Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy — almost impenetrable forests of marijuana plants 10 feet tall.
General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.
“The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It’s very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices. … And as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don’t dodge in and out of those marijuana forests,” he said in a speech in Ottawa, Canada.
“We tried burning them with white phosphorous — it didn’t work. We tried burning them with diesel — it didn’t work. The plants are so full of water right now … that we simply couldn’t burn them,” he said.
Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.
“A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those [forests] did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action,” Hiller said dryly.
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WEB search leader Google has agreed to acquire top video entertainment site YouTube for $US1.65 billion ($2.22 billion) in stock, putting a lofty new value on consumer-generated media sites.
The deal, the first to value one of the new crop of user-participation websites at more than $US1 billion, combines two of the most popular Internet brands: Google, synonymous with web search and rapid innovation, and YouTube, a Silicon Valley upstart that has spearheaded the video-sharing craze.
Google said this morning that YouTube would continue to operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.
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Time Magazine has a great letter sent to friends and family from a Marine in Iraq. Its honest, from the heart and even funny in parts. For or against the war, it’s a great read. Some of my favourite bits…
Most Surreal Moment — Watching Marines arrive at my detention facility and unload a truck load of flex-cuffed midgets. 26 to be exact. We had put the word out earlier in the day to the Marines in Fallujah that we were looking for Bad Guy X, who was described as a midget. Little did I know that Fallujah was home to a small community of midgets, who banded together for support since they were considered as social outcasts. The Marines were anxious to get back to the midget colony to bring in the rest of the midget suspects, but I called off the search, figuring Bad Guy X was long gone on his short legs after seeing his companions rounded up by the giant infidels.
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Best Chuck Norris Moment — 13 May. Bad Guys arrived at the government center in a small town to kidnap the mayor, since they have a problem with any form of government that does not include regular beheadings and women wearing burqahs. There were seven of them. As they brought the mayor out to put him in a pick-up truck to take him off to be beheaded (on video, as usual), one of the Bad Guys put down his machinegun so that he could tie the mayor’s hands. The mayor took the opportunity to pick up the machinegun and drill five of the Bad Guys. The other two ran away. One of the dead Bad Guys was on our top twenty wanted list. Like they say, you can’t fight City Hall.
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Digg’s one of my favourite sites and they just keep growing. Yesterday the 9 Reason’s to become an Evil Villain got dugg by someone and was promoted enough to reach the front page of Digg. I’ll post some more stats later, but here’s an image of my server load. Guess when it hit the front page ;)
The huge jump earlier in the graph is just a backup :]
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UPDATE: Originally written by Zero here!
1. You will have more friends
Peter Parker was a social outcast. Norman Osborne was the popular kid. Reed Richards was a dorky scientist. Victor Von doom was a rich socialite. Anyone else sensing a pattern here? Everyone wants to get a little piece of the evil. It is like Starburst.
2. You get to laugh maniacally
Good guys don’t get to do this. No one has ever heard Superman or Batman laughing like a maniac and no one ever will. Trust me, this is something everyone wants to do. It is strangely liberating. While you may pass chances to do this every once in a while during your civilian life, you will never get the quantity of opportunities that come with a career in villainy.
3. All of a sudden, you will have the budget for all kinds of toys
Super bad guys are never broke. Not only are they never broke but they always have more resources than the hero could ever hope for. Apparently the villain racket pays very well. It also seems to be recession-proof. I hear the tax breaks are good too.
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