The Off Topic Topic

[CountDeMoney]

LOL, how un-Capone

[Razgovory]

Dinosaurs were/are birds man. You have to accept it.

I think that's well accepted now.  But dinosaurs being the ancestors of birds is very different from T Rex looking like a feather duster.  We do have some examples of their skin being preserved - and while some had a few feathers, not all did.

I took the kids to the Royal Tyrrell Museum this summer.  They had a fabulous ankylosaur-type they had found up in the oil sands.  Although he was missing his hind legs he was otherwise perfectly preserved - skin and other tissue included.  And he had no feathers.

Ankyleosaur-type Dinosaurs are descended from dinosaurs that did have feathers.  It's very possible that it had some form of feathers.  Perhaps they weren't preserved, or perhaps they fell out when they grew older.  The feathers may not have looked like type of feathers that most birds have, it might have been like a Kiwi's feathers.  It's also possible that the dinosaur didn't have feathers all over its body.

[Admiral Yi]

Sat on the tarmac at O'Hare for 3 hours yesterday waiting to take off.  A thunderstorm had come through and they had to pull all the exterior personnel inside because of the lightning, so all the departures were backed up.  I wouldn't have expected a major airport to shut down because thunderstorms are so common around here, but I guess there's nothing else you can do.

[Barrister]

Dinosaurs were/are birds man. You have to accept it.

I think that's well accepted now.  But dinosaurs being the ancestors of birds is very different from T Rex looking like a feather duster.  We do have some examples of their skin being preserved - and while some had a few feathers, not all did.

I took the kids to the Royal Tyrrell Museum this summer.  They had a fabulous ankylosaur-type they had found up in the oil sands.  Although he was missing his hind legs he was otherwise perfectly preserved - skin and other tissue included.  And he had no feathers.

Ankyleosaur-type Dinosaurs are descended from dinosaurs that did have feathers.  It's very possible that it had some form of feathers.  Perhaps they weren't preserved, or perhaps they fell out when they grew older.  The feathers may not have looked like type of feathers that most birds have, it might have been like a Kiwi's feathers.  It's also possible that the dinosaur didn't have feathers all over its body.

This nodosaurus's flesh is all preserved.  You can see there are no feathers.

[Eddie Teach]

Dinosaurs were/are birds man. You have to accept it.

Next thing, you'll tell us Pluto isn't a planet.   

[jimmy olsen]

This earlier Tyrannosaur was feathered

https://www.wired.com/2012/04/yutyrannus-huali-feathers/

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/30/japan-minister-tara-aso-praises-hitler-right-motives

Japanese minister Taro Aso praises Hitler, saying he had 'right motives'

Japan's finance minister, Taro Aso, has courted fresh controversy after expressing admiration for the Nazis, describing Adolf Hitler as "having the right motives".

"Hitler, who killed millions of people, was no good even if his motive was right," Aso told a meeting of his faction of the governing Liberal Democratic party, according to Jiji Press.

Aso retracted the comments on Wednesday after criticism that he appeared to be defending Hitler's motives for the genocide of millions of Jews during the second world war.

"It is clear from my overall remarks that I regard Hitler in extremely negative terms, and it's clear that his motives were also wrong," Aso said in a statement, adding that he did not intend to defend Hitler, but to stress the importance of politicians achieving results.

"It was inappropriate that I cited Hitler as an example and I would like to retract that."

The Los Angeles-based Simon Wiesenthal Centre, which monitors anti-semitic activities, voiced "distress and disappointment" at the comments.

"This is just the latest of a troubling list of 'misstatements' and are downright dangerous," the centre's head, rabbi Abraham Cooper, said in a statement.

It is not the first time the gaffe-prone Aso has made controversial remarks about the Nazis.

In 2013, he came under pressure to resign after suggesting that Japan should follow the Nazis' example when considering how to change its constitution.

Criticising the lack of support among older people for revising Japan's postwar pacifist constitution, Aso said it could learn from how the Nazi party changed Germany's constitution by stealth before the second world war.

Since revising Japan's constitution could trigger protests, Aso suggested "doing it quietly, just as in one day the Weimar constitution changed to the Nazi constitution without anyone realising it. Why don't we learn from that sort of tactic?"

He later retracted the comments but refused to resign.

His comments came soon after another public figure in Japan attracted criticism for voicing admiration for the Nazis.

Earlier this week, the Simon Wiesenthal Centre said it had called for an investigation into Katsuya Takasu, a well-known plastic surgeon and TV celebrity, who highlighted the Nazis' contribution to science and medicine, and appeared to deny the Holocaust.

The centre asked the American Academy of Plastic Surgeons to expel Takasu, whose posts, according to Cooper, "violate all norms of decency and reveal a person who is a racist anti-Semite and outright lover of Nazism".

The academy said it took the allegations against Takasu seriously and was investigating Takasu's comments.

Takasu posted the tweets in 2015 but they recently generated a huge response on social media after a Japanese blogger translated them into English.

After saying he had learned "how great Nazism was" while studying at Kiel University in Germany, Takasu wrote: "There is no doubt that the Jews were persecuted. But we only know it from hearsay and all of it is based on information from the Allies."

In June, Yutaka Harada, a member of the board of Japan's central bank praised Hitler's "wonderful" fiscal and monetary policies, but said they had enabled him to go on and do "horrible" things.

The use of Nazi symbolism has landed Japanese celebrities in trouble. Keyakizaka46, a popular girl band set up by an executive board member of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics organising committee, was criticised last year for giving a Halloween concert in costumes modelled on Nazi Waffen-SS uniforms.

In 2011, the all-male pop group Kishidan appeared on primetime television wearing Nazi-style uniforms, triggering a protest from Jewish rights campaigners.

[CountDeMoney]

I look forward to China Daily's op-ed on this one.

AXIS ASO NUTS OVER NAZIS

Oh wait, that's Variety.

[Eddie Teach]

What an as'o'.

[derspiess]

Stolen from Amscip.  Just want to make sure Beeb sees it

[Barrister]

Caillou is fine!

And I'll take the kids watching Caillou over watching Dora any day of the week.

[Eddie Teach]

I thought you were the one who hated Caillou.

[Barrister]

I thought you were the one who hated Caillou.

You are mistaken.  When the topic came up in the past (since there are no new topics on Languish) I was defending Caillou.

[derspiess]

Defending Caillou maybe a little too vigorously

[Barrister]

Defending Caillou maybe a little too vigorously

Well it is a Canadian show after all.