Yo, check this out. It’s a video about Army infantryman Colby Buzzell’s ambush in Mosul. This event actually happened and this video is produced by PBS. the video is based on a blog entry that Buzzell posted during his Iraq tour — he later wrote a memoir published in 2005 by Putnam — and it originally appeared on the PBS show Operation Homecoming.
Crazy stuff. Makes you really want the war to stop.
[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=avHPWiwMpR8]
I read this story today written by Isaac Asimov:
What is intelligence, anyway? When I was in the army, I received the kind of aptitude test that all soldiers took and, against a normal of 100, scored 160. No one at the base had ever seen a figure like that, and for two hours they made a big fuss over me. (It didn’t mean anything. The next day I was still a buck private with KP – kitchen police – as my highest duty.)
All my life I’ve been registering scores like that, so that I have the complacent feeling that I’m highly intelligent, and I expect other people to think so too. Actually, though, don’t such scores simply mean that I am very good at answering the type of academic questions that are considered worthy of answers by people who make up the intelligence tests – people with intellectual bents similar to mine?
For instance, I had an auto-repair man once, who, on these intelligence tests, could not possibly have scored more than 80, by my estimate. I always took it for granted that I was far more intelligent than he was. Yet, when anything went wrong with my car I hastened to him with it, watched him anxiously as he explored its vitals, and listened to his pronouncements as though they were divine oracles – and he always fixed my car.
Well, then, suppose my auto-repair man devised questions for an intelligence test. Or suppose a carpenter did, or a farmer, or, indeed, almost anyone but an academician. By every one of those tests, I’d prove myself a moron, and I’d be a moron, too. In a world where I could not use my academic training and my verbal talents but had to do something intricate or hard, working with my hands, I would do poorly. My intelligence, then, is not absolute but is a function of the society I live in and of the fact that a small subsection of that society has managed to foist itself on the rest as an arbiter of such matters.
Consider my auto-repair man, again. He had a habit of telling me jokes whenever he saw me. One time he raised his head from under the automobile hood to say: “Doc, a deaf-and-mute guy went into a hardware store to ask for some nails. He put two fingers together on the counter and made hammering motions with the other hand. The clerk brought him a hammer. He shook his head and pointed to the two fingers he was hammering. The clerk brought him nails. He picked out the sizes he wanted, and left. Well, doc, the next guy who came in was a blind man. He wanted scissors. How do you suppose he asked for them?”
Indulgently, I lifted by right hand and made scissoring motions with my first two fingers. Whereupon my auto-repair man laughed raucously and said, “Why, you dumb jerk, He used his voice and asked for them.” Then he said smugly, “I’ve been trying that on all my customers today.” “Did you catch many?” I asked. “Quite a few,” he said, “but I knew for sure I’d catch you.” “Why is that?” I asked. “Because you’re so goddamned educated, doc, I knew you couldn’t be very smart.”
And I have an uneasy feeling he had something there.
Some people build swimming pools in their back yards. But outdoor pools in Alaska just won’t work as it’s too cold and dark for 1/2 the year. There is a particular family that lives on the outskirts of Anchorage. They decided to build a sturdy, colorful playground for their 3 and 4 year old sons, with smooth-stone gravel all around it to avoid knee scrapes and other injuries. They finished building it on Saturday evening, and the following morning, as the mom was about to wake up the boys and have them go out to play in their new play center, this is what she saw from the upstairs window:
2 more photos after the link: Continue reading “Nice Playground…for Bears”
There’s a good article in this month’s Wired Magazine about Dean Karnazes who is the most hard-core runner i have ever read about. He wasn’t a serious running until his 30th birthday when, after taking down a few too many tequila shots, he stripped down to his underwear and like Forest Gump – just started running. That was 1992. Since then, he’s been a frickin’ machine.
He recently ran 50 marathons in 50 days (age 44). He ran 350 miles without sleeping (over 3 days). He ran the only marathon to the South Pole. The list goes on and on. The guy is awesome.
One of the great quotes of the article is this:
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!
Good to remember as i get my ass back in shape now that i’ve finished my holiday ass-expansion program.
More of the article after the jump….
Continue reading “Take Your Body for a Ride like Dean K.”
I got this message emailed to me today by my mom’s friend in Wisconsin. Apparently a deer jumped out in front of her car and when they went to rescue it they saw it was an albino deer. Looks pretty cute…
A very eventful day around here. A once in many lifetimes experience! Mark saw this lil’ feller run out in front of a car, thought it was a lost baby goat. Stopped to get it, and WOW. A real Albino Whitetail Deer. Just hours old, but doing fine. No Momma deer around. Another car nearly hit it in front of Mark.
Well, he is THE neatest and cutest thing any of us ever saw. And such a ‘freak of nature’, that only 1 in more than a million are even born. He took his bottle of food, followed us around the house, doing great. We called the Zoo & Fossil Rim and both were interested, but we’re actualy going to send him to a Rehab farm. Maybe he will make it in captivity somewhere and be appreciated. I hope so. These deer are very rare. We wanted to keep him but it’s not the right thing to do – and not legal either.
Here are a couple of pix to show ya. He was snow white, pink eyes, ears, nose and hooves. Our kids called him Powder. He was SO small. That is my shoe lying beside him.
Pass this around, a lot of folks have never and will probably never see even another picture of an Albino deer fawn……
This is a great and inspiring story of an American who saved his cash and went to England to try to play soccer. After a few years of earning next to nothing, he’s now, through an amazing series of events, playing for Watford in the Premier League. Here’s the story in Sports Illustrated magazine:
————————————-
LONDON CALLING
They said Jay DeMerit, a kid from Green Bay, didn‘t have what it takes to play professional soccer in America. So he went to England. England? Yes, and he’s now a bloomin’ favorite
Three years ago, in Jay DeMerit’s previous life, Sir Elton John didn’t ask to shake his hand. Three years ago, before he scored one of the most lucrative goals in soccer history, yellow-clad Englishmen didn’t chant his name, didn’t wear his jersey, didn’t burst into tears of joy over his flying header into a rippling net. Three years ago Jay DeMerit, late of Green Bay, was a soccer vagabond in a foreign land, an MLS reject plying the fields of London’s city parks, a Sunday pub leaguer sharing a friend’s attic bedroom in a dodgy part of town and subsisting on $70 a week and a steady diet of beans on toast.
Now, of all places, he’s here: on the emerald grass of sold-out Vicarage Road, the cozy stadium of the English Premier League’s Watford FC, a small-market outfit like DeMerit’s beloved Green Bay Packers. It’s an early-autumn afternoon 15 miles north of London, and this time DeMerit’s foes aren’t a bunch of hungover blokes from the pub but rather the superstars of Manchester United, the world’s most famous team. The sight of the Red Devils should intimidate the Hornets defender (Welcome to the Premiership, Yank), but not today. Not after his journey from the sport’s lowest levels to a league with a global audience of 600 million.
Continue reading “Amazing Story of American Playing in England's Premiership”
Ernest Hemingway was once prodded to compose a complete story in six words. His answer, personally felt to be his best prose ever, was “For sale: baby shoes, never used.” Some people say it was to settle a bar bet. Others say it was a personal challenge directed at other famous authors.
The same thing is going on at Flickr with photos right here. It’s lead to some funny captions. Some samples:
 |
And just like that, she snapped. (photo) |
 |
I could do this all afternoon (photo) |
|
|
Yesterday, she learned the shocking truth (photo) |
(I found out about this on Flickr’s founder’s website: Caterina.net and pretty much reposted it verbatim)
Here’s a story of a very large alligator in Texas. Not the biggest ever, but still pretty damn large.
Here’s a picture of it taken a KTBS helicopter flying over Lake Conroe in Texas with a whole deer in its mouth! Think of how large it has to be to fit an entire deer in its mouth.
The alligator was found between Athens and Palestine, Texas near a house. How would you like to meet this fella in the dark? Never let it be said that they don’t grow them big in Texas. Game wardens were forced to shoot the alligator as he clearly could devour an entire family for lunch.
Apparently, the locals could hear the bellowing in the night.
Neighbors had been saying around the street that they had seen a mammoth alligator in the waterway that runs behind their house, but every story was dismissed as exaggerations. “I didn’t believe it,” Charles Rogers (on neighbor) said. This past Friday they realized the stories were, if anything, understated. Texas Parks and Wildlife game wardens had to shoot the beast.
This last picture is of Joe Goff, 6’5″ tall, a game warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, walks past the 23’1″ alligator that he shot and killed in the Rogers back yard.
I’ve travelled around quite a bit over the past few months and come across various policemen in different places. I have to say that some of their equipment is pretty funny. Check these two out:
New York’s Version of the Batmobile
In the US’s Gotham City, there’s now a sweet new vehicle roaming the streets. It’s sleek, it can get through traffic jams, and its miles per gallon is phenomenal!
Italy’s New Speedster
What else can you expect from the home of the incredibly engineered cars like Ferrari, Bugatti, and Maserati – how about the new Italian Police Segway! I can just see a platoon of Segways cruising the streets trying to corner a criminal who’s cruising away in a regular car.
It is largely thought that my Minnesota Timberwolves got one of the best players in this week’s draft, selecting Randy Foye in the seventh pick.
The Sports Guy column recounted the way that Minnesota came across that 7th pick.
It’s April 19, 2006, the final day of the season. The Celts have the sixth-worst record and plays host to Miami; Minnesota is at No. 7 and plays host to Memphis. The C’s do the honorable thing, play hard at
home and whup Miami’s third-string with their kids. Going against Memphis’ third string, Minnesota does the dishonorable thing and completely tanks the tail end of the game. I mean, COMPLETELY. To the point that Mark Madsen plays 30 minutes, goes 1 for 15 from the field, misses seven 3-pointers (yes, you read that correctly), conveniently “forgets” to guard Brian Cardinal on the game-tying 3 in the final 20 seconds of regulation, then misses three straight 3s to kick off the second OT (check out the play-by-play if you don’t believe me). Mark Madsen basically shaved points in this game.
I’m telling you. I have never seen a professional team throw a game this blatantly, in any sport, at any level. Even the 1919 Black Sox would have been mortified.
So what was the end result? They moved into the No. 6 spot, Boston slid to No. 7.Look at the box score. Seriously, take a look. Before this game, Madsen shot nine 3s TOTAL during the first six years of his career. Did he get suspended after this tank job? No. Did anyone get suspended or fined? No. Does anyone remember this other than me and my dad? Apparently, no. And then the T-Wolves get rewarded with a better pick? What a joke. I don’t know where the WWE ends and the NBA begins anymore. And yes, I’ve been waiting to rant about that for two months. So there you go.
I’m not sure how i feel about this. On one hand, it would have been pointless to win the game. On the other, every game should be a competitive. Similar to the Hippocratic Oath taken by doctors regarding the ethics of medicine, i believe there should be a similar oath taken by athletes that they will compete at the best of their abilities and attempt to win each game at all times. What this article doesn’t mention is that KG refuses to lose any game. Because of this, he was basically benched for the last 2 weeks of the season. Sure, they called it “resting” but there’s no way the coaches were going to let him go out there and win game. Interesting indeed.
