Spitzer stepped down amid a call-girl scandal that made a mockery of his straight-arrow image and left him facing the prospect of criminal charges and perhaps disbarment. Paterson takes over Monday, and requested the time lag so he could prepare and so Spitzer could say a proper goodbye to his staff.

Lawmakers embrace new order
Spitzer and his successor have starkly different leadership styles. While Spitzer was famously abrasive, uncompromising and even insulting, Paterson has built a reputation as a conciliator, and lawmakers quickly embraced the new order.

Barely known outside his Harlem political base, Paterson, 53, has been in New York government since his election to the state Senate in 1985. Though legally blind, he has enough sight in his right eye to walk unaided, recognize people at conversational distance and even read if the text is placed close to his face.

Paterson said he had spoken to Spitzer. “I just told him how sorry I was this happened and how much he still inspires me,” Paterson said.

Of Spitzer’s disclosures and resignation, Paterson said: “I’m getting over it.”

Spitzer resigned Wednesday, making an announcement without securing a plea bargain with federal prosecutors, though a law enforcement official said the former governor was still believed to be negotiating one. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case.

“I cannot allow my private failings to disrupt the people’s work,” Spitzer said at a Manhattan news conference, his weary-looking wife, Silda, again standing at his side as he answered for his actions for the second time in three days.

Crusader brought down by sex scandal
The resignation brought down the curtain on a riveting drama — played out, sometimes, as farce — that made Spitzer an instant punchline on late-night TV and fascinated Americans with the spectacle of a crusading politician exposed as a hypocrite.

The scandal erupted Monday after federal law enforcement officials disclosed that a wiretap had caught the 48-year-old father of three teenage daughters arranging to spend thousands of dollars on a call girl at a fancy Washington hotel on the night before Valentine’s Day.

Investigators said he had arranged for a prostitute named Kristen to take the train down from New York while he was in the nation’s capital to testify before a congressional subcommittee about the bond industry.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that the woman, born as Ashley Youmans, legally changed her name to Ashley Rae Maika DiPietro and is now known as Ashley Alexandra Dupre. She declined comment when asked by the Times when she first met Spitzer and how many times they had been together.

It was unclear whether she would face charges; attorney Don D. Buchwald confirmed that he represents the same woman in the Times story but wouldn’t comment further.

Law enforcement officials said the governor had hired prostitutes several times before and had spent tens of thousands of dollars, and perhaps as much as $80,000, on the high-priced escort service Emperors Club VIP, whose women charge as much as $5,500 an hour.

Spitzer not charged, future unclear
After making a watery-eyed, nonspecific public apology Monday with his wife by his side, Spitzer continued to talk to family and advisers through Tuesday. By Wednesday morning, aides said, he had decided to resign.


In a statement issued after Spitzer quit, U.S. Attorney Michael Garcia, the chief federal prosecutor in New York, said: “There is no agreement between this office and Gov. Eliot Spitzer relating to his resignation or any other matter.”

Among the possible charges that law enforcement authorities said could be brought against the former governor: soliciting and paying for sex; violating the Mann Act, the 1910 federal law that makes it a crime to take someone across state lines for immoral purposes; and illegally arranging cash transactions to conceal their purpose.

Spitzer could also be disbarred. In New York, an attorney can lose his license to practice law for failing to “conduct himself both professionally and personally, in conformity with the standards of conduct imposed upon members of the bar.”

It was a spectacular collapse for a man who cultivated an image as a hard-nosed politician hell-bent on cleansing the state of corruption. He served two terms as New York attorney general, earning the nickname “Sheriff of Wall Street,” and was elected governor with a record share of the vote in 2006. The tall, athletic, square-jawed Spitzer was sometimes mentioned as a potential candidate for president.

Hoping for Spring!
yavuz bingöl bekle buğday tanesi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afeAhrQa11w

Kadının Türküsü Festivali Belkıs Akkale Ey Şahin Bakışlım
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EObxtB1-9c&feature=related

You can taste traditional watery meal called Batırma. It is consisted of small wheat pieces, tomato, pepper, parsley, sesame, walnut. These contents are mixed and kneaded with cold water. It is served with fresh peppers, cucumbers, boiled cabbages, eggplants, tomatoes and boiled grape leaves. There is also another traditional food called Tarhana. It can be made with both minced meat and potatoes. The ingredient is mixed with wheat, tomato sauce, onion, pepper and parsley. The mixture is kneaded and then it is shaped like a palm. The pieces are grilled on oak coal. The people get up so early and most of them go to their fields or take their animals to pastures or mountains.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6rmeli

Here they are:

http://www.lakecumberlandgamebirds.com/P8300021.gif

of course not, they are flying all over the place

Hasankeyf - Bathed in controversy - Turkey doesn't love its archaeology

The world's oldest known thermal spa is at the centre of a conflict between Turkey's drive for modernity and the protection of its heritage, writes Helena Smith

Hasankeyf, in south-east Turkey: the historic site may be spared the floodwaters of the Ilisu dam, but Allianoi – home to the world’s oldest known thermal spa - will not be so lucky if the Yortanli dam is opened.

The floodwaters have not arrived yet but the Yortanli dam is ready. As his team of tireless diggers ignores the sizzling Anatolian heat to uncover the secrets of Allianoi, Dr Ahmet Yaras had the look of a condemned commander about him.
It would, he said, be death by drowning for the world's oldest known thermal spa. "And still," he exclaimed, his eyes scouring the wooded hillocks of the ancient settlement, "there is so much to find."

Days after Turkey's government gave its blessing to the construction of the controversial Ilisu dam in the south-east of the country, archaeologists in western Allianoi have accelerated efforts to salvage a 1,800-year-old health centre that is arguably the most impressive and best preserved on the continent of Europe.

Not since excavations began in 1998 has the quest to unearth the mysteries of the complex been so fraught with the knowledge that time is running out. The Yortanli project was completed last November and only pressure from both inside and outside Turkey has kept the floodgates closed.

Laying the foundation stone for the Ilisu plant - a project that campaigners claim will wreak "cultural mass destruction" on the historic site of Hasankeyf while displacing thousands of Kurds - the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, summed up the dilemma thus: "On the one hand, you have the increasing demand for energy and a bright future for Turkey; on the other history, culture and an inheritance that belongs to all humanity. We have to find a solution. We have to make peace between the two sides."

In Hasankeyf, on the banks of the river Tigris, authorities have earmarked €25m (£16.9m) to relocate antiquities that include Assyrian, Roman and Ottoman monuments despite the idea being dismissed as risible by experts.

But in the case of Allianoi, an assortment of monumental streets, squares, churches, bridges, gates, fountains, hot springs and stores, such measures are impossible to take. "You can't remove any of the monuments there," says Gunhan Danisman, the vice-president of the Chamber of Architects in Istanbul. "The only way to save them is to stop the dam filling up."

The ruins of Allianoi are among the few "asclepions" - or therapeutic centres - ever discovered. Testimony to the extraordinary sophistication of urban planning and hydrological engineering during the Roman era, archaeologists believe that with its curative waters, the spa city complemented the legendary asclepion at nearby Pergamon. There, patients were healed through psychotherapy to the accompaniment of music.

Artefacts found on the site, including bronze surgical instruments, suggest it was a prominent health centre from the second century BC to the 11th century AD. Having survived earthquakes in AD 178 and 262, the site has been spectacularly preserved beneath alluvial soils.

But it would not withstand the waters of the Yortanli dam. Lying at the centre of its reservoir along the Ilya river, officials and archaeologists agree that with the opening of the flood gates the antiquities will be immediately submerged. Once inundated, an estimated 12-15m of silt will cover the city.

The irrigation project was first proposed in 1970 to benefit fewer than 6,000 farm families in the region. Fed with the extra water, fields that presently produce single crops of cotton, tobacco and melons should yield several harvests a year.

"In Bergama [Pergamon] there is no industry and unemployment is a big problem," says Hasan Astarlar, a member of the town's municipal council. "Farming is the only way out but our fields don't have enough water. There are no irrigation canals, another big problem when the weather in recent years has become so hot."

But the town of 52,000 people is divided. Some 500,000 tourists visited Allianoi last year. Locals realise that while the technology exists to build modern dams, it cannot "make the past" and the sort of monuments that draw the crowds.

"History is very important for Bergama," Rasit Urper, the bustling town's moustachioed mayor, told the Guardian. "Building the dam was very expensive. It's not something we can just ignore now, but we also believe that Allianoi should be saved. Our hope is that we'll be able to build a protective wall around it with the help of the international community."

So far, that option has been ruled out on the grounds of being more costly than the dam itself.

Opposition to the project has mounted both at home and abroad. Last year, the EU's top enlargement official, Olli Rehn, warned that the destruction of the site would not only result in "irretrievable loss to the cultural memory of Europe" but also reflect badly on Turkey's image as it negotiated EU membership.

Under pressure, Turkey - a secular state governed by an Islamic party - has deferred opening the dam, but with crucial elections next year, and the battle for votes along the country's traditionally liberal Aegean coast a priority for the conservative government, fears abound that political expediency may win the day.

"Turkey doesn't love its archaeology," says Dr Yaras, wearily shaking his head. "All over this country there are dam projects that pose similar problems for archaeologists, but with this government we have the added problem that it only values monuments from the Islamic period. I worry that with elections coming up, the Yortanli dam could be turned on overnight."

Should that happen, campaigners say they will have to store their hope in technology enabling future generations to unearth Allianoi again.

"All dams after a certain time fill up with alluvial soil," says Professor Danisman. "My hope is that in 35 years, say, excavation techniques will have become so sophisticated that we will be able to discover Allianoi under the earth again."
The Guardian, UK


images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.videosofturkey...

ZEUGMA

The documentary "Zeugma, A Roman Town in Anatolia" depicts the Roman metropol. It also tells you about the life in upper Mesopotamia in those days. You can catch a glimp

Turkish PM urges women to have more children

women should have at least three children to help shield the country from the problems of an ageing population now being suffered by many Western countries, Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan says.


"We have to preserve our young population ... If you do not want our population to fall, every family should have three children. It's your decision," he told female supporters at a provincial gathering to mark International Women's Day on Saturday.

"I have four children. I'm happy. I wish I had had more. Children are a blessing," said Erdogan, a pious Muslim. Turkey has about 71 million people, according to census data, and the population is growing by about a million a year.

But smaller families of one or two children are becoming more common in affluent western regions of the country. Larger families are the norm in the poor, largely Kurdish east.

"Our population is young now but if current trends continue we will be ageing by 2030. This is a threat to us. We don't want to feel this threat. We have to keep things well balanced," said Erdogan.

On current projections, Turkey's population will peak in about a decade below 100 million and then gradually decline.

Turkey's parliament is expected shortly to approve a social security reform prepared by Erdogan's government that will raise retirement ages in a bid to reduce a ballooning deficit.

The current system encourages early retirement, which threatens to place great strain on the economy if left unchecked as fewer young people join the labour force.
Reuters | Saturday, 08 March 2008

HASANKEYF, Turkey, March 12 (UPI) -- A man who spent 27 years working in the city of Adana, Turkey, said he could not imagine spending his retirement anywhere other than a cave where he was born.

Mehmet Tilki, 54, said the cave, located in the Hasankeyf region of Batman province, has all the modern furnishings he needs -- including electricity and satellite TV -- as well as the feeling of home, the Dogan News Agency reported Wednesday.

"Living in a cave is something else. My family visits me from time to time. I am very happy here," Tilki said.

Tilki said he passes the time by breeding partridges and freeing them into the wild.

"I freed four female partridges just the other day. I also have 10 domesticated partridges in my cave. They are like my children. Waking up to their sound is like a dream," he said.

The cave dweller said he also has two dogs that keep his unusual domicile secure.

"This cave, which my father left me, is my everything. Whenever I touch the walls I remember my childhood. Reports about this cave being submerged underwater after the dam is built make me unhappy," he said.

The Il?su Dam, which is currently under construction, is expected to eventually submerge much of Hasankeyf.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/Quirks/2008/03/12/man_retires_to_childhood_cave/9884/