Archive for July, 2015
09 Jul 2015

The Greek Financial Crisis

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GreektoMe

09 Jul 2015

Dukes of Hazzard, PC Version

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08 Jul 2015

Studying Viking DNA

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VikingDNA

Adam Piore, in Nautilus, tells the fascinating story of Decode, the company founded in 1996 to collect and study Icelandic DNA, using the genetics of that island nations’s small and closely-related population to find genetic links to common diseases.

In the ninth century there was a Norwegian Viking named Kveldulf, so big and strong that no man could defeat him. He sailed the seas in a long-ship and raided and plundered towns and homesteads of distant lands for many years. He settled down to farm, a very wealthy man.

Kveldulf had two sons who grew up to become mighty warriors. One joined the service of King Harald Tangle Hair. But in time the King grew fearful of the son’s growing power and had him murdered. Kveldulf vowed revenge. With his surviving son and allies, Kveldulf caught up with the killers, and wielding a double-bladed ax, slew 50 men. He sent the paltriest survivors back to the king to recount his deed and fled toward the newly settled realm of Iceland. Kveldulf died on the journey. But his remaining son Skallagrim landed on Iceland’s west coast, prospered, and had children.

Skallagrim’s children had children. Those children had children. And the blood and genes of Kveldulf the Viking and Skallagrim his son were passed down the ages. Then, in 1949, in the capital of Reykjavik, a descendent named Kari Stefansson was born.

Like Kveldulf, Stefansson would grow to be a giant, 6’5”, with piercing eyes and a beard. As a young man, he set out for the distant lands of the universities of Chicago and Harvard in search of intellectual bounty. But at the dawn of modern genetics in the 1990s, Stefansson, a neurologist, was lured back to his homeland by an unlikely enticement—the very genes that he and his 300,000-plus countrymen had inherited from Kveldulf and the tiny band of settlers who gave birth to Iceland.

Stefansson had a bold vision. He would create a library of DNA from every single living descendent of his nation’s early inhabitants. This library, coupled with Iceland’s rich trove of genealogical data and meticulous medical records, would constitute an unparalleled resource that could reveal the causes—and point to cures—for human diseases.

Read the whole thing.

08 Jul 2015

Mark Steyn Punches Godwin’s Law Right in the Nose

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HindenburgHitler

Mark Steyn was getting ready to appear on the Bill Bennett show to discuss the recent Supreme Court decision mandating Same-Sex Marriage across the country when someone named Claudine exposed the conservative side of the argument to ridicule by violating Godwin’s Law, i.e. by making a slippery slope comparison to Nazi Germany.

You need to understand that “violating” Godwin’s Law, in sophisticated circles, is customarily taken to amount to losing the debate by forfeit. Any kind of objectionable sort of statism compared to Nazi Germany’s, or identified as representing a landmark on a similar kind of slippery slope, is automatically dismissed as a species of absurd exaggeration.

But Mark Steyn, for one, does not agree.

    Claudine came on and said that’s what Germans reckoned in the 1930s: just keep your head down and the storm will pass. How’d that work out?

David Kelsey writes from the University of South Carolina to scoff at that:

    In one corner, we have government recognition of marriage contracts between gays. In the other corner, we have Jews, Catholics, gays, their sympathizes [sic] and other undesirables being put in Nazi concentration camps.

    One of these things is nothing like the other, unless you’re a lunatic. Maybe the reason conservatives keep “losing everything that matters” is because they really can’t tell the difference. Which causes increasing numbers of people to recognize them as lunatics.

Since you call me and Claudine “lunatics”, allow me to return the compliment and call you an historical illiterate. If “one of these things is nothing like the other”, it’s because that’s never the choice: It’s never a question of being Sweden, say, vs being the Islamic State (although, if you’re a Jew in Malmö, they’re looking a lot less obviously dissimilar than you might think).

All societies exist on a continuum. Neither Claudine nor I said a word about “concentration camps”. But you give the strong impression that that’s the only fact you know about Nazi Germany: Nazis = concentration camps, right? No wonder you think everything divides neatly into opposing “corners”. In the world as lived, there are no neatly defined corners. Things start off in the corners and work their way toward the center of the room.

Claudine and I were talking about Germany in the Thirties – before the concentration camps and the Final Solution, before millions of dead bodies piled up in the gas chambers. So you need to have an imaginative capacity. It’s not clear from your email that you do, but give it a go: Imagine being a middle-class German in 1933. No one’s talking about exterminating millions of people – I mean, that would be just “lunatic” stuff, wouldn’t it? And you belong to a people that regards itself as the most civilized on the planet – with unsurpassed achievements in literature and music and science. You might, if you were so minded, call it Teutonic Exceptionalism. And you’re “progressive”, too: you pioneered the welfare state under Bismarck, and prototype hate-speech laws under the Weimar republic. And yes, some of the beer-hall crowd are a bit rough, but German Jews are the most assimilated on the planet. The idea that such a society would commit genocide is not just “lunatic”, it’s literally unimaginable.

So don’t even bother trying to imagine that. Instead try to imagine it’s early 1933. The National Socialist German Workers Party is the largest party in parliament and thus President von Hindenburg has appointed its leader, Herr Hitler, as Chancellor – not der Führer, just Chancellor, the same position Frau Merkel holds today. And the National Socialist German Workers Party starts enacting its legislative programme, and so a few weeks later the Civil Service Restoration Law is introduced. Under this law, Jews would no longer be allowed to serve as civil servants, teachers or lawyers, the last two being professions in which Jews are very well represented.

But that wily old fox Hindenburg knows a thing or two. So as president he refuses to sign the bill into law unless certain exemptions are made – for those who’ve been in the civil service since August 1st 1914 (ie, the start of the Great War), and for those who served during the Great War, or had a father or son who died in action. And the practical effect of these amendments is that hardly any Jew in the public service has to lose his job.

And so in April 1933 it would be easy to say, if you were a middle-class German seeking nothing other than a quiet life, that, yes, these National Socialist chappies are a bit uncouth, but the checks and balances are still just about working. What’s the worst they can do?

Paul von Hindenburg died the following year, and his amendments were scrapped.

That’s Germany’s civil service in 1933. What of America’s civil service in 2015?

Right now across the land town and county clerks are resigning because they cannot in conscience issue same-sex marriage licenses. In one Tennessee county, the entire clerk’s office has resigned. They are observant Christians – which is to say they hold the same view of marriage that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton claimed to until the day before yesterday. But an observant Christian can no longer work in the American civil service, or at least in those branches of it responsible for issuing marriage licenses:

    County Clerk Katie Lang cited religious beliefs as her reason for refusing to file the marriage application for Dr. Jim Cato and his partner Joe Stapleton. She did, however, promise that someone in her office would accommodate the couple.

Not good enough. Dr Cato and Mr Stapleton are suing Ms Lang. What else you got?

    A Kentucky clerk of court wants the state to issue marriage licenses online so he doesn’t have to…

    Monday, Davis tried to meet with Democratic Gov. Steve Beshear to ask him to call for a special session of the state legislature so it can pass a law allowing people to purchase marriage licenses online, similar to the process of purchasing a hunting or fishing license.

That’s not good enough, either. Who the hell are you to compare a lesbian wedding to a fishing license?

So observant Christians will no longer be able to serve as town or county clerk. Are comparisons really so “lunatic”? . Are comparisons really so “lunatic”? The logic of the 1933 Civil Service Restoration Act is that the German public service will be judenrein. The logic of the 2015 Supreme Court decision is that much of the American public service will be christenrein – at least for those who take their Scripture seriously. That doesn’t strike me as a small thing – even if one thought it were likely to stop there.

Read the whole thing.

07 Jul 2015

“Unequivocal Evidence” of Extraterrestrial Life on Comet

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Philae

Sky News:

Evidence of alien life is “unequivocal” on the comet carrying the Philae probe through space, two leading astronomers have said.

The experts say the most likely explanation for certain features of the 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko comet, such as its organic-rich black crust, is the presence of living organisms beneath an icy surface.

Rosetta, the European spacecraft orbiting the comet, is also said to have picked up strange “clusters” of organic material that resemble viral particles. …

“[D]ata coming from the comet seems to unequivocally, in my opinion, point to micro-organisms being involved in the formation of the icy structures, the preponderance of aromatic hydrocarbons, and the very dark surface.

“These are not easily explained in terms of pre-biotic chemistry.

“The dark material is being constantly replenished as it is boiled off by heat from the Sun. Something must be doing that at a fairly prolific rate.”

07 Jul 2015

Greek Apology Present to EU

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GreekHorse

The Daily Mash:

15-05-12

THE nation of Greece said sorry to the European Union with a present of an enormous wooden horse.

Left outside the European Central Bank in the dead of night, the horse has now been moved into the ECB’s central lobby where it is proudly on display.

A gift tag attached to the horse, which is surprisingly light for its size and has small holes along the length of its body, suggested that it should be placed in the bank’s vaults overnight to avoid it being targeted by thieves.

Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, said: “How nice of the Greeks to acknowledge the trouble we’ve been put to on their behalf with this wonderful horse, handmade and so large it could hold a dozen double-decker buses.

“The card with it, which had a teddy bear dressed as a hobo on the front, explained that Greece made us this because they don’t have enough money for a present, which brought a tear to my eye.

“However, unless they can somehow find billions overnight then austerity measures must continue.”

Oddly, Greek representatives in Brussels have hinted that they may soon be in a position to settle their debts and have puzzled the French and German banks that hold their loans by asking if there is any discount for cash. …

Whole thing.

06 Jul 2015

$5000 Mosin Nagant!

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MosinNagant5000

$5025 for a US Martial Marked Mosin Nagant!

For that kind of money you could buy a state-of-the-art Blaser. You could get a Griffin & Howe Springfield. You could get a Commercial Mauser Sporter. You could buy two Mannlicher Schonauers. And, if you got a little lucky at a gun show, you might even be able to buy a Rigby .275.

This one is obviously a bit uncommon and collectible (if you want to collect -shudder– Mosin Nagants), but speaking personally my mind boggles. Myself, I’m not at all sure that, if Vasilli Zaitsev dropped by and offered to sell me the scoped Mosin sniper he used to pop Major Konig at the Battle of Stalingrad for $5000 smackers, I would actually take him up on it.

Gun Broker:

Excellent condition WWI Remington mfg. Model 1891 Mosin Nagant rifle in 7.62 x 54 caliber that has clear manufacturer markings on the barrel and dated 1917. These rifles were originally produced for Imperial Russia, but when the Bolshevik Revolution occurred deliveries ceased. The U.S. government purchased/contracted the remaining rifles from Remington and used them for training purposes. Remington Mosin Nagant rifles were also issued to American troops during the Siberian “polar bear” expedition during the Russian Civil War. About 78,950 Remington Mosin Nagant rifles were acquired by the U.S. government, out of the 1.5 million originally contracted by Russia. This gun falls in the correct serial number range for U.S. marked Mosins and has good clear and guaranteed original U.S., flaming bomb, and eagle head proof mark cartouche in the stock in front of the triggerguard. Rifle has all matching serial numbers including barrel, bolt body, cocking piece, floorplate, and buttplate. Metal finish is excellent original blue showing very little wear. Bore is bright and excellent with strong rifling. American Walnut stock has beautiful original finish with only a few normal handling marks. Shows a few normal handling marks, right side buttstock has a nice original Remington circular cartouche. This cartouche and the eagle head and flaming bomb proofs have been highlighted in white. Rifle is NOT import marked and NOT Finn marked or modified and is complete with correct original cleaning rod and leather sling. A very rare U.S. military marked Remington Mosin Nagant in excellent condition with all matching numbers that will make an outstanding addition to your collection!

Discussed at Gunboards.

06 Jul 2015

Ask Siri a Silly Question

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06 Jul 2015

Fourth of July Today

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OnceaFreeCountry

Oh, beautiful for drone-filled skies
A tax code so arcane!
A voting class on their fat ass
From Houston to Fort Wayne!
America! America!
You voted stuff for free
You made your bed, ye overfed
Go watch some more TV!

Tam

05 Jul 2015

First Recorded Texas Death By Alligator

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05 Jul 2015

How Do Lefties Celebrate the 4th of July?

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TreasonDay

By publishing articles explaining why the American Revolution was a mistake, of course.

American independence in 1776 was a monumental mistake. We should be mourning the fact that we left the United Kingdom, not cheering it.

Why? His reasons boil down to: 1) Slavery (of course), 2) The Red Indians, 3) It’s easier to pass laws (and to expand Statism) in a Parliamentary system.

05 Jul 2015

Greatest July 4th Tweet

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Tweet89

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