Gullible, fanatical, suicidal, and expendable...

Gullible, fanatical, suicidal, and expendable...  Daniel Greenfield, writing at Sultan Knish, notes an interesting factoid: that converted Muslims commit terrorist acts at a higher rate than lifelong Muslims.  He wonders why, and concludes that it's because Muslim converts tend to be ... gullible, fanatical, suicidal, and expendable.  He elaborates...

ObamaCare, simplified...

ObamaCare, simplified...  Via my lovely bride, this explanation.  Savor it slowly; absorb the aroma of the progressive mind at work...

Obamacare: To insure the uninsured, we first make the insured uninsured and then make them pay more to be insured again, so the original uninsured can be insured for free.

To me it smells like 450°F bullshit, with a little boiling vomit thrown in...

Geek: source code in TV and movies...

Geek: source code in TV and movies...  Have you ever spotted some source code on a screen in a show on TV, or in a movie ... and then wondered what it really was?  You may be able to find out here!

California leads the way...

California leads the way ... in keeping ineffective teachers.  I've noted before the near-impossibility of firing teachers in California, usually in the context of a convicted criminal still keeping their job as a teacher.  The linked article discusses an effect that's possibly even worse: school superintendents can't fire the bad teachers, and can't keep the good ones.  Sounds like a recipe for success, doesn't it?  If you answered “yes” to that, well, then, you're a good little progressive, aren't you?

Geek: Lehmer sieves...

Geek: Lehmer sieves...  I just ran across a reference to these machines, invented in the early 20^th century by father and son mathematicians Derrick N. Lehmer and Derrick H. Lehmer.  They are an early form of computer.  Lehmer's paper is here; I'm trying to wade through the math (without much luck yet :).  What really caught my eye was the claim that one mechanical implementation could look at up to 5,000 possible solutions per second – that's awfully fast for something mechanical.  There are lots of images of them on the web...