ANNOUNCEMENT
As of today My son:
• Is stepping away from heavenly duties
• Will no longer be referred to as “Son of God”
• Will no longer receive funds from Christianity
• Will repay indigenous people for the cost of missionary work
• Will spend most of his time in Canada— God (@TheTweetOfGod) January 18, 2020
I created you as mosquito food.
— God (@TheTweetOfGod) January 18, 2020
• • • to set a mood • • •
• • • some of the things I read while eating breakfast • • •
Rumors of gluttony led Louis XIV to declare a month devoted to “Sustained Practise of Physickal Rectitudes”—but he held feasts on all thirty days
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 19, 2018
Meet the icy continent’s menagerie of microbes.
There’s a lot going on down there.
ARIEL WALDMAN DOESN’T HAVE ANYTHING against penguins. It’s just that they already get a lot of love: When people imagine Antarctic wildlife, she suspects, the tuxedo-clad birds get top billing. What about the other life of the icy, rocky continent, especially the residents that are much harder to see? Where is the love for those guys?
In 2018, Waldman, a San Francisco–based video host, author, and science communicator who also works with NASA, journeyed to Antarctica to take a closer look at some of those residents. With 185 pounds of gear and equipment in tow, she flew to Christchurch, New Zealand, then boarded a military transport aircraft to Antarctica, where she settled into a dorm room at McMurdo Station, the United States Antarctic Program’s main hub. With backing from the National Science Foundation’s Antarctic Artists & Writers program and the National Geographic Society, Waldman spent five weeks around the station and farther afield, including the McMurdo Dry Valleys, where she camped at Lake Bonney and Lake Hoare, next to Canada Glacier. Waldman collected samples from glaciers, sea ice, seafloor mud, and more, and rigged up cameras to her slew of microscopes in order to become, as she puts it, “a wildlife photographer at the microbial scale.” She took videos to show the creatures in action.
Her new interactive digital project, “Life Under the Ice,” introduces viewers to the creatures that thrive in Antarctica, in all their minuscule glory. Waldman spoke with Atlas Obscura about extremophiles, glacier hiking, and how much tardigrades look like gummy bears.
Waldman looked at samples of bacteria from Blood Falls, which owes its red color to iron oxide. Embiggens.
Why Antarctica? And why microbes?
I got really obsessed with Antarctica a few years ago because I had unexpectedly gotten a career in space exploration. [Waldman chairs the council for NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts program, and is the author of What’s It Like in Space?: Stories from Astronauts Who’ve Been There.] A lot of people were asking me, “Do you want to go to space? Do you want to be an astronaut?” I get motion sick rather easily, so I’m not sure I really want to go to space—but I would like to experience things that are similar. I started realizing that Antarctica is this really unique place on Earth that mimics a lot of aspects about space exploration, whether it’s being a Mars analog, or an interesting place to study neutrinos and find meteorites. I kind of felt like Antarctica was my version of going to space—my sort of extreme thing that I could achieve. …
George Washington’s military strategies may have been influenced by “devils-nip", which was basically 18th-century ecstasy
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 19, 2017
Senators Know They Don’t Know the Whole Story
As Trump’s impeachment trial looms, much of the relevant evidence remains just out of Americans’ sight.
This week’s allegations by Lev Parnas—a federally indicted associate of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani—render downright quaint the debate over whether the Senate should call live witnesses in the president’s impending impeachment trial. Of course the American public deserves to hear from witnesses at the trial, and not just the four whose testimony Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is requesting (thus far to no avail).
Parnas maintains that the scheme to force Ukraine to announce an investigation into Joe Biden’s family was widely known in Trump’s circle and that, as The New York Times put it, “the president was fully aware of the efforts to dig up damaging information on his behalf.” In an ideal world, the entire impeachment trial would be put on hold pending a thorough investigation of the new claims. Americans need to know the full story before their representatives in the Senate decide what—if anything—to do about it.
Instead, something disturbing is about to happen: The Senate is poised to make a monumental decision about the office of the presidency while knowing full well that much of the sordid tale has not even been told.
Trump’s trial, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday, will have some trappings of a normal trial. The president will, for example, have an expansive defense team that includes former Independent Counsel Ken Starr. (I worked for Starr during his investigation of Bill Clinton.) What the trial won’t have—because Trump, his lawyers, and his allies in Congress have been so successful in blocking live testimony and the release of information—is all the facts. …
Alan Dershowitz: Trump impeachment acquittal would make me unhappy
Member of Trump’s legal team says he’s acting ‘for the survival of the constitution’ but will have limited role in president’s defence
Impeachment: is Trump set to survive and win a second term?
Alan Dershowitz in December. Dershowitz will join a Trump legal team also including Ken Starr, who played a leading role in the impeachment of Bill Clinton.
The Harvard legal scholar Alan Dershowitz, a member of Donald Trump’s team for his impeachment trial, has said he will not vote for the president in November and that Trump’s acquittal by the Senate “would produce results that make me unhappy as an individual”.
But Dershowitz said acting “for the survival of the constitution” was more important than “the short-term partisan advantage of getting my person elected to be president”.
Dershowitz spoke to the BBC’s Today programme on Saturday, broadcast while the US east coast lay in darkness.
His remarks were no surprise: Dershowitz is a familiar voice in the media, to some degree a controversialist or gadfly, willing to go against the grain of public opinion or to represent unpopular clients, among them OJ Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein. He is a regular presence on Fox News.
But as Washington, New York and Boston woke, it remained to be seen how a notoriously changeable president might react to his new lawyer’s remarks. …
DEGREE OF STUPIDITY: “I want the impeachment to fail” ~ Alan Dershowitz
15 Things Socially Awkward People Need To Know
According to the news, we’re building an entire society out of antisocial loners who are crippled by anxiety and are devoid of interpersonal skills. Well, I put in some time as a socially anxious loner myself before becoming the golden dynamo of charisma you know today, so here are some things I wish someone had told me back then. If all of the below is old information to you, please take a moment out of your day to ponder how incredibly lucky you are.
Note: the new David Wong novel Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick is up for pre-order now.
1. You Don’t Know Yourself Without Constant Feedback From Others
Right now, there are things you don’t realize about yourself that are glaringly obvious to anyone meeting you for the first time. The weird way you make eye contact, or don’t. The way your voice always sounds like you’re mad. The way your pants look OK from the front, but in the back, just, not at all.
It’s impossible to know what impression you’re making on others without gathering a bunch of data — seeing how people react, using them as your mirror. Even the freakiest, most off-putting shit you do seems fine in a vacuum, so becoming personable while avoiding contact with people is like trying to cut your own hair, in the dark, while wearing fuzzy mittens. And instead of scissors, you’re using a lobster.
2. The Rules Of Human Interaction Make No Sense, And You Can’t Just Intuit Them
It doesn’t matter how smart you are. Unless you get tons of practice being around people, you’ll be shit at it. The reason for this is both obvious and largely unacknowledged: The rules of human interaction are nonsense by design, to give a leg up to people who spend a lot of time socializing. It’s a whole secret economy that trades in an invisible currency called “status” which is governed entirely by a series of passwords and secret handshakes. …
One city’s reparations program that could offer a blueprint for the nation
Evanston, Illinois, is levying a tax on newly legalised marijuana to fund projects benefiting African Americans in recognition of the enduring effects of slavery and the war on drugs.
The actor Danny Glover, right, testifies before Congress about reparations alongside the author Ta-Nehisi Coates. Glover appeared at a town hall in Evanston to discuss the same issue.
For years, Robin Rue Simmons watched Evanston, Illinois, “working hard” to resolve its racial disparities – but with little to show for its efforts.
“Our gaps were widening,” the city alderman told the Guardian, citing the Chicago suburb’s declining black population and other issues. “I thought we were being delusional to continue in the same vein and believe we would bridge the gap.”
So, Rue Simmons began plotting a new, stronger approach to addressing racial inequality in Evanston: a local reparations for slavery program for African Americans, similar to those proposed on the federal scale.
Developed in concert with Evanston’s Equity and Empowerment Commission and overwhelmingly approved by the city council late last year, the program is perhaps the first of its kind in the nation: an initiative designed to address the ongoing impacts of slavery on African Americans, with guaranteed funding from sales taxes on recreational marijuana, which became legal in Illinois on 1 January. …
A man took over an airport monitor to play video games until officials told him ‘game over’
Most airport travelers with time on their hands will open a book, browse their phone or take a nap. Others will take things a level further.
A man traveling through Oregon’s Portland International Airport on Thursday was caught playing a video game on one of the airport’s video monitors.
“I couldn’t believe it. You’ve got all these monitors there and he’s playing a video game,” said Stefan Dietz, who captured the moment and tweeted it. The gamer even appeared to be talking on a headset to other players, according to Dietz.
Most airport travelers with time on their hands will open a book, browse their phone or take a nap. Others will take things a level further.
This guy has his video game plugged into one of the airport monitors.
Seen yesterday at @flypdx. pic.twitter.com/9bTqc9i2Ya— Stefan Dietz
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(@coyotetrips) January 17, 2020
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(@coyotetrips)
The monitor typically displays a map of the airport, assisting travelers with the locations of restaurants and bathrooms. But at 4:30 in the morning it was instead overtaken by the man and his PlayStation 4, according to airport spokeswoman Kama Simonds. …
Ed. Karen* must have talked to a manager.
* See also Dictionary.comThis is to honor the Karen in my life who doesn’t happen to be named Karen.
Video Goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
and not-so-goodnesses
Ed. That brought tears to my eyes. I also had aural overload going on by having three different music streams happening simultaneously.
When it comes to the division of wealth, many Americans believe that the country is split between the 1%, which possesses a significant share of the country’s money, and the 99%, or “the people.” In reality, The Atlantic writer Matthew Stewart argues, 9.9% of the population comprises America’s new aristocracy, which often “takes wealth out of productive activities and invests it in walls.” But this group of people is rich in more than mere money, and its constancy poses an insidious threat to the promise of American democracy.
Read Stewart’s article on The Atlantic:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/…
Everything you need to know about Andrew Yang.
THANKS to Comedy Central and The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for making this program available on YouTube.
CAUTION: Some language may not be appropriate for work or children.
Your Ozzy Man commentary on wankers who celebrate before the game is won.
True Facts comes to Earth Unplugged as Ze Frank provides his unique narration on the star nosed mole.
THANKS to BBC Earth Unplugged for making this program available on YouTube.
The Nebuchadnezzic Monks believe that Holofernes survived—and went on to found the world’s first chain of department stores
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) December 19, 2017
FINALLY . . .
Some Neanderthals Wintered in Italy, Diving for Clams
In the absence of stone tools, bivalves would have to do.
Shell game: Neanderthals likely found these cutting tools beneath the waves.
IN 1949, ARCHAEOLOGISTS PULLED 171 clamshells and 49 pumice stones and fragments out of a seaside cave in Italy, up the coast from Naples. The assemblage predated the arrival of Homo sapiens in Western Europe, but had clearly been worked by a human hand. That left only one suspect: Neanderthals.
The actual origins of the clams, however, was overlooked, and it remained that way for the past 70 years. Now, a new paper published in the journal PLOS One argues that the Neanderthals didn’t just gather the dead material from the nearby beaches—they actually dove into the Mediterranean for it themselves.
“If you’re a Neanderthal in Italy, I can tell you there’s lots of beaches, and lots of caves near the sea,” says Paola Villa, an archaeologist at the University of Colorado and lead author of the paper. “They probably collected [the clams] by just holding their breath underwater and scooping them off of the seafloor.”
Like many bivalves, the smooth clams found in Grotto dei Moscerini—Callista chione—like to embed themselves in the seafloor, leaving just their siphon above the sand to feed. By looking at the degree of wear on some of the shells, which remained shiny, Villa’s team determined that the clams weren’t scavenged off the dry sand like their more opaque brethren. Rather, they’d been plucked directly from their burrows under the sea. …
There is a Brazilian zoo which is not open to the public, contains no animals, and is disguised as an abandoned car wash
— Fake Atlas Obscura (@notatlasobscura) January 19, 2018
Ed. More tomorrow? Possibly. Probably. Maybe. Not? Tuesday, maybe.
I’m glad I got to do this today.