Motorcycling: The Friendly Wave

I can remember my surprise the first time another motorcyclist waved at me. I was in Africa at the time, and many pedestrians waved at me as I rode my new Honda 175. But I had been riding for a few months, and had never met another motorcycle on the road. He waved as he approached, and I waved back.

Since that time I have probably waved at thousands of riders, and not waved at hundreds. Recently I have talked to some new riders who don't get all this waving stuff and it makes them feel kind of uncomfortable to have to decide whether to wave or not, or if people will take offence if they don't. When I started riding, it used to be so simple. Now it's a little complicated with so many bikes on the road, and we need some new rules.

First rule, don't take offense if somebody does not wave back. There are lots of reasons why someone may not be able to wave. For example, they might have their hand holding the clutch, or they may be braking because the car in front of them is stopping. Or you might be the tenth person in less than a minute, and their arm is getting tired, or they didn't see you because you are in the right hand lane of a 12 lane freeway and they are on the complete opposite side. I can think of hundreds more, but I will just leave that to your imagination. Just take it easy.

Second rule. You don't have to wave if you don't want to. But please let's not flip off the other motorcyclist. I don't care if you don't like the bike he or she is riding, or you don't like that they are wearing a helmet (or not wearing a helmet). Either wave, or nod, or neither, but no flipping the bird, OK?

As a rule, I stop waving when I am at a rally with hundreds, thousands and sometimes hundreds of thousands of bikes all over the place. And for the bigger rallies, like Bike Week at Daytona, or Sturgis, I stop waving about a hundred miles from the centre, as there are already too many bikes to keep track of.

On a normal ride (which is near my home in southern Ontario), on a nice day, there are enough bikes that I usually wave back, but don't always initiate a wave. But when there are very few bikes on the road, I will wave first. Those are days when it's raining, freezing, or I'm far out in the hinterlands, where there are not a lot of bikes. It's kind of like the old days again.

Just last year I remember being out on my bike when it was below freezing. I was surprised to see a motorcyclist and his female passenger waiting at a stop sign as I drove by. She waved and smiled brightly. He didn't, but obviously had his hand on the clutch, but I waved back anyway. When I got home I told Mary Ann about this smiling person in the cold, on a motorcycle. She said "That smile's probably just frozen on there."

How To Drive in Snow

There are lots of YouTube videos to help you drive better, like the one in the picture. I put a 28 second video on YouTube myself a year ago with the title "How to Drive in Snow", which now has over 6000 hits. Obviously the title has attracted some viewers, because some of my other videos like "Walking on the Beach -20 Degrees C." got only 115 in the same amount of time. YouTube has a geographic hit counter, that lets you see when and where most of the hits are from. And it's pretty obvious, comparing that to world weather reports, that every time there is a major blizzard in the USA or Europe, in a place that does not often see snow, I get a spike from that region on "how to drive in snow".

It seems that as people get more familiar with the Internet, they often use it to solve problems. I know I use Google or YouTube when I get stuck at anything from post hole digging to medical symptoms. So I just wonder how useful my 28 second video could be, as it merely suggests that you do not spin your tires if the car is at a standstill. It may be good advice, but it's not really what they want to know, if they are looking at white stuff outside the window for the first time in their lives, and they have a 45 minute commute to work.

Let's say you just woke up, you're inside your house, and there is about 6 inches of heavy wet snow, and this is the first time your area has had a snowfall like this for 25 years. Of course, you have no snow shovel, and no ice scraper, and you were not even born the last time this happened. You car has "all season tires", which are really summer tires, as none of those seasons include winter.

My advice is, first to consider alternate transport. Now that might take care of .0001% of you. Second, look at the weather report on TV. See that guy standing there with the microphone freezing his ass off? Now see the cars behind him, spinning in circles, piled in ditches, stuck in long lines of traffic? That's not special effects done by the graphics department. If you go out there in your car, that's going to be you. You might as well call in sick (or whatever term you can use), or try working from home. If you can Google "how to drive in snow", then you can do some work from home on the computer.

So you're still going to go out? Tip number 4: Dress warm. (including boots, gloves, hat, coat) I know your car has a heater, but after you plow into another car, somebody has to get out to exchange insurance information, and wait for the police, and then wait for the tow truck. It will be cold out there. Even if you can't get out of the car because the door is crushed shut, the engine will likely stop running and then the heater gets cold. If the engine keeps running, and you can still reach the key with your good arm (if you have one), shut it off anyway to avoid starting a fire. Cold is better than burning alive. If you freeze, you may lose your feet, but it takes hours and hours to happen. You are wearing those clothes I said to bring, right? Another tip: Just because it's cold outside doesn't mean a fire can't start.

Tip 5: Take a cell phone or iPhone or whatever you have got. But under no circumstances should you be using it to Google "how to drive in snow" while sliding down the road at 100 kph. Wait until your car has come to a safe stop in a ditch first.

Those are some of my best tips for people who are really new at driving in snow. For more experienced drivers, I would say get winter tires for the winter, as they work well, and they're not like the snow tires from the sixties. And slow down because I don't care how good you are, things can happen. But experienced drivers don't usually Google "How to drive in snow" anyway.

There are plenty of YouTube videos about driving in snow. There is one by "Joe Average" that is obviously a joke. But I just don't know what to think of the the one by a young woman who calls herself "Frequent Driver" (pictured above). I can't tell if it's a satire, but either way, it is kind of funny while also being somewhat serious. She mounts the video camera on the dashboard to show her face then drives while giving tips or complaining about something, such as being ticketed for 25 mph over the speed limit. Also the camera may fall off the dashboard and needs to be picked up while she says "I'm sorry, the camera just fell over". Some of these problems may be unique to women, like guys who see her and then try to drive beside her on the freeway because she looks hot. I actually think Ontario's stunt driving law has a provision that you could lose your licence and vehicle immediately for that!

(Driving in snow and staring)

(secret radar guns) + camera falling down

(Rain and Jesus)

How Xenophobia Stole Christmas

Nothing like some good old xenophobic humbug to get me in the mood for Christmas. And of course by saying "Christ"mas I do not mean to start a fight about which religions are excluded etc. I just mean a multicultural Christmas in the true sense that Jesus might have expressed "Love your neighbours", nothing else. Whew, hope I dodged that Fox News artificial controversy for now at least.

From Mark Steyn on multiculturalism and its application to Christmas concerts:

"Take multiculturalism. The great thing about multiculturalism is that it doesn't involve knowing anything about other cultures–the capital of Bhutan, the principal exports of Malawi, who cares? All it requires is feeling good about other cultures. It’s fundamentally a fraud, and I would argue was subliminally accepted on that basis. Most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don’t want to live in anything but an advanced Western society. Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched native dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer” or that your holistic masseuse uses techniques developed from Native American spirituality, but not that you or anyone you care about should have to live in an African or Native American society. It’s a quintessential piece of progressive humbug."

This piece of writing is missing the spirit of Christmas so let's see if I can turn it around in time for Santa to come down our chimney again.

"Multiculturalism means your kid has to learn some wretched native dirge for the school holiday concert instead of getting to sing “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”.

My grandkids, actually. Eight year old Emily has no problem singing some "wretched dirge" about Hanukkah, and some other little Muslim girls sing happily right along with her while their parents proudly pop flashbulbs in the audience. By the way, they also sing "Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer", only the Grinch himself would think one excludes the other. And this year, anyway nobody "has to" do anything. My grandson opted out of the performance and observed the goings on while sitting in the audience with his Mom and Dad, but most kids still wanted to be in the concert. Mark really should attend the next Christmas concert at Abraham Erb Public School, and just watch his grinchy heart grow three sizes this year.

Another of his statements:

"Most adherents to the idea that all cultures are equal don’t want to live in anything but an advanced Western society"

Santa says let's stay away from the argument about which race is equal or superior to what race or culture. Can everyone agree on that? Or do you want to get on the naughty list?

Do all people want to live in an advanced western society? Yes, and to be more specific, probably Canada. Canada is the closest country to the North Pole, and it makes it easy for Santa to deliver all those presents. And another reason to live in Canada? Because of multiculturalism, and the working model that Canada has provided.

"Not that you should have to live in an African or Native American society".

Maybe not everybody wants to, but I have lived in an African society, and it was not the horrible thing Mark imagines. We even had a pretty nice Christmas. But why does he even bring up the point except to scare people and make them think that to be truly multicultural, you need to live in a mud hut or tepee with no running water and no chimney for Santa?

"[Multiculturalism] is fundamentally a fraud, and I would argue was subliminally accepted on that basis. It’s a quintessential piece of progressive humbug."

Multiculturalism is not humbug, and unlike xenophobia, it's good feelings are very much in the true spirit of Christmas. So merry Christmas to all.

Avatar 3D the Movie

Avatar was my first 3D dramatic movie. Actually I saw a 3D movie with the polarized glasses last summer, but it was a visual representation of the universe and the galaxy, strictly as a visual aid. After Avatar, when I got back home and turned on the TV it took me 5 minutes to adapt to a flat and two-dimensional picture screen. I suppose movies, and the visual trickery they present, affects different people in different ways, but I don't think I'm alone in getting a more immersive experience with 3D. Also, I should mention we were up pretty close to the front, about the sixth row or so. So it looked about as big as an Imax from our seat. This was not Imax, but Avatar is also available in Imax depending on the theater.

Normally I'm not a lover of weird looking aliens. A couple of pointy ears and funny eyebrows are about all I can deal with. But the blue catlike 10 foot tall aliens in this movie are OK with me. One thing I want to mention is the main female alien is played by Zoe Saldana, who also played Uhuru on the latest Star Trek movie. Maybe a difference for me in this new type of alien is a breakthough in technology with the detailed motion capture animation on the facial expressions. I only noticed consciously a few times, especially when the Aliens showed their extreme emotions such as joy, fear, or horror. But likely it was part of the appeal of these computer animated aliens especially when I was not aware of it.

So much for the technology. I got interested in Avatar originally when I saw an interview with Sigourney Weaver, who is in the movie. I think I have liked every movie I have seen her in, like Ghostbusters, Alien, Gorillas in the Mist, even Galaxy Quest. James Cameron is also a favourite of mine with movies such as Terminator, Aliens, and Titanic. Usually 3 and a half stars from Roger Ebert is a movie that both Mary Ann and I will really enjoy. This was 4 out of 4.

Near the beginning of the movie is the comment "You're not in Kansas any more". I recently did a blog about Kansas, and I see a double entendre in this statement. One meaning of course, is that the scenery is different and exotic. But the second might be that is that this is not a conservative right wing movie by any stretch of the imagination.

The movie Avatar itself tells a pretty simple story that you might have seen in Star Trek or Star Wars. Evil empire exploiting alien natives etc. But because it has the potential of becoming a cultural touchstone, I'm glad it is going in the right (actually "left") direction philosophically and politically. Meaning back to more liberal ideas of nature and peace. Putting corporate greed, racism, and unjust wars in a bad light. A really bad light.

Here is something I didn't see. At no time was torture used by either humans or aliens to obtain information. Thank God we are starting to get away from that type of film. A big part of this movie was using Avatars to obtain information by gaining the trust of the natives. Not really ethical, but I think actually more realistic than using torture. Maybe the pendulum will swing back from the Nazi mindset of racial superiority, power and domination, to a way of thinking that encourages people to be more tolerant and to make the world a better place. Like Star Trek did.

I am also glad that it was not a movie about angels, ghosts, devils, witches, miracles, or people going to heaven then coming back for a second chance. In that way it was kind of a secular movie. The native people had a spirituality, but it seemed to have a real or natural scientifically provable basis. That was kind of refreshing.

I wouldn't call the movie deep. The natives were a hundred percent good. Maybe they got mad from time to time, or were occasionally suspicious, but good through and through right to the end, which I am not revealing, but it's not really a surprise. The Humans were totally bad except for the ones that helped the aliens. Twice after the movie I overheard people say "That movie made me hate humans". One thing they do not show at all is why the humans hate the aliens so much. I guess it would be too confusing to give us reasons, and would make the movie even longer. I didn't mind the length, except that I can only go so long before I have to pee. There was no intermission, not even a slack time that I could walk out of the packed theater without missing something. My advice is don't get a coffee just before going in.

The natives (called Na'vi, I looked it up) are all about respecting nature. And their "nature" is both horrifying and staggeringly beautiful in equal measures. Of course it's all make believe, so to a real bird watcher like Mary Ann it might be cartoony. But she enjoyed the spectacular 3D scenery and imaginary flora and fauna as much as I did.

When we went to a restaurant after the movie, Mary Ann recommended Avatar to our waitress, and suggested to me we should go see it again (She said "I suppose the 9:00 show would be too soon") I believe those would both be firsts, and she normally hates science fiction movies.

I think I may end up ranking this movie as one of my all time best movie experiences. "Peter Pan" was the first movie I ever saw at about 5 or 6 years old. Not only the first movie, I had never seen a TV, or even a play. And the movie itself was pretty exciting, even if it had not been the very first time I experienced moving pictures. So of course that experience is hard to equal. Star Wars in 1977 also was a standout movie for me. I drove my motorcycle 600 km. (each way) just to see that movie. It had amazing special effects for the era, but nothing I had not seen in projector technology. Avatar is a great movie that also happens to be the first 3D movie I have seen, and I suspect I would have liked it even without the 3D. With my fear of heights, a few 3D scenes were a bit too much.

I'm looking forward to seeing Avatar again, which is pretty good for a movie with no motorcycles.

Fear and Ignorance are Barriers to Reasonable Debate

For a liberal, living in a liberal country, it is tempting to dismiss the entire conservative point of view as being based on greed and fear. But that is a mistake, because a valid conservative point is a vital part of our ongoing democratic debate.

When you look at the essential points of view of liberals and conservatives, you can see how each of these helps frame the choices we make. In a reasoned debate, almost all of our choices can be seen from a liberal or a conservative point of view, which helps us to make better decisions.

A conservative point of view has more respect for the old ways, questions the need for change. Liberals are eager to try new ideas that may look good in theory but are unproven.

Conservatives generally feel that we should respect and place our trust in the upper classes more, our traditional leaders in politics, in business and in religion. Liberals tend to place their trust in education, and science. Conservatives beat their kids, liberals let them run wild.

In politics, liberals tend to be in favour of democratic rule, and participation by everyone. Conservatives would prefer to restrict participation to those who are higher up in the social order. In practice, how this works out is that as democracy has progressed, conservatives have almost always opposed extending the vote to new groups, whether they are women, or African-Americans or indigenous people. And today, even though most conservatives have accepted those new voters, they might be more likely to oppose extending the vote to criminals or the insane. Or they might be highly critical of organizations whose only purpose is to help iffy voters to register and get to the polls (like Acorn in the US).

When it comes to social programs, liberals favour extending benefits such as medical care, employment insurance, pensions, and free education to the poor, while conservatives feel that this will eliminate all motivation to get out and work. Of course the social programs need to be paid by taxing the people who have money i.e. the rich. Conservatives have a big problem with this, as they do tend to be rich anyway, so you could put that one down to greed. But the conservatives have a legitimate problem, because with a democratic system, the conservative point of view is going to be defeated over and over by the sheer number of people who will benefit from the social programs. So greed is working on both sides.

Conservatives tend to use war as a bit of a money making scheme, (or money keeping) while liberals tend to shy away from any war that is not necessary for actual self defence. It's difficult to argue that war or weapons will never be needed, and it's impossible to have a war where some people don't get rich off the misery of others.

Although stupidity and dishonesty are present, neither side in the conservative vs. liberal debate is inherently stupid or dishonest. It's good to keep that in mind, because otherwise the chances of coming up with good compromise decisions is about zero.

If you do think that there is a lot of stupidity on one side or the other, it's a good idea to try and track that down to its source, and not to simply paint the entire other side with the same brush. I happen to notice some sources that are injecting more than their share of hypocrisy, lies, and propaganda into the public discourse. I would be extra careful in fact checking anything from Fox News, anything from Rush Limbaugh or any of the right wing talk radio programs. I would also be very suspicious of anything I get from a religious TV network, or a corporate PR firm, especially if it conflicts with "normal" science or independent news sources. Some newspapers and news magazines are getting reputations for letting opinions get in the way of accuracy. There is probably more. Anyway, I'm always on the lookout.

I am suspicious that there are some people in our society that benefit materially from spreading ignorance, fear and doubt, and from creating a situation where people cannot get good information. And unfortunately for the honest, reasonable conservatives, most of these intellectually dishonest sources are under the conservative banner.

In an old fashioned authoritarian (i.e. conservative by definition) country like China, the government would be able to simply cut off access to the Internet and control the news. But in a modern open society like Canada or the USA, this blocking of information has to be done by subtle means, such as flooding the airwaves and Internet with cult-like religious networks, by creating special news channels that play to our emotions and blocks all chance of reasoned debate.

Many blogs on the Internet are full of nonsense that seems to be either made up or comes from Fox News, or religious fundamentalists, and many seem to be redundant or falsely accredited. Although the bulk of the nonsense I see is on the right, I have already shown there are crazies on the left.

Padre Steve has a blog that you might think would be conservative (a pro-life US Army chaplain who gets the word of God through watching baseball) and yet shows no signs of paranoid delusion.

For an example of Padre Steve's writing that is remarkably free of paranoia about Muslims, look at this topic, followed by readers comments pro and con (this is where the paranoia creeps in, but not from Steve)

I can't leave it at just one, as there are many really good topics on his blog. Here is Steve about Hitler's "race" war against the Eastern Europeans. How German attitudes and propaganda pushed them to atrocities. Must have taken a long time to put this together because it looks like about 184 footnotes!

In conclusion, you cannot generalize where fear ignorance comes from. It would be a benefit to all if reasonable liberals and conservatives could disagree in a rational way.

Propaganda: This is How Nazis Promoted Genocide

It seems a lot of people wonder why the Germans went along with the genocide of the Jews. Well other than some inherent racism, which seems almost unavoidable even in multicultural societies, there was a lot of Nazi propaganda driving the hate. There was also the Nazi equivalent of 9/11, where a Jew was found guilty of burning down the German parliament buildings. And even worse, the Jews were said by the Nazis to be the ones who betrayed Germany in World War 1.

Here is an example of Nazi propaganda against Jews, saying if you projected into the future assuming a rate of 4 children per Jewish family vs. 2 children per white German family, that the Germans would be outnumbered and in fact become insignificant in a number of years. Here is a chart that was used by the Nazis to prove their point.



Roughly translated, it says that "lower" people, having 4 children per year, would multiply as represented by the growing Jew in 30, 60, 90, and 120 years in the future. (You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it) Thus they would outnumber the "higher" people by the amount illustrated by comparing the size of the Nasty Jew to the German Olympic athlete. To be honest, they did not pick a particularly attractive Jew either. And although there was no actual mention of Jews in the poster, it was not hard for most Germans to connect the dots. Possibly the Nazis were thinking of recycling the posters to some other cause once the Jews were eliminated, otherwise I'm not sure why they were so coy about naming the Jews in this propaganda piece, but that's often how propaganda is done. Very subtle in some ways, over the top in others. Anyway it's all quite scientific and mathematical. But also misleading. I will point out the propaganda trick of using a three dimensional picture in a one-dimensional chart, where height represents numbers. But psychologically, we see a three dimensional picture, where it's actually the comparative weight that we remember. And weight is the cube of the height. Whether you understand the subtle trick or not (most people don't, apparently), you do get influenced by it. These days, even if we still don't understand the tricks, we can at least understand the ultimate repercussions of this propaganda.

Do We Have the Same type of Nazi Propaganda in Canada?

Now let me hold up a mirror to look at some of the hate propaganda going around in Canada today about Muslims. Mark Steyn has written about the high reproductive rate of Muslims compared to the low reproductive rate of "white cultures". That's really about the only substitution you need to make to have exactly the same propaganda as the Nazis used on the German people. If we learned anything from history, we should learn that Nazi hate propaganda is wrong. Here I photoshopped the same Nazi era chart to depict a Muslim instead of a Jew, and I hardly had to change a thing. (You can enlarge the picture by clicking on it)


I actually hope that this picture does not give Mark any ideas about how to improve his propaganda.

I find it amazing that some of Mark Steyn's most ardent fans deny he has ever written anything about killing the Muslims, so here are two quotes and the references. By the way, it really does say something about the power of clever propaganda that people are reading this stuff avidly and are not consciously aware of what they have read. That probably explains a lot about how the propaganda worked in Germany too. Even today people still deny the holocaust. The propaganda apparently sneaks into your brain and lodges somewhere in your subconscious mind like a sleeper cell.

“In the thirty years before the meltdown, Bosnian Serbs had declined from 43 percent to 31 percent of the population, while Bosnian Muslims had increased from 26 percent to 44 percent. In a democratic age, you can’t buck demography—except through civil war. The Serbs figured that out—as other Continentals will in the years ahead: if you can’t outbreed the enemy, cull ’em.”

“America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It” by Mark Steyn (pages 4 – 6).

The above call to action is reasonably clear considering the genocidal implications, but Mark argues that he is not "advocating", which would be illegal, he is "predicting", which is legal. In Canada anyway.

"Even if you regard Islam as essentially incompatible with free societies, the slaughter required to end it as a force in the world would change America beyond recognition. That doesn't mean that, a few years down the line, if some kooks with nukes obliterate, say, Marseilles or Lyons that the French wouldn't give it a go in some fairly spectacular way. But they're unlikely to accomplish much by it, any more than the Russians have by their scorched earth strategy in Chechnya."

“America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It” by Mark Steyn (pages 204 - 207)

This one is written so ambiguously that I can't tell whether Mark thinks that the change to America brought about by slaughtering the Muslims (if they decide to do it) would be good or bad. If liberals disappeared entirely, that would also change America beyond recognition. Would Mark approve?

The Connection Between Justice and Education

Last night, Jay Leno had Glenn Beck on his program. Glenn is the fastest rising star in the constellation of right wing opinion makers. The conservatives need a new guiding light after losing the election. It seems that since Obama became president, they now identify better with Beck than with bullying self assured right wingers like Limbaugh, Hannity and OReilly. Glenn, on the other hand, is a persecuted wimp who had all his lunch money stolen by mean Democrats. At latest count, apparently 45 trillion dollars worth. So no wonder the Republicans now flock to him for comfort.

Glenn, like his earlier role models, has pride in not being overly educated. He proclaimed that he was the first in his family to go to college, but only stayed a couple of months. And furthermore that very lack of education is what makes him more qualified than Barack Obama to decide what level of national debt is best for the USA. As he says "You don't need a Harvard education to know that a debt of 45 trillion dollars is unsustainable."

Jay at one point tried to interject a little of his own "common sense", saying in effect, what's wrong with being smart and going to college? Wouldn't that make you even better prepared to run the economy? Glenn explained, no, the founding fathers of our nation placed more trust in a simple farmer than in an educated elite. Apparently Thomas Jefferson said he would rather be tried by a jury of farmers than a jury of intellectuals.

Jay Leno tried to counter with the argument that managing the economy was more like brain surgery than jury duty, so wouldn't you want to have somebody doing it with some knowledge? But Glenn would have none of Jay's trickery.

Well in my opinion, Jay was right. The fact is that a jury does not have to be highly educated, because they are not expected to discover clues, know the law, understand science, or math or even money. That's what the judge and lawyers and expert witnesses do. The jury is there to add impartiality and honesty, and to let ordinary people participate in the justice system. Everything is explained to them and they simply give their decision yes or no.

On the other hand, deciding what level of debt is sustainable in a given economy means you need to have a rudimentary knowledge of math at least, that goes beyond just knowing that 45 trillion is an awesomely ginormous number. You must also understand how big the economy is. And you need to be able to divide one into the other to know what a sustainable level of debt is. This last question might mean a study of economic history and the study of economies of different countries. And of course the knowledge of what to invest the money in so that it helps the country in the future and is not wasted. Glenn Beck thinks that with 2 months of college, most likely drunk or hung over for most of it, he is better to judge this than people educated at Harvard. And by the same logic, the country might be better off getting rid of all institutions of higher education. Of course we would keep all the Bible colleges so we can study how dinosaurs lived with Adam and Eve.

I am not saying you absolutely need an higher education to know what's going on in the world. But we do need some people like that, and we need to pay more attention to what they say. Unfortunately, Glenn Beck and most other right wing opinion makers are either light on education or pretend to be, which is about the same thing. Even more disturbing is that they are also missing what is possibly the most important quality of common sense, which is an open mind. Most of these right wing opinion givers would not even be fit for jury duty.

Picture: Honestly I was looking for a picture of a jury when I came across this picture of Ashcroft looking nervous in front of the statue of "Lady Justice". I remember the story that the Christian Fundamentalists had a problem with the statue a few years back, and not only because it is French, but what if a baby might see it? Anyway, too funny to not use, but not funny enough to do a whole blog on it.