Eric Blair was a Trotskyist who wrote
Animal Farm and 1984 to spite Stalin,
as Stalin turned on Trotsky,
as Trotsky was a one-world-government proponent,
(with Moscow as its capital),
with the argument that capitalist nations would do anything
to isolate and destroy socialist nations,
whereas Stalin thought that socialism would bring the
Soviet Union enough success to defend itself.
This had far-reaching consequences for
Eric Blair who was participating in the
Spanish civil war of 1936 to 1939,
having joined the Trotskyist resistance group
and saw the Stalinists resistance group turn on them
and outright attacked them.“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”
“The truth is always stronger than the lie.”One is a quote made by Joseph Goebbels,
the other is a paraphrase of a paraphrase
of a quote made by Joseph Goebbels,
with the “In British culture” part missing.Guess which one is which.
(P.S. I disavow German fascism.
It’s just the more I learn about the US or UK,
the more I’m surprised that fascism took hold in Germany… (first.))You can speeddrift on the top of the tube on Purple, a classic Trackmania fullspeed map, and continuing the SD from the top to the next section without cutting it but with a little overdrift allows you to set World Record if done correctly
The word “America” does not come from Amerigo Vespucci, but is likely an amalgamation of
the Mayan word “Amerristiquiqque” for “land where the wind blows constantly”, which is the name of a mountain range in Nicaragua, and the Spanish word “Rica” for rich, like in “Costa Rica” (Rich Coast) as Spanish sailors would ask Carib Amerindians where their gold came from.The smallpox blankets event happened before germ theory existed. The plan was based on miasma theory.
When a drug company in the 80s scaled up production they accidentally created seed crystals that spread around the entire Earth’s atmosphere that prevented other companies from manufacturing a generic drug without it attaching to the seeds and converting to the patented drug.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearing_polymorph#Paroxetine_hydrochloride
Of course it was GSK with paroxetine
Ok, that’s absolutely bonkers
And it’s merely a hypothesis, there is no proof. Also we can assume that chemical plants are aware and have taken precautions, but it still happens. Back in the day it was speculated that chemists caried microcrystals around in their beards. This problem has been around for a while. One of the coolest hypothesis has been put forward by Rupert Sheldrake. He thinks that there is something in nature akin to memory. A force of nature as you will.
Stephen Jay Gould, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard, testified in defense of evolution at a trial in Arkansas then was on the same plane as Bill Clinton during Clinton’s interregnum between governorships. Clinton said he “would have vetoed that bill”, meaning the bill mandating equal time for creationism.
The correct spelling of pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis
Marx did actually consider human nature
If you catch a frog in between your hands and quickly flip it around, you can get the frog into a kind of paralyzed state called ‘tonic immobility’.
Here is a photo from Wikipedia:
OK, well, many years ago I was very interested in this phenomenon and decided to look into the literature.
I found a paper from 1928 titled “On The Mechanism of Tonic Immobility in Vertebrates” written by Hudson Hoagland (PDF link).
In this paper, the author describes contraptions he used to flip animals quickly and get them into this state. They look kind of like torture devices:
OK, but, that’s still not it… The obscure fact is found in the first footnote of that paper, on page #2:
Apparently this or a similar effect can be observed in humans too?! In this paper, the author himself claims to have done this and that it works! I tried to locate more recent resources describing this phenomenon in humans but I could not find them… Is this actually possible? If so, why is this not better documented? Or, maybe it is better documented but understood as a different type of reflex today? Not sure.
You can also do this with rabbits.
Excellent fact, and bonus points because the fact is only recorded in a footnote of a writeup about an already moderately obscure fact.
Like you’d see crazy evangelical pactors do to people on tv?
Ha, maybe! I don’t remember if I ever saw a 180 flip. This is the closest I could find from a quick search: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZpIglVnYuY
If you have a video with the 180 degree flip I would really like to see it. This context seems like a plausible place to see such a move in modern days. I would imagine that in some martial arts this effect would be well known.
I don’t think anyone was bent over at 90° in the video?
Regardless, that video is incredible; sending it to my ex-Evangelical partner immediately.
Yeah, I’m still looking. This is the closest I found so far
That reminds me of a “game” kids would (try) to play when I was young at school. The kids would say to do just that “bend over, take a deep breath” and the other one would try to lift them up really quickly. I never saw it work. I guess you were supposed to pass out. Idk
Yup did that as a kid. Totally passed out. Later found out it’s kind of dangerous.
Some of these ‘games’ do trigger real physiological mechanisms. A well-documented example is the Valsalva maneuver, where forcefully exhaling against a closed mouth and nose affects heart rate and blood pressure.
In some games, this maneuver (or similar) is combined with a second action that normally increases blood flow demand to the brain. The mismatch between reduced blood pressure and sudden demand can cause dizziness or brief loss of consciousness due to insufficient oxygen reaching the brain.
Actually, there is a similar effect sometimes seen during heavy deadlifts, suddenly releasing can sometimes make people pass out. There are many “deadlift passing out” videos online.
So, those ‘games’ can work. I have known of kids breaking their teeth after face-planting against the floor while playing those games. Not a very smart thing to do.
I don’t exist. I had a meeting and voted. It was unanimous.
I undiagnosed myself. I’m okay. This is fine.
The origin of the name ‘Amerigo’ Vespucci is ‘Emmerich’ in German. So the namesake of a contintent is a very demure provincial city close to the German/Dutch border.
Ancient Egypt was ancient before it ended. The time when Cleopatra ruled is about as close to today as it was to the first pyramids.
It’s actually even wilder than that.
The earliest know pyramids date back to around 2600BCE, and Cleopatra reigned around 50-30BCE, so her reign is closer to the modern day than to the first pyramids by about 600 years. One of the earliest surviving pyramids, Djoser, was built by Imhotep (with help, I assume) during a period called the Third Egyptian Dynasty meaning, as it’s name suggests, the unified Kingdom of Egypt was already well-established by the time it was built. The First Dynasty started about 3100BCE so even ignoring the proto-Dynasty period of Egypt, that’s pretty humbling: if you drew a timeline with the founding of Ancient Egypt on the left and the founding of OnlyFans to the right, Cleopatra would be three-fifths of the way along it.
One of my favorite facts is that while the first pyramids were being built, there were still Mammoth roaming some northern European regions (never checked whether this is true or not but I’ve heard it so many times that I want to believe it is true)
Cleopatra had a kid with Julius Caesar lmao. When you think of it like that it makes more sense.
The first iteration of the baptist church was a militaristic commie org. That took over a small town.
The Latin meaning of the color ultramarine is “over the sea” Also, they once made a pigment called mummy, which was literally made out of finely grinded mummy.
in the same vein, cerulean (blue) comes from caelum, the sky
Not obscure but apparently a lot of people aren’t aware that sheep don’t have top teeth in front.
TIL. I’ve looked gift horses in the mouth but never gift sheep /s
