Kosmo

My favorite article about food, diets and health by Michael Pollan http://www.nytimes.c...itionism.t.html with the conclusion - Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

In a rebranding effort the good doers have replaced the name Somalia with the expression the Horn of Africa because people are tired of the problems that this libertarian dreamland has and brings to others since 1991 like pirates, the shabab etc. More then drought the problems are social/political and they are now exporting them together with the refugees like Rwanda did for Eastern Congo 15 years ago.

Alien invasion films are very popular now. After two movies recently targeted Los Angeles (I thought all disasters must happen to New York !?!) now there is a TV series - Falling Skies. Not surprisingly giving how things in entertainment changed in the last years, the TV series is better then the feature films and lists more famous people (Spielberg) But better then those awful movies does not mean great, the series is too patriotic and religious for me. Still, people who like the idea of a citizen army may enjoy it.

It actually says is a fake at the top of the linked page but I still believe is true. Beliefs are not rational and some people believe weirder things, so my right to believe idiotic things is written in the Constitution and the UN '48 Declaration. I say next time they must gather more midgets, that lion has to have a maximum midget killing point and then when he is tired a brave height disabled person (maybe that persistent Lannister imp) could choke it from the inside and then he will get to wear the fur of the defeated lion like Hercules and then be anointed the mightiest Khmer Rogue since Pol Pot.

Permit Kuwaiti women to buy good-looking men KUWAIT CITY, June 25: A few weeks after creating waves with the suggestion that Kuwaiti men be allowed to keep concubines to satisfy their urges, former national assembly candidate and activist Salwa Al-Mutairi has called for issuing a law that would allow Kuwaiti women to buy good looking men from Muslim countries. The men, however, should have

I think that it is some sort of simplistic explanation for the need of US interventions in the World Wars and is a view that looked mostly at late 19 and 20 century franco-german conflicts for it's conclusion. This stereotype is fairly surprising as France always was and still is one of the most military aggressive states in the world with the actions in Libya and Ivory Coast as reminders from 2011. I think that the gallic rooster always looking for a fight was a more fitting cliche.

True. The nation itself is a concept built around fake history and language so it's no wonder the idea gets stretched to this extent.

Peasants here traditionally kill their pigs on 22 december, because of some saint day or the winter solstice . After the pork is killed, usually by having his throat cut but the EU is changing that, it is covered with hey that is set alight. These is done to burn the hair and cook somewhat the pig skin that becomes an appreciated dish called ?orici (foreigners don't seem to like this salty specialty, dunno why) There are many stories about pigs that were not really dead and who were woke up by the burning hey and who chased people around and set fire to haystacks or barns. It is possible that these stories are amplified by the large quantities of alcohol that accompany this occasion but I can imagine a drunk roman peasant watching the scene of chaos that a resurrected burning pig created and deciding that it could be a useful weapon against those weird Lucan oxen that are afraid of mice. I've heard that Americans like to cover pigs in oil and then try to catch them but it may be just an exaggerated tale about those exotic, distant lands. The origins of this noble sport may come from roman soldiers who tried to recover a pig that was already covered with pitch for the purpose of being used against elephants.

Maybe you can avoid using AD or CE at all. After all nobody says that WW2 started in AD 1939. The use of AD or other specification makes sense if the reader may be confused if a certain date is BC or AD but if from the context or previous explanations is clear that the date is after year 1 then I see no problem if one writes 'Trajan died in 117'

Did they kept using the consuls name for the year during the empire? Did they used only the names of the 2 'elected' consuls? With all the suffex consuls a year had too many consuls to be practical. I thought that during the empire they also used a chronology focused on the titles given to the emperor like this fictional examples - In the year when the divine Trajan held tribunician power for the third time... or - the year when the divine Trajan received his second triumph.

I used to love Kraftwerk at the time when I was listening also to Jarre and Vangelis.

If you start exercising when you feel hungry can you train your body to be afraid to send hunger signals? So the body chooses not to express hunger rather then face exercising

I personally dislike CE because it's clearly AD with only a name change. I think that for a roman historical novel the latin Anno Domini sounds better then the newspeak Common Era especially if the novel is set in the christian Late Empire like the example you gave. If not maybe using AUC with clarifying footnotes?

Then and now there was only way to have nice abs but I'll rather have a six pack of beer.

The most important thing for a good historical movie is money because you can't have sets, costumes, celebrations, good quality CGI or epic battles without spending lots of money (compare Centurion or The Eagle with Gladiator) and HBO spends lots of money and surely knows how to create eye candy. I never watched old I, Claudius because it looks like a vaguely Shakespearean drama but I'm confident HBO can give it a proper roman feel.

Look for an English version of the account of friar Gaspar de Carvajal who traveled with Orellana down the Amazon. Like Doc said search for accounts of monks because usually conquistadors were illiterate or otherwise busy but they always had clergy with them. The expedition of Cabeza de Vaca (Cowhead was blamed for spreading disease across US South and that led to the collapse of native populations in the area, especially of sedentary people.

Amazing.

Caltrops?

I am interested by histories of economy, technology and ideas with a focus on the West and an anti-revisionist view. I'm also interested in European colonialism, the periods before the French revolution and WW1 and the first phases of WW2. More exotic interests are about the Genghisid mongols and the ottoman turks.

Happy Birthday!

I think there is not much about them because the median state was short lived, there is little information about the Medes and they are generally put together with the other Iranian tribes under the name of Persians. Sometimes the other thing happens and Medes was used as an overall name for all Iranians.

Just one cut and so many people, amazing.

Please, Greeks are pathetic even after Balkan standards.

In Romanian is called "deochi" and it's an headache (or other illness) provoked by excessive appreciation of somebody (usually child or animal) like an involuntary spell. The defense is that the one who praises somebody spits (actually make a sound that represent spitting) and says a formula. Other defense is wearing red.