Lucien Victor Guirand de Scévola (1900)

I'd like to find out more about this painter and this intriguing painting, but for now this teaser is all I can offer.

Found at Meretricious.

The "eye gouge"

Since "March Madness" is currently underway, this seems an appropriate time to post the background behind this remarkable photo.

It's real - NOT 'shopped.  I had seen it posted in various places, always without explanation.  I finally found a webpage where the photographer who took the photo explains what happened:

Pepperdine's Jason Walberg was guarding him and so I began shooting a sequence of pictures. As I was tracking the action, I thought I saw Walberg's hand hit Tavernari's face. Jason squinted his eyes but continued going up for the basket. Although he missed the point, he stayed in the game and the official didn't call a foul. So, I kept shooting the game and didn't realize the picture I had just made.

More at the link, with a reassurance that the player's eyes were not apparently significantly injured.

The "Detention Bill" proposed by McCain and Lieberman

A person suspected of terrorism or of aiding terrorists would be handled by the military, not civilian jurisdiction.  The person would be denied any Miranda rights:

(3) INAPPLICABILITY OF CERTAIN STATEMENT AND RIGHTS- A individual who is suspected of being an unprivileged enemy belligerent shall not, during interrogation under this subsection, be provided the statement required by Miranda v. Arizona (384 U.S. 436 (1966)) or otherwise be informed of any rights that the individual may or may not have to counsel or to remain silent consistent with Miranda v. Arizona.

The person can then be detained without trial, indefinitely:

An individual, including a citizen of the United States, determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent under section 3( c)(2) in a manner which satisfies Article 5 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War may be detained without criminal charges and without trial for the duration of hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners in which the individual has engaged, or which the individual has purposely and materially supported, consistent with the law of war and any authorization for the use of military force provided by Congress pertaining to such hostilities.

This includes citizens of the United States.  You would not have to be shown to be guilty for these laws to apply.  You would just have to be suspected and accused...

The movie credits of Pablo Ferro.

You will recognize the artistic style of Pablo Ferro, although until today you probably never noticed his name.  Pictured above are the credits for Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964).

A more familiar style is depicted in the video below, the first three minutes of which shows the credits for The Thomas Crown Affair.

The multi-screen view won an Academy Award and "defined a cinematic style of the late 1960s" (for Woodstock, for example and for many other films).

A crab's view of a ray

Via Der Spiegel.

Be glad you weren't a 19th-century bride

"Until the 20th century, when dentistry developed techniques for preserving decayed teeth, bad teeth had to be removed. There was also a fashion at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century for removing the teeth when a woman married and replacing them with false teeth, so that expensive dental bills would not have to be paid by the future husband. This is a dental key dating from the later 19th century, and used to extract teeth. It is made of iron with an ivory handle. It has four hooks or heads each fitted on to the key by a screwed sleeve, and each is designed to fit around a different size and type of tooth."

Via Titam et le Sirop d'Erable.

Comic book readers, 1947

When I saw this photo, I was immediately reminded of the current generation of young people who text while walking.

Photo credit: the Monroe Gallery, via (OVO).

"Making him an offer that he can't refuse"

The phrase, famously associated with The Godfather, was originally used by Balzac in 1835, in his novel Le Père Goriot.

"A masochistic, nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac"

After being reprimanded by a friend for playing the part of a prostitute in the film Blood Money, actress (and wife of Joel McCrea) Frances Dee replied “I played a masochistic nymphomaniacal kleptomaniac, not a prostitute.”

Via Old Hollywood.

Candida Albicans

AKA "yeast."

Found at Fresh Photons.

Caterpillar camouflage

Caterpillars are just as incredible as butterflies and moths.  I don't know the species* (it appears to be tropical), but the camo is incredible.

Photo credit, via Conservation Report.

A hat tip to caseoftornados and Tulamaru at the Neatorama comment thread, who identified this as Euthalia aconthea gurda, the larval form of the Green Baron butterfly in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

An improved sewing needle

Pam Turner of Minnesota created this Spiral Eye Needle, a sewing needle that's easy to thread, thanks to a "sideways" opening that admits thread as it slides down the needle's length.

I use a little doohickey-thing (does it have a name?) on those few occasions when I try to sew something, but I'll admit this looks even easier.

Via Boing-Boing.

"Feederism" is a sexual fetish

Many of you probably saw this past week a story about a 600-pound woman who wants to increase her weight to 1000 pounds.  The tabloids suggested that she was "trying to set a world record" and that she did garner some financial support from men who pay to watch her eat.  Salon explains that it's more complicated than that:

The site... shows her posing naked, in lingerie, wearing handcuffs and rubbing folds of her flesh against another obese woman. Men don't just "pay to watch her eat," they pay to get off.  Her site is but a small part of a thriving online community for fat fetishists...

Then, there are sites that cater to feederists, who like to watch super-sized women eat, sometimes to the point of painful fullness. Often times, there is a male "feeder" who gives a female "feedee" fatty junk foods.

Feeders get off on the idea that their feedee might one day become too 'satisfied' -- and too obese -- to move, thus making them completely dependent on their feeder. It's an extreme manifestation of the idea that masculinity in men involves eroticized dominance over women...

There's more discussion and explanation at Salon.

"Pulse jet" wall of fire

Setting fire to ethyl alcohol vapor within the confines of a narrow-necked vessel.

Millie Owens' long hair (1871)

Credit to Okinawa Soba, via Turn of the Century.