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Mayan Pyramid In Belize Leveled By Construction Crew
An anonymous reader writes "If an imposing 2300-year old Mayan temple situated at the Nohmul complex in northern Belize was on your list of things to see before you die, you're too late. The monument was essentially destroyed by a construction crew in order to provide gravel for road construction. Archaeologists expressed shock, as Nohmul (the "great mound") was a major Mayan religious center in its day. While the pyramid was situated on private property, such historical sites are supposedly protected by ordinance, and officials may file criminal charges."
while a callous disregard for history at least it was not an intentional attempt to erase other religions
In with the new.
Humanity needs to stop hording and learn to let things go.
...they want their pyramid back.
Your comment would likely get more credibility without the ethnic slur. Also that is a BS article as it was one nutcase that suggested it, not their government or anyone in power.
If we judged folks that way all slashdotters would be considered ill informed racists based on your comment alone.
The mayan date was right but the work crew fell behind
You stupid fuck, when the British wanted to build a railroad in Bolivia and there weren't any handy gravel deposits nearby they smashed up big chunks of Tiahuanacu. You can still see pieces of statues in the foundations for the railroad bridges in the area. Greed and laziness will win out over respect for the past pretty much every time that money is involved.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
It's not like they planned on using it after 2012.
Those mestizo half-breeds really weren't born with a full box of marbles--destroying a temple for road gravel. And Obama wants to flood our country with these tawny height challenged brainiacs.
So since these half-breeds are inferiour to their ancestors who built the great temple in the first place, presumably it was the influx of Western European genes that lead to this inferiority?
Just "one nutcase"? Somehow that "one nutcase" has quite some clout in Timbuktu and Bamiyan.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Just make it cheaper, no matter how.... if somebody find a way to make good business nuking the moon, they will go ahead....romantic people can still watch Breakfast at Tiffany's... Tides? Who needs tides? Fishes? who cares? I will have my new Ferrari to drive, a longer yatch and a luxurious flat in Aspen....
Too late, I have pictures of the Sphinx being destroyed ...
visit www.goatse.cx to see
I think you are mixing up sphinx and sphincter.
I was just in Belize a few weeks ago and while the destruction of any Mayan ruins is tragic, I don't think Nohmul was quite what it's being made out to be. The few pictures I could find of the actual Nohmul temple are much different than the picture in the linked article. I remember no mention of it when trying to select ruins to go see. It doesn't seem like it was a big tourist draw.
I was at Laminai and that is a truly impressive set of structures. There are lots of unexcavated buildings still there and the remarkable thing is that the look just like hills. Though it's a stretch, it's not outside the realm of possibility that workers at Noh mul were unaware of the significance of what looked like a pile of rocks until they started working. The landowner surely would have known.
> in Belize
Belize, is that, wait! HAS ANYONE SEEN MCAFFEE LATELY?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
And that would be a benefit how? SMH
*Think globally~Dream universally*
You are above and beyond ignorant.
*Think globally~Dream universally*
Officials are calling for calm amid reports that feathered serpent attacks are up 39% from historical baselines...
In the article he listed. In those cases many folks had to be nutcases and some of them in power.
It does not change the fact that the Egyptian government is not going to destroy their largest tourist draw, which gets them income they badly need.
Let's not forget it was one nutcase that decided that he wanted to take down the twin towers, and look what happened there. One nutcase ended up becoming an entire network of nutcases that eventually got the job done over a period of a decade or so!
Here, I found of recent picture of Nohmul for you.
Okay, the pyramid was on privately owned land. Time to check and see what the land owner wanted to do with the land that the pyramid was getting in the way of. Or, perhaps he was just concerned that all these tourists were coming to this pyramid and he wasn't getting anything out of it. And the insurance liability, Suppose someone were climbing around on this thing and fell, even if they were illegal trespassers would he be responsible? There are a number of very good legal reasons why he's want to have this hazard removed. On top of that, I understand the price of gravel is very high these days.
As much as I hate the idea of expropriating land from private owners, if you want to really preserve these sorts of things you've got to remove them from private ownership and recompense the land owner either with money or a swap of some new land of equal value. As long as these sorts of things are in private ownership, this will continue.
How is a political party in the USA responsible for the actions of construction crews in Belize?
religion != ethnicity
Let me bring you up to speed; whatever the problem, it's the fault of the USA.
This is nothing new. Just look throughout the Middle East and Europe and you'll find all kinds of plundered and recycled architecture. Mostly because it's easier to have your stone masons rework something to fit rather than carve something from scratch.
The Great Mosque of Kairouan is a good example where it used to be punishable by death to count the columns. The real reason is they didn't want people looking at them too closely because they were mostly stolen from places like Carthage and are a mix of Greek, Roman, and Christian designs.
The major cities of the Indus Valley civilization were dismantled for railroad ballast for the same reasons.
No race of people and no culture is without its flaws. Maybe the half-breeds got the worst of everything? Rapacious greed of the Western European race/culture with the short-sightedness of those that evolved in equatorial climates? Snake eyes of the gene pool.
Grammatically correct racism is so en vogue.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
"Mayan" is the name of the language. The adjective is "Maya," as in Maya temple or Maya people.
"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)
Fortunately, thanks to 22nd amendment, he was only able to serve two terms.
Muzzies
http://www.early-advantage.com/
That word doesn't mean what you think it means.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The destruction was intentional by some authorities still looking for McAfee. Now they'll charge him with the human sacrifices that occurred two millenia ago.
This kind of destruction for the pettiest of reasons isn't anything new. In Malta, a group took a bulldozer to the stone temples at Mnajdra, a glorious megalithic site, older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids. Mnajdra is breathtakingly lovely and enigmatic and fascinating. Fortunately, it's largely been restored and is again open to the public. Why? People had constructed illegal bird-hunting hides on the adjacent land and objected to their hides being destroyed. People will be vicious destructive assholes for any number of reasons, including just because they can. Profit, sheer revelry in destruction (Persepolis), symbolism of dominance or victory (Summer Palace in Beijing), religious fanaticism (Buddha statues), a fanatical dislike of cities (Mongols and most of the cities in their way), to discourage attacks (Carthage), any number of reasons.
and the people in the USA and the most dogmatic assertions will include GOP as the root of evil
jsut athnoer menagiensls ltitle psrhae for you to dcoede. Why do we wtsae our tmie dnoig tihs?
Does that mean the AC is learned?
That's alright. Our own native peoples (or at least those who walked here first), never really built anything of permanence. You've got some pueblos in the south west, and that's about it.
Religion is not an ethnicity. And religious fanatics deserve no consideration of respect.
A friend shared this story recently.
The new global zeitgeist of sans souci. "Ah, well. It doesn't affect me. Let's have another Coke", and don't forget to toss the empty cup out the window.
Proverbs 21:19
educated young men primarily from Saudi Arabia. and they weren't nuts. they were committed to a bad idea, driven by hatred that we fomented.
so what do we do? we go bomb illiterates in an entirely different region.
good job. good job.
So tell me again, why is the first link for that story a bulshitty post on a New Zealand rightwing blog, with a blatantly misidentified picture? (this is what the actual temple looks like)
For chrissake, the blog post starts with "Reports are coming in", as if it was written by some international news channel, not some guy in his underwear sitting on the opposite side of the world.
And to all coders out there, language != country.
I'm tired of selecting "French" and having my country code set to "France" and my keyboard set to fucking "AZERTY".
You insensitive clod! ;-)
He didn't claim they were responsible. The words "GOP mecca" means something like "GOP dream world". As in what the GOP would like to turn the USA into (even more than the US already is) - a place where the people with money can buy their way into getting anything they want.
Napoleon's troops in Egypt were using the Sphinx for target practice. But it is not always racist. Chinese have been quarrying their great wall for bricks for ages. Many Italian homes were built using recycled bricks from the aqueducts. Stone tablets inscribed with royal decrees being used as washing stones...
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
'When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean â" neither more nor less.'
I prefer that he does use the ethnic slur -- as well as the personal attacks, foul language, anger, and hate -- that way we immediately know his age (teenager), and therefore his credibility (zero). This makes slashdot more efficient for those of us who come here for knowledge.
In other words, if he was polite and courteous, I would need to spend more time and effort on evaluating his position. The anger and hate reduces my workload.
Visual impressiveness is rarely an indication of archaeological importance. In fact, something that looks like a pile of rocks is often a structure that hasn't been studied yet. The fantastic pyramids and temples you see are often the result of best-guess reconstruction.
Yup - here in Oslo, an abandoned monastery (and many other old buildings) got picked to pieces for the stone - it was easier to go there and pick the materials you needed, than to quary new materials. There are probably tons of similar examples in every old city.
So everyone else thinks you're an ill educated moron?
Indeed - didn't the Egyptian pyramids used to be smooth (ish) on the outside. The locals removed the outside shells, leaving the stepped shapes they are now.
It would finally prove the UN/alien/illuminati/Yeti/Hollow-Earth/Egyptian theory.
To be fair. It is not like you could trust anything that the people in power or the government over there have to say any more than "one nutcase". ...
In fact, I don't know the nutcase so he may very well be correct. I have had some experience with what the government over there says and does
So I might be more inclined to believe some random nutcase over the government over there.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
Visual impressiveness is rarely an indication of archaeological importance. In fact, something that looks like a pile of rocks is often a structure that hasn't been studied yet. The fantastic pyramids and temples you see are often the result of best-guess reconstruction.
I agree. My point was that in the few pictures I was able to find of it prior to being destroyed, it didn't look like much more than what could have been a natural limestone formation covered by vegetation. Again I think it's a stretch, but it's possible the workers didn't realize they were digging up a temple. After reading some of the local news coverage though, this seems very unlikely.
Anyway, I'm disappointed that the article pictured the wrong temple and I suspect that it might have been intentional.
Wow.
You French people are touchy.
Why is it so hard to only have politicians for a few years, then have them go away?
ill informed racists
As opposed to the well-informed, who think Islam is a race?
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
And also a leader of the second largest party in the Egyptian Parliament.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
The Spanish deliberately dismantled every great Inca temple and palace they could find, most of the time reusing the materials but sometimes just throwing them down the valley or into a lake. Their goal was simple destruction for its own sake, to prove that the protection of their god was more powerful than the Inca gods who would have taken umbrage at the waste.
It does not change the fact that the Egyptian government is not going to destroy their largest tourist draw
That's what people thought about those statues in Afghanistan. And besides, wtf tourists have been going to Egypt since the Arab Spring? No one in their right mind goes there anymore unless they're looking to get raped or kidnapped.
I don't think to many non-muslim tourists are planning to head to Egypt any time soon.
Religion is not an ethnicity. And religious fanatics deserve no consideration of respect.
Do you consider the pope to be a religious fanatic?
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
Does the Pope advocate for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death?
The Pope is the head of a church, but I'm not certain any of the last few have done anything I'd think is reason to call 'religious fanatic'. The Westboro folks maybe.
The Taliban, who think everybody who doesn't agree with them deserves death, well, now those guys I'll call fanatics.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
And that i am sure you include in your description the white folks in Arizona who ground the petrified trees in the petrified forest region for use as industrial abrasive material.
Are you even sure it was a bad idea? They managed to take an small extremist group on the verge of collapse due to disinterest and lack of funding and give it an enemy that built it into a large and thriving terrorist network inspirational enough that mimics across the region adopted their name. If Osama actually cared a whit about the US that was probably another success - he managed, with the help of our totally disproportionate and chaotic response of course, to turn us from one of the most-loved nations in the world into a nation broadly considered to be one of the single greatest threats to global security. He may have underestimated just how useful his attack and the promise of perpetual war was going to be to certain tyrannical interests in the US government, and got himself killed due to our dogged persistence, but still, very nearly an unqualified success.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Most of the posts in response to this story seem to focus on
* Bad Grammar
* Bad Jokes
* US Politics (how the fuck everything can be related to US politics is beyond me)
* Ethnic Slurs (including of course the obligatory insults to Muslims that must appear in any article on anything these days. Keep up the hate guys, its only helping your reputation with the rest of the world).
* Lastly, and apparently leastly, some outrage at the destruction of a part of human history, thus lessening our understanding of the same by some degree. A site like this belongs to all of humanity, its our heritage, its a way to understand where we came from and thus perhaps where we might be going. The people who knocked this temple down (and the owner of the company responsible) should be in prison for the rest of their lives.
Hopefully this at least serves to make governments all through the region aware of the need to protect heritage sites like this. Without our history, we are *nothing*.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
I tend to slightly agree, but Muzzie is a slur against the entire religion, not just the minority of fanatic sects that use the name. An analog might be calling people ChristWhores because you disagree with the fanatisism of the Christian Scientists.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Does the Pope advocate for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death?
The Pope is the head of a church, but I'm not certain any of the last few have done anything I'd think is reason to call 'religious fanatic'. The Westboro folks maybe.
The Taliban, who think everybody who doesn't agree with them deserves death, well, now those guys I'll call fanatics.
fanatic /fnatik/
Noun
A person filled with excessive and single-minded zeal, esp. for an extreme religious or political cause.
(source: google.com)
It's a subjective qualifier. Arguably anyone who dedicates their life to a religion is 'excessive and single-minded' and the leaders of any religion are going to qualify at some point or another.
With regard to your specific question...yes, popes have many times "advocate(d) for the destruction of the evidence of other people's religion and history, or call for people's death(s)" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crusades
So I disagree with your statement. People should be judged on their actions and not grouped together under a religious (or other) context and denied respect on that basis alone.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
I'm not sure, how many "hideous acts" does your group have to commit to turn you into the enemy of civilzation?
Fanatically anti-fanatical
So everyone else thinks you're an ill educated moron?
Considering that his post is a quote from Humpty Dumpty...
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Now is a great time to go. The tourist areas are about as safe before, and nothing much has changed for visitors... except that things are less crowded and cheaper, what with so many scared tourists staying away. Stick to the main tourist centers and don't wander off alone at night, and you'll be a-ok.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
If you're that upset about it, you should ask the ISO to revise ISO-639 to include your dialect.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
And bits of Hadrian's wall can be found in the stone walls of cottages and farms all over Scotland...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Not all Muslims are religious fanatics.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
BWAHAHAHAH BRAVO! Wish I had mod points.
I know that you religious people get butt-hurt when people point out that you are evil, but let's face it, the Catholic church is and has always been a criminal conspiracy. No one who knows anything about its history can deny this.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
I don't know, I'm not a piler. Help me out. Does the Tuskegee Syphilis Study count as just one hideous act, or should it be one for each infected black man who was given fake treatments? What about all the children born with congenital syphilis, do they count extra since their damage is incurable? Do all forty years of the study count, or just the 30 years when syphilis was routinely treated successfully for white men in the same geographic area?
Stone tablets inscribed with royal decrees being used as washing stones...
If they're anything like typical modern laws then they've finally been recycled to be useful.
OR, I could go to the millions of other places I haven't been and just not worry about the whole violence thing.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
And bits of Hadrian's wall can be found in the stone walls of cottages and farms all over Scotland...
And I bet they regret not leaving it intact to keep out the English.
Yes, the US is so universally hated that our president received the Nobel Peace Prize.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'll see your moral firebombing and raise you a moral atom bombing.
Personally, I frequently get bombed in the name of morality.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
It is not like you could trust anything that the people in power or the government over there have to say any more than "one nutcase".
I wonder why you make the distinction, "over there." Have you not been watching what's been happening over here? "People who live in glass houses ..." and all that, ya know?
It often appears to me these days that Soviet and Nazi era policies have been exported and happily embraced by pretty much all the world, and hardly anybody expects, or is offering, any apologies. Curious. Progress?
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
Anyway, I'm disappointed that the article pictured the wrong temple and I suspect that it might have been intentional.
Agreed. Also buried in the article: the site has been very thoroughly worked over by archeologists over the decades, and there are archeologists who see this as an opportunity to study the lower layers that would have been impossible before.
So is this bad? I'd certainly say so. But in reality, a degraded monument not in current use was destroyed. The biggest shame in my mind is that the archeologists weren't given the opportunity to disassemble it. I certainly hope future civilizations don't spend too much time arguing over the ruins of the corner church on my street.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
To assign credibility as though it were linked to politesse does more damage to information than radical Islam has already done to Buddha statues.
It may be easy to call out "nutcase" for those who offend your " sensibilities", but recall that todays nutcase is tomorrows leader. Try it with a pinch of salt, but, if you are just hearing this here,now, it is surely closer to reality there. If you are hearing only one Muslim voice, what about those you don't hear?
Perhaps you should check yourself once or twice and don't write off those who offend you.
Perhaps "racial and religious epithets" reflect a cause for which they are invoked by those trespassed against. It doesn't muddy raw information anymore than emotional campaigning for political causes linked to scientific endeavors do. It is merely frosting on an information cake, scrape it off and analyze the cake.
Frankly the endless whining of those without any real input, sully slashdots reputation more than a thousand trolls. You've accomplished nothing more than to waste my and Chrisqs time and effort and the bandwidth it took to post it.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Hated countries citizens don't get peace prizes?
I wouldn't go spouting off about Obama getting one, before they have time to retract and control the damage from an obvious mistake.
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
Just letting you know that your opinions aren't universal.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
...If, in 2000 Years, my old bones will be scooped up out of the ground by some anti-gravity Bulldozer and used as a beauty product ingredient. Can you imagine some teen-aged Girl applying Lipstick made from my Bones?. Would she would be shocked that the product she is placing on her silicone-enhanced lips once belonged to a Slashdot poster whom used an actual Desktop Linux box?. Nah, she wouldn't care and wouldn't have the faintest of clues as to what a Slashdot was.
Obviously I wouldn't care, and I seriously doubt the Mayans whom built this Temple care. It's a tragedy for Archaeologists and History buffs like myself, but the Earth continues to tick without it.
Personally, I think the Peace Prize has been a joke for about 35 years or so. I mean... ARAFAT??? Kissinger, Gore... very puzzling choices.
That said, it shows that the hatred is not universal. I was trying to make Immerman realize that his comment comes from a very insular worldview.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
When visiting Egypt be sure and see the sphinxter.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Because then they could be destroyed too, of course.
He didn't claim they were responsible. The words "GOP mecca" means something like "GOP dream world". As in what the GOP would like to turn the USA into (even more than the US already is) - a place where the people with money can buy their way into getting anything they want.
Yea, OK, so why single out the GOP?
If you stop paying attention to the lip-service and instead note only their actions, there is very, very little difference between Democrats and Republicans.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Bullshit. They excavated the material for road fill, they knew exactly what it was and the quality of the material they would obtain and how much money they would save paying for quarried material trucked to the site. You do not just use any passing dirt for road fill because it will be impossible to compact properly and could be subject to extreme bulking when exposed to water, you do not randomly excavate hills because you do not know what they constitute and how difficult they will be to excavate.
You win the prize for civil construction ignorance as do those who thought your ignorance was informative. Even ancient Romans knew better than you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads please check diagram at bottom of article.
The greedy shit head owner of the company knew exactly what they were doing and how much they would save.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Greetings and Salutations;
I feel as if I am feeding the trolls here, although this is such a fantasy trip that it almost is insulting to trolls to compare it to them. Your re-writing of history is neither accurate nor anywhere near the facts. The fact of the matter is that the previous administration (a REPUBLICAN one) truly scared the world because it was so random and irrational. After all, Dubya, in response to a terrorist attack used bad data to justify an 11 year war on a country that did not have a bloody thing to do with 9/11. However, there was one telling conference where he spoke the truth about his motivations for going into Iraq. In the conference, when pressed on why Iraq and Saddam were a target he said "...he tried to kill my daddy...".
America's image in the world has taken many hits in the past few decades, thanks to the two-faced dealings we have had with many countries, and, the brutal dictatorships we have supported. When Pres. Obama was elected, there was dancing in the streets in other countries because they thought, finally, a very intelligent, rational person was at the controls, and, the actions that caused America to lose face would change. They, did not realize that America is a huge ship, and, it takes a lot of time an ocean to turn it around. They also did not realize how much the Republicans hated Pres. Obama, and, how they would do anything they could to force him to fail. These, and other factors, have caused his presidency to be far less effective than it could have been.
So...do not fool yourself. America has not been the "most loved" country in the world for a long time. We might still have a chance to get there, but, it will take time, and a change in attitudes of the representatives in the Federal government away from competition and towards actually doing things that are good for the country as a whole.
YAB - http://blog.beemandave.com/
and the people in the USA and the most dogmatic assertions will include GOP as the root of evil
I don't think anyone argues that the GOP is the root of all evil so much as they are a successful implementation of the evil specification.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
This has happened countless times over history, this is far from unique. There is little evidence to think it will stop, unless it is more valuable as ruins.
Hadrian's Wall is a perfect example. "Hey free building stone sweet!" In this case it was used for roads, rather than dwellings. Old castles are subject to this as well. Heck the Vatican has destroyed a huge part of history, recycling ruins, particularly for valuable easily accessible marble, bronze, and just about anything from roman ruins. I am sure they felt that not only can they get great materials on the cheap, but also the destruction of heathen, pagan, temples is just a bonus!
Ironically I think there should be a special place in hell for those that intentionally destroy historical artifacts that that.
Bullshit. They excavated the material for road fill, they knew exactly what it was and the quality of the material they would obtain and how much money they would save paying for quarried material trucked to the site. You do not just use any passing dirt for road fill because it will be impossible to compact properly and could be subject to extreme bulking when exposed to water, you do not randomly excavate hills because you do not know what they constitute and how difficult they will be to excavate.
You win the prize for civil construction ignorance as do those who thought your ignorance was informative. Even ancient Romans knew better than you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads please check diagram at bottom of article.
The greedy shit head owner of the company knew exactly what they were doing and how much they would save.
I'm sure they knew what they were getting even if they didn't realize it was a Mayan temple (which as I said is a stretch). The limestone was visible through the vegetation. I'm not suggesting that people commonly dig up random hills to use as road fill.
However, even if total ignorance of the significance of the site is a stretch, what I also find unbelievable is that someone thought they could tear down the most prominent feature of a major archaeological find and figure that nobody would notice.
So the truth is probably somewhere in between. The picture in the linked article was a deliberate misrepresentation of what was destroyed in order to fan outrage. If they'd shown a picture of the actual temple readers wouldn't be nearly as upset because frankly it didn't look like much. Now again, the fact that it didn't look like much doesn't mean it's not an important site. I'm not condoning what happened. But tearing down something like the high temple at Laminai is a much different sort of crime that what we have here.
You stupid fuck, when the British wanted to build a railroad in Bolivia and there weren't any handy gravel deposits nearby they smashed up big chunks of Tiahuanacu. You can still see pieces of statues in the foundations for the railroad bridges in the area. Greed and laziness will win out over respect for the past pretty much every time that money is involved.
While I don't doubt that the British did what you said they did, it wasn't necessarily greed or laziness. The simple fact is that ideas about heritage, property, and such have changed greatly over the years. There was an article on BBC a while back lamenting the loss of many such cultural heritage spots in Britain for similar reasons. Laws protecting such things are relatively recent development as society grew rich enough to preserve as well as value them. Respect for the past means little if you are still trying to get everybody in the present fed. Previous to the last century ownership had complete rights to tear down, reuse, or do whatever they wanted with their property, no matter what the history behind it.
You quote him in full and then ignore what he wrote. Amazing! He wrote "the Pope" which can only mean the current pope, and then wrote "any of the last few". You cite the Crusades, which is hardy recent.
Islam has always been a violent religion, and most of the Crusades were a Christian response to Muslim aggression.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The idea that "Sambo" is a slur shows the stupidity of those who think the word derogatory.
"Little Black Sambo" is a fantasy about a black boy who outsmarts a tiger. If you think the story is bad, you must disagree with the notion that blacks are smarter than tigers.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Bullshit. They excavated the material for road fill, they knew exactly what it was and the quality of the material they would obtain and how much money they would save paying for quarried material trucked to the site. You do not just use any passing dirt for road fill because it will be impossible to compact properly and could be subject to extreme bulking when exposed to water, you do not randomly excavate hills because you do not know what they constitute and how difficult they will be to excavate.
You win the prize for civil construction ignorance as do those who thought your ignorance was informative. Even ancient Romans knew better than you http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_roads please check diagram at bottom of article.
The greedy shit head owner of the company knew exactly what they were doing and how much they would save.
I'll try putting it a little differently. I have a hard time believing they knew exactly what they were doing because if they did they'd know there'd be hell to pay. There are lots of completely un-excavated buildings of lesser importance that they'd have a much better chance of destroying and getting away with. In fact that may be exactly what they were supposed to do. Somebody picked the wrong hill.
Never claimed anything about universality, or even hatred - just that our recent military actions have severly damaged our position in international opinion, and given the fact that much of the esteem we were held in was actually based on "Democracy", "The American Dream" and other ideals that, while still getting lip service, have actually been severely degraded over the last century, we probably won't be able to get that esteem back easily. And as the world stage shifts to an increasingly multi-polar arrangement over the net century or so we're likely to need all the good esteem we can get, especially in the face of the serious global problems we'll be facing.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Come to New England and examine all the stone cellar holes.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Yes, the US is so universally hated that our president received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Man, I would kill for one of those.
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That would be a good feat, seeing as Hadrian's Wall is dozens of miles (more than 100 miles at one point) south of the Scottish border for most of it's length. For that stonework to now be all over Scotland (but not all over England) would imply those Scots are some seriously greedy pillaging bastards!
(It's a common misconception that it is on the Scottish/English border. It was built by Romans to keep out Picts, two groups who have long since gone extinct and who's borders were only passingly related to the borders between the two Anglo-Saxon groups, the English and the Lowland Scots, who would come to inhabit the area centuries later.)
I don't disagree with much of what you just said, and I didn't bring up political parties at all, I tend to feel that the people actually calling the shots these days mostly aren't elected anyway. Yes, Obama's election was celebrated internationally, before the reality set in that he wasn't going to do anything substantial - even in the first two years when the Ds had a majority in both houses and could have forced through some real reforms, instead we got a bunch of rhetoric about "building consesus" with a party that was quite obviously locked firmly into maximum opposition mode. Hell, for his one big "cause", health care reform, he basically endorsed the R's wet-dream version, and they lambasted him as a socialist over it.
As for the US having been one of the (I didn't say *the*) "most loved nations" though, care to offer up some serious contenders? Hell, we're probably still in the running, we've just shed a bunch of the fuzzy veneer that let people believe the ruthless political manueverings were the exception rather than the rule, and exposed the fact that we're perfectly willing to invade other countries just because it suites our interests (And no, I don't believe for a minute that we invaded Iraq because of Dubya's daddy issues - that may be why he personally supported it, but I seriously doubt it was a major factor in the back-room dealings that made it happen)
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
You stupid fuck, when the British wanted to build a railroad in Bolivia and there weren't any handy gravel deposits nearby they smashed up big chunks of Tiahuanacu.
this is what we need more of in the world. disparate cultures spanning continents and centuries, each making its unique contribution to public works projects that benefit everyone.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
educated young men primarily from Saudi Arabia. and they weren't nuts. they were committed to a bad idea, driven by hatred that we fomented.
They were willing to die themselves and kill how ever many thousands of innocent civilians to supposedly make a point. No sane person would do such things.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Yes, something like that. The Europeans [Spanish] brought with them the destruction of the local religion, culture AND technology and was replaced with something else... different and, in some ways inferior. It's damned sad, but "god" can't handle competition and requires man to do God's work for him. (I don't think I'll ever get that... God is all-powerful and yet requires help from people?) And let's not candy-coat the fact that European religion (Catholic and Protestant) all but require participants to leave their brains at the door when worshiping.
Anyway, this is as disturbing to me as when I first heard of Muslims destroying ancient Buddhist structures in Afghanistan.
In real life, building material is re-used. In fact, it may be the only benefit of these structures for "the people".
The limestone casing of the pyramids? Gone. Various ruins around Europe? Once abandoned, people used them for building materials.
Not every old thing is worth saving.
The chances are you don't think that about your own religion, you just think your own beliefs are somehow special and deserving of respect - this permits you to continue to hate in arbitrary way, because you are exceptional - exactly the racist mindset.
This stuff happens a lot in various contexts. You send in bulldozers then later apologize that a mistake was made. They know they won't go to jail, they know the local historical society doesn't have funds to sue, and it'll all blow over shortly.
Who gives a fuck if he's using racist language. Correct him by reminding him that he isn't winning any extra points, and move on. What he says is that nothing is sacred. And Muslims are just as bad as Belizans.
Lamanai, not Laminai,, from the Mayan Lama'anayin meaning submerged crocodile.
Beautiful pyramids though and it is very easy to know what they are is as they are always in areas with other Mayan structures.
And yes, the Belize gov is pretty incompetent (ask McAffee)
Not really a fair comparison. You don't have a choice about skin color. Beliefs are a choice. You can't make valid judgements about someone based upon their genetics. You CAN potentially make valid judgments about someone based upon their choices.
For example. I would characterize myself as white and so would pretty much anyone else in this country. I had no choice in that. I do have a choice about whether or not to join the KKK. It may well be that I would choose to do so out of pride for my heritage rather than out of hatred of radical religious views. There are members of that organization who do terrible things. Is it reasonable to judge me for their actions? To some extent, yes it is. Because even though I would not have chosen to do those terrible things I would have chosen to associate myself with those who do. Beyond that, people who make the same choice patterns often have tendencies toward the same results.
Organized religion with any sort of divinely dictated code of right and wrong is historically among the most evil and atrocious groups ever to exist. It includes all of the KKK for instance. If someone chooses to join this group or associate with it there are certainly valid judgements one can draw from that choice.
I didn't say he was popular all over the world. My point was that the US is not universally reviled.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I'm not so pessimistic about the future of the US reputation. As the US fades from hegemony, Europe and China (and possibly India) will have to fight their own oil wars. Just as European atrocities of the 20th century have faded, Iraq will soon be a distant memory.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
If they own the property I think it is well within their moral (though maybe not legal) rights. If a structure is worth saving then someone will buy it.
They don't call them Grammar Nazis for nothing.
Double negative to fight intolerance.
I spent two seasons in the mid-1980s excavating at Nohmul, and can put a rest to some of the speculation here.
Nobody in this region is unaware of the nature of these ruins, nor their significance. This part of the country is flat limestone plains, and it is generally understood that any small hills are in reality ancient ruins.
The site draws almost no tourists whatsoever (it is almost entirely unrestored), so liability is not a concern. While not amongst the better known sites, it had much historic value nonetheless, which is why it was the subject of numerous investigations by Cambridge and Rutgers Universities, National Geographic, etc. The destruction of one Nohmul's primary structures for road fill is indeed a tragedy. The gentleman who owned the site when I excavated there would never have let this happen, but I suspect that ownership changed hands in the interim.
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Lamanai, not Laminai,, from the Mayan Lama'anayin meaning submerged crocodile.
Beautiful pyramids though and it is very easy to know what they are is as they are always in areas with other Mayan structures. And yes, the Belize gov is pretty incompetent (ask McAffee)
It's only easy to know that the other hills in the area are ruins if you've been told that. I saw the temples at Lamanai and maybe eventually on my own I would have figured out that the other hills are ruins but it wasn't obvious to me at first. They were completely unremarkable to me and looked very much like the limestone hills and outcroppings I'd see around here near some rivers and streams.
Nohmul might be different.
You quote him in full and then ignore what he wrote. Amazing! He wrote "the Pope" which can only mean the current pope, and then wrote "any of the last few". You cite the Crusades, which is hardy recent.
Actually 'The Pope' is a job, not a single person, but whatever.
Using your logic I can choose one current peaceful leader of Islam to be compared to the current Pope. It is non-representative in both cases.
Islam has always been a violent religion, and most of the Crusades were a Christian response to Muslim aggression.
Islam itself is no more violent than Catholicism is - and Christianity as been, historically, every bit as violent as Islam. In both cases, as with all major religions, the leaders of the religions have used the relative ignorance of their followers to achieve what they wanted.
In the case of the first Crusades, and the Muslim conquests leading up to them, and the Roman Catholic conquests before them, and the Jewish conquests before them...none of the wars was any more or less justifiable than any other war over land and power.
Later Crusades had nothing to do with Muslims and were political in nature, again nothing more than fighting for territory and power for example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aragonese_Crusade. Then we have all the wars of Christians against Christians, against Catholics, against Protestants, etc, etc, ad nauseum. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_wars_of_religion
No religion is free of violence to the point where they can throw stones while living in their own glass houses. Christianity is not free of violence even today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-abortion_violence
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_God_(USA)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Irish_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aryan_Republican_Army
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Liberation_Front_of_Tripura
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Behring_Breivik
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legionnaires'_rebellion_and_Bucharest_pogrom#The_Bucharest_pogrom
I could continue but I think that's enough to make the point.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
You seem not to be aware that words can have multiple meanings.
Sure - there's the actual meaning, then the one that bigotted douche-bags come up.
Hence the reason I can't use the term "niggardly" in polite company; Racist assholes ruined it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Did I say I was condemning white people for Tuskegee? Maybe I'm talking about doctors. Or maybe about government employees. Or maybe about carbon based life forms. If having one thing in common with someone who commits atrocities makes you a party to those atrocities, then sharing skin color or profession or employer seems like fair grounds for equally nasty bigotry and hate-mongering. Shall we burn all doctors at the stake for Tuskegee?
And many people don't get to choose their belief systems, anyway - do you think an impoverished Saudi woman in Jazan or an abused Haredi child in Jerusalem will ever be allowed to leave the faith? They are kept in total ignorance of any other options; essentially they are sequestered and groomed psychologically by their own families, conditioned like Soviet children were during the glory days of the Stalinism and the New Soviet Man.
And speaking of Uncle Joe, the only two atheist regimes with any staying power (China and the USSR) did a pretty good job of showing that evil and atrocity occur with tedious frequency both within and outside of religions. There have clearly been plenty of anti-religious bigots who were just as brutal and antihuman as any religious bigot - who was the better man, Laurenti Beria or Teilhard de Chardin? Felix Dzerzinsky or Theodore Parker?
You can't condemn all Muslims for the actions of some Muslims without abandoning reason and decency for bigotry and hatred. It's a logical impossibility that was codified as far back as Aristotle. The characteristics of some parts of a whole are not always the characteristics of all parts of that whole, and to over-categorize is the fallacy of bigotry.
The key is that any native from Belize knows that all hills in the flatlands are ruins.
Hear, hear. Agree with this completely. We (the non-American Indian population) are still paying reparations for the "theft" of American Indian lands and the genocide that was practiced, and there is no end in sight. Too bad the Europeans who took this land over didn't follow in human historical precedence: conquer and assimilate. The American Indian population would be better off today. Instead, they (the European conquerers) decided to allow the American Indian population to continue their culture and their ways on land that was given to them by the conquerers. Since that time, however, that idea has been bastardized, and treaties have been broken and changed without consent, which has led to the current situation of an extreme welfare state-based country-within-a-country, to the detriment of those citizens and the continuation of the racism and division that should never have existed.
Oh, and BTW: I was born in the US. Therefore, I am, by definition, a native American: I am not an immigrant to the existing geopolitical country. Call the descendants of the inhabitants of pre-Columbian America something other than "native Americans" please, if not just for clarity. American Indian works, as does Aboriginal or First People.
Here, I found of recent picture of Nohmul for you.
That'll teach those bastard Mayans for being wrong about the calander! Almost put the History channel out of business.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
The Maya Complex at Nohmul is not a tourist attraction as it has not been developed. We have several thousand pyramids here and only a few are developed and open for tourists. There is not enough money to develop all of them and some people do not want tourists trampling all over the countryside. Everyone in Belize knows that a hill can be a Maya pyramid. It is only a thin layer of top soil that covers a pyramid. In the north where this event took place it is even easier to determine as the region is flatland, thus any hill more than likely is a pyramid or ceremonial center. Take a look at the picture in this post as Nohmul is being destroyed. http://www.belize.com/no-more-noh-mul-road-contractor-bulldozes-maya-temple.html You will see anyone would immediately know from the first dig the excavator takes, it is a pyramid by the distinctive stones that were hand fitted by the ancient Mayas. Pyramids are destroyed for two main reasons. 1. They provide cheap high-grade road fill. 2. Gold, jade and precious antiquities are million-dollar items eagerly sought by traffickers in the developed world. By destroying the pyramid you destroy any evidence of burial chambers that contain the items - after the items are removed of course.
The main difference is in the industries they support. Democrats love the media industries, Republicans support most industries, but energy especially.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Openly, perhaps. But less overtly, each "representative" supports whichever industry slushes their campaign funds. That's why banks have fared so well when every other industry has suffered: they learned long ago to play both sides of the field.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
idiot
*Think globally~Dream universally*