Archaeologist Ticia Verveer on Facebook:

These lovely glass birds contained cosmetics in powder form, to which access was gained by breaking the end of the bird’s tail. This type of powder container was made by glassblowing, a technique perfected circa 50 BC by Roman glassworkers in the eastern Mediterranean region.

Production of these small glass birds was particularly abundant during the reign of Emperor Augustus (27 BC-AD 14) and was still quite popular until circa AD 70.

Although many such birds have been found in Greece, Cyprus, and Syria, northern Italy (particularly Piedmont) and the canton of Ticino in modern Switzerland seem to have been the principal region for the production and distribution of this type of container.

H/t Vanina… Read the rest

How to keep up. An hour or two ago the Times published a story reporting that Rod Rosenstein was talking about invoking the 25th Amendment in 2017.

Huge scoop by ⁦@adamgoldmanNYT⁩ and ⁦@nytmike⁩ on Rod Rosenstein talking about secretly recording Trump and raising 25th amendment in the Comey firing aftermath https://t.co/IJTpHUpkP4

— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 21, 2018

Many many journalists and lawyers and such on Twitter pointed out that Trump is likely to see this as the perfect pretext to fire Rosenstein, and wondered if the Times had really thought this through. There were a lot of tweets of the infamous Times headline about the FBI’s finding no evidence of Russian interference some ten minutes before the … Read the rest

In other news, it’s no longer August so here in the US the frenzy about Halloween is being whistled up by marketers. How about a sexy handmaid costume??!

An upsetting dystopian future has emerged where women no longer have a say. However, we say be bold and speak your mind in this exclusive Brave Red Maiden costume.

Oh yes, that’s the way to “be bold and speak your mind” – by wearing a tiny skirt to signal “this way to the important bit” and shoes you can’t walk a step in. Hahaha theocratic oppression of women, great, now spread your legs, bitch.… Read the rest

Republican Congressman Ralph Norman today:

“Did y’all hear this latest late-breaking news from the Kavanaugh hearings?” Norman said during his opening remarks of a debate against his Democratic challenger Thursdayin South Carolina,according to The Post and Courier. “Ruth Bader Ginsburg came out that she was groped by Abraham Lincoln.”

The congressman made the joke after telling the crowd that he almost had to miss the debate and travel back to Washington to address the accusation.

Haw haw haw haw – geddit? Abraham Lincoln, because Ginsburg is so old. Haw haw haw, sexual assault is so hilarious.… Read the rest

John Lundin on Facebook:

There’s something sick about ‘campaigning’ for a Supreme Court nomination to begin with, then this…

“When you rent a bus that seats 80 but only 6 women show up”

That’s just weird. A bus? With his face plastered on the side along with WOMEN FOR KAVANAUGH? Weird weird weird. But then it’s “Concerned Women for America” – concerned about all this scary talk of equal rights and abortion and stuff. More bible, less feminism, please.

… Read the rest

Matthew Desmond on the vast number of the working poor in the US:

These days, we’re told that the American economy is strong. Unemployment is down, the Dow Jones industrial average is north of 25,000 and millions of jobs are going unfilled. But for people like Vanessa, the question is not, Can I land a job? (The answer is almost certainly, Yes, you can.) Instead the question is, What kinds of jobs are available to people without much education? By and large, the answer is: jobs that do not pay enough to live on.

In recent decades, the nation’s tremendous economic growth has not led to broad social uplift. Economists call it the “productivity-pay gap” — the fact that

George Felis shared this post on Facebook and was inspired by comments to take a more extended look at the “why do people shrug off bullying when it’s only girls?” question. I got his permission to quote what he said.

Evidence that Kavanaugh was a high school bully would be generally taken to be a plausible indicator of his character, and even those who disagreed — those who rejected the idea that such youthful bad behavior could serve as a significant indication of the kind of person he is to this day — wouldn’t simply fail to understand why or how someone might think otherwise. But much of the conversation around the evidence that Kavanaugh committed sexual assault on a

Dick Polman at the Atlantic collects some of the ways Republicans are displaying their settled, instinctive indifference (or outright hostility) to women:

After Christine Blasey Ford, a clinical-psychology professor, put her name to the accusation, announcing publicly that she’d passed a polygraph and had shared her story in a 2012 therapy session, Senator Orrin Hatch, a longtime member of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s all-male Republican contingent, told the cameras: “This woman, whoever she is, is mixed up.” He also said that even if the assault accusation were true, the past wouldn’t matter so much: “It would be hard for senators not to consider who he is today.”

His Republican colleague Bob Corker voiced sympathy for Kavanaugh, but none for

Lili Loofbourow has a scorching analysis of the whole “never mind the women what about the poor men” phenomenon at Slate. I saw it via about 14 people at Facebook and they nearly all quoted a different passage, which shows how good it is.

The “locker room” once invoked to normalize Trump’s language (every man talks this way behind closed doors!) has expanded into a locked American bedroom with a woman trapped inside. It’s all in good fun, defenders declare. Horseplay.

Kids having fun!

This group has opted instead to defend male impunity for sexual assault and frame a woman’s story of coping with years of trauma as a true crisis … for men. A White

Trump again sides with the man. In other news, flies swarm rotting meat.

President Trump said on Wednesday that he found a sexual assault allegation against Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh, his Supreme Court nominee, difficult to believe and described the furor surrounding it as “very unfair” to the judge.

He somehow managed to refrain from trashing the woman directly, but…

But he expressed sympathy for his nominee.

“Really, they’re hurting somebody’s life,” he said of the senators considering Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination. “Justice Kavanaugh has been treated very, very tough, and his family. I think it’s a very unfair thing what’s going on.”

Him. Him him him. Never mind her, she doesn’t count. Yes if it’s true then he was … Read the rest

Originally a comment by Screechy Monkey on Prosecutors look for corroborating evidence.

I haven’t seen the apologists trot this one out yet, but based on discussions about Shermer, Krauss, et al, I’m sure it’s coming: “you can’t vote no on his nomination based on this unless there is evidence beyond a reasonable doubt of his guilt!”

Bullshit. “Guilt beyond a reasonable doubt” is the legal standard used in criminal trials. There’s no good reason to apply that standard here.

First, there’s no need to “borrow” any particular legal standard at all. A Senate confirmation isn’t a legal trial at all, let alone a criminal one. Kavanaugh doesn’t have any real legal rights here whatsoever. He’s not entitled to due … Read the rest