Reader Tips

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In 1851 Great Britain held The Great Exhibition in the massive, custom-built Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park to showcase its own achievements and those of its colonies. One hundred years later, the Brits celebrated their post- WWII resurgence by holding what was called the Festival of Britain. Here’s a short documentary film (in colour) made at the time to commemorate the event.
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26 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  2. Watching football today, I kept seeing promos for Superbowl XLV. And all that reminded me of was:
    Fireball XL-5 (filmed in Supermarionation, doncha know?), something I watched as a kid. It’s hard to remember much about the show, but I can’t forget the music…
    Theme From Fireball XL-5

  3. Via American Digest’s sidelines, here’s a fine essay by James Bowman about the, well, stupidity of The New York Times’ columnists – Paul Krugman, Tom Friedman, and the newest entrant in the assaninity sweepstakes, Nicholas D. Kristof.

  4. Hey, one of SDA commenter Abe Froman’s dry quips has been linked to by Maggie’s Farm, one of the best American blogs. Go here, and click on “Chomsky.”
    While you’re there, go here and scroll down to the Hurt Feelings Report form for a few laughs.

  5. The Islamic Republik of Britain has no use for the history of Britain. Mohammed is their history now – just ask the Indonesians, and Iranians, and Iraqis, and….
    History before Mohammed is taboo, history without Mohammed is meaningless, that’s Islam.

  6. So much for the “Helpless Palestinian’s”. You know the ones funded by everyone except Muslims?
    Well this is your bang for our tax bucks.
    Palestinians Behind Attacks On Christians
    Interior Minister Habib El-Adly said “conclusive evidence” showed that the shadowy, Gaza-based Palestinian Islamic Army was behind the planning and execution of the attack, which sparked three days of Christian rioting in Cairo and several other cities.
    http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/4647/Egypt/Politics-/Conclusive-evidence-shows-Palestinian-Islamic-Army.aspx

  7. This evening, completely out of the blue, I had the most amazing correspondence with one of the men who was largely responsible for the creation of the Olympic Rings in Vancouver a year ago. Most people never fully appreciated what a major technical achievement the creation and operation of those Rings was.
    On my blog I’ve published a photo he gave me, along with his accounting of what it took to bring the project to a successful completion.
    With so much crap that spews forth from politicians, academics, and the media these days, it’s nice to remember that some people are just focusing their brains on achieving great things … and succeeding!

  9. Sorry I didn’t catch the Festival of Britain but I spent most of 1951 in utero.
    I couldn’t help but notice that even then they had wind power. Who knew back then they would have scores of the damn things picketed off shore killing birds and posing more of a hazard to marine shipping than U-boats.

  10. AGW Progress Report.
    AGW is Number 1, aka # 1.
    >>> “OTTAWA — Good morning Ottawa. It’s the coldest day since records have been kept.”
    AGW is dead.
    But, don’t worry. We have another “crisis*” for youse.
    ”the great meddlers” = Our Enemy, The State.
    …-
    “Ottawa shattered a 41-year-old record Monday, when the temperature dipped to -28.6 C”
    “The bone-chilling -28.6 C temperature at 5 a.m., broke the previous record of -27.8 set in 1970.”
    http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Ottawa+deep+freeze+shatters+year+weather+record/4154626/story.html
    …-
    *’Nother “crisis”:
    “Terence Corcoran: How to feed a food crisis”
    “Members of the G20, the UN, the FAO, the EU, and other bastions of state planning and intervention – having misread the causes of the global financial meltdown and the associated U.S. mortgage crisis—now seem set to mastermind another misdirected venture. A global move is underway that would have the great meddlers tackle what they see as the next crisis: food.”
    http://opinion.financialpost.com/2011/01/21/terence-corcoran-how-to-feed-a-food-crisis/

  11. “Equality” Run Amok and Anti-Christian Bigotry: Here’s another fine article by Melanie Phillips:
    http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=792
    “. . . Penalising religious people for speaking and acting in accordance with their beliefs is neither liberal nor tolerant. It is behaviour more commonly associated with totalitarian dictatorships.
    “It must be said that many gay people are themselves uneasy or even appalled by this increasingly oppressive use of their cause. Privately, many will say that all they ever want is to live free from discrimination and not to provoke discrimination against others . . .
    “Many different groups are involved in promoting this crazy, upside-down world of the equality agenda. But the seemingly all-powerful gay rights lobby carries all before it. If it isn’t careful, it risks turning gay people from being the victims of prejudice into Britain’s new McCarthyites.”

  12. old Lori, above, “Let the battle of the ‘phobias’ begin.”
    This really puts the politically-correct-to-the-point-of-paralysis school system in a bind: two “protected groups” seem to be at odds here. What to do?
    As usual, I suspect the powers that be—who are paid very BIG BUCKS to do their jobs—will do nothing useful at all. They’ll blab on and on about no bullying and being tolerant, but real consequences? I don’t think so.
    These kids should have the book thrown at them. What they’re doing is assault, plain and simple. It should be called that—forget the “hate crime” ploy: swarming people and throwing chunks of ice at them is a serious crime, no matter who gets hit.
    Charge these criminals and don’t go easy on them. Remember Mayor Guiliani’s “Broken Windows” policy in NYC: use the law to hit hard for the first crime, and others are far less likely to happen. Our idiotic Young Offenders travesty takes the opposite approach—with the opposite result: petty criminals escalate their law breaking, feeling immune because the consequences are so puny and ineffective.
    Our society is so busy being “sensitive” to certain groups that hands are tied, even when all hell’s breaking loose. It’s time to call a spade a spade, no matter who’s the culprit (or the victim). Let’s have true equality, and justice, by meting out very serious and—yes: horrors!—unpleasant consequences to whomever breaks the law like the criminals in question here.

  15. FYI I’ve just updated the post about Private vs. Public Liquor Stores in BC. Tim Stockwell wrote me back. The difference in what he said in his e-mail was significantly different than what he said on the radio program. You can read it all here.

  20. Shades of the CBC: here’s former BBC anchorman Peter Sissons, writing in the Daily Mail:
    “For 20 years I was a front man at the BBC, anchoring news and current ­affairs programmes, so I reckon nobody is better placed than me to ­answer the question that nags at many of its viewers — is the BBC biased?
    “In my view, ‘bias’ is too blunt a word to describe the subtleties of the ­pervading culture. The better word is a ‘mindset’. At the core of the BBC, in its very DNA, is a way of thinking that is firmly of the Left.
    (…)
    “At any given time there is a BBC line on everything of importance, a line usually adopted in the light of which way its senior echelons believe the political wind is ­blowing. This line is rarely spelled out explicitly, but percolates subtly throughout the organisation. Whatever the United Nations is associated with is good — it is heresy to question any of its activities. The EU is also a good thing, but not quite as good as the UN. Soaking the rich is good, despite well-founded economic arguments that the more you tax, the less you get. And Government spending is a good thing, although most BBC ­people prefer to call it investment, in line with New Labour’s terminology.
    “All green and environmental groups are very good things. Al Gore is a saint. George Bush was a bad thing, and thick into the bargain. Obama was not just the Democratic Party’s candidate for the White House, he was the BBC’s. Blair was good, Brown bad, but the BBC has now lost interest in both. Trade unions are mostly good things, especially when they are fighting BBC managers. Quangos are also mostly good, and the reports they produce are usually handled uncritically. The Royal Family is a bore. Islam must not be offended at any price, although ­Christians are fair game because they do nothing about it if they are offended.”
    The following passage describes The National’s Ottawa coverage to a “T”:
    “The increasing ­tendency for the BBC to interview its own reporters on air exacerbates this mindset. Instead of ­concentrating on interviewing the leading players in a story or spreading the net wide for a range of views, these days the BBC frequently chooses to use the time getting the thoughts of its own correspondents. It is a format intended to help clarify the facts, but which often invites the expression of opinion.”

  23. The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) has filed an official complaint against the Kelowna RCMP and several members.
    The BCCLA alleges the RCMP members, including Cst. Geoff Mantler, who arrested Buddy Tavares on Friday, January 14, 2011 at KLO Road and Pandosy Street unlawfully used force to take the Kelowna man into custody.
    http://tinyurl.com/6yp6vbx

  24. EBD, re Peter Sissons’s comments about bias at the BBC, here’s what two Ryerson University professors, Marsha Barber and Ann Rauhala, found about the demographic and political leanings of Canada’s television news directors in the Canadian Journal of Communication in 2005:
    … the news directors, whom they describe as the people “with the most direct responsibility for programming the news on any given day,” were more politically and socially liberal than the rest of the Canadian population. Broken down by network, those working for the CBC were the most left-leaning. … [my emphasis]
    When the researchers turned their attention to television news alone they found that coverage by the CBC was most harsh against conservative positions. [my emphasis]
    Journalists, particularly those working for CBC TV, used omission, exaggeration or misrepresentation of information to present evangelicals and the positions they held in the worst possible light.
    Those of us on the Right are not making accusations of bias up when referring to the obvious leftard tilt in the news in the Canadian media.
    (And, BTW, Ryerson profs aren’t exactly known for their fondness for c/Conservatives.)

  25. Thanks, lookout, for the link to Steve Paikin’s interview with William Gairdner. It was sheer pleasure to hear Mr. Gairdner’s reasonable, sane, and passionate responses to the insanity of the consequences of Charter of Rights and Freedoms “equality.” As he points out, we’ve bankrupted our children’s and grandchildren’s futures for our own, petty, short-sighted indulgences and pleasures.

  26. Rob and batb, I’m glad you liked the Gairdner interview: he’s a national treasure–unknown, of course, to most Canadians, just the way the MSM and other lefty elites like it.

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