News from China of a startling discovery sure to have Darwin turning over in his grave…

An elderly Chinese woman who discovered a snake with a clawed hand protruding from its body was so scared she beat it to death, according to reports. Xiu Qiong Duan, 68, told the SINA Beijing news agency she woke up in the middle of the night to find the snake clinging to the wall of her bedroom.

“I woke up and heard a strange scratching sound ... at first I thought it was thieves” she said.“I turned on the light and saw this monster working its way along the wall using his claw.”

Ms Duan, from Suining in southwest China, said she then grabbed a shoe and beat the snake to death.She reportedly preserved its body in a bottle of alcohol which she gave to the Life Sciences Department at China’s West Normal University in Nanchang.

Snake expert Long Shuai said the discovery of the creature, which is 40cm long and the thickness of a little finger, was “truly shocking”. “We won’t know the cause until we’ve conducted an autopsy,” she said.

Via 9 News

 
Gus Van Sant‘s experiment from ‘99 where he essentially served up a Xerox of Hitchcock’s Psycho has nothing on the ongoing cinematic “homaging” going down in Turkey.  Cinefamily goes so far as to declare the country,

the wild, wild Middle East of mondo macabro.  Here you find the outlying reaches of world exploitation, where the heroes are macho men who can beat you up with just their moustaches, and the copyright infringement flows as freely as the currents of the Bosphorus River.  From the wholesale plundering of battle footage from American sci-fi smash hits (with which to mash into their own space operas), to the endless cavalcade of scene-for-scene, shot-for-shot, unauthorized remakes (Turkish Exorcist, Turkish Death Wish, Turkish Young Frankenstein)—the bandits of Turkish cinema were unstoppable.  These films were lawless, shameless, and hilarious.  Infinite ambition and infinitesimal budgets lead to cheap remakes that resemble a high school theater version of Apocalypse Now; to make up for their poverty, these filmmakers upped the sadism, mayhem, and titillation to their tastes and our delight.

Well, thanks to YouTube, you can now watch Seytan—The Turkish Exorcist—in 14 soup-spewing installments.  I’m pretty sure they’re all posted, but if you can’t find ‘em all, even casual fans of William Friedkin’s Exorcist will have no trouble spotting the devil in Ms. G?ɬ

Medical cannabis becomes more and more medical and scientific. Soon it’s going to be legal everywhere:

In one of the few scientific developments likely to interest both the Governor of North Dakota and Method Man, scientists at the University of Minnesota have identified the genes in cannabis that allow the plant to produce THC. Finding the genes opens the path to either create drug-free hemp plants for industrial purposes, or to develop plants with much higher concentrations of the psychotropic chemical.

Publishing in the Journal of Experimental Botany, the researchers note that they specifically targeted the genes responsible for generating the drug-filled hairs highlighted in many a High Times photo spread. By impairing or encouraging the growth of those hairs, scientists could gain precise control over the level of THC in the crop.

This development has important consequences for both the medicinal and industrial use of hemp.

On the industrial side, states like North Dakota have been looking to change state law to allow them to raise hemp as a cash crop, for oil and rope production. The ability to create hemp that doesn’t contain any banned substances would allow Dakotans to sow the crop without any changes in the law.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, precise control of the doses of THC found in pot could greatly enhance the medicinal marijuana industry. Currently, dosage is controlled through haphazard breeding and selection, not precise measurements as with most other medications.

It should also be noted that THC is not the only psychoactive compound found in marijuana, so more research is needed before the University of Minnesota scientists can completely control the potency of their crops.

Via Popular Science

Temppeliaukio Kirkko (Rock Church), Helsinki

(via HYST )

The Official Historic Royal Palaces Shop says, “These portrait pants were created for Betty Jackson’s show at London Fashion week ‘08. Hand printed on fabulous cotton gym knickers. Available in green, burgundy and blue.”

They’re ?Ǭ

Patrick MacNee and Honor Blackman from The Avengers sing “Kinky Boots,” apparently a quick cash-in attempt at the time. Hot.

Four different R. Crumb shoes are due to hit store shelves on Oct. 1; two in the Vans Classics collections—including the Mr. Natural deconstructed SK8-Hi pictured above ($60) and a classic slip-on featuring Fritz the Cat ($52)—will be available through regular Vans vendors.

Two additional higher-end styles (using suede and leather) will be sold through Vans Vault accounts; a “Modern America” Chukka boot ($95) and a “Keep on Truckin’ ” Authentic ($90).

Via The LA Times

It’s eight months into Obama’s administration, and not only is Guantanamo still open (and amid new revelations about doctors being used to facilitate torture procedures), but Obama is now attempting to open a new one in Afghanistan.

The Intelligence Daily reports:

On Monday, a day after the New York Times and the Washington Post reported that the Obama administration was planning to introduce tribunals for prisoners held at the US prison at Bagram airbase, Afghanistan, the reason for the specifically-timed leaks that led to the publication of the stories became clear.

The government was hoping that offering tribunals to evaluate the prisoners?

Fascinating. This place reminds me a lot of Paradise Gardens, where outsider artist Reverend Howard Finster lived.

From the Presurfer blog:

The Merry Cemetery is a cemetery in the village of Sapanta in Romania. It’s famous for its colourful tombstones with naive paintings describing, in an original and poetic manner, the persons that are buried there as well as scenes from their lives.

The unusual feature of this cemetery is that it diverges from the prevalent belief that views death as something indelibly solemn. Connections with the local Dacian culture have been made, a culture whose philosophical tenets presumably vouched for the immortality of the soul and the belief that death was a moment filled with joy and anticipation for a better life.

The Merry Cemetery of Sapanta, Romania

I think I’ll open a Los Angeles chapter of Eternal Earth-Bound Pets.

From the Telegraph:

It’s a question that all animal-loving Christian evangelicals must address: who will look after their pets on Earth when the Rapture comes and they are taken up to heaven?

Now a group of atheists in the US have come up with a tongue-in-cheek solution, offering to take in the cats and dogs of “saved” believers in return for a small fee.

All the atheists signed up by Eternal Earth-Bound Pets are self-confessed sinners and blasphemers, guaranteeing they will be left behind when the chosen are selected.

The business idea is an irreverent attempt to cash in on the belief ?