orbis quintus

“You fill me with inertia.”

Aha… genetic research showing that the Scythians were a genetic blend of Asian and European. Nifty.

Once again, the find is out of South Africa. To quote the article, “But whether this flickering pattern in the archaeological record is real or merely an artifact of the small number of sites excavated has been unclear.” My vote is on the latter, based on just stubborn belief…. unscientific, yes, but it also doesn’t seem rational humans raced across the planet then refined these hunting technologies very quickly. They brought these more refined technologies with them, possibly why they spread so far and rapidly.

Human ancestors were using stone points on spears 200,000 years prior to what was previously known.

Yep, yep, yep… sapient animals are great with tools. Hominids figured out that stone tips on wood shafts were more effective early on… yep.

So when did modern humans really become modern humans, eh?

Woodring, you unhinged genius… Problematic.

There is no doubt in my mind that Ohio was stolen with improperly tallied ballots in 2004. It wouldn’t have been a complete surprise to see Ohio mysteriously swap over to Romney during the night in 2012.

Now Anonymous claims to thwarted Rove’s efforts to steal Ohio for Romney by sabotaging ORCA (which was trumpeted as a secret weapon but turned out to be a dud.)

The truth? Eh… Anonymous’ claim appeals to my sense of the absurd and the underdog triumphing over the bully. If it pisses off the extreme rightwing too, good. Keep them so frothing mad in their delusions that they keep attacking shadows.

But this just turned up on New Directions’ Tumblr.

Point to Rove. Consider my head fucked with.

From last night’s Strike Debt telethon. Guy Picciotto and Jeff Mangum covering the Tall Dwarves.

Thanks for the video,Kevin Jones. Even sadder that Bill and I will almost certainly miss Jeff Mangum play at One-Eyed Jack’s this January as we cannot wrangle it into our schedules.

Nope. Not given to the Rolling Jubilee yet (but plan to.) I gave to  the Occupy Sandy  on the Amazon registry though.

Or does he have one more film in the queue before Greenaway plans to off himself at age 80? He’ll have six free years.

Suggested formula? Less sex, more death.¹

1. P.S. The sex as a metaphor for death angle usually bores the hell out of me. [↩]

New Directions blog has a post on a panel discussion with Bolaño’s English translators. Bolaño’s natural cadence in his writing that makes me coming back to him and it’s amazing that both of his translators manage to deliver something I believe is his actual voice, forgetting sometimes that I’m reading translations.

Via Conversational Reading.

Hell, I don’t think I was even aware New Directions has a blog now and it’s been going for over a year. Oops.

Only stumbling across this now, even though it’s been online since May 2011. The mashup with a half-assed sprinkling of Miles Davis elevates a great song into something I won’t be able to unhear.