Isegoria

I don’t know the first thing about the Nigerian Tribune, but if it is a reputable paper in Nigeria, well, I just don’t know what to say. Really, I couldn’t make this up. Cat turns into woman in P/Harcourt – 5 killed as cultists clash:

What could be described as a fairy tale turned real on Wednesday in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, as a cat allegedly turned into a middle-aged woman after being hit by a commercial motorcycle (Okada) on Aba/Port Harcourt Expressway.

Nigerian Tribune learnt that three cats were crossing the busy road when the okada ran over one of them which immediately turned into a woman. This strange occurrence quickly attracted people around who descended on the animals. One of them, it was learnt, was able to escape while the third one was beaten to death, still as a cat though.

According to a source who witnessed what happened, the cat-woman said she and the two other cat-fellows had travelled from Abuja to Port Harcourt to kill three people. “The woman said they came to Port Harcourt from Abuja and that they came to kill three people. She said they had succeeded in killing two people, but the third person, whom I guess might be a pastor, was difficult for them and that they were preparing to go back to Abuja,” said the source.

Another witness, who gave his name as James, said the woman started faking when she saw that many people were gathering around her. “I have never seen anything like this in my life. I saw a woman lying on the road instead of a cat. Blood did not come out of her body at that time. When people gathered and started asking her questions, she pretended that she did not know what had happened,” he said.

When the Nigerian Tribune got to the scene of the incident near Garrison Junction, the cat-woman was seen sitting on the ground with blood all over her body. The right side of her face had a deep cut from what was gathered to be from a cutlass.
She was later taken to a hospital for medical attention. It took the intervention of policemen to prevent the mob from killing her.

When reached for information from the police, the Public Relations Officer of the Rivers State police command, Mrs. Rita Inoma-Abbey, said she had been taken to the hospital.

“She has been taken to Teme Clinic. Police will still be guarding her so that she will not disappear,” he said. In another development, at least five people have been confirmed dead while four others were said to be receiving medical treatment following a suspected cult clash in Aluu, one of the host communities of the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State.

Nigerian Tribune gathered from sources around UNIPORT that the clash, which led to the loss of lives and injury to others, was between two cult groups; Vikings and Black Axe Confraternity, a spill over of the struggle between the two cult groups on the RSUST campus, Port Harcourt.

I had heard about the roads being crazy in Saudia Arabia, but this is a whole ‘nuther level of crazy:

Chopping down trees to make books is good for the environment — provided you then line your walls with bookcases. I suppose lining all my interior walls has done very little to reduce my heating and cooling needs.

I enjoyed this illustrated guide to Dos and don’ts with babies:

Newborns visit relatives as cuddly rice bags — in Japan, of course:

New-born babies in Japan who can’t make it around to visit all their relatives can now send them proxies instead — cuddly bags of rice.

A small rice shop in Fukuoka, southern Japan, has been swamped with orders for “Dakigokochi” rice-filled bags shaped like a bundled baby and printed with the new-born’s face and name.

Each rice bag is tailor-made to weigh as much as the new-born and shaped so the rice fills the bag up. Holding the round-edged bag would feel like holding a real baby.

“Other rice shops sell bags printed with baby photos, but they use regular bags. People say they aren’t good for holding,” said Naruo Ono, owner of the rice shop, Yoshimiya.

“Rice for small babies would be stuck at the bottom of the bag, and the baby’s photo would be scrunched at the top.”

It is customary in Japan to give people gifts or money on occasions such as births, and the recipient then responds with other gifts, often worth half the amount they received.

The rice bags have made perfect “half-return” gifts, Ono said, although relatives face a dilemma once they are done with the cuddling.

“People say they have a hard time opening them up and eating the rice,” Ono said.

Have a happy Yule:

Many of the symbols and motifs associated with the modern holiday of Christmas are derived from traditional pagan northern European Yule celebrations. The burning of the Yule log, the decorating of Christmas trees, the eating of ham, the hanging of boughs, holly, mistletoe, etc. are all historically practices associated with Yule. When the Christianization of the Germanic peoples began, missionaries found it convenient to provide a Christian reinterpretation of popular pagan holidays such as Yule and allow the celebrations themselves to go on largely unchanged, versus trying to confront and suppress them. The Scandinavian tradition of slaughtering a pig at Christmas (see Christmas ham) is probably salient evidence of this. The tradition is thought to be derived from the sacrifice of boars to the god Freyr at the Yule celebrations. Halloween and aspects of Easter celebrations are likewise assimilated from northern European pagan festivals.

English historian Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum contains a letter from Pope Gregory I to Saint Mellitus, who was then on his way to England to conduct missionary work among the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Pope Gregory suggested that converting heathens would go easier if they were allowed to retain the outward forms of their traditional pagan practices and traditions, while recasting those traditions spiritually towards the Christian God instead of to their pagan “devils”: “to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God”.

In Gospel Truth, April DeConick, professor of Biblical studies at Rice University and author of The Thirteenth Apostle, explains what the gospel of Judas really says:

Amid much publicity last year, the National Geographic Society announced that a lost 3rd-century religious text had been found, the Gospel of Judas Iscariot. The shocker: Judas didn’t betray Jesus. Instead, Jesus asked Judas, his most trusted and beloved disciple, to hand him over to be killed. Judas’s reward? Ascent to heaven and exaltation above the other disciples.

It was a great story. Unfortunately, after re-translating the society’s transcription of the Coptic text, I have found that the actual meaning is vastly different. While National Geographic’s translation supported the provocative interpretation of Judas as a hero, a more careful reading makes clear that Judas is not only no hero, he is a demon.

Several of the translation choices made by the society’s scholars fall well outside the commonly accepted practices in the field. For example, in one instance the National Geographic transcription refers to Judas as a “daimon,” which the society’s experts have translated as “spirit.” Actually, the universally accepted word for “spirit” is “pneuma ” — in Gnostic literature “daimon” is always taken to mean “demon.”

Likewise, Judas is not set apart “for” the holy generation, as the National Geographic translation says, he is separated “from” it. He does not receive the mysteries of the kingdom because “it is possible for him to go there.” He receives them because Jesus tells him that he can’t go there, and Jesus doesn’t want Judas to betray him out of ignorance. Jesus wants him informed, so that the demonic Judas can suffer all that he deserves.

Perhaps the most egregious mistake I found was a single alteration made to the original Coptic. According to the National Geographic translation, Judas’s ascent to the holy generation would be cursed. But it’s clear from the transcription that the scholars altered the Coptic original, which eliminated a negative from the original sentence. In fact, the original states that Judas will “not ascend to the holy generation.” To its credit, National Geographic has acknowledged this mistake, albeit far too late to change the public misconception.

So what does the Gospel of Judas really say? It says that Judas is a specific demon called the “Thirteenth.” In certain Gnostic traditions, this is the given name of the king of demons — an entity known as Ialdabaoth who lives in the 13th realm above the earth. Judas is his human alter ego, his undercover agent in the world. These Gnostics equated Ialdabaoth with the Hebrew Yahweh, whom they saw as a jealous and wrathful deity and an opponent of the supreme God whom Jesus came to earth to reveal.

Whoever wrote the Gospel of Judas was a harsh critic of mainstream Christianity and its rituals. Because Judas is a demon working for Ialdabaoth, the author believed, when Judas sacrifices Jesus he does so to the demons, not to the supreme God. This mocks mainstream Christians’ belief in the atoning value of Jesus’ death and in the effectiveness of the Eucharist.

Evidently a museum near the agora in Athens has Ancient Greek potty training pottery device that looks suspiciously like a modern potty training chair.

(Hat tip to Mike.)

My advice for starting wingsuit BASE jumping is don’t — just enjoy the crazy videos:

Appendix B of that advice document is where things look a lot less fun — Wingsuit fatalities.

When I saw this story, I naturally thought, too little, too late. Knights Templar win heresy reprieve after 700 years:

The Knights Templar, the medieval Christian military order accused of heresy and sexual misconduct, will soon be partly rehabilitated when the Vatican publishes trial documents it had closely guarded for 700 years.

I could not imagine that the Vatican would turn the whole disreputable thing into a collectible:

A reproduction of the minutes of trials against the Templars, “‘Processus Contra Templarios — Papal Inquiry into the Trial of the Templars’” is a massive work and much more than a book — with a 5,900 euros ($8,333) price tag.

“This is a milestone because it is the first time that these documents are being released by the Vatican, which gives a stamp of authority to the entire project,” said Professor Barbara Frale, a medievalist at the Vatican’s Secret Archives.

“Nothing before this offered scholars original documents of the trials of the Templars,” she told Reuters in a telephone interview ahead of the official presentation of the work on October 25.

The epic comes in a soft leather case that includes a large-format book including scholarly commentary, reproductions of original parchments in Latin, and — to tantalize Templar buffs — replicas of the wax seals used by 14th-century inquisitors.

Reuters was given an advance preview of the work, of which only 799 numbered copies have been made.

One parchment measuring about half a meter wide by some two meters long is so detailed that it includes reproductions of stains and imperfections seen on the originals.

Pope Benedict will be given the first set of the work, published by the Vatican Secret Archives in collaboration with Italy’s Scrinium cultural foundation, which acted as curator and will have exclusive world distribution rights.

It’s all so…OJ.

This Hot Air Balloon in Flames is a terrifying image:

A hot air balloon’s basket bursts into flames shortly after takeoff when it was about 25 feet off the ground in Surrey British Colombia Canada Friday evening Aug. 24, 2007. Witnesses said passengers screamed and jumped to the ground. The balloon reportedly took off from a grassy field with 12 passengers. The balloon crashed in a trailer park and campground, injuring as many as 11 people, police and local reports said. Two additional people were unaccounted for.

Again, terrifying.

On a lighter note, I recall an interview with a Hindenburg survivor who jumped from the burning dirigible. He was a circus acrobat, and dropping down to a grassy field didn’t daunt him at all.

In a bodacious move, Merriam-Webster has added ginormous to its collegiate dictionary — along with some other new words.

Traditional farming is monoculture agriculture — large fields of one species of plant — and ecologists have long considered the alternative of polyculture agriculture, which would be more in line with how plants grow naturally. Forest gardening is one such example:

Forest gardening (also known as 3-Dimensional Gardening) is a food production and land management system based on replicating woodland ecosystems, substituting trees (such as fruit or nut trees), bushes, shrubs, herbs and vegetables which have yields directly useful to mankind. By exploiting the premise of companion planting, these can be intermixed to grow on multiple levels in the same area, as do the plants in a forest.

The Bangor Forest Garden includes plants with many different uses:

All plants in the garden have at least one use, which may include: edible parts (leaves, fruits, seeds, roots, flowers); medicinal uses; dyes; fibers; oils; attract beneficial insects such as pest predators or bees; accumulate or fix nutrients to be used as a mulch. Plants may be traditional fruits, nuts or herbs or may come from temperate regions of other continents.

A forest garden arguably requires less labor, as most plants used are perennial or self-seeding annuals, but it obviously does not lend itself to large-scale mechanization.

Are You a Good Liar?, Alex Tabarrok asks. He then cites Richard Wiseman on The truth about lying and laughing:

Are you a good liar? Most people think that they are, but in reality there are big differences in how well we can pull the wool over the eyes of others. There is a very simple test that can help determine your ability to lie. Using the first finger of your dominant hand, draw a capital letter Q on your forehead.

Some people draw the letter Q in such a way that they themselves can read it. That is, they place the tail of the Q on the right-hand side of their forehead. Other people draw the letter in a way that can be read by someone facing them, with the tail of the Q on the left side of their forehead. This quick test provides a rough measure of a concept known as “self-monitoring”. High self-monitors tend to draw the letter Q in a way in which it could be seen by someone facing them. Low self-monitors tend to draw the letter Q in a way in which it could be read by themselves.

High self-monitors tend to be concerned with how other people see them. They are happy being the centre of attention, can easily adapt their behaviour to suit the situation in which they find themselves, and are skilled at manipulating the way in which others see them. As a result, they tend to be good at lying. In contrast, low self-monitors come across as being the “same person” in different situations. Their behaviour is guided more by their inner feelings and values, and they are less aware of their impact on those around them. They also tend to lie less in life, and so not be so skilled at deceit.

Wiseman has a lot of interesting discoveries to share:

Other researchers have explored the development of deception in children. Some of the most interesting experiments have involved asking youngsters not to take a peek at their favourite toys. During these studies, a child is led into a laboratory and asked to face one of the walls. The experimenter then explains that he is going to set up an elaborate toy a few feet behind them. After setting up the toy, the experimenter says that he has to leave the laboratory, and asks the child not to turn around and peek at the toy. The child is secretly filmed by hidden cameras for a few minutes, and then the experimenter returns and asks them whether they peeked. Almost all three-year-olds do, and then half of them lie about it to the experimenter. By the time the children have reached the age of five, all of them peek and all of them lie. The results provide compelling evidence that lying starts to emerge the moment we learn to speak. Perhaps surprisingly, when adults are shown films of their children denying that they peeked at the toy, they are unable to detect whether their offspring are lying or telling the truth.

“Welcome to Manhattan” indeed. From Inches Too Tall for Tunnel, Rig Plies It Anyway:

It was just six inches.

That was what made the difference at 4:40 a.m. yesterday as Gilberto Cantu, a truck driver from Texas, approached the New Jersey entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel in his big rig, loaded with bathtubs, toilets and plumbing fixtures. The truck was 13 feet 6 inches high. The tunnel has a height limit of 13 feet. Six inches can make a big difference.

Mr. Cantu drove the entire 1.5 miles of the tunnel from Weehawken, N.J., to Manhattan, tearing his way under the Hudson River in the tunnel’s center tube and peeling back the roof of his tractor-trailer as if it were a tin can. No one was injured, but an undetermined number of decorative tunnel ceiling tiles were ripped off.

Mr. Cantu drove the entire 1.5 miles of the tunnel — and he ignored all the warnings before entering the tunnel:

It was unclear why Mr. Cantu did not heed warnings from flashing signs and a loudspeaker in New Jersey, said Steve Coleman, a spokesman for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates the tunnel. “There were enough bells and whistles going off that this should not have happened,” Mr. Coleman said. “He told the officers he didn’t know where he was going.”

Mr. Coleman said that accidents of this kind were almost always averted. When a too-tall vehicle enters the toll plaza, an electronic sensor is tripped, several stoplights are activated and police officers at the plaza use a loudspeaker to order the driver to stop.

Mr. Coleman said trucks were turned back for exceeding the height limit about once a week. And on the rare occasions when trucks have entered and scraped the tunnel’s ceiling, their drivers have invariably stopped, he said, and the police have employed a height-reducing technique of letting air out of the trucks’ tires so they could be backed out.