Perfectly Preserved: 400 Year Old Sac of Fluke Eggs.

Jing Lee, a 17th-century Korean mummy. D. H. Shin, Y.-S. Kim, D. S. Yoo.

Jing Lee was born in 1580, during Korea’s long-lasting Joseon dynasty, and died in 1642, at the age of 63. At some point in his long life, he ate a raw, freshwater crustacean, in one form or another. Most likely, he was indulging in a fresh, seasonal treat—raw crabs with soy sauces—or was trying to rid himself of disease, with a dose of crayfish juice, thought to help treat the measles. (Joseon food culture was not to be trifled with.) However, as it happened, his crustacean meal left a lasting legacy in his body: a sac of liver fluke eggs growing happily in his liver, as Haaretz reports.

Four hundred years later, as part of a parasitology study of pre-modern Korean societies, a team of scientists found that egg sac mummified on Jing Lee’s liver. They report their findings in a new study in the Journal of Parasitology.

You can read all about this fascinating find at Atlas Obscura.

‘Twill Be Birds.

Yesterday was Pain Clinic, and I took a moment to moan to my pain management person, who is always a delight to see, about feeling ambivalent over the flip side of the cutting board. I could do more horses, that’s what Rick likes best, but I haven’t been able to settle. So, yesterday, in my moaning, I said “what do you think about birds?” She liked the idea of birds, and so did I. Then it occurred that gives me the chance to go Medieval. I have a great and abiding love for Medieval Bestiaries, and there are some great ones, oh, they are all fabulous. This allows me to take liberties with colour, too. I’ve chosen about 18, whether or not they’ll all make it, I don’t know, but for sure, at least one version of a Simurgh will go up. Now I’m properly excited again.

White Supremacy: Just Background Noise.

Tucker Viemeister.

It’s a forlorn hope, that republicans might stumble over a conscience, discover their humanity and embrace that of others. It really does not seem to matter what the Tiny Tyrant does, there are those who will squink all over, in an attempt to cover over the massive piles of shit left in the wake of the Tiny Tyrant. As we have all been witness to, Trump gets worse, week by week, day by day.

As CNN noted on Friday, in the last four weeks alone, President Trump has fired chief strategist Steve Bannon, fired Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, hired and fired communications director Anthony Scaramucci, publicly shamed his own attorney general and Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, banned transgender troops via twitter, made up two phone calls, thanked Russian President Vladimir Putin for expelling American diplomats from the country, threatened nuclear war with North Korea, and defended attendees of a white supremacy rally.

And that’s not even half of it.

But Steve Cortes, a member of Trump’s Hispanic Advisory Council, said on Fox News Sunday morning that if Republicans just cut taxes, all of that will be background noise.

“Clearly, he had a tough week. There’s no way around that,” Cortes said.

“All presidents have tough weeks,” Cortes said Sunday. “I believe that will become background noise once we get taxes done, and once this economy starts growing the way it’s capable of.”

Yes, a tough week, brought on by the defense of fucking nazis being “fine people”. You opened your mouth, and Trump obligingly shit in it, and you decided to swallow it. Nice.

[…]

“The economy’s already accelerating. There’s a lot of optimism out there in the country,” Cortes said. “If we can throw tax cuts into the mix, I think this economy can absolutely take off, and then I think we’d see those poll numbers rebound very, very quickly for the president.”

There’s a lot of optimism out and about? Where? Oh, yes, in the crowds of nazis, sure. Everywhere else, not so much. Perhaps you should get outside once in a while. People are not optimistic about an idiotic, ignorant, maniacal bigot being in control of things, for a given value of control. People are not optimistic about not being nuked. People are not optimistic about not getting into yet another fucking war. People are not optimistic about bigotry being elevated to “great america” status. People are not optimistic about the blatant slaughter of all things which could help us avoid the worst disasters of climate change. People are not optimistic about the economy. The list goes on and on.

Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) made similar comments last week, telling Bloomberg that Trump’s comments about white supremacists were “frustrating” because he wanted to start focusing on tax reform.

“[It’s] very frustrating for those of us who want to start focusing on the issues ahead—tax reform, infrastructure, the debt ceiling,” Ross said. “I wished we would start focusing on those issues, and we need to start healing and bringing people together—instead of peeling back the scabs.”

Right. Your idea of tax reform is handing tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires, and you’ve made sure there are zero safety nets for everyone else. That will cheer everyone up for sure. You don’t start healing and bringing people together by announcing that nazis are “fine people” and everything was really the fault of those filthy liberals. The reason those scabs peel back so easily is that there is a massive wound underneath, still oozing blood, covered over, but certainly not healed. Healing does not take place by ignoring a wound. Now the Tiny Tyrant and his henchidiots, like you, Rep. Ross, have dumped toxic wasted in the wound, and you want to talk healing. Isolation, genocide, and subjugation are not things which heal. They do not unite. And those things are what you stand for, handwaving reality, because those people, they don’t actually matter to you.

Think Progress has the full story.