Goodies from Ol' Remus

Ol' Remus 

1937. Ennis Texas, the Nu Deel Sandwich Shoppe 

Ennis is a town of 18,500 in east-central Texas. Places like these were the forerunner of the 'miracle mile' seen in every town of any size. 

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Give me that old time precision

“At one time, my office was asked to do a study regarding upgrading the Iowa-class battleship fire control systems from analog to digital computers. We found that digitizing the computer would improve neither the reliability nor the accuracy of the system and recommended, ‘Don't bother.’” How did this box of gears and cams out-calculate digital systems for so long?, says Sean Gallagher in this article, When mechanical analog computers ruled the waves - In some ways, the Navy's latest computers fall short of the power of 1930s tech, at Ars Technica.

Race card payday - New York City is set to pay up to $98 million in back pay and benefits to settle a Bloomberg-era lawsuit alleging the FDNY's entrance exams for firefighters discriminated against minority applicants. The proposed settlement would make about 1,500 black firefighters who took [meaning: failed] the exams in 1999 and 2002 eligible for compensation. It would create an FDNY chief diversity officer and require the city to try its best to ensure that the proportion of minority test-takers exceeds the city's job-eligible racial makeup to address past discrimination.
Matthew Chayes at newsday.com

End of science

The science settlers have responded to the serious questions that have been raised about their unscientific advocacy has been to demand a more closed system, to hide more data, to urge newspapers to stop printing letters from anyone who questions Global Warming and to even propose the imprisonment of Warming critics. This isn't the confident attitude of a field that believes it has the facts on its side, says Daniel Greenfield in this article, The End of Science, at Sultan Knish.

Also see Aliens Cause Global Warming: A Caltech Lecture by Michael Crichton, at Watts Up With That? "Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world" - Anthony Watts.

Scare them young, make examples of the clearly innocent, and all will see and fall into line out of fear of the state and those who will imprison you over imaginary threats. Where such psychosis leads is now on display in Connecticut, which has adopted an Obama'esque “red line” by implementing a gun registration law that most have refused to obey.  Connecticut's budding fascists must either go Full Brownshirt in their determined assault on the Constitution, thereby fomenting open revolt by those peacefully doing what the Constitution protects, or they will have to back down, says Jeffrey Brown in this article, Zero Tolerance, Evil Objects, and the Psychosis of the Left, at American Thinker.

Drugging bored kids

He's bored to tears with teachers who know less than he does and can't manage to give him something challenging to do because the school stuck a bunch of kids with sub-90 IQs in the class in the name of political correctness—and you cannot both challenge the 110 IQ kid and meet the needs of the 90 IQ one at the same time in the same room. When the 110 (or 120+!) IQ kid gets bored he might first try to get more attention, but that's considered "acting out" and is punished. What's next? Drugs, says Karl Denninger in this article, No, Really? (ADHD), at Market Ticker.

I am woman, watch me swoon

The trigger-warning vogue began a few years ago on feminist websites, and then spread to other "social justice" blogs. The idea behind them is that for people who have post-traumatic stress disorder, something that reminds them of the trauma can trigger painful flashbacks and panic attacks. Trigger warnings have now arrived on college campuses, now student sensitivities must be coddled and protected—even letting students skip uncomfortable material, says Cathy Young in this article, Trigger Warnings—A Ludicrous Step Toward Censorship, at Minding The Campus.

Remus says - Stuff like this is why American education is the world's laughing stock.

Ask the experts - I can think of two groups with whom I have some sympathy—the Tea Party and climate skeptics—who share one problem in common:  the media does not come to them to ask them what their positions are.  The media instead goes to their opposition to ask what their positions are.  In other words, the media asks global warming strong believers what the skeptic position is, without ever even talking to skeptics.  It should be no surprise then that these groups get painted with straw men positions that frequently bear no resemblance to their actual beliefs.
Warren Meyer at coyoteblog.com