The Lady of Cao.

A replica of The Lady of Cao face, a female mummy found at the archaeological site Huaca El Brujo, a grand pyramid of the ancient Moche pre-hispanic culture, is seen at the Ministry of Culture in Lima, Peru July 4, 2017. REUTERS/Guadalupe Pardo.

The discovery of the Lady of Cao’s mummified remains in 2005 shattered the belief that the ancient Moche society, which occupied the Chicama Valley from about 100 to 700 A.D., was patriarchal. Several Moche female mummies have been found since in graves with objects denoting a high political and religious standing.

Archaeologists believe the Lady of Cao died due to complications of childbirth but otherwise lived a healthy life.

Her arms and legs were covered with tattoos of snakes, spiders and other supernatural motifs. Discovered near her funerary bundle was a strangled adolescent, who might have been a sacrifice to guide her into the afterlife, according to the museum at the El Brujo archaeological site where she was found.

The Lady of Cao is a reminder of the complex societies that thrived in what is now Peru long before the Inca empire dominated the Andes or Europeans arrived in the Americas.

The Moche built irrigation canals to grow crops in the desert and were known for their ceramics and goldwork that have been looted from their gravesites.

The replica of the Lady of Cao, a collaboration that included archaeologists, the Wiese Foundation and global imaging company FARO Technologies Inc, will be displayed in Peru’s culture ministry in the capital Lima through July 16. It will later be shown at the museum at El Brujo.

There’s more to read and see at Reuters.

A Request For Horror Stories Leads To Love Stories.

Screenshot.

The Indiana Republican Party had the bright idea to set up their FB to ask constituents for their ACA horror stories, but it backfired most spectacularly. There was plenty of horror, but it was splattered all over those rethuglicans who though they were being so clever.

The Indiana Republican Party has requested that the state’s constituents share their “horror stories” with ObamaCare, the Indianapolis Star reported Tuesday.

“What’s your Obamacare horror story? Let us know,” the GOP party wrote in a Facebook post as it sought to collect negative stories about the Affordable Care Act, such as higher premiums or insurance companies leaving the market.

Many of the people respondents, however, flooded them with stories about how the healthcare law has positively affected their lives.

“My sister finally has access to affordable quality care and treatment for her diabetes,” one person wrote, according to the news outlet.

“My father’s small business was able to insure its employees for the first time ever. #thanksObama,” another said.

Another person claimed that “the only horror in the story is that Republicans might take it away.”

Rethugs should seriously give up on the trying to be clever business, it never works out. The Hill has the story.

In yet an even more embarrassing move by the GOP geniuses, they decided to tweet out what they thought were cutting remarks and questions to assorted democrats, asking them where their healthcare plan was. In this effort, they included the Clintons, neither of whom hold office at the moment. I would have thought that much hadn’t escaped them. Naturally, the Twitterati have been merciless, if more than a bit exasperated. Raw Story has the full story and assorted tweets.

Thor’s Day Mood.

Ghost – Crucified (Army of Lovers Cover).

I’m crucified
Crucified like my savior
Saintlike behavior
A lifetime I prayed

I’ve seen the deepest darkness
And wrestled with gods
Ride the noble harness
Raining cats and dogs
I stand before my maker
Like Moses on the hill
My Guiness record baker
I abide your will

The first of reciters
I saw eternal light
Best of vocal fighters
Beyond human sight
Where thorns are a teaser
I’ve played a double jeux
Yherushalaim at easter
I cry I pray mon dieu

I’m crucified
Crucified like my savior
Saintlike behavior
A lifetime I prayed

I’m crucified
For the holy dimension
Godlike ascension
Heavens away

I’ve seen the deepest darkness
And wrestled with gods
Ride the noble harness
Raining cats and dogs
I stand before my maker
Like Moses on the hill
My Guiness record baker
I abide your will

Prophets I’ve been reading
Stories I’ve been told
Before I end my breathing
I travel in the soul
Where thorns are a teaser
I’ve played a double jeux
Yherushalaim at easter
I cry I pray mon dieu

Adieu mon dieu

I’m crucified
Crucified like my savior
Saintlike behavior
A lifetime I prayed

I’m crucified
For the holy dimension
Godlike ascension
Heavens away

I’m crucified
for the holy dimension
Godlike ascension
Heavens away

I’m crucified
Crucified like my savior
Saintlike behavior
A lifetime I prayed

Wild Horses Return to the Steppes.

A Przewalski’s horse leaves its container after being released in Takhin Tal National Park, part of the Gobi B Strictly Protected Area, in south-west Mongolia, June 20, 2017. REUTERS/David W Cerny.

A quarter-century-old project to repopulate the steppes of Mongolia with wild horses was kept alive as four animals made the long trip back to their ancestral home from Prague Zoo.

Driven to extinction in their homeland in the 1960s, the Przewalski’s horses survived in captivity before efforts began to re-introduce them to the arid desert and mountains along Mongolia’s border with China.

Zoos organized the first transport to Mongolia of the strong, stocky beasts in 1992.

For the past decade, Prague Zoo has been the only one continuing that tradition and it holds the studbook of a species whose ancestors – unlike other free-roaming horses such as the wild mustangs of the United States – were never domesticated.

The zoo completed its seventh transport last week, releasing four mares born in captivity in the Czech Republic, Germany and Denmark in the Gobi desert. They will spend the next year in an enclosed area to acclimatize before being freed.

“All the mares are looking very well, they are not hobbling, they are calm, eating hay and trying to test the taste of the new grass,” Prague Zoo veterinarian Roman Vodicka said after making observations a few days after the release.

Prague has released 27 horses in total and officials estimate around 190 are now back in the wild in the Gobi B park, where the most recent arrivals were sent.

What a wonderful project, one that fills my heart with happiness. There are many more photos at Reuters.

Crucifix! Crucifix! Crucifix!

Evangelist Joshua Feuerstein is all upset again, this time demanding a crucifix icon as some sort of rebellion (or possibly protection) against all those evil rainbows. Facebook has no intention of providing a crucifix for all the christians to mount themselves on, so good for them.

One user wrote:

“Remember GOD used the rainbow as a promise never to flood the earth again…but he will burn it with fire…so get ready…you can’t use a symbol that God created and pervert it without repercussions,”

Oh, christians are always so gosh darn loving, it just oozes out. Like poison. Such puerile whining! Where in the fuck is your faith? Why doesn’t that sustain you in the absolutely unbelievable torment and anguish of a rainbow icon? Isn’t suffering good for the soul? It’s all “god’s” plan or will or whatever? Mysterious ways, all that shit? Well, if I have to go up in flames, you’ll go too, if that vaunted flood of yours is any example. Unfortunately, any flames we see are more likely to be those of our own doing, in regard to climate change.

Via Raw Story.

Oh, Trumpholes.

A rather large “oops” on the part of Trumpholes yesterday. Apparently, every 4th of July, NPR reads the entire Declaration of Independence. So far, so good, if you like that sort of thing. Unfortunately, the next thing NPR did was to tweet out the whole text line by line, and the Trumpholes took exception to it, thinking it was yet another horrible leftist move which was saying terrible things about the Tiny Tyrant.

D.G. Davies, replying to @NPR: So, NPR is calling for revolution. Interesting way to condone violence while trying to sound “patriotic”. Your implications are clear.

Parker Molloy: NPR tweeted out the entire Declaration of Independence, and wow…uh…the responses are…something.

Via Raw Story, where you can see more of the tweets in question. Raw Story also has an interesting article up about a young reporter who turned a bit of the Declaration of Independence into petition form, and tried to get people to sign it in 1951. One person signed it, having recognized the origin. All the other people accused him of perpetrating a commie plot.

Word Wednesday.

Fulsome

Adjective.

1a: characterized by abundance: copious. b: generous in amount, extent, or spirit. c: being full and well developed.

2: aesthetically, morally, or generally offensive.

3: exceeding the bounds of good taste: overdone.

4: excessively complimentary or flattering: effusive.

– fulsomely, adverb.

– fulsomeness, noun.

Usage: The senses shown above are the chief living senses of fulsome. Sense 2, which was a generalized term of disparagement in the late 17th century, is the least common of these. Fulsome became a point of dispute when sense 1, thought to be obsolete in the 19th century, began to be revived in the 20th. The dispute was exacerbated by the fact that the large dictionaries of the first half of the century missed the beginnings of the revival. Sense 1 has not only been revived but has spread in its application and continues to do so. The chief danger for user of fulsome is ambiguity. Unless the context is made very clear, the reader or hearer cannot be sure whether such an expression as “fulsome praise” is meant in sense 1b or in sense 4.  [Merriam-Webster.]

[Origin: Middle English fulsom, copious, cloying, from full + –som -some.]

(13th century.)

“Glad to meet you, sir. I have heard your name mentioned in connection with that of your friend. You interest me very much, Mr. Holmes. I had hardly expected so dolichocephalic* a skull or such well-marked supra-orbital development. Would you have any objection to my running my finger along your parietal fissure? A cast of your skull, sir, until the original is available, would be an ornament to any anthropological museum. It is not my intention to be fulsome, but I confess that I covet your skull.” – The Hound of the Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle.

*Dolichocephalic

adjective: having a relatively long head with a cephalic index of less than 75.

[Origin: New Latin dolichocephalus long-headed, from Greek dolichos long + – kephalos, from kephalē head.]

(1852)