Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

Speaking of Soviet, the article speaks of Soviet countries, but there was only one, the Soviet Union, and the article didn't refer to the former Soviet republics of Russia and Ukraine. The other countries were Socialist Republics, or, in the case of East Germany, Democratic Republics.
[emphasis added]

Quote from: tt92 on 2014-11-26, 18:58:44

Quote from: Jimbro3738 on 2014-11-26, 13:53:51

1. Who decided that the Earth should always be shown with the north pole at the top?

2. Assuming an infinite number of big bangs "out there," does that mean that there are an infinite number of TT92s?

1. Someone in the northern hemisphere.
2. Is.

#1 Probably true.
#2 Does "Is" mean Islamic State?
#3 Do you live in the southern hemisphere?
#4 Are you in any way related to that Jimbro3738 person?

Maps used to have east on top (thus to orient, to face the east, where the sun is rising). If they had kept that tradition, maybe we'd found the East Pole by now.

#4 Of course not. He is not a real person. He is a committee.

A committee singing Waltzing Matilda?

This comes close:

[video]http://youtu.be/lLOE3fBZcUU?t=1m37s[/video]

This isn't weird or wacky or wonderful, but it is interesting.
I think.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-12-30/olive-python-makes-meal-of-wallaby-in-nt/5992170

[...] or the illicit burning of the giant Gävle goat.

Quote from: Wikipedia

[...]
2000 Burnt down a couple of days before New Year's Eve. The Natural Science Club's goat got tossed in the Gävle river.

2001 Goat set on fire on 23 December by Lawrence Jones, a 51-year-old visitor from Cleveland, Ohio, who spent 18 days in jail and was subsequently convicted and ordered to pay 100,000 Swedish kronor in damages. The court confiscated Jones's cigarette lighter with the argument that he clearly was not able to handle it. Jones stated in court that he was no "goat burner", and believed that he was taking part in a completely legal goat-burning tradition. After Jones was released from jail he went straight back to the US without paying his fine. As of 2006 it was still unpaid. The Natural Science Club's goat was also burnt down.

2002 A 22 year old from Stockholm tried to set the Southern Merchants' goat on fire, but failed, the goat receiving only minor damage. On Lucia the goat was guarded by Swedish radio and TV personality Gert Fylking.

2003 Burnt down on 12 December.

2004 Burnt 21 December, only three days before Christmas Eve. The fire brigade quickly arrived on the scene, but the goat could not be saved. No new goat was built.

2005 Burnt by unknown vandals reportedly dressed as Santa and the gingerbread man, by shooting a flaming arrow at the goat at 21:00 on 3 December. Reconstructed on 5 December. The hunt for the arsonist responsible for the goat-burning in 2005 was featured on the weekly Swedish live broadcast TV3's "Most Wanted" ("Efterlyst") on 8 December.

2006 On the night of 15 December at 03:00, someone tried to set fire to the goat by dousing the right front leg in petrol (gasoline). The red ribbon on that leg was slightly burned and fell off. The lower part of the right leg was scorched, but the rest of the goat failed to light. The leg was repaired that morning. The Natural Science Club's goat was burned at about 00:40 on 20 December; the vandals were not seen and got away. On the night of 25 December, a drunken man managed to climb up on the goat. Before the police arrived on the scene the man climbed down and disappeared. He did not try to set fire to the goat. The Southern Merchants' goat survived New Year's Eve and was taken down on 2 January. It is now stored in a secret location.

2007 The Natural Science Club's goat was toppled on 13 December and was burned on the night of 24 December. The Southern Merchants' goat survived.

2008 10,000 people turned out for the inauguration of one of the goats. No back-up goat was built to replace the main goat should the worst happen, nor was the goat treated with flame repellent (Anna Östman, spokesperson of the Goat-committee said the repellent made it look ugly in the previous years, like a brown terrier). On 16 December the Natural Science Club's Goat was vandalised and later removed. On 26 December there was an attempt to burn down the Southern Merchants' Goat but patriotic passers-by managed to extinguish the fire. The following day the goat finally succumbed to the flames ignited by an unknown assailant at 03:50 CET.

2009 A person attempted to set the Southern Merchants' goat on fire the night of 7 December. An unsuccessful attempt was made to throw the Natural Science Club's goat into the river the weekend of 11 December. The culprit then tried, again without success, to set the goat on fire. Someone stole the Natural Science Club's goat utilizing a truck the night of 14 December. On the night of 23 December before 04:00 the South Merchant goat was set on fire and was burned to the frame, even though it had a thick layer of snow on its back. The goat had two online webcams which were put out of service by a DoS attack, instigated by computer hackers just before the burning.

2010 On the night of 2 December, arsonists made an unsuccessful attempt to burn the Natural Science Club's goat. On 17 December, a Swedish news site reported that one of the guards tasked with protecting the Southern Merchants' goat had been offered payment to leave his post so that the goat could be stolen via helicopter and transported to Stockholm. Both goats survived and were dismantled and returned to storage in early January 2011.

2011 The inauguration of the goat took place on 27 November. The fire-fighters of Gävle sprayed the goat with water to create a coating of ice in the hope of protecting it from arson. The goat was burnt down in the early morning of 2 December.

2012 The inauguration of the goat took place on 2 December. It was burnt just ten days later in the hours before midnight of 12 December, one day before Lucia.

2013 As in 2006 and 2007, the straw used to build the goat has been soaked in anti-flammable liquid to prevent it from burning in the event of an arson attack. The inauguration ceremony took place on 1 December. On 21 December the goat was burned down.

For the first time since 2006, the Christmas goat erected in the Swedish city of Gävle has made it to the end of its festive run

It’s a classic Christmas tale of good triumphing over evil. Every year since 1966, the giant straw Yule goat of Gävle has faced arsonists and vandals intent on its destruction.

In 27 of those years it has succumbed — mostly to fire, once to a Volvo driven at full tilt, knocking the 42-foot straw statue clean over.

But not this year. For the first time since 2006 [2010 according to Wikipedia], the Swedish city’s goat has survived to the end of its festive run. This morning the sculpture was dismantled ahead of New Year celebrations considered too riotous to give the animal a sporting chance of survival. “It’s almost suicidal for the goat to be up and running on New Year’s Eve,” said the goat’s spokesperson, Johan Adolfsson.

It was New Year’s Eve 1966 when the first ever Gävle goat got a taste of its future; burnt to the ground at the hands of a vandal from a nearby municipality. The straw statue was the brainwave of Stig Gavlen, a local advertising consultant who thought a giant version of the traditional Swedish yule time goat would be a good way to draw crowds to Gävle , a small port city on the Scandinavian country’s east coast.

Since then, attempts on the goat’s life have become as much of a Christmas tradition in Gävle as carols and mince pies are elsewhere.  Where you stand on the goat’s fate, says Adolfsson, is a testament of character.

“It’s a classic drama between the good citizens who love the goat and the bad guys, the arsonists, who want to get it torched,” he says.

If you put a pair of shoes together on the floor, it looks like two shoes.
If you put two pairs of shoes together on the floor, it looks like more than four shoes.
This is a fact of life for which there is no rational explanation.

SALT LAKE CITY — One pill makes you smarter. One pill makes you thin. One pill makes you happy. Another keeps you energized. And so what if tests conducted by scientists in New York and Canada have found that the substances behind these miracle enhancements may contain nothing more than powdered rice or houseplants. If enough people believe they’ll be healthier, well, it’s a nice racket.

Nice, to the tune of $13 billion a year in sales.