What goes through my my mind when I read the news with my morning coffee. …Or for the Simon's Rockers in the group, this is my response journal.
Archaeologists carefully excavating wheel made of oak planks almost 3,000 years ago at site being called a Fenland Pompeii
Perfectly preserved bronze age wheel unearthed in Cambridgeshire | Science | The Guardian
Apart from the random and half-baked speculation about a cooking fire, this is really cool.
Cadbury is going upmarkets with its new chocolate bars. The chocolate-maker has added two new medley bars to its Dairy Milk range, with ingredients including dark chocolate, fudge pieces and berries. The Medley range comes comes in a different shape to normal Dairy Milk, divided into larger pieces, with the ingredients sprinkled on top of the bar.
Cadbury introduces two new Dairy Milk Medley chocolate bars | Business News | News | The Independent
Damn you, Hershey! Damn you and your inferior oily chocolate! Damn you and your ridiculous suit about packaging. Damn you, I say! (I really want to be able to buy an actual Irish Dairy Milk Medley bar without crossing the Atlantic.)
German chancellor Angela Merkel says the European Union must prove it is able to find solutions to global problems. She made the comments during a parliamentary address in which she defended her refugee policy, claiming Europe’s values were at stake.
Merkel: Europe needs common refugee policy | All media content | DW.COM | 17.02.2016
hmmm
It is in Germany’s national interest for Britain to remain in the European Union, the country’s chancellor has said. Angela Merkel said changes proposed to EU rules by David Cameron were “justified and necessary” and that Germany backed them. “Far from being demands that are just for Britain they are also European demands and many of them are justified and necessary,” she said ahead of a two-day meeting of leaders to discuss the package.
hmmmm
“Why would you move 75 large stones just so you could dance around twice a year? If you put a roof on it you can use it all year.”
An Architect’s Radical New Theory About Stonehenge
Wild!
And the images are stunning. Get an inside look at how the Rescued Film Project developed and archived the historical discovery.
wild…
For centuries, it has been a crystal of legend locked in the verses of Norse myth with little or no evidence that it was ever real. Now it seems scientists at last have grounds for believing that the Viking “sunstone” used to navigate the seas did indeed exist.
Not just the stuff of legend: Famed Viking ‘sunstone’ did exist, believe scientists
cool!
An oblong crystal found in the wreck of a 16th-century English warship is a sunstone, a near-mythical navigational aid said to have been used by Viking mariners, researchers said on Wednesday. The stone is made of Iceland spar, a transparent,…
Scientists Think They Have Found The Mythical ‘Sunstone’ Vikings Used To Navigate Warships |
cool!
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange expresses vindication over a U.N. panel’s judgment that Sweden and the UK have “arbitrarily detained” him since 2010.
Julian Assange: WikiLeaks founder ‘arbitrarily detained’ – CNN.com
hmmm
Stonehenge is giving up its secrets, and one appears to be that many influential women were buried at the ancient site.
Powerful Women Buried at Stonehenge : Discovery News
hmmm
Photographers captured everyday life and historic sites as part of a global “archive of the planet” project.
First color photos of Ireland taken by two French women in 1913 – IrishCentral.com
cool
Sweden’s interior minister says his country is preparing to expel 80,000 asylum-seekers in the next year, according to media reports.
Sweden may reject thousands of asylum applications – CNN.com
Sigh…
The Kremlin calls on the US Treasury to come up with proof after it told the BBC it considered President Vladimir Putin to be corrupt.
Russia BBC Panorama: Kremlin demands ‘Putin corruption’ proof – BBC News
Tit for tat.
“A migrant’s life is about documents,” said Lamin, a 17-year-old from Gambia, who was fostered by Frenguelli. “I trust Carla like a mum because she helped me a lot getting my ID. She always encourages me. Without her, my life would be so much harder here in Sicily.”
Africa: Part of the Family – Sicilians Take in Migrant Children – allAfrica.com
humans beings humans. don’t see that too much of that in the news.
Denmark’s parliament on Tuesday adopted reforms aimed at dissuading migrants from seeking asylum by delaying family reunifications and allowing authorities to seize valuables, under legislation that has sparked widespread condemnation. The government insists the law is needed to stem the flow of refugees even though Denmark and Sweden recently tightened their borders — a move that prompted Germany and Austria to turn back new arrivals heading for Scandinavia. After just under four hours of debate, the bill presented by the right-wing minority government of Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen was approved by 81 of the 109 lawmakers present.
Danish parliament approves controversial migrant bill – Yahoo News
sigh…
“Please, sir, please! This is very serious. My engine is off and I have children and pregnant women.” The desperate plea comes from a rubber dinghy packed with 112 people who set off from the Libyan coast in the hope of reaching Europe.
Africa: How 150,000 People Were Saved in the Mediterranean – allAfrica.com
Jeezus… The humanity.
Paul Hamilton speaks of ‘heartbreaking’ detention by Home Office officials after leave to remain application refused
Dr Hamilton, who graduated from Birmingham in July 2015 after completing a doctorate on Shakespeare’s influence on American literature in the 19th century, was detained on 17 January after immigration officials visited his home in Stratford-upon-Avon.
Asked what was the first sign that something had gone wrong with the application, he said: “When they [immigration officials] knocked on my door and told me they were arresting me.”
He said: “All they had to do was serve me papers and say: ‘I’m sorry your application was rejected – you need to leave the country.’ ”
“The sergeant there refused to process me because he said this was completely ridiculous.* And he got into an argument with the immigration officer that went on the entire afternoon,” Dr Hamilton said.
A Home Office notice given to Dr Hamilton, seen by THE, states that he was detained because “your removal from the United Kingdom is imminent” and “you do not have enough close ties (eg. family or friends) to make it likely that you will stay in one place”.
“The official reason given was that I don’t have family in the area, which is the position every single international student is in…So if you [as an overseas student] apply for further leave to remain, it means that basically they can just arrest you,” he said.
US PhD graduate detained in UK immigration removal centre | Times Higher Education (THE)
Immigration everywhere is so fucked up.
* = at least someone had some sense
Famous Spanish bullfighter, Francisco Rivera Ordóñez, has been criticized on social media after he posted a picture of him training with a bull while holding his baby daughter.
Honestly, I think it is cool that he doesn’t differentiate between his experience as a young boy and the experience of his daughters. I would have assumed that bullfighters were way more all about the machismo than that.
It is reportedly the first time the allegation has been made directly.
The U.S. Is Point-Blank Accusing Vladimir Putin of Corruption | TIME
Well, now.
DNA testing is telling scientists more about the origins of a group of headless Romans.
DNA Reveals Far-Off Origins of Ancient ‘Gladiators’
an even better article
Six of the skulls had DNA matching people living in modern-day Wales, while the other was from even further away.
Roman-Era Skeletons Found in York, England Yield Interesting DNA Results
cool.
The finding represented by far the most damning official link between the 2006 death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, an ex-K.G.B. officer, and the highest levels of the Kremlin.
Putin ‘Probably Approved’ Litvinenko Poisoning, British Inquiry Says – The New York Times
Yawn, no shit. Did we need an inquiry to tell us that?
From ‘fireworks’ made from nothing more than hot water in minus 50C, to surfing in the Pacific, this is the New Year on our doorstep.
Images of the many faces of Siberia and the Russian Far East in 2016
Cool look at an awesome landscape and area I know next to nothing about.
Peace and order is maintained here by age-old warrior Sleeping Sayan, the Master of the Taiga, it is believed. The falling of the rock will signal that this slumbering giant has awoken from an eternal sleep to defend her motherland (Sleeping Sayan is seen as female). The splash from the rock crashing into the lake below will wash this mystical female warrior’s face, and launch a new epoch, with the beginning of new life.
Hanging Rock ‘defies gravity’, above a 1,000 metre abyss
Wild.
….A peek into the area.
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