Smart mirror on the wall makes you fairest of all.

Panasonic has a digital mirror that figures where you are and reflects you back with different eyebrows and sparkle and eye shadow.   If it came with sideburn and moustache options, or even just hair on top, I'd take a look.  Found at Engadget.

Why are people so clean?

Why are so many people clean?  They shower, deodorize and add scents.  It wasn't always so. I think the reason is to conceal information about ourselves.   Most of us now live in cities and complexly interact with strangers.  We don't want them to know what the pores and glands on our body  advertise about sexual status, how hard we exert ourselves and the food we have access to. (Think farts).  We hide our stools (flushing is the modern way).

We now spend a lot of time inside the territories of strangers and much less in our own.   We don't just let our hair down at home.  We make loud noises in the bathroom, overlook some smelly armpits and burps and don't mind if there are lingering smells in the bedroom of sexual activity or the presence of a testosterone-smelling male.

Americans will choose a re-run to put Barack behind them. Secret Service has the character scoop on Matt and Hillary

Who would you pick as a decent human being?
Excerpted from Kessler's The First Family Detail.

Hillary When in public, Hillarysmiles and acts graciously.  As soon as the cameras are gone, her angry personality, nastiness, and imperiousness become evident. In front of the lights, she turns it on, and when .. she’s away from the lights, she’s a totally different person,.  She’s very angry and sarcastic and is very hard on her staff.  “If Hillary was walking down a hall, you were supposed to hide behind drapes."  Hillary never talked to us.  Most all members of first families would talk to us and smile.  She never did that.      Hillary’s Senate campaign staff planned a visit to a 4-H Club in diary farm country in upstate New York.  As they approached the outdoor event and she saw people dressed in jeans and surrounded by cows, Hillary flew into a rage.  “She turned to a staffer and said, ‘what the f- did we come here for?  There’s no money here’.    (Chelsea was always very nice to the agents.)

Mitt The fifteen Secrert Service agents on Romney’s  detail found that the Romneys treated them like family..invited them to lunch and dinner (and) would kibitz with them…  One of the agents was in tears (when Romney conceded). The agents became part of the family.  The next morning, Ann Romney made buttermilk pancakes which Mitt served them on paper plates in their vehicles. (He was mocked for putting the family dog in the car top carrier while packing the car full with his wife and four sons.  I love him for it.)

The book is worth reading for the character summary of presidents and vice presidents and hopefuls. A lot of rude people and a few nice ones. Adultery was popular but not with all of them.

 ADDED:  Buchanan said to host John McLaughlin. I think, then you get Mitt Romney against someone like a Cruz, or someone like that, and I think that would be the finals. And I think that Mitt has got it in his heart to do this thing." "The only cure for presidential fever is embalming fluid. I think he's going to run," Buchanan said to host John McLaughlin.

ADDED: Now that Scott Walker has surged to re-election, he can be considered a calmer type too. As amusingly quoted at Instapundit:

"Does Walker sizzle? Not exactly. Is he a particularly charismatic speaker? No, he isn’t. But does he sit upon a throne made of the skulls of his enemies? Yes, yes he does.".

Laniakea supercluster reveals hidden shape in the universe. Mind blowing animation.

100,000 galaxies look like a bit of dandelion fluff or a sea anemone on megaparsec scale. Embedded in this one YouTube video are all the photos and animations you have seen on the web.                    


0:26    Data points
0.33    Laniakea revealed
0:50    Lacy structure of thousands of galactic clumps
1:28    Emerging 3D model with in and out flows
1:56    3D flow identifying the Great Attractor
Pictures below snapped from the video.

ISIS morphing to "cool".

"Winning over the next generation of jihadis" reports the Clarion Project. "Soon Al Qaeda will become known as 'your father's terrorist group' ".  The ISIS propaganda team is embedded in the battle plan and  appeals to young rebels who want to look tough, kill and raise a stink for Allah.   Clarion Project quotes recruiting tweets that joke about "bring Krispy Kremes" and quitting the game "Call of Duty" to answer the real call of duty. The appeal is not to robed exiles who sit in a cave reciting the Quran. It is to rapping young muslims who see no better future.  They wants guns and money and fear. And in their rebellion, approval from a higher source.

   

This won't end well.

This goes beyond politics.  Try to change human nature. The quotes below are lifted from Wikipedia.

"We live in a decaying age. Young people no longer respect their parents. They are rude and impatient. They frequently inhabit taverns and have no self control." -- attributed to an inscription in an Ancient Egyptian tomb, quoted in Buckminster Fuller's I Seem To Be a Verb

I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words  (Hesiod)

The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. (From Aristophanes)

Advice to MIA Obama: Decapitate

Obama lacks more than a strategy, he doesn't even have an objective, as Krauthammer said.  My bloodthirsty advice is: Decapitate.  Do what Israel taught the Americans in Iraq, target the leaders of ISIS and take them out. "Decapitate" will send a nice little chill through the social media the jihadists read, it's easy to get your head around, and makes sense.  Their men who move money, set up logistic supply lines, produce scary recruiting videos, instruct bomb makers, and who have their finger on power, should perish.

Muslims Decapitate Franciscans Caught Preaching in Jerusalem

Make it personal.  It's kind of "limited" like the drone killings Obama okayed in Yemen and the millionaires he targeted in Russia after the Crimean invasion.  Just take a few more steps, Mr. Obama, and you'll have a policy.


It's complicated and involves many players who must pay a price, but America can clear the air by sounding the trumpet to do battle.

This is not an ashtray

"Ceci n'est pas une pipe" is a cerebral work of art.  The ashtray in my Honda CRV says it is not an ashtray and has a fuzzy liner.  It clearly IS an ashtray.

TIme for a little R & R --- Romney and Ryan sounds about right.

The US wants a break from foreign policy chaos and declines in jobs and net worth at home.  A little R & R after Obama sounds just right.   Ryan has a whiff of Tea Party and Matt has the "nil obstat" blessing of the GOP.  I think the American voters will find it easy to sign up for four years of R&R.

Ryan: I'd drive Romney's bus in 2016  (The Hill)

UPDATE 2016, OFFER R&R

Plan B can be the best case: Pray for winners in the opposition parties.

Polling shows  Conservatives above 70% and below 15% depending which year and community you track.  Voters move but PC leaders and policy hardly budges.  The rightness of your cause does not settle the matter.  If you are lucky, you will be faced with second best in Ottawa. Third or fourth will sometimes be PM.  Pray that the wrong-headed, goofy parties will select the best candidates available, just in case.   You don't want to end up with an Obama.

Obama abdicates?

I still think the American president may abdicate, if he can just find a Very Important Reason, like the UN needs him and the US doesn't deserve Obama any more.  He's looking for the right narrative.  The press is awash in bizarre, sometimes funny, headlines about his disengagement.  If he's like Canada's former defense minister, Hellyer, he can claim aliens are what's about to happen and then offer be our bridge to the star people.

As world chaos continues,l Obama quietly retreats to Martha's Vineyard. (Breitbart)
The Obama tee party:  A weak president hurts everyone, including the Democrats  (WashingtonTimes)

Liberal Goddess Maureen Dowd Dethrones Obama  (PJ Media)

Seen in Sidney

His and Hers: Word counts from Facebook show big sex differences

Men and women differ.
The study analyzed seven hundred million words and did follow ups with 75,000 volunteers.
It's quoted here  in the Atlantic along with an interesting discussion of when men say "uh" and women say "um".

Justice should be cheap

Or at least not so damned expensive.  Violence is favoured over justice when risk and reward favour the crook.  The Pickton investigation and trial cost $104 million dollars, not counting $1.8 million to upgrade a building he was held in.  Vigilante justice is a poor alternative but one official bullet  not long after the backhoes turned up DNA traces of over thirty women in the mud of Pickton's farm sounds about right.  No bullet?  Then have a hearing with forensic psychiatrists and get him off the streets into a fenced facility.

There's always some uncertainty in cases.  How high does the standard of proof have to be? When you drive down the highway, you make life and death decisions based on best guesses. If you need absolute proof that someone is going to brake or change lanes or whip around you, you should sell the car and get off the road.

Since execution is off the table in Canada, we are talking in these high profile cases about how many years the accused should be kept off the streets.   I would rather they had locked Mr. Pickton up in a jolly old summer camp with three squares and a beach, than have over a hundred million of our earned dollars lavished on the legal system.

There will be errors but not additional deaths.  A hundred million dollars could have been redirected in BC to reduce traffic deaths, make downtown Eastside safer, improve health outcomes and bribe Indian chiefs to accept big monthly rent cheques for pipeline rights-of-way.

At bottom, the cost-benefit ratio for doing the crime should be lower than the cost-benefit ratio for investigating the crime, holding a trial, sentencing and detention.  Otherwise the violent win. As the saying goes, "Justice delayed is justice denied".

There are principled arguments against my position. Nonetheless, I am arguing that we must move the balance point between what we let people get away with and how much public money we spend to stop them.  Taxpayers will be better served and violators will get a "short sharp shock" of some sort in a timely fashion.

When Enemies don't care what America thinks

The deputy prime minister of Russia twittered his mockery of the American POTUS today, comparing Putin with a leopard to Obama with a cuddly poodly thing.  When heads of state can't be bothered to make nice in public, the bank account of respect is empty.  Someone else will be drawing the lines between bloodshed and peace and it won't be America for a while.  The line is shifting towards more blood and if we are lucky, the American president will read about this in the newspaper and offer to help.

Your house isn't your RSP. Canadian house prices still heading for a fall.

Look at the chart.  Canada has out-of-line house prices.  Until the rent you can get for the money invested in your house is pretty close to what it costs to buy and look after that house, the price is an un-popped bubble.  A house is an investment after all, not a pilgrimage to Mecca.  The US has gone through a correction.   Canada hasn't.

The Canadian Housing Bubble Puts Even The US To Shame

Related.
Canadian housing over-valued? The Economist puts numbers to it. Updated.

Worldwide house prices charted. Canada is riding a bubble. Updated.

Bring back Exclusive. Touchy-feely Inclusive Politics is inadequate.

I like exclusive.  The nattering about being inclusive to shame people into giving up what's theirs has gone too far.  If you want to come into our country, ask permission first.  If you want to use my stuff or walk into my house, you'd better ask permission first.

Notice that diamond on my wife's finger? Be warned that you are looking at an exclusive relationship.  I won't be sharing or be shared, either.  There's no free love or open marriage here.  Exclusive, no-trespassing-by-strangers is exactly the exclusive way it's going to stay.

Inclusive is good too but watching the deliberate destruction of the US southern border shows it has gone too far.  Inclusive doesn't mean my beliefs and conclusions must be blenderized with those of our enemies until the only "right thinking" option is to think like a left-embedded professor.

Is the problem that private property
is hated by Marxists?

The same folly condemns all discrimination.  We are now urged to be indiscriminate.  The indiscriminate are unable to evaluate and choose between other beliefs and other cultures.  It so happens "Anything goes" and "They're equally valid" is an easy position to adopt but it isn't true.   I don't have to think to say, "All of the above" when presented with choices between good and evil and the ten thousand shades between.

Be exclusive and discriminate too.

BC right to raise posted speeds.

People don't leave home planning to crash yet on some highways only a few oddballs keep below the posted speed.  Since crashes are rare, posted speeds should be corrected to use the wisdom of highway planners (and the wisdom of drivers).  They advise posting the speed at which 85% of the drivers would choose to drive that road if there were no speed limit.  It's just as dangerous to have a slow driver in the fast lane as it is to have a speeding driver dodging in and out of lanes.  Roads are safer when speeds are similar for all the cars on them.   I drive below the posted speed on congested roads, when pedestrians are about, when the road is damp or icy, and when it is dark or the road is windy.  I drive above the posted speed when traffic is light, when there is a passing lane, when no people or creatures are walking near the road, whenever I can see clearly ahead more than the distance I need to brake to a complete stop. I like to get home safely but without wasting time.

So, congratulations, BC, on adjusting some speeds upwards.

Politicians are faced with interest groups who like slow speeds which drivers generally disregard because they use their own judgement about what's safe. (Really, what chance does a child have of avoiding injury when run over by a car at 10 kmph compared to being run over at 30 or 50?)
A lot of revenue is created from speeding tickets.  One Missouri town of 50 people has a police force (full and part-time) of 8 and generates most of the municipal budget from speed traps.
Remember when OPEC held the world hostage briefly and speed limits across North America were mandated lower to save fuel.  (Possibly 1% was saved).  That's another reason most speed limits are lower than they should be.

Posted speeds are helpful to assess road conditions ahead that a driver may not know about.  Making them absolute criminalizes the population that wants to use its own judgement to drive safely.  Making them absolute degrades the individual and exalts the state.

 Road signs should be a source of useful information.

Summarized from Alex Mayasi's interesting and longer article at Priceonomics.

Be humble: Chimps with a fashion fad, Snow Monkey with a stolen iphone are just a baby step away.

Whether "Homo Sapiens (the wise one) or more accurately, a featherless biped, we are not far removed from our simian cousins.  Be humble. You'll never forget this snow monkey checking out his stolen iphone.

Link to Van Oosten's photo and story.


Then there's the chimp who started a fashion trend in her band.  She took to tucking a straw in her ear every day.  Her son followed suit every day and soon her neighbours too. For the life of me, I see no difference in nose piercing and butterfly tattoos.

Then there are the chimps who have a far better memory than we do for numbers (19 in a row, even when hidden after a glimpse).

Story at The Daily Mail

We should be humble. We are easy to deceive and lead about,

witness magic shows, hypnotists, the IPCC, and socialist

fantasy.

Back to normal: WAR

 Regretting Obama is irrelevant already.

Michael Ledeen writes 

"War is normal and peace is very unusual."  He quotes Machiavelli:  "Man is more inclined to do evil than to do good" and then adds:" There is good reason for that old Roman wisdom, "If you want peace, prepare for war".We smashed our enemies, we created military..we built and maintained a big arsenal on land, air and sea. It worked so well and lasted so long that we forgot why we were doing it."   "That happy time is done and gone, at least for now. We’d better stop whining and get about the business of winning".

"If we accept that war, and the preparation for war, is the basic leitmotif of human history, we might also overcome the parallel myth: that all men are basically the same, and all men want the same (good) things. Not so. Just ask Vladimir Putin, Ali Khamenei, and their friends, proxies, and agents. They want bad things for us, namely death and domination. And they’re not likely to change, which is why it’s very dangerous to give Khamenei more money, and try to make Putin more “reasonable.” They’re going to continue the war."

Read the whole article.

Extra fingers, extra hands

With a couple extra fingers you could stir coffee or open an envelope with one hand.  MIT researchers have come up with a cuff that adds two powerful fingers to your hand and moves them in sympathy with your five other fingers.  The two doctored digits can hold a jam jar while the rest of them twist off the lid.

I think many people will have enhanced bodies in the near future.  Better, longer-lasting members.  (Sounds sexy).  The rest of us will settle for our DNA recipe and a personalized set of stem cells that will renew our existing organs, keeping heart and skin in perfect health for the first hundred years or so.

The video is somewhat didactic as the Chinese-named undergrad and her Japanese-named supervisor use the gadget in a  Massachusetts lab, but you can see how it could work and seem natural too.