Midweek Update

More adept at winning hearts and minds than reproducing. Source

Longtime followers of the blog were no doubt shocked that I allowed an anniversary of crucial importance to slip by unheralded. I refer, of course, to the 40th anniversary of Panda Diplomacy between the U.S. and China!

That's right. On April 16, 1972, Beijing delivered two adorable diplomats to the National Zoo -- the first in a series of pambassadors who would grace our fair city over the subsequent decades.

Over the years, China's practice of loaning pandas to friendly nations in order to bolster international relations has had its fans and critics, but I think we can all agree that pandas are adorable.

And speaking of things we can all agree on, rockets are awesome. Especially this one:

Go on. Try to persuade me this isn't totally rad. Source

You know what I love about this? I love that somebody was sitting in a meeting and said, "You know what we should do? Let's strap a rocket on a 747 and fly that sucker around town a few times." And I love that somebody thought it over and said, "Well, I can't see why not."

I love that somebody knows how to strap a rocket onto the back of a 747. I love that somebody knows how to take it off. And I really, really, really love that somebody knows how to fly a 747 with a rocket riding piggyback. That is a really specific skill set.

We'll file this one under American Ingenuity with cross-references to Whimsy and General Badassery.