Early Risers.

[Ozexpatriate]

21 minutes ago, Hroth said:

Before heavier then air flight there were airships, rigid, semi rigid and non-rigid. 

The LZ-1 Zeppelin first flew in 1900. The concept was patented in Germany in 1895. I don't know whether the term "hangar" was used for the factory at Friedrichshafen.

 

British airships built by Stanley Spencer first flew in 1902.

 

Much of the early development was concurrent - both the rigid airships and flying machines needed the same high power to weight internal combustion engines to be effective. It seems unlikely the term 'hangar' (which is French) was adopted for airships before aeroplanes.  I can easily see them both using the term at the same time.

 

French and American experiments focused on aeroplanes, the Germans on airships. Britain did both. Germany entered the Great War with aircraft from Royal Dutch Fokker - not established until 1912.

 

[monkeysarefun]

24 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Some episodes in the first series of “Bluey” got through the Australian tv standards but were removed before showing on he Disney + channel. Some were edited by the BBC too. All,are broadcast now, no censoring. Not sure if the term “dingleberries “ survived though.

 

One shows dad Heeler standing on scales in the bathroom and saying s "Oh man, I need to do some exercise". THis was criticised for being "Fat Shaming" in the US and was cut out.

 

Another one shows Bluey and her friend admiring a pony. The pony drops a pile of poo and they run screaming and laughing . THat was cut by Disney censors.

 

Another one shows Dad Heeler pretending to give birth to his youngest daughter. Childbirth scenes were considered to not meet Disney standards of acceptability and the episod was not shown.

 

One has one of the characters using the term "Ooga Booga". THis was considered to be potentially racially derogative to somebody and it was overdubbed.

 

All banned in a country that sees it perfectly not abnormal in any way to put kids through Active Shooter drills in schools.

Edited April 28 by monkeysarefun

[polybear]

Bear here.....

 

Off to Kings X this afternoon to collect the unsold Vintage Charity Stuff from the event at Coal Drops Yard; we had to wait 90 minutes before we were allowed in (it seems elf n' sayftee) have a "thing" about Vans & The Public not mixing....) before we could start loading.  We also discovered we couldn't load from the same place we unloaded from yesterday (E & S again 😒) but had to 'ump everything a couple of hundred yards - after taking the 6ft roller cages up in a public lift first....

Oh yes, and the two rails full of clothing would've been too long to go in the lift - so they had to be 'umped up two flights of stairs.  Double Poo.

Has it all been worth it?  Well gronkits have been made, but nothing like previous years it seems - the weather has been pretty carp all weekend (at least it was sunny this afternoon) so that didn't do any favours.  Oh well.

 

The good news is the weather will apparently be reasonable over Bear Towers tomorrow, so with any luck I should get the exhaust system refitted to Harry the Honda; after that all I'll need to do is fit the new battery & fuel tank, bung some motion lotion in then see if Harry wants to start after being in hibernation for over 20 years.....

 

Bear gone.

 

[Ozexpatriate]

3 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

All banned in a country that sees it perfectly not abnormal in any way to have Active Shooter drills in schools.

Let's not conflate Disney* policy, FCC requirements for Children's television and gun violence. 

 

* They have problems enough with their own catalogue - like "Song of the South". They are redoing the "Splash Mountain" log rides at their parks because they are related to "Song of the South".

 

You will find that a substantial portion of the US population sees nothing "normal" about the perceived need for Active Shooter drills. Had PM Howard not implemented the buy-back, by now you'd probably have active shooter drills in Australian schools too.

[Coombe Barton]

... See that Liz Truss’ book is receiving the expected plaudits and sales. One can compare it to the Titanic in that was also beaten by an Iceberg. ...

https://johncolby.wordpress.com/2024/04/28/finally-written-the-handover-lecture-election-maybes/

[PhilJ W]

Goodnight all.

[Tony_S]

25 minutes ago, Coombe Barton said:

that was also beaten by an Iceberg. .

And to think she had been worried about Romainers…

[Winslow Boy]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

I didn’t know about those, I thought they all came from Halewood in Liverpool. 

No no no your getting mixed up. It's the crevices of Halewood. People often do I'm afraid but it's really quite simple to tell them apart. Just yell 'Give us a job' and if nothing happens then your in Halewood but if you hear a voice shouting back - Buqqer off you £&#&£@ (censored due to fact that this is being read by persons born on the west coast)

[Ohmisterporter]

I took Kath to hospital today as she is having a biopsy on one of the gliomas in her brain. Sometimes the consultant spoke about performing it on the right side of the brain; next thing he is saying the left side. Let us hope he makes his mind up before operating tomorrow. Meanwhile the scars from the removal of her adrenal gland tumour are healing nicely. As the wound was joined together with superglue rather than stitches there has been reduced discomfort in that area. Trying to stay positive here.

Stay safe all.

[Tony_S]

6 minutes ago, Winslow Boy said:

No no no your getting mixed up. It's the crevices of Halewood. People often do I'm afraid but it's really quite simple to tell them apart. Just yell 'Give us a job' and if nothing happens then your in Halewood but if you hear a voice shouting back - Buqqer off you £&#&£@ (censored due to fact that this is being read by persons born on the west coast)

My last three cars were built in Halewood. I don’t think they were pining for the Fords though. 

[Andy Hayter]

1 hour ago, Hroth said:

 

 

Before heavier then air flight there were airships, rigid, semi rigid and non-rigid. 

 

 

 

and before that hot air balloons - from 1782.   

 

But to end the speculation, nothing to do with planes, flight or even flights of fancy :

 

Du vieux-francique haimgard (« clôture autour de la maison »), composé de haim (« hameau ») et de gard (« jardin, enclos »). La chute du d final est due à une fausse étymologie gréco-latine soutenue par les grammairiens français des XVIIIe et XIXe siècles.

 

So derived from Haim - home/hamlet and gard - enclosure or garden

[Dave Hunt]

12 hours ago, Hroth said:

 

Every landing you walk away from is a successful "Ohhhh sh!!!!tt"....

 

 

A good landing is one you walk away from. A really good landing is one when the aeroplane can be flown again.

 

Dave

[BoD]

3 hours ago, Tony_S said:

I don’t ever really wear bright colours, I am definately drawn to the drab spectrum. 

Terry Wogan Beige?

[Dave Hunt]

2 hours ago, Hroth said:

They were stored in large sheds to protect them from wind and rain and when semi inflated, would hang from the roofing struts.  Perhaps this might be where the term "hangers" as a storage shed for aeroplanes came from?

 

I shouldn't think so. Hangers are what you put your clothes on; hangars are where aeroplanes are housed.

 

Dave

[Captain Cuttle]

49 minutes ago, BoD said:

drawn to the drab spectrum. 

You are a John Major fan then?

[monkeysarefun]

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Let's not conflate Disney* policy, FCC requirements for Children's television and gun violence. 

 

 

 

Fair call, however despite whatever FCC requirements exist,  American popular culture of which Disney is a major component has certainly been allowed to play its part in normalising and even glamourising gun violence, whether its some 1950's cowboy and Indian TV show through to   a typical Gangsta Rap ode to popping a cap in someone.

 

One example does spring to mind - I recall seeing "Kindergarten Cop" on release back in the day (1990-ish?) which was sold as a lighthearted screwball comedy about a police detective who goes undercover in a primary school in order to catch a drug baron, from memory. The climactic scene graphically  shows the drug baron being shot dead in the school boys toilet , which I remember at the time thinking "How the $$*%#  is that a  scene thought suitable to put into a comedy movie?" even if it was classified  appropriately.

 

Now if I was to go on Mastermind, my special subject would not be "US School  Shootings" so correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of many school shootings in the US up to that point other than Kent State University, so  having a comedy with a scene depicting  someone being shot dead in a school several years before Columbine (the first shooting that got mass coverage here) seems a bit disturbing to say the least.

 

In 1990 I'm pretty sure  I could still go into our local Kmart and buy a rifle off the shelf (albeit a low calibre low velocity rifle suitable for rabbit shooting) - I definitely remember them being racked up in the sporting goods section in the mid-1980's  -  but I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that despite that no comedy or any  other genre  movie made  here in those lax gun laws times incorporated a scene showing someone being shot dead in a school. There definitely wasn't such a depiction in any of the Mad Max's, for instance, let alone "Picnic At Hanging Rock" even though like "Kindergarten Cop",  that was set in a school.

 

3 hours ago, Ozexpatriate said:

Had PM Howard not implemented the buy-back, by now you'd probably have active shooter drills in Australian schools too.

 

There must be a PHD waiting on why Australia and the US, although both sharing many historic similarities  - both large frontier countries populated by an Indigenous people who were mercilessly subjugated, both with settlements springing up far from existing civilisation due to gold discoveries or opening up of new lands to farmers and graziers, and both with a "macho" outdoorsy self-reliant self-image among a large part of the population do not share the same gun violence path. 

 

Australia did have outlaws, mainly the bushrangers (essentially Highwaymen for any UK readers!) who would rob stages, government mail coaches and remote farms at the point of a gun, however despite  our  convict settlement beginnings we did not have the same gun culture as depicted in early US frontier accounts.

 

Other than the  Eureka Stockade, where gold miners rose up in protest against the imposition of mining license and opened fire on government forces sent to quell the uprising, I can't think of any other use of firearms here on the scale apparent in the US "wild west". (Hideous massacres of the local indigenous folk  - often on the order of the British Government aside...) 

 

 Perhaps its due to  the judicial system in both countries? In Australia policing was by government police and troopers, centrally controlled by the government, with a system of government assigned magistrates in major centres who would try all criminal cases from both  the  local and more far-flung areas. Capital sentences were carried out in the major country centre like Bathurst, rather than locally where the crime was committed, and sentences could be appealed.

 

In contrast if my studies of US frontier justice, based on watching many a Saturday morning  western when young are correct, US frontier law enforcement seems to be based on locally elected "sheriffs" and judges, many untrained who would often organise  an armed  possie of locals or bounty hunters to capture alleged suspects. Justice was localised and swift and there was no central authority to oversee the sentence or to be appealed to.( Maybe I'm wrong? ).

Its understandable that  this would lead to a culture of gun violence as those with no faith in the  justice system, as well as those seeking to exploit its shortcomings used guns to sort it out.

 

Following the gun buyback in 1997 there were 3.2 million guns in Australia. As of 2019 there were 3.5 million guns, so despite many a MAGA enthusiast claiming the Australians gave up their guns, there are actually MORE guns in the community now than when the Port Arthur buyback scheme was implemented. Despite that we have not had a single mass shooting (apart from one  tragic murder-suicide). 

 

The fact that as well as the buyback, the 1997 reforms implemented strict background checks,   the requirement to have a valid reason for owning a gun (which does not include self-defence), the registration of all gun-owners, who are subject to annual police inspections of their gun storage facilities (must be kept unloaded  in a locked metal cabinet, ammunition stored separately elsewhere) , as well as a ban on certain gun-types including semi-automatics, large capacity magazines etc, shows that many of the reforms called for by the sane part of the US population do work, and the gun enthusiasts don't need to disarm.

Edited April 28 by monkeysarefun

[pH]

53 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

… correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm not aware of many school shootings in the US up to that point other than Kent State University …

There was a major one at the University of Texas in 1966;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting

 

which was the deadliest school shooting in the US for more than 40 years after that. 

[monkeysarefun]

12 minutes ago, pH said:

There was a major one at the University of Texas in 1966;

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Texas_tower_shooting

 

which was the deadliest school shooting in the US for more than 40 years after that. 

 

 

 

Oh thanks, that was the one I was thinking of when I mentioned Kent State - I obviously got my US university shootings mixed up!

[pH]

History of school shootings in the US from 1840 (!) on:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

[monkeysarefun]

28 minutes ago, pH said:

History of school shootings in the US from 1840 (!) on:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States

It turns out we had our first incident here last year, though no one was injured and the 15 year old stopped after firing three shots using a .22, then phoned the police to report himself.

 

https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/perth-school-shooter-awaits-sentencing-for-australian-first-crime-20240223-p5f7bh.html

Edited April 29 by monkeysarefun

[jjb1970]

Gun violence in the US is way beyond my competence and it baffles me. I am sure that the are psychologists, behavioural scientists etc who can explain it but to me it is inexplicable.  I do think there is a compelling case that ease of access to firearms is a factor, but it's not that simple as there are other countries with lots of firearms in circulation which have nothing like the same level of gun crime. Tragic.

[enz]

1 hour ago, monkeysarefun said:

There must be a PHD waiting on why Australia and the US, although both sharing many historic similarities  - both large frontier countries populated by an Indigenous people who were mercilessly subjugated, both with settlements springing up far from existing civilisation due to gold discoveries or opening up of new lands to farmers and graziers, and both with a "macho" outdoorsy self-reliant self-image among a large part of the population do not share the same gun violence path. 

 

But there is (at least) one big difference: Australia didn't have a revolution to kick the British Crown out. USA did, and it was the availability of guns that enabled it, so my hypothesis (well, suggestion really as I don't know what I'm writing about) is that the gun became associated with "liberty" and "individual authority". It's an icon and a symbol that the state can't make me do what it wants as much as a tool, whereas in us colonies it's a tool for hunting or target shooting. And as an icon, my gun is almost a sacred object and it won't hurt me - it's all the other guns that will

 

Two things come to mind: I suspect an importation of USA culture is leading to an increase in gun murders here in NZ where we have some people getting a gun and wanting to use it in order to get a "macho" image to themselves and their mates, so we may be on the edge of a horrible slide; and down here the nearest equivalent is knife murders, but they kill less because using a knife requires a lot more physical effort.

[Ozexpatriate]

3 hours ago, monkeysarefun said:

I'm not aware of many school shootings in the US up to that point other than Kent State University

Kent State was perpetrated by the Ohio National Guard in 1970. They shot Vietnam war protestors. There is a big movement right now on campuses nationwide to hold 'camp-ins'* to protest the actions of the State of Israel in Gaza.

 

* To co-opt a 60's term.

 

The first big mass school shooting was the University of Texas "tower" shooting in 1966, where someone took a rifle (an M1 Carbine*) to the top of the clock tower on the UT campus in Austin, Texas. He killed 15.

 

* Standard US military issue during WWII and the Korean War.

 

Oops - I see @pH posted this first:

2 hours ago, pH said:

There was a major one at the University of Texas in 1966;

 

 

Edited April 29 by Ozexpatriate

[Ozexpatriate]

1 hour ago, jjb1970 said:

... there are other countries with lots of firearms in circulation which have nothing like the same level of gun crime.

It happens in those countries too. The US has a large population and many more reported incidents - but there is a very high relative per capita rate in the US.

 

The majority (54%) of gun deaths in the US are suicides.

 

Different sources will give you different rates. In one the US is the 28th in gun violence fatalities per 100,000.

 

In this Wikipedia page, the US is 21st by gun homicides per 100,000 (4.05). To offer a random observation, in 2021, Bermuda was higher (4.67).

[Ozexpatriate]

47 minutes ago, enz said:

... here in NZ where we have some people getting a gun and wanting to use it in order to get a "macho" image to themselves and their mates, so we may be on the edge of a horrible slide; 

Not wanting to be nasty, but let's not forget the Christchurch mosque shooting in 2019 - 51 were murdered.

 

It is important to remember these things - even if they are horrible.

 

47 minutes ago, enz said:

But there is (at least) one big difference: Australia didn't have a revolution to kick the British Crown out. USA did, and it was the availability of guns that enabled it, so my hypothesis (well, suggestion really as I don't know what I'm writing about) is that the gun became associated with "liberty" and "individual authority".

There's a lot to unpack there (what you say is a nice summary of what many people believe) - but I'll give it a go and try to be brief. I have spent a lot of time pondering the US proclivity for "guns and God".  I did a lot of reading - focused on the colonial period until the penny dropped.

 

First of all you have to absorb the 17th century in England and 'her' colonies. This was the 'formative' period of the 13 colonies. It happened against a backdrop of the English Civil War - and religiosity in the US is directly related to this period.

 

Where modern Britain might have evolved (in some ways), the colonies were a time capsule for many things - like the use of "Fall" for "Autumn". (It's totally English.) English citizens in the Colonies held onto a lot of 17th century ideas - like the English Bill of Rights (William and Mary / Glorious Revolution - 1688 etc) where I quote:

Quote

That the subjects which are Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;

 

The Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States (enacted barely a century after the English Bill of Rights) is directly related to this "right' of Englishmen.

 

Over the years much revisionist history has evolved over the revolution. What is forgotten is that the French Royal Navy (Ancien régime) essentially won the revolution*. (They would later lose the wider revolutionary war to the RN in places like the Caribbean and Indian Ocean.)

 

* Happy to expound on this thesis to any who are interested - it's a bit of a soapbox, so I'll spare you.

 

In it's place the myth of the citizen soldier taking arms and winning against the world's superpower has overtaken the reality that the war in North America was won by France (and lost globally).