I Am the Bee King

Hear my words and tremble!

One of my titles as King of Egypt was the “Bee King”, or “He of the Sedge and the Bee”.

Let me tell you why this is so important. Without your bees to pollinate your crops, your country will fail to prosper.

We knew this 5,000 years ago!

You could starve to death waiting for the ineffectual governments that now predominate to figure out the causes and the fixes for the mysterious large-scale disappearance of bees this last winter.

The massive die-off of the honey-bees needed for this year’s crop pollination has puzzled scientists, beekeepers and beekeeping organizations for the last six months. But the US Congress has only this month finally held hearings and funded research to solve the problem of sudden Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which is what they are now calling this syndrome.

Congress funded a five-year study, but you cannot afford to wait that long to find out the causes and cures.

Your brilliant scientist, Albert Einstein said: "If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left.

• No more bees,
• no more pollination,
• no more plants,
• no more animals,
• no more man."

Without bees :

• Crops won’t prosper.
• Fruits and vegetables won’t develop,
• Alfalfa and clover won’t grow which feeds much of  the livestock.
• Honey supplies will dwindle.
• Food Prices will sky-rocket!
• Wildflowers will suffer more losses. Last year was very sparse year for wildflowers.
• Prices for everything will skyrocket!

U.S. beekeepers are reporting losses up to 70 to 90 percent of their bees.

Unusually no bodies are found. Other bees do not use the abandoned hives, to raid the honey stores or take it over, nor do other parasites or invaders. Queens and young are abandoned in the hives.

The scientists could use some help from the public. The biggest problems lie in “no bodies, no clues,” so perhaps the public can help. If you find a lot of dead bees, in an area or in clumps, please contact your local extensions office or university agricultural department to report them. Researchers will need to study the dead bodies as well as the surrounding areas for probable causes.

More on the role of the Bee King later.

Tutankhamen

Widgets ‘ –>wadjets‘ and whatnots!

My Favorite so far is the NeoCounter with the flags of my visitors’ countries.
See it on the Sidebar.
Available at –>NeoWorks.net
They are skinnable, I love the revolving earth on mine.

As cute as they were, there were scripting problems. So I removed them.
Not sure if it was my problems or theirs.

Then there are the Babelfish translators, My Foreign visitors can get just a few words, whole pages, and actually whole sites, translated into their own language. Probably not totally accurate and clumsy with an auto-translate, and will lose some meanings and nuances. But…

(These scripts will also slow down your site. Especially when you use lots of flags, so I removed those too. You can get browser plugins to do it better.)

Next the Favorite.me new app. It makes it easier to fave someone on Technorati, unfortunately just from their list, but it opens technorati on the same page in a frame, and once there you can add a list of new favorites before exiting back to favorite.me dashboard. You keep it all on one page, not having to open new windows for each one. Great idea. Join up.Just Use the Link Icon on the sidebar. Or go to –>Favorite.me

Favorite.me has been discontinued due to lagging interest in technorati. Hmmm. Maybe it was just too hard to implement, and favors were NOT returned! but you can see who got listed when you click the Favorite.me link.

But I love Technorati! You can get all your Favorites feeds on one technorati page and not on your own site!

Then there’s –>MyBlogLog, a new networking community. What’s great is you get to see some of the faces of those who drop by your blog, even though many use avatars that are cartoons or other. Still you see the image they project of themselves. find out what kind of visitors are actually coming by. and you can send them emails, drop off messages on their boards, and get more visitors who might get interested.

And then there’s the Blidget, you can see it on my –>MySpace
Page. Blidget makes your blog into a widget, and easily installs
it for you on Myspace, or other blogs. –>Get
Blidgets

I like the Blidgets the best. Users can get your feed in this cool widget, and then get their OWN!
Compare feeds for yourself two kinds of feeds on Google’s Blogger, plain feed vs Blidget on –>René O’Deay gBlog

This train idea is rad, but really time-consuming. Do you just want links? Or do you want interested readers? You have created some interesting content?

Yes, Content is King.!!!

The Technorati icons, the ads from my webhost Siteground and Google and Amazon.
Blidget is available from WidgetWorks.
I’m keeping those to an unobtrusive minimum. I absolutely hate those sites whose ads snag you just by brushing them or even just coming close with your cursor!

I do highly recommend my host –>SiteGround, there’s lots of great features, and their customer support is really fast.

Do let me know if you have used any of these and your experience with them. Or if you like them or not.
Give us a comment.

René

Useful links to Egyptology Research, News, Info, Museums, etc. I’ll make this a page and add to it as I go along.

1. –>Osiris Net
2. –>Mysteries in Stone
   
3. –>Jim Loy’s Egyptology & Hieroglyphs

Read more on –>My Archaeological Links

Wind & the River In Egypt – The North Wind Helped make Egypt Eternal

The ease of communication, transport of cargo and travel by river helped keep Egypt a power in the Ancient World. Even in our modern world, travel and transport on the Nile is an important economic factor for Egypt.

The wind in Egypt usually blows from the north, cooling things down in the desert with refreshing Mediterranean air. These prevailing winds have greatly assisted travel on the Nile, which flows from south to north. Boats can travel with the current north and with the wind south.

The winds are blocked at the Qina Bend by steep limestone cliffs, when the river flows east for a short distance. Temperature changes in the desert can cause gusting winds that blow like a blizzard across the desert surface.

These winds howl in the dark cold of the desert night. The winds swirl dust into the air, choking out the sun. The winds can only lift the sand five to six feet off the surface, shifting it across the desert surface in heavy sheets. Stones are polished to a luster by the sand blast. The sand stings your face, fills your ears and blinds your eyes. You need a scarf to cover your nose and mouth so that you can breath easier. Sand gets into everything.

In the spring winds called khamsins blow from the south. The name comes from the Arabic word for fifty, which is how many days that it is believed that these winds last. A change in atmosphere causes the animals to get restless and it is thought that humans can lose their tempers easier at this time. The winds bring hot air and lifts the dust off of the dunes that had been deposited by the northerly winds. The dust towers into tall columns which eventually dump dust everywhere.

Click on thumbnails for lightbox effect, then on edges of popup photo for ‘Next’–>

Even today Egyptians and tourists rely on the Sail Boat for easy travel in Egypt.

If you have a chance to travel to Egypt, don’t miss out on one of the Nile boat tours there. Most tourists say it is a welcome and relaxing change from the tourist crowds at many sites.

See more on the Climate of Egypt at –>The Climate

René

Phoenix Rising! Harry Potter in New Orleans!

Just a reminder. This Harry Potter Fans convention is coming up soon. Phoenix Rising will also broadcast PodCasts from the event.

Fans of Harry Potter give their support for the beautiful city of New Orleans
at the Phoenix Rising Conference, May 17 to 21, 2007.

“Phoenix Rising, a conference devoted to all things Harry Potter, will fuse
the intensity of academic debate with the improvisation of exploratory dialogue,
the rhythms of New Orleans with the colors and pageantry of art. The conference
will examine the novels, the movies, and the extraordinary fan phenomenon
during the day; then, attendees will revel with the beat of the Crescent City
— herself rising from ash and flame — ”

Featuring 2007 Riverside Quidditch Classic Tournament!

Follow the link below to See what’s up:
—>

René