Best Obamacare repeal zinger

We have to repeal Obamacare

to stop finding out what's in it.

This is the antidote to Pelosi's poison pill:

“We have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.”

The zinger is not my own but a Google search failed to bring up the author.  Let me know if you find the source.

Map your talk: NYT questionnaire predicts where you live by what you say.

Hard to resist finding out if the test is accurate.  Crayfish, crawfish or crawdad? As a bonus, after each question, a map displays where each option is most spoken.  Some of us have moved far from our birthplace and are harder to place.  Click here and see for yourself.

Voters are a food source that parties feed upon.

You're never going to win them all and rarely a majority of votes cast.  It's human nature you're up against. The maternity ward is full of future NDP, Liberal, Green and Conservative voters.  A majority of those little cuties will end up voting opposite to your sons and daughters.  Elections are not a scientific  test to determine the best policy for defence, money, security of the person, charity and markets.  If you want policies that work, look to the Fraser Institute:  "A free and prosperous world through choice, markets and responsibility". If you want to win elections,  you win votes.  Elections are about votes.  Votes are just votes.  To govern you must win a share of votes from citizens who deeply disagree with your beliefs.

Voters are a food source that parties feed upon.    They cluster around values like "treat everybody the same|"  "Keep my town safe"   "Don't forget the poor and the orphans"  "Let me raise my family my way"   "Don't lie to me"    "Waste not want not"  "There ought to be a law"  "Got to break a few eggs to make an omelette"  and on and on.

   The parties have "bi-polar disorder" and try to line up along a single left-to-right axis. The voters are all over the place and the winning party harvests the most.  Stephen Harper has been good at this. Some of his supporters grumble but the larger group of people who don't support him, includes many who grudgingly say they can live with his policy.  The result has been a better Canada.

Beetle Pine Kill in BC of historic proportions - See map

This is a screen-shot. Original zooms to high definition.
Red catches your eye but GREY is the kill zone with 70-100% pine tree kill. Only bright green pine forests are still healthy.

Mills are running out of fibre because the dead wood with blue stains and holes can't be marketed for long.  I picture a forest fire cataclysm in the offing with standing and fallen deadwood everywhere.  On the other hand, needles fall from the dead trees and compost rapidly so there is less explosively flammable material in the forest.

Remember when Canada had the world's third largest navy?

Canada had the third largest navy and the fourth largest air force on earth coming out of World War II.   NextBigFuture writes:  "Diefenbaker agreed to stop making major weapons in 1959 and wound down Canada's military from 5% of GDP to about 2% of GDP over 6 years".  At the same time we outsourced most military tasks to the US with NORAD, purchase of Bomarc missiles, and cancellation of the Avro Arrow.

I don't miss the military might and prefer the lower GDP figure but there's no free lunch if we want to target a secure presence in the arctic.  We've handled a larger budget before.

The chart compares military spending for US and Canada as a percentage of GDP.  Note that the percentage climbed after the war before declining.


And a little teaser:  British Columbia had Canada's only submarine in 1917,HMCS CC-1. With this and one other ship as our sole west coast defence in World War I, guess to whom Britain subcontracted our naval protection?  The Imperial Japanese Navy's North American Task Force. This was before Pearl Harbour.

BC's submarine, HMCS CC-1   1917

Red-Nosed Rudolph: Conservative Icon.

Red-nosed Rudolph could have taken his case to the Ontario Human Rights Commission, but he didn't. Blatant bullying wasn't made an excuse.

His skills were out of fashion with the opinion makers who systematically mocked and discriminated. Rudolph's solution was to get a job and gain respect through service and merit.   The fickle press  (for such the reindeer who blab about "making history" appear to be), flipped like a wind sock when the big guy gave Rudolph the status that they envied.  The lesson is firstly to be patient, relying on skills and merit to advance in life.  The second is don't expect fair treatment from the press unless they are reporting football scores.

Jealous of Rudolf, some of the reindeer hatch a plan to get rid of him

You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen,
Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen.,
But do you recall?
The most famous reindeer of all?

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Had a very shiny nose,
And if you ever saw it,
You would even say it glows. Like a light bulb!
All of the other reindeer
Used to laugh and call him names;
They never let poor Rudolph
Join in any reindeer games.

Then one foggy Christmas Eve,
Santa came to say,
Rudolph with your nose so bright,
Won't you guide my sleigh tonight?
Then how the reindeer loved him
As they shouted out with glee,
Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer,
You'll go down in history.

Wiperless windshield - zaps free of frost, rain and bugkill.

I want McLaren's promised wiperless windshield for Christmas.  It's a radically right solution for rainy and dirty windshields - a buzz that drives the water and dust off the window so it never films or cakes or smudges in the first place. Imagine having the optimum view forward all the time, not just for a moment as the blade moves by. And no layer of frost. And reduced drag.

On 2015 models?

Old way

The chief designer for the McLaren sports car dropped a teaser that wiperless is coming soon. Motor Authority reports: 

"Frank Stephenson said his employer is developing a system that can repel material from a windshield by creating a force field using high-frequency sound waves.Such systems were originally created by the military for use on fighter jets. Stephenson didn’t go into detail but explained that an ultrasonic transducer on the screen could send 30 kHz waves of ultrasound across the surface and repel all debris--even snow and insects.  Benefits of the system are said to be improved visibility, since debris would be repelled instantly, as well as improved aerodynamic efficiency, due to less drag".

CNetTV links to a 2008 Fioravante demo video but I can't get the sound to work.
There's a video clip of a related concept which coats the windshield so that water beads on the glass instead of wetting it.

1-2-3-4, Who ya gonna vote for?

Thanks to the Harper government, Canada continues to gain over the US in economic freedom and the prosperity it brings.  Even with this advantage, PEI and NS are still the bottom jurisdictions in North America. The Fraser Institute reminds us to vote for candidates who respect your freedom to pursue what's good for you and your family.

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The little bar graph won't strain the intellect of a Grade Six scholar.  The short red bar on the left is for intrusive government and want. The tall blue bar is for greater freedom and personal prosperity. AB and SK are blue.

The Fraser Institute's annual review is out again.  Alberta wins by every metric and when you count in the benefits of our somewhat conservative national government, Saskatchewan joins it for top place in North America.  This isn't about having oil and gas, it's about citizens having choice and prospering because of it.  Despite the blessing of the Canadian umbrella and despite having been the birthplace of confederation, Prince Edward Island and its neighbour Nova Scotia are the bottom jurisdictions in North America for economic freedom.


From page 20 of the report:
"In some ways it is surprising the debate still rages because the evidence and theory favoring economic freedom match intuition:  it makes sense that the drive and ingenuity of individuals will produce better outcomes through the mechanism of mutually beneficial exchange than the designs of a small coterie of government planners, who can hardly have knowledge of everyone's values and who, being human, are likely to consider first their own well-being and that of the constituencies they must please when making decisions for all of us.

High speed evolution: Environmental stress triggers genetic variation. HSP90 is the key. UPDATE

New evidence points to a mechanism for fast evolution.  When heat-shock protein HSP70 is depleted during times of stress, orderly protein folding is disrupted and genetic variation emerges rapidly.  The cave fish, Astyanax mexicanus, lost its eyes and pigmentation while acquiring other skills after just thousands of years of cave living. Lab work comparing the cave and the open water varieties pinpointed the role of HSP90. "Because HSP90 governs the folding of the key regulators of growth and development it produces a fulcrum point for evolutionary change." Source at Science Daily News.

Solid ribbon model of the yeast Hsp90-dimer (α-helices = red, β-sheets = cyan, loops = grey) in complex with ATP (red stick diagram).^[1]

UPDATE:  Another environmental trigger for change, this time in stem cells. A low acid treatment transformed common body cells into a type of stem cell.  They call this STAP:  (Stimulus triggered acquisition of pluripotency).  It's a big deal.  Cells are reprogrammed after a short exposure to low ph conditions.  They can be cultured from that point to become full-service stem cells.  This isn't evolution but it means the medium for expressing genetic change is more flexible.

Kissing threatens western civilization.

Girl's kiss is called "sexual violence" and an "insult to a public official". The Italian Police Union is outraged.  One police officer is very happy.  Look at his eyes in the picture. Nina de Chiffre's street theatre is eclipsed by the madness of bureaucracies. (PC thought is a bigger hazard than the railway extension being protested).














In the same week, six year old Hunter Yelton was suspended from school for kissing a girl on the hand.  "We were doing reading group, and I leaned over and kissed her on the hand.  That's what happened." The Colorado Springs school accused him of sexual harassment. After an outcry of public shaming, the madded bureaucrats allowed the boy back into school and reduced the offense to misconduct. Sounds like a hyperactive kid that has trouble staying in bounds, but it was the adults not the kids with the biggest problem.

Wenceslas, Conservative Icon.

King Wenceslas distributed his own goods to help the poor.  He didn't send Social Services but went in person when it was inconvenient and cold.  He didn't wait to be begged, bullied or taxed but was on the lookout for opportunities to help.  Having a heart for the poor is a personal choice, not a government policy. Your heart is the engine. Policy is just the caboose.

His skull still venerated by Czechs.

I take another lesson from the sainted King.  His support staff was small, his security footprint almost invisible. Instead of a cabinet and a limo with armed motorcycle cops, he did his work with one able-bodied page. Smaller government tends to be better government.

“Yonder peasant, who is he? Where and what his dwelling?”  “Sire, he lives a good league hence...

“Bring me food and bring me wine, bring me pine logs hither, You and I will see him dine, when we bear them thither.” Page and monarch, forth they went, forth they went together, Through the cold wind’s wild lament and the bitter weather. ..Therefore, Christian men, be sure, wealth or rank possessing, You who now will bless the poor shall yourselves find blessing.

Pictures show China's Jade Rabbit landed on the moon and ready to roam.

But you wouldn't know it to look at American media.  They scarcely noticed because it's embarrassing that the world's leader is now not even a follower.  In North America it's illegal to let a kid scuff her knees on the playground dirt.  It's not that people don't want to enter space.  200,000 volunteered for a one way trip to Mars.    Pictures below and more at the link.  h.t speaceweather.com

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Would you volunteer for a one way trip to Mars?

Lord Black: Proud, not Embarrassed.

"I can take care of myself, but I want to emphasize one point: I am proud and not embarrassed at all to have been sent unjustly to prison; to have been able to help victims of the U.S. justice system when I was there; to have got the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down the statute used against me; and to have collected $5 million, by far the largest libel settlement in Canadian history, from the sponsors of the prosecution".

Rest of article at National Post. 

China needs a war

China needs defensible borders and so do her smaller neighbours. The big will prevail over the little.  China doesn't fear much from the Siberian Tundra, the Himalayan Massif or the jungle warlords but her opening east to the sea is crowded with competitors and enemies.  That's the trade door out and the attack door in.  A few miles of open sea was once a barrier but no longer.  Advanced technological societies sit on her doorstep and their US ally sails up and down with deadly tools nearby.  Only a few minutes of missile time buffer China.  She needs a bigger security buffer.

So do her neighbours.  Taiwan and Japan need that buffer and are entitled to it.  So do South Korea and  the Philippines and they are entitled to it.  They can't all have what they want.

The one option that never goes away is war.  If China can recover Taiwan peacefully, that will open the sea door.  If China can buy Siberia or North Korea like the US bought Alaska, that will open sea doors.

(Title doesn't have to pass if the neighbour's policy becomes subordinate to Beijing's.)
If China gets control of the Indian seacoast of Burma, that will open sea doors.
America can protest but it is sitting pretty with the best protected borders of any great state on earth.

China won't stop growing and despite short term economic malaise,  the work ethic, education and profit motivation of the Chinese assure  them an even bigger place in the future. The high volume of trade China has with the US pretty much rules out a hot war.  But that's not enough.  The law of the sea will have to make an exception for the seaward face of the new Chinese empire.  If China makes it worthwhile to Taiwan, North Korea, the Philippines, Siberia and the United States, war can be avoided but it may be painful for some.  Unfortunately the Chinese leadership is motivated to blame foreign threats when corruption at home and an excess of young unmarried males are threatening political control.

The stakes were raised when China claimed the islands in the "China Sea".  Now they are challenging the right of free passage to US ships.  This is a scary episode.  They ordered the American ship to stop. When it didn't, they parked a smaller naval vessel in the path of the Americans. (The American vessel, USS Cowpens was on a provocative mission shadowing the new Chinese carrier.)

For more educated background on this opening-to-the-sea argument, listen to Friedman and Kaplan of Stratfor.

Buy parkas, not bikinis.

This chart is climate.  Everything else is weather.

When Al Gore says the North Pole will melt
or you see snow on the pyramids of Egypt,
that's weather.   The 400,000 year picture is plain that parkas, not bikinis are the near future unless we get lucky with global warming.

There's the last half million years. The little box in the upper right is the last ten thousand years. If you take a hand lens to the chart, you might make out the last hundred years which gave birth to climate alarmism.  If you are a betting person, would you be saying colder or hotter is next?

Fake view in Las Vegas
h/t Starfighter441 in comments

Al Gore who said "the entire north polarized cap will disappear in five years" (2007) or more cautiously in this 2009 video clip, “Some of the models suggest that there is a 75 percent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during some of the summer months, could be completely ice-free within the next five to seven years,”    --- was wrong.

I get a warm glow seeing snow on a camel's back and the frosted peaks of the Egyptian pyramids. That's schadenfreude but is still weather, though 112 years have passed since the last snowfall.

Real View in Cairo area.

The big picture shows a cozy interlude is ending.  We are reverting to the mean and the mean is chilly with ice advancing.

Buy Parkas

If you like a contrarian view in humour:

Gunfire in Beijing March 2012 - the true story is emerging.

Information is now emerging that Zhou Yongkang may have been behind a coup attempt in March of 2012. The gunfire "in the streets of Beijing" is now placed inside the Communist Party compound in Beijing (Zhongnanhai).  The target may have been Xi Ping, now President and General Secretary in China. (Both a bomb and a poison attack are named.).  Zhou (and associates) being charged with corruption is astonishing unless you see it as part of a cover up of the assassination attempt.  Zhou's son is still under house arrest.  The disgraced Bo Xilai may have been trying to raise a private army and have made common cause with Zhou at that time.

Zhou Yongkang

A summary of the earlier rumors is here. Bo Xilai discussed..

News from Outer Space: December 2013

A disturbance about 1 km in diameter in the outermost ring of Saturn has just been discovered by Cassini and given the name Peggy.  What is it?

Also from Cassini's view of Saturn:  There's a striking hexagonal storm at the pole.

Peggy

Hexagonal storm

The comet ISON has disappeared as it went around the sun.  Predicted as a possible naked eye wonder for early December, it has instead broken up and fizzed out.

Chelyabinsk lake with hole

The Chelyabinsk meteorite has been analyzed and it's history charted from near the beginning of our solar system when it became part of a 100 km object under frequent bombardment, was struck about 30 million years ago whereupon it moved out of the asteroid belt and into near-earth orbit until it was knocked loose from that 1.2 million years ago until it smacked into Russia February 15 2013.  Extraordinarily, scientists have some pieces of the object it broke off from 1.2 million years ago. A Japanese space craft rendezvoused with the 500 metre diameter asteroid, Itokawa, in 2005 and brought samples back to earth in 2010. The analysis of that rock shows the same history.  Links to the kaboom part of the story in Russia.

China's Jade Rabbit lunar lander will be touching down Saturday December 14th.

SpaceX delivered cargo into space orbit for $65 million dollars, $200 million dollars less than Arianespace charges.  Gamechanger as market forces enter space.

A narrow zone in Earth's Van Allen Belt has been discovered to  accelerate particles to near the speed of light.

A neutrino lab under a mile of Antarctic ice is on-line and collecting information left over from the creation of the universe.

The sharp decline in sun spots is turning into a big news story.  Expect surprises as earth may enter a prolonged cool phase or even a Little Ice Age.

Extra-solar planet detection is getting better all the time.  Now they have detected planets with water.

Previous edition of Space News from November.

Kill the exclusive clause. The Post Office can charge $1 or whatever it wants.

A dollar a stamp (March 31) and no home delivery by 2019 is a good deal for the Post Office. I'd like to see them make a profit.  It's not a good deal for us until a clause changes in the Canada Post Corporation Act. It's illegal to collect or deliver letters unless you charge customers three times the first class rate.

14. (1) Subject to section 15: The Corporation has the sole and exclusive privilege of collecting, transmitting and delivering letters to the addressee thereof within Canada.

I remember licking this to a 1st class letter

15. (1) The exclusive privilege referred to in subsection 14 (1) does not apply to...
15. (1) (e)   Letters of an urgent nature that are transmitted by a messenger for a fee at least equal to an amount that is three times the regular rate of postage payable for delivery in Canada of similarly addressed letters weighing fifty grams;

Most messages already bypass the post office and couriers, thanks to email. Email cleverly eludes the grip of the law but would surely have been targeted if lawmakers had seen it coming. In my foolish youth I pictured a local mail service that I would run out of a kiosk at the mall for half the price of a first class letter.  A couple times a day I'd let myself in to sort mail into destination slots, all in the same town. The outside would be an attractive wrap-around bank of mail boxes with a door and a groovy logo.  The threat of jail deterred me.

Kiosk could be modified to sport about
500 mail boxes, self-serve. Maybe just
a little roomier for the sorter inside.

Politically correct toilets for a nation of Sitzpinklers

High-tone coffee shops and delis want to make women out of men.  They refuse to offer a urinal, one of the most practical and sanitary inventions in the history of plumbing.  Grab bars, expensive tiles and taps, and custom sinks for wheelchairs get the money.  The urinal is verboten.  Thank the Germans for inventing the term, "Sitzpinkler" for men who have to sit to tinkle.  The banned urinal calls for half the time and, being touch-less, is far cleaner.

Why are these men's washrooms designed firstly for women and the handicapped and lastly for the main customer?   To walk into the washroom at Starbucks is to walk into a sermon on political correctness, a sermon I can't escape by plugging my ears.

German humour about Sitzpinklers.



Men's washroom at the Las Vegas Hilton.


"In German, the phrase for someone who sits and urinates; a "Sitzpinkler", is equivalent to wimp, wuss or pussy."

Tweedledum and Tweedledee battle over Castro-Obama handshake. Why not?

Tweedledum:  "Just some guy he met at a funeral".

"Kerry suggested that there was no planning or message associated with the handshake and that it was pure happenstance. "Ladies and gentlemen, today is about honoring Nelson Mandela," Kerry said. "The president was at an international funeral with leaders from all over the world. He didn't choose who's there".

Tweedledee: 

Is Barry bowing to Raoul? 

Tuesday’s handshake between Obama and Castro comes after six months of quiet diplomacy between the United States and Cuba—and Castro signaling he’s ready for bigger talks.

Footnote:  What's with handshakes? No precious bodily fluids are lost by the touch, even the touch of an enemy. You can keep up appearances by scowling and being stiff while shaking hands. Part of the gesture is to show you don't hold a weapon in your striking hand. I think the default should be "Shake".  Why not signal you can talk with enemies, consider them to be human though unlovable, and that the guy in front of you is not the personal embodiment of everything evil in the other country's policy?