Why Women in Ancient Rome Had No Names - "In ancient Roman families, girls did not have separate names, and all daughters could bear the same name... The women of Ancient Rome did not have names as such. Instead, families called their daughters by the name of the family, sometimes also combining the nickname that was assigned to a certain family. Following this tradition, the daughter of Julius Caesar also received the name Julia after the name of the family... The situation in which not one but several daughters were born in the family at once was very common. In this case, all the girls still bore the same name. In a situation where parents had only two daughters, “Elder” or “Younger” was added to the family name of daughters. If more than three daughters were born, then each of them, in addition to the family name, received an ordinal number as part of their name, namely the second, third, and so forth. For example, Clodia Tertia, a Roman matron who was suspected of poisoning her husband Quintus Caecilius, was the third daughter in the Clodian family. When a woman married, she retained her family name but also acquired her husband’s family name or his nickname. Hence, the name of the daughter of Julius Caesar, who married the commander Gnaeus Pompey the Great, became a mix of the names of her father and husband—Julius Pompey—after this marriage. Over time, such traditions have slightly changed"
Meme - *Cars passing each other*
"JEWS BECOMING ZIONISTS IN RESPONSE TO ANTISEMITISM"
"JEWS BECOMING COMMUNISTS IN RESPONSE TO ANTISEMITISM"
Meme - ">After three years of Windows 11 decide to switch back to Windows 10
>Wow! Just wow!
>File explorer launches in an instant
>No lag with the right-click context menu
>Feels way much faster!
>Remember what you've been missing for the past three years"
Meme - "WHAT DO TOY TRAINS AND BOOBS HAVE IN COMMON? THEY'RE BOTH INTENDED FOR CHILDREN, BUT IT'S THE FATHERS THAT END UP PLAYING WITH THEM"
Meme - "Cum in Cheese. Matured Gouda cheese with the traditional Dutch cheese spice: cumin. Pairing Suggestion - Italian Antipasti Meats"
Richard Gott, Marxist Guardian journalist who was exposed in 1994 as a KGB stooge – obituary - "Richard Gott, who has died aged 87, was an academic, journalist, and a chronicler and supporter of Marxist guerrilla movements in Latin America who resigned in 1994 as literary editor of The Guardian when he was exposed as having been in the pay of the KGB... Gott could indeed spout the Moscow line, excusing the misdeeds of the East German leader Erich Honecker and claiming that the Russians had got to the Moon first. But he was just as likely to see good in outright pariahs, writing in 1979: “Have we all got it wrong about Pol Pot?” The bloodthirsty Khmer Rouge leader was, he argued, the author of an “interesting social experiment”."
The Guardian hasn't really changed in so many decades
Toddler dies in alleged DUI crash, 14-year-old driver ID'd as child's mother: reports
Canadian province gave out taxpayer-funded coffee that cost $165 a cup to lure US healthcare workers - "'We sent coffee and tea to health care workers in Seattle so we could share the many benefits of working in our beautiful province,' BC Premier David Eby wrote in a post on X at the time... the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) revealed the province's government spent on $165,000 CAD ($119,134 USD) the promotion. That breaks down to each coffee costing approximately $165 CAD ($119 USD) per cup."
57.5% of Canadians have degrees. We’re the most educated G7 country with the worst mismatch - "As of September 2025, 21.8% of core-aged workers with a postsecondary credential reported being overqualified for their current role, and Canada’s real GDP per capita has fallen below the OECD average for the first time in comparable recorded data, sitting at 99.5% in 2024. The gap between what workers know and what their jobs demand is quietly dragging down wages, productivity, and economic growth. Many immigrants arrive with professional degrees and years of experience, yet provincial licensing bodies move slowly and inconsistently. A physician trained abroad may spend years requalifying or doing unpaid placements before being allowed to practise. According to the 2021 Census, the overqualification rate among non-permanent residents with a bachelor’s degree or higher was 32.4%, compared to 26.2% for recent immigrants and 15.9% for the rest of the population. Data from 2016 showed that about 40% of immigrants with university degrees were employed in jobs below their skill level, and by 2021, the overeducation rate among recent immigrants had declined to just under 27%. Yet progress remains slow... While overqualification dominates one side of the labour market, a critical shortage is quietly building on the other. BuildForce Canada’s 2025 to 2034 national forecast projects that 270,000 experienced construction workers will retire over the next decade, pushing the industry’s total hiring requirement to 380,500 workers by 2034. Even with 272,200 expected new entrants under 30, the industry may still face a shortage of 108,300 workers. Statistics Canada data show that apprenticeship certification counts remained 19.9% below pre-pandemic levels in 2024 despite record new registrations, evidence that decades of treating trades as a backup plan have left Canada degree-heavy in some areas and critically thin in others."
Time to encourage even more people to go to university
Gordon Ramsay’s dwarf porn ‘twin’ dies - "A DWARF porn star who was Gordon Ramsay's double has been found dead in the most bizarre of circumstances, according to UK tabloid The Sunday Sport. Percy Foster's 107 centimetre (3'6") body was discovered in a badger's den in Wales. The report says the 35-year-old was found, "deep in an underground chamber by Ministry of Agriculture experts ahead of a planned badger-gassing program." Investigators have not ruled out the possibility of suicide, according to the report. In a recent interview Foster spoke of his excitement about his growing career as Ramsay's double. "Porn lookalikes get more money than normal actors. Dwarf lookalikes are as rare as hen's teeth and so can command top dollar. "I've already ordered a new BMW and a diamond-encrusted Soda Stream," he said."
From 2011
Stair climbing has been included in guidance. Landlords aren’t happy - "Tom McGee, a 69-year-old market researcher from near Chicago, has found an unusual path to fitness, one that has occasionally put him at odds with hotel security. For two decades, McGee has been climbing stairs as a way to stay off cigarettes, a dedication that has seen him "kicked out of about every hotel in the city" due to his unconventional workout locations. His experience highlights a growing challenge for enthusiasts of this highly effective exercise, as modern office towers increasingly restrict access to stairwells. Despite these hurdles, stair climbing is increasingly recognised in exercise guidance for its significant health benefits. Dr Luis Rodriguez, a 66-year-old semi-retired paediatric pulmonologist and avid stair climber, champions the activity. "You are working your legs. You are working your heart. You are working your lungs," he explains, adding, "You can get a lot more benefit than just walking, because gravity is working against you." This is supported by research indicating that just four minutes of stair climbing offers similar benefits to ten minutes of brisk walking or twenty minutes of slower walking. The efficacy of short, intense bursts of activity was officially acknowledged in 2018, when federal physical activity guidance began promoting such efforts – like opting for the stairs between floors at work"
How sticky-fingered thieves use hot glue to find break-in targets in Vancouver - "Police say the suspects begin by entering the buildings at nighttime and applying hot glue to the top corner of the units' doors, stretching strands of glue between the door and the frame. Investigators say the thieves return later to inspect the doors, checking if the strands are broken, indicating that the door has been opened and the unit is occupied."
Miscellany: Teeth - "Mathias Blau of Chicago persuaded his wife, Helen, to have all her teeth pulled. Then he refused to buy her false teeth because, he said, it was cheaper to feed her on soup than on solids. Mrs. Blau went to court, was awarded two sets of store teeth and at least a beefsteak a week. Judge Jonas told Mr. Blau that he had committed “the meanest trick” he had ever heard of."
The Shocking Lawsuit Of A Wife Tricked By Her Husband Into Pulling Her Teeth To Save Money On Food - "The April 13, 1928 issue of The American Guardian told the story of Chicagoan Mathias Blau. His wife Helen was having some problems with her teeth, so he convinced her the best course of action was to have them all pulled and then replaced with dentures. The suffering woman went to the dentist and had her teeth pulled as planned. During her convalescence, she was able to eat little more than soup. Her husband came to enjoy the savings he noticed… Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Blau was none too happy about the sudden rug pull by her husband. Unable to get him to change her mind, she took the only other reasonable course of action available to her — she took him to court.
Carnival cruise passenger wins $300K lawsuit after being over-served alcohol - "Carnival Cruise Line must pay US$300,000 to a former passenger after a federal jury in South Florida found that the company was negligent in serving a woman at least 14 shots of tequila in an eight and a half hour period before she fell down stairs and suffered a possible traumatic brain injury. The Miami federal jury decided in favour of Diana Sanders, a 45-year-old nurse from Vacaville, Calif, and awarded her $300,000 (about $411,315 CAD) in damages"
Time to sue cruise companies for misogyny when they restrict alcohol served to women
Tucker Carlson Network on X - "The people in charge don't want you to know this, but Muslims love Jesus. Islam reveres Him as a major prophet and messenger of the Lord, believes He performed miracles, and states that He will return to Earth to defeat the Antichrist. That's why Donald Trump's painting depicting himself as the Son of God offended the president of Iran. It was an attack on his religion as well as Christianity. Today's Morning Note newsletter covers Masoud Pezeshkian's condemnation of Trump's “desecration of Jesus,” the Iran War's gutting effects on America's housing market, Colombia's plan to murder Pablo Escobar's hippopotami, and more. Read below."
Eitan Fischberger on X - "Here's how Muslim-majority countries treat their Christian populations:
๐ธ๐ด SOMALIA No churches exist. Converts from Islam face death. Al-Shabaab is committed to eradicating Christianity entirely.
๐พ๐ช YEMEN Christians can be imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Possessing a Bible in Houthi-controlled areas is dangerous. No legal protection for Christians exists.
๐ธ๐ฉ SUDAN Over 100 churches have been damaged or destroyed. Christians have been abducted and killed. Islamist extremists operate with impunity.
๐ธ๐พ SYRIA Now largely controlled by HTS — an Islamic extremist group with roots in Al-Qaeda. Christian population has collapsed from 1.5 million to 300,000.
๐ณ๐ฌ NIGERIA More Christians are killed for their faith in Nigeria than anywhere else in the world. Boko Haram, ISWAP, and Fulani militias operate freely. The government has largely failed to prosecute perpetrators.
๐ต๐ฐ PAKISTAN
๐ธ Christians are 1.8% of the population but absorb ~25% of blasphemy accusations — which carry a death sentence.
๐ธ Mob lynchings of accused Christians are common. Entire Christian neighborhoods have been torched.
๐ธ Christian girls are kidnapped, forcibly converted, and married off. Courts often back the perpetrators.
๐ฑ๐พ LIBYA No functioning government to protect Christians. Foreign Christians are kidnapped and killed by Islamist groups. No legal protections exist.
๐ฎ๐ท IRAN
๐ธ 96 Christians sentenced to 263 years in prison in 2024 alone — a sixfold increase year-over-year.
๐ธ House churches are raided. Converts are charged with espionage and "enmity against God."
๐ธ Apostasy is punishable by death. Government's stated goal: eradicate the Persian-speaking Church.
๐ฆ๐ซ AFGHANISTAN Christians face death if discovered. No public Christian communities exist. The Taliban is actively working to erase any Christian presence.
๐ธ๐ฆ SAUDI ARABIA
๐ธ No churches allowed. No public Christian worship of any kind.
๐ธ Apostasy and proselytizing are capital offenses under Sharia law.
๐ธ Bibles are confiscated. Even private worship by expatriates can result in arrest and deportation.
๐ฒ๐ฑ MALI / ๐ง๐ซ BURKINA FASO Pastors executed, churches burned, villages massacred. Governments have lost control of large swaths of territory to jihadist groups including Boko Haram and JNIM.
๐ฎ๐ถ IRAQ The Christian population has collapsed from 1.2 million in 2011 to just 120,000 in 2024 — driven by ISIS genocide. Christians are described as "close to extinction."
๐ฉ๐ฟ ALGERIA All 47 Protestant evangelical churches in the country have been shut down. Converting Muslims is a criminal offense.
๐ฒ๐ท MAURITANIA Apostasy is punishable by death. No churches exist for Mauritanian citizens.
๐ฒ๐ฆ MOROCCO No public Christian worship permitted. Converting from Islam can result in prosecution. Foreign missionaries are expelled.
๐ถ๐ฆ QATAR
๐ธ Apostasy: death penalty under Sharia law.
๐ธ Proselytizing a Muslim: up to 5 years in prison.
๐ธ Bringing Christian materials into the country: up to 2 years in prison.
๐น๐ท TURKEY
๐ธ 200+ Christian workers expelled since 2020, labeled "national security threats."
๐ธ No legal training of clergy permitted. The historic Halki Seminary remains closed.
๐ธ Christian population has collapsed from 20% to 0.2% over the past century."
Clearly, Israel is to blame
Universities teaching literature students how to cope with long novels - "Some institutions are offering “reading resilience” courses for students facing long texts and reading lists while others are using book jacket design as part of the assessment process. Academics said students in the past five to ten years, who had grown up with phones in their pockets, could be intimidated by reading long, older or more difficult books and the jump in pace from A-level... John Mullan, professor of English at University College London, said: “In the last five to ten years, it’s true that fewer students are used to reading very long books. Most on our course at UCL are still willing to take on demanding texts, but that may not be typical. I do have friends in other universities who feel students are less willing to tackle older books or more difficult books. “Some students are not used to sitting and reading a book for five or six hours. When we’re doing course planning, we’re thinking about that a bit more than we used to do. “We react to unwillingness or difficulty with reading lengthy material by trying to get them to do it and not compromising too much. All first-year students have to do Old English, read the whole of Paradise Lost by their fifth week of term and Wordsworth’s preludes by the tenth week. Some bluff their way, but even to have to bluff with these texts is strenuous.”... The number of pupils taking English A-level has plummeted in the past decade, falling from the most popular subject to outside the top ten... Experts blame GCSE English for deterring teenagers, describing GCSE literature as boring and repetitive and the language qualification as outdated and offputting... English literature or language A-levels were taken by 58,000 entrants this summer, down from nearly 90,000 in 2015. The English Association says full person equivalent numbers taking English degrees, not including creative writing or linguistics, have fallen from around 42,285 in 2019-20 to roughly 33,515 in 2023-24. Mullan said the teaching of English degrees had changed over the past decade. He said: “When I was a student, I don’t think people who taught me gave a damn about students’ opinions and they didn’t need to. It didn’t mean they didn’t care about you but the idea that what students wanted to study should be part of the plan was utterly remote. “Now there is more worry about what you think students want to do. If we want them to do something that’s not at the forefront of their wishes, we have to do a job of explaining or persuading.”... Student feedback now has a bigger role, he said, adding: “Sometimes there’s a danger academics chase student opinion, and can almost worry too much about what students say they want to study. “I don’t think academics do any favours by bending to trends and fashions, whether for individual texts or movements. Those students who shout loudly and make most demands are not necessarily representative — I get others emailing me in confidence saying we just want to study Shakespeare.”"
Dark Knight Shift: Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long - "Batman is the most down-to-earth of all the superheroes. He has no special powers from being born on a distant world or bitten by a radioactive spider. All that protects him from the Joker and other Gotham City villains are his wits and a physique shaped by years of training—combined with the vast fortune to reach his maximum potential and augment himself with Batmobiles, Batcables and other Bat-goodies, of course... Batman can't really afford to lose. Losing means death—or at least not being able to be Batman anymore. But another benchmark is having enough skill and experience to defend himself without killing anyone. Because that's part of his credo. It would be much easier to fight somebody if you could incapacitate them with extreme force. Punching somebody in the throat could be a lethal blow. That's pretty easy to do. But if you're thinking about something that doesn't result in lethal force, that's more tricky. It's really hard for people to get their heads around, I think. To be that good, to not actually lethally injure anyone, requires an extremely high level of skill that would take maybe 15 to 18 years to accumulate... There is evidence that experts in something like football or hockey have an improved ability to perceive movement in time. In the book I use the example of Steve Nash throwing the ball, even though he can't see where the receiver of the pass is going to be. Experts are able to extract more information faster than others. It's almost like their nervous systems become more efficient... The difficulty for Batman is he's going to be trying to sleep during the day. He's going to be really tired, actually, unless he can shift himself over to just being up at night. If he were just a nocturnal guy, he would actually be a lot healthier and have a lot better sleep than if he were doing what he does now, which is getting some light here and there. That's going to mess up his sleep patterns and duration of sleep... The biggest unreal part of the way Batman's portrayed is the nature of his injuries. Most of the time, in the comics and in the movies, even when he wins, he usually winds up taking a pretty good beating. There's a real failure to show the cumulative effect of that. The next day he's shown out there doing the same thing again. He'd likely be quite tired and injured... Somewhere around age 50 to 55, he should probably retire. His performance is going down. He's always facing younger adversaries. That is well at the end of when he's going to be able to defend himself and be able to not have to deal that lethal force. This was actually shown in an animated series called Batman Beyond... Keeping in mind that being Batman means never losing: If you look at consecutive events where professional fighters have to defend their titles—Muhammad Ali, George Foreman, Ultimate Fighters—the longest period you're going to find is about two to three years. That dovetails nicely with the average career for NFL running backs. It's about three years. (That's the statistic I got from the NFL Players Association Web site.) The point is, it's not very long. It's really hard to become Batman in the first place, and it's hard to maintain it when you get there."
Mรขchon: The French breakfast you don't know - "I've always found French petit dรฉjeuner (breakfast) insubstantial, but that wasn't the first thing that came to mind as I scanned the menu on the blackboard. Gone were the tartines and croissants, replaced instead by a list that read like a biology textbook: rognons de veau (calf's kidney), tablier de sapeur (fried, breaded tripe), tรชte de veau (calf's head). This was mรขchon, a long-standing Lyonnais breakfast tradition where no part of the animal goes to waste."
DiscussingFilm on X - "A teaser for ‘THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE HUNT FOR GOLLUM’ was shown at CinemaCon “This is a tale that must never be told.”"
GODZILLA STAN ACCOUNT on X - "this is like the 2025 War of the Worlds tagline being "It's Worse Than You Think""
Cow tools - Wikipedia - ""Cow tools" is a cartoon from The Far Side by American cartoonist Gary Larson, published on October 28, 1982. It depicts a cow standing behind a table of bizarre, misshapen implements with the caption "Cow tools". The cartoon confused many readers, who wrote or phoned in seeking an explanation of the joke. In response, Larson issued a press release clarifying that the thrust of the cartoon was simply that, if a cow were to make tools, they would "lack something in sophistication". It has been described as "arguably the most loathed Far Side strip ever" while also becoming a popular internet meme."
It's absurdism, after all
Most Canadians consider speaking English, French key to national identity, survey shows - The Globe and Mail - "Canadians are more likely than their U.S. counterparts to see language, customs and traditions as central to their national identity, a new survey suggests. Some 84 per cent of respondents to the Pew Research Center poll released Thursday said speaking English or French is very or somewhat important to being Canadian, while only 15 per cent said the opposite. In the U.S., however, only 78 per cent prioritized being able to speak English – the most common tongue in a country without an official language – while 21 per cent said it had little or no bearing on the American identity. “Of the four dimensions of national identity included in the survey, language is by far the most valued,” Pew reported in its brief on the poll. “In all countries where we asked about it, about eight in 10 or more point to language as important for true belonging in the country. And in 13 countries, at least six in 10 consider it a very important factor.” And yet, while a vast majority of respondents in all 21 countries surveyed on language considered it an important facet of their country’s national identity, the percentage who did was lowest in the U.S. A large majority of Canadians surveyed – 81 per cent – also linked customs and traditions to their national identity. But that’s a nine-point decline since the last time the question was asked in Canada in 2016. There again, U.S. participants were less inclined to make the same link: only 71 per cent said customs and traditions were somewhat or very central to being American, while 28 per cent said otherwise. Parse the results by political allegiance, however, and the picture changes. Fully 87 per cent of U.S. respondents who identify as right-leaning said customs and traditions were important, 34 percentage points higher than those on the left. In Canada, 86 per cent of conservative-minded respondents felt the same way, compared with 68 per cent of left-leaning participants. Similar gaps emerged on language... Middle-income countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Kenya and South Africa, were far more likely to put value on being born within their borders, while Sweden and Australia led those who valued birthplace the least. “Nations where immigrants make up a smaller share of the population tend to see birthplace as a more important component of national identity,” the study reported."
