A Cotillion Salute to Amazing Grace

Not very many women were getting degrees in mathematics in 1928. (Not many are doing so today.) Grace Hopper got her MA in 1930 and a PhD. in 1934. She joined the Naval Reserve in 1943. Rear Admiral Grace Murray Hopper (December 9, 1906 - January 1, 1992) was a pioneer. She was one of the founders of modern computing.

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Jane at Armies of Liberation reports on Yemen's New Propaganda Machine. Dedicated to fighting the opposition - which uses "democracy and freedom" as a justification - and to defending the "national principles of Yemen," which apparently don't include democracy and freedom.

Beth of MY Vast Right Wing Conspiracy is a bit miffed with the MSM in general and Geraldo in particular. Geraldo Rivera: “The media was VICTIMIZED” in West Virginia mine story. What's worse, "false hopes" or dead relatives? The MSM doesn't seem to be able to answer that question in any reasonable fashion. Warning: If the "F-word" upsets you, then you may need to avert your eyes.

And speaking of the mine disaster, Florida Cracker brings us So Many To Hate, So Little Time. Apparently there is at least one group of people protesting the funerals.

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Grace Hopper was the one who said, "It's always easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission." (This is one of my favorite quotes.)

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What is the difference between a religion (or sect of an established religion) and a cult? Little Miss Attila addresses this in her post Dr. R. L. Hymers.

It was a very odd phenomenon: a church whose doctrines aped those of classic mainstream Christian denominations—albeit with a sharp fundamentalist edge—yet operated for all intents and purposes like a cult.

A very interesting look at cults.

Girl on the Right is involved in Canadian politics, and has been researching Stephen Harper's stance on A Woman's Right to Choose. While Canada let's a woman choose abortion, if she does not, the choices are limited.

If you work, the Libs want to put your kids in state-controlled (read: overpriced and unionized) daycare. They don't want your mother to look after Junior. They don't want anyone other than themselves to have control of you kids' minds during the formative years.

Give your kid to the state? That doesn't sound like a good idea.

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Have you ever wondered where the term "computer bug" comes from? The Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator stopped working in September 1945. Lieutenant Junior Grade Hopper (who was always good with gadgets) was one of those who took it apart piece by piece until a moth was found stuck between the contacts of relay number 70. The log entry says "First actual case of bug being found," and the word went out that the machine had been "debugged." [click on the image for a large view of the log and the bug.]

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Romeocat of CatHouse Chat reports on a A gross mis-carriage of justice.

A Williston man who admitted repeatedly sexually assaulting a young girl for four years was sentenced Wednesday to spend 60 days in prison

Have to give counseling to the mutant. Can't expect prison to be punishment now can we.

Merri of Merri Musings is also thinking about crime and punishment with the post Criminal Victims and Other Such Stupidity

Just thinking about this case, and how it could potentially progress infuriates me because of the protection and leniency that tends to be shown to these "victim" criminals.

Society has lost the ability to distinguish between the victims and the criminals.

In addition to her thoughts about Justice, Romeocat also offers us some Sunday Thoughts

Sissy at sisu has an interesting post on military blogging in Blogging as to war. The Army is waking up to the fact that "military blogs are a valuable medium for reaching out to soldiers." The MSM will scream about bias - as if they were not biased. Who cares? (There is also a great photo of Tiny!)

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Although programmers the world over love-to-hate COBOL (the COmmon Business Oriented Language), it was one of the first compiled languages.

Perhaps [Grace Hopper's] best-known contribution to computing was the invention of the compiler, the intermediate program that translates English language instructions into the language of the target computer.

Her compiler was a major step into the modern world of computing we know today.

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E.M. (aka The American Princess) has a few thoughts on Democrats, the Kos Kids, and Las Vegas in The Year of Wayne Newton. The Kos Kids

are taking their show on the road to the home of Liberace and those really tasteless Cirque du Soleil Celine Dion combinations, in an effort to combine all of the brainpower into one location at one moment--perhaps so the sun will explode.

I think my head would explode.

The Washington Post and the Detroit Free Press both looked at the same statistics and painted very different pictures of the US Economy. I took a look at this in Same Story, Different Spins. This comes under the heading of "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics."

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Amazing Grace even has a US Naval vessel named in her honor. The USS Hopper (DDG-70) is a 500 ft. long AEGIS Class Guided Missile Destroyer, generates 100,000 shaft horsepower and was commisioned on 6 September 1997. The ship's motto is "AUDE ET EFFICE" which translates to "Dare and Do," a favorite phrase of Rear Admiral Hopper's when giving advice.

And While I would have loved to put all of the information about Amazing Grace in this post, it would have slowed things down too much. I hope you will find time to look at the rest of Grace Hopper's Story.

[Cross posted at TFS Magnum]

Posted by Zendo Deb at January 10, 2006 12:02 AM