The Queen gives the cold shoulder to President Obama for breaking protocol, offering a toast to her while “God Save The Queen” was being played.
NRO chimes in, asking why a protocol officer couldn’t have prepped Da Prez. Jake Tapper shares his take.
Watch for the Media Party to call Queen Elizabeth a racist by sundown Wednesday!
Update:
Reader Tips
As a tribute to birthday boy Bob Dylan, who, at 70 years old, is preparing for yet another grueling tour, here’s a selection of a few of the songs from his remarkable 50-year musical career: From the 1965 album “Bringing It All Back Home”, here’s the wake-up call It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue. From the 1975 album “Blood On The Tracks”, Simple Twist Of Fate, Tangled Up In Blue, and one of my all-time favourites, Buckets Of Rain. From the 1989 Daniel Lanois-produced album “Oh Mercy”, here’s the elegiac and touching Shooting Star. Finally, h/t Mick Hartley, here’s Irish singer Sinéad_Lohan’s lovely cover version of Dylan’s 1964 song To Ramona.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Weather Warnings
Brace yourself, Oklahoma: The ingredients for a classic plains tornado outbreak are in place. (Meanwhile… brace yourself, bedding plants for a classic plains frost outbreak.)
Update: It’s begun.
h/t
“In an unstable Middle East, Israel is the one anchor of stability.”
Netanyahu addresses Congress.
Update – Here are links to the full speech.
The World Needs More Canada, Important Section
I saw Prof. Timothy Garton Ash interviewed on BBC World television May 24 about President Obama’s visit to Britain, in particular the statement in a joint newspaper piece with Prime Minister Cameron that “Ours is not just a special relationship, it is an essential relationship – for us and for the world [the article was in the Times, pay firewall; the text is here at the No. 10 website]”. The professor quite realistically pointed out that the relationship was essential only for the UK, merely “important” for the US – along with quite a few other countries including France, Germany and Mexico. Look who’s missing. The Brits really do tend to find Canada invisible, in large measure a hangover of imperial arrogance.
Secret Service Code Name “Metaphor”
From the comments – “Built in air filtering system to thwart chemical or gas attack. Bullet proof glass. Grenade and RPG proof. Yet a speed bump in Walmart can stop the Presidential Limo. Yeah, great security.”
Related!
Turn back time – is there nothing that Obama can’t do? And this is “why he doesn’t get invited to weddings, guys.”
Crack-Up of the Canadian Media Party – Example #53,429
The Globe and Mail’s Lawrence Martin has convinced himself that the 24/7 news cycle is the reason why the Canadian public is not listening to him and his fellow Harper-hating Media Party members. Here’s a sampling:
Much wonderment has been expressed recently on why stories of abuse of power don’t seem to hurt Stephen Harper’s government. The stories don’t stick, it is said. The reason may well be, to cite Mr. Thomson’s cautionary words, because we in the media don’t stick to them. It’s episodic journalism. We report one story, then move on. We don’t probe deeply. If a Watergate was happening, the public would never know it.
Chris Selley has a somewhat different idea.
70 Years Ago Today: The Sinking of the HMS Hood
The HMS Hood was a battlecruiser of the British Royal Navy that was sunk in a battle with the German battleship Bismarck on May 24, 1941. The ship split in half and of the 1,418 lives onboard, only 3 survived. The loss of the Hood had a profound effect on the British people and invigorated the determination or Prime Minister Winston Churchill to have the Royal Navy sink the Bismarck, which did occur 3 days later.
Genderless Babies of Ontario
What in the Patron’s Saint name of Frick are you Canadians doing to your children up there?!
Just kidding, you guys have to deal with Crusaderism Parents just like us.
Enjoy the decline!
Reader Tips
Italian pop star Mina was a tall, vivacious performer whose brash confidence and forceful delivery earned her the nickname “Tiger of Cremona”. In tonight’s clip, from a 1960 appearance on the long-running Italian variety show Canzonissima, she performs Folle banderuola.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
Is College/University Always a Good Investment?
For many generations now high school guidance counselors and the media have been telling students that one absolutely key ingredient for success is to go onto college or university. But is this good advice for everyone? When does it make sense and when does it not?
The NY Times recently published a fairly detailed article on the subject. Michael Graham dedicated a lot of time to it on on his radio program earlier today.
If a niece or a nephew in Grade 12 approached you, seeking your advice, what would you tell them? More specifically, what criteria would you use to decide what advice to give them?
Anything But Success
A Hydraulic Fracture, which has been used since 1949, is formed by forcing enormous quantities of water, sand and chemicals into deep shale rock under high pressure to free trapped Oil & Gas. . The Prolific
The broader questions on the negative consequences of shale exploitation regarding the depletion of water supply, particularly in times of drought, as well as the resulting methane leaks arising from the entire process that, according to a recent Cornell University study, could cause greenhouse gases even dirtier than coal-fired fuel.
Putting Our Own Problems in Perspective
SDA commenter ‘BB’ posted a link to the following video. There’s not much to see but a whole lot can be visualized from the audio. Makes one appreciate how relatively unimportant the every day foibles in our lives really are!
Update: Several commenters speculated on what was happening over at CBC News on this story. Many of the “progressive” commenters have wasted no time ignoring the plight of their American neighbours and instead gone into long rants about how this was caused by Climate Change. It also appears the CBC Comment Moderator has had to shift into high gear to remove the even uglier comments. Lovely 🙁
Liberal Party Renewal: Do They Have It In Them?
In the aftermath of the political tsunami that was the recent federal election, the Liberal Party is at a crossroads. Steve Pinkus and Désirée McGraw, two Liberal Party insiders, have written a very compelling editorial urging renewal. But will it happen?
h/t ‘batb’
Reader Tips
In tonight’s Tips music Polish-born mezzo-soprano Bogna Bartosz, backed by the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra under the conductorship of Ton Koopman, performs the aria Et exultavit spiritus meus from J.S. Bach’s Magnificat.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.
The Downfall of the Elitist
In a recent posting on SDA, regular commenter ‘ET’ shared some most astute bits of wisdom. This prompted me to engage in an e-mail exchange with her. Out of that came a longer essay of sorts from her, which I am publishing with her permission. The primary editing I did was to put all of it in a more general context:
The two-tiered socialist system is, actually, the most basic sociopolitical system on Earth. It’s essentially tribal, set up to ensure stability. To prevent the disruption of change it moves its authority into an essentially hereditary mode. You have the ‘Anointed’ (upper tier) . . . and the ‘Unanointed’ (the vast majority in the lower tier).
There’s no means of movement between these two groups. One class, the anointed, are deemed by birth, education etc. to be Guardians, Rulers, Wise Men. These ‘Noblesse oblige‘ feel they have a duty and a right to govern the unanointed lesser people.
In days past it would be the tribal elders of one clan that ruled over the other clans. In the feudal period it would be the nobles and the church. The elite prevented the lower class from gaining power; kept them uneducated, dependent on the financial and ‘saviour’ powers of the nobles/church who owned all the means of production (the land), owned all means of hope and salvation from your supposed sins (the church), all knowledge.
Keeping the unanointed peasantry down became difficult only when the population increased beyond the ‘organizing capacity’ of such a two-tiered system. After all, you have to enforce a system where the peasantry can’t become educated, can’t get enough knowledge or fiscal power to control their own lives, can’t own land, aren’t allowed to read, can’t own businesses, etc.
What We Really Need Is Democracy
With a totalitarian party to vote for;
The liberals and secularists who formed the core of the Egyptian revolution are now scrambling to stave off political gains by the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-outlawed organization that is widely expected to become the dominant force when a new parliament is elected.
Shocker.
h/t EBD
The Children Are Our Future
And that’s why I’m stocking up on freeze dried foods.
This Is Not Your Grandma’s Humane Society
Every Sparrow That Falls: Understanding Animal Rights Activism as Functional Religion (pdf)
ABSTRACT
This article reports original research conducted among animal rights activists and elites in Switzerland and the United States, and the finding that activism functioned in activists’ and elites’ lives like religious belief. The study used reference sampling to select Swiss and American informants.Various articles and activists have identified both latent and manifest quasi-religious components in the contemporary movement. Hence, the research followed upon these data and anecdotes and tested the role of activism in adherents’ lives. Using extensive interviews, the research discovered that activists and elites conform to the five necessary components of Yinger’s definition of functional religion: intense and memorable conversion experiences, newfound communities of meaning, normative creeds, elaborate and well-dened codes of behavior, and cult formation. The ar ticle elaborates on that schema in the context of animal rights belief, elucidates the deeply meaningful role of activism within a filigree of meaning, and concludes that the movement is facing schismatic forces not dissimilar to redemptive and religious movements.
