I’ve been seeing those commercials for the forthcoming History Channel special “The People Speak” for a while now. While I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to ’em, and didn’t know anything about it, there’s been something vaguely disconcerting about the commercials.
Turns out there was a good reason for the unease. It’s based on America-bashing Marxist historian Howard Zinn’s efforts to brainwash children.
Feh.
So if you watch, get ready for some Socialism.
… according to the New York Times, at any rate. They have published a “gift guide” to help you shop for the non-white people in your life. Because Odin knows they wouldn’t want a DVD player, a Wii, a stack of cash or some home-made knickknacks.
Somali fashion, do-it-yourself henna kits, children’s books that draw inspiration from the lives of Barack Obama and Sonia Sotomayor: it’s not hard to find gifts created for and by people of color this holiday season. Here are some possibilities.
I have some suggestions of my own:
Alternatively…
Thanks to Pajamas Media for the heads up.
From circa 1996, a design for a large transport aircraft that could fulfill several missions:
1) Passenger transport
2) Cargo airlift
3) Military airlift
From the side, it looks a *lot* like a C-5 Galaxy. But the fuselage is considerably widened.
And a somewhat different configuration to do the same job. No dimensions were given, but the wings look the same, so the span was probably the same.
As mentioned previously, the Swiss have voted to ban the construction of new minarets. One Swiss feller seems to disagree:
A Swiss businessman appalled by his fellow countrymen’s decision to ban minarets has extended a chimney above his company building into a minaret in protest.
…
The businessman, who is not a Muslim, explained that the he had constructed the mock minaret at his building near western Switzerland’s city of Lausanne in protest, and at the same time, to “send a message of peace.”
On the one hand, I gotta applaud this guy’s willingness to say “up yours” to laws he thinks are goofy and wrong. On the other hand, I gotta wonder if he’s really thought this through. Consider: his fake minaret currently looks like this:
Sure, it looks cute. But it is, after all, a chimney… and winter is coming. How exactly is the Religion Of Peace going to respond when they see one of their holy places ON FIRE?
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State schools admit they do not push gifted pupils because they don’t want to promote ‘elitism’
As many as three-quarters of state schools are failing to push their brightest pupils because teachers are reluctant to promote ‘elitism’, an Ofsted study says today.
Many teachers are not convinced of the importance of providing more challenging tasks for their gifted and talented pupils.
Bright youngsters told inspectors they were forced to ask for harder work. Others were resentful at being dragooned into ‘mentoring’ weaker pupils.
…
The study, by Professor Alan Smithers and Dr Pamela Robinson of Buckingham University, said it was ‘a nonsense’ that specialist science schools were barred from selecting pupils according to their ability in science.
Harrison Bergeron would not approve. Wesley Mouch would approve.
Just south of Tremonton today.
Past month or two a new cat has been hanging around the back porch. It’s not a mooch like the others… at least, he takes off like a shot when I open the door, where the other cats go bonkers and damn near riot in expectation of getting food. He’s a sizable fluffy cat… the others are all shorthair cats. Seems healthy except for a bite taken out of one ear.
From a recent Lockheed presentation on aerospace materials I extracted this image:
It appears to show a hypersonic airbreathing cruise missile. In the lower right there is a faintly visible image of an airplane launching another missile.
While I’ve no information on this design whatsoever, I can make some guesses:
1) Likely meant to fly at high altitude. The upperside inlet means the underside would be smooth, leaving little for ground-based and even many airborne radars to latch onto.
2) Date *might* be 1960’s. The aircraft vaguely looks like the B-1… while this might actually be meant to represent the B-1 (which would mean the art would be from anywhere from the mid 1970’s to today), I think the plane isn’t actually the Rockwell B-1… but instead a Lockheed competitor.
As a followup to THIS bit of “Television to shoot yourself by,” tonight I watched “Pedigree Dogs Exposed” on BBC America. I’ve long known that dog breeding to produce “proper” dogs was rife with inbreeding and genetic problems, but wow, damn, this was harsh. Dogs that need to have the back of their skulls surgically removed because they’re so genetically screwed that their brains don’t fit in their heads. Epilesy as a way of life. Cancer, infections, bones that just don’t work right.
The whole thing can be viewed online HERE.
A warning: if that Humane Society commercial screws you up, there will be parts of this documentary that will instantly convert you into a horrible gelatinous blob of sadness. Take, for instance, the dog in agony at 3:30. And particualrly hard to watch was the epileptic seizure at 11:30.
Now, recognize, I’m a cat person, not a dog person. I like dogs well enough, but they’re just not my thing. But that dog seizing is not just in distress… it’s in *HELL.* It makes a sound of such utter agony (about 11:50) that it is instantly heartbreaking, to a degree that is not readily describable.
What’s particularly disturbing is that while whacking a dog with a stick until you screwed it up like this would rightly get you tossed into jail and likely psychologically evaluated, with a good chance of being declared a fricken’ psycho, intentionally breeding dogs with problems like this is seen not only as acceptibale, but in some circles as downright praiseworthy. The level of denial displayed by some of the breeders in this documentary is simply astonishing… for instance, the jackhole with the massively mutated basset hound who claims that his dogs look just the way they did two centuries ago… when it’s massively clear that his critters are almost unrecognizable. Kennel Club rules stating that completely arbitrary physical features that in fact indicate physical problems are the “breed standard.” Breed standard features that are excaggerated over time. Killing puppies that are slightly “off” cosmetically. Mating mothers to their sons. Bleah.
Puppy-mill dog breeders are rightly reviled. But mutant broken dog breeders are not. I think that this inconceivable disconnect is due to class: puppy mills are examples of dogs being tortured for poor people, while “Kennel Club” breeders are doing it for the Upper Class Twits Of The Year. And so just as a homeless crack whore is seen as unseemly, Paris Hilton – who I have trouble seeing as really any different, except for money – is seen by far too many as a role model.
And of course, this breeding mania exists here in the States, not just Britain. I see this as a sign – one of a great many – that the US is in decadent decline. The US broke away from Britain because we recognized that the British upper classes sucked ass, and that they did things dead wrong. And so we set up our society to be in many ways the opposite of how British “royalty” would have society. And yet, more and more, American society is warming to the notion of sucking up to “royalty” (as I ranted about HERE).
I will be much more optimistic about the future of America when and if American dog and cat breeders decide to re-write the breed standards to get rid of the nonsense. When the “best of breed” is the healthiest of the breed on display, and most capable of fulfilling the role the dog was originally bred for – herding critters, guarding things, hunting badgers in tunnels, scarign the pants off jihadist prisoners, whatever – then and onyy then will I lose the desire to grab the Louisville Slugger and go whack the crap out of some breeders.
<> And don’t get me started on Persian cat breeders. Grrrr.
Hero-Gear is pleased to introduce BATTLE MUG
Battle Mug starts as a 13.5 pound solid block of 6061 T6 billet aluminum before it enters a state of the art CNC facility in Huntsville, Alabama. This facility produces specialized parts and equipment for the U.S. Department of Defense, major weapons manufacturers, NASA, and a host of other companies working at the U.S. Rocket and Space Center.
Built to military specifications, Battle Mug features a M1913 rail interface system which allows the operator to mount a standard issue M4 carry handle, tactical light, laser device, holographic sight (we call them “beer goggles”) or even a bayonet for close quarters, high risk operations.
Each individually serialized Battle Mug features Mil-Spec Type III anodizing and a crenelated base and is built with the operator in mind.
Whether you are fighting drug lords deep inside the jungles of Colombia, stomping out Al Qaida terrorists in Falluja Iraq, or eradicating no-good hippies in Berkeley, California…
Ummm… You can also get a set of fifty Battle Mugs for only $12,450.
<> Seems a bit steep to me, but how many other mugs are you likely to find that you can mount a grenade launcher to?
Also:
