List of foreign countries with coinage struck at the Royal Canadian Mint - Wikipedia - "Since its opening in 1908, the Royal Canadian Mint has produced coinage and planchets for over 73 countries"
Little Albert Experiment - "Ivan Pavlov showed that classical conditioning applied to animals. Did it also apply to humans? In a famous (though ethically dubious) experiment, John Watson and Rosalie Rayner showed that it did... little Albert only had to see the rat and he immediately showed every sign of fear. He would cry (whether or not the hammer was hit against the steel bar) and he would attempt to crawl away. This fear began to fade as time went on, however the association could be renewed by repeating the original procedure a few times. Five days later, Watson and Rayner found that Albert developed phobias of objects which shared characteristics with the rat; including the family dog, a fur coat, some cotton wool and a Father Christmas mask! This process is known as generalization... Unfortunately, Albert's mother withdrew him from the experiment the day the last tests were made, and Watson and Rayner were unable to conduct further experiments to reverse the condition response."
Thief woos bank staff with chocolates - then steals diamonds worth £14m - "A thief has evaded one of the world's most expensive hi-tech security systems, and made off with €21m (£14.5m) worth of diamonds - thanks to a secret weapon rarely used on bank staff: personal charm. In what may be the biggest robbery committed by one person, the conman burgled safety deposit boxes at an ABN Amro bank in Antwerp's diamond quarter, stealing gems weighing 120,000 carats. Posing as a successful businessman, the thief visited the bank frequently, befriending staff and gradually winning their confidence. He even brought them chocolates, according to one diamond industry official. Now, embarrassed bank staff in Belgium's second city are wondering how they had been hoodwinked into giving a man with a false Argentine passport access to their vaults. The prime suspect had been a regular customer at the bank for the past year, giving his name as Carlos Hector Flomenbaum from Argentina. The authorities, who have offered a €2m reward for information leading to an arrest, now know that a passport in that name was stolen in Israel a few years ago. Although not familiar to the local diamond dealers, the conman became one of several trusted traders given an electronic card to access the bank vault. The heist, believed to have been more than a year in the planning, has astounded diamond dealers. Philip Claes, spokesman for the Diamond High Council in Antwerp, said that the area had been fitted with a security system costing more than €1m. The lesson, he said, was that "despite all the efforts one makes in investing in security, when a human error is made nothing can help". More than half the world's diamonds are traded in Antwerp's gem district."
Opinion | I wanted to understand Europe’s populism. So I talked to Bono. - The Washington Post
???
Cat Beats Professionals at Stock Picking - "A house cat named Orlando did a better job managing investments over the year 2012 than a team of professional money managers... "While the professionals used their decades of investment knowledge and traditional stock-picking methods, the cat selected stocks by throwing his favorite toy mouse on a grid of numbers allocated to different companies."... 'The result indicates that the "random walk hypothesis", popularised in economist Burton Malkiel's book A Random Walk Down Wall Street, is perhaps truer than we thought. Burkiel's book explores the idea that share prices move completely at random, making stock markets entirely unpredictable.'"
Harambe the Gorilla Faces Charging Bull on Wall Street
France searches for centuries-old oak trees to rebuild Notre Dame's spire - "The deputy director of France’s National Forests Office, Dominique de Villebonne, told Le Parisien that the search for suitable oaks will lead them to trees that are “very old, including plantations ordered by former kings to build ships and ensure the grandeur of the French fleet.” “At the same time as leaving other trees to stand for a long time, we are also planting new ones so future generations can create their own exceptional works""
Political party identification and romantic relationship quality - "Although there are studies on voting similarity in mate selection, very little research has examined party identification and relationship quality. We assessed associations between reports of personal and partner voting behavior (Democrat, Republican, or Independent) and both relationship adjustment and commitment to one’s partner. We used a national (U.S.) sample of individuals (N = 510) in their 20s and 30s who were mostly in different-sex, serious relationships (Mdn duration = 5.25 years; 50% married). Controlling for age, college graduation, income, religiosity, minority status, and duration of relationship, voting Republican was associated with higher levels of commitment compared with voting Democrat. Similarly, being partnered with someone voting Republican was associated with higher relationship adjustment and commitment compared with being partnered with someone voting Democrat. Notably, differences in commitment were found only among those who were not already married or engaged. Findings were largely consistent with numerous online reports of survey data that have shown modestly greater relationship quality among those who report being politically conservative. Although research has shown that people are less attracted to those who vote differently and that voting differently can be associated with lower relationship quality, we did not generally find perceived voting similarity to be associated with relationship adjustment or commitment. There was one exception: In exploratory analyses, Republicans paired with Democrats tended to report substantially lower relationship adjustment than if paired with Republicans."
In other words, liberals are less committed in their relationships and have poorer quality relationships
I wonder how liberals will spin this into "proof" that conservatives are bad
Research sheds light on the cultural and psychological correlates of religion - "Previous theoretical work has highlighted four main religious dimensions: believing, bonding, behaving and belonging. These four dimensions can be understood psychologically as, respectively, the cognitive (e.g., beliefs about transcendence, truth-seeking, existential questions), emotional (e.g., connection with transcendence and community through religious ritual), moral (e.g., norms, ideals, self-control and a values hierarchy) and social (e.g., insertion into community, continuity of tradition, collective identity) aspects of the religious experience... All four dimensions correlated with religiosity, spirituality, and fundamentalism, with spirituality being more related to believing (cognitive) and bonding (emotional) aspects, and fundamentalism more strongly related to believing, behaving (moral) and belonging (social) dimensions. Additionally, monotheistic religions (e.g., Judaism, Islam and Christianity) generally showed greater intercorrelation between the dimensions than non-monotheistic (e.g., Buddhism) traditions. Furthermore, in secularized Western European countries, believing and bonding were more prominent than behaving and belonging, while in religious Catholic countries, believing was higher than bonding or behaving. The authors additionally tested each of the religious dimensions against (the Big Five) personality traits, and found that, for example, all religious measures were positively associated with agreeableness, conscientiousness, need for closure, order-related social-cognitive orientations, and high right-wing authoritarianism."
Meme - "So after I made the pacifist Vulcans shoot enemies on sight, turned the Klingons into dishonourable baby killers, gave Spock a mental handicap, humiliated Picard, had Starfleet use robots as slave labour (FU "Measure of a Man"), turned 7 of 9 into a mass murderer, and destroyed the Federation, I thought... what else could I do to piss on Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek fans? And then it hit me... make the head of Starfleet literally eat shit. Hilarious, right?"
Facebook - "If Rysense had just stuck to conducting surveys, I might have just left the issue alone. Unfortunately, Rysense set up a subsidiary Happydot.sg which not only conducts online surveys but also regularly publishes articles on current affairs and social issues. Happydot.sg does not disclose that it is owned by the Government, and this raises a concern as to whether the articles that it publishes should be construed as undercover attempts by the Government to not just survey public opinion but to secretly influence it. Remember that the M in POFMA stands for “manipulation”.
Strangely enough, even though Rysense now admits that it is Govt-owned, the message doesn't seem to have gotten through to Happydot.sg which still denies that it is controlled by the Government. I tried replying to their comment, but they seem to have blocked me already."
Blaire White - Posts | Facebook - "Had SO much fun in Texas! Comparing Dallas to Los Angeles is like night and day. The streets of a Dallas are clean, it’s very rare to see a homeless person, no tent cities, and people make eye contact and are KIND! Being in a red state vs a blue state is like a different planet. Not to mention everything was CHEAP! Every time I got the bill after a meal I was shocked that it wasn’t triple digits. Everywhere I went men held doors open for me, and at first I froze because I literally have become so accustomed to rudeness here in Hollywood. I really enjoyed my time in Texas and my desire to move there and start a new chapter is even stronger now ❤️"
Meme - "I will grant you three wis-"
"Billion dollars, huge dick and eternal life!!"
3000 years later: "Spent all my money, dick too big, please kill me"
What It's Like Growing up in a Family That Never Lies - The Atlantic - "After growing up in a family that never lied, I spent decades being off-puttingly truthful... When I moved to New York at 22, it became clear that an honest man would have a hard time getting a job. The nicer interviewers would get concerned and offer sincere advice, telling me that when asked about my biggest flaw, I wasn’t supposed to actually list my flaws. When I told them I hoped some employers would appreciate my honesty, most laughed. In some cases, I ended interviews early on the grounds that the interviewer and I clearly weren’t compatible. But I got lucky and was hired by an eccentric who was charmed by my earnestness. After two months as his assistant, he brought up areas where I needed to improve, and I candidly told him that I didn’t think I could do better, that I wasn’t the best person he could get for this job. I pretty much persuaded him to fire me... As I experimented with small talk, I noticed how others used honesty to establish intimacy. I’d always seen “hiding feelings” as cowardly, but for other people, the selectiveness of their honesty was what gave it meaning. They’d choose who was special enough to hear their secrets"
【Food】Why Do Koreans Like to Consume Pork Belly? These Are The Reasons Of Why Koreans Like to Consume Pork Belly - "Originally, Koreans prefer beef over pork because cows can produce more meat for the people to consume as compared with the pigs due to its larger size. Besides, the Koreans also did not rear many pigs formerly because pigs consume grain. At the time, grain was low in yield and expensive. Hence, there was no grain to give to the pig. In the Joseon Dynasty, there was a rumour that eating pork would cause haemorrhoids. Moreover, the pigs were fed with food waste, sewage, and the excrement of human. Therefore, the Koreans perceived porks as unhealthy food. Starting from the year of 1970, Koreans started to raise pigs in large quantities for the purpose of export. A lot of pork meats were exported to Japan. However, Japan only buys certain parts of the pigs such as pork loin or pork tenderloin to make pork steak dishes. Consequently, the other parts of the pig such as its head, intestines and belly remain for the consumption in Korea. As the people who used it started to buy gas stoves in the kitchen, the Koreans start to grill the pork belly. Pork bellies are usually cut into 3 to 4 cm so that it can be easily grilled and eaten. As the income of workers increased in the 1980s, meat consumption became faster. During the 1997's IMF financial crisis where the economic condition is poor, pork belly became the main dish for many companies' gathering because its price was relatively lower as compared to those of the beef."
Grilled Pork Belly: A South Korean Love Story - " The practice of grilling may have been adopted as a necessity. “I believe grilling meat became popular during the Korean War (1950-53),” Joo told me via email. “At that time, people had to grill and eat the meat right away once they had any.” He added that the word bulgogi, literally ‘fire meat,’ had “entered the popular lexicon after the war.” On top of that, Joo said, Koreans had preferred steaming over grilling due to a lack of available utensils. But from the 1960s, when briquets became more widespread as a source of fuel, people started grilling meat on griddles over briquet fires. “Steel drums from the fledgling oil industry and U.S. military bases proved to be effective for grilling meat outdoors,” Joo said. Some barbecue restaurants still emulate drum-turned-table designs, with round steel plates that encloses the griddle atop a drum. Meat consumption saw a rise in keeping with South Korea’s steep economic growth in the 1970s and thereafter. Overall meat consumption grew over tenfold between 1970 and 2016 (from 5.2 to 55.9 kilograms per person). But pork still stands out for its popularity, having been the most heavily consumed type of meat since 1970 (when data first became available)... 1977 was a pivotal year for the nascent domestic pork industry. Exports to Japan faltered that year, leading to a significant drop in price of pork on the South Korean market due to oversupply. Seeing it as a cheap alternative to beef, South Koreans started turning to pork. The government’s deliberate agenda of reducing the national preference for beef, which led to price fluctuations, also affected consumption. Daily newspaper Donga-ilbo’s 1977 editorial section gave support for the government’s tentative plan, which was to designate Saturday “Let’s Not Eat Beef Day.” “In terms of nutrition, beef, pork and chicken are the same,” said the paper. “For the cost of a man eating beef at a restaurant, his entire family can eat pork three to four times at home”... By the early 80s, pork belly became a popular match with soju — cheap alcohol industrially distilled from surplus grains and vegetables — making barbecue a quintessential social experience at restaurants, homes and up on mountains (grilling meat in mountains was outlawed only in 1998, due to fire hazard and environmental contamination)... So strong is the association between grilled pork belly and socializing that some who live alone, like 27-year-old Noh Young-eun, are deterred from eating it... Once, craving pork belly but lacking a companion to go out and eat it with, she went to a neighborhood butcher who scoffed at her for wanting to buy only one portion. “That’s when I truly felt how difficult it is to eat pork belly alone,” Noh said. But as the number of single households increases in South Korea, businesses are starting to offer one-person samgyeopsal options"
Pork Preference for Consumers in China, Japan and South Korea - "Competition in global pork markets has increased as trade barriers have opened as a result of free trade agreements. Japanese prefer both loin and Boston butt, while Chinese prefer pork offal. Frozen pork has increased in terms of imports into China. Japanese consumers consider pork meat origin along with pork price when making purchase decisions. While the Chinese prefer a strong tasting pork product, South Korean consumers show very strong preferences to pork that is higher in fat. Therefore, South Korean consumers have a higher demand for pork belly and Boston butt. Consequently, the supply and demand of pork in Korea is hardly met, which means that importation of high fat parts is inevitable. In Korea there is lower preference toward low fat parts such as loin, picnic shoulder, and ham"
Emily Blunt says Ina Garten’s roast chicken helped her land proposal | Toronto Sun - "Emily Blunt is convinced her roast chicken sealed the deal for John Krasinski and led to his proposal."
'Cod fish' sold in S'pore might be Chilean Seabass & here's why you should eat less of it - "Right after we published this story on smoked salmon trout masquerading as smoked salmon, a friend said to me: "You should check out what's going on with cod too."... the term "cod" is used in Asia to refer to three very different types of fish:
Atlantic Cod
Sablefish (also known as Gindara and Black Cod)
Chilean Seabass (also known as Patagonian Toothfish and Silver Cod)
I reached out to three suppliers of "cod fish" on Qoo10 — The Seafood Company, Snow Treasures, and Silversea. The first two confirmed that they're selling Chilean Seabass. Silversea did not respond"
Why does it feel like yearly overseas trips are the only way S’poreans can truly escape from life? - "Hobbies can't seem to fill that Japan-shaped hole in our hearts... *When Singaporeans were asked about aspects of their lives that they find fulfilling or meaningful, “family” and “material well-being” were among the top-cited themes. Interestingly, hobbies also seem much more important to people in the UK (22 per cent) than respondents in Singapore (4 per cent)... The need to scratch that wanderlust itch is apparent, given how Singaporeans made an average of 3.51 overseas trips per person in 2017. More recently, after VTL flights to 14 cities were announced, the Singapore Airlines website promptly crashed right after. Coincidence? I think not... Travel, to most Singaporeans, likely entails leaving Singapore’s borders. But in other countries, it’s perfectly possible to get a complete change of scenery without getting your passport stamped. For instance, a friend living in Bangkok tells me that it’s possible to travel to any province domestically, and several of her friends have made use of this for a short getaway to Chiangmai. Seeing as how we can’t just waltz to the next province or drive into a neighbouring state for a holiday, this is also why it makes perfect sense for Singaporeans to covet overseas getaways for a change of scenery. Or to at least seek out other distractions that provide a temporary illusion of "escape", even if they are far from ideal."
Why Do Low-Cost Carriers Avoid Jet Bridges At Many Airports? - "The jet bridge was a great innovation in aviation. It was first introduced in the US in the 1950s. United Airlines began experimenting with a fixed 'Air Dock' in 1954. This developed into the extending jet bridge design by 1959, with United Airlines installing them at New York JFK, Los Angeles, and San Fransico airports. Use expanded quickly around the world, with most major airports using them by the 1970s and 1980s... Airports charge usage fees for many facilities, which are not included in the standard airport landing fees. This usually includes jet bridges... To put costs into perspective, consider London Gatwick airport. This charges a "departing passenger charge" of £14.95 ($20.46) per passenger. This is reduced by £3.48 ($4.76) if using a remote stand without a jet bridge. Daytime parking charges are also tripled if using a jet bridge stand (from the base rate of £10.68 ($14.62) per five minutes for the largest aircraft, for example)... It is not just the cost of using the jet bridge that is a consideration here. The whole process and infrastructure come into play. As well as paying to use the bridge, airlines will require jet bridge operators and have staff located at the bridge area. Boarding via the bridge could mean operating in different parts of the airport. If the airline is set up to operate with buses, then it is likely simpler to use this method for all flights. This is why you will sometimes see aircraft parked at a gate with a jet bridge but not using it. We have seen other changes recently from low-cost airlines along the same cost reduction lines. Adding built-in stairs to the aircraft is one such change. This is common in smaller aircraft but not on standard commercial narrowbodies. Adding them, though, allows for independent operation. There is certainly no need to use a jet bridge, but no need to hire stairs either. You also do not have to wait for stairs to be available - a common delay at busy airports. Speeding aircraft turnaround is a significant consideration for low-cost airlines, with tight schedules that maximize the number of flights an aircraft can make each day."
Wind shatters Chinese glass bridge, stranding tourist 100 metres above ground - "The man was on the 100-metre-high bridge in the Piyan Mountain, outside the city of Longjin, when a wind gale blew out several panels of the glass deck... The tourist held on for dear life for over 30 minutes, before a team of firefighters, police and forestry and tourism personnel were able to assist him and he crawled back to safety... At least 60 glass-bottom bridges have been or were being built in the country in 2016, according to Earth magazine published by the Geological Museum of China."
Leah Greenberg on Twitter - "It's almost like if you saddle a generation with massive debt, then hit them with the 2nd economic crisis of their working lives, while simultaneously showing how little your society cares about children or care-giving, they will make choices accordingly"
Weird how the UK which has universal healthcare also saw a decline in births in 2020.
Americans are always so insular
Facebook - "Considerate marathon organizers in Taiwai invited a beautiful Japanese like ghost figure clothed in red to cheer on contestants. As a result, most athletes finished quicker than expected."
lizzie 𓃱 on Twitter - "Told my Dad I ran out of alcohol and didn’t have any money to buy any for the weekend..so he gave me the huge bottle of vodka from the cupboard that I stole and replaced with water when I was 16... life really does come back to bite u in the ass"
Meme - Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson: "In a mirror, you can kiss yourself only on the lips."
Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson: "You can kiss yourself in the mirror, but only on the lips." Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson: "Just an FYI: In a mirror, you can only kiss yourself on the lips."
Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson: "For Narcissists Only: Laws of reflection require that if you kiss yourself in a mirror, it will always be on the lips."
Neil deGrasse Tyson @neiltyson: "Another thought to disturb restful sIumber especially if you are vain: in a mirror you can kiss yourself only on the lips."
'We conclude' or 'I believe?' Study finds rationality declined decades ago - "Scientists from Wageningen University and Research (WUR) and Indiana University have discovered that the increasing irrelevance of factual truth in public discourse is part of a groundswell trend that started decades ago... Analyzing language from millions of books, the researchers found that words associated with reasoning, such as "determine" and "conclusion," rose systematically beginning in 1850, while words related to human experience such as "feel" and "believe" declined. This pattern has reversed over the past 40 years, paralleled by a shift from a collectivistic to an individualistic focus as reflected by the ratio of singular to plural pronouns such as "I"/"we." "Interpreting this synchronous sea-change in book language remains challenging," says co-author Johan Bollen of Indiana University. "However, as we show, the nature of this reversal occurs in fiction as well as non-fiction. Moreover, we observe the same pattern of change between sentiment and rationality flag words in New York Times articles, suggesting that it is not an artifact of the book corpora we analyzed... The authors did find that the shift from rationality to sentiment in book language accelerated around 2007 with the rise of social media, when across languages the frequency of fact-related words dropped while emotion-laden language surged, a trend paralleled by a shift from collectivistic to individualistic language."
Japanese firefighter punished for moonlighting as YouTube gamer - "A Japanese firefighter moonlighting as a gaming YouTuber had cold water poured on his career by public officials who uncovered the secret side hustle by identifying his voice in the lucrative videos. An anonymous tip-off prompted Wakayama city in western Japan to launch an investigation into the 33-year-old's channel, which had around 15,000 subscribers. But because the firefighter never appeared on screen, a local official had to painstakingly comb through the clips for vocal clues to his identity"
Facebook - "Pedestrian dynamics at the running of the bulls in Pamplona, Spain, suggest that the presence of the bulls led to instances of runner speed increasing with runner density, in contrast with most pedestrian systems, in which speed decreases with density. The festival enabled the collection of real data on pedestrian dynamics under extreme conditions and provided counterintuitive insights that could help improve infrastructure management in a range of scenarios"
RNC Research on Twitter - "Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez says she helped "huge amounts" of illegal immigrants get stimulus checks."
If course, if you criticise this you are racist for criticising either her or illegal immigrants
The relationship between physical and mental health: A mediation analysis - "There is a strong link between mental health and physical health, but little is known about the pathways from one to the other. We analyse the direct and indirect effects of past mental health on present physical health and past physical health on present mental health using lifestyle choices and social capital in a mediation framework. We use data on 10,693 individuals aged 50 years and over from six waves (2002-2012) of the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing. Mental health is measured by the Centre for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (CES) and physical health by the Activities of Daily Living (ADL). We find significant direct and indirect effects for both forms of health, with indirect effects explaining 10% of the effect of past mental health on physical health and 8% of the effect of past physical health on mental health. Physical activity is the largest contributor to the indirect effects. There are stronger indirect effects for males in mental health (9.9%) and for older age groups in mental health (13.6%) and in physical health (12.6%). Health policies aiming at changing physical and mental health need to consider not only the direct cross-effects but also the indirect cross-effects between mental health and physical health."
Wikipedia Or Encyclopædia Britannica: Which Has More Bias? - " History, they say, is written by the victors, and can read very differently depending on who is telling the tale. Even modern-day issues such as immigration, gun control, abortion, and foreign policy are open to fervent debate depending on who is doing the opining. Over the years, Britannica has handled this uncertainty by seeking out the most distinguished experts in their fields in an attempt to provide a sober analysis on topics; while Wikipedia has urged its civilian editors to maintain what it calls a neutral point of view (NPOV). But is objectivity better achieved by considering one viewpoint or thousands? Along with cowriter Shane Greenstein of Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, Zhu asks that question in a new paper, Do Experts or Collective Intelligence Write with More Bias? Evidence from Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia... Zhu and Greenstein took a database of terms developed by University of Chicago economists Matthew Gentzkow and Jesse Shapiro to examine newspaper bias. Gentzkow and Shapiro studied speeches in the 2005 Congressional Record to scientifically identify the top 500 unique phrases used by Democrats (e.g., tax breaks, minimum wage, fuel efficiency) and Republicans (e.g., death tax, border security, war on terror), rating each according to political slant. Zhu and Greenstein then identified some 4,000 articles that appeared in both Encyclopædia Britannica and Wikipedia, and determined how many of each of these code words were included, in an effort to determine overall bias and direction. They found that in general, Wikipedia articles were more biased—with 73 percent of them containing code words, compared to just 34 percent in Britannica. In almost all cases, Wikipedia was more left-leaning than Britannica. Dividing articles into categories, the researchers found, for example, that stories on corporations were 11 percent more slanted toward Democrats, while observing similar leanings on topics such as government (9 percent), education (4 percent), immigration (4 percent), and civil rights (3 percent)... Of course, those findings don't say which of the two sources is correct in its viewpoint—only how they compare to one another. "We can only say [that] Wikipedia is more left," says Zhu. "We can't say which is reflecting true reality" What's more, much of Wikipedia's bias seems to be due to the longer article length of the online publication, where word count is less of an issue than the historically printed Britannica. When compared word to word, most (though not all) of Wikipedia's left-leaning proclivities come out in the wash. In other words, for articles of the same length, Wikipedia is as middle-of-the-road as Britannica"
Of course, liberals will still claim that it's a myth that Wikipedia is biased
This was in 2015, no less
Spider-tailed horned viper - Wikipedia - "The spider-tailed horned viper (Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) is a species of viper, a venomous snake in the family Viperidae. The species is endemic to western Iran, and was originally described in 2006. The head looks very similar to that of other Pseudocerastes species in the region, but the spider-tailed horned viper has a unique tail that has a bulb-like end that is bordered by long drooping scales that give it the appearance of a spider. The tail tip is waved around and used to lure insectivorous birds to within striking range."
Anasyrma - Wikipedia - "Anasyrma (Ancient Greek: ἀνάσυρμα) composed of ἀνά ana "up, against, back", and σύρμα syrma "skirt"; plural: anasyrmata (ἀνασύρματα), also called anasyrmos (ἀνασυρμός), is the gesture of lifting the skirt or kilt. It is used in connection with certain religious rituals, eroticism, and lewd jokes (see, for example, Baubo). The term is used in describing corresponding works of art. Anasyrma is effectively "the exposing of the genitals". This is a form of exhibitionism found in religion or artwork, rather than a display for arousal, and it always refers to the act of a woman exposing herself. The act of lifting up one's skirt to display the genitals can be an apotropaic device; it can, in circumstances of war, evoke the fear of the enemy. It can also be an act that evokes surprise and subsequent laughter and a letting go of sadness. What is significant about anasyrma is that it reflects the numinous quality of the female genitals and the genital region through which birth ensues. In several cultures, there is a myth of anasyrma used for emotional healing. Anasyrma may be a deliberately provocative self-exposing of one's naked genitals or buttocks. The famous example of the latter case is Aphrodite Kallipygos ("Aphrodite of the beautiful buttocks"). In many traditions, this gesture also has an apotropaic character, as a mockery or means to ward off a supernatural enemy, analogous to mooning"
Greeeen - Wikipedia - "Greeeen (stylized as GReeeeN) is a Japanese pop rock/hip hop/breakbeat vocal group from Kōriyama in Fukushima Prefecture, comprising the all-male four members: HIDE, navi, 92 (read as "kuni"), and SOH... One notable characteristic is that none of the members have ever shown their faces in the public sphere as a part of GReeeeN, whether in their promotional videos, CDs, television performances, or the Internet. In their only performance on TV-U Fukushima's music show Music Bar Palo Palo (broadcast on January 19, 2007), the group even went as far as censoring their faces during the performance. The members' identities are still unknown, as their faces have never been made public. At first, the group stated that they would wait until all of the members passed the 2009 dental license exam before revealing their faces, but later in late 2009, they indicated that they will still keep their identities secret to avoid any interference with their careers as dentists."
Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar - Wikipedia - "According to Hasan-e Fasa'i's' Farsnama-ye Naseri, during Agha Mohammad's stay in Shusha, one night "a quarrel arose between a Georgian servant named Sadegh Gorji and the valet Khodadad-e Esfahani. They raised their voices to such a pitch that the shah became angry and ordered both to be executed. Sadeq Khan-e Shaghaghi, a prominent emir, interceded on their behalf, but was not listened to. The shah, however, ordered their execution to be postponed until Saturday, as this happened to be the evening of Friday (the Islamic holy day), and ordered them back to their duties in the royal pavilion, unfettered and unchained, awaiting their execution the next day. From experience, however, they knew that the King would keep to what he had ordered, and, having no hope, they turned to boldness. When the shah was sleeping, they were joined by the valet Abbas-e Mazandarani, who was in the plot with them, and the three invaded the royal pavilion and with dagger and knife murdered the shah"