Friday, March 14, 2014

Late night fun with the intertweets...




If either of the latter gets cited in a middle school history paper, my life will be complete.
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22 comments:

Borepatch said...

Careful. One of my posts is cited as a reference on the Wikipedia page for the Schönberger-Laumann pistol. That sort of sums up the weakness of La Wik.

Anonymous said...

Your third tweet is so wrong!
It was the Italian Alps that were the work of the Romans under Malcolm McDowell.

Gerry

staghounds said...

B.A.R.? No, his.25 Model 8!

Anonymous said...

Hell, if you take it Wikipedia it'll probably end up in a PhD dissertation or the State of the Union.

At the very least, the New York Times will call it fact, provided you kink to the appropriate emotional and/or privilege claim.

OldTexan said...

Yep, two out of three appear to be mostly correct, Hamer did use a BAR and he almost shot the short curls off of Fay Wray, and the Kremlin is made out of potato peels left over from making vodka one year. However the Swiss Alps are made of Swiss Cheese compressed under the high pressure of Swiss guys blowing big horns.

Tam, yours might be the best internet blog around right now and for sure it is a must read everyday, thank you. Now some of the goofy old men (like me) who send me emails with new information every day will be sending this information, on the same day from half the USA away.

mikee said...

Having snuck a reference to Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy about using a towel into my M.S., and having paid a royalty fee to the Wall Street Journal for use of one of their cartoons on a business car, I strongly urge you to forward this post to multiple academic sources, with a request for royalties when use is made of them.

Nothing beats the sweet, sweet sight of royalty money envelopes in the mailbox.

Noah D said...

If either of the latter gets cited in a middle school history paper, my life will be complete.

Well, considering that my oldest son's 5th grade Social Studies* 'teacher' claimed that Copernicus was burned at the stake, and that the Germans crashed suicide zepplins into London in the Great War, you might not have to wait that long.

*Social Studies replacing History - downfall of Western Civilization, right there.

Tam said...

Noah D,

"*Social Studies replacing History - downfall of Western Civilization, right there."

When I was in school, "Social Studies" was elementary & middle school; "History" was high school.

I pulled through alright; I'm sure your kid will, too! :)

Kristophr said...

I call bogus an number two:

After cutting oversized peels off the potatoes for vodka production, the remaining potato cubes aren't big enough for wall filler.

Kristophr said...

Noah D:

But Kaiser Wilhelm's suicide zeppelin raid is so cool it has to be true.

Or at least a chapter in a Larry Corriea novel.

Anonymous said...

It's as if you are channeling your inner Cliff Clavin!

gfa

Ancient Woodsman said...

True spread of this lovely knowledge won't be complete until someone else puts it in print, attributed to Maj. Caudill, USMC (Ret).

Mike_C said...

snuck a reference to Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy about using a towel
Somewhere in my parents' house is a towel signed by Douglas Adams. He did a book signing in my home town when I was high school. Being both impecunious and smart-assed, my best friend and I showed up with towels for him to sign instead of freshly purchased hardback books. Adams burst out laughing and halted the signing until the bookstore staff came up with a big permanent marker for him to use on the towels instead of the ordinary ink pen he had been using.

*Social Studies replacing History - downfall of Western Civilization, right there.
Yep. Except I think you meant to say "patriarchal, fundamentally oppressive dead white guy culture," because who are we to decide what is "civilized." /sniff

Rick C said...

Mike_C, that's an awesome DNA story.

Joseph said...

Wait a moment... I thought the Kremlin was built entirely from onions, which explains the domes.

Will said...

Tam,
when you next refer to the "short bus", this photo is what will come to mind:

http://shnargen.tumblr.com/post/1303754266

Roger Ritter said...

Wouldn't that tidbit about the Kremlin be a tuberfact, not an uberfact?

Anonymous said...

What Captain Hamer bagged on opening day of Kong season will show up in your middle-schooler's paper before your other whimsies.

Instead of a BAR, how about a sawed-off punt gun?

Mike James

Gewehr98 said...

Yup. Should be a Remington Model 8 for Hamer - it'll still be a John Moses Browning design, so no problem.

markm said...

Hamer used a BAR on Bonnie and Clyde, although some of his associates were armed with Model 8's. He'd studied a previous unsuccessful attempt to ambush the Barrow gang, where the cops' submachine gun bullets just bounced off the V8 Ford sheet metal, while Barrow hosed them with a BAR. So he got a BAR to match Barrow's firepower in all respects. The Model 8 is a good rifle, but it's not a machine gun.

Beaumont said...

Actually, I'm fairly certain that Hamer was not in Manhattan during the "Kong Affair". Rather, he was over in Jersey, stopping the Martian invasion with his .35 Remington M8 -- with extended magazine, natch.

GreatBlueWhale said...

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/03/17/make-college-students-take-real-history/