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Busket Posket
Feb 5, 2010

✨ⓡⓐⓨⓜⓞⓝⓓ✨
Also, an article that makes me feel like I'm on a weird list now: Satellite map images with missing or unclear data.

Like the Faroe Islands, which won't load:



An Irish political prison frozen in 2005:



And a Russian archipelago that ran out of toner:



:tinfoil:

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Herv
Mar 24, 2005

Soiled Meat

Rucksack 2K14 posted:

How about a town in Oklahoma where children used to play on hills of lead-tainted debris? The city was founded in 1920 and shut down in 2009 after lead mining ruined the groundwater, stirred up lead dust that would coat houses inside and out, and left a third of the children with developmental delays/disorders due to ingestion.

I saw it on a series about abandoned towns, and it looks like a creepy place to wander around.

You really want to watch The Creek Runs Red then. They mined right under, and almost up into THE TOWN so it wasn't safe to play on the athletic fields. Like the town wasn't hosed enough...

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/creekrunsred/

InediblePenguin
Sep 27, 2004

I'm strong. And a giant penguin. Please don't eat me. No, really. Don't try.

Good News Everyone posted:

But why did he continually confess to anyone who would listen?

because he thought if he said what they wanted him to say then he wouldn't get in trouble and when he proceeded to get in trouble anyway he probably thought that maybe they just needed him to say it some more until it would work, you colossal reject

The Mighty Moltres
Dec 21, 2012

Come! We must fly!


Good News Everyone posted:

Getting off that topic, I always found this super creepy, for some reason. The graffiti creeps me out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Who_put_Bella_in_the_Wych_Elm%3F

It's an interesting case, but seems pretty open and shut to me:

quote:

The first possibility came from a statement made to police in 1953 by Una Mossop, a cousin of Jack Mossop, in which she said that Jack confessed to family members that he and a Dutchman called van Ralt had put the woman in the tree. Mossop and van Ralt met for a drink at the Lyttelton Arms (a pub in Hagley). With van Ralt was a Dutchwoman. Later that night, Mossop said the woman became drunk, and passed out while they were driving. The men put her in a hollow tree in the woods in the hope that in the morning she would wake up and be frightened into seeing the error of her ways.[5]

Jack Mossop was confined in a Stafford mental hospital, because he had reoccurring dreams of a woman staring out at him from a tree. He died in the hospital before the body in the Wych Elm was found

Honestly, the recurring dream part is the creepiest part for me.

Now let's take a look at the other explanation:

quote:

A second possible victim was reported to the police in 1944 by a Birmingham prostitute. In the report she stated that another prostitute called Bella, who worked on the Hagley road, had disappeared about three years previously
"Second possible victim." Reported nine years before the first. Oh Wikipedia.

It seems to me that, considering the stuff they found on the corpse only a year and a half after her death, folks would have been able to identify her. Mossop's cousin's story was phony, and Jack (either with some Dutch accomplice or not) killed Bella. (Or simply let her die.)

I don't argue the fact that hiding a body in a tree is pretty weird and unnerving. But as for the overall mystery of it...:shrug:

Buh
May 17, 2008
It's also very easy to introduce false memories in people of normal intelligence. Repeated confessions and a low intelligence might have left him genuinely convinced or confused about events that didn't happen. Already in that first confession there's blurred lives between what he saw and what he just heard about.

Busket Posket
Feb 5, 2010

✨ⓡⓐⓨⓜⓞⓝⓓ✨

Herv posted:

You really want to watch The Creek Runs Red then. They mined right under, and almost up into THE TOWN so it wasn't safe to play on the athletic fields. Like the town wasn't hosed enough...

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/creekrunsred/

I will add this to the holiday movie rotation. Thanks!

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

InediblePenguin posted:

because he thought if he said what they wanted him to say then he wouldn't get in trouble and when he proceeded to get in trouble anyway he probably thought that maybe they just needed him to say it some more until it would work, you colossal reject

loving hell, the guy is saying he knows its not a popular conclusion and that he has doubts and yet everyone wants to jump on him and insult his intelligence. Sometimes we goons act just as bad as the cops and prosecutor in this case when we get one idea in our heads and just loving can't see past it. Dude's actually agreeing with you that they shouldn't have been convicted, but since he doesn't agree with you the right way you're acting like babies. This whole thing has been talked to death each time it's comes up in the last few iterations of this thread and not once that I can remember has anyone ever said that they should have been found guilty. Let it go. Lets move on.

edit:
\/\/\/See, this guy gets it.\/\/\/

Solice Kirsk has a new favorite as of 06:34 on Dec 12, 2014

Davfff
Oct 27, 2008
There you go guys, draw a line under it. Judge Solice Kirsk has made his decision.

This discussion is now formally closed.

mr. mephistopheles
Dec 2, 2009

Solice Kirsk posted:

loving hell, the guy is saying he knows its not a popular conclusion and that he has doubts and yet everyone wants to jump on him and insult his intelligence. Sometimes we goons act just as bad as the cops and prosecutor in this case when we get one idea in our heads and just loving can't see past it. Dude's actually agreeing with you that they shouldn't have been convicted, but since he doesn't agree with you the right way you're acting like babies. This whole thing has been talked to death each time it's comes up in the last few iterations of this thread and not once that I can remember has anyone ever said that they should have been found guilty. Let it go. Lets move on.

He came in and accused people who say they were definitely innocent of just watching biased documentaries and not legitimately researching the case like he had and then used a near-legally retarded kid's coerced confession as evidence to support his point.

I mean it was less what he said and more the way he implied everyone who didn't think the same thing as him was less informed or ignorant. It was pretty condescending.

Punkin Spunkin
Jan 1, 2010
Honestly, what confuses me most is the sticking point being his inability to grasp an innocent person confessing. I mean, put aside the West Memphis Three, whatever, all you need to do is look at the Norfolk Four (mentioned earlier, and really, even crazier than WM3 to me http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norfolk_Four ) to get that "But why did he continually confess to anyone who would listen?" is a really dumb thing to contemplate when discussing the American justice system.

Sulla Faex
May 14, 2010

No man ever did me so much good, or enemy so much harm, but I repaid him with ENDLESS SHITPOSTING
I think we can all agree that hypothetically someone could be forced into false confessions but what really has me suspicious about their supposed " " " innocence " " " is this: if they're innocent, how come the cops brought them in for questioning?

Game, set, hang them all.

monny
Oct 20, 2008

dollar dollar bill, y'all
Not Wikipedia, but feel free to pretend I posted the Coccidioides immitis page here :)

The New Yorker posted:

In 1977, the San Joaquin Valley—the swath of agricultural land that runs through central California—was designated a disaster area. Record-low runoff and scant rainfall had created drought conditions. At the beginning of Christmas week, the weather was normal in Bakersfield, the city at the Valley’s southern end, but in the early hours of December 20th a strong wind began to blow from the Great Basin through the Tehachapi Mountains. Hitting the ground on the downslope, it lofted a cloud of loose topsoil and mustard-colored dust into the sky.

The plume rose to five thousand feet; dust blotted out the sun four counties away. Traffic on Highway 5, the state’s main artery, stopped. At a certain point, the anemometers failed; the U.S. Geological Survey estimated wind speeds as high as a hundred and ninety-two miles an hour. Windows on houses were sandblasted to paper thinness.

The Tempest from Tehachapi, as one researcher called it, spread dirt over an area the size of Maine. Twenty hours afterward, the dust reached Sacramento, four hundred miles north of Bakersfield, in the form of a murky haze that hung in the air for another day, stinging the eyes and noses of the residents. On the twenty-first, it started raining in Sacramento, which turned the dust to mud, coating the cars and sidewalks, and marked the end of the drought.

Over the next several weeks, Sacramento County recorded more than a hundred cases of coccidioidomycosis, otherwise known as valley fever, or cocci, a disease caused by inhaling the microscopic spores of Coccidioides immitis, a soil-dwelling fungus found in Bakersfield. (In the previous twenty years, there had never been more than half a dozen cases a year.) Six of the victims died.

In soil, C. immitis exists in chains of barrel-shaped units called arthroconidia; airborne, these fragment easily into lightweight spores. C. immitis is adapted to lodge deep: its spores are small enough to reach the end of the bronchioles at the bottom of the lungs. We can breathe them in, but we can’t breathe them out. Once in the lung, the spore circles up into a spherule, defined by a chitinous cell wall and filled with a hundred or so baby endospores. When the spherule is sufficiently full, it ruptures, releasing the endospores and stimulating an acute inflammatory response that disrupts blood flow to the tissue and can lead to necrosis. The endospores, each of which will become a new spherule, travel through the blood and lymph systems, allowing the cocci to spread, as one specialist told me, “anywhere it wants.”

A different kind of hosed up:

Wikipedia posted:

The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) was a British pro-paedophile activist group, founded in October 1974 and officially disbanded in 1984.

PIE was set up as a special interest group within the Scottish Minorities Group by founder member Michael Hanson, who became the group's first Chairman. Since the majority of enquiries were from England, PIE relocated to London in 1975 where 23-year-old Keith Hose became its first Chairman. The group's stated aim was "to alleviate [the] suffering of many adults and children" by campaigning to abolish the age of consent thus legalising sex between adults and children.

Wikipedia posted:

Government Funding:
In March 2014 evidence emerged that PIE had received grants totalling £70,000 from the Home Office, after a whistle-blower told police he witnessed a successful three-year grant renewal application for £35,000 in 1980, implying that a similar grant had been made in 1977.

:stonk:

Rochallor
Apr 23, 2010

ふっっっっっっっっっっっっck

Rucksack 2K14 posted:

How about a town in Oklahoma where children used to play on hills of lead-tainted debris? The city was founded in 1920 and shut down in 2009 after lead mining ruined the groundwater, stirred up lead dust that would coat houses inside and out, and left a third of the children with developmental delays/disorders due to ingestion.

I saw it on a series about abandoned towns, and it looks like a creepy place to wander around.

This reminds me of the story of Times Beach, MO, in which a guy makes big money off of coating the town's various properties in oil to keep the dust down. Oh, and he also made a lot of money off of accepting toxic waste to dispose of. Gee, I wonder if there's a connection.

Dr Scoofles
Dec 6, 2004

I was trained in interviewing suspects here in the UK. Number one thing they hammer into you at interview school is never ever ask leading questions and holy gently caress never have even a microsecond of unrecorded interview time. That alone will be enough to get your case thrown out. It's prosecution suicide. Meanwhile, in these high profile cases this sort of dumb fuckup-non-evidence is central to the whole prosecution case and is even respected by some people as solid evidence. Blows my mind. Even witness statements are weak in our system, I've had cases thrown out in the past because all I have are witness statements and no further evidence. People have poo poo memories, people say stupid poo poo, it's really not good evidence.

dobbymoodge
Mar 8, 2005

nucleicmaxid posted:

Because his IQ is only a few points higher than yours.

:iceburn:

Good News Everyone
Apr 30, 2009

Solice Kirsk posted:

loving hell, the guy is saying he knows its not a popular conclusion and that he has doubts and yet everyone wants to jump on him and insult his intelligence. Sometimes we goons act just as bad as the cops and prosecutor in this case when we get one idea in our heads and just loving can't see past it. Dude's actually agreeing with you that they shouldn't have been convicted, but since he doesn't agree with you the right way you're acting like babies. This whole thing has been talked to death each time it's comes up in the last few iterations of this thread and not once that I can remember has anyone ever said that they should have been found guilty. Let it go. Lets move on.

edit:
\/\/\/See, this guy gets it.\/\/\/

Thanks for this. I'm honestly trying to just put forward a different point of view; I didn't mean to come across as condescending. I've just seen so many people watch the HBO documentaries and take them as gospel.

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle. So, you know, some of you guys can continue to be assholes; it's kind of funny. It doesn't bother me.

Also, I might point out that I'm female and I come from Australia, so perhaps my view of the American judicial system could be seen as naive -- although never once did I say that the confession was decent supporting evidence. I think what Buh said makes a lot of sense; false memories, being frightened and thinking that sticking to his story was his best bet (to answer my question about repeated confessions). In any case, as I have maintained from the start, those kids should not have been convicted.

mr. mephistopheles posted:

He came in and accused people who say they were definitely innocent of just watching biased documentaries and not legitimately researching the case like he had and then used a near-legally retarded kid's coerced confession as evidence to support his point.

I mean it was less what he said and more the way he implied everyone who didn't think the same thing as him was less informed or ignorant. It was pretty condescending.

I did not 'accuse' anyone of anything, and I did not use Misskelley's confession as 'evidence' to support my 'point', whatever you think that is -- in fact, from the beginning, I said it had holes all through it.

--------

The Endbringer posted:

Honestly, the recurring dream part is the creepiest part for me.

That is truly super creepy. Ugh, shivers.

Good News Everyone has a new favorite as of 15:54 on Dec 12, 2014

Yngwie Mangosteen
Aug 23, 2007

Good News Everyone posted:

thinking that sticking to his story was his best bet (to answer my question about repeated confessions).

A lot of mentally retarded people just can't let something go, no matter the evidence staring them in the face that its a good idea to do so. They just keep repeating themselves with slight variations until people get bored of hearing them. A lot of times, they also lean on outside sources of influence (the police, famous philosophers, etc.) to try and bring validity to what they're saying. Sadly all it ever does is make them look desperate to be correct.


edit: vvv But she's suuuper deep guys, like what if man, we'll never know. *bong rip* vvv

Yngwie Mangosteen has a new favorite as of 15:59 on Dec 12, 2014

ravenkult
Feb 3, 2011


Good News Everyone posted:


"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it." - Aristotle.


Yeah, you sure showed them. So far your contribution to the thread has been ''Buy guys what if it's like, not like this and it's like that? Makes you think!''

Good News Everyone
Apr 30, 2009

ravenkult posted:

Yeah, you sure showed them. So far your contribution to the thread has been ''Buy guys what if it's like, not like this and it's like that? Makes you think!''

I'm not trying to show anyone anything. I personally think that knowing as much as possible about a subject is beneficial, but that's my choice.

Really enjoying your contributions to the thread, too.

----

I find this scary and unnerving, and incredibly well done -- a documentary about suicide called The Bridge.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_%282006_documentary_film%29

You can watch it on youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iqovaEP5h8

It does deal with some difficult content, and there are some scenes that are hard to watch, but I think the director did an excellent job preserving the memories of the people who chose to take their lives, and explaining why they felt they were at that point.

Good News Everyone has a new favorite as of 16:08 on Dec 12, 2014

monny
Oct 20, 2008

dollar dollar bill, y'all

Good News Everyone posted:

I'm not trying to show anyone anything.

Maybe you should prove it by not posting :ocelot:

blunt for century
Jul 4, 2008

I've got a bone to pick.

How about you all shut the gently caress up unless you have something relevant to post, hmm?

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe

Good News Everyone posted:


Also, I might point out that I'm female and I come from Australia, so perhaps my view of the American judicial system could be seen as naive -- although never once did I say that the confession was decent supporting evidence. I think what Buh said makes a lot of sense; false memories, being frightened and thinking that sticking to his story was his best bet (to answer my question about repeated confessions). In any case, as I have maintained from the start, those kids should not have been convicted.


^^^^Didn't see that until I had already posted, I'll shut up now.

I actually fall a lot more on your side of things than the other. I certainly don't believe the WM3 should have been convicted, but I don't feel like I know with 100% certainty that they're innocent like a lot of people seem to.

I think what you're having a hard time with regarding the confessions is how the mind of a person with Misskelleys IQ works, especially in such a high-stress situation. Its very believable to me that his mind simply didn't make the connection between what he was confessing to and any negative consequences. Misskelley, knowing he was innocent, may not have ever realized that anybody would think he might be lying. So in his mind confessing was a technicality that would allow this to be over and he could go home, of course they couldn't actually think he did it.

Phyzzle
Jan 26, 2008
BTW, in addition to the lack of evidence pointing to the West Memphis 3, here is a post going over the evidence pointing to someone else:
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3657059&userid=125208#post433687452

Literally Kermit
Mar 4, 2012
t

Rochallor posted:

This reminds me of the story of Times Beach, MO, in which a guy makes big money off of coating the town's various properties in oil to keep the dust down. Oh, and he also made a lot of money off of accepting toxic waste to dispose of. Gee, I wonder if there's a connection.

Not for nothing, but there was a second company between the waste disposal guy and the facility that produced the waste. They paid the former $125 a load and were paid by the latter $3000 a load to get rid of waste they had no idea what to do with (which is why they sold it to a local waste oil business to begin with).

That doesn't absolve the waste guy (who thought it was no more harmful than motor oil) but he wasn't exactly a mustache-twirling profiteer, either. It's a good wiki article!

china bot
Sep 7, 2014

you listen HERE pal
SAY GOODBYE TO TELEPHONE SEX
Plaster Town Cop
Relevant to the WM3 bitching: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brenton_Butler_case

Basically, the case went to trial with both a confession from the defendant AND an a witness identification (specifically, the husband of the woman murdered, who was standing three feet away when the murder happened), and a public defender was able to win the case because both were total bullshit. See also the documentary about the case, Murder on a Sunday Morning.

The defendant here had a standard IQ, and his confession was still bullshit. The witness was definitely at the scene, and had no reason to lie, and he was still wrong. The problem with the American justice system is that it relies on notoriously unreliable human beings.

EDIT: And, not Wikipedia, but waaaaaaay more unsettling: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF4iFJ-G74o

china bot has a new favorite as of 17:11 on Dec 12, 2014

IAMNOTADOCTOR
Sep 26, 2013

Cross-post from the D-D torture report thread:

I might be the only ill informed person in this thread, but the wikipedia list of Guantanamo detainees horrified me with how wide spread the complete incompetence was of all those involved with this operation. I'd like to share this feeling with you all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...o_Bay_detainees

Some choice quotes:

Adnan Farhan Abd Al Latif: Arrested in 2002 while travelling from Yemen to Afghanistan to find medical care for ongoing neurologic issues resulting from a 1994 car crash because he was too poor to pay for it, cleared for release in 2006, 2008 and 2009 but held until 2012.

During the three years in which {he} had been held in total isolation, {he} had been subjected repeatedly to stress positions, sleep deprivation, blaring music, and extremes of heat and cold during interrogations.

Surely, these "temporary inconveniences" delivered to a man cleared for release did not do any permanent harm?

Falkoff recalled, “he was the guy that we tried unsuccessfully to get medical records for, and a blanket and mattress, after we found him lying on the floor of our interview cell, weak and emaciated."Latif "would smear his excrement on himself, throw blood at his lawyers, and on at least one occasion was brought to meet his lawyer clad only in a padded green garment called a 'suicide smock' held together by Velcro."

On September 10, 2012, Latif escaped Guantanamo by successfully committing suicide, after many previous unsuccessful attempts, including one attempt to bleed out after cutting a vein in is arm and hiding the pooling blood under the table of an interview room. As an alleged Muslim extremist cleared for release, what visions of the afterlife drove him to forsake US hospitality?

The Prophet said, " -- whoever kills himself with an iron weapon, will be carrying that weapon in his hand and stabbing his abdomen with it in the (Hell) Fire wherein he will abide eternally forever."
— Sahih al-Bukhari, 7:71:670

Shaker Aamer UK resident formerly living in London, former translator for the US army, in his spare time Aamer helped refugees find accommodation. Travelled to Afghanistan in 2001 to work in charity. Arrested in 2001 based on fabricated allegations made by another tortured CIA prisoner. Tortured by the US and MI5 and won a settlement for this in the UK. In 2007 the Bush administration acknowledges that they have no evidence against him. As of this writing, still in solitary isolation for 22 hours per day and slowly going mad. Has not seen his family in all these years, his youngest son (13 years old) has never seen his father.

Muhammad Ismail Agha
He was 12-13 years old in 2002 when he was sold to the US for $10 and sent to Guantanamo to be subjected to sleep deprivation and stress positions. Released in 2004 without charges. In the 10 months following his arrest, his parents were unaware he was still alive.

Ali Abdullah Ahmed along with three other committed suicide after 4 years of captivity and force feeding.

"I am informing you that I gave away the precious thing that I have in which it became very cheap, which is my own self, to lift up the oppression that is upon us through the American Government. I did not like the tube in my mouth, now go ahead and accept the rope in my neck."

Ruhal Ahmed

UK citizen. With his friends Ahmed in October 2001 travelled to Pakistan for a friend's wedding. While there, they went into Afghanistan and got caught when war broke out with US. Held in Guantanamo for two years, released without charges.

"There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself. It is the despair - not the thought of martyrdom - that consumes you there.” He went on, "A Saudi detainee in the cell in front of us had had enough. We could hear him rip up his sheets and tie it to the wire mesh roof of the cell. He jumped off his sink and tried to hang himself. We shouted to the military police and they came and saved him."


Jamil el Banna
British resident, arrested in Gambia in 2002 trying to set up an edible oil factory.
Jamil el-Banna said that he was offered $10 million, and a US passport by US agents, if he would testify against Abu Qatada. According to The Times, he said:

"When he refused, an interrogator told him: 'I am going to London . . . I am going to gently caress your wife. Your wife is going to be my bitch. Maybe you’ll never see your children again.'"

Released in 2007, charges for a possible connections to the Madrid bombings based on confessions were dropped by the Spanish courts based on the claim that the confessions were false and were the result of abusive interrogation techniques.

Juma al-Dossary Held for five years, released without charges. Made a mistake of impersonating a female officer, which, according to his fellow prisoners resulted in:

"When Jumah saw them coming he realized something was wrong and was lying on the floor with his head in his hands. If you’re on the floor with your hands on your head, then you would hope that all they would do would be to come in and put the chains on you. That is what they’re supposed to do.

The first man is meant to go in with a shield. On this occasion the man with the shield threw the shield away, took his helmet off, when the door was unlocked ran in and did a knee drop onto Jumah's back just between his shoulder blades with his full weight. He must have been about 240 pounds in weight. His name was Smith. He was a sergeant E5. Once he had done that the others came in and were punching and kicking Jumah…

Jumah had had an operation and had metal rods in his stomach clamped together in the operation… [Smith] grabbed his head with one hand and with the other hand punched him repeatedly in the face. His nose was broken. He pushed his face and he smashed it into the concrete floor. All of this should be on video. There was blood everywhere. When they took him out they hosed the cell down and the water ran red with blood. We all saw it"



There are so many more clearly ridiculous cases that it staggers belief. As a more light-hearted example, the main or partial evidence for the detention and abuse for 5 of the detainees listed is their choice of watch: the Casio F91W. Wearing this piece of traditional Muslim extremist garment, comparable to the hachimaki worn by kamikaze pilots, is deemed damming evidence of bomb-maker aspirations. In over 50 detainee reports the watch is put forth as evidence.

Completely unrelated, it is also one of the most popular watches world wide, my sister owned one. Two of my colleagues own one and 5 chaplains in Guantanamo also own one. The I in CIA stands for intelligence

IAMNOTADOCTOR has a new favorite as of 18:00 on Dec 12, 2014

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:

Horrific poo poo.

Wow.... how hard is it to move to Canada and become a citizen there?

Terrible Opinions
Oct 18, 2013



Solice Kirsk posted:

Wow.... how hard is it to move to Canada and become a citizen there?

It depends are you native American? If so the moving part is easy but you're dead and cops won't investigate.

Naganted
Jul 22, 2007

Indistinct Gibberish.
Toilet Rascal

Stalin McHauntler posted:

How about you all shut the gently caress up unless you have something relevant to post, hmm?

Thank you so much for that,....And it pairs perfectly with your avatar, could just hear the voice in my head.

Ever since I could understand warfare and history even slightly, I've been fascinated by World War 2, and as I got older and got sort of serious about learning beyond "GARMANZ BAD!! USA WIN!! D-DAAY!! RrRAGH! JEWS! NEVER FORGET!!" I got really interested in the absolutely mind bendingly weird and outright hell on earth horror that was Stalingrad.

In my semi dullard's opinion, that was the turning point of World War 2, and so many people got sacrificed to a flaming meat grinder that so many of the stories/pictures/film/whatever are just annihilated and churned into the soil. Much of what has survived, from survivors stories to poo poo that has been found/dug up over the years is fascinating. I wish I could find the story (could never find a picture) of the building crew in Stalingrad (whatever it's named now,..) in the uhh 90's maybe who dug up a section of collapsed building and found two skeletons with some of their rotted uniforms and gear,...They had just bayonetted eachother in the gut and then the side of the building fell on them, killing them both. Sounds like a tall tale, but sometimes in that place that was the least of the weird, horrific, and unnvering poo poo that went down.

When I was starting to feel a little bit emo and self pitying right before I was deployed to Iraq (It was around Christmas, cut me some slack!) I rented the German version of Stalingrad, one of the best war movies ever, in a weird almost too dramatic way, but I would recommend it to anyone who is really curious about how gritty and bleak war can be. They play the EVERYBODY DIES!! game in the movie,...

So yeah, long winded rant and all, I imagine the Wikipedia page won't even remotely tell about how just,...Everything horrible in life,...Stalingrad was, but I consider it genuinely unnerving, and fascinating at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

RedMagus
Nov 16, 2005

Male....Female...what does it matter? Power is beautiful, and I've got the power!
Grimey Drawer

ravinghobo posted:

Thank you so much for that,....And it pairs perfectly with your avatar, could just hear the voice in my head.

Ever since I could understand warfare and history even slightly, I've been fascinated by World War 2, and as I got older and got sort of serious about learning beyond "GARMANZ BAD!! USA WIN!! D-DAAY!! RrRAGH! JEWS! NEVER FORGET!!" I got really interested in the absolutely mind bendingly weird and outright hell on earth horror that was Stalingrad.

In my semi dullard's opinion, that was the turning point of World War 2, and so many people got sacrificed to a flaming meat grinder that so many of the stories/pictures/film/whatever are just annihilated and churned into the soil. Much of what has survived, from survivors stories to poo poo that has been found/dug up over the years is fascinating. I wish I could find the story (could never find a picture) of the building crew in Stalingrad (whatever it's named now,..) in the uhh 90's maybe who dug up a section of collapsed building and found two skeletons with some of their rotted uniforms and gear,...They had just bayonetted eachother in the gut and then the side of the building fell on them, killing them both. Sounds like a tall tale, but sometimes in that place that was the least of the weird, horrific, and unnvering poo poo that went down.

When I was starting to feel a little bit emo and self pitying right before I was deployed to Iraq (It was around Christmas, cut me some slack!) I rented the German version of Stalingrad, one of the best war movies ever, in a weird almost too dramatic way, but I would recommend it to anyone who is really curious about how gritty and bleak war can be. They play the EVERYBODY DIES!! game in the movie,...

So yeah, long winded rant and all, I imagine the Wikipedia page won't even remotely tell about how just,...Everything horrible in life,...Stalingrad was, but I consider it genuinely unnerving, and fascinating at the same time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad

For any big history nerds, the entire "Ghosts of the Ostfront" series by Dan Carlin is a really great postcast to listen to about how just drat deadly and what a meatgrinder the entire Eastern front was: http://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-ghosts-of-the-ostfront-series/

I think the most shocking part is at the beginning, where he talk about being able to drive 10 or so miles out, and just find old rotted clothing and shoes, bones, etc.

theflyingorc
Jun 28, 2008

ANY GOOD OPINIONS THIS POSTER CLAIMS TO HAVE ARE JUST PROOF THAT BULLYING WORKS
Young Orc
The last 3-4 pages had a bunch of stuff where people were (usually wrongfully) convicted partially because "they didn't behave like they were supposed to". This might be the most irritating idea to me in crime. There's no standard human response to trauma! Judging somebody because they weren't upset enough is a super crazy dumb thing to do!

The Mighty Moltres
Dec 21, 2012

Come! We must fly!


IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:


I might be the only ill informed person in this thread, but the wikipedia list of Guantanamo detainees horrified me with how wide spread the complete incompetence was of all those involved with this operation. I'd like to share this feeling with you all

Trust me, you were not the only one who was ill informed. I knew some poo poo was going down at Guantanamo, especially after 9/11, but I had no idea how indiscriminate those in charge were about taking prisoners.

Some of them should have been taken into a mental ward though...

IAMNOTADOCTOR posted:

Jamil el Banna
British resident, arrested in Gambia in 2002 trying to set up an edible oil factory.

Why would you want to eat an oil factory? What kind of business model is that?? Silly guy.

Herv
Mar 24, 2005

Soiled Meat

RedMagus posted:

Ghosts of the Ostfront

This should be required... Listening for every human being.

Been passing this off to anyone that would listen for a couple years now.

slinkimalinki
Jan 17, 2010

Rucksack 2K14 posted:

How about a town in Oklahoma where children used to play on hills of lead-tainted debris? The city was founded in 1920 and shut down in 2009 after lead mining ...left a third of the children with developmental delays/disorders due to ingestion.


wikipedia posted:

Picher, Oklahoma
Notable people[edit]
Joe Don Rooney, country musician with the band Rascal Flatts.[26]

thingsthatexplainalot.txt

benito
Sep 28, 2004

And I don't blab
any drab gab--
I chatter hep patter
This is unnerving in a different sort of way. Think about how much cell phone technology has advanced in just the past 20 years. So many advances, they keep getting smaller and more complex, if you lose one it's annoying but not the end of your life...

For two million years, <i>Homo erectus</i> had the hand axe. That was the highest technology we could muster as hominids. For two million years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_axe

Solice Kirsk
Jun 1, 2004

.

benito posted:

This is unnerving in a different sort of way. Think about how much cell phone technology has advanced in just the past 20 years. So many advances, they keep getting smaller and more complex, if you lose one it's annoying but not the end of your life...

For two million years, <i>Homo erectus</i> had the hand axe. That was the highest technology we could muster as hominids. For two million years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_axe

Well most of our advancements have happened pretty damned quickly. Just 150 years ago there was no good way too move electricity, no planes, no cars, no xrays, terrible medicine, terrible surgery, no cheap refrigeration, and (possibly the worst) no Barqs root beer. As far as human history is concerned the last 200 years have been a whirlwind of scientific and medical advancements, much of which would seem like magic to people just a few decades in the past.

bonestructure
Sep 25, 2008

by Ralp
I was born in 1965 and I work in IT. Computers still seem like magic to me, in the best possible way. The things I dreamed about as a sci-fi-reading kid are real and now I get to work with them every day.

goatse.cx
Nov 21, 2013

bonestructure posted:

I was born in 1965 and I work in IT. Computers still seem like magic to me, in the best possible way. The things I dreamed about as a sci-fi-reading kid are real and now I get to work with them every day.

:eyepop: tokaiis done got banned so you're probably the oldest goon now

Your Sledgehammer
May 10, 2010

Don`t fall asleep, you gotta write for THUNDERDOME
Another unnerving thought: All of the rapid technological advancement and economic expansion that has happened over the last 200 years can be solely attributed to the enormous energy inputs that can be harnessed with the burning of fossil fuels, which are finite in nature. Whether or not we can find a suitable alternative before we burn them all up is an open question*, and it is well within the realm of possibility that the kind of rapid growth we've seen is a one-time event rather than "the normal way of things," a common assumption (kind of hard to imagine that it's a unique event when it's lasted for a few hundred years and you're right in the thick of it, you know?).


*This completely ignores the question of whether or not it is even wise for us to be burning them in the first place.


EDIT: In the spirit of the thread, here's a scary Wikipedia article related to what I'm saying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

Your Sledgehammer has a new favorite as of 00:19 on Dec 15, 2014

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TipsyMc
Sep 5, 2004

I visited BYOB and all I got was this lousy avatar

goatse.cx posted:

:eyepop: tokaiis done got banned so you're probably the oldest goon now

Nah,I was born in 1965...I'm sure there are some older goons than us.

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