TIL the Cult Awareness Network listed Scientology as the #1 most dangerous cult. Over 50 Scientologists later filed civil suits against them, many using the same carbon copy claim via 1 law firm. After suing them into bankruptcy, the Church bought the nam. Operation Snow White. Operation Snow White was the Church of Scientology's internal name for a major criminal conspiracy during the 1970s to purge unfavorable records about Scientology and its founder L. Ron Hubbard. This project included a series of infiltrations and thefts from 136 government agencies, foreign embassies and consulates, as well as private organizations critical of Scientology, carried out by Church members, in more than 30 countries.[1] It was one of the largest infiltrations of the United States government in history,[2] with up to 5,000 covert agents.[3] This operation also exposed the Scientology plot 'Operation Freakout', because Operation Snow White was the case that initiated the US government investigation of the Church.[3] Under this program, Scientology operatives committed infiltration, wiretapping, and theft of documents in government offices, most notably those of the U.S.
Internal Revenue Service. Background[edit] As early as 1960, L. Around this time L. Implementation[edit] 8 Bizarre Movie Scenes You Didn't Know Really Happened. We only ask one thing of movies: to take our minds off our dull, everyday lives with preposterous scenes of reality getting double-teamed by imagination and his good friend special effects. It's a simple enough request which Hollywood still managed to fuck up by giving us films that, sure, look totally insane and wonderfully unrealistic, but which have actually happened in real life ... sort of. #8. A Rogue CIA Operative Went Full Skyfall And Became An International Terrorist Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer The Movie: In Skyfall, Javier Bardem adds another notch to his Crazies With Crazy Hair belt in his portrayal of Raoul Silva, an ex-MI6 agent-turned-terrorist and prime example of why spy agencies should be more careful about vetting the guys they plan to turn into living weapons.
The Reality: Luis Posada Carriles is a "militant" Cuban exile and highly trained CIA field agent who was kicked out of the CIA in 1976 for essentially hating Fidel Castro too much. . #7. Paramount Pictures #6. Marvel Studios. How a group of neighbors created their own Internet service. When you live somewhere with slow and unreliable Internet access, it usually seems like there’s nothing to do but complain.
And that's exactly what residents of Orcas Island, one of the San Juan Islands in Washington state, were doing in late 2013. Faced with CenturyLink service that was slow and outage-prone, residents gathered at a community potluck and lamented their current connectivity. “Everyone was asking, 'what can we do? '” resident Chris Brems recalls. Doe Bay is a rural environment. Around that time, CenturyLink service went out for 10 days, a problem caused by a severed underwater fiber cable. Faced with a local ISP that couldn’t provide modern broadband, Orcas Island residents designed their own network and built it themselves.
"I think people were leery whether we could be able to actually do it, seeing as nobody else could get better Internet out here," Sutton said. But the founders believed in the project, and the network went live in September 2014. “It wasn't that hard” 5 Baffling Lies Society Told You About Fat People. A few months ago, Reddit made news because it banned a 150,000-strong group dedicated to tracking down and harassing fat people (don't worry, several fat-hating subreddits are still there, at least one with over 100,000 members). The existence of those groups surprised some people -- not that there was mockery of the overweight, but that there wasfrothing, pathological hatred of them. And if you're an overweight female, then God help you -- girls' self-esteem is inversely proportional to their body weight. And this is because society makes it clear that the overweight are inhuman, soulless monsters.
And where you find irrational hatred, you find lots of people who have no idea what the hell they're talking about. Almost every aspect of our war against fat is screwed by a slew of misconceptions, mistakes, and dodgy data. For instance, did you know that ... #5. Digital Vision. OlgaMiltsova/iStock/Getty Images. . . . #4. Star Magazine"We demand every cell of fat be in your butt and breasts! #3. A Chart Showing How the Way America Uses Its Land Changed Over the Last 60 Years. How little bees take on enormous hornets.
What it's like to own a Tesla Model S - Part 2. Update! Elon Musk replied! Update 2: ELON MUSK AGREED TO DONATE $1 MILLION! I spoke to the man directly, and he agreed to two things: 1. He's going to build a Tesla Supercharger station in the parking lot of the museum. 2. He's donating $1 million dollars to the museum itself. Elon Musk: from the deepest wells of my geeky little heart: thank you. Notes and Acknowledgments Dancing Matt I want to give a big thanks to Matt Harding for first convincing me to buy a Model S, and then later helping me write the review of it. Why $8M? Is there anything I can do to help? You can also donate to the Tesla Science Center at Wardenclyffe. ELI5: Do animals have the perception of aging like we humans do and do they know when they're getting old and that they are reaching the end of their lifespan? : explainlikeimfive.
Surviving on the USS Trayer, the Navy's Disaster Simulator. Suddenly, we're on a pier, the Trayer rising above us. We're indoors, but a gentle breeze carries the distinctive tang of the sea. Gulls caw somewhere overhead, and waves lap between the pier and the hull. We climb up the gangway in teams, then descend into the bowels of the ship. The night starts slowly, with exercises that involve monitoring gauges, standing lookout and coiling line. An explosion rattles the floor, and the lights flicker. Recruits file into a simulator masked as a Navy destroyer. This intense environment is intended to provide "stress inoculation," so when sailors encounter a real catastrophe they'll know they can handle it. As the night continues, the catastrophes grow more taxing.
Sometime around dawn the captain comes on the intercom: The enemy ship that attacked us has been captured, and the damage to our own vessel has been contained. After the recruits march off the Trayer, I'm treated to a behind-the-scenes tour of the ship. IDEAS-BattleStations 21 on CNN. Ijyb comments on What video game was an absolute masterpiece? How Ants Take Care of Their Farms. What ever happened to that Tesla Museum? : OutOfTheLoop. LA Freeway Looks Post-Apocalyptic After Drones Delay Firefighters. Jon Stewart's Takedown of Judith Miller on 'The Daily Show' Proves He's Irreplaceable. A 250-Year-Old Clock Claimed A World Record (And Vindicated Its Maker) Windyty, wind map & forecast. The CIA Just Declassified the Document That Supposedly Justified the Iraq Invasion. Thirteen years ago, the intelligence community concluded in a 93-page classified document used to justify the invasion of Iraq that it lacked "specific information" on "many key aspects" of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs.
But that's not what top Bush administration officials said during their campaign to sell the war to the American public. Those officials, citing the same classified document, asserted with no uncertainty that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons, concealing a vast chemical and biological weapons arsenal, and posing an immediate and grave threat to US national security. Congress eventually concluded that the Bush administration had "overstated" its dire warnings about the Iraqi threat, and that the administration's claims about Iraq's WMD program were "not supported by the underlying intelligence reporting. " Related: 'Leading the Fight Against the Islamic State: The Battle For Iraq, Dispatch 10' 8 German Travel Tips for Visiting America. Though there are plenty of German blog entries and forum posts that describe America as a lovely place filled with genuinely kind people, on the whole, Germany’s attitude toward the United States seems more like that of an exasperated sibling.
There may be something to that, since more Americans claim German ancestry than any other ethnicity. But despite sharing ancestors, our two cultures are quite different. Here, by reading advice intended to help German visitors navigate American culture, we get a unique look into how modern Germans see America. 1. Politeness is both genuine and a survival technique. German blogger Otto Buchenegger breaks it down for both cultures, writing, "The main prejudice against Americans: You are superficial and you are stupid.
In a country with extreme mobility, it is very important to be open and friendly to strangers. 2. But at least, bless their American hearts, they are willing to work—even if they don’t know what they’re doing. 3. ... 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. Uboat.net - Articles. In general the treatment of merchant ship survivors by U-boat crews was very good. It was perhaps even better than the treatment of enemy merchant ship survivors by American submarines. It has been a common misconception by many including some in Germany that during World War II U-boats machine-gunned survivors of the ships they sunk. There have been allegations that they machine-gunned the lifeboats to make them unusable to escape in, that they machine-gunned lifeboats as the men were getting in them and as they were being lowered, and that men were machine-gunned while in the water.
These stories were however, rarely reported for the record at the time by the crews of ships sunk or damaged by U-boats. The questions were asked when the survivors were debriefed though and the answers were over and over again, "No we were not fired on in the lifeboats or in the water". As recently as April 21, 2000 a U-boat machine-gunning men in a lifeboat was depicted in the movie U-571. How to get your senators' and representatives' attention on any issue without being a wealthy donor | Protip from a former Senate intern : politics.
Man arrested for refusing to give phone passcode to border agents : technology. Mike Alder. Mike Alder is an Australian mathematician and philosopher who was an assistant professor at the University of Western Australia.[1] Alder is known for his popular writing, such as sardonic articles about the lack of basic arithmetic skills in young adults.[2] Newton's flaming laser sword[edit] Alder writes that the average scientist does not hold philosophy in high regard, "somewhere between sociology and literary criticism".[3] He has strongly criticized what he sees as the disproportionate influence of Greek philosophy—especially Platonism—in modern philosophy.
He contrasts the scientist's Popperian approach to the philosopher's Platonic approach, which he describes as pure reason. He illustrates this with the example of the irresistible force paradox, amongst others. Eventually I concluded that language was bigger than the universe, that it was possible to talk about things in the same sentence which could not both be found in the real world. See also[edit] Theological noncognitivism. Revlis-TK421 comments on TIL Jackie Chan is a trained opera singer and has released 20 albums. John McAfee Fled to Belize, But He Couldn't Escape Himself. “Maybe what happened didn’t actually happen,” John McAfee told Wired contributing editor Joshua Davis in Belize. Photo: Brian Finke On November 12, 2012, Belizean police announced that they were seeking John McAfee for questioning in connection with the murder of his neighbor. Six months earlier, I began an in-depth investigation into McAfee’s life.
This is the chronicle of that investigation. Twelve weeks before the murder, John McAfee flicks open the cylinder of his Smith & Wesson revolver and empties the bullets, letting them clatter onto the table between us. A few tumble to the floor. More than 25 years ago, he formed McAfee Associates, a maker of antivirus software that went on to become immensely popular and was acquired by Intel in 2010 for $7.68 billion. McAfee picks a bullet off the floor and fixes me with a wide-eyed, manic intensity. “Let’s put the gun back,” I tell him. But he explains that the accusations are a fabrication. “This scares you, right?”
Pages: 1 23456View All. 10 Things Everyone Gets Wrong About Intellectual Property Law. Examples and Explanations saved my ass in law school, but if you're going to recommend things to the average Joe that doesn't want to read even that much, may I recommend the Nutshell series? It's even cheaper :) Flagged I had a couple of Nutshells, but I feel like E&E helped me understand the law better — especially with the hypos at the end of each section. I probably should have bought them much earlier in my law school career. I'll add that brand recognition and trademarks are a tough balancing act. Take Googling something; great for Google advertising but terrible if it means anyone can use Google's name for anything (See Tissue/Kleenex). Also ... 11) I can email myself a copy of my book (or property claim to an asteroid) and that has some magical legal force. Where did that one come from? I don't know the source, but I think that's the same thing people used to do through the mail.
Copyrights was my 2nd best grade in law school, and E&E played a large part of that. Back When the Victorians Used Microscopic Photography to Look at Porn. Kinja is in read-only mode. We are working to restore service. If there's one constant to civilization, it's pornography. Flagged It is amazing that two things are done to expand almost every new technology: murder, and pornography. Brian's Education Blog • Albert Michelson persuades President Grant to fix him up with a scientific education and makes good use of it.
The Liquid Nitrogen Tanks of New York. [Self] The math required to accurately fire a howitzer (info in comments) : theydidthemath. Enemy Lurks in Briefings on Afghan War - PowerPoint. BrainDeadUnit comments on What is something you thought would catch on, but it didn't become huge? Tokyo Tower Gigapixel Panorama. About this photo This is a 150-gigapixel image shot from the top of the Tokyo Tower. It was shot in September 2012 with the kind assistance from the management of the Tokyo Tower. The trip to Tokyo was sponsored by Fujitsu Technology Solutions, and this panorama was rendered and edited on a Fujitsu Celsius R920 workstation. This image was shot with a Canon 7D digital SLR camera, with a 400mm telephoto lens. The image was shot from three different locations around the top of the tower.
See our other recently-released Tokyo gigapixel panorama from the Mori Tower in Tokyo Roppongi district for another amazing view here. You can see our other world record gigapixel images we have made of Prague, London 2010, and London in 2012. Embed this panorama on your blog or news site! Would you like to embed the interactive version of this panorama in your news website, non-commercial website, or personal blog? How big is this image, really? Why did we make it? How did we make it? Will you print this image? American culture. How to tell if you're American Not long ago, one of those earnest-freshman puppydogs on the Net declared that there was "no such thing as American culture. " Right. Fish have also been known to doubt the existence of water. The following is a first crack at an ostensive definition of 'American culture'-- things shared by the vast majority (let's say 90%) of native-born Americans.
Many of these won't sound 'cultural' at all to Americans; they'll sound like just descriptions of the way things are. This test has spawned a growing host of responses (most of them better written than mine). These pages are all organized by nation or culture. --Mark Rosenfelder If you're American... Godchecker.com - Your Guide To The Gods. - StumbleUpon. 50 Mainly Pointless Facts You can impress Others with knowing! funny joke. Music - Spaced Out - The Best of Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner by Leonard Nimoy & William Shatner. Chihuahuan Desert.