These are great knife sharpeners. They are crossed metal rods embedded in a plastic handle that you rest on the edge of a table or counter-top. I don’t know how well they work on sporting knives, but on kitchen knives they are great. They sharpen quickly and are seemingly foolproof. I have the set of three devices, with a total of four sharpening surfaces (from coarse to smooth): restore, sharpen, hone, polish/straighten. Using steel rods avoids the dusty gritty mess of dry sharpening stones, or the messiness of stones that require water or oil. 10 easy and quick strokes on the sharpening set of rods, and 10 on the honing set will get a dull knife slicing through meat and tomatoes like butter.
Stephen Mansfield writes a flattering article about the LDS church and members in the Huffington Post.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-mansfield/the-mormonizing-of-americ_b_2083125.html
More racist analysis. Says Ann: “Democrats haven’t changed anyone’s mind. They changed the people. ”
The change in demographics was a deliberate strategy, going back to the 1960’s, implemented in large part by immigration laws and policies.
“Russian woman attacked by wolf, axes it to death.”
Oh, that I were an attacking-wolf axer, but I do sin in my wish.
At Chez Vader. (more…)
Ben Bernanke walks into a restaurant and orders a pizza. The waiter asks him if he’d like his pizza sliced into 6 slices or 8. (more…)
I have not had much to say in awhile. There are a number of reasons for this. (more…)
Alternate headline: Racist, sexist statistics.
The Daily Mail has some shocking demographic analysis of the 2012 presidential election.
If only men (all races) had voted, Romney would have won 322 electoral votes, to 216.
If only whites (all genders) had voted, Romney would have won 441 to 97.
If only white males had voted, Romney would have won 501 to 37.
An anesthesiologist and a physicist speculate on the quantum nature of the soul, and that it resides in the brain, here.
Related article, about a neurosurgeon’s near-death-experience, here.
Alcohol sales had been illegal in Damascus since 1884, and referendums to change that were rejected by the town’s residents in 1933, 1976, 1984, 1992, and 1996. This time the vote was 2-1 in favor of alcohol sales. The owners of the three liquor stores a couple miles out on the roads out to the south, east and northwest and the bar further out on the road north to Mt. Airy must be pondering future sales forecasts. (link)
“death panels”, like this.
In the United Kingdom, deeming someone non-viable is labeled “putting them on the ‘Liverpool Care Pathway’.”
One of the major problems with it in the UK, is that the decision is often made by a single person, a non-doctor, and done without consulting or even notifying family members.
There have been cases where family members merely gave nourishment to the patient, and they went on to recover.
Search for “pathway” at the above link to the Daily Mail (UK), for more examples.
Another example of putting someone on the LCP and forcing a DNR (Do Not Resucitate) order on them without the patient’s and family’s consent.
An epic true-life adventure story: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo. Free ebook (copyright expired) in various formats, including HTML, ibooks (epub), Kindle and plain text. 1996 movie, The Ghost and the Darkness, here.
In 1898 in Kenya, two extremely large lions develop a taste for human flesh, and halt construction of the Kenya-Uganda railway until they are killed.