Month: May 2018

news-wtf:

kosmonin:

abandonedandurbex:

Amusement park in Berlin left to nature’s devices [640×480]

It was “left to nature’s devices” because the owner got caught importing a roller coaster with 180 kilos of peruvian cocaine inside it

It began with the Wittes, a family of carnival workers from West
Germany that was tasked with turning a former East German fairground
into an amusement park up to western standards after reunification in
1989. The head of the company is Sabrina’s father, Norbert Witte. The
leasing contract for the 30-hectare (74-acre) piece of property was
under his wife Pia’s name, however. The agreement with the city-state of
Berlin states that the land may only be used as an amusement park until
2061.


[…]

Some in the Berlin
press are skeptical of this arrangement, however, and allege that the
city government didn’t monitor the management selection closely enough.
By the mid-1990s, things were going poorly at the Spreepark, and visitor
numbers were down. In 2001, the company declared insolvency and the
Wittes moved to Peru, taking a few rides with them. There, Norbert Witte
suffered a number of heart attacks and got involved with drug
smugglers. In 2003, he and his son were arrested for attempting to
smuggle 167 kilos of cocaine to Germany inside a ride called “The Flying
Carpet.”

Witte was caught in Germany, his son in Peru. The father was
sentenced to eight years in prison and released after serving four. His
son remains in Peru, where he is serving a 20-year sentence for the same
crime. Today, Norbert Witte lives in a caravan in the Spreepark.

Source: abandonedandurbex

wellmanicuredman:

lotterywinnersonacid:

Today a student emailed over a draft of his essay on 1984 and had clearly used a thesaurus on every single word, and how I know this is because the the party slogan ‘Big Brother is watching you’ had become ‘Enormous Sibling is viewing you’ and I lauged so hard I cried

you: big brother

me, an intellectual: enormous sibling

There are a number of people out there whose graves I wanna put roses and tobacco on.

weatheredlaw:

arundelo:

agingwunderkind:

thecringeandwincefactory:

I need to keep a list. 

I just found out about this man, Hugh Thompson. 

He essentially halted the rape and murder orgy by American soldiers at the village of My Lai in Viet Nam during the Vietnam War by placing his chopper between the civilians and his own soldiers and telling them he’d mow their asses down if they continued the onslaught. He then flew the survivors to military hospitals for care. At least 500 Vietnamese non-combatants were brutally murdered at My Lai by US soldiers before Thompson intervened. 

He was vilified by the Army and many of the American people for publicly exposing the Army’s actions at My Lai, and spent the rest of his life with ptsd, alcoholism, and severe nightmare disorder that contributed to his divorce. In other words, his own life was basically ruined by his heroic compassion. He died about 12 years ago at the age of 62 of cancer, and is buried in Lafayette, Louisiana, with full military honors.

He should be remembered.

Hail.

Reblogging this today, fifty years after March 16, 1968.

This L.A. Times op ed by Jon Wiener
also published today includes material from Wiener’s 2000
interview of Hugh Thompson.

Thompson was awarded what’s called a “Distinguished Flying Cross” for his efforts that day, but the reasons for the award were misleading. It claimed that he’d rescued a Vietnamese child caught in the “cross fire” and that he helped to improve relations between America and Vietnamese people. Apparently he threw the citation in the garbage. 

He and Lawrence Colburn, one of the two men he was with that day who helped him, remained friends until Thompson’s death. Colburn was at his bedside the day Thompson was removed from life support. Thompson, Colburn, and Glenn Andreotta, Thompson’s other crew member, were all awarded the Soldier’s Medal, Andreotta post-humously. Glenn unfortunately died in combat in Vietnam when he was only 20.

When Thompson and Colburn went back to Vietnam, according to Thompson, some of the women they rescued asked why the people who’d attacked them weren’t there. She wanted to forgive them. 

Thompson and Colburn never stopped talking about military ethics or what happened that day. 

Ridiculously Easy.

thebibliosphere:

gallusrostromegalus:

thebibliosphere:

thebibliosphere:

“Ridiculously easy buttermilk biscuits!” You click the link. It’s a novella about finding inner peace in suburbia. You never knew you were disturbed till now.

“Ridiculously easy green beans!” You click the link, there are twelve ingredients. None of them are green beans.

“Ridiculously easy salted pistachio caramel latte coffee cake in three easy steps!” You click the link. There are twelve steps. 

“Ridiculously easy marshmallow fondant!“ You click the link. It’s another novella about suburbia, this time about the dangers of feeding chemicals to your children. You wonder when you acquired these children and worry about their eyes. They are too bright, too happy, too shining…

“Ridiculously easy evaporated milk custard!*” *Must own own cow.

“Ridiculously easy shortcake in 12 steps!” You click the link. There are no steps.

“Ridiculously easy, easy to make, easy in three minutes, easy!” It doesn’t tell you what you’re making but you’re pretty certain it shouldn’t be hissing.

“Ridiculously easy,” the article reads, “easy, it’s so easy, easy” you hear laughing. Your face hurts why does your face hurt?

“It’s so easy,” you tell you friends, your smile is not your own. You can feel your teeth growing, “so easy, you’ll hardly feel a thing!”

Hunting through my recipe tag and oh god, this relic, this ancient post. My first ever post to get stolen by another website and turned into a meme. Good times.

OH GOD THIS WAS YOU??? MY MOM HAS THIS PRINTED OUT IN THE FAMILY RECIPE BOOK, SLIGHTLY MARRED BY CHOCOLATE CAKE.

It is I, the gothic shitposter. Before I was known for just vampires.

Things more important than family

kimberly-wants-to-hide:

I nearly drowned when I was 3. My mom had to jump into the pool fully clothed to rescue me. 44 years later, she still complains that I made her ruin her Mickey Mouse watch.

My mom broke my arm when I was 6. She tells a funny story about it. She doesn’t tell the part about when she came to me immediately afterward and complained impatiently, “Stop crying! It doesn’t hurt that bad.”

When I was in my 30′s, a doctor committed malpractice in his treatment of me, resulting in me permanently having less than 50% kidney function. Every single time I mentioned the kidney disease to my mother—panicking about what this would mean for the rest of my life, explicitly asking her for comfort and reassurance—she told me that it was my own fault for trusting the doctor instead of researching everything on my own.

Some people will tell you that nothing is more important than family.

I’m here to tell you that love is more important than family. Loving yourself is more important than family. Finding other people who offer you unconditional love is more important than family.

If your family causes you pain, then there are a hell of a lot of things more important than family.

YOU are more important than family. Always remember that. Always.

star-anise:

pizzaback:

pizzaback:

i dont care if theres a genetic basis for being gay. i dont care if trans people’s brains resemble their gender. i don’t care. can we please stop focusing on answering why people arent cishet and more on how to actually stop homophobia and transphobia? because going out of our way to show that trans and gay people are weird variants on “normal” cishets isn’t helping.

‪why are cishet people so insistent on “solving” gayness and transness anyway? why not just accept us how we are. how’s that for a concept‬

My girlfriend recently shared a 20-year-old quote with me from Patrick Califia-Rice, author of Public Sex: The Culture of Radical Sex:

“I’m very fond of the concept of choice as the basis for sexual preference. This point of view is unpopular in an era in which every claim for gay rights is based on pseudoscientific sulking about how we can’t help being queer; we’re just born that way. Thanks, but I don’t want to receive my civil rights as a charity fuck bequeathed on me by my genetic superiors.”