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mefi
American Drug War - The Last White Hope (in case you missed it on
Showtime) Includes footage of and interviews with gang members, narcs, prisoners (like Tommy Chong), and other folks on the front lines of the drug war including
Freeway Ricky Ross (infamous for starting the crack epidemic) and DEA Agent
Celerino Castillo who both wound up working for the CIA.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 10:42 PM on April 4, 2008
(10 comments)
Like
hockey fights ? Like the movie
Slapshot? Want to see the
real Chiefs?
Les Chiefs is a
documentary on the toughest team in the Quebec Semi-Pro Hockey League. There can be 10 fights in a single period. Goalies fight. Coaches fight. Some fans fight in the stands with the players who live just yards away, in a ramshackle apartment in the stadium (formerly a ramshackle storage closet).
Other fans lovingly craft belts in the belief that hockey is a religion and The Chiefs are its avatars. And
players players question, even as they sign up for underground boxing matches and run up 100 to 1 penalty minute to goal ratios, whether they’re hockey players or
circus side shows. (some links may be NSFW for violence)
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 2:31 PM on February 21, 2008
(31 comments)
Iran is the next target of the U.S. because of the establishment of the
Iranian Oil Bourse, which would trade in Euros, not dollars.
No, it isn't.
Yeah, it
probably is.
No, seriously,
it's not. (Yeah,
really though, it is)
Ok,
maybe it is, maybe it isn't either way
the odds were running
50/50 we'd bomb Iran by the end of the year.
(previously -
here)
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 12:50 AM on July 4, 2006
(44 comments)
Wanna Fanta? Don'tuwanna wanna Fanta? You don't support the Jews do you?
Once the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, German Coca-Cola head
Max Keith
(pronounced Kite) was no longer able to get Coca-Cola syrup and so invented
Fanta out of cheese by-products and apple cider for the Nazis.
According to
Snopes
who went with a report prepared by an investigator commissioned by
Coca-Cola
to examine Max Keith's actions, it was all quite noble. Of course that
doesn't address what was happening
before
the
war. But in all fairness that the Coca- Cola only in rare instances
directly
endorsed
the Nazis.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 5:42 PM on May 31, 2006
(56 comments)
The
Tzaddikim are 36 legendary saints for whose sake God does not destroy the world.
Ancient writings of the Middle East claim that in every generation there exists a minimum number of beings upon whose merits the fate of the world rests. The number varies, but in Jewish legend
36 "Just" beings, or Tzaddikim, are considered to be the Foundation Stones of the World. Sometimes called the
Tzadikim Nistarim or just the
Lamed-Vav the
hidden tzaddikim do their good deeds quietly. Their neighbors do not know who they are. They are
not saints; they are not holy people, they are not recognized or known even to themselves. They simply are what they are and in their very being, they somehow sustain the world. If, however, that minimum of truly saintly people does not exist, then the world itself will perish. Neil Gaiman quotes
Death in thinking
Emperor Joshua Norton was
one.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 9:51 AM on April 10, 2006
(30 comments)
Cofer Black, Director of the CIA Counterterrorism center until May 2002 said before the 9/11 commission: “All I want to say is that there was ‘before’ 9/11 and ‘after’ 9/11. After 9/11 the gloves come off… ‘No Limits’ aggressive, relentless, worldwide pursuit of any terrorist who threatens us is the only way to go…”
Since that time there have been allegations of
abduction and indefinite detention in secret
prisons abroad , abuse in prisons
within the U.S. and the
suppression of evidence of coercion overseas in confessions in U.S. courts. (
Ahmed Omar Abu Ali prev.
here). In addition to Amnesty Int’l, it’s getting the U.S. some
UN attention as well.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 11:01 AM on April 7, 2006
(31 comments)
In
1938 the
British Balloon Command was established to protect cities and key targets such as industrial areas, ports,
landmarks and harbours.
Barrage balloons or "
Bulging Berthas" were
inflatable shiny
silver-painted
balloons, made of rubber-coated fabric, and filled with hydrogen gas used prevent low level attacks by enemy aircraft. The balloons flew anywhere from 500 feet to 10,000 feet. The 15 gauge flying wire that tethered them could clip the wings off a plane. They were also used at
sea and to cover
invasions.
They were also effective against the V-1 flying bomb and back in the late 80s, at least one general thought they could still be used to
protect airfields.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 6:50 AM on March 24, 2006
(16 comments)
Rube Goldberg, former mining engineer, Godfather to Mad Magazine’s “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,”
cartoonist for Boob McNutt and Mike & Ike (they look alike), is best known for the now
eponymous machines he started cartooning back in 1914 such as:
how to not forget to mail a letter. Or the reminder to
take out the garbage. Or the
local government efficiency machine. Or the
oversleeping cure. Or the
German webserver wakeup device (it’s got sound).
There are
amateurs making ‘Rube Goldberg machines,’ but there are also
serious contests, sponsored by
serious engineers. (There are even
do it yourself plans - y’know, for kids).
Goldberg’s influence can be seen in a
variety
of
media, but by the time he turned 80 he’d tired of cartooning and decided to begin sculpting. Needless to say he excelled and of course, influenced
humorous kinetic
sculpture.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 11:06 AM on March 15, 2006
(13 comments)
Recondo!
In 1966, the
MACV Recondo School was established to train Special Forces Units in long-range recon tactics and commando operations. Graduates were called
"Recondos" and could infiltrate enemy-controlled territory for long periods of time without being resupplied. The school was well known enough to spawn a cheezy
GI Joe character.
Apparently you can easily infiltrate
Hollywood as well with
allegedly false Recondo credentials.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 3:35 PM on February 9, 2006
(12 comments)
Have you ever had
one of those times where you lose your job, then your VA benefits are cut (even though you were wounded seven times in Vietnam), then your son dies in Iraq and homophobic protesters hold up a sign at his funeral that says
“Thank God for Dead Soldiers”
then just after Christmas the candle you light for your dead child burns your house down and your family (including your grandchildren) is homeless, and your wife needs surgery for gallstones?
Yeah, that’s tough when that happens.
But sometimes
people come through for you.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 10:43 AM on January 31, 2006
(154 comments)
The
conference at
Wannsee occurred on January 20, 1942.
The Holocaust had been going on for at least one year; the camp at Dachau had been in operation for several years. The
Final Solution was already underway. At issue at Wannsee, in the relaxed and distinctively
upper middle-class atmosphere of that SS guest-house for the fifteen highly placed Nazis was the
best strategy for genocide.
Less than one year after the conference a little girl who had been hiding in Holland is sent to the Bergen camp in northern Germany. She spends more than six years looking for
four perfect pebbles
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 5:13 PM on January 18, 2006
(16 comments)
Ooo es muy macho libertariadadista?
(Ricardo Mantelban es muy macho! Pero es libertariadadista? Yo no se. Quién sabe? )
El Presidente Bushista esay: “
Queiro preguntas muy macho”
Quein es ooo preforma en la supportidad de la guerra en terror?
Diez preguntas.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 12:37 PM on January 11, 2006
(55 comments)
First they take Ugarte and then she walks in.
On the 9th of December 2005, Deborah Davis will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in a case that will determine whether people must show "papers" whenever police demand them. Unlike
Dudley Hiibel (discussed on mefi
last year) who had (arguably) caused a disturbance meriting police attention, Deb was just riding the bus when she was "welcomed" to the Denver Federal Center.
posted to MetaFilter by Smedleyman
at 2:04 PM on November 25, 2005
(35 comments)
