Kind of strange subject matter for CHRISTmas Eve, but I’ll blame it on SeeDubya over at Junk Yard Blog, ’cause his post on the beginning of the air campaign in the Ethiopia/Somalia War made me want to go and find pics of the Lancer B1-B long range bomber.

Mercy, this is one beautiful-lethal aircraft. I still remember seeing one up close and personal at Edwards Air Force Base when our design group at the Art Center College of Design was invited to come out for a day — that was over 20 years ago!

The last of the long-range bombers that will ever look like a conventional airplane, and as stealthy as it was for its time, the B2 beats it all over the radar screen and back in that regard, and is the future of the big war birds from now on.

Still in use, carrying heavy payloads of justice from the heavens to our enemies abroad, one could just imagine a flock of these babies taking out the Iranian nuclear threat in short order — after the stealths had destroyed the radars of course.

Kinda like this — and let’s hope that they have a “special” warm welcome for ol’ Mahmoud if/when that ever happens. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving guy! See large versions of these images here. It’s worth the visit just to view the subtle beauty of the fuselage form.

Coming back to the Ethiopians, as ol’ SeeDubya notes, they might just have a secret weapon at their disposal . . . Cool! (db)

Technorati Tags: Ethiopia, Somalia, Lancer B1-B

A 14-year-old Christian girl in Nigeria walks into a mosque in Izom in Gawu Babangida Local Government Area of Niger State. There she drops some literature that is critical of the prophet Mohammed and of Jesus Christ. Admittedly, not a smart move, but — it’s a 14-year-old girl.

Some of the mosque’s radical congregants followed and arrested her, handing her over to the police for breaking Islamlic laws against making derogatory comments like those mentioned. She is taken to the police station.

A mob overruns the police station, takes her out and stones her to death!

The police do absolutely nothing little to stop them or to save her life.

Such is justice under Islamic Law. Such is life under the guidance of the “Religion of Peace”.

Michelle Malkin has the whole story and more commentary. Her most telling remark?

I am waiting for the human rights crowd to express its utter disgust over such barbaric religious persecution and am so sure we will hear feminist outrage over this young woman’s senseless brutal lynching.

That’s sarcasm, in case you didn’t get it. No feminist spokeswoman will ever speak out against the Islamists, “We have to respect other cultures, we can’t make value judgments”, don’t you know? Guess they are looking forward to the salad-days of burkas, clitorectomies, beatings, honor killings, et al that would accompany an Islamic-law ruled US.

BTW — Here is a feminist’s take on clitorectomy, from Feministing blog.

Genital “mutilation” is a very misunderstood practice, and I feel like people in the United States and other “1st world” countries judge it simply on the basis that Africans are performing it. My Women’s Studies teacher is part of a tribe in Africa that performs clitorectomies as a coming-of-age ceremony, as the article said, but rarely do these women have problems later, and it’s not like they’re picking up the first broken glass bottle they see and having a man slash them. Clitorectomies in many African countries are important cultural practices that are carried out with rituals and ceremonies embedded in the culture. Oh, and these are women-only ceremonies, therefore a lot of times it is empowering, not demeaning, and definitely not mutilation. If you want to talk about when men perform genital mutilation on women outside of the cultural norms, I’m fine. But to support an article that purports assumptions and biases as fact in a feminist blog is unacceptable to me. We need to be more accepting of all our sisters and their different practices.

I think that she hit all the multi-cultural talking points that she learned at the University. No, nothing wrong with someone hacking away a woman’s clitorus, scraping away the labia, and sewing up the vaginal opening to the size of a pea. In fact, maybe ywtf_feminist would just love to have that done to her — a real bonding ritual with her sisters in Africa. Wouldn’t need that Pleasure-Vibe-5000 anymore, either! Geez! At least the majority of the comments were anti- clitorectomy.

Like I keep saying — Be careful where you send your kids to school. The nutters are out there in-mass and filling their heads with dangerous crap! (db)

I’m disgusted! Think I’ll say prayers for the girl and her family and then go take a shower . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Nigeria, Izom, Stoning, Jumat Mosque, Michelle Malkin

ONITSHA, Nigeria (Reuters) – Christian youths burned the corpses of Muslims on Thursday on the streets of Onitsha in southeastern Nigeria, the city worst hit by religious riots that have killed at least 146 people across the country in five days.

Christian mobs, seeking revenge for the killings of Christians in the north, attacked Muslims with machetes, set fire to them, destroyed their houses and torched mosques in two days of violence in Onitsha, where 93 people died.

“We are very happy that this thing is happening so that the north will learn their lesson,” said Anthony Umai, a motorcycle taxi rider, standing close to where Christian youths had piled up the corpses of 10 Muslims and were burning them.
(…)
Nigeria’s 140 million people are divided about equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south, but sizeable religious minorities live in both regions.

Thousands of people have been killed in religious violence since the restoration of democracy in 1999. Killings in one part of the country often spark reprisals elsewhere.

The firefights are cropping up all over the globe — really makes you wonder . . . (db)

Technorati Tags: Nigeria, Christian/Muslim violence, Africa, Culture War