Thursday, August 26, 2010

WEB BOHEMIAN (Thursday, August 26, 2010)
(1)- WHOSE ART? -- Returning plunder to its rightful owner may sound straightforward. Not so, particularly for objects seized in the distant past. Who the 'rightful' owner is seems to depend largely on your point of view.

(2)- NEANDERS -- A new study demonstrates that “between 1 and 4% of the genomes of people in Eurasia are derived from Neandertals” and that “Neandertals are on average closer to individuals in Eurasia than to individuals in Africa.”

(3)- WHAT DIFFERENCE? -- Peter Baldwin's very amusing book, The Narcissism of Minor Differences: How America and Europe Are Alike, claims that the "European way of life" pretty much describes how people in, say, Iowa live.

(4)- INBRED, OVERBRED CHARLES -- Prince Charles erupts in high dudgeon over various and sundry affronts to his very particular and sometimes very peculiar notions of how life should be lived.

(5)- TENURE -- The ability to teach and conduct research without fear of being fired—is still the holy grail of higher education, to which all junior professors aspire. Yet fewer and fewer professors are attaining it.

(6)- PERFECT GAME -- Since its introduction, The Settlers of Catan has become a worldwide phenomenon. It has sold a staggering 15 million copies and it has made its 56-year-old inventor a household name in every board game crazy household.

(7)- RIGHT-WING NONSENSE -- The theory of relativity is a mathematical system that allows no exceptions. It is heavily promoted by liberals who like its encouragement of relativism and its tendency to mislead people in how they view the world.

(8)- DANGER -- There's a destructive liquid flowing into the Gulf of Mexico — and it's not oil. It's the muddy fresh Mississippi River water released by Louisiana's vast levee system and into estuaries in greater quantities than usual.

(9)- SUPERBUG -- A Belgian man became the first known fatality of a drug-resistant "superbug" originating in South Asia, reinforcing fears the germ could spread worldwide after infecting dozens of people in Britain and Australia.

POLITICAL COMMENTARY

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