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Phobophilia posted:Superpowers Don't Apologize. In August 1988, Newsweek quoted Vice President George H. W. Bush as saying "I'll never apologize for the United States of America. Ever. I don't care what the facts are."
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Feb 23, 2013 19:44
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HonorableTB posted:Fun fact: the Soviets killed a Congressman from my district when they shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on September 1, 1983. That was Larry McDonald, who was also president of the John Birch Society . At the risk of provoking a politics derail, they're a bit unnerving too. Ayn Rand posted:I gather they believe that the disastrous state of today's world is caused by a communist conspiracy. This is childishly naive and superficial. No country can be destroyed by a mere conspiracy, it can be destroyed only by ideas. When Ayn Rand thinks you're a right-wing wacko...
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Feb 23, 2013 20:16
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HonorableTB posted:Fun fact: the Soviets killed a Congressman from my district when they shot down Korean Air Lines Flight 007 on September 1, 1983. I'm really surprised that there were no reprisals or anything to come out of a Soviet Major shooting down a civilian airliner using his Su-15 and killing a sitting member of the United States government. I know MAD would prevent anything serious from happening, but if any other country had done that then there would have been major reprisals following it. Are you kidding? Israel sunk a US intelligence ship in 1967 and JFK didn't say "boo". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
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Feb 23, 2013 20:20
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Of course, that might have been because JFK had been dead 4 years by then.
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Feb 23, 2013 20:22
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redmercer posted:Are you kidding? Israel sunk a US intelligence ship in 1967 and JFK didn't say "boo". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident Yeah, but Israel apologized and paid an indemnity for it. That's quite a bit different than killing a sitting member of the US government, even if he was just a Representative.
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Feb 23, 2013 20:26
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Tex Avery posted:Scary train disasters? How about running a train, everything is fine, but then all of a sudden coming around a curve and seeing this? Man, this disaster is one that hits super close to home for me. The train with the idiot texting conductor was between Chatsworth and Simi Valley, the latter of which is my hometown. I took that very train home all the time from college and I had a friend who died in that accident. Simi Valley has all kinds of sinister events like that, considering how small and peaceful a town it's supposed to be. It was the site of the Rodney King trial which triggered the Los Angeles race riots in the early 90's. It houses part of the Spahn ranch where Charles Manson and his followers lived, and Ronald Reagan is buried there. I like to think that it's basically Derry. To contribute, I've always enjoyed letting myself be creeped out by the postulations offered to resolve the Fermi Paradox, which contrasts the mathematical likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life with the apparent lack of evidence available. I think it nags at me because one of these things, or another similar explanation, has to be true - there simply is intelligent life somewhere else in the universe, or there is not - and both possibilities are mind boggling. I'm very skeptical when it comes to paranormal phenomena on earth, but sometimes I feel like I would give anything to just know what or who else is out there, whether they know about us, etc. I think the most likely explanation is that there are other thinkers out there but that the scale of the universe is just too massive to ever facilitate a meeting, at least between us and anyone else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox I also get a pang of jealousy when I consider that there might be a solar system out there that's just teeming with life and everyone gets to visit all sorts of other planets and it's totally normal and they have friends there and everything 
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Feb 23, 2013 20:38
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Look a sunflower posted:To contribute, I've always enjoyed letting myself be creeped out by the postulations offered to resolve the Fermi Paradox, which contrasts the mathematical likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life with the apparent lack of evidence available. I think it nags at me because one of these things, or another similar explanation, has to be true - there simply is intelligent life somewhere else in the universe, or there is not - and both possibilities are mind boggling. I'm very skeptical when it comes to paranormal phenomena on earth, but sometimes I feel like I would give anything to just know what or who else is out there, whether they know about us, etc. I think the most likely explanation is that there are other thinkers out there but that the scale of the universe is just too massive to ever facilitate a meeting, at least between us and anyone else. The spookiest answers to the Fermi Paradox involve some form of "cosmic censoring", where either something that happens regularly in nature (like a supernova exploding nearby) or something that is expected to happen to all sentient races (like the discovery of nuclear technology) causes any intelligent life to be either completely wiped out or very seriously hampered before they even have a chance to colonize planets. The idea is that there's an enormous brick wall intrinsic to the nature of the universe that lies between the whole "intelligent life" stage and the "actually colonizing space en masse" stage. We could have already gotten past this brick wall, or it could still be in front of us, waiting to kick our rear end back to the stone age in a literal sense.
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Feb 23, 2013 21:04
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HonorableTB posted:Yeah, but Israel apologized and paid an indemnity for it. That's quite a bit different than killing a sitting member of the US government, even if he was just a Representative. Flight 007 did overfly a fairly significant chunk of Soviet territory during one of the most tense periods of the cold war. The Soviets were never going to apologize for that one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Air_Lines_Flight_007
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Feb 23, 2013 23:15
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I tried to find a good page on it, but I can't but it's always been something that interests me. A load of microbiologists (I believe between twelve and fifteen) from all over the world turn up dead in a suspiciously short period of time, many of them found in mysterious circumstances. There are rumors of them working on secret projects, government cover ups etc. If anyone can find a wikipedia page or something even remotely reliable that would be great.
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Feb 23, 2013 23:23
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Captain_Indigo posted:I tried to find a good page on it, but I can't but it's always been something that interests me. The closest thing to reliable I can find is this New York Times magazine article. The rest of everything I've found has been some variation of  conspiracy sites, including one that was seriously called "Chemtrail Central." Honestly, to me it sounds more like people wanting to see some big bad government conspiracy more than anything else.
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Feb 23, 2013 23:40
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Speaking of microbiology, let's learn about Toxoplasma gondii! It's a behavior-altering protist that mostly goes between cats and rodents but sometimes gets caught up in humans as well. It's been linked to all sorts of mental disorders that lend credence to the "crazy cat lady" stereotype and can kill your baby if you clean the catbox while pregnant. An estimated ONE THIRD of all humans on earth harbor this parasite (usually in an inactive form in healthy adults), with higher prevalence in poor countries due to contaminated soil and water, or undercooked red meat. According to the Center for Disease Control, you can find it in 22.5% of the US population. That's over one in five. There are more than five people posting in this thread. Which one of you is it?
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Feb 24, 2013 00:08
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General Panic posted:Of course, that might have been because JFK had been dead 4 years by then. 
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Feb 24, 2013 01:05
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TunaSpleen posted:Speaking of microbiology, let's learn about Toxoplasma gondii! It's a behavior-altering protist that mostly goes between cats and rodents but sometimes gets caught up in humans as well. It's been linked to all sorts of mental disorders that lend credence to the "crazy cat lady" stereotype and can kill your baby if you clean the catbox while pregnant. An estimated ONE THIRD of all humans on earth harbor this parasite (usually in an inactive form in healthy adults), with higher prevalence in poor countries due to contaminated soil and water, or undercooked red meat. According to the Center for Disease Control, you can find it in 22.5% of the US population. That's over one in five. My family has 4 cats (down from 5 becuase one died  ) so yeah, I must me riddled with that poo poo.
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Feb 24, 2013 02:32
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TunaSpleen posted:Speaking of microbiology, let's learn about Toxoplasma gondii! It's a behavior-altering protist that mostly goes between cats and rodents but sometimes gets caught up in humans as well. It's been linked to all sorts of mental disorders that lend credence to the "crazy cat lady" stereotype and can kill your baby if you clean the catbox while pregnant. An estimated ONE THIRD of all humans on earth harbor this parasite (usually in an inactive form in healthy adults), with higher prevalence in poor countries due to contaminated soil and water, or undercooked red meat. According to the Center for Disease Control, you can find it in 22.5% of the US population. That's over one in five. Pretty much anyone who's worked at a hospital for more than a month is harboring Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) somewhere in their person. Like all Staph infections, the bastard hides out and waits until you're weak, and then rages like a forest fire through your body. Assuming that I live long enough to grow old and have a weakened immune system, it's quite possible that MRSA will be what kills me.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:15
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TunaSpleen posted:Speaking of microbiology, let's learn about Toxoplasma gondii! It's a behavior-altering protist that mostly goes between cats and rodents but sometimes gets caught up in humans as well. It's been linked to all sorts of mental disorders that lend credence to the "crazy cat lady" stereotype and can kill your baby if you clean the catbox while pregnant. An estimated ONE THIRD of all humans on earth harbor this parasite (usually in an inactive form in healthy adults), with higher prevalence in poor countries due to contaminated soil and water, or undercooked red meat. According to the Center for Disease Control, you can find it in 22.5% of the US population. That's over one in five. I'm convinced that this thing is the only reason anyone likes cats.
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Feb 24, 2013 03:36
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TunaSpleen posted:Speaking of microbiology, let's learn about Toxoplasma gondii! It's a behavior-altering protist that mostly goes between cats and rodents but sometimes gets caught up in humans as well. It's been linked to all sorts of mental disorders that lend credence to the "crazy cat lady" stereotype and can kill your baby if you clean the catbox while pregnant. An estimated ONE THIRD of all humans on earth harbor this parasite (usually in an inactive form in healthy adults), with higher prevalence in poor countries due to contaminated soil and water, or undercooked red meat. According to the Center for Disease Control, you can find it in 22.5% of the US population. That's over one in five. Ehhhh your baby would only be endangered if you are gross and get poop from an infected cat on your hands, and then put them in your mouth without washing (provided you weren't already infected with Toxoplasma). Indoor cats + regular litter scooping + hand washing takes away much of the risk, too. I would guess that most first-worlders are more likely to get it from poorly cooked meat. "Crazy Rh negative rare-meat loving guy" might be a more accurate stereotype, given the behavior changes that have actually been studied, but it's less catchy. Naegleria fowleri gets my vote for the scariest protist. Just the idea that one day you could get tap water up your nose, or go swimming in a lake, and get infected with something that gives you a ~98% chance of dying. Nevermind going crazy, these things straight up eat your brain: Wikipedia posted:From there, the amoeba climbs along nerve fibers through the floor of the cranium via the cribriform plate and into the brain. The organism begins to consume cells of the brain piecemeal by means of a unique sucking apparatus extended from its cell surface. Infection is rare, but I still look at fresh water askance.
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Feb 24, 2013 04:27
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TunaSpleen posted:OMG crazy poo poo! (but only blah blah blah) Most people get it from eating raw meat, cats only get it from eating mice, and the only way people can get it from cats is if they lick their hands after picking up cat poo poo from cats that have eaten mice infected with it.
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Feb 24, 2013 04:33
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TunaSpleen posted:Speaking of microbiology, let's learn about Toxoplasma gondii! It's a behavior-altering protist that mostly goes between cats and rodents but sometimes gets caught up in humans as well. It's been linked to all sorts of mental disorders that lend credence to the "crazy cat lady" stereotype and can kill your baby if you clean the catbox while pregnant. An estimated ONE THIRD of all humans on earth harbor this parasite (usually in an inactive form in healthy adults), with higher prevalence in poor countries due to contaminated soil and water, or undercooked red meat. According to the Center for Disease Control, you can find it in 22.5% of the US population. That's over one in five. It's not me, because I was tested for it. Which surprised me, because I grew up in the country with outdoor cats and all (toddlers not being the best judges of when not to pick up poop and when to wash hands before eating).
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Feb 24, 2013 04:37
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I'm perfectly happy with carrying a parasite that tells me to go to cats.
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Feb 24, 2013 04:40
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Telemaze posted:Infection is rare, but I still look at fresh water askance. Nothing like a good biology education to completely put me off of waterparks and public pools for life. Castle Bidimar posted:I'm perfectly happy with carrying a parasite that tells me to go to cats. We'll see how happy you are when you're old and immunocompromised. The good news is it inhibits Alzheimer's, ADD/ADHD, and erectile dysfunction; the bad news is it produces encephalitis, schizophrenia, and suicidal behavior instead.
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Feb 24, 2013 04:55
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But cats.
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Feb 24, 2013 04:57
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Castle Bidimar posted:I'm perfectly happy with carrying a parasite that tells me to go to cats. One of us. 
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Feb 24, 2013 05:46
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Look a sunflower posted:To contribute, I've always enjoyed letting myself be creeped out by the postulations offered to resolve the Fermi Paradox, which contrasts the mathematical likelihood of intelligent extraterrestrial life with the apparent lack of evidence available. I think it nags at me because one of these things, or another similar explanation, has to be true - there simply is intelligent life somewhere else in the universe, or there is not - and both possibilities are mind boggling. I'm very skeptical when it comes to paranormal phenomena on earth, but sometimes I feel like I would give anything to just know what or who else is out there, whether they know about us, etc. I think the most likely explanation is that there are other thinkers out there but that the scale of the universe is just too massive to ever facilitate a meeting, at least between us and anyone else. I was discussing this with a friend of mine, and we're both relatively smart space nerds (He's an The fact is, there isn't really any reason to colonize anywhere but the solar system, and Fermi works off the assumption that you would, eventually, need to seek out other life-supporting planets. The truth is, that's kind of a bad idea for space colonization and the better plan is to just build colonies in space. Minerals are much more plentiful in asteroid belts and Near Planetary Objects, as well as easier to acquire, and when you're up there, you have infinite free power from incredibly more efficient solar energy. Obviously if a species was at this level, inevitably some people would up and go check out their version of the nearest habitable planet, but it'd probably be at a much reduced pace than Fermi says. Basically, it could be that Alien civilizations just deem physical extra-solar exploration somewhat pointless and a waste of resources. Its a bit less dramatic than a super powerful alien conspiracy, or that they all wipe themselves out 100% of the time, but it makes sense. Nemesis Of Moles has a new favorite as of 16:06 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 06:26
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Nemesis Of Moles posted:(He's an astrologist for a start) I know what you meant, but I can't stop cracking up at this typo. "Ahhhhh, yes, I see that Jupiter is in the eighth house, with Sagittarius rising, which indicates that we are unlikely to ever come into contact with an extraterrestrial race." It's late.
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Feb 24, 2013 06:49
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QuickbreathFinisher posted:I know what you meant, but I can't stop cracking up at this typo. Don't worry, I chuckled too.
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Feb 24, 2013 06:49
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The atomic bomb is usually the highpoint of atrocity committed against civilians during WWII, and rightfully so. However, well before this bomb was dropped, firebombings were regularly carried out by German and British armies. And firebombings were loving horrifying. The bombing of Hamburg carried out by the RAF was particularly hellish: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Hamburg_in_World_War_II quote:The unusually warm weather and good conditions meant that the bombing was highly concentrated around the intended targets and also created a vortex and whirling updraft of super-heated air which created a 1,500-foot-high tornado of fire, a totally unexpected effect Imagine a tornado of fire, fifteen hundred feet high in your city. For me personally, I cannot even wrap my head around that, and to put it into perspective that's taller than the Sears Tower in Chicago. quote:The tornadic fire created a huge inferno with winds of up to 240 km/h (150 mph) reaching temperatures of 800 °C (1,500 °F) and altitudes in excess of 1,000 feet, incinerating more than eight square miles (21 km²) of the city. Asphalt streets burst into flame, and fuel oil from damaged and destroyed ships, barges, and storage tanks spilled into the water of the canals and the harbor, causing them to ignite as well. I cannot imagine the carnage. If you walked on the asphalt, you would literally melt into it. There was a report of a man doing just that, and then instinctively pushing down the ground with his hands to free himself. You can infer what happens next. Happen to be in an air raid shelter during this time? Tough poo poo. All the oxygen is burning up above you, and you will soon suffocate to death. quote:Operation Gomorrah killed 42,600 people, left 37,000 wounded and caused some one million German civilians to flee the city.[3] The city's labour force was reduced permanently by ten percent.[3] Approximately 3,000 aircraft were deployed, 9,000 tons of bombs were dropped, and over 250,000 homes and houses were destroyed. No subsequent city raid shook Germany as did that on Hamburg; documents show that German officials were thoroughly alarmed, and there is some indication from later Allied interrogations of Nazi officials that Hitler stated that further raids of similar weight would force Germany out of the war. Britain was not playing around. They were retaliating will full force for what Germany had done during the blitz. It has given me several nightmares when I heard a survivor talk about his experience during the bombing of Hamburg. British officials called it the "Hiroshima of Germany".  http://imgur.com/xXuYHRq,eIVFmDD,i0lZTSEhttp://imgur.com/xXuYHRq,eIVFmDD,i0lZTSE#1 dk2m has a new favorite as of 20:18 on Feb 24, 2013 |
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Feb 24, 2013 07:00
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There's an excellent A. C. Grayling book called Among The Dead Cities about the ethics of that kind of bombing, and whether it can ever be justified. http://www.amazon.com/Among-Dead-Cities-History-Civilians/dp/0802715656 There's an interactive map of the Blitz bombing here - http://bombsight.org/#12/51.4894/-0.1150 - but I don't think anything like this has been attempted for places like Dresden. Not enough red ink, I imagine.
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Feb 24, 2013 07:23
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Dan Carlin's Hardcore History podcast also has an episode where he talks about the reasoning behind the mass bombings of WWII and the history of aerial warfare.
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Feb 24, 2013 07:31
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Thanks for that - I'm downloading it now.
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Feb 24, 2013 07:48
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I think you've got the Wikipedia link a bit wrong, dk2m, as it doesn't lead to an actual page. For content, the most controversial of the Allied bombing raids on Germany was this one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II. As you can tell from the page, the debate still rages about the morality of it all. The decision to bomb even involved a guy called Sir Douglas Evill. 
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Feb 24, 2013 10:12
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If we're at the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_destruction_of_Warsaw / http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pabst_Plan - a plan to destroy entire capital city, including all its historic heritage.
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Feb 24, 2013 11:09
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Thanks for the posts about the consequences of Allied actions. Growing up in the UK, when you think of WWII you think of Churchill, Spitfires and the Blitz spirit, but you don't hear much about some of the terrible things that were done. The Dambusters raids are very well known, positively iconic, but we tend to focus on the technological feat and nothing much is said about the number of casualities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Chastise
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Feb 24, 2013 11:20
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What was it? 'they have sown the wind, now they will reap the whirlwind'. It was straight up revenge, regardless of the military reasoning. We forget in Britain that we were total stone cold bastards.
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Feb 24, 2013 12:52
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dk2m posted:The atomic bomb is usually the highpoint of atrocity committed against civilians during WWII, and rightfully so. However, well before this bomb was dropped, firebombings were regularly carried out by German and British armies. And firebombings were loving horrifying. "The highpoint of atrocity against civilians in WWII"? Really? Really? The Einsatzkommandos behind the Russian front, rounding up entire villages for revenge against partisan actions and shooting every man, woman and child don't rate? The millions of civilians starved, beaten, shot and raped to death by the Japanese in China and Germans in Russia are just kinda bad? Literally millions of people herded into buildings specifically designed to kill them as efficiently as possible only second place? We can argue the ethics of fire bombing all we want, but for the love of god, get some loving perspective. I'm not saying German or Japanese civilians "had it coming", but calling the bombs the worst atrocity of the war belittles the monstrosity that was the Holocaust and the wars against non-Westeners. Maybe its an outgrowth of American Exceptionalism or something, where everything noteworthy about the war had to have happened because of America while the rest of the world just kinda went along.
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Feb 24, 2013 14:07
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Though I think some of these might have been posted, have some disasters and weird, weird parasites. It's not a tornado until it's a tri-state tornado.
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Feb 24, 2013 15:25
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QuickbreathFinisher posted:I know what you meant, but I can't stop cracking up at this typo. Oops, my bad. Fixed.
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Feb 24, 2013 16:07
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The Uganda Railway: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenya-Uganda_Railway 2498 workers died because of fights with natives, illnesses and man eating lions. And all they accomplished was to beat the Germans in a pissing concept.
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Feb 24, 2013 16:44
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RNG posted:Though I think some of these might have been posted, have some disasters and weird, weird parasites. My grandma survived the Tri-State Tornado. She was a baby in Owensville, Indiana, the town between Griffin (which was obliterated) and Princeton.
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Feb 24, 2013 16:57
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RNG posted:Though I think some of these might have been posted, have some disasters and weird, weird parasites. Tornadoes scare the gently caress out of me and always have. My mom,my aunt and my cousins survived the one in Xenia,Ohio. My mom told me it got pitch black and that was when she knew to take my cousins into the basement. Last year this happened http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_March_2012_tornado_outbreak and holy poo poo I thought my family was going to die because the tornado that killed 6 people in East Bernstadt was only a few miles away,we didn't know exactly where it hit at the time so we were planning to go into the hallway with a mattress over us and hope the upper floor didn't fall on us.
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Feb 24, 2013 17:39
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ArchangeI posted:"The highpoint of atrocity against civilians in WWII"? Really? Really? The Einsatzkommandos behind the Russian front, rounding up entire villages for revenge against partisan actions and shooting every man, woman and child don't rate? The millions of civilians starved, beaten, shot and raped to death by the Japanese in China and Germans in Russia are just kinda bad? Literally millions of people herded into buildings specifically designed to kill them as efficiently as possible only second place? Sorry, you're right. I was a little scatterbrained, I should have clarified that I meant atrocity via aerial warfare because many people automatically tend to think of the droppings of the bombs when that topic is brought up. Didn't mean to insult or anything. Thanks for the Dan Carlin reccommendation as well, I enjoyed it.
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Feb 24, 2013 20:25
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