Kosmo

I like that this new Torchwood has a story ark rather then unconnected plots and that plot is fairly good even constantly raising moral issues. This season is self contained until now, there is no need for previous knowledge and it has no connection with Dr. Who. The Americanization is more Caricaturization and is the greatest weakness for the show coupled with some unconvincing acting at times. Have fun with your TV. These new ones have mind blowing image quality, almost making me wish I had a TV.

Italian police have arrested 20 gladiator impersonators, in an undercover operation outside the Colosseum in Rome. The suspects are accused of intimidating and attacking their competitors, to win a share in a lucrative business. The men, who dress up in ancient Roman costume, are a familiar feature of the Rome tourist scene. They can charge up to 10 euros (

It is far harder to assimilate in European societies because they are built as nation states centered on historical myths about a common ancestry, myths that immigrant can't share. The American definition of nation is more political and ideological because the US is a nation of immigrants from different regions. Somebody like Obama would not be identified as a Romanian here despite holding citizenship and would have no hope of being elected unlike someone from the German minority that almost became prime-minister a few years ago. Gypsies live here for hundreds of years, they are christians, usually bilingual and often racially indistinguishable from the majority, but still far from assimilation mainly because assimilation would mean giving up their own linguistic and cultural identity. The same is true about the migrants that live in ethnic enclaves in Western Europe with little contact with the majority culture.

Long Live Multiculturalism! The same as in France the groups doing this will be rewarded with serious material advantages from a timid government desperate to buy peace rather then be willing to change a toxic immigration policy. Most media in politically correct selfcensorhip doesn't even mention race issues despite being obviously central to the events. I bet most looters could not afford living in London without subsidized housing and other entitlements. Given british laws I think a shop owner defending his shop with a baseball bat has more chances of going to jail then a looter who could use a socio-economic and cultural defense of his actions.

The Harris Hawks have almost no chance catching a pigeon, because pigeons are among the best flying birds while the Harris are more like a sort of ground attack bird, good for hunting squirrels and rabbits but I bet they would love to deal with badgers as well. Raptors can kill animals much bigger then themselves like these eagles prove: WARNING - QUITE BRUTAL IMAGES This video can give us an idea why Romans (and many others after them) have chosen the eagle as their symbol. The purpose of the hawks is to chase away the pigeons from the library not to catch them. Indeed only peregrine falcons and a few other long wings can hope to catch a flying pigeon. I have an interest in falconry but unfortunately in my country it is treated as a serious crime, the same thing about hunting with bows. The UK has one of the most permissive laws regarding falconry with captive bred birds so it has become an important exporter of selective bred raptors like the gorgeous gyrfalcons.The US requires that a falconer spends 2 years as an apprentice of an existing falconer and to catch your own wild raptor, a crime in most other countries. In the UK the most popular bird is the Harris hawk, originally from the american SW, the only social raptor while in the US the Redtail Hawk is the most common bird.

The most ironic was the speling certificate.

I didn't liked it so was not even worth my time.

Purefoy was in only the first 2 or 3 episodes of Camelot. I stopped watching that series about episode 5 or 6. I didn't liked Ironclad either.

But was that armor a realistic copy of an 15th century armor ? I have no doubt modern metallurgists can make a very nice armor out of paper thin lightweight steel but i wonder about the real thing.

A Dance with Dragons, the fifth book in the series, is really good, maybe the best so far. By focusing on fewer major characters it allows more focus and rhythm while keeping palpable the vast scale of the fictional world.

Macedonia was not only the name of a state in antiquity but of a region since. If the Slav portions of Macedonia would have been annexed for good by Bulgaria in 1878, 1913 or 1941 there would have been no Macedonian people because they would have probably been absorbed by the closely related Bulgarians but Greece played a major role in preventing that. Macedonians are building a national identity now and they have no choice of another name for themselves but the name of the region they live in and the name of the Yugoslav republic they are continuing. Greek claims over Macedonia are weak because the region was probably always multicultural with strong illyrian elements (besides there is no proof that Macedonians were Greek), then largely romanised and later became the cultural/political center of Balkan slavs. During ottoman rule it also had strong turkish, albanian, romanian (vlahs) and jewish populations. In a fairly similar situation Romania never tried to stop the former soviet republic of Moldova to became a independent state with this name despite the fact that Romania has a much stronger claim to the name Moldova then Greece does to Macedonia because Moldova was one of the principalities that fused to create Romania.

In the film Ironclad there is this scene when the viking sappers of King John (don't ask) have cornered the defenders of Magna Charta in a keep then dug a mine under it, drove 2 cartloads of live pigs in the tunnel, locked them in and set fire to hay and timber. As one character explained pig fat burns with the heat of crucible so a large part of the keep collapsed. Maybe pig fat burns hot but live pigs are, like man, mostly water so they don't really burn. The scene was stupid but amusing, the only entertaining part of a tedious movie. Why did they called it Ironclad when there is not a decent piece of armor present? A couple of ugly chainmail suits and a helmet that looked like a bucket in another stupid but slightly amusing scene was all the armor in a film that should have been named Ragclad. Can someone imagine a king coming in arrowshot of an enemy castle without armor? Torturing people in the castle courtyard in purple cloth while the defenders are still holding the keep 10 meters away? The main character was the actor that played Marcus Antonius in HBO Rome but his presence here only draws unflattering comparisons with that series.

Amazing. This could stir a lot of debates regarding both Danish colonization in England and the relations with the homeland.

"Medieval suits of armour were so exhausting to wear that they could have affected the outcomes of famous battles, a study suggests. Scientists monitored volunteers fitted with 15th Century replica armour as they walked and ran on treadmills. They found that the subjects used high levels of energy, bore immense weight on their legs and suffered from restricted breathing. The research is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect of the heavy armour was so great, that the researchers believe it may have have had an impact on the Battle of Agincourt." http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14204717 Would have they spent so much money and trouble on armor if it had no effect? I realize that this is not the point but the wording of the title of this article is weird and they kept being weird.

Maybe you should decide what kind of guy you want (good bloke is kinda vague) and what you want him for. If not, perhaps, Mother Nature will turn that switch that exists in both caveman and womenfolk, depriving you of reason and making the choice for you. It is a fun ride but it may take you places you didn't want to go.

Changing the past is impossible even in theory because of the causality paradox. If you go 100 years back and kill your grand grandpa you would have never existed so nobody would have killed him etc. My favorite sci-fi on the topic is G

If only there were more like him in leadership that could get the deals moving forward...I hope that they do prevail, just for the economic sake of the country. Politics is always about give and take, not about being recalcitrant. Great link, Ursus. Elections are a competitive sport so much harmony among politicians is impossible.

This is a religious headgear that has some domestic uses and offers some protection to the head, great value for the money in pastafarianism.

Space exploration and colonization played an important part in communist propaganda because it fitted their ideology very well; it was a vast industrial project that involved scientific and technological solutions and it had a peaceful facade but some interesting military applications, so it made good propaganda for their futuristic utopia. Soviets believed they were winning the Space Race and unlike other areas of competition they were not hostile to the US space program that often got favorable media coverage. Romania was somewhat involved with the soviet efforts and a Romanian astronaut traveled to Soyuz space station and then became a major propaganda figure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prunariu I can't tell how interested were people at the time in space exploration but it was a major media topic so growing up (without Star Trek) I believed space exploration and colonization will be an important thing in our lives. Now Romania is becoming part of ESA this year but there is no enthusiasm about it and this is a wise attitude given the existing budget problems.

The first time I heard a fox howling I was camping in the Danube Delta, the second time I was sleeping in Central London. Honestly in London I was more annoyed by the sound geese made when they woke up at sunrise; foxes seemed exotic in the middle of that huge city. In Bucharest we have 200.000 stray dogs barking in the night so some cute foxes would be a nice change. Foxes are the biggest predator left in Britain? I noticed locals seemed to hate foxes, squirrels and pigeons. Going very near a large herd of deer in a park in London was a very nice experience.

I fully agree. The industrial age promised endless progress but we know better now. Excepting IT&C there was no significant technological breakthrough since the postwar era. Space is a deadly desert that is very expensive to reach without any realistic purpose so I am totally in agreement with Al Murray on this - the part after 4:10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUdaPNXC_68&feature=related

Usually it was Brindisi (Brundisium) a port that was connected with Rome by the Via Appia and that had replaced Tarentum as the main transport hub between Italy and Greece after the Second Punic War.

Some months ago Youtube broadcasted live the Coachella Festival from Southern California. It was in good quality and had a very nice line-up of bands that usually don't come in my part of the world. The best part was that there were 3 separate channels for the different festival stages so I could choose what to watch, for example picking PJ Harvey over Kanye West (who honestly did not belong in that largely rock line-up).

Doing stuff is overrated.

I never got why people can feel guilty about something they never did personally. Is something Western European because in the East is not seen. I liked eastern born Angela Merkel when she publicly proclaimed multiculturalism dead. I don't have prejudice about the skin color of people but sometimes I do have stereotypes (good or bad) based on my experiences about the culture people belong to. For example after witnessing many times the misogyny of Middle East muslim man I now have a rather low opinion on the lot of them. Our European heritage is something I am proud off and I like the color of my skin.