“When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?”
(Job 38:7)

Morning Stars Sang

Dear Friends,

Greetings!

The opening video below shows what an outstanding miraculous effect music can have on an individual. Henry, the subject of the video, undergoes an immediate transformation upon listening to music he was familiar with in his youth. One cannot help but be awed by the amazing healing effect of music.

Another example of the power of music can be found in the book of first Samuel, chapter sixteen. “It came to pass, when the evil spirit from God was upon Saul, that David took an harp, and played with his hand: so Saul was refreshed, and was well, and the evil spirit departed from him.” (1 Samuel 16:23)

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying; “If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician. I often think in music. I live my daydreams in music. I see my life in terms of music. ... I get most joy in life out of music.”

Of course, a great deal depends on what type of music you may be listening to. Following the video is a discourse by David Berg titled “Musical Key” which deals with this subject.

Ludwig van Beethoven said "Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life." And of course we see this type of effect in the above quote concerning King Saul.

Music is of such importance that it even plays a significant place for those who have gone through the Great Tribulation and gotten the victory over the antichrist, his image, and his mark.

'I saw as it were a sea of glass mingled with fire: and them that had gotten the victory over the beast, and over his image, and over his mark, and over the number of his name, stand on the sea of glass, having the harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints.” (Revelation 15:2-3)

“The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.” William Shakespeare

And finally, using music as a means for the praise of God, Psalm 150, tells us:

“Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.

Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals.

Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.”

Have a great week ahead with a song in your heart!

***

Musical Key

First published May 1973.

Music can be a blessing, and yet it can also be so dangerous! That's why it is so important to listen to the right kind of music. The Pavlovian Method of conditioning reflexes enables evil men to discover secrets of the hearts and minds of men in order to manipulate them for their own evil purposes. People can be mentally conditioned to respond to a set stimuli like a series of tone signals. It's almost like a telephone: You can dial a certain combination of numbers and that keys the equipment to connect one instrument with another instrument.

Certain kinds of music can also be like a combination of tone signals, almost like dialing a number. If they hit the right combination of notes, the right music can bring a certain response in your own heart and mind. It has a psychological and spiritual effect on you. If you're really spiritually tuned, it has just as direct an effect on you as an electrical current or receiving a radio signal.

Certain kinds of music will turn you on for certain kinds of things.--It's spiritual! It's almost as though it links the heart of the hearer with the heart of the composer. It blends the spirit of the composer into your spirit. It's almost like the composer is a spirit guide and becomes a medium and his music is his crystal ball! When you listen to his music you gaze with him into his crystal ball, and all of a sudden your spirits are united and you both see the same things.--You both see the same pictures. It's just like it sucks your spirit out of your body and transports you into another World. Suddenly you are integrated or revitalized into the World of the Spirit in some other place.

Let me tell you, the spiritual world is far more real than the physical! Music like that is like a vehicle, a crystal ball, like drugs, like electronic keying, tuning into your wavelength, radio tuning. If you're tuned and that's your wavelength and you're supposed to get the message, then you get it!

You know some of those composers were inspired! Wagner was sometimes inspired by the Devil, and others like Handel and Mozart were sometimes inspired by the Lord. It's as though they were really inspired by the Lord or the Devil. Those inspired by the Devil were getting the Devil's message, if they were really tuned in.--And if the hearers are tuned in, they get the message too!

But you see, other composers were inspired by the Lord and were giving God's tune and God's message. If we're the Lord's and we're tuned to His channel and they're on His channel, if it's God's composer and God's music and God's Message, then we who are tuned in and keyed to the Lord get the Message!

The music of such wonderful spiritual men and believers like Handel and some others were definitely inspired by the Lord! But these composers were just like us: It all depends on whose channel they're tuned to and according to their mood, whether they're in a believing and faithful mood, or are doubting, discouraged, despondent, fearful and listening to the Devil! We all go through those experiences where we sometimes listen to the Enemy instead of the Lord. The Lord lets us hear the Devil's tune if we insist on it--even if it's only a test to see if we can tell the difference and to see if we'll receive it or reject it.

There are certain kinds of music that my heart, mind, spirit and even my physical body resist and rebel against! It makes me furious because I know it's diabolical and Satanic! My whole soul just fights it and I hate it because its effect is so fiendish! But other kinds of music just thrill and inspire me and lift me up into the heavenlies and put me into communication with the Lord.

So how do you tell the difference?--Well, does it make you not only feel good, but feel good in the right way? Does it make you want to be good and do good, and love and be loved, and be helpful and constructive? Or does it inspire you to be evil and do evil, and be rebellious and destructive and hate, like some of Wagner's music inspired Hitler to destroy? Does it build or does it destroy? Does it help or does it hinder? Does it lift you up or drag you down?

You can tell about music just like everything else, by its effect on you. Is it beautiful or is it ugly? Is it clean or is it dirty? Is it inspiring or is it oppressive? What effect does it have on your own spirit?

God gives you enough sense by His Spirit to know the difference between what is good and bad, then He gives you a choice between good and evil, Himself and the Devil. He gives you the sense to know the difference between flowers and weeds. If it's ugly, cut it down. If it's pretty or beautiful, leave it.

Does the music inspire you and draw you closer to the Lord to be good and do good things and have a good effect?--Or does it destroy you, shatter you, oppress you, make you feel rebellious, hateful, angry and destructive and want to hurt and destroy and do evil things? Does it make you want to seduce, violate and rape, kill and do violence and make war?

The Devil's music is deafening and noisy and confusing--like the roar of a satanic beast or diabolical monster that wants to destroy! It has both a physical and a spiritual effect. It will literally destroy your eardrums and your hearing and deafen you physically. Its pulsating beats will cause your very body to throb with evil instincts and evil desires, evil reactions, as well as to get your spirit right on the Devil's channel! It will put you in tune with Satan, where you get his message and you carry out the Devil's will--his diabolical designs!

God's music makes you want to do the Will of God and love Him and love the children of God! The Devil's music makes you want to do the will of Satan and love Satan and the children of the Devil and do evil. So how do you tell the difference?--What music should you listen to?

I've turned on the radio or TV sometimes and heard music which I knew was inspired but it had an evil fascination for me! It was gripping, like the tentacles of an octopus, and you felt like you were being sucked into a vortex or maelstrom, almost irresistible! But it was evil and you could tell it was the voice of Satan--the sirens of Satan--and it can get you in the spirit all right, the Devil's spirit!

If it's really effective music, whether good or bad, it will inspire you to action! It will move you! It will cause you to emote, create emotions which put you in motion to do good or evil. How does it make you feel?--Good or bad, Godly or fiendish? What does it provoke you to do? What kind of action does it inspire you to? Acts of love, kindness, mercy, compassion and helpfulness?--Or thoughts of hate, cruelty, vengeance, violence, destructiveness, vandalism, wastefulness, rape, murder and war!

Another kind of evil is just as bad: Does it lull you to sleep, indifference, inaction, carelessness, indolence, negligence and zombic stupor? If the Devil can't inspire you to take actual negative action and do his VIOLENT will, he'll try to put you to sleep and put you out of action like he has much of the church, so you at least won't get in his way!

What kind of music are you listening to? Whose voice are you hearing? What does it do for you? What does it do to you? What does it do with you and what do you do because of it? What does it make you want to do and be, if anything? Does it bring life or death?--Good or evil? Does it make you want to live or die? Is it sad and depressing and does it make you want to quit, or is it happy and inspiring and make you want to live for the sake of others, to serve God and your fellowman?

You know the difference by the end result and the final fruits. That's how you know whether our words and music are of the Lord: It's had good results, good fruit, so the tree cannot be evil.--Mat.7:18a. It has to be good! It has to be God! Listen and see if you can tell the difference. Watch and see if you can see it. How does it make you feel?

David Brandt Berg

(And if you happen to be interested in the song Henry was singing, here it is. Just one little error, it was Bing Crosby not Cab Callaway, but close enough. Ed)

***

Washington's Blog

The Top Short-Term Threat to Humanity: The Fuel Pools of Fukushima

Posted on April 7, 2012 by WashingtonsBlog

The Greatest Single Threat to Humanity: Fuel Pool Number 4

We noted days after the Japanese earthquake that the biggest threat was from the spent fuel rods in the fuel pool at Fukushima unit number 4, and not from the reactors themselves. See this and this.

We noted in February:

Scientists say that there is a 70% chance of a magnitude 7.0 earthquake hitting Fukushima this year, and a 98% chance within the next 3 years.

Given that nuclear expert Arnie Gundersen says that an earthquake of 7.0 or larger could cause the entire fuel pool structure collapse, it is urgent that everything humanly possible is done to stabilize the structure housing the fuel pools at reactor number 4.

Tepco is doing some construction at the building ... it is a race against time under very difficult circumstances, and hopefully Tepco will win.

As AP points out:

The structural integrity of the damaged Unit 4 reactor building has long been a major concern among experts because a collapse of its spent fuel cooling pool could cause a disaster worse than the three reactor meltdowns.

***

Gundersen (who used to build spent fuel pools) explains that there is no protection surrounding the radioactive fuel in the pools. He warns that - if the fuel pools at reactor 4 collapse due to an earthquake - people should get out of Japan, and residents of the West Coast of America and Canada should shut all of their windows and stay inside for a while.

The fuel pool number 4 is apparently not in great shape, and there have already been countless earthquakes near the Fukushima region since the 9.0 earthquake last March.

Germany's ZDF tv quotes nuclear engineer Yukitero Naka as saying:

If another earthquake occurs then the building [number 4] could collapse and another chain reaction could very likely occur.

(Unit 4 contains plutonium as well as other radioactive wastes.)

Mainchi reported on Monday:

The storage pool in the No. 4 reactor building has a total of 1,535 fuel rods, or 460 tons of nuclear fuel, in it. The 7-story building itself has suffered great damage, with the storage pool barely intact on the building's third and fourth floors. The roof has been blown away. If the storage pool breaks and runs dry, the nuclear fuel inside will overheat and explode, causing a massive amount of radioactive substances to spread over a wide area. Both the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and French nuclear energy company Areva have warned about this risk.

A report released in February by the Independent Investigation Commission on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Accident stated that the storage pool of the plant's No. 4 reactor has clearly been shown to be "the weakest link" in the parallel, chain-reaction crises of the nuclear disaster. The worse-case scenario drawn up by the government includes not only the collapse of the No. 4 reactor pool, but the disintegration of spent fuel rods from all the plant's other reactors. If this were to happen, residents in the Tokyo metropolitan area would be forced to evacuate.

Former Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Sumio Mabuchi, who was appointed to the post of then Prime Minister Naoto Kan's advisor on the nuclear disaster immediately after its outbreak, proposed the injection of concrete from below the No. 4 reactor to the bottom of the storage pool, Chernobyl-style.

***

"Because sea water was being pumped into the reactor, the soundness of the structure (concrete corrosion and deterioration) was questionable. There also were doubts about the calculations made on earthquake resistance as well," said one government source familiar with what took place at the time. "[F]uel rod removal will take three years. Will the structure remain standing for that long?

Asahi noted last month that - if Unit 4 pool gets a crack from an earthquake and leaks, it would be the end for Tokyo.

Kevin Kamps said last month:

Unit 4 storage pool... The entire building is listing including the pool. What they have is steel jacks underneath the pool to try to keep the floor from falling out or the pool from flipping over.

If that cooling water supply is lost, it will be just a few hours at most before that waste is on fire. 135 tons outside of any radioactive containment. They would be direct releases into the environment. 100% of cesium-137 could be released to the environment.

Former U.N. adviser Akio Matsumura - whose praises have been sung by Mikhail Gorbachev, U.S. Ambassadors Stephen Bosworth and Glenn Olds, and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State and Goldman Sachs co-chair John C. Whitehead - notes:

The unit suffered enormous damage during the tsunami--a hydrogen explosion blew the roof off, leaving the highly radioactive fuel pool exposed to the open air. If another high level earthquake hits the area, the building will certainly collapse. Japanese and American meteorologists have predicted that such a strong earthquake is indeed likely to hit this year.

The meltdown and unprecedented release of radiation that would ensue is the worst case scenario that then-Prime Minister Kan and other former officials have discussed in the past months. He warned during his speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos that such an accident would force the evacuation of the 35 million people in Tokyo, close half of Japan and compromise the nation's sovereignty. Such a humanitarian and environmental catastrophe is unimaginable. Hiroshi Tasaka, a nuclear engineer and special adviser to Prime Minister Kan immediately following the crisis, said the crisis "just opened Pandora's Box."

The current Japanese government has not yet mentioned the looming disaster, ostensibly to not incite panic in the public. Nevertheless, action must be taken quickly. This website over the last year has published a running commentary from scientists explaining why Reactor 4 must be stabilized immediately, who might be able to accomplish such a task, and why the situation has largely gone unnoticed. We believe an independent, international team of structural engineers and other advisers must be assembled and deployed immediately. Mounting public pressure would force the Japanese government to take action. We hope these resources are helpful in educating the public about the crisis that we face.

As the eminent German physicist Dr. Hans-Peter Durr said ten months ago, if the spent fuel pool spills, we will be in a situation where science never imagined we could be.

Matsumura was told that if the fuel pool at unit 4 collapses or the water spills out, so much radiation will spew out for 50 years that no one will be able to approach Fukushima:

Even more dramatically, Matsumura writes:

Japan's former Ambassador to Switzerland, Mr. Mitsuhei Murata, was invited to speak at the Public Hearing of the Budgetary Committee of the House of Councilors on March 22, 2012, on the Fukushima nuclear power plants accident. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4--with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground--collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421 (396+615+566+1,535+994+940+6375).

I asked top spent-fuel pools expert Mr. Robert Alvarez, former Senior Policy Adviser to the Secretary and Deputy Assistant Secretary for National Security and the Environment at the U.S. Department of Energy, for an explanation of the potential impact of the 11,421 rods.

I received an astounding response from Mr. Alvarez [updated 4/5/12]:

In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da - Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.

Based on U.S. Energy Department data, assuming a total of 11,138 spent fuel assemblies are being stored at the Dai-Ichi site, nearly all, which is in pools. They contain roughly 336 million curies (~1.2 E+19 Bq) of long-lived radioactivity. About 134 million curies is Cesium-137 -- roughly 85 times the amount of Cs-137 released at the Chernobyl accident as estimated by the U.S. National Council on Radiation Protection (NCRP). The total spent reactor fuel inventory at the Fukushima-Daichi site contains nearly half of the total amount of Cs-137 estimated by the NCRP to have been released by all atmospheric nuclear weapons testing, Chernobyl, and world-wide reprocessing plants (~270 million curies or ~9.9 E+18 Becquerel).

It is important for the public to understand that reactors that have been operating for decades, such as those at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site have generated some of the largest concentrations of radioactivity on the planet.

Many of our readers might find it difficult to appreciate the actual meaning of the figure, yet we can grasp what 85 times more Cesium-137 than the Chernobyl would mean. It would destroy the world environment and our civilization. This is not rocket science, nor does it connect to the pugilistic debate over nuclear power plants. This is an issue of human survival.

There was a Nuclear Security Summit Conference in Seoul on March 26 and 27, and Ambassador Murata and I made a concerted effort to find someone to inform the participants from 54 nations of the potential global catastrophe of reactor unit 4. We asked several participants to share the idea of an Independent Assessment team comprised of a broad group of international experts to deal with this urgent issue.

I would like to introduce Ambassador Murata's letter to the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to convey this urgent message and also his letter to Japan's Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda for Japanese readers. He emphasized in the statement that we should bring human wisdom to tackle this unprecedented challenge.

Ambassador Murata's letter says:

It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on NO.4 reactor. This is confirmed by most reliable experts like Dr. Arnie Gundersen or Dr. Fumiaki Koide.

Anti-nuclear physician Dr. Helen Caldicott says that if fuel pool 4 collapses, she will evacuate her family from Boston and move them to the Southern Hemisphere. This is an especially dramatic statement given that the West Coast is much more directly in the path of Fukushima radiation than the East Coast.

Will humanity rise to the occasion, and figure out how to stabilize fuel pool number 4 before catastrophe strikes?

Or will modern civilization win a Darwin award for failing to pay attention to the real threats?

***

Technology Review

March/April 2012

Published by MIT

A New Microchip Knows Just Where You Are, Indoors and Out

The chip achieves unprecedented accuracy by processing information from many different sensors.

Monday, April 9, 2012

By Christopher Mims

Broadcom has just rolled out a chip for smart phones that promises to indicate location ultra-precisely, possibly within a few centimeters, vertically and horizontally, indoors and out.

The unprecedented accuracy of the Broadcom 4752 chip results from the sheer breadth of sensors from which it can process information. It can receive signals from global navigation satellites, cell-phone towers, and Wi-Fi hot spots, and also input from gyroscopes, accelerometers, step counters, and altimeters.

The variety of location data available to mobile-device makers means that in our increasingly radio-frequency-dense world, location services will continue to become more refined.

In theory, the new chip can even determine what floor of a building you're on, thanks to its ability to integrate information from the atmospheric pressure sensor on many models of Android phones. The company calls abilities like this "ubiquitous navigation," and the idea is that it will enable a new kind of e-commerce predicated on the fact that shopkeepers will know the moment you walk by their front door, or when you are looking at a particular product, and can offer you coupons at that instant.

The integration of new kinds of location data opens up the possibility of navigating indoors, where GPS signals are weak or nonexistent.

Broadcom is already the largest provider of GPS chips to smart-phone makers. Its new integrated circuit relies on sensors that aren't present in every new smart phone, so it won't perform the same in all devices. The new chip, like a number of existing ones, has the ability to triangulate using Wi-Fi hot spots. Broadcom maintains a database of these hot spots for client use, but it says most of its clients maintain their own.

A company that pioneered the construction and maintenance of these kinds of Wi-Fi hot spot databases is SkyHook Wireless. Skyhook CEO Ted Morgan is skeptical that Broadcom can catch up to his company's software-based system allowing for precise indoor location. "Broadcom is just now talking about something we have been doing for seven to eight years, uncovering all the challenges," says Morgan. These include battery management and cataloging a new wave of mobile Wi-Fi hot spots. "Broadcom has never done major deployment," adds Morgan.

Scott Pomerantz, vice president of the GPS division at Broadcom, counters that "the big [mobile] operating systems all have a strategy in place" to create their own Wi-Fi databases. Pomerantz isn't allowed to name names, but one of Broadcom's biggest customers is Apple, which previously used Skyhook for location services in its iPhone but now employs its own, Apple-built location system.

At least one feature of Broadcom's new GPS chip is entirely forward-looking, and integrates data from a source that is not yet commercially deployed: Bluetooth beacons. (Bluetooth is the wireless standard used for short-range communications in devices like wireless keyboards and phone headsets.)

"The use case [for Bluetooth beacons] might be malls," says Pomerantz. "It would be a good investment for a mall to put up a deployment--perhaps put them up every 100 yards, and then unlock the ability for people walking around mall to get very precise couponing information."

"The density of these sensors will give you even finer location," says Charlie Abraham, vice president of engineering at Broadcom. "It could show you where the bananas are within a store--even on which shelf there's a specific brand."

“Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flieth by day;

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” (Psalms 91:5-7)

The Dirty Little Secret of Overnight Successes

BY Josh Linkner, Fast Company, 04-03-2012 - Angry Birds, the incredibly popular game, was software maker Rovio's 52nd attempt. They spent eight years and nearly went bankrupt before finally creating their massive hit.

Pinterest is one of the fastest-growing websites in history, but struggled for a long time. Pinterest's CEO recently said that it had "catastrophically small numbers" in its first year after launch and that if he had listened to popular startup advice he probably would have quit.

James Dyson failed in 5,126 prototypes before perfecting his revolutionary vacuum cleaner. Groupon was put on life support and nearly shut down at one point in its meteoric rise.

When looking at the most successful people and organizations, we often imagine geniuses with a smooth journey straight to the promised land. But when you really examine nearly every success story, they are filled with crushing defeats, near-death experiences, and countless setbacks.

We often celebrate companies and individuals once they've achieved undeniable success, but shun their disruptive thinking before reaching such a pinnacle. Before Oprah was Oprah, before Jobs was Jobs, they were labeled as misguided dreamers rather than future captains of industry.

In your life, you've probably had a setback or two. When you stumble, it's tempting the throw in the towel and accept defeat. There's always an attractive excuse waiting eagerly, hoping you'll take the easy way out. But the most successful people forge ahead. They realize that mistakes are simply data, providing new information to adjust your approach going forward.

The ubiquitous WD-40 lubricant got its name because the first 39 experiments failed. WD-40 literally stands for "Water Displacement--40th Attempt." If they gave up early on like most of us do, we'd sure have a lot more squeaky hinges in the world.

You have a mission to accomplish and an enormous impact to make. You will inevitably endure some "failures" along your journey, but you must realize that persistence and determination have always been primary ingredients in accomplishment.

Don't cave to your mistakes, embrace them. In fact, mistakes are simply to the portals of discovery. There's an old saying that "every bull's-eye is the result of a hundred misses." So the next time you feel the sting of failure, just realize you're likely one shot closer to hitting your target.

And who knows? Maybe after a few dozen failures and months or years of hard work, you might just be that next "overnight" success.

***

MailOnline

The Romans assaulted Scotland with a larger force than they used to hold ALL of England and Wales - but still failed to subdue savage tribesmen

By ROB WAUGH

PUBLISHED: 4 April 2012

The Romans attacked Scotland with a far larger force than previously realised, assaulting the tribes north of Hadrian's Wall with a force bigger than the one used to hold all of England and Wales.

Researchers found 260 Roman military camps in Scotland, the largest number of any country in Europe, and 20 more than the 240 throughout found in England and Wales.

Many have been found recently by archaeological survey flights, looking for distinctive 'marks' in fields from ancient structures buried beneath crops.

Roman soldiers in Britain in Centurion: Aerial surveys have revealed the Roman army assaulted Scotland with a far larger force than previously thought

Dere Street Roman Road near Pennymuir camp in the Scottish borders: Researchers found that the camps in Scotland were bigger than their equivalents down south

Dr Rebecca Jones, an expert on the Roman frontier who researched the camps for a new book,  'Roman Camps in Scotland ', says that the camps, some of the least studied of all Roman monuments, were temporary homes and headquarters for the would-be conquerors' legions and armies.

The 260 camps provided transient, basic accommodation for thousands of soldiers at a time.

They are some of the largest Romans remains to have survived, and the camps discovered in Scotland were significantly larger than those found south of Hadrian's Wall and the Antonine Wall. - - Dr Jones, 42, said:  'For the first time we have a picture of the true extent of the Roman war machine in Scotland. 

'The repeated campaigns to conquer Scotland were bloody, brutal and ultimately unsuccessful for the Roman Empire.

'They had to deal with tribes unwilling to be conquered, and strained resources, as soldiers were always needed to fight wars elsewhere throughout their vast Empire.'

A 16th Century illustration of a pictish warrior: Romans feared the Scottish tribesmen for many reasons - among them their habit of fighting naked

Hadrian's Wall: Despite the huge force in 260 camps of soldiers, the Romans failed to subdue the unruly tribesmen north of the wall

- She added:  'The Roman army in Britain left an archaeological legacy that is the envy of the rest of the Roman world. The forts fortresses and frontier defences are rightly celebrated but less well known are the temporary camps. These were constructed to house the army for short periods of time while on campaigns patrols and manoeuvres

'By mapping and recording the hundreds of army outposts in Scotland, we have provided an important benchmark for further research into the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire. '

Many of the camps have been discovered through archaeological aerial survey flights, particularly during dry summers, where the outlines of ancient structures lying beneath the soil show up as crop marks.

A number of Roman camps - including Pennymuir in the Scottish Borders - have survived despite thousands of years of changes to the landscape and are still remarkably well preserved.

The majority of camps are situated around the Borders and in the south of the country, but a first-century camp in Kintore in Aberdeenshire, the size of over 60 football pitches, has seen the largest excavation in the world of any camp left by the Roman Empire, revealing new information about the day-to-day lives of Roman soldiers while on the march.

Over 180 Roman ovens have been recorded there alongside numerous pits. The debris recovered from these pits - often rubbish thrown away by the soldiers - gives an insight into the life of an army on the move during one of the first Roman campaigns in the north east of Scotland.

***

The Guardian

Tearful Hugo Chavez prays for God to spare him from cancer

'I have more to do for this country,' Venezuelan president pleads at pre-Easter mass after latest round of treatment in Cuba

  Hugo Chavez asks God to 'give me life'<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/06/tearful-hugo-chavez-prays-cancer" target="_blank"> Link to this video </a>

A tearful Hugo Chavez has prayed for God to spare his life as he attended a pre-Easter mass on returning from cancer treatment in Cuba.

The Venezuelan president wept in a televised speech from the Catholic service in his home state of Barinas. His voice broke as he eulogised Jesus, the revolutionary fighter Che Guevara and the South American independence hero Simon Bola­var.

"Give me your crown, Jesus. Give me your cross, your thorns so that I may bleed. But give me life, because I have more to do for this country and these people. Do not take me yet," Chavez said, standing below an image of Jesus with the Crucifix.

Chavez said he had held faith that his cancer would not return after his first two operations last year - which removed a baseball sized tumour from his pelvis - but it did. - - "Today I have more faith than yesterday," he said. "Life has been a hurricane ... but a couple of years ago my life began to become not my own any more. Who said the path of revolution would be easy?"

Very little is known about the 57-year-old president's condition, including even what type of cancer he has. Chavez has undergone three operations in less than a year and received two sessions of radiotherapy.

He has said the latest surgery was successful, that he is recovering well and will be fit to win a new six-year term at an election in October. But big questions remain about his future and on Thursday the strain appeared to show.

"Never forget that we are the children of giants ... I could not avoid some tears," the former soldier said as his parents and other relatives looked on from the church rows.

Chavez soon seemed to recover his composure, joking with his brother Adan in the congregation that few people were watching because it was Easter, when Venezuelans typically hit the beach.

After 13 years of his rule over the continent's biggest oil exporter, Chávez's sickness has thrown its politics into turmoil in the run-up to the election on 7 October.

Flying back and forth to Havana for treatment, Chavez has been forced to run a kind of virtual campaign via Twitter and appearances on state television, while his opposition rival Henrique Capriles tours the country.

He returned to Barinas late on Wednesday from Havana, where he had undergone a second session of radiotherapy. He said it went well and that all the test results had been positive.

But in the absence of detailed information on his condition, Venezuelans have hunted for clues in his appearance each time he is on state TV. One local news website ran a large photo of his heavily perspiring brow after he disembarked from the jet.

One Venezuelan opposition journalist who has broken news on Chavez's condition in the past reported that his medical team continued to disagree among themselves over the best course, and a Brazilian blogger said he might travel there for treatment. - - Capriles has mostly kept quiet about the president's illness, preferring to wish him a speedy recovery so that he can beat him in a fair fight at the polls. - - But the youthful state governor has criticised Chavez for choosing to be treated abroad, saying it sends a bad message to ordinary Venezuelans if he does not trust local doctors. - - Capriles, 39, took issue this week with repeated comments by Chavez and his allies that Jesus must have been a fellow leftist radical. "This theme is an obsession of the eternal candidate," Capriles said on Twitter, referring to Chávez. "This holy week we should remember Christ was neither socialist nor capitalist." - - In the latest opinion poll released last month the president had a solid 13 percentage point lead over Capriles, but many voters remained undecided.

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Until next week...... keep on believing!

Almondtree Productions

“In those days Hezekiah was sick to the death, and prayed unto the LORD: and he spake unto him, and he gave him a sign.”
(2 Chronicles 32:24)