Propeller-driven Fighter Planes Still Evolving In The Jet Age

Last April I blogged about the US Navy's interest in a propeller-driven fighter plane, the state of the art Brazilian Embraer EMB 314 Super Tucano. 
Now the US Air Force is interested in props too. USAF is looking at the Boeing OV-10. 

If the Super Tucano is the spiritual successor to the P-51 Mustang, the OV-10's twin boom, twin engine design harkens back to the P-38 Lightning. 

The Real "Get Out Of Jail Free" Card

During World War II the British government embedded silken maps, money, compasses and other useful supplies into Monopoly board games and smuggled them to prisoners of war in Germany using fake charities to keep attention off the Red Cross.

Avast Me Proud Beautay!

Today be International Talk Like A Pirate Day! Yarrr!

How Political Correctness Is Rotting The Establishment Media

Writing at the suddenly emergent ACORN-killing BigGovernment.com, Evan Coyne Maloney asks how could the mainstream media miss the corruption at ACORN?

President Obama was once an ACORN lawyer, so the group is certainly significant enough to warrant media scrutiny. Then how did all the seasoned professionals get scooped by two students–James O’Keefe and Hannah Giles–one of whom isn’t old enough to legally drink?

New Protests In Iran

Quiet for two months now, the people of Iran have once again taken to the streets in protests against the hard line government.

In Tehran and other cities, tens of thousands of demonstrators hijacked Iran’s annual al-Quds Day rallies in support of the Palestinian cause and turned them into protests against the oppression of Iranians. The security forces hit back with teargas and baton charges. There were violent confrontations between government and opposition supporters in the squares and avenues of central Tehran and numerous reports of arrests and injuries.

Whitewashing Stalin

From the Telegraph:

Josef Stalin's grandson is pursuing a surreal libel case against a leading liberal newspaper in Russia for allegedly insulting his late grandfather's honour.

Historians and politicians have cast the lawsuit as a test case for modern Russia's attitude towards Stalin at a time when they say the Kremlin is deliberately playing up his achievements at the expense of his crimes in order to boost patriotism.

This excerpt is from the BBC's history of Josef Stalin:

One of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history, Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions, but he also oversaw the war machine that played a key role in the defeat of Nazism.

Everything Old Is New Again

If you look at BBC Radio One's Top Ten albums for this week you would expect to see Jamie T, David Guetta, and Arctic Monkeys in the second, third and fourth positions.

But you would not expect to see Dame Vera Lynn at number one. But there she is. And at number five, six, nine and ten, it's The Beatles. 

Imagine that - at age 92, Vera Lynn is bigger than The Beatles.

Here's vintage film of Vera Lynn singing for the boys of the Royal Air Force.

(And while she sings beautifully, it's interesting to note how far modern dentistry has come.)




Update: From Rex Murphy - What a drunken rapper can learn from Vera Lynn.

Hillary's Bottom And Other "W" Observations

From today's National Post:

Matt Latimer a former speech writer for George W. Bush has written a new book called Speech Less: Tale of a White House Survivor. In extracts published by GQ magazine Latimer says George W. Bush believed Barack Obama was "a cat" who "had no clue," dismissed Sarah Palin as a nonentity and insulted Hillary Clinton for having a large backside.

Hockey Is Not Above The Law

Well good. From the CBC:

A Quebec junior hockey player who cross-checked an opponent in the face last fall has been found guilty of assault with a weapon.

Crash Test - 59 Bel Air Vs. 09 Malibu

50 years difference in technology, so no surprise here. Watch the interior shots. Shame they killed this old Chevy for this though.

The Marshmallow Test

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

Video Screens Show Up In Magazines

Is this the answer to a question no one has asked?

Chip technology is used to store the video - described as similar to that used in singing greeting cards - which is activated when the page is turned.

Mary Travers Has Died

Mary Travers, of the 60s folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary, has died of leukemia. She was 72.

Here is their most famous song:

The Citizen Journalists Break Through

The new website BigGovernment.com is all over the scandal that has broken out around ACORN, the community organizing group that once employed Barack Obama.

Two young amateur journalists, Hannah Giles and James O'Keefe, went undercover and shot hidden video of meetings with ACORN employees. They found they could get business advice on how to set up prostitution rings using underage illegal immigrants. So far Giles and O'Keefe have released damning video evidence from four cities.

ACORN now says it has suspended operations to review the mater. This has really been an new media story since last week but the mainstream is just coming on the case.  And there are still more videos to come. 

Good Arm, Kid

Go over to Daimnation and watch this video. A Dad is at the ball game with his little girl. He unexpectedly catches a foul ball. Guess what happens next.

NASA Tosses SUV At Moon. Expects Satisfactory Impact

It's either a jalopy or it's a hot rod. The Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) was cobbled out of old satellite bits and recycled cast offs and stuff and was generally built out of NASA's attic. Either way it's the size of an SUV, it's going 5592 miles per hour and it's going to crash hard on October 9. On the Moon.

The crash in a lunar crater will throw up a plume six miles high. A second space craft will fly through the plume taking samples and looking for water ice. The mission has been called crude, violent and silly. It's also been called clever and scrappy.

A lunar water source is key to human habitation on the Moon.

Race Fixing In Formula 1

Nelson Piquet Jr, driving for Renault, has admitted crashing his race car on purpose in a scheme designed to help his team-mate Fernando Alonso win last year's Singapore Grand Prix. Full coverage at The Times.

Update: The Times is in even higher dudgeon today:

It is the worst single piece of cheating in the history of sport.

Suddenly Formula 1 is no longer boring. For five minutes.

The Dirtiest Business Yet

An informant has told police in Italy that he blew up ships full of nuclear and toxic waste out at sea off the Calabrian coast for the Mafia. Officials are already investigating one wreck. If its cargo proves toxic there may be as many as 30 more.

Propaganda Howler From Britain's Independent

Last Saturday, The Independent ran the following global warming propaganda article as fact:

 Screen cap from The Independent September 12, 2009

It has been one of the elusive goals of seafaring nations almost since the beginnings of waterborne trade, but for nearly 500 years the idea has been dismissed as an impossible dream. Now, as a result of global warming, the dream is about to come true.

Within days, a journey that represents both a huge commercial boon and a dark milestone on the route to environmental catastrophe is expected to be completed for the first time. No commercial vessel has ever successfully travelled the North-east Passage, a fabled Arctic Sea route that links the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific far more directly than the usual southerly cargo route. Explorers throughout history have tried, and failed; some have died in the attempt.

Even the slightest acquaintance with Google or Wikipedia would have unmasked this article for the utter hogwash that it is.

Encyclopedia Brittanica states the following:

After many attempts the Northeast Passage was first traversed by the Swedish explorer Baron Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld in 1878–79. Since the late 1960s the passage has been kept open in the summer months by icebreakers, aided by aerial observations and radar and sonar.

That "dark milestone on the route to environmental catastrophe" is more correctly known as the Northern Sea Route (NSR). The NSR is Russia's main national transport line in the Arctic. It has been commercially exploited since 1935 when four cargo motor ships passed through the route during a single navigation season. It is a major shipping route to this very day. Much more here.

The story is still up on the Independent website even though commenters have exposed it. A Google News search reveals that dozens of other news outlets have picked up the false story and run it as is. So much for the notion that the legacy media employs an army of fact checkers to protect us from such garbage. An army of stenographers, maybe.

No wonder the old media are dying.

Mars Rover Update

The Mars rover Spirit has been stuck on the side of a sandy hill since May. NASA has built a light-weight Spirit replica and a sandbox to imitate its Martian predicament. Computer simulations are running now but actual moves on Mars won't happen until October.

According to NASA "There is a very real possibility that Spirit may not be able to get out, and we want to give Spirit the very best chance." The wildly successful rovers Spirit and companion Opportunity are now five years into a mission that was supposed to last 90 days.

Keeping Your Face(book) Clean

Via the National Post, from the University of Guelph, an informal Facebook rule that could save a reputation:

The rule of thumb we were given was if you wouldn't mind (photos) coming up at a family reunion and your grandfather seeing it, then it can probably go up (on the Internet). But if you're going to have a problem with grandma or grandpa looking at it, then you probably want to think for a second about where you're posting online.

Fighting Dirty In Scrabble

Strategies for possibly winning at Scrabble when your opponent is a walking dictionary. One secret is to be a pathological liar who sometimes tells the truth.

Dublin's People In High Definition

Stunning High Definition video shot on a pre-production Canon EOS 7d. This is primarily an SLR still camera but it will shoot video in low light and at a film-standard 24 frames per second. At US$1699 the camera is not cheap. But the results are jaw-dropping and comparable to rigs costing Hollywood money.

The video is by film maker Philip Bloom and he explains all the smokers by saying that because of the smoking ban they were the only people outdoors. You can almost smell the smoke.

Be sure to watch this video full screen and look for the subtle details only HD can reproduce. For example, look for the lifelike eyeglasses at 42 seconds, the fantastic dynamic range in the shot at 1:19 and the sheen on the man's forehead at 1:29. Remember this is from a camera that primarily takes stills.

Breasts Are Beautiful. The Prostate Is Just Plumbing.

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness month. So here's a startling statistic: one in eight men will get prostate cancer while one in nine women will get breast cancer. In Canada, breast cancer research gets 10 times more money than prostate cancer. Why is that?

In a nutshell, breasts are beautiful. Everybody agrees. The prostate? That's just plumbing. Here's an excellent discussion of these issues called The Sounds of Silence by Dr. Diane Kelsall at Canadian Family Physician.

And here is a clinical review with discussion of the top 13 things that family physicians need to know about prostate cancer. Also from Canadian Family Physician.

From the Canadian Cancer Society, here is a list of signs and symptoms of prostate cancer that you should not ignore. From Prostate Cancer Canada, here is a Risk Assessment Quiz.

More information on prostate cancer, in Canada, the United States, Australia, the UK and everywhere else.

Banning the Burqa II

France moves forward on banning the burqa. Support is coming from the left and right and, finally, from women's groups.

France's hardline immigration minister has launched a fresh demand to ban the burqa - decribed by president Nicolas Sarkozy a sign of 'subservience and debasement'. Eric Besson said the Islamic full head and body covers were 'unacceptable' and not welcome in France. His demand for a total ban comes after 58 French MPs called last June for a public inquiry on whether it should be illegal for women to hide their faces in public.

Even Chomsky Disses The Truthers

The lefty 9/11 Truthers get no sympathy from one of their own top lefties:

It’s always been incredible to me how an American president constantly portrayed (often correctly) as being unable to string a simple sentence together is also the criminal mastermind of the biggest insider conspiracy in modern history.

Norman Borlaug Has Died

Norman Borlaug, the man who saved more human lives than anyone else in history, has died at age 95.

Sunspots And Cosmic Rays Trump AGW

The Universe is a pretty big place and the forces at work are well, cosmic. It makes the human conceit of Anthropogenic Global Warming look vanishingly small.

From Watts Up With That, Henrik Svensmark, Professor, Technical University of Denmark, Copenhagen:

“In fact global warming has stopped and a cooling is beginning. No climate model has predicted a cooling of the Earth – quite the contrary. And this means that the projections of future climate are unreliable.”

“We are advising our friends to enjoy global warming while it lasts.”