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Archive for May, 2011

5 Reasons Twitter Isn’t Actually Overthrowing Governments

Posted by KrazyMan Knievel On May - 31 - 2011

During the recent spate of revolutions in the Middle East you couldn’t turn on the news without hearing a comment about how important Twitter or Facebook was to the protesters. By the time a former national security advisor suggested nominating Twitter for the Nobel Peace Prize, you probably got the impression that social networking was saving the world.

Sadly, the reality is that Twitter was about as important to the revolution as Bill Paxton was to the marines in Aliens. Why? Because …

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At the height of the 2009 “Twitter Revolution” in Iran, the number of Twitter users reportedly based in Iran was around 20,000. Consider that Iran has a population of 77 million, and that number looks a lot less impressive — it’s a minuscule 0.03 percent; less a revolution than a bake sale.

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Unless the definition of the word “revolution” is “any group of more than two angry people.”

But hell, it’s still possible to imagine 20,000 people sparking a regime change … until you realize that number is also bullshit. The vast majority of them turned out to be people from all around the world who simply changed their Twitter location to “Tehran” in a scheme to confuse the Iranian authorities, whom they apparently thought of as the least competent law enforcement agency since Police Squad. Factor that in, and estimates of the number of active Twitter users in Iran is as low as 1,000 people.

Despite all the news stories about protests being organized through social networking, most demonstrations were arranged through text messaging, word of mouth or the time honored method of “Hey, it sounds like there’s a riot happening down the street, let’s go check it out.”

Via Emiliya_1998
“Could you guys keep it down? I’m trying to sleep.”

Aside from the fact that many protesters don’t even have Internet access, social networking is sort of a shitty way to organize. There’s no leadership or sense of direction — just a lot of people screaming about how much they hate the government. And that’s just when we try to get a few friends together for a poker night. Attempting to get anything important accomplished multiplies the problem tenfold.

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“It took us four hours to plan a trip to the theater. Those Iranian kids must be rolling in Ritalin.”

To organize an effective protest, you need structure and people who are truly committed to the cause — willing to be arrested or killed. Social networking provides the exact opposite. History has shown that you’re best off working with people you’re close to — they’re the ones who will listen to your crazy ideas. Invite 500 of your Facebook friends to a protest, and 498 will RSVP “maybe” (meaning no) and the two who show up will only be there because they want to see you get your ass kicked by the riot police.

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“Go for it, Steve. You can totally take them.”

Case in point: In February, a huge protest in Syria organized over Facebook failed to materialize, because nobody knew who was in charge and everyone who said they would come wasn’t really interested (assuming they were even in the country). The people who did want to protest didn’t know about the event, because they’ve never used the Internet.

Via Wikipedia Commons
And we envy them.

Which brings us to …

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As you may have already suspected, publicly announcing your plans to protest an oppressive government isn’t the smartest approach to a rebellion. Not only does it let the authorities know where your protest will be held and how many people will be there, it gives them access to any personal information you’ve put online, from your real name to which Super Mario Brothers erotic fanfiction site is your favorite.

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“Stevens, get the president on the line now. He’s going to flip when he reads this dude’s Mario/Snape slash-fic.”

We like to imagine these protests as the modern youth versus a bunch of backwards, technophobic old men — but authoritarian governments are actually pretty damn good at using the Internet. Impoverished, downtrodden peasants? Not so much.

In Tunisia, government agents phished their way into the email and Facebook accounts of prominent protesters, then locked them out of their own profiles, collected contact information on their associates and used the information to make arrests.

They also changed the Facebook statuses of protesters to “I am super gay. For dicks.”

Iranian authorities took things a step further. Not only did they use Twitter to spread false rumors (which Westerners retweeted hundreds of times — but more on that in a moment), they used information gleaned from social networking accounts to track down and harass protesters in other countries.

Even if the authorities don’t go that far, letting them know when and where your protests will be held allows them to prepare enough security to keep the demonstrations under control. Any organizing done over social networking is open to the public eye, but privacy is important when you want to stage an effective protest — that’s why the best uprisings are the ones organized by word of mouth.

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The thing about Twitter is that every kernel of real information out there is floating somewhere on an ocean of bullshit. After all, every few months we get bombarded by tweets about the tragic death of a celebrity who is the last to hear about it. It’s one thing for us to fall for a story about Nicolas Cage dying in some kind of buffalo stampede, but it becomes a problem when the real media starts using anonymous Twitter feeds as a substitute for reliable sources.

So, let’s say there’s an uprising in the Middle East. The news wants to cover the story, but you can’t just walk into Syria with a video camera and start recording. Twitter to the rescue!

So, for the last year, Twitter has been praised as an innovative new way for reporters to get the facts. They go on the air and quote Tweets from the protesters themselves, without the reporter having to actually be there. The problem is, the protesters giving the updates didn’t have to actually be there, either.

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“Yeah, I’m in Tehran right now. Boy, is it ever protesty out here.”

So when the media says that, according to someone in Tehran, 700,000 people showed up at a protest, it sounds like a huge deal. That’s about 10 Superdomes. Only later did we find out the number was actually around 7,000 people, and that half of them were only there because there wasn’t anything interesting on television.

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“I’m not going to stop protesting until we get freedom! Or until eight o’clock, because House isn’t going to watch itself!”

Not only does that kind of exaggeration give us a false impression of what’s happening, it also gives us a one-sided view — whether you like Iran’s Ahmadinejad or not, the truth is that he does in fact have lots of supporters — they just aren’t using Facebook. It’s like thinking that in 2004 everyone in America was unanimous in their hatred of George W. Bush just because it was trendy on the Internet to photoshop his face onto a bunch of chimpanzees. The truth was more complicated.

Even worse, all the fuss we made about Twitter being a great source of news made it less effective. Because Twitter can’t distinguish between real news and made-up news, the West quickly drowned out the few pieces of accurate information with a flood of false rumors and useless messages (one third of the tweets related to the Iran protests were just repostings of other tweets), a problem compounded by the fact that it was impossible to tell who was really in Iran and who was sitting in their parent’s basement in Cleveland. For some reason, nobody stopped and asked why all the Iranian protesters were tweeting in English and not Farsi, the language most people actually speak in Iran.

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And all those references to violence and squalor didn’t help sort things out, either.

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Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CrackedRSS/~3/JDlTcYtqqt0/article_19225_5-reasons-twitter-isnt-actually-overthrowing-governments.html

Satire

The 5 Saddest Things People Do to Look Smart

Posted by KrazyMan Knievel On May - 31 - 2011

We’re at a point in our society where being smart is becoming more and more valued. Hollywood films are featuring smarter heroes, TV shows try to shame people who are dumber than a fifth grader, we elected a smarter president, etc. Unfortunately, every time something becomes cool, a lot of people are in such a hurry to jump on the bandwagon that they focus on the outer trappings and don’t put in the work. In this case, trying really hard to look smart without focusing on learning or thinking.

Via Getty Images
Why study when you can just put on some glasses and look at people real serious like?

The biggest problem is that there’s a lot of different kinds of smart, and we can’t all be good at all of them. Some people just panic and think there’s only two groups of people — the smart and the dumb. The cool and the uncool. These people might be smart in some ways, but they feel like they have to exaggerate those ways and fake being smart in all the other ways in order to not fall into the “dumb” category, which really really terrifies them.

But pulling these stunts just backfires terribly, like when people try to:

Now, there’s an appropriate time to pull out your Ph.D. or your standardized test scores, like when you are applying for a job or a school, or picking someone up at a bar.

Via Getty Images
“Hey, do you wash your pants with Windex because I got an 800 on my SAT math section.”

There are also hilariously inappropriate times, like during s#x, or to prove you are the smartest person in an argument.

Now, maybe this is just me being silly, but I’m pretty sure that you show you are smart in an argument by being correct. Sure, the issue being argued might be murky and debatable, but the facts you use to back up your side can be obviously right or wrong. For example, if you claim that China is not going to stay a dominant economic power because the Chinese economy relies on a barter system where everything is paid for in chopsticks, you are obviously wrong, because we all know things are paid for in fish balls.

Via Benjwong
Yum!

If people pointed out you were literally, factually wrong about China’s currency, you probably would back off and be a bit embarrassed, like a normal person, but some people somehow think they can keep up the bluff by pulling out academic credentials. “You may have an encyclopedia showing that China has actual paper currency, but I have a PhD in economics! And I graduated at the top of my class!”

These people are confused about how credentials work. In the real world, we show our GPA, test scores, and degrees to get into a school or a job, and those set up the expectation that we’ll do a good job or succeed in the program. But then we actually have to do the job, or the coursework. Once you have F*CKed up and covered the $100 million genomics lab in burnt peanut butter or something, nobody is going to care about how many letters you have after your name. They are just going to assume you got them by fraud.

You think they would have caught this earlier.

This is exactly the same in everyday life. No matter how many credentials you have showing you were smart in the past, if you are insisting that adamantium is an element on the periodic table or explaining that cats have six legs, you are being visibly and provably stupid in the present. Even if you can convince people you once taught Stephen Hawking everything he knows, they are just going to shake their head sadly and wonder what tragic accident took away your mental faculties since then.

The average human being isn’t flexible enough to fellate themselves. That’s why we have personality tests. Myers-Briggs personality test results are horoscopes for people who think they are too smart to fall for horoscopes. The actual test just gives you a set of 4 letters, but additional layers of the system give each type an insultingly flattering label like, “The Mastermind,” or “The Champion.”

Via Getty Images
This could be you!

That’s an improvement on traditional horoscopes, where you could end up being a “Cancer,” if you’re not lucky. But no, every Myers-Briggs personality type sounds awesome and special, which is probably totally unrelated to how popular the Myers-Briggs personality test is.

Via Getty Images
Notice nobody ever tells you that seeing a butterfly in an inkblot means you’re a misunderstood genius.

Even though every personality type description focuses on how awesome you are, some have special focus on how smart you are, such as the INTJ type:

Often intellectual, they enjoy analysis and complex problem-solving, and are much less comfortable with the illogical and unpredictable nature of other people and their emotions. They may not want to bother with people who they do not perceive to be their intellectual equals. …the INTJ often has a unique ability to foresee logical outcomes.

This is even more convenient than taking the SAT to show how smart you are because, let’s face it, answering personality test questions is not rocket science. You don’t need to have a speck of knowledge in any field or discipline, you just need to be able to answer questions while pretending you are Data or Spock from Star Trek.

Via Getty Images
“Well, I DO ‘easily see the general principle behind specific occurrences’. I bet no one else answered yes to that!”

Aside from the fact that most psychologists feel the test has “the intellectual content of a fortune cookie,” you run into the same problems as with academic credentials. Nothing from outside is going to make you look smart if you can’t actually be smart in front of people.

If you’re insecure about your smartness, then there’s nothing more scary than the thought that someone will ask you a question you can’t answer. Your nightmares consist of you stuttering, “The number of electoral votes in Michigan? It’s… well… uh…” and a blurry, looming crowd saying in slow motion, “I thought you were supposed to be smart…” while you fall backwards into a bottomless pit and wake up screaming.

Via FeelingElephants
It’s 17, sleep tight!

These nightmares lead people to do foolish, obnoxious things in an attempt to beat their imagined persecutors to the punch, like prepare the information beforehand and supply it before they’re even asked, which you probably know is really, really annoying.

If you’ve ever been ambushed out of nowhere by someone telling you the number of electoral votes Michigan has, this is probably why. Or if someone has hijacked your conversation about this weekend’s movies to enlighten you about how the inner world of women was a running theme in many of Ingmar Bergman’s films.

Via Getty Images
“Hey, Alan, sorry to interrupt your conference call, but did you know that Nietzsche’s statements about the death of God are widely misunderstood?”

Some of their favorite subjects are conspiracy stories and “secrets” that most people won’t normally know, usually because they are made-up. Because when you pull a, “Did you know …” on somebody, nothing’s more deflating than “yes,” so obscure and non-mainstream is the way to go.

Via Getty Images
“Hey, Alan, I just read The Bell Curve and apparently science proves black people are genetically less intelligent.”

So you’ll get a kid that’s just read Atlas Shrugged and thinks they’ve stumbled on a “I bet you never thought of this” goldmine of ideas to dump on people and dazzle them, not realizing those ideas are on the fringe not because they are obscure but because most people think they are lame. So his idea of impressing someone at a party is to recite a Cliff’s Notes version of the book, seeing his ability to remember key quotes and details as evidence that he really gets it (while nobody else does), and not as a sign that he read the book 2 days ago (while nobody else did).

Via Getty Images
“Oh, PLEASE. You’re completely misinformed about what happens in Chapter 8, Part 1. That clearly takes place in Chapter 8, Part 2.”

But you can’t stack the deck forever. Someone’s eventually going to bring up a book you didn’t read two days ago, or possibly at all. But if you’re not smart about that particular thing, is it really that big a deal? Can’t you just go, “I guess I’m not an expert in politics,” and laugh it off, instead of developing stupid nightmares?

Popularity: 2% [?]

Article source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/CrackedRSS/~3/fnMrwPn7psg/

Satire

TUPAC IS ALIVE

Posted by The Mullet Master On May - 31 - 2011

NEW ZEALAND – PBS reported that theÂ rapper Tupac Shakur was sighted in New Zealand this weekend.Â

PBS is reporting thatÂ Tupac Shakur was sighted and photographed having drinks at a bar in Auckland, New Zealand.Â Soon thereafter the internet was ablaze with speculation if this was real and Tupac was really alive.

Tupac Shakur was allegedly gunned down September 7th 1996 after leaving a boxing match.Â However reporters have discovered that Tupac actually survived the shooting, but he and record label executives paid off medical examiners to claim he had died.Â His apparent death allowed him to escape his assailants and his constant legal battles.

Since then Tupac had lived in hiding under an assumed name in rural Pennsylvania.Â Weekly World News reporters tracked down the beloved rap star to his new home.

With regards to going into hiding he said, â€œAt first it was life or death.Â Iâ€™d just been shot at and I knew it wasnâ€™t going to stop.Â Once I was out of the game, a fresh start looked too good.Â All the baggage from the old life, I could let it go and walk away.”

Since then, â€œI mostly keep my head low.Â Donâ€™t draw attention.Â Staying out of trouble.â€�

When asked about how he spends his time, he said, â€œYa know, same old same old.Â Shop at the Farmerâ€™s Market.Â Keep my bees, get some honey.Â Flirt with the girls at Dairy Queen.Â Nothinâ€™ big.â€�

For creative exploits, Tupac says, â€œI like to knit.â€�Â His house was covered with hand knit pieces celebrating his former celebrity and sweaters with â€˜Thug Lifeâ€™ stitched on them.Â Â Above the couch was a large tapestry depicting a scene from his California Love video.Â He went on: â€œI do a lot of writing.Â Jewelâ€™s book of poetry, that was mine.Â I also ghost wrote the screenplay for ‘The Lake House’.â€�

Tupac said he has no plans to return to the public eye.Â â€œIâ€™m a keep it straight chillinâ€™ here.Â Keep them bees, work the strawberry patch.Â End of the day, play on with some World of Warcraft.Â Itâ€™s a good life.â€�

Popularity: 1% [?]

Article source: http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/7996/tupac-is-alive/

Weekly World News

MARCH OF THE BLONDES

Posted by The Mullet Master On May - 31 - 2011

Â LATVIA – Latvia had its annual â€œMarch of the Blondesâ€� to help boost the economy.

According to the AFP, the march is becoming quite an attraction in the economically-devastated Latvia.

â€œWe have more than 500 participants registered, including a 15-member team from New Zealand, seven ladies from Finland and Italy and 32 from Lithuania,Â¨ Marika Gederte, head of the Latvian Association of Blondes, told the news outlet.

And on Saturday, they marched:

The event, which started in 2009 and is officially called the â€œGo Blonde Festival,â€� not only boosts the local economy, but also raises money for charity.

â€œWe hope to raise enough to refurbish two rooms at a special unit for disabled children. We do not have a specific sum we want to raise but we hope businesses will be generous,â€� Gederte told the AFP.

Besides the march, which is mainly watched by men, there is also a Marilyn Monroe lookalike contest, a concert by blonde divas, and a pink fashion and accessories show.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Article source: http://weeklyworldnews.com/headlines/33621/march-of-the-blondes/

Weekly World News

RandomFunnyPics: Heart Attack Burgers

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

Click on the image to see more cool random pictures.

Hot links from the web:

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Here is the link of the post if you want to share it with your friends or its code if you want to put it on your blog or siteLink :
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Article source: http://izismile.com/2011/05/31/randomfunnypics_heart_attack_burgers.html

Other

A Japanese Kiss (12 pics)

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

If you are in Japan you can drink from a bottle touching the lips of a celebrity, just like during a kiss.

The stars were chosen during the TV show “Quiz! Hexagon”. Later on, popular girls made prints of their lips.

Kinoshita Yuuki

Kiguti Aya

Teshima Yutaka

678910

Instruction

Japanese have a vivid imagination, so they are most likely to come up with other ideas of how to use these lips!

Popularity: 1% [?]

Article source: http://izismile.com/2011/05/31/a_japanese_kiss_12_pics.html

Other

[video] Report: Economy Failing Because U.S. Built On Ancient Indian Burial Grounds

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

Popularity: 1% [?]

Article source: http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/A3Xm135fx10/

Satire

Your Horoscopes

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

May 10, 2011

Aries After a long, sweaty, painful time trying to fix a knotty problem yourself, you’ll finally admit defeat and call in a real thoracic surgeon.
Taurus You’ll become frustrated and depressed when, after approaching bea…

Popularity: 1% [?]

Article source: http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/XmJIce6976Y/

Satire

43-Year-Old With Skateboard Not Fooling Anyone

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

Popularity: 2% [?]

Article source: http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/BYuPh7AMqhY/

Satire

American Voices: Crystal Cathedral Sold

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

The Crystal Cathedral, the Orange County, CA megachurch started by televangelist Robert Schuller, has been sold to an investment group so the church can restructure its debt. What do you think?

Not surprised the Crystal Cathedral is bankrupt. I only go into megachurches if I want to pick up a little affirmation or need a few Bible verses.

Keith LaBoe
Ware Tester
Since Rev. Schuller stopped broadcasting, I’ve discovered Rabbi Leibowitz and the Diamond Synagogue are better at fulfilling my spiritual needs.

Elizabeth Viner
De-Alcoholizer
My prayers have been answered! Someone talked to me today! Thanks!

Gerry Epps
Unemployed

Popularity: 2% [?]

Article source: http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/SU-llPLgzOw/

Satire

Point/Counterpoint: Part Of Me Wants To See This Acrobat Fall To His Death vs. Part Of Me Wants To See That Guy In The Third Row Have A Heart Attack In Front Of His Family (by Alexi Ivanov)

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

By Alexi Ivanov

As a circus performer, I love a crowd like the one here tonight. From up on the trapeze I can almost feel their energy as they wait for me to grab the bar and take that first leap. Like this middle-aged dad in the third row, for example. He looks as if he’s having as good a time tonight as he probably had the first time he ever went to the circus as a kid.

That being said, and I don’t want this to come out the wrong way, but there’s this small part of me—tiny, really—that kind of wants to see him have a massive coronary right in front of his family and drop dead.

Twisted thought, right? Ever since my first back-end planche, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about this guy suddenly clutching his heart, keeling over in his seat, and dropping dead on the cold cement floor. I don’t want it to happen, but if it did—if, say, right as I completed a pull-over shoot, I glanced down and he was experiencing a heart attack or a massive stroke—I don’t think I’d be able to take my eyes off it. It’s like there’s this demented part of me I can’t shut off that hopes this random, normal family man dies tonight.

Is something wrong with me?

Look, I know there’s absolutely no chance it’ll happen. I’ve done hundreds of shows without so much as an audience member even fainting. But what if some perfect combination of humidity, heart-pounding thrills, and a lifetime of poor health choices comes together, and, boom: The guy collapses in his chair, he hits the ground like a solid brick, his wife starts screaming, people around him call for help, the houselights flicker on, and the whole circus just stops cold. I know it’s F*CKed up, but I sort of want to experience all of that.

I have nothing personal against this guy or his family, and maybe that’s exactly it. Maybe that’s why I kind of want to see him die. Because in the back of my mind I know that, in the end, even though I might be a little shaken up, his death wouldn’t define my life the way it would his family’s. I would go to Birmingham tomorrow and then Memphis the following week and get up on the trapeze like nothing ever happened.

His daughter, however, would forever associate the trapeze with her father’s death.

Why the F*CK did I just think that thought?! I am not a bad person. I swear to God I’m not a bad person. Or maybe I am. I don’t know. You know what? I bet the other trapeze artists up here are thinking the exact same thing about that guy, but they just don’t want to say it.

After all, it’s just human nature, right?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Article source: http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/daily/~3/B5_s3joru6I/

Satire

10 Most Disturbing Home Decoration

Posted by Cha Cha Brown On May - 31 - 2011

Published on Today 5/31/2011
under Cool Home Design
– by Nora Vega
- 20,652 views

Doll Drawer Pulls

Drawer pulls made of doll body parts! While the drawings look fine enough, the finished project in the flesh is a bit unsettling.
(Link)

Anatomical Print

Anatomical print chairs and pillows by AK-LH remind me to exercise proper posture when sitting.
(Link)

Stamping on Hitler

Millions of people would love a chance to wipe their feet on Adolf Hitler and now it looks like they could have the chance with this ‘Hitler rug’. The work is by Israeli artist Boaz Arad who says he is hoping to show how the Holocaust has scarred Israel, but also been misused by it. He says the rug is a representation of what a Nazi hunter would do if he caught the ultimate prize, the Nazi leader.
(Link)

Human Furniture

Apparently the designer Dzmitry Samal takes the term “table legs” quite literally and they’re a bit disturbing.
(Link)

Baby Face Tile

Imagine a room full of this tile, a little weird.
(Link)

Bleeding Pillar Candles

Made of two-tone wax (white on the outside, red on the inside), these Bleeding Pillar Candles look perfectly normal when sitting atop your coffee table. But light them up and watch as a creepy wax “blood” oozes out the melting candle!
(Link)

Damned Lamp

This lampshade is actually a mass of people-shaped ornaments, twisted and frozen into torturous positions, intended to depict humanity’s metaphorical fall from grace. All religious commentary aside, it’s a dark, dramatic delight. Design by Lux Merx.
(Link)

Morbid Mirror

Every morning feels like a scene from a horror flick with this circular saw-shaped mirror by French company, Domestic.
(Link)

Blood Bath Mat

Upon entering the bathroom, give your guests the shock of their lives with our Blood Bath Mat! It’s the ultra realistic horror genre piece of homeware!

Gruesome, bloody, and absolutely offensive, the Blood Bath Mat is the perfect partner for our famous Blood Bath Shower Curtain. This terrifying blood stained bath mat, we feel, truly pays tribute to those classic Hitchcock and Hammer horror movies of old.
(Link)

Coffee Table Coffin

Worrying that you don’t think about death enough in your day-to-day life? Pratt student Charles Constantine is looking to change this and inject a bit of morbidity into the daily routine, with his new design for a coffee table coffin. . Not only can it store books and other knick-knacks like personal mementos, but its ultimate goal is to store YOU – or what remains of you – when you pass on to the next life.
(Link)

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Satire

Funny Picture of the Day Archive (May 2011)

Posted by SnowMan Jones On May - 31 - 2011

We thought you might want to take a look at all of the photos of the day for the past 31 days!

I hope you love them as much as we do!!! Most are funny. We may have just put a few funny or oddball pics in there too.

Popularity: 20% [?]

Featured, Fotos

The 6 Most Badass Weapons Ever Improvised in Battle

Posted by KrazyMan Knievel On May - 30 - 2011

War is a terrible thing: Sometimes you have to take the life of your fellow man in the most brutal and extravagant ways…and you just don’t have a good enough weapon to do it as hard as you want. That’s when you start strapping every weapon you have to every other weapon you have, and hope that physics is in a good enough mood today to let you fire knives out of your machine gun. Like these guys:

When the Nazi war machine rolled into Stalingrad, they had no idea what was in store for them: Crazy ass Russians. We know better now. We know that Russia is mad in the weirdest ways – like an ultra-violent Japan – and you shouldn’t even look them in the eye, much less try to invade the bastards. But it took 5 months of brutal, unrelenting warfare in a bombed out frozen Hell to teach the Nazis that lesson. Nonchalantly strolling around this bombed out wasteland was legendary sniper Vasily Zaitsev.

Via Wikimedia Commons
No jokes here. He may have died 20 years ago, but we’re pretty sure he can still tag us from the afterlife.

The Red Army’s elite sniper teams, when not busy killing Nazis, used their spare time to think up new and interesting methods of killing Nazis. In one of these epic brainstorming sessions, Zaitsev, probably after frantically sketching something in his notebook while making explosion noises with his mouth, came up with the idea to take a scope from a Sniper Rifle and attach it to a giant 14.5 mm PTRS-41 Anti-Tank Rifle. He wanted to use it to kill bunkers.

Entire bunkers.

Just straight up murder a fortified concrete fortress.

Here’s a PTRS in action:

The idea was to fire the huge explosive shells through the viewing slits on Nazi bunkers, exploding them from the inside out, which was roughly the equivalent of successfully performing eye surgery with a chainsaw. It’s probably also worth mentioning that the PTRS-41 had a nasty habit of breaking the user’s shoulder when they pulled the trigger, so we guess it’s more like performing eye surgery with a double-sided chainsaw. Madly, awesomely, terrifyingly – it worked. In the laconic words of the 284th division’s combat journal:

“Sniper Morozov managed to send an enemy bunker up in flames using an Anti-Tank Rifle”

Via kitsune.addr.com
“But it wasn’t a thing; he does that shit all the time.”

In the dark days of WWII (the part before America moseyed on in and just totally saved everybody, all by themselves, no foolin’,) the British were anticipating a full-on Nazi Blitzkrieg to come rolling right over the White Cliffs of Dover. Short on weapons, but well-stocked with fuel and moxie, the British decided to kill two birds with one inferno. Yep, they jury-rigged themselves some giant, tank killing, flamethrowing landmines (“Fougasses” was their technical name, but all the other weapons would make fun of them on the playground if they knew.)

Via Wikimedia Commons
FIRE. SOLVES. EVERYTHING.

Luckily, for all fans of activities like ‘having skin’ and ‘not roasting like a chicken,’ they were never actually used…

In Britain.

Not the case in Russia: According to this order signed by Field Marshal Georgi Zhukov, a Soviet “FOG Static Flamethrower” destroyed 4 tanks and an entire company (around 150 men) of submachine-gunners, causing the survivors to understandably flee in panic, seeing as how the mouth of hell opened up and melted their god damn tank and all. The Germans, possibly inspired by the effectiveness of the device (or just to silence the screaming in their heads) designed their own Flamethower Landmines later in the war.

Via Wikimedia Commons

Finally, in the Korean War, America took what was already a spectacular weapon and Michael Bayed the shit out of it. The Russian and German Flamethrowers had an 8 Gallon canister full of oil, and they melted tanks. The American version had a 55 Gallon barrel full of napalm, and they melted Gods.

“The fire you kindle for your enemy only burns yourself, unless it’s with this thing.”

WWI was when the planet lost its World War Virginity. As with all such experiences, it soon became clear that nobody knew exactly what they were doing, and a bad time was going to be had by all. A prime example of this confusion can be seen in the Gallipoli Campaign, which amounted to thousands of Allied troops sitting on the side of a rock for a year, not really achieving much. After months of stalemate, the Allies decided that sustaining 60 percent casualties to hold a pile of stones in the middle of nowhere wasn’t really worthwhile, and decided to pull out.

Via Lifeasahuman.com
“Guys! We didn’t bring any protection. We’re going to have to just pull out.” – The Allies

As a general rule, when an army tries to leave the battlefield, the enemy is obliged to inflict as much damage as possible, to make sure they don’t come back. This is called the Where The Good Lord Split Ya maneuver, and the Allies knew full well that it was about to be used against them. So ANZAC Troopers William Scurry and Buntie Lawrence took a break from performing the juggling Vaudeville routine their names suggest they toured with, and instead built what they called ‘Ottoman Bafflers.’ Using bits of string and old ration tins, Scurry and Lawrence MacGyvered up a gun that fired all by itself, using drips of water falling between two cans, or taut strings being burnt through by candles.

Via Thefirearmblog.com
They later designed a way of getting a beer from the fridge using only a spoon, two rubber bands and some hockey tickets.

Everyone had expected appalling casualties in the withdrawal from the aforementioned kick in the ass on the way out, but due to the Drip Rifle, the whole army managed to escape with only a dozen or so killed or wounded. For context, you couldn’t make a sandwich in World War I without a dozen or so killed or wounded.

Ha ha…ha…ahhh…a lot of people died in that war.

Photos.com
And it was probably because of something you did.

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5 Writing Tips for the People Who Send Me Death Threats

Posted by KrazyMan Knievel On May - 30 - 2011

Regardless of what adages may tell you, love is neither patient nor kind. Love has the fickle temperament of a child and the ability to breed insanity. In a best case scenario, love will manifest itself as an inextricable bond between husband and wife, but it’s also just as likely to take the form of a stranger in a skeleton mask, circling your house waiting for you to fall asleep so it can smell your hair.

“Good morning. I left you a gift.”

I know all this because I recently received many letters which I assume to be written out of full-blown, if somewhat misguided, affection. They are all beautiful and as unique as fingerprints, save the common theme of my torture/murder and their complete lack of literal fingerprints. And while I am touched by this visceral outpouring of emotion in each, the editor inside me couldn’t help but notice a few flaws in the execution.

Now, there are guides available for writing letters with the intent of gradually earning the love of another person, but there are a limited few on writing letters threatening to take it. I have created a step by step tutorial to constructing the perfect death threat, coupled with helpful dos and don’ts selected right out of real letters I’ve received. It’s time we stop thinking of love as a simple flame, when it is more apt to think of it is a raging tire fire that spits out toxic smoke, burns forever, and most importantly, threatens to kill anyone in proximity.

Soren Bowie’s Guide to Writing a Memorable Death Threat:

Step 1: Make it Personal!

No one wants to be on the receiving end of a letter promising pain and misery that feels like it was mass-produced by Hallmark. Just writing cliches and horror movie scenarios will not suffice, the cost of good intentions is always significantly cheaper than the expense of personalization and your reader will know that. Don’t cheapen the experience the two of you will share by making your threats cold or formulaic. Instead, think back to what made you fall furiously in love in the first place. Is the intended reader known for being beautiful? Then concentrate on the ways you will devastate that beauty. Does he/she have a wonderful voice? Why not threaten a trip deep into the woods where no one can hear it? Really allow yourself to get as intimate as possible, it will mean a lot more when the prosecuting attorney reads it aloud to the court.

Examples:

Forgettable:

Effective:

The latter shows a clear understanding of my distaste for fire and my love of me. Or more specifically, my face. Also, notice the personalization of a hand written letter over a private message on a website. The implied dedication of finding my actual address is subtle but appreciated and I will treasure the second one forever, or at least until he burns me up in a fire.

Step 2: Be Specific!

Death threat writers constantly fall into the trap of assuming the reader understands exactly what he/she is trying to convey. Keep in mind that your person of interest doesn’t necessarily share your interests. Even though it may seem self evident the devastation electricity can do to the inside of a human body, your reader my not have read the same websites as you. So it’s worth explaining every detail.

You can be more detailed than this.

Examples:

Forgettable

Effective

The first one is lazy. It vacillates between stabbing me and the hope that I die with no one around. Unless the author is proficient enough with knives to prolong my death, or fast enough to run away so that I’m guaranteed to die alone then he doesn’t actually know what he wants. The second, however, offers some great imagery. I can really picture myself there, and I’m willing to admit that is sounds kind of scary. The particulars are important for any death threat to be taken seriously.

Step 3: Give Options!

While none of the letters I’ve received offered this feature, I nevertheless think it would make a nice addition to any death threat. To truly show that you mean business, why not give a couple options for death/torture to your reader? Frankly, the idea of freezing to death in your meat locker doesn’t do much for me, but the promise of drowning in your bathtub fills me with anxiety.

I don’t want this, but in the right way.

Now, had you just offered the freezing by itself, I would have lost interest immediately. A willingness to compromise not only will encourage your reader to finish the whole letter, but it also demonstrates your determination to make this situation work. That’s a valuable asset in any relationship.

Example:

Effective:

Hello!

I think you are extraordinary, so much so that I wish to kill you so that no one else can have you. Ideally I would like to lock you in a car and push it into a lake.

HOWEVER

I am also willing to feed you poison. Please get back to me when you have the time. I’ve included my address and a picture of me so that if we ever run into one another, you will know who I am. Thanks for your time.

That reminds me, always include a return address and a picture of yourself as a keepsake. Nearly every recipient of a death threat would truly appreciate that.

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