Re: Balloon Kid.

1) FALCON?! Really? Jesus fucking Christ.

2) Wow, is this like the "kid in the well" from 12 Monkeys or what?

3) Here's my real bitch: Had my Bus. Management class last night and the (probably an android) teacher does a thing about "What's in the news?" every session. Somebody brought up Balloon Kid. Now, at the time nobody in class knew that he'd been found or whatever (and I hadn't even heard the story, I'm such a hermit), so the prevailing opinion was: The kid fell out of the fucking balloon and is (insert landing place) pizza out there somewhere.

So, the teach asks (this being a Business class and all) "So, is there a financial angle?"

DUDE! There's a kid out there possibly splattered on someone's roof, or a highway, or impaled on a fucking pine tree and you're asking what the money factor is?

Eat a radioactive dick, fuckface. Swallow it whole and either choke to death or die slowly over the course of hours from radiation poisoning.

Preferably the latter.

"So, is there a financial angle?"

Channeling the kid's parents attitude.

Eat a radioactive dick, fuckface. Swallow it whole and either choke to death or die slowly over the course of hours from radiation poisoning.

::loves MM's turn of phrase::

I like this xkcd: Nowhere

Though I'm not sure which of the two I'd be....

Not sure if this goes in music, Boxed Set, Movies or here: Klingon-Language Rapper

Klenginem is a German rapper who performs in the Klingon language, mostly modified Eminem songs. Here is his performance of “SuvwI’pu’ qan tu’lu’be”, which is known in English as “Without Me.”

Eat a radioactive dick, fuckface. Swallow it whole and either choke to death or die slowly over the course of hours from radiation poisoning.

That there is some quality smiteage. No wonder you and Aims were so drawn to each other.

I'm so glad your mom is home and feeling better, ita. And poor Laura's mom!

Now I must make a quick run to Reno to swaddle my own mom in bubble wrap. I'll just be a minute.

the balloon kid thing bugs me in a lot of ways and i do think it was a hoax, but I think all the jokes are in bad taste and they make me angry.

so, yeah, i like MM's phrasing too.

I'm glad your mother is home and feeling alright, ita.

I'm glad the balloon kid thing was a hoax, given the alternative of a 6 year old in a balloon thousands of feet above the ground. But yeah, the kid's dad seems like a piece of work.

Anyone heard of Letters of Note?

Letters of Note is an attempt to gather and sort fascinating letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos. Scans/photos where possible. Fakes will be sneered at. Updated 2-3 times every weekday.

This one is... "amazing" is the wrong word, but....

The things I saw beggar description

The concentration camp in Ohrdruf was the first to be liberated by U.S. forces during World War II, and just a week later, General Dwight D. Eisenhower paid a visit in order to survey the scene. The following letter, in which Eisenhower describes said experience, was written by the future President three days later and sent to General George C. Marshall in Washington. Although the entire letter is interesting and worth reading, the now famous description by Eisenhower can be seen in the image below and found in the transcript's 6th paragraph.

The 6th paragraph:

On a recent tour of the forward areas in First and Third Armies, I stopped momentarily at the salt mines to take a look at the German treasure. There is a lot of it. But the most interesting - although horrible - sight that I encountered during the trip was a visit to a German internment camp near Gotha. The things I saw beggar description. While I was touring the camp I encountered three men who had been inmates and by one ruse or another had made their escape. I interviewed them through an interpreter. The visual evidence and the verbal testimony of starvation, cruelty and bestiality were so overpowering as to leave me a bit sick. In one room, where they were piled up twenty or thirty naked men, killed by starvation, George Patton would not even enter. He said he would get sick if he did so. I made the visit deliberately, in order to be in position to give first-hand evidence of these things if ever, in the future, there develops a tendency to charge these allegations merely to "propaganda."

Amazing that even then, on first exposure to such horror, that he noted that some might deny this in the future....

Yes, our parents really need to stop making us worry. I am shocked that Mom let her husband take pictures, but I compounded the insult by putting them on my Flickr account. [link]