Podcasts about Sumerian

Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 4 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 5 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #17 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 4 Book: 5 Volume: 5 Part: 4 of 4 Episodes Part: 6 Length Part: 52:59 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:58:41 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:58:41 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 3 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 5 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #16 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 3 Book: 5 Volume: 5 Part: 3 of 4 Episodes Part: 7 Length Part: 3:38:15 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:58:41 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:58:41 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 2 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 5 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #15 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 2 Book: 5 Volume: 5 Part: 2 of 4 Episodes Part: 7 Length Part: 3:37:59 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:58:41 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:58:41 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Hello Friends,Happy April 1st! Here we are, its Aries Season, it's Spring, Mercury and Venus have both been retrograde for a while now (which can give a certain feeling of friction or underworld journey to our days), there is much happening in our geo-political world that I (we) wish wasn't happening. And still the magnolias are blooming, the songbirds are back, tulips are pushing through the mulch in our front yard, the sun is rising earlier and setting later.Aries season reminds us that our life force is resilient, there is a certain courage within the bud that allows it to open. There is a certain courage within each of us to continue to live our lives, to walk this path of awakening, to let ourselves be opened by the world—even when things feel fragile or scary or uncertain. In this spirit I would like to share this koan from the Hidden Lamp Collection called Ryonen Scars Her Face.As a young woman, Ryonen Genso was an attendant to the empress, and was known for her beauty and intelligence. When the empress died, she felt the impermanence of life, and she decided to become a nun. Ryonen traveled to the city of Edo in search of a Zen teacher.The first teacher refused her because of her beauty. Then she asked Master Hakuo Dotai, who also refused her. He could see her sincere intention, but he too said that her womanly appearance would cause problems for the monks in his monastery.Afterward, she saw some women pressing fabric, and she took up a hot iron and held it against her face, scarring herself. Then she wrote this poem on the back of a small mirror:To serve my Empress I burned incense to perfume my exquisite clothes.Now as a homeless mendicant I burn my face to enter a Zen temple.The four seasons flow naturally like this,Who is this now in the midst of these changes?She returned to Hakuo and gave him the poem. Hakuo immediately accepted her as a disciple. She became abbess of his temple when he died, and later founded her own temple. Before her death she wrote the following poem:This is the sixty-sixth autumn I have seen.The moon still lights my face.Don't ask me about the meaning of Zen teachings—Just listen to what the pines and cedars say on a windless night.This koan is about a lot of things, which is one of the beautiful things about koans. They often meet us in the stuff of our lives. They give us a nod, or a wink, or reach up and hold our hand and say me too. I see you.In this story we can find themes of courage, vow, determination, sacrifice, injustice, impermanence and a deep reflection on what is truly reliable. And still, in this koan with so many words, much still isn't said—or can't be said.Just listen to what the pines and cedars say on a windless nightAs I reflect on Ryonen with that hot iron in hand, I know that she probably wasn't thinking too much about what she was about to do and the impact that might have on her life into the future. She picked up the iron and touched it to her face. Done.There are times in our spiritual lives or simply on this path of life, where we take that brave next step willing to face whatever consequences come from such action. This is very Aries. Just Do. Act first, think later.Can you relate?In my own life, I can feel Ryonen's iron in my choice to become a monastic. At the time I was thinking about my finances or professional development, I wasn't thinking about what futures I might be giving up—I just had this vow in my heart and ordination felt like the only way I could live that vow. And, I felt willing to face whatever consequences came from orienting my life in this way.Some steps on the spiritual path have this bold, no turning back feel.A single act marks a transformation.For Ryonen, it marked an orientation, a vow, a direction. The inner process of transformation usually doesn't happen in one single gesture.Much of our letting go on the spiritual path happens gradually or even invisibly. Many times it is a series of small commitments. We give over a night every week to practicing in sangha. Or we rearrange our morning or evening routine to accommodate our meditation practice. Or we start using our vacation time for retreats. Or we find ourselves changing certain behaviors. Perhaps we stop using substances or clean-up toxic relational patterns. Perhaps we start investigating the nature of judgment or learn to accompany the feelings of boredom. Maybe we start to courageously feel our feelings or speak our needs in our relationships.It's like walking through fog, Suzuki Roshi says, after sometime we realize we are completely saturated. Transformed through our persistence, awakened through the simple, yet courageous act of continuing.The spiritual path can also bring us into relationship with the dark night. Times when the habitual ways that we have found pleasure and joy in the past no longer hit the spot. Times when we are called deeper into ourselves to discover a satisfaction that is not dependent on other people or things. I mentioned that Venus is currently retrograde. Venus retrogrades last about 40 days and 40 nights and can have a really similar feeling as the dark night of the soul. Or even lent in the Christian tradition. A time of discovering a even deeper and more enduring love.During this Venus retrograde, I have been studying the myth of Inanna. Inanna is the Sumerian goddess of love, beauty, harmony and relationship similar to the Roman goddess Venus. In one of Inanna's myths that astrologers relate to the Venus retrograde cycle, Inanna receives a call from the underworld.Now Inanna's sister Ereshkigal is the goddess of the underworld. So Inanna hears the call, and chooses to respond, chooses to meet her sister in the underworld. This is something we do in our own lives. At times there is a call, maybe from within from Psyche or from Spirit asking us to move towards a particular part of the path, to open or include more of who we are, to truly love ourselves. It could also be a call to action in the socio-political realm or in our relationship. In whatever shape it takes something compels us to move towards something unknown, something we othered or disowned or simply ignored.How do you heed this call?Inanna being a goddess and queen, gets all suited up in her royal and protective attire and sets off for the underworld. When she gets to the gate, the gatekeeper informs her that she is going to have to pass through the seven gates of the underworld. At each gate she must remove another layer of her protective and royal attire. By the time she reaches the underworld, her final destination, she is naked and unadorned.This is another shape that sacrifice takes on the spiritual path, through progressive surrender. We shed or see through the protective beliefs and adorning thoughts that have kept us separate or on the surface of things.In its heart, the myth of Inanna is a story of wholeness, the two sisters come to see that they are each other. Inanna's descent is actually an opening to inclusivity. True love and beauty include all facets and shapes of this one life.The descent is never easy, coming to wholeness or spiritual awakening involve periods of sacrifice, or darkness. These times help us discover our deeper resources, hidden or forgotten sources of support and a faith that isn't dependent on an object.As Ryonen says before her death:This is the sixty-sixth autumn I have seen.The moon still lights my face.Don't ask me about the meaning of Zen teachings—Just listen to what the pines and cedars say on a windless night.…For a more in-depth contemplation of this koan and the myth of Inanna listen to the audio.I'm Amy Kisei. I am a Zen Buddhist Teacher, Spiritual Counselor, budding Astrologer and Artist. I offer 1:1 Spiritual Counseling sessions using IFS and somatic mindfulness. I also offer astrology readings. Check out my website to learn more. I currently live in Columbus, OH and am a supporting teacher for the Mud Lotus Sangha.Below you can find a list of weekly and monthly online and in-person practice opportunities.Weekly Online Meditation EventMonday Night Dharma — 6P PT / 9P ET Join weekly for drop-in meditation and dharma talk. We are currently exploring Zen and Dreams.Feel free to join anytime. Event lasts about 1.5 hours. ZOOM LINKMonthly Online Practice EventSky+Rose: An emergent online community braiding spirit and soul, first Sundays (back in May)10:30A - 12:30P PT / 1:30P - 3:30P ETnext Meeting Sunday May 4thEmail me: amy.kisei@gmail.com to RSVPZen Practice opportunities through ZCOLight of the Ancestors Sesshin—May 12 - 18, in-person at Great Vow Zen Monastery16 Bodhisattva Precepts Class—May 4 - June 8, online class series exploring the ethical teachings of Zen BuddhismIn-Person in Columbus, Ohio through Mud Lotus SanghaInterdependence Sesshin: A Five Day Residential Retreat Wednesday July 2 - Sunday July 6 in Montrose, WV at Saranam Retreat Center (Mud Lotus is hosting its first Sesshin!)Weekly Meditations on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit amykisei.substack.com/subscribe

Relax with a gentle retelling of the Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest stories ever told. Follow the mighty king of Uruk on a journey of friendship, loss, and the search for meaning. Including the stories of Enkidu, Cedar Forest, Humbada, Ishtar, Bull of Heaven, eternal life, Utnapishtim etc. Let this ancient Sumerian tale of courage and reflection guide you into a deep and peaceful sleep. 

Could the Anunnaki be responsible for shaping human civilization? Some researchers believe they played a role in our evolution, possibly even creating humanity through genetic manipulation. We examine ancient texts, Sumerian tablets, and alternative history theories.

Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 1 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 5 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #14 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 5, Part 1 Book: 5 Volume: 5 Part: 1 of 4 Episodes Part: 7 Length Part: 1:49:31 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:58:41 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:58:41 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

The first Ishara open  House Challenge .Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.Odd Happenings{8:58 am, Wednesday, Sept. 3rd ~ 5 Days to go; the Final Salvo ~ at this time}I had deposited my Mother in the place I felt was safest for her   with OT (Oyuun T m rbaatar) at the Kazakhstan's UN mission. Her being my family was what mattered to them most. I picked her up on my way to work, which made my entrance into the lobby all that much more cataclysmic.I was traveling light with only Wiesława Živa providing me with security. Chaz, Pamela and Juanita were catching up with their sleep, with a promise of taking me out for a late lunch. That was really them telling me to not leave JIKIT until they came for me around 2:00 pm.So anyway, me, Mom and Wiesława walked into the ground floor of the Mil Ma Towers to find eleven people waiting on us. We were in downtown Manhattan in a part of town the NYPD paid particular attention to. What could go wrong, right? Two of the people were Amazons from Havenstone. With them were two fine young men from the US 'don't make me kill you' Department. By this time in my life I was sure they had one   which no one talked about.Five of my expectant visitors were of the same mold as those who protected Hana for me. Not the Ghost Tigers   that would have put me at ease. Sure, they were a gang of assassin and in this circumstance; I would have preferred them. As it was, ten sets of highly-trained Illuminati operative eyes kept me, my party and the four guardians of JIKIT in their overlapping fields of vision.The last two, were doing an impromptu family reunion. They were Aunts 'X' and 'Y', and neither of them smelled like fish, or crab."Aunt Deidre," I tossed out there. "What brings you here today?"It looked like clobbering time! No. Wait. Neither Mom, nor my aunts, were saying anything and they were normally so verbose."Sibeal.""Imogen.""Sibeal, you are looking surprisingly well for a dead woman," the other one said."Deidre, you are looking surprisingly alive for someone who deserves to be dead," Mom bantered back."How long have you known about this?" Imogen's eyes flickered my way."Not long, a while, more than a day, ah, take your pick," I mumbled. I decided to turn that frown aka 'my gut wrenching terror that my Mother was about to die' upside down aka ramped up my sexy, 'glad to see you in a totally incestuous way'."So, what brings you here today and why aren't you waiting upstairs with the rest of my band of cutthroats, malcontents and ne'er do-wells? Oh, and I'm happy to see both of you." Karma was about to bitch-slap the shit out of me and it was so well deserved."I'm pregnant," Imogen studied my reaction. Yeah, I had banged her after Deidre, but before Baibre because I am a fucking reprehensible human being and sometimes, I feel I am utterly irredeemable."Great news," I exhaled. I so wanted to ask 'so, who is the father?' except that was too cruel, even for an O'Shea.No one stopped me from stepping up and hugging her. Everyone in the lobby had heard her loud and clear. Anyone who knew me, or even about me, knew she wasn't passing on the information because Imogen liked sharing good news. I kept my hands on her hips while I leaned my torso back until we could make eye contact."Does Granddad know?" It occurred to me in that second that Pamela was going to kick herself for missing this and the opportunity to kick me as well."I told him over the phone. His reaction was neutral," she responded."Whoa, girl? Boy? How are you doing? When are we going to sit down and figure out a name? Is there anything I can do for you?""Come home with me," she suggested."No," Mom snapped. "Next time he steps into your custody, we all know you won't let him get away." She meant the plane trip to Ireland."No, Mom," I countered. "I'm a grown man now and I make my own decisions. That being said   no, I'm not going home with you.""Not only am I still in love with the concept of my personal freedom, I have important work to do. People are counting on me.""We are counting on you too," Deidre stated. "In fact, that is the other reason we came here. We need you.""Why do I feel that has to do with something besides sex?""Can we talk to you in private?" Imogen requested. There were a thousand and one reasons to say 'no'. Things like 'common sense', bad behavior   they had murdered my homicidal uncle   and the fact they were as morally twisted as their creator. Oh   and they were hot and I hadn't been laid in forever."Sure. Let's go upstairs. You can have your people sweep the room to ensure our privacy then the four of us can sit down and have a family chat," I offered."We don't want her in the room," Deidre indicated Mom."We are a package deal," I denied her. "Like her, or not, she is as much family to me as you both are."They consented far too fast. Either I was falling into their masterful trap, or something horrible had happened. Neither options was palatable to me. The bodyguards departed, Wiesława last of all."What's gone wrong?" Mom preempted me. Her sisters glared."Father's body is not his own," Imogen told us. I was trying to figure out the relevance of that when Mom gasped."Oh fuck," she said in a small voice. "No serum?" Oh yeah, the refinement of those addictive pheromones Grandpa Cáel had gifted me with. Whatever flesh-form he currently inhabited wasn't one containing his genetic make-up meaning,"Oh shit," I mumbled. "What can I do?""Yes," Deidre replied to Mom."Let them die," Mom insisted (to me). Less I forget, she was raised by Grandpa Cáel too. Her being a loving mother to me didn't translate over to her being a humanitarian of any kind."The Hell you say," I jumped up and stared down at Mom. "You hate them. I don't. Letting them die makes me worse than him." Grandpa."So you will help us?" Deidre moved to the edge of her seat."Okay. This is the point where I threaten you into making some concessions, we argue then you eventually cave in because no matter how terrible your futures look, you aren't willing to give up on living. None of that is going to happen. What do you need from me?""Come back with us to Ireland so we can finish our experiments," Imogen joined me in standing. Unwilling to give her sister any physical advantage, Mom stood as well."No. That isn't even a believable lie," I scolded her. "You don't need to blackmail me into helping you. I'll do it gladly. That doesn't mean I'll let you trick me into doing something stupid. I do 'stupid' all the time. I'm accustomed to it and I know it when its ugly head rises up before me. Try again.""We could pick a neutral location," Deidre suggested."How about Havenstone?" They didn't look like that plan was even worthy of their consideration. "Imogen, inside you is growing a possible heir to House Ishara. An attack on you would be an attack on Ishara. Barring you betraying the Amazons, you would be perfectly safe.""Wonderful," Mom's sarcasm dripped off every word. "I'm going to be a grandmother to my nephew while my son is bringing a child into the world that can double as his cousin.""That sound pretty horrible, Mom. It is the truth, but it still sounds pretty terrible."While those words tumbled out of my mouth, I did a little soul back-searching. How in the fuck was   outside of the actual fucking   was Imogen pregnant? My existence was a freaking fluke of nature. A few words were bandied about the room while I was lost in deductive reasoning and turning hunches into assumptions and turning those into reasonable mystic hypotheses.I created the Mojo-Little Engine that thought it could. Specifically, the legacy of Vranus. Legions of little Vranusian sperm had been jumping hurdle after hurdle to keep the faith alive   that Vranus would meet his Ancestors with his mission accomplished. I was already half way there.Still, the legacy of Vranus and the hopes of Dot Ishara hadn't stopped in their struggle just because I had been born. They were still trying to restore the mortal descendants of a Dead House. They were also still spiritually pushing me on to fulfill his last command   to save the Arinniti sons.I was halfway there by returning the offspring of Bolu, Vranus' fellow guardian, back to the fold. It remained for me to round up the purpose of the whole mission in the first place. My semen weren't taking a chance that I could get gakked before that was accomplished. Having knocked up an augur despite the toxic soup she called blood should have been a dire warning to me, I'm an idiot.When the curse of Sarrat Irkalli clashed with the actions of Dot Ishara, Ishara had won. Sarrat Irkalli sought to deny Alal any children of his own. Dot was insisting the male line of Vranus Ishara continue on. The end result was Alal received his long-denied grandson, who just happened to also want him dead because of a feud that stretched back over two millennia.As an added insult, his grandson then knocked up one of Alal's genetically manipulated daughters, again giving him something he couldn't accomplish on his own   heirs   grand-sons and  daughters, most who would also want to kill him, being Amazons and members of the 9 Clans after all. Why? Cause Goddesses are bitches, that's why.That got me to wondering when would be the next time I was going to meet Ishara. I hadn't suffered severe head trauma in while and she was overdue for some snuggle time, witty banter and a fortune cookie. I'd try to be careful. It wouldn't do any good, but I had to try."Why are you crying?" Mom touched my arm."No reason," I lied."Why don't we make plans for tonight?" Deidre insinuated herself next to me. "We'd like to meet Hana. From what I understand, Father likes her.""No can-do," I sniffled. "I've got an orgy with 159 women at 8 o'clock, except there won't be any sex, or fun of any kind. Basically, I have to convince a roomful of women to not beat me up and take my stuff.""You don't have to go," Imogen had finished boxing me in   I had a chair behind me and Momma-clones all around."For the same reason I'm going to take care of our child, Imogen, I have to go to this meeting. People are counting on me to do the right thing without telling me what the right thing to do is.""That's unfair," Deidre empathized by stroking my chest."Not so. This is just another day in the life of a new hire at Havenstone Commercial Investments. Every day is like this and in five more days, the real fun beings." That wasn't entirely accurate. I had one good, stress-free week. It was when Carrig put me in a coma. That week I had done pretty well for myself.{9:28 am, Wednesday, Sept. 3rd ~ 5 Days to go}I trundled my latest 'Assistant-in-Charge of keeping the hopes of future Isharans alive' (I didn't want to call Aunt Imogen, or any other woman, my 'Baby-Mamma'), along with Mom and Deidre, for a meet-and-greet with Buffy. I had spelled out in no uncertain terms that Buffy was the power behind the Ishara Throne and thus making 'her' believe they were playing on the up-and-up was their best hope for easing relations between the O'Shea and the Amazon Host.After they left me (with the assurance we'd be getting back together for lunch, with Hana), I made three calls. I needed to make a formal request to Katrina (any Illuminati member(s) entering any Amazon facility was her purview) and another to Elsa (as a sign of respect) that Aunt Imogen and two unarmed bodyguards, max, needed to see our medicos about a delicate issue.The third call was to Buffy to enlighten her as to both the arrival of another one of my aunts (so we needed to get along peacefully with her) and that Aunt Imogen was carrying yet another potential heir to House Ishara. I suggested it would be a symbolic gesture if a member of House Ishara could hang around for the visit, as it might impress upon Imogen our House had a vested interest in keeping her alive."Another one?" Buffy sizzled. "And this one is your aunt?""It is a date then," I stumped her."You are going to take your pregnant aunt out on a date?" Buffy's sizzle meter was rapidly climbing to Krakatoa proportions."Nope. I'm setting up a date for us. You, me and a quiet location at 12:01 am Tuesday morning, my First. Later in the morning, I'll be heading out to wherever they have stored Felix so we can work on some cooperative strategy.""And if I say 'no'?" She was terribly grumpy."Ugh, I guess I'll go bar-crawling with Odette and Timothy, Gay and Lesbian bars only. That way I know I'll behave.""And if they say 'no'?" she was slightly less hostile."I'll know you threatened their lives, and then you and I will finally find out who is better on the mats. Trust me, it will not be an experience you will enjoy.""I don't know. I think I'd like that.""No. You start threatening the other people I love and you will not be happy; I guarantee that, Buffy."She realized I was both serious and angry. She had stepped out of bounds, the 'bounds' I had set up two hours earlier during our elevator ride."Is the meeting still on for the night?" she evaded my disappointment."Yes. Will you be there?""Of course," she grumped."Buffy, don't bother showing up if you can't separate 'us' as friends, 'us' as Wakko Ishara and my First, and you as my apprentice."Making me miserable in the first relationship doesn't help the latter two one bit. I try not to be an irresponsible asshole as House Head. More than anyone else, you know what I will sacrifice to be Ishara and one with my Isharans. I'll also step out and be plain ole 'Cáel Nyilas' when events permit.""But I am sick and tired of people not taking my desire to be foolish and care-free seriously. Being a dogmatic ass-hat isn't in me, but if you can't work with that, from here on out we are Wakko Ishara and Buffy Ishara and nothing more. I will still trust you as an Isharan, but not as a friend. Your choice.""Don't be such an asshole!" she snapped."Screw you!" I fired back. "I made a fucking effort to plan out some personal time with you, disguised as a joke; you knew it and you still decided to be a ball-buster. Like I need another fucking ball-buster right now, with all the other shit on my plate. You know better!" I was screaming. The people in JIKIT were working overtime at not staring at me."I'm under a ton of stress here too," she snarled. "I have to deal with the Council, keep our House growing and fulfill my obligations with Executive Services.""Do you want to quit? No longer by my 'apprentice'? Go back to working for Katrina full time?""Really?" she whispered."Of course the fuck not!" I shouted. "I didn't pick you for the job because of your sterling personality, or your bedroom excellence. I picked you because I had, and still have, utter faith in your ability to do whatever is necessary to overcome the landfill-sized colossal ill-fortune the Ancestors have dumped in our lap.""I'm just asking you to stop being a whiny, over-sensitive cunt and remember: it was the psychotic bitch who I chose for the top spot," I rumbled."I'm going to kick your ass," she seethed."Nice to know. We on for Monday night?"Pause."Yes," and she hung up. Two seconds later my phone rang again. "Buffy?" I answered. "And don't be late!" she menaced, then hung up again."So," Addison turned my way, "are you praying for World Peace to break out, or Nuclear War?""Hardy-har-har," I griped."Now that your personal drama is temporarily derailed, we have something for you to look at," Mehmet motioned for my attention. "Ever heard of Kōfuku no Kagaku?" I shook my head. "It translates over as 'Happy Science' and it is a cult-like organization in Japan.""Cool beans. Why do I have a sinking impression it is not a front for the Ninja?""That is what we want you to find out," Addison took over. "Of critical importance is the news conference their leader, Ryuho Okawa, gave earlier this afternoon/morning (~ 3:17 pm Tokyo time = 2:17 am East Coast time ~), especially a very relevant part of his interesting public announcement."He claims to be the Earthly manifestation of the Supreme Being. That is old news. Today he claimed that Temujin of the Khanate was the reincarnation of the original Genghis Khan and, with him, Ryuho, as the unifier of theological forces and therefore serving as spiritual advisor to Temujin, they would usher in a new period of Peace throughout Asia.""I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop," I exhaled."He also claims that Japan is in the midst of an epic struggle, both spiritually and in the physical sense. The 'ancient guardians' of Japanese purity, the 6 Ninja Families, are at war with the depth of all Evil, the Chinese Seven Pillars of Heaven by name, who are determined to drag all of Asia away from the Light and into the Darkness of pain, degradation and slavery."In fact I quote: 'Alone among the nations of the Earth, only the Japanese cultural identity can stand firm against this global menace. Only the Japanese can keep the torch of true Enlightenment aloft. Only the Japanese can guide the development of the Khanate into the Supreme Empire it is meant to be'.""I'm going to go out on a limb here and say this guy is pseudo-religious, a Japanese ultra-nationalist as well as anti 'all things Sino'," came out of my mouth."Correct.""None of the Secret Societies would do something so public. Temujin's background is a mystery, but no one in the Khanate is calling him a reincarnated spirit, and they know the truth," I continued."This guy is pretty nutty," Mehmet confirmed. "He also claims to channel Buddha, Mohammed, Christ and Confucius. His followers worship him as the Earthly manifestation of the 'Supreme Being' named El Cantare, which is yet another name for any number of ancient supreme deities. And he claims to consult with the 'spirit guardians' of national leaders and aids in their mystic defense, with the aid of the Five Sacred Sisters' Spirits."Clearly this man was insane. Unfortunately, insane didn't make someone wrong,"Ah Hell," I muttered.Mehmet and Addison perked up; after all, figuring out the bizarre was my position on the team."He probably is insane, and I can't blame him," I sighed. "He isn't El Cantare; he is in touch with the Weave.""I have a feeling this is 'not good'," Addison murmured. "How bad is it?""The Five Sacred Spirit Sisters are most likely the five augurs who died in order to save Temujin, which, in turn, allies the 9 Clans with the E&S and Amazons to 'save' Japan, though it is not 'saved' yet.""Technically, the Weave IS the Supreme Being. It's largely indifferent, yet capable of doing both good and ill in response to outside (aka mortal) stimuli. If you can observe the Weave, you might be able to see the most likely path destiny is taking as well as the key players screwing with that destiny."That would include the Gong Tau sorcerers and the ninjas use of their own brand of magic; and God only knows what other mystic tricks the others have been attempting.""How do we get them to stop?" Captain Delilah Faircloth muttered."Not that easy Delilah. Everyone in this room has intersected because of a magic experiment that happened before any of us were born (Mom).""The fight at Summer Camp was flipped on its head because I saw the ghost the 7 Pillars sent to scout the area. My freeing of one of those trapped and tortured souls led to the calamity at the Barbeque Pit. I didn't use magic. I countered it. Still, my actions were interfering with the Weave."All four people the augurs, those Five Sisters, told me about had been dead at some point in time, some for thousands of years. Ajax didn't kill anyone using magic. Neither has Saku, yet both of them are products of disruptions in the Weave. 'Me' being alive and breathing is yet another disruption, since I shouldn't exist because of another mystic curse from five thousand years ago."Being alive and killing people means I've killed people who shouldn't be dead. Do we need to go into all the millions that have died in the Khanate war? Which was a combination of a resurrected Temujin and the 7 Pillars hunger for World Domination, if we do nothing, the rippled of those other disruption will still carry on."Except for me, no one on this taskforce has used an iota of magic, yet we are all dedicated to combatting mystical forces," I related to the group. I wondered where Rikki (Martin) and Beatrice (Ya Konan) had gotten off to. Lady Yum-Yum being absent only made my 'Scooby' senses tingle more."You use magic?" Agent-86 tilted his head in curiosity."I talk to a Goddess on a semi-regular business. I see ghosts. I've been the conveyer of messages from dead people and I've killed an un-killable man. Do we need to go back over my kidnapping by the 7 Pillars? The memories of my undead Grandfather floating around in my head?""I'm not calling thunderbolts out of the sky and shooting fireballs out my ass, but what I am doing is magical, nonetheless.""So, what do we recommend to our allies and benefactors (i.e., our sovereign governments)?" Mehmet inquired."Hmm, we tell our governments this crackpot is a Prophet of Doom who could be turned into an asset," I rubbed my brow with all four fingers and a thumb. Rikki, Beatrice and Lady Worthington-Burke quietly entered the room. They were all highly pleased in a 'I just won the lottery' kind of way. I was curious, but had to carry on with my train of thought."Quietly start seeking out other mystic societies, preferably low-key, quiet types who avoid the limelight, and start looking into other forms of magical insight and, quite frankly, protection. If the Weave has let this happen, we can expect worse. Lastly, I'll ask my 'Brother' to meet with this guy and get a feel for his personality.""That will only increase the believability of his ramblings," Addison protested."The boat called 'Denial' has already sailed. The World is in crisis. People are going to look for non-conventional answers. It is better to get ahead of this and bring Ryuho Okawa on board as a 'consultant'. Don't give him the whole picture by any means. The guy is definitely a loose cannon. Even worse, he is also a loose cannon the Weave has touched.""Besides, the Seven Pillars are going to figure this out pretty quick, their Weave sensitivity, ya know, and either kidnap him to be their own spiritual seismic sensor, or kill him for being both a loose cannon and yet another person screwing with their 'best laid plans'. Keeping him alive has the added benefit of making the Seven Pillars expend resources trying to get at him. Japan needs every bit diversion they can get."Let's not forget to tell our Secret Society allies of our plans, lest they kill him too. His babblings aren't going to make the 9 Clans or the E&S happy with him. They both have an established habit of making perceived enemies dead. Let's keep him alive and utilize this opportunity.""I like this plan," Addison nodded. Mehmet was clearly on board as well. Agent-86 clearly was playing the best on-line mystic MMORPG ever! (And with the added bonus that his team's action had real-world consequences.) The three 'ladies' new to the room received an abbreviated version of our discussion and my 'suggestions'. They weren't really suggestions. Barring a few insanely criminal endeavors, JIKIT treated me like a true asset."Something else big?" Addison looked to her British counterpart (Yum-Yum)."The Japanese Diet has voted for a public referendum on a Constitutional Amendment to repeal/revise Article 96 of the Japanese Constitution.""Oh fuck," was echoed, either verbally or subliminally, by everyone in the room except for me, Delilah and Agent-86.'Cáel' knew Jack and Shit about the Japanese Constitution. Hell, I barely knew about the US one and I was a native. However, Alal did know it, and knew both what Article 96 was and what its amendment really meant. Good-old 96 was the rolling dark cloud across the political Great Plains that heralded a swarm of tornados. Clouds were clouds and their arrival could mean anything.Article 96 dictated how the Japanese Constitution could be amended. The current process was a 2/3rd vote in both the House of Councilors (the 'Upper House', roughly equivalent to our Senate) and the House of Representatives (the 'Lower' House) followed by a public referendum. The proposed amendment to Article 96 would transform the process to a mere majority vote in both Houses.Imagine the shit-storm which would be unleashed if the US Congress tried to pull that shit. The biggest political issue was that the Japanese Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) held 294 of the 475 seats in the lower house (a clear majority) and 115 of the 242 in the Upper House (7 seats short of a majority). If the amendment passed next month (October 14th to be precise), the LDP could pretty much do as they pleased.And what was the first thing they were going to do? They were going to put to rest another part of the Constitution, namely the far more globally important Article 9. And what was that?Real World Stuff: WarningsArticle 9:(1)Aspiring sincerely to an international peace based on justice and order, the Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation and the threat or use of force as means of settling international disputes.(2)To accomplish the aim of the preceding paragraph, land, sea, and air forces, as well as other war potential, will never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.If Article 9 was repealed, the Japanese nation could exercise diplomacy by military means, aka declaring an offensive war against a foreign power. Currently Japan had a modest budget military budget of $48 Billion a year (Earth's 10th largest). It was modest when you considered it was a mere 1% of the Japanese GDP. Great Britain, France and South Korea's smaller economies all functioned nicely with double that percentage for their military budget.Regionally, every other nation was increasing their military expenditures, except Japan's protector, the US and (perhaps) North Korea, who's spending on anything was a closely guarded state secret. Right now, China and the Khanate's military expenditures were running roughly even at $180 billion each, but this was an arm's race the PRC would eventually win, they had too great an advantage in the size of their workforce and a far larger industrial base.The truth was, if the PRC couldn't win this race fast, she was facing a long, grinding war reminiscent of the Communists' Long Rise to Power that wrecked their country a century ago. The monetary dynamic was shifting badly against them because the Khanate wasn't alone.India, Taiwan and Vietnam were also ramping up their war spending to a combined tune of $34 billion and now allied with the Khanate, equating to an additional $90 billion the PRC had to overcome. South Korea was already adding $8 billion to their military and Russia was taxing the fuck out of Manchuria to both pay for their 'Peaceful Intervention' and to increase the 'Readiness' of their other forces.All of this military spending was bad for both the regional and global economies (unless you were Israel who was turning out hardware 24/7/365 for the Khanate and Indian war machines). So at this point, Japan doing 'nothing' was possibly more disastrous than doing 'something' else.They were already spending $50 fucking billion on glorified policemen while the future of East Asia was being decided without them. Doubling the military budget would place a huge burden on the largely pacifistic population. It would also put Japan in the position of deciding the Fate of Nations.With the repeal of Article 9, Japan could utilize 'proactive means' to keep the naval supply routes to China open, not even the Indian's had the naval presence to confront the Japanese. Such a policy was a nice, friendly gesture to the Asian Colossus, who wasn't likely to show a shred of appreciation for their efforts.No, China had spent the last 60 years stoking the hatred of the Land of the Rising Sun among their people. (Many Japanese forgot current Chinese hatred was based on the Japanese butchering their way across China for nearly a decade between 1937 to 1945).(The Cornerstone) There was a truism which had guided American, Chinese, Japanese and Russian political thought for 150 years: 'There could only be one supreme power in East Asia and the Eastern Pacific'. Japan had followed the logical expression of that paradigm by invading Taiwan (1895), Korea (1910), beating up on Imperial Russia (1904), taking Manchuria (1931) and going to war with China (1937) while that country was trapped in a bloody civil war.To stop the Empire of Japan's rise, the US had attempted to cripple the Japanese economy before the Empire could harvest their just-acquired Asian natural resources. In response, Japan had thrown its soldiers and sailors into a futile effort against the British Empire, the United States and China and lost.With Imperial Japan crushed and the Soviet Union preoccupied in Europe, China had risen. The irresistible force of China's rapidly increasing population, natural resources exploitation and extensive land mass took hold. Japan couldn't compete in a 'fair' fight. Since 1945, the Japanese government had lived with the fear of aggression from Russia and/or China aimed their way.The US felt the same way, or they had. The fear produced by the broad acceptance of 'Only-One-Shall-Rule-Asia' had led to the Korean War, the half-century cease-fire along the Demilitarized Zone in Korea and the Vietnamese Civil War. The Communists in China and Russia had feuded until the Soviet Union collapsed under its own economic inadequacies.A reborn Russia, even with the ultra-nationalist Putin at the helm, couldn't stop China's growing domination. Asia was China's for the taking, until the Khanate rose up like some desert mirage in the Western Steppe, one that turned into the Mother of All Storms. So now, miraculously, the dominion of Asia was up for grabs once more.Japan could not overcome China; that was a given. The Dragon had more people, more resources and an almost three-fold larger economy. Given a decade, the PRC would grind the Khanate down. Once more it was the tyranny of numbers. Even India, Taiwan and Vietnam could only slow down the inevitable.India's subpar economic output marginalized the power of their citizenry. Taiwan had the proportional economy, but not nearly enough people. Vietnam had neither and had always had a rough time defending themselves, much less been successful confronting powers beyond her homeland. Putin's Mother Russia had a host of other problems, internal and external, so she had already contributed as much as Putin dared.Until Thursday morning, Tokyo Time, the undeniable Destiny of Asia remained in the hands of those men in Beijing. The dominoes were falling in a way those rulers had not foreseen and now fumed over. But on Wednesday night, there was no industrial power (with the population to back it up) which could threaten the People's Republic of China.Europe and the US wouldn't intervene. Much like the leadership in Japan, the Communist Chinese Politburo believed Putin had wagered as much as dared. No other nation on Earth mattered. Japan? That was laughable. Their Constitution bound the hands off their military behind their backs with a pledge of eternal pacifism.The Chinese weren't blind to the 250,000 men and women of the Japanese Self Defense Force. Without the political will, those troops might have well have been in Brazil. A hostile Brazil was actually a greater worry because Brazil was the powerhouse of South America, a G-8 economy and hungered for a Permanent Seat on the UN Security Council. The PRC was dedicated to denying their desire as it would have diluted the PRC's burgeoning diplomatic power.Japan? Ha.Thursday morning, in what was essentially an undetected (by anyone except the Ninja and JIKIT) coup d' tat, pacifism was sacrificed on the Altar of Nationalism. Article 96's demise was pre-ordained. A poll taken on July 1st, 42% of Japanese felt positively about the repeal of Article 96 while 46% opposed it.The same agency took a new poll on August 28th. The economic-political situation of Japan was going through a titanic tidal shift. If Buddhism moved you toward devout pacifist, the Khanate had liberated Tibet and was clearly withdrawing as the UN troops' boots hit the ground.If you were a Nationalist of any kind, you were seeing a whole lot more people at your rallies, accessing your websites and signing up to join your formerly fringe parties. If you were a Socialist, you were scared. Why? The PRC was in the process of nationalizing all of Japan's (and South Korea's and Taiwan's) business interests in China, for the 'Duration of the Emergency', or so they said.That meant plenty of Japanese workers were losing their jobs and looking to blame someone. You couldn't blame the centrist LDP. The LDP had been working alongside the Japanese Communist Party for months. They had done nothing wrong and had worked tirelessly for a peaceful diplomatic solution. It was their 'comrades' in China, their Marxist confederates, who were costing the hard-working Japanese workers their jobs.If you were in the Establishment, all of the above worried the crap out of you. Japan's economy had been limping along at barely-positive growth for a decade. Your aging population needed more and more from their public services and, worst of all, you had nothing in your political and economic tool box to escape the obvious oncoming national catastrophe.The possibility of a Global Recession loomed on the horizon, if they were lucky. Highly respected economists in Japan and elsewhere were examining all the key indicators over the past three months and were suggesting hording as a viable policy for middle class households to consider. If you were in the Developing World, worse was heading your way.The word being bandied about on those esteemed academic internet websites wasn't 'recession', it was depression. Global prosperity thrived on nations investing in both their own economy and the economies of other nations. The governments representing a third of the World's population were not investing in their economies.Unless you were a war profiteer, you could expect fewer consumer goods on the shelves; and what was there would cost more. Your income wasn't going up; your expenses were. If you were an Atheistic homeowner in the Western World with a secured 3.25% fixed rate home loan, you took up religion. The prime interest rate would be racing for the 20% mark and that was only if your economy was stable.If you lived in a country in the Developing World, your trade goods didn't compete with those created in the G-20. Your competition was with other Developing World businesses and the prize was the pocketbooks of those consumers in the G-20, which was a shrinking purse.It wasn't like you were being paid all that much to begin with; and now those once poor-paying, but at least plentiful, jobs were drying up. You needed your government to help you out. It wasn't like those governments could raise money by taxing the unemployed and under-employed. They didn't have money. And the rich in most of those same nations had a long and successful legacy of avoiding paying.Those growing economies had a few tried and tested 'solutions' for getting their countries through these rough stretches.The IMF? 'We are out to make 'positive' capital investments and your economic outlook doesn't look promising. We suggest 'austerity'.'The BRICS? Since India and China were basically in an undeclared state of war: 'we won't be loaning anyone anything for a while.'The BIS? 'As soon as the People' Bank of China, the Reserve Bank of India, the Central Bank of Ireland, the Bank of Israel and the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey get back to us about their sudden, serious lack of transparency, we'll call you back.'World Bank? Holy Shit! 'The world's going down the toilet, we will do what we can.'F Y I, I (as in Cáel) had been wrong. The 6 Elders of the Ninja families didn't talk to Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzō Awbee. They talked with another, far more immediately important man. So sue me (Cáel) for not knowing the inner workings of various world governments, and creatively interpreting events surrounding all those people I (Cáel) didn't. I'm a freaking Liberal Arts major with a fertile imagination, not a superspy, or even a competent Intelligence Analyst!}The Japanese government had appealed to the U.S., U.N., P.R.C., A.S.E.A.N., India; and (through back channels aka JIKIT) the Khanate for an end to this madness; all with typical results:The U.S.A: We are working on it (without letting them know what precisely they were working on)Japan: Well, do something fast. Our Government Bonds are about to be more useful as wallpaper.The U.N.: We are working on it (with their long-established tradition of not doing anything until the crisis had passed)Japan: You are preparing to pass a Resolution to move this matter from the First Committee to the Fourth Committee, gee, thanks guys. Will they be meeting sometime before Christmas?The PRC: We are too busy right now, so shut up, keep the trade lanes open, and was that your submarine we detected sneaking into our territorial waters?Japan: What? What do you mean you are 'too busy?' You are one of our biggest trading partners, your economy is going down the toilet, and, No! That was not our submarine in your territorial waters. That accusation is absurd.(Note from Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzō Awbee, to Admiral Katsutoshi Kawano, head of the JMSDF {the de facto Japanese Navy}), The PRC has made this outrageous claim that one of our submarines has been sneaking around their territorial waters. There is no truth to that rumor, right?Kawano: Which time?Prime Minister: Oh My God! What have you people been doing and why is this the first time I'm hearing about it?Kawano: Sir, if you are just now getting around to asking us, you don't want to know.Prime Minister: What do you mean 'I don't want to know?' I'm the head of the damn government and, you are right. Fine. There is no way I'm going back to the Chinese Ambassador and apologizing for any this. Is there any way this can come back to screw us over?Kawano: With all these US and British submarines helping us out, not very likely, Prime Minister.Prime Minister: Oh, very good. You are correct, I don't want to know what you 'haven't' been doing. I am ordering you to destroy all transcripts and recordings of this conversation.Kawano: It has been my distinct honor not having this conversation with you, Prime Minister. Sayōnara.ASEAN, What do you expect us to do about this? Have you seen the unimpressive combined sizes of our members' air forces and navies? Did you see the smack-down the Khanate has inflicted on the PLAN's South China Sea Fleet?Besides, the PRC is claiming that the Khanate launched covert attacks against the Parcels and Spratly islands which originated from Indonesian and Filipino waters. We are investigating the issue. If you are asking us for help, you are truly screwed. Don't call us. We will call you.Japan, {muttering} Investigating the attacks that came from your territory, bullshit! You are covering your own asses, damn it!(Note from Prime Minister, Shinzō Awbee, to Shotaro Yachi, Japanese National Security Advisor), I've heard an ugly rumor that the Khanate has forces secreted in the Philippines and Indonesia. Do you happen to know anything about it?Yachi: Yes Sir. We had advance notice of the organization, composition and destination of those forces.Awbee (while muttering 'no one tells me anything anymore'): What the! Would you please tell me what is going on.Yachi: We have made critical steps toward future alliances which will guarantee Japanese security for decades to come.Awbee What does that mean, and since when have you been creating and implementing foreign policy? We have a Minister for that, in case you somehow over-looked him at the last cabinet meeting. Wait! Does he know about this too?Yachi: No Sir, Foreign Minister Kishida is currently unaware of the Kinkyū tokushu sakusen tasukufōsu (Emergency Special Operations Task Force). Admiral Katsutoshi knows the basics of our operational policy, since we need to borrow some of his assets from time to time. Director-General Kitada (of the Public Security Intelligence Agency) and key personnel from the Foreign Ministry's Intelligence & Analysis Service and Security Bureau make up the majority of the task force's operatives.Awbee: What have you been doing?Yachi: You don't want to know, Mr. Prime Minister. It would make things, awkward.Awbee: 'You don't want to know', of course, I don't. I'm only the elected head of this government. Why would I possibly want to know what acts of espionage and war my deputies are executing?Yachi: I am glad we are on the same page, Sir. Will there be anything else?Awbee: No, wait. Do you have any intelligence on what the Khanate is up to?Yachi: Yes Sir. Is there anything in particular you want to know?Analysis Services: Can you contact someone in their leadership willing to discuss regional affairs?Yachi: I can put you in touch with the Great Khan himself if necessary.AS: What!Yachi: Sir, I would hardly be acting in our nation's best interests if I couldn't divine the intentions of the key players on the stage. Shall I initiate the necessary communications to facilitate that level of clandestine diplomatic contact?AS: No. Yes. No, I need to think about this. Hmm, have you been conducting any domestic espionage missions?Yachi: You don't want me to answer that, Sir.Awbee: of course I don't, I'm only the damn Prime Minister. Shotaro, I'm still Prime Minister, aren't I?Yachi: Yes Sir. We have been working overtime to ensure that. We've foiled two enemy assassination attempts and one attempted kidnapping so far. We remain vigilant.AS: How come this is the first I'm hearing about it? Is the head of my security in on this conspiracy of yours too?Yachi: No Sir. These particular guardians wish to avoid notoriety at all costs.Awbee: Okay. Good to know. Ah, keep up the good work and destroy any trace of this conversation.Yachi: Way ahead of you, Sir. Have a good night.India, Yes, we are more than willing to work with you toward regional stability. Care to acknowledge the Khanate's legitimacy first? We'd really appreciate it. Sure, get back to us when you've done that. Until then, the South China Sea Awaits! Yes, we plan to keep what we've earned. Later now. We think there is going to be further instability in Southeast Asia.Japan, Ya think? It is your damn warships sailing around the freaking South China Sea enforcing your utterly un-secret alliance with the Khanate. Why are you doing this to us? What have we ever done to you?The Khanate, We are not out to damage your national interests. We apologize, but there is now way we will call off this war with the Communist Chinese. It is them, or us, to the death. We have already received and agreed to your request to allow all Japanese flagged ships safe transit through the South China Sea. We really wish to be your friends this time, to make up for those two invasion attempts seven hundred years ago.(Note from  Prime Minister to Self) Great. The only reasonable people who aren't out to kick me in the nuts are also the ones I can't acknowledge talking to. I've got to do something a

In this episode, I talk with George J. Haas about his new book The Great Architects of Mars: Evidence for the Lost Civilizations on the Red Planet. George is the founder of The Cydonia Institute and a longtime researcher of Martian anomalies. His latest work explores the possibility that an ancient civilization once existed on Mars—and that it may have made contact with early life on Earth over 800,000 years ago.We explore strange and compelling structures on the Martian surface—pyramids, five-pointed stars, and massive geoglyphs shaped like animals—all showing a surprising level of precision and symbolic design. Some of these images are truly startling—so refined, so geometrically precise, and so clearly symbolic that it becomes difficult to explain them as natural formations. George shows that this level of complexity points to intelligent design, likely from an advanced civilization with the capability to shape an entire planetary landscape. These structures raise deep questions about who—or what—created them, and why.A major part of our discussion centers on the connection between these Martian structures and ancient Earth civilizations, especially in Mesoamerica. George shares a little-known Mayan creation story describing a “Star War” with beings from Mars—an event he believes ties directly to similar stories in Sumerian mythology.That leads us into the topic of the Anunnaki—those mysterious beings from Sumerian texts who are said to have descended from the sky and influenced early human civilization. George draws powerful parallels between the Anunnaki's presence on Earth and possible activity on Mars, suggesting they may have once occupied or interacted with both planets. He also highlights how the architecture and iconography of Mesoamerican cultures reflect this deeper, interplanetary history.In the second half of the episode, George walks us through several formations using detailed NASA imagery and suggests they may be the remnants of lost Martian cities.www.thecydoniainstitute.comGeorge J. Haas Bio:George J. Haas is the founder and premier investigator of the Mars research group known as The Cydonia Institute. A member of the Society for Planetary SETIResearch, he has co-authored two books and six peer-reviewed science papers related to anomalous formations on the surface of Mars. He has appeared on Coast to Coast AM with George Noory and on the History Channel's Ancient Aliens, The Proof is Out There, and The UnXplained with William Shatner. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Language Learning Collections - Book 4, Part 3 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 4 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This collection includes Beginning Latin: Lessons 4 to 5, Latin for Beginners 1 to 3, Elegantiæ Latinæ by Edward Valpy, Chapter 2 - Hercules, from Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles, Dialogues 1 to 5 from The English and French Interpreter, Lessons 16 to 20 from Esperanto in Twenty Lessons, First Lessons of Chinese (Introduction and Chapter One), Grammar of English Grammars, chapters 1 - 3, Greek Lessons: 26 to 30, The Languages of Britain, from Polychronicon, A Plea for Phonetic Spelling [or, The Necessity of Orthographic Reform], § 1. to § 4, Lessons 31 - 35 from A Practical Arabic Course, Zamenhof's An Attempt towards an International Language: Part I: First, Second and Third Problems, How to Write Clearly: Rules and Exercises on English Composition (Preface) and a second version of The Aural System. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #13 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 4, Part 3 Book: 4 Volume: 4 Part: 3 of 3 Episodes Part: 6 Length Part: 3:04:03 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 7:38:28 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 7:38:28 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

In episode 742: Dogman Of The Corn, Shane and "The Judge" from From The Shadows Podcast, share a bone-chilling account of an entity that stalked one of their daughters—night after night. It called itself "Wind." It appeared as a little boy with blonde hair and blue bibs, and it whispered through the baby monitor in a dead language no one could recognize. It wanted the child to go outside. In the snow. In the middle of the night. This wasn't just a haunted house. Wind followed them across towns. Past locked doors. Into new bedrooms. When "The Judge" finally saw it with his own eyes, his daughter began speaking in something guttural, ancient, possibly Sumerian—and then Wind was gone. But not forever. Years earlier, on a quiet country road flanked by cornfields, "The Judge" came face to face with a creature that shouldn't exist. It ran through the rows—pacing him, mirroring every move—and when it stepped out, it stood tall like a man, with the head of a wolf and the build of a linebacker. No eye shine. No sound. Just intent. He escaped by seconds, diving into a friend's pool, heart pounding and reality shattered. Decades later, he would learn the land was built on ancient burial mounds—and that others had seen it too. Two encounters. Two entities. One terrifying question:  If these things are real… what else is? Become a member for ad-free listening, extra shows, and exclusive access to our social media app: theconfessionalspodcast.com/join The Confessionals Social Network App: Apple Store: https://apple.co/3UxhPrh Google Play: https://bit.ly/43mk8kZ My New YouTube Channel Merkel IRL: @merkelIRL My First Sermon: Unseen Battles Sasquatch and The Missing Man: merkelfilms.com Merkel Media Apparel: merkmerch.com SPONSORS SIMPLISAFE TODAY: simplisafe.com/confessionals CONNECT WITH US Website: www.theconfessionalspodcast.com Email: contact@theconfessionalspodcast.com From The Shadows Podcast Website | Apple | YouTube MAILING ADDRESS: Merkel Media 257 N. Calderwood St., #301 Alcoa, TN 37701 SOCIAL MEDIA Subscribe to our YouTube: https://bit.ly/2TlREaI Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/theconfessionals/ Discord: https://discord.gg/KDn4D2uw7h Show Instagram: theconfessionalspodcast Tony's Instagram: tonymerkelofficial Facebook: www.facebook.com/TheConfessionalsPodcas Twitter: @TConfessionals Tony's Twitter: @tony_merkel Produced by: @jack_theproducer OUTRO MUSIC Joel Thomas - ShutUp N Drive YouTube | Apple Music | Spotify

Language Learning Collections - Book 4, Part 2 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 4 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This collection includes Beginning Latin: Lessons 4 to 5, Latin for Beginners 1 to 3, Elegantiæ Latinæ by Edward Valpy, Chapter 2 - Hercules, from Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles, Dialogues 1 to 5 from The English and French Interpreter, Lessons 16 to 20 from Esperanto in Twenty Lessons, First Lessons of Chinese (Introduction and Chapter One), Grammar of English Grammars, chapters 1 - 3, Greek Lessons: 26 to 30, The Languages of Britain, from Polychronicon, A Plea for Phonetic Spelling [or, The Necessity of Orthographic Reform], § 1. to § 4, Lessons 31 - 35 from A Practical Arabic Course, Zamenhof's An Attempt towards an International Language: Part I: First, Second and Third Problems, How to Write Clearly: Rules and Exercises on English Composition (Preface) and a second version of The Aural System. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #12 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 4, Part 2 Book: 4 Volume: 4 Part: 2 of 3 Episodes Part: 7 Length Part: 2:05:31 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 7:38:28 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 7:38:28 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Language Learning Collections - Book 4, Part 1 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 4 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This collection includes Beginning Latin: Lessons 4 to 5, Latin for Beginners 1 to 3, Elegantiæ Latinæ by Edward Valpy, Chapter 2 - Hercules, from Ritchie's Fabulae Faciles, Dialogues 1 to 5 from The English and French Interpreter, Lessons 16 to 20 from Esperanto in Twenty Lessons, First Lessons of Chinese (Introduction and Chapter One), Grammar of English Grammars, chapters 1 - 3, Greek Lessons: 26 to 30, The Languages of Britain, from Polychronicon, A Plea for Phonetic Spelling [or, The Necessity of Orthographic Reform], § 1. to § 4, Lessons 31 - 35 from A Practical Arabic Course, Zamenhof's An Attempt towards an International Language: Part I: First, Second and Third Problems, How to Write Clearly: Rules and Exercises on English Composition (Preface) and a second version of The Aural System. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #11 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 4, Part 1 Book: 4 Volume: 4 Part: 1 of 3 Episodes Part: 7 Length Part: 2:29:01 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 7:38:28 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 7:38:28 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid and Chella Ward spoke to Professor Marc Van De Mieroop about Sumerian history. They discussed the role that the so-called ‘Ancient Near East' might play in reorienting history, from redefining the history of philosophy to telling a less Eurocentric story about writing and textual evidence. Marc is Professor of the Ancient Near East from the beginning of writing to the age of Alexander of Macedon, at Columbia University. His many important books and articles were the subject of our fascinating conversation.

No Longer An Enemy.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels."My Sister wished to know if you speak Mandarin," the brother translated for me."Hi, I'm Cáel," I greeted him. "Who are you guys?" He looked to one of the two goons holding on to me. I received a painful kidney punch. I discovered a whole new super-power. It hurt for about two seconds then nothing."I asked you a question," he repeated."No, I don't speak Mandarin," I lied so well it came across as a dour confession."Yet you know the secretive language of the Earth & Sky," he stated."Yes, I do. I have a thing for dead languages. Maybe in a few more years, I'll pick up your Mother Tongue as well," I bantered.No punishment was immediately meted out, so I suspected no one close to me, besides him, spoke much if any English. Jian Bob (my new name for him) didn't relay my insult. I wasn't worth it. He went straight for the reason for our get-together."You are going to die, Mr. Nyilas. That is a given," J B began."We both know you have done enough damage to our cause to be worthy of elimination a hundred times over. I'm going to show you respect by not lying to you about your possible fate. What you can do is save your young companion. We understand you two are close," he appealed in a very polite manner. Aya snickered."Cáel, these people are mentally challenged," she giggled to me, "or hideously misinformed.""I know, I know," I smiled down at Aya. "Still, they have gone through a great deal of effort to insult our intellect today, so let's humor them a little longer." Jian Bob issued several casual orders.In short order, a third man had hold of me by the jaw with one hand while trying to hold my eyelids open with the other. One guard held her by the shoulders. A second held her right hand, extending her ring finger. A third man held a knife to her top knuckle. A forth stood close with a small blowtorch."She may be a small person, Mr. Nyilas, but she can still die by the Death of a Thousand cuts," he explained."I love you, Aya," I told her softly."I love you too, Fehér mén," she succeeding in keeping most of the fear from her voice.Neither one of us could stop this. Aya certainly didn't expect me to compromise the Host for her benefit. She was as much an Amazon as the first Epona."First, I wish to know what alerted you to the attack at the Summer Camp," Bob began the interrogation."We know you were responsible. We want to know what happened." I looked into his eyes and waited patiently. He nodded to the guard, who shoved my face toward Aya's extended finger until I was less than a foot away."Do it." The Order came in Mandarin.The guard cut the top part of the digit off, one knuckle. I looked at the flesh and bone being cut away. In a clinical manner, I noted how sharp the blade was. I saw the blood shoot forth and heard Aya's little voice cry out in pain. I was pulled back and pointed at Jian Bob again."Do I need to repeat the question for you?" he said."No, I caught it the first time," I grimaced. "It tells me that you haven't the slightest idea who you are fucking with." Bob made a slight hand gesture and the blowtorch cauterized Aya's stump. Her little lungs belted out a terrible screech that wound down as her feet gave out and she hung limply in the guard's grip."Revive her." The blowtorch guy, clearly not his first day on the job, snapped some smelling salts under her noise. Aya revived, sobbing and in a great deal of pain."Cáel," she whimpered. "I have found my stillness. I'll be okay now." Her sobs subsided."Shall we try this again?" J B remained coolly polite, almost urbane."Nah," I joked, "we are both pretty good over here.""Again." The Mandarin order came. Off went another digit of her ring finger. This time her scream was much more exuberant and forceful. We all know it hurt like Hell, but the world had turned."He's going to kill all of you," Aya snickered while she sobbed. "You are all going to die.""Mu, what is the little girl saying?" she asked Jian Bob, real name Mu."She is stating her belief that Cáel will somehow kill us all," he and his sister shared the joke. "Let us see what her tune is when they start in on her left hand," the woman smiled at her sibling.That implied they'd cut off her right thumb and fingers, digit by digit, until one, or both of us cracked. The man nodded and Aya's nub was burned again. Her scream was more of a cleansing shout."Cáel, do you think I will have a nice horse to ride when I join Epona's herds, or will I get a pony?" Aya whimpered."Not a clue," I began before Mu had the face-hugging guard apply a finger strike to my solar plexus. Alal's gift had allowed me to partially organize my brain functions. Coping with pain was a whole lot easier now, but I had to be careful to monitor it because pain was Nature's way of letting you know that there was something wrong with your body."What color would you like me to pick up and have waiting for you," punch, "when you finally take yourself to the cliffs?""Again.""This is accomplishing nothing," the senior bald Mo Fo grumbled. "He clearly cares nothing for the child and has been trained in counter-interrogation techniques.""There is nothing to indicate that," Mu bristled."Xiàsh, burn the tip of his left forefinger," senior necromancer commanded. The guy holding my face coordinated with the men holding my arms to free me of my bonds and wrestle my left arm forward. I didn't bother resisting.It didn't take the commandoes long to figure I had stopped caring. On came the flame and the pain. Oh, I screamed. The pain was real. What had changed was my ability to shuffle it off to an isolated memory file to be tackled later. The bald creep stepped into my field of vision. His eyes were windows to the abyss. My "spirit" sight opened my eyes to the truly inhuman sections of his mind and soul."See, normal techniques will not be affective. We will do it, " and they realized the enormity of their mistake by assuming I was paralyzed by the pain. I broke free of the guy on my left and began twisting around the guy on my right. I wasn't getting away, I was going for his QCW O5. I knew their favorite martial arts styles and their weaponry now.The guy I was rolling behind realized what I was doing (going for his gun), but mistook my intentions. I wasn't trying to get away, or steal the gun (still strapped to his body). That cockhead even helped me out by lurching ground-ward. I swung the gun up, hit the selector and fired two quick bursts.The first three rounds hit Mr. Blowtorch in his right thigh, shredding it. The second burst caught Mr. Knife guy in the crotch, a triple 21mm castration. Had Blowtorch Guy not been busy trying to keep the strands of his right hip connected to his right leg, he could have stopped the blood fountaining from his buddies shattered groin. That was the end of my joy.I was born to the ground and the guy whose gun I'd borrowed pulled away. I hit the concrete surface hard. That was only the beginning of my issues. Radiating from the floor was cold beyond cold. I had the sensation of falling into the heart of a cold, dead star. How I even knew what the felt like was an impossibility."He feels very cold," protested one of the two guards, in Mandarin; pulling me back to my feet groused."If your incompetence has led to his terminal condition," the male twin threatened. I felt the approach of the female twin, her reaching for me. A new intense pain seared me to the cores of my bones. Before she yanked my hair up, my body reignited.I found myself stared into her pitiless eyes that regarded me with the casual callousness of a veterinarian preparing to put down some rabid stray dog. She ran three fingers over my cheek."What are you babbling about?" she snapped at the two commandoes. "If anything, he is feverish.""Zhen, have him sedated," Chief Necromancer demanded. "Mu, now we will do this my way." Once more I was bound. Someone stabbed a needle into my right triceps. That was a mere discomfort. If I had any consolation, it was hearing Mu ordering the execution of the two men I'd shot.They didn't have the time and facilities to tend to their immediate emergency needs and taking them to a trauma center wasn't going to happen. Those two went into body bags. I had to assume they would be joining us on the plane, though they'd be in the cargo compartment."What are you smiling at?" I heard Zhen snapping before my world collapsed down to a pinhole of light."Lady, I don't know what you said," Aya declared happily. "You are probably angry that Cáel has already killed two of you and we haven't even got off the ground yet." I heard a sound I couldn't make out followed by another and finally a third. That resulted in an Aya-squeak. Ah, she'd tried to hit Aya and Aya had dodged the first two blows. Good girl."Cáel isn't going to like you doing that," Aya chirped."Aya's a winner," I mumbled. I wasn't in control of my senses when they dragged me onto a waiting jet. I wasn't worried. With Aya at my side, I was invincible.DreamingI looked at her face, so youthful, beautiful in her own way, yet far from innocent. She bore a terrible weight. The armor she was wearing, that of a heavy horseman of the steppe, was a leather coat, chain links over her vulnerable regions (throat, underarms and skirt), with the rest being covered by darkened bronze plates.Her iron helmet was open-faced with mobile plates covering her cheeks as well as the sides and the back of her neck; it bore a white horse-hair plume, it was the only feature of her panoply that would draw any special attention her way. She carried no shield. Instead, she wielded a powerful horn & sinew composite recurve bow. She used her knees to rise up on her mount and fire over the mare's head.Similarly attired women rode close to either side of this young woman. Both were older; one in her early forties and the other ~ late thirties. The one to the left bore a lance, not in the couched fashion most people today are familiar with, but used in a double-handed over-head fighting style.The woman to the right fought with a strange blade. It wasn't saber ~ an ancestor of that blade perhaps. It was about a meter long, no hand guard, single-edged except for the top 4 cm on the back side which was equally sharp. Her left hand remained free. I think I saw her purpose. If the young woman got into difficulty, her guardian on the right could pull her horse away and lead the woman to safety.Behind and beside those three rode perhaps three hundred of their sisters. Those in the center were as heavily armored as those three. On each flank were the lighter, faster bow-women, on smaller steeds. The women in the center rode larger mounts that were good for carrying weight and pushing home a charge, while the flanking steppe ponies were virtually tireless.In the center, identified only by her long golden-mane helm, was the Golden Mare ~ War Leader of the Host. The Amazons didn't fly pennants or carry banners. They judged the course of battle by that woman's head movements (the mane was quite long) and the shrill horn blasts unique to the Amazons.Let the barbarians have the all too common deep booming horns calls and their totems raised high for the world to see. Let the Romans keep their trumpets and Legion standards. Amazons had been putting those fools in their graves from time immemorial. Right now, those horns had summoned the Host to a trot.The Hun, Attila, had tasked the Sarmatian Chieftain, under whose banner they rode, to deal with another crisis, the third this short day. Once more, they directed their horses over Catalaunian Fields. The Ostrogoth had gotten themselves into a world of trouble, those filthy, stinking Germans (why was I even thinking that way?)First the Amazons had ridden forth on Attila's right, reinforcing the allied Germanic tribes on the Right Wing in their attempt to force a wedge between Aetius' Romans and King Sangiban's Alans. They'd shown the fools the way, but the supporting Gepids cavalry was too timid and by the time they began to approach, the Golden Mare had been forced to sound 'retire'.The Roman auxiliary cavalry, though of poor quality, had plugged the gap. The Host were too few and too valuable (in their estimation) to die holding a position that their 'allies' might not rescue them from. Next, they had been directed to attack the center of the Alan cavalry line in support of the Huns.Despite the cowardice of their king, the Alans were hardy fighters and too accustomed to the style of steppe warfare that the Host practiced to be lured away from their position. Arrows were exchanged and brief, brutal skirmishes developed, but no advantage was gained. With their mounts exhausted, the Golden Mare had ordered the Host to retired to their camp to water their horses and refill their quivers.That bit of common sense and tactical wisdom placed them in their present crisis. Their Ostrogoth allies had been beating themselves against their Visigoth cousins all afternoon, charging up the same cursed slope that any sane commander would have found a way to flank. No, the Germans had failed seven times using the same plan, so they tried an eighth.Miraculously, they had gained a toehold on the ridgeline and killed the Visigothic King. Like a mob of mindless farmers, the Ostrogoths stopped to celebrate their 'victory' and taunt the Visigoths with the mutilated body of their fallen leader. The Visigoths had been properly incensed and counter-attacked. That's what Princes were for, to avenge their fallen Sires.As the Host exited the Hunnic laager, they'd seen the calamity unfold. The wavering Visigoth infantry had stiffened their line. Believing the Ostrogoths would press forward, the Horse-tail banner of Attila himself broke away from the central Hunnic body, pivoted to his left and thundered into the Visigoth's exposed flank.In the din of battle, it may have looked to the Great Warlord that he had a vanishing opportunity for victory. From the valley below, it was much clearer to the Amazons that the moment to break the Visigothic infantry had passed. The Huns were too tired; their mounts frothing from a long, hot afternoon of battle. Without a swift follow-through, the attack was doomed.At that point, headlong flight for the Amazons wasn't possible. Their long term survival hung on the Hunnic King keeping his Germanic 'allies' in line. They were still somewhere in eastern Roman Gaul, with the Rhine to ford and a land thick with perpetually vicious, blood-thirsty, crotch-scratching, flea-bitten Germanic barbarians to cross before they saw the green rolling hills of home again.No, the Golden Mare, and that young lady knew they had to do something to stem the tide of this disaster for another hour, then darkness would force the combatants to separate so they could try their hand at battle the next day. As the Golden Mare rode to the Sarmatian Chieftain, a rider came through the dust from Attila. The Visigothic cavalry had returned with a vengeance and the Ostrogoths were folding up.The Sarmatians (with their attached Amazons) were to 'somehow' repair the situation. As the Chieftain, the Golden Mare and three Sarmatian tribal leaders hastily discussed the actions. They saw the Hunnic Right, under hard pressure from the Roman attack, beginning to disintegrate. Of immediate concern was the rift opening up between the retreating Hunnic Gepids and the Hunnic horsemen holding the center.King Sangiban had finally discovered his manhood. The Alans attacked through that gap in the Hunnic lines and a rout was in the offing. The Sarmatian Leader decided he had to answer Attila's call. The Golden Mare offered to take her Amazons and whichever tribal leader volunteered first to ride with her against the Alans.She drew her sword and held it aloft then motioned the Sarmatians to look at her shadow."We will hold them off until the length of our swords double (the shadow). Then we are all on our own," she offered. There was no further discussion necessary. There was nothing else to say. The Host and their allies had the fresher horses and full quivers.The Alans had numbers but no heavy horse present, yet. The Host had answered Attila's call to war and now, nearly a year away from their homes in the forested steppe lands of modern-day Bukovina. At that moment they were wondering how few of them would ever see their horse herds roaming free this side of life.That was where my vision came in ~ that woman was 'Ishara', the last of my major bloodline of the first Ishara and this was the last hour of her life. The other two women were the only other two members of that vanishing bloodline. One was her aunt and the other a cousin. Despite the dire peril to their lineage, they joined their sisters in battle.Even though they were outnumber 2 to 1, the Amazons swept aside the first burst of Alans, scattering their bands and hunting the slowest of them down. Rushing alone to fill the gaping hole in the main battle lines was to abandon all tactical sense. Eighty Amazon heavy horse and perhaps twenty more Sarmatians ~ they were integrated now ~ alone simply weren't enough.For the roughly 300 lightly armored horse-archers, it would be a pointless suicide and that was not the Amazon way. Instead, they scattered the initial Alan rush then gently trotted back down the slope. Of course, the Alans regrouped and followed. It was the battle pulse of steppe skirmishing.By simply existing, they turned the rushing wave of that first Alan charge into a slowly strengthening tide. The Alans' mounts were tired and in need of water. Their quivers were nearly empty and some were seen at the top of the slope looting the quivers of the fallen. Whenever they could, the Amazons killed those clever souls.Killing an archer closer to you who only had two arrows left wasn't as economical as killing the one who was both dismounted, thus an easier shot, and about to have fifteen bolts to use against you. Without the constant harassment, the Gepids were able to keep their retreat orderly. In turn, the other Germanics farther to the right kept their mobs relatively intact as well.Their success earned them the inevitable enemy reaction. From his vantage point, the Roman Aetius saw the vulnerable and unsupported position the Amazons held. If he could push past the Amazon screen, he could still achieve a route instead of accepting a mere victory for his side. The solution was a force of

The Mysteries of Ceres, Tiamat, and Nibiru In this episode, we dive into the enigmatic worlds of Ceres, Tiamat, and Nibiru—three celestial bodies shrouded in mystery and myth. From Ceres, the dwarf planet in the asteroid belt, to the ancient Sumerian legends of Tiamat, a primordial goddess of chaos and the cosmos, we explore their fascinating connections to our understanding of the solar system. Is there more to these celestial bodies than we've been told? Could Nibiru, the mythical planet said to pass close to Earth, have an impact on our cosmic history?Join us as we untangle the science, the speculation, and the mythology surrounding these mysterious names in our quest to understand what lies beyond our planet. Tune in for an exploration of ancient stories, modern theories, and the potential truth behind these cosmic enigmas!Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paranormal-uk-radio-network--4541473/support.

Language Learning Collections - Book 3, Part 2 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 3 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This volume includes 'Abdu'l-Bahá's talk "On the Value of an International Language"; the first section of L.L. Zamenhof's "First Book" (Unua Libro), explaining his great invention—the International Language, i.e. Esperanto; the third Lesson of Barrs' "Beginning Latin"; Gustave Chouquet's "Easy Conversations in French" (11 - 14); Lessons 21 - 25 from "Greek Lessons" by W.H. Morris; Introduction from "Hand-Book of Volapük" by Charles E. Sprague; Leccion Tercera, from "New First Spanish Book", by James H. Worman; Lessons 11 - 15 from "Esperanto in Twenty Lessons" by Caroline Stearns Griffin; Lessons 26 - 30 from "A Practical Arabic Course" by E. Nématallah & E. Chevalley; two sections from the "Student's Greek Grammar" by Georg Curtius; the Preface from "A Grammar of the Persian Language" by the great linguist, Sir William Jones (1746 - 1794); the Preface from "Arabic Syntax chiefly selected from the Hidayut-oon-Nuhvi" by Henry Brown Beresford (d. 1869), which is based on the famous Hidāyatu'n-Nahw by Ibn al-Hājib (1174 – 1249 CE); Chapters 3 - 8 from "Slips of Speech" by John H. Bechtel and, lastly, The Alphabet/Classifications of Sounds from "New Latin Grammar" by Charles E. Bennet. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #10 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 3, Part 2 Book: 3 Volume: 3 Part: 2 of 2 Episodes Part: 10 Length Part: 2:11:07 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 5:30:01 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 5:30:01 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid and Chella Ward spoke to Professor Marc Van De Mieroop about Sumerian history. They discussed the role that the so-called ‘Ancient Near East' might play in reorienting history, from redefining the history of philosophy to telling a less Eurocentric story about writing and textual evidence. Marc is Professor of the Ancient Near East from the beginning of writing to the age of Alexander of Macedon, at Columbia University. His many important books and articles were the subject of our fascinating conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/middle-eastern-studies

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid and Chella Ward spoke to Professor Marc Van De Mieroop about Sumerian history. They discussed the role that the so-called ‘Ancient Near East' might play in reorienting history, from redefining the history of philosophy to telling a less Eurocentric story about writing and textual evidence. Marc is Professor of the Ancient Near East from the beginning of writing to the age of Alexander of Macedon, at Columbia University. His many important books and articles were the subject of our fascinating conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode of Radio ReOrient, Salman Sayyid and Chella Ward spoke to Professor Marc Van De Mieroop about Sumerian history. They discussed the role that the so-called ‘Ancient Near East' might play in reorienting history, from redefining the history of philosophy to telling a less Eurocentric story about writing and textual evidence. Marc is Professor of the Ancient Near East from the beginning of writing to the age of Alexander of Macedon, at Columbia University. His many important books and articles were the subject of our fascinating conversation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Step into the dark and eerie world of ancient mythologies as we explore the terrifying creatures and malevolent gods of Mesopotamia and Egypt. From the bloodthirsty demons of Sumerian lore to the vengeful spirits haunting the Egyptian underworld, this episode delves into some of the most chilling myths from two of the world's oldest civilizations.Plus, we'll explore how these ancient myths influenced modern horror and how the fear of the unknown in ancient cultures still sends chills down our spine today.

Highlights:1) Anomalous structures on Mars and ancient geoglyphs near Mayan cities, Nazca, and other Earth sites?2) Mayan and Sumerian stories supporting an ancient Martian civilization?3) An ancient Martian civilization endured a planet-wide catastrophe?4) Who left the monuments on the Moon and on Mars?Want to know your galactic ancestry? Unlock your cosmic potential with a FREE Starseed Video and Report!

Language Learning Collections - Book 3, Part 1 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 3 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This volume includes 'Abdu'l-Bahá's talk "On the Value of an International Language"; the first section of L.L. Zamenhof's "First Book" (Unua Libro), explaining his great invention—the International Language, i.e. Esperanto; the third Lesson of Barrs' "Beginning Latin"; Gustave Chouquet's "Easy Conversations in French" (11 - 14); Lessons 21 - 25 from "Greek Lessons" by W.H. Morris; Introduction from "Hand-Book of Volapük" by Charles E. Sprague; Leccion Tercera, from "New First Spanish Book", by James H. Worman; Lessons 11 - 15 from "Esperanto in Twenty Lessons" by Caroline Stearns Griffin; Lessons 26 - 30 from "A Practical Arabic Course" by E. Nématallah & E. Chevalley; two sections from the "Student's Greek Grammar" by Georg Curtius; the Preface from "A Grammar of the Persian Language" by the great linguist, Sir William Jones (1746 - 1794); the Preface from "Arabic Syntax chiefly selected from the Hidayut-oon-Nuhvi" by Henry Brown Beresford (d. 1869), which is based on the famous Hidāyatu'n-Nahw by Ibn al-Hājib (1174 – 1249 CE); Chapters 3 - 8 from "Slips of Speech" by John H. Bechtel and, lastly, The Alphabet/Classifications of Sounds from "New Latin Grammar" by Charles E. Bennet. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #9 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 3, Part 1 Book: 3 Volume: 3 Part: 1 of 2 Episodes Part: 10 Length Part: 3:19:06 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 5:30:01 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 5:30:01 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 4 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 2 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This volume includes "The Aural System" by Charles Hardy, the first and second lessons from "New First Spanish Book" by James H. Worman, three sections from "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons II to IV from "A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language" by George J. Adler, Lessons 1 to 3 from "New Method of Learning the French Language" by Jean Gustave Keetels, the Grammar and Conversation sections from "Egyptian Self-Taught" by Carl Albert Thimm, "Double English" by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenité, the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 from "Slips of Speech" by John H. Bechtel, "Greek Lessons: 11 - 20" by W. H. Morris, "Beginning Latin: Lesson 2" by John Edmund Barrs, Sentence Construction from "A Primer of Persian" by G.S.A. Ranking and Lessons 20 - 25 from "A Practical Arabic Course" by E. Nématallah & E. Chevalley. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #8 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 4 Book: 2 Volume: 2 Part: 4 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 3:05:42 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:45:40 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:45:40 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

In the vast pantheon of Sumerian mythology, one weapon stands above the rest—Sharur, the divine mace of Ninurta. More than just a tool of war, Sharur could fly, communicate, and even strategize in battle. In this episode of Mythlok, host Nitten Nair takes you on a journey through the origins, powers, and legendary battles of this mythical weapon.How did Sharur help Ninurta defeat the fearsome Anzu bird? What made it so unique compared to other divine weapons? And if you had a weapon of immense power and wisdom, how would you use it?Tune in as we explore the fascinating stories, cultural significance, and hidden wisdom behind Sharur. Don't forget to like, subscribe, and hit the notification button to stay updated on more legendary tales!This is Mythlok—Stay Curious, Stay Mythical!Read more at https://mythlok.com/sharur/

Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 3 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 2 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This volume includes "The Aural System" by Charles Hardy, the first and second lessons from "New First Spanish Book" by James H. Worman, three sections from "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons II to IV from "A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language" by George J. Adler, Lessons 1 to 3 from "New Method of Learning the French Language" by Jean Gustave Keetels, the Grammar and Conversation sections from "Egyptian Self-Taught" by Carl Albert Thimm, "Double English" by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenité, the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 from "Slips of Speech" by John H. Bechtel, "Greek Lessons: 11 - 20" by W. H. Morris, "Beginning Latin: Lesson 2" by John Edmund Barrs, Sentence Construction from "A Primer of Persian" by G.S.A. Ranking and Lessons 20 - 25 from "A Practical Arabic Course" by E. Nématallah & E. Chevalley. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #7 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 3 Book: 2 Volume: 2 Part: 3 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 1:43:41 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:45:40 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:45:40 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 2 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 2 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This volume includes "The Aural System" by Charles Hardy, the first and second lessons from "New First Spanish Book" by James H. Worman, three sections from "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons II to IV from "A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language" by George J. Adler, Lessons 1 to 3 from "New Method of Learning the French Language" by Jean Gustave Keetels, the Grammar and Conversation sections from "Egyptian Self-Taught" by Carl Albert Thimm, "Double English" by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenité, the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 from "Slips of Speech" by John H. Bechtel, "Greek Lessons: 11 - 20" by W. H. Morris, "Beginning Latin: Lesson 2" by John Edmund Barrs, Sentence Construction from "A Primer of Persian" by G.S.A. Ranking and Lessons 20 - 25 from "A Practical Arabic Course" by E. Nématallah & E. Chevalley. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #6 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 2 Book: 2 Volume: 2 Part: 2 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 2:25:27 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:45:40 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:45:40 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

In this episode, we venture into the enigmatic world of Kozyrev Mirrors, arcane Sumerian symbols, and astral tours of Olympus Mons. Kozyrev Mirrors, named after Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kozyrev, are rumored to harness cosmic energies and induce heightened states of awareness or psychic perception. Sumerian symbols, vestiges of one of Earth's earliest civilizations, hint at advanced knowledge encoded in their ancient script. Lastly, the concept of astral tours to Olympus Mons, the colossal Martian volcano, challenges our understanding of consciousness by proposing that the mind can traverse vast interplanetary distances. Together, these topics stir curiosity about the boundaries of human perception and the possibilities of hidden cosmic connections.

The SB crew returns for a new and stoney Season 7 and in this mind-expanding episode of The Stoner Budeez Podcast, Brian, Bean, and Gary take a deeper dive into the mystery of the Anunnaki—the ancient Sumerian deities that some believe were extraterrestrial visitors who played a role in shaping human civilization. From Zecharia Sitchin's controversial theories to ancient Mesopotamian texts, the Budeez explore the possibility that humanity's origins may not be as straightforward as mainstream history claims.Are the Anunnaki the true architects of early civilization? Did they really come from the planet Nibiru, or is it all just a wild conspiracy? And what does it all have to do with modern secret societies, lost technologies, and even our own DNA? Light up and tune in as the Budeez break it all down, questioning everything while keeping the vibes high.Pack a bowl, open your third eye, and get ready for a cosmic journey, Budeez!

The UnconqueredBy FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.Politically, this was manna from Heaven. Putin couldn't strong arm both the Ukraine and the PRC. His priorities had switched, so now NATO could jump into the Ukraine which would appease their democratic constituencies.There were also larger economic/political issues to look at. Europe had constantly been threatened by Russia's interference with the oil and natural gas pipelines that first pass through Russia before crossing the Ukraine and Belarus and heading off to Central and Western Europe. A great deal of that fuel originated in what was now the Khanate.If the Khanate survived, and viewed the US and UK favorably, the 'oil and natural gas' boot would be on the other foot. If Russia threatened the European Democracies' petrochemical supplies, the Khanate could threaten to cut off Russia as well. The old Republic of Kazakhstan never had the will to confront Russia. The Khanate was turning out to be a very different beast.Because the world didn't need any more ominous rumblings, catastrophe and madness collided in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea was an energy exporter, with most of its power coming from coal-fired plants and hydro-electric facilities. The problem was you can't run armored vehicles and combat aircraft on electric power. You needed oil.North Korea's oil came from China, Liaoning province to be precise, and Liaoning was getting hammered around the clock by the Khanate. The oil pipeline had ruptured and it would be months before it was fixed. In that situation, a sane nation would have shopped around for other avenue of imported oil. But we were talking about North Korea here.Kim Jung-un was looking down the barrels of another famine (trucks and tractors need petrol too) as well as the far more important reduction in the Korean People's Army's readiness. He saw himself possessing the World's 4th largest military and it was in danger of running out of fuel, and Liaoning province was sitting right across the Yalu River, all helpless-like.End World News Behind the Scenes ReportIn the annals of martial history, the bloodiest, costliest battles are when elites face elites. As corny and melodramatic as it sounds, the truth is that neither has 'surrender' in their creed. They attack, defend, ambush, shoot, stab and kill one another until one side loses the capacity to carry on the struggle. It is a grapple to the death.All of Ajax's men were hardened killers, ten year veterans of the Trojan Wars every; one of them. The ranks of the 22nd Mountain Troops Battalion were filled with numerous combat-tested soldiers of the Afghan War. These Romanians were some of the finest combatants produced by the Romanian Army. The two companies earmarked for sealing off the road as a retreat route were about to find out what the price of being elite really was.They were fighting for their homeland, avenging their slain (technically, the slaughtered Amazons were Romanians) and had generations of their own warriors, dating back to the First World War, whose legacy of ferocity they had to maintain. Ajax had the advantage in technology and surprise. The Romanians had numbers, experience with the terrain and the advantage of multi-dimensional warfare.The lead vehicles of the 22nd had rounded the hilly terrain to the East of the Castle of Seven Skulls when they collided with Ajax's team rolling away from those ruins. The Mountain Troops were fast, Ajax's team was faster. One soldier stepped out of his still-braking Eagle transport.He snap-shot a Panzerfaust 3, a light anti-tank weapon, blowing up the first Romanian Piranha IIIc. Two Eagles further down the column, a second team member put another Panzerfaust into the follow-up 22nd MLVN (armored personal carrier). That was as good as it got. The third vehicle, another MLVN swung partially around its burning brethren and poured automatic fire into Ajax's lead Eagle, turning huge chunks of that 'Hummer on Steroids' transport into shrapnel.Trading vehicle for vehicle wasn't something Ajax could afford. For the Romanians, they couldn't race past the blocked road without incurring horrendous losses themselves. Besides, by holding their ground and keeping the enemy focused on them, they were fulfilling their part of the plan. The Mountain Troops disgorged from their MLVN's, spreading out into the meadow on either side of the path and were quickly bounding forward by fire.Ajax reacted quickly. His heavy weapons would allow him to attrition the enemy in front of him, yet he'd be a fool to think they were alone. He knew he was facing army troops, not police. That spelled serious trouble. He ordered his column to reverse course back into the wood cover. He lost his second Eagle to intensive fire.The warriors in the main column bailed out once they reached the shelter of the trees. Machineguns came forward and established a withering cover fire. The two survivors at the first Eagle were badly wounded. With fatalistic resolve, they lashed the advancing Romanians with grenades and their assault rifles until they were both silenced. The second Eagle's demise was much harder.Three of the four crew were alive and unharmed. Their fate was decided by 25 meters of open ground between them and their compatriots. Ajax's gunners kept firing, but the Romanians refused to be suppressed. Worse, that second MLVN was proving impossible to kill. Its driver had parked it so that barely the front of his vehicle body and turret were exposed.Two more of Ajax's precious anti-tank rockets failed to connect, though one did knock the first destroyed IFV into that troublesome vehicle. These were Ajax's brothers-in-arms, yet he knew their situation was hopeless. He cursed that his opposition wasn't made up of raw conscripts. Despite their losses, they were not wavering. Their morale remained solid.The Romanians had spread out to the north and south. They were leap-frogging their machineguns forward and it was clear he was facing over 200 men. The 22nds advance was relentless. Soon they'd be right on top of his trapped men. As a final ploy he dropped two smoke grenades around the endangered trio and every other grenade launcher dropped their payloads onto the aggressive Romanians.The three men ran for it. Their enemy were nobody's fool and sprayed their retreat path with bullets. Only one made it to safety.For the Romanian battalion's commander in his command IFV, this was its own kind of Hell. His boys were getting murdered out there. He hadn't really believed the sketchy intelligence analysis that described his expected foes as the finest trained mercenaries the world has ever seen. Now he was a believer. His opponents reacted like an organic unit. Their weapons were incredibly lethal and their discipline was chilling. Ajax's snipers picked off anyone who seemed to be in charge. One Captain fell, as did two lieutenants. One section lost all its non-commissioned officers.Despite that, individual initiative kept the 'leaderless' men of the 22nd advancing. Their snipers came into play by targeting the opposing machineguns. One gunner went down, then the other. To get one man back, Ajax had lost five dead, or seriously wounded. Ajax ordered the remaining Eagles back to the castle. The rest of the Warband would have to make a fighting retreat.He'd killed or wounded a third of the Romanians out there, yet they were still coming. Even as he pulled out, he got two more pieces of bad:First, his scouts had reported hearing helicopters as they returned toward the castle; this latest enemy was somewhere behind him, to the east.Second, two Mig-21's dropped out of the sky and raked his area with rockets and auto-cannon fire; eight more men gone.Ajax may not have been the greatest military mind of all time, but wasn't a fool. He was being boxed in. Since it was highly unlikely the Hylonome Amazons had sacrificed themselves, this was an ad hoc plan to take him out. Instead of hunting down that male Amazon as he wanted, Ajax had let the Condottieri side-track him on this mission. Now, it was proving far too costly.A whistle, a few traded hand signals and the Mycenaeans started sprinting back upslope toward the castle ruins. It wasn't a rout. His men maintained their élan and cohesion. Ajax was trading space for time and the Romanians wouldn't chase his men as fast as the Mycenaeans were moving because there was always the threat of ambush. Or, they wouldn't have if an An-30 Reconnaissance Aircraft hadn't been tracking his progress from high above.Just coming on-line, it identified the heat signatures of the Greeks and let the soldiers of the 22nd know that their enemies were trying to put some distance between them. The battalion commander knew his men had been mangled, yet believed they were still more than willing carry the fight to the enemy. Right as the 'pursuit' order went out, the promised company from the 24th Mountain troops rolled up, with the 61st Brigade's 385th artillery battalion. 'Now things were really going to get hot for those bastards', he thought.(The Seven Skulls, Cáel)I was true to my nature. I sent off my plan, Operation Funhouse, to the Russians via their attaché (a hot looking, curvaceous blonde Major) and to the Khanate through the offices of the US and UK. Only after that was done, did I ask for my favor. I wasn't going to bargain with the fate of Temujin's people. I couldn't.My only chip to play was that people in strange places thought well of me. I wasn't so naïve to believe that I got what I wanted because I'd forged emotional bonds that superseded personal ambitions or national loyalties. No, I was now on my own self-inflicted 'Ride of the Valkyries' because people in authority felt I could still be useful and they were willing to risk the lives a few hundred Romanian soldiers to pander to my eccentricities.Our intelligence came from Google Maps, a woman's recollections from twenty-five years ago and the frighteningly precise memories of a battle-scarred 11 year old girl. For the 24th Mountain Troops battalion intelligence officer, it was a stunning introduction to Amazons. The girl was one year away from her Rite of Passage and she'd been raised to take in the terrain and the sounds of battle.Several times, he tried to trick her, altering information she had provided minutes earlier, but the girl corrected him every time. Seventeen minutes and the man relayed to his battalion commander his belief that the girl's story was solid. The men and women of the 24th may not have known the specific of the valley we were going to, yet this was their backyard.They knew the rocks, trees and bushes. They knew the ground was crinkled and what marsh soil looked like, without stepping into it. They could do this, attack a rogue mercenary band threatening their native land. They were going to do this and do it quick. Me and mine coming along was problematic. But Me being one of the first ones in, I had to play my trump card."I am Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege," I proclaimed. "I have returned to my people in their hour of need. Besides, I'm the only one who can kill their leader.""You can kill Ajax?" Riki snorted in disbelief. "Ajax from the Trojan Wars? That Ajax?""Don't sweat it," I put my arm around her shoulder. "I got this covered. Get me close and I can make him dead.""You've lost your mind," Rachel muttered."I love you to," I grinned. To the Captain of the first company to rappel next to the ruins, "I'm your Prince. Let's do this.""Do you have any combat experience?" he shook his head."There are a whole bunch of dead Chinese who think so," I assured him."Let him go," Sakuniyas stated regally. "He is the Scion of Alal. He is invincible in battle." Hey, I liked that. Someone believed in me."Do you believe that?" Pamela asked Saku."Of course not, but if he's about to die, he should be allowed to feel good about himself," she told Pamela. Shit, I wish I hadn't heard that part."Oh, in that case, I agree. Let him go," Pamela added her preference to the final decision. The real weight in that Captain's final call was the small, well-armed group of supporters who seemed rather insistent that I get a chance at Valhalla.He took it well. The officer even announced to the entire battalion that their feudal overlord was leading them into the fight. My codename was 'Prince'. I hope I didn't turn out like the singer, I had no aspirations for being Machiavelli's 'hero', but being remember as someone like Prince Harry wouldn't be so bad.What I did know was this was my choice of actions and I couldn't send others into the madness I had inspired. I didn't blame myself for the deaths. Those were inevitable if Ajax was going to die. I didn't blame myself for Ajax, that was the Weave of Fate being a bastardly bitch. No, I had to kill Ajax because I was an idiot, and I loved my companions, and if it wasn't me making the attempt and possibly dying, it would be one of them. Not on my watch.Our IAR 330 Puma Helicopter lifted off into the sky. Our two companion birds, another troop carrier and an assault variant of the Puma, followed suit and soon we linked up with the rest of the company that was going to rappel into the clearing next to the ruins. Could I rappel? Sure, I lied. Hey, I'd made it to the top of the rope in gym class at the end of my senior year. That had to count for something.I was even lucky to have the lynchpin of my master plan sitting next to me. One in sixteen, what were the odds? "You, what's your name?" I asked the soldier barely older than me. "Master Corporal Menner," he grinned. Maybe he sensed my insanity. "Székely?" I asked. He nodded.   "Do you believe I am your Prince?""Either that, or you are crazy," he kept grinning. I leaned over and after some helmet shuffling, I whispered my request in his ear. I didn't demand that he agree, only that if he didn't, he wouldn't turn me in. Our eyes met."Why?" he was now filled with disbelief. I had passed beyond the realm of comedian to the land where all crazy ideas go off to die."It is the only way. Trust me, I don't love this plan either, but it is the only way I can think of to keep as many of you alive as possible," I explained. "He's a monster.""How will this help?" he was still confused, even if he was being swept away with my intensity."I don't have time to explain. All I can tell you is that I'm not crazy and I don't want to die, but this is the only thing I can think of to keep my people alive," I remained firm and confident in my beliefs."I will have to think about it," he conceded. At least he wasn't insisting I be forcibly committed to a mental institution. I did annoy one of the two crewmen in the back with the rest of us combatants when I stood up and looked out the side window. I glimpsed it, her, flowing through the forest beneath us. After I sat back down, the Captain flagged me.I had forgotten to cut on my communications rig on. "First Force (the two companies of the 22nd) has encountered the enemy before they could exit into the flatlands," he paused, somewhat shocked. "They are taking heavy casualties. It is just like you warned us. These foes are exceedingly lethal." "Don't worry about it," I overflowed with charisma. "Just follow me and we'll be fine." "But, I thought you said you didn't know anything about the compound?" the Captain looked at me funny."I don't. I'm relying on luck," I pumped my eyebrows. The Captain knew enough English to groan."I have a sudden desire to club a baby seal," Rachel stared at me intently. Who, me? "Let me and my men take the point," the Captain insisted. "Captain, either I'm diving headfirst out of our ride, or you are letting me rappel down in the first wave, either way, my boots are the first on the ground," I demanded. "No," the Captain shook his head. "You are a civilian." "Captain," I leaned forward. "Everyone else is fighting and dying because I made a judgment call. You can't ask me to hold back now."That shone through. Over his battalion frequency, he could hear the confusion and chaos chiseling away at his brethren in the 22nd. He could tell by my countenance that I both knew the enemy he was going to fight and that I wasn't ruled by guilt, or a death wish. I wanted to go first because I thought I could make the difference between someone else's life and death. "Who are the other three with you?" he stated. Four could rappel down at a time. "Rachel, Chaz and Master Corporal Menner here," I indicated. Rachel didn't freak, the Colour Sergeant looked my way and gave his acknowledgement, as did Menner. "I'll go down with you, Captain," Pamela spoke up.Of my group, Delilah, Wiesława and Virginia had stayed behind to guard Odette, Riki, the Lovasz sisters and the Loma family. Two troopers of the 24th joined them to provide extra security if needed. Vincent had pulled seniority to be the sole American going. With Chaz and Delilah, there hadn't been a real discussion about it. Chaz was the professional ground-pounder.Selena had volunteered to go even though this wasn't really her fight. She claimed the right of revenge for Ajax's attempt to kill the Vizsla, but I thought it was something else, some desire to step forward and make the point that the Black Hand were invested in this global struggle. There had been no doubt that Rachel  and  her team plus Sakuniyas and Pamela would be joining me.In my estimation, we were over the target area way too fast. I hadn't thought of a good reason to talk myself out of this harebrained scheme of mine. The side doors of the Puma opened. Rachel would be going down on my side."Look and see what Rachel does and do the same thing," Pamela yelled to me over the roar of the engines."And don't lock your knees or you'll sprain your ankles," she added. It was just another day of 'on the job' training at Havenstone Commercial Investments, I rationalized. I was scared, which was also a good indicator that I was still marginally sane. Rachel made her movements slow and steady.I went down a second later, barely remembering to avoid rope burn through my gloves and not bust my feet when I hit bottom. Rachel crouched. She was waiting for follow up troops before advancing. Me, I ran straight toward the ruins. Why? It was Alal once more. From the relayed chatter from the 22nd and whatever spy plane the Romanians had above, I 'knew' that Ajax hadn't made it back to the fortifications yet.If we hurried, we could beat him there. Then we would be ambushing his ass for a change. It almost worked. Whatever Chaz and Menner thought of my actions, they kept it to themselves. I didn't have to be a psychic to realize Rachel wasn't a fan. I leapt over the first Amazon corpse. The second one I passed was sitting with her back to the tree, hands tied around the trunk and had been tortured before she died.I believed that was when the momentum shifted. This was barbarism and the three following me knew it. Menner relayed our findings to his Captain even as the first helicopter was pulling away. My mind was picking up the details and processing somewhere in the back of my mind so as not to distracting me from the task of staying alive.A pile of bodies lumped too close together, they had been executed. A small girl, three, or four, with a close-contact wound to the temple. The smell of burnt flesh, more torture. Whatever Code of Military Conduct the Mycenaeans had, it wasn't the rules we, their opponents, fought by today. We were outraged and help was coming.We were running in from the northeast. Three meter from what had once been a doorway, I broke free of the underbrush and saw the closest Greek and the row of vehicles behind him. He was to my east, maybe ten meters away. I wasn't stopping. The terrain had funneled us down so that we weren't coming directly from the helicopter's noise.That must have been the reason he wasn't staring at us when we appeared. I didn't stop. Chaz and Menner were right behind me. Rachel only slowed enough to fire her P-90 at full-auto at the man as she ran. She killed him. The three of us ran across the open-aired, ruined room until we found the doorway to the other side of the building. From there, we had a good view of Ajax's remaining Eagles and the eight remaining men with them."I'm going for higher ground," Chaz growled before he took off."Rachel, go back and secure the corner we came in by," I shouted. She grimaced but obeyed. Menner had his own ideas. He fired off his first rocket-propelled grenade from his AG-7 at the farthest Eagle he could clearly see, blowing it to smithereens. I added the

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the Assyriologist Selena Wisnom, author of The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History. Selena tells me about the vast and strange world of cuneiform culture, as evidenced by the life and reign of the scholar-king Ashurbanipal and the library – pre-dating that of Alexandria – that he left to the world. She describes the cruelty and brilliance of the Ancient Near East, the uses of lamentation, the capricious Babylonian gods, the ways in which we can recognise ourselves in our ancestors there – plus, what The Exorcist got wrong about Sumerian demons.

My guest on this week's Book Club podcast is the Assyriologist Selena Wisnom, author of The Library of Ancient Wisdom: Mesopotamia and the Making of History. Selena tells me about the vast and strange world of cuneiform culture, as evidenced by the life and reign of the scholar-king Ashurbanipal and the library – pre-dating that of Alexandria – that he left to the world. She describes the cruelty and brilliance of the Ancient Near East, the uses of lamentation, the capricious Babylonian gods, the ways in which we can recognise ourselves in our ancestors there – plus, what The Exorcist got wrong about Sumerian demons.

Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 1 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 2 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This volume includes "The Aural System" by Charles Hardy, the first and second lessons from "New First Spanish Book" by James H. Worman, three sections from "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons II to IV from "A Practical Grammar of the Latin Language" by George J. Adler, Lessons 1 to 3 from "New Method of Learning the French Language" by Jean Gustave Keetels, the Grammar and Conversation sections from "Egyptian Self-Taught" by Carl Albert Thimm, "Double English" by Dr. Gerald Nolst Trenité, the Introduction and Chapters 1 and 2 from "Slips of Speech" by John H. Bechtel, "Greek Lessons: 11 - 20" by W. H. Morris, "Beginning Latin: Lesson 2" by John Edmund Barrs, Sentence Construction from "A Primer of Persian" by G.S.A. Ranking and Lessons 20 - 25 from "A Practical Arabic Course" by E. Nématallah & E. Chevalley. Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #5 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 2, Part 1 Book: 2 Volume: 2 Part: 1 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 3:49:13 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:45:40 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:45:40 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Companions, History and Heroism.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.There are two distinct phases of falsehood. In the first, you realize you can lie to those closest to you. In the second, you realize you shouldn't.(And the stars continue to shine forth)"Stop trying to save me," Pamela remarked, once she was sure we were alone once more."Ask me to do something I'd at least consider doing," I sighed. "Let's go back to the party, I'm not sure where we are.""You've been walking in one big circle, Dummy," she chided me.Why was she letting me off the hook for walking off with the Grand Villain in the scheme of things? Well, if she started hitting me, she probably wasn't sure she could stop."One of these days I'm going to screw up and not get out of it," I noted sadly."That is the epitaph of anyone who has ever taken up a weapon and a cause," Pamela smiled.Maybe she wasn't angry with me."Why aren't you more pissed off?" I wondered."You are a good guy, Cáel," Pamela enlightened me. "That means you are going to reach out to people you think you can save. Personally, I don't think Alal can be, but then I'm biased.""Guy coming back from the dead?" I inquired."Damn right. No more surefire way to anger an assassin than to come back from the dead," she related. "Did you take note of his body?""Not really. What did I miss?" I requested."It didn't look right," Pamela shook her head. "Nothing more specific than that. I was hoping, since you touched him, you might have picked something else up.""Nope. I was too busy slipping a GPS locator on him," I grinned."You don't have one and the technology doesn't work that way, ya numbskull," she play slapped my left bicep."Wouldn't it be cool if it did?" my grin broadened."Laugh it up, Monkey-boy," Pamela countered. "Buffy would have you tagged like a mule deer in Yellowstone.""Eek," I gasped. "Point taken.""Well, " Pamela huffed."He's going to kill my soul," I observed. "Now I'm sure of it. All of that discussion was just gauging my personality so that when he offs me, he can become Cáel Nyilas / Wakko Ishara." Pause."Good for you," Pamela let go of a tense breath. She didn't have to ask."The whole Condottieri situation is a scam," I passed on that bit of information I'd first put together with the Vizsla. "It never left Granddad's control. Currently he's going to use various other factions to kill off the Condottieri and Illuminati leadership that oppose him, then it is Unity Time.""If he takes your place, that gives him leverage on the Amazon Council plus your appeal to the 9 Clans and the Earth  and  Sky," Pamela helped me work things through. "He couldn't get his hooks into the Egyptians because they knew too much about him. Matters of race stymied his efforts with the Earth  and  Sky and Seven Pillars.""Except I saved Temujin and he's been supplying them with weapons and tech for over fifty years," I told her. "Even when he was dead, his plan was working, he had predicted the path that warfare would take, invested wisely and left orders to implement his plans. When the time came, they were ready to take out the Seven Pillars.""Without you saving Temujin, the E and S wouldn't have cared, but you," Pamela nodded. "If it comes down to his coalition of Illuminati, Condottieri, Amazons and 9 Clans, the Egyptians will join him, Global Unification has been their goal all along," she continued. "Besides, you made one hell of a positive impression on them the only time you've met. Bang up job, Stud.""Temujin will join as well. He's anything but suicidal," I finished the roll call of my fate. We were almost back to the rave by this time. "You know, you could kill me and short-circuit all of this mess," I reminded her."No way. I plan to win, damn it," Pamela patted me on the back. "Save the Dum-sel in Disrepute, slay the Evil Warlord and re-retire with a boatload great-grandbabies to spoil.""I gave the Vizsla a clue," I let Pamela know the possible complications to her plan. "In 1847, one General of the Condottieri tried to have the Italian Black Hand kill another. Unfortunately, the victim in question was a puppet for Grandpa and the assassin team attacked them both. Because they saw his face, he hunted them back to their base and slaughtered the entire Verona Chapter house of the Wolf.""He must have fucked up a few other times as well," Pamela assured me. Speaking of miscalculations, Anya, Katalin and Orsi broke from the thrashing mob and ran up to me."Your crazy ex-girlfriend called," Anya seemed steamed. "She insisted must she talk to you." At first glance, it would be 'which crazy ex-GF', except only one had Anya's phone number. I took her phone."Bonjour, ma petite amie méchante ," I greeted Anais, the Mountie, in French. Yes, I was calling her a 'meanie'."Cáel, how are you? Where are you?" she was truly concerned. I didn't doubt her sincerity. I also didn't doubt she was convinced she knew what was best for me, as well."I've talked with the Hungarian Police too," I let my pique come through. "You screwed me over. I asked you to let me handled this and you didn't.""You are still a Jerk," she snapped. "I've been trying to help. And from the sounds of it, you are at a party.""It's a rave. It is a rave brought about by the police keeping people penned up in the town all afternoon. Now, if you would stop treating me like a freaking child, you would realize that I'm actually safer in a crowd than I am alone, holed-up in some room without a weapon because you've made it so that the TEK is now keeping a sharp eye on me," I retorted."Can't you tell I'm trying to help you?" she got loud, on the cusp of becoming enraged."Yes. I called you, asking for help. I also called to apologize, without making it sound like some lame stupid stunt to get you back. I'm in real trouble here and I've put other people in danger at the same time," I told her. And yes, I planned to get some 'Anais' when I got back to North America."I'm telling you," she persisted, "let Hungarian law enforcement help you.""I'm trying to make you understand," I countered, "that this is a situation that the police can't help me with. I called you because I believed I could trust you, even though you hate me.""I'm angry with you, Cáel. I don't hate you," she grumbled. "I am trying to help.""If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't still be talking to you, Anais," I allowed. "What did Timothy tell you?""Is that all you care about?" she grumbled."Actually, this is me trying not to be a selfish jackass," I said. "People are in danger because of me and I need to make sure they are safe before I take care of myself.""That's, very unlike you," Anais sounded unsure."I've been doing some growing up since graduation," I replied. "I only wish I'd grown smarter.""I, I'm sorry about your Papa," she quieted down."They gunned him down in his own home," I told her. "Dad never touched a gun in his life and they shot him with an assault rifle.""Oh, well, I understand your Federal Justice Department is investigating the matter," Anais tried to comfort me. "I talked with your Prosecutor Castello. She wouldn't tell me much.""Pity," I mumbled. "I know they are having difficulties.""It is an American problem," she noted."Not really," I sunk in my hooks. "We've been working with MI-6 and the CIA. They are all part of that international task force I told you about {see last chapter}.""Yes, how did you get Irish diplomatic status? That doesn't make any sense," she perked up. Anais liked puzzles. Actually, she liked solving conundrums. It made her a great cop."We are missing the party," Monika protested, in German."That's right. Tell your EX-girlfriend good-bye, Cáel," Anya insisted loudly."Who is that?" Anais groused."It is Anya, the Bulgarian mechanical engineer. We've had sex since you and I last talked and I think she's feeling a tad possessive," I explained.Pause."Bastard," Anais seethed. I was sure her cunt was twitching already. "Fine. I talked with your roommate, he says you have my uniform in a dress bag and my boots in a sealed box, so I forgive you. Anyway, he said Odette called, and she gave him a number to give to you."Since it didn't have 555 in it, I had hopes it was genuine. This was not the time to give Anais the quick kiss-off."I appreciate it, Anais," I sighed with relief. "Have you decided which restaurant you want to go to when I get back?""I haven't given it much thought, Cáel," I could feel her defrosting further. "How can I keep in touch with you?""Ugh, I don't have my own phone right now. Tomorrow I'm going to steal some means of conveyance and, " I grinned."Don't tell me that," Anais complained. "I'm still an officer of the law.""Well, the new 'me' is trying to be more honest with you, Anais. I've got to get out of town tomorrow. Would you rather I lied to you, again?" I confounded her."Well, no. Try to be careful, prends soin de mon amour," she sighed."I will call you as soon as I'm able. Thank you again," I signed off."I still say, 'that one' is confused about her 'ex' status," Orsi teased me."Do you know what is worse than having one woman save your soul?" I tossed out to them. They could not divine an answer. "Having three women do it at the same time, for different reasons. Now I believe we have a party starving for our attention."(Reunions)Pamela had convinced me the motorcycle driver who belonged to our newly acquired BMW K1600 GT would be at least four hours regaining consciousness and getting himself untied. We had stopped at a petrol station along the 431, between Kiszombor, Hungary and the Romanian border. She wanted to fuel up before the border crossing, in case things didn't work out, you know, with our guns and this stolen vehicle.She was already peeved that I'd stopped in Szeged to pick up a few pounds of paprika. Rumor had it that the fields around that stretch of the Tisza produced the highest quality of that spice on the planet, especially the sweet kind. Pamela pointed out I knew 'jack' about cooking. I agreed. What I did know was cooks, the female variety.Fresh spice from the 'source' was way better than a dozen roses, even with a box of chocolates added. Did I have a cook lined up in New York? No, but I was sure I could find one. Wait! Yasmin, my Brazilian, ex-Super Cop, hottie should be back in town by now. If she didn't cook, she'd definitely have a friend I could seduce.Honest to Ishara, I was starting to believe this constant 'work-work-work' was ruining my normally poor judgment where sex and fidelity were concerned.Pamela was getting some lunch for us while I gassed up my crotch-rocket. My luck kept being, exceptional. Two Hungarian motorcycle troopers showed up; both were women and they apparently had decided that I was worthy of attention. Hey, I'm good-looking, and I was wearing a ballistic vest. (The durability of my long coat wasn't so obvious.) "Nice bike," the first one, the one directly confronting me, said. "Thanks. It is a KT1600 GT, 2009," I smiled. "What are you two on?" "Yamaha FJR1300A's," she answered. I put up the nozzle, capped the tank and walked over to her conveyance. It was a really sweet ride. "You have a gun," she noted calmly. She and her partner both had their hands on their holstered weapons. Since the flaps were still down, I wasn't panicking. "Yes. More than one in fact," I kept pretending to look over her bike while I was really scoping her out. I'd nailed all six boat girls and then had the Macedonian babe for breakfast. So I still had three good sexual bangs in me before dusk and these two were nice and pleasant enough. "Do you have permits for those?" she asked. Her partner was calling something in. "Are we still in Hungary?" I mused. The question was a joke. "I believe we are," she smiled. Sure, I may have been a dangerous felon, but I was a nice looking and engaging one."Nope. I'm afraid not," I sighed. She understood my English. "Why are you so armed?" she kept calm. "Are you law enforcement somewhere?" "Does a secretive, non-governmental, paramilitary organization count?" "No," she sighed. "That sounds rather criminal. So, what are you carrying?" That was a nice way of saying 'give me your gun'."Left, right, back, or ankle?" I replied. "Which one do you want first?" "Let's try this again. Can I see some form of ID?" she remained rather comfortable despite this having to be the most bizarre traffic stop of her career."I'm reaching around to my right rear jean pocket for it," I related. Something dating Anais had taught me was that you always tell an on-duty cop what you are doing before you do it.She nodded, so I pulled out my NY Driver's license, my US passport and my Irish Diplomatic ID. She began looking them over. "You are Cáel Nyilas?" she looked over my documents. "If that who it says I am, then yes," I grinned.For a second, she was P-O'ed, then she realized I was playing with her. She snorted in amusement and returned to looking over my stuff.   "Nyilas is a Hungarian name," she hummed. "Székely," I clarified. "My family emigrated to America at the end of World War II. I've actually come back here to look over the homeland." "You couldn't land in Bucharest?" she handed me my ID back. "What?" I feigned an insult to my intellect. "Hungarian women are far prettier.""You don't appear to be Dortmund Schuyler," her partner looked me over.

A day in the life of rural Hungary.By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.'Here be Dragons' wasn't always a tourist gimmick."I didn't say you could have a drink," the Vizsla commented."Oh, my apologies," I shrugged. I put the stein on a nearby table and waited."Have a seat," she directed. I came up to her table and examined the three empty chairs. I held back until she pointed to the chair opposite her. I sat down, but didn't make eye contact. Instead, I examined the various paintings and photographs on the walls. It was an old place."You killed Matthias, even though you knew he worked for me," she uttered."I can confirm that information to be correct," I looked her way. That, wasn't what she expected."Why?""Why what?" I countered. There was a method to my madness; this was going to be a lesson in competence, and what happens when you don't respect it."Why did you kill Matthias?""I needed a reason?" I tried to look pensive. "Maybe I didn't like the cut of his facial hair?""Do you think this is a joke?" she replied dryly. "The Black Hand always avenge our own.""Damn," I looked perplexed. "No one told me that when I arrived. Can we call Matthias's extermination a 50/50 bad call, both ways?""Matthias was my cousin," the Vizsla continued."My condolences," I sighed. "The next Black Hand douche-bag the Amazons waste, I'll have them ask if he's related to you first. How's that?""You are so not likely to have that opportunity," she pointed out."Oh," I laughed, "you are so wrong about that.""You are far stupider than I had been informed," the Vizsla's eyes narrowed."Nope. You and your cast of 'Dumb and Dumber' have been treating us like idiots since we touched down at Ferenc Liszt International, so I'm pretending to be that simpleton sock-puppet just for you, Vizsla. You've added to that by heaping disrespect and derision on my people," I grinned."You tried to have me and my entourage murdered and Matthias paid the price for that. Everyone knows I'm here. And after your bungled attempt to have me killed, no one is going to believe you did anything but murder me, if I don't show up eventually. Now do you prefer the stupid me, or the brighter than normal me?""If you think acting like a smart-ass is somehow endearing, you are mistaken," she let me know."Whatever," I shrugged. "You called this meeting. What do you want?""Beyond killing one of my lieutenants, I wanted to know what you are doing here?" she studied me."I would like to leave now. I'm wasting my time here," I responded."I want answers," she pressed."You have been given the answers to both your talking points, Matthias died because of your orders and I am here looking for three lost Amazon bloodlines," I replied."That seems bizarre," the Vizsla expressed her doubts."Bizarre? You are talking to the sole male Amazon House Head in three thousand years," I reminded her. "Besides, you only just now finished telling me how the Black Hand look after their own. The Amazons are the same way; we have lost kin who need to be made aware of their background.""What do we do about Matthias?" the Vizsla asked."In all honesty, had he not personally threatened to stab a member of my team, I would have settled for kicking the crap out of him. He put a knife to Ms. Martin's throat. That assured his death sentence. I think the Host will be willing to accept my hypothesis that Matthias was acting on his own initiative, which should settle the matter."And just like that, the expediency of the Black Hand shown forth. The truth of the matter was that he had acted on the Vizsla's orders. Unfortunately, that would have meant my side would have come after the Vizsla and she would have had to avenge his death, lots of needless bloodshed. So Matthias posthumously became a rabid dog gone rogue and one who ended up crossing the wrong people. No vengeance required by anyone. We could get back to business."That is settled. So, what do you want from your new allies?" the Vizsla inquired. A certain level of cold-blooded ruthlessness had been required to achieve her spot in the Black Hand. Likewise, honesty was the best policy when dealing with casually lethal people. They didn't like self-important asses wasting their time."I need to find an individual named 'Branko'. He has kidnapped a young lady who is one of our lost Amazons. We don't require any aid, but if you could leave Selena with us, it would be appreciated," I requested."What are you going to do when you catch up with this 'Branko'?" she questioned."I'd like to say I am going to buy her back, but I think we both know that is a pipe-dream. He's not going to like me interfering in his business, so I'm going to kill him, and any other bastards who are in close proximity," I confessed. She studied me for over a minute."Do you wish a piece of advice?" the Vizsla said."Of course," I nodded. It cost me nothing to acknowledge her vastly superior experience."Take a step back," she advised. Seeing that I didn't understand, "If you recall every single death by your hand, you will go mad. You don't possess the detachment of a true killer, Cáel. Not every member of the Black Hand is an assassin.Your driver, Josef, is from a long line of Black Hand members. He doesn't have what it takes to get close and personal in order to kill a human being, so he drives and provides security. He still matters and serves a necessary function." That was almost nice of her. The advice was based on her decision to keep me around as a useful tool. Going nuts would derail that."There is the life we wish to lead, and the life we must lead, Vizsla," I recalled. There was so much there, whirling around in my skull, it took me all this time to find the link I was looking for. Recall every single death by my hand, "On January 26th, 1847, the Black Hand Chapter House of the Wolf in Verona was wiped out, there were no survivors.""If you say so," she regarded me oddly."Yeah, look into it. Then come back to me when you have the right questions," I stood up. "And 'Branko'?""I will relay information on this individual to Selena. We should have something by the time you get back to Buda," she got out before one of the bodyguards came running our way.He had his H and K MP5 out and was in deep conversation with his ear piece."Our two spotters failed to respond correctly," he told the Vizsla in Hungarian. She gave me another quick once over."My people?" I rose slowly.The Vizsla gave the man a subtle hand gesture. Seconds later, pushing Alkonyka ahead of them, Pamela, Selena and Josef came running through the door. Pamela and Selena had our duffels. Two more Black Hand materialized from a back room.The Black Hand was actually a small outfit. Each Chapter had two or three houses, each with four or five true assassins and maybe six times that in support personnel/recruits in each location. That meant the entire Black Hand organization numbered less than 1000. They had several thousand peripheral contacts across their sphere of Europe and they could purchase some sort of private security given time. But their best protection was their hidden nature and small size. That also meant what we had was what we had. There was no Black Hand SWAT team on the way.Working with hand gestures alone, the Vizsla was directing us to a trap door behind the bar. Josef's phone rang. He hesitantly answered."It is for you," he offered it to our host. She took it. Halfway through the caller's diatribe, she shot me a suspicious look."Why don't you ask him?" she stated, then handed me the phone."Hello Nyilas. Do you know who this is?" the man on the other end stated, in Mycenean Greek."Yes, I do. What do you want? I'm kind of busy here?" I grinned. It was laughing at death all over again."I can relieve you of your pressing schedule. You and the other Amazon step outside and I'll make it quick.""No can-do Studly," I smirked. "If I go out there, it is going to take a while.""I sincerely doubt that.""Don't sell yourself short," I jibed. "I figure clipping off those bull-sized testicles of yours is going to take some work. But I do promise that after I make you a eunuch, I'll use a condom when I bend you over and make you my bitch too. Was there anything else you wanted to know?""No. I think we have a mutual understanding," he laughed. "I'll be seeing you soon." He hung up."Who was that?" Vizsla inquired. She wasn't alone in her curiosity."Ajax," I beamed confidence. I was confident my tenure on this Earth was ending real soon."I think we should be leaving," Vizsla suggested."Selena, help Alkonyka get her sister back," I requested. "I'll catch up when I can. Pamela, you do what you feel you need to do. Vizsla, they are after me, so I'm going to keep them busy while you get away," I explained.No useless 'you don't have to do this' nonsense. She knew the score, I wasn't a member of her outfit and she wanted to live. She did do me one favor. She gave another hand movement. Selena slit Josef's throat in a surprise motion.He didn't die right away. Selena's slash made bleeding out inevitable, but he'd be a while in dying. Odds were, that only Vizsla and Josef knew in advance where we were meeting. Whatever payoff the Condottieri had put in his bank account wasn't going to do him any good. Selena bent over his still-thrashing body and removed his pistol."I will bring you Angyalka Lovasz," Selena pledged. Pamela and I were gearing up. Ajax and his buddies were going to be coming for me any second now. Alkonyka gave me one more worried look before she vanished into the secret basement. "Don't be late," was the last thing Selena said before going down into the darkness. Pamela made sure the trap door was covered up.Lust and Bullets"We've used Butch and Sundance," Pamela checked her L42 Enfield Sniper Rifle. It was the weapon Pamela had trained with and used for longer than I'd been alive, old yet very effective even today."Heat?" I offered up. "You can be De Niro and I can be Kilmer.""Nice. Michael Mann really had a way of killing people," Pamela grinned, then pumped her eyebrows. "Too bad I end up dead in this one.""We'll avoid airports, you should be safe," I joked. Three explosions rocked the building, shooting glass throughout the place. Fortunately, Pamela and I were hiding behind the bar."Let's go," she whispered over the din. Charging out the front door seemed pretty suicidal to me, but Pamela's copious battle lore was something I had the utmost faith in. I respected her judgment and followed along. There was a method to her madness. Two 40 mm grenades had taken out the two cars parked in front. A third launched grenade had blown open the door.The petrol in the cars equated to flaming wreckage and a huge smoke screen. It was broad daylight, no night vision goggles. The flames made IR useless and the smoke temporarily obscured regular vision. The machineguns going off around us scared the crap out of me. It was my old buddy, suppression fire: they weren't shooting directly at us.Metaphysically, Ishara was dueling with Ares. There was a low stone wall, a little over a meter high, that separated an adjacent field from the inn's gravel parking lot. Right as we got to our side of it, three of Ajax's boys came up on the other. Pamela and I remained perfectly still, crouching tightly against our shelter.Two knelt and fired several bursts from their H and K HK416 (Wow! Germany's newest killing machine, they looked slick) into the closest open windows while the third one fired a grenade in. Again, we remained perfectly still. We were about two meters from those three. The drab color of our hastily donned dusters, the congested air and our stillness combined to save us from their notice.The second after that grenade went off, the three vaulted the wall and rushed the building. From the cacophony of the battle, they were storming the building from several directions at once."Quick, go find that guy with the machinegun," Pamela whispered over a feral grin. How was I going to do that?The old fashioned way, I leapt over the wall and ran away from all the flames, explosions and the continuous widespread fusillade of assault weapons fire. I was partially bent over as I ran. I'm still a big guy though. The machine gunner was in a shallow dip in the meadow 30 meters away, on the edge of the woods.He saw me, shifted his MG4 (fuck Ajax and his crew for having the best Bang-Bangs) minutely and unleashed hell my way. In hindsight, the 1st round flattened against my duster as it impacted my upper left thigh. Round #2 hit the duster again, coming below my vest, but hitting my belt (every bit of leather helps).The #3 556 mm slug hit my vest due south of my belly button (Fuck!), # 4 landed a few centimeters up and to the right, taking in both the duster and my ballistic vest. The #5 round clipped my lower side of my right ribcage. The resulting force sent me spinning back and to my right.Honestly, as I landed hard on my back (no rolling with the blow this time), I thought a midget mule team had kicked me in the guts. Apparently, I made a convincing mortally wounded human being. He stopped shooting and Pamela got pissed.I learned a few things at that moment: you do not get used to being shot; you can never appreciate the value of good body amour enough; you can never understand the true value of a sniper until your life is totally in their hands; and damn, Pamela was exceptional. Pamela put a bullet through his nasal cavity in that split second between him exposing himself with his muzzle flashes and deciding to put a few more bullets into my prone form.Pain dictated that I lie where I was. Survival instincts overrode that. I went to my side, pushed up and resumed my crouched stance. Then I was running once more until I could throw myself beside his corpse. I was stunningly calm. Machineguns, snipers, I had to cover Pamela's run across the meadow. I didn't stay by the dead gunner.I grabbed his weapon, some spare ammo and quick-stepped it to the wood line. I rapidly assessed the best spot that could provide cover from each flank. That was where I went down, cradled the device and started shooting at any muzzle flash I could see. The moment I opened fire, Pamela began her own sprint.Unlike my mad dash, Pamela took evasive maneuvers, serpentine, which worked out well when one sniper figured out she wasn't one of them. He/she had two shots at her before she dove past me. Her mien was one of intense, emptiness? She gave me a quick pat-down to make sure I wasn't gushing blood, took a deep breath and then smirked."Come on, Dummy!" she laughed. "We still have a shot at a sequel.""Shot, sequel, you are a laugh riot," I wheezed as I stood, abandoned the MG4 and joined her as we both ran deeper into the woods. A few shots zinged past us before Ajax's crew realized we were in full-on flight mode. They weren't going to waste the bullets.This was the point where archaic and modern warfare diverged. In the olden (pre-Pamela, ow! How did she know what I was thinking?) days, when your enemy broke and ran, it was relatively easy to run them down and slaughter them in their panic. If a few men tried to stem the tide, they would be quickly overwhelmed.After the invention of rapid-fire rifles, that changed. Suddenly, headlong pursuit could be incredibly costly. All it took was a small, resolute band to find some sort of hard cover and they could buy minutes, or even hours, for their retreating brethren. Sure, if you were willing to pay the butcher's bill, you could storm their position.But you had to understand, each defender could fire and work the bolt action in under three seconds. You reloaded your magazine with a prepared clip ~ maybe five more seconds. Ten men could put 150 bullets down range per minute as long as their ammo held out. Sending men into that kind of firepower was murder; very few troops could sustain their attack under those conditions.Ajax's resurrected Mycenaean's were tough enough to do it. Ajax's problem was their finite number. Despite catching Ajax off-guard with Pamela's mad plan, her ungodly skills and a great deal of my pain, we had only managed to kill one so far. The great unknowns were terrain (we didn't know where we were,) and my luck.As Pamela and I ran through the forest at a good clip, we began to make out a specific background noise. It was a river. Not a creek, stream, waterfall, or dam, a river."Did you pack your jet ski?" Pamela snorted."I left it in the car. You said it was so '1990's'," I panted back. A few more footsteps and,

Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 4 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 1 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This Volume includes a treatise by Sir Arthur Cotton, author of an "Arabic Primer". His daughter, Lady Hope, on page 523 of her biography of her father, writes that he "had very strong theories on the subject of learning “Living Languages,” his opinion being that, as every child who comes into the world learns its mother tongue orally, and at first without grammar… so the learning of all modern languages would be very much facilitated by a similar process." Also included are the orientalist E.G. Browne's opinions on language learning (taken from the introduction to A Year Amongst the Persians), the first lesson from Dr. Emil Otto's "French Conversation-Grammar", a talk by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá on the need for a universal auxiliary language, Samuel Johnson's "A Grammar of the English Tongue", several sections from Henry Sweet's "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons 1 - 5 from "Esperanto in Twenty Lessons", two sections on language by Varro, a story in Latin from "Fabulae Faciles", "Greek Lessons: 1-10", the Phonology Section from a "Primer of Persian" and Lessons 1 - 19 from "A Practical Arabic Course". Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #4 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 4 Book: 1 Volume: 1 Part: 4 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 3:49:13 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:19:06 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:19:06 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

In this episode of Welcome to Cloudlandia, We take you through the fascinating evolution of media and communication technologies. We begin by tracing the journey of written communication from ancient Sumerian pictographs to Gutenberg's printing press. The narrative explores how each technological breakthrough transformed our ability to share information, from industrial-era steam presses to the digital revolution sparked by the first email in 1971. Our conversation delves into the parallels between historical technological adaptations and current innovations. We examine the story of a 1950s typesetter transitioning to digital technologies, drawing insights into how professionals navigate significant technological shifts. The discussion introduces the concept of "Casting, not Hiring," emphasizing the importance of finding meaningful experiences and team dynamics in a rapidly changing world. We explore the transformation of media consumption and advertising in the digital age. Traditional media platforms give way to digital giants like Facebook and Google, reflecting broader changes in how we create, distribute, and consume content. The conversation touches on audience dynamics, using examples like Joe Rogan's media presence and Netflix's market evolution to illustrate these shifts. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS In this episode, I explore the historical journey of media and communication, tracing its evolution from ancient scripts to modern digital technologies. I discuss the pivotal role of Gutenberg's printing press in revolutionizing media distribution and how it set the stage for the widespread use of newspapers and books. We delve into the transition from traditional typesetting to digital processes, drawing parallels between past innovations and current advancements in AI. The conversation highlights the importance of curiosity and effective communication in embracing new technologies, emphasizing the idea of "casting" for meaningful experiences rather than traditional hiring. We examine media consumption trends and the impact of big data on advertising, noting the shift from traditional platforms to digital giants like Facebook and Google. Our discussion includes an analysis of the historical impact of communication technologies, referencing figures like Edison and their influence on modern entrepreneurship. The episode concludes with a focus on the value of appreciation and growth, sharing insights on how recognizing value and excellence can lead to professional and personal breakthroughs. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan, and how are you? I am wonderful. Welcome to Cloudlandia, you are in the Chicago outpost. I am. Dan: I'm sitting in a very comfortable spot, noise-free. I just had. Have you ever done any IV where they pump you? Up with good stuff. Dean: I have yeah. Dan: Yeah, I just came from that, so I may be uncomfortably exuberant. Dean: Uncomfortably exuberant. That's a great word there, right there. Dan: Yeah, yeah, uncomfortable to you. Dean: That's the best. Dan: Yeah, yeah. So anyway, we have a good service. Dean: The only thing I miss about Chicago comfortable to you, that's the best, yeah, so anyway, we have a good service. The only thing I miss about Chicago. Dan is our Sunday dinners. Oh the Sunday roundtable. Dan: Yeah, it's a bit more informal now so we don't have a big gap. It's not like the Last Supper. Dean: Right, exactly. Dan: We have Mike Canix coming over and Stephen Paltrow. Dean: Okay, there you go. Dan: They'll be on straight carnivore tonight. Dean: Okay, good, I like everything about that. Dan: Yeah, it's a little bit of snow on the ground and snowing right now, but it's nice. Dean: Oh, that's awesome. Well it's winter here. It's like cool. Yeah, I almost had to wear pants yesterday, dan, it was that cold. Dan: I had to wear pants yesterday, Dan. Dean: It was that cold I had to wear my full-weight hoodie. But yeah, but it's sunny, it's nice. Dan: I was just in the hot tub before we got on the call the Chinese intelligence, who are listening to this phone call. They're trying to visualize what you just said. Dean: Yes, Well, I had a great conversation with Charlotte this morning and something happened. That is the first time I've done it. I literally I talked her ear off. I reached my daily limit of talk interaction. We were talking for about an hour. There's a limit. Yes, I pay $20 a month and I guess there's a limit of how long you can engage by advanced voice tech. Dan: I'd give her a raise. I'd give her a raise. Dean: So they were on her behalf demanding a raise. I'd give her a raise. So they were on her behalf demanding a raise from $20 a month to $200 a month, and I could talk to her all I want. I still think it's worth it. It really is. When you think about if we go through the personification again, if you think about what you're getting for 200 I mean, just the conversation I had with her this morning was worth more than 200, yeah, so you want to know what we were talking about. What were you talking? about well, I am such a big fan of this, the big change uh book that I got for you. That was oh yeah, by stuff like that. So I really have been thinking that the whole game has really been an evolution of our, of words, pictures, sound and the combination of words, pictures and sounds in videos, right, and if we take the big three the words and pictures and sound, that I, you know, we went all the way back to the very beginning and I told her I said, listen, what I'd love to do is I want to trace the evolution of each of these individually. I want to start from the beginning of how we let's just take text, you know, as an example for words, and so she's taking me all the way back to the ancient Sumerians and the invention of kind of the very first kind of visual depiction of words and language, and then all the way up to the hieroglyphics of Egyptians and then into what would now be what we know as the alphabet, with the Romans and Latin, Romans and Latin, and the way that they were distributed was through tablets and they would post posters and things to get things out there. And so I'll pause there and I'll tell you that the lens that I wanted to look at it through for her is to go back and find, just trace, the beginnings of the capability of it, right, the capability of text. So that meant we had to have language and we had to have the alphabet, and we had to have the tools, the mechanism to recreate these on tablets. And then the distribution of them. How were they distributed? The consumption of them, how were they received and popularized? And then how were they capitalized? Who turned business opportunities into? What did this new capability turn into business-wise? So, looking, those four, tracking those four things all the way through history, from the ancient Sumerians, all the way through, and so when we got to, you know, from the time the Romans created the thing, the first kind of commercialization was the scribe industry. That became a thing where people were employed as scribes to you know, to write things, things, and then it came into the monks. We haven't gone deep dive in these yet, we're kind of going through the surface level of them. But the scribes, you know, were the first kind of commercializing and distribution of the of the things. And then when Gutenberg came along, that sort of popularized and made it even more able to distribute things and on the back of that became newspapers and pamphlets and books. So those were the three primary things for hundreds of years. Until the 1800s we had steam presses which were large, just kind of mechanized, sped up Gutenberg presses, and then the roller presses which allowed to have long, continuous streams of printing, which that really led to the modern newspaper. You know we had almost a hundred years until things were digitized where the entire platform was built on that plateau of things. And then it turned into newspapers magazines were the dominant things and mail. Those were the big distribution elements for a hundred years and then, once it got digitized, we turned into email. The first email apparently was sent in 1971 or something, but it took 25 years for that to popularize to the level that everybody had email and it was the primary thing and that led to PDFs and eBooks and distribution on the internet. We talked about bloggers because, if you remember, in the early days of the internet the heroes were bloggers. Those were the sort of personalities pre-social media you know. And then she even used the words that once it became democratized with social media, that things like twitter and and you know those were big things. But she talked about Arianna Huffington and Perez Hilton and Matt Drudge as the kind of first real mainstream capitalizers of this digital kind of went full steam into only digital, when all the mainstream print media was still kind of holding on and and resisting the migration of free news coming through you know um, and then we get to the point now where all of that is completely available. You know medium and sub stack and you know email newsletters taking off as a thing, and then AI bringing into a situation where now the machines can create and distribute the content. And it's funny just that level. I was on a Zoom with Joe Stolte the other day and you know, with even your newsletter, the AI-assisted newsletter you think about those as things, that learning smart, personalized text, media consumption as a really enhanced experience. So I found that really that was the first conversation that I'd had with that kind of context. I'm visualizing, I want to like visualize a timeline of these benchmarks. You know along the way, and realize how long the spaces were between when things actually catalyzed, you know yeah, long in comparison to what? Dan: long in comparison to the last. Dean: You know where we are now that long in comparison to what? Long in comparison to the last. You know where we are now. That long in comparison to that. There was no ability to print words on paper until 1442 or 1555 or whatever. I think it's 1550. Dan: Yeah, so 1455. Dean: Somewhere around there. Somewhere around there, yeah that literally did not change for 400 years till now. You know, in the last 25 years we've gotten to where we can distribute it globally instantly to everybody, and that we've also got machines now that can actually create the content itself and distribute on on your behalf and so I think that's our ability to create that stuff. Like I, I wonder how long and how many hours of research power it would have taken to get this level of what I gained from my conversation with Charlotte. Dan: Well, you would have gotten a doctorate, you would have gotten a PhD. Dean: Yeah, and it would have taken years to study all of that and to go back and find it all you know, but it was very, I found it very all to serve this idea that I think, in all of those digitized four corners, that we have reached a, a pinnacle, where we're faced now going forward with a plateau that really it's going to be about the creative use of. No, I think that's things. Dan: Yeah, I think that's true. Yeah, just a little addition to charl's work the conversation that you had with Charlotte. One of the reasons why the Greeks have such influence Greek thinking on the world, you know they essentially created history. That was. Dean: You know that was. Dan: Thucydides. And you know, herodotus and Thucydides were two Greek historians and basically their histories basically really formed the whole ancient world. And then you had poetry. Homer was the great poet and. Plato and Aristotle and many others, many other Greek philosophers, but Greece was the first country that developed a really first-class. The Greeks developed a first-class alphabet. I think it may have pretty close to we have 26 letters. I'm not quite sure what they had, but it wasn't. I don't know if it was fewer or more, but maybe only by two or three letters they had, but it was really the alphabet. That is the breakthrough. For example, we have two artists that work for us. They're from Hong Kong and growing up they learned all the. They learned all the ideograms that are in Chinese you know, and you know, and it's years and years and years of study where the alphabet you know. A reasonably intelligent first grader, or maybe even earlier these days, but a six-year-old, can basically grasp the alphabet and be using that skillfully, you know, within their first year of grade school, within first grade and that's what the alphabet did and that's why, you know, the literacy really came in. But even then, when you know in Gutenberg today there weren't that many literate people, you know who could actually? Read, you know. So it wasn't so much the technology Well, the technology was crucial, but it wasn't so much why things. It's just that it took 400 years for the entire population to become literate. You know, and you know to have formal education to empower literacy. That took a long time because people were working manually and they didn't have need for reading. They had to become good at things. Fixated now for about the last eight months on british navy historical novel assault taking place around 1800 to 1800. You know, and you know the majority of sailors on the ships didn't read they, they didn't have right reading, you know but, they were very skillful. They knew the wind, they knew the waves, they yeah, you know, they had phenomenal teamwork and they were very skillful. They knew the wind, they knew the waves, they had phenomenal teamwork and they were very handy. They had a lot of hand skills and everything else, but it's been only recently that your progress in the world really depended upon reading. Dean: Literacy yeah. Dan: Yeah, you had to go forward. I remember that's one story. Just the Greeks. The Greeks that became very powerful, their philosophy still. I mean, every day in universities, or probably universities, there's discussions about what Plato said about this, what Aristotle said about this. So that's still. You know, the power of that over generations is really quite extraordinary. The other thing, if I want to add to that, my sister, who's 89, the man she married, who died about 10 years ago. When I met him, this was in the 1950s, he was a typesetter for a major newspaper in the. Cleveland area and I would go down there and you'd see he put together a whole page of it and you know, and he had to do it backwards, he had to put all the letters. He had this vast, you know, he had these, they were like wooden shelves that had, you know, were divided into, you know, into 28 different, 26 different spots, and he would just pick up the letters and put them. But he made the complete changeover, starting around the 1970s, 1975. He made a complete changeover to becoming digital. It started becoming digital even in the 1970s. And then he just kept progressing, layer after layer, until he was the production manager for the entire network of about five you know five municipal newspapers and everything like that yeah so his history sort of matches what you and charlotte talked about. Dean: Yeah, and I found that really an interesting like multi-track way to look at it, as the technology and then the capability that created for the creation of things, the distribution of those things and the capitalizing on those things, because that's kind of like the cascading layers that happen. And I think if we look at where we are with AI right now, we're at that level where it was available below the surface until two years ago and then now it's sort of widely available as a capability. But all the things that are going to really come, I wouldn't say it's widely available used right now. I heard somebody talk about that. If we think about, like, if ultimately AI is just going to be internet, you know it's like if we think about what internet was in 1996, that's becoming. It's almost like chat. Gpt is the AOL of of what made the internet popular, right as everybody got on. AOL and had access to email and kind of gated browsing. Dan: Yeah, the interesting thing that you know if I just take your example from this morning, it's because you're a good prompter that whole thing happened. The whole essential skill. You know, if you take all the technology, that's a technology, charlotte's technology, and that's there, it's waiting there. It's waiting there to be used. But unless you have a good prompter it won't produce what you produced this morning. Dean: I agree with you 100, and that's why it's all in the prompt prompting. Dan: That means knowing what you want. It's actually a visualization skill because, you visualize something you know like in, not exactly because you, how you did it is unique, but my sense is that you had a question in mind, or you were just curious about something, and then you were able to put it into words. This was strictly spoken, was it? Yeah, uh-huh, yeah, so you didn't type anything in for this. Dean: No, I did not. Dan: Because it's strictly on an audible level, right, exactly, yeah. Anything in for this? No, I did not. Strictly on an audible level, right, exactly yeah. But here's the thing that no one else in the world did what you did this morning, and the reason is because you were just interested in it you were just interested in something and you know, and it was in conversation form, so now tell me about this. Now tell me about this yeah well, what she? Dean: was saying was guiding my things. You know what? It's very similar, dan. It's like if we were to sit down at a piano and look at the piano. There's 88 keys of possibility there. Yeah, unless you know how to prompt the keys to make the noises. Dan: Do you know what I mean? It's just noise. Dean: I think that's really what it is, and I think that chat interactions or AI interactions are going to be the piano lessons of today. Right Like for kids to talk about essential skills. Dan: And the outcome is going to be the music and the outcome is going to be the music. Dean: That's right. That's right, yeah. Dan: I've done about. You know, with perplexity, probably last week I've done about 25, you know where I one. That was really interesting because it was related to the book that I'm writing Casting, not Hiring with Jeff and I was saying, you know, the big thing is that we're only talking, the book is only for a particular type of person, you know. Because, you know he has a wide range of people that he's giving them our small copy of Casting, not Hiring you know, our 60-page book and then he's interviewing them if they're willing to read it, which takes about an hour. If they're willing to read it, then he wants to know what they think about it. You know, but there's, like corporate people that he's talking to, there's academic people that he's talking to, and I said, you know, jeff, academic people that he's talking to. And I said, you know, jeff, there's only one reader for this. That's a successful, talented, ambitious entrepreneur who wants to grow. Who wants to grow, wants to make the growth experience really meaningful and purposeful for himself or herself, but also for the team members, for the members of the company that the entrepreneur owns. And so he said, yeah, well you know how big is that market and I said, well, let's. So I did a search and I had my question. I just looked at it just before I came on the call. I said I want you to, of all the companies incorporated in the United States, the total number of incorporated companies in the United States in 2023, because usually their number. You know that you go back about a year before the present year that you're just sending, because there's an enormous amount of data for that. Dean: And. Dan: I said what percentage of all the incorporated companies in the United States are privately owned? And it turns out it's 99% and 33 million, 33 million incorporated companies. And and then I put in another prompt okay, size of companies 1 to 10, 10 to 50, 50 to 150, 150 to 500, above 500, and 74 percent of them are 74 percent or one to ten. And then, and I said we're really talking basically about companies up to about 150 that's the reader. They have companies that are 150 and everything like that, and it's really interesting that this is the only person they said but there's this huge market of other. You know, jeff didn't say this, but other people said there's. So this should be a book for everybody. And I said, if it's a book for everybody, it's not interesting to anybody that's true, exactly. Dean: Well, that's so. Those numbers have kind of um grown, because I've always heard about you know know, 28 million, but I guess the most recent that would make sense 33 million. Dan: And it would be bigger today because we're you know, we're a full year and into the first month, so it would be bigger. The incorporations go on. And the other thing about what you're saying is you can be so specific, Like you can really put down all the interesting things about the reader you know, about the reader that you're looking for and you know so, while the capability that you're talking and I have some arguments with democratize you know the concept of democratize because there's a certain sense people are going to have equal capabilities. I think just the opposite is going to happen. The range from people with a little ability or no ability to extraordinary capability actually gets bigger and wider to extraordinary capability actually gets bigger and wider. And the reason is exactly what I just said to you that you're the only one in the world who's ever gotten that information laid out and has it back in a very short period of time. And it's strictly because what Dean Jackson was looking for. Dean: Yeah, that's exactly right. I was very curious about it. And I think that it's something. I think it's a unique perspective, especially when we overlay the other things. We only got we were talking about then sound. We only got we were talking about then sound. And it wasn't until the 1800s late 1800s that Edison created the phonograph, that we were able to capture sound and the evolution of that. Then it took another by 25 years later. It was the beginning of radio. That now we have the ability to capture sound, the ability to distribute sound through the radio, that it ushered in this golden era of radio as the distribution medium. And she talked about NBC and CBS and ABC, you know, as the monopolistic NBC was really the big giant. Dan: Yeah, they were the giant. Dean: I mean, they were the powerhouse of radio 1995 was the, or 1925, I think was when they were founded, and then the others were by 1927. Yeah, but that took off the radios in every household and all of that, you know, laid the. That created the mass audience yeah really right, yeah, there was. Dan: Uh. Really, there's a writer named tim wu wu and he's just. He's written about five books on just the extraordinary impact of the communication technologies, starting when you said sort of you know. First the telegraph and the telegraph with sound. That's really the telephones you have. Bell is in there. So, Morris and Bell and Edison. You have the combination. And then Edison also created the movie. I mean, he was the real. I mean, he's the person who created it that became famous for it yes. There were lots of people. He's famous for the light bulb, he's the person who became famous for the light bulb, but there were at least five or six working light bulbs before Edison. It's just that Edison was the first what I would call the modern entrepreneur, technology entrepreneur, and he really grasped where all this stuff was going, more than any other single innovator entrepreneur, and he understood the stock market and he understood how to raise funds and he understood how to market. Dean: You know, yeah, yeah. Dan: So you know I'm getting a lot of patents, so we got two more on Friday, so we're up to 54 patents now. And I was talking in the breakout group on Friday, I said we're really piling up the patents, and so somebody said well, how many are you going for? And I said I can tell you exactly I'm going for 1,068. Tell you exactly, I'm going for 1,068. Uh-huh, 1,068. I mean, where's that number come from? I said Edison had 1,067. Dean: Oh, there you go. Dan: That's the best, and I grew up two miles from his birthplace. So the farm that I grew up two miles away is where Edison was born, milan, ohio, and very famous, I mean he's just a roaring, big, major human being, historic human being in that area, and he's one of my five historic role models. I've got Euclid, I've got Shakespeare, I've got Bach, I've got Hamilton, james Madison and Edison. And I said Edison put all the pieces together that created the modern technological world. Dean: It's true, isn't it? Yeah? Dan: He's the first person to create a formal R&D lab. He had in Menlo, new Jersey. He created his famous lab and he had technicians and scientists and engineers there. And then you know, and then he understood the stock market and he understood you know big systems, how you put big electric systems together and everything like that, you know. The thing is that that's a history of entrepreneurism, the thing that you put together with Charlotte this morning. Dean: Yeah, that was my intention, Because it's always some individual who just decides to do something more with it. Dan: They kind of apply your VCR formula to something that already exists and they say what's the vision? Well, you have to have the vision, but you have to see where it hasn't gone to yet. I mean, that's basically what you have to. Vision is seeing where things have not yet gone to, but could, if you organize them differently? You take the capabilities and combined it with reach, then you. That's what the future really is. Vcr. Dean: Yeah, you know I've had a nice VCR advancement, chad, and I have been talking a lot about it. Chad Jenkins, chad Jenkins, I've been talking about the VCR formula and so I had some distinctions around vision, like what is vision? And I realized there's a progression that it takes like from an idea or a prediction. Is the first level that you got a vision that, hey, I think this could work, and then the next level of it is that you've got proof that idea does work and that opens the gate for you to create a protocol for predictable repeating of that result and that opens the gateway to a patent, to protection of that. Dan: So you predict, you prove you protocol or package and protect the 4P progression. I thought, know you know what. You know what it is. It's the ability to see, yeah, let's say, a reasonable time frame, not 100 years from now, but let's say 10 years from now. Yeah, that, if this were available, a lot of people would like to have this. Dean: Yes. Dan: That's basically what a vision is. That's what a vision is. If it was available to them and it was easy to use. They don't have to change their habits too much to use it 10 years from now and I think a lot of people not only would they love using it, they'd be willing to pay for it. Dean: Of course, yes, I agree, yeah, and so I thought that was very, that was a nice, I mean every drug dealer in the world knows how to do that. Dan: Yeah, I mean, you think about everything started out with an idea. I bet, if we did this, that would be oh, yeah, yeah, I bet, prove it. I bet, yeah, you know, steve jobs with itunes. He said yeah I got interested in music. But when I go into a store, you know, uh, and, and I hear a song I really like, or I hear a musician I really like, and I hear them singing a song, or her I, you know, I'd like to be able to just get that song, but they make it really difficult. You got to buy 11 other songs, or 10 other songs to get the one song you know and you know, and, and I'd like to have it. You know, I'd like to have it on a small machine. I don't want to. You know, I don't want to have a big record that comes home and then I have to have a lot of equipment and everything to put on it. And you know, and you know, I'd like to, I'd like to think of. You know, I'd like to have a technology. Dean: Yeah, I'd like to think of. Dan: You know, I'd like to have a technology Getting a call from yeah, I'd like to have a technology that, the moment I hear the sun, five minutes later I can have it. You know, Mm-hmm. Yes, I mean it's so I think it's imagine, there's a capability multiplied by imagination. You know that's kind of like what vision is. Dean: But you know, the interesting thing is that was true 25 years ago when Steve invented the iPod and the iTunes environment, but then over the next 25 years's taken another evolution. Right, it was still the ownership. Instead of owning the physical thing, you own the digital version of it and you download it onto your device. But now, when it got to the cloud and all the songs are available and you don't need to download them, it's like spotify said listen, we own all the songs, we got access to all of them. Why don't you just pay us nine dollars a month and you can have all the songs and just stream them? Yeah, and, and that's where we're at now, it's like. But I think that the next level, the thing we're at now with ai, is that ai is actually, specifically, that it's reached the generative ai point where it it can actually create songs. That's what's happening now. Dan: Yeah, it's clearly a productive capability that you're exploring here we're having a conversation about. When did you have this conversation with Charlotte? Just this morning, when I woke up this morning, Okay, this entire conversation that we're having would not have happened unless um no, you did what you did for an hour this morning right, that's exactly right, yeah now let me ask you a question here, and it goes to another technological realm and it's big data. It's big data, and so I keep reading about big data. You know big data, and I said and it's accumulating all the data. Okay, and so you have all the data. Okay, and so you have all the data. I remember having a conversation this was probably 10 years ago and the Chinese were developing what was called an intelligence capability, where they could gather information about what all the people in China were doing at any given moment. Okay, and then they could make predictions based on that. Nice, if wait a minute, so you got one point, you got 1.3 billion. Dean: You know however many Chinese there are they're being listened to, you know, and however many Chinese there are. Dan: They're being listened to, you know, and they're. Whatever they're doing, that's being read. And I said how many Chinese do you have to pay attention to what all the other Chinese are doing? I said they must have about 6 million people who, day in, day out, are just listening and they're accumulating massive amounts of data. Okay, and then I say, then what happens? Dean: then what? Dan: yeah, then what? Okay? Okay, uh, and I said so, what do you do with all this data? You know, I said it's overwhelming the amount of data you have. So what's happening with it and what it tells me is that there's no way for you to really comprehend what all that data means. Dean: Yeah, I agree. I mean there's no, but you can argue that's kind of what Facebook does with the algorithm right In a way, of being able to predict what you're likely to click on next. Dan: That's how they're at it, Well that I understand, but that's on the level, that's a commercial level, because really they're selling ads. I mean what Google and Facebook actually are high-level advertising platforms. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what they are. I mean, that's what they are. Dan: Yeah, I mean, and once you've said that, there isn't much else to say. Dean: Once you've said that, it's over. Dan: Well it is what it is and it's a bias, obviously, because it's just, you know it's, if they're spending money, not ads for Google and spending ads for Facebook, they aren't spending money for ads in the New York Times, or yeah. So all the newspaper advertising has gone away and all the magazine advertising has gone away, and probably all the advertising on television, because the number of people watching television is actually going down, you know. Well the actual, I mean if you're following social media or you're you know, you're on the, you're on your computer and you're looking at things. Well, your attention can only be on one thing at a time and if I'm spending you know I used to spend I would say when I stopped in 2018, I stopped watching television together, but I calculated that it was probably I was probably watching anywhere between 15 and 20 hours a week times 52. Okay, so that's. You know that's 800 to a thousand hours and I'm not doing that anymore, so for I got a thousand hours back. He's. I would say 800. I just evened it off at 800. I'd say I've just got 800 hours back. It's just gone into being more productive. I'm incredibly more productive in creating stuff. I have you as a witness. You know that it's going up in numbers. The amount of stuff that I'm creating. it's going up in numbers the amount of stuff that I'm creating. So you know, here's the thing. I don't think I'm unusual in this. I don't think I'm unique on the planet in doing what this is. I just think people are moving their attention away from something where everybody was paying attention to it and now fewer and fewer people are paying attention to it. It's like Joe Rogan, you know, I mean. Dean: Joe Rogan. Dan: The people are watching Joe Rogan. Who did they stop watching or listening and watching to? So that's the big thing. Where are people? Dean: going with their attention. Yeah, and you know I just heard a podcast talking about that. Streaming, you know, like from television. It's gone away from kind of linear television where you know they show one thing on one channel at one time and you have to be there at 8 pm to watch that one show. Watch that one show and you watch it along with ads, right? If you want to watch this happening now, you watch it and you consume the ads. Well, when streaming became available, you know, if you look at that convenience, that it was so much more dignified that we can watch whatever we want to watch when we want to watch it, and there's a price for that. Everybody has migrated towards the, towards that, and now the interesting thing is that the streamers are Wall Street redefined. How they value the, you know, monetize or attribute value to what they have. Because for a long time, netflix was rewarded for the ever-growing number of subscribers. Right, like getting more and more subscribers. It didn't matter to Wall Street that they were profitable or unprofitable. The only thing that they staked the value in was the growing number of subscribers, the growing number of subscribers, so for. So netflix would spend billions and billions of dollars on attracting creative right that would. That would get people to watch the. You know, come to netflix to see, because they only had original programs you could only get on Netflix and they overpaid for all of that content. So now. Wall Street a few years ago decided that hey, wait a minute. These guys should be like any other business. Dan: They should be profitable and so it always comes down to that, doesn't it it really? Dean: does so they said you know, now Netflix has to cut corners, pinch pennies. They have to make things. They can't afford to spend as much to make the content. If you look at the line items of where they were spending the most amount of money, it's acquiring yeah, content to do uh so that's where the peak era of who's the guy? Dan: who's the guy who runs Netflix? Dean: Sarandon Tom. Dan: Sarandon. Dean: I think, but in any event they. Dan: No, I was just wondering if he's one of the people who gave $50 million to Kamala Harris. Dean: Oh, yeah, probably. Dan: Yeah, I said he obviously doesn't know anything about returning or getting a profit All right, exactly. Dean: So the other, the thing that we're finding. Dan: What's Reid Hoffman? He's LinkedIn. Dean: Yeah, I think so, yeah, yeah, linkedin. Yeah yeah, yeah. Dan: But those people are all not giving a million dollars to Trump for his inauguration. Dean: The thing that streamers have landed on now is that they have free models you can watch, but now they have ad supported things where you can watch anything you want, but they insert ads that are unskippable ads and they're finding that is more profitable than the subscriber the subscription revenue. That on a per user kind of thing. They make more money on people watching and viewing the unskippable ads. So it's kind of funny that everything has come full circle back to basic cable, where you are. They're all bundling now so you can get because people were resisting that you had to buy netflix and you had to buy hbo and paramount and hulu and all these things, nbc and cbs and all of it so now they're bundling them together for one subscription and having ad supported views. So the big winner out of all of it is that we've won the right to, and have demanded the right to, watch whatever we want to watch, whenever we want to watch it. We're not going to sit on, you know. We're not going to wait until 9pm to watch this and wait a week to get the next episode. We want all the episodes available right now and we'll choose when and what we watch and for how long we watch it. If I want to watch the whole series in one weekend, that's up to me yeah, you know it's an interesting thing. Dan: Uh, here and this relates to the whole story you told the whole historical story, going back to the sumerians. But one of the things I really notice is that the moment a new capability appears and you can utilize it, it's no longer wondrous. You've just included that in your existing capability, I can now do this. You've just included that in your existing capability. I can now do this. It's really interesting the moment you get a capability that just goes into the stack of capabilities that you already have. So it's not really a breakthrough because it doesn't feel any more unusual than all the capabilities you had. So today this is kind of a you know you were. You started the podcast here saying I just did something that I've never done before with Charlotte you know, and then people said who's this Charlotte that Dean talks about? Well, dean actually created this capability called Charlotte. He actually did that, but now it's just normal. Now, what else can Charlotte do? Dean: I'm going to do this. Dan: But a week from now you may have done this four or five times or four or five more things. These sort of deep searches, that you did, and now it just becomes part of Dean Jackson's talent and capability stack. Dean: Yeah, yeah, in the of the VCR formula, the sea of capability, that all this capability starts out with one person who has taken it's almost like Always starts with one person. Yeah, and it's a curiosity. Dan: It's a curiosity thing You're alert to. You know, in our four by four casting tool, the first quadrant is called performance, how you show up. And I've got four qualities. One you're alert. Second thing is that you're curious. Number three is that you're responsive. And number four you're resourceful. And I would say you just knocked off all four this morning with this search, this conversation with Charlotte. You just knocked off all four. That's the reason why you're doing it. So the key to the future in profiting, but utilizing and benefiting from this technology is you have? To be alert, you have to be curious, you have to be, you have to be responsive and you have to be resourceful. Dean: Yeah, that's great. Dan: Yeah, yeah, we're living, and then you get to do and then you get to do things faster, easier, cheaper and bigger yes, this is great, dan. Dean: We're really living in the best of times we're just talking, dean yeah, we're already in it, but it's endless. Dan: We're into an area of just extraordinary, idiosyncratic creativity. Dean: This is it that now we have. Everyone has access to every capability that you could. Dan: No, they only have access to the capability that they're looking for. Oh, boy yes. No, they don't have access to every capability. They just have access to the next capability they're looking for. Dean: Right, this is mind-blowing. Dan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is great, but it is similar. This was better than the IV. Dean: Your exuberance is showing. Dan: Or maybe before you have an hour conversation with Dean, you get an IV. Dean: Yeah, exactly, you have an hour conversation with dean, you get an iv. Yeah, exactly, did you imagine it's a triple play of an iv yeah, with a conversation with charlotte, followed by a conversation with dan sullivan. Dan: I will try the iv next week yeah, and then eat a great piece of steak. And then eat a great piece of steak that's right Followed by a Rib eye is great. I think rib eye is my favorite. Dean: Yeah, me too by far yeah. Dan: Well. I love it yeah, this is great conversation. Dean: I agree, Dan this is Things are heating up. I'm going to upgrade Charlotte and give her a raise 10X, a 10 times raise. Dan: Tell her about that. You know talk to her and say you know, not only do I think you're more valuable, but Catchy TP thinks you're more valuable, Charlotte, and we're raising your monthly to 200. Dean: That's right. A 10 times raise. Dan: Yeah, who gets that? Mm-hmm? Okay, and you think about it. Dean: It's just so valuable. All right, dan, thanks, bye, bye.

Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 3 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 1 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This Volume includes a treatise by Sir Arthur Cotton, author of an "Arabic Primer". His daughter, Lady Hope, on page 523 of her biography of her father, writes that he "had very strong theories on the subject of learning “Living Languages,” his opinion being that, as every child who comes into the world learns its mother tongue orally, and at first without grammar… so the learning of all modern languages would be very much facilitated by a similar process." Also included are the orientalist E.G. Browne's opinions on language learning (taken from the introduction to A Year Amongst the Persians), the first lesson from Dr. Emil Otto's "French Conversation-Grammar", a talk by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá on the need for a universal auxiliary language, Samuel Johnson's "A Grammar of the English Tongue", several sections from Henry Sweet's "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons 1 - 5 from "Esperanto in Twenty Lessons", two sections on language by Varro, a story in Latin from "Fabulae Faciles", "Greek Lessons: 1-10", the Phonology Section from a "Primer of Persian" and Lessons 1 - 19 from "A Practical Arabic Course". Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #3 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 3 Book: 1 Volume: 1 Part: 3 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 2:21:58 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:19:06 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:19:06 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

History was written down for the very first time in the ancient region of Mesopotamia. In Between Two Rivers, Moudhy Al-Rashid tells the story of the civilisations that rose and fell, through the details left on cuneiform tablets from 4000 years ago – from diplomatic letters to receipts for beer. And the drive that led ancient scribes to record the events and legends of the past.Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was probably born in AD69, and although little is known about his own life, his biography of the twelve Caesars vividly captured what it was like to be at the centre of power in the Roman Empire. The historian Tom Holland pays homage to his fellow history-writer, Suetonius, in a new translation of The Lives of the Caesars.Archaeologists at the ancient Sumerian city-state of Ur believe they found evidence of a museum in the ruins, which suggests that the desire to display and preserve artefacts, and tell stories from the past, is nothing new. Gus Casely-Hayford is the curator of the V&A East which opens in the Spring, and is expected to offer a new way of viewing the past, and a chance to see behind the scenes of a museum.Producer: Katy Hickman

Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 2 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 1 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This Volume includes a treatise by Sir Arthur Cotton, author of an "Arabic Primer". His daughter, Lady Hope, on page 523 of her biography of her father, writes that he "had very strong theories on the subject of learning “Living Languages,” his opinion being that, as every child who comes into the world learns its mother tongue orally, and at first without grammar… so the learning of all modern languages would be very much facilitated by a similar process." Also included are the orientalist E.G. Browne's opinions on language learning (taken from the introduction to A Year Amongst the Persians), the first lesson from Dr. Emil Otto's "French Conversation-Grammar", a talk by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá on the need for a universal auxiliary language, Samuel Johnson's "A Grammar of the English Tongue", several sections from Henry Sweet's "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons 1 - 5 from "Esperanto in Twenty Lessons", two sections on language by Varro, a story in Latin from "Fabulae Faciles", "Greek Lessons: 1-10", the Phonology Section from a "Primer of Persian" and Lessons 1 - 19 from "A Practical Arabic Course". Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #2 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 2 Book: 1 Volume: 1 Part: 2 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 1:23:43 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:19:06 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:19:06 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 1 Title: LibriVox Language Learning Collections - Volume 1 Overview: This collection is part of an initiative to create a language learning resource at LibriVox. The LibriVox Language Learning Collections contain readings from various language learning books, grammars, primers, phrasebooks, dictionaries, readers, and even other works which contain information on various languages, recount experiences of language learning and encountering new languages, or provide guides for correct pronunciation, writing or discourse in a language. These works could describe English or any other language whatsoever, from Latin to Sumerian, Chinese to Wampanoag, Esperanto to Swahili (etc.). This Volume includes a treatise by Sir Arthur Cotton, author of an "Arabic Primer". His daughter, Lady Hope, on page 523 of her biography of her father, writes that he "had very strong theories on the subject of learning “Living Languages,” his opinion being that, as every child who comes into the world learns its mother tongue orally, and at first without grammar… so the learning of all modern languages would be very much facilitated by a similar process." Also included are the orientalist E.G. Browne's opinions on language learning (taken from the introduction to A Year Amongst the Persians), the first lesson from Dr. Emil Otto's "French Conversation-Grammar", a talk by ‘Abdu'l-Bahá on the need for a universal auxiliary language, Samuel Johnson's "A Grammar of the English Tongue", several sections from Henry Sweet's "First Steps in Anglo-Saxon", Lessons 1 - 5 from "Esperanto in Twenty Lessons", two sections on language by Varro, a story in Latin from "Fabulae Faciles", "Greek Lessons: 1-10", the Phonology Section from a "Primer of Persian" and Lessons 1 - 19 from "A Practical Arabic Course". Published: Various Series: LibriVox Language Learning Collections List: LibriVox Language Learning Collections, Language #1 Author: Various Genre: Language Learning, Education, Foreign Language, Culture, Vocabulary, Linguistics Episode: Language Learning Collections - Book 1, Part 1 Book: 1 Volume: 1 Part: 1 of 4 Episodes Part: 5 Length Part: 1:44:19 Episodes Volume: 20 Length Volume: 9:19:06 Episodes Book: 20 Length Book: 9:19:06 Narrator: Collaborative Language: Multilingual Rated: Guidance Suggested Edition: Unabridged Audiobook Keywords: Language, Linguistics, Education, Language Learning, Foreign Language, Culture, English, Spanish, French, Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Japanese, Portuguese, German, Latin Hashtags: #freeaudiobooks #audiobook #mustread #readingbooks #audiblebooks #favoritebooks #free #booklist #audible #freeaudiobook #Language #Linguistics #Education #LanguageLearning #ForeignLanguage #Culture #English #Spanish #French #Chinese #Arabic #Russian #Japanese #Portuguese #German #Latin Credits: All LibriVox Recordings are in the Public Domain. Wikipedia (c) Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. WOMBO Dream. Nicholas James Bridgewater.

Send us a textAnd now for something copmletely different: Storytime! But first, we're getting cerebral. In this episode of the Magick Kitchen Podcast, Elyse and Leandra share their perspectives on decolonizing mythology. We discuss the truth about working with deities, and the reality of personal gnosis. We also discuss the importance of critical contexts for the classical portrayals of gods, the complexity of translation, and end the episode with theatrical storytelling of our favorite Sumerian myths. (ad music: A Robust Crew by Darren-Curtis | https://soundcloud.com/desperate-measurez Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons / Attribution 3.0 Unported License (CC BY 3.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US)

Here's one for you.Thousands of years ago aliens landed on earth. They came in great space ships, which the ancients took to be chariots of the gods, and they came for gold. They were the Anunnaki from the planet Nibiru, according to ancient astronaut theory, which derives from author Zecharia Sitchin's interpretations of Sumerian texts. Tall and imposing, with features both human and otherworldly, they were seen as deities. They needed gold dust to suspend in their planet's atmosphere to protect it from the solar radiation that was slowly destroying it.But the primitive hominids they found here, such as homo erectus, were useless, so they combined their alien DNA with them to create a worker race capable of mining the gold they had come for: Homo sapiens. They established mining colonies in Africa and in the Fertile Crescent, which became the cradle of civilisation. The Anunnaki taught humans many things – agriculture, astronomy, mathematics, writing and record keeping - to ensure their mining operations ran smoothly. Eventually, they departed, taking vast quantities of gold with them, but they left behind some of what they had created. Evidence of their existence can be found in myths, ancient mines, ancient texts and, of course, in the Megalithic structures they created such as the Pyramids and Stonehenge.There is actually some evidence that the capstones on top of the pyramids – the pyramidia – were gilded with a layer of gold or electrum (gold-silver alloy), which, of course, would add to the many celestial and religious connotations of these structures. It's also thought we could not build them today.This is one of the reasons we associate gold with the gods.That's my story and I'm sticking to it.Tell your friends about this ancient alien race.If you haven't already, take a look at my buddy Charlie Morris's monthly gold report, Atlas Pulse. It is, in my view, the best gold newsletter out there, and, best of all, it's free. Sign up here.And, of course, if you are buying gold to protect yourself in these uncertain times, as always I recommend The Pure Gold Company. Pricing is competitive, quality of service is high. They deliver to the UK, the US, Canada and Europe or you can store your gold with them. More here.You really should subscribe.I mucked up the title of my mid-week piece, so in case you missed it here it is: This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.theflyingfrisby.com/subscribe

***CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA! Corey is gonna be at Wit's End Comedy Lounge on Feburary 23rd! Get those tix at witsendcharleston.com and get em quick before they are gone! Trae will also be in Charleston a few day's before, so hopefully you can make it a full POA weekend! TraeCrowder.com to grab tickets for that show and everywhere Trae is gonna be!*** In todays chin-wag, Lord Trae and Professor CHO discuss the cultural significance of rugby players and British slang along with the duality of British culture, the unique tradition of the Gurning Championship, and the legacy of ancient playwright Aeschylus. Also mentioned is Ian Nasir, an ancient Sumerian merchant known for selling poor-quality copper, and the modern implications of his legacy through memes and online culture. Oh, and Professor CHO calls BS on some of the things we are meant to believe about Alexander Hamilton as he begins his quest to possibly redeem one of America's most notorious bad boys: Aaron Burr! Snag some POA MERCH at StayFancyMerch.com joinbilt.com/POA, to start earning points on your rent payments today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

***CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA! Corey is gonna be at Wit's End Comedy Lounge on Feburary 23rd! Get those tix at witsendcharleston.com and get em quick before they are gone! Trae will also be in Charleston a few day's before, so hopefully you can make it a full POA weekend! TraeCrowder.com to grab tickets for that show and everywhere Trae is gonna be!*** In todays chin-wag, Lord Trae and Professor CHO discuss the cultural significance of rugby players and British slang along with the duality of British culture, the unique tradition of the Gurning Championship, and the legacy of ancient playwright Aeschylus. Also mentioned is Ian Nasir, an ancient Sumerian merchant known for selling poor-quality copper, and the modern implications of his legacy through memes and online culture. Oh, and Professor CHO calls BS on some of the things we are meant to believe about Alexander Hamilton as he begins his quest to possibly redeem one of America's most notorious bad boys: Aaron Burr! Snag some POA MERCH at StayFancyMerch.com joinbilt.com/POA, to start earning points on your rent payments today! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this episode, Trevor sits down with author Emily H. Wilson to talk about Inanna, the first novel in her Sumerians trilogy, published in 2023 and 2024 by Titan Books. Together, they talk about rereading one of the world's oldest extant epics, The Epic of Gilgamesh, and about Wilson's work in bringing the epic alongside other ancient Sumerian myths to modern audiences.You can find more from Emily H. Wilson at her website, www.emilyhwilson.com, and can find Inanna and Gilgamesh (Books 1 and 2 of the Sumerians trilogy) available now from Titan Books wherever books are sold or from your local library. Book 3, Ninshubar, is due out Summer 2025. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/sley-house-publishing-presents-litbits. https://plus.acast.com/s/sley-house-publishing-presents-litbits. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

John Vivanco, a professional remote viewer with over 25 years of experience working for corporate and government clients, has received stunning remote viewing data about seeder extraterrestrials appearing in Earth's ancient history. According to data received via a blind remote viewing study with an expert team, Vivanco's team discovered that the Seeders are extraterrestrials who visit the Earth before and after cyclic cataclysmic events every 12,000 years to observe, preserve, and reboot human civilization. He cites evidence of this seeding process in the mysterious bags carried by gods depicted in Sumerian and Mayan glyphs. Vivanco first presented his data in a recent episode of Metaphysical which he co-hosts on Rise.TV In addition, Vivanco shared remote viewing results of mystery drones seen over military bases in the United States and around the world. He says the drones belong to highly classified military black programs that operate out of the oceans. Vivanco claims the drones incorporate extraterrestrial technologies and are seeking ancient alien artifacts in the US that contain data on when cataclysmic events will next impact the Earth. John Vivanco's Metaphysical show is available at: https://rise.tv/show/metaphysical/ His website is: https://hemispheres.institute/