-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/ <A HREF="http://www.aci.net/kalliste/">The Home Page of J. Orlin Grabbe</A> ----- Today's Lesson From The Rosetta Stone by E. A. Wallis Budge In the ninth year of the reign of Ptolemy V. Epiphanes, who reigned from 203-181 B.C., the priests of all the gods of Upper and Lower Egypt assembled at Memphis, presumably in the great temple of Ptah, the Blacksmith-god of that city, the capital of the northern half of the kingdom. By whose wish or order they assembled it is not known, but the definite object of this great Council of Priests was the commemoration, for the first time, of the accession of Ptolemy V to the throne of Egypt. The King was then only about twelve years of age, but during the six years of his reign under the direction of Agathocles, Sosibus, Tlepolemus, Aristomenes, Scopas and others, the affairs of the kingdom had on the whole prospered. The abuses of the government of Ptolemy IV had been corrected, revolts had been crushed, and important reforms in the administration of the Army and Navy had taken place. The King had spent his royal revenues lavishly on behalf of the State and his people, he had abolished many taxes and substantially reduced others, he had given bounties to every grade in the Army, he had restored law and order in the country, and had restored all the ancient rites and privileges and revenues of the priests, and had shown himself to be pious and a devout worshipper of all the gods of his country. All these facts were universally admitted. One of the first acts of the priests was to celebrate the ancient Set Festival, i.e., the "Festival of the Tail." This Festival was celebrated every thirty years, or after any very great event, or whenever the King wished to obtain a renewal of his life from the gods, and the physical and spiritual power to rule with justice and righteousness, the highly symbolic ceremonies of this Festival being duly performed according to ancient use and wont. This solemn Office having been performed, the Council of Priests proceeded to review the good works which the boy King had performed, and they decided that the services which he had rendered to Egypt and to the clergy and laity were so valuable that additional honours should be paid to him in all the principal temples of the country. They then drafted in Greek a Decree in which the good deeds of the King and the honours which they proposed to pay him were carefully enumerated. They further ordered that a copy of it, together with translations, written both in the modern language and script of Egypt (i.e. in Demotic or, New Egyptian), and in the ancient language and script (i.e. the hieroglyphs or, Old Egyptian) should be engraved upon a tablet of hard stone, and set up in every temple of the first, second and third class in Egypt. This Decree, as found on the Rosetta Stone, is dated on the fourth day of the Greek month Xandikos = the eighteenth day of the second month (Mechis) of the Egyptian season of Per-T = March 27, 196 B.C. ===== Year 2000 APL Singapore Simulates Y2K Emergency However, Los Angeles survived ABOARD THE APL SINGAPORE - At 4:58 Tuesday morning, in the foggy solitude of San Pedro Bay off the Southern California coast, a two-way radio started squawking in the engine control room of this 64,000-ton cargo ship with an alarming message from the captain: ''Ron, the engine is not responding.'' That same instant, a piercing klaxon and a series of flashing lights alerted Chief Engineer Ron Gerde to the crisis at hand: The Singapore, hauling 1,109 massive steel containers stuffed with everything from tennis shoes made in Malaysia to stereo equipment from Taiwan, had hit a digital iceberg. A Year 2000 computer glitch had crashed a critical electronic system that controls engine thrust, causing the vessel, whose bow-to-stern measurement exceeds the length of three football fields, to head uncontrollably toward the Port of Los Angeles. This time, though, the computer failure was only a simulation. The Singapore's owner, APL Ltd., was staging this emergency at the behest of the U.S. Coast Guard. The drill, the first in a series of port inspections across the United States, illustrates a new focus in Year 2000 mobilization. Many businesses and government agencies are in the home stretch in repairing and testing their computer systems. They have done everything they can to become ''Y2K-compliant.'' But suppose that is not enough? Facing the prospect of computer crashes despite all of their preparation, they are staging elaborate simulations to get ready for the worst. On Tuesday, Mr. Gerde and his staff faced the daunting task of demonstrating that the Singapore, which has computer systems rivaling those of an airplane, could hastily operate the old-fashioned way. They would have to communicate with the captain, standing six decks above on the bridge, with a nonelectric telephone. They would have to descend into the depths of the engine bay and use an antiquated crank to slow down the ship. They would have to rely on analog gauges and paper charts instead of the sophisticated computer images they use now. With that challenge ahead, Mr. Gerde radioed up: ''We're going to take control down here.'' Like many large businesses, the Singapore already has tested its computer systems for Y2K problems. On Friday, for instance, while the vessel was leaving Seattle, its veteran captain, Jon Harrison, ordered that the master clock be rolled forward to 11:50 P.M. on Dec. 31. Ten minutes later, ''nothing happened,'' he said. Despite the positive test results, the Coast Guard wants to make sure ships are ready for any unforeseen problems that might arise on Jan. 1. ''Rolling the clocks forward doesn't guarantee that a system will work just fine in the new year,'' said Coast Guard Rear Admiral George Naccara, who supervised Tuesday's drill. ''You have got to be able to deal with the contingency that your computers won't work - and you need to practice how you'll react to that.'' Government and industry officials acknowledge that their contingency efforts, which assume worst-case scenarios, could breed a fear of severe social and economic disruptions at the year's end. As a result, many organizations, particularly federal agencies, have been reluctant to disclose their plans publicly. ''There is a public perception issue,'' said Stephen Frycki, the managing director of Y2K services at DMR Consulting Group Inc. in Edison, New Jersey. ''But eventually people will realize that these efforts are intended to ensure that daily life can continue like normal even if something does happen.'' The Year 2000 problem stems from the fact that millions of electronic devices, from mainframe computers that process payroll checks to heart monitors in hospital intensive-care units, were programmed to recognize only the last two digits of a year and to assume that the first two would be 1 and 9. When Jan. 1, 2000, arrives, unprepared machines will understand the year ''00'' not as 2000 but 1900, potentially causing them stop working properly. Aboard the Singapore, Captain Harrison feels confident that Y2K will create barely a ripple for him. Most of the ship's computers, though they rely on time-related data, do not have a running clock that tracks the year. And they all have been checked, with small green ''Y2K'' stickers placed on them to indicate compliance. Nevertheless, the Coast Guard and APL agreed that it would be prudent to emphasize ''manual work-arounds'' should they be needed. So, in the early-morning darkness, 3 miles (5 kilometers) off the Los Angeles coast, the Singapore went through the motions. The simulation was a failure of the ''engine telegraph'' system, a gearshift-like device in the bridge that lets the ship's officers control the speed. Normally, a movement of the shifter automatically tells the 67,000-horsepower engine to provide more or less power. This morning, though, with the vessel gliding along at 5 knots, the Coast Guard officers on board told Captain Harrison to assume that the system - and another electronic backup - had crashed. And, they said, he needed to quickly put the boat in reverse before it entered the busy Los Angeles harbor. Though the drill began on the darkened bridge, which towers over the ship's payload of truck-size containers, the action quickly shifted to the below-decks engine control room, where Mr. Gerde and three deputies were getting ready to end a 42-day journey that included stops in Singapore, Malaysia, China and Taiwan. After the first alarm sounded, Mr. Gerde reached for the vessel's most primitive backup means of communication - a ''sound-powered'' phone. The device, which uses no electricity, is much like two tin cans with a string connecting them. ''They're going down there now,'' Mr. Gerde reported up to the bridge. At that moment, the ship's deputy engineer, Vic Raines, and an electrician flew down two sets of narrow metal stairs to the deafeningly loud engine bay. There they dashed toward the pie-size crank, which, after a switch was flipped and a safety pin was removed, would control the engine speed. It was a moment in defiance of all the technological marvels on the 13-year-old ship. ''We're bypassing all these computers,'' Mr. Gerde said gleefully, pointing to two large electronic monitors. Mr. Raines would be driving the behemoth the way turn-of-the-century engineers did their coal-fired merchant vessels. The first priority was to turn the handle counterclockwise to slow the ship, something Mr. Raines did with ease. Then, an additional command rumbled over the sound-phone from the captain: ''Slow astern'' - put it in reverse. Fifteen seconds later, Mr. Gerde radioed up that the duo in the engine room had succeeded in reversing the propeller blades. With that, Captain Harrison told the control room, ''We're finished.'' Admiral Naccara and other Coast Guard officials quickly pronounced themselves satisfied with the crew's performance. International Herald Tribune, June 17, 1999 Der Fuhrer Invades Yugoslavia The KLA: Frankenato's Monster Another piece of paper NATO’s decision to exploit the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during Operation Allied Force to maintain pressure on Serbian forces on the ground is coming back to haunt it. While Albania helped create the KLA, NATO nurtured it, and now that the KLA is running amok, NATO must tame or destroy it. Much to NATO’s chagrin, the KLA did not simply accept NATO control over the province, lay down its arms, and join the UN sponsored political process. Rather, seizing the opportunity and the initiative, the KLA has poured into the province ahead of NATO and on the heels of withdrawing Serbs – filling the power vacuum and establishing de facto control. KLA forces have seized control of two border crossing points into Albania, as well as most of the towns and villages of southern Kosovo including nearly all of Prizren. The KLA has presented its own "interim government," and has as yet refused to disarm. Worse, multiple sources report the KLA are carrying out reprisal attacks against Serbs, burning Serbian homes and setting in motion a mass exodus of Serbs from the province. NATO has now reportedly negotiated a settlement with the KLA, whereby the KLA will be disarmed, though the document will not be signed for another three days and it is unknown how long the agreement will take to be carried out after that. In the meantime, NATO continues to explain its inability to control the KLA and defend ethnic Serbs by arguing that it does not have sufficient forces in place to control the province. In fact, refugees report that NATO controls little more than the main roads to Pristina. And to be more precise, it is not simply that NATO does not have enough troops to establish a presence throughout Kosovo. NATO does not have enough troops to confront and forcibly disarm the KLA throughout Kosovo. While the KLA has said it may agree to demilitarization, and hand over its heavy weapons, it has steadfastly refused to give up small arms. And why should it? As far as the KLA is concerned, it is the victor. NATO has confirmed this by declaring the Serbs defeated. The KLA fought, with NATO’s assistance, for an independent Kosova. NATO says it won, and so the KLA is establishing its independent Kosova. If NATO has different ideas, what is it going to do, go to war against the KLA? The problem is, while NATO used the KLA, it did not share the KLA’s goals. Despite what Serbs believe about Washington’s insidious desire for a Greater Albania, for the Clinton administration, Kosovo was little more than a clumsy and distracted attempt to avoid the same condemnation it received for failing to respond to claims of genocide in Rwanda. Now it is caught in the potential hypocrisy of presiding over a reverse ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and the redrawing of the map of the region along ethnic lines. And even if mysterious dark forces in Washington have somehow duped the naïve Stratfor on this count, and Clinton actually flies the KLA flag in his bedroom, they have not changed the fact that NATO is not merely the U.S. It also includes countries like Greece and Italy, who with aspiring NATO member Macedonia are appalled at the prospect of either a KLA-dominated independent Kosova or a Greater Albania. The KLA is a monumental problem for NATO, with the potential to divide and discredit the alliance more deeply than the bombing campaign. Not only can NATO politically not afford to live down to Belgrade’s claims that it was truly fighting to dismember Serbia, nor abide the Serbian and Russian military responses to a de facto KLA "victory," its individual members can not tolerate such a dismemberment or victory either. That said, NATO has now been presented with the prospect that the ground casualties it sought so hard to avoid sustaining will come, not from the Serbs, but from uncooperative Kosovar Albanians. Stratfor's Commentary, June 16, 1999 Oil Market Oil Prices Surge Americans buy gasoline Oil prices hit a 17-month high yesterday amid fresh evidence of continuing strong demand for gasoline in the US, the world's biggest oil market. The bellwether August Brent futures contract reached $17.17 a barrel at midday before slipping to $16.90 in late trading on London's International Petroleum Exchange, 3 cents up on Tuesday's close. Oil prices have risen by about $6 a barrel this year, mainly in response to production cuts by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and other leading oil producers. The market's belief that Opec is generally complying with the latest cuts is the main reason prices continue to rise, although energy economists say it will take some months to erode the stock overhang that was one of the main contributors to last year's oil price collapse. Peter Davies, chief economist at BP Amoco, said yesterday that any declines in global stock levels in the second quarter of the year were probably "very small". But if the Opec cuts held through the rest of the year "the decline will accelerate". Speaking at a London presentation of BP Amoco's annual statistical review of world energy, Mr Davies said the global oil industry remained in a "supply push world" in which cost-cutting and technological advances prevailed. Although non-Opec production was flat last year and may decline in 1999, Mr Davies dismissed suggestions that non-Opec supply had peaked. Opec still faced the challenge of managing oil markets "in a world of plenty", he said. Although there is evidence of a "tentative recovery" of Asian oil consumption, Mr Davies said it was unlikely that oil demand growth in the region would return to the very high levels seen before the crisis. He identified several long-term trends that continue to affect world energy markets. Supplies of energy are "more than adequate" on a global basis, even though world energy prices continue to decline. Coal is continuing to lose market share to natural gas, while the growth of nuclear power has receded, with more nuclear plants being shut last year than were commissioned. World energy demand fell by 0.1 per cent last year, the first fall since 1982. In China the decline was 3.2 per cent, with lower coal consumption accounting for virtually all of the fall. Energy consumption in North America and Europe was flat. The decline in energy consumption led to the first fall in world carbon emissions (excluding the former Soviet Union) since 1982. The Financial Times, June 17, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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