A Suprising Newspaper Promotion

You would never see this in the USA these days.  The Daily Telegraph is giving away a voucher to pick up a free 1/72 Revell Spitfire Mk. II kit in the Saturday editon and another in the Sunday Telegraph for a 1/72 Revell Hurricane Mk. 1!  This warms my heart as it should any scale model builder and I hope parents take advantage of this opportunity across the pond.  Those two fighters were the backbone of the Royal Air Force in WWII, so a great chance at a history lesson is there besides teaching the joys of model building.

If such a thing were done here, it likely would cause a bunch of gray haired gentlemen to fight over the newspapers, I'm sad to say. The loss of hobbies where boys use their hands has been one of the more distressing changes in our society, as more passive forms of entertainment have taken over. You don't see that many youngsters building kits, they would rather be playing video games or watching movies.

As soon as my room is repaired and everything moved back in, I'll be eagerly getting back to finishing some kits myself.

Getting Closer to Real Transformers

This is a portable shelter that sets itself up with a push of a button.  Interesting to see if they get the costs down, I can think of quite a few applications for it from disasters to military.  I particularly liked the idea of it as a classroom for disaster stricken areas.

A Truly Useless Idiot

Sometimes there will be a public figure that gathers a following with rhetoric and positions that sound reasonable, even if you don't agree with them.  Then at a later point, the mask will come off and they will be revealed as nutcases or evil manipulators of the truth.

I haven't decided which Pat Buchanan is or if he is both.  But it is clear that he has very strong fascist leanings with his continued attempts to rewrite the history of WWII and Adolph Hitler in particular. There are so many things wrong with his statements in this article that I barely know where to begin.

First off, Hitler did want war, trying to make him out to be a peacenik who was forced to invade Poland is utterly deranged.  The British escape at Dunkirk enraged him as a failure to crush his enemy, he didn't let the troops escape.  The only reasons he tried peace attempts with Britain was due to his plans to double cross Stalin and invade the Soviet Union -- Adolf didn't want a two front war because of the drain on materials and troops. His dream of succeeding where Napoleon failed drove his foolish attack on the Soviets.

Then there is the farcical question about the Luftwaffe only having twin engine bombers.  The Nazi scientists were working on and did have four engine bomber designs, but they were at a low priority.  Why?  Simple answer:  they planned on having captured airstrips to fly their bombers from thanks to the blitzkrieg attacks being so successful at taking land.  The twin engine bombers were perfectly suited to this, where the four engine bombers needed large airstrips, as the US Army Air Force found out in the Pacific and England. Hitler's plans were concentrated on continental Europe and I often wonder what horrors would have happened if he's only had the one front war he expected.

Buchanan is either an outright liar or insane to be pushing this garbage, though history shows that both conditions are not mutually exclusive.  What is apparant is that Buchanan is a neo-Nazi, not just a sympathizer, but the full blown fascist that haunted the 20th Century.

He should be accorded no respect and his viewpoints widely publicized so that people will know what he really is.

Seventy Years Ago in Poland

On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland in an act that would eventually plunge Earth into a second world war. The evils of socialism were fully unleashed at that point, with Hitler the fascist and Stalin the communist agreeing to split the country.  While this went on, Great Britain and France dithered about going to war, despite their alliance with Poland that required them to. 

So why did they dither?  I always thought Chamberlain was simply a weak fool and this article in the Telegraph reinforces that view.  I would submit that weakness is always rewarded with force, especially when dealing with dictators and I am watching the same behavior with Obama in his foreign dealings. Look for the violent and dangerous men of the world to take advantage of that in the years to come.

Is a New Concorde Needed?

Ran into this photo gallery at the Telegraph depicting renderings of a proposed super sonic transport (SST) being developed by Supersonic Aerospace International.  It is a pretty bird aimed at the business class traveler, essentially a Mach 1.6 private jet that is quiet enough to be used at more airports than the old Concorde SST.  Given the immense costs of fuel used to fly any "super cruise" plane, I don't see a valid market for it during hard economic times.  Sure there are some sheiks out there who would love such a toy, but even they have felt the pinch the last year. Unless there is a huge turnaround in the global economy in the next decade, the timing of the aircraft will be poor.

Interestingly, Lockheed's Skunkworks designed the 'QSST', or Quiet SST, plane. The lack of afterburners should reduce takeoff noise considerably, but the F-22A Raptor pilots have found that it is more economical to use afterburners to reach supersonic speeds and then throttle back to cruise.  It will require a lot more fuel pushing through the so called "sound barrier" of denser air from what they've said.

You can visit the home page of SAI here and get more information.

It would make a great model kit though, look at those lines!

Another False Flag Operation

In Denver, the Democratic Party Headquarters had its windows smashed in and efforts were made to blame Tea Party protesters.  So who actually got arrested?  Someone who had been on the payroll of an SEIU front group.  That vandal is no conservative and the question is being raised over what the local Democratic chair new about this.

Part of the problem the conservatives and libertarians have had understanding the opposition is comprehending that the end justifies the means to the left.  To some degree, they intellectually get that the other side lies and even the relativism involved, but they fail to understand just how far they will go to achieve their goals.  When you suffer from ethical relativism in addition to moral relativism, anything goes to win.  That includes posing as the other side to frame them for bad behavior.

Ironically, it would be a relief if Maurice had a grievance with the Democrats and did this for revenge of some kind, but I doubt that will be the case.  Instead, the political situation in the country continues to deteriorate and I think we'll be seeing a lot more unrest as the far left get frustrated.  Opposition is not something they handle well, much like adolescents.  With generations never growing up and raising following generations to be perpetual teenagers, we'll be seeing a lot more stupid acts such as this one.

Large and Small

Been an interesting couple of days in the news, so more links that caught my eye:

It has often surprised me how I find stories being reported in the UK on events in the USA that aren't getting a lot of attention, ones that should be.  Take designer children for instance.  I had no clue this was actually being done, now I find the specter of eugenics rearing its ugly head again reported in a foreign newspaper.  The narcisissm and selfishness of people is astounding, allowing immoral acts like this to be profitable.  Simply wrong and not good for our culture.

I refuse to "tweet." For those unfamiliar with the term, it is posting short little snippets on Twitter.  If Twitter (actually all texting) isn't a sign of the dumbing down of the West, I don't know what is.  Now it is being compromised, just like MySpace and Facebook have, with worm attacks. While not as severe, it shows the inherent weakness of social networking sites to data theft.  I'm on Facebook and never warmed to it due to the triviality of the atmosphere, so my checking in is getting more infrequent. Frankly, it is a stultifyingly boring time waster.

Two years ago, Rushford, MN flooded and amongst the losses was the Tenborg Community Center.  It was a great place to hold political conventions and meetings, located at a reasonable distance for people from Fillmore, Houston, and Winona counties.  I grew fond of the place and was saddened by it becoming a total loss, when I'd hoped it would be rebuilt or at least replace by a new one.  Now it looks very much like the financial disaster of our time is making it unlikely, unless help from private enterprise enters the picture. That's too bad, as Rushford is a good location.

Things could be worse. At least I don't have a former neighbor trying to blow me up with a mail bomb.  Even small towns have weird things like this happening these days, so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised by Houston, MN getting its share.  Fortunately, no one was harmed, but still...