Things that make you go WTF

[Kyriakos]

Just why are some people that dumb? :\



Yeah, they are going to look at your hair-tattoo for a second in surprise, and then move on to ponder just what an idiot you are :\

[Condottiere 40K]

Red Frankenstein

The story centers on the eccentric Russian biologist Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov.
Before the Russian revolution, Ivanov studied bacteriology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. It was there he perfected the science of artificial insemination and hybridization.
Ivanov cross bred donkeys with zebras (he’s pictured next to one above), bison with cows—and rats with mice. But he wanted to go further. In 1910, he gave a lecture at an Austrian zoological conference on how artificial insemination could be used to breed humans with non-human apes.
He also thrived after the Bolshevik revolution. In 1924, he asked the Soviet Academy of Sciences to fund his research. The Academy agreed and granted Ivanov $100,000 to attempt the creation of an ape-human hybrid.
Ivanov used his connections at Institut Pasteur to gain access to their primate center in Guinea, then a French colony. Ivanov traveled to Africa, paid for the capture of viable females chimps and inseminated three likely candidates. He used sperm from local volunteers.
Obviously, this experiment didn’t work.
He switched tactics. Female chimps and male humans didn’t seem to compatible, but what about the other way around? Ivanov concocted a terrifying plan to give free medical examinations to local women and secretly inseminate them with chimpanzee sperm.
The local French governor forbade the Russian scientist from proceeding with the clandestine insemination. Ivanov returned home with the remainder of his captured primates.

[By now, Ivanov’s money was running out. His captured apes were not adjusting to their new home. Only one of his apes—an orangutan—survived.
Seeking support, Ivanov wrote to Cuban animal keeper Rosalia Abreu. The daughter of a prominent plantation owner, Abreu was the first person to successfully breed apes in captivity. Ivanov detailed his experiment and asked Abreu to donate chimpanzees to his experiment. She agreed.
Ivanov also wrote to Charles Smith—the head of American Association for the Advancement of Atheism. Ivanov needed cash and he asked Smith to help raise money from members of the group. If man could interbreed with monkey, Ivanov reasoned, might they finally disprove the idea of a divinely-created human?
Smith—perhaps more fond of publicity than proving Darwin correct—alerted the media of Ivanov’s plans. “Soviets Back Plan to Test Evolution,” the New York Times headline read.
The article revealed the participation of Abreu. The Ku Klux Klan—then a powerful and threatening force in American society—pressured her and called the project “abominable to God.” She pulled her support..
Despite his new status as a media curiosity, Ivanov pressed onward with his experiment. One orangutan would have to do.
Ivanov sought female volunteers from the Russian population. Five answered his request and agreed to be sequestered while Ivanov attempted to induce a primate pregnancy. Then the orangutan died of a brain hemorrhage.
Ivanov’s experiment was in shambles, but he had bigger problems.
News of his attempt to inseminate African women without their consent reached the Kremlin. The Soviet Academy of Sciences was horrified. They investigated Ivanov, found him guilty of acting unethically and pulled their support. In 1930, Soviet authorities exiled Ivanov to Kazakhstan. He died one year later.

The big mystery is why Ivanov pursued the experiments. There’s no clear explanation for a set of experiments that was simultaneously unethical, doomed … and really crazy.
Even foggier are the Soviet Academy of Science’s motivations for funding him. Both Kirill Rossiianov of the Russian Academy of Sciences and researcher Alexander Etkin have pored through Soviet records and Ivanov’s notes looking for answers.
One theory holds that the Bolshevik establishment didn’t care about the experiment in and of itself, but were interested in the apes they assumed Ivanov would bring back to Russia. Ape testes were an important part of rejuvenation therapies popular among the Kremlin elite.
Another theory states that Ivanov’s work would help to usher in an era of then-popular eugenics research.
Many scientists, including American geneticist Hermann Muller, thought a man-ape hybrid could help realize the dream of the New Socialist Man. The proponents of this theory—en vogue among communist ideologues at the time—believed this new kind of human would be stronger, smarter and healthier than before.
The last theory states that both Ivanov and the Bolsheviks pursued the experiments as a method of disproving Christianity by propping up Darwin’s theory of evolution. Ivanov’s pursuit of funding from famous American atheists is used as evidence for this theory, but it could also have been opportunistic.
However, we do know that Ivanov never met Joseph Stalin, and the Soviets never sought to breed an army of simian super soldiers. That would probably make for a good horror movie. But the reality is horrifying enough.

https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the...es-123d85254b2

[Lord Baal]

and the Soviets never sought to breed an army of simian super soldiers

Yeah, keep thinking that. That's what everybody does until this guy shows up at your door:

[AqD]

Just why are some people that dumb? :\



Yeah, they are going to look at your hair-tattoo for a second in surprise, and then move on to ponder just what an idiot you are :\

But it looks funny!

[Condottiere 40K]

In recent years, sperm has been shipped out of Denmark at an astonishing rate, producing thousands of babies worldwide - many in the UK. In 2006, the UK was not importing any Danish sperm, but by 2010 Denmark was supplying around a third of our total imports. Why are Danish donors in such demand? Is it simply a desire for the tall, blonde, blue-eyed, well-educated stereotype - or is there more to it?
Kate Brian, who has reported on fertility issues for two decades, hears from women who have been attracted by the range and availability of Danish donors. Some have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of detail that can be accessed online - typically, thirty pages about each individual, including voice samples and baby photos.
She investigates whether there is a problem with the UK's own system of recruiting and supplying donor sperm. One couple looked to Denmark after being told there was a ten-year wait in their area for a suitable donor. How common is this? Has the 2005 law change removing UK donors' rights to anonymity made a difference?
Kate also travels to Copenhagen to meet some of the 250 men who regularly donate at European Sperm Bank, receiving around £30 per visit. How rigorous is the selection process for becoming a donor? Is the incentive merely financial? And how do the men feel about producing potentially hundreds of children, many of which may contact them in years to come?
Producer: Steve Urquhart
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047c76w

[Condottiere 40K]

Edited

Wrong thread.

Republican Gnomish hierarchy divided into five major strata.

[Lord Baal]

What the heck did I just read?

[Lord Thesaurian]

In recent years, sperm has been shipped out of Denmark at an astonishing rate, producing thousands of babies worldwide - many in the UK. In 2006, the UK was not importing any Danish sperm, but by 2010 Denmark was supplying around a third of our total imports. Why are Danish donors in such demand? Is it simply a desire for the tall, blonde, blue-eyed, well-educated stereotype - or is there more to it?
Kate Brian, who has reported on fertility issues for two decades, hears from women who have been attracted by the range and availability of Danish donors. Some have been overwhelmed by the vast amount of detail that can be accessed online - typically, thirty pages about each individual, including voice samples and baby photos.
She investigates whether there is a problem with the UK's own system of recruiting and supplying donor sperm. One couple looked to Denmark after being told there was a ten-year wait in their area for a suitable donor. How common is this? Has the 2005 law change removing UK donors' rights to anonymity made a difference?
Kate also travels to Copenhagen to meet some of the 250 men who regularly donate at European Sperm Bank, receiving around £30 per visit. How rigorous is the selection process for becoming a donor? Is the incentive merely financial? And how do the men feel about producing potentially hundreds of children, many of which may contact them in years to come?
Producer: Steve Urquhart
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b047c76w

At last the Danes are retaking Northumbria. On to London!

[Condottiere 40K]

Introducing the Arselander

I am sure there are sound engineering reasons why the back end of the #Airlander looks like this, but if not.....

It’ s normal shape for otherwise too large radius single pressurized containers:

http://www.thinkdefence.co.uk/2014/0...ng-arselander/

[Kyriakos]

^That is half of an HR Giger model

[Condottiere 40K]

World Cup: Germany 7, Brazil 1


Germans stun hosts with 5 goals in 1st 29 minutes

[G-Megas-Doux]

Yep made me go WTF

[Condottiere 40K]

Brazil never looked like champions in the run up, but at least the England team can leave the continent.

I wonder if the Germans decided to lower their tempo, so that they'll survive long enough to play the finale.

[Condottiere 40K]

Canon 29 of the Laodicean council specifically refers to the sabbath: "Christians must not judaize by resting on the [Jewish] Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather honoring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians. But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema (excommunicated) from Christ."[83]

[napoleon boneaparte]

http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Natio...-Hitler-tweet/
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Natio...-Hitler-tweet/

[Lord Baal]

Brazil never looked like champions in the run up

This so much... they crossed off Colombia for that? It's a real shame. Colombia-Germany would have been a much better game.

[Condottiere 40K]

The American teams showed a lot of promise; one seemed very lucky to get this far.

Though that may have ensured that you didn't have large scale riots.

[Lord Baal]

Sure it did.

[Condottiere 40K]

The proletariat was restless before the World Cup, and I'll bet in 2016 it will be restless before the Olympics.

They settled down when it started, but if their team didn't make the next stage, they may start wondering again if the money was worth it.

[Condottiere 40K]

Police officer shoots ‘aggressive’ tortoise dead

PUBLISHED 09/07/2014|13:57


Officer called the tortoise 'aggressive'


A policeman in Uganda has reportedly shot a tortoise dead, maintaining the reptile attacked him at his home.

The incident, which has left Officer Charles Onegiu “traumatised and stressed”, occurred in the Nebbi district in the north of the country.
Onegiu claims he was relaxing in his home after work when the hard-shelled assailant made his move.
“I tried to scare it but the tortoise became very aggressive. I took a stick to chase it but it instead became more violent making me to make alarm,” he told New Vision newspaper.
After threatening the creature with a plastic chair, the tortoise left the policeman’s home. It was then that Officer Onegiu “instinctively” pulled his firearm on the “big white tortoise”.
“As I talk now, I am still scared because it is the first time I have seen such an incident happen in my life or heard of one,” he told New Vision.
A local Christian group later prayed for Onegiu, "before burning the dead reptile to ashes," the paper reported.

http://www.independent.ie/world-news...-30419096.html