The 5 Most Insane Covert Cold War Missions. The Cold War was a crazy time: We went into battle against the duplicitous penguins and the mighty polar bears; the great walrus hordes and the brutal whale armada; the seal assassins and the alba- What?
The Cold War was a time of geopolitical tension between two world superpowers, mostly involving political maneuvering and veiled threats? That sounds really boring. Let's talk about the best way to kill a penguin with your bare hands instead. First, grasp just above and below the beak, then apply a twi- What's that? #5. Sometimes history is just a little bit weirder than science fiction. US Army via Defensetech"We already ate our Tauntauns. " Camp Century began life in 1959 as a scientific outpost located hundreds of feet beneath a Greenland iceberg. But as with all awesome things, the military soon snatched it away from science and started using it to try and blow stuff up.
US Army Defensetech"Basically, we took all of that sciency nonsense out and replaced it with missiles. . #4. . #3. 5 Absurdly Fatal Injuries You Won't Believe People Survived. #2.
The Drumming Man vs. the Kalahari Desert Getty Imagine flying above the Kalahari Desert, a land of heat, hunger, thirst and dangerous wild animals trying like hell to avoid all these.
Cracked - Movies. Cracked - Weapons / War. Cracked - Animals. 5 Absurd Solutions to Huge Problems (That Actually Worked) Who among us hasn't been asked by a teacher or a boss to "think outside the box"?
It's all well and good when you're looking at a word problem on a Denny's application, not so much when you're staring down a problem with lives on the line. So you have to admire the guys who improvised the following: #5. Building a Supercomputer Out of Hundreds of PlayStations The U.S. military needed a supercomputer, but didn't want to spend the millions of dollars they typically cost.
The 5 Most Spectacular Landscapes on Earth (That Murder You) Mother Nature is an evil bitch that wants us dead.
We know this, we accept it, we try to burn one plant a day as petty revenge against her for it and we move on with our lives. 6 Insanely Valuable Real Treasures (And How to Steal Them) The 7 Most Terrifying Archaeological Discoveries. No professional position, aside from perhaps police officer and horny pizza delivery boy, is more frequently misrepresented in film than archaeologist.
In movies, archaeologists are all dashing figures, risking life and limb in the pursuit of knowledge while arcane artifacts and ancient traps besiege their efforts. 5 Petty Feuds That Shaped the Modern World. Everyone's been caught in the midst of a petty feud, where two people with trivial differences screw things up for everyone around them. These mostly occur in middle school and really shitty divorces, but some petty feuds have shaped the modern world. Just because they're titans of business and leaders of nations, that doesn't mean grown men are above letting some name-calling influence their decisions.
For instance ... #5. The 5 Stupidest Things Ever Done With Borders. Where you find a border, you usually find somebody pissed off about it.
Borders are drawn by wars, treaties and political machinations that sometimes leave things in a state of disarray. And then, sometimes, things get really crazy ... #5. Some Americans Are Stuck on the Wrong Side of the Mexican Border Fence. The 6 Creepiest Lies the Food Industry is Feeding You. Kobe Beef Doesn't Really Exist Getty Seasoned carnivores know that Kobe beef is just about the cream of the crop, if you can afford it.
The Japanese Wagyu cattle it comes from are raised with a very direct set of rules, followed with the kind of strict meticulousness you'd expect from a country where making a cup of tea is an hour-long ritual. Luckily, the international market has made Kobe beef pretty widely available. Nowadays, many restaurants keep Kobe on the menu, and many a well-equipped meat purveyor is able to get his hands on a chunk every now and then. Via Gothamist.com"Here's your wrong burger with a side order of french lies. Say, ever wonder where all this sudden, delicious Kobe influx comes from? The 7 Most Extreme Lies Ever Told to Get Out of Something.
There are a number of perfectly reasonable excuses to avoid doing something you don't want to, but sometimes reason just won't cut it.
The 5 Most Surreal Financial Apocalypses from History. Nothing in the world is more taken for granted than money -- our only concern is whether we have enough of it, not whether it will work at all.
Nobody puts in ten hours of overtime and spends the whole time praying that by payday the grocery store will still accept the currency ... despite the fact that this exact situation has played out again and again. Money is a fragile thing, vulnerable to a whole lot of societal factors that you have no control over whatsoever. Which is why sometimes things just go completely insane ... #5. Hungary's 13,600,000,000,000,000 Percent Inflation So you head down to the grocery store to get a box of Pop-Tarts for lunch, because you live alone and haven't flipped the page on your Dragonriders of Pern calendar in three months. Getty"Sorry, ma'am, no cards. 5 Clues Hidden in Computer Files That Can Get You Busted. It may seem like the Internet is a Wild Wild West of hackers, spammers and document leakers, but it's actually harder to get away with things in the computer age than you might think.
The 4 Craziest Scientific Theories Posed by U.S. Politicians. American politics is a nightmare version of American Idol: It's full of desperately unqualified people who won popularity contests, and they can ruin your life, even if you don't watch them. Especially then, in fact. Especially squared when they're on science-related committees. Bipartisan politics is the evil opposite of science, changing facts to fit preformed opinions. We'd be better off with Rock 'Em Sock 'Em robots, because at least they're honest about fighting just because the other is red or blue, have something to do with technology and admit when they're beaten.
MattelAnd C-SPAN would single-handedly save television. The 5 Stupidest Excuses Ever Given in a Political Scandal.
Photos. Cracked - Amazing / Stupid People.