Fornvännen's Winter Issue On-Line

Thanks Martin, now that is a proper post hole. I was expecting a vague stain in the ground.

Probly hundreds of aligned two-story posts with horse skulls on top.

Cool I remember you mentioning the skulls-on-posts thing once before, I think it was in relation to an excavation of a farm site with a paved floor and charred bone. Where does that idea come from? The article mentioned bones of various animals with the Uppsala posts but if horse skulls were mentioned I missed it.

Yeah, you're probably thinking of Ströja in Kvillinge, with lots of 8th century human skulls. The putting them on stakes bit though is just my imagination.

http://scienceblogs.com/aardvarchaeology/2012/07/13/king-bjorn-invited-…

Greate article about Uppåkra. The differnce between Sandby fort and Uppåkra was, If I am correct, that the hall in Uppåkra was burned down several times as a ritual after a change in the ruling aristocracy. Sanby fort is a one time event.

There is equally scant evidence for a ritual interpretation of the fires at both sites. To my mind the Uppåkra evidence is more economically interpreted as signs that the place was attacked several times over the centuries.

The hall or the Vifot house had many versions constructed in almost the same way during 1000 years, according to the article. The cult house, for Odin, close to the hall was never burned but stood on the same spot for almost 700 years. It can be outsiders that attacked the hall but it has not been proven that the whole site was attacked like Sandby fort. I am not a professional and only reflect on what I have read about Uppåkra.

The excavated trenches at Sandby are much smaller than the ones at Uppåkra. At neither site can it be judged how large a part of the settlement was burned down on each occasion.

Correct Martin but Uppåkra was 40 acres and Sandby much smaller. Uppåkras is placed on a hight surrounded by swamps and with a good view of the areas around. If you look at the latest edition of the Uppåkra Studies(12) an excavation around the year of 2000 in Lilla Uppåkra revealed around 20 houses that was built in different versions but in almost the same way during 700-800 years. I did not found any news about burnings. That is what I have read but I can be wrong.

(OT)
NBNBNBNB
(Chinese economy overtakes USA!) I dag växer Kina om USA (Swedish text) http://www.dn.se/ekonomi/i-dag-vaxer-kina-om-usa/
USA’s nominal GNP will remain higher for a few years, but since the Chinese currency is undervalued, the World Bank estimates the shift to Chinese economic supremacy takes place today.
”Måndagen den 29 september blir ett datum att minnas.”

(OT) Interesting times...
Cops, Protesters Clash In Huge Hong Kong Demonstrations http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/28/hong-kong-protests_n_5895746.h…
Spontaneous pro-democracy demonstrations in Hong Kong.
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PS Re. China passing USA.
China was the economic world leader until the 19th century, when the country fell apart under pressure of the colonial powers. Then in sedan 1872 (142 years ago9 USA passed Britain as the largest economy in the world. China is continuing to grow faster than USA, so it will pass USA even nominally in a few years, and never mind the undervalued Chinese currency.

Let me tell you, it's because their women are so smart and good-looking.

Let me tell you, it's because their women are so smart and good-looking.

There's nothing huge about those protests btw - 10,000 people tops, among a pop. of >7 million doesn't make it huge.

Also, there was nothing spontaneous about it - it's been planned meticulously with full public knowledge since last year.

Note top photo of brutal Hong kong brutal police brutalising what appears to be a crowd of umbrellas. That has to get an award for weird photo of the year.

The Filipinas in the 9th photo down really look worried, don't they? Cops and protesters are clashing in a HUGE demonstration a couple of blocks away, but it's their day off, and the girls are going to enjoy their picnic. Screw the crazy people.

It was a nice day yesterday - after dinner I cycled up to Tai Po and back - with a certain amount of loitering in Tai Po it was a 1.5 hour round trip.

Yes, my leg is still in infected.

Yes, I am definitely mad.

Not quite as mad as the time I went weight training in the gym with 12 stitches in the back of my knee, but still clearly mad.

John, are antibiotics helping?
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Worse than China: Iran executes man for doubting tale of Jonah and the fish http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/09/iran-executes-man-for-doubting-tale-…

(OT) World Fantasy awards pressed to drop HP Lovecraft trophy in racism row http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/17/world-fantasy-awards-hp-lo…
Yes, he was a racist fucker. But the face of the bust is already so stylized that if you add fangs, it will become a mere generic monster.

Larsson & Söderberg alredy did this with the lyrics of death metal song "Brända Hallar"
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"Research band at Karolinska tuck Dylan gems into papers" http://phys.org/news/2014-09-band-karolinska-tuck-dylan-gems.html
"Nitric oxide and inflammation: the answer is blowing in the wind" & "Blood on the tracks: a simple twist of fate"

Birger. Shame on You. This only happend in the Norse sagas and in Uppsala ;-) By the way also in "Burning down the house-Talking Heads"

Birger, yes, they're working. It's a slow process.

To avoid mixing non-arcaheo topics in this thread, I included an interesting link about Ayn Rand into the previous thread "September Pieces Of My Mind". Eric Lund added a stellar comment :-)

Follow up to #20 - 1. The infection has gone, leaving only various abrasions to heal themselves (and some new ones acquired after the actual crash-landing event - I was cleaning the chain on the bike, tripped and fell on top of the bike - fortunately I happened to be on antibiotics at the time, so the new set of abrasions didn't become infected.)

I blamed the bicycle for all of this. After all, road racing bicycles are dangerous things. So I have traded it in for a very slinky (and remarkably cheap) little French Canadian hybrid, which my own road tests have revealed actually goes a lot faster than the racing bike did. Which simply demonstrates that until you hit speeds of around 60 kph and air resistance starts to become a really significant factor, the more upright cycling position is actually more efficient than the bent-over racing position.

Interestingly, the hybrid is a lot lighter than the racing bike was, too, which obviously makes a difference.

Who said French Canadians are stupid?

I bought a bike too recently, to take me sedately between Umeå airport and campus. It's a 3-speed lady's bike with a front basket and a very upright riding position. Hint, hint, John.

What's more salacious, the full upright, or the somewhat bent-over hybrid?

My daughter approved of me getting a hybrid. But then, being a hybrid herself, she would, wouldn't she?

The lady doctor (who I will call 'Sandy', because that's her name) enquired curiously about the bandage on my wrist when I went back to see her about my leg. When I explained that I damaged it by falling on top of the bicycle (as opposed to the previous event, when the bike came down on top of me) she thought it was hilariously funny until she removed the bandage, to find that I had actually managed to remove all of the skin - the whole epidermis). At that point she stopped laughing and said "You should get rid of that bicycle", to which I naturally responded "I did." "Good." "I traded it in on a new faster one." Speechless.

Anyway, I spoke too soon/optimistically - the yellow skin colour and swelling in the muscles is gone, but the bacteria are still entrenched in the shin bone, damn them. Much less blood circulates in the bones, of course, so less of the antibiotic gets to them in there.

Meanwhile, we are now being entertained by watching the police trying to protect the protesters from being beaten up by a much larger number of anti-protesters. Ummm....shouldn't that tell the protesters something? Oh, and an elderly woman, who gave them a right talking-to as well.

Ow, shin bone!

Have you recently read any good summary of what the protests are about? I know nothing.

Yeah, it's dead simple: in 2017, all eligible voters in Hong Kong will get to vote for who should be the next Chief Executive (i.e. Boss).

But they won't get to nominate the candidates - the candidates will be selected by the National People's Congress (as actually prescribed in the law).

That's what the Occupy protesters are protesting about - they want 5 million voters to nominate the candidates.

When I vote in a national election in Australia, I don't get to vote for who should be Prime Minister. The winning party decides that. I don't get to vote for who stands for election in my electorate, either - I just get to make a choice between which of 2 or 3 corrupt morons the political parties have decided are allowed to run in my electorate.

You can't make this stuff up:

http://shanghaiist.com/2014/10/03/brawls_break_out_in_hong_kong_as_an.p…

My favourite forlorn tweet by a protester: "I am worried that our revolution could fail." Given the thumping your boys are getting at the moment, mate, I'd say it's a certainty.

The other one I liked - the Occupy mob have been planning their protest since last year, but some geezer is complaining because it took the anti-protesters a couple of days to mobilise and considers that 'suspicious'. Yes, yes, it took the Chinese Communist Party a couple of days to get their message to me, too - until then, I simply had no idea what to do. Give over, Grundy, you're like a record with the needle stuck.

Hmmm, I see Sandy's medical philosophy is of the "Hit it with a bigger hammer" variety - I am now on a double dose of antibiotics.

I think you're missing something important regarding the Hong Kong election. If you get a moron in an Australian election, then you shouldn't complain unless you ran for office. But in Hong Kong you can't run for office even if you want to.

Hold on, I'm getting an update from my hybrid. I mean my daughter.

Apparently some of the anti-protesters gave some of the protesters a telling-off, telling them that what they are doing is wrong - that they are entitled to their views, but should not take it out on everyone, blocking all the streets and messing everything up, just because they can't get their own way.

And the protesters responded by bursting into tears.

I hear there were a lot of people blocking all the streets and messing everything up around Tiananmen Square in 1989, just because they couldn't get their own way.

In fact, I did complain, bitterly, because I thought all 3 of the candidates in the last HK election were not suitable people to run HK, all 3 having demonstrated that they have scant regard for the Laws of Hong Kong, all 3 having been caught out, and that the whole thing should have been nullified, and run again with a different set of candidates - preferably candidates who (1) know what the Laws of Hong Kong say, (2) understand that those laws apply equally to them as they do to everyone else in HK, and (3) don't sit in the Legislative Council looking at pornographic pictures on their Ipads because they're bored.

Yes, your point being that I could run against the moron, which I could. But what I can't do is run against the person who will become Prime Minister, because I don't even know who that person is or which electorate that person is running for election in. Even if I did know, and that person lived in a different electorate, I still couldn't run against him/her - I could only do it if by sheer luck they happened to be living in the same electorate as me. And political parties being clever people, they choose their leaders from among politicians in "safe seats", i.e. in practice I would have no chance of beating them, no matter what the issues were or what my position on them was.

I am woefully ignorant of Australian politics. But I'm not saying that Australia's democracy is ideal. I'm saying that it's way stronger than Hong Kong's.

Yes there were, and dragging soldiers out of their vehicles and killing them. But I won't get into that, because that's not the politically correct version that everyone simply knows by osmosis to be true.

Australia's democracy is stronger than Hong Kong's? In theory, certainly it is. In practice, try getting a fair hearing from any Australian politician on an issue that concerns you.

And yet Hong Kong is a far safer place for my wife and daughter to live, and I have far more personal freedom in Hong Kong, including freedom of speech, than I do in Australia. The police are far less corrupt here than in Australia, and there is far less corruption in government departments here than in Australia. I could continue with a list of things like that.

Hence my dislike for politics - it's how things work out in real life that matters to me.

I wasn't the only person who thought that, by the way, and as things have turned out, we were right - they should have realised that all of the candidates in the last HK election were duds, nullified the whole thing and started again. But I guess at that point it was just too difficult to admit that they had made such a big mistake, so they felt like they had to carry on and hope it would be OK. Well, it hasn't been absolutely dreadful, but it's been a lame duck administration because everyone thinks the guy in charge is an idiot, and I think we could have avoided seeing what we are seeing now if they'd had the courage or brains or whatever it needed to see that they had made the wrong choices, and that they were going to cancel the whole mess and start again with some credible people.

Mind you, the place only has a population of 7 million - it doesn't generate that many credible people, and the most credible ones have much better things to do than want to be politicians.

everyone thinks the guy in charge is an idiot

I don't know much about the situation in Hong Kong, but if this apple didn't fall far from the tree, then they'd be right about him being an idiot. A real charmer, that young lady.

Yes, that one went a mile over my head, Eric.

Unless you are referring to his daughter, Eric - I don't know much about her, but I think she's got a few screws loose.

http://shanghaiist.com/2014/10/02/while_chai_yan_leung_is.php

Evidently not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but there was something recently about a suicide attempt, which suggests a somewhat fragile state of mind.

BTW, very few people in HK pay tax anyway. Most government revenue comes from land sales - which some have pointed out to me is just an indirect form of taxation.

My hybrid makes herself really unpopular by suggesting that they copy the British model and send someone moderately competent from Beijing down to run the place. It's actually not a stupid suggestion - there's a lot of talent floating around a population of 1.4 billion.

Unfortunately, that choice is unavailable, due to the clause under the Basic Law that says "Hong Kong people shall run Hong Kong."

I didn't realise they make 3 speed bikes any more. It must be an antique, or else Umeå is really really flat.

Mind you, of my 24 possible combinations, I probably don't use more than 10. Some are effectively duplicates, and others are senseless combinations that just have you cross-chaining too much, which will wear out your chain a lot quicker.

When I went to get the hybrid, some geezer tried to talk me into a mountain hybrid, some giant thing that weighs a tonne with 34 gears or something. What's the point? Yes, I live close to a very wild, very rugged area of parkland. No, I don't wish to be torn apart alive by a pack of feral dogs.

And I'm not just going by the things that happen to suit me me me. In real life, I have a strong social conscience, compassion for people, a belief in natural justice, and I feel very strongly about individual human rights.

The last time I checked the numbers HK employs a much higher % of disabled people than any of the OECD countries. Australia is shamefullly one of the lowest. But them, HK has very low unemployment generally, below 3%.

How does that relate to 'strength of democracy'? I don't think it does, particularly. I'm just saying there are a lot of very good things about HK, and I don't see that having a strong democratic system would make them better - from what I see in Australia, it could even make them worse because there are too many vested interests and people shouting for their 'entitlements'.

John: Yes, I was trying to link to a different account of that incident. Your link gives a bit more detail, enough to paint a picture of somebody who may be well educated but isn't very smart. A public official's daughter, of all people, ought to be aware that Daddy couldn't have afforded to buy her all that stuff on his official salary. Especially in China, which has had some high-profile corruption cases in recent years, and seems to have them on a regular basis (and has been known to impose the death penalty on those who are caught). Loose lips sink such ships.

Eric: C.Y. Leung is wealthy in his own right through a very successful building surverying business, long before he became CE.

Also, the CE job pays very well. In his case, I would be very surprised by corruption - HK has lot of checks, balances and the very successful Independent Commission Against Corruption established in 1974 that the Mainland does not have. Also it's obviously a lot easier to keep track of the bureacracy in a place of 7 million than in a vast country of 1.4 billion.

My take on C.Y. is that he is not a very smart man politically, but he is an honest one. I stand to be proven wrong. The last CE turned out to indulge in luxury and lavish gifts towards his second term that was, at the very least, ill-judged. Absolute power for too long inevitably corrupts.

His daughter comes across a as spoilt little rich girl who has had all of the benefits of an expensive education, but is not too bright, and and somewhat seems mentally unstable. They seem to be keeping her out of the limelight as much as they can.

The Mainland - a whole different story. The thing that worries me above all else about the Mainland is rampant corruption, which I now fear is so entrenched in the CCP that it cannot be eradicated.

Meanwhile, I've finally decided I'm voting this song by Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris on harmony as the greatest country and western song of all time. Not so well known is that Gram was a close friend of Keith Richards, but I think he got too drugged up and crazy for even Keith to cope with, and a cocktail of drugs put an end to his mentally tortured life at 26. Emmy is still going strong - in fact you could argue that Gram's death catapulted Emmy from anonymous backing singer to country music superstar.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1PytxPaU6k4

I think it was more likely this song that did it, "Boulder to Birmingham", that she wrote while grieving Parsons' death.

Erm, I mean this one;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9A48houSs0

I love "Return of the Grievous Angel"! My friend Anders who also died way too young turned me on to it.

Another of my favourites. I don't know, but if Anders was into Gram Parsons, he was probably into the Flying Burrito Brothers and others of that era.

The problem with Poco is that most of the You-Tube versions have really crap sound quality, and they were/are a band that need fine sound reproduction to really appreciate the nuances.