I thought I would hate this. I was wrong.
Thank you.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 6:23 AM on January 1, 2008

meh
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 10:14 PM on December 22, 2007

Best of the what now?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 4:09 AM on December 10, 2007

Double?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:41 AM on November 24, 2007

Guys,

Just popped in to say thanks for the blow-by-blow coverage - I am thankfully unable to access Aus TV and Radio but Metafilter is providing just enough election "buzz" to keep give me my political fix.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 8:27 PM on November 12, 2007

Ahhhhh. I am being forced to watch the Channel 9 coverage. Kill me now. Please. They have a sound effect everytime Lab "wins" a seat fercristsake.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:19 AM on November 24, 2007

Zamboni - they just did a "shredder" of LIB-NAT MPs who had lost their seet. Huge cheers heard in the background when for Howard when he entered the shredder.

Major problem with watching Channel 9 is that I am sober!

Gomi - crippled internet so no streaming and out of JJJ coverage.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:42 AM on November 24, 2007

prob need an "a" somewhere in that last comment.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:43 AM on November 24, 2007

. . . and Ray's hairpiece call it for Rudd - 5 min after the ABC.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:31 AM on November 24, 2007

Intelligence is where I'm a Viking.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:36 AM on November 19, 2007

Then why do we train our soldiers to resist torture and other countries/organization's train theirs?

Western militaries train people to resist interrogation. Not torture. There is a difference.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 8:22 AM on October 11, 2007

apple girl: good to the Corp!
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 10:19 AM on October 3, 2007

Thanks - these finds are what make me keep coming back.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:02 AM on May 18, 2007

For those who maintain that suicide bombing is inspired by religion please check out Robert Pape's book Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism. This is a factual analysis of campaigns that have used suicide bombing and basically show that suicide bombing is a tactic used to win a war (campaign, insurgency whatever), not a religiously motivated plea for help. Religion (or race or ethnicity) may be used to manipulate some of those who carry the bomb, but the tactic is not inspired... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 3:33 PM on May 13, 2007

blah^3 - this is gold. My eldest has just started "doing" Astronomy at school and now cannot wait to show this to her class tomorrow.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 2:27 AM on May 7, 2007

Thank you.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 4:32 PM on May 5, 2007

"Here lies dangerousdan
. . . and he's bloody annoyed"

With thanks to Rowan Atkinson.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 2:42 AM on April 18, 2007

Is this where we talk about the plate of beans?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 3:34 AM on April 14, 2007

But for some reason it seems to be important for John Howard and the Liberal (sic) Party in Australia to tell other Australians that he is well know (or at least known) in the US. This justifies his sycophantic relationship with your President apparently.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:07 AM on January 20, 2007

Am I able to comment if I didn't miss any of these stories?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 8:39 PM on January 7, 2007

Yet another reason not to buy Time. Thank-you XQUZYPHYR. This and other money saving tips may help me survive until the next pay check.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 8:51 PM on December 16, 2006

That's not a car - it's a truck.

Oh and WTF.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 2:08 PM on December 2, 2006

Could you design one question that would characterise a Christian radical?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:51 PM on November 20, 2006

For posterity and proving the FP.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:44 AM on October 17, 2006

However it's good to see that Celine Dion has no objectional content!
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:10 AM on September 19, 2006

Funny. Everytime I see Hopoate I think of the old LG tag line. You must admit that the best thing about the state of origion os the Roy and HG call on the JJJ.

Oh yeah, League can hav 'del back now - he's broken!
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 4:25 AM on May 23, 2006

Interesting to note that the mine cave-in has claimed its second life - a journalist who has been high profile as the talking head for Australian 60 min. I heard the live cross to the last news conference he participated in. His legacy is sounding like a wanker pushing the mine administrator on the safety record of the mine when the admin guy was giving a status report on the rescue.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:08 AM on May 7, 2006

. . . or if you followed fullysic's link!
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:09 AM on May 7, 2006

Loquacious has it! Gina Riley dressed as a penguin - hawt
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 4:51 AM on April 6, 2006

Will they follow this study up with a double blind test? If can I take part?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 3:10 AM on March 17, 2006

if so if so if so
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 3:12 AM on March 17, 2006

Good to see that Ethyl, The Aardvark Goes Quantity Surveying actually exists!
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 11:17 PM on March 15, 2006

Good to see that the life-time supply of petards created in the leadup to Iraq are being dusted off ready for hoisting.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 11:12 PM on March 15, 2006

If they don't believe in gravity, will they fall off the Earth?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:31 AM on March 14, 2006

Corker! This as an active desktop and sunclock as the screen saver.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 8:11 PM on March 10, 2006

Good to see News Radio has an audience on Metafilter.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 11:26 PM on March 9, 2006

"If a terrorist organization decided to infiltrate this company ... what would stop them?" asked Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

Common Sense? If I was a terrist and wanted to buy/infiltrate/subvert a company involved in shipping, why would I be dumb enough to buy an Arab one?
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 8:46 PM on February 14, 2006

Good to see that at least one of the urban legends about bad translation is true.

93. No joke here. Just suffice it to say that the literal translation of the Spanish word cajeta is "little box."
With the help of Latin pop sensation Thalia Sodi, Hershey introduces Cajeta Elegancita, a new candy bar for the Hispanic market. Though the wrapper features a picture of Sodi, apparently she neglects to fill her Yanqui partners in on... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:03 AM on January 26, 2006

Fans of NSW politics may remember Richard Face(ex-minister for gaming) - Dick by name and by nature by all accounts (at least the corruption report seems to say so).

And of course the International Olympic Committee anti-drug spokesman,Dick Pound.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 4:51 PM on January 20, 2006

Thanks for the chortle.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 7:50 PM on January 9, 2006

Surely the major problem here is that the US has been caught bribing journalists. The operational security of what should be a covert (if the activity it is discovered it is not apparent who did it) vice a clandestine (if the activity it is discovered it is obvious who did it) operation leaves something to be desired.

Since the military has been given the mission to create a secure environment in Iraq and one method of supporting that is to... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 2:48 PM on December 1, 2005

@ Bardic

Please do not lump torture and propaganda together. It inflates one to a level that is unwarranted and significantly devalues the heinous nature of the other.

I agree with strategy thing. If you do not know what your end-state is - it is very hard to achieve it. End-states do not contain fluffy words like "progress towards".
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 4:13 PM on December 1, 2005

From the article:

Many military officials, however, said they were concerned that the payments to Iraqi journalists and other covert information operations in Iraq had become so extensive that they were corroding the effort to build democracy and undermining U.S. credibility in Iraq. They also worry that information in the Iraqi press that's been planted or paid for by the U.S. military could "blow back" to the American... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 6:28 PM on December 1, 2005

(read not being done correctly)
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 6:30 PM on December 1, 2005

I'll 2nd that! Lots more reading to do today.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 1:17 PM on December 1, 2005

@ Furtive
"We do not torture". /derail
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 2:09 PM on December 1, 2005

Don't forget the various Politically Correct Dictionaries for an entertaining romp though non-communicative language.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 2:54 PM on December 1, 2005

As a currently serving army officer, albeit not in the US military - what is the issue?
Not all people have the same aptitude for all jobs. If you can do the task (in its entirety), feel free to join the infantry. Not everyone is capable of serving in the infantry - male or female. Will the social dynamics change - probably but it is not the end of the world.

For what it is worth the Australian Defence Force doesn't have a problem with gays but has not... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 6:02 PM on November 21, 2005

Good to see that the Rugby outreach program is working so well. New Zealand suffers from a lack of exposure to rugby.
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 12:36 PM on November 17, 2005

My problem with torture is a more practical one. How do you know that the information that you have cut/water boarded/prised or whatever out of the "terrorist" is worth anything?
If I had planted a bomb that will go off in one hour and was being tortured to reveal its location, would it not be in my best interests to give you spurious information for an hour until it went off? As a torturer, how do you know truth from lie?
Military interrogation should be a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dangerousdan at 3:13 PM on November 14, 2005