A friend of mine has a condition that can easily cause him to pass out from seeing blood, or indeed picturing blood in his mind. I remember us listening to a guy talking about a surgery he had recently gone through, one that involved fixing an artery, et voila, my friend suddenly passed out.

My only point being that some people can be very sensitive, and my buddy would’ve no doubt spent a performance like this drifting in and out of consciousness.

A handheld radio transceiver. Think walkie-talkie but much more capable.

For an amusing read on how well their navy did against the Japanese, in 1905, check out Battle of Tsushima.

The Russians lost 5.045 and 21 ships (more captured and/or damaged). Japan lost 117 and 3 torpedo boats.

Here’s an entertaining video on their journey to Japan.

On 14 August 1903, while on a cruise from Chicago to South Haven, Michigan, six of the ship’s firemen refused to stoke the fire for the ship’s boiler, claiming that they had not received their potatoes for a meal.

Rather than give the poor guys a few potatoes they threw them in the brig and charged them with mutiny.

How large of an elephant population is required for an elephant brothel to be viable, let alone a huge one? How do elephants even pay?

I’m not familiar with the story you’re referring to, but typically a hard landing doesn’t necessitate a search/rescue team. Unless it’s a very hard “landing” into the side of a mountain, for example.

What a handsome fella!

The cybertruck looks like something a 5 yo mocked up with crayons.

I need to dig up my first grade notebooks… I’m pretty sure I can claim to have designed the Cybertruck in 1983.

You need to be two people to pull that off, and the corpse must be wearing beach attire and shades. The shades are important. /s

“Until the missile launcher is deactivated…”, they say, referring to the missile launcher that “cannot be deactivated”.

Yes, this needs to be brought up. If you can’t rage war on a country without being struck back, what has this world come to? /s

The US already has a presence in many locations in Scandinavia/The Nordics. Depending on what one considers to be a base, as many as 36.

In total, Norway, Sweden, and Finland have opened 36 military bases for US forces and weapons. The agreements are bilateral, i.e., between the US and the individual country, and not a NATO agreement.

But yeah, more will undoubtedly not make Putin any happier.

Source.

It feels like it’s always the EU picking up the ball on these things. Aren’t there mechanisms in place to monitor these things in the US, or is it legislation (or lack of it) that prevents the government from going after such things?

They were mining for a roadway. /s

Nice to hear there’s still a good amount of sensible people out there, and that some of them are even in law enforcement.

A couple of decades ago I worked with an ex-mormon. Shunned by his family, his sister would still call to wish him merry Christmas etc… I remember overhearing one of those calls; “merry Christmas sis, and tell mom and dad I’m very glad I’m not there”.

My mom’s probably wondering if it’ll take 40 year olds.

Japan’s birthrate was apparently at its lowest ever last year but that still meant 800k babies, so there might be a few dropping by the hatch.

It really isn’t. In Norway it’s 49 weeks, divided between mother and father, with the majority going to the mother.

Equally transparent yet less conspicuous.

Perhaps we’re beginning to see the effects of spare parts shortage.