Death to Eurabia?

Eurabia: A Voice Cries Out in Defense of Europe's Heritage

With  birthrates among traditional Europeans in decline while population          growth in Europe's Muslim communities soars, one European voice asks          whether Europe wants to preserve its cultural and religious  identity.         Will anyone listen before it's too late?

Read more - Eurabia

Will to live

"Don't let the darkness destroy your will to live in the light."
- a friend years ago

Britain and France flirting with disaster

Commentary: The new British-French alliance: Wise strategy, or doomed to fail?

By Wyatt Ciesielka | Thursday, November 04, 2010

Britain and France are grappling now with what the United States will be forced to confront very soon - they are financially unable to maintain the military power to which they were once accustomed. Consequently, Britain and France recently signed military and nuclear weapons treaties ensuring unprecedented cooperation. Can these two nations really trust their military alliance to provide for their national security in the years ahead? And, what are the lessons for them ... and for America? Read more

Black Invention Myths

Perhaps you've heard the claims: Were it not for the genius and energy of African-American inventors, we might find ourselves in a world without traffic lights, peanut butter, blood banks, light bulb filaments, and a vast number of other things we now take for granted but could hardly imagine life without.

Such beliefs usually originate in books or articles about black history. Since many of the authors have little interest in the history of technology outside of advertising black contributions to it, their stories tend to be fraught with misunderstandings, wishful thinking, or fanciful embellishments with no historical basis. The lack of historical perspective leads to extravagant overestimations of originality and importance: sometimes a slightly modified version of a pre-existing piece of technology is mistaken for the first invention of its type; sometimes a patent or innovation with little or no lasting value is portrayed as a major advance, even if there's no real evidence it was ever used.

Unfortunately, some of the errors and exaggerations have acquired an illusion of credibility by repetition in mainstream outlets, especially during Black History Month (see examples for the traffic light and ironing board). When myths go unchallenged for too long, they begin to eclipse the truth. Thus I decided to put some records straight. Although this page does not cover every dubious invention claim floating around out there, it should at least serve as a warning never to take any such claim for granted.

Each item below is listed with its supposed black originator beneath it along with the year it was supposedly invented, followed by something about the real origin of the invention or at least an earlier instance of it.

http://www33.brinkster.com/iiiii/inventions/