18 January 2009

Sunday smörgåsbord


Roman soldiers encountered chemical warfare in the third century. In what is now Syria, Sasanian attackers stacked up dead bodies, doused them with pitch and sulfur, and set them afire; the sulfurous vapors were highly toxic in the closed space of tunnels.

Check your credit card bill for a 25c charge from "Adele Services." It's a bogus company, and a bogus charge apparently being tacked on to millions of credit card bills.

The oldest human skeleton in the Americas has been recovered from an underwater cave on the Yucatan peninsula. It is over 13,000 years old. Her skull suggests a South Asian ancestry rather than a North Asian one; perhaps her tribe crossed the Pacific rather than migrating through Beringia. That might fit in with the findings at Monte Verde, Chile.

Ordinary photographers continue to be criminalized by law enforcement officers trying to enforce ridiculous "anti-terrorism" laws. The Canadian parliament is going to reconsider its rulings and guidelines.

"The Daily Kitten" is a website that... (take a wild guess)...

A 22-year-old man gave $150,000 of his and his family's money to Nigerian scammers. Read about this incredibly gullible man.

The NYPD wants to jam cell phone services during a terror attack. Terrorists will likely have other means of communication, but the citizenry will be rendered helpless. Great idea.

Is it time to get back into the stock market? Is there blood in the streets yet? No - its just red ink. That's the conclusion of an excellent essay by Gary North at the Lew Rockwell site.

Lucrezia Borgia was the sister of Machiavelli, the bastard daughter of a Pope, and a reputed poisoner. But she may also have been a brilliant capitalist who acquired her enormous wealth by buying poor, swampy real estate cheaply, fixing it up, and selling it for huge profits. Summary at the link; she will probably be worth a revisit by TYWKIWDBI in the future.

A North Atlantic right whale has been sighted off the Azores for the first time in over a century.

Remember that "hobbit skull" found in Southeast Asia? Recent studies reaffirm the postulate that it is the skull of a healthy tiny adult (3 feet tall), not a deformed or preadult human.

The top search term on Yahoo in 2008 was - gag me with a spoon - "Britney Spears." The others in the top ten were WWE, Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus, RuneScape, Jessica Alba, Naruto, Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie, and American Idol.

Smörgåsbord image credit here

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