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So I guess the Tampa police brought this out to face the Occupy protestors down there. If the movement is looking for something discrete to protest, perhaps they could protest LOCAL POLICE OWNING TANKS.
The Tampa Police Department wins the award for most unnecessary ownership of a tank. Here’s another photo, for those who thought this was Photoshopped. (Our BS-meter was admittedly turned on there.) Here’s a description of the unit from the City of Tampa’s police site: “The 12-ton Armored Personnel Carrier (APC) can drive through five feet of water and withstand winds up to 130 mph helping police operate under the most severe conditions. The carrier, nicknamed “high-top shoe” for its tall silhouette look, can be used for search and rescue during a natural disaster or a terrorist attack. The APC is bullet resistant, can hold 13 passengers and it is virtually unstoppable. On pavement, it can reach speeds of 60 mph. This one of a kind APC was purchased from the military and it was paid for with a Federal security grant.”
We really can hide objects. … We can switch for a short moment and make it disappear.Ali Aliev, a physicist at the University of Texas at Dallas, about his “invisibility cloak” technology • Right now, the “cloak” is only as big as a few threads. Those threads are made of carbon nanotubes which light bends around when heat is applied to the strands. Aliev said that the technology could “easily hide large objects, such as military tankers” eventually. Anyone else get a tremor of terror when they read that? See it in action at the source — it’s pretty freaking crazy. source (via • follow)
When people reach a point when they are in so much pain they just can’t stand it anymore, it was like being drunk. The ability to hold information was really impaired.Ig Nobel Prize-winning scientist Peter Snyder • Describing his team’s findings — that really having to use the bathroom creates an effect on drivers similar to driving drunk or on limited sleep — at the 2011 Ig Nobel Prize awards ceremony Thursday. Snyder’s bladder-busting team (who won for medicine) was only one of many to get awarded for their weird or dubious honors, including that crazy Lithuanian mayor who used a tank to prove his point about illegal parking (he won the Ig Nobel Peace Prize), a Norwegian group that produced a useless study on sighing (psychology), and a group of Japanese researchers who created a fire alarm that uses the smell of wasabi as its key alarm agent (chemistry). All in all, a pretty Ig Nobel night. source
The dance of an authoritarian state: The crackdown against those Syrians with the courage to protest the rule of Bashar al-Assad is already horribly violent — human rights groups claim the deaths of more than 300 people by the hands of the Assad government since the protests began. That’s just the visible deathtoll, to boot — Syria is widely regarded as one of the world’s worst states on human rights, with torture being a valued tactic, so it’s hard not to believe there are people having some pretty terrible things done to them as we write this. Tanks have now been unleashed into Dara, the origin of much of the anti-government protest. Once you’ve arrived at this point, can there ever truly be a “going back?” It looks like Syria may face a protracted and bloody conflict. source
In Egyptian “Rock Paper Scissors,” “human chain” beats “tanks”: The protesters, united in a line, effectively blocked the tanks from getting into Tahrir Square. Awesome. source
Leave Hosni, you, your son and your corrupted party!Graffiti left on a tank by protesters in Egypt • And a phrase that says it all, really. According to the NYT, protesters did this without any interference from soldiers. “This is the revolution of all the people,” said another tank. Why so chummy? Well, every male in Egypt has to serve in the military at some point, which appears to be taking some of the edge off between military and protesters. Interesting. source (via • follow)
The Afghan War’s been going on for nine years. Know what it’s been missing all this time? That’s right. Tanks. The Afghan War is finally getting its first tanks. About freaking time, if you ask someone who knows nothing about military policy (or why it’s necessary to take on terrorists with something this big), but just thinks tanks are awesome. source
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