Roman descendants found in China? - "Scientists have taken blood samples from 93 people living in and around Liqian, a settlement in north-western China on the fringes of the Gobi desert, more than 200 miles from the nearest city. They are seeking an explanation for the unusual number of local people with western characteristics — green eyes, big noses, and even blonde hair — mixed with traditional Chinese features."

talking to prospective, Asian, PhD students - "I know you really want to go to the United Kingdom to study... Still, I suggest it’s a scam. They are taking advantage of your eagerness to get ahead in life through educational means. Perhaps it’s time for a short reality-check: English universities really aren’t all that good. Far inferior than the best American universities and certainly not much better than universities in Scandinavia, Germany or France."

iTunes declared illegal in Norway - "The Norwegian consumer ombudsman ruled this week that Apple violates consumer protection laws because songs from the iTunes store can only be played on iPods."

Author: Rampant consumerism erodes us - "Beware the Affluenza Virus. An epidemic of mindless consumerism is sweeping the world with the compulsive pursuit of money and possessions making people richer but sadder. That is the stark warning issued by best-selling British psychologist Oliver James after a "mind tour" of seven countries chronicling how depression envelopes the affluent. "We have become addicted to having rather than being and confusing our needs with our wants," he told Reuters in an interview to mark publication on Thursday of "Affluenza."... Singapore, where he found shopping to be the national obsession, suffered from "sad, unplayful deadness.""

Denmark 'happiest place on earth' - "Adrian White, from the UK's University of Leicester, used the responses of 80,000 people worldwide to map out subjective wellbeing. Denmark came top, followed closely by Switzerland and Austria. The UK ranked 41st. Zimbabwe and Burundi came bottom."

My years in a habit taught me the paradox of veiling - "I found my habit liberating: for seven years I never had to give a thought to my clothes, makeup and hair - all the rubbish that clutters the minds of the most liberated women."
Like many claims of 'exploitation', this is rubbish. If you don't want to care about your clothes, makeup and hair just ignore them. I might as well say going for a mastectomy liberates me because I won't have to worry about wearing a bra or zaogeng-ing.

mailclassifier - "The mailclassifier extension helps you to move the email in the right folder, it uses bayesian filtering. When a new mail arrives, it's classified and the most probable folder it goes in is showed in the new classification column."

"Sister" on the Sidelines: "The Smurfs" and the Antifeminist Backlash on Saturday Morning - "One episode, "Sister Smurf," is a direct attack on the values and intentions of the feminist movement.(28) One morning, Smurfette excitedly puts on her "Smurfy new dress." When none of the other Smurfs pay any attention to it or to her, she exclaims, "Smurfs - who needs them? They don't understand me at all!" (once again calling into question whether or not she really is a "Smurf") and wanders off into the forest . There she finds a human girl named Laura, who, as a girl, feels alienated from her brothers who are playing in the forest. The two "girls" bond instantly (although they have little in common other than biological sex) and wander off together. They come across an old, abandoned-looking house, and decide to make it their "no boys" club. They begin to clean up the building, bonding with each other over housework. Yet soon the witch who owns the house comes home and traps them, keeping them as slaves. Eventually the other Smurfs, along with Laura's brothers and father, come and rescue them. The episode suggests that women cannot sustain a viable community without men. When the "girls" become separatist and try to exclude the "boys" from their lives they only get into trouble - requiring the "boys" to come and rescue them. Made in the same year as the "death" of the ERA, "Sister Smurf" (the phrase is never actually used during the episode), is an obvious attack upon the 1970's feminist movement."

Baker: The Religious Right -- Pushing a Deadly Addiction - "Why do I think that Christian fundamentalism and/or Dominionism is an addiction? My answer to that question comes first of all from my own experience, as well as my observation of these individuals over the years. I recall my own dependency on what “the Bible says” -- my own inability to trust my thoughts and feelings. I remember the need for the “fix” of the church service, the revival meeting, the prayer meeting, the Bible study, or listening to a fiery sermon on tape. I knew how to think on my own, but I was afraid to do so. Who knew what I might discover? But no “fix” was more deliciously validating than “winning souls for Christ” -- that dramatic moment when I had manipulated someone else into a born-again experience. For this, the fundamentalist Christian addict lives and breathes. And this is precisely why the religious right is intractably hell-bent on converting the entire society and system of government in America to its fundamentalist theocracy. What could produce a greater “high”? And if this project should get interrupted by the Rapture, the resulting euphoria would be so well earned -- doing God’s work and getting the planet ready for Jesus’ return. The adrenaline-drenched grandiosity in such a scenario is palpably tantalizing. More addictive than heroin perhaps?... One of the most significant aspects of my abandonment of Christian fundamentalism was the awareness that born-again Christians worship the Bible and not God. They argue that the only way to know God is through the Bible. They are forced to believe this because if they concede that God might speak through an inner voice, through a tree, or through a particular life experience, their entire belief system is toast. When I realized that contrary to their much-touted Ten Commandments, Bible worship is nothing less than “having other gods before me,” I finally realized the depth of the hypocrisy of their system. Part of my, and anyone’s recovery from fundamentalism is a commitment to developing a relationship with a Higher Power -- whatever that may be -- and not with a book."