Archive for May, 2010
The Ásatrú Edda now has a free Study Guide
The Norroena Society certainly recognizes that The Ásatrú Edda can be challenging to any student of our faith. From the complex weaves of the epic storyline, to the original spellings of foreign words and concepts, no doubt it can be considered a difficult read. It was never intended to be treated as a novel, to be read from cover to cover, but rather to become a part of our spiritual practice and used in religious study and worship for the Ásatrú/Odinist faith. To assist with this, we have created a Study Guide that offers exercises and reference aids that will hopefully enlighten and inspire any who wish to more fully understand this body of lore.
The decline and fall of the British boozer
Britain’s pubs are having a hard time. Just how many pubs are closing depends on who you ask. The Times (London) has suggested it’s 52 per week, the Telegraph says six per day, and the Lost Pub Project lists a grand total of 10,284 departed boozers. Whatever the exact numbers, the pub is a Great British institution under severe pressure, and it’s as likely to be the apparently successful bar as the street-corner dive that is shutting up shop. Why?
Support the Free Speech About Science Act and restore freedom of health speech
The FDA says, ridiculously, that only pharmaceutical drugs are capable of preventing or treating disease. Even though this is scientifically false, the agency has structured the rules to categorize anything that treats or prevents disease as a drug. So if you eat walnuts, and those walnuts lower high cholesterol (which they do), the FDA declares your walnuts to be “drugs.”
Existing law dictates that if anything is advertised as providing health benefits without the FDA’s approval, it’s automatically considered to be an “unapproved drug”, even if it’s a common, everyday food like walnuts, cherries, grapes or oranges.
Obama administration backs Vatican in pedophile case
The Obama administration in a brief to the Supreme Court has backed the Vatican’s claim of immunity from lawsuits arising from cases of sexual abuse by priests in the United States.
The Supreme Court is considering an appeal by the Vatican of an appellate court ruling that lifted its immunity in the case of an alleged pedophile priest from Oregon.
RFID chip implanted into man gets computer virus
Researchers have found that implanted identity chips can pick up computer viruses.
Scanner sheds light on hidden words in medieval manuscripts
Scholars at the University of Copenhagen are now able to decipher hidden and illegible texts in damaged medieval manuscripts thanks to a special scanner that was donated to the university.
Linguist Michael Lerche and his colleagues from the Department of Scandinavian Research used it to discover what were the runic letters on the cover of a 700-year-old medieval manuscript. In just a few minutes the scanner came up with the answer – an odd Latin proveb, which roughly translated says, “A countryman decided to adopt a strange habit: to put his legs in his wallet and walk on his teeth!”
House votes to expand national DNA arrest database
Millions of Americans arrested for but not convicted of crimes will likely have their DNA forcibly extracted and added to a national database, according to a bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday.
By a 357 to 32 vote, the House approved legislation that will pay state governments to require DNA samples, which could mean drawing blood with a needle, from adults “arrested for” certain serious crimes. Not one Democrat voted against the database measure, which would hand out about $75 million to states that agree to make such testing mandatory.
Face of Stirling Castle warrior reconstructed
A reconstruction has revealed the face of a medieval knight whose skeleton was discovered at Stirling Castle.
Now independent thinkers are considered diseased by psychiatry
Psychiatrists have been working on the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and, in it, they hope to add a whole slew of new psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, many of these disorders are merely differences in personality and behavior among people.
The new edition may include “disorders” like “oppositional defiant disorder”, which includes people who have a pattern of “negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures.” Some of the “symptoms” of this disorder including losing one’s temper, annoying people and being “touchy”.
Uncovering Nottingham’s hidden medieval sandstone caves
The very latest laser technology combined with old fashioned pedal power is being used to provide a unique insight into the layout of Nottingham’s sandstone caves — where the city’s renowned medieval ale was brewed and, where legend has it, the country’s most famous outlaw Robin Hood was imprisoned.
Sailors’ skeletons from Nelson’s navy among thousands at Haslar
A team of archaeologists who dug up skeletons in Gosport to reveal what life was like in Nelson’s navy will have their work shown on TV.
Scientists call for GM review after surge in pests around cotton farms in China
Scientists are calling for the long-term risks of GM crops to be reassessed after field studies revealed an explosion in pest numbers around farms growing modified strains of cotton.
The unexpected surge of infestations “highlights a critical need” for better ways of predicting the impact of GM crops and spotting potentially damaging knock-on effects arising from their cultivation, researchers said.
The downfall of science and the rise of intellectual tyranny
