The Nordic Battlegroup, a 2,400 soldiers-strong rapid reaction troop, lost a legal battle over its army and was forced to castrate the overtly male heraldic lion:
The proud motto of northern Europe’s crack rapid-reaction force is ad omnia paratus. Prepared for everything, everywhere. But the heraldic lion above the Latin tag now sends a less plucky message – he has just been digitally emasculated and, though technically still a lion rampant, he does not seem to be ready for anything, anywhere.
The change was implemented after a group of women Swedish soldiers protested that they could not identify with such an ostentatiously male lion on their army crest. A complaint of sex discrimination was then lodged with the European Court of Justice.
“We were forced to cut the lion’s willy off with the aid of a computer,” Christian Braunstein, from the Tradition Commission of the Swedish Army, said.
Now the Nordic Battlegroup, a force of 2,400 soldiers, is looking deeply embarrassed. For sceptics who already consider the Nordic Battlegroup to be something of an oxymoron – it is led by the Swedes, who were last in battle in 1809 – the operation on the lion is not an auspicious omen.
“A castrated lion – the perfect symbol for European defence policy,” an American military blogger sneered.
Link - via Scribal Terror
Screw the Disney world of happy people that are ashamed to see a penis (perhaps that's why most people shut off the lights to make love).
I believe the inclusion of said equipment (anatomically correct or otherwise) is more true to the specific artistic style chosen for the lion. If you look up images of Medieval heraldry, you'll find that a lot of critters have been rendered with their "junk" in view, some of which is also anatomically incorrect. The reason for including genitalia in heraldic designs is anyone's guess, but I suppose my point is that the artist who made the original lion for The Nordic Battlegroup was likely trying to keep with the style of art that was chosen for reference.
What I was getting at in the prior post is that maybe this Nordic Battlegroup needs more Finns and fewer Swedes. Finland has some pretty liberal gun laws -- their citizenry is armed and not afraid to protect itself from aggression. Just a thought...
That said, a fighting force primarily composed of Swedes doesn't instill a bunch of confidence in me. Sweden seriously wussied out during WWII, maintaining an official policy of neutrality, yet in reality generally collaborating with the Nazis a lot. They sold them tons of critical ballbearing & raw materials and also permitted the Wehrmacht to use their roads and railways to move troops back and forth between forcibly occupied Norway and Finland. The Finns for their part had some nominal alliance with the Germans, but it was really only to help fend off the communist Russians (Finland was pretty good on its own at this though!), who had serious design on Finland's territory and were the more imminent threat.