Tuesday, December 31

Saturday, December 28

Surviving a Mass Shooting


The odds of getting caught up in a mass shooting incident are astoundingly low. Despite the recent flurry of high-profile incidents, it’s unlikely you will ever need to utilize the following technique.

• If you are in a public area and someone starts shooting, try to evacuate if at all possible. If you cannot escape, lie down on the floor, face down.
• Point your feet in the direction of the shooter.
• Turn your head away and cover it with your hands. This will reduce the size of your target profile. It will minimize the likelihood of a bullet hitting any of your vital organs.

Wednesday, December 25

Friday, December 20

What's in a Name?


What's in a name? How many Black (politically correct: African-American) Americans have a Russian first name? I find it interesting that Barack and Michelle's youngest daughter's real name is Natasha, not Sasha as is frequently reported in the media. Barack's parents met in a Russian language class at the University of Hawaii in the early 1960s. They associated with leftists of all stripes including Frank Marshall Davis who later mentored Barack Obama. It has always been trendy for communist sympathizers to give their children Russian names. BO and Michelle named their first child Malia Ann, (one of the origins of Malia is a Swahili word meaning "queen" which is popular in Kenya, the birthplace of Obama's father; Ann, I'm sure pays homage to his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham). Their second child they named Natasha Obama. They have not released Natasha's middle name, although the middle initial M. is given on the Obama's public tax return (see below). Does it stand for Michelle or perhaps a Russian female name? Like many things about Barack Obama, it remains a mystery.

Friday, December 6

Thursday, December 5

Sunday, December 1

Words Can Change Your Brain


"By holding a positive and optimistic [word] in your mind, you stimulate frontal lobe activity. This area includes specific language centers that connect directly to the motor cortex responsible for moving you into action. And as our research has shown, the longer you concentrate on positive words, the more you begin to affect other areas of the brain. Functions in the parietal lobe start to change, which changes your perception of yourself and the people you interact with. A positive view of yourself will bias you toward seeing the good in others, whereas a negative self-image will include you toward suspicion and doubt. Over time the structure of your thalamus will also change in response to your conscious words, thoughts, and feelings, and we believe that the thalamic changes affect the way in which you perceive reality."

Andrew Newberg, M.D. and Mark Robert Waldman