I’m not sure what to make of the anonymous Confessions of a middle-aged Ecstasy eater, published in The Guardian.
The title, in case you’re not familiar, is an homage to Confessions of an Opium-Eater (1821) by Thomas DeQuincey — as is the style of the first few paragraphs.
The Daily Show‘s Burning Sensation segment was a fairly run-of-the-mill global warming piece — until the Punxsutawney Phil portion. That was funny.
I’m not sure what to make of the anonymous Confessions of a middle-aged Ecstasy eater, published in The Guardian.
The title, in case you’re not familiar, is an homage to Confessions of an Opium-Eater (1821) by Thomas DeQuincey — as is the style of the first few paragraphs.
Roman descendants found in China?:
Scientists have taken blood samples from 93 people living in and around Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi desert, more than 200 miles from the nearest city.They are seeking an explanation for the unusual number of local people with western characteristics — green eyes, big noses, and even blonde hair — mixed with traditional Chinese features.
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The town’s link with Rome was first suggested by a professor of Chinese history at Oxford in the 1950s. Homer Dubs pulled together stories from the official histories, which said that Liqian was founded by soldiers captured in a war between the Chinese and the Huns in 36BC, and the legend of the missing army of Marcus Crassus, a Roman general.In 53BC Crassus was defeated disastrously and beheaded by the Parthians, a tribe occupying what is now Iran, putting an end to Rome’s eastward expansion.
But stories persisted that 145 Romans were taken captive and wandered the region for years. Prof Dubs theorised that they made their way as a mercenary troop eastwards, which was how a troop “with a fish-scale formation” came to be captured by the Chinese 17 years later.
He said the “fish-scale formation” was a reference to the Roman “tortoise”, a phalanx protected by shields on all sides and from above. Gu Jianming, who lives near Liqian, said it had come as a surprise to be told he might be descended from a European imperial army. But then the birth of his daughter was also a surprise. Gu Meina, now six, was born with a shock of blonde hair. “We shaved it off a month after she was born but it just grew back the same colour,” he said. “At school they call her ‘yellow hair’. Before we were told about the Romans, we had no idea about this. We are poor and have no family temple, so we don’t know about our ancestors.”
Jill Parkin, a British mother of two girls and a boy, says, ‘Stop feminising our schools – our boys are suffering’:
It’s a teacher truism that little girls want to please and little boys want to win. The trouble is that our whole system is geared to a strange idea of egalitarianism which has somehow been confused with fairness.
The NFL apparently nastygrammed a church for planning to host a Super Bowl party. The original complaint was first that the church was charging people, but also that they used the term ‘Super Bowl’ (as if people would somehow believe that the church was associated with the NFL?). After the church agreed to let people in for free and not use the term, the NFL continued to complain, saying that showing the Super Bowl on a screen larger than 55 inches represents copyright infringement.
The Daily Show’s Laguna Beach, the Real, Real Orange County is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long, long time.
I couldn’t believe this self-referential Old Spice Commercial Featuring Bruce Campbell was real.
Addendum: Bruce Campbell fans should note the chainsaw by the fireplace. Everyone should note the nautical pa
It’s truly shocking what a few Mooninite Marauders can do to a city like Boston:
Officials found 38 blinking electronic signs promoting the Cartoon Network TV show “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” on bridges and other high-profile spots across the city Wednesday, prompting the closing of a highway and the deployment of bomb squads.
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“It’s clear the intent was to get attention by causing fear and unrest that there was a bomb in that location,” Assistant Attorney General John Grossman said at their arraignment.
Yes, that was clearly the intent.
Alan Bellows calls it The Terrifying Toothpick Fish, but some of us know it as the dreaded candirú:
Though the candirú is a parasite, humans are not among its viable hosts. It lingers in the murky darkness at the river’s bottom, quietly stalking its neighboring fish. Light is scarce in the soupy deep, but the candirú does not need to see… it can taste the traces of urea and ammonia that are expelled from breathing gills.The tiny hunter shadows its prey, almost invisible due to its translucent body and small size. When the target fish exhales, the candirú detects the resulting flow of water and makes a dash for the exposed gill cavity with remarkable speed. Within less than a second it penetrates the gill and wriggles its way into place, erecting an umbrella-like array of spines to secure its position.
Unconcerned with the host’s panicked thrashing, the firmly anchored parasite immediately nibbles a hole in a nearby artery with its needle-like teeth, feasting upon the bounty that gushes forth. Within two minutes the candirú’s belly is swollen with the blood of its victim, and it retracts its gripping barbs. Though it may seem that the exploited host fish has escaped, its injuries are so extensive that chances of survival are grim. Meanwhile the victorious attacker slinks back into the river’s dark places to digest its meal.
There are many troubling stories regarding human run-ins with the candirú, though until recent years these were not given much credence by the medical community. It is not uncommon for people swimming or bathing in the river to urinate in the water, an action which creates tiny water currents that are rich in urea and ammonia. It seems that the tiny, slender catfish cannot always distinguish a urinating human from an exhaling fish gill, and on occasion it will attempt its trademark high-speed attack on some unfortunate soul.
You may not want to read the rest.
Eagle lugging a deer head causes outage:
About 10,000 Juneau residents briefly lost power after a bald eagle lugging a deer head crashed into transmission lines.
Colorado: A Model for the Nation?:
Colorado’s new law banning state spending on illegal immigrants has cost more than $2 million to enforce — and has saved the state nothing.Less than a year after politically charged debates on illegal immigration, officials are reporting high costs, no savings and unexpected problems with the new laws….
Eighteen departments reported adding $2.03 million in costs while not saving any money. None of the departments could say how many, if any, illegal immigrants were being denied state-funded services.
Rachel Nowak explains how sunshine triggers skin repair:
A blast of sunshine could help fight skin diseases and cancer by attracting immune cells to the skin surface, according to a new study.Eugene Butcher at Stanford University in California, US, and colleagues discovered an interesting immune process in human skin. Immune cells in the skin, called dendritic cells, convert vitamin D3 (produced in exposed skin in response to sunlight) into its active form.
This “active” vitamin D3 then causes T-cells to make surface changes that allow them to migrate to the uppermost layer of the skin, Butcher’s team found. T-cells are the immune cells that destroy damaged and infected cells, and they also regulate other immune cells.
The findings explain how T-cells “know” to go to the skin’s surface once the skin has suffered some sun-induced DNA-damage, the researchers say.
“Sunshine is good for you, as long as it’s not too much,” says team member Hekla Sigmundsdottir.
I feel remarkably comfortable and content after reading this recommended list of gear for Afghanistan.
Tyler Cowen examines Incomes and Inequality: What the Numbers Don’t Tell Us:
Much of the measured growth in income inequality has resulted from natural demographic trends. In general, there is more income inequality among older populations than among younger populations, if only because older people have had more time to experience rising or falling fortunes.Furthermore, more-educated groups show greater income inequality than less-educated groups. Uneducated people are more likely to be clustered in a tight range of relatively low incomes. But the educated will include a greater range of highly motivated breadwinners and relaxed bohemians, and a greater range of winning and losing investors. A result is a greater variety of incomes. Since the United States is growing older and also more educated, income inequality will naturally rise.