Kosmo

Definitely not Paul. He is against funding. BTW his dad was punked in Bruno

This is going to be a great final of a very good World Cup. I liked all semifinalists but I cheered for the Dutch and the Germans. No matter who wins now because they are both teams that play beautiful football and deserve to finally get the cup. Finally some variation!

"ROME

yeah, early goal helped them, but i am amazed how the germans are so good especially how they always find space in the middle, very impressive so far... considering that the average age of that team is way below 25, it`s frightning to think how strong they will play at the next world cup Now it's 3-0. The young german team plays amazingly but the vets like Klose and Shweintigger (sp) are key.

Germany leads Argentina 1-0 at half time. I'm watching the game online at http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/fifaworldcup/

It was a thrilling and hard fought game, maybe the best game yet of this World Cup.

There has been some serious developments in this area including software good enough to play Jeopardy or to be part of a dialog. Modern computers have the brain power and database size to handle translations but the programs are not good enough yet, maybe because there are not many economic incentives to put resources into that.

This is very true. As the article Neph linked above concludes at the end: "If Flynn is right, knowing how many picture-puzzles different cohorts of Dutch teenagers could solve is actually a window through which we can see a momentous change, the

"The Flynn effect describes an increase in the average intelligence quotient (IQ) test scores over generations (IQ gains over time). Similar improvements have been reported for other cognitions such as semantic and episodic memory.[1] The effect has been observed in most parts of the world at different rates." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect The wikipedia page has also a "Possible projection of Flynn through ages" that shows a Rome year 0 average IQ much closer to 48 then of 100. The Flynn effect it's well proven, but of course romans did not preserved results of their standardized IQ tests so we can only presume that their average IQ was below those of the people in the western societies in early XX century when IQ testing begun. Also I doubt that IQ testing results tell us much. Still, I believe that any realistic view of ancient societies must take in account that they were not only less informed and less educated but also, on average, substantially less intelligent.

Augustus picked many successors, but they all died before him. He did not have many options besides Tiberius. Also Tiberius proved himself worthy during Augustus reign especially as a military commander.

Verboten By obvious reasons I must add. Even if I have multiple personalities? and they hate each other?

"He

I hate vuvuzela!

"The Humane Society of the United States says at least 13 people have been killed in the U.S. by pet pythons

"Think of it as a kind of prehistoric Prada: Archaeologists have discovered what they say is the world

and psychedelic drugs

They are all preparing for 69.

Right. We all know that you chose Aegyptus because it is the only province that has beer. That Sakara beer is good, but combined with the african heat...

The words steel and iron are often used for the same things and there is no clear distinction between the two, especial in context of Antiquity. Generally speaking roman swords are considered being made of steel. The famous roman legionary shield 'scutum' was made of wood with a metal part in the center, but I doubt it was still used so late. At Chalons probably everybody had similar weapons. Recombined means that the pieces of metal were heated and then hammered again into a single piece. You can look here about pattern welded blades: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pattern_welding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katana_construction Some nice saxon pattern welded swords were found in Britain. This type of swords were always very expensive. Pattern welded swords belonged to the rich elite, not most soldiers.

Can I be Gaius Petronius Arbiter?

Oh! The music was horrible! It is the first game that I see that uses just 2 keys.

Yes, Romania needed to change it's players, but it does not look like the younger ones are very good. We will see... They win because the opposing team is busy ogling at the cheerleaders!

This is a bold statement. The Mediterranean landscapes are determined by geography (lots of mountains, little plains) and climate (hot and dry) and romans did not change any of these two. Deforestation and land degradation could have made things worse but pastoral cultures are often worse then agricultural ones at this aspect.

You may like the biography of Nero written by Ed. Champlin as it has some interesting ideas about him.