BBC News: Rare Roman lantern found in field near Sudbury.

”The lantern dates from between 43 and 300 AD. It is like a modern hurricane lamp and the naked flame would have been protected by a thin sheet of horn which had been scraped and shaped until it was see-through.” Startlingly modern in design!

Washington Post: Illegal immigration to U.S. down almost 67% since 2000, report says.

Hmmm. No mention of the unrestrained drug wars along the border, making illegal immigration that much more dangerous a proposition.

The Atlantic: Maybe July Wasn’t as Bad as We Thought.

”The economy is generally getting better, but barely. If this trend continues, and sentiment improves, then the recovery could gain speed. But real estate threatens to hold it down if it experiences much additional deterioration.”

New Scientist: Arctic oil and gas drilling ready to take off.

”Nothing much can be done to cope with a spill in the winter beyond tracking the ice, waiting for the oil to surface in the summer melt, then setting it alight. Yet calls for an Arctic-wide moratorium on oil exploration until safety measures are in place have gone unheeded.” Big Oil’s hoping ‘out of sight, out of mind’ will rule the Arctic oil field production.

Photoshop Insider Blog: Guest Blog Wednesday, John Loengard!

”Don’t try to tell a photographer how to take a picture, (except, possibly, suggesting some special effect). You want the photographer to follow his own instincts. You should, however, let the photographer climb upon your shoulders for a better view.” A really excellent read.  Recommended for all photogs.

GQ: The Verge Q&A;: Michael Caine.

”We all went and saw Kubrick’s Clockwork Orange, about violence in the future—I felt we could’ve called this movie Clockwork Orange is Here! The gangs now are so much deadlier than when I was younger.”

WSJ: For Sale: T. Rex, Good Condition, Woolly Mammoth, Needs Repair.

“Prairie Dog Town, near Oakley, Kan., is for sale, with an asking price of $450,000, says its owner, Larry Farmer, who also wants to retire. It comes with 37 billboards advertising the attraction, 400 prairie dogs and — for anyone not sufficiently excited by burrowing rodents — a live, six-legged cow.”

WyoFile: A Legacy of Prejudice: Lawsuits, Failed Pacts Tell Ugly Story.

”Whites here may have legitimate concerns about the quasi-independent state on their borders, such as issues relating to law-enforcement jurisdiction or water rights. But that doesn’t explain the bigotry that often seems a holdover from another time: the high-school sports fans mocking Indian players as ‘prairie niggers,’ for example, or the white civic leader, subsequently elected to the county commission, declaring in a private meeting, ‘I hate goddamn Indians,’ to cite examples from the voting rights trial.” Many think the ‘wild West’ is a part of the past.  Live out here for a while, you’ll realize it’s alive and well — and not the fantasy perpetrated on us kids through “Bonanza” and “Gunsmoke.”

BBC News: Assessing America’s ‘imperial adventure’ in Iraq.

”Whatever happens here for the next decade, the Americans will get the blame - unless of course Iraq becomes peaceful and prosperous, in which case no-one will thank them. That is the usual fate of an occupying force.” Which is also why the once-recognizable Republican Party insisted that we weren’t the world’s police force, and that it wasn’t America’s place to go around nation-building.

YouTube: First Video from Expedition Titanic.

Watch in 720P HD.

Workman Publishing: Leonardo’s Notebooks.

Want.

Inside Higher Ed: ‘American Universities in a Global Market’.

”Between 1995 and 2005 the U.S. share of world article production fell from 34 to 29 percent. Another sure sign of vulnerability is the diminishing numbers of American college students who undertake advanced study in science, technology, engineering, and math, or who persevere once they begin. Between 1970 and 2005, the number of U.S. citizens who obtained doctoral degrees declined 23% in engineering, 44% in physical sciences, and 50% in mathematics.” What do you expect, when we no longer have a respect for education in our culture?

The Atlantic: 3 Politically Impossible Fixes for the Economy.

Number three is what will eventually fix us. Though there’ll be a lot of screaming and yelling in the process.

CBC News: Titian painting damaged by water in Venice fire.

No, no, NO!

The Atlantic: What Ernest Hemingway, Toni Morrison, and R. Crumb Have in Common.

”What made these interviews radical was their method.  In the first place, the method is slow. [snip] In the second place, the interviews are collaborative.” Interesting.

NY Times: Ansel Adams Photo Dispute Has a Reversal.

Raises a question. If the Earl Brooks photographs are so hard to distinguish from Adams’ famous ones ... is Adams as special as we deem?  Over time, this may impact the value of his Yosemite works.

BBC News: Dry weather reveals archaeological ‘cropmarks’ in fields.

60 new sites in a day. Impressive.

Robb Report: An Ancient Spirit from the Orkneys.

”Nonetheless, the 1968 Highland Park is scarce by any standard. Less than 100 bottles, priced at $3,999 each, have been allocated for United States.” HP is one o’ my favorites; that being said, this is way, way too rich for my blood.

Discover Magazine: When the ancients were wise.

“The Renaissance had been an efflorescence of learning, but it had been retarded in its progress in some ways because of the reverence for ancient precedents. This is most evident in medicine and physics, where Galen and Aristotle led scientists astray.  There are some domains where the ancients still hold sway today. Religion is one.”

New Scientist: Remains of the oldest feast found.

“In a cave 12,000 years ago, a group of people settled down to a dinner that has rarely been matched: 71 tortoises that had been roasted in their shells.” They can thank their lucky stars they lived before mock turtle soup.

Cartype: Emblems by number.

So, a Trabant 601 beats an Olds 442? Not quite.

SF New Mexican: Rosetta Stone releases Navajo language software.

”For native English speakers, for example, learning Navajo is less about the words and more about rearranging the sentence structure and putting the verb last.” That being said, knowing Latin will help you out then. Verbs at the end!

Vimeo: Ghosts in the Hollow.

Oh, well done.

ProPublica: A Crib Sheet on Wall Street’s Self-Dealing Money Machine.

“… there was still a lot of money to be made if they kept the CDO market going. So they found a way to do so — artificially. They created fake demand.” CDO’s bought CDO’s. No wonder there was such a huge cascade, falling-house-of-cards effect.

NY Times Art Review: ‘Samurai in New York’ at Museum of the City of New York.

“Ever since our arrival at the American capital we have frequently been asked by photographers to allow our photographs to be taken, but we have hitherto refused, as it is not the custom in our country. Today, however, we had to submit, in deference to the President’s wishes. We therefore, for the first time, faced the photograph machine.” I like that ... ‘photograph machine’.  I’ll reuse that.