Leaf, by Niggle

quick before the copyright cops find it: A fanfilm of Leaf by Niggle.



via TORN

Family news

Robin and John will arrive on the 5th.

Chano is busy getting ready for the party on the 8th...Lolo's birthday is on the 9th but Sunday is easier for the local relatives to come.

Stuff around the net

Filming begins on the Saxon series by Bernard Cornwell (of Shape's Rifles fame).

sort of a combination of the Vikings and the Game of Thrones although I hope it is less bloody...the advantage of reading is that one can skip the battle scenes and concentrate on the story line...

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AnnAlthouse links to this absurd article about improving nutritional health in Zambia by making maggot smoothies.but  as commenter Leon notes:

AS SOMEONE WHO GREW UP IN ZAMBIA...this whole mindset pisses me off. Sure Zambians eat a wide variety of food we don't but on a regular basis the type of caterpillar referred to in the article was only ever eaten rarely. mostly because they were seasonal and you had to live in the country to get them. they were dried and sold to the cities for people nostalgic for food from their youth. even 30 years ago the supply was very limited. today probably even more so.

if you scroll down, you will find my longer reply, based on experience.

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MoggyMusic purrfect for cat ears.

 (iStockphoto: Astakhova)

...we found that cats showed orientation and approach behaviour toward the speaker with the cat music, often rubbing against the speaker while the music was on," says lead author Charles Snowdon of the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Snowdon and colleague Megan Savage worked with composer and musician David Teie, who created cat-centric tunes such as:

• Spook's Ditty

• Cosmo's Air

• Rusty's Ballard

not to be confused with Mark Gunn's album: Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers. 



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Mary Lincoln, who seems to have been bipolar, consulted spiritualists after the death of her son Willie. And one of them warned Lincoln he was in danger...

ESP? Or because the man had a friend named John Wilkes Booth?  more HERE at Smithsonian magazine.

Headsup TeaAtTrianon.

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Digby Chicken and Bombay Duck

via DavidWarren:

Bombay Duck..(is) salty, and so powerful in flavour and scent that it requires careful packaging, is actually a fish, the bummalo.... The fish is actually harvested from the waters off Bombay. It was transported from there by rail, in the good old days of British Imperialism, aboard the Bombay Dhak (i.e. the Bombay Mail), which gave rise to such expressions as, e.g. “You smell like the Bombay Dhak.” Surely, that will be enough to go on...

and this factoid for this Canadian delicacy:

 Digby chicken are in fact intensely smoked and salted herring fillets. The name is an old Minas Basin in-joke, from the arrival of Loyalist settlers with Admiral Digby, after the final evacuation of New York City (in 1783). The first couple of winters were rather a pain, for these effete urban types, but the settlers did have a plentiful supply of fish. They called the herring they had salted away, “Digby chicken.” You see, they were being ironical.

Stuff around the net

Bath Univ podcasts are back up...the latest is on the Cassini mission.

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50 shades is not just "naughty", it's diabolic.

in California it's been celebrated openly for years without gov't interference....  and your kids will learn how in one of their Health textbooks.

alas, today's meme is: don't be so judgemental.

related item: BoingBoing reminds you: Don't forget to upgrade your acronyms.

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CDC report on youth violence.

Most effective prevention approaches work by modifying individual-level (e.g., problem-solving, communication, anger management skills) or relationship-level (e.g., parental supervision, consistent discipline, and communication skills) factors. A growing body of research shows the prevention potential of approaches that modify community-level factors (e.g., physical environments, norms about violence).

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RIP Leonard Nimoy, Sgt USAR...

most famous for playing Spock...

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whoops.
they were where they were supposed to be, and no one bothered to look for them...

timeline here.

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Nat Geo is blaming the Ben Laden raid for putting polio vaccinations at risk.

They need to fact check: The Taliban and other radicals were killing docs and other health care workers for years before that happened.
Now it has gotten worse, thanks to clueless western press releases...and the propaganda by the anti vaxxers in the US and Europe.

Heck, even the Catholic bishops in Kenya are repeating the urban legend that tetanus vaccine has anti pregnancy chemicals in it...a rumor that I read about in the early 1990's here in the Philippines. (where the Depo Provera shots were being mixed up with the anti tetanus ones...)

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we support the PNP

 The war is back on in the southern Philippines.

and locals are fleeing the fighting. The MB says they fear "harassment" by the terrorists, an offshoot of MILF that uses the name BIFF.

(no, I'm not making up those names).

this will let the "human rights" folks lament the evil gov't did it...you know, the same "human rights folks" who didn't notice that most of the 100000 refugees who were forced to flee Zamboanga  a couple years ago by Muslim terrorists were Christian (the city is majority Christian)...

the meme is:

The terrorists attack civilians, and the gov't tries to get them. The gov't is then condemned or told to work "with restraint". It is up to the gov't to "ease the tension" in the area.

Another meme: the military (or in this case, the cops) go after a major terrorist (in this case, an Indonesian bomb maker-- there have been several bombs attacks in the south lately, by unknown people). The local "militants" know the bad guy is there, but have kept mum about it. When the gov't tries to get him, the local "militants" cry foul and come out to kill the gov't ... in this case, the cops, resulting in 40 dead policemen.

Hello, people: This is why Obama is killing people with drones.

Yes, they might "kill civilians" (read hostages and/or family members) but at least you don't end up with dead good guys.

Alas, the left here is stopping these from being used because it means making the US the good guys, and they go out in force to protest any hint that the US is helping against the terrorists. (they are, of course, but it's kept low key).

and the local folks? well the cops aren't from the rich families, but middle class families.

It says a lot that yesterday I saw a local tricycle with a sticker saying "I support the Philippine Police" on it.

(The local cops are constantly being rotated in an out because of problems and are not usually trusted...)

But since we live in the north, we should be okay.

The main threat in our area, the NPA, has been weakened, but kidnap gangs still hit once in awhile. Most of the deaths are political, however, and the mayor is up for election next year...

Stuff around the net

via Archeology: Analyzing the Duomo and the StJohn Baptistery using modern methods.

I couldn't find a film about the actual investigation, but this shows the mosaics inside the Baptistery.



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via Incredible things:

Here are some pictures of cosplaying Guinea pigs by Twitter-er @chikuwa_kintoki. G-D it, they are adorable. Now before you get all judgy with the “Well, someone’s got a lot of time on their hands” type comments, keep in mind: yeah, this person’s got time, but they’ve clearly got talent too. Some people just got time!

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Atlas Obscura has a story of how Philadelphia city planners tried to replace noisby cobblestones with quieter wooden blocks. Oh, things got quieter but then...

The blocks quickly began to soak up every bit of liquid that fell on them from rain to copious amounts of horse urine. In addition to expanding and warping into a bumpy mess, the roads became unbearably smelly (especially in the summer) as the pee-soaked blocks rotted and crumbled. The trend of wooden roads quickly fell out of favor, and by the time automobiles hit the scene, they were all but gone.However on the tight little 200 block of Camac Street, the wooden avenues remained. The area having developed into an artsy little enclave during the 20th century, the wooden roads were seen as a quaint oddity...

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film clip of the day

Although I don't think Lolo had a uniform...his brother was a leader in the Philippines resistance, but Lolo was too young and only joined after McArthur landed and the people rose up to throw them out.

But son in law and grandson are USNavy.

link was in an email from TiaMaria

related item: Austin Bay remembers IwoJima

UH: Paranoid conspiracy theories abound

What was Charlotte Bronte doing in Brussels, and what happened there.

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Who needs death panels when the "ethics committee" can stop your treatment, not because it is futile or because you are dying, but just because you are developmentally disabled and they think you lack quality of life.

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did the "reformist" European cardinals (illegally) push the present pope behind the scenes?

And who illegally stole the mail to stop the bishops at the synod from reading a book defending the traditional approach to marriage?

The Art Bell theory is that the reformers want to hijack the church to make it into a PC church for the NWO.

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what happened to the rare earth crisis?

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what does the internet takeover mean? the conspiracy sites are going wild... but so is the FCC commissioner.

ah, but it's only the gov't stopping big bad business from taking it over, so it's okay.

no internet censorship here....
except of course by Google...

 Growingteenager in Malaysia says that google will now censor adult content and nudity on blogger...

I try to keep this blog PG, but have other blogs that no one reads that does include RRated stuff...especially my medical blog...
wonder if they'll censor my illustrations of FGM? or about STD risk factors?

and nope,the UN says they won't take it over: Old article here.

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as for the Philippines: they tried to pass a strict internet law here a couple of years ago, including banning "libel", meaning it would be illegal to even hint about wrongdoing...but I think the courts stopped it.

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First take over the internet, then ban bullets.

But don't worry: with 3d printers, you can make your own.

Family News

Chona came over with three girls from the farm to scrub our small house down. We have a maid comes for light cleaning and to do the laundry twice a week, but usually not heavy cleaning. I replaced the older bookcase with a new one. It's cheap but will do, and instead of ivory and plain, this one is slightly fancy with glass doors making me think it is probably a china closet, but never mind. It holds most of my books. We donated the sofa and chairs back to the farm. We bought them to furnish the farm 10 years ago, but they were damaged by leaks, cats and dogs so we didn't use them any more, and they need to be put in the sun and scrubbed to get rid of the bugs. Lolo is having trouble breathing at night, a lowgrade fever, and is up and down all night. I have him on antibiotics. the good news is that his daughter will come for his 90th birthday party in two weeks. We are cleaning up the entire compound in preparation for the party.

the "WAGD" post of the day

CDC releases clinical guidelines for docs in case of a release of smallpox in the USA.

Although naturally occurring smallpox no longer exists, the threat of smallpox remains because of concerns that variola virus might exist outside of these repositories and could be used as an agent of bioterrorism or biowarfare (5). Although the risk for an intentional or accidental smallpox virus release is believed to be low, preparing for a potential event is critical to mitigate the devastating consequences of such an event. The U.S. government has purchased and stockpiled smallpox vaccines that would be provided to persons at high risk for infection in the event of a smallpox release.

actually, a similar report was released in 2001 after 911...I was the one who had to read it in case we had to set up the program in our isolated Oklahoma town.

So who would release smallpox as a bioweapon in Oklahoma? Well, the Dark Winter war game posited a release at a busy truck stop in Oklahoma... and if you want to really worry, read this classic report.

and if you want to read a more realistic scenerio on what would really happen if a plague hit the US, I suggest you look up John Ringo's The Last Centurian. 
about an outbreak of bird flu...and read chapter 3...

Very right wing political, but alas, after working with and fighting bureaucrats in the IHS, I suspect he might have a point...

Stuff below the fold

When bigots point to the "wars on religion", they often point to the 30 year war.
Nope, the massacres of the Irish don't count, nor do the Ottoman massacres in Eastern Europe.

But blaming religion as the biggest cause of war even in those days is only "true" if you ignore Asia.

I often cite Professor Bulliet's lecture on the Japanese invasion of Korea causing more casualties than the 30 year war that the western atheists always cite, and now a podcast on a book about the fall of the Ming dynasty also mentions it as one of several conflicts at that time in East Asia. LINK

Gerbils ?

The latest theory about the Black death is that it was spread in some area by....gerbils.

Humans caught the plague from rats, but researchers say it was actually gerbils that were the original breeding ground for the disease
The fleas made their way to Europe in various stages. Some would have arrived via foxes that had eaten the gerbils, which then passed them onto rats, which passed them to humans.In other cases humans may have caught the disease from camels, the fleas having jumped to them from the gerbils.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2966392/Origins-plague-ratted-actually-GERBILS-main-cause-Black-Death.html#ixzz3SfeNNjmg Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

in other words, the original source was gerbils but the spread was via other animals.

And in the US, the plague is found in the lowly prairie dog, and every year there are a few cases in the US...docs on the Navajo reservation are especially alert to cases popping up. 

the source is rock squirrels and prairie dogs.

The Gratuitous Lady Gaga post of the day

Lady Gaga sang the songs for the 50th anniversary of the Sound of Music.

Gaga went on to give a heartfelt performance of some of our favorite tunes from The Sound of Music, starting off with, naturally, "The Hills Are Alive," and then transitioning into "My Favorite Things" and "Edelweiss" before ending on a very high note with "Climb Every Mountain."

Walker?

Not being a Republican I am not involved in what craziness is going on there, but I do read Ann Althouse, and she points out how the media elite get Governor Walker wrong.

read the whole thing.

Then listen to the Brian Lamb interview I posted a few days ago.

Tolkien still informs the heart

for later reading: two essays that cite Tolkien.

via TeaAtTrinon:

Heidegger's scapegoat

While German Naziism partly informed Heidegger's recipe for Authentic 'rooted' Being, a contending outlook came from a contemporary, also a professor, who saw how industry challenged the European soul. This alternative came from J. R. R. Tolkien (1892-1973)...
A friend sniffily dismissed Tolkien's works as "children's stories," but this view completely misrepresents their significance. In England, Tolkien and his friend, C. S. Lewis(1898-1963) - like Heidegger in Germany - worried about the damage inflicted by industrialization on Western society. Both Tolkien and Lewis recognized the eternal human power of story-telling. ... Tolkien's Middle Earth stories were a form of modern Humanism, to help his readers cope with the fears and confusion sparked by industrial and technological alienation. ...rather than blaming another group or culture for the universal, existential malaise and stresses which arose from the advancement and transformation of society, Tolkien applied all his knowledge about myths and myth-telling to resolve that alienation.

then we have David Warren's essay
usually his writings take a bit of thought to read.
The first is about Hobbes, Hobbits, and the medieval way of seeing how people fit into society.
and then he has an essay on the church of nice...

They are upbeat, smileyface, welcoming, to a fault. The wolf, as we may see from Fr Rosica’s private, thuggish attempt at intimidation, may lurk behind the scenes, but in front we see only soft, glib, very comfortable sheepskin. We call this, “The Church of Nice.”The harrying from within of all Catholic tradition — the replacement of her moral teaching with a fake “mercy”; of her profound liturgy with cheap karaoke; of transcendent truth with cute bumpersticker — is a sign of the times. We must read it even as we continue to pray; and in the knowledge that inevitably, Christ will prevail.

Ha. Yeah, sweetness and light is a lot easier than cleaning up shitty diapers or having a drunk vomit on you in the ER while you are trying to stitch him up.

Ancient Sailors

a follow up from a previous post: Today's item from the Maritime history podcast is about Harappa.

 The Harappan people were known to have had contacts with Egypt and Mesopotamia thanks to Harappan artifacts that have been discovered in those places. Sadly, there is very little evidence of maritime activity on the part of the Harappans, even though we know they were active to some extent.

so did trade go via reed boatst, which have not survived for the archeological record?

Interview of the week

The California Commonwealth Club has posted an interview with Brian Lamb from C Span.




one of the sad things about being here in the Philippines is that we don't get C Span here, although they do post short snippets of their programs on youtube. He notes how ratings distorts the news, including using the tweet and soundbite "gotcha" way of reporting news often distorts things badly.

Lots of observations, including the question of why no one from Wall Street has gone to jail for stealing billions of dollars?

counting and adding

a lot of humor goes into showing how you "add" using Roman Numerals, but actually ancient Romans used a variation of the abacus called a counting board.

 How could anyone calculate with them? Well, how can anyone compute "three hundred and seventy-six times two hundred and thirty-seven". You type these data into you pocket calculator and press the "x" button, that's how. You certainly would not fill page after page with number words. Neither did the Romans: they would load CCCLXXVI and CCXXXVII onto their counting board or abacus and manipulate the pebbles and beads until they had the result.

The counting board shown here is divided into two vertical strips, the right hand one for addition, the other for subtraction. The top number shown on the right is MDCCCCLXV, the lower one is MCCCCXXV. To add them, we just pile everything together into a mess which is shown in third field from the top. To make it readable we have to reduce it: any five beads on a line are converted to one button in the space to the left of that line, any two buttons in a space turn into one bead on the next line over. The answer is MMMCCCLXXXX as shown in the bottom field.

 more about this at Wikipedia.

The Ancient Romans developed the Roman hand abacus, a portable, but less capable, base-10 version of the previousBabylonian abacus. It was the first portable calculating device for engineers, merchants and presumably tax collectors. It greatly reduced the time needed to perform the basic operations of arithmetic using Roman numerals. 

the earliest counting board still in existance is the Salamis Tablet, 300 BC. a series of videos on youtube will show you how to use these ancient counting boards




  Silly me. I assumed the abacus was Chinese, but apparently the Chinese didn't invent it until 600 years ago, during the Ming dynasty
the difference? The Chinese used (ta da!) beads on wires, whereas the earlier types had to move the beads in grooves.

 the first article also notes that Arabic numerals were not picked up when first known until paper was cheap enough to use to scribble on.

headsup Presurfer

the "WAGD" post of the week

Gizmodo reports that Fukushima is still leaking.