Gives “Heroes on a half shell,” a new meaning.
Category: Photographs
Goodness, Gracious, Great Balls of Fire!
Please, Supply a Caption for this Photograph
Obama at a White House event promoting the Chicago 2016 Olympics bid.
He’s having some fun with Olympic fencers.
Russia Sustains High-Speed Propulsion Effort
Russia is funding hypersonic research (paid subscription required) involving ram/scram jets and pulse detonation engines (PDE).
Russia actually has some history here, having done extensive with the KH-90 Mach 5 cruise missile (NATO designation AS-19 Koala, bottom pic, and video [in Russian] below) which was dropped as a result of START II restrictions.
Upgraded Hubble Pix Releases
What is Rahm Saying?
Rahm talking to the ‘Phants following Obama’s speech.
I think that he may be discussing the outburst.
H/t Neophyte at the Stellar Parthenon BBS for the pics.
Not Sure About This
Is this cool, or evidence of a Mac user with way too much free time?
Is it Just Me, or Is this Picture Just Plain Creepy?
It’s from the Republican convention, and there is just something wrong about this picture, but I am not sure what.
Maybe it’s seeing it juxtaposed with his Vanity Fair interview, which is rather unflattering to Palin, or maybe it’s something else, but my “cockroach sense is tingling”.
Pics courtesy Talking Points Memo.
Beer Fire Extinguisher, With Instructions
Hovercat
Yes, This Photo Needs to be Published
On the right is a photo of Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard, 21, of New Portland, Maine, in happier times.
Below is a photo of him dying, after being struck by an RPG in Afghanistan.
Secretary of Defense of Robert Gates tried to strong arm the Associated press into not distributing the photograph.
It is Secretary Gates behavior, and not that of the Associated Press which is repulsive.
In Bob Gates world, or for that matter, in George W. Bush’s world, there must be no reporting of the realities of war.
Robert Capa War PhotosFollowing the Vietnam War, the defense establishment concluded that the only way to deal with bad press is to muzzle the press, hence the press restrictions in Grenada, the Gulf War, the invasions of Afghanistan, and Iraq.
In there world, there is no Bob Capa, documenting, and honoring soldiers at (top to bottom) Omaha Beach, or the Spanish civil War, of the invasion of France in 1940 (I think).
Far from being decision “appalling” and a breach of “common decency,” as secretary Gates suggests, these pictures reveal the sacrifices of our fighting men, and honor them.
People like Bob Gates want to bury this sacrifice, because in showing it for all to see, it will sometimes raise questions about whether that sacrifice is truly justified, and that is not acceptable in the minds of the old men who send the young men to die.
In addition to being a craven way to think, as it implies an unwillingness to support one’s own ideas, it is a slap in the face of the idea that it is civilians who decide when and where we fight, and when it is no longer worth it for us to fight.
This is about REMFs covering their own flabby, generally lily-white, asses.
Lance Corporal Bernard Doing Honor to Himself and the CorpsFriday Cat Blogging, and the Kitchen Sink
Dick Cheney Emerges from his Lazurus Pit to Hunt his Favorite Prey, Humans*
It’s a Batman reference, BTW.
*I claim no credit for either the photo or the bon mot. The photo is from Wall Street Jackass, and the funny line is from Cthulhu.†
†No, not the unspeakably malevolent super-being, the contributor to the Shortskoolbus BBS.‡
‡OK, I’ve never seen the two of them together, so Cthulhu might actually be the Cthulhu, but the mere fact that he is on a BBS, interacting with humans§ would seem to mitigate against this.
§
Friday Cat Blogging, Evil Edition
One of Those Days
Funny, Because That’s What 99.99% of Linux Admins Will Never See…*
So, I came across a body art gallery, and this picture elicited the above response from an online friend.
You can find the picture, along with a lot of neat body art pix, which include nipples, here.
*This bon mot is not mine, and I claim no credit for it.
Paul Krugman Cheese Cake Photo
Yeah, I know, the life of Nobel Prize winners is so glamorous.
And now, rest of the story.
Deep Thought
I need a screen cleaner.
Bad Day at the Office
Thankfully, there were no reports of serious injury:
The description of the accident sounds like a “ground loop”.
Not Photoshopped
And now, as the saying goes, the rest of the story:
The kicker is that there is no plaque, so you don’t get the sculpure unless you are in the right place by accident.