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Hold On, We're Lefties, We're ALWAYS the Good Ones

Hat tip: Andy92J

How Many People Are in Space Right Now?

 Click to find out.

A Simulated Trip to Mars

Volunteers wanted.

Silicon Israel

How market capitalism saved the Jewish state - - highly recommended reading - - it demonstrates key points about building economic health related to the proper use of brain power and willingness to relinquish socialist ideology:

...what I learned in Jerusalem was that Israel was not only a site for research and outsourcing and the occasional conceptual coup, but the emerging world leader, outside the United States, in launching new companies and technologies. This tiny embattled country, smaller than most American states, is outperforming European and Asian Goliaths ten to 100 times larger. In a watershed moment for the country, Israel in 2007 passed Canada as the home of the most foreign companies on the technology-heavy NASDAQ index; it is now launching far more high-tech companies per year than any country in Europe.

George Gilder is the founding director of Gilder Technology Associates, a venture capital fund, and a contributing editor of Forbes. His books have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. The newest is The Israel Test.

Jewish immigration from Soviet Russia, along with good economic policy ushered in by Netanyahu in the 1990s, helped create Israel's success. 

 Read the whole thing.

And on a related note:

Israeli Scientists Generate Electricity from Road Traffic - Shira Horesh (Globes)
    Israeli scientists have achieved a breakthrough in alternative energy by generating electricity from road traffic, using technology developed by Innowwattech Ltd.
    In a test along a ten-meter stretch of road, generators for "parasitic energy harvesting" were installed beneath the asphalt layer.
    Dr. Lucy Edery-Azulay said: "The technology is based on piezoelectric materials, which convert mechanical energy generated from a vehicle's weight into electricity. Drivers feel no change in the road. Regular vehicle traffic can generate 2,000 watts per hour. The electricity is accumulated in batteries placed along the side of the road."

A Million to One Apple

"It looks as if a green apple and a red apple has been cut in half and stuck together."

Excuse Me Waiter, is That a Fly in My Soup?

A question that would never be asked at restaurant Opaque.

Finding Equilibrium

From English to Japanese to English to Japanese to Engrish, etc etc

Another?

Unusual Restaurants...

...around the world.

Needing American Cowboys

Leigh Scott writes about a pro-American British TV show:

“Torchwood” is an odd blend of “CSI,” “The X-Files,” and “Buffy The Vampire Slayer.” It follows the adventures of Torchwood, an above-top-secret agency that monitors alien activity on earth. Their headquarters in Cardiff is above a “rift,” a sort of rip in time and space that lets creatures from other planets and dimensions, as well as other time periods, in and out of our world.

On the surface, the show is very British. The slang, inside jokes, and references are undoubtedly more entertaining to the BBC audience than to the U.S. Syfy Channel audience. There are even references to Welsh characters dreading crossing over into England. That’s how inside it is. Clearly, its not made for us.

...Everyone is British, save one. The enigmatic Captain Jack Harkness, an extra-terrestrial time traveler with an American accent. He’s the leader of the Torchwood team, and episode after episode he makes the tough decisions, does the ruthless things, and acts in the greater good for the other characters and mankind as a whole. He does all this despite the hemming and hawing coupled with emotional weakness of his European cohorts. Episode after episode the other characters scream and cry and allow their human frailty to jeopardize the planet. Episode after episode Jack Harkness does the dirty work, exposing his wisdom and strength to his associates who ultimately accept and thank him for his decisions. Jack does gain some insight and knowledge from his co-workers’ empathy, but it only serves to make him stronger, never detracting from the mission at hand.

...In a not so subtle way the shows creators are admitting what a lot of us already suspect; that despite their complaints, objections, and dislike for America and its policies, Europe ultimately needs us. Furthermore, Europe needs the “cowboy” American, and not some mirror image of itself.

Very nice to see something positive about the US coming from Europe.

Read the whole thing.

Oh, For Another Just Like Her Here in the US

The key to Margaret Thatcher's success as a politician, from Claremont Institute's review of “There Is No Alternative”: Why Margaret Thatcher Matters, by Claire Berlinski:

She had abundant luck, but it was her personal qualities that largely accounted for her success. She was unmistakably smart, and it is in trying to pin down what allowed her to dominate the country that Berlinski's book contributes to our understanding. The author is herself slightly shocked at the ferocity of Thatcher's moral disapproval of socialism. I have no doubt, however, that her moral profile was central to her success. It is remarkable how little most politicians stand for, but Thatcher stood for moral independence and a contempt for dependence. She not only admired courage, but had plenty of it herself. She regarded socialism as a school for self-pity and mediocrity. She did not speak with forked tongue, and many people admired exactly that stimulating directness.

Defending her as genuinely conservative, Shirley Letwin argued, in The Anatomy of Thatcherism (1993), that her basic aim was not to transform Britain but to restore to its historic place in British culture the vigorous virtues that had been so lost in all the waffle about tolerance, compromise, and compassion. Thatcher hated thinking of the British as a bunch of vulnerable victims needing government handouts.

Another element in her success has been a sense of humor, so that while she could indeed be intense, relentless, and argumentative, she could also detach herself and be amused. The idea that people with strong opinions are less quarrelsome than people who talk endlessly about being open-minded is, of course, profoundly wrong, and Thatcher and Reagan alike illustrate this. They had no trouble negotiating with those whose opinions they disliked. A sense of humor is an important component of intelligence. Those who thought that Thatcher was no intellectual were certainly right, but only at the cost of not recognizing that her political intelligence was remarkable. Her profound political and moral love of freedom gave her an unusual angle on most political questions. It also helped her choose the right moment for combat; she generally held fire until she thought she could win. [link]

So fascinating that she and Reagan, who both thought so similarly, rose to power at the same time.

Think Again: Asia's Rise - - Updated

Don't believe the hype about the decline of America and the dawn of a new Asian age. It will be many decades before China, India, and the rest of the region take over the world, if they ever do.

Update:

Don't miss Charles's analysis of this article at Not an Original Thought.  He has a background that is rich in knowledge, having lived in China and traveled in India. He also is a fluent speaker of Chinese.  

Singing For Justice

"In the spring of 2008, Sons of Maxwell were traveling to Nebraska for a one-week tour and my Taylor guitar was witnessed being thrown by United Airlines baggage handlers in Chicago. I discovered later that the $3500 guitar was severely damaged. They didnt deny the experience occurred but for nine months the various people I communicated with put the responsibility for dealing with the damage on everyone other than themselves and finally said they would do nothing to compensate me for my loss. So I promised the last person to finally say no to compensation (Ms. Irlweg) that I would write and produce three songs about my experience with United Airlines and make videos for each to be viewed online by anyone in the world. United: Song 1 is the first of those songs. United: Song 2 has been written and video production is underway. United: Song 3 is coming. I promise."

Link.

And it Can Be Yours For Only....

Nice place. Nice location. $24.5 million.  

Quelle Surprise

What is McDonald's second biggest market in the world?  Hard to believe, but it is France.

How did this happen?

1. It was an inside job...the architects of McDonald's strategy in France were French.

2. Economics

The details.

Zoom into a Tooth

Zoom into a Tooth
Uploaded by Weird_Weird_Science. - Videos of the latest science discoveries and tech.

Truly Lovely

Liev Schreiber, Naomi Watts and family plant a tree in Israel. 

Bizarre!

Via sitemeter: Someone from the US House of Representatives visited this blog searching for the address of Richard Cheney.

Blue Moon

A restaurant in Lima, Peru.

Yes, you'll be glad you took a look. 

Krauthammer Interview

The Jerusalem Post has a long and very interesting interview of Charles Krauthammer.  A sample:

The view of the world that basically led to [Ronald] Reagan's policies - the success of the Cold War, the basic response to 9/11, which is sort of parallel to that in seeing radical Islam as the equivalent of the great totalitarian enemies of the 20th century - I think is basically correct.

We can argue, I think we should argue, whether some of the tactics of counterinsurgency were correctly carried out, and there's no question that they were incorrectly, badly, tragically done in 2004, 5 and 6. But because the first three years of the Civil War were such a disaster it doesn't make you rethink the basic idea of the Civil War, which was to keep the union intact... The basic idea of trying to defeat radical Islam on the ground had to be done. You can't defeat it by cruise missiles and you can't do it by preaching. And if we succeed in creating this seed in Iraq which may actually be happening, it could have a profound effect on the evolution of the Middle East and that would be the ultimate answer to 9/11.

The reason I haven't changed my views is that no one has offered a remotely plausible alternative to answering the challenging of 9/11 and its origins. So when someone does I'll be willing to rethink it.

Highly recommended reading.

Is Obama Another Jimmy Carter?

The question has been asked by others before - but I found the source of it (revealed below) to be extremely interesting this time around. Highly recommended reading:

North Korea thumbs its nuclear nose at Washington.

The defiant action of North Korea in testing a long-range missile with military applications last month, and its latest act of defiance in reportedly carrying out an underground nuclear test on May 25, can be attributed--at least partly, if not fully--to its conviction that it will have nothing to fear from the Obama administration for its acts of defiance. 

Bahukutumbi Raman is a retired officer of the Indian intelligence service and director of the Institute For Topical Studies, in Chennai, India. He is also associated with the Chennai Centre For China Studies.

 

Helping Tweenbots

Tweenbots are human-dependent robots that navigate the city with the help of pedestrians they encounter. Rolling at a constant speed, in a straight line, Tweenbots have a destination displayed on a flag, and rely on people they meet to read this flag and to aim them in the right direction to reach their goal. 

Given their extreme vulnerability, the vastness of city space, the dangers posed by traffic, suspicion of terrorism, and the possibility that no one would be interested in helping a lost little robot, I initially conceived the Tweenbots as disposable creatures which were more likely to struggle and die in the city than to reach their destination. Because I built them with minimal technology, I had no way of tracking the Tweenbot’s progress, and so I set out on the first test with a video camera hidden in my purse. I placed the Tweenbot down on the sidewalk, and walked far enough away that I would not be observed as the Tweenbot––a smiling 10-inch tall cardboard missionary––bumped along towards his inevitable fate.

The results were unexpected.

Read the rest.

SAT Coaching: Let the Buyer Beware

Be careful about doling out big bucks on SAT classes to help boost your childrens' test scores.  In our area everyone does it and we sent our children along with everyone else, but I've always wondered how much good they actually do.  Apparently, they are much less effective than many have thought.  From the Wall St. Journal:

Families can spend thousands of dollars on coaching to help college-bound students boost their SAT scores. But a new report finds that these test-preparation courses aren't as beneficial as consumers are led to believe.

The report, to be released Wednesday by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, criticizes common test-prep-industry marketing practices, including promises of big score gains with no hard data to back up such claims. The report also finds fault with the frequent use of mock SAT tests because they can be devised to inflate score gains when students take the actual SAT. The association represents 11,000 college admissions officers, high-school guidance counselors and private advisors.

...Studies find test prep boosts average SAT score by just 30 points.

Read the whole thing.

Nice

My wife is Jewish, and therefore, it's my children's birthright to be Jewish. And so I always gave them the option when they became old enough to be bar mitzvahed, to make that choice for themselves, and they all—I have one seven-year-old, so she obviously hasn't got there yet—but my other three all made the decision to become bar or bat mitzvahed.

What I love about that and the teaching they've gotten through that, is that it's a lot about asking questions and a lot of it is open to interpretation. It's real, so I love that. I mean, even the Seder has the questions. There's a lot of participation. It's a very participatory faith, and it encourages young people to be inquisitive and to search and to seek. I also love the sense of community. There's something to having that experience, that communal experience and being in synagogue or church or whatever. It's also been very welcoming to me, being a non-Jew. The Reform Judaism movement has been really welcoming and supportive of me, and I've spoken at gatherings and been involved in seminars with various leaders. It's been a really fulfilling experience.

                                                                           -Michael J. Fox

Swine Flu on Twitter

Everything from the most recent outbreaks to the most recent satire and mockery.

One Cool Woman

At 100, I have a mind that is superior — thanks to experience — than when I was 20," she told the party, complete with a large cake for her.

The Turin-born Levi Montalcini recounted how the anti-Jewish laws of the 1930s under Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime forced her to quit university and do research in an improvised laboratory in her bedroom at home.

"Above all, don't fear difficult moments," she said. "The best comes from them." [Link]

A Mystery Journalist...

...reveals himself:

The 300 or so essays that I have published in this space since 1999 all proceeded from the theme formulated by Rosenzweig: the mortality of nations and its causes, Western secularism, Asian anomie, and unadaptable Islam. 

Why raise these issues under a pseudonym? There is a simple answer, and a less simple one. To inform a culture that it is going to die does not necessarily win friends, and what I needed to say would be hurtful to many readers. I needed to tell the Europeans that their post-national, secular dystopia was a death-trap whence no-one would get out alive. 

I needed to tell the Muslims that nothing would alleviate the unbearable sense of humiliation and loss that globalization inflicted on a civilization that once had pretensions to world dominance. I needed to tell Asians that materialism leads only to despair. And I needed to tell the Americans that their smugness would be their undoing. 

-Spengler

A Cool New Web Resource

RandomHistory.com was created by a team of history enthusiasts dedicated to providing the Web's best selection of history and facts on random topics. 

Nice Work

American sea Captain Richard Phillips was safely rescued Sunday from four Somali pirates, who had been holding him for days in a lifeboat off the coast of Africa, a U.S. intelligence official said.

Three of the pirates were killed and one was in custody after what appeared to be a swift firefight off the Somali coast, the official said.

Initial reports indicate Phillips jumped overboard for a second time and the military was able to take advantage of the situation.

Phillips, 53, of Underhill, Vt., was transported to the USS Bainbridge nearby.

Very glad to hear of this happy ending. A 53-year old hero! Very inspiring for the rest of us 53-year olds out here. 

People Who Sit in Disability Seats...

....while someone is standing near them on crutches.

Rude.  

Crutchman's revenge?

He posts their picture on the internet.

Grading President Obama

Over at MSNBC, 1.3 million have graded (as in A, B, C, D & F) Obama's performance as president. 

In the News

Last week, Brazil's president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva blamed the world financial crisis on white people with blue eyes. This week? France's president Nicolas Sarcozy is blaming the "Anglo-Saxons" for the mess.  Next week?  Not even going to try to guess...

 

Ahead of Obama's arrival at the G20 summit, the White House issued a press kit which included information the US editor at the British newspaper, Telegraph, found to be a bit diminishing.  It mentions that Britain is slightly smaller than the state of Oregon. He states that though Britain may be slightly smaller than Oregon, its population numbers around 60 million, while the population of Oregon is only about 3.7 million.  A fair amount of sarcasm can be found in the comments following the piece.  One example:   "1. The Uk is about a quarter the size of Obama's ego; and  2. Your DVDs won't play in the UK."

New York's ultra-Orthodox Jews gave a tour of their neighborhood to visiting Amish. Residents apparently did double takes seeing them walking side by side.  

Netanyahu says if no one else is going to stop Iran from producing nuclear weapons, Israel will.  Cages rattled across the leftist blogosphere in response. 

Re:  Meshuganehs, belfry bats and conspiracy theory. 

What kinds of cars do White House staffers drive? Not surprising. 

The Taleban want to knock the world's socks off. How? Ending hunger? Curing cancer? Space travel?  Discovering the mother of all unifying theories of the universe?  Working for world peace? Guess again.

Even before the next Star Trek movie comes out, plans are already in motion for a sequel.  

Smoking Room

Extremely creative way to deliver the message.

Torture Shtick With a Sharp Point

Warning - you might laugh so much it will hurt:

Hat tip: Treacher

TV on March 8, 1956

The Tonight Show with Steve Allen

I don't think I was watching....

Nostalgic for Bill Clinton?

Strange the way perspective can change with the passage of time...

Wow

Close one.

The Great Debate

B

Vey Iz Premier

Oh the irony, if true.

The Greenhouse Effect

From yesterday's chemistry class:

• 95% of the greenhouse effect is due to H₂O vapor (rain) and 99.999% of it is natural in origin. 
• 5% of the greenhouse effect is due to: CO₂, CH₄ (methane), and NO_X with CO₂ being the most prevalent (99.4% by volume of this 5%). 
• CO₂ is responsible for 3.6% of the 5%. 
• About 97% of the atmospheric CO₂ content is natural in origin.  Humans contribute about 3%. 
• This means that 0.11% of the greenhouse effect (3% of 3.6%) is due to human release of CO₂.  
• In other words, 99.89% of the greenhouse effect has nothing to do with CO₂ emissions from human activity.

American Troops in Afghanistan Through the Eyes of a French Infantryman

What a wonderful article to read, from such an unexpected source.  Makes me feel very proud of our amazing military men and women.  

Life Magazine Photo Archive

Walt Disney, 1950, by Alfred Eisenstaedt

Life Magazine's archive has been google-ized.  You can search through them all by year/and or category. The photographer (if known) is listed, along with photo size, date, and related images.  [link]

Genius and Success

Malcolm Gladwell has written a new book that takes a close look at the relationship between "genius," our tendency to underestimate the power of focus and hard work, and the effect of being in the right place at the right time. Fascinating.

Whoa

Either we just experienced a minor earthquake, or 15-20 of my neighbors lifted their refrigerators 10 feet in the air and dropped them onto the ground simultaneously.

Update:  Must've been refrigerators because I don't see any activity in our area on the seismic map monitor.

Math-phobics Take Heart

Albert Einstein was bad at math too. No, really.

The Tax System, Explained With Beer

From my email box:

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten
comes to $100.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like
this:

* The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
* The fifth would pay $1.
* The sixth would pay $3.
* The seventh would pay $7.
* The eighth would pay $12.
* The ninth would pay $18.
* The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the
arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve.

'Since you are all such good customers,' he said, 'I'm going to reduce the
cost of your daily beer by $20.'

'Drinks for the ten now cost just $80.'

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the
first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what
about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the
$20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?'

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that
from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end
up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would
be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he
proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.

And so:
* The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
* The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
* The seventh now pay $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
* The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 ( 25% savings).
* The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 ( 22% savings).
* The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to
drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare
their savings.

'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to
the tenth man,'but he got $10!'

'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only Saved a dollar, too.

It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!'

'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I
got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!'

'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!'

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down
and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they
discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax
system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas
where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.

For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Antartica: Condition 1 Weather

Filmed at McMurdo Station, where it is relatively sheltered by the surrounding hills. The weather in Antartica is classified as being Condition 3 (nice weather), Condition 2 (not so nice), or Condition 1...[link]

The Beatles in Israel - - UPDATED

Contention's James Kirchick writes that people are misinformed as to why the Beatles didn't perform in Israel in 1965 (mentioned earlier here):

It’s widely believed that 43 years ago, the Israeli government blocked the Beatles from performing there for fear that the rock band would corrupt the country’s youth. That’s a myth, recently dispelled by Haaretz. (The real reason the Beatles couldn’t perform was due to a dispute between dueling Israeli concert promoters. Go figure).

UPDATE - Just came across this - - Paul McCartney is called "the enemy of every Muslim":

Sir Paul McCartney: Terror Target - Dennis Rice (Sunday Express-UK)
    Sir Paul McCartney has been threatened that he will be the target of suicide bombers unless he abandons plans to play his first concert in Israel.
    Self-styled preacher of hate Omar Bakri, in his weekly Internet broadcast to fellow extremists from his home in Lebanon, claimed the former Beatle's decision to take part in the Jewish state's 60th anniversary celebrations had made him an enemy of all Muslims.
    "Paul McCartney is the enemy of every Muslim. We have what we call 'sacrifice' operatives who will not stand by while he joins in a celebration of their oppression."

The Anti-Theft Lunch Bag

No one will steal your food again.

Word is...

...Sarah Palin watched SNL last nght.  Click to see a video of the opening skit, if you missed it. It was very funny even with the expected bias (global warming is a result of being closer to God, according to Tina Fey as Palin).

Paul McCartney Refuses to Boycott Israel

McCartney Resists Pressure to Scrap Israel Concert
Legendary Beatles star Paul McCartney said he was pressed to cancel his upcoming performance in Israel, but reassured Israeli fans in comments published Thursday he would go ahead with the planned concert. "I was approached by different groups and political bodies who asked me not to come here. I refused. I do what I think, and I have many friends who support Israel," McCartney said in an interview with Israel's Yediot Ahronot. McCartney will perform on September 25 in Tel Aviv. (Reuters/Washington Post)

This is particularly good of him considering Israel would not allow the Beatles to play there in 1965 due to fears they would corrupt Israeli youth.  They have since apologized for this.