Well. That's something I wouldn't do.

Aptly named "Badass of the week" (and probably year, decade and century at this point...)

When asked by Southeast Asia Bureau reporter Rick Westhead why he risked his life to save his wife, he simply replied “She is very important for me” through his interpreter.

Well said.

Greatest obituary photo EVAR.

Kurt Albert, who died on September 27 aged 56, invented the “redpoint” or free style of climbing – in which the ascent is performed without technical aids.

Not a lot of people go out doing what they love.

I had no idea this even happened.

Amedeo Guillet, who died on June 16 aged 101, was the Italian officer who led the last cavalry charge faced by the British Army.

Early in 1941, following outstanding successes in the Western Desert, the British invasion of Mussolini's East African empire seemed to be going like clockwork.

But at daybreak on January 21, 250 horsemen erupted through the morning mist at Keru, cut through the 4/11th Sikhs, flanked the armoured cars of Skinner's Horse and then galloped straight towards British brigade headquarters and the 25-pound artillery of the Surrey and Sussex Yeomanry.

Wow.

Gerard van der Leun, of the blog American Digest, from time to time has a little feature he calls "something wonderful" when he comes across something, well, wonderful on the internet.

So in that spirit, Here's the Opera Company of Philadelphia flash mobbing the Reading Street Terminal Market on a recent Saturday.

Give them the bayonet.

Colonel Lewis L. Millett, an Army veteran of three wars who received the Medal of Honor for leading a rare bayonet charge up a hill in Korea, died Saturday in Loma Linda, Calif. He was 88.

The colonel was hard core. He would have been an interesting man to serve with.

This little bit of fluff seems to be making the rounds:



I am always slightly astonished at the lengths people will go through for a joke. But it's still pretty neat for all that.

The original, if anybody wants to compare.

(via Glenn Reynolds)

Best. Whiskey. Ad. Evar.

Good job there, Bobby.

(via American Digest)

Moonrise.

As American Digest notes: "Because we can".

Dead stick into the Hudson river.

I used to live on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Its pretty big, actually. But I wouldn't want to try to ditch an airliner into it.

This video on CNN shows the actual ditching, as captured by some security cameras.
(there's some audio too, of 911 calls, a couple of people astonished at what they have just seen).

The pilot, it turns out, is a safety expert. The Smoking Gun has managed to come up with his resume.

As the Smoking Gun said in its email: "All hail "Sully" Sullenberger, the hero of Flight 1549."