Many ancient Egyptians marked the first month of the New Year by singing, dancing and drinking red beer until they passed out, according to archaeologists who have unearthed new evidence of a ritual known as the Festival of Drunkenness.
During ongoing excavations at a temple precinct in Luxor that is dedicated to the goddess Mut, the archaeologists recently found a sandstone column drum dating to 1470-1460 B.C. with writing that mentions the festival.
Unified physics theory explains animals’ running, flying and swimming A single unifying physics theory can essentially describe how animals of every ilk, from flying insects to fish, get around, researchers at Duke University’s Pratt School of Engineering and Pennsylvania State University have found. The team reports that all animals bear the same stamp of physics in their design.
Salman Rushdie. Allow me to take this moment to wax lyrical about genius. Alright, so I’m not feeling terribly lyrical this morning, but this man has put together some of the best books I’ve read. Out of his body of work it’s awfully difficult to pin-point which is my personal favorite, but this book right here is one of his best.
Ghandi said - “Fear has its use but cowardice has none.” What I want to talk about is fear manifesting itself on such a level that you think you’re going to collapse, or if you don’t collapse you’ll quite literally shake yourself to peices.
This right here is a suggestion for the starting of a phenomenal organization…
It’s a lovely little club, in that it will allow you to be as inclusive or exclusive as you like, but the very best part is that you can pretend to be highly intellectual while in fact it’s just an excellent excuse to experiment in states far from sobriety.
I am the highway. Hungry. Waiting for the atoms shed by your passage. Wanting purpose. Streaming down me you trace a line of presence down my back. I am caressed and calmed.
I am the spit encrusted microphone on the stage of the ancient club, feeling the words of the youth as they are pushed through me. A presence feeling every person’s tired pains recycled over time. Returning to the truth they are searching for, the explanation of themselves.
One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn’t win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden’s attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution — and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it — I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.
In my ever so humble opinion the definition of a good joke is one that will make you laugh.
haha…
and that wasn’t the joke, thankfully, but I found it funny… I found this funny too, please don’t hold the preceeding against me.
The Pope dies and, naturally, goes to heaven. He’s met by the reception committee, and after a whirlwind tour he is told that he can enjoy any of the myriad recreations available.
Another great man who was just too sensitive, too odd to survive. Richard Brautigan has a deceptive style, at first glance it seems almost too simplistic to carry any weight or meaning at all. However once his books, even the ones that I enjoyed the least, have had time to marinate in your mind you see all kinds of odd little nuances and treats hidden in there.
’twas the day after Christmas and all through the world
my peer group was stirring with heads that felt swirled…
Ok sorry, crappy poetry isn’t something to be faced on a stomach wounded by an immense X-mas dinner and the merry-making that follows. Today I’m taking this moment to spare a thought for the brightly colored wrapping paper making it’s way towards the landfills, the leftovers that will be languishing in the refrigerators, and everyone out there suffering from the great crash that always follows the kind of gluttony that yesterday reveled in.
Trust federal bureaucrats to take a good idea and transform it into a frightening proposal to track Americans wherever they drive.
The U.S. Department of Transportation has been handing millions of dollars to state governments for GPS-tracking pilot projects designed to track vehicles wherever they go. So far, Washington state and Oregon have received fat federal checks to figure out how to levy these “mileage-based road user fees.”
A new robot can recognize the difference between a mirror image of itself and another robot that looks just like it.
This so-called mirror image cognition is based on artificial nerve cell groups built into the robot’s computer brain that give it the ability to recognize itself and acknowledge others.
Brain size matters for intellectual ability and bigger is better, McMaster University researchers have found.
The study, led by neuroscientist Sandra Witelson, a professor in the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine, and published in the December issue of the journal Brain, has provided some of the clearest evidence on the underlying basis of differences in intelligence.
The study involved testing of intelligence in 100 neurologically normal, terminally ill volunteers, who agreed that their brains be measured after death.
Interventions for preventing or treating alcohol hangover: Systematic review of randomised controlled trials; BMJ Volume 331, pp 1515-7
No compelling evidence exists to suggest that any complementary or conventional intervention is effective for treating or preventing alcohol hangover, say researchers in this week’s BMJ.
Arsenic from treated lumber used in decks, utility poles and fences will likely leach into the environment for decades to come, possibly threatening groundwater, according to two research papers published online Wednesday.
Researchers from the University of Miami, the University of Florida and Florida International University examined arsenic leaching from chromated copper arsenate, or CCA-treated wood, from a real deck as well as from simulated landfills.
Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have published an interesting study that sheds light on the fate of a familiar pharmaceutical as it enters the waste stream. In work initially described last year, NIST chemists investigated probable chemical reactions involving acetaminophen when the drug is subjected to typical wastewater processing. Acetaminophen is the most widely used pain reliever in the United States, and a study of 139 streams by the U.S. Geological Survey found that it was one of the most frequently detected man-made chemicals.
Haruki Murakami is one of only a handful of authors out there who’s work I consider worthy of elevation into the heady realms of genius. I happened across his stuff earlier this year when this book, Kafka on the Shore called out to me from the library shelf. Immediately upon completion of this book I set out to read everything I could get my hands on by Murakami. I’ve since read all of his books save one, and only two of them were less than great.
This is a wonderful world. For all the complaints and the not-so-occasional bitching that I have been known to indulge in there are so many wonderful things floating all across this planet that it’s a waste of your most precious commodity (namely your time) to spend anything more then a few moments of your time wallowing in misery.
And with that in mind, here’s my humble recomendations for your day.
One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn’t win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
