE "GOOD
LUCK, MR. GORSKY" STATEMENT MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.
LUCK, MR. GORSKY" STATEMENT MEANT, BUT ARMSTRONG ALWAYS JUST SMILED.
ON JULY 5, 1995, IN TAMPA BAY, FLORIDA, WHILE ANSWERING QUESTIONS
FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION TO ARMSTRONG.
FOLLOWING A SPEECH, A REPORTER BROUGHT UP THE 26-YEAR-OLD QUESTION TO ARMSTRONG.
THIS TIME HE FINALLY RESPONDED. MR. GORSKY HAD DIED, SO NEIL
ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD ANSWER THE QUESTION.
ARMSTRONG FELT HE COULD ANSWER THE QUESTION.
IN 1938 WHEN HE WAS A KID IN A SMALL MIDWEST TOWN, HE WAS PLAYING
BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE BACKYARD. HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL,
BASEBALL WITH A FRIEND IN THE BACKYARD. HIS FRIEND HIT THE BALL,
WHICH LANDED IN HIS NEIGHBOR'S YARD BY THE BEDROOM WINDOWS.
HIS NEIGHBORS WERE MR. AND MRS.GORSKY. AS HE LEANED DOWN TO PICK
UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS. GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY.
"SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU'LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON!"
UP THE BALL, YOUNG ARMSTRONG HEARD MRS. GORSKY SHOUTING AT MR. GORSKY.
"SEX! YOU WANT SEX?! YOU'LL GET SEX WHEN THE KID NEXT DOOR WALKS ON THE MOON!"
Ernest Hemingway Was A KGB Spy
In the last few years of his life, Ernest Hemingway grew paranoid and talked about FBI spying on him. He was even treated with electroshock therapy as many as 15 times at the recommendation of his physician in 1960. It was later revealed that he was in fact being watched, and Edgard Hoover had personally placed him under survelliance. In 2009, the publication of Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America, revealed that the FBI was in fact right to spy on Ernest Hemingway, the Nobel prize-winning novelist, because he really was on the KGB’s list of its agents in America. Based on notes from a former KGB officer who was given access in the 1990s to intelligence archives in Moscow from the Stalin era, the book reveals that Hemingway was recruited in 1941 before making a trip to China, and was given the cover name “Argo”.
According to Soviet documents, he met with Soviet agents during the 1940s in Havana and London and “repeatedly expressed his desire and willingness to help us”. In the end, Hemingway turned out to be of little use to the Soviets however, as it’s claimed he failed to give them any political information and was never “verified in practical work”. By the 1950s, “Argo” was no longer an active Soviet contact. Some project that Hemingway’s escapades as a KGB spy were more likely all part of an elaborate charade by him to gather literary inspiration. Others suspect his paranoia over being watched by the FBI may have led him to take his own life. Read more.