Dammit. This IS me

How TV Ruined Aspiration

Accidents in Asia

I wonder if our roads being jammed up with too many cars in KL is the reason why we don't see more of these.

But then again, on empty roads in the kampungs, you get:

Dad Photoshopped Ewoks Into His Family Pictures

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I think I'm giving Anthony Herrera the dad of the year title. Why? Because when he brought his kids to Sequoia National Park he told them Ewoks lived there. Of course, his kids ended up being disappointed when they didn't see any Ewoks there. But don't worry! Herrera added Ewoks to the background of his family pictures.

THEY WERE THERE THE WHOLE TIME! In his words:

A year ago we took a trip to Sequoia National Park. I wanted to excite my daughter while being in such amazing surroundings. Being the Star Wars geek that I am (so is she), I told her that this is where the Ewoks live. She spent a good chuck of our time hiking keeping a lookout for any Ewoks. Coming home I can't say that she wasn't disappointed that we didn't find any. I had to explain that they are extremely shy and hardly ever let anyone see them. After we got home, and after I had a little time alone with the photos, I told her I thought I saw something strange in a few pictures. We viewed them on the TV to get a larger image. You can imagine how surprised and excited she was when we discovered that we didn't see any Ewoks, but they saw us, and had certainly taken an interest in her and her little brother. Maybe I'm a little wrong for lying to her and falsifying the pictures, but I don't care. She'll never forget the time she spent in the big woods with Ewoks.

USA vs UK 1930??

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War on the 'Red Empire': How America planned for an attack on BRITAIN in 1930 with bombing raids and chemical weapons

• Emerging world power feared British reaction to its ambitions
• Plan Red was code for massive war with British Empire
• Top-secret document once regarded as 'most sensitive on Earth'
• $57m allocated for building secret airfields on Canadian border - to launch attack on British land forces based there

By DAVID GERRIE

Last updated at 8:30 AM on 21st September 2011

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Details of an amazing American military plan for an attack to wipe out a major part of the British Army are today revealed for the first time.

In 1930, a mere nine years before the outbreak of World War Two, America drew up proposals specifically aimed at eliminating all British land forces in Canada and the North Atlantic, thus destroying Britain's trading ability and bringing the country to its knees.

Previously unparalleled troop movements were launched as an overture to an invasion of Canada, which was to include massive bombing raids on key industrial targets and the use of chemical weapons, the latter signed off at the highest level by none other than the legendary General Douglas MacArthur.

The plans, revealed in a Channel 5 documentary, were one of a number of military contingency plans drawn up against a number of potential enemies, including the Caribbean islands and China. There was even one to combat an internal uprising within the United States.

In the end there was no question of President Franklin D. Roosevelt subscribing to what was known as War Plan Red. Instead the two countries became the firmest of allies during WW2, an occasionally strained alliance that continues to this day.

Still, it is fascinating that there were enough people inside the American political and military establishment who thought that such a war was feasible.

While outside of America, both Churchill and Hitler also thought it a possibility during the 30s - a time of deep economic and political uncertainty.

In 1930, a mere nine years before the outbreak of World War Two, America drew up a terrifying plan specifically aimed at eliminating all British land forces in Canada and the North Atlantic, thus destroying Britain's trading ability and bringing our country to its knees

The top-secret papers seen here - once regarded as the most sensitive on Earth - were found buried deep within the American National Archives in Washington, D.C.

The highly classified files reveal that huge pushes were to be made into the Caribbean and West Coast to block any British retaliation from either Europe, India or Australia.

In 1931, the U.S. government even authorised record-breaking transatlantic flying hero and known Nazi sympathiser Charles A. Lindbergh to be sent covertly as a spy to the west shore of Hudson Bay to investigate the possibility of using sea-planes for warfare and seek out points of low resistance as potential bridgeheads.

In 1931, the U.S. authorised flying hero and known Nazi sympathiser Charles Lindbergh to be sent as a spy to Hudson Bay to look into using sea-planes for warfare and seek out points of low resistance as potential bridgeheads

Four years later, the U.S. Congress authorised $57million to be allocated for the building of three secret airfields on the U.S. side of the Canadian border, with grassed-over landing strips to hide their real purpose.

All governments make 'worst case scenario' contingency plans which are kept under wraps from the public. These documents were unearthed buried deep within the American National Archives in Washington, D.C. - a top-secret document once regarded as the most sensitive on earth.

It was in 1930, that America first wrote a plan for war with 'The Red Empire' - its most dangerous empire.

But America's foe in this war was not Russia or Japan or even the burgeoning Nazi Germany.

Plan Red was code for an apocalyptic war with Britain and all her dominions.

After the 1918 Armistice and throughout the 1920s, America's historic anti-British feelings handed down from the 19th century were running dangerously high due to our owing the U.S. £9billion for their intervention in The Great War.

British feeling against America was known to be reciprocal.

By the 1930s, America saw the disturbing sight of homegrown Nazi sympathisers marching down New York's Park Avenue to converge on a pro-Hitler rally in Madison Square Garden.

Across the Atlantic, Britain had the largest empire in the world, not to mention the most powerful navy.

Against this backdrop, some Americans saw their nation emerging as a potential world leader and knew only too well how Britain had dealt with such upstarts in the past - it went to war and quashed them.

Now, America saw itself as the underdog in a similar scenario.

In 1935, America staged its largest-ever military manoeuvres, moving troops to and installing munitions dumps at Fort Drum, half an hour away from the eastern Canadian border.

By the 1930s, America saw the disturbing sight of homegrown Nazi sympathisers marching down New York's Park Avenue to converge on a pro-Hitler rally in Madison Square Garden

It was from here the initial attack on British citizens would be launched, with Halifax, Nova Scotia, its first target.

'This would have meant six million troops fighting on America's eastern seaboard,' says Peter Carlson, editor of American History magazine.

WAR PLAN RED, GREEN, PURPLE...

During the 1920s and 30s, the U.S. devised several colour-coded war plans to deal with potential adversaries.

Many of these war games were submitted to the Military Information Division by officers working in their own time.

Among the contingency plans developed were:

Orange: War against Japan

Green: Against Mexico

Purple: South America

White: Domestic uprising

Black: Germany

Grey: Caribbean republics

Yellow: China

Brown: Philippines

Not surprisingly, many of these were hypothetical exercises - and provided only broad strategic outlines.

However, the planning was considered by the military to be good practice for its personnel.

'It would have been like Verdun,' alluding to the brutal conflict between German and French troops in 1916 which resulted in a death toll of 306,000.

Even Winston Churchill said while people regarded a war with the U.S. as inconceivable, it was not.

'America felt Britain had thrown it under the bus in order to stay top dog,' says Professor Mike Vlahos, of the U.S. Naval War College.

'The U.S. was forced to contemplate any measure to keep Britain at bay.'

Even Hitler thought such a war was inevitable, but astonishingly wanted Britain to win, believing that to be the best outcome for Germany, since the UK could then join his forces to attack the U.S.

'You have to remember the U.S. was born out of a revolutionary struggle against Britain in 1776,' says Dr. John H. Maurer, of the U.S. Naval War College.

Using available blueprints for this war, modern-day military and naval experts now believe the most likely outcome of such a conflict would have been a massive naval battle in the North Atlantic with very few actual deaths, but ending with Britain handing Canada over to the U.S. in order to preserve our vital trade routes.

However, on June 15, 1939, the same year as the German invasion of Poland, an internal U.S. memo states these plans for an invasion were 'wholly inapplicable', but nevertheless 'should be retained' for the future.

This is now seen as the dawn of and prime reason behind the 'special relationship' between our two countries.

Huge troop movements were launched as an overture to an invasion of Canada, which was to include bombing raids on industrial targets and the use of chemical weapons - the latter signed off by the legendary General Douglas MacArthur, left (file picture)

Isolationism, prosperity and decline: America after WWI

As close allies in numerous conflicts, Britain and America have long enjoyed a 'special relationship'.

Stemming from Churchill and Roosevelt, it has since flourished - from Thatcher and Reagan, and Clinton and Blair, to the Queen and Obama.

We know now that FDR ultimately rejected an invasion of Britain as 'wholly inapplicable'.

But just how special was that relationship in the decade leading up to WWII?

By the start of the 1920s, the American economy was booming.

The 'Roaring Twenties' was an age of increased consumer spending and mass production.

But after the First World War, U.S. public opinion was becoming increasingly isolationist.

This was reflected in its refusal to join the League of Nations, whose principal mission was to maintain world peace.

U.S. foreign policy continued to cut itself off from the rest of the world during that period by imposing tariffs on imports to protect domestic manufacturers.

These children were part of a squatter community, known bitterly as 'Hoovervilles' because of the President's inability to even admit to the existence of a national crisis after the stock market crash in 1929

And its liberal approach to immigration was also changing.

Millions of people, mainly from Europe, had previously been welcomed to America in search of a better life.

But by 1921, quotas were introduced and, by 1929, only 150,000 immigrants per year were allowed in.

After a decade of prosperity and optimism, America was thrown into despair when the stock market crashed in October 1929 - marking the start of the Great Depression.

The ensuing economic hardship and mass unemployment sealed the fate of President Herbert Hoover's re-election - and Franklin D Roosevelt stormed to victory in March 1933.

He was faced with an economy on the brink of collapse: banks had been shut in 32 states, and some 17million people had been thrown out of work — almost a third of the adult workforce.

And the reality of a worldwide economic depression and the need for increased attention to domestic problems only served to bolster the idea that the U.S. should isolate itself from troubling events in Europe.

When Franklin D Roosevelt was elected as President in 1933, he was faced with an economy on the brink of collapse. Banks had been shut in 32 states, and some 17million people had been thrown out of work

However, this view was at odds with FDR's vision.

He realised the necessity for the U.S. to participate more actively in international affairs - but isolationist sentiment remained high in Congress.

In 1933, President Roosevelt proposed a Congressional measure that would have granted him the right to consult with other nations to place pressure on aggressors in international conflicts.

The bill faced strong opposition from leading isolationists in Congress.

As tensions rose in Europe over the rise of the Nazis, Congress brought in a set of Neutrality Acts to stop America becoming entangled in external conflicts.

Although Roosevelt was not in favour of the policy, he acquiesced as he still needed Congressional support for his New Deal programmes, which were designed to bring the country out of the Depression.

By 1937, the situation in Europe was growing worse and the second Sino-Japanese War began in Asia.

In a speech, he compared international aggression to a disease that other nations must work to 'quarantine'.

But still, Americans were not willing to risk their lives for peace abroad - even when war broke out in Europe in 1939.

A slow shift in public opinion saw limited U.S. aid to the Allies.

And then the Japanese attack on Pear Harbor in December 1941 changed everything.

Why the Oxford comma is necessary

Interesting. I never knew this

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Cool but not up to date

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Tornados and Lightning

5 Untrained Civilians Who Took On Armies

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One of the most popular action movie conventions is the idea of the average Joe being forced into an extreme situation, discovering a storming well of ass-kicking fury buried deep within and dealing it out on a tactically superior enemy who by all rights should be killing the shit out of him.

What we tend to forget is that the reason those movies exist is because those things actually happen sometimes. Regular people get pushed, and sometimes they push back. Hard.

#5. Antonis Vratsanos

alliedforum, libcom

Like many Greek men in the 1930s, Antonis Vratsanos enlisted in the Greek Army because of the impending threat of the Axis powers. Unfortunately, Vratsanos was rejected from service for being a filthy, filthy communist, which in the eyes of the creators of democracy was almost as bad as being Hitler himself.

However, when Germany (and to a lesser extent Italy) invaded Greece in 1941, Vratsanos decided to prove his government wrong and immediately went into the Greek Resistance.

Wikipedia
That guy in the back has something missing, but we just can't put our finger on it.

Once in, Vratsanos -- a random, non-military dude off the street -- formed a sabotage squad called Olympus. They quickly secured a reputation as the go-to mad bombers against the Axis powers.

Despite Vratsanos himself not having a clue on how to make or rig bombs, in three short years Olympus blew up 36 bridges, 47 railroad depots, 32 trains and over 3,000 Axis soldiers.

Wikipedia
And only some of them were on purpose.

But most impressive were his actions in February 1944. Working completely alone, Vratsanos scouted a German train, rigged it with explosives and blew it right the hell up, walking calmly away with his back to the inferno.

anasintaxi
"I think my beret's on fire."

The train bombing turned out to be the biggest sabotage by any non-military unit in the war, killing 300 soldiers, 150 officers and even a general. After the war, Vratsanos finally joined the Democratic Army of Greece, although as it turns out their initial reluctance to accept him was well-placed -- he tried to overthrow the government in the late 1940s and install a communist regime, presumably using exploding trains.

anasintaxi
"The theory of communism may be summed up in the single sentence: I hate goddamn trains."

#4. Zinaida Portnova

lookatme

What Zinaida Portnova's story lacks in scope it makes up for in its perfect, almost cliche resemblance to an action movie.

In 1941, about the same time that guy above was blowing up his first Nazi in Greece, Germany decided to invade the Soviet Union. Zinaida Portnova, a 15-year-old girl away at Soviet summer camp (which was probably even less fun than it sounds), was caught by surprise and tried to get home to Leningrad, only to find the Nazis blocking her way and preparing to siege the city. With nowhere else to go, she joined the Belarus underground as part of a unit nicknamed the Young Avengers.

Wikipedia
They did a lot of good before Iron Man confiscated their weapons and told their parents.

Being essentially kids, they started off small, distributing underground leaflets and occasionally sabotaging an enemy truck or motorcycle in their base region of Vitebsk. When Zina turned 17, she was promoted to scout, responsible for venturing out into the field to look for possible targets, and getting away with it because, let's face it, she was adorable.

valka
"Awww ... go on, get out of here. Have a souvenir grenade."

However, in December 1943 she was finally caught scoping out a new target for the underground. She was taken to a nearby village and interrogated by the Gestapo. While being grilled by her captors for answers, she suddenly spotted an officer's pistol sitting on the table right next to her. Oh, yes, this happened.

liveinternet
Waaait for it ...

Taking a page from every spy movie that has ever existed, she snatched up the gun and blasted the interrogator and two armed soldiers, whose sole job in the entirety of World War II was to make sure this exact thing would not happen.

She managed to escape out the window, but ran into a few competent Nazis outside and was recaptured. While it didn't end happily for Zina (she was executed the next year), her story inspired future resistance fighters and she was eventually made a hero of the Soviet Union in 1958.

The Famous Five never did this.

#3. Shalom Yoran

eev.liu.edu

Born Selim Sznycer in a small town in Poland in 1925, Shalom Yoran's story is pretty much like if Red Dawn had freedom sex with Inglorious Basterds.

"I'll get the Commies, and Patrick Swayze can explode Hitler."

Yoran and his family fled Poland when the Nazis took over and kept moving through Eastern Europe until the Germans finally caught up with them in Lithuania in 1941. There, they spent a year living in a Jewish ghetto until the Nazis started dragging them off. Only Yoran, his brother and a few others managed to hide, and as his parents were taken away by soldiers they told him, "Avenge our death and tell the world what happened."

eev.liu.edu
It's the "Do well in school and don't get a girl pregnant" of the 1940s.

Yoran and his brother eventually made it into the woods with some other Jewish survivors and spent the winter living off the land, using survival techniques from a copy of Robinson Crusoe they had brought along. By spring of 1943, the diminished group of 50 came to the conclusion that living in the forest was bullshit and decided to fight back.

eev.liu.edu
"Forests are even worse than Nazis."

After trying several times to join local resistance groups, one commander finally let them in on the condition that they blow up a nearby heavily guarded munitions factory. To be clear, Yoran and his brother had no idea what they were doing -- the resistance fighters sent them believing it was a suicide mission. Imagine their surprise when Yoran returned, the munitions plant in ruins, saying, "Alrighty, that's done."

The commander, who we suspect was a dick, told them he wouldn't have sent them if he'd known they'd actually do it, and said he still had no intention of letting any Jews join his ranks.

eev.liu.edu
"We're fighting Nazis. I don't expect you two to understand."

Yoran and his crew finally decided to form their own group. Operating out of a swamp, they managed to get weapons by ambushing German troops and started fighting back. Their numbers swelled to over 200 Jews. And, while they wouldn't get a chance to shoot Hitler at a theater, the climax of their movie would be at Stalingrad, where Yoran's band of misfits would join the Soviets in giving hell to retreating German troops, blowing up bridges and taking out railroads.

Oh, and the guy is still alive, by the way. He wrote a book about the whole thing.

tower.com
A strangely reserved title about explosions.

2. Juana Galan

Carmen Escobar Carrio, Wikipedia

In 1808, Napoleon, running out of scenic holiday destinations to invade, somehow totally forgot about his neighbor to the south, Spain. So that year he dispatched his troops, kicking off the Peninsular War.

worldgallery
"Spain, huh? There it is, just dangling off of France. Wow, how did I miss that?"

Only 20 years old and working as a barmaid in the town of Valdepenas, Juana Galan was not expecting a surge of French soldiers to come storming through her village. But on June 6, that's exactly what happened. At that time, most of the men were fighting Napoleon's forces elsewhere in the nation. Juana, unfazed by things like rifles and Frenchmen and French riflemen, began organizing the women in her village to form a trap for the approaching army.

Wikipedia
A sexy trap.

When the army arrived, Juana and her friends were ready. They dumped boiling water and oil on the French troops, which by all accounts will instantly take the fight out of pretty much anyone. Then Juana, armed with only a batan, beat back the heavily armed French cavalry with her squad of village women, almost none of whom were armed with guns.

The French retreated, giving up on capturing not just Juana's town but the entire province of La Mancha, leading to ultimate Spanish victory. Today, she is seen in Spain as a national hero, a symbol of resistance, strength, patriotism, feminism and hitting shit with a stick.

Wikipedia
"Hold! Do you see this goddamn thing?"

#1. Pier Donia

pylgeralmanak, Wikipedia

In 1515, Dutch farmer Pier Donia was living a happy life with his wife and children in a small village in the Netherlands when a civil war broke out. Having no military experience to speak of, Donia came to the conclusion that he didn't give two twisted shits about the war and decided to continue farming whatever it is that Dutch people farm. So he was kind of like Mel Gibson at the beginning of Braveheart.

Getty
Tulips don't give a crap about your freedom.

Unfortunately for Donia, the resemblance would not end there.

When his village refused to pay dues to a notorious legion of soldiers loyal to the government known as the Black Band, the soldiers rolled through and burned everything to the ground, raping and killing Donia's wife and murdering his children. When Donia returned from the fields to see the carnage, he vowed revenge against the Habsburgs and their butt-loving faces.

Donia was about to go Braveheart on their asses.

Wikipedia
They may take his life, but they'll never take his ability to take their lives.

Despite not knowing how a boat works or ever firing a gun in his life, he quickly formed a band of pirates and set sail for some assbeat. By the end of 1515, he had captured 28 Dutch Navy boats and become an infamous rebel, earning the truly stunning nickname Grutte Pier ("Big Peter" in Dutch). By 1517, he had started taking over entire villages, and would ransom some of the higher class citizens before burning down their cities himself.

Wikipedia
He may be going a bit far by now, but he does look fabulous.

Later that year, the Dutch ruler Charles V decided he'd had enough of Big Peter and dispatched an entire fleet to stop him. A man who, let us remind you, came into this with no training or experience.

Although he was defeated in the initial attack, Donia struck back by taking the entire fleet of 11 ships before crushing an army of 300 soldiers who showed up as reinforcements. In 1519, disillusioned that he was now becoming the very thing he'd set out to defeat, Donia retired and died of natural causes the next year. That's right -- he quit because he was kicking too much ass.

Wikipedia
For his valiant efforts he got a rugby club named after him and ... this.