The Royal Australian Navy recently commissioned a new vessel, and a dance troupe was brought in to deliver a touch of colour and movement to the proceedings.

Navy. So, the dance looked a little something like this?

Not quite. The 101 Doll Squadron

have a more, well, contemporary style.

Sufficient WTF there. But then Australia’s Bulldusting Crackheads took it that one step further.

We are very disappointed at the ABC’s deceptive editing of their video piece which cut to guests and dignitaries who were not in attendance and shooting from angles which could not be seen by the audience.

Technical problems, no doubt, but In a statement, the ABC apologised and said it had updated its footage to reflect the fact that the governor general and chief of navy were not in attendance for the dance routine.

Still, I’d like to know who WAS there to witness the 101 Doll Squadron’s performance. I mean, don’t we have a few perfectly choreographed military lads of our own?

“Mum, Dad, I want to be a girl.”
“David! That’s wonderful news! We’re so proud of you!”
“And I want to stay up all night watching tv and eating ice cream.”
“Really? Newsflash, junior. Seven year olds don’t get to that in this house.”

Yes, 850 died of covid recently in a day, but 27,000 die every day in India

…After one year of the pandemic, though, we are no longer at the mercy of ridiculous models. We know a lot more – enormously more – about the lethality of the virus. We can say without the slightest hesitation that covid is not a major pandemic by any stretch of imagination.

Via Catallaxy Files.

Meanwhile, here in The Great South Land, Canberra has dropped its vaccination targets. Like careless pedestrians who step on a barker’s egg, they have something nasty to scrape off their shoes.

First, of course, is Pin Up In Chief Gina Elise, who made the turn into the home stretch for 40 a few days ago.

Why is Perth in April like Gina at 39? They’re both still hot!*

A bit of twirl, a bit of tease – hell, if I got the chance to chase Gina through a fine old Californian mansion I’d think it was MY birthday.

Not too long now before Gina will start preparing the 2022 calendar. Meanwhile, the covers of all the previous calendars are now available as – fridge magnets!

(*Embarrassing admission: as I prepare this post, it’s not hot at all in Perth – it’s cold and the rain is bucketing down. Some jokes have a use-by date, and that one should have been used by last Friday.)

Also celebrating her birthday – with a much bigger cake, to accommodate 100 candles – is Phyllis ‘Pippa’ Latour Doyle, the spy who stayed undercover until well after the war’s end.

These excerpts are taken a lengthy article about Pippa’s service and her training for the SOE (Special Operations Executive).

Pippa had six bicycles hidden throughout the countryside that she used to get to and from transmission locations. Her primary role as radio operator in enemy occupied territory in communications and signals requirements meant that Pippa had to be able to memorise codes and she was able to tap out on Morse code at 24 words a minute…

Pippa would bicycle around the countryside and use the hidden radio sets to send reports back to London using the bicycles to recharge radio batteries. She would use the cover of selling soap, including to German soldiers. She knew how to blend in enemy occupied territory where Gestapo and SS were everywhere. She would converse with German troops portraying herself as an over talkative, innocent non-threat.

Pippa was awarded the French Legion of Honour in 2014. To be fair to the French, they weren’t tardy in presenting Pippa with her medal; she wanted to put the war behind her. She didn’t even tell her children until twenty years ago. Like I said, she stayed undercover.

That’s how short the time span was between the Challenger explosion and the first joke, back in 1986.

The Duke of Edinburgh was granted a similar period of respectful restraint. Which has now ended.

Norman Lindsay, Australian author and artist, produced recruitment posters during World War 1.

A hundred years later, the battle lines have shifted somewhat.

In the 21st Century, every boy deserves the chance to be the best woman he can be.

Doesn’t matter! We’ve got a few gaps to fill up north.

Pennsylvania has been forced to remove dead Americans from the state’s voter rolls following a lawsuit.

Election officials in the state have agreed to remove thousands of dead voters from the rolls in response to a suit from the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF)…

The group alleged that at least 21,000 dead Americans were on the state’s voter rolls less than a month before the 2020 presidential election…

The voter rolls also included names of nearly 200 Americans who had been dead for at least 20 years.

First the angry pastor, and now a restaurant full of pissed off diners.

I thought Canadians were too polite for this sort of behaviour!

What an incredible life story!

Bonjour From Brittany

A fascinating insight into the popular mentalities of 19^th century Brittany as seen through the critical eyes of a remarkable man; sometime beggar, soldier, farmer, bar keeper, tobacconist and paranoid vagrant. This autobiography is an absorbing account of a “long lifetime of poverty, slavery and persecution” and one that I would recommend.

The book constitutes the memoirs of a remarkable man: Jean-Marie Déguignet who was born into abject poverty in the small town of Guengat, a few miles west of the city of Quimper in July 1834. The Prefect of Finistère noted at the time that the town’s population “eats poorly, is puny and withered”. He was born just as his tenant farmer father, ruined by a series of failed harvests, was evicted from his farm. In lieu of back rent, the family of seven were forced to leave everything they owned behind and moved to a hovel in…

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They might both be telling the truth.