Recent Comments

1. about 14 hours ago on Over the Hedge

   Back when I was a student pilot in Washington State in the late 90s, I was once out flying some solo practice manoeuvres in my Cessna. I looked out of my side window and saw a bald eagle gliding alongside my plane, perhaps fifteen feet away. He was clearly watching me, and the expression on his face looked pretty much like “Ruddy amateur”. A few seconds later he peeled away and went about his business, but that was one of my most memorable flying experiences. Magnificent bird.

2. about 14 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Well, being a suave British guy, I don’t have a problem.

3. about 14 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   Burke and Hare were only unusual in killing people for their corpses. Quite a lot of others were involved in grave-robbing, because there was such a demand from the medical profession and there were just not enough hanged corpses available.

   The religious taboos around touching or cutting open the dead were a major barrier to medical science.

   The use of dead bodies was essential in studying anatomy, and it was only through this study that surgery moved away from the ancient Greek theories (often based only on animal anatomy) that bore little resemblance to the reality.

   PBS did a very good series on the History of Surgery a while back that covered this issue in some detail.

4. about 14 hours ago on Dick Tracy

   What on earth did they want the body for? It’s not as if anybody needs to steal bodies for medical research these days.

5. about 14 hours ago on Doonesbury

   There are arrangements to ensure that the Speaker’s constituency gets proper attention and representation in the House.

   Incidentally, back in the 1980s I had the honour of meeting and having lunch with George Thomas when he came to preach for our local churches in Dorset. He was very smart, encouraging, and an excellent conversationalist. At the time I was a (young) Steward of the local Methodist Church (now closed) who acted as hosts to him. This was after his time as Speaker of the House of Commons, and we didn’t really talk about his role there. He probably became the most famous Speaker of the 20th century, because it was during his time that audio recording and radio broadcasts of the proceedings of the House began, so almost everyone in the country heard him say “Order, Order” on the radio each morning, along with his often witty or incisive remarks from the Speaker’s chair.

   Yes I’m aware that his personal life had a darker side, including being blackmailed over his homosexuality and an accusation of child abuse, but that stuff all emerged years after his death.

6. 1 day ago on Doonesbury

   The appointed-for-life House of Lords has a number of advantages that are often missed. None of them have to worry about being re-elected (not uncommon in “upper houses” around the world), so don’t have to waste time and money on campaigning or bowing to vested interests. They don’t get a salary, only get paid when they actually attend. Appointment also means they have a LOT of “subject matter experts” on a great many things, and those folks can be extremely incisive when examining witnesses before their select committees. When the committee includes captains of industry, senior academics, scientists and healthcare professionals, a CEO under investigation can’t blindside them with nonsense. As such, a House of Lords enquiry is much more scary than a US Senate investigation where the senators can only ask questions that their staff prepare for them and rarely really understand the issues in enough depth. Procedurally the House of Lords is fairly toothless and the House of Commons can force anything through eventually, but they exercise soft power through expertise, real-world experience, and reputation. They also deal with a lot of trivial business (such as cancelling ancient laws that are no longer useful) which would waste time for the Commons.

7. 3 days ago on Doonesbury

   By the way, “the whole nine yards” refers to the length of fabric to make a Scottish Kilt. Zonker obviously doesn’t realise that it makes no sense in meters.

   The British themselves rarely use the term Beefeater these days.

   The name Beefeater is of uncertain origin, with various proposed derivations. The term was common as early as the 17th century as a slang term for the English in general. The French used to refer to the British as the “rosbifs”, and not in a kindly way.

   The earliest connection to the Royal Household came as a reference to the Yeomen of the Guard by Cosimo III de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, who visited the Court in 1669. In referring to the Yeomen of the Guard, he stated, “A very large ration of beef is given to them daily at the court, and they might be called Beef-eaters”.

   The Beefeater name was carried over to the Yeomen Warders, due to the two corps’ outward similarities and the Yeoman Warders’ more public presence. Beefeaters also commonly produced and consumed broths made of beef, which were described as rich and hearty. These broths were known, at the time, as bef or beffy.

   Although the Yeomen Warders are often mistakenly referred to as Yeomen of the Guard, a distinct corps of Royal Bodyguards of the British monarch, the Yeomen Warders are in fact a separate entity.

8. 3 days ago on Pearls Before Swine

   “In European culture at that time, only the nobility had “rights” that were protected and those only with the approval of the monarchy.”

   That’s not actually true for all of Europe. In England, everyone had SOME rights derived from Magna Carta, which is still the foundation of both British and American law today, and the monarch was both subject to the law and heavily constrained by Parliament.

   Also, slavery was never legalised in England. The British abolition of slavery was always about freeing the slaves in the colonies; there were none in England. Of course a lot of the English poor lived in pretty terrible conditions, but they had the basic right to “life and limb” which slaves in America and elsewhere never had.

9. 3 days ago on Dick Tracy

   I suspect this guy might become a new recurring villain in the strip after he breaks out or is broken out be somebody else. It would give the writer(s) the opportunity for some fanatic WW2-sabotage type stories in a modern setting. That was a mainstay during the war years, and still could have some mileage in it.

10. 6 days ago on Dick Tracy

    Perhaps it’s like the Broadmoor Hospital in the UK (look it up).