Free Republic

There are more than 700 curious tunnel networks in Bavaria, but their purpose remains a mystery. Were they built as graves for the souls of the dead, as ritual spaces or as hideaways from marauding bandits? Archeologists are now exploring the subterranean vaults to unravel their secrets. Beate Greithanner, a dairy farmer, is barefoot as she walks up the lush meadows of the Doblberg, a mountain in Bavaria set against a backdrop of snow-capped Alpine peaks. She stops and points to a hole in the ground. "This is where the cow was grazing," she says. "Suddenly she fell in, up...

The Wall Street Journal is reporting House Republicans will vote next week to cut $2.4 trillion over the next ten years while increasing the debt ceiling by a $2.4 trillion. House Republicans said Friday that they planned to vote next week on a proposal to raise the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion, with matching cuts and guidelines to control future government spending. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R., Va.) said at a news conference Friday that the House next week would vote on a "cut, cap and balance" approach. The House plans to separately vote on a measure that would...

RUSH: Well, we knew it was gonna get to this point. The Republicans are nervous, some of them are very nervous, and a few of them are outright paranoid. Hi, folks, great to have you back, Rush Limbaugh, already the middle of the week here on the Excellence in Broadcasting Network. Our telephone number is 800-282-2882. You want to send an e-mail, the address, ElRushbo@eibnet.com. About this time yesterday we quoted Senator Mitch McConnell as saying nothing substantive will ever get done in this country until Barack Obama is removed from the Oval Office. As long as Obama's in the...

RUSH: There's a lot of deciphering that has to be done over that meeting yesterday on the debt ceiling. There's some really potentially disastrous things that could happen from this. I haven't been able to confirm 'em, and Boehner's denying it, but there are too many indications coming out that the House Republicans are going to cave on a number of things, such as more defense cuts than even Obama wants. Now, I'm hoping it isn't true, but I'm hearing it from too many different places. So we'll get into that in detail. Now, Boehner, I was heartened by this...

Hebrew University of Jerusalem researchers have conducted an initial survey of what appears to be an important, ancient water source in a cave that was been discovered during excavation work for a new train station being constructed at the entrance to Jerusalem. The work was done by members of the Cave Research Unit of the university, headed by Prof. Amos Frumkin of the Department of Geography. The cave was exposed near the base of a deep service shaft that was dug for the train tunnel leading into the new station, located opposite the main bus station in Jerusalem. The full...

The church was named after Saint Samaan the Tanner whom the Lord used in the miracle of moving the Mokkatam mountain on Nov. 27, 979 A.D from the boundaries of the Elephant Lake (now known as the New Helmeia) to its present location; during the time of the 62nd Patriarch, Bishop Abram Ibn Zaraa the Syrian in the reign of Al Muiz Ledin Illah the Fatimid , the first ruler of the Fatimid dynasty in Egypt. Ministry in this church started by Divine Providence in April 1974 with a small children’s meeting, then a general women and men’s meeting...

In a film that blends paleontological wonders with existential pondering, Cave of Forgotten Dreams asks the question, "What constitutes humanness?" German director Werner Herzog creeps deep into Chauvet Cave in southern France, where researchers say they have found the earliest known cave paintings. The charcoal paintings etched on the curved walls of the cave—some say from 32,000 B.C., others say 10,000 B.C.—look as though someone scratched them there last week. A landslide sealed the cave thousands of years ago, creating a perfectly preserved time capsule until explorers discovered it in 1994. Only a few scientists are allowed inside, and Herzog...

Exploring a gorge in south-east France in 1994 for prehistoric artefacts, Jean-Marie Chauvet hit the jackpot. After squeezing through a narrow passage, he found himself in a hidden cavern, the walls of which were covered with paintings of animals. But dating the beautiful images - which featured in Werner Herzog's recent documentary film Cave of Forgotten Dreams - has led to an ugly spat between archaeologists. Could the bones of cave bears settle the debate? Within a year of Chauvet's discovery, radiocarbon dating suggested the images were between 30,000 and 32,000 years old, making them almost twice the age of...

Journalist Simcha Jacobovici believes that the nails discovered in a Jerusalem cave are revolutionary in their implications regarding the birth of Christianity. The Peace Forest is a small grove of pines sandwiched between the Abu Tor neighborhood and main promenade in Jerusalem. Anyone walking along the road that snakes through the grove can see a green pipe rising from the ground and reaching a height of several meters. This pipe, if journalist Simcha Jacobovici is to be believed, this is the physical tip of an archaeological detective story in the style of the Da Vinci Code. And this pipe is...

Socrates: We are gathered here today at my Symposium to discuss part of a major work by my student, Plato, namely his venerated parable, the Allegory of Plato's Cave, which appears in Book 7 of his "Republic." This opus examines the form and essence of the ideal state and its ideal ruler – the philosopher king. Plato's justification for placing the controls of government in philosophers is based on his comprehensive study of truth and knowledge, and it is in this background that the Allegory of the Cave is created.

Limbaugh says GOP caved on budget deal By Daniel Strauss - 04/11/11 01:05 PM ET Rush Limbaugh said Monday that Republican leaders "caved" on the budget deal they struck with the White House on Friday night. On his radio show, the conservative firebrand said he was less than enthusiastic about the $38.5 billion federal spending compromise. Limbaugh said he wished the spending cuts had been larger. "We've shown that we'll cave. We have demonstrated that we will cave if they threaten something like government shutdown," Limbaugh said. He added that a handful of Tea Party Republican freshmen in the House...

This is the email I am attempting to send to Boehner's email: I am stunned that you caved into the radical leftists that have hijacked our republic, especially after the 2010 election results. The Tea Party principles are the majority view of the working slaves that fund your excesses. You are now part of the problem. An income tax is immoral. A tax on spending, called the Fair Tax, which actually taxes wealth, the underground economy and criminals is the moral way to fund the federal government. Repeal the 16th amendment, dismantle the Department of Education, Energy, Fannie and Freddie...

ources tell me that budget negotiators on Capitol Hill have tentatively agreed on a deal that would involve at least $33 billion in spending cuts from this year’s budget. That’s $23 billion dollars more than Democrats have previously agreed to in short-term continuingresolutions, and $28 billion less than Republicans previously passed in the House. Members of the House Appropriations Committee will begin discussing how to hit that number with their Senate counterparts as soon as tonight, and Vice President Biden is heading to Capitol Hill for a 6pm meeting with the Senate Democratic leadership.

he occupation of the Wisconsin Capitol by protesters fighting efforts to strip public workers of union bargaining rights carried on Sunday after police decided not to forcibly remove demonstrators and end a nearly two-week-long sit-in.

Something strange happened today. Something, in fact, I never thought was possible. I not only gained some respect for a cable news network not named FOX, but I have, of all organizations, the George Soros-funded, 501(c)(3) Media Matters to thank for it. In Media Matters never-ending crusade to purify the news into their unholy Leftist vision, we here at the Bigs all knew that once our very own Dana Loesch was hired by CNN as a political contributor, that Soros’ minions would then set out to do what they always do, and that’s find a way to convince CNN to...

For decades, geologists have known that Vietnam is home to some of the world's most spectacular caves, many of them largely unexplored. Now husband-and-wife cavers have documented perhaps the world's largest: Hang Son Doong, big enough in places to accommodate a New York City block of skyscrapers. The cave in the Annamite Mountains contains a river and jungle (its name translates to "mountain river cave") and even its own thin clouds, and its end remains out of sight. It's part of a network of about 150 caves in central Vietnam near the Laotian border.

Since I have not managed to post every single week this week, I'm trying to finish the year strong. Hope you agree. Click for full size. Cave of Crystals Arizona Butte "Library of Ages" (Montana de Oro State Park, California)

Scientists say an Aboriginal rock art depiction of an extinct giant bird could be Australia's oldest painting. The red ochre painting, which depicts two emu-like birds with their necks outstretched, could date back to the earliest days of settlement on the continent. It was rediscovered at the centre of the Arnhem Land plateau about two years ago, but archaeologists first visited the site a fortnight ago. A palaeontologist has confirmed the animals depicted are the megafauna species Genyornis. Archaeologist Ben Gunn said the giant birds became extinct more than 40,000 years ago. "The details on this painting indicate that it...

AQUILLA, Ohio - It's quite the man cave. Jimmy Grey says he's been out of work for almost a year and needed a project to stay busy. So with the heavy snowfall this winter, the 25-year-old labourer got to work on an extreme igloo in his family's yard in Aquilla, about 30 miles (50 kilometres) east of Cleveland. His four-room creation has 6-foot (nearly 2-meter) ceilings and an entertainment room. He powers the TV with an extension cord plugged into an outlet in the garage. He also ran wires for cable television with surround-sound stereo. Grey told The Plain Dealer...

Inanke's prehistoric paintings are a celebration of life The trail to the great cave of Inanke in southern Zimbabwe begins confidently with arrows painted on bare patches of granite and soon vanishes into four miles of often pathless wandering through fields of shoulder-high grass, dense scrub forests and formidable thorn bushes. Without the direction of our guide, the archaeologist Paul Hubbard, our group would never have found this cave containing some of the most magnificent prehistoric paintings in the world. But reach the approximately 30-foot-long frieze of intricately varied paintings and you will find it free of the man-made barriers,...

Thirteen stones sit hidden in the dense jungles of the range of mountains that make up Nakauvadra in Ra. Caves with drawings sit below them. They remain a mystery for the people of Narara Village. Deep in the jungles above the village of Narara in Ra stand 12 stones of similar size and shape. The thirteenth is a little longer then the rest. They stand as monolithic reminders of an era the people of Narara are struggling to understand. It takes about six hours on foot to get to these ancient monuments at the top of the range of mountains...

Cairo, December 2nd, 2009 – Egypt’s leading Egyptologist, Dr Zahi Hawass, has revealed that an excavation team under his charge are investigating an ancient tomb at the centre of claims regarding the alleged discovery of a cave underworld beneath the Pyramids of Giza. In August British writer and explorer Andrew Collins announced that he had rediscovered the entrance to a previously unexplored cave system, entered via a mysterious tomb several hundred meters west of the Great Pyramid. The cave entrance was found following clues left in the 200-year-old memoirs of British diplomat and explorer Henry Salt, who recorded how in...

MUMBAI: A group of naturalists from Amravati districts has discovered a set of 17 unique cave paintings in the nature-rich Satpura range of Madhya Pradesh – which opens up new avenues of research as this art form are believed to be of Paleolithic period. The group call themselves, ‘Hope’, and has been working since the last six years on this project. The group include scientist Dr V T Ingole, wildlife writer PS Hirurkar, Padmakar Lad, Shirishkumar Patil, Dnyaneswar Damahe and Manohar Khode. They are a group of nature and bird lovers, and luckily chanced upon these unique paintings. Ingole said...

MOAB, Utah, A 48-year-old man who has not used money in nine years and resides in a desert cave in Moab, Utah, said he loves his simple existence. Daniel Suelo said while he shops for clothes by going through garbage, he is content with living an existence where he does not have to worry about a job, mortgage or other concerns that plague most U.S. residents, The Denver Post reported Sunday. "The understanding that, really, we all possess nothing is the cornerstone of all spiritual endeavors and religions," Suelo said. A former Peace Corps volunteer, Suelo said he also will...

Sept. 28, 2009 -- A number of ancient Roman statues might lie beneath the turquoise waters of the Blue Grotto on the island of Capri in southern Italy, according to an underwater survey of the sea cave. Dating to the 1st century A.D., the cave was used as a swimming pool by the Emperor Tiberius (42 B.C. - 37 A.D.), and the statues are probably depictions of sea gods. "A preliminary underwater investigation has revealed several statue bases which might possibly hint to sculptures lying nearby," Rosalba Giugni, president of the environmentalist association, Marevivo, told Discovery News. Carried out in...

I found out about this place because of a news item about the "New 7 Wonders" of the world. It's a nominee. Now, I don't expect that I'll have any travel plans that take me to Beirut, but if for some strange reason I ended up there, I would have to see this place. I think one of the amazing things about the Internet is that it allows us to see places that we'll probably never have a chance to visit. I've posted a lot of those as these Geology Pictures of the Week. I hope I'll get to see...

A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows. At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo. Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it's only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long. By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters—and they think that the passage is even...

An artificial underground cave, the largest of its kind in Israel, was discovered in the Jordan Valley during excavations by the Haifa University's Department of Archaeology.

An eco-warrior has been evicted from the cave he lives in on his allotment patch in Brighton, East Sussex, because it doesn't have a fire exit. Hilaire Purbrick, 45, has inhabited the seven-foot cave he dug on his plot and dined off the land for the past 16 years. But after having the dwelling checked by the fire brigade, Brighton and Hove City Council decided it did not have enough exits and sought an injunction banning him from entering it. Mr Purbrick ignored the order and continued to live in the cave, but was pulled back into court on Tuesday...

Members of a British expedition believe they have discovered the world's largest cave passage in the heart of the Vietnamese jungle. Measuring more than 650 ft high and almost 500 ft wide, Hang Son Doong (Mountain River Cave) is believed to be almost twice the size of the current record holder. The British team, which was assisted by representatives of the Hanoi University of Science, said that it believes that Hang Son Doong is larger than the Deer Cave in Sarawak, Malaysia, which at more than 100 yards high and 90 yards wide is currently recognised as the world's largest...

You've heard plenty of stories about foreclosures, but the latest victims of this brutal recession are about to lose their cave. That's right. For nearly five years, Curt Sleeper and his family have lived in a cave. His mortgage is about to come due and, like millions of other Americans, he can't refinance. So now, the 17,000-square-foot, subterranean home is being auctioned off on eBay. Sleeper and his wife Deborah bought the cave outside St. Louis in May 2004 for $160,000. To pay for it, they sold their old home, TV and even the DVD collection. They made a 50...

WASHINGTON – It looks like Roland Burris will take President-elect Barack Obama's Senate seat later this week. Senate Democratic leaders said they expect to swear in the former Illinois attorney general in the coming days, barring objections from Republicans. Senators Harry Reid and Dick Durbin made that statement after Burris' lawyer met with Senate officials, who said his formal paperwork was in order.

The demise of some of China's ruling dynasties may have been linked to changes in the strength of monsoon rains, a new study suggests. The findings come from 1,800-year record of the Asian monsoon preserved in a stalagmite from a Chinese cave. Weak - and therefore dry - monsoon periods coincided with the demise of the Tang, Yuan and Ming imperial dynasties, the scientists said. A US-Chinese team report their work in the journal Science. Stalagmites are largely made up of calcium carbonate, which precipitates from groundwater dripping from the ceiling of a cave. Chemical analysis of a 118mm-long stalagmite...

It may have taken Michelangelo four long years to paint his fresco on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,but his earliest predecessors spent considerably longer perfecting their own masterpieces. Scientists have discovered that prehistoric cave paintings took up to 20,000 years to complete. Rather than being created in one session, as archaeologists previously thought, many of the works discovered across Europe were produced over hundreds of generations who added to, refreshed and painted over the original pieces of art. Until now it has been extremely difficult to pinpoint when prehistoric cave paintings and carvings were created, but a pioneering technique...

Cave Men Loved to Sing Heather Whipps Special to LiveScience LiveScience.com Thu Jul 3, 1:01 AM ET Ancient hunters painted the sections of their cave dwellings where singing, humming and music sounded best, a new study suggests. Analyzing the famous, ochre-splashed cave walls of France, the most densely painted areas were also those with the best acoustics, the scientists found. Humming into some bends in the wall even produced sounds mimicking the animals painted there. The Upper Paleolithic people responsible for the paintings had likely fine-tuned their hearing to recognize the sound qualities in certain parts of the cave and...

Coils of Ancient Egyptian Rope Found in Cave Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News June 20, 2008 -- The ancient Egyptian's secret to making the strongest of all rigging ropes lies in a tangle of cord coils in a cave at the Red Sea coast, according to preliminary study results presented at the recent congress of Egyptologists in Rhodes. Discovered three years ago by archaeologists Rodolfo Fattovich of the Oriental Studies University of Naples and Kathryn Bard of Boston University, the ropes offer an unprecedented look at seafaring activities in ancient Egypt. "No ropes on this scale and this old have been...

Prehistoric cave uncovered in Western Galilee 22 May 2008 A stalactite cave containing prehistoric remains was exposed in the Western Galilee. Among the artifacts found are flint implements and the bones of animals that have long since become extinct from ‎the country’s landscape The stalactite cave uncovered in Western Galilee (Photo: Israel Antiquities Authority) (Communicated by the Israel Antiquities Authority Spokesman) While carrying out development work connected with the construction of a sewage line in a forest of the Jewish National Fund, a large stalactite cave was accidentally breached inside of which an abundance of prehistoric artifacts were discovered. Immediately...

Cave woman is laid to rest after 1,900 years 29 April 2008 By Rob Preece THE remains of a woman have been laid to rest in a hidden location in the Yorkshire Dales – about 1,900 years after she died. She was returned in a special ceremony to the mysterious limestone cave where she was discovered by two Yorkshire divers more than a decade ago. Phillip Murphy, an academic at Leeds University, and his friend Andrew Goddard found the woman's skullADVERTISEMENTby chance during a diving mission at the cave, dubbed the Wolf Den, in 1997. Carbon dating tests confirmed that...

An ancient burial cave was discovered in the Philippine island of Mindanao, south of Manila, and officials have sealed the site to prevent looting of artifacts, many of them jars made from clay. It was not immediately known whether there are other treasures in the cave which was accidentally discovered by quarry diggers yesterday in Maitum town in Sarangani province. The latest discovery in the village of Pinol was near another ancient burial site discovered in 1991 where burial jars, shaped in different human forms, had been recovered inside Ayub cave. Lingling Jabel, owner of the quarry site, informed local...

Skull returns to final rest place The skull is believed to be that of a woman in her 50s A rare 2,000-year-old Roman skull has been returned to the cave beneath the Yorkshire Dales where it was discovered by divers in 1996. Archaeologists were called in after cave divers unearthed human bones in what is believed to be one of the most important cave discoveries ever made. The skull dates to the 2nd Century and is that of a local woman in her 50s. It was stored at Sheffield University for carbon-dating and recently returned to the cave, which has...

Rare cave inscriptions By Gamini Mahadura A cave with rare ancient inscriptions dating back to more than 10000 years has reportedly been discovered at Badungala in the PS division of Yakkalamulla in Galle. Archaeology officials say that the inscriptions date back to the Endera yugaya or the era when animals were domesticated. They say similar cave inscriptions had been so far discovered in Alauwa, Ambilikanda and Mawanella. This is the first time that such a find has been reported from the South.

YOU MAY BE A TALIBAN IF.......... 1. You refine heroin for a living, but you have a moral objection to beer. 2. You own a $3,000 machine gun and $5,000 rocket launcher, but you can't afford shoes. 3. You have more wives than teeth. 4. You wipe your butt with your bare left hand, but consider bacon "unclean." 5. You think vests come in two styles: bullet-proof and suicide. 6. You can't think of anyone you HAVEN'T declared Jihad against. 7. You consider television dangerous, but routinely carry explosives in your clothing. 8. You were amazed to discover that cell...

Probes revealed a ceiling with a white eagle at the centre Enlarge Image Italian archaeologists say they have found the long-lost underground grotto where ancient Romans believed a female wolf suckled the city's twin founders.The cave believed to be the Lupercal was found near the ruins of Emperor Augustus' palace on the Palatine hill. The 8m (26ft) high cave decorated with shells, mosaics and marble was found during restoration work on the palace. According to mythology Romulus and Remus were nursed by a she-wolf after being left on the River Tiber's banks. The twin sons of the god Mars...

FNC Under Wolf Blitzer's gentle questioning, Hillary was able to avert another debate meltdown in the Nevada Democratic debate held last night, November 15. Asked about driver's licenses for illegal immigrants, a compliant, even subservient, Blitzer accepted Hillary's one word answer, “No,” with no follow up. Had a better journalist been asking the questions — like Tim Russert — he would have followed up the bland negation with probing questions about why she is yet again flip flopping on the issue

Ice Age cave art site preserved The art was probably made by Ice Age hunter-gatherers Work to protect and preserve an Ice Age site in Derbyshire has been completed. The project at the Ice Age cave art centre at Creswell Crags was funded by the East Midlands Development Agency and the county council. It included building new scree banks to show how the gorge would have looked about 10 to 50,000 years ago. A county council spokesperson said archaeologists were consulted during the preservation project to ensure the site's natural beauty was not spoiled. 'Unique site' A £200,000 bridleway, which...

North America's oldest conifer tree and some ancient scorpion parts are among the fossil treasures found in a newly discovered cave in Illinois. The new discovery also unearthed fossils of plants that may be new to science and revealed evidence of prehistoric forest fires. Scientists date the specimens to nearly 315 million years ago, according to initial findings presented last month at the regional meeting of the Geological Society of America in Lawrence, Kan. "I've never seen anything like this before," said Roy Plotnick, a paleontologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago who discovered the cave with students on...

• Cave off limits to public as research continues • ‘It will add to our knowledge’What’s described as “a significant new cave” has been discovered within Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks in the Central Valley. The discovery was made in August 2006 by four researchers affiliated with the Cave Research Foundation but made public only this week by the National Park Service. The cave has been named Ursa Minor for the Little Dipper constellation. The cave features large passages and rooms – many of which are more than 50 feet wide – and beautiful cave formations, the NPS says....

Congressional Democratic leaders are moving to make their proposed timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq "advisory" as they seek to reconcile two versions of war spending legislation into a single bill that they plan to pass next week, according to several House members.

Law enforcement officers in Tennessee make the greatest underground discovery since Tutankhamen’s tomb was unearthed in the Valley of the Kings.

Scientists studying pictures from Nasa's Odyssey spacecraft have spotted what they think may be seven caves on the surface of Mars. The candidate caves are on the flanks of the Arsia Mons volcano and are of sufficient depth their floors mostly cannot be seen through the opening. Details were presented here at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Houston, Texas. Temperature data from Mars Odyssey's Themis instrument support the idea. The authors say that the possible discovery of caves on the Red Planet is significant. The caves may be the only natural structures capable of protecting primitive life forms...