bell-the-cat

It was a magnificent, beautiful, tear-inducing scene. You are right - no "State Leader" these days would recieve or deserve such a send-off. Most of them would deserve to be hacked apart, their bones fed to the street dogs.

I get your point Vava, and recognise that the chart is just an easy dig at Bush supporters. But if you were to break down the IQs within individual states, I'm sure you would find exactly the same result, the lower the person's IQ, the more likely he/she will be a Bush supporter. What this fact doesn't explain is why Bush is so popular with idiots, and whether Bush deliberately campaigned to get those idiots on his side, at the expense of the educated voters who actually made America a world Power rather than a rust-belt, basket-economy, bananna-republic.

Better a northern cat than a southern dog-bitch.

I think I have just posted an English version of this here: http://hyeforum.com/index.php?showtopic=10...ndpost&p=121559

Yes, it is a lie. I have been told that there was an army base on the island from the 1930s till the early 1950s - and the soldiers would pass their idle hours shooting at the carvings. But I don't know if this is true. The bullet holes may have been put there in 1915, when a band of Kurds crossed to the island and murdered all the priests there.

The decay and destruction of Artsak's monuments This recent report mentions that ancient tomb, along with other less favourable things. Azg/Arm 6 Nov 04 Are Monuments of Artsakh Under Control? Slava Sargsian, head of Department of Monument Preservation and Study of Nagorno Artsax Republic, thinks that the state of the monuments of Artsakh is far from being satisfactory. The reason is that the department is not well equipped to take necessary care for the monuments, according to Sargsian. Difference between Armenian and Artsakh Departments of Monument Preservation is that in regions of Artsakh employees of this service are subordinated to the regional administrations but not to the Department itself. That is the reason why they fail in carrying for and studying the monuments. It turns out that the whole territory of Artsakh is supervised only by 3 employees of the Department. In addition to this, the small sums assigned for the Department by the state. Slava Sargsian says that there are around 10 thousand historic monuments in Artsakh, and they need years to register all of them. A map drawn under his supervision includes only the important monuments. He confessed that some of the monuments are located in far sites and they fail to reach them. Time and nature slowly destroys the monuments, and they lose their original appearance or else disappear. Around 200 monuments were repaired since 1988. Most of them were repaired by the Artsakh diocese of the Armenian church. Sargsian complains of the quality of repair. He thinks that the monuments should not be repaired, partially because of money shortage and the absence of specialists. Often repair changes a monument's look alienating it from its historic roots or even making it into an ultramodern building. If Armenian historic monuments were being eliminated by the Azeris during the 70 years of Soviet Union, today they are often knocked down by our hands. Sargsian tells that monuments often get damaged as a result of road construction works. According to the republic's laws, workers should inform proper institutions while running into historic monuments during excavations. Organization carrying out construction works has to financially support in examination and can continue the works after scientists go out. It seems that they are unaware of the law or pretend so. It is easier for them to ruin a monument than to abort their work and finance researches. But there are still workers who consider it a duty to inform Department about a discovery. For instance a coffin dating back to 2-1 centuries B.C. was found lately in Martuni. Department began excavations, and the coffin went to the Museum of Martuni. Historic monuments of Artsakh are also an immensely important argument demonstrating to whom Artsakh belonged historically. Sargsian complained that we don' t declare of the monuments to the world whereas Azerbaijan is successfully manipulating with Artsakh's cultural background. By Kim Gabrielian from Stepanakert

Last night, I was about to post that piece of aae propaganda along with a warning notice. Unfortunately I was banned before I could do so. Each year this story about the supposed "ruination" of the Aghtamar church appears in a new guise. Unfortunately now it has taken on a new form since it is now supported by certain Turks and Kurds from Van wanting to obtain money. They, together with Armenian pressure groups wanting to make anti-Turkish propaganda are now unlikely bedfellows, producing and spreading lies like "the marvellous carvings are regularly being used as targets for shooting practice by visitors". The structural integrity of the Holy Cross church on Aghtamar island is not in ANY danger and, given the total lack of stoneworking and architectural restoration skills within Turkey, any proposed "restoration" must be strongly resisted. I have visited Aghtamar almost every year since 1989, I know exactly what has changed there and what has not, and I know what I am talking about. Steve