History according to random people...

[mikewint]

Chris, to rephrase: Hard for me to stay apolitical... Me mouth has got me into more trouble than any other organ.

Dontopedalogy
A low voter turnout is an indication of fewer people going to the polls.
Dan Quayle
Airplanes are interesting toys, but they have no military value.
Marshal Ferdinand Foch in 1911
An English astronomy professor said in the early 19th century that air travel at high speed would be impossible because passengers would suffocate.
And what do you do?
Queen Elizabeth II, to four British guitar greats, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Brian May, at reception for British music industry at Buckingham Palace March 2005
Are you a guitarist, too?
Queen Elizabeth II, to Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page who co-wrote Stairway to Heaven, at Buckingham Palace reception for British music industry March 2005
Are you Indian or Pakistani? I can never tell the difference between you chaps.
Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, at Washington Embassy reception for Commonwealth members
China is a big country, inhabited by many Chinese.
Charles De Gaulle, former French President
Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons.
Popular Mechanics, forecasting the relentless march of science, 1949
Do not bother to sell your gas shares. The electric light has no future.
Professor John Henry Pepper, on Thomas Edison's electric light invention
Do you still throw spears at each other?
Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, to Australian Aborigines
Everyone is at peace and happy and they all hop around from cloud to cloud. And an old man with a long, white beard wanders around - that's God.
Britney Spears, on her view of heaven
Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Charles H Duell, Commissioner of US Office of Patents, 1899
For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three non-fatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.
George W Bush
For NASA, space is still a high priority.
Dan Quayle
Gaiety is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union.
Josef Stalin, November 1935
Have you been playing a long time?
Queen Elizabeth II, to rock legend Eric Clapton re his guitar playing, at Buckingham Palace reception for British music industry March 2005
How do you keep the natives off the booze long enough to pass the test.
Duke of Edinburgh Prince Philip, to Scottish driving instructor
I can do anything you want me to do as long as I don't have to speak.
Linda Evangelista, supermodel
I don't believe in black majority rule in Rhodesia…not in a thousand years.
Ian Smith, March 1976
I don't feel we did wrong in taking this great country away from them. There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves.
John Wayne

 

[nuuumannn]

Me mouth has got me into more trouble than any other organ.

Ha ha! Don't be so hard on yourself, Mike; you and the rest of the human race, it seems!

"I'll be long gone before some smart person ever figures out what happened inside this Oval Office." —President George W. Bush, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post, Washington, D.C., May 12, 2008

 

[Gnomey]

That's not ideal Terry and a good enough reason to go. Shame to see though.

 

[bobbysocks]

Mostly agree though MY first impression of the Armalite in Vietnam was that the little plastic thing was a BB-gun.

I heard some VN vets refer to it as the "Mattel toy".....supposedly the toy maker Mattel made some or all of the plastic furniture for the gun...

 

[GrauGeist]

I heard some VN vets refer to it as the "Mattel toy".....supposedly the toy maker Mattel made some or all of the plastic furniture for the gun...

Mattel never had anything to do with the M-16...even when it was under development as the AR-10

This is the closest that Mattel has ever come to manufacturing an M-16:

 

[mikewint]

Bobby, one last comment "off topic"
After the M14s, BARs, M1s, and M2 all wood stocked and .30cal, the little plastic .22 looked like a toy
Our Group was the first to receive the Colt 602s. While I agree that Mattel never made the ENTIRE rifle they did in fact make some of the plastic parts and initially the mattel logo was stamped on the hand grip reinforcing the toy-image. The stamped logo was soon eliminated
Colt factory reps SPECIFICALLY told us that the gun was such a precision-made weapon it never needed cleaning and there was therefore no cleaning kit. The eventual fouling lead to the many mis-fires and jams. Finally a cleaning kit and a comic book HOW-TO

 

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Can we get back on topic???

 

[GrauGeist]

Didn't think we'd get through the weekend without some experts weighing in, did ya'?

And here we go. The subject was photos taken by Apollo 8 as it circled the moon, providing humans a look at the back side of the moon for the first time in history.
Of course, there are the authorities who wasted no time in providing their profound knowledge on the subject:

Stephen No ones landed on the moon

John Hoax! The the sunlit side does not face the same direction as the sunlit side of the moon.

Gary That because USA never landed on the moon.

John Never went to the moon.

Brian Why is the most treasured most valuable most expensive film ever shot in the history of modern man LOST ! ie: the moon landing ?
Hmmmm ??? I mean come f**king off the s**t pot !! You misplace or tape over you bloody wedding video and a tornado hurricane s**t storm is going to mess you up so bad!! "Wife" . And the majority of gullible asshats go it's ok Nasa. That film only cost a trillion $. Alls good ..

Rory None of the Apollo craft left earth dumbasses! Research flat earth and stop being suckered into this alien deception

Chris I dont believe we have ever had a man on the moon

Sid We have never been to the moon - nasa liars

Masacru they never got to the moon, not even near it, bunch of bullshit.

Bencomo In your dreams Pedro f**ken white people never land it on the moon they landed on a movie set

Then Rory went on to post about 15 conspiracy memes that "proved" NASA is just a cover up, moon landings were staged and no one's ever been in space (including Shuttles, Mir, the ISS, etc...)

These (and Rory's memes) were among about 165 comments...

Isn't the internet awesome?

 

[Wayne Little]

Just shaking my head.....

 

[pbehn]

I am proud of our wonder diplomat Prince Philip getting so many quotes, he really is a class act.

 

[fubar57]

Sad, humanity is devolving. Coming soon

 

[GrauGeist]

Sad, humanity is devolving. Coming soon

What blows me away, is that these same people have a super-computer in their pockets, that they call, text and surf the internet on.

50 years ago, a computer of comparable power would have filled a building and cost well over 3 million dollars and yet, they think that mankind is so helpless, that we couldn't put a man into space, let alone on the moon.

Every waking moment of their ordinary day, they use technology that was unthinkable a little over 100 years ago...

 

[mikewint]

Actually easy to understand when you look at today's schools:
The following are actual exam answers taken from a group of 17 year olds:
1. Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and travelled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.
2. The Bible is full of interesting caricatures. In the first book of the Bible, Guiness, Adam and Eve were created from an apple tree. One of their children, Cain, asked, "Am I my brother's son?"
3. Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made without any ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.
4. Solomon had three hundred wives and seven hundred porcupines.
5. The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn't have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.
6. Actually, Homer was not written by Homer but by another man of that name.
7. Socrates was a famous Greek teacher who went around giving people advice. They killed him. Socrates died from an overdose of wedlock. After his death, his career suffered a dramatic decline.
8. In the Olympic games, Greeks ran races, jumped, hurled the biscuits, and threw the Java.
9. Eventually, the Romans conquered the Greeks. History calls people Romans because they never stayed in one place for very long.
10. Julius Caesar extinguished himself on the battlefields of Gaul. The Ides of March murdered him because they thought he was going to be made king. Dying, he gasped out: "Tee hee, Brutus."
11. Nero was a cruel tyranny who would torture his subjects by playing the fiddle to them.
12. Joan of Arc was burnt to a steak and was canonised by Bernard Shaw. Finally Magna Carta provided that no man should be hanged twice for the same offence.
13. In midevil times most people were alliterate. The greatest writer of the futile ages was Chaucer, who wrote many poems and verses and also wrote literature.
14. Another story was William Tell, who shot an arrow through an apple while standing on his son's head.
15. Queen Elizabeth was the "Virgin Queen." As a queen she was a success. When she exposed herself before her troops they all shouted "hurrah."
16. It was an age of great inventions and discoveries. Gutenberg invented removable type and the Bible. Another important invention was the circulation of blood. Sir Walter Raleigh is a historical figure because he invented cigarettes and started smoking. And Sir Francis Drake circumcised the world with a 100 foot clipper.
17. The greatest writer of the Renaissance was William Shakespeare. He was born in the year 1564, supposedly on his birthday. He never made much money and is famous only because of his plays. He wrote tragedies, comedies, and hysterectomies, all in Islamic pentameter. Romeo and Juliet are an example of a heroic couplet. Romeo's last wish was to be laid by Juliet.
18. Writing at the same time as Shakespeare was Miguel Cervantes. He wrote Donkey Hote. The next great author was John Milton. Milton wrote Paradise Lost. Then his wife died and he wrote Paradise Regained.
19. During the Renaissance America began. Christopher Columbus was a great navigator who discovered America while cursing about the Atlantic. His ships were called the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Fe.
20. Later, the Pilgrims crossed the ocean, and this was called Pilgrim's Progress. The winter of 1620 was a hard one for the settlers. Many people died and many babies were born. Captain John Smith was responsible for all this.
21. One of the causes of the Revolutionary War was the English put tacks in their tea. Also, the colonists would send their parcels through the post without stamps. Finally the colonists won the War and no longer had to pay for taxis. Delegates from the original 13 states formed the Contented Congress. Thomas Jefferson, a Virgin, and Benjamin Franklin were two singers of the Declaration of Independence. Franklin discovered electricity by rubbing two cats backwards and declared, "A horse divided against itself cannot stand.". Franklin died in 1790 and is still dead.
22. Soon the Constitution of the United States was adopted to secure domestic hostility. Under the constitution the people enjoyed the right to keep bare arms.
23. Abraham Lincoln became America's greatest Precedent. Lincoln's mother died in infancy, and he was born in a log cabin which he built with his own hands. Abraham Lincoln freed the slaves by signing the Emasculation Proclamation. On the night of April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to the theatre and got shot in his seat by one of the actors in a moving picture show. The believed assinator was John Wilkes Booth, a supposedly insane actor. This ruined Booth's career.
24. Meanwhile in Europe, the enlightenment was a reasonable time. Voltaire invented electricity and also wrote a book called Candy.
25. Gravity was invented by Issac Walton. It is chiefly noticeable in the autumn when the apples are falling off the trees.
26. Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practised on an old spinster which he kept up in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world and so was Handel. Handel was half German half Italian and half English. He was very large.
27. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this.
28. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.
29. The sun never set on the British Empire because the British Empire's in the East and the sun sets in the West.
30. Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for rabbis. Charles Darwin was a naturalist who wrote the Organ of the Species. Madman Curie discovered radio. And Karl Marx became one of the Marx brothers.

 

[fubar57]

These are actual questions asked about Canada(I deleted the "funny" answers). To be honest, I've seen dumb questions asked about other countries but c'mom....at least I make an effort using this internet thingy.

Believe it or not these questions about Canada were posted on an International Tourism Website
Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA)
Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto-can I follow the Railroad tracks? (Sweden)
Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada? (Sweden)
Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed Beaver. (Italy)
Q: Are there any ATM's (cash machines) in Canada? Can you send me a list of them in Toronto, Vancouver, Edmonton and Halifax? (UK)
Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada?(USA )
Q: Which direction is North in Canada? (USA)
Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (UK)
Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? (Germany)
Q: Can you tell me the regions in British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? (USA)
Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget its name. It's a kind of like a big horse with horns. (USA)
Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)

 

[bobbysocks]

I watched part of a documentary just the other night about NASA's pictures of the lunar surface....the crux of the story was the pictures showed alien space craft....factories where aliens were mining helium 2 ( or was it 3 ? )...pipelines across the surface and a stack that was a mile high that expelled smoke or gas just before the Gemini craft with the LEM passed by, the idiots never once concluded it was Nazi machinery and craft up there....

 

[bobbysocks]

Salomon had 700 porcupines.....LMAO

 

[mikewint]

Couldn't find all that but:
A huge "alien city" has been discovered on the surface of the moon in a NASA photo, by a prominent UFO researcher — and this isn't the first time that UFO hunters have claimed to discover actual cities on the moon, cities that the UFO enthusiasts accuse NASA of knowing about, but covering up for decades.
The image turns up on the Google Earth app, in the often overlooked feature of the app known as Google Moon.
While not every Google user is aware of this feature, which is available under the "View" menu and "Explore" sub-menu on the Google Earth software, Google moon actually allows users to explore the surface of the moon through a complex composite of NASA images.
"The Moon mode in Google Earth was released on the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing on July 20, 2009," NASA explains on the space agency's site. "Much like the Mars mode, this allows a user to transform the blue and green ball of Google Earth into the Moon, and explore our nearest celestial neighbor as a world in its own right."
To find the "alien city" on the surface of the moon, open the Google Moon application and enter the following coordinates in the "search" field: 28°10'30.12″N 22°42'5.99″W.

 

[Airframes]

Phhtt !
That's not an 'Alien city'. It's the relatively new drone parcel delivery HQ, opened as a joint venture by Amazon and e-bay.
I thought everyone would know that .............

 

[Old Wizard]

 

[GrauGeist]

And for today's enlightenment, we get the threadworn "Top Ten Worst Aircraft of WWII" courtesy of The Vintage News. The comments are certainly interesting, but the list itself actually competes for attention, too.

So we'll start with the informative list:
WWII Boulton-Paul Defiant MK.1
Boulton-Paul Defiant MK.I – Great Britain

• • No forward guns
  • Slow in maneuvers
  • Two squadrons annihilated in a single day
  • Briefly utilized on night missions
  • Eventually used only as part of rescue missions, gunnery training and target towing

WWII Brewster Buffalo

• Brewster Buffalo – United States
  • Produced only from 1938 – 1941
  • Poor performance possibly due to light weight of the aircraft
  • First monoplane fighter for US Navy
  • First monoplane with arrestor hook
  • Only four nations other than US used this aircraft
  • Of the four, only one (Finland) found it to be effective

Great Britain's WWII Blackburn Botha

• Blackburn Botha – Great Britain
  • Under-powered
  • Unstable airframe
  • Extraordinary number of fatal crashes, developing the reputation as a death trap
  • Eventually withdrawn and used for training missions, coastal patrols and carrying anti-submarine bombs

WWII Blackburn Roc – Great Britain

• Blackburn Roc – Great Britain
  • Single-engine, monoplane
  • Armament prevented gunner from firing unless aircraft was flown straight and level making it impractical in a dog fight
  • No forward firing guns
  • Difficult for gunner to bail from aircraft
  • Top speed was only 160 mph

RAF's Fairey Battle
Fairey Battle – Great Britain

• Despite power of Rolls-Royce engine, the bombing load and three-man crew added too much weight for the light bomber
  • Armament not adequate against more modern aircraft
  • Inadequate speed
  • Despite scoring first official aerial victory of WWII for the RAF, heavy losses were eventually recorded
  • Withdrawn from battle and used in overseas training

• Douglas TBD Devastator – United States
  • Despite initial pre-war status as an advanced fighter, by the bombing of Pearl Harbor, aircraft was considered obsolete
  • Alternative World War II aircraft was still in testing phase
  • Speed made it vulnerable to fighters on patrol
  • Entire fleet was almost wiped out in Battle of Midway

• Lavochkin Gorbunov Doudkov LaGG3 – USSR
  • Wooden airframe – essential parts protected by Bakelite lacquer
  • Proved too heavy for its own frame
  • Slow engine and poor climbing rate
  • Prone to shattering when hit and spinning if turned too quickly
  • WWII Pilots referenced it as "guaranteed varnished coffin"

• Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet – Germany
  • Only operational rocket-powered fighter aircraft
  • Unsuccessful as a fighter
  • Armament only allowed a minimal amount of firing time
  • Velocity of armament compromised aim
  • High fuel consumption
  • Highly explosive
  • High take-off and landing loss

• Messerschmitt Me 210 – Germany
  • Poor flight characteristics for a WWII aircraft
  • Design flaws never really resolved
  • Unstable and prone to stalling

• Yokosuka MXY -7 Ohka – Japan

The final entry on our list, the MXY-7 Ohka (Cherry Blossom) wasn't a plane as such, but a manned missile. By 1944, Japan was growing increasingly desperate to stem the Allied advance through the Pacific. The solution was a dedicated kamikaze craft, built out of non essential materials, and packing enough explosives to sink a heavily armoured warship. It was designed to be carried underneath the Mitsubishi G4M "Betty" bomber. Once near the target it would be released, using its three rocket motors in a 1000kph (620mph) dive at enemy shipping. It was incredibly basic, the cockpit having just four instruments, but since it would only ever be a one way trip this was considered unimportant. Grand plans were put forward for waves of suicide aircraft to be launched from planes, submarines and even caves.

And there we have it, the informative list of the worst aircraft according to them. Now, we'll see the informative comments from "those that know"

Francois it was extremely fast, but also could explode very easy, different technology then the ME 262
Roy Agree it was a revolutionary aircraft. The reason it was probably on this list was that it needed auxiliary drop off engines to take off and by the time it to altitude and made one pass at the allied bombers it had to return and land because of fuel capacity and usage. If Hitler had embraced the idea earlier and more resources were put into it Europe, England and Russia would be speaking German for the past three generations. I had a friend growing up who's father was an ace in Europe (yes, I'm a baby boomer), he flew a P51G Mustang and said the Komet's were so fast they couldn't touch them. I remember him telling me something not too many people know, when those old prop aircraft would fire their four or six forward facing .50 cal. machine guns, their aircraft would slow down 50 to 75 mph making the Komet even harder to hit.
Charles I knew an old mn that had been in training on Komets (glider versions) when WW2 ended. He flew many training flights & thought the Komet handled well & flew like a dream. It was the highly toxic & volatile fuels that were the problem, they could literally dissolve a pilot.
Bolwerk Explosive landing on that skid.

Francisco well, that's a nice top ten, but you forgot all the italian planes, they would make the entire top ten worst WWII airplanes haha

Neil Surely this should be in the top ten, awful machine!! (picture of a Breda 88)

Christopher Me 163 was a rocket powered aircraft if the pilots clothing came in contact with the fuel his clothes would spontaneous combused,
Bolwerk Would land on a skid and blow up too frequently.

Rob The He-162 was pretty terrible too...
Russell The HE162 was intended to tip over when landing. Originally intended as a fighter for newly trained pilots, it failed miserably.

Jerry The CIA was an extension of the German SS was the Secret Service and it was the inception of Operation Paperclip which obtained all governmental parts of the Third Reich, Thule Society, Black Sun and Vrill society be integrated with US agencies in all fields and capacities, specially in UFO tech and Clonnng tech as well as Stargate tech...

Andy the B29 deserves a mention
Keith Yep, if they are going to put the Me 163 in then the B-29 dang sure deserves to be there if for engine overheating and causeing fires. Much less the generator in the tail being prone to breaking loose.
James B29s got a lot of young men killed.

Timothy Bell Air Cobra...