Competitions of Irrelevant Trivia
Hey folks! It's Wednesday! Tomorrow is Thanksgiving! Great success!
More archaeology news today: archaeologists have unearthed a Roman era Thracian chariot in Bulgaria. Excellent!
I always find it entertaining when professional media types who make good money do less exhaustive research than I do for a gig I don't even get paid for. Now, I only write specifically about Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan on occasion, but when I read an article about the death of Abu Zubair al Masri, an al Qaeda explosives expert in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and I saw a picture of Abu Ayyub al Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (and successor to Abu Musab al Zarqawi), my SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET sense went nuts. I E-Mailed the editor last night to inform the Times of their grievous error.
The most ridiculous item of the day is that Russia is claiming the involvement of both American and Eastern European mercenaries in their August war in Georgia - which is to say that they're claiming that the Georgians were assisted. Danger Room has a great piece on previous Russian claims of mercenary involvement in such conflicts as the Chechen wars. The best line part is a piece that Wired writer Nathan Hodge quotes from an old Independent article:
Needless to say, I take stories of mercenary assistance to Georgia during Russia's extremely short notice war with a massive grain of salt; even so, the stories paint some great mental pictures, don't they?
I'm not sure that I've ever posted this video before, but have a look.
Now, look at this article from the Onion. The article is dated 2001, so I don't know whether the video is actually based on the article or not. However, I do know that being a recovering obsessive Star Trek fan helped me a lot more in college than knowing an endless stream of sports trivia ever would have. As a matter of fact, I only remember one sports trivia question that was ever on an exam, and I'm pretty sure it was the bonus question each and every one of the several times that I saw it (let's just say that Lieutenant Colonel Schoutter had a thing for football). Either way, the article and video are hilarious.
It's unlikely that I'll do a regular blog post on Thanksgiving, so in the comments to today's post, tell me: what are you thankful for as we near the end of 2008? Have a great day, folks.
More archaeology news today: archaeologists have unearthed a Roman era Thracian chariot in Bulgaria. Excellent!
I always find it entertaining when professional media types who make good money do less exhaustive research than I do for a gig I don't even get paid for. Now, I only write specifically about Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan on occasion, but when I read an article about the death of Abu Zubair al Masri, an al Qaeda explosives expert in Afghanistan/Pakistan, and I saw a picture of Abu Ayyub al Masri, the head of al Qaeda in Iraq (and successor to Abu Musab al Zarqawi), my SOMEONE IS WRONG ON THE INTERNET sense went nuts. I E-Mailed the editor last night to inform the Times of their grievous error.
The most ridiculous item of the day is that Russia is claiming the involvement of both American and Eastern European mercenaries in their August war in Georgia - which is to say that they're claiming that the Georgians were assisted. Danger Room has a great piece on previous Russian claims of mercenary involvement in such conflicts as the Chechen wars. The best line part is a piece that Wired writer Nathan Hodge quotes from an old Independent article:
From the very start of the conflict in Chechnya, Moscow has been unable to admit that the Chechens could possibly be fighting on their own. To explain the debacle, Russian propaganda has paraded a far-fetched collection of bloodthirsty foreign mischief-makers, including Afghan mujahedin, Ukrainian Fascists, Islamic fanatics, Chechen migrants from Jordan and, in a crude flourish that smacks of sexually frustrated barrack-room fantasy, female snipers from the Baltics in white tights.
Needless to say, I take stories of mercenary assistance to Georgia during Russia's extremely short notice war with a massive grain of salt; even so, the stories paint some great mental pictures, don't they?
I'm not sure that I've ever posted this video before, but have a look.
Now, look at this article from the Onion. The article is dated 2001, so I don't know whether the video is actually based on the article or not. However, I do know that being a recovering obsessive Star Trek fan helped me a lot more in college than knowing an endless stream of sports trivia ever would have. As a matter of fact, I only remember one sports trivia question that was ever on an exam, and I'm pretty sure it was the bonus question each and every one of the several times that I saw it (let's just say that Lieutenant Colonel Schoutter had a thing for football). Either way, the article and video are hilarious.
It's unlikely that I'll do a regular blog post on Thanksgiving, so in the comments to today's post, tell me: what are you thankful for as we near the end of 2008? Have a great day, folks.
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