J-M's History Corner

  Warning: contains expletives. https://youtu.be/9abVzAkG4WE   Don’t get me wrong, I hate the SJWs just as much as the next person. But when it comes to movies, anti-SJWs are just as bad and just as stupid as SJWs. (If you need any more proof, Ben Shapiro is so upset by the mere presence of women in the Sequel Trilogy – despite Leia, Padme, etc – that he’s decided that Star Wars is just for little boys. What does that make him, I wonder? Another YouTuber was upset by the mere presence of a black woman [Tessa Thompson] among the voice cast for the Lady and the Tramp remake. Or the Twitter idiots who thought Rue being black ruined the first Hunger Games movie DESPITE THE CHARACTER BEING BLACK IN THE ORIGINAL NOVEL.) (And don’t get me started on the fact that mermaid ARE NOT HUMAN, and that there is no reason for a mermaid living off the coast of Denmark to be ANY particular skin colour. Or that it doesn’t matter that Heimdall is derived from Nors...

  It’s something most of us never give a second though to – when a man and woman get married, the woman ditches her surname and adopts her husband’s surname, which their children subsequently receive. WHY? The answer, it turns out, isn’t pretty. Why should women change their names on getting married? 1 November 2014 Image copyright Thinkstock It is regarded as tradition for wives to take a man’s name after marriage. Why, asks Dr Sophie Coulombeau. My name is Sophie Coulombeau. But a year from now, after the fuss from my wedding has died down, it could be something rather different. For me, to adopt the surname of my partner and relinquish my own would profoundly affect how I think about my own identity. On the one hand, it would bind us into a family unit and make it easier to know what to write on the birth certificates if we ever have children. But on the other, it would make me first and foremost a wife, while my husband would remain, quite simply, ...

  King Edward IV, whom Tony Robinson believes was illegitimate You may or may not have seen Tony Robinson’s 2004 documentary Britain’s Real Monarch , in which he proposes that King Edward IV of England (1442-1483), who reigned from 1461 until 1470, and again from 1471 until his death, was illegitimate, therefore had no claim to the throne, and that all subsequent monarchs – as his descendants (including Queen Elizabeth II) – have no legitimate claim to the throne either. He proposes that Edward’s younger brother George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (1449-1478) – whom Edward executed – was the legitimate heir to the throne, and that therefore George’s senior legitimate descendant (by male-preference primogeniture) Michael Abney-Hastings, 14th Earl of Loudoun (1942-2012), a British peer living in Australia, was the then-rightful King of England (which by extension means that since his death, his Australian son Simon Abney-Hastings, 15th Earl of Loudoun (b. 197...

  Blockbusters Reviewed Welcome to the 41st edition of My Fortnightly Movie/TV Thoughts !  Last fortnight, I reviewed Ant-Man (2015) and Captain America: Civil War (2016) .  This fortnight, I’m reviewing: Doctor Strange (2016), rated M for fantasy themes, violence and coarse language Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), rated M for science fiction themes and violence Those of course are the Australian ratings; in the United States, the ratings are: Doctor Strange – PG-13 for sci-fi violence and action throughout, and an intense crash sequence Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 – PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence, language, and brief suggestive content As usual, I’ll give the trailers at the end, along with a clip each.  And as usual, I offer the following disclaimer, just to be safe: WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD.  PROCEED AT OWN RISK. Doctor Strange Alongside Ant-Man , this was one of the two MCU… View original post 1...

  And we kinda mucked it up toward the end Still, it was fun. https://youtu.be/7FlUclf3L0Y   Our brothers Joshua and Alexander joined us.

  Is there any left-wing political talking point more annoying and stupid than “white privilege”? Especially since the facts simply aren’t in its favour. No need to plead guilty The fashionable doctrine of ‘white privilege’ is fatally undermined by the facts The concept of “white privilege” is some-times credited to the African-American writer W.E.B. Du Bois, but the phrase didn’t enter the lexicon until it was used in a 1989 paper by the feminist academic Peggy McIntosh. “As a white person, I realised I had been taught about racism as something that puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage,” she wrote in “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.” With the American accent very firmly on “white” rather than “privilege” or any other aspect of class which British ears would so much more readily hear. Not only is McIntosh white, she is, by any measure, astonishi...

  Most of us remember that day.  And those of us too young to remember (myself included), or who weren’t born yet, have all heard about it. On September 11th, 2001, terrorists flew two airplanes into the two Twin Towers, both of which subsequently collapsed.  A third plane hit the Pentagon. That’s the official story, anyway.  The disaster – which claimed almost 3000 lives – has several unanswered questions and inconsistencies. Read the rest at  https://jmshistorycorner.blogspot.com/2018/09/remembering-911.html

Welcome to the 40th edition of My Fortnightly Movie/TV Thoughts!  Last fortnight, I reviewed Guardians of the Galaxy (2014) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015).  This fortnight, I’m reviewing: Ant-Man (2015), rated PG for mild science fiction violence and coarse language Captain America: Civil War (2016), rated M for action violence and coarse language Those of course are the Australian ratings; in the United States, the ratings are: Ant-Man – PG-13 for sci-fi action violence Civil War – PG-13 for extended sequences of violence, action and mayhem As usual, I’ll give the trailers at the end, with a clip each.  And as usual, I offer the following disclaimer, just to be safe: WARNING: POTENTIAL SPOILERS AHEAD.  PROCEED AT OWN RISK. Ant-Man It may surprise you to know that I didn’t start the MCU with Iron Man or any of the other early films; I actually started it with this small-scale heist adventure.  While it doesn’t rank among the MCU’s finest, i...

  The Epoch Times has compiled an excellent policy comparison for the two main candidates in the 2020 United States presidential election: incumbent President and Republican nominee Donald Trump, and former Vice-President and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. I found it helpful, anyway. (The Trump list includes actions taken already as President.) Economy Trump Grant tax credits to companies that move manufacturing back to United States, tariffs on those that don’t. Continue improving trade deals after USMCA, China Phase 1, South Korea, and Japan deals. Continue to cut regulations for businesses. Fund on-the-job training, apprenticeships. Make major investment in infrastructure. Launched “opportunity zones” program in 8,766 distressed areas, which, so far, have attracted $75 billion in private capital. Build on becoming a net energy exporter. Biden Increase the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. Strengthen worker organizing, collective bargaining, ...

  [Note: I am rebooting this series to always include links to the texts discussed, whether or not I accept them.  The previous three articles have had these links added.] The canon of Scripture is a settled issue, isn’t it? You’ve got your 66 books total, 39 in the Old Testament (24 by the Jewish counting) and 27 in the New Testament. However, when you do the research, things are not so simple. There are many “other” books claiming to be Scripture, a number of them accepted by various denominations and/or included in various Bibles over the years. Are they Scripture? Or just heretical additions? I established in  The Canon of Scripture, Part 1: The Apocrypha that the books known as the “Apocrypha” are inspired Scripture.  In  The Canon of Scripture, Part 2: Enoch and Jubilees I established that the books of Enoch and Jubilees are inspired Scripture.  And in  The Canon of Scripture, Part 3: Jasher I established that the original B...