Posted on 06/14/2006 5:58:12 PM PDT by Oshkalaboomboom
Confederate flags flown aboard the international space station — and seemingly signed by a NASA astronaut — showed up last week on the online auction site eBay.
The original eBay listing indicated that the 4-by-6-inch flags were brought aboard the space station by Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov in 2004, and an accompanying photo showed a sample flag that seemed to bear Sharipov’s signature as well as that of Leroy Chiao, his NASA colleague on the station. Yet another photo showed several of the rebel flags floating in a space station module.
The item was pulled from the auction on Monday by the seller, Alex Panchenko of USSR-Russian Air-Space Collectibles Inc. in Los Angeles — and on Tuesday, Panchenko told MSNBC.com that he removed the items from sale because he had concluded the flag and the authentication documents were forgeries.
However, Robert Pearlman, editor and founder of CollectSpace, said he believes the flags are authentic.
“The picture taken of the flags aboard the station says a lot,” he said. “It would be difficult to fake, given the style and I couldn't see the motivation to do so.” The “onboard-the-ISS” stamp, added Pearlman, is not known to have been counterfeited anywhere."
The disappearance of the flags followed a round of criticism over the weekend from former space scientist Keith Cowing, publisher of NASA Watch, an independent Web log. He cited the Confederate flags as an example of “bad judgment on the ISS.”
“You'd think that someone on the U.S. side of the ISS program would have expressed some concern about flying a symbol on the ISS that many Americans associate with slavery,” Cowing wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Or was that Braveheart?
I can remember driving through North Carolina in the mid-70's and seeing a big Klan billboard.
In all fairness show me a city that isn't de-facto segregated, by income level if nothing else.
What's changed is that since the 1980s the Democratic machine has been better about giving the black community a piece of the patronage action and the black population boom and resulting neighborhood expansion that led to the violent white reaction has eased.
The Chicago Machine brought blacks in through patronage long before the mid-80's. The south side was sending black to congress in the 1940's.
I don't make excuses for the deep-seated racism in Illinois, but do point out that it wasn't so bad that Chicago didn't become the major destination in the black "Great Migration" out of the south.
I'd disagree with that because there was a large migration to Chicago, as well as almost every other Northern city.
If I recall correctly it was an invitation to come help fight communism and integration.
I'll agree with number 1 but I'm not familiar with number 2. But I believe that the migration actually started in the teens with blacks coming north to work in war industries. One of the earliest race riots in Chicago occured about 1919 or 1920 as an offshoot of the growing black population on the south side.
and LOTS of hateful,terminally ignorant, SELF-righteous, prejudiced idiots, too.
free dixie,sw
free dixie,sw
Yes, and the state that holds the record for the largest Klan membership was Indiana, a state for which there was no star in the Confederate battleflag.
i'd guess only about 10-15% of northerners are DAMNyankees, but that minority are REALLY ignorant, LOUD-mouthed,prejudiced,vengeful,nit-witted & generally brain-dead. they would be some OTHER sort of BIGOT, if they were not so busy HATING dixie, her symbols & our people.
MOST of them are "victums uv duh gubmint pubic scewl kurricuum" & neither "don't know better" OR they don't care that what they have been forcibly "spoon-fed" is mostly evasive, intentionally slanted and/or just plain a LIE.
i'd guess they would swallow sewage & think it "wonderful", if that was ALL they had been fed.
SADLY, sewage is MOST of the diet for them & they will accept nothing else. their minds are CLOSED. i am reminded of the DAMNyankee (thankfully, long gone to DU from FR) who once said to N-C on a WBTS thread that: what you say just can't be true, because it means that my ancestors were not "nice people" & no better than nazis.
free dixie,sw
again, WELCOME. we look forward to your contributions.
free dixie,sw
he said that:
History is FICTION, popularly agreed upon by tyrants & conquerers.
free dixie,sw
No prob, I wasn't trying to drag you in, I just think people should be warned about liars. If he was on my side, I still would have warned you. Have a great weekend.
Great article. What's the exact point you're trying to make?
Yeah, and the KKK was an enormous power in Maine in the 1920's, though their target up there was Catholics.
free dixie,sw
Speaking of hateful,terminally ignorant, SELF-righteous, prejudiced idiots...
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