a penguin of very little brain

Photo

Sat, 25 May 2013 23:41:44 +1000

theworldofchinese: A Wonderland That Never...

Fri, 24 May 2013 12:25:09 +1000

A Wonderland That Never Was

Beijing’s Wonderland amusement park has finally been demolished after 14 years of laying in waste. Wonderland never opened for business, and has been well-known as Neverland, a real life Silent Hill, Castle Ruins, or Ghost City. The Wonderland that never was, and never will be, initially aimed to become Asia’s largest amusement park. Construction began in 1994, was halted in 1998, and deconstruction followed after over a decade. On top of the ruins of Wonderland will rise an international luxury shopping center .

Beijing Morning Post reports that the Changping district government announced earlier this year plans of three major tourist and commercial projects for west Changping:

“‘Asia’s largest amusement park’ Wonderland, whose construction has stalled for 15 years, will be used to build the 85,000 square meters 长城国际名品购物中心 (Great Wall international luxury shopping center). Allegedly, the 85,000-square-meter 长城国际名品购物中心 will feature a shopping center housing international luxury brands, a plaza, an entertainment center, and an aviation tourism club. Some of the facilities are expected to start running at the end of this year.”

The article goes on about the 2 other projects, both within close proximity to Wonderland. To its southwest will rise Huabin’s Peace Palace project. After the Huabin Peace Palace completes, it will hold 50 international culture and art events, along with 30 concerts per year. To its east will lie a town with an outlet commercial city, high-tech indoor amusement center, and five-star hotels. (I found some renderings for the proposed Peace Palace, and ironically it looks like it belongs to one of these “copy towns”.)

Wonderland aimed high, but fell before it reached the sun…

Read More…

haha i actually just gasped out loud

thesanityclause: Okay colored it. Sorry for all the text posts...

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:26:23 +1000

thesanityclause:

Okay colored it. Sorry for all the text posts lately.

Ancient African coins lead experts to question who discovered (Australia) islands

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:24:48 +1000

Ancient African coins lead experts to question who discovered (Australia) islands:

thefemaletyrant:

According to the records, Australia was first discovered by Dutch explorers in the early 17th century. So how did 1,000-year-old copper coins from a former African sultanate end up on a remote Australian beach?

An Australian anthropologist, Ian McIntosh, is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery, which began when five coins were found buried in sand by a soldier patrolling the Wessel Islands off the continent’s north coast in 1944, two years after Darwin was bombed by the Japanese.

Maurie Isenberg, who was manning a radar station on the uninhabited but strategically important islands, stored the coins in a tin, and on coming across them again in 1979, sent them to a museum.

They were identified as originating in the former sultanate of Kilwa, near present-day Tanzania, and dated to as far back as the 900s.

So far, so mysterious, for according to the history books the first outsider to set foot on Australian soil was a Dutchman, Willem Janszoon, who landed in present-day north Queensland in 1606 – more than 160 years before Captain James Cook arrived and claimed the continent for the British throne.

Dr McIntosh believes that the coins, which have apparently been gathering dust in the museum, could rewrite Australian history, indicating that the country was visited long before Europeans arrived.

[…]

Now a World Heritage ruin, Kilwa was once a flourishing trade port and in the 13th to 16th centuries had links to India. Its trade – in gold, silver, pearls, perfumes, Arabian stoneware, Persian ceramics and Chinese porcelain – made it one of the most influential towns in East Africa.

To those of us who are well familiar with African history, this comes as no surprise.

Yes this is news (this is my first time hearing about these coins) but considering how far and wide Africans travelled at the time Europeans were still in the backwaters, it is not strange that they (at least their coins) reached Australia.

What I detest is this insistence on “discovery”, the indigenous people of Australia have been there for a while, neither Africans or Europeans (or people from the Middle East who have played roles in East African history) “discovered” Australia.

Non-Binary Gender Terms Across Languages

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:14:47 +1000

Non-Binary Gender Terms Across Languages:

gqid:

Although there are many English-language resources and glossaries about transgender, genderqueer, and non-binary terms, there are not as many in other languages. I have begun a few pages at the Non-Binary Wiki, which anyone can edit, to list terms and their meanings in a few languages:

Glossary of Chinese gender and sex terminology

Glossary of Japanese gender and sex terminology

Glossary of Korean gender and sex terminology

Glossary of Russian gender and sex terminology

Glossary of Spanish gender and sex terminology

More will be added - these were created as just a start to this project and anyone is welcome to create further language pages or edit the ones that already exist to add new terms, citations of sources, or correct any errors. I am focusing on collecting terms related to non-binary gender identity, although general gender and sex terms can also be added to these glossaries. I am very excited about this project!

~Marilyn

“I always admired Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hulk, but I...

Tue, 21 May 2013 21:41:59 +1000

“I always admired Wonder Woman and the Incredible Hulk, but I don’t know if I’d be a very convincing Hulk.”

squiddishly: batrock: unicornology: A magnificent person has...

Sun, 19 May 2013 20:59:59 +1000

squiddishly:

batrock:

unicornology:

A magnificent person has scanned the entire Ferals Fantastic Funbook for our convenient online viewing. So amazing.

I, I own(ed) this.

INCOMING THEME TUNE EARWORM!

yeah i’m humming it right now

FBI surrounds house of Saudi student following sightings of him with pressure cooker pot, only to find he was cooking rice

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:30:57 +1000

FBI surrounds house of Saudi student following sightings of him with pressure cooker pot, only to find he was cooking rice:

cultureofresistance:

rudermensch:

Saudi student Talal al Rouki (pictured) was questioned by FBI agents after neighbours saw him carrying a pressure cooker. FBI are vigilant after Boston bombers used a pressure cooker to make an explosive.

“An FBI agent said: ‘You need to be more careful moving around with such things, Sir’ ”

#cooking while arab

Majak Daw: the first Sudanese born professional AFL player. Just...

Sun, 12 May 2013 19:28:00 +1000

Majak Daw: the first Sudanese born professional AFL player. Just saw a poster for “Majak Happens.” Also he’s adorable.

I’m waiting for the racial vilification stuff at this level. You know it’ll happen (already happened at VFL level).

ladysaviours: evanfleischer: “Hey, Joel — how’d your story on...

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:41:25 +1000

ladysaviours:

evanfleischer:

“Hey, Joel — how’d your story on millenials go over?”

“I don’t know. Let’s — oh. Oh.”

(via Morgan.)

ohhh, it’s THAT GUY. (that guy)

crying laughing

rufflesnotdiets: Guo Pei God I love her work, and how she...

Fri, 10 May 2013 14:09:59 +1000

rufflesnotdiets:

Guo Pei

God I love her work, and how she uses elements of historical Chinese fashion and art to create these amazing, sculptural pieces

ourcatastrophe: for part of the time when John Howard was Prime Minister my sister happened to be...

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:44:25 +1000

ourcatastrophe:

for part of the time when John Howard was Prime Minister my sister happened to be working for the Japanese government, and once she met the Japanese Minister for Agriculture at an official function where people had gotten a bit shitfaced

and he said “so… I met your Prime Minister…”

and she was like “yeah, he’s a nong, we’re really embarassed, sorry”

and he laughed and said “ok man one time he was busting our balls trying to get us to buy more Australian rice, which, whatever, we don’t need more Australian rice”

“so I pretended to speak English really badly”

“and patted my stomach and said ‘very sorry, Japanese have only small stomachs! we cannot eat so much rice!’”

“and he totally fell for it! man, what an idiot”

cryyyying

more on race, star trek, and actors choosing roles

Fri, 10 May 2013 13:33:14 +1000

princessnijireiki:

remember that one time sir patrick stewart really wanted to play othello because othello is gr9

and so his solution was to do a racially flipped cast of othello and he hired all black actors for the rest of the story so he wasn’t being mr. all the time white dudes while at the same time providing opportunities not often available in theater for black actors to fill the stage, incl. an interracial relationship w. a black woman who was presented as desirable

without changing the original text and having “an increased emphasis on abuse against women”

…this was in 1997

just throwin’ that out there

thestormypetrelofcrime: Got my hands on My Life as a Weapon.

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:44:14 +1000

thestormypetrelofcrime:

Got my hands on My Life as a Weapon.

fireofspring: cthonical: pidgeonstew: http://www.pacificrim-mo...

Wed, 08 May 2013 17:10:18 +1000

fireofspring:

cthonical:

pidgeonstew:

http://www.pacificrim-movie.net/

hey so guess which jaeger has the highest kaiju kill count AUSTRALIA MATE

it’s hilarious how the specs are making the usa and japanese jaegers the underdogs. and here i am, all: AUSTRALIAAA! CHINAAA YAAY

No Orders at the Window: Unsolicited Life Stories: Stop ‘Rescuing’ African Children Through Corrupt Adoptions

Wed, 08 May 2013 16:52:25 +1000

No Orders at the Window: Unsolicited Life Stories: Stop ‘Rescuing’ African Children Through Corrupt Adoptions:

Nineteen-year-old Tarikuwa Lemma is a survivor, of an international adoption scandal. When she was 13, she was effectively sold from her native Ethiopia to an American family. The corrupt “adoption agency” convinced her father, who was a widow, that Tarikuwa and her younger sisters were headed to the U.S. as part of an educational exchange program, and that they would return home every summer and on holiday breaks. Little did he know, his daughters had been placed with adoptive couples in the U.S., never to return. Tarikuwa’s name was changed against her will, and she was forbidden by her American “family” from speaking her native language.

The issue of transnational adoption, its evangelical Christian component, and the exploitation of communities that sometimes results, is the subject of the book, The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking and the New Gospel of Adoption by Kathryn Joyce, who appeared, along with Tarikuwa, on last Sunday’s “Melissa Harris Perry” show on MSNBC.

Here’s Tarikuwa’s satirical look at the “rescue” of children from her home country, to “better lives” in America:

“It is a tragedy to travel to this deeply historical country of Ethiopia. We see the streets, the roads, the shack doors, crowded with poor Ethiopian mothers, women who have been collecting whatever scraps they can find to feed their hollow-eyed children. Teenagers, living on their own on the streets, shoot their own looks of desperation. Ethiopian men lie on the ground with exhaustion from not having been fed for days, for instead of eating, they feed whatever tiny amounts of food they get to their children.

I think it is agreed by all parties overseas that we should come up with a solution to help Ethiopian children we see on a late night TV programs: children with flies on their faces, no clothes, no food or water, begging for families to sponsor or adopt them. It is time that America comes up with an easy and simple solution to save all these children.”

Click here to read the rest at The Grio.

hotelsongs: You know Cesare sent Michelotto off into Lucrezia’s retinue with a special pep talk:...

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:21:43 +1000

hotelsongs:

You know Cesare sent Michelotto off into Lucrezia’s retinue with a special pep talk: “Look, and make sure she doesn’t murder anyone, you hear? When she gets it in her head to murder a guy, YOU MURDER HIM FIRST. HER HANDS CLEAN. YOUR HANDS MURDER. REPEAT THAT BACK TO ME. AGAIN.”

Photo

Tue, 07 May 2013 20:12:46 +1000

theartofanimation: Gift Lee

Tue, 07 May 2013 18:02:43 +1000

theartofanimation:

Gift Lee

correctemondo: advert for the university that Matt Smith went...

Tue, 07 May 2013 17:51:13 +1000

correctemondo:

advert for the university that Matt Smith went to

okay sure, but does going there help me to become a time lord? i think that is the real question.