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Giant Predatory Worms Are Invading France (qz.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Quartz: In a Peer J study published on May 22, "Giant worms chez moi!" zoologist Jean-Lou Justine of the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, entomologist colleagues, and Pierre Gros, outline a discovery that "highlights an unexpected blind spot of scientists and authorities facing an invasion by conspicuous large invasive animals." About 100 citizen scientists ultimately contributed to the assessment of this alien invasion, identifying five giant predatory worm species in France that grow up to 10 inches long. The study relied on contributors' worm sightings, reported "mainly by email, sometimes by telephone." Researchers requested photographs and details about locality. In 2013, the Washington Post reports, "a group of terrorized kindergartners claimed they saw a mass of writhing snakes in their play field." These were giant flatworms! The study concludes that the alien creatures appear to reproduce asexually. They prey on other, smaller earthworms, stunning them with toxins. "The planarian also produces secretions from its headplate and body that adhere it to the prey, despite often sudden violent movements of the latter during this stage of capture," researcher note. In other words, the hammerheads produce a substance that allows them to stick to victims while killing them. The study points out that invasive alien flatworms have been spotted in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Brazil, and Australia. But the five species of hammerhead flatworms invading France are giants, growing up to 27 centimeters.
Worms however, I'm not certain.
That place has changed a LOT in the last decade. Very, very glad to not be a Frenchman about now.
A few herbs and spices, feature as a delicacy problem solved.
White flags broke out across the country.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It might be the solution to their problem...
Get a french chief, give him Armagnac, and then tell him that the worm tastes just like ortolan bunting.
Issue solved.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... Here in Victoria they can grow up to 3 metres in length. 27cm worms are runts.
But I did see Worm Sign.
The worm is the spice the spice is the worm!
Let me know when these little guys get big enough to ride.
Tentacle porn? Bah! I give you giant predatory hammerhead earthworm porn. Of course, the "big one" they found is the runt of the family.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
The French were weakened by WWI, but had rebuilt quite a bit. The German army had taken heavy damage from the invasion of Poland and other battles. Hitler's top military commanders told him they couldn't invade Belgium and France until they had about two years to rebuild their strength. By the numbers, the two sides were roughly matched in the Battle of France:
Germany: 141 divisions
7,378 guns
2,445 tanks
5,638 aircraft
3,350,000 troops
Allies: 144 divisions
13,974 guns
3,383â"4,071 French tanks
2,935 aircraft
3,300,000 troops
The French expected a German assault would be much slower, with Belgian resistance giving the French time to prepare before the German army could advance through Belgium to France. In fact, the Luftwaffe were able to defeat Belgium very quickly, so things were not going the way French leaders expected when Germany was suddenly near their border. Since things weren't going according to plan, there was confusion and disorder in the French military in the first few days. Some French commanders and soldiers fought the best they could, without much national leadership.
Rather than taking charge and getting a new plan organized and in action, two days after the Germans attacked French prime minister Paul Reynaud called Winston Churchill and said "we have been defeated". The Germans had barely entered France when Reynaud gave up. Shortly afterward, the French leadership fled the country. After the leadership fled, the individual military units didn't (couldn't?) mount an effective defense acting separately.
The French people as a culture may not necessarily be cowards, but certainly Prime Minister Reynaud and other leaders behaved very cowardly and ineffectively.
In contrast, even after France was in fact occupied by the Nazis, Charles De Gaul refused to give up, urging resistance by individual French people within the occupied territory and organizing units of French people from outside France to join the allies in a campaign to liberate France from the Germans. Had de Gaulle been Prime Minister rather than Reynaud, the history of WW2 might have been very different, and the French might have a very different reputation today.
Oak tree caterpillars are a big nuisance this year in the Palo Alto foothills above Silicon Valley. The fuzzy buggers fall out of the oak trees and try to hitch a ride on anyone standing nearby. Found one crawling up the wall in my office one morning.
Uh... no...that came out 17 years ago:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Tremors 6 came out a few few weeks ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So the next movie will be Tremors 7.
First global warming and now this.
I knew it! Arrakis IS Earth after all!
Wheres the Spice ?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
The French did a fair job in preventing Paris not getting bombed to chunky kibbles.
Pre-war Nazi Germany was basically Isis + perfect organization + highest standard high tech military and organizational skills + 80 million people. Losing out in a blitzkrieg to an opponent of that magnitude isn't all that shameful.
To emphasize: In Operation Paukenschlag the US captured a German Sub. They couldn't copy it because it was too high tech. That's how advanced German military was back then. It's only thanks to the all-out stupidity and lunacy of Hitler and his goons that Germany lost despite having the most effective military force at the time. Luckily. If Hitler had had his 7 senses about him, Europe would be Nazi territory today. What happened though was that the Germans willingly went to serve as a tool for the globally extended suicide of a madman.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
It's Tremors. Where is Kevin Bacon when you need him?
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Do Animals Go To War?
In the brutal animal kingdom, chimpanzees gang up to expand territory and ants raid other colonies to take slaves.
Centipede was a far superior game, but that's just my opinion.
If I understand correctly, these invasive species feed on native earthworms.
If I remember correctly, earthworms have a relevant role in the conservation of top soil.
Will these invasive species have an impact on the conservation of top soil?
In the long run we are all dead. - John Maynard Keynes (1883 - 1946)
They either need to be 100 feet long.... or Earthworm Jim.
YOU RACISTS!
The French were weakened by WWI, but had rebuilt quite a bit. The German army had taken heavy damage from the invasion of Poland and other battles. Hitler's top military commanders told him they couldn't invade Belgium and France until they had about two years to rebuild their strength. By the numbers, the two sides were roughly matched in the Battle of France:
Germany: 141 divisions
7,378 guns
2,445 tanks
5,638 aircraft
3,350,000 troops
Allies: 144 divisions
13,974 guns
3,383â"4,071 French tanks
2,935 aircraft
3,300,000 troops
The French expected a German assault would be much slower, with Belgian resistance giving the French time to prepare before the German army could advance through Belgium to France. In fact, the Luftwaffe were able to defeat Belgium very quickly, so things were not going the way French leaders expected when Germany was suddenly near their border. Since things weren't going according to plan, there was confusion and disorder in the French military in the first few days. Some French commanders and soldiers fought the best they could, without much national leadership.
France's problem is that most of that equipment was horribly outdated. The Germans had built their tanks and aircraft from completely new designs, France and the UK followed WWI tank doctrines of scout tanks and heavy infantry tanks designed to support an infantry advance. So their heavy tanks often didn't have guns capable of dealing with armour and were definitely not fast enough to go toe to toe with German Panzers. It was the same with naval forces, much of the Royal Navy dated from WWI.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
It's them Musworms :-D
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
It is time for all biologists to pay for a century of torturing planaria! Go forth legions of wormy vengeance!
The French refused to kowtow to the USA after WWII. While the British agreed to major concessions, including freeing it's colonies, the French did not. In fact, the USA got dragged into VietNam by de Gaulle's threat to ally with the Soviet Union if we didn't back them up in their attempt to re-acquire French Indochina.
Have gnu, will travel.
and the French might have a very different reputation today.
That reputation only exists in the USA. And it was popularized after the French refused to invade Iraq. Something the USA now acknowledges as a big mistake (waste of money, no WMD found).
Where are these not invasive?
that french reputation existed before before US invaded Iraq. And was also quite popular in UK, not just the US.
But yes, the leadership of France did create the stigma, not the front linemen.
The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions that I wish it to be always kept alive
The German army had taken heavy damage from the invasion of Poland
No they/we did not. Poland attacked the german tanks with cavalry and lances.
I don't know if they had a single tank or fight ready plane (as in a plane with weapons and not only scout plane).
The Germans had barely entered France when Reynaud gave up.
That is nonsense.
In contrast, even after France was in fact occupied by the Nazis,
Only north France was occupied. South France was under reign by the Vichy Government. They collaborated with Germany in some way.
and the French might have a very different reputation today. ...
In the US
No one in Europe, and the least the French, care what reputation France has in the US.
France is the center of Europe, cultural, in spirit, educational, and most certainly in food and wine. And besides the idiotic UK who are leaving, they have the finest armed forces in Europe. They have a superb reputation. Not at last due to 'la Resistance'. However they could have handled Vietnam and the rest of Indochina better and not drop nukes in north Africa.
De Gaulle was an asshole, he lost Algeria which probably would now be a kind of "part of France", and most certainly part of the EU. Why? Because he did not want to give them voting rights!
Like the US messed up Asia, and together with the Brits, the middle east, he messed up north Africa. Gaddafi in Lybia probably hat never made anything interesting if De Gaulle.
If de Gaulle had not turned out into a power hungry semi dictator, the world would be a different place.
But alas, that has nothing to do with the French's reputation in the rest of Europe.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
They didn't have that reputation in the US either, when I was a child. I suspect that a bunch of people embarrassed by Vietnam feel the need to feel superior, and they can say "at least we weren't conquered, so we're better". That's just a wild guess, though, as I didn't notice when the reputation began changing.
Another possibility is that it could be based on some movie that I never saw. There are probably other possibilities. It's worth noticing that the word partisan was common terminology before the word guerrilla. I first heard it used to describe members of the French underground. I don't know quite when it went out of general usage.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Hitler's invasion of Poland was achieved with Soviet help. Poland had a reasonable army, Germany had only recently started to rearm. But Stalin wanted the Baltic states and east Poland, and Hitler gave them to him. Without Stalin, the war with Poland would have been difficult, particularly with an attack from France. With Soviet help, it was hopeless for the Poles.
Hitler's invasion of France was reckless, and opposed by many of his generals. The Maginot line was very strong, and did its job of securing most of the border. Belgium was also fairly strong, which had resulted in Germany failing in WW one. Attempting to get through the Ardenne was also reckless, as a relatively small French force would have stopped them. At one point there was a huge traffic jam that would have been totally vulnerable to air attack.
But as it turned out, Hitler got lucky, over and over again, largely due to incompetence of his opponents. The massive Belgium fort Eben Emael fell to a few commanders in gliders which should have been easily stopped. The French ignored intelligence about the penetration of the Ardenne, and sent no troops. And then they sent all their troops to Belgium far too early. One mistake after another. It was not easy for France to lose that war.
In the USA, the republicans wanted to keep the US out of all wars. They would have let Britain fall under the joint force of Germany and the USSR. Perl harbor was fortunate.
Huge Soviet losses were largely due to Stalin himself. First he invaded Finland which showed Hitler how incompetent his army was after Stalin had killed all his own generals. Then during the first year, that incompetence let Hitler easily defeat much more numerous soviet troops. And being utterly ruthless, Stalin did not care about soviet deaths at all. E.g. he refused to evacuate civilians out of Stalingrad.
Now, here is the big question for our time:-
What will we do when China invades Taiwan?
Xi Jinping is just as much an absolute dictator as Hitler, although much more reserved.
"Lances against tanks" was German propaganda. In reality cavalry was mostly used for recon and disrupting supply lines by hit-and-run attacks with machine guns and anti-tank rifles by both sides. Polish cavalry was more numerous and more effective (due to better training and home-turf advantage), but German wasn't anything to spit on too.
What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
that french reputation existed before before US invaded Iraq. And was also quite popular in UK, not just the US.
You can maybe add the UK to that list but it's definitely not a world-wide thing.
Germany invades Poland and conquers it in 5 weeks. France and England largely stood by and did nothing, except for a small operation called the Saar Offensive, which officially began the Phoney War. This offensive was so light that it didn't even tickle Germany. The USSR (on friendly terms with Germany at this point) invaded Finland, and then Germany invaded Denmark and Norway. This caused France to get cold feet, so they picked up what meager forces they sent and ran home.
That is a very brief summary of what happened, and you'll find it to be accurate if you research it.
It's not particularly accurate. Neither Britain nor France had the ability to project power that could seriously threaten Germany at that point. As much as anything it was a question of logistics and preparation. Poland was simply too far away. The French could have attacked Germany on the shared border, but they didn't have the logistical capability to sustain the offence long enough to make a military difference. Had they attacked in strength anyway, it could easily have made a political difference, but a purely military solution was not sustainable.
The real world is not a computer game or a board game like A&A - real armies have to deal with logistics. Logistics in warfare is a much more complex subject than most people suspect - and modern warfare makes matters far tougher. For example, ammunition gets used up a lot faster, and you also need to supply gasoline, lubricants, and spare parts. Also, in addition to feeding combatants, you need to feed all the people taking care of the equipment. Just the sheer size of modern armies is a huge logistical challenge (many of the accounts by ancient historians of huge armies are provably impossible - they just made up the numbers - only the "modern" world could really support large armies, and then only with great difficulty). You might try looking at Martin van Creveld's book "Supplying War" for an introduction to this topic.
It would take the British (and Americans) years to develop the specialized equipment needed to land a large army in a contested amphibious assault (let alone supply it). Nobody was prepared to do that in 1940, so that wasn't an option.
The British had a strategic bomber force, but it wasn't ready for war. It would take years of combat experience before they would be able to project power on a strategic scale (and even then it's debatable how effective it was).
In short, neither Britain nor France had the capability to directly help Poland in any meaningful way - and it would take years of work and real combat experience to develop that capability. The Soviet Union invading Poland from the other side (16 days after the Germans invaded) ensured that Poland had no chance at all.
In spite of France having a large and well armed and prepared Army (which they never tried to use to break Polish invasion,) they surrendered in 6 weeks.
The French Army was well prepared for a defensive war (involving relatively fixed lines) by WW1 standards. There were lots of problems with respect to WW2 standards. As mentioned above, they didn't have sufficient logistical capability for a sustained offence.
On the defence, the professional French forces fought quite well, and generally stopped the Germans cold in their sectors. The big breakthrough happened in a supposedly quiet sector that was manned by reservists, not professionals. They were simply overwhelmed by the German Air Force (Luftwaffe), which was effectively being used as a mobile artillery force, in combination with German ground forces. This allowed the Germans to get behind the main French and British forces and led to disaster.
The doctrine of the regular French forces was not up to the task of handling modern warfare once they lost their defensive position: the Germans were ahead in this regard, and this seemingly made it impossible for France recover at that point (problems in political leadership prob