Category: True Stories

L’Abbé Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle’s Contribution To The World

Father Jean-Baptiste de La Chapelle, born about 1710 and probably died in 1792 in Paris. Before a large audience, he jumped into the Seine, eating, drinking, snuffing, discharging a pistol and writing while floating on the surface. He tried again, three years later, this demonstration before Louis XV near the royal hunting lodge in the forest of Senart, but his attempt failed when the current swept him away so fast that the king could not identify what happened to him.

His invention was a cork suit for soldiers, a precursor to the modern life vest. [Found here.]

REDTRUNK

The hills of Western Hungary, after a flood of toxic red sludge from an alumina plant engulfed several towns and burned people through their clothes.

Nope. Not a Photoshop.

[Found here.]

Saturday Matinee – Vietnamese Coffee, One Small Plate For Man, Virtual Choir 3.0 & Buster Keaton

“How To Make Vietnamese Coffee.” (Hint: Step 1. Go to Vietnam.)

Neil Armstrong’s “That’s one small step for man…” could be translated “Un petit pas pour l’homme,” and the title of the film is “Un petit plat pour l’homme” can be  translated as “One Small Dish For Man”

3rd year animation project (assigned subject “Kitchen”) from Charron/Onectin via email. Very cool.

Eric Whitacre‘s Virtual Choir 3 is awesome and kinda creepy at the same time.

His call for the Virtual Choir 3.0, which included a purpose-built website to make video collection easier and more uniform, set a new record. It included 3476 videos from 76 different nations, including one from Vanuatu. That is the video you see above.

[Found here.]

Buster Keaton’s 1926 comedy The General is based on a real event. In April 1862 a group of Union volunteers hijacked a Confederate train in Georgia and led the rebels on an 88-mile, six-hour chase through the state, tearing up tracks and cutting telegraph lines as they went and releasing cars behind them to slow their pursuers. The conspirators ran out of fuel just short of Chattanooga, their goal, but the Union awarded a Medal of Honor to most of them for the exploit.
…
“I was more proud of that picture than any I ever made,” Keaton said in 1963. “Because I took an actual happening out of the … history books, and I told the story in detail, too.”

[Found here.]

That’s probably enough stuff to keep you out of trouble for a while. Have a great weekend, folks, and hope tomorrow is cooler.

Freyja & The Skogkatt

From Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda:

Freyja is the most famous of the goddesses. She has in heaven a dwelling which is called Fólkvangr, and when she rides to the battle, one half of the slain belong to her, and the other half to Óðinn… When she goes abroad, she drives in a wagon drawn by two cats.

I’d say those two cats have some nice penmanship, but there’s more to them than that. They were huge, mean and they loved to draw. They were The Skogkatt.

[More here.]

5 TACKY YEARS! Top 11 Posts for 2012

How’s it feel to be a Green Dot? That’s right, one of those little World Peas is just for you. View the Live Map here. It will display little blinkies that show you who else is here, and it’s anonymous. (We’re at the ass end of the US, just in case you were wondering.)

It’s intuitively obvious to the casual observer that we’re on the verge of taking over the world, so be content in the knowledge that you have assisted with the conquest.

We added an online store and a widget that sort of links to another online store. WorpDress now allows adverts, and they also allow PayPal Tip Jars, so we added that as well. Has any of it paid off? Nah.

We’ve featured the Top Posts for each year since we started in 2007. The numbers indicate this year’s ranking followed by last year’s, and we’ve added a third for all-time ranking (2012/2011/All-Time Rank).  NR indicates Not Ranked.

Click on any image and it’ll take you to the original post.

No. 11/nr – Popeye Dead at 108

No. 10/nr – Mickey Possum has a good attitude.

No. 9/nr – The .Gif Friday Post No.104 – Catsup

No. 8/nr – Babe Cannon

No. 7/2/5 – Amy’s Motivational Poster Collection

No. 6/7/8 – Giant Woolly Bear Caterpillar Discovered Near Las Cruces, NM, Predicts Global Warming for Decades to Come

No. 5/nr – 10/10/10 10:10:10

No. 4/nr – 10:11:10 11/10/11

No. 3/nr – Possum Haiku

No. 2/1/4 – Capybara Lapwarmer

AND THE NUMBER ONE POST FOR 2012 IS:

The .Gif Friday Post No.93 – Cat Fish Robot Jam

It scored at No. 6 in 2011, and it’s at No. 7 on the 5-Year popularity ranking.

We plan to keep going with this baboso unless it becomes a chore, but considering all the fun stuff we’ve found just to keep our self-imposed goal of One Post Per Day, it looks like we’ll be around a while. Cheers!

Abhorrence and Misplaced Animosity

Don’t worry. Tacky Raccoons is not going to morph into a political blog, yet we’re not going to completely ignore current events either. If common sense offends you, you won’t like what we’ve posted below the break, and you can click on the image and listen to Peter Tosh instead. Continue reading “Abhorrence and Misplaced Animosity”

On Milton Friedman’s 100th Birthday

Milton Friedman was honored by President George W. Bush on his 90th birthday in 2002 in Washington D.C.

One of Milton Friedman‘s best known examples of Free Market Economics came from Leonard E. Read who wrote a famous article published in 1958 entitled, “I, Pencil.” (Download the .pdf here.)

The basic concept is so full of common sense that it amazes me that it’s not required reading for every student, every civilian and every government politico of every country on the face of the earth. Get government out of the way of the free market, and the free market will take care of everything else.

It’s that simple.

Friedman’s timeless presentation of “I, Pencil” is well worth the 10 minutes it takes to view. Proven throughout history, practical common sense transcends politics, and it always has and always will, except when bureaucratic forces prevent it from doing so.

[Don’ t miss Dr. Thomas Sowell’s tribute here. “I was still a Marxist after taking Professor Friedman’s class. Working as an economist in the government converted me.”]

Update: We’ve posted about Milton Friedman previously. Here’s a link to the archive.

Albino Chameleon

Snot what you think. Three guesses before you clicky the linky.
[Found here via here.]

The .Gif Friday Post No.238 – CRABS!


The red crab is by far the most obvious of the 14 species of land crabs on Christmas Island. Every year over 150 million red crabs move from inland shelters to the shore for their annual breeding season. This occurs at the beginning of the wet season (usually October/November).

That synchronized QuadriCombo of .gifs makes for a stand-alone post here, and it’s true that some crabs suddenly materialize while others disappear into vapors. More info at this awesome site – “Colors of Fauna.”

Handscrews

Neodymium magnets. No mess with.

[Found here.]