Things that make you go WTF

[Tankfriend]

“One of the funniest things I’ve ever seen. During the airshow in 2006, as the Harrier was transversing sideways down the runway, it happened to fly over an area with lots of rabbit holes and watching the down draft blowing the rabbits out of the hole and up into the air was incredibly funny!”

Sounds like the rabbits had the last laugh, afterall, though. They're still there, while the Harrier will be gone.

[Condottiere 40K]

Tbilisi boosted its deployments to Afghanistan in 2009 and soon became one of the most prominent contributors to the international mission. By October 2012, Georgia had sent nearly 1,600 crack troops to fight alongside U.S. Marines in Helmand, making Georgia the top per-capita troop contributor and largest non-NATO force in the country.
Georgia has committed to sticking around alongside U.S. troops even after most NATO countries finish pulling out of Afghanistan this year.
By all accounts, the Georgians have performed well in Afghanistan. Unlike many NATO members, Tbilisi demanded no national caveats. They went wherever they were needed, no strings attached. The Georgians took some heavy casualties, but won the respect of their U.S. counterparts.
“You could always rely on the Georgians,” said one Navy corpsman who recently returned from Afghanistan with his Marine unit. “They had a reputation as guys who would got done.”
The Afghanistan mission has earned the Georgian army more than just plaudits from their U.S. peers. Rigorous pre-deployment training and long months in combat conditions have transformed the Georgian army into a well-prepared, battle-hardened force.
For the Georgians, Afghanistan has been a master class in combat operations in an austere environment—and they’ve paid close attention. “They’re hungry to learn,” one U.S. Marine instructor based in Georgia told me. “These guys are real professionals.”
Today, Georgia boasts some 10,000 troops whom it claims are trained to the highest NATO standards. This is reportedly a bigger trained force than even many current NATO states can field.
Tbilisi’s forces have so impressed Western officials that Georgian troops are set to join the NATO response force—the alliance’s 25,000-strong rapid reaction unit—in 2015.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the...t-776541b1edb2

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

That's what I call an anti-Russian device if I ever saw one.

[Condottiere 40K]

The scary reason Saudi farmers are kissing camelsBY ADAM TAYLOR May 20


Last week the Saudi government reported that traces of the MERS virus were found in camels tested in Saudi Arabia, but camel shepherds are not convinced there is a link.

MERS is very scary. This week, while avoiding the term global health emergency, the World Health Organization announced that the deadly viral infection was both serious and urgent. So far, there have been 571 confirmed cases of MERS; 171 of those people died from the disease.
There's one place, however, where the mood about MERS isn't scaring everyone. It's also the place where the infection was first reported in 2012 and where almost 500 recorded cases have been found so far: Saudi Arabia.
And the skepticism about the virus has taken a strange turn in Saudi Arabia, where people have begun kissing camels in response to MERS.

“Do sneeze in my face,” the farmer says in above video clip, according to a translation from Gulf News. “They claim camels carry the coronavirus," he continues in the video, which has been watched over 11,000 times.
On Twitter, photographs of men kissing and stroking their camels have been accompanied with comments disparaging MERS:
It seems a strange protest, but there's something behind it. Earlier this week, the Saudi government began a campaign to stop people from eating raw camel meat and liver or drinking unpasteurized camel milk. Experts argue that Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS' full name) or traces of it have been found in a large proportion of the camels tested in Saudi Arabia, and antibodies from the virus have even been found in camel populations in Spain's Canary Islands, thousands of miles away. Camels may not be the main source of MERS (many experts point the finger at bats), but they certainly seem like one big possibility.
For some in Saudi Arabia, avoiding camels is not such an easy task. One study from 2008 found that there were almost 900,000 camels in Saudi Arabia alone, with almost 15 million across other Arab states. The animals are a source of income for a large number of people, and popular too. "Camels in the kingdom are like dairy cows, beef cows, racehorses, pulling horses, beloved Labradors, and living daily reminders of holy scripture, all in one," Cynthia Gorney wrote for the National Geographic this week, noting that camels are featured honorably in the Koran.
Partly due to this fondness for camels, and partly due to a perceived lack of transparency from the Saudi government about MERS, a lot of people aren't totally convinced by the warnings about camels. Reuters reported from a Saudi camel market on Sunday and noted that only one person was wearing a mask as recommended. Some farmers are pointing out they have worked with camels for decades with no ill health.

Whether it's transmitted via camel or not, MERS is still a worrying situation for Saudi Arabia. It's a coronavirus like SARS, which is believed to have infected 8,273 people and led to 775 deaths in 2002-2003, and while its hard to say for sure at present, MERS may well be deadlier than its predecessor. Given that millions of Muslims are expected to travel to Mecca this October for Hajj, even officials in Saudi Arabia are beginning to wonder if the country is doing enough.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...issing-camels/

[Condottiere 40K]

In particular, there was East Germany and Poland. The limits of fraternal socialist unity is evident in a Polish army report on the misbehavior of East German troops stationed in Poland during joint exercises in 1969.
The original Polish-language report can be found here. The English-language translation is via A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991.
The Polish hosts were less than happy with drunken East German officers breaking into local apartments, or with the deputy commander of the 9th Armored Division who “after binge drinking in the town of Charzykow and missing his shoes and uniform, attempted to break into the room of Soviet typists.”
Female typists, presumably.
But what really irked the Poles was the attitude of their German guests, who took every opportunity to remind their hosts that East Germany had a more prosperous economy. The East Germans also proposed that German troops cross the border into Poland for training at dawn on Sept. 1, 1969.
That just happened to be the 30th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland.
There was also the Germans’ “practice of throwing sweets to children and photographing these youngsters while they picked up these sweets caused unpleasant feedback and reminiscences among civilians.”
Curiously, the Polish army also suggested that the attitudes of East German soldiers in Poland were “dominated by guilty feelings caused by the previous historical period.” Mein Gott! It’s a wonder that East Germans didn’t try goose-stepping through the middle of Warsaw.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/com...d-f54319bc5c7a

[Condottiere 40K]

In particular, there was East Germany and Poland. The limits of fraternal socialist unity is evident in a Polish army report on the misbehavior of East German troops stationed in Poland during joint exercises in 1969.
The original Polish-language report can be found here. The English-language translation is via A Cardboard Castle? An Inside History of the Warsaw Pact, 1955-1991.
The Polish hosts were less than happy with drunken East German officers breaking into local apartments, or with the deputy commander of the 9th Armored Division who “after binge drinking in the town of Charzykow and missing his shoes and uniform, attempted to break into the room of Soviet typists.”
Female typists, presumably.
But what really irked the Poles was the attitude of their German guests, who took every opportunity to remind their hosts that East Germany had a more prosperous economy. The East Germans also proposed that German troops cross the border into Poland for training at dawn on Sept. 1, 1969.
That just happened to be the 30th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland.
There was also the Germans’ “practice of throwing sweets to children and photographing these youngsters while they picked up these sweets caused unpleasant feedback and reminiscences among civilians.”
Curiously, the Polish army also suggested that the attitudes of East German soldiers in Poland were “dominated by guilty feelings caused by the previous historical period.” Mein Gott! It’s a wonder that East Germans didn’t try goose-stepping through the middle of Warsaw.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/com...d-f54319bc5c7a

[Condottiere 40K]

Richard Williams, father of Venus and Serena, reveals tough childhood that included disguising as Klansman in 'Black and White: The Way I See It'


Anger was my life. I found strength challenging the Klan to see how far I could go. Before I left Shreveport for Chicago, I planned to give back a piece of what had been given to me all my life. I was going to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.
My friends Big Mo and Louis were having sex with a white farmer’s daughter named Lucy Clavens. Lucy did anything for sex. Lucy was like an obedient puppy, and I knew she would tell Louis where her father kept his Klan outfit. Big Mo found it just where she said it was, hanging on a nail in the toolshed. My concern was hiding my skin color. The mask only had little round eyeholes so it showed no skin, and the gown was floor-length. I had my sisters buy makeup from the pharmacy that turned my hands into convincing white skin at night.
After dark, I rode my dark blue bicycle into a white neighborhood with the KKK outfit neatly folded inside my jacket. I hid the bicycle in the bushes, walked three blocks, ducked into an alley, and put on the hood and robe and rubbed my hands in the makeup. I walked two blocks before selecting my victims — a white farmer and his teenaged son sitting on a park bench, smoking and drinking. They both wore work boots, T-shirts, and overalls. I smelled their smoke, heard the scratchy sound as they rubbed their stubbly faces.
My hatred was up, and so was my longing to pay back somebody, anybody, for everything that ever happened to me. I felt the power anonymity gave me. I picked up a stick. My attack was quick and vicious. I crept up behind them in the darkness, brought the stick down on their heads, and they cried out and fell to the ground.
I ran away as fast as I could. I pedaled slowly down the street until I was outside the white neighborhood, then pedaled like the devil himself was chasing me. When I pulled into my yard, my heart was racing from the adrenaline rush.


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nati...icle-1.1762359

[Aru]

That things that blah blah in other countries is identical thread to this one.

[Condottiere 40K]

3 June 2014 Last updated at 23:33 GMTKoalas hug trees to lose heatBy Victoria GillScience reporter, BBC News

Dr Michael Kearney from the University of Melbourne explains how the koalas hug trees to regulate their temperature

Hugging trees helps koalas to keep cool, a study has revealed.
In a study published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, scientists used thermal cameras to reveal that, in hotter weather, the animals moved to the lower, cooler parts of the trees.
They also pressed their bodies even closer to the trunks.
The team, led by researchers from the University of Melbourne, was studying how koalas regulated their temperature.
Thermal images revealed how cool the trunks of large trees were
This is part of a wider research project investigating the effect of climate on land-dwelling animals in Australia, a country which experienced an extreme heat wave earlier this year.


While PhD student Natalie Briscoe was studying the koalas' behaviour, she noticed that in the winter the animals would stay high in the trees - up near the leaves feeding.
In the hotter summer weather though, they would move down.
Dr Michael Kearney from the University of Melbourne explained: "They'd just flop over the [lower] tree trunks.
"It looked like they were spread-eagled and uncomfortable; it seemed like the wrong thing to do."
But measurements of the temperatures of the tree trunks showed that, on days as hot as 39C, they were up to seven degrees cooler than the air.


See a male koala making the extraordinary bellowing sounds (footage by Benjamin D Charlton at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Brisbane)

"That's what made us wonder if the koalas were using the trees as a heat sink," said Dr Kearney.
The team used a thermal camera to take pictures of koalas on a particularly hot day.
"When we got the images, back it was so obvious what the koala was doing," explained Dr Kearney. "You could see the koala sitting on the coolest part of the tree trunk with its bottom wedged right into the coolest spot.
"If we had thermal vision, it would have been an obvious thing."
Deadly heatDr Kearney said large trees had their own protective "microclimate", which is likely to become increasingly important to tree-dwelling creatures like koalas if global temperatures continue to increase as predicted.
Thermal images of flying foxes reveals their response to heat stress
Another researcher who has used thermal cameras in his ecological research - Dr Justin Welbergen from James Cook University - says thermal images show exactly how animals can exploit these cooler microclimates in trees.
"This helps them to maximise their chances of survival during extreme heat events," He told BBC News.
Research Dr Welbergen published earlier this year revealed the effects on wildlife of such extreme events. His research revealed that 45,500 flying foxes had died on just one extremely hot day in southeast Queensland.
"Our thermal video shows group of flying-foxes trying to cope with an extreme heat event by distributing saliva on their wings," he explained.
Hugging trees, Dr Kearney said, helps the koalas to avoid similar water loss - enabling them to "dump heat" into the tree and to avoid panting.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-27684863

[Condottiere 40K]

The below exchange wasn't copied from a script from Yes, Minister:

Mr Bacon: It is on page 6, paragraph 4: “The list of armoured vehicles projects cancelled, suspended or delayed in Figure 1 suggests that…the Department’s standard acquisition process for armoured vehicles has not been working.”
Ursula Brennan: We have acknowledged that there were failings in our procurement of armoured fighting vehicles. Yes, we do acknowledge this.
Q24 Mr Bacon: Who has paid the price for that? Who has paid the penalty for that scale of error? Because for most of this decade—although we have had an enormous financial crunch since 2008 or late 2007—it was a period of rising Government spending. It is a huge failure. Who is paying the penalty for that? Is anyone?
Ursula Brennan: The reasons—
Q25 Mr Bacon: Apart from the soldiers on the ground, obviously, who has paid the penalty for this failure in the Ministry of Defence?
Ursula Brennan: The reasons—
Q26 Mr Bacon: No, no, my question is who? The answer must be a person or no person.
Ursula Brennan: The reason why I wanted to say the reasons is because the reasons why certain programmes were stopped or cancelled were to do with decisions that were taken, in some cases about the procurement routes, between Ministers and officials at the time about the way it was chosen to procure—
Q27 Mr Bacon: You are answering a question that is not the question I asked. You are giving me an explanation of how we reached this position through decisions having been taken. Plainly, some decisions must have been taken for us to end up in a particular position. There must have been bad decisions for us to end up in a particularly bad position such as this one. My question is who has paid the penalty for this in the Ministry of Defence? It’s a simple question. Who?
Ursula Brennan: I can’t point the finger at one person, because there isn’t one person who was responsible for the different sets of decisions that were taken about individual vehicles.
Mr Bacon: Is there anybody who has paid the penalty for this?
Vice-Admiral Lambert: If I can—
Mr Bacon: No, no, no. I am looking at Ms Brennan. I am asking her a question. She is the accounting officer. She is the permanent secretary. My question stands; I’ve asked it three or four times now. It is very simple and very clear. Is there anybody in the Ministry of Defence who has paid a penalty for this?
Ursula Brennan: No. I don’t think I can point the finger at anybody.

[AqD]

If hugging trees does work, why don't Australians do the same?

[Condottiere 40K]

Because they have air conditioning, and koalas don't?

[Condottiere 40K]

[AqD]

Because they have air conditioning, and koalas don't?

That's so cruel. They should have invited koalas to their houses.

[Condottiere 40K]

[Condottiere 40K]

[Lord Baal]

This level of ry, and I wonder how this people even manage to dress up in the morning, let alone write into a computer.
Also this one, saying that liking Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey will damn you to eternal damnation (kind of redundant)


And this one tittled: radioactive peacock-spiders used to bite people to vote agreeing with Obama's agenda. No, it's not a typo and not a joke either.

... or is it?

[Sir Adrian]

People like that guy give Christians a bad name.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

This level of ry, and I wonder how this people even manage to dress up in the morning, let alone write into a computer.
Also this one, saying that liking Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey will damn you to eternal damnation (kind of redundant)


And this one tittled: radioactive peacock-spiders used to bite people to vote agreeing with Obama's agenda. No, it's not a typo and not a joke either.

... or is it?

http://topekasnews.com/neil-degrasse...ng-illuminati/

It is true, I am the second coming. That is why my name is RAfael.
Yes, Neil deGrasse Tyson seeks to do my bidding on this Earth so that I may rule over Egypt once again.

[Condottiere 40K]