G-d tells Moshe to go and save the Jews. Moshe’s reply is a question: “Who am I?”

G-d seems to ignore the question, almost as if it was the wrong question! Instead of answering the question directly, G-d replies:

Vaccines may not be the most spectacular of all the miracles of modern medicine, but they are arguably the most beneficial. They have virtually eliminated the infectious diseases of childhood, including measles, diphtheria, mumps, rubella, smallpox and polio that were once the sources of unimaginable worry and grief for parents everywhere.

Vaccines are estimated to have saved over 150 million lives in the last five decades, cutting infant mortality by 40% globally and over 50% in Africa. Closer to home, of all babies born in the US in 2001 alone, a 2005 study showed that vaccines prevented 33,000 deaths and 14 million illnesses. Vaccines are also the most cost-effective of all medical interventions, easily yielding the greatest amount of benefit received per dollar spent.

David Lynch, who only last year announced that many years of smoking had left him with emphysema so serious he could no longer leave the house, has died.

As a lifelong movie fan, I have had something of a love-hate relationship with the work of David Lynch. When I was studying film in college, and had grandiose aspirations of becoming a film auteur myself, I was a big fan. In retrospect, that wasn’t based on much: at that point, he had only two features to his name, Eraserhead and The Elephant Man. But for a teenaged film buff with an interest in the avant-garde, Eraserhead was a masterpiece, a singular vision like nothing else. And The Elephant Man was brilliantly atmospheric, adapting the grim and unsettling tone of the earlier film and packaging it into something that was almost, but not quite, mainstream.

In a recent passionate post, Nanocelt the Contrarian protested the actions that President-Elect Trump had taken regarding the war in Gaza. Although I empathized with his pain, I urged him to wait and see if and how the deal was done.

Once again, it’s on hold.

What if the Louvre burned? Or the Vatican Museum or the Met?  Imagine the loss to our cultural and artistic heritage.  The home of Hollywood lawyer Kevin Morris, the world’s largest collector of Hunter Biden originals (over 200) has been destroyed in the ongoing fiery catastrophe in California. (See Hunter Biden artworks worth ‘millions of dollars’ destroyed in LA fires.)

If insurance covered the loss, how would it be valued?  At the original prices, estimated to be a total in the millions?  Current market value as the Biden family recedes from prominence?  Is the value expected to increase as a set of interesting, even fun historical artifacts, or will the value plummet with the loss of political relevance and buzz?  Art experts will likely debate this unique valuation problem for decades.

No doubt history will add this blow to our shared American art heritage to the extensive tab already rung up by the negligent Governor Newsome and Mayor Bass. Shame.

Let’s not forget the 52 American hostages that were captured by Iran on November 4^th, 1979. For 444 days they were held captive until the threat of a conservative US president loomed. On January 20^th, 1981, the hostages were released at the same time Ronald Reagan took office.

Two American hostages, 1979. Wikimedia Commons.

I came across this data on real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) household income.  It explains precisely why Harris lost the election and highlights the corrosive effects of the 21.0% inflation during the Biden-Harris administration and the failure of Bidenomics.  Twenty-seven states experienced their peak of median real household income during the Trump administration.  Since then real median household income nationwide has declined by almost 1%  ($81,210 in 2019 vs $80,610 in the most recent data).

Source: Dreamstime

Could security just escort Biden and his Administration out of the workplace buildings already?  Please, right now. Not a moment to waste. Ideally, it would’ve occurred some time ago. In the corporate world, when a person is fired (especially unceremoniously), it is not uncommon for the sacked to immediately be forced to clean out his desk under supervision, turn in his company badge and computer, have his passwords disabled, and then walked out the front door with an escort. This practice is rather unpleasant, but there is a reason for it.

People reference Sodom and Gomorrah, and they reference Lot engaging in incest with his daughters, but they don’t focus on how the two are related. I figured out the connection between the two and how it explains Pakistani rape gangs in modern times. Here is a short refresher from the New King James Bible:

4 Now before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both old and young, all the people from every quarter, surrounded the house. 5 And they called to Lot and said to him, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us that we may know them carnally.”

Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Atlantic has a remarkable article up:  “How Hitler Dismantled a Democracy in 53 days – He used the constitution to shatter the constitution.”  I don’t subscribe to The Atlantic, so I couldn’t read the entire article linked.  Thus, I’m unsure if they explain why they just happened to publish this article just as Trump is taking office.  Perhaps it’s just a coincidence.  Or perhaps they describe some perceived parallels that they see between Trump and Hitler.  I don’t think it matters.  Their intention is clear.  Regardless, here are the first two paragraphs, that I could see on this side of the paywall: