Last WWII Dornier bomber to be rescued from the sea bed

Pretty cool, really:

A rare German bomber from the Second World War is set to be raised from the English Channel where it has lain for seven decades, it was announced today.

The retrieval of the last surviving Dornier Do 17 from the Goodwin Sands off the coast of Kent will be the biggest recovery of its kind in British waters.

The aircraft was first spotted by divers in 2008, lying 50ft below the surface on a chalk bed, surrounded by debris.

Click through to that link and RTWT which is seriously, seriously cool. The Godwin Sands are a notorious moving set of undersea dunes off of Dover that have been swallowing ships (and seemingly, planes) since the Bronze Age.  One aspect of being entombed in sand is that the object is preserved; here's hoping that the aircraft is in decent shape after all these years.

We sailed past there on a huge catamaran ferry from Ramsgate headed to Ostende, back in the day.  The Godwin Sands looked entirely evil, with whitecaps braking over them, even on a glorious sunny spring morning.  Being on a sailing ship being driven towards them in a storm would be utterly terrifying.


Hat tip, Counting Cats in Zanzibar, a UK anarcho-capitalist blog that makes the pelt of my Wookie Suit look matted and mangy.  For example:

The government doesn’t really teach critical thinking skills in its schools.  Sure the kids will learn about recycling and global warming, multiculturalism, Keynesian economics and a host of other stuff.  Some learn to read, write and perform basic mathematical functions.  But ask a recent GCSE graduate who Aristotle was, or what is Austrian economics and (in my experience anyway) you are met with blank stares.

The reason they don’t teach critical thinking, is that they don’t really want people thinking critically about the government and its fundamental nature.  It’s this basically confused philosophy, one that declines to see that A is indeed A, that really seems to befuddle some of our fellow citizens.  How else can we explain the following ideas that have gained traction today?

Again, click through for the goodness.  All I can say is that what follows had me at this:

The government is there to help people.

By sticking a gun in their face and demanding money, compliance with a host of crackpot schemes and prohibiting any number of victimless ‘crimes’

Awesome.  The flame of Liberty may gutter and flicker in Her Magesty's Scepter'd Isle, but it still gleams.