1931 - Ådalen Shootings

Lapponia (book)

Lapponia is a book written by Johannes Schefferus (1621 - 1679) covering a very comprehensive history of Northern Scandinavia topology, environment and Sami living condition, dwelling-places, clothing, gender roles, hunting, child raising, shamanism and pagan religion. It was published in late 1673 and closely followed by English, German, French and Dutch translations. Adapted and abridged version were also followed where only original chapters on shamanism and religion was preserved but the others replaced with tales on magic, sorcery, drums and heathenism.

The book uses "Lap" mainly to notice that Samis are still pagan and it is concluded that Lap is a word introduced by the Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus (ca. 1150 - 1220) to distinguish Sami peoples living near the ocean (coast-fenni) and in the woodland (lapp-fenni).

It was aimed to meet rumors, or as the council Magnus De La Gardie saw as degrading propaganda, from (particular German) pamphlets claiming the Swedes had used "Sami magic" on the European battlefields.

The book was not until 1956 (after 300 years) fully translated to Swedish (as "Lappland", Acta Lapponica 8, Uppsala 1956). Its references is, however, based on "clergy correspondence" letters, i.e. reports made by priests.

A smaller part of the geographical region described in the book is today named Lappland (or Laponia.)

See also

*Sápmi (area)

Оригинал статьи Lapponia (book) на сайте Словари и энциклопедии на Академике

Triple cheer!!! Woot!

New Scientist is not a bad magazine. I read it regularly, despite the occasionally weirdly wanky physics story that looks as if it were published for sensational value only. But overall it is no bad, coming out strongly on the side of reason. However, I am very close to cancelling my subscription and encouraging others to do so.

Last week, the print issue carried an article by Amanda Geffer concerning creationist code-words and how to recognize them in pretend-science publications. It was an excellent, rational and thoroughly admirable article.

Apparently, someone complained to the editors about it and the article is currently removed from the online edition of NS, apparently “while they investigate”.

I encourage everyone to follow the link and leave a complaint in the comment section. If the editors do not restore the article in question immediately, or, at least, provide a reasonable explanation for their action (not that I think there can be one, besides intellectual cowardice), I will be cancelling my subscriptiion.

Since the article in question is no longer available at the NS site, I reproduce the complete text of it below:

How to Spot a Religious Agenda, Amanda Gefter, New Scientist, Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:35 UTC

As a book reviews editor at New Scientist, I often come across so-called science books which after a few pages reveal themselves to be harbouring ulterior motives. I have learned to recognise clues that the author is pushing a religious agenda. As creationists in the US continue to lose court battles over attempts to have intelligent design taught as science in federally funded schools, their strategy has been forced to... well, evolve. That means ensuring that references to pseudoscientific concepts like ID are more heavily veiled. So I thought I’d share a few tips for spotting what may be religion in science’s clothing.

Red flag number one: the term “scientific materialism”. “Materialism” is most often used in contrast to something else - something non-material, or supernatural. Proponents of ID frequently lament the scientific claim that humans are the product of purely material forces. At the same time, they never define how non-material forces might work. I have yet to find a definition that characterises non-materialism by what it is, rather than by what it is not.

The invocation of Cartesian dualism - where the brain and mind are viewed as two distinct entities, one material and the other immaterial - is also a red flag. And if an author describes the mind, or any biological system for that matter, as “irreducibly complex”, let the alarm bells ring.

Misguided interpretations of quantum physics are a classic hallmark of pseudoscience, usually of the New Age variety, but some religious groups are now appealing to aspects of quantum weirdness to account for free will. Beware: this is nonsense.

When you come across the terms “Darwinism” or “Darwinists”, take heed. True scientists rarely use these terms, and instead opt for “evolution” and “biologists”, respectively. When evolution is described as a “blind, random, undirected process”, be warned. While genetic mutations may be random, natural selection is not. When cells are described as “astonishingly complex molecular machines”, it is generally by breathless supporters of ID who take the metaphor literally and assume that such a “machine” requires an “engineer”. If an author wishes for “academic freedom”, it is usually ID code for “the acceptance of creationism”.

Some general sentiments are also red flags. Authors with religious motives make shameless appeals to common sense, from the staid - “There is nothing we can be more certain of than the reality of our sense of self” (James Le Fanu in Why Us?) - to the silly - “Yer granny was an ape!” (creationist blogger Denyse O’Leary). If common sense were a reliable guide, we wouldn’t need science in the first place.

Religiously motivated authors also have a bad habit of linking the cultural implications of a theory to the truth-value of that theory. The ID crowd, for instance, loves to draw a line from Darwin to the Holocaust, as they did in the “documentary” film Expelled: No intelligence allowed. Even if such an absurd link were justified, it would have zero relevance to the question of whether or not the theory of evolution is correct. Similarly, when Le Fanu writes that Darwin’s On the Origin of Species “articulated the desire of many scientists for an exclusively materialist explanation of natural history that would liberate it from the sticky fingers of the theological inference that the beauty and wonder of the natural world was direct evidence for ‘A Designer’", his statement has no bearing on the scientific merits of evolution.

It is crucial to the public’s intellectual health to know when science really is science. Those with a religious agenda will continue to disguise their true views in their effort to win supporters, so please read between the lines.

OK, then, regarding my earlier excommunication post: vatican officially approves. What a bunch of fuckwits.

An article in Catholic News tries to defuse the evolution “controversy” (itself a product of deranged creationist minds) by claiming that evolution is not to blame for the recent surge in atheistic books and the open spread of atheism. Rather, scientism is the evil beastie here (an old claim!). And they define scientism as “the use of science beyond its proper sphere of investigating physical nature”.

Of course the dolts do not realize that such a definition is certainly begging the question of whether there is anything at all “beyond physical nature”. Meh, they never cease to amuse me.

Kepler telescope, an instrument that will look for Earth-sized exoplanets, will be launched today. It may find thousands of them, another step in our search for life elsewhere in the Universe, and a boon for future navigators of sublight colony ships...;)

...to know that religion and the Church are great forces for evil in our world: here.

Excommunication may be a weak concept, but they are excommunicating the wrong people! These scumbags are punishing the people who have saved the life of the 9-year old girl while refusing to pass a moral judgement on the actual perpetrator. And they feel persecuted? they fucking dare to complain (about trivialities: notice the prominent place given to The Golden Compass in this one)?

So the bankers are saying that they do not need the TARP money and that taking is was a mistake. So, why don’t they give it back now, instead of possibly within 2-3 years. I am sure that I am not the only one puzzled by the discrepancy: for fuck’s sake, if they really don’t need it they should cough it up now...

and we stood there, blinking in confusion and only cognizant of the possible significance to our survival of the other bodies crowding into our space, complicated by sunlight.

Ah, now that is out of the way, don't you think that Låt den rätte komma in (Let the right one come in) is possibly the best (and most emotionally beautiful) of all possible vampire movies?

Everybody really should read this. Especially those of you that are religious fundamentalists and/or followers of some form of a diviine command ethical theory (which is probably very few, if any). So fucking bite me.

In fact, perhaps those of us that are sane should seriously consider making home in certain places in Northern Europe; or conversely, using them as an example towards which to strive in our work here in the USA.

(Don’t try this at home...)

1. Find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails, and give her new clothes. Then she’s yours. - (Deuteronomy 21:11-13)

2. Find a prostitute and marry her. - (Hosea 1:1-3)

3. Find a man with seven daughters, and impress him by watering his flock. - Moses (Ex 2:16-21)

4. Purchase a piece of property, and get a woman as part of the deal. - Boaz (Ruth 4:5-10)

5. Go to a party and hide. When the women come out to dance, grab one and carry her off to be your wife. - Benjaminites (Judges 21:19-25)

6. Have God create a wife for you while you sleep. Note: this will cost you. - Adam (Gen 2:19-24)

7. Agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman’s hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. That’s right. Fourteen years of toil for a wife. - Jacob (Genesis 29:15-30)

8. Cut 200 foreskins off of your future father-in-law’s enemies and get his daughter for a wife - David (I Samuel 18:27)

9. Even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you’ll definitely find someone. (It’s all relative, of course.) - Cain (Genesis 4:16-17)

10. Become the emperor of a huge nation and hold a beauty contest. - Xerxes or Ahasuerus (Esther 2:3-4)

11. When you see someone you like, go home and tell your parents, “I have seen a ... woman; now get her for me.” If your parents question your decision, simply say, “Get her for me. She’s the one for me.” - Samson (Judges 14:1-3)

12. Kill any husband and take HIS wife (Prepare to lose four sons, though). - David (2 Samuel 11)

13. Wait for your brother to die. Take his widow. (It’s not just a good idea; it’s the law.) - Onana and Boaz (Deuteronomy or Leviticus, example in Ruth)

14. Don’t be so picky. Make up for quality with quantity. - Solomon (1 Kings 11:1-3)

15. A wife?...NOT? - Paul (1 Corinthians 7:32-35)

Every time my brain shows any kind of intelligence or independence, whether by dreaming, or a mathematical or coding renaissance, or even just growing gravid with simple snatches of song and poetry, I duly get a couple of liters of vodka and pummel it into submission. Bludgeoned into inactivity with several casual shots, it gives up on fancy creative ideas and—after a morning’s disoriented nausea—settles into sullen drudgery again, keeping me breathing, walking and functioning at work—and even smiling and happy, or at least providing a veneer of happiness to fool even itself. I do not require alcohol or any other kind of distraction for several days. Then it rebels again. Poor thing, it is obviously not that comfortable with its role as an automaton whose job consists in keeping this body coordinated enough to pay the rent and assure its continued survival and supply of further tranquilizers.

Do I really hate myself and everything I have to say that much? Occasionally I even get angry at myself; but then I get angry at my own anger, and that leads to another episode of imaginative attempt at independence, another uprising which my imagination loses with due repercussions. and so in the circle again. If I had a tail, I’d be chasing it quite properly and even with a pretense of joy. Brain vasectomy: efficient if only ever temporary.

OK, my lovely little morsels! Happy VD to all of you, and may whichever orgy you go to today turn out happy, friendly, full of reasonably clean, attractive and not too smelly people and orgasmilicious! Think of petals! And enjoy the fuck out of it!



(Special thanks to xkcd)

OK, why didn’t I know about this until now? What a fucking brilliant idea!

Or, more to the point, how stupid does he think the rest of the world is?:

“House Republicans had the wisdom to continue to talk to the Obama White House. This made them look gracious, even as the president edged toward a ‘my way or the highway’ attitude.”

(Karl Rove)

I hope this buffoon keeps on babbling; with luck, he’ll bring the GOP approval ratings into single digits by 2010.

OK, so last night was even more interesting. After the science-fiction tinged dreams of the last few days, it was quite a change into full-blown High Epic fantasy territory, and even Meta-fantasy at that.

I was on some strange and giant Ringworld, and I had a set of maps and on them was every Universe I had ever visited in my dreams; I just had to get to the right sector. The world extended in time as well as in space, so all the events that had ever happened in those major epic dreams of mine (and believe me, there are a-plenty, and many graphically violent, up to and including the destruction of whole civilizations and wholesale slaughter of millions) were accessible, concurrent, in some strange sense.

The problem, of course, was that there was no good transportation system. I could choose a destination, in space and in time, and have a very reasonable certainty that I would get to it, but the path was determined by the goal, and I still had to traverse many intermediate places and times. At least I seemed to be liberated from the most obvious constraints of linear time: not only did I appear to have all of it in the world, I was also not required to relive all the events leading to the event I was interested in getting to. I could inject myself into the given narrative at any moment I wished, but it came at a cost of having to travel through several other narratives on the way.

All in all, rather confusing, and hauling these maps around (there were, like, many cases of them) was a pain, what with having to fight off everything from Orc-like entities to hot punk-rock wenches to weather patterns, not to mention angry insane deities and faceless dreads each step of the way.

“This bill, which both chambers of Congress are expected to approve this week, marks a huge political victory for President Obama. He has only been in office a bit over 3 weeks and already made good on two of his biggest campaign promises: a middle class tax cut and a bill to stimulate the economy with the hope of creating 3.5 million jobs. The bill is popular in the country and any Republican who walks around in a T-shirt saying ”I voted no“ is not likely to pick up any new voters as a result.”

(from electoralvote.com)

Everybody dance, everybody sing, eveybody laugh at creotards!

Law student Cath Anderson is plucked from her motorcycle in LA and finds herself at some time later, together with a group of other people, arriving to a very strange place: a planet in the system of Pollux (observed previously via the terrestrial planet finder), a subsurface forest world populated by giant snakes travelling along the pathways and tunnels, cleaning and reorganizing; a world of lost toys, sinister apparitions and forgotten and suppressed memories come to life; where there already is a sizable human population and some people act as spokesmen for the snakes, where both human pets brought to the planet with their owners and people are taken by the snakes for unknown purposes and giant pale mushrooms grow in the dark tunnels. The welcoming committee for the new arrivals explains some of the facts of living on the planet, but most of the activity the snakes and other denizens indulge in as well as the ecology of the planet is a mystery. What’s more, activity further in from Pollux towards the Norma galactic arm indicates that something much more involved and on a much larger scale goes on there, and some of the humans are selectively sent there (the disappeared ones?).

I have several inklings of the ecology of the planet, but they are vague as most dreams are. I will attempt to go back to sleep and try to get to that planet again. It seems to be quite a wondersome place as well as the first new location I have dreamt about for quite a while. While beautiful and feeling slightly safer than my usual city, there still is an undercurrent of menace in the air, and the massive galaxy-restructuring (?) activities further out certainly appear to be sinister in some way.

The snakes themselves are a bit frightening, but mostly because their sheer size and the nonchalance with which they snap up (but do not destroy?) objects in their way; they do not appear to be actively malevolent. If their human spokesmen are asked, they sometimes return whatever they have taken in perfectly good condition (as they did with three cats they picked up, apparently out of sheer curiosity, when I was there). Sometimes they don’t. I am not sure whether I was the woman protagonist, but I was certainly observing the action either directly through her eyes or just a bit to the side, so to speak.

The landscape was beyond weird: with deeply forested--and snowed under--patches right next to warm underground warrens, some quite organic, others apparently constructed from giant Lego blocks. Some of the passages between interior rooms appear to be non-euclidean in their geometry. Doors and other apertures open and close seemingly at random; other objects are brought with people from Earth (the motorcycle made it!).

And what about the human spokesmen for the inhabitants? Are they voluntary collaborators, or meat puppets? And what is the status of the snakes? Are they the masters of the world (and beyond) or simply worker drones?

OK, then, I am definitely going back there...see y'all in the morning!

Tax cuts? Oh, for fuck’s sake: here. Pay close attention to the graph.

The most fascinating thing about the Republican opposition to the economic stimulus is the question of whether they really know so little about economics, and if so, why did anyone let them govern in the first place.. Of course the other alternative is that they are well-aware of basic macroeconomical principles at the heart of Obama’s plan, and pretend that they do not work only to win some political points. Interestingly, had Democrats done something like that in the ast 8 years, the Repugs would have quickly accused them of treason (and, in fact, they did: anyone expressing opposition to any of Bush’s foreign policy goals and methods was indeed attacked for alleged “anti-Americanism”).

I suppose the good thing about it is that the GOP is only further marginalizing itself and will join the American Communist party and the American National Socialists in irrelevance over the next few years, leaving Democrats as the standard party of the center-right and allowing some kind of a coherent left movement to emerge to challenge them. All in all, it’s about time USA found some political sanity and caught up with the rest of the Western society in this way.

I am proud to report that all of my blogs and social websites have registered 0 on the Quackometer test; that means I can still lay some claim to being on the side of raitonality and enlightenment! (Strangely, the only place that had generated any negative comments was my wordpress blog, long dormant; Quackometer reported that it was “dabbling in some postmodernist nonsense”, which I am at a loss to explain since part of my infamy was developed putting postmodernists down...)

Google Mars, anyone? Ha!

Creotards quoting Ken Ham and Answers in genesis are worse than any Cthuohoid nightmare I may have been having. The brains1 (the lack of them, to be exact!)

Yeah, yeah. Three fifths of booze in the last 48 hours. Svankmayer’s Faust (with all the congruent bits and pieces jumping right up and trying to grab my eyeballs (and The Most Amazingly Beautiful Woman in the Multiverse never having seen it)); with a bit of Bowie (y’know , The Man Who fell etc era; back when he looked inhumanly beautiful; ) Shit! closing parenthesesesesesesssss.

Anyway, pleased to meat you; and I am only reporting my failure to go to a random drunken fuck-bashery so I would know why I went to sleep in my bed tonight. Chillun...Anomie Belle are playing at Rotture next Fri; perhaps I shall pray to good music in the spirit of sobriety and celibacy by then.

A new LJ client. Does it work? If so, now I can make entries from 3 different places: browser, blogging software, and this: logjam!

I am still burning through last.fm Check out user/vodyanoj again; I've managed to rack up 31000 plays since July and you may get a taste of the sonic horror that is my life...

I have just installed vimperator plugin on my Firefox. It enables vi key bindings in the browser. Oi! Why did I not know about it back in my young days?

Those that don't know what vi is should ignore the previous sentence and concentrate on something else.

Is it going to have a kick on it like a pint mug of 151 or a half-gallon bottle of Australian table wine, or will it be just another glass of fizzy drink, an Alka-Seltzer on its way to stagnant calm?

CFI-UN Hamid Karzai Letter
by Center for Inquiry
The Center for Inquiry urges the Afghan government to release Sayed Pervez Kambakhsh, a 23-year-old journalism student at Balkh University and reporter for the local daily Jahan-e-Naw (The New World), sentenced to death for insulting Islam.

Mr. Kambakhsh was arrested on October 27, 2007, in Mazar-i-Sharif, Balkh province, for allegedly downloading and distributing material from a Farsi website which suggested that the Qur'an and Prophet Muhammad legitimize the oppression of women.

On January 22, 2008, Kambakhsh was brought before a Islamic court, without a lawyer or public oversight. Accused of un-Islamic speech and activity, socialism, rebelliousness, and improper instigation of religious debate, he was convicted of blasphemy by the court and sentenced to death.

To sign the petition go to:

http://ga1.org/campaign/CFI_Karzai_Letter

Today: the 100th anniversary of Tunguska. Still unresolved. I want to go to Lake Cheko sometimes next year...

(reposting from Sigur Ros blog):

NationalGeographic.com To Webcast Concert With Bjork This Saturday (June 28)

The good people at National Geographic are going to webcast this Saturday's Náttúra concert live on their website. here is the press release:

NAT GEO MUSIC TO WEBCAST BJÖRK AND SIGUR RÓS CONCERT
LIVE FROM ICELAND ON SATURDAY, JUNE 28

Fans can see concert only at worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com

NEW YORK (June 27, 2008)—Nat Geo Music, the music division of National Geographic Entertainment, will Webcast an open-air Náttúra concert live from Iceland on Saturday, June 28, 2008. Two of the world's most important and visionary musical entities, Björk and Sigur Rós, will headline the free concert.

The event will be available exclusively at worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET (begins at 8 p.m. BST/London or 7 p.m. GMT/Reykjavik).

To be held in a large park near the centre of Reykjavik, all of the performances will be during daylight, with Iceland's capital city and dramatic rolling scenery providing a perfect backdrop to what is expected to be one of the biggest concerts the country has seen. The Náttúra concert looks to raise awareness of the impact of the growing aluminum smelting activity on Iceland's natural landscape.

"One of Nat Geo Music's main goals is to offer artists and experts who care about global culture and the environment an outlet to create awareness for important issues. Spotlighting these amazing artists performing live in a spectacular backdrop allows our worldwide audience to enjoy great music and become aware of Iceland's environmental concerns and join the conversation," said David Beal, president of National Geographic Entertainment.

Commenting on the gig, Björk said: "Too often battles being fought for nature turn into something negative and into mudslinging. We will not go that way, we are not saying that this and that is forbidden, we are rather asking 'what about all these other possibilities?' The 21st century is not going to be another oil century but rather a century where we need to recycle, think green and design both power plants and our surroundings in harmony with nature."

Sigur Rós, who released its fifth album, "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust," this week, believes the issue of aluminum smelting in Iceland is one that can no longer be ignored. "We are not a political band and don't think musicians should set themselves as spokespeople on anything at all, but sometimes you see things going on in your own back yard and find that just as a human being you cannot stand by and do nothing. The changes that are going on in Iceland need to be the subject of debate and not snuck through the back door because no one lives in the wilderness and there is urban apathy or a general lack of awareness," said Sigur Rós vocalist Jón Thor Birgisson.

To download artist photos and bios, go to:
www.bjork.com
www.sigurros.com
www.nattura.info
http://dot.sigurros.com/natgeo/sigurros_presskit.zip
https://download.yousendit.com/E5D21F6108F3A08B

Nat Geo Music & Radio (NGMR) is a division of National Geographic Entertainment, established in 2007 to inspire people to care about the planet through the power of music. NGMR distributes and promotes its music offerings throughout all of National Geographic's media platforms, including the National Geographic Channels worldwide, National Geographic Films, National Geographic Giant Screen Films and National Geographic Kids Entertainment, as well as its magazines and digital media divisions. In addition to its programming and music supervision responsibilities, NGMR oversees the production of projects and programs with some of today's hottest artists who are actively involved in environmental and cultural issues.

Nationalgeographic.com is the award-winning Web site of the National Geographic Society and attracts 13 million unique visitors a month (source: Omniture). Nationalgeographic.com combines National Geographic's video, photography and maps with in-depth information and interactive features about animals and nature, destinations and cultures. Nationalgeographic.com's news service, National Geographic News, publishes daily stories about science and discoveries and produces electronic newsletters for more than 650,000 subscribers. Information about advertising on Nationalgeographic.com is at nationalgeographic.com/advertising.

Dr Lenski has published a paper discussing the evolution of E coli in his lab. Over the course of something like 3500 generations, the bacteria started metabolizing citrate all by their lil selves; a major evolutionary step, since nothing relating to citrate metabolism is present in the original group. This is all cool, and Lenski is in the possession of both original set of bacteria and the new, evolved version. Apparently now they are working on isolating the precise mutations responsible for this new ability.

All well and good, but crea/idiots could not leave well enough alone and attempted to cast aspersions on Dr Lenski's work and demanding full access to the data in question. With rather predictable results. The full story is here, and a wonderful exchamge of letters between Andy Schlafly of Conservapedia and Dr Lenski himself here. Great fun, totally hilarious and the conservative fool gets utterly pwned in the best sense of the word.

"I don't have pet peeves. I have major, psychotic hatreds."
--George Carlin

RIP

New spacesuit for Moonwalkers is pretty nifty:

A holiday or a commemoration of disaster?

Happy Russia day, anyway!;)

GLAST appears to hav egone up cleanly and safely. More later. Waiting for first light...;P