Medary.com

They're all over the highway!

Part of a Kansas City highway was shut down early this morning when a truck hauling animal parts lost some of its load.

The truck apparently had left a local slaughterhouse and was northbound on U.S. 71 near 63rd Street just before 1 a.m. when the mishap occurred.

Answer the following with whether you tend to agree or disagree with each of these statements:

• There is no truth, only competing agendas.
• All Western (and especially American) claims to moral superiority over Communism/Fascism/Islam are vitiated by the West’s history of racism and colonialism.
• There are no objective standards by which we may judge one culture to be better than another. Anyone who claims that there are such standards is an evil oppressor.
• The prosperity of the West is built on ruthless exploitation of the Third World; therefore Westerners actually deserve to be impoverished and miserable.
• Crime is the fault of society, not the individual criminal. Poor criminals are entitled to what they take. Submitting to criminal predation is more virtuous than resisting it.
• The poor are victims. Criminals are victims. And only victims are virtuous. Therefore only the poor and criminals are virtuous. (Rich people can borrow some virtue by identifying with poor people and criminals.)
• For a virtuous person, violence and war are never justified. It is always better to be a victim than to fight, or even to defend oneself. But ‘oppressed’ people are allowed to use violence anyway; they are merely reflecting the evil of their oppressors.
• When confronted with terror, the only moral course for a Westerner is to apologize for past sins, understand the terrorist’s point of view, and make concessions.

OK, Done?

Let's score.

If you said that you agree with one or more of the statements, congratulations!

You have been brainwashed by an elaborate disinformation campaign started by the Soviets, that continues to bear fruit over a decade after the USSR collapsed of its own collectivist, totalitarian weight.

Your prize, as described by Former KGB agent and Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov, if you choose not to fight the brainwashing, is shown in this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pE8MCSu_K-A

Money quote, at about 1:20 to go in the clip:  "in the future, these people (those spreading lies like the above questions-ed) will be squashed like cockroaches."  Oh, not by George Bush and the Right, like you believe deep down in your naive little heart.  By the Marxist-Leninists, or by the Islamicists, or by some other band of totalitarian thugs.

If you believe any of the above, you are well on the way to surrendering your very right to exist.  Pardon me if I don't join you in self-immolation.

Questions taken from this article at the "Armed and Dangerous" blog.
Via Instapundit and Pajamas Media.

Which reminds me, I must post a review of "The Trouble with Physics" one of these days . . .

Anyway, esteemed blogger Tigerhawk (well, esteemed in these here parts) has a word or two about the issuing of honorary degrees to African thug Robert Mugabe, and the subsequent reconsideration of said honorary degrees.  Thus wrote Tigerhawk:

I come from an academic family, grew up in college towns, and thought seriously about going to graduate school and becoming a professor. I decided against it because I did not much like most of the academics I knew. The older guys -- those who were born before, say, 1925, were pretty normal, interesting, and tough in their own way. A lot of them had stormed ashore at D-Day or manned a machine gun against the Japanese, and even those who were left wing did not twist their hanky over silliness. They knew the difference between serious and, er, not-serious.

There are few such people running Anglo-American universities today. Take, for example, the mass confusion over whether or not to revoke the many honorary degrees accidentally given to Robert Mugabe, one of the biggest dirtbags on the planet. Years after it has become obvious that the guy is an evil, genocidal maniac, the University of Edinburgh has pumped itself up and pulled his degree, which exceedingly belated and fundamentally bureaucratic act the Guardian regards as all part and parcel of the great campaign to reign in his tyranny:

International efforts to isolate Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, intensified yesterday after he was stripped of an honorary degree by Edinburgh University and faced similar action by academics in the US. The university said its senate had unanimously accepted a recommendation by a panel of three senior professors to revoke the degree because details of Mr Mugabe's links to atrocities in Matabeleland in the early 1980s had emerged.

I bet Mugabe is quaking in his boots.

Or, Why low-carb works, continued.  From ChemistryWorld--The Atkins hormone:

They are loved and endorsed by celebrities and dismissed as an unhealthy diet craze by critics. But 'low carb', high protein and high fat diets have proven their metabolic worth: scientists in the US have discovered a fat-burning role for a specific hormone stimulated by these eating regimes. The work has also raised the intriguing question of whether the Atkins diet could make you live longer.

The numbers of terrorists jihad freedom fighters killed in Iraq in 2007 has reached 3,184.  That is of course the number of dhimmis who were dispatched by the heroic Islamist martyrs on September 11th.  You may fly your crescent moon flags at half-mast for the remainder of the year.

Blogtrail:  Americas North Shore Journal via Jules Crittenden and Gateway Pundit.

Yahoo News:  Good weather predicted for space shuttle

Forecasters are predicting an 80 percent chance of good weather at space shuttle launch time tonight, and the fueling of the huge external tank began on time shortly before 10 a.m. EDT. The blastoff of Atlantis is scheduled for 7:38 p.m. EDT Friday on a mission to continue construction of the international space station.

Cato Institute:  The global savings glut and its consequences

The world is experiencing an unprecedented glut of savings, driving down real interest rates. It is a good time to borrow rather than lend, and to buy equities rather than bonds. This has implications for central banks, corporations and individual investors.

China is investing $3 billion, a tiny fraction of its $1.2 trillion of reserves, in Blackstone, a U.S. private equity company. More such equity investments will surely follow. India, OPEC members, and other developing countries with large foreign exchange reserves should emulate China's strategy.

Foreign exchange reserves are typically invested in bonds of G-7 countries, above all in U.S. Treasury bonds. Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers estimates that developing countries are holding more than $2 trillion of reserves in excess of their needs to combat currency volatility. If this excess is invested in equities rather than bonds, the resultant gains could exceed $100 billion.

Ah, another simian story from the friendly folks at ScienceDaily:

"We have robust evidence that in chimpanzees there is a considerable capacity for cultural spread of innovations," said Dr. Andrew Whiten of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. "This strengthens the interpretation of cases of behavioral diversity in the wild as socially transmitted traditions. Moreover, we have now shown that chimpanzees can sustain cultures that are made up of several traditions. This again is consistent with what is seen in the wild, where chimpanzees are thought to show up to 20 traditions that define their unique local culture."

In April, 2007 we spent five nights at the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Retreat & Spa in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.  It was advertised as a 5-star very relaxing resort.  It was anything but.  Read on to learn of the problems we had with this location.  (We sent a letter to the hotel at the end of April but got no response.  Just another example of their poor customer service.)

The science guys did a study:

"Although the purpose of both of these studies was to glean insights into metabolic physiology, our findings suggest that increased levels of FGF21 may be a potential mechanism behind low-carbohydrate diets' beneficial properties when it comes to lipid metabolism," says Maratos-Flier. "Diets that limit carbohydrates and eliminate transfats, and at the same time emphasize fiber and good fats, appear to be healthiest, especially among individuals who are predisposed to developing diabetes."

(Emphasis mine)