Some things are predictable.

As the days go on in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre, it is becoming a safe bet that two predictions will come true:

(1) Stephen Paddock will officially be known as a lone gunman, despite all of the questions and inconsistencies that exist. There may even be an official report, although I do not think they will be stupid enough to call it the "Warren Report." Numerous conspiracy theories will pop up in response, most of which will be wrong. Part of me wants to say that we will never hear the end of this, but the next massacre will overshadow it - especially if that massacre involves more victims.

(2) Hotels will become as hard to access as airports became in the wake of 9-11. Metals detectors will appear at every entrance. There will be restrictions on what we can take in and out. It is possible that the restrictions will apply only to high-rise hotels near populated areas, but I would not count on it. It is possible also that high-rise hotels will no longer be built with rooms that provide a view to crowded areas. I suppose it will depend on the litigation that emerges in the coming weeks and months.

Quote of the day - Will Durant

It is easier to rule a state in its decline than in its youth; diminished vitality almost welcomes subjugation.

Will Durant, The Renaissance, p. 699 (writing of late-Renaissance Florence)

Quote of the day - Camille Paglia - AIDS

Everyone of my generation who preached free love is responsible for AIDS.

Camille Paglia - Sex, Art, and American Culture p. 216

Quote of the day - Camille Paglia

Hollywood Bible movies of the Fifties, like The Ten Commandments and Ben-Hur, with their epic clash of pagan and Judeo-Christian cultures, tell more truth about art and society than the French infatuated ideologues who have made a travesty of the "best" American higher education.

Camille Paglia - Sex, Art and American Culture, p. 208

Deadly winter conditions prove the "warmists" wrong once again.

More evidence to disprove "global warming" from the Winter of 2014.

- Steve Czaban discusses frigid temperatures and their effects on football fans.

- AP reports on sub-zero temperatures and at least 9 deaths so far.

- Cancelled flights and -60 wind chill temperatures (USA Today).

- storm conditions in New York (Fox 5).

More from NY -

New York City-area authorities on Thursday urged residents to stay home, ordered highways be shut down and scaled back some mass-transit service as a dangerous snowstorm barreled into the region from the Midwest

from the Wall Street Journal

Update - 1-4-14

The situation will get worse over the next few days.

The temperature predictions are startling: 25 below zero in Fargo, N.D., minus 31 in International Falls, Minn., and 15 below in Indianapolis and Chicago. At those temperatures, exposed skin can get frostbitten in minutes and hypothermia can quickly set in because wind chills could hit 50, 60 or even 70 below zero.

from this morning's AP

Previous

- Ice Bowl II (2008), Ice Bowl I (1967) and 1961.

- Winter of 2008

- Winter of 2007

- Winter of 2009 - 2010

Quote of the day - Mark Steyn - Obamacare - Hoover Dam; Golden Gate Bridge; Apollo 11.

Obamacare is as close to a Hoover Dam as latter-day Big Government gets. Which is why its catastrophic launch is sobering even for those of us who've been saying for five years it would be a disaster. It's as if at the ribbon-cutting the Hoover Dam cracked open and washed away the dignitaries; as if the Golden Gate Bridge was opened to traffic with its central span missing; as if Apollo 11 had taken off for the moon but landed on Newfoundland. Obama didn't have to build a dam or a bridge or a spaceship, just a database and a website. This is his world, the guys he hangs with, the zeitgeist he surfs so dazzlingly, Apple and Google, apps and downloads. But his website's a sclerotic dump, and the database is a hacker's heaven, and all that's left is the remorseless snail mail of millions and millions of cancellation letters.

Mark Steyn - 12-4-2013

Quote of the day - Leonello

"It is an ancient opinion, not only of the Christians but of the Gentiles, that the heavens, the sea, and the earth must some day perish; in like manner, of many magnificent cities nothing but ruins leveled with the ground can now be seen, and Rome the conqueror herself lies in the dust and is reduced to fragments; while only the understanding of things divine and human, which we call wisdom, is not extinguished by length of years, but retains its rights in perpetuity."

Leonello - edict issued upon reorganizing the University of Ferrara (1442)

as quoted in Durant, The Renaissance, p. 268-269 (quoting Ella Noyes, Story of Ferrara, 1904, p. 82).