In honor of Veterans Day, mental_floss has a heartwarming round-up of super excited dogs greeting soldiers returning home.

via Boing Boing

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guest post by Burstein!

The great folks over at Boing Boing Video and guest-host Todd Lappin recently went on an epic exploration of one of the world’s largest personal collections of military vehicles. The Military Vehicle Technology Foundation is a museum of tanks, armored cars, and all sorts of things that defy simple classification. The majority of the collection, if not all of it, came from Jacques Littlefield, a self made millionaire that had good taste in rides.

Mr. Littlefield’s interest in tanks was largely technical, not based on their military or historical significance. His collection was not open to the public, but he gave private tours to about 4,000 historians, Boy Scouts, journalists and veterans a year.

“There’s nothing like it,” said Hans Halberstadt of San Jose, an author of several military history books who frequently brought fellow historians to see Mr. Littlefield’s collection. “He gathered these machines and made them available for study. And he was brilliant at understanding how they worked. I really respected him.”

By studying tanks, historians and engineers can learn how various designs worked under differing battle conditions and how each model balanced mobility, armor and fire power, Halberstadt said.

Jacques has recently shuffled off his mortal coil, but his passion and collection lives on. While he left them a hefty endowment, they do accept public support and will arrange tours for the interested.

Finally, this video was made possible through Dorkbot SF organizer Karen Marcelo, who reminds us that June 2009 is the 7th anniversary of Dorkbot SF! Jon Sarriugarte is hosting a big 7th Anniversary Party on June 20th, 2009, featuring more oil punk than you can shake a dipstick at.

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Nifer Fahrion created a lovely pink merino wool hand grenade that she calls “Love is a BattleField”. It recently won 2nd place in Craft Magazine’s Valentine’s Day Project Contest.

The “Love is a Battlefield” Hand Grenade is 1:1 scale replica of a real pineapple grenade. It is a needlefelted sculpture made of solid hot pink merino wool throughout.

photo by Nifer Fahrion / NifNaks

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guest post by John Law

Church of the Sub-Genius High Priest (REALLY high!) and KPFA radio personality Doug Wellman or “Puzzling Evidence” as he’s known of to cultists and the power elite, has been posting edited videos from his backlog of tens of thousands of hours of the weirdest and most ridiculous events to take place in the Bay Area and Beyond from the last 25 years.

Doug has been with Subgenius since the halcyon days of the early 80’s. Among his exploits in intensive voyeurism, surreal tourism and enigmatic conspiracies, Doug has, among other notable accomplishments, killed (allegedly) Subgenius Prophet Bob Dobbs, inspired David Byrne to write the song “Puzzling Evidence,” been accused of being a Oakland Police Intelligence officer by a crazed anarchist lawyer and survived a combat tour of Viet Nam as a naval officer.

Doug and his fellow Subgenius potentate Dr. Howlin Owl Robins have hosted the Puzzling Evidence Radio Show for twenty years. Joined by Subgenius co-founder Philo Drummond in recent years, this show is now (I believe) the longest running show on the venerable lefty station as well as being the most confusing and the least dogmatic.

Doug was at the 1st and 2nd How Berkeley Can You Be Parade “PETA (People Eatin’ Them Animals” float/performance and recorded the tense exchanges between the Meat People and protestors.

This event (staged three years in a row for the family friendly Berkeley parade) was comprised of various “meat providers” such as Steven King’s Carrie White, Texas Chainsaw Massacres Leatherface , Farmer Vincent from Motel Hell and others. Our very own anti-meat protestors the “Veget-Aryans” were there with bullhorns decrying the offense of edible flesh. Badly burned BBQ and fresh GPC cigarettes were tossed out to the throngs of aging Berkeley hippies and their tie-dye wearing progeny (“…here kid, first smokes free!”) My favorite part was when two 15 year old Berkeley High debutants poked at one of the massive pigheads and, in true bewilderment asked: “How did you make these things???”

Doug shot one of the last large group ascents of the Bay Bridge prior to Homeland Security making it almost impossible to climb bridges post 9-11.

Doug recorded some interesting moments at Burning Man during the apocalyptic 1996 event. Watch for the “official” radio call response to an unsanctioned “protest” of the burn!

Doug was there to record for posterity Dick Cheney’s final hurrah in San Francisco:

If you want to know what young officers recently graduated from their respective academies (Naval, West Point, set) were doing on the tax payers dime as the Viet Nam War wound down in the early 70’s look no further than here.

Some other winners are:

• Extra Action Marching Band at Pt. Arena’s 100th anniversary
• The band Abu Ghraib playing after the ’08 St. Stupid’s Parade
• Cyclecide at ace Auto

There’s tons of St. Stupid, Ask Dr. Hal, Extra Action and rare Subgenius edits from another time and another place…….

Check them all out on the Puzzling Evidence TV YouTube channel.

photo by Scott Beale

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“Food Fight” is a fantastic stop motion animated short film by Stefan Nadelman (Tourist Pictures) that depicts the history of modern warfare in the form of food.

Food Fight is an abridged history of war, from World War II to present day, told through the foods of the countries in conflict. Watch as traditional comestibles slug it out for world domination in this chronologically re-enacted smorgasbord of aggression.

Here’s a cheat sheet showing what the various food in the film represents.

via Drawn! & Boing Boing TV

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