Weekend Wings #15: Low, Slow, Up Close And Personal

The need for airborne liaison with army commanders on the battlefield was first recognized during the American Civil War, long before the first flight of the Wright Brothers in 1903. Both the Confederacy and the Union used balloons to observe enemy movements. On September 24th, 1861, Professor Thaddeus Lowe made history when he used a telegraph to direct the fire of Union artillery against enemy positions beyond their field of vision. They struck their targets, which demonstrated the importance of airborne artillery direction beyond any question of doubt. The picture below shows Lowe's balloon Intrepid being filled with gas. (Click the picture for a larger view.)




Unfortunately, balloons proved somewhat capricious in operation. They needed a supply of gas, were unusable in high winds and bad weather, and if they broke free from their moorings they could be carried across enemy lines and captured (as happened to a Confederate balloon in the summer of 1863). Nevertheless, they had proven their usefulness. Interestingly, this led to the first Naval "aircraft-carrier" when Lowe supervised the modification of a coal barge into the grandly-named George Washington Parke Custis. Lowe used it on 11th November 1861 to take General Daniel E. Sickles aloft to observe Confederate positions, and later it towed one of his balloons for over 13 miles while he made continuous observations.




The interest of European armies was attracted by these experiments, and the Prussian Army sent Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin to observe Professor Lowe's balloons in operation. His reports led the Prussian (and later the German) Army to develop their own observation balloons, and other European armies followed suit. By World War I they were a widely-used instrument of war for observation and artillery direction. The picture below shows a US Major in the basket of an observation balloon near the front line in 1918.




"Balloon busting" became an important mission of early aircraft, firing incendiary ammunition to set ablaze the inflammable gas filling the balloons. In response both sides installed early anti-aircraft artillery and machine-guns around their balloon positions, making such attacks extremely hazardous for the aircraft concerned. Oddly enough, balloon observers were equipped with parachutes to escape such attacks long before aircraft pilots received the same life-saving equipment.




The limitations of balloons became even more apparent now that aircraft could move under their own power, and efforts were made to supplement (and eventually replace) them with planes. During World War I numerous aircraft served in an army liaison role, carrying a pilot and observer. They could monitor enemy movements and report them to military commanders on the ground, initially by dropping written messages in tubes with ribbons attached to make them easier to track and find, and later by using radios and Morse code.

During the inter-war years more specialized aircraft were developed for the army liaison and close reconnaissance role. However, given budgetary restrictions on aircraft purchases, relatively small numbers were involved and they usually had a low priority compared to fighters and bombers. It would take World War II to see an explosion in the use of such aircraft and the further development of their roles to include casualty evacuation, the relaying of orders and ferrying of supplies to front-line troops, and the transportation of officers from their units to and from headquarters.

World War II liaison aircraft were often based on civil aviation designs adapted for the purpose (and sometimes commandeered from their civilian owners for military use). For simplicity's sake I'll describe them in alphabetical order of their countries of origin. Only the main combatants will be covered.


Britain

The Westland Lysander was one of the best liaison aircraft of World War II, despite its oddly antiquated appearance. It first flew in 1936 and served with the Royal Air Force (RAF) throughout the war. It had high gull wings (it's interesting to compare them to the inverted gull wings of the later American Corsair fighter) which were fitted with automatic slats and slotted flaps to give it a relatively low stalling speed and short take-off and landing ability. It was powered by a Bristol Mercury radial engine and used a fixed undercarriage inside streamlined "spats" to reduce aerodynamic drag. A .303-inch machine-gun was fitted into each "spat", and two more were provided at the back of the cabin for use by an observer to defend the rear. It could carry a cargo "pod" or additional fuel tank beneath the fuselage, and a light bomb load if necessary.




Lysanders fought in the Battle of France, proving to be easy prey for German fighters. (This was an early lesson in the use of army liaison aircraft: they could only be safely deployed under conditions of air superiority, otherwise losses would be heavy.) After the fall of France they were used in almost all theaters of war by British allies, including some by the US Army Air Force (USAAF). Prior to the invasion of France in 1944 the Lysander gained fame as the principal aircraft used to insert and extract agents and resistance fighters between Britain and the Continent. Its ability to fly low and slow and land in very restricted spaces proved invaluable for this purpose. It was even used for air-sea rescue to drop dinghy and supply containers to pilots in the water.





Almost 1,800 Lysanders were built, and it served throughout the war. Its last operational service was with the Egyptian Air Force against Israel in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.

Another British liaison aircraft was the Taylorcraft Auster. Based on a design by the American Taylorcraft company, the Model B, it went through several production versions using different engines and cabin layouts. Over 1,600 were built, and it was the most-used British army co-operation aircraft during the European battles of 1944-45. It was also deployed to the China-Burma-India theater of operations.




It continued in production for some years after the war, and many examples are today in civilian hands. One is shown in the short video clip below.






France

The French Air Force operated the ANF Les Mureaux 113 observation aircraft during the Battle of France. Equipped with a high parasol wing, it was comparable to similar aircraft of other nations. Some were converted into night fighters, but proved unsuccessful in this role. About 285 were built, but most were destroyed during the Battle of France.






Germany

In the early 1930's Germany fielded the Heinkel He 46 army co-operation aircraft. About 500 were built, and it saw operational service in Spain with the Condor Legion and in Poland during the invasion of 1939. It was then withdrawn for training use, but returned to operational service in 1942-43 as a night bomber to respond to the "Night Witches" of the Soviet Union. (The latter were described in Weekend Wings #4.)




The Henschel Hs 126 was a contemporary of the He 46, entering service in 1938 after prototypes were evaluated by the Condor Legion in Spain. It looked somewhat similar to the British Lysander with a high parasol wing and fixed undercarriage enclosed in "spats". It saw service during most of World War II. Ironically, Germany supplied some of them to Greece, which in turn used them against Italian and German invaders during 1941!




The most successful front-line communications and army co-operation aircraft in the Luftwaffe was the Fieseler Fi 156, known as the Storch or Stork. It had a high wing fitted with leading-edge slats and a huge trailing flap, giving it outstanding short take-off and landing characteristics and the ability to fly at very low speeds. It was probably the best-performing aircraft of World War II in this respect.




Almost 3,000 were built, and the Storch served on every front. At least 60 were captured by the Allies, who admired its low-speed performance. Indeed, a captured Storch was selected by British Field Marshal Montgomery for use as his personal aircraft! The Storch is perhaps most famous for its role in Unternehmen Eiche or Operation Oak, the commando raid led by Otto Skorzeny on the Campo Imperatore Hotel in the Gran Sasso region of Italy's Apennine Mountains to rescue the imprisoned Fascist dictator of Italy, Benito Mussolini, in September 1943. A Storch landed in less than 100 feet, collected Mussolini and Skorzeny and took off again to fly them to safety. Film of the rescue is included in the clip below.





The Germans also fielded two unique army reconnaissance aircraft, having no direct equivalents in Allied air fleets. The Blohm & Voss BV 141, which first flew in 1938, was an odd-looking aircraft with its crew module separate from its engine and main fuselage.






This asymmetrical design actually flew very well, its designer, Dr. Richard Vogt, having calculated correctly that the offset weight of the crew cabin would be counterbalanced by the torque of the engine. However, due to difficulties obtaining engines and other production problems, only 38 were built.





The Focke-Wulf Fw 189, known as the Uhu or Owl, was far more widely used, with almost 850 being produced. It was a twin-engined design which first flew in 1938 and entered operational service in 1941.




The Uhu was mostly produced at an aircraft factory in occupied France, and used French engines, which is why it was manufactured in far greater numbers than the BV 141 (which relied on German engines, harder to obtain in competition with other German aircraft). It was mostly used on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union. The Uhu is widely regarded as the best army co-operation and close-support reconnaissance aircraft of World War II, and proved able to absorb a great deal of damage (sometimes including the loss of one of its two tail booms) and still return safely to base. It was very agile and easy to handle, making a difficult target for enemy fighters.

The video clip below is from a German war newsreel, showing an Fw 189 dropping instructions to an artillery battery in the Stalingrad region.





Finally, although not designed for this purpose, the Luftwaffe used the Messerschmitt Bf 108 Taifun or Typhoon for army communication and liaison duties (and many other functions). The Taifun was a low-wing monoplane similar in some respects to the Bf 109 fighter. It could carry up to four people. Production was transferred to occupied France in 1942, and after the war its manufacture was continued there as the Nord Pingouin.






Japan

The Kokusai Ki-76 was inspired by and had similar flying characteristics to the German Fi 156 Storch. The Allies gave it the reporting name of "Stella".




It was introduced in 1942 and saw action in the China-Burma-India theater and in the Philippines. Some also flew from aircraft-carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy.



Soviet Union

The Soviet Union did not develop a purpose-designed army co-operation and liaison aircraft during World War II. The Polikarpov Po-2 biplane was used in very large numbers for this purpose, as well as for training, night bombing and other tasks. This aircraft was described in some detail in Weekend Wings #4, so I won't go into detail about it here.




In addition to the Po-2, large numbers of army co-operation aircraft were supplied to the Soviet Union by Britain and the United States.



United States

The USA fielded numerous army co-operation and liaison aircraft during World War II. I'll list them in alphabetical order by manufacturer. A confusing feature is that many different aircraft models from different manufacturers were all referred to by the common name of "Grasshopper" in military service, so I'll avoid this name and refer to them by their official designations.

The Aeronca L-3 was a high-wing monoplane adapted from pre-war civilian designs. It was obsolete by the time the USA entered the war, and served mostly in the continental US to train observation and liaison pilots who would fly more modern aircraft in combat zones.




The Beech UC-43 Traveler was a military designation for the Beechcraft Staggerwing biplane. Several hundred were purchased or pressed into service from civilian owners to serve as light personnel transports and liaison aircraft. Most were used in the Continental USA.




The Douglas O-46 was introduced in 1937, with about 90 purchased for the USAAF and the Philippine Army Air Corps. It proved too large, slow and heavy for observation duties, and was consequently relabeled as the L-46 (L standing for "liaison"). Several were destroyed in the Japanese attack on the Philippines in 1941, and the remainder were declared obsolete the following year. They were subsequently used for training and utility duties.




The Interstate L-6 was a relatively unsuccessful light observation and liaison aircraft. It was plagued by engine overheating problems that were never fully solved, and as a result was used only in the USA and not sent to combat zones overseas.




The Piper L-4 was perhaps the most famous US army co-operation aircraft, and certainly the most widely used.




Based on the pre-war Piper J-3 Cub design, almost 6,000 were purchased for military service. They flew in all operational theaters and were used for artillery fire control, courier duties and front-line liaison. In the continental US they were used to train glider pilots. The L-4's short landing capability is demonstrated in the video clip below.





The Stinson L-5 Sentinel was the second most widely used army co-operation aircraft in the USAAF, with almost 3,600 being produced. It performed liaison, artillery spotting and air ambulance duties in many theaters of the war.




The Stinson Model 74, also known as the Vultee L-1 Vigilant, was initially designated the O-49 by the USAAF and later redesignated the L-1. In RAF service it was dubbed the Vigilant. It used a large radial engine, and was more comparable to the British Lysander than to other American army co-operation aircraft. Some 324 were built. An ambulance version is shown below.




The Taylorcraft L-2 was another light high-wing monoplane observation and liaison aircraft. It was originally designated the O-57. Several hundred were built for the USAAF or impressed into service from civilian owners. The example shown below hangs in the USAF Museum.




In all more than 10,000 aircraft served the USAAF in the army co-operation role. They did anything and everything one could think of, including artillery spotting, liaison and communications duties, rescue, transporting supplies, special espionage missions behind enemy lines, and even dropping light bombs.

After World War II all air forces and armies continued to use liaison aircraft. They saw service in Korea, and to a lesser extent in Vietnam, but increasingly their role was taken over by the ever more ubiquitous helicopter. Today there are very few of this type of aircraft still in service. A helicopter can get into much tighter spots and do all that is necessary without requiring a landing strip, making it a much more suitable option: and artillery spotting and reconnaissance of enemy positions, hazardous tasks in the presence of enemy anti-aircraft fire, are increasingly being conducted by unmanned aerial vehicles.

Many of the older liaison aircraft are still flying in civilian hands, and along with military surplus training aircraft they formed the basis for the explosion in private civil aviation after World War II. Some, such as the Piper Cub, are even available in new-production kit form! They have attracted ongoing interest among the flying public, and some organizations such as the Alamo Liaison Squadron specialize in putting on flying displays with several of these aircraft. The ALS has published a book, "Box Seat Over Hell", that vividly describes the World War II experiences of US army liaison pilots. To close this edition of Weekend Wings, here's an excerpt:

Grasshopper pilots not only handled some of the most difficult missions of the war, they also handled some of the most treacherous and hair raising. They flew in every theatre: from the desert when, in the super heated air, it was a real struggle to get airborne; in the arctic, where they fought to stay on course though williwaws and boreal storms, and where if they got lost they were almost guaranteed a frigid death. They flew over jungles with aircraft so overloaded they barely maintained altitude, with engines screaming, to clear the tree tops. These pilots were not the "glory boys" of the Air Corps. They were never given the recognition or the medals of the bomber pilots . . . In the process, they succeeded in turning their flimsy crates into one of the most useful tools of the air war.

Peter

A victim looking for a place to become a tragedy

I almost made this post one of my "Doofus Of The Day" series, but out of respect for the dead I'll refrain. Nevertheless, the conduct of the deceased fits the definition of "doofus" to the Nth degree!

Giuseppina Pasqualino di Marineo was an Italian artist who decided to hitch-hike from Italy to the Middle East, dressed in a bridal gown, to "promote world peace". She and a similarly-dressed colleague called themselves "Brides On Tour".




What she hoped to achieve by that I'll never know . . . because she was murdered before she got there. She separated from her companion in Istanbul, planning to get together again in Beirut. After nothing had been heard from her for some time, her family tried to locate her. Turkish police traced a man who had used her cellular telephone, and he led them to her naked body.

I'm so furious about this that I could spit! Sure, I'm angry with her murderer, and I hope he gets the punishment he deserves: but most of all I'm angry with Ms. di Marineo. Just what the hell did she expect, hitch-hiking and walking in that fashion through a part of the world where "Women's Liberation" is a distant rumor and civilized standards are still decades (if not centuries) away? Where terrorism, family and clan feuds, and a male-dominated society are daily facts of life? Did she think she'd somehow be immune from those realities?

Her actions fall into the same category as those of women who choose to walk alone, at night, wearing revealing clothing, through dangerous areas of US cities. Ladies, you have the right to choose to behave like that: but you'd better be prepared to face the consequences. Whether you like it or not, there are people on our streets who regard you as nothing more or less than sex on the hoof. That's reality. They'll rape you as soon as look at you. I know. I've had to deal with many of them as a prison chaplain. I've heard them sneer about "bitches" and "ho's" and claim that their victims enjoyed what they did to them. Remorse? You must be joking!

By her actions Ms. di Marineo put herself in a position of danger and couldn't escape it. She bears as much responsibility for the consequences as does her murderer. If she'd shown even a tiny spark of common sense she wouldn't have come within hundreds of miles of him, and she'd still be alive. I don't seek to minimize the guilt of the criminal in the least: but she handed herself to him on a gift-wrapped platter. Bad, bad move - terminally bad, in her case.

Her sister Maria told reporters, "Her travels were for an artistic performance and to give a message of peace and of trust, but not everyone deserves trust."

No s***, Sherlock!!!

What is it with addle-brained touchy-feely warm-and-fuzzy whackjobs that makes them believe they can get away with nonsense like this? And why don't they learn from the tragic examples of so many of their kind who find out they're wrong - the hard way?

Sheesh!

OK, end of rant . . . and may Ms. di Marineo's soul rest in peace. I'm sorry she's dead, and I hope and pray that others of her ilk will learn from her fate and not make the same mistake.

Peter

Another crazy Japanese TV show

Here's a laugh for your Saturday morning entertainment.

The object of this show appears to be to slather competitors in some sort of gel-like goo and launch them onto a slippery slope. They have to use a few obstacles to navigate their way across the slope to a gate leading to a bridge. If they miss a step, it's into the water they go.

Do any of them make it? See for yourself.





Peter

Doofus Of The Day #17, #18 and #19

We have a rich crop of Doofi this week, that's for sure!

Doofus #17 is 19-year-old Joseph Manzanares of Commerce City, CO, and Doofus #18 is his unnamed girlfriend. They have a four-year-old son (which means young Joseph - and probably his girlfriend too - should have been locked up for a sexual offense, conceiving a child at that age!).

Their son poses a problem for them. Joseph belongs to the Westside Ballers, a Hispanic gang. His girlfriend, who is Black, belongs to the Crips. It seems they couldn't agree on which gang would "inherit" their son. Matters came to a head when Joseph invaded the video store where his girlfriend worked, threatened to kill her and knocked over several fixtures and displays. Police arrested him, and he pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct.

Sheesh! All I can say is, God help that poor child! When you have two gang-banger parents and they spend their time fighting over the brand of gang-bangerdom you're to wear, your prospects for growing up with any sort of balanced, rational development seem rather slim!

On the other hand, at least the boy has some prospect of actually growing up. Doofus #19 would appear to be a bit short in that department - not to mention his family! An unnamed farmer in Puieni village, Giurgiu county, Romania, was spotted using a live 122mm. unguided rocket (complete with high-explosive warhead) as - wait for it - an anvil! He was sharpening hoes and scythes with its aid. Local firefighters identified the missile as a probable leftover from World War II, and it was removed and detonated by explosives experts.

Hmmm . . . what a choice for a kid! To be raised by gormless gangbanger parents, or a feckless father who uses an unexploded missile for an anvil? Which to pick???

"I'll take 'None Of The Above' for $200, Alex!"

Peter

Vodka wars

I'm sure readers have been following the fuss and bother over the Reconquista advertisement for Absolut vodka that was published in Mexico recently. It showed the Mexican/US border adjusted to reallocate to Mexico the US states that were once part of that nation.




The advertising agency concerned, Teran/TWBA, apparently strives for "disruption" in their campaigns. To quote from their Web site:

Disruption is a tool for change and an agent of growth: a working methodology and a life view philosophy. It is the art of asking better questions, challenging conventional wisdom, and overturning assumptions and prejudices that get in the way of imagining new possibilities and visionary ideas that help create a larger share of the future.

Departure from a convention gives rise to Disruption: you are forced to think of another solution, a fresh idea, which in turn forces a positive reassessment of a company's offering.

We look for ideas with particular characteristics that move the brand faster towards its vision.

Disruptive ideas are inspiring, refreshing, daring ideas that defy market and category rules.

Um . . . well, if you say so, amigo. Apart from the fact that all that blurb is so much empty-headed New-Age-ish hot air, I suspect TTWBA have succeeded only in "disrupting" a large chunk of Absolut vodka's US market share! (Admittedly, their advertisement was produced for the Mexican market, but surely some bright spark in their Mexico City office must have foreseen the reaction in the USA? If not, it speaks very poorly indeed of their creative "talent" and business decision-makers!)

I've been watching the reactions with considerable interest. Right-wing bloggers in the USA have been frothing at the mouth with indignation. One of Michelle Malkin's contributors came up with a Photoshopped version of the ad showing the border restored to its proper place and a fence erected:




The reaction from Absolut's parent company in Sweden has been amusing. I'm sure they weren't even consulted about the Mexican ad, but its impact has had them rushing to implement whatever damage control they can.

“We’re really very sorry,” said Jacob Broberg, a spokesperson with Vin & Sprit, the company which manufactures the popular vodka brand . . . “The ad should never have been approved . . . We’ve really learned a lot from this experience . . . There is no such thing as a local ad in a global world . . . We’re working to improve our marketing practices so that nothing like this happens again in the future."

Meanwhile the company's entry on Wikipedia has been the subject of infuriated user edits (negative from the right wing, neutral if not positive from the left) and agonized hand-wringing by the management. There's a huge discussion on their editors message board which makes for interesting reading.

I also note many calls for a boycott of Absolut from those opposed to this ad - and a countervailing call from those sympathetic to the Reconquista for increased purchases of Absolut to counter the losses! Perhaps the cheekiest reaction has come from Skyy, producing an American vodka that competes with Absolut.

“Like SKYY Vodka, the residents of states like California, Texas and Arizona are exceptionally proud of the fact that they are from the United States of America,” said Dave Karraker, SKYY Vodka. “To imply that they might be interested in changing their mailing addresses, as our competitor seems to be suggesting in their advertising, is a bit presumptuous.”

I'm now waiting for the blogosphere's reaction to SKYY's tongue-in-cheek news release. Who knows? Perhaps the Wiccan blogs will now call on their readers to conduct their rituals SKYY-clad!



Peter

How not to get a roll of cable up the stairs

*gigglesnort!*







Peter

Padlock those underpants!

Following on from my post below about criminals in South Africa and the different customs of many of its people, I was amused to read of a controversy currently going on in Indonesia.

According to the Jakarta Post, the administration of Batu in East Java province "recently issued a policy obliging masseurs to install padlocks on their underwear in a move to minimize prostitution in massage parlors and maintain the image of Batu as a popular tourist destination." The Jakarta Tourism Agency subsequently announced that it was considering applying the rule to massage parlors in Indonesia's capital city to "improve the(ir) tarnished image".

Now the State Minister for Women's Empowerment, Ms. Meutia Fardia Hatta Swasono, has come out against these moves.

"It is not the right way to prevent promiscuity. It insults women as if they are the ones in the wrong. It is not that we oppose the administration's effort to uphold morality, but the problem is in their way of treating masseurs as if they're all committing prostitution."

"Obliging women to lock their underwear means the administration considers all massage parlors to be places of prostitution. In fact, many people go to the parlor purely for health reasons, not for sex."

Meutia said the way to minimize prostitution in massage parlors was to strengthen the security system, such as by installing CCTV.

She recently launched the National Action Plan on Anti-Pornography Families. Her office will jointly conduct the action with the Office of the State Minister of Youth and Sports Affairs, the Religious Affairs Ministry, the National Police and the Communication and Information Ministry.

I'm afraid that she (and her colleagues) are doomed to disappointment. No nation in history has ever succeeded in promoting religious-based sexual morality by decrees, laws and regulations. I'm personally opposed to pornography and the sex trade in all its forms, but I have to be realistic and admit that if there's a market, someone will arrange to supply the commodity in demand.

Still, the thought of masseuses in padlocked underwear is rather mind-boggling! I wonder if Victoria's Secret has a suitable product line - perhaps made of reinforced metal mesh?

Peter

Criminal rights versus police and community rights

An interesting debate is taking place in South Africa right now.

Yesterday, April 9th, the Deputy Minister of Safety and Security, Ms. Susan Shabangu, attended an imbizo (a traditional community gathering) in Danville near Pretoria. During the meeting she astonished the news media (and received a standing ovation from residents) when she said that residents and police should kill criminals, particularly those who put lives in danger.

"You must kill the bastards if they threaten you or the community. You must not worry about the regulations. That is my responsibility. Your responsibility is to serve and protect . . . I want to assure the police station commissioners and policemen and women from these areas that they have permission to kill these criminals. I won't tolerate any pathetic excuses for you not being able to deal with crime. You have been given guns, now use them.

"I want no warning shots. You have one shot and it must be a kill shot. If you miss, the criminals will go for the kill. They don't miss. We can't take this chance."

"Criminals are hell-bent on undermining the law and they must now be dealt with. If criminals dare to threaten the police or the livelihood or lives of innocent men, women and children, they must be killed. End of story. There are to be no negotiations with criminals."

"The constitution says criminals must be kept safe, but I say No!"

Her remarks appear to contravene Section 49 of the Criminal Procedures Act, which states that police may only kill a criminal if a life is in danger. They've drawn a firestorm of criticism from opposition politicians, who've called for her dismissal. The police oversight body, the Independent Complaints Directorate, has warned that all police would be held accountable for their actions. The SA Human Rights Commission has also weighed in on the matter.

However, her remarks have met with enormous approval from the South African public, and also from many policemen in the ranks. South Africa is now one of the most crime-ridden countries in the world, with over 22,000 murders annually. The USA, with well over six times South Africa's population, had just over 17,000 in 2006 (the latest year for which statistics are available): so on a per-capita basis South Africa's murder rate is more than eight times greater than the USA's. The rates of commission of other crimes display an equal or greater disparity. Some of them, such as rape and child sexual abuse, have been described as "endemic" in South Africa.

The great difficulty here is that the South African government is trying to impose a set of civilized standards on a population that is, in a great many ways, still very far from civilized. Old tribal customs and superstitions still predominate in a very large proportion of South Africa's people. To give just a few out of many possible examples:

• Women were, in tribal tradition, the possessions of their fathers and then of their husbands (who "bought" them from their fathers by paying lobola, a "bride price", traditionally in cattle but nowadays in furniture, appliances or even a car). That attitude towards women - that they're possessions of men rather than full human beings in their own right - is still not uncommon in South Africa (and, indeed, in Africa as a whole).
• Tribal rivalries still lead to assaults and murders on both an individual and a community basis - indeed, inter-tribal and inter-clan warfare still flourishes in parts of the country.
• Belief in the power of witch-doctors still leads to the murder of innocents, particularly children, to obtain their body parts for use in muti or traditional "medicine". If you go to the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (the largest and most traded in Africa) you'll find traders with multiple University degrees . . . who still stop at muti shops outside the Exchange every morning to buy "medicine" to guarantee them a good day's trading, or produce bad trades for their opponents on the floor.
  

Over and above these factors, poverty, lack of education and the inability to find work (it's estimated that over a third of South Africa's population are both unemployed - at least in the formal sector - and unemployable) and the lack of any social "safety net" such as large-scale welfare and support systems means that many turn to crime in sheer desperation.

There has always been a tradition in some South African communities that they take care of their own problems. I've seen this in action twice. The first was when a young girl came home in tears from her school in Soweto outside Johannesburg in the 1980's. A "flasher" had exposed himself to her and her friends as they walked home. Her grandfather, a Zulu and a senior shift worker at a nearby mine, happened to be at home and heard her story. Furious, he assigned a couple of workers from his shift to escort her to and from school for the next few days. (Their salaries were made up by their comrades at the mine, who quite understood what was going on.)

Over the next few days the two men escorted her to and fro, constantly looking for the flasher. It didn't take long for her to spot him and point him out, confirmed by her friends who'd been with her that day. The flasher took off running, but it didn't do him any good and he was caught within a few blocks. The entire neighborhood poured out of their homes to watch what happened.

The miners didn't bother to call the police. They simply dragged the flasher to the nearest waist-height stone wall, dropped his trousers, laid his penis and testicles over the top of the wall and hit them once, with an overhead swing at full strength, using a twenty-pound mining sledgehammer. The resulting mincemeat couldn't be saved and had to be amputated at the local hospital.

The police came around making inquiries, of course, but they knew perfectly well what had happened and didn't try too hard to find the "culprits" (and, needless to say, none of the many hundreds of people who had witnessed the incident could remember a thing about it). The upshot was that incidents of sexual assault in that neighborhood dropped to almost zero for several years afterwards. The word had gone forth - "here, we look after our own".

The second incident happened several years later in a township where I was serving as a pastor. A young girl was walking home after school when a rapist dragged her into some bushes and sexually assaulted her. Her screams were heard, and the locals ran over to the bushes to catch the rapist in flagrante delicto. Again, they didn't bother to call the police. One of them looked around and found a bottle lying in the grass. They broke the bottle against a rock and used the jagged shards of glass to castrate the rapist on the spot. His penis and testicles were then nailed to a nearby telephone pole as a warning to others who might have similar inclinations. He almost bled to death before police found him and took him to hospital.

Once again, the police investigated, and once again none of the dozens of people involved (or their neighbors) could remember a thing. I remonstrated with members of my congregation because I knew that some of them had been involved in this incident. I pointed out that if they got the wrong man there was no way to reverse such an action, and tried to make the case that it was better to let the police and the courts sort it out.

Their reaction was one of puzzled indignation. Why could their rather naive white umfundisi (priest) not understand that in the first place, they hadn't got the wrong man - they'd caught him in the act, after all - and in the second place, why waste their tax money on police and a trial? He wouldn't be raping anyone else ever again!

I had to admit that they had a point . . . and from that perspective, one can understand Ms. Shabangu's remarks (and their very enthusiastic public reception) in a whole new light.

It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over time.

Peter

Creative, witty steampunk - what's not to like?

My friend Bob in England e-mailed me this morning with a link to the video below. I love it! Some tremendous creativity here, and great animation. A must-see! (Note: Requires Adobe Flash Player.)

If anyone has links to more videos from this outfit, please post them in Comments.

Peter

And you thought house termites were bad . . .

Forget 'em. Termites in a bank offer whole new realms of horror!

From the BBC we learn the sorry tale of Dwarika Prasad from the state of Bihar in India.

A trader in the Indian state of Bihar has lost his life savings after termites infesting his bank's safe deposit boxes ate them up.

Dwarika Prasad had deposited currency notes and investment papers worth hundreds of thousands of rupees in a bank safe in the state capital Patna.

. . .

"I'm shattered. I do not know what to do as I had kept the money for my old age," Mr Prasad said.

. . .

[Bank manager] Mr Saha says the customer cannot blame the bank because he did not find his locker broken or damaged.

"The bank is not liable for the deposits kept inside the safe as it is only when a locker is found broken that the bank is answerable," he said.

That's just great! Not only has the poor man lost his money, but the bank denies responsibility or liability for being termite-infested! I wonder how many lawsuits that would produce in the USA?

I'd heard rumors that the banking system was on shaky foundations, but I always assumed they meant the financial variety. Now I'm not so sure . . .

Peter

Fred on illegal immigration

Some of you may have read Fred's iconoclastic regular columns. They're often screamingly funny and usually thought-provoking.

His most recent article deals with illegal immigration. I'm staunchly opposed to the current laxity in enforcement of immigration law, and favor much stronger border controls and the removal of all illegal immigrants - whilst implementing a worker visa program, properly controlled, to allow US industries to obtain the labor they need. However, I have to admit that Fred seems to hit the nail right on the head in this article. The problem is that the US administration simply doesn't care about border security, for all their much-hyped braggadocio about how they're enforcing it.

To grasp American immigration policy, to the extent that it can be grasped, one need only remember that the United States forbids smoking while subsidizing tobacco growers.

We say to impoverished Mexicans, “See this river? Don’t cross it. If you do, we’ll give you good jobs, a drivers license, citizenship for your kids born here and eventually for you, school for said kids, public assistance, governmental documents in Spanish for your convenience, and a much better future. There is no penalty for getting caught. Now, don’t cross this river, hear?”

How smart is that? We’re baiting them. It’s like putting out a salt lick and then complaining when deer come. As parents, the immigrants would be irresponsible not to cross.

The problem of immigration, note, is entirely self-inflicted. The US chose to let them in. It didn’t have to. They came to work. If Americans hadn’t hired them, they would have gone back.

We have immigration because we want immigration. Liberals favor immigration because it makes them feel warm and fuzzy and international and all, and from a genuine streak of decency. Conservative Republican businessman favor immigration, frequently sotto voce, because they want cheap labor that actually shows up and works.

. . .

It looks to me as though America thoughtlessly adopted an unwise policy, continued it until reversal became approximately impossible, and now doesn’t like the results. It must be Mexico’s fault.

Makes sense to me (unfortunately). Read the whole article and decide for yourself.

Peter

Militants, mosques and minarets

I heard from a buddy in the sandbox today.

He's with the Marines, and he confirms something I asked him about earlier. He says that very often insurgent snipers will take up position in the minarets and towers of local mosques to shoot at US forces.

This is all too often counter-productive (for the sniper, that is). Sure, he/they can get a good view of their target from up there: but they also stick out like the proverbial sore thumb, and once the US forces have identified their location it's a whole lot easier to target them stuck up there for all the world to see than it would be if they were at ground level, hidden among all the buildings.

My buddy sent me links to five short videos filmed by US troops doing precisely that.

WARNING - The language in some of these videos is NOT safe for work. Soldiers aren't noted for their politically-correct language while under fire, of course!

Let's take them in ascending order of weapon size. The insurgent in the dome of this mosque was targeted by an AT4 shoulder-launched rocket.





The insurgent in this mosque tower attracted a TOW vehicle-launched missile.





Now things get interesting . . . the next three minarets all ended up on the receiving end of precision-guided 500-pound bombs, courtesy of the USAF and Marines.











I asked my buddy, "When will they ever learn?" His answer was that he hopes they don't - he likes easy targets! However, he said he didn't have a problem with these videos being out there, because the average jihadi in his experience didn't watch such infidel stuff.

Works for me . . .

EDITED TO ADD: He just sent me a follow-up e-mail (after midnight my time) to show me that the enemy isn't all Marines have to worry about. Sometimes their buddies are dangerous too . . . as in, lighting a cigarette soaked in hot sauce (800,000 Scoville units) and inhaling!





I see what he means! Wonder if that qualifies for a Purple Lung?

Peter

Err . . . not flying machines!

I'm sure readers will have realized by now that I'm interested in aircraft and aviation in general.

Some areas of "aviation", however, are in a different category.

Meet some of the participants in the "Anything That Flies" (sort of!) competition at Sydney Harbor in Australia last weekend.

Here's the "Great Red Wingadillo":




I particularly like the steaming skateboard. Not to be outdone were the Coogee Surf Patrol "Double Pluggers":




This (allegedly) flying machine was called "How Iconic" . . .




. . . but it fared no better than the others:




This entry was called "The Jellymen":




. . . and this one was "The Supermarines":




. . . but they all ended up in the same place:




Looks like a good time was had by all!

Peter

In fond memory of Charlton Heston

I'm sure most of you have read of the death of the renowned actor, Charlton Heston, on April 5th. I've always enjoyed his movies, particularly some of the lesser-known ones, and I've appreciated his consistent stand for civil liberties and truth.

The latter has flummoxed some of those who opposed and/or denigrated his position in defense of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution and his presidency of the National Rifle Association. Such people fail to realize that civil liberties and rights and freedoms are true across the spectrum. If something qualifies as such, it's a reality irrespective of whether or not one likes it, or it's politically correct, or any such consideration. It was perfectly logical to me that a man who could march with Dr. Martin Luther King in support of racial equality and human rights could equally well stand up for the right to keep and bear arms. The issues are two sides of the same coin - civil liberties and natural rights.

Be that as it may, there have been many snide remarks directed at Mr. Heston's memory and legacy by people who should have better manners. They've annoyed me, and I'm sure they haven't been welcomed by his wife and surviving family and friends.

I'd like to share with you my personal selection of one of Mr. Heston's many speeches to stand as his legacy. It's long, but well worth reading. Indeed, I think it's so important that I'm going to reproduce the whole thing here. If you prefer to listen rather than read, an audio recording of him delivering this speech may be found here - highly recommended.

This speech was delivered on February 16th, 1999, at Austin Hall of Harvard Law School.

WINNING THE CULTURAL WAR

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: if my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty, your own freedom of thought, your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what lives in your heart. I'm sure you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you, the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Let me back up a little. About a year or two ago, I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms of American citizens. I ran for office. I was elected, and now I serve. I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know, I'm pretty old, but I sure Lord ain't senile.

As I've stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are -- are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain accepted thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 -- and long before Hollywood found it acceptable, I may say. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life -- throughout my whole career. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out the innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution I'm talking about, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind like that. You are using language not authorized for public consumption."

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys -- subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that

"blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly twisted on us -- foisted on us from every direction. Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the country, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it."

Let me read you a few examples. At Antioch College in Ohio, young men speaking and seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process, from kissing to petting to final, at last, copulation -- all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who'd been infected by dentists who had concealed their own AIDS, the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not -- need not! -- tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs really like the name, "The Tribe."

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.

In New York City, kids who didn't speak a word of Spanish had been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their own names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know, that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now.

For me, hyphenated identities are awkward, particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson's a twelfth generation native-American, with a capital letter on "American."

Finally, just last month, David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking about budgetary matters with some colleagues. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days, Howard was forced to publicly apologize and then resign.

As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of 'niggardly,' (b) don't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."

Now, what does all of this mean? Among other things, it means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind. Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to -- to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?

Let -- Let's be honest. Who here in this room thinks your professors can say what they really believe? (Uh-huh. There's a few....) Well, that scares me to death, and it should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.

You are the best and the brightest. You, here in this fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River. You are the cream. But I submit that you and your counterparts across the land are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge. And as long as you validate that and abide it, you are, by your grandfathers' standards, cowards.

Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. But why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayors' pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.

Now, I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Democracy is dialogue. Who will defend the core values of academia, if you, the supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me."

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does -- does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. That's what it is: New McCarthyism. But, what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation?

Well, the answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey the social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.

Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.

In that same spirit, I' m asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives, and onerous laws that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful. It hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated, to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water Cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. Now, I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have left their mark on me. Let me tell you a story.

A few years ago, I heard about a -- a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer," celebrating the ambushing and of murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the country -- in the world. Police across the country were outraged. And rightfully so. At least one of them had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the -- the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills, and I owned some shares of Time/Warner at the time, so I decided to attend the meeting.

What I did was against the advice of my family and my colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer" -- every vicious, vulgar, instructional word:

I got my 12-Gauge sawed-off. I got my headlights turned off. I'm about to bust some shots off. I'm about to dust some cops off.

It got worse, a lot worse. Now, I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that. Then I delivered another volley of sick lyrics brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing the two 12-year-old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore:

She pushed her butt against my --

No. No, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in stunned silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps outside, one of them said, "We can't print that, you know." "I know," I said, "but Time/Warner is still selling it."

Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warner Brothers, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you have to be willing to act, not just talk.

When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself, jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is pressured -- your university -- is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors, choke the halls of the Board of Regents. When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and then gets hauled into court for sexual harassment, march on that school and block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you -- petition them, oust them, banish them. When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month, boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

I thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Heston. May God bless you, and may your soul rest in His peace forevermore.

(And we hope Moses approves of your cinematic portrayal of him - otherwise you'll have some explaining to do!)



Peter

"Was Blind, But Now I See . . . "

Here's a pretty amazing story from Scotland.

In 1941 John Gray was standing duty as a firewatcher in Glasgow during a major Luftwaffe air raid on the Clydeside industrial area. The last thing he remembers of that night was some glass shattering.

" . . . that was the last thing I heard until I came to in the Victoria Infirmary with my leg stretched out in plaster and a big bandage on my head.

"I had an injury to my head which took the sight away from my right eye."

He was the only survivor from the building he occupied, which was struck by a heavy bomb.

Mr. Gray recovered from his injuries, philosophically accepting the loss of one eye, and carried on with his life. In due course the son of a friend grew up and became an optometrist, and Mr. Gray began to see him for regular check-ups. Frank Munro realized that Mr. Gray's injury was to the lens of the eye rather than to the retina - in other words, the eye itself was still intact, but non-functional due to severe scarring of the external surface. However, Mr. Gray's brain had "forgotten" how to use the eye after so many decades of inactivity, and trying to fix it might cause unforeseen problems: so they left things as they were.

In 2007, Mr. Gray developed severe macular degeneration in his remaining eye. It looked as if he'd be blind in both eyes before long . . . until Frank had an idea. He got hold of a specialist, described the decades-old injury to Mr. Gray's right eye and asked whether something could be done.

Something could.

The Southern General Hospital's eye surgeon Dr Ian Bryce removed John's scar tissue and inserted a new artificial lens - something not possible 60 years ago. But the question remained - would John's brain remember how to see through his right eye?

It took a few weeks for John's brain to adjust but to everyone's relief John began to see again. At first it was blurred but now John's vision is good enough to read small print.

Frank has just issued John with his first set of bifocal spectacles with a lens in both the left and the right eye, and the 87-year-old is delighted. He says both his optometrist and his surgeon deserve a knighthood.

"I couldn't be more pleased," he declared. "I've got vision and I can read to a certain extent".

Talk about rising from the ashes! A wonderful story, and a testimony to hope.

Peter

Language . . . it's for the birds!

From the Daily Mail we learn of Barney the potty-mouthed parrot.

It seems that Barney grew up in a household where the Queen's English was . . . well, perhaps more fundamentally Anglo-Saxon and rather less Royal than might be desired.

He somehow landed up in a wildlife sanctuary, where he lives in a cage in the living-room of the curator, Mr. Geoff Grewcock.

(As an aside, that's a terribly unfortunate surname, old boy, what?)

Barney shares the cage with two African Grey parrots, Sam and Charley . . . and apparently they've expanded their vocabulary by adopting his.

Their favourite words are f*** off, b******* and t***.

Mr Grewcock, who owns the Warwickshire Wildlife Sanctuary in Nuneaton, said: "They just sit there swearing at each other now.

"I wouldn't mind, but we had been careful of what we said in front of the other birds so they didn't go like Barney.

"I didn't think they would pick it up from him. We have got another African Grey called Sunny who squawks 'shut up' at them when the swearing starts - but they don't take any notice."

In 2005, Barney told the local mayoress to f*** off during a civic visit and then turned to two police officers and a vicar and added: "You can f*** off too, w******!"

Mr Grewcock said: "We have tried everything to get Barney to curb his language and now we have got another two to contend with.

"These birds can live until they are 70 so there are potentially another 60 years of this to contend with."

Parrot expert Rob Harvey said the birds usually talked to get the attention of their owners. "This case is so unusual because parrots are copying another parrot," he said.

*gigglesnort!*

This reminds me of the tale of the priest, the parishioner and the parrots.

An elderly parishioner approached her pastor after Sunday service. "Father, I have a terrible problem. I bought two female parrots so as to have some company at home, but they must have grown up in a terrible place. One keeps on saying 'Hi, sweet thing!' in the most ghastly suggestive tone of voice, and the other responds 'Let's get it on, handsome!' They keep at it all the time! I can't have my friends around to visit any more for fear of offending them! What should I do?"

The priest thought for a moment, then said magisterially, "Never fear, my dear. I have two male parrots that I've taught to pray. They spend their days reciting the Rosary and fingering the beads with their claws. Bring your two over to my rectory and we'll put their cage in the same room with my birds. I'm sure they'll learn more Christian ways in no time at all."

"Oh, thank you, Father!" the lady exclaimed, and that very evening brought her parrots over to the rectory. Trembling with eagerness, she accompanied the priest as he carried the cage through to his living-room, set it down next to his birds' cage and took off the cover.

The two visiting parrots looked at the priest's flock, duly fingering their Rosary beads and murmuring Pater Nosters and Ave Marias. The first called raucously, "Hi, sweet thing!" and the other echoed, "Let's get it on, handsome!"

The priest's parrots looked up, eyed the newcomers, then looked at each other. "Put down those beads, brother," said one to the other. "Our prayers have been answered!"



Peter

Doofus Of The Day #16

Doofi are thick on the ground at the moment, it seems.

Our idiot of the moment, Demetrius Robinson, decided to rob a convenience store in Athens, GA. In order to pass the time while waiting for customers to leave, he filled out a job application - giving his real name, amongst other interesting details.

In his defense, let it be said that he was smart enough not to give his real address and phone number.

Oh, no.

He gave his uncle's details instead.

He then carried out the robbery and fled.

Police detectives were intrigued to discover the application, and promptly asked his uncle about the matter. They say they got an "anonymous tip" as to his real whereabouts . . . but personally I suspect that Demetrius' uncle was so furious at being dragged into the matter (not to mention his nephew's stupidity) that the source of the "tip" might not be all that "anonymous" after all.

Demetrius is now in durance vile, and is a suspect in several other armed robberies.

*Sigh* . . . where would we be without doofi?

Peter

A space probe to the sun?

Courtesy of William The Coroner, we're directed to this article in Air & Space Magazine.

It seems that NASA is at last considering sending a space probe to the Sun to analyze its corona and outer layers. By "slingshotting" it around planets it would make ten or eleven "close" passes to the Sun, radioing back information, before the heat finally grew too great and melted it.

Fascinating! The Sun is the ultimate physical reason for our existence, and that of the entire Solar System: yet we still know so little about it (including its importance - or otherwise - as a factor in the current global warming and/or cooling controversy). I imagine there'll be all sorts of engineering problems involved, but I hope the scientists and engineers can overcome them, find the necessary funding and send this probe on its way.

We might even be able to send some of our ditzier and less desirable Hollywood brat pack starlets on the mission. All we have to do is advertise it as the world's most advanced solar tanning capsule . . . "tan in a flash", as it were!



Peter

Funny pictures

A friend e-mailed me these pictures. After I'd stopped chuckling, I thought you might enjoy them too - and the captions. (Click the pictures for a larger view.)

Satanic cold meds?

Heading for a fall

A contradiction in terms?

Take away the "t" and you have . . .

Vowel deficiency syndrome?

Peter