This won't exactly be a revelation to anyone who's had to be careful saying words like "out" or "vet" around their dog, but at least it supports what they've been trying to convince people of for years.

I was actually more bothered by the combat — Both 300 and Gladiator feature loads of free-wheeling, cinematic slashing swordplay, when the real forte of the Greeks and Romans was close-ranked stabbing attacks from behind a wall of overlapping shields.

Much of that rationing was more precautionary than anything, or intended to reduce transportation "costs" in terms of fuel and rubber. I think Britain's greatest "starvation" vulnerability was in terms of fuel rather than food.

Oddly enough, I thought the very creepiest episode of the classic show was <i>Resurrection of the Daleks</i>, where some sort of labor dispute resulted in the last couple episodes being made without music or sound effects. The lack of any such sounds made the screaming death throes of the Dalek's victims particularly…

Not technically Palin, but clearly Palinesque.

While horror-comedies of the "spoofy" sort go back a long way (e.g., Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein, or The Fearless Vampire Killers), Raimi is perhaps the founding father of the sort where the humor really grows out of the horror. The first two Evil Dead movies are a sort of film school course on the subject —…

As with so many wars, behind Germany's actions leading up to WWI there was a real sense of "the clock running out". The "blank check" had less to do with any real German interest in the Balkans than it did fear that Russian economic growth would only make it a bigger threat in the future, and better to confront it…

Japan would definitely be on the UK's side in that analysis, since Britain was actively cultivating them as an Asian ally and helping build up their navy. That this would ally them against Russia would further reinforce the ties.

The telegram emphasizes Germany's desperation about the economic support the US was supplying to the Western allies, and perhaps shows that not renewing unrestricted submarine warfare was not as likely a "what if" as its inclusion here might imply.

France was really on the ropes by 1917 though, as the mutinies showed. Without direct US intervention, it's anyone's guess whether the war would have ended with an exhausted cease fire, or whether France or Germany would have collapsed first. Absent a 1918 German offensive, my money would be on Germany holding out…

I'm not sure a thorough ass-kicking of Austria-Hungary by Russia would have been acceptable to Germany even if it had generally considered Austria-Hungary a rival at the time, simply because of how massively Russia's power could have been extended in such a case. Austria-Hungary might well have simply backed down in…

Whether or not Britain would eventually have joined the war if Belgium hadn't been invaded, even a delay might have been enough for France to go over the brink. I'm not sure how the 1914 campaign might have gone if Germany had attacked on a narrower front, but it seems like a greater concentration of force on both…

I think that lead picture has misleading perspective too. The hand could easily be a foot or more behind the spider, making the spider look much larger in comparison (much like the most widely circulated "camel spider" photo). I doubt the spider pictured is even a full foot across.

Thermite technically contains iron. The aluminum powder-based dope used on the Hindenburg's fabric was actually more similar to the fuel used in the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters.

Unfortunately, the .gif can't capture his sheepish "That's disgusting" punchline.

The big question for me is, why the hell would a predator go to Riverdale? I thought part of the point of their "hunting" was to go to war-zones, or at least high-crime areas, where the hunt is at least somewhat challenging. They don't seem to eat humans, so it's really all about the trophy and the challenge for them.

Just pretend it's a Polish accent. A free-Polish paratrooper's insignia would have been a little different, but close enough. And it's got to be a better Polish accent than Gene Hackman's in A Bridge Too Far.

You're right about the SA2 batteries, and I'm pretty sure that it's still a common arrangement for fixed surface-to-air missile bases, with a launcher facing in the direction of each "point" for optimum coverage.

I'm really not sure I buy a substantive change here. Firstly, I don't see ISIS/L as doing that well in terms of propaganda at all. Sure they're finding an audience, but overall they seem like the most universally reviled group (even in comparison to al Qaeda and other Islamist groups) to come along the last 50 years.…

Return of the Jedi's problem isn't with the concept, but rather the depiction. Stormtroopers being vulnerable to thrown rocks and bludgeons crosses the threshold of silly, and removes the last possible justification for their bothering to wear armor that doesn't seem to protect them from anything (The movie's actual…