The Boogeyman Across Cultures

It seems that the idea of a nasty character who carries a bag into which he or she stuffs naughty children, who are then, never again heard from is common around the world, and in many cultures this character has a name that is similar to "boogeyman." In Scotland children are told they may be taken by a bogger, bogart, for instance. From Wikipedia:

In many countries, a bogeyman-like creature is portrayed as a man with a sack on his back who carries naughty children away. This is true for many Latin countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Brazil and the countries of Spanish America, where it referred to as el "Hombre de la Bolsa", el hombre del saco, or in Portuguese, o homem do saco (all of which mean "the sack man"). Similar legends are also very common in Eastern Europe, as well as Haiti and some countries in Asia. 

Were you ever told about a monster that would come and take you if you  misbehaved? Many stories have origins in warning children away from dangerous things that they can't rationally understand. Others seem formulated to scare the beegeezus out of impressionable children to make them more pliable. We tell these stories to adults, too, though. Human consciousness seems programmed to imagine supernatural terrors awaiting us if we take too many missteps. What ever. My imaginary friend is always on call to aid me.

Disposable Chopsticks = Deforestation

Your good old reusable flatware is way more environmentally friendly.

Usually when one hears about rates of global deforestation, you get stats such as "Amazonian rain forests are being decimated at a rate of 2.4 acres per second." But recently I'm hearing more about the amount of forest being razed to create disposable / one-time-use chopsticks throughout Asia:

China now produces and discards more than 45 billion pairs of disposable chopsticks every year, cutting down as many as 25 million trees in the process, according to government statistics. Another 15 billion pairs are exported to Japan, South Korea and other countries. At the current rate of timber use, environmentalists warn, China will consume its remaining forests in about a decade.
And despite China's great land mass, they're importing 60 million cubic meters of timber yearly to meet demand. To make matters worse, the Chinese government actively encouraged disposable chopstick use for years to inhibit communicable disease. There is a nascent environmental movement in China which encourages people to carry their own non-disposable chopsticks, but I've heard from Chinese environmentalists that environmentalism in China gets even more strange looks than it does in the U.S.

So... what happens in a decade, when all of China's forests are gone?

Sex Pistols in San Antonio

Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols (U.S. Version)


There's something here. 

Darned Interesting: The Writer Who Couldn't Read

UFOs to Arrive for July 4th Celebrations?

Yes, in fact, the UFOs will arrive for July 4th. Whether you'll see them or not is another matter, but they will be with us. Rumor has it that humans will have an opportunity to watch their fireworks, and, if the mood strikes them, move into the fifth dimension. Just remember: you read it here first.

Je Ne Sais Quoi

David Lynch sells cigarettes. Don't smoke kids. Really don't smoke them.

A Scientific Explanation for Ghosts?

To start with at beginning, the fourth dimension is time, and this refers to all the time in our existence. From things long passed to things yet to happen. We live in this dimension and therefore can only see a cross section of it, this being the present.
To see time as a whole you must, like with all dimensions, be one dimension higher than the one your observing.
Just like we can see the whole of a two dimensional object, from its insides to the surrounding area. While the two dimensional being would only be able to see one dimensional lines and thus not the insides of enclosed objects.
With use of this same principle we can assume that a five dimensional being would be able to see time as a whole, like we see a drawing on paper.
This being would to see us as long snakes, starting at our birth and ending at our death. But not only us, they would see this with everything that exists in our dimension, from the smallest particle to the very universe itself.

full article here. Via professor hex