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Ghenghis Khan Descendants Eat For Free
pillageplunder writes "CNN has an article about a London restaurant that is offering diners the chance to see if they are descended from the great Khan (Genghis that is). If you are, then you get a free meal. The article delves a bit into bioarchaeology, with some pretty interesting tidbits of info."
Actually, it's a great gimmick, and with the test costing about $330 dollars, I am certain that they don't lose a dime, in fact they probably make more money per customer, and whichever lab is doing the testing is getting free publicity for the real 'meat' of the DNA testing business; paternity testing.
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
But what they don't say is that at the next table are the decendants of the Tibetan kingdom and the Chin empire. And they are looking to settle the score!
Q. What is Calvin's monster snowman called? A. The Torment Of Existence Weighed Against The Horror of Non Being
Khhhhhhhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaannnnn!!!!!
1) Do you have a predilection for little fur hats?
2) Do you prefer axes to climbing roses on the door of your cottage?
3) Have you ever suffered of inexplicable but terrbly attractive visions of houses consumed by fire?
4) Have you ever felt your brain filled with a thousand hairy horsemen shouting at you?
If the answer is "yes" to all questions, you are a Genghis Khan descendant, unfortunately you are too busy lying in the mud to go to the pub -- pardon, restaurant.
I'm a desendent of Shaka Khan!
All the way across London? Verily, these Mongolians have lost none of the nomadic spirit of their forefathers!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Once you get labeled "descendant" of any powerful ruler, I doubt you'll have to wait long until someone shows up at your front door demanding restitution.
First of all, Arthur wasn't the descendant of Khan, the guy overseeing the demolition of his house is.
In fact, I'm referring to Mr. Prosser, who is convinced by Ford to lie in the mud in place of Arthur to block bulldozers, so Ford and Arthur may go to the pub.
free British food, hmmmm?
Obviously, it's a clever plot to *eradicate* the descendants of the Khan.
600 years is only 30 generations. Even allowing for 2 children per person (4 per couple) that only gives you one gibi-descendant (:-p) now, roughly 1/6 of the population.
[Mozart] Hello again, and welcome to the show. Tonight we continue to look at some famous deaths. Tonight we start with the wonderful death of Genghis Khan, conqueror of India. Take it away Genghis.
[Cut to Genghis Khan's tent. Genghis strides about purposefully. Indian-style background music. Suddenly the music cuts out and Genghis Khan with a squawk throws himself in the air and lands on his back. This happens very suddenly. Judges hold up cards with points on, in the manner of ice skating judges.]
[Voice Over] 9.1, 9.3, 9.7, that's 28.1 for Genghis Khan.
[Mozart still at piano.]
[Mozart] Bad luck Genghis. Nice to have you on the show. And now here are the scores.
[Scoreboard with Eddie Waring figure standing by it. The scoreboard looks a little like this:]
29.9 St Stephan
29.3 Richard III
29.1 Jean D'arc
29.0 Marat
28.2 A. Lincoln (U.S of A)
28.1 G. Khan
3.1 King Edward VII
By Monty Python
Ted: This is a dude who, 700 years ago, totally ravaged China, and who we were told, 2 hours ago, totally ravaged Ashman's Sporting Goods.
"Understand you're having a little Jimmy Page trouble."
Thanks to the Mongol lifestyle of burning cities and raping women, they could have spread their DNA much farther in a shorter period of time - still not enough to account for everybody having Mongol blood, let along the Khan's blood.
I've seen guestimates that Khan may have gotten his y chromosome into as many as 1/3 of the Asian and Russian males alive today, as well as smaller fractions of the middle-eastern and European populations. I've never seen any hard figures to try to support this, but 30 generations isn't enough for one person to have a bloodline connection with everybody in the world - maybe if we had perfect worldwide random pairing in the gene pool, but some of us are still stuck over here in the shallow end.
Ghenghis Khan and his immediate descendants did not savagely rape and pillage. They happened to set up one of the most civilised golden ages in history and invented the movable type press. Oh, you thought Gutenberg was The Man? No--he invented a mechanism for mass-producing books. The Mongols beat him to the basic press by decades and out of simple necessity!
The Mongols designed a written language which was capable of forming all the syllables of their subjugated nations.
Genghis was one of the first (and only) conquerors to allow his subjugated peoples to practice their own religions, spared and freed everyone who surrendered immediately, destroyed powerful nations (such as the Caliphate of what is now Iraq) as a result of barbarous behaviour visited upon his diplomats, was one of the only rulers ever to base promotion and reward *purely on merit* and not familial ties nor nobility, invented modern warfare and perfected siege technique, created tremendous surplus and prosperity and justice for all who lived inside the Mongol empire, and visited total destruction on all who refused to submit.
Genghis Khan and his successors conquered more people, more land, with fewer warriors and in less time than anyone else ever has in recorded history. Alexander the Great was a gnat by comparison. Attila the Hun, a nobody. The Roman Empire, a blemish on the ass-cheeks of one of Genghis' concubines. Hitler killed fewer people and conquered less land--even with those death-camps and all the Schlieffen plans he wanted to dream up. Stalin was a punk-ass backstabber rat.
Genghis could travel faster and further with 50,000 horse-mounted warriors, could defeat larger armies, and destroy or conquer countries better and with fewer Mongol casualties, than anyone else prior to or since.
The only nation that Genghis' descendents failed spectacularly in conquering was Japan, and that was only because a nasty storm whipped up and destroyed their invading ships every single time they tried to take the islands.
One of the more terrible things that came about from Genghis' subjugation of pretty much all of Asia and Europe was the Black Plague, the spread of which was facilitated by the active overland trade routes the Mongols built.
The Mongols prized engineers, craftsman, and skilled workers above *all* others because of their unique abilities.
The Mongols also forced advanced education on and provided health care and doctors to, their subjugated nations.
Say what you will about them, they were the impetus which dredged us inexorably towards modern civilisation, kicking and screaming, and without whom we probably wouldn't be as advanced socially and technologically as we are today.
Most of those savageries attributed to Genghis are simply lies: propaganda whipped up before the Mongols even arrived by jittery European scribes who bought into the pre-invasion panic the Mongols liked to sow.
He tasks me! He tasks me! And I shall have him. I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares malestrom and round perdition's flames if he eats just one more of my french fries!
Would that be sufficient proof for a free meal?
Quod scripsi, scripsi.