Hobbit stuff

Joseph Pearce interview on the Hobbit at EWTN about the Catholic references in the Hobbit.

and PhilStuffOfDoom is up to the Battle of Pellenor fields...enjoy!

TORN links to Empire which is playing the soundtrack (streaming music).

The secret to a longer life

Be married, and have lots of friends and....puppies!


will kitties do?

From Recently Updated

Food stories

YUM Brussel Sprouts!
recipes at link
one veggie we don't have here in the Philippines, thank God.

-------------------------------
What about Second Breakfast?

Try this Blackberry cake.

No we don't have blackberries here either (although I used to collect them along the abandoned train tracks when I lived in Pennsylvania mountains).

But they do grow strawberries in Baguio...

--------------------------------------
Father Z has an article on giving out Communion to those with celiac disease...there are now gluten free hosts, and if your parish doesn't have them refer them to the link which includes addresses.

-------------------


YUM! WORMS:

Biopharmaceutical company Coronado Biosciences is conducting clinical trials using the eggs of the pig whipworm to regulate immune activity. The treatment is centered on the “hygiene hypothesis,” which asserts that today’s sterile, germ-free homes can actually make us sick. Lack of exposure to pathogens could prevent immune systems from properly regulating, explained Dr. Bobby Sandage, CEO of Coronado.

Excuse me for being cynical, but then why are there so many autoimmune disorders among Native American?

Genetics has a lot to do with it...

As for "too clean" homes, maybe it's not the cleanliness but that they see doctors more often and get diagnosed when they have very mild disease...or maybe it is the chemicals in their diet...

Science stuff

TPM Barnett, a globalist, notes how malaria has now returned to Greece, and comments:

Malaria still existed throughout much of the US in the 1930s/40s.  Since then it has gotten much warmer throughout the US.  But malaria is basically gone now.  Why?  Rising incomes.
So the point on global warming is, it'll create real problems wherever states and societies don't have the money to deal with the challenges - such as insect migration.
Now take a look at this chart from the WSJ and realize what happens when incomes fall - and how quickly.

 BBC article on how Malaria contributed to poor health, miscarriages and child mortality in ancient Rome, maybe contributing to it's fall. Apparently it was brought with the Egyptian grain shipments, and infected locals, partly due to local swamps.

Key to Coluzzi's ideas was the thriving trade throughout the Mediterranean region during Roman times. Coluzzi believes that one way the malaria reached mainland Italy was by cargo ship. Passengers on the boats could be carrying the malaria in their bloodstream even before showing symptoms. The water barrel on board could contain mosquito larvae.

so why didn't they just drain the swamps? They did:

Malaria article about the Pontine swamps and malaria from Pop Sci, 1876 edition. 

this was written before it was recognized that the culprit was the mosquito...but they noticed how construction/disturbed land, swamps, higher rainfall, and night air all led to more malaria, and that draining the swamp lessened the disease.


------------------------------------------

A Toxic sea led to Devonian extinction? No, not the dinosaur or the Permian extinction: a different one that affected mainly sea creature.

Climate change and a devastating meteorite have both been fingered as causes for the decimation of marine life during the late Devonian period.
But research published in a recent issue of the journal Geology suggests the extinction occurred as a result of a toxic ocean, devoid of oxygen.
"We think there was anoxia, where toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide are released into the zone where light penetrates into the ocean," says organic geochemist Professor Kliti Grice, of Curtin University.
"A modern analogue of the conditions that existed at this time is the Black Sea."

Wikipedia article HERE.

but they don't know the cause....

------------------------
Dream symbols could help pscyhotherapy. Heh. this theory is a bit old and is now being pushed again.

Yes, dream symbols can help psychotherapy, but psychotherapy is not very helpful for treating mental disease. If done correctly, it can lead to insight, but so can religion and philosophy and the arts. But the writer is pushing Jungian (as opposed to Freudian) theory to be recognized as a therapy to help the mentally ill...follow the money?

I hate to say it, but the new health care payments and the stress on practice "efficiency", will push us into giving out drugs instead of counseling, because the drugs act faster and are more efficient. So this is a study trying to insist we  should be reimbursed if we use old fashioned methods too.

-----------------------------------------
The unconscious brain can read and do math.

tell that to your teacher when he catches you mapping in class.

Lecture of the week

The late Dr. J. Rufus Fears, of Univ of Oklahoma (and who has several teaching company lectures series) has some lectures on line at that site.

It is an open source course on American history, which you can get on iTunes or Youtube.



a great teacher who will be missed.

Factoid of the day

LINK

Snuffleupagus has a first name — Aloysius.

and Barbie's real name is Barbara Millicent Roberts

Good news headline of the year.

Middle class now rivals poor in Latin America-World Bank

By ANNA YUKHANANOV, REUTERS November 14, 2012 2:42am

WASHINGTON - Rapid economic growth and more inclusive social policies in Latin America in the last decade have lifted 50 million people into the middle class, which for the first time rivals the poor in number, the World Bank said in a study on Tuesday.

"Most countries in the region are on their way to becoming middle-class societies; this represents a historic change," World Bank President Jim Yong Kim told reporters...

Roughly thirty percent of the population now falls into that category, equal to the third of people still in poverty -- a remarkable shift in a continent that has been known for its vast income inequalities, dominated by the poor and a narrow slice of the rich.

Quips of the day

How exactly did national-security and military affairs come to resemble Keeping Up with the Kardashians?


-------------------------

so is this the new theme song of the CIA?

Cat item of the day

A Grandmother and her Cat:

For the last nine years, Japanese photographer, Miyoko Ihara, has been taking photos of her grandmother, Misao Ihara, and her white, odd-eyed cat, Fukumaru. Misao and Fukumaru share a special bond and go everywhere together. Although Misao is 88 years old, she still works in the fields, planting and weeding under the sun, with Fukumaru always at her side.

slideshow at link

Photo credit: Miyoko Ihara

Video of the day

Feeling Low? Well, Youtube to the rescue:
complete with arabic subtitles.

In Our Prayers

My Pennsylvania relatives seemed to be okay after Hurricane Sandy, but Col Updraft in New England, where many have ties to NYCity, sent me this link from 30 Oct at the UKMail, which has photos.

But what is more disturbing is a more recent report (9Nov) from SuicideGirlsBlog on Staten Island.

with rumors of makeshift morgues, volunteers turned away, and the mayor telling non "official" charities helping folks to go home so they wouldn't embarass the experts.

Stories below the fold

Instapundit links to a Wired story on how modern video games now have dads as heroes.

The gaming site that mourned VileRat noted that he introduced diplomacy into their space war game, to the point that one group actually changed sides.

And I once noted that few westerners outside of WOW knew about Admiral Yi and his turtle boats.

Hmm...wonder if any Anthropology major is doing a study on how video games educate our young?

----------------------------------------------------

Some Catholic blogs are lamenting that  half of Catholics voted for Obama...Excuse me for being cynical, but Romney care was Obama care lite: And it also required Catholic institutions to give out abortifactant pills and fund birth control.


Don't get me started on the American bishops...some of the newer ones are stuck cleaning out the mess of the past, but until they clean up their bureaucracy who allowed a lot of the pedophilia and theft to go on, they will not be able to be Christian spokesmen.

-----------------------------------
Oh Canada: harassment of schools that won't teach the feminist propaganda.
GuessMrs Gay Caswell isn't as paranoid as she sounds when she discusses how bureaucrats harass those opposed to the agenda.

-----------------------------------------

Foreign Affairs magazine argues that ex military officers shouldn't run for government posts because

a 2012 survey we conducted of registered voters measuring the effectiveness of these endorsements -- clearly indicates that veterans, especially retired generals and admirals, are involved in U.S. electoral politics in a way that could erode the public’s powerful support for the country’s armed forces.

Translation: Unlike the past, where Democrats like JFK or Reverend Wright were proud veterans, the modern elites of the Democratic party disdains the military, which is why there was so little outcry in the press about the soldier's votes being lost or arriving too late to be counted.

---------------------------------

Was that Sudan raid a "headsup" to Iran that they are next?


-------------------------------

Book review on the "MadMax" aftermath of World War II...one of several new books telling this story that was mainly ignored in the west for the last 60 years.

a similar horror occured after World War I, but unless you had a relative to tell you about it, you probably didn't study that in school either.

--------------------------------
Big Brother is watching you, or at least watching your emails. No, the general and his bimbo weren't caught by the Patriot act: it was the Electronic Communications Privacy Act that allowed snooping into data stored more than 180 days without a warrant.:

SenseOfEvents has more background, and a cynical analysis of the kerfuffle: the FBI is trying to hide that the initial FBI investigator started snooping as a favor to impress his own honey, not to see if there was a crime.

presumably this will be made into a Danielle Steele novel or a major TV movie in the near future, if Law and Order doesn't beat them to it first.
------------------------
They obviously didn't check Dave Barry for email advice:

ATTENTION, INDIVIDUALS LOOKING FOR AN AN EMAIL DOMAIN THAT SUGGESTS SOPHISTICATION AND CLASS? Look no further.

actually, don't check the link, instead read about it at Wikipedia. 

Want a good education on the cheap? Come to the Philippines

LINK

The world’s “budget English teacher.”
This was how a recent BBC News report described the Philippines in highlighting the relatively cheap access to education in the country compared to other English-speaking nations.

Stories below the fold

The Next war in Mali: Al Jezeerah reports why negotiation with the seperatists might not work: outside extremists took over what was a local dispute, where the Tuareg wanted more independence.

The nearby African states are worried, since many have similar tribal disputes which would be vulnerable to a similar takeover by extremists.

and of course guess who suffers?  Fides reports on the civilians

--------------------------------------

   You heard about "The Great Escape", but you probably missed this mass escape by POW's...from an Australian POW camp:

During World War II, the prisoner of war camp near Cowra was the site of the Cowra Breakout, one of the largest prison escapes of the war. On August 5, 1944, a tip from an informer led authorities to plan a move of all the POWs to another camp....
From the historian Gavin Long: "At about 2 a.m. a Japanese ran to the camp gates and shouted what seemed to be a warning to the sentries. Then a Japanese bugle sounded. A sentry fired a warning shot. More sentries fired as three mobs of prisoners, shouting 'Banzai,' began breaking through the wire, one mob on the northern side, one on the western and one on the southern. They flung themselves across the wire with the help of blankets. They were armed with knives, baseball bats, clubs studded with nails and hooks, wire stilettos and garotting cords."
During the breakout, hundreds of Japanese were killed and another 108 prisoners wounded. Several Australian soldiers were also killed in the planned escape. Many of those who did escape committed suicide or were killed by their countrymen to avoid recapture. Everybody else was recaptured within ten days.

Wikipedia link HERE.

  Memorial at the cemetary in Cowra
----------------------------------------------------

 Daniel Lawlor from Los Angeles poses after winning first place in the Freestyle Moustache category at the third annual USA National Beard and Moustache Championships in Las VegasPicture: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

link
-----------------------------------------------------

one small step for man, one giant step for HAMBURGERS.

A group of Harvard students took fast food to new heights by sending a hamburger attached to a helium balloon and a camera 100,000ft into space and seeing it come hurtling back down to earth in 'Operation Skyfall'..

One of the students, Renzo Lucioni told boston.com that he had wanted to launch something into space for a while, and got the idea from MIT students who sent a camera into space via helium balloon in 2009.
The computer science student got together with friends Nuseir Yassin, Daniel Broudy, Matthew Moellman and Jamie Law-Smith.
He said they were ecstatic at the result, but are hungry for more.

'We’re happy with that, but it can always be better,' he said.

Next up could be a potential 'burrito in space' project.

headsupDaveBarry
--------------------------
All your emails are belong to us:

BoingBoing has some questions about Bimbogate...

Since when is the FBI available (for anyone with the right social connections) as a private troll-uncloaking cyber police force?

and includes links to this story at Wired.

-----------------------------------
There is a petition to award Malala the Nobel Peace Prize.

The United Nations has announced celebrating November 10 (Saturday) as Malala Day. People around the world celebrated Malala as a beacon for 32 million girls who can not go to school. In Pakistan, demonstrations in support of Malala were held in Islamabad, Lahore, and Karachi. This day was celebrated in more than 100 countries across the globe.
But in Malala's hometown open house events couldn't be organized out of fear of possible terrorist attacks.

 ---------------------------
And the "YUM ASO STEW" story of the day: LINK

Stories below the fold

Two "Moscow on the Hudson" stories on the internet.

If you watched the movie, it starts with the Robin Williams character being a hero for finding toilet paper in the stores.

Which brings us to this item from StrategyPate: Iran: the Toilet paper revolution.

The government is trying to cope with the stricter sanctions, but inflation continues to rise. It is currently 25 percent and headed for 30 percent in the next few months. Most luxury goods imports (including toilet paper) are now banned. The only items allowed in legally are those that preserve jobs (raw materials and components for factories) and keep the security forces going (“legal” smuggling of weapons and items needed for the nuclear and other weapons development and production.) But there is already more illegal smuggling of luxury goods. People with money are willing to pay a big markup to get iPhones and softer toilet paper. 

No, I don't approve of sanctions because they hurt ordinary folks, not the elites who are the problem. Yet since Iran is a semi democracy, public pressure might work.

The second item is from TPMBarnett, about the increased move for local soverignty by minority groups (like the Catalonians or Scots) in the European Union.

You might think it's the Eurozone troubles that is responsible, but that's the proximate opportunity - not the ultimate enabler.  Real federalism is coming, so why not get out of your unhappy marriage in the bargain?
Here's the counterintuitive part: it's often the most competent and richest that want out.  The better want to leave behind the worse.

Again, the theme of the movie was that the free wanted opportunities to be free, despite the difficulties.

And here in the Philippines, where ten percent of our population are working overseas, it is often the hardest working and most ambitious who do so. With the rich families controlling things, the middle class (like us) often has trouble making a living, so it's easier to work elsewhere. If they go to the US or Europe, they often stay and become citizens, sometimes marrying a local (we have relatives living in Germany, Italy, the US and the UK).

If PNoy cleans up the corruption, more will come home to work.

If not, well they'll just stay in Chicago, London, or San Diego...

Happy story of the day

Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart, just couldn't
seem to get to work on time. Every day he was 5, 10, 15
minutes late. But he was a good worker, really tidy,
clean-shaven, sharp-minded and a real credit to the
company and obviously demonstrating their
"Older Person Friendly" policies.

One day the boss called him into the office for a talk.

"Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do
a bang-up job when you finally get here; but your being
late so often is quite bothersome."

"Yes, I know boss, and I am working on it."

"Well good, you are a team player. That's what I like to hear".

"Yes sir, I understand your concern and I will try harder".

Seeming puzzled, the manager went on to comment, "I now
you're retired from the Armed Forces. What did they say to you there if you showed up in the morning late so often?"

The old man looked down at the floor, then smiled. He chuckled quietly, then said with a grin,

"They usually saluted and said, Good morning, Admiral,
can I get your coffee, sir"?



--------------------------

from an email from Tiamaria

We knew the freeze dried MRE's would be good for something

Hmm...maybe those Doomsday preppers are on to something, says the HuffPost

Coraine believes the prepper mentality for businesses now seems less extreme and more sensible. "The more thoroughly you prepare ahead of time, the more agility you have to get back up and running," he said. "I learned that from my grandmother."

YUM!

Good bye Metamucil, Hello, high fiber Pepsi.

The real problem with Bimbos: they defend their honeys on youtube

The president blamed a redubbed B porn film for the death of the American ambassador, and put pressure on Hillary, the State Department, and the CIA to keep quiet about what was going on there, including the fact that four people died who might have been saved.

(I should note that we don't get Fox news in the Philippines, so if this is old news, I apologize).

but now it turns out that the real story is on youtube, unnoticed until the Petreus love scandal hit the fan and someone noticed she spilled the beans last month in a speech to her university.

Youtube video here. 

the Benghazi part is at 31 minutes.

story from Israel national news that inlcude part of the transcript.

Broadwell was speaking at her alma mater, the University of Denver, on October 26....(and) confirmed the reports on Fox News that the CIA annex asked for a special unit, the Commander in Chief's In Extremis Force, to come and assist it. She also said that the force could indeed have reinforced the consulate, and that Petraeus knew all of this, but was not allowed to talk to the press because of his position in the CIA....

"They were requesting the – it's called the C-in-C's In Extremis Force – a group of Delta Force operators, our very, most talented guys we have in the military. They could have come and reinforced the consulate and the CIA annex. Now, I don't know if a lot of you have heard this but the CIA annex had actually taken a couple of Libyan militia members prisoner, and they think that the attack on the consulate was an attempt to get these prisoners back. It's still being vetted.

"The challenging thing for Gen. Petraeus is that in his new position, he's not allowed to communicate with the press. So he's known all of this – they had correspondence with the CIA station chief in Libya, within 24 hours they kind of knew what was happening."

Heads up GatewayPundit.

formerspook has a couple posts on the affair of the affair for more background on the many problems of the story, and how Petreus' resignation might prevent Congress and the public from knowing the truth.

The reason for the low turnout

I think the pundits might be wrong, and Grim has the real reason:

It wasn't because they were satisfied with their government. It was because they believed that Obama was evil, but the Republicans were corrupt, and the system was wholly rigged against them. They saw no benefit to voting or engaging in the political process at all.

They didn't believe things could be changed for the better, saw no one they identified with for whom they could vote, and generally have come to regard the government as a pack of thieves -- both parties.

So they have checked out of our political system