Quote:CHICAGO, IL — In a historic move for the aviation industry, United Airlines proudly announced today that they have assembled the world's first all-Dachshund flight crew. The groundbreaking decision, hailed as a triumph for diversity, was made as part of a bold initiative by United to promote an unprecedented level of inclusion in its company.

The all-Dachsund crew, manning a flight from Chicago to Dallas, served as an important milestone in the airline industry's ongoing quest to simultaneously diversify its flight crews and create fear and trepidation among its customers.

"This is a momentous day," said United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby. "We've always felt that the crew of an aircraft is intended to be a passenger's best friend, and now we've officially entrusted this flight to man's best friend. To the members of this history-making crew — Trixie, Biscuit, Rascal, Cucumber, Ralphie, and Spud — we salute you. Treats will be waiting for you at the gate when you reach your destination."

Passengers booked on the crew's maiden flight expressed a mixture of pride and unease. "I guess it's a cool thing," one passenger said. "I mean, these planes basically fly themselves these days, right? I'm a little worried they'll eat all the snacks themselves and not provide the best customer service, but that's not anything new. At least it's not all women, so I don't feel completely doomed."

At publishing time, passengers had settled in and fastened their seatbelts for takeoff after the captain gave a welcome message and advised everyone on board that expected turbulence may lead to the flight being "rough, rough, rough."
The Babylon Bee

Quote:The Embedding by Ian Watson

[This post is part of an occasional series about linguistics in science fiction.  Fair warnings: this bloomed into a very long post, and there are spoilers throughout.]

Ian Watson's 1973 novel The Embedding is, of all the science fiction about linguistics that I've written about so far, the story that most directly addressed ideas from theoretical linguistics.  Where most SF authors have been content with simple ideas from the shallow end of the field, Watson dives right into the deep end, displaying some familiarity with then-current ideas about Universal Grammar and the phenomenon of center-embeddings in syntax.

The Embedding consists of three interwoven plot threads, each of which deals with a different aspect of the idea of center-embedding.  These three threads are often quite separate, although there are certainly characters and events that cross over between them.  I'm going to summarize the three threads separately, then discuss the linguistic speculations they contain together at the end.

The Sp'thra are linguistic typologists on a grand scale.  They have converted a natural satellite, the Language Moon, into a titanic library of information about languages from all over the galaxy—the WALS project on an astronomical scale.  They maintain a strong version of Whorf's linguistic relativity hypothesis, believing that each language represents a way of seeing the world:

Quote:So while NATO nations and her tax-paying citizens seem to be growing fatigued with the fiscal requirements of supporting Ukraine, expect some form of aid to keep trickling in – lest NATO appear to be abandoning Ukraine.

I’m being mildly facetious, but the simple fact is that no weapon would aid the Ukrainians as immediately and convincingly as a nuclear weapon.

Now, I’m not advocating that Ukraine should receive nuclear weapons from her Western allies. Quite the opposite.

Nukes to Ukraine would be bad. But as far as getting the Russians out of the Donbas, nuclear weapons are your most efficient weapons system.

The National Interest

1. USS Enterprise (1775), a Continental Navy sloop captured from the British, burned to prevent recapture in 1777.
   
2. USS Enterprise (1799), a schooner that fired the first shots in the First Barbary War.
   
3. USS Enterprise (1831), a schooner, stationed primarily in South America to patrol and protect commerce.
   
4. USS Enterprise (1874), a steam-powered sloop-of-war used for surveying, patrolling, and training until 1909.
   
5. USS Enterprise (SP-790), a motorboat (1917–1919) used in World War I as a non-commissioned section patrol craft.
   
6. USS Enterprise (CV-6), an aircraft carrier (1938–1947), the most decorated U.S. ship of World War II
   
7. USS Enterprise (CVN-65), the world's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier (1961–2017).
   
8. USS Enterprise (CVN-80), a Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier, under construction and scheduled to enter service by 2028.
   

Quote:On a Storyteller's Night

Perhaps one of Matthews' best-loved images? Commissioned in 1985 by FM Records on behalf of Magnum. The content suggestion came from Magnum’s Tony Clarkin. The Tavern’s interior is reminiscent of The George Inn at Norton St. Phillip, near Matthews' former home in Somerset. Background details include two of Matthews' previous album covers for the band, whilst his own dog Patch is under the table. The artwork, which was required urgently, was completed in just 10 days!

Quote:The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party is a 1995 pseudohistorical book by Scott Lively [American activist with Oregon Citizens Alliance (loosely affiliated with the Christian Coalition of America), author, and attorney] and Kevin Abrams [Orthodox Jew]. Drawing on Samuel Igra's 1945 book Germany's National Vice, Lively and Abrams argue that the crimes committed by homosexuals in the Nazi Party exceed the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany and that homosexuality contributed to the extreme militarism of Nazi Germany. They contend that only feminine homosexuals were persecuted by the Nazis, while "butch" homosexuals formed the leadership cadre of the Nazi party. Historian Andrew Wackerfuss criticized the book for lack of accuracy and "outright homophobic charges". The claim advanced by Igra, Lively, and Abrams that homosexuals were responsible for Nazi atrocities is rejected by most historians.

The book was published after Measure 9, an unsuccessful Oregon ballot measure to repeal gay rights.

In 2017, the authors released the fifth edition, published by Veritas Aeterna Press. They state that their motivation for writing the book is to respond to the "myth of the 'pink triangle'" and the "gay political agenda".

In his book Stormtrooper Families about homosexuality in the Sturmabteilung, American historian Andrew Wackerfuss described the authors as "a pair of anti-gay political activists" who "tried to rebrand the brown shirt as a pink swastika". He situates the book within 1990's culture wars in the United States and noted that Lively's allegations of "gay fascism" have gained "wide popularity on the American right" as well as in Russia and Uganda.

Wackerfuss considers that there are "numerous and persuasive criticisms of [Lively and Abrams'] misuse of the historical method". He criticized The Pink Swastika's "outright homophobic charges" and recommended The Annotated Pink Swastika (an internet publication of the Citizens Allied for Civic Action) as "a useful guide to the errors and inaccuracies ... the text is deconstructed page by page to reveal its many flaws". German historian Martin Göllnitz called the book's argument "completely untenable" because it relies on fabrications like the claim that Röhm's SA was the product of the Weimar homosexual movement.

Lively said that the book "indirectly forc[ed] the 'gays' to abandon the pink triangle as the primary symbol of their movement" and replace it with the rainbow flag. In fact, the rainbow flag has been in use since 1978. The book has been promoted by some conservative Christian groups and conversion therapy advocates.

The Pink Swastika

Quote:In 1910, nine European sovereigns posed for a final “family photo” before the Great War. They gathered for the funeral of King Edward VII, appropriately enough. Within ten years, the majority had lost power via abdication, assassination, revolution, or death.



The image came to mind after seeing this week’s photo of the current masters of the international order who gathered in Cornwall for the G7 summit.

G7: Repeating Dead Rituals from a Former Age

Quote:Once the bomb was located, Simó Orts appeared at the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York with his lawyer, Herbert Brownell, formerly Attorney General of the United States under President Dwight D. Eisenhower, claiming salvage rights on the recovered thermonuclear bomb. According to Craven:

Quote:    It is customary maritime law that the person who identifies the location of a ship to be salved has the right to a salvage award if that identification leads to a successful recovery. The amount is nominal, usually 1 or 2 percent, sometimes a bit more, of the intrinsic value to the owner of the thing salved. But the thing salved off Palomares was a thermonuclear bomb, the same bomb valued by no less an authority than the Secretary of Defense at $2 billion—each percent of which is, of course, $20 million.

The Air Force settled out of court for an undisclosed sum. In later years, Simó Orts was heard to complain that the Americans had promised him financial compensation but had not kept their promise.

Quote:On 19 October 2015, Spain and the United States signed an agreement to further discuss the cleanup and removal of contaminated land. Under a statement of intent signed by Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel García-Margallo and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, the two countries were to negotiate a binding agreement to further restore and clear up the Palomares site and arrange for the disposal of the contaminated soil at an appropriate site in the U.S.
U.S. and Spain Agree to Nuclear Deal

Quote:Madrid-based Onza Distribution, producer of “The Department of Time,” has acquired international distribution rights to four-part doc series “Palomares: The Atomic Bomb Fiasco,” a stranger than fiction doc thriller about how in 1966 the U.S. Air Force accidentally dropped four hydrogen bombs on Spain.

“The story of ‘Palomares’ is too incredible to be true and perhaps the best way to tell it was through a documentary series. If we had done a scripted series, people would think we were making it up,” Ron said.

He added: “This is a piece of U.S. and Spanish history that had never been told in all its complexity and this ‘golden age’ of documentary series has given us the opportunity to finally do so.”

For Onza, which recently opened a Miami office, the Movistar Plus deal is another strategic step-up, here via its alliance with Movistar Plus, as the pay-TV/SVOD arm of giant European telco Telefonica drives energetically into non-fiction.

Last July, Onza Distribution signed a strategic alliance with Movistar,  Telefonica’s label in Latin America, to represent worldwide sales on Movistar’s first four original series.

Palomares: The Atomic Bomb Fiasco

Quote:Poe joined the Army at the age of 18 in an act of desperation after suffering the strain of surviving on his own for two months without money. This enlistment paper shows that Poe was in Boston when he signed up, that he used a false name, Edgar Perry, and a false age, adding four years to his real age. The paper also described him as being 5 feet 8 inches tall, with brown hair, gray eyes, and a fair complexion. Although Poe did well in the Army and was promoted to the highest rank possible for an enlisted man, he decided to leave the Army 3 1/2 years short of his full enlistment. He was released on April 15, 1829, having obtained the consent of his foster father, and paid a substitute to take his place.

Enlistment Papers for Edgar A. Perry [Poe]

(01-21-2024, 03:46 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: Big Ooops!!!


https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1748440686842487289

HMS Chiddingfold (M37) is a Hunt-class mine countermeasures vessel launched in 1983. HMS Bangor is a Sandown-class minehunter commissioned by the Royal Navy in 1999. She has a fibreglass hull, designed to minimise risk to magnetic mines, but not collisions with her sister Chiddingfold.

(01-22-2024, 04:38 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: Telly Savalas recorded a mostly-spoken interpretation which reached No. 1 on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks in March 1975, and has the shortest title of any song to reach No. 1 in the UK.

Quote:Before making his way into cinema and film production, Jewison served in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II. When Jewison was just 13 years old, he saw the war effort first-hand in Canada. "The whole production of the country, from food to material to clothing, everything was being built and focused toward the war," he told Canadian Encyclopedia. "There weren't even silk stockings, so women were painting their legs. It was unbelievable. Everybody was involved and totally committed to winning this war and supporting the troops. I've never seen a society so focused."

According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, "Jewison's relatives almost all served as army reservists during the war. His uncle Charlie was a sergeant major in the 48th Highlanders, and his father was a sharpshooter with the Queen's Own Rifles. Jewison, however, had joined the Sea Cadets in high school — 'one way to get the attention of girls' — and at 17 he volunteered for the Royal Canadian Navy.

"After basic training in Québec City he was shipped to Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, the largest naval training base in the British Empire, where three giant words painted on the side of a building beside the parade square, expressed the sentiment of the time: "Learn to Serve."

"The war was in its final months by the time Jewison made it to sea, working as a signalman on a Canadian corvette, escorting merchant ships up the east coast from Maine to Newfoundland, where the freighters and oil tankers would gather for convoys across to England. The Battle of the Atlantic had largely been won by 1945, and Jewison himself never saw direct combat.

'I was disappointed that I never got to cross the Atlantic and shoot up some U-boats,' he said. 'That's what I really wanted to do.' The U-boats, however, were still sniffing around American and Canadian ports, occasionally sinking ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. 'You were aware of the danger, aware that the war was going on,' says Jewison. But his only glimpse of the enemy came after Germany's surrender in May, When his ship escorted 'a bunch of sorry-looking German prisoners from a submarine that had sailed into a Canadian port to give themselves up. They were tired; their fearsome white turtleneck sweaters were filthy with oil and sweat. They stank. When we herded them into a train bound for an internment camp somewhere up North, I gave one of them a pack of cigarettes.'"

WE ARE THE MIGHTY