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WorldWeird: [Closed] NEWSTRANGE -- the Informus Thread (Closes 20th May)

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      CommentAuthorIan Mayor
    • CommentTimeMay 10th 2012
     (10627.1)
    @Vornaskotti @Flabyo

    Reminded of this gem from the IT Crowd.
  2.  (10627.2)
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      CommentAuthorOsmosis
    • CommentTimeMay 10th 2012 edited
     (10627.3)
    Wondered if a paid writing gig would be up the alley of any Chaplains?

    http://www.openculture.com/culture_writer_wanted
  4.  (10627.4)
  5.  (10627.5)
    @Vornaskotti - There have been similar discoveries out in the Sahara from time to time - probably the best known is the B-24D Liberator "Lady Be Good"
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      CommentAuthorjohnjones
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2012
     (10627.6)
    @ Vornaskotti

    That reminds of the point in the Garth Ennis comic, Hitman, where Tommy and the boys find a still working Tiger tank.
    • CommentAuthorKosmopolit
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2012
     (10627.7)
  8.  (10627.8)
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      CommentAuthorFrowardd
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2012
     (10627.10)
    A Japanese firm is designing a five ton, twelve foot robot. For some reason, it's controllable by smartphone. Their site says it'll be available winter 2011, but there are no buy links. Vaporware?

    Mad, mad scientists claimed to have developed a process to passively turn any surface into a multi-touch capacitance sensor (think iphone screen). Denizens of #whitechapel (but mostly Barton) excitedly look forward to teledildonic applications of this technology.
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      CommentAuthorcelan
    • CommentTimeMay 11th 2012
     (10627.11)
    When A Medieval Knight Could Marry Another Medieval Knight
    ?"In the period up to roughly the thirteenth century, male bonding ceremonies were performed in churches all over the Mediterranean. These unions were sanctified by priests with many of the same prayers and rituals used to join men and women in marriage. The ceremonies stressed love and personal commitment over procreation, but surely not everyone was fooled. Couples who joined themselves in such rituals most likely had sex as much (or as little) as their heterosexual counterparts. In any event, the close association of male bonding ceremonies with forbidden sex eventually became too much to overlook as ever more severe sodomy laws were put into place.

    "Such same-sex unions—sometimes called 'spiritual brotherhoods'—forged irrevocable bonds between the men involved. Often they involved missionaries about to set off on foreign voyages, but lay male couples also entered into them. Other than the gender of the participants, it was difficult to distinguish the ceremonies from typical marriages. Twelfth-century liturgies for same-sex unions, for example, involved the pair joining their right hands at the altar, the recital of marriage prayers, and a ceremonial kiss."
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      CommentAuthorFoamhead
    • CommentTimeMay 12th 2012
     (10627.12)
    U.S. Military Taught Officers: Use ‘Hiroshima’ Tactics for ‘Total War’ on Islam'
    "We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as 'moderate Islam'," Lt Col Dooley said in the presentation last July.
    "It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction."
    He added that international laws protecting civilians in armed conflicts - such as the Geneva Conventions were "no longer relevant".
    That left open the option, the instructor continued, of applying "the historical precedents of Dresden, Tokyo, Hiroshima, Nagasaki" to Islam's holiest cities, and bringing about "Mecca and Medina destruction".

    Quickly followed by:
    Top U.S. Officer: Stop This ‘Total War’ on Islam Talk
    “It was totally objectionable, against our values and it wasn’t academically sound,” Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon press conference on Thursday. The instructor responsible for the course, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, is “no longer in a teaching status,” Dempsey added — but he is still employed at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Va.

    The general said he was “quite thankful” for an unnamed military officer who brought word of the anti-Islam material to his attention.

    Does this remind anyone else of...
    • CommentAuthorroadscum
    • CommentTimeMay 12th 2012
     (10627.13)
    A little live Saturday night entertainment for you - Live feed from tonight's Occupy London.
  14.  (10627.14)
    • CommentAuthorKosmopolit
    • CommentTimeMay 13th 2012
     (10627.15)
    Except not by an actual court (unfortunately).

    Legally this has as much weight as the "Soveriegn Grand Juries" convened by birthers to try Obama.
    • CommentAuthorRenThing
    • CommentTimeMay 13th 2012
     (10627.16)
    @Kosmopolit

    And, I'm pretty sure even if it was a real court, wouldn't matter a tinkers damn as long as they stayed out of Malaysia.
  17.  (10627.17)
    @RenThing - And Switzerland.
    • CommentAuthorKosmopolit
    • CommentTimeMay 14th 2012 edited
     (10627.18)
    So, an anonymous American engineers want the US to build a real-life version of The Enterprise (only with a nuclear-powered ion drive and a rotating section to create artificial gravity).

    He estimates it'd cost around $40 billion a year for 20 years which is a bit over double the current NASA budge and less per year than the US sent on the Apollo program.
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      CommentAuthorsneak046
    • CommentTimeMay 15th 2012
     (10627.19)
    Did anyone else see the hoverbike article in the sidebar of the one linked above and think 'yes, I want this for reasons'?
    • CommentAuthorWood
    • CommentTimeMay 16th 2012
     (10627.20)
    Americans! Did you know you had a gay president in the 19th century? Well you do now :

    Our real first gay president

    There can be no doubt that James Buchanan was gay, before, during and after his four years in the White House. Moreover, the nation knew it, too — he was not far into the closet.

    Today, I know no historian who has studied the matter and thinks Buchanan was heterosexual. Fifteen years ago, historian John Howard, author of “Men Like That,” a pioneering study of queer culture in Mississippi, shared with me the key documents, including Buchanan’s May 13, 1844, letter to a Mrs. Roosevelt. Describing his deteriorating social life after his great love, William Rufus King, senator from Alabama, had moved to Paris to become our ambassador to France, Buchanan wrote:

    I am now “solitary and alone,” having no companion in the house with me. I have gone a wooing to several gentlemen, but have not succeeded with any one of them. I feel that it is not good for man to be alone; and should not be astonished to find myself married to some old maid who can nurse me when I am sick, provide good dinners for me when I am well, and not expect from me any very ardent or romantic affection.


    Good news, Americans! There was a time where you could be truly regarded as a progressive country!

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