I can stop any time I want.

They did, and that’s why Newt’s moonbase idea is batshit crazy:

Fun new blogs.  Fun and new for me, at least:

• DR. BOLI’S CELEBRATED MAGAZINE I like the cut of this man’s jib.  For instance, he includes in his justly celebrated magazine actual facts.  Which are not the same as, but very similar to, these actual facts.  He also has advertisements, one of which is eerily apposite of a post from earlier today:  
• By way of Foseti, Patriactionary.  I was sold when I saw that they had a whole page called “Finnolatry.”  When I discovered that that page contains many, many videos of a Finnish metal band singing about alcohol, I immediately added them to the feed.

If the black market were a single national economy, it would be larger than every nation save only the US.

Jetpacks, dammit.  But the coolest thing in that article is this:

Jetpacks, sure.  But look at the egress – it’s a bouncy slide.  It looks something like a DC-X, and it seems that whoever came up with the idea thought that it would operate in the same way.  An SSTO capability implies a point-to-point transport to anywhere on earth.

Alrenous has an interesting post on the Genovesi, a proposed new category of human to exist alongside long-familiar Spartan and Athenian types.  I like it, but I have two questions:

• Wars between Athenians and Spartans seem to be the particularly nasty ones.  Spartan-Spartan wars have a certain restraint – like the wars of the 18thC.  Would you imagine that the American Civil War and WWII were Spartan-Athenian wars?  And why the Athenian West managed not to have a war with faux-Athenian USSR?
• What city would be most emblematic, and therefore deserving of being the namesake of the lumpenproletariat?  Off the top of my head, I would nominate Detroit or Youngstown, but what other cities would be appropriate?

For those who thought there was no way that bagpipes could possibly be more irritating: you are wrong.  For those who think the opposite, you also are wrong:

Make sure you watch to the end for the big finish.

I’ve acquired a fair number of heretical and contrarian beliefs. I think I’ll let this one slide, for now. Still, it’s an interesting theory. An Italian Nuclear Engineer has assembled evidence that the Trojan War happened not in the Mediterranean, but in the Baltic.

Compelling evidence that the events of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey took place in the Baltic and not the Mediterranean

• Reveals how a climate change forced the migration of a people and their myth to ancient Greece

• Identifies the true geographic sites of Troy and Ithaca in the Baltic Sea and Calypso’s Isle in the North Atlantic Ocean

For years scholars have debated the incongruities in Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, given that his descriptions are at odds with the geography of the areas he purportedly describes. Inspired by Plutarch’s remark that Calypso’s Isle was only five days sailing from Britain, Felice Vinci convincingly argues that Homer’s epic tales originated not in the Mediterranean, but in the northern Baltic Sea.

Using meticulous geographical analysis, Vinci shows that many Homeric places, such as Troy and Ithaca, can still be identified in the geographic landscape of the Baltic. He explains how the dense, foggy weather described by Ulysses befits northern not Mediterranean climes, and how battles lasting through the night would easily have been possible in the long days of the Baltic summer. Vinci’s meteorological analysis reveals how a decline of the “climatic optimum” caused the blond seafarers to migrate south to warmer climates, where they rebuilt their original world in the Mediterranean. Through many generations the memory of the heroic age and the feats performed by their ancestors in their lost homeland was preserved and handed down to the following ages, only later to be codified by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Felice Vinci offers a key to open many doors that allow us to consider the age-old question of the Indo-European diaspora and the origin of the Greek civilization from a new perspective.

This other article has some more thoughts:

There is a well-known statement that “Homer is not a geographer”. This is due to one simple problem: when Homer describes a location, this often does not conform to reality. For example, Strabo wondered why in the Odyssey the island of Pharos, situated just outside of the Egyptian city of Alexandria, was said to lie a day’s sail from Egypt. In reality, it wouldn’t take five minutes. Places like Rhodes were never described as an island by Homer, though you would think he would describe it as such. The location of Homer’s Ithaca does not conform to reality either. Dulichium, the long island, has never been identified, for where it is supposed to be, there is nothing. Professor John Chadwick thus concluded: “there is a complete lack of contact between Mycenaean geography as now known from the tablets and from archaeology on the one hand, and Homer’s accounts on the other.”

Most observers have hence claimed that Homer never visited the locations, made the landscape up, etc. But some recognise that if Troy was not Hissarlik , Homer’s Pharos may not have been near Alexandria… and that would mean that the entire Iliad and Odyssey may not have occurred in those locations in and around the Mediterranean Sea that have become associated with them at all. So if not there, the question remains: where?

One important clue comes from Plutarch, who wrote that the island of Ogygia, mentioned in the Odyssey, was situated “five days sail from Britain, towards the west.” Indeed, such a location would make sense of Homer’s description of the site: a large number of seabirds is said to fly around Calypso’s Cave on Ogygia and the North Sea and its islands are far better known for their large number of seabirds than the rather tranquil coasts of the Mediterranean Sea. Elsewhere, Homer refers to the wild or singing swan, which is found in Siberia and Scandinavia, whereas Mediterranean countries only know the silent swan. Furthermore, the movement of the tides is often evoked by the bard, in both literal and figurative senses; but the tides are notoriously undramatic in the Mediterranean Sea, but all the more impressive along the shores of the North Sea.

This would place Homer’s epic in northern Europe, which may seem startling at first, but not to such well-respected authorities as Stuart Piggott: “The nobility of the [Homeric] hexameters should not deceive us into thinking that the Iliad and the Odyssey are other than the poems of a largely barbarian Bronze Age or Early Iron Age Europe.”

So Europe, but where in Europe? For Felice Vinci in “The Baltic Origins of Homer’s Epic Tales”, the answer is the Baltic States, along the coastlines of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Poland, etc. As to the location of Ogygia, for Vinci it should be identified with the Faroe Islands, specifically the island Kalsoy.

Kalsoy

Vinci is not the first to argue for a Scandinavian setting. It was also offered by the Swedish historian Martin P. Nilsson. Others, such as Bertrand Russell, stated that the Mycenaean civilisation originated with fair-haired northern invaders of Greece. One obvious question is why a Northern European story would become the backbone of the Mycenaean – Greek – civilisation in Southern Europe. For Vinci, the answer is simple: when the climate began to change and grow colder, these people were forced to migrate south. One tribe, the Achaeans, reached the Peloponnese and founded the Mycenaean civilisation. The migrants had brought their legends with them, but the geography of the north did not transpose on the south, hence the discrepancy.

So where precisely does Vinci locate these battles? The Iliad is placed along the Gulf of Finland and the Odyssey in and around Denmark. Troy itself is Toija in Finland; Thebes is Täby in Sweden; the Peloponnese was Zeeland, in Denmark. Vinci’s argumentation is linguistic, showing similarities in place-names, but hence suffers from a potentially fatal flaw, as most of these names cannot be traced back to before ca. 800 AD. This means that a gap of two to three millennia exists; as mentioned by Vinci himself, these people left their homeland in 1000 BC, so how can we be certain where was what, as there was no continuous tradition present?

Still, it is clear that there is some connection between north and south Europe, for there was trade between these Baltic states and Mycenea, as revealed by the large quantity of Baltic amber that was found in the most ancient Mycenaean tombs in Greece.

That Ogygia is clearly not situated in the Mediterranean Sea, seems clear. Its vegetation does not conform to the Mediterranean climate. And in Homer’s epics, there are frequent references to fog, even snow, and of how the sun does not seem to set but instead lingers just beyond the horizon, a phenomenon that is typical for summer in the northern regions. In the Odyssey, we read: “Here we can perceive neither where darkness is nor where dawn is/ nor where the Sun shining on men goes down underground / nor where it rises.”

Furthermore, the sea is never described as being bright, but grey and misty. The characters wear tunics and “thick, heavy cloaks” which they never remove, not even during banquets. The sun or its warmth are seldom mentioned in the book, yet are what would immediately come to mind in a Mediterranean setting. Indeed, there is nothing in this geographical description that hints at a Mediterranean setting; even if Homer was not a geographer, he should at least have known what a typical Mediterranean landscape looked like – as he is believed to have lived there. Instead, it seems he lived elsewhere…

Though Vinci may be right, Piggott is most definitely right: the Achaean warriors used chariots to move across the battlefield, a method of fighting that was unknown in Greece. But similar chariot fighting was described by Julius Caesar when he invaded Britain; what he witnessed, seemed taken word by word from Homer’s accounts. Furthermore, the “great walls” of Troy (never said to be made out of stone) could be identical with the palisades around various megalithic tumuli and Celtic settings. The sweet wine the warriors drink may seem typically Mediterranean at first, but we now know that wine was grown in northern Europe, but that honey was added… making the wine indeed sweet; such an addition was not required for Mediterranean wines, and once again, it seems Homer’s heroes were thus fighting elsewhere. Finally, in Homer’s account, everyone drinks from bronze chalices, which is typical of Celtic customs – and largely absent from Mediterranean cultures.

There’s more at the link.  It seems somewhat plausible – we know that the ancestors of the Greeks came into Greece from the north – they could have brought their tales with them.  At the end of the bronze age, there was a lot of migrations, cities destroyed across Egypt, Anatolia, Mesopotamia, some of that certainly included the proto-Greeks who took over from the Mycenaeans.  I don’t know what evidence there is of bronze age ships in the Baltic – but this sort of literary detective work is what ended up in the discovery of L’ans aux Meadows in Newfoundland, all from clues in the Eddas.  Might have to read some more on this one.

Johno peeks his head from his burrow and sends us this:

Found this on Foseti.  It’s like reading Joyce’s Ulysses, but without the comforting assurance of generations of fey English majors that what you are reading is indeed a classic of western literature, no matter how little sense it’s making to you as you read.

Start here, if anywhere.  And here’s a sort of concordance/glossary that may help you understand what you are reading.  Or may not.  I don’t know if I do, but it’s fun trying to imagine that I do.  There does seem to be something behind the mangled spelling and odd terminology.  Whether that something is good, I don’t know.  I hope he’s not typing this in software that has spell-checking, because otherwise the red squigglies would blind him.

From “i luvs you allls  o ye of little faith”

to all the spinsters with cats
who teh fed tricked into spinsterhood/serving debt lxolllozlzl
to all the fanboys in ther single mom’s basements
whose dads they never knew because the fed tookawy fatehrhood lzozlzl
to all the broken familes
who were split up by the need to make two salaries to feed the kids
to all aging necon womenz celeberating secretive tapings of butthex without teh girlths conthent lzozllzlzozlzl they tircked you too
to all the spinster chix again i am sorry they sdesouled you
in asscokcing sessins drugged you up on prozac
told you to abort your kids no wonder your’re d[pressed and all fucjked up no lozlzlzlzling here
my heart goes out to you while tucker max & goldman sax laugh zlzolzlzl
too all the aborted fetushes we ask for forgiveness we deserve not and to all those tricked into aborting the gift of life lzozllzllzl we forgive u too and pray for teh fethuses, but not in school as prayer is illegal in school lozlzllzlz

[wik] One of GBFM’s favorite word is butthex.  But it’s not pronounced butt-hex.  You are asked to imagine that Barney Frank is saying it – something more like but-thex.

[alsø wik] Not really germane, but considering what I just linked, who the fuck cares?  GBFM uses a the pure quill variant of the Hemingway Black WordPress theme that once powered perfidy before we cleaned house and moved to this new, Buckethead-designed theme.

[alsø alsø wik] I don’t think we’ve ever had a more appropriate use of the ‘deranged scribblings’ category here on perfidy.

[Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yër?] I just noticed that there is a post at GBFM entitled, ‘how the federal reserve system created the PUA community lzozlzlzloozlzllzll!! they DO NO wan t the men to read mises or hayek or jefferson or the us constitution lzozlzlzlz they want to keep the men in the fiat masters’ cave — the fiat butthex matrix — “gaming” and fighting over the table scraps of all the desoulaed, haggaard, std-ridden, vicious, gold-digging, cold, defeminized, prozac-addled womenz the fiat masters buttthexed and deosuled in college during teh primae nocate ceremeonies, instead of manning up and fighting for their dvine irght to something far greater — an honorable, virtuous wife. lzozllzllzllzozzlz’ – I believe I’ll save that one for lunch tomorrow.

Just watched The Men Who Stare at Goats. And it occurred to me that George Clooney is a fantastic actor. Other actors, concerned with their craft, try to disappear into the the role. Method acting. This is admirable. But not for George Fucking Clooney. He absorbs the role, and makes it him. He is the anti-method actor. Think about it – O Brother Where Art Thou?, ER, any other role. They are all distinct, yet they are clearly George Fucking Clooney.

Amazing. Good movie, btw. Two thumbs up.

From Reuters:

Nurses’ union: Care does not include sex

(Reuters) – A union representing Dutch nurses will launch a national campaign Friday against demands for sexual services by patients who claim it should be part of their standard care.

The union, NU’91, is calling the campaign “I Draw The Line Here,” with an advert that features a young woman covering her face with crossed hands.

The union said in a statement Thursday that the campaign follows a complaint it had received in the last week from a 24-year-old woman who said a 42-year-old disabled man asked her to provide sexual services as part of his care at home.

The young woman witnessed some of the man’s other nurses offering him sexual gratification, the union said. When she refused to do the same, he tried to dismiss her on the grounds that she was unfit to provide care.

“This type of action is not part of the job responsibilities of carers and nurses,” NU’91 said.

The case has been reported to police, the union added.

I just had a dream that Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, came up to my house to tell me he wanted to cowrite an sf novel about a car built with nanotechnology.

He was driving a green Ford F350. The interior was spotless.

He was tired of all the banal means that had been used to imagine inanimate objects waking up to sentience. He said he wanted a book that was “Killdozer meets Old Yeller.”

I think I’m feverish.

I can’t believe it’s May. Which shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, as I can hardly believe it’s Wednesday. My confusion is heightened, this week, by two shocking discoveries.

First, while watching The Big Lebowski at 2:00 in the morning I noticed something that I never saw the first dozen times I watched the film. The Dude’s bowling shirt, on the back, says “Medina Sod.” Which is odd, since there is a Medina Sod in Medina, Ohio, where I grew up. Apparently, there is also a rock band in Boston named Medina Sod, and of course you can get the obligatory Medina Sod replica bowling shirt to become, body and soul, just like the Dude.

The Akron Beacon Journal, once a fine paper that had the foresight back in the early nineties to register the “ohio.com” domain, has apparently decided that no, anywhere, will ever need to see an article that’s more than six months old. So, I can’t read the article written back in ’08 that talks about the local connection to the Big Lebowski. I did glean, from Google’s search page, that Medina Sod Farms did OK the use of their name in the film.

Weird to watch a film you’ve seen umpty-billion times, and belatedly realize that the shirts worn by a big chunk of the cast through much of the film have your home town’s name on the back. Way to be alert. Even drunk, I should’ve noticed this sooner.

Second, as the father of young children, I have perforce been watching a lot of children’s television. Granted, I don’t pay a lot of attention, all the time. But I have come to enjoy Spongebob. I particularly like Plankton, who is touchingly, gleefully, and incompetently evil. But I discovered, when I glanced at the credits, that Mr. Krabs is the Kurgan. Yes, Clancy Brown – the evil immortal swordsman from the best movie of all time, The Highlander – is the voice talent for Mr. Krabs. My mouth just dropped. Now, I keep expecting Mr. Krabs to start screaming, “It’s better to burn out, than to fade away… Another time, Highlander!”

It is a strange and beautiful world we live in.