Thursday, December 30, 2010

Ancient Aliens on the History Channel.

I "like" this series as it's so easy to debunk. Here's an example from one of the shows.

The journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649

 1639


"..In this year one James Everell
 a sober, discreet man, and two others, saw a great light in the night at Muddy River. When it stood still, it flamed up, and was about three yards square; when it ran, it Was contracted into the figure of a swine: it ran as swift as an arrow towards Charlton, and so up and down about two or three hours. They were come down in their lighter about a mile, and, when it was over, they found themselves carried quite back against the tide to the place they came from. Divers other credible persons saw the same light, after, about the same place.."(3)


A space craft AND alien abduction!!

It was very easy to find the Journal online and foot notes by the editors.

JAMES SAVAGE 1824


(3)" This account of an ignis fatuus may easily be believed on testimony less respectable than that which was adduced. Some operation of the devil, or other power beyond the customary agents of nature, was probably imagined by the relaters and hearers of that age, and the wonder of being carried a mile against the tide became important corroboration of the imagination. Perhaps they were wafted, during the two or three hours' astonishment, for so moderate a distance, by the wind; but, if this suggestion be rejected, we might suppose, that the eddy, flowing always, in our rivers, contrary to the tide in the channel, rather than the meteor, carried their lighter back."

Meteor?????


"Although meteors have been known since ancient times, they were not known to be an astronomical phenomenon until early in the 19th century. Prior to that, they were seen in the West as an atmospheric phenomenon, like lightning, and were not connected with strange stories of rocks falling from the sky."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteoroid#History

Word-Origins.com
meteor

 http://www.word-origins.com/definition/meteor.html

      Date of Origin 15th c.
      Greek metéoron meant literally ‘something high up’, and was used to denote ‘phenomena in the sky or heavens’. It was a compound noun formed from the intensive prefix metá- and *eor-, a variant form of the base of the verb aeírein ‘raise’. When English first took it over, via medieval Latin meteorum, it was still in the sense ‘phenomenon of the atmosphere or weather’ (‘hoar frosts … and such like cold meteors’, Abraham Fleming, Panoplie of Epistles 1576), an application which survives, of course, in the derivative meteorology (17th c.). The earliest evidence of the specific use of meteor for a ‘shooting star’ comes from the end of the 16th century. The derivative meteorite, for a meteor that hits the ground, was coined in the early 19th century


Word Origin & History

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/meteor

meteor
late 15c., "any atmospheric phenomenon," from M.Fr. meteore  (13c.), from M.L. meteorum  (nom. meteora ), from Gk. ta meteora  "the celestial phenomena," pl. of meteoron , lit. "thing high up," neut. of meteoros  (adj.) "high up," from meta-  "over, beyond" (see meta- ) + -aoros  "lifted, hovering in air," related to aeirein  "to raise" (see aorta). Specific sense of "fireball, shooting star" is attested from 1590s. Atmospheric phenomena were formerly classified as aerial meteors  (wind), aqueous meteors  (rain, snow, hail), luminous meteors  (aurora, rainbows), and igneous meteors  (lightning, shooting stars).



Sunday, December 26, 2010

War on Christmas 1776

Trenton, New Jersey...early December 26.





(Please pardon the Google translations of German.) Figures are ACCURATE miniatures, ARMIES IN PLASTIC, and a few CLASSIC TOY SOLDIERS figures.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Imrie Risley Christmas Carol Figures

I did these a while back for my mother. A new figure in the series each Christmas.











Thursday, December 23, 2010

Peanuts Christmas revised.....

Be sure to click on the parody cartoon to get a readable version.


Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Prince Regent's Christmas Wish

Blackadder's Christmas Carol (1988 (TV) )





Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: Shall I begin the Christmas story?


George, the Prince Regent: Absolutely, as long as it's not that terribly depressing one about the chap who gets born on Christmas Day, shoots his mouth off about everything under the sun, and then comes a cropper with a couple of rum coves on top of a hill in Johnny Arab land.

Edmund Blackadder, Esq.: You mean *Jesus,* Sire... ?

George, the Prince Regent: Yes, that's the fellow! Keep him out of it. He always spoils the X-mas atmos!

Monday, December 20, 2010

Scrooge sticks up for the working man.

Scrooge accuses the ghost of being responsible for ''religious people'' making the decision that God wants businesses to be closed on Sunday.





A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens
Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?" asked Scrooge.

"........

"There is. My own."

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked Scrooge.

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.

"Because it needs it most."

"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."


"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day," said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.


........"





The Ghost of Christmas Present uses the "No True Scotsman" defense......

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman
"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

...."

Sunday, December 19, 2010

eBay Cantiniere






Possibly a Zouave Cantiniere. The image was found on French eBay.

More German Peeping Toms


Saturday, December 18, 2010

French dressing

French Restaurant  parody.






Monday, December 13, 2010

Battle of Fredericksburg with TSSD figures

Toy Soldiers Of San Diego makes Union troops in winter clothing. Two figures need the "4 band" rifles shortened but all in all great figures. Fredericksburg was fought from the Dec 11-15, 1862 and the TSSD figures can represent the crossing of the Rappahannock River, the urban street fighting and the assaults of Marye's Heights.











Sunday, December 12, 2010

The Great Dickens Christmas Fair, San Francisco

SOMEDAY I'll get to San Francisco for Christmas.....
http://www.dickensfair.com/
Oneline album of photos.

http://dad.cochems.com/Dickens2010Wk2/

Good clean Holiday fun during the day.


Old uniforms.


Cancan Dancers.

Ladies in corsets!



Entertainers in corsets!

Lots of ladies in corsets!


Some Christmas maybe.....

Well I THOUGHT I liked this forum.....

Saturday, December 11, 2010

Armies In Plastic Union Zouaves TWO

AIP Union Zouaves  have three great advancing poses and one not so great which doesn't appear here.




"Port Arms" is pretty good. A higher angle would make a great second rank in an advance.







Some conversions of the trail arms figure (above)...



AIP's Iron Brigade officer can be added to the unit.



A few boxes will make up two advancing units.