For "Four Seasons" junkies-----Can't Take My Eyes Off You/The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore: Steyn's Songs of the Week

Can't Take My Eyes Off You/The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Anymore: Steyn's Songs of the Week :: SteynOnline:
"Bob Crewe, who died last week, is best known for his work with the Four Seasons, not least because in fictionalized form he turns up on stage each night in the Broadway blockbuster Jersey Boys.
Kathy Shaidle dispensed with this aspect of Crewe's career in one line: "I don't care a rat's ass about the Four Seasons."
Rat's-ass-wise, I'm with Kathy.
Nothing against them, and, if you like "Big Boys Don't Cry" and "Sherry" and "Walk Like A Man", then you certainly owe a debt of gratitude to Mr Crewe.
He was, as they said, "the Fifth Season", and for most people that would have been a full-time job. 
But he found time to do all manner of other things, and almost all of them I found more interesting than his Seasonal labors."

8 Most Shocking Text-While-Doing-Something-Else Accidents

8 Most Shocking Text-While-Doing-Something-Else Accidents - ODDEE:
NOTE: Driving while texting is said to be six times more dangerous than driving while drunk. Think of that next time you take your phone while on the wheel of a 4,000 pound machine.

1

The man who was texting about needing to stop texting, then drove off a cliff

e Texas college student Chance Bothe's last words prior to driving his truck off a cliff were in the form of a text message: “I need to quit texting, because I could die in a car accident.”
Bothe's truck flew off a bridge and plummeted into a ravine, and the 21-year-old had to spend six months in intense recovery in the hospital. According to WAFF, Bothe had a “broken neck, a crushed face, a fractured skull, and traumatic brain injuries.” He also had to have doctors bring him back to life three times.

History for September 15

History for September 15 - On-This-Day.com
James Fenimore Cooper 1789, William H. Taft (U.S.) 1857, Agatha Christie 1890 


Fay Wray 1907, Jackie Cooper 1922, Tommy Lee Jones 1946 


1775 - An early and unofficial American flag was raised by Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Mott after the seizing of Fort Johnson from the British. The flag was dark blue with the white word "Liberty" spelled on it. 


1821 - Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador proclaimed independence. 


1909 - Charles F. Kettering applied for a patent on his ignition system. His company Delco (Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company) later became a subsidiary of General Motors. 


1916 - During the Battle of the Somme, in France, tanks were first used in warfare when the British rolled them onto the battlefields. 


1928 - Alexander Fleming discovered the antibiotic penicillin in the mold Penicillium notatum. 


1935 - The Nuremberg Laws were enacted by Nazi Germany. The act stripped all German Jews of their civil rights and the swastika was made the official symbol of Nazi Germany. 


1940 - The German Luftwaffe suffered the loss of 185 planes in the Battle of Britain. The change in tide forced Hitler to abandon his plans for invading Britain. 


1949 - "The Lone Ranger" premiered on ABC. Clayton Moore was the Lone Ranger and Jay Silverheels was Tonto. 


1950 - U.N. forces landed at Inchon, Korea in an attempt to relieve South Korean forces and recapture Seoul. 


1982 - The first issue of "USA Today" was published. 

1993 - The FBI announced a new national campaign concerning the crime of carjacking. 


1994 - U.S. President Clinton told Haiti's military leaders "Your time is up. Leave now or we will force you from power." 

1998 - It was announced that 5.9 million people read The Starr Report on the Internet. 606,000 people read the White House defense of U.S. President Clinton. 

Your tax dollars at work-------The Ivy League's 13 Most Daffy Liberal College Courses

Tuition $42,292/yr.+++
The Ivy League's 13 Most Daffy Liberal College Courses | The Daily Caller
Harvard University, Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality: 
Friends with Benefits?

How many people would you count as your friends?
Facebook friends?
Facebook Close Friends?
Google+ friends?
Other network friends?
Friends with Benefits?
Does sex get in the way of friendship?
Are your friends mostly of the same sex/gender/sexuality?
Is it harder to make friends with persons of different sex/gender/sexuality?
How have friendships changed as people have become more embedded in online communities?
The course will begin with a consideration of current conversations about friendship, including popular TV serials — such as “Friends,” “Sex and the City,” “New Girl,” and “The Inbetweeners” — in which friendships are lived and variously configured through sexual relationships.
What could we make about meanings of friendship and sex, and their inter-relationship, in contemporary American culture?
We will read various texts that form historical threads that inform our contemporary concepts and practices of friendship and romance. 
Readings will include Winthrop, Plato, Cicero, Biblical sources, St. Augustine, St. Aquinas, Montaigne, Bray, Marcus, Sedgwick, and Foucault.
Finally, we will return to contemporary America, asking what gay marriage, Facebook, and changing conceptions of masculinity/femininity are doing to/for friendship.
Note: Expected to be given in 2015–16.
This course, when taken for a letter grade, meets the General Education requirement for Culture and Belief.

No problem. We've got a "rainy day" fund. Right?--------Huge salt price increases will squeeze road budgets across Michigan

Huge salt price increases will squeeze road budgets across Michigan | MLive.com:
"After an extremely snowy winter made keeping the roads clear a Sisyphean task for local authorities, the price of their No. 1 weapon in the fight against winter weather has skyrocketed.
Early deliveries of rock salt to stock up for the winter will cost Ann Arbor area municipalities, school systems and road commissions $76.58 per ton, more than double last year’s price of $34.50."

Race baiting liar!-----Black firefighter cries racism, police misconduct to media; body-cam proves him wrong

Black firefighter cries racism, police misconduct to media; body-cam proves him wrong - BizPac Review:

With the nation a racial tinderbox in the wake of 18-year-old Michael Brown’s shooting death by a white police officer, a California firefighter threw out what could have been an incendiary spark by accusing a cop of treating him differently because he’s black.
Little did Oakland firefighter Keith Jones know that the officer was wearing a body-cam video recorder when their tense encounter unfolded. And the video didn’t quite match the complaint Jones filed with the Oakland Police Department.
The encounter began last month when Jones and his sons, aged 9 and 12, were leaving a Oakland Raiders football game and walked past an open bay door at a nearby fire station, according to the CBS affiliate, KPIX5.

Watch the story Jones first told the local news and how they portrayed him and his kids as victims:
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2014/08/29/race-issues-raised-when-oakland-firefighter-kids-detained-by-police-officer-opd-keith-jones-station-29-profiling/

.....Watch the (officer's body-cam) video and decide for yourself if the officer acted inappropriately, or whether the incident shows that when you’re holding a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Best Food By State - Business Insider

Best Food By State - Business Insider

AmeriCorps at 20 is a wasteful flop: Column

AmeriCorps at 20 is a wasteful flop: Column:
"One part political slush fund, one part window dressing, youth service program failed to grow up.

...AmeriCorps consists of 75,000 members ( who collect up to $17,800 a year in salary and education benefits for laboring on social, environmental, education and other projects authorized by the agency headquarters. 
According to CEO Wendy Spencer, "For twenty years, AmeriCorps has been a powerful and proven solution to community needs across the nation." Many AmeriCorps recruits work hard and have helped their fellow Americans, but many of the agency's projects are spurred more by feelgood foolishness and political profiteering than by real community needs.

..AmeriCorps often sends its members to fill voids created by other government defaults. Thousands of AmeriCorps members are busy attempting to teach readingto young children -- a task for which public schools already spend billions. 
Thanks to Obama's My Brother's Keeper initiative, AmeriCorps is partnering with the Justice Department to enroll and mentor "disconnected youth" -- the same task for which the Job Corps was created 50 years ago.
...Congress recently enacted a law prohibiting federally-funded food stamp recruiting but AmeriCorps continues paying scores of members to entice people onto the dole.
AmeriCorps, along with USDA, is bankrolling the National Anti-Hunger and Opportunity Corps whose primary goal is "increasing participation" in food stamps.
Joel Berg, the director of that program, pockets a six-figure salary while issuing apocalyptic statements about America's injustice to the poor.
...After 20 years, AmeriCorps continues to be little more than social work tinged with messianic delusions. 
It is time to draw the curtain on AmeriCorps' "body count" benevolence."

ISIS pens poem about 72 virgins to ignite base

ISIS pens poem about 72 virgins to ignite base | New York Post:
How do Islamic extremists fire up the troops?
Poems about virgins, of course.
During a investigation into home-grown terrorists, the FBI monitored communication between two Boston Muslims, Tarek Mehanna and Ahmad Abousamra.
Mehanna would be charged with aiding al Qaeda and given 17 years in prison, Abousamra fled the US before arrest, and is now serving as chief propagandist for ISIS.
Abousamra posts beheading videos to the Internet, and promotes them on social media.
He’s one of the FBI’s most wanted.
One of the messages between Mehanna and Abousamra was a 2008 poem written by Mehanna, describing the afterlife for a holy warrior.
The ode, which includes the promise of 72 virgins with “round and firm chests,” was distributed online.
It still pops up to recruit Westerns to the life of jihad.
It reads:

“Make Martyrdom What You Seek”
"....You drink so much you almost end up falling
Into the flowing current, then you hear voices calling,
You turn and behold! The voices are singing
Coming from Maidens so fair and enchanting,
These are the Hoorees with round and firm chests
Pure untouched virgins, they’re better than the best,
Seventy-two in all, with large eyes of dark hue
Each one created especially for you,....."

The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It | WIRED

The Mathematics of Ebola Trigger Stark Warnings: Act Now or Regret It

The Ebola epidemic in Africa has continued to expand since I last wrote about it, and as of a week ago, has accounted for more than 4,200 cases and 2,200 deaths in five countries: Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone. That is extraordinary: Since the virus was discovered, no Ebola outbreak’s toll has risen above several hundred cases. This now truly is a type of epidemic that the world has never seen before. In light of that, several articles were published recently that are very worth reading.

The most arresting is a piece published last week in the journal Eurosurveillance, which is the peer-reviewed publication of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (the EU’s Stockholm-based version of the US CDC). The piece is an attempt to assess mathematically how the epidemic is growing, by using case reports to determine the “reproductive number.” (Note for non-epidemiology geeks: The basic reproductive number — usually shorted to R0 or “R-nought” — expresses how many cases of disease are likely to be caused by any one infected person. An R0 of less than 1 means an outbreak will die out; an R0 of more than 1 means an outbreak can be expected to increase. If you saw the movie, "Contagion" this is what Kate Winslet stood up and wrote on a whiteboard early in the film.)

The Eurosurveillance paper, by two researchers from the University of Tokyo and Arizona State University, attempts to derive what the reproductive rate has been in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. (Note for actual epidemiology geeks: The calculation is for the effective reproductive number, pegged to a point in time, hence actually Rt.) They come up with an R of at least 1, and in some cases 2; that is, at certain points, sick persons have caused disease in two others.

You can see how that could quickly get out of hand, and in fact, that is what the researchers predict. Here is their stop-you-in-your-tracks assessment:

In a worst-case hypothetical scenario, should the outbreak continue with recent trends, the case burden could gain an additional 77,181 to 277,124 cases by the end of 2014.

That is a jaw-dropping number.

The epidemic curves of the Ebola epidemic; look especially at the line for Liberia. From Nishiura and Chowell; original here.

What should we do with information like this? At the end of last week, two public health experts published warnings that we need to act urgently in response.

First, Dr. Richard E. Besser: He is now the chief health editor of ABC News, but earlier was acting director of the US CDC, including during the 2009-10 pandemic of H1N1 flu; so, someone who understands what it takes to stand up a public-health response to an epidemic. In his piece in the Washington Post, “The world yawns as Ebola takes hold in West Africa,” he says bluntly: “I don’t think the world is getting the message.”

WHO still pushing to collect a global tobacco tax

WHO still pushing to collect a global tobacco tax « Hot Air:
The unelected and unaccountable sages at the World Health Organization (WHO) can’t seem to help themselves or resist the temptation to try to regulate the behavior of everyone on the planet. 
This is a shame, really, because a group like that could actually do some good if they stuck to trying to get basic supplies and medical care to people in remote, poverty stricken countries. 
But rather than devoting themselves to such laudable goals, they’re once again pushing to get every government on the planet to jack up sin taxes on tobacco.(This is something they’ve tried before, as I wrote about in 2012.) And the new proposal is a whopper.

The World Health Organization announced potential plans to institute a global tobacco tax, but economist Arthur Laffer expressed significant skepticism about the idea in a new study.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Raising taxes on tobacco in support of the reduction of tobacco consumption is a core element of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), an international treaty that entered into force in 2005 and has been endorsed by 178 Parties.”

“Raising taxes on tobacco is the most effective way to reduce use and save lives,” added WHO Director-General Dr Margaret Chan. “Determined action on tobacco tax policy hits the industry where it hurts.”

Well, 616 is the area code for Ottawa county........The Devil's Number Is Not 666

The Devil's Number Is Not 666 - KnowledgeNuts:

In A Nutshell

“666,” the oft-quoted number of Satan, or perhaps his area code, is not the Mark of the Beast as most people believe. Though it’s less memorable and certainly not as cool-looking, the real number is 616, according to an ancient fragment of, you guessed it, the Bible. The fragment predates every other copy of Revelation, where John, the mysterious author, mentions the Mark of the Beast as the tattoo you’ll have to get if you want to conduct business in the new apocalyptic world.

The Whole Bushel

.......The mark itself can be any one of three things: a symbol, the beast’s name, or his number. And it’s here that the traditional number of “Six hundred threescore and six,” or 666, comes from.

However, back in 2005, the number was revised, or should have been, to 616 because of a discovery made in an ancient Egyptian dump just outside of Oxyrhynchus. A large collection of really old papers, most of them unreadable, were discovered. Among them was a piece of a third-century manuscript that just happened to be from the Book of Revelation. In this piece, as well, was the new number, 616, given as the number of the Beast.

This isn’t just some random number either. According to Professor David Parker, numbers were often used in ancient days to disguise the name of an enemy. In this case, 616 probably refers to Emperor Caligula of the Roman Empire, the non-Christian ruling power in the world at the time.

So 666 becoming 616 is significant to the interpretation of the Book of Revelation, lending more credibility to the idea that it’s not a prediction of an actual apocalypse yet to occur, but a political criticism of the Roman Empire, hidden in symbols and numbers to avoid an imperial response.

Show Me The Proof

Revelation! 666 is not the number of the beast (it’s a devilish 616)
Revelation 13:11-18 (King James Version)

Obama ALERT!!---------Plans to Turn ‘Politically Binding’ UN Climate Change Accord Into Federal Law

Plans to Turn ‘Politically Binding’ UN Climate Change Accord Into Federal Law | CNS News
“Obama’s statement acknowledges that he cannot get a new climate treaty past China or U.S. voters,” Horner told CNSNews.com.

But he added that environmental activists are already planning to employ the same collusive sue-and-settle strategy they have used in the past to impose draconian energy restrictions on all Americans even though there’s been no global warming for nearly 18 years.

(Source: Lord Christopher Monckton)

’It’s quite clear under Article 2, Section 2 of the Constitution that after the president signs it, any binding international law agreement has to be ratified by the Senate,” Horner explained.

But he noted that “activist green groups, in conjunction with the New York attorney general’s office, have already developed plans to use the federal courts to force Americans to drastically reduce their energy consumption whether or not Obama signs a new climate change treaty in Paris next year” to replace the expired Kyoto Protocol.

Horner predicted the White House strategy in a 2009 paper published by the Federalist Society, in which he wrote: “It appears that Kyoto will be the subject of a controversial effort to sharply revise U.S. environmental treaty practice…. waiving the Constitution’s requirement of Senate ratification by reclassifying the product of talks as a congressional-Executive agreement, not a treaty.” (See Kyoto II ...Emerging Strategy.pdf)

Inside a Russian Billionaire's $300 Million Yacht-video

Inside a Russian Billionaire's $300 Million Yacht:
"The "A", designed by Philippe Starck, arrived in San Francisco earlier this week after making stops in Alaska and Seattle.
WSJ took an exclusive tour of Andrey Melnichenko's 394-foot mega-yacht in 2010."

History for September 14

History for September 14 - On-This-Day.com
Ivan Pavlov 1849, Margaret Sanger 1879, Joey Heatherton 1944 


Sam Neill 1947, John "Bowser" Bauman (Sha Na Na) 1947, Barry Cowsill (The Cowsills) 1954 


1814 - Francis Scott Key wrote the "Star-Spangled Banner," a poem originally known as "Defense of Fort McHenry," after witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry, MD, during the War of 1812. The song became the official U.S. national anthem on March 3, 1931. 


1866 - George K. Anderson patented the typewriter ribbon. 


1899 - In New York City, Henry Bliss became the first automobile fatality. 


1901 - U.S. President William McKinley died of gunshot wounds inflicted by an assassin. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, at age 42, succeeded him. 


1938 - The VS-300 made its first flight. The craft was based on the helicopter technology patented by Igor Sikorsky. 


1940 - The Selective Service Act was passed by the U.S. Congress providing the first peacetime draft in the United States. 


1948 - In New York, a groundbreaking ceremony took place at the site of the United Nations' world headquarters. 


1959 - Luna II, a Soviet space probe, became the first man-made object on the moon when it crashed on the surface. 


1960 - The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) was founded. The core members were Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela. 


1978 - "Mork & Mindy" premiered on ABC-TV.