"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple and wrong." - H. L. Mencken
There is some serious Western arrogance and assumption of power on display in Paris this week. Almost 150 heads of state, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are heading to Paris for the start of what many call the most important environmental meeting for decades. Ahead of the summit, more than 175 countries have tabled pledges (known as intended nationally determined contributions, or INDCs) to cut their carbon emissions which, if enacted, would be enough to limit global warming to 2.7C. But the United Nations has pledged to limit climate change to 2C – and would much prefer it to be 1.5C. There will be a lot of posturing but the target will, necessarily, be emerging nations. And the solution will likely be a bribe of those nations using the Western workers' money.
A study, "The Impact of Rudeness on Medical Team Performance: A Randomized Trial," which was published in the September issue of Pediatrics, shows that a rude comment from a third-party doctor decreased performance among doctors and nurses by more than 50 percent in an exercise involving a hypothetical life-or-death situation. “We found that rudeness damages your ability to think, manage information, and make decisions,” said Amir Erez, an author on the study and a Huber Hurst professor of management at the University of Florida.
Whenever any activity that links neurons is repeated, those neurons fire faster, stronger, sharper signals together, and the circuit gets more efficient and better at helping to perform the skill. "The converse is also true. When a person stops performing an activity for an extended period, those connections are weakened, and over time many are lost. Also, the more often a person feels twinges of neck pain, the more easily his brain's neurons recognized it, and the more intense it got.
Who is....Jared Diamond?
Václav (in English, Wenceslas), a devout Bohemian Christian king, incurred resentment among the pagan nobility due to his kindness toward the poor. In search of allies, Václav made peace with German Saxony and, in return for protection, paid an annual tribute of silver and oxen. The king was beloved by his people but envied by his treacherous brother Boleslav, whose minions murdered the young monarch while he was on his way to mass.
As willpower seems to be an exhaustible resource, it needs, in a civilized culture, to be protected and conserved. Perhaps habit and manners defuse the need for willpower. Respecting its limits means one should be on guard that one's usual personal strength may not always be available.
St. Hubert's Church in Idsworth was built in the ninth century but the town might have been occupied as far back as Roman times. Wall paintings covered during the Reformation have been restored. This ancient church stands alone. The ancient town has long been plowed under.
Jared Diamond argues that history followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves. Those who domesticated plants and animals early got a head start on developing writing, government, technology, weapons of war, and immunity to deadly germs. Crucial distinctions that lead to success of cultures vary from grain size to the length of usable shorelines.
Salacious: adjective: 1. Obscene. 2. Lustful. ety: From Latin salax (lustful, fond of leaping), from salire (to leap). Ultimately from the Indo-European root sel- (to jump), which also gave us salient, sally, sautssail, assault, exult, insult, result, somersault. Earliest documented use: 1661.
Tough love. The London Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor was founded early in the nineteenth century with a rather remarkable premise. The London Society did not distribute charity but specialized in cutting off funds for social welfare. Malthus, Bentham, and Colquhoun believed that a distinct line must be drawn between the 'deserving poor' (those facing hard times as a result of unfortunate histories) and 'undeserving paupers,' namely, the drunk, the lazy, and the whorish members of society for whom aid was considered a reprehensible act of facilitation. For decades the London Society remained influential in the development and spread of such institutions as workhouses and debtors prisons. It was also influential, through its example, in New York and other American cities. By the end of 1817, Clinton, Eddy, and Griscom, joined by hundreds of other New Yorkers, had formed a clone organization on the banks of the Hudson: the Society for the Prevention of Pauperism
To say, as John Dewey did, that there must be “social control of economic forces” sounds good in a vague sort of way, until that is translated into specifics as the holders of political power forbidding voluntary transactions among the citizenry.--Sowell
Corn dextrin, a common thickener used in junk food, is also the glue on envelopes and postage stamps. Yuck.
Golden oldie:
Within eight years of discovering the New World, Chrisatopher Columbus, found himself summarily relieved of his post as Admiral of the Ocean Sea, returned to Spain in chains, and allowed to sink into such profound obscurity that we don't know for sure where he is buried.
Even though the U.S. government didn't grant Native Americans citizenship until 1924, nearly 13,000 of them served in WWI.
A group of Italian researchers have found that the 14-foot-long garment Shroud of Turin -- believed by some to be the burial cloth of Jesus Christ, even though science has proven that's not the case -- contains DNA from plants found all over Earth. Researchers discovered several plant groups native to the Mediterranean, RealClearScience.com reported. Other groups were linked to Asia, the Middle East, or the Americas, but must have been introduced at a time later than the Medieval period, according to the researchers. The article in the journal Scientific Reports on Oct. 5, suggest that the cloth may have been manufactured in India and then was transported from the Near East to its current home in Turin, Italy.The linen shroud appears to show a double image of a bearded man "who suffered physical trauma in a manner consistent with crucifixion after being beaten, scourged and crowned with thorns," the researchers wrote. In 1988, carbon-14 testing performed on the cloth by an international team of researchers, dated shroud fibers back to between 1260 and 1390.
The Vegan Society and the American Vegan Society do not consider honey appropriate because it comes from an animal.
The Mets have been in a class of their own all season long. They threw 22% of their pitches during the regular season at 95 mph or above, according to Baseball Savant. No other team in the majors threw more than 15%.
J. Dennis Hastert, the longest-serving Republican speaker of the House, intends to plead guilty as part of an agreement in a case where he is accused of skirting banking laws and lying to the federal investigators, according to proceedings Thursday in Federal District Court here. Apparently one of the most important men in the country was being blackmailed for years. The decision will be sealed because we don't have to know.
But don't worry. The government security guys are on the lookout for us. Wayne Simmons, a 62-year-old who lives in Annapolis, Maryland, was arrested by federal authorities following his indictment by a federal grand jury for allegedly committing major fraud, wire fraud, and making false statements to the government. Simmons claims to have worked for the CIA from 1973 to 2000, and "used that false claim in an attempt to obtain government security clearances and work as a defense contractor, including at one point successfully getting deployed overseas as an intelligence advisor to senior military personnel," according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia. In court documents, federal prosecutors alleged that Simmons had a "significant criminal history, including convictions for a crime of violence and firearms offenses, and is believed to have had an ongoing association with firearms notwithstanding those felony convictions." They successfully petitioned a judge to keep Simmons' indictment sealed until his arrest today, noting that Simmons "has a history of acting in an aggressive manner, and is likely aware of the imminent nature of the charges in this case." This citizen is a contributor to FOX, in addition to his imaginary derring-do.
U.S. government is so unwieldy and dysfunctional because....... the framers intentionally designed it that way.
Daniel Goleman's 1995 book Emotional Intelligence surprised a world focused solely on IQ. His book is a survey of the research on emotions, and he argues that emotional intelligence is in many respects a more important form of intelligence and a more important determinant of a the outcomes in a person's life. His follow up book was Social Intelligence.
AAAAaaaaaannnnnnndddddd...a picture of St. Hubert's Church, Idsworth:
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