I know a lawyer who was interviewing for assistant DA of our county. He knew how many, many others were applying and how hard it was going to be remembered out of that sea of faces. As it so happens he was a fighter in the Society for Creative Anachronism, so he decided to add at the end of the interview ..."and I'm the only applicant with experience in trial by combat."
This idea does fall in line with speculations I've seen that the "global cooling" of the 70s was an artifact of pollution, and that with more stringent regulations on emissions we saw temperatures spike. But I'd be far more likely to entertain these theory revisions if the AGW crowd hadn't started out by screaming "It's settled science, question us and you're deniers that will destroy the earth!"
This is the crap I'd expect from some tabloid like Star magazine, not...well, I was about to say Newsweek, but then I realized I'd put nothing past them anymore. Carry on with your slide into irrelevancy...
"It" used to be a perfectly normal and respectful usage about a child, even into the 1900s. And both boys and girls used to be dressed alike in petticoats until the age of 6 or so. So these so-called "gender neutral" concepts are actually old-fashioned -- and flourished at a time when differentiation between gender roles was FAR more harsh and stratified. So much for these measures being intrinsicly progressive!
I can't challenge your assessment of "what follows," because the arrogantly flippant tone of the paragraph shown drives me away from reading it for myself.
This looks way too much like a joke in one of the episodes of "The Big Bang Theory" where Sheldon concocts a similar robot to go to work for him while he hypochondriacally stays in bed controlling it...
Can't it be two sides of the same coin? Sweet and protective "nanny" to the ones in their "pack" in proportion to their potential of being vicious to those outside of it.
As for the Egyptian workforce...way I heard it, people couldn't work their fields during the 4-month inundation period, so you had a hell of lot of subjects with time to kill until the Nile went down again. You're a god-king, why not use them? And we have written records of pyramid workers staging sit-down strikes until their proper rations were delivered, which is not the behavior I'd associate with slaves (at least the ones that survive).
I distinctly remember reading in 7th grade science class that the idea of salt intake possibly affecting blood pressure was an old wives' tale. Guess those old wives knew something after all.
I'm not exactly sure how a word that is an ENDEARMENT -- as in "my darling, my pet" -- is supposed to be insulting. The first recorded use of "pet", around 1500, is in the sense of "indulged child", which surely fits in with the treatment of many of today's "animal companions."
heh- Maybe we are all part of Gaia's elaborate plan to undo the nasty work of the stromatolites who unbalanced the original atmosphere with their excess oxygen!
I would have liked to have seen comparable research done in other countries with substantial immigrant populations, and the results compared with these studies. Only then can you start legitimately raising the possibility of the "corrupting" influence of America, as opposed to the "corrupting" influence of being damn human a la Laston's trenchant analysis. (And I speak as not only first-generation, but the only one in my entire family tree to be born in the USA.)
He got the job.