Meanwhile, Back in the Trenches!

A Sopwith Camel

The Western Front parking lot



Something from our European friends-an Albatross, flown by the Germans, built by the Dutch.
Or is this the Camel?
This is also a Sopwith- a Sopwith Triplane.

So I Stepped Onto Concorde Today, But The Flight Was Cancelled

Pre-flights



'Course, my hangar is a bit crowded. Space is so expensive these days.

A little Handley Page goes a long way, unfortunately not across the Atlantic

All the comforts of home, including loads of electronic kit to play with. And a few seats for the family

Go up to the cockpit, the blasted pilot wasn't there.


He just left a note. Boasting as usual.


I suppose I could have taken one of the others; the blue one is a Fairey Delta 2(BAC221?Ha!).
It is certainly fast enough.




Oh well.
Perhaps another day eh?

Criminals and Criminality

One thing that struck me about the Police, Camera, Action-show on TV tonight; the people in nine tenths of the clips were wildly irrational.
They pursued their courses with no regard for the shallow truth of their situation, the fact that the police were on their cases and in close, inescapable pursuit.
And this was, except in the cases of the actually criminal, due to their obedience to the feelings of rebellion, blind rebellion, the sort of rebellion that arises from the crisis.
The crisis being the emergence of long-forgotten feelings over which they have no control, feelings which they never knew before, feelings which lead them into uncharted territory.
It is in the expression of these feelings, when they have no real experience or idea of how to express them, that they act in ways which are considered illegal.
Thus this moment of rebellion and its expressers are criminalised.
And so the stereotype of sense in conformity is reinforced to the point that millions of viewers sit in judgement, led by the nose by the platitude-spouting presenters, denying themselves in order to condemn as 'unfortunates' these irrational individuals.
And yet- there is more rationality in the outbursts of these few tens or dozens than in the slavish conformance of the watching thousands, especially as at any time the two are interchangeable.
The statistics may be constant(more likely rising), but the specific actors are interchangeable, as none of these repressors knows when he or she will be the next one to crack and scream for a few moments of doomed freedom.

Which brings me to the point.

When Freedom is prohibited, the only freedom available will be bootleg freedom which is precisely what these unpractised, unrefined outbursts are.

Tribe.

The Montagnards.
40,000 of them fought the Communists.
They fought on after the Americans left them.
They are still fighting today.
Please don't forget them.

Oh, What?

The New York Times reports; that would be the Sub-Prime disaster explained then.(Three US economists win the Nobel Prize).

'Life' Form.

From the New York Times.
Bring back the birch.

Politician Pram

Has anyone else noticed that no political scum thinks it is really on Cloud 9 until it is being ferried around in the cliched 'black Mercedes', to be aborted onto the steps of some flea-bitten hotel or government building with the mandatory misery of photographers and hangers on.

Fucking pathetic.
Pull all their funding and sell off all the limos to stock-car enthusiasts.
Then let the useless bastards get jobs. If they can.

No Ball Prize

Far be it from the Meat-Ball eaters to attempt to subvert democracy in America.
They were really taking the Peace today.

No Ball Prize

Far be it from the Meat-Ball eaters to attempt to subvert democracy in America.
They were really taking the Peace today.

Won't Somebody Think Of The Children?!?!

From 1969 to 2006, at least 45 children died after taking decongestants, and 69 died after taking antihistamines, the industry association has said.
From the New York Times, remedy makers withdraw products.
Meanwhile millions have died of preventable disease and starvation worldwide, and hundreds more from even less actionable causes every year even in the USA.

Beer And Skittles.

The ancient and traditional sport of Skittles- much older than bowling.



Drink by the lane.


The one in the middle-the one with the crown - that's the Kingpin.
How many times have you wondered what that meant?

A little fast action-sitting with a beer between turns.

And all a few minutes away.

Nero's Dream.

With the growth of Facebook, the mob finally has one neck.
Today it is the curiosity of big business and the development of targetted advertising which drives the growth.
Tomorrow, who knows?
Homeland security?
And the day after?
Good governance enforced by bad government?
But of course, Facebook isn't Big Brother from 1984. After all, they ask for your details first, don't they?But they never give them back.

Politics .NET

Leaders of the C-sharp Party were outraged today over the way in which the Visual BASIC team adopted their Common Language to produce a Labour-saving device.
Especially the use of Inheritance.
Of course, they are hoping that they can prove that c-sharp is only a front for people who want to return to C++ policies of the past, and are frightened; but multiple inheritance is nothing to be ashamed of, and although the old party ws objectified to the point of being oriented that way,the Agile voter knows where his true interests lie.

Tired Of Being Average?

Then get yourself some 'eminent prominence'!

The Burma Road.

They can still be seen.
There is a list of them here.

The Writing Is On The Wall.

Sir Winston Spencer Churchill revealed in his history of World War 2 that he lost all doubt of victory once the USA entered the war.
So now I understand how he felt.
MSM - sorry MSN - had this to say today.
Nice.

God Bless Free Burma.

From the Toronto Star.

Some Chance

Apparently the Thugs of Burma have 'cut off the internet'.
Since the blogs of the Burmese rebels are hosted thousands of miles from Burma, they have only cut Burma off from the internet.
Of course, to cut it off they would need to shut down absolutely every piece of routing hardware in Burma, the big server farms etc (if they have any) and, of course, return the telephone network to the last century.

Trouble is, anybody with a simple Linux server download set up as a LAMP server, and absolutely any means of connecting their Apache site to the outside world, will simply go round the swine.

It Is HOW Big?