text:
Farked moonset

By Phil Plait | August 3, 2010 11:30 am

A while back I posted a pretty cool picture care of the European Southern Observatory:

It shows the Moon setting behind the Very Large Telescope observatory in Chile. BABloggee Craig Clem notified me that in July this picture was the victim target of a Fark.com Photoshop contest (some pix maybe NSFW), where people are invited to have at the image and do what they will.

My favorite? No contest:

Nicely played, robbase. Nicely played.

MORE ABOUT: Fark, Moon

Comments (7)

  1. steve

    They must have removed the NSFW. Way to get us all to look, Phil…

  2. Chip

    Very cool
    LOVED Space 1999 as a kid so I just added it to my netflix queue…all 17 disks

  3. Japhy

    Nice pic. Sorry to go off topic Phil, but do you have a take on either the solar storm coming our way tonight or what’s happening with the space station repairs? Just asking, I enjoy reading your perspective and insight on such matters.

  4. Dreamer

    The one with the golf club is the best. Simple, striking, and funny.

  5. Messier Tidy Upper

    Some good ones there. :-)

    My fave was the one with the Observatory relocated to the Moon by Hungryghost & the ones with Saturn added by Hagar the Horrible & with the Star Trek ship & Saturn too by slimfast.

    There were many other nice ones as well such as the Milky Way over the setting /rising Moon and observatory by hneftafl although the moonlight would wash out much of the picture in reality! The woman seen from a cupboard /sink by manyone was clever and well done. :-)

    I would have *really* loved to have seen a Babylon-5 themed one but, alas, there wasn’t one entered.

  6. MadScientist

    Yeah, these observatory complexes look like something out of a sci-fi movie. My favorite is still the Mauna Kea Science Complex. Maybe if I visit one of the high altitude observatories in Chile I might change my mind … especially after all the wine and lack of oxygen.

  7. QuietDesperation

    Space 1999 out on Blu-Ray this month. We’re living in the future, kids.

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Think equal, act equal!

Obiageli Ezekwesili's picture

This week’s release of the 2012 World Development Report (Gender Equality and Development) forced me to reflect, not on the life of my grandmother or women her age, but on the women of my generation and girls the age of my three young adult sons, whose voices and life stories the report brought to us so poignantly.

If they have to live through the inequality the report unveils, how can we who are blessed to work in development deliver better on our mission to lift slightly more than half of humanity out of the status of “second best”?

It was thrilling to see World Bank staff sporting t-shirts marked “Think Equal” around the Bank’s premises on Wednesday and I could not help thinking of what I believe the report is calling us to do. It invites us to do more than “Think Equal”. We have to “Act Equal”. In Gandhi’s words, “be the change we want to see”.

Happily, the WDR tells us what a better Africa we could achieve if we do indeed “Act Equal”. Maize yields would increase by 11 to 16 percent in Malawi and by 17 percent in Ghana if women farmers got the same access as male farmers to farm inputs, extension services and technical know-how. Burkina Faso’s agricultural production would rise six percentage points if farm inputs such as fertilizer were reallocated from men to women.

Imagine the difference this could have made in the man-made starvation we now witness in Somalia.

The “feel good” effect of knowing that the international community, through institutions like the World Bank, has moved significant resources into agriculture in Africa over the last few years does not prevent us from being haunted by how much more we could have achieved if we moved earlier, faster, delivered better, pushed ourselves more and kept the focus strictly on delivering results for the poor and the most vulnerable, among them women.

One of the report’s key messages—gender equality is also smart economics—has been around a while, but reiterated within the context of the grim figures the report delivers—excess female mortality after birth and “missing” girls at birth account for an estimated 3.9 million women each year in low- and middle-income countries—it constitutes an urgent call to action, especially for African policymakers and those of us who work on the world’s last development frontier.

Even the most macho policy- and decision-makers surely recognize the benefit countries, communities and companies would draw by reducing the productivity gap between male and female workers by one-third to one-half simply by eliminating barriers that prevent women from working in certain occupations or sectors. The gains accrued from increasing output per worker by three to 25 percent across a range of countries creates the kind of win-win that we must seek in order to deliver on the promise of development for Africa.

As a “knowledge bank”, we must do a better job not only of disbursing development finance but of leveraging our resources to support countries across the continent to implement the recommendations of the report. The sales pitch is a winner: countries that create better opportunities and conditions for women and girls can raise productivity, improve learning and nutritional outcomes for children, make institutions more representative and advance development prospects for all. Period! No mention of money. Policy entrepreneurship is what Africa is sorely in need of.

We owe it to the 51 percent of Africans who just happen to be women and girls to ensure that their children’s memory captures footage of women with a greater say in households and societies across the continent; women who earn equal pay for equal work and qualification; and women who lead truly better lives than my grandmother, my mother and I lived.

They deserve it. Our job warrants that we deliver for them. Our collective future depends on achieving and maintaining that gender equality.

Submitted by Ewaen idemudia on
Nigeria today, has a work force dominated by women. Go to schools and tell me how many men you see in school as teachers these days, from nursery to secondary only at the university you see some form of equality. Go to banks women dominant banks.It is hard to see a male secretary these days. When I was hunting for Jobs all vacancies apart from the highly technical ones are open to females only up till now same thing, from marketing to sales managers. Is it Until you keep the Men totally at home that you know women have taken all the jobs over from the men. Well I think the government should allow women go for Combat missions in the Niger delta, become involved more on police patrols and go after armed criminal. And employ more of them for anti terrorist squad to help fight the raising terrorist problems in the country. You women want to sweet job and leave the dirty job for the male. I say today in Nigeria do your research we have more female workers than male in all sector of Nigeria economy.

Submitted by Afia Appiah on
Kudos to all women activists who over the last 100+ years have battled for the rights of women all over the world. They created a space for me a 36 year old woman to continue the fight for increased gender equality. But who am I fighting for? Are they even aware of the injustices gender inequality metes out to them? Do they care past the basics of having enough for they and their families to survive? Or I am fighting for the disinterested young women on the university campuses who stare at me blankly when I talk women empowerment and their role in this gender activism. They just want to breeze through school, find jobs, get someone to marry them and have 2.5 kids. What inequality, they ask? Our successes as women who believe in a better world with equitable representation across all sectors cannot be achieved if those we are fighting for don't know and don't care. What space, they ask? The space I was lucky to stand into because someone fought to create and your life will be a lot better if you step up here with me.

Submitted by Abigail on
Actually, women've been religated to the background in so many different sector in Africa. Who're these oppressors? Centainly not men alone but mostly fellow women who were fortunate to get to the ''top'', out of greed they see the growth of another woman as a threat.

Submitted by olamma ijekpa on
Warmest greetings Ma'am, I'd like to contribute my views to this interesting topic. I think that women should be given a chance to feature, support, contribute to the planning and running of affairs in our country and Africa at large. More Women should be found in places like Houses of Assembly, the senate, top Ministerial offices etc. Why? I believe women as home builders, hand that rocks/moulds the grown man and the society at large should be trusted also with such public responsibilities. My children drama group, CREATIVE WORLD CHILDREN DRAMATIC GROUP did a classical dramatic piece on this during Her Excellency Dame Patience Jonathan's visit to Port Harcourt during WOMEN FOR CHANGE SUMMIT / 35% AFFIRMATIVE ACTION,23RD Aug. 2010. It was simply enlightening and educating. We were invited by Her Excellency Dame Judith Amaechi, Wife of the Executive Governor of Rivers state. However, women are not to misunderstand the whole notion, the man is still in charge and the head of the home as God ordained from of old. Cheers!

Submitted by Benjamin Odiete on
Issues on gender equality need to be well addressed to enhance status opportnities in our society.

Submitted by paul on
Its gives me joy anytime i am opportune to read any of your posts. cos gr8 mind think gr8 and act gr8. You inspire alot of us and gives us hope that we can still make it only if we want to make it. you initiated lots of things that have given us hope, and we see them work and gives us the assurrance that it takes the right leader to led well. Ma can u pls try find out what have become of Nigerian Institute Of Mining and Geosciences? one of your babies while u serve as the Minister of Solid minerals. Its a world Bank assisted program and i feel seriously that as someone that was passionate about the take off of the school should endeavour to find out what have become of the school and how to achieve your objectives in what ever capacity you can.using your good office. i would be most glad if you can make a comment on this. Thanks ma and wishing you all the best in life endeavour.

Submitted by Tim Ukuta on
I am educated today Because of my mother I am God fearing today Because of my mother I own my business today Because of my mother I will do all that I can To support mothers. Thanks for this post...institutions and government should be encouraged to do more for women by creating a level playing field and access to governmental and non-governmental interventions. I greet the Saudi Arabian government for granting women the right to vote. It’s a step in the right direction.

Submitted by TIMI SIMPSON on
A topic that's been on my mind for some time now. Our sisters and daughters have to change their mind set and start acting equal! I have quietly been championing the course and strongly believe as Oby stated that if African women start to act as equals then hunger will be history in Africa. Africa would have unleashed our amazons and growth will truly start from the Kitchen. With all modesty, I inspired and co-founded a not for profit organisation called TALLAFIN KALLABI FOUNDATION (a Hausa phrase meaning Support (Tallafin) for People of the Scarf (Kallabi) i.e. support for woment). The mission of TK as we call it is to alleviate poverty , improve rural health, strenghten rural economies through diversification and improve livelihoods through women empowerment. TK's effort is geared towards rural economy diversification by linking enterprise to agriculture for food security. TK has adopted Koroko Village in Kwali Council Area of Abuja and the Alheri Sheabutter Society in Bosso Local Council, Niger State as pilot projects to be replicated in other parts of the country. TK is a group of women in support of rural women. Let Africa's growth start from the Kitchen that's the secret of Western Nigeria - my Grandma's tale! But are African women ready to Act Equal. I don't think so. I remember when I was going to get married I sought to be an agent of change for the African Woman, I told my fiancee that at our wedding I will pick up her name as our surname (mind you not her surname!)! She looked at me strangely and stoutly said over her dead body! Yet until then, she was my quintessential 'Woman Liber'. I told her I was dissapointed. She insisted on being Mrs. Simpson, she was Miss Faulkner so it was not in wanting an 'Oyinbo name'. We put the issue to her league of women liber and not a single one was willing to be the change. I told them of the story of one of Africa's most influential African of her time Lady Oyinkan Abayaomi nee Ajasa. She was married to a gentleman called Kofo Abayomi. But early in the marriage, Kofo Abayomi died. The young and beautiful heiress to Sir Kitoye Ajasa's estates remained single until one Dr. John from the West indies came to Nigeria and wooed her hand in marriage. She agreed to Dr John's proposal on one condition, which she had given to every suitor before him: Not only would she continue to be Mrs. Kofo Abayomi but her new husband shall henceforth be addressed as Kofo Abayomi! Dr. John agreed and died several years after as Sir Kofo Abayomi! The couple never had biological children but they raised several one of whom sits on the throne of Oyo today! Start Acting Equal Sisters! Can we at TK use the slogan Think Equal Act Equal to walk the talk in Nigeria?

Submitted by Idah idoko on
I think there is nothing like gender inequality even in our holy books. When God created man he made women out of men and said she shall be called woman because she is created out of man, but bcos of greed of todays woman, there have been agitating for equality which there know is practically impossible.

Submitted by Madua Justice J. Ebi on
By thinking equality of sexes and applying it in our actions, it makes us to bring out the best in our women, promoting mutual corporation and project a future where we could always imagine what we could achieve in an environment where every body is equal, regardless of gender. Madua' Justice J.

Submitted by Anonymous on
I am a feminine,and i love that i am made by my Creator as a woman.i have never felt secondbest in my entire life when placed beside a man.ithink it is time the womenfolks,ladiesfolks,girlsfolks recognise their right as(Homebuilders,good administrators of resources,a peculiar person)and take it by force.No more cry n no more intimidation.We have heard great women(Funmi Ransome Kuti,Queen Amina of Zaria,Maria Makenba,Kudirat Abiola etc), of our times in African who resisted oppression in whatever form and fought their way through turbulent times,obstacles,men ego and got to their destination.Presently,We have Ngozi Iweala,Dora Akinyili,Obiageli Ezekwezili(Nigeria),Opray Wilfrey(USA)just to mention a few.As a woman with equal gender equality it is good to think equal and act equal along your male counterpals even when they want to intimidate,never give your consent.Hold on to your virtue(s) as a great woman by believing in yourself,holding your head high above all else around you,fighting through with wisdom to possess your possession,keeping your homefront with the Lord God as your All in All,be kind to your self and people around you whether friends or enemies,smilling and moving forward,prayerful and fasting always to remove any blockade on your way by Divine Power,increase your knowledge by seeking it etc if you do the above you will see that you will never be secondbest or being trodden down by any man in any place in any where at anytime.They respect and honor you.Lastly help by resisting female inequality by voicing your voice and walking your talk.Desire think equal and act equal and it shall be yours. Enjoy your day in the Lord.

Gender equallity can only be achieved when many woman realise the importance of being independent and women should spear head educating their fellow ladies on this matter.Poverty, beer drinking and prostitution has also affected some of our ladies's indepedence in society.Its just my pray that as men we help our sister achieve this. On the other I think some women have done alot in areas of careers,politics and Business although much has to be done. I wish ladies well and continue working hard.

In 2004, I submitted a MA gender-based thesis to the Holy Ghost College, Kimmage Manor, Dublin- Ireland. It is entitled, 'Power and Women's NGO/NGDO: A Case Study of the Catholic Women Organisation (CWO) in Nigeria'. Reading Ms Ezekwesili's write-up, I am amazed to realise that the issues raised in my thesis seven years ago are still pertinent! The onus of my thesis is that the development enterprise, otherwise called 'modernisation/westernisation' and its multiferous Agencies including World Bank, IMF, etc, have opted for the 'power-over' concept of power interplays and relationship to the detriment of other power capilaries such as 'power within, power with, power for...' Also there is not enough power analysis by NGOs and other development agencies who carry out project implementation. Moreover, WID, GAD, Feminist Movements, NGO that attempt to balance the power equation fall into the same pitfall of 'development as modernistion/westernisation' with little or no cognisance of the power women (3rd World women) already have. As a result, the 'women empowerment' programme has become dis-empowerment for women, thus producing just the opposite result. This is becasue, as Albert Einstein said, you cannot solve a problem by using the same mind-set and method that created it. Aid-giving is Western-industry that perpetuates poverty and NGOs cannot alleviate, talkless eradicate it beacuse NGOs exist precisely because of poverty! NGOs "organisational schizophrenia", like the biblical servant turn between two masters: loyalty to donors (masters)and its own exsistence on one hand, and the grassroot beneficairies, especially women, on the other, is quite revealing! Like Ezekwesili, my experience of my mother's (now late), -a widow and single mother - strength, courage and intelligence, together with the role of the women in my village in making Catholicism my village supreme religion in the face of men's partriachal African Traditional Religion, rubbishes the image, stereotype and abstract categorisation and representation of the African woman as powerless, helpless, subjugated and incessantly in need of aid. It is this stutus quo way of thinking and doing that creates and reinforces gender inequality. I agree with Ezekwesili that thinking is not enough because thinking can be status quo thinking, just like status quo action. What is needed is critical thinking in a postmodern development paradym as well as a deconstructed development action, and that must start with recognising the power women have to build, transform, mobilise, achieve and protest... This power must be harnessed and brought to the negotiating table in every gender discourse and development endeavour. Brief, Women should not be seen, or made to act as objects but subjects of development programmes. We have acted and reflected. It's time to get back to action! By Malachy Nwanalobi Oleru, M.Afr(Secretary to the Catholic Bishop of Yendi, Northern Ghana)

Submitted by Anonymous on
well, the word gender is not absolute but relative indeed, this is because society independently designs its thought as regard gender issue. well talking from Africa as a community and more emphases on the original inhabitant of the continent. male sex is seen as superior to the female sex, that is why the position of women as regard power in Africa is very scanty from the historical angle. one constant thing on earth is change and diffusion of ideas across society, nations, countries, and continents of the world. thus, i always believe that God created female and male equally, as well what a man can do a woman can do better. well in future i can be an active member. thanks

Submitted by Kofi Yeboah-Agyemang on
It is a fact that women advocacy for gender equality is real, yet the truism is that there should be enough common play field for women to be able to bring off their best. Most of the men benefited a great deal from either their mothers or senior sisters when they were young. However, when they grow and get married another woman hijack the man and make it impossible to give back to the very society that brought him up. The women gender advocates should take a serious look about this social problem that invariably leads to the antagonism and petty squabbles of the married women and their in-laws, a situation that could easily be avoided, for the whole society to have achieved the common goal of putting food on the table, a house to lay your head and clothing to wear-thus leading to a just society. Let's avoid he mad rush of copying certain traditions and norms we have little understanding or knowledge.

Submitted by ebere on
The government of every level should commit herself to human and capital development in order to achieve the desire goal in the country.the issue of woman hood should not be a bias program in our dailies in the sense that there are a lot of factors to be considered which are responsible for the limited involvement of women in government of today, which span from illiteracy, family value, cultural background, parental bondage, poverty of the mind, lost of social value in the family, peer group, early sex, low public sensitization, poor funding of public schools. etc

Submitted by Martinet on
Madam, I believe all you said. In spite of the fact that I am a man, I am of the opinion that if women are given equal opportunity like men, their contribution to our society will be enormous. Just think of a family where you have three boys (who will later grow to become men) and one girl (who will also later grow to be woman) and they are given equal educational opportunity. At their later years, the parents will confirm that the girl contributes more to the welfare of their parents. So, if this singular opportunity is replicated on girls or women, in other fields of endeavour, I believe they will contribute more to the development of the society. Think of a family where the mother and the father are professors, the family always lack virtually nothing in terms of material wealth. I really subscribe to the think equal - act equal philosophy.

Submitted by ike kleins on
In Nigeria gender equality is gaining balance rapidly, even the government of my beloved country Nigeria is stressing the need to bring women into political offices. here in Nigeria many women have benefited as a result of gender balance, it is even a threat to a man coversing 4 a political office with a woman here in Nigeria bc the Fedral Government of Nigeria is going to give her more preference in the election. talking of Africa as a continient, gender equality is gaining ground because we are bigining to understand the fact that women as mothers given the room, they can contribute to the growth of the society. Take for instance, it is the woman that makes a man to settle down. most men are alcoholics and drug addicts, but the presence of a woman in the life a man can change all that.That's why parents need to pay more attention to thier female children and ensure proper education when they are little. I am a living testimony. thanks

Submitted by Ogbonna Chinaedum Rolland on
I support gender equality........

Submitted by william barry on
the world bank are a joke and so is the un--they only want parts of africa to be undeer there total control and if the countries gvt doesnt agree with waht there policy is that has been agreed in usa at the un look at lybia he became there friend and when he said he would do things his way -- bang bang-he had to go the uk and the rest of europe is broke=----the uk has not a penny for schools yet we find billions to bomb lybia---- watch out any country finding oil --it might be your oil but you will find you have another master who will tell you how to spend all the revenue it earns--- on more bombs and guns and weapons to kill each other--no country in africa is safe from un world bank and all oil thieves who wont build you a school or a hospital or a new dock so you can export your crops--- but they will build you a newdock to help them take your oil--and your minerals away from you and pay you in arms and guns and bombs -- africa is the only continent in the world that has every mineral every crop and all the labour for it to be the the nos one continent in the world--WAKE UP AFRICA DONT LISTEN TO THE WORLD BANK--- TELL THE UN IT IS YOUR CONTINENT--YOU WANT MORE SAY IN WHAT HAPPENS TO IT---TELL THE OIL BARONS--FOR EVERY BARREL YOU TAKE FROM AFRICA-- YOU SPEND TEN PERCENT OF THE REVENUE IN THE COUNTRY IT COMES FROM--ON THE PEOPLE PROVIDING HOSPITALS AND SCHOOLS--AND MEDICINES-- TELL THEM TODAY DONT LEAVE IT TO LATE --GOD BLESS AFRICA--GOD BLESS ITS PEOPLE

Submitted by Mphatso on
Empowerment yes. R we really sustaining the effort? Numerous tactics needed for this. So much is already being invested. we can talk, act, yes! but the fruits should stay and grow forever.

Please i will like you to know that there is a dire need to develop women.I however frown at a situation where equality means that men are deprived of their economic status.Its good that women must also be allowed to work and earn money , which is a good idea.But the money men earn is the family's money, and madam's money is her money which she only shares with her family when the need arise.Such monies are are betther spent on their own family and france made cosmetics.The man still has to buy her a car and bear responsibilities.No wonder there are so many widows and the world population is saturated with women.Because the society expect too much from men, while a woman is merely expected to bear children.This division of the available jobs between genders and the non even traditional ditribution of the incomes, for the whole family but on hair attachment, cosmetics and latest dresses manufactured overseas, is the origin of a new type of poverty which the World Bank should document:How much of a man.s income or that of a man is spent on their immediate family. Men over the decades, even centuries have worked hard to take care of their families, fight great wars and die in millions, even where one village fight with the other, men have given their lives to protect the land resources and the women. Efforts have always been made to protect women and children While saddam Hossein's two sons and grand sons were been shot dead, his two daughters were applying for visas at foreign embassies.Jenniffer Lopez has divorced three husbands.She is better off financially than the first two.She was nice enough to give employment to the first two husbands.Did lawyers battle to divide her assets ?.If she has been a man what would have happend.women are very important and in some communities women are looked down upon.yet the properties of a man belong , not to him.Black men pay dowry before marriage , white people pay dowry after marriage in form of settlements and allimonies.Please balance this call for equality, when more than half of enrolled students in the universities, secondary schools and primary schools are already female.

Submitted by Paulus on

Dear vice president world bank The write up you pasted in this blog is quite commendable yet just like you identified actions speak louder than words. Solving this problem from the family level is the best option. Remember it is still the rich women who go to the rural areas and bring less fortunate children to the urban areas to use them as house maids. They send their own children to well equip and modernize schools and send the maids to government schools usually afternoon session. They pay less attention to their problems, their potentials and calling. During festive periods they still give preferential treatment to their children in place of this poor ones who does all the house chores. Established and prolific women of the society need to focus their attention on informing, enlightening and assisting the girl child at a tender age. They need to encourage the poor girl child to understand the importance of education by giving them scholarship and observing them closely to know where lies their potentials irrespective of the fact if they are their children or not. The women of the society are 80% cause of their predicament. Most of them only wish to be with already achieved persons rather to start building a home which she can be proud of.

Submitted by Rex on
Liking it or not men, I'm proud to be a woman. Women are the very important type of Human Beings. Without a woman what can you get out of this world? Is it children, home or ... People of this media, a woman should not only be given equal rights, but be respected. Which man has ever brought life to Earth apart from a woman? Please people, a woman is human and a very important one. Let no one humiliate her. We are to be treated with equality as we do some very impossible things as life bearing. I am proud to be a woman because I can do all what a man can do and still do what he's unable to do which is very important to humanity. Thank you!

Submitted by Tope Olaifa on
I commend the effort of Madam Oby at striking this awareness in her own little corner. It is quite inspiring to me because I have had the opportunity to read it. This in itself is hinged upon the fact that I am basically educated and beyond this I am ICT compliant to a degree that I could access information on facebook and read blogs. Pray, how many women fall within this category I have mentioned? There are millions of us in the rural areas who do not even know anything about this gender rights and equity we are talking about. I am aware that many Gender and Development organisations are making incursions into grassroots yet their effort has remained a drop in the ocean. Many of these organisations are even content talking to elite women groups in cities just because the cost of grassroots advocacy and mobilisation is higher and funds are really not coming easy from anywhere. I run one of such organisations and this informs what I am saying. The engine of my car got knocked at one instance on the way to Ibagbeto and I know what I faced to get it out of the creeks. Meanwhile, it was a privately sponsored project. Yet we need to get to the grassroots. That should be the target of our campaign. The city women have an advantage of education and exposure. We don't.

Submitted by Anonymous on
We cannot divorce gender equality and development. They go hand in hand.

Submitted by Anonymous on
As a male, I should be equal to every other male on this planet. As a wheelchair puns male, im in much more of a minority than able bodied woman. I have read one of the posts where a woman has said she'd allow her son in the kitchen to cook, would she let her daughter mow the lawn. Probably not. My point is we can still be equal whilst doing the roles that we are physically capable of doin. That's equality to me.

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text:
The B.F.B. The biggest and most feared bloon of all. All I can say is you better be ready...
~ Round 60 in Bloons Tower Defense 4
BFBs are enormous and notoriously difficult to pop. Gather your best monkeys and go take one down.
~ Description of the "Bigger Bloon Hunter" goal in BMC
B.F.B stands for Brutal Floating Behemoth. What you were thinking?
~ Round 67 in Bloons Tower Defense 4
Enjoy that BFB did you?
~ Round 61 in Bloons Tower Defense 5

The Brutal Floating Behemoth is a MOAB-Class Bloon that was first introduced in Bloons Tower Defense 4. Currently, the B.F.B. is the 3rd (the 1st place is occupied by DDT and the second by the ZOMG) highest ranked and 3rd slowest Bloon in the BTD series, after the Z.O.M.G and the BMC bosses. It moves four times slower than a MOAB, red bloon and lead bloon. B.F.B.'s other appearances include Bloons TD 4 Expansion and Bloons Super Monkey. As its name suggests:

  • It is brutal, as B.F.B.s can take a lot of MOAB maulers. It takes 700 hits to pop the outer layer.
  • It floats, since it is blimp-like, as well as its child, the M.O.A.B, and its parent, the Z.O.M.G.
  • It is large, which is the definition of behemoth.
  • A joke made by Ninjakiwi in BTD3 is "in BTD4, you will find a new blimp, the BFB. It stands for Big Fat Bloon."
BFB Health Stages

It is a colossal bloon which can easily be identified by its sinister eyes, blimp-like appearance, red and white color in Bloons TD 4, its red in Bloons TD 5, and its anti-monkey symbol. In Bloons TD 4, its first appearance is round 60, which is the final round before Freeplay Mode on Medium Difficulty in BTD4. In Bloons Super Monkey 2, it only appears in the last wave of bloon dunes (with an exception on wave 3-5 in the same game), and it takes much longer to pop than in Bloons TD 4. When fighting it, it takes a large amount of hits to pop but the extremely slow speed compensates for that. Like the M.O.A.B, escaping will result in a game over since it deals 2,884 damage in Bloons TD 4 (3164 in Bloons TD 5), unless buying enough lives, using the Support Chinook ability or Healthy Bananas to earn sufficient lives to let the B.F.B. pass. Popping it rewards a total of 1525 Money, and releases 4 M.O.A.B.s.

Like the M.O.A.B, the B.F.B has also 4 health stages. However, when you reduce 180 hits from a M.O.A.B and a B.F.B, the M.O.A.B layer is almost popped, while the B.F.B layer has only little damage. When the B.F.B layer is completely destroyed, it releases 4 M.O.A.Bs.

Main article: B.F.B./Strategies
  • A Sun God uses sunrays for Combat.
  • A Pirate Ship taking down a B.F.B.
  • A Triple Darts attacking a B.F.B.
  • B.F.B. Health stages in Bloons Super Monkey 2
  • A Hard B.F.B. Pack Tile
  • Triple BFB tile in Bloons Monkey City Mobile
  • BFB appearing in the mobile version of BTD5
  • A BFB sucked into a bloonchipper.

The B.F.B. is the third highest ranked bloon to date. It is immune to glue and the Ice Tower, but it is also the third-slowest bloon in the game. Attention should always be focused on Z.O.M.G.s, B.F.B.s, M.O.A.B.s and D.D.T.s should they show up as they are serious threats. During later rounds (round 80+) multiple B.F.B.s show up in a single round, as well as multiple M.O.A.B.'s. One of the best ways to deal with B.F.B.s is to pile them with powerful towers such as Spectre, large numbers of MOAB Maulers, Technological Terror, or Temple of the Monkey God.

Bloons Super MonkeyEdit

The B.F.B. appears in Bloons Super Monkey as the last boss. It is almost impossible to pop the B.F.B. with only Death Ray Vision. The player may try using Quad MOAB and Death Ray together with Plasma (Multi and Super if necessary). It takes much longer time to pop it than in Bloons TD 4, in which it roughly has the RBE of 5 Z.O.M.Gs from BTD5. Only one appears in the game, but it is still a serious threat. If enough bloons aren't popped and it escapes, the game is lost. It is also the last enemy encountered. Instead of releasing MOABs when popped, it will explode into a variety of pinks to reds. While being hurt, it will release low ranked bloons, such as Red Bloons.

Bloons Super Monkey 2Edit

The BFB in Bloons Super Monkey 2

The B.F.B. appears again in Bloons Super Monkey 2. First appear as a boss in stage 2-5, and one more appears in stage 3-5. It is very tough, taking 8000 hits before blowing in a very large cloud of bloons from Reds to Pinks. When hit, the boss B.F.B. spawns bloons from Greens to Blacks. It is so big you can understand how it could fit 4 M.O.A.Bs inside of it. (It does not spawn these in BSM2) it appears in stage 3-5 as sort of a "mini boss" to protect and guard the calamari blimp. If you looked at its size you could see about 10 mini moabs inside of it.

Bloons Super Monkey Mobile Edit

The first B.F.B appears in level 55 where there are a total of 3 B.F.Bs in the level, albeit not all at once. The B.F.B also appears in later levels.

Bloons Monkey CityEdit

BFBs appears in Bloons Monkey City as well. They appear in tiles, and their average difficulty is Very Hard
BFB easy

This is an Easy BFB Tile.

the easiest is Easy. However, there is a tile that has 2 BFBs on it (Three BFBs are shown on these tiles in BMC Mobile). These tiles are usually called "Packed BFB Tiles" or "Double BFB Tiles". This foreshadows a rush of BFBs at the last round, or near it. This also makes BFBs more common to spawn.

  • The comment given on one of the rounds in BTD4 makes it obvious that some players might have thought that BFB stands for Big Fat Bloon, Big Freaking Bloon, or Big F**king Bloon. Some people also joke around with the name, calling it Big Fat Butt.
  • In BTD5, there is a quest that is called "Big Friendly Bloon?". It requires you to pop a bunch of BFBs before being completed.
  • In Hot Air Bloon the monkey on the main screen is seen with a B.F.B.
    • However, in that game, B.F.B stands for Best Friend Bloon.
  • In Bloons Monkey City, the B.F.B. is called a Brutal Flying Behemoth.
  • Coincidentally, it says in BTD4 "the biggest and most feared bloon", and B.F.B can also stand for Biggest Feared Bloon.
  • This brings the total name count for the BFB to 11, examples of which are Big Father Bloon, Bad Floating Bloon, Big Floaty Bloon and Big Friendly Bloon (shown in BTD5 Quests)
  • It takes 288 sets of Road Spikes to pop a B.F.B, or 289 in BTD4.
  • It requires 70 M.O.A.B. Mauler missiles to pop its outer layer.
  • In Bloons Super Monkey 2, its third health stage suggests that the B.F.B. is living, however, this doesn't seem to be true.
  • In the first version of Bloons Tower Defense 5 Mobile, prior to version 1.1, Round 65 (the last Round for Medium) didn't have B.F.B.s, similar to older versions of the original version.
  • It only takes 1 Sniper Monkey 4-1 to bring a B.F.B. to a standstill.
  • 999 B.F.Bs appear on Round 250, the "unofficial" final round of Bloons TD 4 (the B.F.B.s will go fast). It can only be popped with huge numbers of Monkey Aces along with Super Monkeys (optional).
  • The B.F.B. is the icon of Apopalypse Mode in Bloons TD 4.
  • The B.F.B. has a mouth as shown in the Apopalypse mode on the Bloons TD 4 iOS.
  • The B.F.B. contains 1,524 bloons. (1,525 including itself.)
  • The "No monkey" symbol on the B.F.B. could be a reference to the "Ghostbusters" symbol, however, this is not confirmed.
  • In Bloons TD 4, the monkey in the anti-monkey symbol is the same as the monkey from Bloons games.
  • In BTD4, if a B.F.B.'s outer layer is popped, the 4 M.O.A.Bs that spawn are on the opposite side of where they were originally facing, and then turn to their normal side.
  • A BSM2 BFB has a higher RBE than a BTD5 ZOMG.
  • Super Monkey Storm deals 500 damage to B.F.Bs in BTD5, while Ground Zero deals 350 damage.
  • Some think it is invincible to darts, due to the "anti dart monkey" symbol; however, this is not true.
    • It is the symbol of the B.F.B. presumably due to the bloon power (health plus its children) that it has against the monkey force, noting that it is the most powerful bloon in BTD4 where it appeared first.
  • Since July 2012, it was possible to pop infinite B.F.Bs with one use of the Ground Zero ability. However, after the March 26, 2013 update, this became impossible, as Ground Zero only dealt 500 damage,thus requiring two uses to fully pop B.F.Bs. As of September 29, 2013, Ground Zero was nerfed even more, making it only deal 350 damage, thus requiring two uses to destroy the B.F.B layer, then another use to pop the remaining M.O.A.Bs, for a total of three uses.
  • Technological Terror's ability can destroy infinite BFBs as well as MOABs.
    • A B.F.B. has 918 layers of bloon, which is why Bloon Annhilation could destroy it in one shot (the ability does 1,000 damage).
  • It needs 64 road spikes to pop the entire B.F.B layer.
  • In BMC the ZOMG tiles have the skull on the ZOMG avatar but the BFB tiles don't have the No Monkey symbol on them.

Start a Discussion Discussions about Brutal Floating Behemoth (B.F.B.)

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How Employers Are Responding to the Demands of an Aging Society

How Employers Are Responding to the Demands of an Aging Society

It’s official: In America, land of opportunity and home of enterprise and innovation, employers large and small understand that Americans want to work well into what used to be our “retirement years.”

The Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies just published its 17th annual survey, All About Retirement: An Employer Survey, representing one of the largest databases on the topic and a benchmark for over nearly two decades.

Related: 15 Great Jobs for Retirees

Here are the most important takeaways that reveal the transformation of work in America, reflecting parallel trends in countries around the globe as we all modernize, urbanize and age:

1. More than 75 percent of employers agree that many of their employees want to continue working either full-time or part-time after age 65.

2. More than 80 percent of employers say they are “supportive” of employees working past 65.

3. All employers seem to recognize that we need a new definition of work for our era of longevity – working flexibly, differently and/or in different capacities.

4. To make good on these demands for a different kind of work “post retirement,” about 39 percent of employers offer flexible work schedules to help employees transition to retirement, and 27 percent encourage employees to participate in succession planning, training and mentoring. While there’s still a considerable gap between what employees want and what employers offer, things are improving. This kind of massive change takes time and now that we are just at the beginning of a new era, well, it’s a great start!

The marketplace is also responding to this massive emerging trend. Here are three recent data points that highlight the $15 trillion silver economy – when Madison Avenue jumps onboard, you know that change is here:

1. A bank advertises the need for to plan as if you were “to live to 100.” A call to action based on 21st century longevity for those of us still working in mid-career. Wow!

2. Or, how about the CNN story about travelling for to the 55-and-older set? It’s another signal that aging is not just about health care and hospitals.

Related: How Rising Health Care Costs Could Hurt Your Retirement

3. And then there’s this tearjerker video from Gillette. This sweet story about a man caring for his elderly father reminds us that business can help all of us by developing new products that make elder care easier.

Connect the dots from a reimagined working life well into our 80s to the market and business transformation underway, and you begin to understand what Transamerica is telling us about employees and employers in our aging world.

While there is still a gap between how much employers want to support “older workers” and what they’re actually doing, businesses know that treating the aging of society as a business strategy is both a competitive win in the marketplace and a key focus point to attract and retain talent. Welcome to the 21st century!


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Monday, January 2, 2017

When people leave, we always weep and the pain lingers for a while. And when great people goes away and never come back, then tears just overflows. Much to the surprise by a lot of people specially to his friends like us, Ash Reginald Evasco has finally left us for good. He has found his place with God and I am sure he is already one of the angels watching over us.

Photographer Ash Reginald Evasco is a natural from day one. He seems to have his life in the fashion world. Started out doing some modeling for himself early on he went on and became one of the greater photographers we have known. His talent was quickly recognized and he did several works from brands and doing some shoots for celebrities. Superb, his technique is very subtle yet intricate. He gives more focus on the models and how to make them stand out rather than doing a lot of editings and therefore overshadowing the subject.

But aside from his talent, he stands out as someone who is really driven, hard-working and full of passion. But even with his status and fame he remains humble and keeps his feet on the ground. One of the more friendly ones one there, he is well loved by his friends and family. He will be sorely missed and wherever he may be his legacy will always remain. More importantly he will be staying within our hearts. We love you Ash...

It was way back 2012 when I had him in my list of great photographers and thanks for putting me into your page as well.

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September 24, 2009

Be Still My Heart

I innocently went to the Sweetwater blog... and my heart almost gave out.

Their upcoming line, Make Life... is just gorgeous!!! It comes in five colourways - red, green, blue, yellow and chocolate brown. The colours are just perfect, and don't even get me started on the text prints and dots. Too good!

I think these three are my favourites, but honestly, they're all so lovely. I can't wait!!!

jaybird said...

i know.. isn't it the yummyest thing ever???

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Friday, March 19, 2010

Lady Gaga

The video for Bad Romance is all over the local music channel MK, along with Jack Parow's Cooler As Ekke, and though one should always separate the visual from the music as the sights may detract from the sounds and take the place of the imagination when it comes to interpreting the lyrics, this video is probably one of the more arresting and gripping videos I've seen for a dance act.

The high concept is a big production full of erotic symbolism, with lots of pretty explicit eroticism, and plenty of symbols of alienation. There are dance sequences, dream sequences, image vignettes, and plenty of fast paced flow from scene to scene. Red leather, white leather, weird futuristic couture outfits, masks, icy, distant men in suits, and one glimpse of a voluptuous, lace panty-clad ass, which may be the diva's derriere, or at least one likes to think so. Mostly Lady Gaga is hidden behind hair and make-up yet there are also images of her as more or less open, innocent and naïve disco waif.

The video ends with the artist posing elegantly on a bed alongside an equine skeleton. Perhaps it is a homage to The Godfather movie, perhaps it is a visual pun for the phrase "flogging a dead horse." it is possibly one of the more bizarre endings to a music video I've ever seen.

Behind all of this is a disco beat and a catchy tune and it is not difficult to understand why Bad Romance is yet another monster neo-disco hit from the alleged new Madonna.

Some crappy entertainment magazine recently claimed that the Lady is searching for love in al the wrong places and is lonely, lost and desperate. At least, that is what I gleaned from the cover blurb. I did not read the accompanying article as I believed it would be bare of facts and chock a block with half-truths and innuendo, as these articles tend to be. It's not as if I am about to write a love letter to Lady Gaga to advertise my availability.

The only Bad Romance I'm interested in, is the hit tune of the moment.

I believe she has dark hair but the look she sports is blonde and a part early Madonna and part Christina Aguillera when she is blonde. The vocal strength is close to Christina than to Madonna, and the music Is nothing like the very Eighties electro dance tracks Madonna used for her breakthrough hits. Like Aguillera, Lady Gaga relies on her pipes as much as she does on her image to get through to the masses, and I salute her for it. There is nothing like a disco diva with a proper voice singing good, tuneful dance pop songs, though I would imagine that the Lady would want to be regarded as more than mere dancefloor fluff. She has something to say and will say it to a beat you can dance to.

Lady Gaga makes music you have to play loud. And you must want to shake your booty. And maybe you can read the lyrics and marvel at her philosophical insights.

Monday, March 15, 2010

Pretty Blue Guns

Blues rock is a style that is not too popular or prevalent in South Africa today where the modern rock styles of the new millennium are the fad of the moment. Globalisation has caused a situation where the majority of local bands sound little different to any number of foreign acts, and the generic effect is of groups who sound alike and not very interesting. Guitar solos are not cool; big, soaring anthemic rock is the hip thing. That everything sounds alike is a minor issue.

It is always refreshing to hear a band who does something different to what their peers are doing and who then distinguish themselves from the herd in so doing. One such group is The Pretty Blue Guns who may look like emo kids, or whatever look the common or garden band aspires to, but sound a hell of a lot different.

If I cast my mind back the best (relatively) recent comparison I can think of is the defunct Billygoat (one of the Trippy Grape bands from the mid to late Nineties), who came from much the same concept as Pretty Blue Guns, and Delta Blue who started as a purist blues band and then became soulbluesrock monsters by the time of their third album Inbluesstation.

There have also been other blues bands in South Africa over the years who perfected their cover versions of blues and blues rock standards and entertained thousands in pubs all across the land, but apart from being quite entertaining they did not contribute much to the development of the local scene because they hardly, if ever, wrote their own songs.

Then there is Dan Patlansky who channels Stevie Ray Vaughan and is happy to be the hottest guitars linger in the country and is incredibly earnest about it all.

Now we have The Pretty Blue Guns who are named for a Tom Waits song and who bring the proverbial modern rock energy to a blues sensibility in a kind of first for South Africa where this kind of roots blues infused rock is not yet as prevalent as it is elsewhere, because most local rock acts are very serious about their modernist and up to date hip credentials.

PBG look like every other local rock act from Bellville to Benoni yet stand apart because they dig a different beat. They have guitar solos and slashing slide guitar And they write damn good traditionally recognisable tunes.

Lost Faith is the best lovelorn kiss-off song I've heard in a while.

The piece de resistance is Devil Do, the last track, which is a fine approximation of an old timey gospel blues, much like the song Ain't Going To Heaven off Delta Blue's (so far) last album, Heaven. For some reason South African white boys are rather more keen on the delights offered by Satan than the heavenly rewards good Christians are supposed to enjoy.

There is not much of a Tom Waits connection here, except for the band name, and the blues is more of a background to the muscular rock the boys play, yet it is a fine debut, assured and full of the kind of energy punk is supposed to have and which sounds so lacking in so much of modern rock today. The guys are young and still have to absorb their influences fully but if they slightly overreach themselves when they sing about subjects best left to old bluesmen, I sense a genuine commitment to the style and sources and perhaps a keen interest to build on a tradition.

If they can get it together to be a bit of a jam band, as blues rock really demands of its practitioners, The Pretty Blue Guns would be a very satisfactory live experience.

New Holland

Google New Holland and you find a bunch of links for a company that manufactures agricultural equipment and machinery, such as heavy duty tractors. They even have some YouTube videos.

There is also a reference to a very old name for Australia. There is just one link to the band New Holland's 2009 album Exploded Views.

Strange, eh? In this day and age I would have expected the band to have a more prominent profile on the Internet. Anyhow, it does not matter, I guess. Exploded Views is a corker of an album and for my money one of the best local releases, along with the debut from Pretty Blue Guns, of the last year.

New Holland are lumped in with the "Bellville bands" that have been celebrated in a compilation of their own. Obviously the bands that do come from Bellville now completely disavow this kind of shorthand categorisation. On the one hand, belonging to a scene is good when the scene first gets attention, as the identification with what is perceived to be hip and happening can be of great assistance in making a breakthrough to commercial viability, but then it may become a millstone when the tide goes out and the attention moves to another scene. Then you are just stranded along with the driftwood of that faded scene and nobody is willing to accept you in any other context.

The first, and the best, always transcend whatever scene they come from and I believe that New Holland should easily be able to do so as well. This is just a great rock band with passion, intensity, excellent songs and inspired arrangements. New Holland is one more example among many of the kind of band that produces music that makes me believe South African rock need no longer stand back for anyone in the world. There may be internationally hugely successful bands New Holland would never be able to outdo purely and simply because of geographical limitations, but I cannot see many of those bands delivering a product that could surpass Exploded Views.

The joyous thing is that the guitars bounce and crunch in much more individual style than the modern rock bands that sound like cut-outs from the same base metal template. It is refreshing to hear a group with a different aural appeal, who are not scared to fly closer to the sun than the rest, or to jump sideways when everyone else try the slam dunk. The other wonderful thing is the odd washes of electronica that colour the rock with a vaguely ambient, uh, ambience.

Another odd thing is that the band members seem to be nice Afrikaans boys who have obviously decided that it is not their road to stardom to sing in Afrikaans. The Afrikaans rock scene seems pretty substantial, as large, if not larger, than the more internationalist scene where English is still the language of rock and roll. The 'taal' is now fully accepted and acceptable as a language in which all manner of local youth can express themselves from stupid pop to rap to death metal, not to mention Christian rock and roll, yet many of those bands are as unimaginative as their English singing peers and are as interchangeable. If singing in English, even if it is not the home language, helps New Holland gain a worldwide audience, more power to them.

Something To Believe In is the classic hit song: it's about putting your creative efforts out there and only being happy when you sing your song, and it sounds just like something you've heard before but never have. If that is not a sign of a world conquering hit, you can call me Meyer.


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Home 2016 elections Job Opening: Vice Presidential Candidate

Job Opening: Vice Presidential Candidate

Okay, so I know that Blue Virginia isn’t a job posting site.  But there is job opening available through November 8, 2016 in case any of the readers are interested, or may know somebody looking for something.

Job Posting: Immediate job opening available for running mate for large national campaign with real estate billionaire intent on making America great again.

All persons accepted: White people, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Jews, and even the Gays.  Women may apply, but have to be attractive (at least a hard 8).  Carly Fiorina need not apply; look at that face!

Skills required:  Greatness, excellence, being good at everything you do (or at least believing you’re good at everything you do).  Must know lots of stuff, preferably about other countries.

Previous experience:  At least 5 years experience placating the ego of a very rich man with lots of money. Experience saying yes to things even if they are morally questionable. Knowledge of running pyramid schemes, defrauding investors and local communities by making grand promises that are impossible to keep.  Experience suing people who expose you as a fraud, filing for corporate bankruptcy protection, accumulating Twitter followers, building large walls and making other people pay for them.

Duties included:  Defending all statements by the candidate on the top of the ticket. Defending them even when those statements are considered racist, sexist, ignorant, or complete gibberish. Defending persons who attend rallies in order to beat up protesters. Expected to send tweets at all hours of the night without thinking of their implications.  Expected to spread rumors about Hillary Clinton, including her sexuality, her marriage, her e-mails, and “Benghazi.”  Expected to discuss how Hillary Clinton being a woman makes her unfit for office.  Must be comfortable contradicting yourself on abortion, health care, foreign policy, and pretty much every issue, depending on the audience.  Proficient at manipulating people’s baser instincts and greatest fears to make them like you.

Education:  College degree preferred.  Degrees from fake institutions like Trump University are not acceptable.  Must be a real school.

Must be comfortable working with a campaign manager who has represented African dictators and strongmen.  Expected to travel most of the time, unless you’re cool with phoning in to random television and radio programs if you don’t feel like showing up in person.

Valid driver’s license required along with a viable birth certificate proving you were born in America, and not Canada or Kenya.

Contact: Donald Trump, Make America Great Again, Mar-a-Lago, Florida.

  • Kindler

    The interesting part will be hearing the running mate and other candidates defend Trump statements that change and contradict each other daily (sometimes hourly).


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Bryn Mawr Classical Review

Bryn Mawr Classical Review 2009.06.44

Arthur M. Eckstein, Mediterranean Anarchy, Interstate War, and the Rise of Rome.   Berkeley:  University of California Press, 2006.  Pp. 369.  ISBN 9780520246188.  $49.95.

Reviewed by James Quillin, Lake Forest Academy (
Word count: 3123 words

In a body of scholarship spanning three decades, Arthur Eckstein (hereafter "E.") has established himself as one of the world's foremost scholars on Roman imperialism in the middle republican period. His new book is dedicated to his teacher, Erich Gruen, and continues the tradition of Gruen's masterly The Hellenistic World and the Coming of Rome (1984) by emphasizing the agency of Rome's neighbors in explaining Roman military policy. On one level, both works are critiques of William Harris' highly influential War and Imperialism in Republican Rome (1979), which saw Roman imperialism as the result of the uniquely bellicose culture of the Roman people. However, E.'s new book breaks sharply with Gruen's in its espousal of a reductive explanation for Roman behavior. While Gruen tended to look to the particulars of every situation in explaining Roman decisions to go to war, E. presents us with a single fundamental reason for Roman militarism and aggression, namely, the anarchy of the Mediterranean interstate system.

In critiquing Harris, E. asks a crucial question: How can one argue that Roman aggressive militarism was somehow exceptional without explicitly comparing Rome to its Mediterranean contemporaries? E. concludes that, while Rome was extremely warlike and brutal, it was in no way uniquely so, and the equally or even surpassingly aggressive nature of its Mediterranean neighbors necessitated that it be so. But E. is no mere Roman apologist--he argues that all the states of the ancient Mediterranean were trapped in the same "cruel logic", a logic that was imposed by the lack of any effective law or order within the Mediterranean community of states. To demonstrate, E. presents a series of chapters surveying interstate relations among the city-states of classical Greece (Chapter 3), the Hellenistic kingdoms (Chapter 4), and the communities of Italy and the western Mediterranean prior to the second century BCE (Chapter 5). Chapter 6 situates Roman culture within this Mediterranean context. Finally, E. builds on this foundation to make a strong case for the "nonexceptionalism" of Rome's response to the threats from Philip V and Antiochus III, which precipitated the extension of its imperium into the eastern Mediterranean in the early second century (Chapter 7). The great attraction of his argument lies in its ability to synthesize Harris' strongest evidence, which reveals the centrality of warmaking in Roman culture, with Gruen's most convincing case studies, which tend to demonstrate the lack of conscious imperialism in Roman decision-making. As E. notes repeatedly, his insight is not new (Mommsen made a number of similar points long ago), but E. articulates his argument so clearly and supports it with such a wealth of evidence that no future analysis of Rome's rise to power will safely ignore it.

In Chapter 1, "Political Science and Roman History", E. anchors his explanation in the influential Realist tradition of international relations theory, exemplified by the work of Kenneth Waltz. The states of the Mediterranean found themselves in a world without a higher power to enforce international law and adjudicate disputes, that is, in a situation of interstate anarchy. Under these conditions, so the Realists argue, a state's very survival depends on its ability to compete militarily. Realists argue that there is no security without power, and that all states are therefore involved in a desperate competition for power. Thus, it was ultimately the international system in which Rome found itself that was the primary cause of its behavior.

Chapter 2 ("Realist Paradigms of Interstate Behavior") usefully summarizes the Realist model for the readers who are not political scientists. In a nutshell, security comes only through power, and, as one state achieves the extra margin of power necessary to create the impression of security in the awareness of its own imperfect knowledge of the world, this results in a corresponding reduction of perceived security among the other states, creating a "security dilemma." Interstate politics is understood by the participants as a zero-sum game. In such a world, it is "natural" for states to seek power, and differences between states lie not in their motivations but only in their capabilities. All states are equally "revisionist" in their quest for power and essentially imperialist in their intentions. Occasionally "unlimited revisionist" states, which seek universal dominion, emerge, such as Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, which do exhibit exceptional militarism, but E. insists that Rome never fit this mold.

In Chapter 3, "Interstate Relations in Classical Greece", E. demonstrates the inadequacy of norms, arbitration, and treaties for ameliorating the evils of interstate anarchy and shows that war and militarized competition were virtually constant. Thus, classical Greece was a "militarized and multipolar anarchy" (47), approaching bipolarity in the run-up to the Peloponnesian War and a weak unipolarity immediately following, but at other times reverting to multipolarity. E. certainly presents some supportive statistics (forty known cases of states being destroyed (53); Athens at war two out of every three years from 497 to 338 (47)), but in general this chapter is based less on the accumulation of in-depth case studies than one might have hoped. A great weight is placed on the analysis of Thucydides, including his confirmation of the Realist principles that all states are functionally similar, that fear is the predominant motivator of policy decisions, and that the structure of the interstate system is the primary cause of conflict. Yet, as E. himself admits, most modern Realist theorists consider Thucydides their "intellectual ancestor" (48) and so his analysis of events should take a second position to the testimony of other sources as way of avoiding circularity. E. does exploit Herodotus, Plato, and other sources, but not in the systematic manner with which he approaches Thucydides, and some rich veins are left virtually untouched, including Aristotle and the Attic orators. In fact, it was a common claim among ancient observers that external threats promote internal stability, presumably by lessening the relative urgency of centrifugal forces within the state such as class and status inequalities (e.g., Plato Laws 698b-c; Aristotle Pol. 1308a 20-30, 1334a 5-9; Pol. 6.18 and 57; Livy 34.9.4). This would imply a powerful domestic incentive for political leaders to err on the side of belligerence in interstate relations.1

In Chapter 4, "Interstate Relations in the Hellenistic Age", E. demonstrates that the situation of militarized interstate anarchy that prevailed in the classical period persisted into the Hellenistic age. He sides with Pierre Lévêque and M. M. Austin against earlier interpretations that saw a rough balance of power and curtailment of limitless ambitions on the part of the diadochoi after about 280. On the contrary, international law continued to be ineffective, and the need for self-help and reputation-building among rulers was greater than ever. Furthermore, the behavior was no more indicative of a "status quo" attitude among the smaller federal states, kingdoms, and city-states.

In the same chapter, E. attempts to place Polybius "among the ancient founders of the realist approach" (117). He argues that the plan of Philip V and Antiochus III to build a bipolar imperial system in the eastern Mediterranean was flawed by the monarchs' failure to perceive that the entire Mediterranean had now become interconnected, forming a single geopolitical system--a point emphasized by Polybius. The reading of Polybius is persuasive, but the attribution of the Realist label will fail to convince many. For instance, does not Polybius' deep faith in the importance of moral conduct and education ("a fund of moral exemplars" 117) open an obvious case for counting him among the ancient founders of Neoliberalism or Contructivism? If Polybius were really an ancient Realist, what would be the point of such moral teachings? Still, E. is correct to point out that Polybius has been largely ignored by modern theorists, and it will be a welcome development if E.'s book brings more attention from modern theorists to this important text. The story of Rome's expansion to the East and, importantly to my mind, the story of the changes wrought on Rome's domestic politics as a result of imperial expansion have received relatively little attention from modern political scientists.

Chapter 5, "Terrores Multi", focuses on Rome and its rivals in Italy and continues the style of detailed analytical narrative begun in Chapter 4 with the discussion of the crisis in the Hellenistic world after 207. In separate sections on Rome's interactions with the Etruscans, Celts, Samnites, Tarentines, and Carthaginians, E. convincingly supports his main points: Rome's militarism was not exceptional among the communities of Italy and the western Mediterranean; the anarchic conditions of the system created a security dilemma for all of the states within it; and international law, treaties, and diplomacy were ineffective in creating security. E.'s survey of the dense history of Italy through the third century offers a wealth of cases illustrating various dynamics and models of interstate behavior. He is most effective when pointing out the similarities in the behavior of Rome and its neighbors. However, he has a tendency to go beyond this and try to create the impression of Rome not only as unexceptional but also as exceptionally moderate in terms of its aggressiveness. Thus, E. points out that Rome was apparently considered by the Capuans to be a less threatening great power than the Samnites, but he fails to acknowledge that the same logic reveals that, for instance, by the time of the battle of Sentinum, Rome was considered by a large coalition of Italians to be a threat of unprecedented magnitude. Examples like this seem to me to obscure the essential Realist argument that even seemingly unprovoked aggression can be understood as a "natural" response to the perpetual quest for power under conditions of interstate anarchy.

Chapter 6, "Rome and Roman Militarism", presents a theoretical attack on unit attribute theory, the practice of explaining wars as the result of particular features of individual states. E. points out that "large and enduring structures that have developed over time are at least as likely to influence the behavior of individual actors within those structures as the other way around" (187) and that, therefore, the anarchic interstate system is more likely to influence the behavior of individual states than the reverse.

E. also appeals to the internal discourse of Rome concerning the importance of iustum bellum and the pax deorum, the necessity of fighting only defensive wars, and the emphasis on salus as evidence that the Romans did not seek war for its own sake. The absence of such discourse among, say, the Hellenistic monarchs does tend to make Rome appear the more moderate. But E. goes too far in citing examples where domestic opponents of war in Rome criticized wars on the grounds that they were unjust as proof that the Romans did not seek war for its own sake (226-28). These same examples have been used by others to prove the opposite. Furthermore, the fact that one does not find such criticisms directed at the Hellenistic monarchs undoubtedly has as much to do with the different types of political discourse allowable in monarchies and republics as with a distinction in popular attitudes toward war. Similarly questionable is his argument from silence to demonstrate the lack of moral discourse about war in other ancient states (239).

E. also argues against the idea that Rome was transformed into an imperialist machine in the mid-fourth century. Here again his strongest argument is the lack of exceptionalism in the Roman case: these pressures may have been felt, but the overwhelming motive for war was still security, and Rome's behavior was still little different from that of its peers.

In the final chapter, "Roman Exceptionalism and Nonexceptionalism", E. provides his explanation for why, if Rome was not exceptional in its dedication to making war, it nevertheless was exceptionally successful in the interstate competition for power in the Mediterranean. His answer is persuasive. The exceptional principle that provided the foundation for this state was "the divorce of citizen status from ethnicity or geographical location", an idea which allowed the Romans to create a polity whose population dwarfed that of any other ancient city-state (254-55), and that, as Mommsen long ago observed, came closer than any other ancient polity to creating a "unified nation-state" (257).

The remainder of the chapter is devoted to demonstrating how "nonexceptional" Rome's decision to make war on Philip V in 200 was. This decision was, arguably, the great pivot point, when Rome made its first major intervention into the Greek world, which inevitably led to further entanglements and eventually imperial domination. E.'s interpretation is based on his arguments in favor of the historicity of the pact between Philip V and Antiochus III, which I find compelling, and in favor of the sincerity of the Roman fear of Hellenistic aggression, which I find at least plausible. Yet, while I can accept E.'s basic reconstruction of events, I find his analysis incomplete in a significant way. Ultimately, everything that I find unconvincing in this book derives from E.'s consistent assumption of states as unitary decision-making actors.2 For instance, if one accepts the historicity of P. Sulpicius Galba's speech to the voters prior to the centuriate assembly's vote for war in 200, as E. does (281-82), then one must also accept that Galba seems to have distorted the Senate's reasons for going to war, exaggerating the immediacy of the threat of an invasion of Italy.3

In my opinion, E.'s application of Realist theory to the case of Rome's rise presents a major breakthrough in the discussion and challenges the assumptions and conclusions not only of Harris but also of most other previous scholarship, including, ironically, E.'s own interpretations of Roman behavior. He differs from Maurice Holleaux and Arnold J. Toynbee in that the fear of the Hellenistic kings, which they saw as irrational, E. sees as essentially well-founded. Gruen's is the best example of the pericentric argument, which holds that Rome was drawn into universal empire unwillingly and on an ad hoc basis by the interstate rivalries of the Greek East. However, Realist theory implies that there was a more consistent underlying logic to Roman policymaking. Finally, E. himself argues consistently for the validity and sincerity of Roman fear and defensive thinking. Yet if the Realist model of interstate anarchy does apply here, and if the unavoidable fact of life in that world was that military dominance was the only guarantee of a state's survival, then it would not necessarily be the case that every aggressive act on the part of Rome had a specific threat and a sincere defensive rationale behind it. But E. never admits a case like this. It is significant in this regard that E.'s analysis stops after the Syrian War of 191-188 BCE. Consideration of later developments, such as the Third Punic War and the wars in Spain of the later second century, would have forced him to deal with these complexities.

E. has done an admirable job of paying close attention to the indirect implications of Realist theory and finding correlations in the ancient evidence. For instance, this study demonstrates well that states with highly diverse forms of government, from democratic Athens to the Hellenistic monarchies to Republican Rome, all exhibit "functional similarity" in terms of their behavior within the interstate system, which is a key prediction of Realist theory. His logical rigor in testing the implications of a modern theory against the ancient evidence is commendable and all too uncommon among works of ancient political history. However, E. also states his intention to use the evidence from the ancient Mediterranean to "test" the Realist model against several alternative modern theories of international politics. This project is less successful since falsifying alternative theories requires more than simply demonstrating the anarchy and warfare that Realism predicts. While an entire chapter is devoted to elucidating the logic of Realist theory, the alternatives each receive a mere paragraph of explanation, followed quickly by a review of the Realist rebuttals (29-33). An effective falsification of a theory requires a good faith effort to match it to the evidence, a function not adequately fulfilled by the cursory discussions sprinkled throughout the empirical chapters.

In addition, the analytical emphasis on states as irreducible actors seems invalid, for what are states but the larger systems within which decision-makers, be they individuals, dominant factions, or winning coalitions, act? Thus, while it is true that the interstate system weighs heavily on the actions of states, so must the intrastate system weigh on the actions of decision-makers. In other words, decision-makers serve at least two masters at the system-level, the pressures of either of which may be determinative at any given moment. The tragic inability of certain states (such as Corinth and Tarentum) to avoid precipitating their own downfalls at the hands of much stronger states strikes me as evidence that the security of the state was not always the primary motivator of state actions. E. sees support for the opposite conclusion in the fact that Roman warmaking slows down and Roman elite culture becomes less militaristic as the pax Romana comes into existence in the later second century (188). Yet this could just as easily be explained as the result of a change in the intrastate system that rendered military aggression less attractive to domestic decision-makers. In fact, the relative frequency of war even after the establishment of unipolarity in the Mediterranean, including seemingly elective wars like the Third Punic War, the Spanish Wars of the later second century BCE, Caesar's Gallic campaign, and Crassus' Parthian expedition, raises more difficulties for the Realist explanation than the partial demilitarization of the Roman elite solves.

In spite of my reservation about the Realist model as E. employs it, his critique thoroughly demolishes the argument that Rome's rise was due to an exceptional bellicosity and militarism. E.'s collection of comparative evidence for militarist cultural and institutional features in ancient states from throughout the Mediterranean is very convincing. Each piece of evidence of Rome's supposedly exceptional dedication to aggressive expansion is placed in the context of an impressive abundance of similar evidence from other Mediterranean states.

Realism is a highly pessimistic view of the world. It argues that we can only hope for two possible situations: frequent war or imperial domination. When political leaders accept this formula, the theory becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yet E. is correct to assert that Realism is the dominant paradigm in international relations today. As a classicist, I read E.'s book with delight, but as a political scientist, I am concerned about its influence on a non-specialist audience whose worldview the book too confidently reinforces. Thus I hope that this book will stimulate the production of other similarly sophisticated studies of ancient international relations that give full consideration and a fair hearing to alternative theories that envision the possibilities for developing a world that is more reasonable, cooperative, and non-zero-sum.

1.   On the centrality of stasis in ancient Greek political thought, see J. Ober, "Political Conflicts, Political Debates, and Political Thought", in R. Osborne (ed.), Classical Greece 500-323 B.C. (Oxford 2000), 111-38.
2.   A measure of just how far E. has internalized the "single actor" assumption of the Realists is revealed by his use of Elijah Anderson's analysis of the behavior of inner-city youths (Code of the Street [New York 1999]) as a model for the behavior of individual states. See A. Eckstein, "Brigands, Emperors, and Anarchy", Int. Hist. Rev. 22 (2000): 862-79.
3.   See J. Seibert, "Invasion aus dem Osten: Trauma, Propaganda, oder Erfindung der Römer?" in C. Schubert and K. Broderson (edd.), Rom und der griechische Osten. (Stuttgart 1995), 237-48; J. Quillin, "Information and Empire: Domestic Fear Propaganda in Republican Rome, 200-146 B.C.E.", The Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics 160 (2004): 765-85; and J. Quillin, "The Authenticity, Impact, and Sincerity of the Speech of P. Sulpicius Galba (Livy 31.7)" (unpublished paper; email me for a draft).

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