"Thank Heaven... for little girls..."

The girls' feelings are not taken into account at all. There's a very good chance she's never even met the boy she'll be married off to. Societies that enforce rules like this treat women as chattel and labor under the delusion that women are naturally wanton, lustful creatures that must be strictly controlled. (To make matters worse, the women largely come to believe that this is true. If one is actually removed from that society, she will usually either continue to inhibit herself as if she needed to be controlled, or she will go berserk and act the way that the men of her culture imagine women would do if left to their own devices, thus "justifying" this attitude.)
The marriage is mainly a business transaction, intended to consolidate wealth among two groups of the same economic caste (Since the children are probably cousins, this ensures the family's money stays in the family). Their children, especially the first-born son, stand to benefit from the wealth. As for love... that is between parents and their children. Men use their wives to make babies, and the matter of love between spouses is simply a non-issue. (If they fall in love with each other, that's nice; but not necessary.) If no children are born, it is thought to be a defect of the woman, and she is to be divorced and her dowry refunded.
If the husband borrows something from his brother-in-law and loses or damages it, the brother-in-law is allowed to take his sister away until reparations are made.
The Qur'an says that a woman may divorce her husband; but most patriarchal "Muslim" societies simply make up their own rules and claim that it's part of Islamic law. ("Go ahead --- challenge it! I dare you," is their attitude. That's why the penalties for disobedience are so harsh; they know the Qur'an does not support their position, so they resort to violence to scare people into doing as they say.)
In that society, marriage is not a woman's right, nor is it her privilege; it is simply her duty.

A mesh underlayer would help the stencil keep its shape. However, I'm writing to say this kind of startled me when I saw it at first. It reminds me of a description or photograph I saw of a woman who survived the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki. The flash from the blast gave her "sunburn," but she was wearing a floral-print kimono and its design was burned onto her skin. Maybe this idea might enjoy some popularity where Ms. Wang lives; but I doubt it would fly in Japan.

I saw a clever bit o' graffiti consisting of a single letter added to a sign posted near a stretch of road that had been under repair for a LONG time: (F)UTILITY WORK AHEAD.

Also... (And I do this with water-based marker so it can be easily cleaned off when the fun's over) I like to add a top hat and cane to some of the no-necks on the "Caution: Wet Floor" signs. The ones where the little guy looks like he's doing a vaudeville dance.

Oddly enough, there are still many, many people who have never heard of vitiligo, even in the USA. This is despite the fact that both Michael Jackson and one of his sisters have it. Of the few who have heard of it, many assume that it only affects Black people. Actually, anyone can develop it, regardless of how dark or pale their skin was to begin with; it's just more visible if one's skin is darker.

Because I believe that "race" is really just an outmoded cultural construct, and I love to make people question inherently racist political agendas, I'll sometimes bring up the matter of vitiligo. For instance, as an employer, I was required by a rather officious management office to fill out a form listing my employees and providing various statistics. One of the blanks to be checked off was "Minority? Yes___ No___" I asked the person who required the form what exactly was meant by this "minority." Within seconds, it became apparent that their idea of what made a person a "minority" was an unbelievably insensitive set of generalizations. I further exacerbated things by inquiring as to where exactly does one draw the line --- at which point does a person cease to be "black" and become "white"? What if the person gets a deep tan? or develops vitiligo? I pointed out that one's parentage has very little to do with one's shade of brown; I've seen so-called "interracial" couples produce children who might easily be labeled one or the other, as well as "mixed." In the end, I labeled everyone "minority" on the form, after I'd determined that the point of it was to see if some quota was being met.

For the record, all three employees happened to be women, two of Puerto Rican ancestry and one recently arrived from Ethiopia. Maybe someone out there views them as minorities --- but I never thought of them that way. Half the human population is female, ergo, women are not a minority; women are equal partners. As for the brownness of their skin, who am I to judge? Apparently, in this city, my own skin's total lack of melanin production makes ME the "minority."

That speck of green IS the aurora borealis. The blue/white field below it is the Earth's atmosphere, illuminated by a few rays of sunlight. The black area below that is the Earth. Here's a link to the Wikipedia entry on polar auroras: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurora_%28astronomy%29 The article gives a detailed description of what they are, along with other cool photographs and a diagram. Basically, auroras form much the way that a fluorescent tube lights up: energy passes through a layer of ionized gas, causing... (This is usually where most students start tuning out. Just look at the pretty lights and marvel at the wonders of the Cosmos!)

I've seen this sort of (anti-pink) behavior among the "over-compensating tough guy" sort. I think it's hilarious that these guys, who act so tough, fall apart so easily when they see that particular color! Are they sissies at heart, or something, that they can't deal with it, and make this bizarre connection between pink and homosexuality (which also makes them panic and freak out)?

Then again, I'm slightly color-blind, so pink is just another gray to me. From my perspective, I'm seeing these bullies jumping around in terror and attacking people over... nothing at all. If they weren't victimizing people, it would be weirdly funny.

While I can't confirm or deny the authenticity of the song, I'm not at all surprised. Little Wolferl (diminutive of "Wolfgang") was notorious for making grossly inappropriate jokes, had a habit of spontaneously spouting strings of rhyming words (usually vulgar), and didn't care a fig who overheard him. Wonderful musician, amazing composer... but not someone you'd want to have at your party unless everyone was quite drunk.

Then again, we're not sure exactly HOW vulgar this sort of thing was at the time it was written. It certainly was considered vulgar, but it may have been thought of as no more "shocking" than something Bart Simpson would say would sound to our ears. I say this because a good deal of the "naughtiness" of the 18th Century was suppressed in 19th Century histories (which treated Mozart as a well-behaved musical genius and made little or no mention of his bizarre behavior), so we have a rather "sanitized" view of the past. Also, the song "Yankee Doodle," well-known to all American schoolchildren, is really a very raunchy song that basically says, "The soldiers of the Continental Army are a bunch of sissies who are so ugly they have to masturbate ("yankee doodle") because the ladies won't go near them. Also, Thomas Jefferson is a dandified fop who thinks his "macaroni" is such a great invention..." The song became popular in the Colonies immediately (despite the fact that it was intended as an insult), and was sung by children after the Revolutionary War was over. My guess is that it was not to be sung in mixed company, and that it was felt there was no harm in young children singing it, because they wouldn't know what the slangs meant. As with many slang terms, these fell into disuse, and it wasn't long before even strait-laced schoolmarms were teaching the song to their pupils, with no idea how raunchy the song was. (If only they knew what it meant!)

Fingal's Cave in the Hebrides of Scotland contains similar formations.

Yes, the last picture, with the "21st Century Home" seems to be generating a lot of comments, with some people suggesting it might be a spoof rather than an actual "vision of future past" from 1979. Although I can't prove its authenticity, it's really not as implausible as it might seem in its remarkable prescience regarding e-mail. The Internet existed in the late 1960s, allowing computer technicians to, well, e-mail each other and thus save on postage & phone bills. Mostly they used it to transfer streams of data from one terminal to another (slo-o-owly, of course). Oddly enough, I read that an early sci-fi story from the 1920s speculated on a network of lines used by computers (and users) to communicate to each other. (This was when mechanical, let alone electronic, computers themselves were still theoretical!) So although most people didn't expect much from the Inernet or even know about it when it came into existence, a few people did have some idea that such a thing might be built and prove useful. (No mention of cyber-porn, though...)

And regarding the mention of an old book about a future in which one could record one TV show while watching another: Videotape was developed in the 1950s, when few people even had TV sets. It was used as a relatively inexpensive film substitute for TV stations. Reel-to-reel video recorders became available in the late 1960s, but I don't know if they could be connected directly to TV sets and record off of them. The first videocassettes appeared in the 1970s, but few people had them. (The cassettes were huge, too!) VCRs for the common folk didn't show up until the 1980s. But some of that technology was in existence for a long time, fueling the imagination of those who were familiar with it.

For an example of some more prescient technology that only recently became available (and still needs work before it becomes commonly accepted), check out Fritz Lang's 1927 film "Metropolis." We see a videophone that allows the autocrat Fredersen to communicate with the workers' foreman and see him at the same time. (The foreman, being of a lower class, does not have a similar screen at his end of the line allowing him to see Fredersen, however.) In 1927, television was still largely theoretical (although some closed-circuit TV experiments may have been done), so this was an astoundingly high-tech gadget at the time.

I've heard many of the superstitions and also the attempts by science to explain yawns. I'm not surprised that it's still a mystery! I occasionally get "yawning fits," during which I yawn repeatedly in succession for about five minutes. Although these "attacks" make me feel dizzy, they seem to hit without warning... and leave me feeling no different than before. They happen most often when I'm under extreme pressure or stress, but not in emergency situations.

Also, although I often yawn when I see someone else yawning, this does not happen all the time (and I'm taking into account the fact that sometimes I yawned first). That is, I may not be yawning, I see someone else yawn, and it fails to provoke a sympathetic response in me. This happens mostly if I don't know the yawner personally, which may support the "hardwired ritual" theory mentioned in "Science Daily." I subconsciously do not recognize the stranger as part of my little "tribe," so his or her yawn carries less significance for me than if a friend or family member yawns.

So far, in my case, yawns seem to be connected with present (but not immediate) danger, and with some sort of social factor involved. I do yawn more when under stress than when relaxed. However, I also (though less frequently) yawn when relaxed and alone, so the conditions of danger and company are not requirements for yawning to occur.

It might be a vestigial function that served a more definite purpose in our distant past; if its pupose is more clearly defined in other species, that might help us figure it out. Dogs and cats yawn, and they are related to us only so far as they are placental mammals; we parted ways many millions of years ago. Somewhere, there may have been a common ancestor to whom yawning probably served a useful function that improved its chances of surviving & mating. Although the yawn has since been supplanted by other tactics (maybe an improved cardiovascular system), the yawn proved in its time to be so useful that it became an integral part of many species descended from this ancestor. Kind of like the appendix on the large intestine.

Sounds more like an agnostic to me. An atheist has decided that there is no God; an agnostic isn't sure or has doubts. As a nun, such doubts would naturally raise a spiritual conflict within her. If she were an atheist, she wouldn't be a nun (or would have left the order, even if she continued doing charitable work), and wouldn't have wasted time searching for something she "knew" wasn't there. All the same, she continued to do what she knew to be right, even if she wasn't sure about God (and therefore couldn't honestly hope for a reward in some sort of afterlife), and that is very important.

Yes, officer, that's the Wampa that killed my Tauntaun and stuck me to the roof of his cave...

From a kung-fu parody movie called "They Call Me Bruce?"

"You see that fly?" (Guy karate-chops fly in midair; fly continues buzzing away.)
"It's still alive."
"Yes... but it will never have children."

Thank goodness! But seriously, that case should never have gone as far as it did. We need to take the approach of the Japanese legal system, which has made lawsuits so difficult to file that only very serious cases ever make it to this point.

Yes, the Fremen of the desert planet Arrakis play this game, too... (In case you didn't "get" it, that's a reference to Frank Herbert's classic sci-fi novel "Dune.")