Welcome to the Wednesday (EBD) edition of SDA Late Nite Radio.
In 1911, a fourteen-year-old Mississippian named Jimmie Rodgers began working as a railroad brakeman, which in those days involved running along atop the train and cranking the brake wheel on each car. When he was twenty-eight, serious health problems resulting from tuberculosis drove him to try his hand at being a professional musician. After two years of performing in vaudeville shows and traveling shows, he began a six-year recording career that would forever change the face of popular music and earn him the title The Father of Country Music. Like the Carter Family, who began their recording career within two days of Rodgers, and also under the guidance of Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company, the influence of Rodgers' music on future generations of artists such as Hank Williams, and on American popular music in general, cannot be overstated.
During his last recording session, in New York City in 1933, Rodgers rose from the cot he rested on on between takes to sing a song about his beloved southern states called Somewhere Down Below the Dixon Line. He died the following night.
You are invited, as always, to provide your Reader Tips in the comments.
Watch what you say, Billy - we're being followed:
"Pupils aged five on hate register: Teachers must log playground taunts for Government database."
That's what a real feminist looks like:
"A SAUDI woman's to get 300 lashings and 18 months' prison for filing complaints against court officials and being in court without a male guardian.
Salim alleges that ever since she rejected local judge Habib Abdullah al Aqsa's repeated urging to divorce her husband, who was jailed over debts, in 2004, that judge and other officials continually created trouble for her. On numerous occasions through 2008, HRW said, officials "chided Salim for not being accompanied by a male guardian during her visits to their offices."
"She didn't keep things quiet."
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/unchaperoned-woman-to-get-300-lashes/story-e6frf7jx-1225836750143
EBD, it appears to me that the subject of your Late Nite post, "The Singing Brakeman" is a lot more alive than the subject of your 10:03 Reader Tip, the United Kingdom.
I have not heard that song since the 1960s when I could tune into a radio station from Wheeling, West Virginia, for an hour or so every evening depending on what the atmospheric conditions were like.
That smoke belching out of that steamer has a certain amount of ascetic beauty about it. However, as I remember, it did not smell so nice back in the passenger cars.
EBD, children informing on parents as to their speech and political views will be next.
The 10:03 link works for me, felis corpulentis.
Eamonn Butler: Britain must follow the Canadian model for cutting the deficit.
EBD, sorry for being obtuse; the link worked fine in both cases. My meaning was that the Jimmy Rodgers song was uplifting; the story from the UK, not so much.
Great footage of the steamer. Thanks. Great song.
No, my mistake, felis.
Joe, glad you like it. I love the train too. The nose of it - or whatever they call that - looks like a barn owl, in certain shots.
Ron Liddle, writing in the UK Telegraph, prvides his opinion of rival newspaper the Guardian:
"By God, The Guardian is a loathsome newspaper; a local north London morning daily for Stalinist metro libtards, perpetually arrogant, snobbish, self-righteous, humourless, dull, relentlessly middle class, cowardly and cheap...(the paper has) the feel of a Boden catalogue boot stamping on a human face for five minutes or so, before marching off to consume a Yakult in a Crouch End cafeteria..."
Are these guys on acid?
Soldiers on LSD
http://current.com/items/89043777_soldiers-on-lsd.htm
Shouldn't gazillion be recognized first?
"A campaign for 'hella' to join the likes of 'kilo', 'mega' and 'giga' as an internationally accepted prefix is attracting growing support.
"More than 20,000 scientists, students and members of the public have signed an online petition backing the new quantity, which would be used for figures with 27 zeros after the first digit.
"Currently the highest prefix allowed by the International System of Units (SI) is the 'yotta', for 24 zeroes.
(...)
"Hella is North Californian slang for 'very' or 'a lot of'...."
Jimmie Rodgers the best flat top guitar salesman ever. I was rooting through Dad's things and came across an old guitar. Mom said it came from the era of Dad's attempt to imitate Jimmie Rodgers. Mom said, "Just like all the young men of his day".
Thanks for Jimmie's song tonight, EBD. It's great. I've listened to it three times now (I had never heard this one before), and I must say, there are certain sub-sections or sub-effects or, I don't know, I'm not a musician, but there are parts of Jimmie's song where my brain just produces the Leon Redbone memory match: and for free. Not surprising then, I guess, that I like them both in the same sort of way.
Oops, "certain amount of ascetic beauty" @ 10:31 should be aesthetic as in artistic.
"zombietime" wades onto the beaches of rising oceans to find yet another hockey stick. :)
http://www.zombietime.com/zomblog/wp-content/images2010/AGW_hockey_stick_graph_big.gif
National Post, Wednesday, Mar. 3.
A new "social justice action plan" initiative in the Toronto District School Board will see every school take on one local and one global social justice issue - such as poverty, equity and environmentalism - in order to "create awareness of how students can be empowered through their leadership to make a difference in the world", says new education director Chris Spence.
This is pure and disgraceful propaganda. "Social justice" is a contradiction in terms, although it in wide use it is an anti-concept that really means "redistribution of wealth" or "robbing Peter (who has earned it) to pay Paul (who has not)". What would happen to a student who understands what nonsense it all is - and says so in class?
By this time, poverty is caused mostly by taxes and Big Government spending. It costs about $8,000 per student per year of elementary or secondary school, and too many still graduate illiterate (following which the lefty crackpots call for even more tax dollars spent on "adult literacy"). Who wants to bet that these facts won't show up in the curriculum?
It's time for a voucher system with a view to eventual abolition of public education.
Globe and Mail, Wednesday, Mar. 3.
Preston Manning seems to have shifted over to the dark side of Big Government lately at his Manning Centre for Building Democracy. Today he's looking for "a mechanism to spearhead private-sector innovation to make the Canadian economy more productive and competitive".
What "will provide leadership to Canada's private sector in meeting the innovation imperative? I welcome your suggestions".
The profit motive.
You're welcome.
Two good tips, nv53, but regarding your second tip, I feel like I'm not reading the same article as you, in that I don't really see Preston Manning making the case for Big Government. He does mention the need for productivity in the private sector, and he suggests that private insurance and private delivery in health care should be allowed. And, most pointedly, when he says that we need to figure out how to make the Canadian economy more productive and competitive, he specifically says that the current deficiency is due to "a widespread lack of innovation strategies and initiatives by Canadian companies themselves rather than to defects in government policy or funding."
Wrt to your first link: Yes, "social justice action plans" implemented by Teachers Union- types are pure, unadulterated, brainwashing propaganda, and should be opposed at every turn. It's just one more bald attempt to impose an addled, hideously time-bound socialist agenda on other peoples' kids.
We didn't need a voucher system forty years ago, but we need one now. Just for those special few who might not want Bill Ayers-types teaching their kids.
If you want to see something funny just take a look at this thread on WUWT:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/03/03/doctor-gore-a-good-idea-poll-disagrees/
Talk about a poll going horribly wrong! 4995 No to 214 Yes.
Ebd: not having a voucher system 40 years ago is precisely why we desparately need one now.
Ebd: not having a voucher system 40 years ago is precisely why we desparately need one now.
And watching the above video of a steam train while neat in a quaint way, it reminds me that we are damned fortunate to not have to rely on that technology today.
I remember years ago talking with some gentlemen about logging back in the day before chainsaws were commercialized. They spoke of how the practice of queueing logs in the hills waiting for the snowmelt to slide them into the streams and rivers and then driving them to the mill was more environmentally friendly than the use of feller bunchers and trucks is nowadays.
I gently pointed out to them that such log drives destroyed vast amounts of salmon spawning areas for a century or more - that it - not overfishing - was the primary cause of salmon population decline in newfoundland.
Some parts of the good days were really bad....
Really now?
http://www.canada.com/sports/2010wintergames/Ottawa+split+Olympic+security+costs/2637014/story.html
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=970ae45e-9ff6-4ff2-bf7d-40cfa198486f
Here is something that would be a blast. A hovercraft /plane, and it's for sale. woot.
http://www.news.com.au/travel/news/hovercraft-makes-travel-a-breeze/story-e6frfq80-1225835972051
(PDF warning) Ken Guest, ‘RAM’ Seeger and Lucy Morgan Edwards, The Tribal Path – A Better Alternative?
The current internationally agreed strategy for Afghanistan is unlikely to work as it has been based on flawed assumptions or hopes.
What Afghanistan really needs is a central government with a light but effective footprint, empowered tribal leaders, and a small, professional, well-trained army and police force in support of tribal security forces, provided by and controlled by the tribes. If these could be established and put into effect, they could revolutionise the situation in Afghanistan...
John Arquilla, The New Rules of War
The visionary who first saw the age of "netwar" coming warns that the U.S. military is getting it wrong all over again. Here's his plan to make conflict cheaper, smaller, and smarter.
Charles MacDonald:
RE: The Tribal Path - A Better Alternative
One would think that any serious student of history would have looked at the analog situtation of Tecumseh's confederacy back in 1812 and applied its lessons successfully to Afghanistan with some adaptive response to the culture at hand.
Here we are 9 years on and are just now grappling with how to make the local tribes relevant to the power structure in distinction to the Taliban.
One needn't be a genius to derive these conclusions, just an astute observer. The proposition that the Afghan tribal structure would 'willy nilly' adopt a western style full democratic modality of governance making a sharp break with their own tribal structure within a fortnight is simply 'over the moon' type thinking in any case.
If the Afghanis are going to perceive the government as 'theirs' it will have to take into account a representative of the tribal structure modality in forming that government. The 'tabula rasa' adoption of a full western style government won't succeed without firmly getting the tribal elders on side. That means getting their input.
As time passes the modality of government should evolve over time, albeit with some fits and starts as part of the mix.
With some 30 - 40 years of more or less warlike state of affairs it would seem natural to adapt the democratic governance modality to the tribal realities on the ground.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North"
Bligh never used the "f" word, Billy.
...-
"The Rise and Fall of a Female Captain Bligh
Women are so common in the upper ranks of the U.S. military these days that it's no longer news when they break through another barrier.
Unfortunately, the latest benchmark isn't one to brag about: being booted as captain of a billion-dollar warship for "cruelty and maltreatment" of her 400-member crew."
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1969602,00.html#ixzz0hE3OcWl4
Poll at Globe and Mail RE changing the wording of the National Anthem.
_http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/globe-online-poll/article1489066/
Currently at 83% nay, which is a good thing.
Well, the last one didn't work, let's try this one:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100304/ap_on_sc/us_sci_climate_methane
Budget 2010 playing on CPAC
Betcha Jack Layton says in the scrums after he will not support the budget,& that corporate taxes should be increased.
"But the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice," he said."
al-Reuters whines: "has dented the image of the Netherlands as a country that has often portrayed itself in the past as a bastion of tolerance."
...-
"Dutch anti-Islam leader Wilders is major winner in polls
AMSTERDAM/THE HAGUE (Reuters) - Dutch anti-Islamist leader Geert Wilders scored major gains in local authority polls on Thursday, making him a serious challenger for power in a June national election, preliminary results showed.
In the first test of public opinion since the collapse of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende's coalition government last month, Wilders's Freedom Party (PVV) led in the city of Almere and was second in The Hague.
The results came on top of an opinion poll showing that the PVV, which campaigns against Muslim immigration as its main platform, would win the most seats -- 27 in the 150-member Dutch parliament -- in the June 9 election.
That would make it tough for Balkenende's Christian Democrats, projected to win one seat less, to forge a strong coalition without Wilders. Months of talks between parties, and the resulting policy vacuum, could threaten a fragile economic recovery and cast doubt on the scope of planned budget cuts.
The popularity of Wilders, who compares Islam to fascism and the Koran to Adolf Hitler's book "Mein Kampf," has dented the image of the Netherlands as a country that has often portrayed itself in the past as a bastion of tolerance.
The PVV has been pitching its policies to a nation of 16 million that is turning increasingly inward as the economy struggles and social tensions rise. There are nearly 1 million Muslims in the Netherlands.
"The leftist elite still believes in multi-culturalism, coddling criminals, a European super-state and high taxes," Wilders told cheering supporters at a rally in Almere after polling ended on Wednesday.
"But the rest of the Netherlands thinks differently. That silent majority now has a voice," he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at swissinfo.ch"
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2464252/posts
Cut'n'run Liberal IffyDionky.
Iffy says ....... The Separatist Coalition Troika is not holding together. It's Taliban Jack LaytoNDP's fault.
...-
"Liberals won't topple Tories on budget
Ignatieff says some of his MPs will vote against Flaherty's plan, but not enough to send Canadians to the polls
The Liberals are allowing Prime Minister Stephen Harper to stay in power because they are still not ready to form a government, Leader Michael Ignatieff says."
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/budget/liberals-wont-bring-tories-down-over-budget/article1489798/
PET Cemetery Bulletin:
LIBERAL = PROROGUE.
Liberal to re-focus.
Cue the Farcebooks.
...-
"McGuinty prorogues provincial parliament
Premier Dalton McGuinty prorogued provincial parliament in order to refocus".
http://www.thestar.com/news/ontario/article/774961--mcguinty-prorogues-provincial-parliament
CBC's AGW: The 'rats Freeze.
...-
"Spending freeze worries public service union
CBC.ca - 55 minutes ago
This year's federal budget promises to freeze departmental spending, which has Canada's largest public-sector union concerned for Ottawa's many public servants."