Grace

Retweeted by @TheH2
Renzo Soprano ‏@Renzo_Soprano
This deserves endless retweets.

Sexist Study du jour...

The hardwired difference between male and female brains could explain why men are 'better at map reading' 

And why women are 'better at remembering a conversation'

It's what, I think, most people have known all along (in the intuitive sense, anyway).  And if the theory of mis-wiring in autistic kids is substantiated, it blows the hell out of the "inoculations cause autism" theory.

Thank God!!
 
From the U.K. Independent, via Rodger!

Death By Indifference

From Rabbi Benjamin Blech at aish.com:

Researchers at United States Holocaust Memorial Museum have just released documentation that astounds even the most informed scholars steeped in the previously known statistics of German atrocities. Here is some of what has now been conclusively discovered:

• There were more than 42,500 Nazi ghettos and camps throughout Europe from 1933 to 1945.
• There were 30,000 slave labor camps; 1,150 Jewish ghettos; 980 concentration camps; 1000 prisoner of war camps; 500 brothels filled with sex slaves; and thousands of other camps used for euthanizing the elderly and infirm, performing forced abortions, “Germanizing” prisoners or transporting victims to killing centers.
• The best estimate using current information available is 15to 20 million people who died or were imprisoned in sites controlled by the Germans throughout the European continent.

 The take away:

The “decent” people were somehow able to rationalize their silence.

I contacted the good Rabbi about his references.  He was kind enough to answer.  He said he had read about this in Erich Lichtblau's  New York Times Sunday Review article on the Holocaust Museum's discoveries.

Cheese Nazis....

...from Fox:

Florida official tells Christian charity to choose between Jesus and cheese

A Florida ministry that feeds the poor said a state agriculture department official told them they would not be allowed to receive USDA food unless they removed portraits of Christ, the Ten Commandments, a banner that read “Jesus is Lord” and stopping giving Bibles to the needy.
“They told us they could no longer allow us to have any religious information where the USDA food is going to be,” said Kay Daly, executive director of the Christian Service Center.

Florida is saying its the USDA's call.  The USDA is saying, according to the article, that basically as long as a religious organization is not discriminating against people of different faiths, religious display is OK

I didn't vote for him.

Racist Cookies

Oreos were my favorite cookie when I was growing up.  Being a touch OCD, I would eat them three at a time, so the three rows in the bag would always be even.

As I got older, I learned that "Oreo" had a connotation other that a tasty, creme filled cookie.  It also referred to a black person who was really "white" on the inside.  Dr. Benjamin Carson, Mayor Mia Love, Sen. Tim Scott, (C), S.C., and Allan West, to name just a few.  (I suspect  that Dr. Martin Luther King would be on the list, if he were alive a preaching what he preached in the 60s).  Don King, Karl Malone, Harriet Tubman,and the Rock are all mentioned in a HuffPo article as being Republicans (as was Dr. King.)

This, however, is not a label that would apply to our President.  Yes, he may be a half-and-half kind of guy, but is innermost self is definitely not white.  Which brings me to what I found in the local Giant on my last trip out:

Pink filled Oreos.  As you can see, there is a "plain vanilla" Oreo, for those of us who are white both on the inside and the outside.  There was also a double-decker - cookie, vanilla filling, cookie, chocolate filling, cookie.  A more appropriate symbol for our president's ethnicity, I suppose. But the pink filling hit the spot, in a way that the term "red diaper baby"was applied to children raised in the U.S. by Communists.  So, we have a pink Oreo president.

Is anyone surprised?

Wiley...

...on the media:

(Click!)

Pop Quiz

Go see how well you do in this science quiz over at the Pew Research Center!

Via THS at the Coalition!

For St. Valentine's Day...

...without comment:

Via Mme. Sherzo

(Bumped, just because this is more important than my note to SK)

What I've Been Doing Lately

...for the "extra" denero.

 

 

EducationPortal.com

The classes are all free.  Take as many as you want, whenever you want.

I'm currently writing the section on "Introduction to Programming".

If you have any feedback, I'd love to hear it!

Shamelessy stolen...

...from Gerard.

I love this idea.  And his other one about us taking a year off from policing the world.  And making Israel the honorary 51st state while we do.

Nukes: Time for a Live Demo

Dear LowInfo Citizens, It's been about five years since this was first proposed. It is still something to keep in mind as you hope for change and a better world via magical thinking. You may not be interested in false hopes, but false hopes are interested in you....

People get ready.... Police in India’s Kashmir publish nuclear war survival tips, say notice doesn’t signal concern.

... Yeah, right. Duck and cover!

A bomb called Licorne. Fired at 18.30 on July 3, 1970, and yielded 914 kilotons (Think "57 Hiroshimas"). Imagine it being fired next door. Hope that if it is ever fired, it is fired next door.
Sixty-seven years ago : "On Monday, August 6, 1945, the nuclear weapon Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima by the crew of the American B-29 bomber Enola Gay, directly killing an estimated 80,000 people. By the end of the year, injury and radiation brought total casualties to 90,000-140,000. Approximately 69% of the city's buildings were completely destroyed, and 6.6% severely damaged." - Hiroshima
"Little Boy," the aptly named 16 kiloton bomb that took out Hiroshima, was -- in comparison to the nuclear devices in the world's arsenals -- sort of a light field artillery shell. There was, at the time, a second bomb called "Fat Man." Weighing in at 21 kilotons it would put paid to Nagasaki on August 9, 1945. With the erasure of Nagasaki, the world was fresh out of nuclear weapons. It was only a temporary lapse. Today we've got about 25,000 of these little items of discipline scattered about.
The largest nuclear bomb ever detonated in the atmosphere was The Soviet Tsar Bomba , or "Big Ivan" which at 50 Megatons was very harmful to every living think on Novaya Zemlya Island (located above the arctic circle in the Arctic Sea) in October of 1971. Whatever else you might think about them, you can't deny those Soviets dreamed BIG dreams.
No matter what our political feelings, I believe we can all agree that the world is getting just a wee bit too hot for comfort these days, and I don't mean "Global Warming." I mean that people here and there about the globe are getting just a wee bit too hot under the collar. They seem to have forgotten just exactly what comes into play like the force of gravity when whole nations or peoples get really ticked off. Time to refresh our collective memories.
I think we need to have the people of the world focus like a laser on the table stakes of going beyond these little patty-cake wars we are currently diddling around with and look, really look, at what can actually happen with one little slip.
What we need to do this is: "The Live Demo." By this I mean we need to find a small island or deserted space somewhere on the planet and sacrifice it for the greater good by setting off one, just one, low-yield thermonuclear device in the atmosphere for all the world to see.
Think of "The Live Demo" as a remedial educational moment for the entire world; a kind of slap upside the head coupled with a large shout out of: "PAY ATTENTION!"
I believe this "Live Demo" needs to be announced -- in date, time, and place -- to the entire world with something approaching the intensity of the promotion dumped on the Beijing Olympics.
I believe that we should allow any media organization that wishes to to cover this event and provide the infrastructure necessary to film and broadcast it (from a safe distance) to the entire world in all media -- live. I believe we should re-task a satellite to give us a view of the event from space.
No matter what many may think, this event would be the essence of "appointment television" for the people of the world.
I think we should also construct some of those quaint suburbs, villages, and towns that were set up in the ancient Nevada tests to demonstrate just what happens to a family sitting down for an evening snack when the sun is brought -- for one brief shining moment -- to the surface of the Earth. (Those of you who saw the opening scenes of Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull probably got some laughs out of this stuff, but it is not really a laughing matter, is it?)
I know that there will be an army of Environmentalists around the world that will bitch and moan about the "harm to the environment" from setting off a single nuclear device in the atmosphere. Those same people need to contemplate instead the "harm to the environment" that comes from setting off several hundred or several thousand of these devices in one very bad afternoon. They need to, for one brief and shining moment, sit down and shut up!
Then there will be those who will carp about "The Test Ban Treaty." They need to take a chill pill, lie down and think of England... or Cleveland... or Tel Aviv... or Tehran.
I can assure you that having the entire world tune in for "The Live Demo" -- and the whole world will tune in -- shall give the entire planet pause. It's not enough for humans to be told about nukes. Every so often, we need to see to believe.
Let's touch off a nuke for world peace next year on August 6. It will be a fitting memorial to Hiroshima. Nothing else we can do will have quite the same... impact.

---

Lest we forget: Here's 10 minutes about the first "live demo" on a city.





I would imagine that if you repeated those grisly facts to most of the people of the world today they'd express either some polite sadness, a bit of political high dudgeon, or the classic contemporary rejoinder, "Whatever." It's not that they don't know or care, but that -- for the vast majority of the population of the world -- they simply cannot imagine a Hiroshima.
It has been 65 years since the incineration of a city in a second, and we've lost any sense of exactly what happens. The images only survive in black and white films of a long-ago era, films of before (a city) and after (rubble and ash). In black and white images blood is the color of shadows and that's what we have, as a race, of memories about what these weapons can do -- shadows of victims seared into stone at the moment of the blast; the moment the Sun was allow to bloom on the surface of the Earth.

Muir. Nail. Head. (and Nibbles)

No assembly required.

"Safety" and "the children" are the "nibbles" that are and will be used to diminish our freedom, one victim (and one nibble) at a time.

Gotta say, I say I saw this kind of thing coming back in the 70's, when the park rangers banned BASE jumping and hang gliding from the top of El Capitan in Yosemite, because someone got themselves killed. I did not connect the dots from that to basic constitutional rights, though, nor did I see malicious intent behind it.

And they used to call me "cynical".

Update:  Joan of Argghh, who is posting at Primordial Slack, has this:

My comment there:

A few years back, the school I worked at had a near miss with this – neighbors complained about one of our students who lived in their apartment complex, cop came out to the apartment, and discovered that our student was planning a shooting spree at the school. The BCPD came out and talked with us a couple of times – the gist was, lock door, lights off, gather (he didn’t say “huddle”) in a corner out of the line of sight from the window by the door (each classroom had one). He clearly told us not to run, because of the possibility of being seen by the shooter or a potential accomplice.

And yes, we were a “target rich environment”, er, “gun-free zone”.

Mike Explains It All

Stolen from Gerard.

I've been thinking lately that we should seriously consider replacing the word "race" with the word "culture".  Not all blacks are professional victims.  Not all Moslems are Jihadists.  But there is a culture of victimhood prevalent in black society.  There is an alarming culture of brutality and murder in the Moslem world.

Thank God Bush Isn't In Charge... (Updated & Bumped x3elebenty

...or Ray Nagin.

Update VI:  Jewel, over at Gerard's, tells a great story:  

"Today, my husband witnessed a wondrous act of resourcefulness. A man with a horse trailer hitched to his truck was filling up individual 5 gallon jugs of gas in order to transport them back to New Jersey. He went out into the wide world of American plenty that lies just beyond disaster. He didn't wait like a hopeless fool in a line of idling cars for gasoline that is rationed by the spoonful. His neighbors hired him because he had a big, gas eating truck, and gave him money and jugs and sent him to Lancaster County to go shopping. He brought back not only gasoline, but food, water, clothing, blankets, batteries, and other things they might need. Those people are heroes, because they used their God-given talents and brains and didn't go crying to the cameras, asking for the government to come and help."

It's easy to get "wrapped around the axle" in a mess like Sandy.  Jewel's post is a wonderful reminder that everything you need is available a couple of hours away.

Update V:  Daily Caller reports that the IBEW sent a letter to the Florida electrical utility demanding that the emergency workers join the (damned) union.  Class act, brothers!

Not to be out done, nanny Bloomberg answers THS's question.  Seems he disapproves of the National Guard's policy of carrying weapons, particularly guns.  He's afraid of "martial law". (Ed Driscoll at Instapundit)

Did I mention that truth is stranger than fiction, because fiction has to make sense?  Yeah, 's true.

Update IV:  Tree Hugging Sister over at the Coalition asks:

FEMA Is Out of Water Redux ~ Anybody Ask the Army Corps of Engineers for Help?

Seems they are waiting to be activated, but none of the super-geniuses in charge have thought to do that.  So supplies that are pre-contracted (like water and ice) are gathering dust while everyone waits for FEMA to get a contract out.  Tomorrow.

And this, from the New York Post: "Some Rockaways residents who work as firefighters in The Bronx and Manhattan were fuming yesterday — sitting idly in their firehouses while their neighbors and family members miles away struggled to get help."


Update III:  The proverbial $64.00 questions that need asking are, "Why weren't Cuomo and Bloomberg setting up relief sites two weeks ago?  Why weren't they pre-positioning bottled water, MREs and blankets?  Who says you have to wait on FEMA to do it??  WHO??"

They have let down the people who have (foolishly) trusted in them.

Update II:  You have to, HAVE TO  be ready to live in isolation for at least a week after something like Sandy or Katrina or the Sylmar quake.  There just aren't enough Official First Responders to come and wipe your nose!!  So far, the only real assistance in Rockaway or Staten Island has been neighbors helping neighbors.  And that is how it happens - you take care of yourself, your family, and your neighborhood.

Update: Mary Katherine Ham at Hot Air has a great piece up about Federal vs. local disaster recovery management, and (of all things) "The Waffle House Index".

Previously:

From Drudge:

I am willing to bet that I am not the only one who was paying attention to the news, particularly the weather, in the last two weeks or so.  I made sure the truck had a full tank.  I made sure that I had propane for the camp stove, batteries for flashlights and camping lamps, a well-stocked freezer and fridge, a clean bathtub full of fresh water,

 Here's the money quote from nanny Bloomberg:

“We are, over the next few days, going to have to work out some procedures to make sure people can get food,” Mayor Bloomberg insisted.

Let that sink in.  Like New Orleans in Katrina, whose disaster preparedness plan amounted to "We should have one".

Yup.  He obviously took lessons from Nagin.

Compare and Contrast...

...a lesson in humor.

For something to be funny, there needs to be a) truth, b) a surprise, be it a sharp turn, an inversion of said truth (irony), or logical and probably unlikely extension of said truth.

First, Mr. Muir:

Then, Mr.Doonesbury:

Solution is  left as an exercise to the student.