"He's the big Mac Daddy of ancient Greece, always gittin' down at the sacrificial feast"
etc etc
Category Archives: Historical
Where they got the word “pixillated”
Honestly, digital distortion just makes this even better. Sometimes dropping acid is just redundant…like when you’re watching the Banana Splits perform “You’re the Lovin’ End.” With stuff like this forming the backdrop and soundtrack to my childhood, is it any wonder I turned out this way?
Hottest Pickup Lines of the Fourteenth Century
Apparently there's some kind of Medieval Scholar Knees-Up/Conference going on this week, and in the spirit of contributing to the occasion (although he is long dead), Geoffrey Chaucer has posted in his blog some of the best pickup lines of the late Middle Ages. Use with care; we assume no liability, etc.
Warning: as one commenter says, some of these were old even in G-Ch's time.
GALFRIDUS CHAUCERES LYNES OF PICKE-VPPE:
-Yf thou were a latyn tretise ich wolde putte thee in the vernacular.
-Nyce bootes. Wanna swyve?
-Shulle we maken the cindreblokke to synge?
-Woldstow haue me shyfte thyne voweles?
-Were thou yn my seisin, ich wolde nevir escheat on thee.
-The preeste telleth me that we aren more than VII degrees of consanguinitee. Game on!
-Ich notyce that myn demense and thyn do abutte. Wolde yt plese thee to consolidate ovre powere-base in the midlands?
-Makstow a pilgrymage heere often?
–By my soule, thou art a verye mappe of helle. For
thy face lyk the rivere Styx wil make me swere oothes neuer to be fforsworn, and thy embrace lyk the Lethe shal make me foryet al else, and lyk vnto the Flegeton thyn arse ys ON FYRE!
-Howe abovte a blancmange and the acte of Venus? Whatte, blancmange pleseth thee nat?
-If ich sayde that thou hadde a bele chose, woldstow holde it ayeinst me?
Vatican to Creationists: Suck it!
Via BoingBoing.
The Vatican never actually abandoned the practice of keeping pet scientists, a fact which I welcome with equal parts relief and shock, for they have been very quiet lo these last four centuries. I didn't think they'd ever recovered from the Galileo PR disaster.
But there are scientists at the Vatican, and one, Brother Consolmagno, is in fact an astronomer, and not only is he over that Galileo thing, he's also over that Copernicus thing, and he's right out there giving interviews to The Scotsman in which he says…
"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism – it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."
He also had a few pithy points to make about Papal PR as well.
Brother Consolmagno, who was due to give a
speech at the Glasgow Science Centre last night, entitled "Why the Pope has an Astronomer", said the idea of papal infallibility had been a "PR disaster". What it actually meant was that, on matters of faith, followers should accept "somebody has got to be the boss, the final authority".
"It's not like he has a magic power, that God whispers the truth in his ear," he said.
Bush: Achievement and Entitlement
There have been many memorable moments in George Bush's career – invading Iraq, declaring the war "accomplished", Hurricane Katrina. But the US president recalled that his greatest moment in office had come not on the field of battle but while out fishing.
Asked by Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper what he considered to be his greatest triumph, President Bush replied: "I've experienced many great moments. It's hard for me to name the greatest." He went on: "I would say that the best moment of all came when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound perch while fishing on my lake."
From The Guardian. And you know, I don't doubt for a second that it was the high point of his life so far. Failed oilman, failed businessman, cokehead and alcoholic, a man who nearly lost the battle for his life to a pretzel, George W. Bush is indeed the worst, most embarassing leader that the United States has ever had to endure.
On May 1, International Worker's Day, May Day, Sploid published a tender retrospective of the man the world has come to know as "that dumbass."
It remains one of the proudest moments in American history, and it was only three years ago today. On May 1, 2003, the president piloted a military jet onto an aircraft carrier and told a cheering crowd that we had won the war in Iraq.
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed," President George W. Bush said to wild applause.
But in this crazy world we live in where "victory" so often means "pathetic failure," winning the war in Iraq somehow ended up meaning losing the war in Iraq.
On May 1 of 2003, America had lost 139 troops to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Today that number stands at 2,400. In the three years since we won the war, 17,000 more soldiers have been wounded — many of them mangled beyond recognition and doomed to live their remaining days without arms or legs.
The victory pushed "insurgent attacks" up from eight per day back in 2003 to 75 per day in 2006.
Three years after the war was won, the American price tag has risen from about $80 billion to more than $320 billion, and the commander in chief has dropped from a 70% approval rate to disapproval ratings unseen since the last criminal days of Richard Nixon's presidency.
Almost all Americans now believe the president intentionally lied about every aspect of the Iraq invasion and occupation. And a dismal 9% believes the mission was accomplished, according to a new CNN poll.
But there's some good news for the president on this third anniversary of the victory in Iraq: Despite everything that's happened and everything that's known, he remains a free man and still occupies the White House. Amazingly, Bush and his team have yet to be removed from office, prosecuted, convicted of treason, imprisoned or executed.
And that's a victory, too.
raincoaster 