The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread..

[Hurlshort]

As Gromnir said (I think) it is about making a lifestyle change, which is hardly a simple thing to do.  Sure, the concept is simple, but actually changing everything around you and positioning yourself for success is incredibly tough.  As I've said a few time before, Woldan will have an easier time understanding all this stuff when he hits his thirties.  Maybe he will lead a charmed life and have great metabolism, injury recovery time, and less responsibilities in life, but I doubt it.  

[Nonek]

Surprised anyone could say "Pain is weakness leaving the body" with a straight face though, worrying.

 

My brother in law, a rather rough and ready fellow, once told me of his training partner telling him the same thing. He promptly punched the fellow in his jacobs and while he was bent over wheezing said, "You're welcome."

 

Rather appropriate I thought.

Edited March 9, 2015 by Nonek

[Volourn]

Yeah, when someone is stabbed   a bunch of times and are bleeding out... the truth of the matter is they aren't dying... but getting stronger as the weakness pours out of them....

[Raithe]

Heh, a somewhat annoyed customer decided to publish the amusing complaint letter they sent to Ryan Air online, and it's gone somewhat viral..

 

 

 

As sent to Ryanair:

 

Dear Sir/Madam,

 

 I am writing for the attention of your customer experience team. I am definitely a customer, and believe me, you didn’t fail in providing us with an experience.

 My wife and I had booked to fly from Stansted on the Thursday 17th April, evening flight to Bratislava. After 2 hours of fun, fun, fun, stuck on the M25 doing 20 mph, we arrived at Stansted check in with just one hour until the flight. Knowing the strict Ryan Air policy on ‘luggage check in closes 40 mins before the flight’ as you are the Low Fare Taxi of The Skies, we went straight to the Ryan Air assistant and explained our plight. She said we were still within the time and all would be fine but we had to make the attendant at check in aware and he would assist from there.

 

 We approached the attendant as instructed and explained. Unfortunately, in the main part due to him being a child, and forgetting to bring his mother to work, he heard only half of the words before his brain fell apart like a wet cake. He led us to the line for closing gates, advised we should wait and all would be ok. We stood patiently in the line for 20 minutes. We got to the front of the line and the lady, who we shall from this point refer to as Vacant, explained that she had literally just that second closed the flight and we had missed it. We complained that we had done as instructed and she said it was Child’s fault because he should have advised her that we were trying to board a closing flight, and that because he hadn’t told her it was therefore our fault we had missed the plane.

 

 Confused by this process of blame apportioning, another check in clerk, who we shall refer to as Not That Bright, tried to blame us for not responding to the last call for the flight as we should have made ourselves known. I argued that the last call had not been made. Not That Bright then questioned Vacant on whether she had done a final call. Vacant did what she does best and looked, well,…… After establishing that the child had not informed Vacant we were here, and Vacant had forgotten to do a last call and that all of this was irreversible, and my fault, Not That Bright and Vacant conferred to agree this was not a problem they wished to deal with and told us to get in a very, very long line of very, very unhappy people at the quite wrongly titled ‘Customer Services Counter’ as it was in fact a Customer Shouting Desk. We complained and requested the attention of a manager.

Out came Colin, a man so angry all his hair had literally fallen out. He was so aggressive I can only assume he had accidentally inserted something sharp into somewhere private and been unable to remove it before he came to work. He was definitely a Middle Gimp. I know this as Vacant and Not That Bright were clearly quite scared of him, and he can’t have been a Big Cheese as he was talking directly to customers and we all know from The News that no-one in Big Cheese management at Ryan Air has ever seen, let alone spoken to, an actual customer.

 

 Middle Gimp had clearly listened hard at Ryan Air Middle Gimp School, as he managed to take two perfectly calm and sane adults and in a matter of seconds reduce them to angry people considering violence.

 

 ‘Check in opens 3 hours before the flight’ He barked repeatedly as if it was the answer to every question in life. We tried to ask Middle Gimp direct questions about why it was necessary for us to miss the flight because the Child had forgotten to do his job, and Vacant had forgotten to do hers.

 ‘Why is this our fault, and why should we miss the flight because of errors Ryan Air staff have just admitted?.

 ‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’

 ‘Do you acknowledge we have just cause for complaint as we tried to do the right thing and the only reason we are not on the plane is because of communication failures between Ryan Air Staff?’

 ‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’

 ‘What colour are my trousers?’

 ‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’

 ‘Do you think economic sanctions on Russia will diffuse the escalating situation in Ukraine?’

 ‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’

 ‘Were Man Utd right to fire David Moyes?’

 ‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’

 ‘My tinkle is hurting, could you take a look if I promise not to tell anyone?’

 ‘Check in opens three hours before the flight’

 

 Middle Gimp then conferred with Vacant and Not That Bright, and agreed that this was all our fault as we should have noticed that Child had made an error and we should have called the flight ourselves to assist Vacant in doing her job because she was clearly busy being, well,…… Middle Gimp then insisted we go to the Customer Shouting Desk, as he was definitely not going to do anything else. This was handy as the queue was very long so that by the time we would reach the front the plane would be half way to Bratislava and the problem would be solved.

 

 We waited patiently in line as customer after customer stood at the desk to hear the same song;

 ‘No, no, I can’t do that, no, there are no Middle Gimps available, no, no, sorry, no, give me all your money’

 

 We got to the Customer Shouting Desk and explained our plight to the lady there (who was actually very nice and clearly should not be working for Ryan Air as a result). She apologised but explained that Middle Gimp had finished being angry for the day and had returned to his padded cage, and that there were no other Middle Gimps around. We would have to book in to the flight for the next day and we would have to pay £110 each to change the ticket. When she tried to re-book the flight she said that the flight we had tried to get was actually delayed by 1 hour and still at the airport, and that what we should do is run to the gate with all our luggage, she would call through and they would check our bags into the hold at the gate. We ran as fast as we could, which is not very fast because I am fat, to security to do as instructed. When we got there, security advised us that because our flight should have left, even though it hadn’t, the ticket machine would not open the barrier for us and we would need to return to the Customer Shouting Desk.

 

 We waited patiently in the very long queue yet again for about 40 minutes to discover the nice lady had also gone home now so we had to explain the whole thing again to a new lady that looked like all the joy had been removed from her life at birth. She recited the Ryan Air customer services song with a sterling level of apathy and dreariness, I am surprised she could muster the will just to breathe and stay alive.

 

 ‘No, no, I can’t do that, no, there are no Middle Gimps available, no, no, sorry, no, give me all your money’

 She recited it with perfection, Middle Gimps across the world would have been in awe and the effectiveness of the techniques taught in Middle Gimp School. Seeing no other option but to hand over all our cash and come back the next morning we happily paid and got new flights.

 

 As the new flight was at 6.25am in the morning we decided to get a hotel, we paid £79 for a room and got a taxi.

 

 So, our customer experience was insightful and liberating. From the incompetent Child with a brain so full of girls and modifications he was planning for his mothers Vauxhall Corsa to make it better, he couldn’t actually listen or speak, through Vacant and Not That Bright who decided on reflection that anything they did wrong was our fault for not pointing it out to them, right through Middle Gimp who made a Tasmanian Devil look calm and Zen like, and the sad one, oh so sad, having every last drop of life sucked out of her by her chosen career at the Ryan Air Customer Shouting Desk. I very nearly jumped over the desk just to give her a cuddle and tell her everything would be alright if she could just muster the will to leave the Ryan Air Customer Shouting Desk and find a more fulfilling job, like being a North Korean hair dresser, or a parking attendant in Tower Hamlets, or in fact just resigning herself to a slow and uncomfortable death would have been indistinguishable from the current position and would require much less effort.

 

 The net result of this ‘experience’ was;

 New Flights – £220

Hotel £79

Taxi x 2 £50

World’s most expensive sandwich in the only hotel we could get £35

 

 1 x significant breach of Tort Law, in my opinion, (2008 as quoted by Lord Atkin) by Ryan Air. Google it, it’s a cracking read about inconvenience, alarm, harm, and distress caused. It set the rules for who is liable when Middle Gimp, Vacant, Child, and Not That Bright ruin your holiday. I will leave you to decide the monetary value of this.

 1 x Very angry and upset wife, in particular with Middle Gimp for being so unbelievably rude.

 1 x Missing our wedding reception for my new Slovakian family (sorry, forgot to mention this nugget earlier) who all turned up from all over the country to see us, the new Mr and Mrs Lockley, for an event we were forced to miss, because Child and Vacant are clueless at best and Middle Gimp has anger management issues.

 

 So, thank you Ryan Air for a comfortable and enjoyable experience. I have watched a program called The News so I fully expect this to land on the desk of the customer services team underneath the empty bottles, orange peel, and sandwich wrappers that you also file there. You treated us badly, you cost us money and made us miss our own wedding reception, through a display of incompetence I have not seen since Greece was allowed to have money and a cheque book.

 

 I sincerely doubt you will do anything about this, compensate us, apologise, or even respond according to The News, so I have sent this recorded and sign for delivery to absolutely confirm my opinion of Ryan Air and that this letter has not been ‘lost in the post’

 

Regards

DJ Lockley (djlockley@hotmail.com)

 

P.S. Maybe Middle Gimp in particular, but Child, Not That Bright, and Vacant should purchase one of your reasonably priced tickets and go to Slovakia (assuming they were actually allowed on the plane unlike us). The Ryan Air employees there are smart, clever, bilingual, helpful, and polite, and they should in my opinion experience an example of how they should do their jobs. The Slovak staff could explain it to them, but they wouldn’t be able to understand it for them, so it may be a waste of time after all and akin to explaining a VAT return to a horse.

 

 

[ManifestedISO]

Still not sure if vines are post-able, but I seriously cannot tell if this was manufactured or genuine so I have no idea if I should feel bad for laughing. 

 

https://vine.co/v/MAOigK3MYJJ

[Amentep]

[Raithe]

Heh, and of course we have the latest Clarkson blowup on the news here, but for all the social justice ranting that goes on, this article makes an interesting twist

 

Sympathy for the Devil - Why I feel sorry for Clarkson

 

 

By the time you read this, you will doubtless have been brought up to speed with the list of Jeremy Clarkson’s transgressions against political correctness and his vainglorious one-man stand against the tide of the liberal left-leaning metropolitan elite.

 

He has, in case you’ve been living in a cave, been suspended for throwing a punch at a BBC producer for not having his dinner served on time. Allegedly. He was already in the last chance saloon.

 

The actress Lana Turner used to call it "the paragraph" and it referred to the fact no interview or profile piece could ever appear without noting that her abusive gangland lover was stabbed and killed by her daughter during a vicious altercation. Clarkson routinely gets not "the paragraph", but "the panel", a rap sheet and list of people he has offended. Handily, there's one at the bottom of this article.

 

Typically, "the panel" details how he has offended the Germans (the Third Reich), lorry drivers (murdering prostitutes), Gordon Brown and the Royal National Institute of Blind People ("[brown is] a one-eyed Scottish idiot"), the Welsh (own language), Mexicans and Indians (indolent and unsanitary, respectively), black muslim lesbians (finding work at the BBC), Agentinians (invading the Falklands) and then almost everybody when he was heard to mutter the ‘N-word’ whilst reciting the Eeny Meeny nursery rhyme.

 

All of this information will be any paper you pick up or news website you care to visit after Clarkson's latest violation of public decency and the subsequent postponement of two episodes of Top Gear.

 

His reputation as an outspoken reactionary bigot amounts to his CV and although he has occasionally proffered an apology (grovelingly so after the Eeny Meeny outrage) he remains consistently offensive and, consequently, in a sea of faceless, anodyne and bland footballers, politicians and TV ‘personalities’, extremely popular. Within two hours of his suspension being announced, over 8,000 people had signed a petition to have him reinstated. The Guardinistas are aghast. How could anybody support this horrible man?

 

The beard and latte fraternity (and sorority, obviously) have developed a Pavlovian response to the word ‘Clarkson’ and cannot hear it without shouting ‘sack him’, but perhaps the kneejerk is not the most appropriate response coming, as it does, from those who counsel caring and understanding of those from difficult backgrounds. They presume he is from a comfortable middle-class public school background and had everything easy. Forget it.

 

This is a man who was born in Doncaster 54 years ago and christened ‘Jeremy.’ For those Telegraph readers who have never been north of The Wash, let me assure you that of the 300,000 people in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster there can only be a maximum of five Jeremys. And that’s today.

 

So here he is, essentially a Boy Named Sue, living in Yorkshire. That is to say, Britain’s Texas, the big Lone Star county that likes to see itself as independent from the rest of the country blissfully unaware that the rest of the country couldn’t care less whether it exists or not. He could have been born in the Home Counties and mixed with Nigels and Penelopes but no, he was born in the only part of Britain where twerking is what you do t’pay t’bills.

It cannot have been easy being called Jeremy and surrounded by people he would surely regard as red-necks and the moderation of his decidedly non-Northern accent underlines that sense of exclusion. How he has moderated his accent betrays the fact that he just did not fit. Add to that mix the fact that his father had a job as a travelling salesman specialising in, first, tea cosies and then stuffed Paddington Bears.

 

"My dad’s a farmer/ builder/ rugby league player, what does your dad do?" the young Jeremy will have been asked. "I was never going to go the local state school in South Yorkshire," Clarkson has since explained and it’s not hard to understand why.

 

His parents sent him to Repton, a modest minor public school with a lot to be modest about but something of a reputation for sporting excellence. Clarkson, 6’5” in adulthood, does not have the build for anything other than a lumbering heavyweight or a rugby union lock and must have stood out at boarding school, itself a strange and unnatural experience for a boy from an avowedly "happy family".

 

As with so many non-sporting types, he turned away from the regular sports and found solace in the love of the motor car.

So, as a teenager, we have a gangly spare part living away from his family and, as he spins it now, "drinking, smoking and generally making a nuisance of [myself]". He was, he claims, expelled for persistent rule-breaking. It suits the myth but, whatever the truth, it certainly represents more rejection and/or a conscious decision to escape. Either way, he cannot have been particularly happy.

 

When he appeared on Desert Island Disks in November 2003 he talked about what made him "happy" in the first three minutes. The other refrain was "Something always turns up". It all smacked of a quiet desperation.

Sue Lawley, then presenter of the longstanding radio show, asked him if he minded what people said about him on the internet. His response was revealing. "They also say it in shops," he added, sounding hurt. "You do mind, of course you do, in the wee small hours you do think I wish I were a nicer person, I wish I could be nicer about people and things but in the heat of the moment a month later when perhaps you’ve had too much coffee and you’re in the studio and something comes up and you say something and everybody laughs and you feel great and go home and then you’ve upset somebody else."

 

This isn’t the Clarkson loved and adored by the socially inept UKIP-voting petrolhead, this isn’t the motor-mouth who tells it like it is and to hell with the consequences, this isn’t the unapologetic blokes’ bloke for men pretending to be blokes. This is a sensitive, thoughtful man given to introspection. Also, the reflection upon his behaviour and perceived reputation may be indicative of something further – perhaps even an autism spectrum disorder.

 

A disorder can obviously range from mild to severe and there are no accepted diagnostic criteria, but the highly advanced communication skills (no one can deny he is an exceptional broadcaster) and obsession with mechanical detail, alongside the inability to adhere to social norms and the impulsive desire to say inappropriate things at inappropriate times suggests that a case could be made to argue that he suffers from a mild form of Aspergers Syndrome.

 

And so while you liberals are all busy sticking the boot into Jeremy Clarkson, the Chipping Norton bar-room bore, the doyen of the ‘Health and Safety Gone Mad’ brigade, the small and big ‘C’ conservative, why don’t you think about the young man given the wrong name at the wrong time in the wrong place, a man who never seemed to fit in, a man whose first wife ran off with his best friend after six months, a man who is no stranger to rejection and a man who just may have special needs. Think about all that and reproach yourselves.

 

Jeremy Clarkson's gaffes

July 2008: Drink-driving - BBC bosses told Clarkson off for supping a gin and tonic while behind the wheel of a pick-up truck (while driving in the North Pole)

 

November 2008: Lorry drivers - With reference to Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, Clarkson joked on the show about how lorry drivers "murder prostitutes"

 

February 2009: Gordon Brown - The then prime minister was dismissed as a "one-eyed Scottish idiot" during a press conference in Australia.

 

October 2009: Black Muslim Lesbians - Clarkson said that the BBC was obsessed with hiring black, Muslim lesbians to counter the number of white heterosexuals in its ranks.

 

July 2010: Burkas and lingerie - During a Top Gear discussion on distractions while driving: “Honestly, the burka doesn’t work. I was in a cab in Piccadilly the other day when a woman in a full burka crossing the road in front of me tripped over the pavement, went head over heels and up it came, red g-string and stockings.”

 

August 2010: Special needs - Clarkson referred to a Ferrari as 'special needs' and a 'simpleton' as a way of giving it a bad review.

 

February 2011: Mexico - Clarkson sparked a diplomatic incident, and was forced to apologise to the Mexican ambassador

 

January 2012: India - Viewers complained about Clarkson's provocative remarks concerning the country's clothing, trains, food and history.

 

May 2014: The 'N'-word - Clarkson was forced into a apology after appearing to mumble the word as he sang a nursery rhyme on Top Gear.

 

July 2014: Slope - Ofcom said he had breached their guidelines, when he referred to an Asian person as a 'slope',

 

October 2014: Falklands - Jeremy Clarkson caused offence this time by driving through Argentina using a number plate apparently referring to the Falklands War.

[Amentep]

Heh, and of course we have the latest Clarkson blowup on the news here, but for all the social justice ranting that goes on, this article makes an interesting twist

 

Sympathy for the Devil - Why I feel sorry for Clarkson

 

 

He has, in case you’ve been living in a cave, been suspended for throwing a punch at a BBC producer for not having his dinner served on time. Allegedly. He was already in the last chance saloon.

 

 

How'd he like the tune?

 

[Raithe]

Anyone want to run an Inn in Maine?

 

Owner of Historic Maine Inn holding an Essay Contest - Winner gets the property

 

 

Janice Sage became the owner of a picturesque Maine inn 22 years ago, after entering a writing contest.

 

Now the 68-year-old innkeeper is ready to retire and plans to hand off the keys to the Center Lovell Inn and Restaurant to a new owner with a new contest.

 

Ms Sage announced the contest late last year, and expects to receive 7,500 entries from prospective new owners by the May 7 deadline.

On Monday, the Daily Mail Online spoke with Ms Sage about her decision to finally step away from the inn she's toiled at and invested $500,000 into for renovations.

'I've been in the business 38 years so it's time to retire,' Ms Sage said, adding that she's looking forward to doing nothing in her retirement after years of 17-hour workdays.

 

Ms Sage says she can't reveal the essay that won her the inn in 1993, but she believes her 16 years running a restaurant in Maryland helped. 

'One of the judges told me they chose me because they saw that I could carry on the inn and make it a viable business,' Ms Sage said. 

While Ms Sage has the right to sell the business, as the outright owner, she has decided to give it away with a new essay contest out of goodwill. 

'I just want to pass it on to somebody else who is looking for an inn, who possibly can't own it on their own outright and I think this is a good way to pay it forward,' she said.

 

Ms Sage hopes to read all of the applications by May 17, and says she'll be impressed by grammatically correct entries that show a passion for work.  

The prompt for the essay is simple: 'Why I would like to own and operate a country inn.' Prospective new owners must answer the question in a pithy 200 words, and pay $125 to enter the contest. 

 

Ms Sage will be keeping the money from the application, which could exceed the inn's estimated value of $900,000. 

 

Ms Sage won't choose the winner, though. Instead, she'll whittle down the list to the top 20 candidates and then let a two-person team who have no stake in the inn select the winner by May 21. The inn will then transfer to the new owner within 30 days, along with $20,000 to jumpstart the business. 

However, the new owners must agree to keep the inn, which dates back to 1805, painted white with green or black trim. They must also run the property as an inn for at least one year after the handover.

 

While the new owners can revel in self-employment, the job of keeping up the inn is no easy work, Ms Sage warns. 

The inn, located three hours north of Boston, is open year round and its seven rooms are routinely booked up seven days a week in the high season.

Everyday, Ms Sage and about 10 employees work to cook breakfast, clean rooms, take reservations, check out guests and serve dinner.  

'Unless you raise 14 kids, you’re not going to be used to this,' Ms Sage told the Boston Globe. 'Look, this is something you start when you’re young. It takes a lot of stamina.'

 

Ms Sage was 46 when she took over the inn, having never visited Maine before in her life. When she learned she was the lucky winner, she brought along her parents to help with the new place (her father has since passed and mother is now in a nursing home).

 

Ms Sage grew to love Maine and plans to remain in the area for the time being

 

[Hurlshort]

There you go Calax, get writing!

[Gfted1]

Take The Intelligence Test That Thomas Edison Gave to Job Seekers.

[Gfted1]

U.S. running out of room to store crude.

 

We should probably start thinking of countries to take over so we have somewhere to store all this black gold. I shudder to think of storage issues once we complete our takeover of Venezuela and Iran. 

[BruceVC]

U.S. running out of room to store crude.

 

We should probably start thinking of countries to take over so we have somewhere to store all this black gold. I shudder to think of storage issues once we complete our takeover of Venezuela and Iran. 

Gfted1 you know  you really shouldn't make posts that dispute and undermine the various conspiracy theories about  America that we are subjected to

 

Remember all foreign interventions by America are about oil because the USA needs oil...didn't you know that 

[Gfted1]

We cant help it Bruce. With our government suppressing fusion reactors, cars that run on water and light bulbs that never burn out, we have no choice but to conquer and take the resources we need. How the hell am I expected to keep my Hummer limo on the road?

[Valsuelm]

 

U.S. running out of room to store crude.

 

We should probably start thinking of countries to take over so we have somewhere to store all this black gold. I shudder to think of storage issues once we complete our takeover of Venezuela and Iran. 

Gfted1 you know  you really shouldn't make posts that dispute and undermine the various conspiracy theories about  America that we are subjected to

 

Remember all foreign interventions by America are about oil because the USA needs oil...didn't you know that 

 

 

General,

 

There is far more speculative discussion about 'conspiracy theorists' on this forum than actual 'conspiracy theories' put forward. Yours, like the others on this forum I've read today, aren't even accurate representations of any common 'conspiracy theory' as labeled such by those who do such labeling.

 

I'll point out again though, that if you're using 'conspiracy theorist/theory' as a pejorative, you're either guilty of being evil and attempting to marginalize discussion and points of view on a topic or you've been brainwashed by such evil people to believe as you do. In reality, conspiracies are normal and common. So much so that one would be hard pressed to find an adult human that didn't spend their entire life as a hermit that didn't partake in at least a few conspiracies in their lifetime.

 

All that said, one can only hope that the article is accurate. The price of gas in the U.S. has been stupid high for almost 10 years now, and it's way past time that the artificial inflation applied to it post Hurricane Katrina went the way of the Dodo.

[BruceVC]

 

 

U.S. running out of room to store crude.

 

We should probably start thinking of countries to take over so we have somewhere to store all this black gold. I shudder to think of storage issues once we complete our takeover of Venezuela and Iran. 

Gfted1 you know  you really shouldn't make posts that dispute and undermine the various conspiracy theories about  America that we are subjected to

 

Remember all foreign interventions by America are about oil because the USA needs oil...didn't you know that 

 

 

General,

 

There is far more speculative discussion about 'conspiracy theorists' on this forum than actual 'conspiracy theories' put forward. Yours, like the others on this forum I've read today, aren't even accurate representations of any common 'conspiracy theory' as labeled such by those who do such labeling.

 

I'll point out again though, that if you're using 'conspiracy theorist/theory' as a pejorative, you're either guilty of being evil and attempting to marginalize discussion and points of view on a topic or you've been brainwashed by such evil people to believe as you do. In reality, conspiracies are normal and common. So much so that one would be hard pressed to find an adult human that didn't spend their entire life as a hermit that didn't partake in at least a few conspiracies in their lifetime.

 

All that said, one can only hope that the article is accurate. The price of gas in the U.S. has been stupid high for almost 10 years now, and it's way past time that the artificial inflation applied to it post Hurricane Katrina went the way of the Dodo.

 

 

Vals the fact that the USA is the worlds biggest producer of oil is the start of the great  unraveling  of many of your views, the good news is this should be seen as something positive. The truth about how the world really operates  will make you a happier and more content person ....so embrace the change, see it as catharsis

 

 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-04/u-s-seen-as-biggest-oil-producer-after-overtaking-saudi 

Edited March 12, 2015 by BruceVC

[Valsuelm]

 

 

 

U.S. running out of room to store crude.

 

We should probably start thinking of countries to take over so we have somewhere to store all this black gold. I shudder to think of storage issues once we complete our takeover of Venezuela and Iran. 

Gfted1 you know  you really shouldn't make posts that dispute and undermine the various conspiracy theories about  America that we are subjected to

 

Remember all foreign interventions by America are about oil because the USA needs oil...didn't you know that 

 

 

General,

 

There is far more speculative discussion about 'conspiracy theorists' on this forum than actual 'conspiracy theories' put forward. Yours, like the others on this forum I've read today, aren't even accurate representations of any common 'conspiracy theory' as labeled such by those who do such labeling.

 

I'll point out again though, that if you're using 'conspiracy theorist/theory' as a pejorative, you're either guilty of being evil and attempting to marginalize discussion and points of view on a topic or you've been brainwashed by such evil people to believe as you do. In reality, conspiracies are normal and common. So much so that one would be hard pressed to find an adult human that didn't spend their entire life as a hermit that didn't partake in at least a few conspiracies in their lifetime.

 

All that said, one can only hope that the article is accurate. The price of gas in the U.S. has been stupid high for almost 10 years now, and it's way past time that the artificial inflation applied to it post Hurricane Katrina went the way of the Dodo.

 

 

Vals the fact that the USA is the worlds biggest producer of oil is the start of the great  unraveling  of many of your views, the good news is this should be seen as something positive. The truth about how the world really operates  will make you a happier and more content person ....so embrace the change, see it as catharsis

 

 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2014-07-04/u-s-seen-as-biggest-oil-producer-after-overtaking-saudi 

 

 

Uh... no it isn't. What makes you think that I do not know. You must have a gross misinterpretation of my views, in particular on oil, to come to that conclusion. Which, given I'm near positive I've never actually expressed most of my thoughts on oil on this forum, isn't surprising, as it's common for you to assume much dear General.

 

As for how the world really operates..... How it really operates is the purview of 'conspiracy theory'.

 

I've said this before to you many times, and obviously to no avail so far. But here's another for perseverance sake.

 

There's a number of places to start in regards to learning about how the world really operates, but I'd suggest learning about how the world central banking system works as a starting point. If one can grasp the fundamentals of that, and do some thinking (many fail at this part, as it takes quite some time), along with some further researching (follow the money trail (current and historical) and this takes even more time), one can get a decent idea of how the game is played. Of course the banking aspect is just part of it all, but probably more than anything else it's the key part. To get a good idea one needs to understand this aspect as well as a few others. The central banking rabbit hole however leads to a large warren where one will find most of the other pieces to get a good idea.  If you had a good idea, you'd lay down the 5 star insignia you're wearing for the war you think you're fighting, and become a warrior in the real war, where Generals such as yourself are little more than pawns of those playing the bigger game.

Edited March 12, 2015 by Valsuelm

[Raithe]

For those bourbon drinkers out there...

 

io9 - Dystopia is Arriving: It's only a matter of time before the Bourbon shortage hits...

 

 

Take a seat and pour yourself a drink (no, no, a different one). You may need it to listen to this news.

If bourbon is your drink of choice, you may have heard quiet rumblings the last few years of something unsettling afoot: a possible shortage coming down the pipeline. A bourbon shortage would be an interesting type because — unlike other possible food shortages (the coffee shortage, for instance) — it's not just a matter of not having enough of the ingredients. It's a matter of people 20 years ago making some bad drinks-buying decisions.

 

Making bourbon is, in a sense, an attempt at trying to predict the future. What will the world be like 20 or so years from now, the whiskey maker must ask herself, and just how much bourbon might they want there? So to a large extent, our current shortfall is due to people in the 1990s underestimating how much bourbon we'd want to drink today — possibly because 1990s drinkers had worse taste in alcoholic beverages. (Curse you, Zima.)

 

The good news is, if bourbon-makers undershoot the mark with their production, they can always make more. The ingredients are not hard to come by. The bad news? Every new barrel starts its own new clock on the aging process. Is it possible to reset that clock, though?

 

There's an interesting piece up in Nautilus today detailing some of the strange methods whiskey-makers are experimenting with to speed up the bourbon aging process, with everything from ultrasonic energy bursts to basically throwing in a whole bunch of oak chips and shaking. While the new methods certainly sound fun, this taste description sounds a little less fun:

 

Spirits aged for shorter amounts of time (four months instead of the two years minimum for federally approved straight bourbon, for example), have an edgy taste, often described as "hot," "raw," or "aggressive," with a "shorter finish."

Of course, not every bourbon is required to mellow for decades before it's poured; plenty can and do take considerably less time. But, the longer it's allowed to mellow, the more likely that any jagged notes in the flavor will have had time to soften. So much so that if the whiskey you're selling is less than four years old, you're required by federal whiskey law (yes, it's a thing) to slap a label on the bottle alerting potential customers to that fact (let no one say they didn't try to warn you).

 

The good news hidden in all this is that a bourbon shortage is by its very nature, a temporary thing. The bad news is that a solution, at least by traditional brewing methods, is always at least a decade or so away. But fear not! The future bourbon that will save us from a dispiriting future of offers of sad vodka-cranberries and weird little pickled onion martinis is already brewing. It's just not ready to arrive quite yet.

 

[ManifestedISO]

I literally drank a Zima at the end-of-tour bar at the Coors brewery in Golden, Colorado in 1993. I literally said out loud to a female companion, "I could drink this all day." I was mistaken. 

 

I was also newly 21, so, you know. 

Edited March 13, 2015 by ManifestedISO

[Woldan]

NASA's new most powerful rocket booster ever ground test. Awesome!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts9sFtUSeQE#t=162

Edited March 13, 2015 by Woldan

[ShadySands]

For those bourbon drinkers out there...

 

-snip-

 

I was just about to pour myself a glass of Breckenridge as I saw this post

 

Bourbon, you're on the bench. Gin, you're up.

[Malcador]

NASA's new most powerful rocket booster ever ground test. Awesome!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ts9sFtUSeQE#t=162

Neat test, link it without the time though.

Edited March 13, 2015 by Malcador

[Cantousent]

I swear to goodness, it's only a matter of time before it becomes routine treatment for men who have psychological issues regarding their **** size. The thing is, as opposed to breast enhancement or plastic surgery, this is apparently a functioning ****. Weird, but I suppose it could provide hope for someone who's suffered injuries like the guy in question.

 

http://news.sky.com/...enis-transplant

 

EDIT: You've got to be kidding me! The word for the male sexual organ is a perfectly legitimate word!

[Gfted1]

Now someone is going to try to dig up John Holmes.

[Cantousent]

Now someone is going to try to dig up John Holmes.

I laughed out loud. Sooo true! Or they'll invent a bionic male organ.