"At the age of eleven or thereabouts women acquire a poise and an ability to handle difficult situations which a man, if he is lucky, manages to achieve somewhere in the later seventies." - P. G. Wodehouse

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Fake 'Porn' Euros Used As Real Money - No wonder it's so hard to get my notes of €100 and above accepted here.

Sacrificed for Honor: Italian Infant Abandonment and the Politics of Reproductive Control - "Pregnant single women in 19th-century Italy, threatened with the loss of their own and their families' honor, gave their babies to foundling homes, where hundreds of thousands of children died from starvation and disease. In this shocking and engrossing study, Kertzer, a historian and anthropologist at Brown, blames the Catholic Church for its central role in nurturing a system that controlled women's sexuality, exempted men from parental responsibility and consigned infants to death. Midwives were recruited by church and state officials to inform on illicit pregnancies. Many foundling homes devised programs under which unwed mothers, in order to pay for their own infants' care, were forced to serve as wet nurses for other children. Kertzer draws loose parallels between the system of legalized infant abandonment, which spread throughout southern Europe, and contemporary debates on abortion and the role of church and state in defining the social good."

Das Human Kapital by Oded Galor, Omer Moav - "This paper hypothesizes that the demise of the 19th century's European class structure reflects a deliberate transformation of society orchestrated by the capitalists. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it argues that the demise of this class structure was an outcome of a cooperative, rather than divisive process. The research suggests that the transition from this class structure may be viewed as the outcome of an optimal reaction by the capitalists to the increasing importance of human capital in sustaining their profit rates. The paper argues that the process of capital accumulation gradually intensified the importance of skilled labor in the production process and generated an incentive for investment in human capital. Due to the complementarity between physical and human capital in production, the capitalists were among the prime beneficiaries of the accumulation of human capital by the masses. They therefore had the incentive to support public education that would sustain their profit rates and would improve their economic well-being, although it would ultimately undermine their dynasty's position in the social ladder. The research suggests that Karl Marx's highly influential prediction about the inevitable class struggle due to declining profit rates stemmed from an under appreciation of the role that human capital would play in the production process. The basic premise of this research, regarding the positive attitude of capitalists towards education reforms, is supported empirically by a newly constructed data set of the voting patterns on England's education reform proposed in the Balfour Act of 1902."

Public toilets' lighting has wrong effect - "Subdued blue lights in Warwickshire public toilets, which are meant to discourage drug addicts, are actually encouraging couples to have sex."

MK vs. SF

Utrechts Byzantijns Koor - Too bad I missed their concert on Saturday.

Pictures of Pennies - "The following is the basic pattern for building cantilevered structures with Pennies. Although it looks trivial, we can build amazing structures with these pillars. All penny columns are ten high, a "stack". Two side-by-side pennies held in place by a penny above them is called a "triad". Below is a stack with two triads resting on top."

Women Police in Iran - "see how islamic countries train their women police"

School is 'unable to plaster cut' - "A parent has spoken of his anger after his wife had to go to their daughter's school to put a plaster on when staff said they were not allowed to."

Invasion of the Bodysnatchers - "When Tanya Andrews returned from a recent family holiday in Costa Rica, she had no idea she had brought back a gruesome souvenir. A month later she developed an extremely painful lump on her head. At first, she thought she had an abscess, but then it wriggled"

Record Set for Hottest Temperature on Earth: 3.6 Billion Degrees in Lab - "This is hotter than the interior of our Sun, which is about 15 million degrees Kelvin, and also hotter than any previous temperature ever achieved on Earth, they say."

SafeScreen - "SafeScreen blocks offensive images before they are displayed on the computer screen. SafeScreen blurs inappropriate images automatically so that you, your children and your school are protected"
Uhh.

Religious Objection to Monitoring Device - "Scott Smith was convicted of molesting two teenage girls in 2003. For this he received a short jail sentence and five years of probation. He is required, due to his conviction as a sex offender, to wear and electronic monitoring device but has refused on religious grounds. Smith was a member of the Brotherhood of Christ, a group that believes electricity is evil. According to Ron Livingston, leader of the Brotherhood, electricity can cause people to disobey God."