Live: Israel marks 80 years since the Holocaust with national memorial day
(The Independent) Streamed live April 24, 2025: Israelis commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day. The country comes to a standstill at 0700GMT when a siren sounds in memory of the six million Jews allegedly killed by the Nazis. Israeli Dictator Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the main wreath-laying ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial.
Watch more on Independent TV: https://tinyurl.com/yc7ukx9n
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Celebrated annually on the last Wednesday in March, "Manatee Appreciation Day" is more than just a tribute – it’s a global call to protect the gentle giants [related to elephants] of the sea.
Manatees have no natural predators [other than motorboaters swinging brutal propeller blades], which contributes to their serene demeanor. However, this does not mean they are without threats.
Human activities pose significant risks to manatee populations. Despite these challenges, manatees have shown remarkable resilience, with conservation efforts playing a crucial role in protecting them.
A childlike heart will yet believe even as adults scoff at ancient lore.
I know what I saw! (Cristobal Columbus)
MERMAIDS (mythical half-female, half-fish creatures) have existed in seafaring lore at least since the time of the ancient Greeks. Typically depicted as having a woman’s head and torso, a fishtail instead of legs, and holding a mirror and comb, mermaids live in the ocean and, according to some legends, can take on a human shape and marry mortal men [as in the selkie lore of Ireland, Manx, Scotland, Faroe Islands, Iceland, the British Isles]. Mermaids are closely linked to sirens, another folkloric figure, part-woman, part-bird, who live on islands and sing seductive songs to lure sailors [like Homer's Odysseus and his crew] to their deaths. Mermaid sightings by sailors, when they weren’t made up, were most likely manatees, dugongs, or Steller’s sea cows (which became extinct by the 1760s due to cruel human over-hunting). Manatees are slow-moving aquatic mammals with human-like eyes, bulbous faces... (HISTORY*)
SUTRA: In a very strange Buddhist sutra, Great Moggallana, the male disciple declared by the Buddha as "foremost in psychic powers" mentions that at the bottom of the sea, there are indeed mermaids who dance seductively. A reference to shapeshifting space aliens living in bases below the ocean? There is worldwide awareness that at some point in the past, there really were vicious creatures who swam the seas, just as reports of harpies and others were reported by many cultures. Let's examine what one of the Buddha's four chief disciples said of these mysterious creatures from MN 50:
Alas, no further mention of the sea-nymph mermaid selkies is made in this sutra, Is it reasonable to think the great monk was simply repeating Indian or Scythian lore? He was addressing Mara, to warn him what was to happen for bad karma of the sort this mara was accumulating. Modern people don't believe in Mara, despite the Mara Samyutta, and all those references to him by the Buddha. There's a thick translation of The Connected Discourses by American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi that includes it. So if Mara, a kind of Tempter -- Lucifer, Cupid, Eros, Devil -- figure in Buddhism could be real, are mermaids so hard to believe in, existing underwater by inhabiting vimanas ("mansions" that areUSOs) so hard to swallow?
Human activities have not been kind to manatees. Boating, pollution, and habitat destruction stand out as the three greatest threats.
Despite legal protections against hunting, manatees continue to be poached for their meat and hides. Furthermore, their natural habitats, crucial for their survival, are being decimated by human development and intrusion.
Boat strikes are particularly alarming, leading to tragic injuries or even death for these gentle creatures. This dire situation underlines the urgency of increasing awareness so that manatees will continue to exist in the future.
Getting to know sea cows
Secret places, Mexico's cenotes, near Belize
Manatees, also known as the cows of the sea[even though their closest relatives are elephants], are a marvel of marine life, characterized by their gentle nature and slow-moving grace [which caused people like Christopher Columbus to report mermaid sighting, possibly with the intention to violate them as he was planning for the gentle Indigenous humans he met].
These large, aquatic mammals belong to the order Sirenia [which is interesting because the Spanish word for "mermaid" issirena], which also includes three species of dugongs.
One of the most captivating aspects of manatees is their all-veganherbivorous diet, as they feed on a wide variety of submerged, floating, and emergent plants in fresh and saltwater environments. More
The Book of Enoch BANNED from the Bible reveals shocking secrets of our history
(The 5th Kind) The Book of Enoch: What made the Book of Enoch important enough to preserve but so controversial that it needed to be buried?
Ethiopian Church Bible books
Abductions, extraterrestrial encounters, did "The Watchers" fall from the heavens/space plane? Could they still be watching? Why was this suppressed from the Bible for 2,000 years? The Book of Enoch concerns fallen angels or "Watchers" and demons [like Buddhism's Asuras, translated as "Titans," who may be the Nephilim].
The African aquatic Mami Wata make hybrid human children from forced abduction of females they impregnate with their own genetic material, as told by ancient Enoch from the Christian Bible, as recorded in the ancient Ethiopian Orthodox Church (early Christians who fast as vegans). Qumran, Sumerian "Observers"...
Move over, Sasquatch: Some say there's a new monster in Canada, living in a small lake on Vancouver Island.
John Kirk, co-founder of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, says his organization began cataloguing sighting reports of an odd creature in Cameron Lake about five years ago, when two people reported seeing a long black animal in the water.
"Witnesses have been describing what looks like a dark creature in the lake," Kirk said, adding that British Columbia has more reputed lake monsters than anywhere else in the world. Kirk, who researches mysterious and unknown creatures, believes that the creature may be found, and spent one day aboard a boat searching the lake, courtesy of the local tourism board. Using a fish finder, Kirk's team found what he believes was a giant object amid a school of fish about 60 feet below the surface. More>>
Sirens (ShapeshiftingNagas?) A distant cousin of the mermaid (in folkloric terms), sirens are beautiful, alluring females who dwell near rocky cliffs and sing to passing sailors. According to legend, the hapless seamen become enchanted by the sirens' song, following the mellifluous melody to their deaths as their boats crash upon the rocky shore. It is an ancient morality tale about the evils of seduction. But not all sirens are comely. Other accounts depict them as half-bird, half-women creatures (in Buddhism: garudas, kinnaras) who would lure travelers to their doom with harps instead of their voices. In Greek myth, Odysseus escaped the sirens by having his sailors plug their ears. See more at:
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