Allegory

Ever know someone who made utterly wild, fantastic claims about one of your friends? Really off the wall stuff about what she is likely to do, or be capable of? And he tries to get other people to say the same things or worse about your friend? And then you catch this person and his clique in lies, both verbal and written? But their reaction is to simply change their story, deny they lied, while they increase their yelling and also abuse anyone who stands up for her?

Makes it hard to believe them, even if there really is some truth to what they say about your friend, right?

That's global warming.

When you have the truth on your side there's no reason to scare monger, lie, and silence those who disagree. The fact the global warming side does these things is the reason I remain skeptical.

Neat Math Tricks to Blow Your Mind.

Want to know if 3 goes into 126?  Simple.  Add 1 + 2 + 6.  Since this equals 9, which IS divisible by 3, then so is 126.

It works just as well for the number nine. "A number is divisible by 9 if the sum of its digits is divisible by 9."  Take the the number 1098.  Is it divisible by 9?  Yup.  1 + 0 + 9 + 8 = 18, and 18 is obviously divisible by 9.

Why does that work?  'dunno.  I don't have any theorem or mathematical proof.  I suppose someone probably took the time to prove it, but I don't really care -- as long as it works.

How about this one?

What's 11 x 34?  You have five seconds to answer.

Here's the trick: Take the first number (3), then add the other two digits (3 + 4) and end with the last digit.  The answer is 374.  Don't believe me?  Do it, or break out a calculator, and try it yourself.  It also works with 3 digit numbers, but its a little trickier.

You probably already know the next one.  A quick way to determine 9 times any single digit.  Example 9 x 6.  Subtract 1 from the first digit (6-1 = 5) then figure out how many you have to add that answer to equal to 9.  In this example we need a 4.  Voila: 9 x 6 = 54.  This works just as well with any single digit.  Therefore, 9 x 3 = 27 (because 3 - 1 = 2, and 2 + 7  = 9)

Lastly, this isn't a math trick. 
Its just fun.

111,111,111 times 111,111,111 equals 12,345,678,987,654,321

Out of Touch

Why Can’t Hollywood Tell America’s Stories?

 

Time Magazine asks, and comes up with the answer, "[Because] Our onscreen heroes are white men. But most of us aren't"

Oh Please!

If only Chris Kyle had been Mexican, or a woman, or better yet a Chola, then THAT would have made American Sniper a success. Superman would be a money maker if played by a tranny, to reflect the real look of America. See, the problem isn't that Hollywood's version of a hero is someone who hates America, or is a bad father or husband, its that the skin color of the protagonist who hates America is wrong.

Further down in the story the author, Priscilla Peña Ovalle (who teaches media at the University of Oregon) complains that "Hollywood trades in the spectacular, the dramatic, the titillating. Even romantic comedies usually elevate the “everyday” business of love with fantasies of wealth."  Ovalle would instead have movies about more ordinary struggles of ordinary (non-white) dish washers working part time at a minimum wage job.  These are the true heroes we should look up to.

Discriminate No More.

President Obama authored a piece in the LA Times today which demonstrates the theme I've been blogging about for the past week or so - the need for liberals to practice indiscriminateness, and in fact to raise up bad over good, while denouncing what is right. The Unified Field Theory of Liberalism, as Evan Sayet calls it.

This theory holds the the underlying theme of liberal thought about conflict is that it stems from this belief that some ideas are right, and some are wrong.  That some are good, or bad.  That we must not discriminate (because discrimination is bad).  So, its necessary to tear down the good and raise up the bad until we reach a point where there is no right or wrong, and therefore no reason for disagreement, anger, warfare.

Which is almost exactly what Mr. Obama did in his editorial.  I'll give him props for laying out many of the terrorist threats around the world, and for the first time I know of he hinted the attack at Ft. Hood was terrorism.  Still, he can't bring himself to say this is Islamic terrorism:

"Efforts to counter violent extremism [terrorism] will only succeed if citizens can address legitimate grievances through the democratic process and express themselves through strong civil societies..." [my emphasis]

"Groups like al Qaeda and ISIL promote a twisted interpretation of religion that is rejected by the overwhelming majority of the world's Muslims. The world must continue to lift up the voices of Muslim clerics and scholars who teach the true peaceful nature of Islam."

A "twisted interpretation of religion." Note how he can't bring himself to state what religion in this context. I agree we should hear more from mainstream Muslim clerics who denounce terrorism, but part of the reason we don't is the fact that ISIS is in fact following the teachings of the Koran and the actions of Mohammed, and any cleric who denies that faces being called an apostate (a traitor to Islam) - a crime punishable by death under Sharia law.

Now, Mr. Obama goes on to the second part of the Unified Theory - - tearing down the good.

[America] has at times been threatened by hateful ideologies and individuals from various religions. We've seen tragic killings at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin in 2012 and at a Jewish community center in Kansas last year.

We do not yet know why three young people, who were Muslim Americans, were brutally killed in Chapel Hill, N.C. But we know that many Muslim Americans across our country are worried and afraid. Americans of all faiths and backgrounds must continue to stand united with a community in mourning and insist that no one should ever be targeted because of who they are, what they look like, or how they worship."

See, all of the problems in the world that Mr. Obama outlined in the first part of his piece are not really all that different from the 'backlash' against Muslims he struggles to find. Even in the midst of this effort he practices indiscriminatness, for when he says "We do not yet know why three young people, who were Muslim Americans, were brutally killed," we do in fact know that the killer was a progressive atheist, who hated people in general, including people from all religions.

If Mr. Obama wishes to imagine a reality where there's no right or wrong ideas, where we all "just get along," more power to him.  But when that fantasy world view affects his policy and actions, then we're in trouble.

Whoa.  Dude. Trip Out!

Quantum physics is so cool.  Even though I don't understand anything about it.

Photo from RecoverySoul

I came across this article "When Time Flows Backwards," by Michael Byrne at Motherboard.  "New experiments conducted at Washington University St. Louis offer a further demonstration of one of the quantum world's more difficult implications: time symmetry"

It concerns a fascinating aspect of Quantum science; that the simple act of observing a particle at the Quantum level may cause it to react differently than if we were not observing it.  In fact, it seems, it will change the way it is acting even before we observe it, as though somehow its future self told its present self, "hey, you're going to be observed."

Nothing to Kill or Die For.

The Danes held a rally after the Copenhagen shooting and they all sang Lennon's "Imagine." Which simply drives me to rant. Pardon me for a moment:

Photo from the The Telegraph

Imagine if we were all brainless, unable to see the difference between good or bad, right or wrong... That's what that song is saying. This philosophy is actually the MAJOR problem with the leadership in the west. It goes hand in hand with being unable to call the terrorists what they are; with equating current terrorism with the crusades; why muslims are raised up as victims who need jobs; while beheaded Christians are 'random citizens.' This ideology must praise evil and condemn good until there are no differences (and no religion too...), because that will end the fighting, somehow.

That philosophy scares me.

Imagine all you want. That's nice. Really, it is.

But when it comes to actions and policy in this cruel world one must not be blinded. This is the philosophy of 'we must be thoughtlessly indiscriminate, because the opposite - discrimination (even thoughtful discrimination) - is bad.' So lets do away with thought.

Yet, the real world is still the real world, no matter what one wants to believe -- as Mr. Lennon found out, unfortunately (may he RIP).

Gotta Love the Asians!

Tigger: If I ever get outta this, I promise never to bounce again! N-Never!

Rabbit: I heard that, Tigger! He promised! Did you hear him promise? I heard him! I heard him! You heard him, didn't ya? Didn't ya?

From: The Atlantic. "In some zoos in Japan and China, staff members perform regular security drills to practice their response to a large animal escape by using costumed zookeepers"

WHY IS IT SO HARD FOR MODERATE MUSLIMS TO SPEAK OUT AGAINST ISIS?

Graeme Wood is a contributing editor at The Atlantic, who has written a very in-depth, intelligent article entitled "What ISIS Really Wants."  I can't overemphasize, it IS a long read; however, you should take the time to read it all: you won't find better analysis anywhere.

Wood breaks his essay into five sections 1. Devotion, 2. Territory, 3. The Apocalypse, 4. The Fight and 5. Dissuasion, but I want to excerpt just a portion to focus on why its so hard for mainstream Muslims to speak out against ISIS.

In order to go there, we first need to establish a vocabulary. Here's a few terms we need to understand:

Stone Age People Get Their Rocks Off.

Porn before the written word.

The Archaeologists say they're "trying to determine what meaning there is in the sites’ structures and artifacts."  Seems pretty simple to me.  The only question I have is, how do you chip rock with just one hand?

Helpfully, they go on to tell us, "Deeper and broader interpretation will be published pretty soon.”

Applying the Qur'an: Global Warming and SJW Edition.

Muslim scholars teach that there are two forms of lying to non-believers that are permitted under certain circumstances, taqiyya and kitman.  These circumstances are typically those that advance the cause of Islam - in some cases by gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them.

Replace the word 'Muslim' with Environmentalist or Social Justice Warrior, and "Islam" with (fill in your favorite leftist cause) in the above and it still works.

How is this applied?

From Islamic Law: (Reliance of the Traveler)

"Speaking is a means to achieve objectives. If a praiseworthy aim is attainable through both telling the truth and lying, it is unlawful to accomplish through lying because there is no need for it.  When it is possible to achieve such an aim by lying but not by telling the truth, it is permissible to lie if attaining the goal is permissible"

I think the modern term is "fitting the narrative."  So, it may not actually be true that a woman was gang raped at the University of Virginia, as the thoroughly debunked Rolling Stone article claimed, but it still points out the rape culture in our colleges.  Somehow.

Or, "2014 was the Hottest Year on Record" is a completely accurate headline, somehow, even though the NASA scientists who put out the report are only 38% sure that its actually true (the results are so tiny that they fall under the margin of error of the available measuring devices.)  But - Global Warming.

Guess He Didn't Get the Job

THE ROBOTS ARE COMING!

See the future of your doom! At first they appear kinda cute, but then you realize... No wonder the humans are kicking them. They should be shooting RPGs at 'em.

I'll bet the Ferguson police wish they had the big one.

And see, its already starting to happen.
The MACHINES ARE BEGINNING TO ATTACK!  No surprise, they come after you in your sleep.  ROBOTS NEVER SLEEP!

THE UNIFIED FIELD THEORY OF LIBERALISM

This is old (2013). But, it deserves not to be forgotten.  So, I'm doing my part.

Liberals are unlikely to get past the introduction, (which is too long) because it requires objectivity and thought.  And Evan Sayet states, "the modern liberal has been raised to believe that indiscriminantness  is a moral imperative" because its opposite - discrimination - is a hate crime.

"What you're left with, is people who quite literally can't differentiate between right and wrong, good and bad, better or worse."

Instead, they must "tear down what is good, what is right, and elevate what is bad.  So, President Obama equivocates the Crusades with modern radical Islam.

And the reason they do this is because the modern liberal has looked back on the entire history of mankind and found that there has never been an idea that has brought utopia, or true and lasting peace.  So the problem must be that ideas themselves must be eliminated.  If there is no thought, then there is no right or wrong.  There can be no disagreements; no war.  He quotes John Lennon, "Imagine there's no heaven... Imagine there's no countries...".  If we can simply do away with trying to be right, or better, and make everything equal, then the world will be as one.

By the same thinking, Obama is unable to even name radical Islam.  Because that in itself would be making a judgement.  Similarly, the refrain "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter:" because who are we to judge, right?  Liberals (he contends) are not only unable to "tell the difference between freedom and having your head hacked off," but they are likely - actually Sayet says compelled - to view and side with the radical Islamist as a victim, because 'privilege.'  Or something.

Sayet goes further, to say that when it comes to policies, indiscrimanentness always, without fail, leads to choosing exactly the wrong course of action.  You'll have to watch the video to discriminate the truth or falsehood of his argument on that point on your own.

BAT VS TOAD

Is this a photoshop?

I only suspect it due to the ease with which it could be done.  Plus, I'm not sure where the original photo came from.  I saw it on a YouTube video titled "Top 20 Most Unbelievable Real Photos" - which is probably not the most trustworthy source.

TOAD VS BAT

This, on the other hand, is not a photoshop; its well documented by the LA Times:

I LOVE ARCHAEOLOGY!

I'd love to volunteer for a dig, if I knew where to start.

You might find this study of Central California uncomfortable. We all seem to have some emotional need to think of a time where people were peaceful, loving, idyllic. "But archaeologists have an obligation to report what the record reveals" - - which is, unfortunately, people are people.

“Many people still seem to think that prehistoric California was a violence-free paradise, but the archaeological record shows clearly that that was not the case... Taken together... their data portray periodic bouts of inflamed violence among Central California’s ancient indigenous groups"

"[V]iolence was always present."

The most decorated unit in the U.S. military were... Japanese 

100th Battalion, 442nd Infantry - made up entirely of 'Nesei' (2nd generation Japanese-Americans), even as the U.S. held thousands of Japanese, including their family members, in interment camps.

 "One Puka Puka" - 100th Infantry  (The "Hawaiian Provisional Battalion")

The 100th/442 fought in Italy, southern France, and Germany, in some tough campaigns including the rescue of the "Lost Battalion" (141st Regiment), and even captured a German Submarine!  In all, 9,486 Purple Hearts were issued (many earning double and triples), and the official casualty rate, as a fraction of all who served, is 93%.  It was awarded 7 Presidential Unit Citations, 4,000 Bronze Stars, 1,200 Oak Leaf Clusters added to the Bronze Star, 560 Silver Stars, 28 Oak Leaf Clusters to the Silver Star, 52 Distinguished Service Crosses, 15 battlefield commissions, and more than 20 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor.

The Flu Season is Here.  Take Every Precaution.

Photo from ebbra.com

Elena N. Bodnar was foolin' around putting her bra on her partner's face* when she came up with the idea for the 'Emergency Bra,' which doubles as a face mask, just in case you don't have your respirator handy when disaster strikes. The EBra can be ordered for $29.99, or you can upgrade to the RAD Emergency Bra: now your boobs can quickly tell you if a 'dirty bomb' went off nearby!  The real kind of dirty bomb, you know, with actual radiation levels in the air - - not the one you were thinking of.

The site notes "Because the Emergency Bra masks can be securely fixed to the head, it frees a survivor’s hands to keep balance while running and removing objects on the way out of danger." No word on whether there's an increased risk of pregnancy.

Guys may be saying, "Hey, what about us?"  Not to worry.  She's got two, so why not share one?

Maybe its a better beer than I thought

 

NAH! Really?

Surveillance of Burgler who Broke into Liquor Store, and Stole Keystone Beer

Check your pocket change!

And perhaps you too could say this: 
 

Apple Has the Most Profitable Quarter of Any Company Ever

 

Although, the story doesn't give any information about how old the quarter is, or in what U.S. Mint it was printed.

Binge drinking

does not help you forget. Instead, it blocks your brain from storing memories. Think of it this way: You spend all night enjoying a video game, but when you're ready to quit it won't let you save.

Life is Strange

Episodic Video Game Released 1/30/2015

Looks interesting. Sort of a time travel, murder mystery, social justice, coming of age, walk through TV series - set in an Indie movie atmosphere.  May even appeal to more female players than the typical video game.

UPDATE: GAME IS RELEASED.  FIRST IMPRESSIONS:
(Click through to read more)

Public - Science Devided

The only thing the general public and scientists closely agree on in questions asked in a recent poll is that the International Space Station has been a good investment.  

Some areas you may be surprised scientists disagree with you include GMO's: 9 out of 10 scientists say they're safe to eat.  Pesticides?  68% of scientists see no problem with them.  Favor offshore drilling or fracking?  More of the public feels this way than the scientists.  And of course its already widely known that the general public is less likely to believe in human caused global warming.

Here's one of the interesting charts from a study done by the PEW Research Center, with more info at their site.

The DEA is tracking your movements, in real time

I don't do drugs, but I certainly don't like this.

The Atlantic does their best Bill Maher impression: "We've traded our freedom to drive around without being tracked for next to nothing. Those who would cede essential liberty for the promise of security may deserve neither, but ceding it for the promise of a drug free America is just delusional."

From the DEA's website: "2014 Year in Photos"
Which is a little odd in itself, isn't it?

Iran calls for assasination of Netanyahu's children

(If you don't know who Netanyahu is, he's the Prime Minister of Israel.  Not exactly the same thing as president, but kind of equivalent.)

This story, by the Washington Free Beacon, popped up briefly on Google's news aggregator, then disappeared.

Iran is encouraging its terror allies to pursue the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s children by publishing personal information about them, including photographs of the kids lined up in crosshairs, and declaring, “We must await the hunt of Hezbollah.”

Feminist Women Need Our Protection 

 

From Ace of Spades: 

"[W]omen are such fragile, delicate creatures, utterly maladapted to this world, that they should be confined to large farms where they can organically till the soil and sing goddess songs during their sisterhood rites while protected from masculine technology such as written language, harsh words, standards, and sarcastic eye-rolling... "

If I accepted Feminists' own views of their fellow women."

Its 5 o'clock somewhere

Might as well join 'em.  No one likes to drink alone.

The Most Pesticide-Heavy Fruits And Veggies Of 2014

When I do a garden, I always do it organically. I believe you can have better, larger, and more abundant food that way.

Which makes me wonder, "why are organic products more expensive?" Just because it has the word organic on it. So, I don't buy organic products, because I don't like dishonesty.

However, I might start buying organic potatoes. Apparently they soak up more pesticides than pretty much any other food in the supermarket.  Makes sense, when you think about it.  Pesticides are sprayed on the plant above ground, they soak into the ground, and the potato sits there and absorbs all the gunk.  If that line of reasoning is correct, then even washing the potato won't help you remove the pesticides.

However, I have some doubts about some of the other veggies and fruit that show up on the EWG's (Environmental Working Group) "Dirty Dozen" list.  Reason being, they have explanations such as "A single Snap Pea sample carried 13 different pesticides."  A single sample?  Other explanations tell us, "over 99% of apples sampled" tested positive.  So what am I to make from the 'single sample' explanation?  Were a lot of the samples pretty bad, but in one case they were horrible, or were all samples clean except one?  Given that Greenies have no compunction to tell the whole truth if untruth fits the overall narrative better, I'll take my chances that Snap Peas are just fine.

This is fun! 

When you change your Facebook language to 'Pirate' a bunch of messaging changes. As an example, instead saying "Joe Blow likes your post" it tells me "Joe Blow fancies yer scrawlin' ". Hehe. I like that.

Here's how.

At the top of your Facebook window, look for the down arrow to the right of 'Home', 'Find Friends' etc.  It should be the last item on that bar.  Click on that down arrow and choose "Settings."  If you don't see an option for "Language," look on the left hand margin and click on "General."

To the right of the word Language you'll see a blue "Edit." When you click on this a window pops up which allows you to select a lot of languages including "English (pirate)."

I think Facebook should add more options, like "Ebonics" and "Jive."  So, if someone comments it would be like, "Yo niggah, dat bitch Shelly jus dissed you"

Microsoft to release a free version of Power BI.

It gives you ability to create some truly amazing dashboards, easily link tables, expose data from SQL servers, and lots of other really cool stuff.

This video is long, and its dated (2013), but it does give a detailed overview.  Note that the free version may not include everything in the video:

Marriage:

My friend Lærke tells me that in Danish the word "Gift" means "married" and "poison."

Global Warming in Real Time

I'm agnostic on the causes of global warming (why do people have to make things up, or lie, if they have the truth on their side?), but there's no doubt there has been warming, as this video clearly shows: