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How the U.S. can avoid its own version of the fall of the Roman empire That is, are we Americans, citizens of the mightiest empire the world has known since the days of the Caesars, living in the last days of our civilization? Is the United States, like the Western Roman Empire in the fifth century, doomed to collapse from its own decadence? Or can we avoid Rome's fate?

By Trevor Timpson BBC News The Last Roman's grave (ringed) was found close to the Square. Two very different finds, dug up close to each other by Trafalgar Square, shine new light on the greatest puzzle of London archaeology - the "silent" centuries after Roman rule.That the skeleton of "London's Last Roman" - or anything ancient and unknown - can be discovered in 2006 in Trafalgar Square is remarkable. But when it comes to yielding secrets, the square's church, St Martin-in-the-Fields, has a long record. When the present church was being built in the 18th Century a body was...

WASHINGTON — Congress may be divided on whether to keep U.S. troops in Iraq, but there is one area where lawmakers are finding common ground: They are furious that Iraqi politicians are considering a lengthy break this summer. "If they go off on vacation for two months while our troops fight — that would be the outrage of outrages," said Rep. Chris Shays, a Republican. The Iraq parliament's recess, starting this July, would likely come without Baghdad politicians reaching agreements considered key to easing sectarian tensions. Examples include regulating distribution of the country's oil wealth and reversing measures that have...

More high schoolers in state opt out of lists By Maria Sacchetti and Jenna Russell, Globe Staff | November 13, 2005 More than 5,000 high school students in five of the state's largest school districts have removed their names from military recruitment lists, a trend driven by continuing casualties in Iraq and a well-organized peace movement that has urged students to avoid contact with recruiters. The number of students removing their names has jumped significantly over the past year, especially in school systems with many low-income and minority students, where parents and activists are growing increasingly assertive in challenging military...

In 1984 a German scholar worked out that 210 reasons had been advocated for the fall of the Roman empire. Peter Jones enjoys a "fine narrative history" that concentrates on just one.Peter Jones reviews and The Fall of the Roman Empire by Peter Heather and The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization by Bryan Ward-PerkinsIn 1984 a German scholar worked out that 210 reasons had been advocated for the fall of the Roman empire in the West in the fifth century AD - from bureaucracy to deforestation, from moral decline to over-hot public baths, from female emancipation to...

I know we like to post news stories on this board and go OMG OMG OMG teh udder side teh suXorZ!!11! It's rare that anyone really writes anything somewhat original so, here, I'll do something like that. I'm amazed at some of the twists that are going on in political and legal life right now. So much so that I really think it's worth commenting on. In some ways, we're going in the absolute wrong direction. Now before you get a knee jerk reaction and say i'm a "traitor" or some DUmmie here to quiety say "It's because of Bu$hco...

There's an old story worth retelling about a band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a secluded area of Georgia. These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, independent bunch. They had survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs, and everything else. No one thought they could ever be captured. One day a stranger came into town not far from where the hogs lived and went into the general store. He asked the storekeeper, "Where can I find the hogs? I want to capture them." The storekeeper laughed at such a claim but pointed in the general direction. The...

SAN FRANCISCO, June 25 — Cellphones are chock-full of features like built-in cameras, personalized ring tones and text messaging. They also gave a real boost to Kenny Hall's effort to cheat on his girlfriend. Mr. Hall, a 20-year-old college student in Denver, decided in March to spend a weekend in nearby Boulder with another woman. He turned to his cellphone for help, sending out a text message to hundreds of other cellphone users in an "alibi and excuse club," a network of 3,400 strangers who help each other skip work, get out of dates or give a loved one the...

Are We Going the Way of Rome? Download PDF There's an old story worth retelling about a band of wild hogs which lived along a river in a secluded area of Georgia. These hogs were a stubborn, ornery, independent bunch. They had survived floods, fires, freezes, droughts, hunters, dogs, and everything else. No one thought they could ever be captured. One day a stranger came into town not far from where the hogs lived and went into the general store. He asked the storekeeper, "Where can I find the hogs? I want to capture them." The storekeeper laughed at such...

The Roman Empire is luxurious but it is filled with misery. It is dying but it laughs – moritur et ridet.                               --- Salvian But Salvian, we learned with a deflecting smile, was an extremist, though, in the hindsight of disaster, his foresight would scarcely seem overstated. What interested me was that men had smiled complacently at Salvian’s words when he spoke them, and men still smiled at them complacently a thousand years later – the same kind of men, I was beginning to suspect,...