‘It all comes out of the “Millenium Challenge ’02” war games we staged in the Persian Gulf this summer. The big scandal was that the Opposing Force Commander, Gen. Paul van Ripen, quit mid-game because the games were rigged for the US forces to win. The scenario was a US invasion of an unnamed Persian Gulf country (either Iraq or Iran). The US was testing a new hi-tech joint force doctrine, so naturally van Riper used every lo-tech trick he could think of to mess things up. When the Americans jammed his CCC network , he sent messages by motorbike.
The truth is that van Ripen did something so important that I still can’t believe the mainstream press hasn’t made anything of it. With nothing more than a few “small boats and aircraft,” van Ripen managed to sink most of the US fleet in the Persian Gulf.
What this means is as simple and plain as a skull: every US Navy battle group, every one of those big fancy aircraft carriers we love, won’t last one single day in combat against a serious enemy.’
‘Some soldiers in Afghanistan blow up a road block and inadvertently arouse an angry wasp nest.’
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‘Six Catholic nuns have been excommunicated for heresy after refusing to give up membership in a Canadian sect whose founder claims to be the reincarnation of the Virgin Mary, the Diocese of Little Rock announced Wednesday.
The Rev. J. Gaston Hebert, the diocese administrator, said he notified the nuns of the decision Tuesday night after they refused to recant the teachings of the Community of the Lady of All Nations, also known as the Army of Mary.
The Vatican has declared all members of the Army of Mary excommunicated. Hebert said the excommunication was the first in the diocese’s 165-year history.
“It is a painfully historic moment for this church,” Hebert said.’
‘A plastic surgery office discriminated against a pregnant secretary who was fired after being told to suck in her belly so she wouldn’t scare away patients, government lawyers charged in an anti-discrimination lawsuit filed Wednesday. [..]
Griggle, who worked in the company’s Cranberry office, said she was fired in December 2005, two weeks after telling her supervisors she was pregnant.’
‘It was a bad sign when his first couple passes did not inspire confidence.’
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‘“There is no hard-and-fast rule about how long a house can sit on the side of the freeway.”
These were the words of a California Department of Transportation representative regarding the bizarre scene shown above.
Last Saturday, Patrick Richardson was attempting to move his home from Santa Monica to Santa Clarita when he took what amounted to a disastrous wrong turn. Abandoning the approved “house moving” highway route, Richardson found his house colliding with an overpass on the Hollywood Freeway. Eventually he was forced to unload his domicile near an exit and plan a new strategy.’
‘Tom Cruise was left furious after a crew member on his latest film set passed wind during a minute’s silence.
The Hollywood actor – who is currently shooting World War II drama Valkyrie in Berlin – had paused filming to honor the anti-Nazi heroes portrayed in the movie when one employee decided to use the tribute to break wind.
Fellow star Christian Berkel – who plays anti-Hitler plotter Albrecht Mertz von Quirbheim – said, “The film’s director Bryan Singer, the screenplay writer Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise asked us all to observe a moment’s silence shortly before we started filming.”
A source on the set told Britain’s Daily Star newspaper, “Fortunately the mystery gassy man didn’t completely ruin the touching gesture. [..]
The silence was filmed and now Cruise and the producers will go through the footage to identify the culprit, who is likely to be fired.’
‘The amoeba typically live in lake bottoms, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment. Beach said people become infected when they wade through shallow water and stir up the bottom. If someone allows water to shoot up the nose — say, by doing a cannonball off a cliff — the amoeba can latch onto the person’s olfactory nerve.
The amoeba destroys tissue as it makes its way up to the brain.
People who are infected tend to complain of a stiff neck, headaches and fevers, Beach said. In the later stages, they’ll show signs of brain damage such as hallucinations and behavioral changes.
Once infected, most people have little chance of survival. Some drugs have been effective stopping the amoeba in lab experiments, but people who have been attacked rarely survive, Beach said.
“Usually, from initial exposure it’s fatal within two weeks,” Beach said.’
Followup to Brain-Swelling Amoeba Blamed For 2nd Child’s Death.
‘The most expensive public works project in the US was today in disarray after it emerged that a planned giant nuclear dump would be located on a faultline.
Rock samples from deep within Yucca Mountain, in Nevada, showed that the fault runs directly beneath the site where the US federal government planned to store 70,000 tonnes of highly radioactive waste.
More than $8bn (£4bn) has already been spent on the $58bn project, which had been due to open in 2017, but the proposals – approved by George Bush in 2002 – may now have to be redrawn.
Samples taken from 76 metres below the surface of the mountains, which are around 90 miles north-west of Las Vegas, revealed that the Bow Ridge fault passes hundreds of metres to the east of where scientists believed it lay.’
This little girl needs to learn to use her feet, not her face, when playing soccer.
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‘A photograph by a controversial American artist which is part of Sir Elton John’s private collection has been seized by police from a gallery on suspicion it may have breached child pornography laws.
The image, which featured two young girls one of whom was sitting down with her legs wideapart, was taken by the renowned photographer Nan Goldin.
The shot, from the artist’s Thanksgiving series, was to be exhibited at the Baltic Modern Art gallery, Tyneside, this week along with some of her other work. But the day before it was due to be viewed by the public, police came and removed the image over fears that it might be breaking the law.’
‘Some little old man gets frustrated with some guy smoking next to him so he gets up to walk away and as he passes the big guy he lands a hard nut shot with his cane dropping the dude to the ground.’
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‘A giraffe that strayed into a township close to Zimbabwe’s capital has been rescued after residents tried to kill it for its meat, local media reported.
The animal was put under police guard before wildlife officers removed it.
A dry spell has forced wild animals into urban areas in search of grazing, animal welfare experts say.
Zimbabwe is suffering chronic food shortages and the animal protection society is investigating claims that a number of pets have been slaughtered.’
‘How do you keep a leader as verbally gaffe-prone as US President George W. Bush from making even more slips of the tongue?
When Mr Bush addressed the UN General Assembly today, the White House inadvertently showed exactly how – with a phonetic pronunciation guide on the teleprompter to get him past troublesome names of countries and world leaders.
The White House was left scrambling to explain after a marked-up draft of Bush’s speech popped up briefly on the UN website as he delivered his remarks, giving a rare glimpse of the special guidance he gets for major addresses.
It included phonetic spellings for French President Nicolas Sarkozy (sar-KO-zee), a friend, and Zimbabwe leader Robert Mugabe (moo-GAH-bee), a target of US human rights criticism.
Pronunciations were also provided for Kyrgyzstan (KEYR-geez-stan), Mauritania (moor-EH-tain-ee-a) and the Zimbabwe capital Harare (hah-RAR-ray).’
‘A drunk samurai sword-wielding man seeking revenge on a former friend had the wrong apartment when he attacked a man and severed the victim’s pinky finger Sunday morning, police said.
Officers said the 24-year-old assailant was so drunk on his way to the apartment at 49th Street and Euclid Avenue that he hit several cars parked on a nearby street.
The man knocked on some wrong doors first, police said, attacking one door with the 20-inch samurai-like sword and causing a lot of damage.
The last door he came upon was kicked and struck with the weapon, police said, and when someone opened the door, the man went after him with the sword, bending it and severing a finger.’
‘A dude flying a microlight plane deploys his parachute just a few seconds after takeoff..’
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‘A large crane is lifting a skid of networking supplies onto the roof of an office building when the cable snaps and drops the equipment onto a car below.’
I don’t know why the driver ran off like that.
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A collection of 10 videos of people getting caught having a wank.
Some of them are pretty funny.
‘What the fuck are you doing with my exercise ball?’
‘An Croatian motorbike rider was knocked unconscious when lightning struck his penis during a roadside toilet break.
Metro.co.uk reported Ante Djindjic, 29, escaped relatively unscathed from the incident, suffering only light burns to his chest and arms.
He said: “I don’t remember what happened. One minute I was taking a leak and the next thing I knew I was in hospital.
“Doctors said the lightning went through my body and because I was wearing rubber boots it earthed itself through my penis.”
“Thankfully, the doctors said that there would be no lasting effects, and my penis will function normally eventually.”‘
‘The state’s public health department asked parents Thursday to toss certain Chinese-made lunchboxes potentially containing dangerous levels of lead – the same ones it distributed in a campaign to promote healthy eating.
The department distributed more than 350,000 of the canvas lunchboxes, only to find out that at least three that were tested in a batch of 56,000 contained “significant” levels of lead.
“It certainly is unfortunate that an item we’re using to promote healthy behavior is discovered to be in itself a health hazard,” said Mark Horton, the director of the Department of Public Health. “We will be reassessing our policy on the distribution of our promotional products.”‘
‘Ernie Vesie says he needs his weed. He and his wife Roni have a legal prescription to use the medicinal marijuana. Ernie suffered a painful stroke, and Roni is recovering from major stomach surgery. The two say it eases their pain.
The Vessies grow the marijuana in their south Sacramento backyard. During happier times, a bumper crop blossomed and it was something Ernie’s became proud of. But, after three armed suspects forced their way into their home, the plants are now gone.
“He told me if I opened my mouth, he’d put a bullet in my head,” said Ernie.
It is the second time they’ve been robbed and it is believed to be the same three suspects. [..]
There is not much left of Ernie and Roni’s stash, so they’re smoking what they can.
“Breaks my heart they took all the good stuff,” said Ernie.’
A hostess of a gameshow vomits live on TV whilst talking to a contestant who has phoned in.
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‘A barber who shares a name and birthday with an imprisoned man is asking for $1 million in damages after he said he was wrongly arrested three times in 17 years due to mistaken identity.
“Every day of my life, it’s as though I could be locked up at any moment at any time,” Keith Lamont Johnson said. “I keep talking and keep talking and no one listens and I end up in jail.”
Johnson, 47, shares his name with a known felon who is now in a state prison for armed robbery, among other crimes.
The federal lawsuit filed names in the cities of Detroit, Woodhaven and Trenton and the counties of Wayne and Macomb as defendants, along with several named and unnamed law enforcement officials in each community.’
‘On October 8th, 1871, the small Wisconsin logging town of Peshtigo was consumed by one of the most severe and woefully under-reported fires in human history.
After a hot and dry year, with a mere two inches of rain falling from July through September, churchgoers were praying for much-needed precipitation. The creeks had dried up, and the Peshtigo River, which many residents relied upon for transportation and water, was dangerously low.
In the midst of that quiet Sunday evening, the tiny township was totally annihilated – charred by a gigantic fire that engulfed the buildings, the countryside, and even the townsfolk themselves. Even today the little-known blaze holds the distinction of being the deadliest fire ever to occur in the US.’
‘On his 18th birthday this poor guy tries to take out his friend by sliding down the slide into his legs. Unfortunately he acted too quickly and did not see the slide divider.’
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‘A Colorado judge has sentenced people busted for noise pollution to one hour of listening to unpopular or unusual music.
Mostly young adult offenders were kept in a room and made to listen to Dolly Parton’s I Will Always Love You, Karen Carpenter and Barry Manilow with the volume up loud, CBS4Denver.com reported.
Most offenders, who were not allowed to eat, drink, read or sleep, found the punishment funny at first. But then the boredom set in.
“At about 20 minutes into it, I was trying not to fall a sleep,” offender Luis Cano said.’
‘The Roman Catholic bishop of Ibiza has demanded that a collage depicting the late Pope John Paul II being sodomised be removed from an exhibit held at a former church on the Spanish holiday island.
The work is one of three collages by Ivo Hendriks that are part of a showcase of art by 15 Dutch artists with ties to Ibiza made over the last 50 years that opened on September 7 and is due to run until the end of the month.
The other two collages also depict religious figures in homosexual positions.
Bishop Vicente Juan Segura said the works “offended Catholic sentiment” and he called for their “immediate and urgent withdrawal”.’
This is a trick to turn one 6V lantern battery into 32 AA batteries.
This guys reaction to the failure is hilarious.
I’ve attached the original lantern battery trick video aswell.
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see it here »
‘A word to burglars: Don’t break into a building full of police officers undergoing training.
Two men learned the hard way in Antioch and ended up being arrested, police said today. [..]
They had no idea that the Antioch police K-9 unit was due for a training session at the building, which once housed a cardboard-processing plant.
And at first, the police had no idea that the burglary suspects were inside.
As part of the training, an officer hid inside the 40,000-square-foot building. A K-9 officer then called out that a dog was about to be released and that anyone inside should immediately give up or risk getting bitten.
That’s when Ayers surrendered, police said.’