History of homo Sapiens

This is a reply I sent to a friend about human history based on  modern scientific studies in Biological Anthropology. The references to  Denisovans and Asiatic Hominids is based on anthropological  and DNA findings uncovered within the last 10 years in arctic Russia and Indonesia. Recent DNA studies also show that Homo Sapiens interbred with Neanderthals which was contrary to previous  beliefs of most Biological Anthropologists.

 

 

 

Terry

 

Whoever wrote the article didn't know much about what scientists believe about human history. The ages of Homo Sapiens are usually denoted by historians as:

 

Precognition Era started approx. 10 million years ago when Hominids and most of the other great ape species diverged from a common ancestor. It is usually denoted as the last common ancestor. We were still at this time indistinguishable in behavior from other great apes except we had evolved upright walking.

 

Cognitive Revolution approx. 70,000 years ago when  Sapiens either developed language or at least greatly enlarged their tool making skills. This is the first time that hominid species (Denisovans, Neanderthals, Homo Sapiens and some of the Asiatic variants) exhibited complex social skills (control of fire, cooking and hunting). We were also no longer a major source of food for the great predators of that time (Ex Saber Toothed Tigers).

 

Agricultural Revolution 13,000 years ago when Homo Sapiens (most other Sapient variations had already died off). It was at this time when we started to transition from hunter gatherers to farmers and herders. Livestock was domesticated at this time and the first great cities arose. This also resulted in human stature decreasing because of the poorer diet which was a direct result of reliance on a small number of domesticated crops

 

Industrial Revolution occurred sometime between 1760 and 1840 depending on what part of the world you lived in.

 

Modern Era  (Contemporary History) ~1920 to 1945 depending on which technology and or what social behaviors  you emphasize. It was at this time that science became the dominating driver of most human endeavors.

 

Post Homo Sapien Age ? ; when evolution is no longer the determining driver of human behavior. Some historians believe we have already entered that time with our advances in genetic science. For example we have substantially increased the intelligence of a strain of mice by bio-engineering. We are working on changes to our DNA to eliminate diseases such as Alzheimer's, Cancer and a variety of other diseases. How long will it be until we try to change the life span, physical attributes and or the intelligence of humans through genetic modification of human DNA? Computers will ex cede human intelligence within 20 years and robotics will be replaced by humanoid robotics (Androids)  within 50 to 100 yrs. We can now control the motion of artificial limbs by thinking about it and for a good many of us artificial parts are the norm. We are the product of 10 million years of evolution but our future will be determined by Bio Engineering!

 

 

Although nuclear war, nasty diseases or global climate change could result in the demise of Homo Sapiens I suspect the above is more likely. The real interesting question becomes what do we do for the next 500 to 1,000 million years until this planet becomes uninhabitable? By any known criteria humans now dominate this planet but we have neither demonstrated the ability to live wisely or peaceably in it.

 

Tom A

 

 

 

What is going on In the Middle East?

My background as an intelligence officer is causing me to shudder at what I see now happening in the Middle East especially with respect to Israel. The news and the actions of the US also cause me to wonder: What is the US going to do when things blow up? I hope my fear is misplaced but given the large number of disparate signals I believe my pessimism is warranted.

I recently became aware of the runaway sales of Mein Kampf in Turkey, a country until recently considered an Israeli ally. Why Mein Kampf, an evil polemic based on racial insanity and considered by most of the civilized world to be pure evil. Does it have to do with the rise of the Islamist’s in Turkey?

Recent statements by the spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood cause me to wonder whether the prevailing wisdom of the Western media concerning the peacefulness of the Brotherhood in Egypt has any validity at all. The founders of the Brotherhood surely were extremely ant-Jewish and for years were closely aligned with Nazi Germany.

The new association of Hamas with the Palestinians has got to be of major concern. In its charter Hamas calls for the total destruction of the Jews and this is an organization we expect to negotiate a peace treaty with?

The new larger Flotilla being organized on a worldwide basis to bring so called relief to Gaza is totally disingenuous. The Raffia border between Egypt and Gaza is now open and in addition Israel has removed 90% of the restrictions of materials going into Gaza. The only purpose of the Flotilla is to cause another international incident attempting to make Israel look like a thuggish nation. Israel’s mistake the last time was to assume that the flotilla was manned by peaceful protesters and it may over react this time to prevent another incident of mayhem.

Interestingly the radical left on a worldwide basis are participating in the Flotilla. The old US Weathermen Bernadette Dorn and her husband Bill Aires will be participating as well as most of the usual radical leftist organizations in the Us and Canada. When their own members questioned the alliance with radical Islamist groups they were told not to worry this was simply a temporary alliance to achieve a greater goal. While this may not make sense to us; consider the rallying cry of the Islamist’s;” Down with both the Little Satan and the Big Satan”. By allying with the Islamists they show their international solidarity and hatred of the US. You also might want to consider that our President had his introduction to his run for the Senate at Bill and Bernadette’s house, but we are told he of course does not subscribe to their beliefs.

Anyone who thinks this President is not influenced by the radical left has to explain to me why until his retirement the most frequent visitor to the White House was Andy Stern the former longtime Communist President of the SEIU (Service Employees International Union). That honor now goes to Richard Trumka the avowed Socialist and President of the AFL-CIO. You will of course not get that news listening to NBC because they do not believe it is noteworthy.

Has anyone wondered what the effect of internal political dissention in Syria and Iran is going to have with respect to Israel? What do countries do to unite their citizens when internal strife occurs? The solution is to go to war with their neighbors which almost always results in solidification of national fervor in favor of the war.

O Bama’s recent actions with respect to Israel are going to make it difficult to rally the support of our Western allies for a veto in the UN when the Palestinians attempt to unilaterally declare their right to statehood, at the UN in September. I can’t imagine the US abstaining but given some of O Bama’s recent actions I don’t think that can be ruled out.

During the recent protest on Israel’s borders with respect to the anniversary of the Israel’s formation; the Arab protesters attempted to storm the fence. Watching it I thought what if they were to do this and martyr themselves on a large scale basis; what effect would this have in the Arab world and in the Western world. I suspect it would be a powerful tactic which might incite a number of countries in the Arab world to jointly consider war with Israel.

 I wrote this on Sunday morning and on of course on Monday morning I found out approx. 20 Syrians were killed assaulting the fence on the Golan Heights. This of course did not surprise me but simply was another confirmation of reasons for my concern

The first response I heard to my suggestion is it was absurd because Israel has nuclear weapons but in the real world nuclear weapons cannot be used unless a country is imminent danger of being destroyed. Unfortunately by then it may be too late.

Any one of these considerations is not enough to generate a warning signal but together they scare the hell out of me. In the intelligence world most information is fuzzy and rarely is there ever a clear signal forecasting a likely future event. That is why events like 9/11 occur and subsequent investigations reveal that we simply failed to put the pieces together.

The best scenario I can think of is this fall turns out to be nasty, but Israel ducks a major event. The worst scenario is the turmoil leads to a war with Israel’s neighbors and the US and our Western allies do nothing to prevent it. Given the turmoil in the Arab world with the so called Arab Spring; things could really turn ugly and the problems will not be isolated. That of course was the fondest hope of Osama Ben Laden.

Obama’s Sell Out of our Long Time Ally Israel is a Guarantee of War

I don’t pretend to understand the reckless actions of our president; but I am sure of the consequences. Israel returning to its 1967 boundaries would leave the nation totally indefensible and the likelihood of war breaking out with its neighbors is pretty well assured. Anyone who thinks that Hamas is going to renounce its pledge to the destruction of Israel is living in LA LA land.

Last night I listened to an elderly Palestinian woman describe with glee how her father and her brothers massacred Jews in what is now Hebron during the first Arab/Israeli War. I also listened to a Muslim cleric calmly explain why it was necessary to totally exterminate the Jews; who he described as vermin. These people are as rabidly anti-Semitic as the worst of the Nazi’s and if they had the power the result would be same. Take them at their own words; these are visceral haters.

Israel relinquished Gaza and what did it get for its troubles? On an almost daily basis now Hamas fires rockets into Israel and now with the assent ion of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt we can expect a free flow of more advanced rockets into Gaza through the Egyptian border. So much for the so called democratic Arab Spring.

Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons continue unabated, despite the rhetoric from Washington. Every six months we are treated to a new round of meaningless sanctions which Iran continues to ignore. Fortunately Israel took unilateral action two years ago and quietly bombed the Syrian attempt to construct a nuclear reactor while the State Department cringed in horror. With Pakistan’s fourth nuclear reactor (Plutonium generator) we can be sure that nuclear weapons technology will readily be available in the Middle East and it surely will not lead to peace.

We can stand up for the only democratic country and ally in the Middle East or we can acquess to their destruction. It is quite obvious with the planned “New Peace Flotilla”; the planned UN vote in the fall and Hama’s jumping into bed with Abbas that time is fast approaching. With the appointment of Samantha Powers (http://www.newsrealblog.com/) I expected a shift in Washington’s relations with Israel but it was virtually impossible to forecast so many other negative events would also occur in such a short time. If you care at all for Israel you have to do whatever it takes to get this menace voted out of the White House. A vote for Obama is a vote for the destruction of Israel.



I am not Jewish; but as an American and Veteran I am proud to stand with Israel both as a friend and ally.



I am a fiscally conservative Republican who believes that the United States can only prosper if it brings its own fiscal house in order. I would like to see my grandchildren live in a better world, where individual freedom exists and government does not dictate our every decision.

One Rat Down, Four to Go

When I heard of the killing of Ben Laden in Pakistan I felt a strong sense of relief; but as the details came out I felt a sense of frustration that we may have botched the opportunity to roll up the top leadership of Al Quaidi. Why couldn’t the White House simply not make any announcements for at least 30 days, while analyzing the intelligence information gathered? In addition why wasn’t there greater effort made to capture one or both of the couriers rather than kill them? Can you imagine the information they possessed on locations of the other top rats. I also didn’t need to know he was taped by a CIA operator and I didn’t need to know it may have included some personal from Seal Team 6

I don’t fault the operators whether US Seals or CIA or Delta because I think they did a magnificent job and it simply may not have been possible to capture them due to the intensity of the fight. I hope the Seals all received Navy Crosses with CIA DSM’s to the CIA operators and DSM’s to the Delta Team members and the Army Black Hawk pilots. My heartfelt thanks go out to these outstanding individuals. I would hope their identities remain TS-SCI classified for their sakes: We don’t need to see their scalps displayed at some future time on an Al Qaeda trophy belt.

I don’t know whether Mullah Omar was in recent touch with Ben Laden but the chance to get him could have resulted in a significant shortening of the war in Afghanistan. I personally think Ayman al-Zawahiri is more important to the US than Ben Laden was; and I sincerely hope he is now at the top of our priority kill list. I purposely left off the “capture” because I simply don’t want to deal with the “do gooder’s” who wish to give him a fair trial.

A name that is almost unknown to the US public is” Nasir al-Wahisi the leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula” a Yemeni who presents the most likely operational danger to the US. He and and Anwar al-Awaki have been responsible for some of the recent attempts to attack the US. They need to be up there with Zawahiri on the kill list along with the Pakistani; Ilyas Kashmiri. I suspect that including Kashmiri on our kill list would strongly improve our ties to India at the obvious expense of souring them with Pakistan. So be it; I no longer trust the Pakistani’s as an ally.

I am going to do something I rarely do and that is to thank O Bama for having the stones to undertake a risky operation. I would not have faulted him if it had failed. I did not fault Carter for the “disaster in the desert” and although the outcome was horrible; it was an honorable rescue attempt. Clinton’s equivocation over killing Ben laden however was less than honorable. My personal thanks also go out to former president George Bush for laying the groundwork for this achievement. For all of O Bama’s dopy rhetoric he seems to have learned something from Bush’s policies. Let us hope that continues.

“God was behind Big Bang !!!”

The Pope has finally determined that “God was behind Big Bang” and the universe was no accident. (Reuters 1/6/2011). That is rather amusing given that one of his predecessors threatened Galileo with death for believing that the earth revolved around the sun; and it was a catholic priest Father Georges Lemaitre, in 1927, who showed that one of the solutions to Einstein’s equations of General Relativity implied an expanding universe in which a “big Bang” creation is the logical conclusion. I guess however we should be thankful that the church is finally waking up to the what cosmologists have long known; and that is : 13.7 Billion years ago everything in “our” universe came into existence and the explanation for how; is totally explained by the laws of physics. For those curious to know more Steven Hawking’s recent book “The Grand Design” is a good starting point.


The problem with the Pope’s conclusion is the likely scenario from which the “Big Bang” arose is a tear in the fabric of the universe which of course implies that our universe is only one of possibly many universes in existence and if that proves to be the case religion now has to explain how it fits into the grand scheme of things. Our universe alone consists of approx. 100,000,000,000 galaxies each of which contains approx. 100,000,000,000 stars most of which have planets. I find it hard to believe that of 100,000,000,000,000,000.000.000 or more planets in existence we are the only one with living organisms and we were chosen by a primitive god to be distinctive in the universe. The skeptic in me says that this is the height of both arrogance and absurdity.

Our planet has experienced a number of natural cataclysmic events which have resulted in 90+% loss of life, the most recent of which caused the die off of the dinosaurs. It would not surprise me if the next great die off was caused by human stupidity; overpopulation, nuclear war or possibly even disease. When I look around the world, I have to sadly conclude that religion is surely one of the primary factors endangering the existence of this planet. A religious belief based totally on faith is incapable of comprehending and dealing with the enormity and challenges that now face us. Do we go the way of the dinosaurs or are we smatter than that?

Home from the hinterland

We got back from our anual walkabout, last night. This one included Greece, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia, Montenegro, Malta, Italy and probably a few others I can't think of at the moment. Lovely trip and very enlightning about  history back to 5,000 BCE. I will post some of my thoughts when I get organized and hopefully some of the photo's I took. Need to take care of personal  family matters so it may be a while before I get back to it

This is an open letter to Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf

Your efforts to build the Cordoba House near Ground Zero have set back relations with the US non Muslim population in a way as to cause irreparable harm. You see this as a way of demonstrating Muslim tolerance but most of us see it as Muslim arrogance. You look at it as a way of bringing people together and we see it as an attempt to build a “Victory Temple at Ground Zero”. I don’t expect you to understand this but most Americans experience their understanding of Islamic beliefs on the evening news.



We see daily bombings carried out world wide in the name of Islam. Women stoned to death for what we would consider to be a civil matter. Beheadings of innocent people simply because they were non Muslims or God forbid Jews. Muslims dancing in the streets of Gaza because four Israeli Jews were murdered. On a daily basis Muslim extremists bent on murdering their fellow American citizens are arrested in the US. And of course the murder of 3,000 innocent people on Sept 11, 2001; which resulted again in Muslims dancing in the streets worldwide chanting Allah Akbar. Our experience of Islam is as a “barbaric, alien stone age religion” that is the primary cause of world wide strife and it rightly scares the Hell out of us.



We do not see the tolerance in Islam that you proclaim and your actions are interpreted by many of us as arrogance. Wake up before any more harm is done: Apologize to the American people and build the dam center out of sight of Ground Zero.