Tag: United States government secrecy

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Brought to You by the Proliferation of Digital Cameras

Livejournal’s blogging software might not be that good as far as I am concerned, but they still have some of the best communities ever. Take, for instance, found_objects”>. It’s a community dedicated to pictures of interesting random crap, very much in the style of Found magazine. Of course, many livejournalers are not familiar with the concepts of “interesting”, “resizing pictures” and “editorial selection”, but overall besides the huge blurry pictures of absolutely uninteresting stuff (what, the community is called “found objects”, I found this) there’s much, much outstanding stuff. Here’s my selection for your lesurely browsing:

  • Primer II: Evacipation Now is wrapping up principal photography. Once again no expense was spared for props and special effects.
  • NSA’s version of McGruff the Crime Dog (NSA stands for “No Such Agency”). NSA is scary, and their mascot is scary too.
  • The three laws of robotics. In bench form.
  • DSL-Shmesl.
  • Cooooooooomeee on down to Ocean City, Maryland. But to get that suit you need to name the actual retail price without going over.
  • What is the great Russian poet doing here?
  • Um, I say this is a torture device.
  • Totoro was here.
  • That’s a great chair. For me to poop on!
  • Now, this is great art. Period.
  • The moving company with the most unfortunate url.
  • Lipton ad executives have been smoking stuff.
  • Now this is a chick magnet!
  • Happy times!
  • CDR art / Biohazard.
  • The vast right wing conspiracy in bookstores.
  • To the dump to the dump to the dump-pum-pum.
  • Now, that’s a noble profession.
  • The magical mystery bus.
  • The magical mystery buckle.
  • The magical mystery soda.
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    ACH! BONJOURRRRRR! You Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkeys!

    A while back I finished an absolutely amazing book about Lockheed Martin Skunk Works. It’s by Ben Rich and it’s called “Skunk Works: A Personal Memoir of My Years at Lockheed“. I’ll write more about that book later.

    Here’s an amusing little anecdote from Lt. Colonel William Burk Jr., an SR-71 Blackbird pilot.

    “In the fall of ’82, I flew from Mildenhall on a mission o Lebanon in response to the Marine barrack bombing. President Reagan ordered photo coverage of ill the terrorist bases in the region. The French refused to allow us to overfly, so our mission was to refuel off the south coast of England.”
    …
    “We completed our pass over Beirut and turned toward Malta, when I got a warning low-oil-pressure light on my right engine. Even though the engine was running fine I slowed down and lowered our altitude and made a direct line for England. We decided to cross France without clearance instead of going the roundabout way. We made it almost across, when I looked out the left window and saw a French Mirage III sitting ten feet off my left wing. He came up on our frequency and asked us for our Diplomatic Clearance Number. I had no idea what he was talking about, so I told him to stand by. I asked my backseater, who said, “Don’t worry about it. I just gave it to him.” What he had given him was “the bird’ with his middle finger. I lit the afterbumers and left that Mirage standing still. Two minutes later, we were crossing the Channel. ”