I Shot a Rocket Into The Air

During the cremation is no time to find out that the deceased has a rocket lodged in him.

Wheelie Church

The Cathedral of St Dominic in Fuzhou, China has been placed on wheels to allow it to be rotated 90 degrees.

This is either a tremendous feat of engineering or the prelude to the most incredible piece of shoplifting in history.

Kreegah! Tantor Jonseing!

A Chinese elephant has been weaned off of a nasty heroin addiction.

And I thought Amsterdam was bad.

Suitcase Bike

The suitcase bike; if this is supposed to be the answer to getting through airports and railway stations, then I'm just riding the bloody thing to my destination and be done with it.

Panda Power

What's with the panda in the garden, David?

Well, I heard they were really good at predicting earthquakes and... Okay, maybe it wasn't that great an idea.

Canton Chunder

Another sign of Communist China's rush to modernisation: Nightclub vomatoriums.

Caligula was unavailable for comment

Mao Mystery

French car maker Citroen has apologised for an advert featuring Mao Tse Tung after complaints that it was an "insult."

Would someone please explain to me why insulting the memory of a vicious tyrant who was the greatest mass murderer in history is anything for any sane person to apologise for.

The Moose and Mao

What do Norwegian moose and Chinamen* have in common? By the logic of the Chinese Communists, who regard their subjects as more pawns than people, they are both the cause of global warming and must be eradicated at all costs.

As for Chinese moose, I say we take off and nuke the entire site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

*Yes, I know this is politically incorrect, but since I am un-PC and vehemently opposed to Newspeak in all its forms, I prefer to side with proper grammar and unambiguity.

Well, That Makes... WHAT?!?

From Newsweek:

In one of history's more absurd acts of totalitarianism, China has banned Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is "an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation."

And I thought needing a building permit for a garden shed was going too far.

Nature News

Slashdot headline:

Baiji River Dolphin May or May Not Be Extinct

Let's not go out on a limb here, guys.

Never Bring a Catapult to a Crocodile Fight

A nine-year old Chinese boy and his friends climbed into a crocodile pit and taunted the reptiles with sticks and a catapult. Guess how it ended.

Yup.

The Kowtow

Britain and France had to choose between war and dishonour. They chose dishonour. They will have war.

Winston Churchill on the Munich Agreement, 1938

John Derbyshire looks at the easily-wrought "confessions" of the kidnapped Royal Navy sailors and marines and compares them to Private John Moyse.

Who? Unless you're up on your history of the Anglo-French expedition to Peking in 1860 you may need this reminder:

How on earth can Britons behave like that? A previous generation would not have done so. I knew the women of my mother’s generation pretty well (Mum was born in 1912), and I am certain that any one of them, given that headscarf and told to put it on, would have said: “You can hang me with it if you like, but I’ll be damned if I’ll wear the filthy thing.” The men likewise. What on earth has happened to the British? Where is John Moyse?

Well, he is of course on Wikipedia. Who isn’t? To spare you the trouble of reading all through, Moyse was a British soldier of the East Kent Regiment, nick-named “The Buffs” on account of their 17th-century uniforms, which prominently featured that color. Moyse was captured by the Chinese during the Second Opium War of the late 1850s. Taken before a Mandarin, he was ordered to kowtow, but refused. He was thereupon clubbed to death and decapitated, and his body thrown on a dung-heap. Sir Francis Doyle wrote a poem to celebrate Moyse’s defiance of the enemy. You can read the poem here.

Sir Harry Flashman had his own take on it based on his "eye witness" account:

That was how it happened-- The stories that he laughed in defiance, or made a speech about not bowing his head to any heathen, or recited a prayer, or even that he died drunk-- they're false. I'd say he was taken flat aback at the mere notion of kow-towing, and when it sank in, he wasn't having it, not if it cost him his life. You may ask, was he a hero or just a fool, and I'll not answer-- For I know this much, that each man has his price, and his was higher than yours or mine. That's all. I know one other thing-- whenever I hear someone say Proud as Lucifer, I think, no, proud as Private Moyes.

Derbyshire is a bit harsh on the captives; they are, after all, operating under standing orders and it's a bit much to judge another man in a tight situation when you aren't in his shoes, but the fact that a group of modern Britons acquiesced so quickly to the Iranian equivalent of the kowtow when their grandparents would have said "f*** you" and damn the consequences is painfully telling-- not so much on the seamen, but on a time where such humiliation is accepted by Britons and their government without so much as a shrug. However, such indifference in the face of tyranny cannot go for long without a heavy price.

Today, the white feather carries no stigma; no able-bodied man squirms with shame at the knowledge that he stays safe at home while a woman goes to war and risks captivity, death or worse in his place; and the words Ἢ τὰν ἢ ἐπὶ τᾶς are meaningless in more than their Greek, but that will have to change in the years to come unless we want to end up paraphrasing Churchill to our cost.

Headline of the Day

From the AP:

Chinese to Turn Panda Poop into Paper

Given some of things I've been reading, I thought publishers had been printing on it for years.

Year of the Dhimmi

Dhimmitude has even penetrated the Celestial Kingdom. It may be the year of the pig, but you wouldn't know it in China, where references to porcine individuals are being removed to avoid offending Muslims.

It's always easier to sink than to swim, isn't it?

Update: The Sydney Morning Herald confirms.

China Destroys Satellite in Weapons Test

Nothing to worry about here. Nope. Nothing at all. Business as usual. Move along. Nothing to see.

Update: Defense Tech has a roundup on the subject.