Shackled Skeletons Unearthed.

Cemetery

At least 80 skeletons lie in a mass grave in an ancient Greek cemetery, their wrists clamped by iron shackles.

They are the victims, say archaeologists, of a mass execution. But who they were, how they got there and why they
appear to have been buried with a measure of respect — that all remains a mystery.

They were found earlier this year in part of the Falyron Delta necropolis — a large ancient cemetery unearthed during the construction of a national opera house and library between downtown Athens and the port of Piraeus.

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…But on a rare tour of the site, archeologists carefully showed Reuters the skeletons, some lying in a long neat row in
the dug-out sandy ground, others piled on top of each other, arms and legs twisted with their jaws hanging open.

“They have been executed, all in the same manner. But they have been buried with respect,” said Stella Chryssoulaki, head of excavations.

“They are all tied at the hands with handcuffs and most of them are very very young and in a very good state of health when they were executed.”

The experts hope DNA testing and research by anthropologists will uncover exactly how the rows of people died. Whatever happened was violent — most had their arms bound above their heads, the wrists tied together.

But the orderly way they have been buried suggest these were more than slaves or common criminals.

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Haunting remains. Hopefully, an answer will be found. There’s a theory these might be the remains of young people involved in a coup attempt. The full article is here.

Natural Roles and Abilities.

jedwards_112007_180x238White nationalist James Edwards, who is credentialed by the Trump campaign, decided to speak out about Hillary Clinton, and what his god thinks about that uppity woman.

James Edwards, host of The Political Cesspool, reflected on Chelsea Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention and opined that Hillary Clinton could “not be the mother God wants you to be” because she was an “extremist radical, feminist.”

“So I’m sure that there is love between Hillary Clinton and her daughter, but I did not see the family and familial bonds out of the Clinton family that I saw from the Trump family,” he explained. “Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton sleep in the same room? Does anyone really believe that Hillary Clinton even sleeps with men?”

Weren’t you just whining about Chelsea Clinton’s speech? Do you think she came from a cabbage patch or something? Personally, I don’t think about who people might be sleeping with. None of my business. I find it more than telling that far right assholes can’t seem to think about anything else.

“Should Hillary Clinton be president of the United States?” Edwards asked his listeners, adding that “under God’s law, a woman should not even have dominion over her household.”

“There are natural roles and abilities that men and women have that are God-ordained and together, they are complementary of one another, and together, a man and a woman can raise a family,” the radio host insisted. “The husband is the ruler of the house under God’s law, and that’s the law that I abide by,”

Edwards went on to assert that the country would be “better” if women did not have the right to vote.

“I mean, ask yourself that because we see women are so — even more than men, and even though men now — need this status, they need to be accepted, they need food, water, shelter, and status in order to survive, but women especially need that,” Edwards said. “You know, I think the model before suffrage was a husband and a wife come together as a unit and the man casts the vote for that family.”

What an idiot.

Via Raw Story.

A Gaming Leaf.

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People who are taking their gaming very seriously apparently want a serious table upon which to gather around, one that’s purpose-built and optimized for immersive gaming. But while building or buying a table might appeal to many, having a dedicated gaming table is not an option for many of us.

Gamer Peter Hicks, of the Beer and Battle podcast, solved this problem in a decidedly 21st century way by building a gaming leaf for his regular dining room table that incorporates a flat-screen computer monitor. By serving maps, terrain, and other game materials to the monitor, the dining room table becomes anything Peter wants it be. This is a really clever and reasonably inexpensive (you can get very cheap flat screen displays these days) way to create a unique group gaming experience.

[…]

Peter built the frame for his gaming leaf at his local TechShop in Chandler, AZ. He used cheap Home Depot 2×4’s for the frame and built it based on the dimensions of the table whose leaf it was replacing. The display used is a Dell 27″ IPS monitor (which is not cheap). Peter says he chose that display specifically because of its use of tempered glass.

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The finished table in action, with a flotilla of tablets and future phones around it to provide additional gaming data to players and the DM. In terms of what software is used, Peter says that while several of the other DMs he plays with use other means to operate the display, he uses GIMP. With it, he layers the rooms and handouts so that he can show only what he wants to, creating a satisfying sort of fog of war vibe.

There’s much more, article and photos at Make. You can see more of Peter’s game table inserts on this Instagram #bettergamingthroughtechnology tag.

Traditional With A Twist.

Billing his work as contemporary Navajo pottery, sculptor and graphic artist Gerald A. Pinto is expanding the boundaries of traditional sculpting. Courtesy of the artist.

Billing his work as contemporary Navajo pottery, sculptor and graphic artist Gerald A. Pinto is expanding the boundaries of traditional sculpting. Courtesy of the artist.

Billing his work as contemporary Navajo pottery, sculptor and graphic artist Gerald A. Pinto is expanding the boundaries of traditional sculpting by mixing media such as copper, turquoise and even battery-power into his work in innovative ways.

“I always tell people it blends the past with the present,” says Pinto. “Even though I call it contemporary, I showcase some of the more traditional designs, too.”

Gerald Pinto's Elemental gourd and seed pots. (Courtesy)

Gerald Pinto’s Elemental gourd and seed pots. (Courtesy)

Pinto has been doing pottery for around 28 years, but committed to it full-time after leaving his job with Amtrak in 2003. He credits his family with being his biggest artistic influences and inspirations. “My mom is a weaver and my dad was a silversmith; they taught me a lot about Navajo designs.” His cousin, Dennis Charlie, who is known for his carved pots, encouraged him to pursue the art. “For a while, I was doing pieces similar to his, but over the years, I moved towards my own style.

“I developed it over the years … the copper and the turquoise is how people recognize my work.” Brown pots, that were pit-fired with copper and turquoise, are part of the Elemental Series.

The full article is at ICTMN. Gerald A. Pinto on Facebook.

31.

Herbert Hoover lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent on the Osage Nation when he was six years old. Whitehouse.gov

Herbert Hoover lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent on the Osage Nation when he was six years old. Whitehouse.gov

Fifty years before Herbert Clark Hoover took office as the 31st president of the United States, he spent eight months living on the Osage Nation in Oklahoma, where he “learned much aboriginal lore of the woods and streams, and how to make bows and arrows.”

Hoover, who was six years old at the time, lived with an uncle who was an Indian agent. He attended “Indian Sunday-school” and “had constant association with the little Indians at the agency school,” he wrote in his memoirs.

Born to a Quaker family in Iowa in 1874, Hoover also had relatives who worked as Indian agents in Oregon and Alaska. He is the only U.S. president to have lived on an Indian reservation.

“Hoover had an empathy for the Indians,” said Matt Schaefer, an archivist at the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library in West Branch, Iowa. “He had all these touch points with Indians as a child and young adult that led to this more enlightened Indian policy.”

[Read more…]

Bring Me the Blood of Young People!

Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel.

Peter Thiel, a wannabe Bathory. Thiel seems to share an obsession which is common among those with an absolutely filthy amount of money – he wants to live forever and ever. Or at least, a seriously long time. The key to a very, very long life? Blood. Specifically, the blood of young people. It’s magical, a resetting of gene expression, doncha know? I’m no scientist, not even close to one, but this seems to me to be more of that age old tradition of parting a fool from his money.

Billionaire PayPal founder Peter Thiel said that he believes transfusions of blood from young people can reverse his aging process and allow him to live a vastly extended lifespan.

In an interview with Inc.com’s Jeff Bercovici, Thiel said that the practice — known as parabiosis — is the closest modern science has come to creating an anti-aging panacea.

Thiel — a hedge funder who acted as a delegate for Donald Trump and spoke at the 2016 Republican National Convention — is reportedly obsessed with defying death and extending the human lifespan. He has injected funds into startups that are experimenting with ways to forestall the body’s inevitable decline and death.

“I’m looking into parabiosis stuff,” Thiel told Bercovici, “where they [injected] the young blood into older mice and they found that had a massive rejuvenating effect. … I think there are a lot of these things that have been strangely underexplored.”

Just a thought here, but as there really is nothing new under the sun, perhaps there’s a reason this whole “blood of the young!” business is so um, strangely under explored.

Parabiosis experiments began in the 1950s with crude exercises in which rats were cut open and their circulatory systems restructured and manipulated. Recently, some companies have been advancing human trials with parabiosis. Bercovici wrote that U.S. studies in the field are currently lagging behind trials in China and Korea.

A California company called Ambrosia is conducting human trials in which healthy people aged 35 or older receive transfusions of blood plasma from people under 25. Participants pay $8,000 to take part and their health is closely monitored for the two years they receive the transfusions. Participants must live in or have the means to travel to Monterey, CA.

Ambrosia’s founder Jesse Karmazin told Bercovici that participants experience a reversal of aging systems across every major organ system. Furthermore, the results appear to be long-lasting, he said, if not permanent.

Right. Only $8,000? Gee, I’ll be right over. Interesting that they are starting with 35 years old. 35 is pretty damn young, and it would be easy enough to fool yourself into thinking you feel so much younger at that age. Limit yourself to people who are 55 and older, and we can talk.

“The effects seem to be almost permanent,” Karmazin said. “It’s almost like there’s a resetting of gene expression.”

Someone else who doesn’t understand biology, but is conducting longevity experiments. Okay.

In an interview last year, Thiel told Bercovici that our culture is “a little too biased against all these things” that purportedly prolong life. When the reporter asked Thiel if he was looking at parabiosis as a business opportunity or a personal medial decision, Thiel said the latter. The practice, he said, isn’t necessarily patentable, which compromises its potential money-making value.

However, he said, the FDA needn’t get involved or study the practice because, “it’s just blood transfusions.”

There are rumors that some wealthy individuals in Silicon Valley are doing courses of parabiosis, but Thiel said last year that he hadn’t “quite, quite, quite started yet.” A spokesman for Thiel capital said that nothing has changed since then.

Gawker reported that it received a tip claiming Thiel “spends $40,000 per quarter to get an infusion of blood from an 18-year-old based on research conducted at Stanford on extending the lives of mice.”

Goodness. I’m quite, quite, quite unimpressed. Via Raw Story.

Four White Women Agree.

Fox News presenters Sandra Smith, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, Elizabeth McDonald and Meghan McCain speak to guest David Webb (center)

Fox News presenters Sandra Smith, Lisa Kennedy Montgomery, Elizabeth McDonald and Meghan McCain speak to guest David Webb (center)

The University of Houston’s Student Government vice president, Rohini Sethi, was hit with sanctions last week after she posted a message on Facebook that read: “Forget #BlackLivesMatter; more like #AllLivesMatter”

“For her to say on her social media ‘forget black lives matter,’ it’s almost as if to say if all of us were to die tomorrow, she wouldn’t care,” University of Houston Black Student Union President Kadidja Koné explained to The Washington Post on Monday.

But four white women hosting Fox News’ Outnumbered on Monday expressed outrage over the sanctions.

“The penalty was so harsh,” host Elizabeth McDonald complained. “The student leader, the president also said… you don’t go to jail for First Amendment violations but she deserves tougher sanctions. Who is this guy? He should be tossed out of his job.”

“I still don’t understand why saying ‘All Lives Matter’ is controversial,” co-host Meghan McCain chimed in. “I don’t understand why you can’t have empathy and understanding for the Black Lives Matter movement and also think that all lives everywhere — including by the way in the womb — also matter. Like, it’s really hard for me to understand how this is controversial.”

Monday’s Outnumbered guest, conservative radio host David Webb, declared that Black Lives Matter was a “violent movement” with “anarchists” behind it.

“It is such a false argument,” co-host Lisa Kennedy Montgomery opined. “It’s so offensive because when you say ‘All Lives Matter,’ you are not intending to say — for most people — is black lives don’t matter, but that’s how it’s taken.”

McCain asserted that universities would let students “go off on Trump” and “to say the most awful, disgusting, horrific things and there would be no recourse.”

“But you say this,” McCain added, “you say ‘All Lives Matter’ and you get demoted and you get your job taken away. That’s crazy.”

“Is there just no open discourse?” co-host Sandra Smith wondered. “Can you just not have a conversation on college campus anymore without someone being offended or having to delete a Facebook post where someone shares their opinion?”

“I’m for not backing down anymore,” Webb said. “You can take your safe space crowd — it doesn’t exist, this is college. This is supposed to be an expansion of our minds.”

Spoken from the safe space haven for bigoted, obnoxious, oblivious assholes. Right. Well, there we have it folks, the incredibly stunning, eloquent, and rational argument for all lives matter. Four white women agree!

Via Raw Story.

Bro Yoga.

Michael DeCorte, centres, adopts an upward dog pose alongside Salmaan Sayeed, left, and Howie Track at Toronto's Moksha Yoga studio. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Michael DeCorte, centres, adopts an upward dog pose alongside Salmaan Sayeed, left, and Howie Track at Toronto’s Moksha Yoga studio. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Bro-yoga. Broga. Jock yoga. Jo-yoga. Yep, gotta dress it up all stupid and toxic macho, that way it just does the best for da dudes. And, they won’t be distracted by women in lycra.

“Yoga is more than just women contorting themselves into vegan pretzels,” says Michael DeCorte, the Toronto “man-treprenuer” behind Jock Yoga, an athletic mashup that combines the mindfulness of sun salutations with the muscle burn of pumping iron.

Right, women doing yoga isn’t yoga at all, it’s just women being all frilly and silly. It doesn’t have any benefits at all, no. Well, not until the carnivorous, beer swilling men get into it. Then it’s good. (There’s beer after class.)

“Originally, it was just a gimmick,” says DeCorte. “When I first saw it on a poster, it was almost like an oxymoron … You see yoga and think, ‘spiritual,’ and jock you think, ‘laid-back, swearing, burping.”‘

You know, all my life, ‘jock’ has applied to athletes. I had no idea there was a complete shift to “laid back, swearing, and burping”. I have no idea of how much these people are charging for the special homosocial yoga, but I expect a regular yoga class might be cheaper, and just exercising around women won’t have any deleterious effects. You can go and read the full silliness here.

#TrumpDebateExcuses.

Via Raw Story.