Is this cat going up the stairs or down the stairs?
The viral image website 9gag is largely responsible for this latest optical illusion. A version of the image was uploaded there on March 29th under the title "Forget about the golden dress".
However, the photo goes back at least 2+ years. It was uploaded to the Arabic website fay3.com in 2012 with a title that roughly translates as "Cat is neither climbing nor descending."
The debate over the cat on the stairs brings to mind #TheDress question that captivated social media, the Internet and the media at large in February. Walt still says the dress was gold and white.
Another voice has been raised against the LGBT-positive sex education curriculum being forced on the people of Ontario by that province's Liberal government and its lesbian Premier Kathleen Wynne. In "Why the Critics of the Ontario Sex-Ed Curriculum are Right" Professor Scott Masson, of Tyndale College in Toronto, argues that the new sex-ed curriculum vastly expands the teaching role of the state at the expense of parental authority.
Prof. Masson accuses the new curriculum of promoting a libertine attitude toward adolescent sex, which is lethal for the health of any society. From the beginning of the disciplines of anthropology and sociology up to now, he says, studies have concluded time and again that societies thrive to the extent that they nurture sexual restraint and monogamous marriage.
Here are some of the very strong points made by Prof. Masson, with emphasis by Walt.
The critics of this curriculum are right because it is nothing other than an experiment on their children by the children of the sexual revolution. Without any consideration for love or marriage - there is nary a mention of either in this infamous 244 page document - it speaks of sex in the anodyne consumerist terms of choice, of sex without moral, religious or societal consequences. It is the teaching not of a just society, but of a perverted individualism that separates children not only from the values of the parents that bore, love and nurture them, but the idea that they too will one day be responsible for children when this government and its philosopher-kings lie on the ash heap of history. At least since Plato, philosophers have argued that parents are naturally unfit to educate their children. In an ideal state, philosopher-kings such as he ought to usurp their role. Plato had no children. But the enlightened Rousseau, whose ideas ground modern educational theory, was so enamoured with the idea of the state’s responsibility in administering social justice, and in absolving himself of parental responsibility, that he placed the five children he conceived out of wedlock in state orphanages. In his 1935 BBC radio debate with another statist educator, philosopher Bertrand Russell, G.K. Chesterton wryly retorted what every reasonable person recognizes. The immoral example of exceptional men like Rousseau proves the rule: Parents are by nature best positioned to bring up their children. They don’t raise themselves. In the United Nations' declaration on Rights of the Child (1959), parents were declared to have primary responsibility in educating their children. The declaration was meant to set a hedge of protection for families against the totalitarian impulse of philosopher-kings. Cambridge anthropologist J.D. Unwin's monumental work Sex and Culture (1934) studied 80 primitive tribes and six known civilizations over 5000 years of history. It strongly correlated the success of a civilization to the degree of sexual restraint it observed. "Any human society is free to choose either to display great energy or to enjoy sexual freedom; the evidence is that it cannot do both for more than one generation." The life or death of a civilization, which is at stake in the Christian teaching of natural sexual monogamy [argues] in favour of teaching that monogamy [is] essential to the health of the individual and to creating a more just society. [Chesterton and Russell debated] the age-old question of which adults, which individuals capable of moral responsibility, were fit to do the task of creating a just society. Was it parents in the natural family unit, or the experts, the philosopher-kings? This brings us to the Ontario sexual education curriculum, whose convictions on human sexual health are not liberating but deleterious. Once again, the debate lies between parental and state jurisdiction in creating a just society. But at the heart of the Ontario sex-ed curriculum is buried the perverse claim that children raise themselves. This is explicit from the very outset of the curriculum, which commences with the teaching of consent to six-year-olds. To teach children what consent means, even in the rudimentary terms the premier gives of “reading facial expressions and emotions,” is to assume that they have the capacity for moral responsibility to exercise it. This is why the legal age of consent is connected to the moral responsibility of adults.... [Yet] by six, the human eye has not even fully developed. "Consent" is...to be understood in the cultural Marxist terms of autonomous sexual freedom, and even sexual identity. They are the terms of men from Herbert Marcuse to Michel Foucault, the favourites of the philosopher-kings of our day, whose autonomy is declared precisely against the natural family. It must not be imposed on the only people whose consent is required, the parents of children in Ontario.
Dominic Frisby is a good name for a stand-up comedian (I guess), but an unlikely name for someone who wishes to be taken seriously as a "fiancial bod" (whatever that is) and "voice of many things". A quick look at his website shows that "many things" includes geopolitics and economics in general, and in particular the debt trap with which the banks enslave individuals and nations alike.
Dominic Frisby thus has joined the ranks of those who, like Walt's buddy Ron McPherson, creator of "Facilitism", believe it's high time the world's financial "system" was reformed, or scrapped altogether!
Thanks to Agent 6 for making us aware of Mr. Frisby, and providing the link to this short but powerful argument that the system has to be changed, if we are to avoid worldwide financial ruin.
The Blue Angels are the precision aerobatic team of the United States Navy, often the featured attraction and always a big hit at airshows across the USA. Walt saw them for the first time, along with Agent 17, back in the 70s at Harlingen TX, at the terrific show put on by the Confederate Air Force.*
Here we have a video taken over Seattle, Lake Washington and Boeing Field. It takes training and ability to handle the extremely high emotional and physical stress levels incurred in this kind of flying. There's no room for errors or second-guessing.
In this video, you'll see the "slot man" in the diamond formation -- toughest flying due to wingtip vortices, etc. Notice the rest of the formation in the pilot's reflective goggles. When he "smiles", he is pulling some serious "G" forces. The grimace is part of tensing his body to stop blood pooling and having a grey- or blackout -- even with a G-suit!
Towards the end, the pilot holds both hands in the air. He must have had the aircraft very well trimmed, and/or be just a tad reckless. Do you really want to do this in a formation?!
This may be one of the best "in the cockpit" videos currently on YouTube. Go full screen, but you might want to turn OFF the sound.
Thanks and a thumbs up to a friend of Agent 17, and the US Navy and Blue Angels.
* Footnote: Need I tell you that the Confederate Air Force was renamed the "Commemorative Air Force" -- another casualty of political correctness. They're still flying though! If you're a warplanes buff and want to join, you'll find a link on their website.
