A demonstrator held a sign supporting immigration outside a US Border Patrol facility in California earlier this month.
What if the Irish potato famine had happened today?
It’s something to think about, in light of Massachusetts’ current role in the immigration debate, when appeals for compassion collide with pronouncements about the law. Here’s where we stand: Governor Deval Patrick makes a passionate pitch for sheltering undocumented children who fled violence in Central America. Four major gubernatorial candidates rush to agree, which says something about Massachusetts character.
But public sentiment is split, resistance is vocal and strong, and the language the opponents use is telling. In the 19th century, Irish immigrants were called many of the things you hear hurled at Central American immigrants today: a scourge on public health, a drain on the economy, a threat to American culture.
One thing they weren’t called, though, was “illegal,” because that term hadn’t been conceived yet.
“People are shocked when I say before World War I, there were no green cards, no visas, no quotas, no passports, even. Really, you just showed up. And if you could walk without a limp, and you had $30 in your pocket, you walked right in,” said Mae Ngai, a legal and political historian at Columbia University, whose studies focus on immigration.
It’s worth remembering how malleable the rules of immigration have been, as each successive wave of foreigners has come across the border, drawing resistance from those who came before. And that mid-19th-century wave is especially noteworthy, because of the role Massachusetts played.
At the time, white Protestants made up the local majority, said Mark Hubbard, a historian at Eastern Illinois University who wrote a book about Massachusetts nativism. After 1845, a huge wave of Irish came in, fleeing the famine. So did a wave of Germans, escaping political unrest.
These newcomers were Catholic, sparking fears about allegiance to a foreign pope. Their culture of drinking collided with the Yankees’ Puritan strain. They arrived at a time of economic unrest, as artisans were losing their jobs to mass production, while immigrants were willing to work hard, for little money, in the factories.
That these Irish were “more than desperate,” Hubbard said, barely mattered to the public at large.
“They are fleeing a terrible situation. But there just wasn’t much empathy for that,” he said. “It was more about how this wave of foreigners is going to irrevocably change America.”
And yet they could come — with no paperwork issues or quotas or restrictions or immigration courts. Political backlash followed, in the form of secret societies that coalesced into the Know Nothing Party. The Know Nothings grew so popular that, in 1854, they overwhelmingly took over the Massachusetts Legislature — where they pushed for prohibition laws, aimed squarely at Irish and German culture.
They also supported an effort to extend the naturalization period to 21 years. At the time, the debate centered not on sending immigrants back, but on denying them the right to vote.
The Know Nothings disintegrated almost as quickly as they formed, their national wings divided on the issue of slavery. Before long, the country was distracted by the Civil War, which helped the Irish and Germans assimilate.
But other immigration laws would come, driven by economic forces, buoyed by racial stereotypes. In the late 19th century, Congress passed “moral turpitude” laws aimed at Chinese immigrants on the West Coast. In 1924, Congress passed the National Origins Act, which imposed country-by-country limits, based on immigration patterns in the past. In 1965, Congress changed those rules to allow an equal number of visas from every country — which means, as Ngai points out, that Mexico gets the same number of visas as Belgium, and that there are absurd discrepancies in the length of the oft-cited “line” to enter America legally.
The law can change again. It probably will. Today polls suggest that the majority of Americans support a path to amnesty. But we also need a history lesson. Some of us more than others.
“These people don’t have the same culture we have here in Bourne, and we have to protect our children,” someone recently said at a public forum on the Cape, regarding Patrick’s plan to shelter those immigrant kids.
The question of who “our children” are — and the gravity of their lawbreaking — depends on when you start the clock.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Vice President Joe Biden was spotted visibly drunk in several places over the weekend, with several people even getting pictures or videos of his antics, posting them to Instagram and Facebook. One such image even shows Biden urinating on a McDonalds’ storefront in Silver Spring, Maryland.
Mychal Lewis, Assistant Manager of the McDonalds, explains that the VP was acting belligerent before leaving and eventually disgracing the restaurant.
“He demanded a Whopper. He was slurring his words pretty heavy and kept saying something like ‘I’m the goddamn Vice President.’” said Lewis. “I tried telling him he was in the wrong place and there’s a Burger King just a couple blocks down, but he wouldn’t listen. Finally he left and I turned to go back to the kitchen. I hear a knock at the window and there he is again, this time with his pants around his ankles, pissing on the wall outside. He was staring at me and smiling the whole time. It was terrible.” Later that same evening, Biden was videotaped in Bethesda attempting to start a fight with a homeless man. In the video, Biden can be heard declaring himself the “Secretary of Kickin’ Ass” before slapping the vagrant in the back of the head. The two exchange a series of awkward punches before Biden toppled over and the homeless man shuffled away.
The next morning in Arlington, Virginia, the owner of a house that is painted white was alarmed when Biden stumbled in through the back door. The home owner threatened to call the police, but the Vice President talked him out of it. They shared a pot of coffee and Biden left amicably. Apparently, Biden thought he was entering the White House.
“It wasn’t just that it was white. The columns threw him off,” said the home owner, who wished to remain anonymous because he is a ‘die-hard republican.’
The Vice President frequently referred to himself in the third person as “Ol’ Joe” when discussing his drunken adventure.
“Yeah, Ol’ Joe got a little frisky last night. Does that make me a bad person? Can’t a guy have some fun? So I got a little carried away. We were all having fun. It ain’t easy being Ol’ Joe. Barry’s always trying to put me in a box. Please don’t say this, please don’t do that. Well, sometimes Ol’ Joe just got to be Ol’ Joe.” Political analysts believe that rather than try to prevent future gaffes from Biden, the current administration will instead encourage more raucous behavior from the VP in an attempt to distract from the VA scandal, a perceived-to-be tepid foreign policy, and any future controversy.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Stunning news this morning out of New Jersey, as reports of police discovering the body of a young woman under a motel bed have been confirmed. The owners of the motel asked that their name and location be omitted from news reports to protect their business.
The body, which has yet to be identified, was found by a person staying in the room.
“I dropped the television remote, and when I went to check under the bed I found her. It was like something out of a scary movie,” said Aaron Silver, the man staying in the room.
According to initial reports by the medical examiner on-scene, it appears as though the body lay undisturbed in the room for about 5 years. There was a normal amount of rot and decay on the body to suggest that it had not been moved or touched over the course of that time.
The motel has not made a comment about the issue but have told police that they are constantly cleaning their rooms and have no idea how this could have slipped beneath the cracks.
“I clean that room every day. I noticed a smell several times, and told my manager,” said Anita Rodriguez, a housekeeper at the motel. “He told me to just use extra Febreeze in the room and it would go away eventually. I always hated cleaning that room.”
Motel representatives say that all their rooms are cleaned daily, but that it is not the policy of the company to make their housekeepers check under the beds.
“They do a heavy clean of the rooms to sanitize for guests, but when it comes to under the beds, they just run the vacuum around the edges. Who really looks under the bed, anyway? No reason to waste anyone’s time,” said Charles Dyson, a representative of the motel chain.
“It’s the most bizarre thing I’ve ever seen,” said police chief Joe Goldsmith. “I’ve seen a lot of strange things in my time on the force, but to think about all the people who’ve stayed in this room, with a dead body beneath them, and they didn’t know about it? It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
Police have seized room and occupant records for the last several years, and are trying to trace the person or persons who may have stayed in the room around the time of death.
“Funny thing is, the records also show literally almost 1,000 complaints from people who stayed in the room over the years. Everything from a bad smell to an ‘eerie feeling.’ Several people even asked to switch rooms in the middle of the night,” said Goldsmith. “The motel really should have checked out that room a little more closely.”
The body of the young woman is set for autopsy at the end of the week.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
One of the most notorious Presidents in history of The United States of America is back in the spotlight, but not because of his politics. George W. Bush was arrested in a Dallas suburb late Tuesday evening after a routine traffic stop uncovered over an ounce of cocaine in his glove compartment.
Dallas police say they pulled over Bush after he made a right turn without signaling. Officers report they were surprised when seeing it was the ex-president, but felt something was off about his behavior. They say Bush seemed under the influence of a narcotic, and the officers on-scene asked to search the car. Curiously, Bush consented, and police found the narcotics.
“We pulled over the truck and were about to write a simple traffic ticket and things escalated fast,” said officer Charles Cane, a veteran officer with the Dallas Police Department. “At first my partner and I were stunned with who was in the truck ,and [Bush] began to crack jokes and asked if we wanted to take a picture with him. I noticed he was sniffling quite a bit and the glaze on his eyes screamed that the was under the influence.”
Cane said that once the officers uncovered the cocaine, Bush tried to bribe them to keep from getting arrested. When that failed, he turned to threats and rambling, reportedly saying that he would ‘get the FBI to kick their a–’ and that ‘Presidents can break any laws they want.’
“I broke so many laws when I was in office, and I didn’t see you coming to try to arrest me then!” Bush shouted at police officers. “I’ve been doing coke for decades! I used to blow lines out of a Skull & Bones in New Haven tittie bars when you were making nice in your diapers, kid. You just want your name in the papers next to mine.”
“It was a tough arrest to make, but I didn’t become a police officer to make easy decisions. He begged me over and over to let it slide, then he offered me money, then he called me an ass—-, but that is the way the law goes. We don’t offer special treatment to anyone in Dallas. I don’t care who you are.”
Representatives for Bush have yet to comment, but bail was set at $5,000 and posted immediately. Bush spent less than 6 hours in a holding cell before being released
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Washington (AFP) – US President Barack Obama warned Monday that the future stability of the world depends on African nations achieving prosperity and self-reliance, in an address to youth leaders from the continent.
"The security and prosperity and justice that we seek in the world cannot be achieved without a strong and prosperous and self-reliant Africa," he said, kicking off a major African diplomatic push.
"Next week I'll host a truly historic event, the US-Africa Leaders Summit," he said. "It will be the largest gathering any American president has hosted with African heads of state and government."
Next week's meeting will bring around 50 African leaders to Washington — almost all of them, with the exception of pariah figures like Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Sudan's Omar al-Bashir.
Obama, born in the United States to a Kenyan father and American mother, is the first US president of part African descent, but has sometimes been accused of neglecting relations with the continent.
He announced plans for the major summit in June last year during his first major tour of African countries — South Africa, Senegal and Tunisia.
"And the summit reflects a principle that has guided my approach to Africa ever since I became president, that the security and prosperity and justice that we seek in the world cannot be achieved without a strong and prosperous and self-reliant Africa," he said.
"And even as we deal with crises and challenges in other parts of the world that often dominate our headlines, even as we acknowledge the real hardships that so many Africans face every day, we have to make sure that we're seizing the extraordinary potential of today's Africa, which is the youngest and fastest growing of the continents."
Asked by one of the 500 young people in the US capital as part of the Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders what Africa can do for itself, Obama underlined the importance of the "rule of law, of respect for civil rights and human rights."
"Regardless of the resources a country possesses, if you don't have a basic system of rule of law, of respect for civil rights and human rights, if you don't respect basic freedom of speech and freedom of assembly, if you don't have those basic mechanisms, it is very rare for a country to succeed over the long term," he said.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Sharron Laverne Parrish Jr., 24, allegedly scammed Apple not once, but 42 times, according to Tampa Bay Times’ Patty Ryan.
According to a Secret Service criminal complaint, filed by special agent Bryan Halliwell and investigators associated with Apple and Chase Bank, Parrish allegedly tricked Apple Store employees in 16 states starting around December 2012 into accepting fake authorization codes to purchase $309,768 worth of Apple goods.
Parrish, who is a resident of River Grove in east Tampa, Florida, is also accused of hitting several stores in his home state, including Orlando, Boca Raton, Wellington, and the Brandon location twice.
The authorization code scam is breathtakingly simple.
Here’s how it works: Parrish allegedly visited Apple Stores and tried to buy products with four different debit cards, which were all closed by his respective financial institutions. When his debit card was inevitably declined by the Apple Store, he would protest and offer to call his bank — except, he wasn’t really calling his bank.
So, the complaint says, he would offer the Apple Store employees a fake authorization code with a certain number of digits, which is normally provided by credit card issuers to create a record of the credit or debit override. (Business Insider, like the Tampa Bay Times, refuses to publish the number of digits “so as not to inspire anyone.”)
But that’s the problem with this system: as long as the number of digits is correct, the override code itself doesn’t matter.
“It does not actually matter what code the merchant types into the terminal,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey said publicly after a similar case occurred there in February. “Any combination of digits will override the denial.”
In the New Jersey case, 29-year-old Temeshia McDonald was sentenced to three years in prison after defrauding Victoria’s Secret, Banana Republic, and several other retailers out of $557,690 in the same manner, which is known as a “forced sale” or “forced code.”
Though this action is technically a form of wire fraud, merchants can be liable for charges if they override a credit or debit card denial in this fashion. Citing court records, The Tampa Bay Times said Parrish initially forced a transaction at the Apple Store in Brandon, in which he used a fake authorization code to make a purchase of $7,753.22.
"Because Apple employees overrode the initial declination against the instructions of Chase Bank, Apple — not the financial institution — suffered the loss as a result of this fraudulent transaction," Halliwell wrote in the criminal complaint.
Parrish has also been accused of “trying to defraud a car rental company and a hotel in Seattle,” The Tampa Bay Times says. He is currently being held without bail in the Pinellas County Jail.
Tampa's Secret Service field office would not comment on our story or the loophole as the case is ongoing, but we’ve also reached out to Apple to learn if the company plans to change its policies with regards to overriding credit or debit card denials. We plan to update this story as we learn more.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Having lost the propaganda battle over the doomed airliner, Washington seems intent on opening up a second front in the information war, alleging cross-border shelling by Russian forces.
But such is American arrogance and deceit, this information war runs a very real risk of inciting a full-on shooting war between world powers.
Russia is not backing down to play Washington’s Fall Guy over the Malaysia Airlines disaster – and that «truculence» by Moscow to not meekly accept the assigned guilty role is earning it increasing pariah status in official American eyes.
The Washington Post reported at the weekend: «Instead of Mr Putin de-escalating the conflict after the Malaysia Airlines tragedy, ‘he’s actually taken a decision to escalate,’ Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, chairman of the [US] Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a security forum» in Aspen, Colorado.
Those words convey a sense of arrogant disbelief among American leaders, who have asserted Russian complicity in the downing of the civilian jet last week over Ukraine… Washington spared no time in rushing to heap blame on Moscow within hours of the crash near the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, with the loss of all 298 on board.
Washington has so far provided no specific details to support its finger pointing against Moscow or «Russian-backed separatist militia» in eastern Ukraine. Washington has been relying arrogantly on the presumption that what it says is all that matters, and that it is not obliged to disclose any details of its «intelligence» to verify its claims – no matter how provocative those claims are.
Meanwhile, the Russian military command has furnished European Union officials in Brussels with a dossier of its own evidence, based on satellite, radar and air traffic control communications that tend to show a completely different set of circumstances over the downing of the airliner. Russia’s information, which is verifiable unlike Washington’s with-held «secret intelligence», strongly suggests that Malaysia Airlines MH17 was taken down by Western-backed Ukrainian military forces under the command of the Kiev regime.
Russia’s stoic resolve to keep calm amid the maelstrom of US-led accusations following the crash seems to be now provoking even more reckless claims from Washington to open up a second front in the information war.
On Thursday, the US State Department said that Russian forces were guilty of firing artillery shells across the border into Ukraine. Spokeswoman Marie Harf would not disclose what evidence the US had to support such a tendentious claim. Harf was, in effect, accusing Russia of committing an act of war on a sovereign state, which the US is allied to, yet she was unwilling to provide the substance to support this grave implication.
As with the airliner incident, the only discernible sources of US information are what its client regime in Kiev is telling it; and a variety of dubious social media references. The Kiev regime’s capacity for telling lies and fabrication has been proven countless times in recent months since its illegal coup against the elected Yanukovych government on February 23. For example, the regime continues to deny that its military forces are attacking civilian centres in Donetsk and Lugansk, even though the United Nations has reported hundreds of civilians killed during the past months from Kiev’s so-called «anti-terror operations» in the region.
Even the pro-Western rights group Human Rights Watch has lately come out to condemn the Kiev regime for crimes against humanity over its indiscriminate firing of Grad rockets. In spite of video evidence of these projectiles being fired and horrendous civilian casualties, the Kiev regime continues to deny it has Grad rockets in region. A spokesman for the regime forces turned reality on its head this week and has accused «terrorists» of bombing their own people to put the blame on Kiev.
The Kiev junta has also denied having deployed anti-aircraft Buk M1 missile launchers in Donetsk, which may have been involved in shooting down the civilian airliner. Washington says it accepts Kiev’s assurance on this, even though verifiable Russian intelligence has shown that the Kiev military did in fact deploy these missile systems in the vicinity and at the time of Malaysia Airlines MH17 going down.
Since the US State Department refuses to evince its latest «proof» of Russia’s alleged cross-border shelling, we may speculate that it is based on social media photographs posted on the site VKontakhe hours before Washington announced its latest claim. The photographs were ostensibly posted by a Russian soldier who bragged about «shelling Ukraine all night long».
A Russian soldier, by the name of Vadim Grigoriev, has since declared publicly that his social media site has been hacked into, and that the posted photographs have no relation to the alleged incidents of shelling cited by Washington or the Kiev regime.
Why Marie Harf at the US State Department press briefing would not elaborate on what the sources of intelligence were for her claims of Russian cross-border artillery fire is no doubt because similar American social media «evidence» implicating Russia over the downing of the Malaysia airliner were quickly shown to be fake. US «intelligence» was subsequently scoffed at in many media around the world for its amateurish attempt to incriminate Russia.
Reeling from that public relations embarrassment, the Washington Post reported one anonymous US official as saying: «We are seeing a full-court press by the Russian government to instruct affiliated or friendly elements to manipulate the media environment to spread Russia’s version of the story.»
In other words, the US is irked by the fact that its narrative on the airliner, implicating Russia, is not working to whip up a worldwide frenzy against Moscow based on America’s say-so. And also by the fact that US intelligence is being exposed as relying on crumby social media for its «high confidence» pronouncements.
Having seen its Putin-is-to-blame narrative failing to impress world opinion on the downed airliner, Washington now seems intent on opening up a second propaganda front – namely, that Russia is escalating the conflict in eastern Ukraine by conducting cross-border attacks.
It is telling that US General Dempsey made his accusations against Russia within hours of the State Department «revealing» the alleged cross-border shelling. Dempsey did offer some hesitation by saying «if these reports turn out to be true» but that did not stop him from rushing headlong with reckless accusations against Russia.
Nor did the US State Department’s undisclosed, tenuous claims act in any way to restrain American media.
Under the headline ‘Russia Steps Up Help for Rebels in Ukraine War’, the New York Times reports this weekend: «Rather than backing down after last week’s downing of a civilian passenger jet, Russia appears to be intervening more aggressively in the war in eastern Ukraine in what American and Ukrainian officials call a dangerous escalation that will almost certainly force more robust retaliation from the United States and Europe.»
Note the repetition of General Dempsey’s peeved phrase, «rather than backing down after last week’s downing of a civilian passenger jet».
Also note that the NY Times can only go as far as saying:«Russian appears to be intervening more aggressively in the war in eastern Ukraine». That necessary qualification «appears to be» is because there is no intelligence or evidence, apart from the unreliable word of the US-backed Kiev regime and dodgy social media accounts. Nevertheless, that does not stop the NY Times and other American media slyly stepping up the accusations against Russia to a definitive level.
The irony in all this is that the evidence shows that incidents of cross-border shelling in eastern Ukraine are actually being conducted by the US-backed Kiev forces – against Russian territory and civilians. During the past two months there have been at least 10 separate cross-border mortar or artillery attacks carried out by the US-backed Ukrainian military on Russian territory. In one such attack on 13th July, a Russian civilian was killed when shells hit the city of Donetsk in Rostov region (a Russian city with the same name as its Ukrainian counterpart).
On Friday just past, a Russian team of criminal investigators came under mortar fire from pro-Kiev forces when they entered the village of Primiussky in Rostov to conduct a probe into a reported mortar attack the day before. A total of more than 70 mortars were fired from inside Ukraine into Russia.
These deadly incidents of cross-border shelling of Russian territory have been previously confirmed by monitors belonging to the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
Yet rather than dealing with the verifiable facts, the US government and its news media are leaping to unsubstantiated claims against Russia that are unsupported by any evidence.
Reckless American accusations that Russia is escalating conflict in Ukraine would seem to be a substitute for failed attempts to implicate Moscow over the downing of the Malaysia airliner. Despite Washington’s intense goading, the European Union has not gone along with the narrative to impose the punitive economic sanctions against Russia that are desired by the US.
Having lost the propaganda battle over the doomed airliner, Washington seems intent on opening up a second front in the information war, alleging cross-border shelling by Russian forces.
But such is American arrogance and deceit, this information war runs a very real risk of inciting a full-on shooting war between world powers.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
In July 2010, amid the gargantuan rebuilding effort at the site of the World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan, construction workers halted the backhoes when they uncovered something unexpected just south of where the Twin Towers once stood.
At 22 feet (6.7 meters) below today's street level, in a pit that would become an underground security and parking complex, excavators found the mangled skeleton of a long-forgotten wooden ship.
Now, a new report finds that tree rings in those waterlogged ribs show the vessel was likely built in 1773, or soon after, in a small shipyard near Philadelphia. What's more, the ship was perhaps made from the same kind of white oak trees used to build parts of Independence Hall, where the Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution were signed, according to the study published this month in the journal Tree-Ring Research.
Archaeologists had been on-site throughout the excavation of the World Trade Center's Vehicular Security Center. They had found animal bones, ceramic dishes, bottles and dozens of shoes, but the excitement really kicked up when the 32-foot-long (9.75 m) partial hull of the ship emerged from the dirt.
The vessel was quickly excavated, to prevent damage from exposure to the air. Piece by piece, the delicate oak fragments were documented and taken out of the rotten-smelling mud. The timbers were sent to the Maryland Archaeological Conservation Laboratory, where they would be soaked in water to keep the wood from cracking and warping.
A few timbers were sent back to New York, just 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of the World Trade Center, to the Tree Ring Laboratory at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York. Researchers at the lab dried the fragments slowly in a cold room and cut thick slices of the wood to get a clear look at the tree rings.
The team established that the trees used to build the ship — some of which had lived to be more than 100 years old — were mostly cut down around 1773. Then, to determine where the wood came from, the researchers had to find a match between the ring pattern in the timbers and a ring pattern in live trees and archaeological samples from a specific region.
"What makes the tree-ring patterns in a certain region look very similar, in general, is climate," said the leader of the new study, Dario Martin-Benito, who is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. Regional ring patterns arise from local rain levels and temperatures, with wetter periods producing thicker rings and drier periods producing smaller rings, he said.
Martin-Benito and his colleagues at Columbia's Tree Ring Lab narrowed their search to trees in the eastern United States, thanks to the keel of the ship, which contained hickory, a tree found only in eastern North America and eastern Asia. Otherwise, the researchers would have had much more difficulty in limiting their search, as oak is found all over the world.
The ship's signature pattern most closely matched with the rings found in old living trees and historic wood samples from the Philadelphia area, including a sample taken during an earlier study from Independence Hall, which was built between 1732 and 1756.
"We could see that at that time in Philadelphia, there were still a lot of old-growth forests, and [they were] being logged for shipbuilding and building Independence Hall," Martin-Benito told Live Science. "Philadelphia was one of the most — if not the most — important shipbuilding cities in the U.S. at the time. And they had plenty of wood so it made lots of sense that the wood could come from there."
Historians still aren't certain whether the ship sank accidently or if it was purposely submerged to become part of a landfill used to bulk up Lower Manhattan's coastline. Oysters found fixed to the ship's hull suggest it at least languished in the water for some time before being buried by layers of trash and dirt.
Previous investigations found that the vessel's timbers had been damaged by burrowing holes of Lyrodus pedicellatus, a type of "shipworm" typically found in high-salinity, warm waters — a sign that the ship, at some point in its life, made a trip to the Caribbean, perhaps on a trading voyage. Martin-Benito speculated that the infestation might have been one of the reasons the ship met its demise just 20 or 30 years after it was built.
"I don't know much about the life expectancy for boats, but that doesn't seem like too long for something that would take so long to build," Martin-Benito said.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
With the Middle East and her legacy coming apart at the seams, Hillary Rodham Clinton has taken up fiction. In her CNN interview, she was back to rewriting her indefensible track record.
Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks at the BIO International Convention on June 25 in San Diego. (AP Photo/Lenny Ignelzi)
On Iraq, she insists on the agreement to keep troops in Iraq:
I supported what we were trying to convince [Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-] Maliki to do, which was a small, targeted, follow-on force to provide what the Iraqis couldn’t provide for themselves, intel, surveillance, training and the like. And I am absolutely convinced, from being in the Situation Room, that Maliki and his larger circle did not want a continuing American presence. Now, you can ask yourself why, given what has happened. And I think there are two main reasons. One, I think that Maliki and his party, which, remember, didn’t win the most votes in the first election, but were able to form a government. So he had to make a lot of political deals with various segments of Iraqi political society to form that government. And there were elements within it that did not want an American follow-on force, and that was connected, in part, to the Iranians not wanting an American follow-on force. So I mean I know what we offered and I know that we tried. And I know that Maliki and his inner circle did not want to go forward.
This is contrary to contemporaneous and subsequent observations of those privy to the talks, including former ambassador Ryan Crocker. The administration was told repeatedly that parliament would be a problem, but that Maliki would offer assurance as to immunity for U.S. troops. This was not good enough for the administration, the troops were pulled and President Obama bragged that he had gotten all the troops out. Former ambassador to Turkey and undersecretary for defense policy Eric Edelman tells Right Turn: “The U.S. insisted, allegedly at the demand of the Pentagon lawyers, that anything that wasn’t approved by the [Council of Representatives] wasn’t good enough (although it appears to be good enough for the advisors we have in country now).” Moreover, the number of troops requested by the military was systematically reduced again and again by the White House until it was a few thousand troops. Edelman explains, “Given that Secretary Clinton acknowledges the political pressures Maliki was under begs the question of whether the Obama Administration, by whittling the numbers of troops in the proposed US residual force down to around 5,000 from the 20,000 or so that the commanders wanted, made it politically unpalatable if not impossible for Maliki to risk a lot to get a minimal U.S. force presence. Whether that was by intent or sheer incompetence I cannot say, but under those circumstances Maliki would rightly have feared that such a force would not be able to do much beyond force protection for itself.”
Then there is Israel. In Clinton’s book, she acknowledged that the focus on settlements was a mistake. But now she’s back to blaming the Israeli government — as if the central problem really was those settlements: “This is my biggest complaint with the Israeli government. I am a strong supporter of Israel, a strong supporter of their right to defense themselves. But the continuing settlements, which have been denounced by successive American administrations on both sides of the aisle, are clearly a terrible signal to send, if, at the same time, you claim you’re looking for a two-state solution.”
What evidence is there that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas was prepared to or ready in any sense to accept a peace deal of any type? (Certainly his subsequent conduct both in aligning with Hamas and digging in on the right of return suggests he’s taking no gambles for peace.)
Moreover, former deputy national security adviser Elliott Abrams, who oversaw the U.S.–Israel relationship during the Bush administration, tells Right Turn, “Mrs. Clinton just does not know the facts–which is remarkable given that she was Secretary of State for four years. During the entire Obama presidency, Israel has been almost entirely avoiding building new settlements or physically expanding existing ones. There has been population growth and expansion, but the expansion of population has been overwhelmingly in the settlements that Israel will obviously keep in any peace deal– the ‘major blocks.’” (This was pursuant to an agreement between President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which was ratified by both Houses by overwhelming margins. Clinton refused to acknowledge its existence and conveniently leaves it out of her current account.) Abrams explains, “In that sense the “peace map” has not changed. That she refuses to acknowledge. This shows that she has simply closed her mind to the facts.”
Clinton’s story also ignores that Israel (also during the Bush administration) did uproot settlements (and paid the price to this day) and forgets that Israel during her tenure did enact a freeze and then extend it, to no avail.
And lastly, on Iran Clinton leaves out some key parts of her tenure. “I worked very hard and led our efforts to get the sanctions to be international that brought Iran to the negotiating table and sent one of my trusted advisers early in 2012 to begin that process of what — how big will the table be and who gets to sit around it and the like. And I have followed what has been done since then. This is a — this is the real nub of it, because if you cannot be persuaded that the Iranians cannot break out and race toward a nuclear weapon, then you cannot have a deal.” To begin with, she wasted nearly two years of the first term trying to “engage” Iran. (She elsewhere ‘fesses up that it was a mistake not to do more to help the Green Revolution.) Then she neatly leaves out the State Department’s role in repeatedly delaying and attempting to water down sanctions.
Too bad she wasn’t asked any (even moderately) tough follow-ups. She does remind us, however, that the media are not likely to press her too hard or fact-check her. The GOP will need an informed and tough nominee to do that. Otherwise she will continue to spin an utterly false account of her time at State. She must figure that she couldn’t possibly get to the White House if she told the truth.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
United States Secretary of State John Kerry has attracted the ire of Israel following his latest failed attempt to broker a ceasefire in Gaza, and American officials are warning that a wider rift in relations could come with serious repercussions.
On Friday last week, Sec. Kerry reportedly presented Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with a draft proposal calling for a seven-day halt of fighting in Gaza, where more than 1,000 Palestinians — mostly civilians — have been killed in the last month; in that same span, the Israeli Defense Forces have suffered nearly 50 deaths but have continued an onslaught that the United National Security Council formally opposed early Monday.
The “Framework for Humanitarian Cease-Fire in Gaza” presented by Kerry failed to impress Netanyahu’s office, however, and Israel has since embarked on a campaign to condemn the secretary of state’s efforts by saying the US proposal did not do enough to stop Palestinian militants with the group Hamas from furthering its own, comparatively less successful campaign against the IDF.
According to Barak Ravid, a correspondent for Israel’s Haaretz newspaper, the draft “shocked” local politicians because it “placed Israel and Hamas on the same level.” Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livini told JTA the proposal was “completely unacceptable” and “would strengthen extremists in the region,” and other officials reportedly considered agreeing to the terms a “surrender” to Hamas. The Times of Israel wrote that “Kerry’s mistakes are embarrassing,” and on Monday a new column in Haaretz accusied Kerry of “ruin[ing] everything” and warned “Very senior officials in Jerusalem described the proposal that Kerry put on the table as a 'strategic terrorist attack.’”
In response, the Associated Press reported Monday afternoon that US officials say their relationship with Israel could be put in jeopardy if criticism of the secretary continues to emerge from one of America’s most closely held allies. Unnamed officials, the AP reported, “said the personal attacks on Kerry crossed a line and were particularly disappointing at a time of active conflict.”
And even after both Hamas and Israel agreed to put a hold on fighting briefly over the weekend, experts fear a prolonged end is a faint possibility at best.
“There is nothing to suggest that either side is particularly desperate for a cease-fire,” Robert Danin, a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former State Department official, told the New York Times this week. “Neither side believes a cease-fire will be the end of the conflict, and they are looking at a truce as a way to position themselves for the next round of fighting.”
Following urging from the UN early Monday to halt the killings, Netanyahu fired back by accusing the international body of siding with Hamas, “a murderous terrorist group that attacks Israeli civilians.”
"It's a matter of their political will. They have to show their humanity as leaders, both Israeli and Palestinian," responded UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon, according to Reuters. "Why these leaders are making their people to be killed by others? It's not responsible, (it's) morally wrong."
Meanwhile, Palestinian leaders are reportedly not too keen on the American statesman at the moment either. A senior Palestinian Authority official and an Israeli counterpart apparently mocked Kerry’s proposal during a weekend phone call, the Times of Israel reported, and an unnamed PA official told the Saudi-owned Al-Sharq Al-Awsat that Kerry’s plan would "destroy the Egyptian bid" for a ceasefire — the groundwork of which was used for the State Dept.’s own draft proposal
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
