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Nicolas Cage To Return Rare Stolen Dinosaur Skull To Mongolia (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Nicolas Cage is known as an avid collector, with interests that include real estate, rare cars and comic books: In 2011, he sold a like-new copy of Action Comics No. 1, which featured the first appearance of Superman, for $2.1 million. Now Katie Rogers reports at the NY Times that Cage has agreed to turn over the skull of a Tyrannosaurus bataar. It was the star artifact in a natural history-themed luxury auction in Manhattan, and was sold for $276,000 to an anonymous buyer eight years ago. "Cultural artifacts such as this Bataar Skull represent a part of Mongolian national cultural heritage," says Glenn Sorge. "It belongs to the people of Mongolia. These priceless antiquities are not souvenirs to be sold to private collectors or hobbyists." Several skeletons of the Tyrannosaurus bataar, a large, carnivorous dinosaur that was a close relative of Tyrannosaurus rex, have been returned to Mongolia in recent years. The private sales of such artifacts have worried paleontologists because it makes it harder for the scientific community to learn more about how the dinosaurs once lived. "We're losing science, we're losing education, we're losing valuable specimens," says Kevin Padian, a paleontologist at University of California, Berkeley.
That man is a national treasure.
That Nicholas Cage
Two point one million
For a comic book they paid
He's returning the dinosaur
skull today
'Cus the Ghost Rider one is
Way cooler, they say.
Burma Sahve
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
now he'll focus on his core competencies.
But I'm not sure a dinosaur skull counts as a cultural artifact, unless it was looted from the temple of a dinosaur worshipping cult or something.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I get the whole wanting it back thing.... but how is it in any way cultural? It was dead and fossilized before human culture was ever a thing. Nobody for the most part even knew the things where in the ground until what the last hundred years or so?
who gets to interfere in the sacred contract between buyer and seller.
buncha sjws, screaming about national cultural heritage
amirite?
I ruined the joke already, but it was fun.
Does Nicolas Cage collect rediculously rare videogames? Because I have tons.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
Keep the skull.
If you read the article you have seen that investigations years afterwards tied the dinosaur skull to a smuggler who knowingly broke Mongolian law by removing the fossil [and many others] from the country, and sold it to the auction house, who then sold it to Cage.
http://www.justice.gov/usao-sd...
Which says:
Not long after his arrest, on December 27, 2012, Prokopi pled guilty to engaging in a scheme to illegally import the fossilized remains of numerous dinosaurs that had been taken out of their native countries illegally and smuggled into the United States.
That is the best Slashdot headline of 2015, bar none.
Thank you and Merry Christmas/Happy New Year to everyone, even the Anonymous Cowards. Let me leave you with this traditional seasonal music:
https://youtu.be/0A8KT365wlA
You are welcome on my lawn.
When primitive screwheads destroy it during a period of civil unrest due to their religious beliefs.
We've lost a lot to isis and the taliban.
Hopefully the bhuddists of Mongolia can keep the items safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
At the very least, we should take a casting of items before they are returned and perhaps laser surveys of things too large to protect.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
When's he gonna return the declaration of independance?
Who then fucked it.
Perfect Score!
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Presumably he'll be returning it, on fire, on top of a motorcycle?
that link doesn't mention the skull that Cage has anyways - if it did, it wouldn't really be a voluntary return anyways.
besides, I would be willing to bet money that post 1924 the government of mongolia allowed remains to leave.. the expeditions were negotiated with them, with almost certainly money changing hands as is the custom in the region.
that is, the skull would be safer in cages cage.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I remember a similar auction being written about in the new yorker. Was very interesting. This particular dinosaur only is found in mongolia so virtually every one has been smuggled out illegally. The article covers an american collector who swares that he didn't smuggle it out of china, but it ruined or nearly ruined him simply being in possession of it!
http://www.newyorker.com/magaz...
-
But I bet Disney already green-lighted it...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Area51 - We are watching...
In this case it's more like the guy who owned your house 3 owners ago let someone pay him to dig around and keep whatever he found.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Naa, he drank a beer from it.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
What's interesting about this story is not that he returned it.
Sure, that was nice of him and all.
But the real story here is that Nicholas Cage stole a dinosaur skull to begin with.
That has got to be among the coolest fucking things I've ever heard about a celebrity doing.
I hope this blows up in memedom.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
except they don't do a very good job of it.
Because Harrison Ford told him it belongs in a Museum!
....Top. Men.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
Yup. If they had the force of law, they wouldn't be asking. Likewise, if a cop is asking to come in, tell him no. If he had a right to come in, he wouldn't be asking.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Truly, some people have more money than sense or taste.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Yup. If they had the force of law, they wouldn't be asking. Likewise, if a cop is asking to come in, tell him no. If he had a right to come in, he wouldn't be asking.
Yes, that's what happened when I had to report a recent burglary to the police. When a uniformed stormtrooper knocked at my door, I told him to go fuck himself and his "victim support" bullshit, and immediately posted on facebook about my heroic resistance to fascism.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
A fossil, that was in the ground before any human inhabited Mongolia, is not their "cultural" artefact.
That's like saying the rocks in my backyard are part of my "cultural heritage", because, well my backyard.
I'm pretty sure you'd say that the Grand Canyon was part of America's cultural heritage.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
You stole some text from TFS therefore you are a pirate.
Copied, dude. He copied some text.
Plagiarism is not theft, any more than it's a bicycle.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
LOL Probably for the best, actually. I was tooling around on YouTube and I heard one of the funnies improv lines ever. There's a redneck with a strong rural Georgia accent and a cop who's trying to get him to let them search his house for a buddy who has a warrant out for him. He's refusing to let the cops search and the cops says something about the Georgia boy shaking and looking scared.
The Georgia Boy says, "You got a whole tool-belt designed to kill me. Of course I'm scared."
Ah well, at least you posted to Facebook. Down with the man! Fight the power! Oddly enough, I gave everyone clear directions, novel ones too, on how to shut the government down without actually getting shot - in a form of peaceful protest. Someone marked my post as overrated. ;-) (I presume it was a politician, someone who hates me, or someone who lives in D.C.)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."