Based on your system, all we have to do is look at Greece to conclude that Western Europeans are much more intelligent than the Greeks.

It is unfortunate that most people -- even modern Africans -- are unaware of the ancient achievements that came out of Africa.

Many of the modern high-school level concepts in mathematics were first developed in Africa -- as was the first method of counting. These concepts include division and multiplication of fractions and geometric formulas to calculate the area and volume of shapes. They also invented mathematical methods for measuring distances and the use of angles -- including dividing a circle into 360 degrees and an early estimate of pi.

Eight thousand years ago, people in present-day Zaire developed their own numeration system, as did Yoruba people in what is now Nigeria. The Yoruba system was based on units of 20 (instead of 10) and required an impressive amount of subtraction to identify different numbers. Scholars have lauded this system, as it required much abstract reasoning.

This is just in the area of mathematics. Several ancient African cultures birthed discoveries in astronomy. Many of these are foundations on which we still rely, and some were so advanced that their mode of discovery still cannot be understood. Egyptians charted the movement of the sun and constellations and the cycles of the moon. They divided the year into 12 parts and developed a yearlong calendar system containing 365 ¼ days. Clocks were made with moving water and sundial-like clocks were used.

Many advances in metallurgy and tool making were made across the entirety of ancient Africa. These include steam engines, metal chisels and saws, copper and iron tools and weapons, nails, glue, carbon steel and bronze weapons and art.

Advances in Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda between 1,500 and 2,000 years ago surpassed those of Europeans then and were astonishing to Europeans when they learned of them. Ancient Tanzanian furnaces could reach 1,800C — 200 to 400C warmer than those of the Romans.

There are plenty of other examples in areas such as architecture, engineering, medicine and navigation.

Here are some references for your perusal:

• 1. Kresge, N. “A history of black scientists.” ASBMB Today. February 2011.
• 2. Van Sertima, I. “The Lost Sciences of Africa: An Overview.” Blacks in Science: Ancient and Modern. 7 – 26 (1983).

Unless something has changed recently, there is no such as Catholic divorce. In order to separate as a couple, the marriage has to be annulled, which is usually accomplished by establishing the one or the other or both parties were unfit to enter into such an agreement at the time of the marriage.

Ignorance at its greatest

I, for one, completely agree with you. There are good, useful frameworks out there -- at least in the Java world.

I use Hibernate because it is very flexible and does the heavy lifting with regards to ORM and caching. Do I use it because I am lazy? No, I have written database access code in C, C++ as well as early Java. I use it because it frees me up to focus on the business logic of the application

I also, highly recommend using Spring. The power and flexibility of dependency injection alone is worth it.

Again, Maven is an invaluable framework.

I agree with you. There is no one mobile form factor that is suitable for all. For instance, this mobile is probably not suitable for me because I do use my device while sitting on a flat surface (table, bar, etc...) quite often.

I wonder. The human chest is not flat. In fact, I think flat phones look a bit out of place in a shirt pocket.

Yes, it will be easier to hold but will be more awkward when placed on a flat surface screen-side up.

Back when I used to record my dreams, I found that if I recalled them in reverse chronological order, I was able to go further back into my dream. By this, I mean you start by what happened last, then try to remember what happened before that and so forth.

Perhaps, you need a lesson in history. The earliest Unix that came out of Bell Labs -- thanks to people like Richie and Thompson -- was essentially given away to Universities for free.

Co-ed..., now there is an archaic sexist term.

Are you advocating that we return to some version of our initial voting rights? It is hard to tell from your statement. Are you suggesting that we take voting rights away from women? You make a reference to facts. Yet, you make no effort to provide these facts nor the evidence that supports them. That makes your analysis of these supposed facts a bit suspect. As for the landowner limitation, well..., that no longer guarantees education, nor prosperity, nor lots of free time.

I seriously doubt that you could develop such a test. If it is simple enough that anyone could pass if they study, it will make little difference with regards to the actual election process. Most voters will still lack the education to understand the complexities of our economy. Even professional economists disagree about various aspects.

I am not sure what to say about your "entitlement" statement. It occurs to me that this would include the vast majority of retired people who are taking Social Security and possibly Medicare. This means, at some point, this would include you -- unless, of course, you intend to refuse to accept your Social Security benefits.

Now, the publicly funded campaign idea is one I could get behind wholeheartedly. Of, course, we could quibble over the exact amount that candidates would receive but that is a side issue. I completely agree that outside contributions should be treated as a severe breach of our system and treated accordingly. In addition, I think all spending by the candidates must be accounted for. That will ensure that they do not spend more than the government allotment. Now, some thought must go into how or if this would apply to party primaries. Thoughts anyone?

Perhaps, you have a different definition of "running deep into the red". Currently, the Social Security trust fund is more than paying for itself. The latest report estimates that the fund will be depleted in 2037. By this, it means that the trust fund will only be able to cover 78% of the costs. That is up 2% over last year -- even with our current economic situation. There are even optimistic scenarios that show the fund will never reach depletion.