This just in: The Allies should have used candy apples to bomb Germany in WW2.

http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/19/nchurc19.xml

"Mr. Prime Minister! The Germans have invaded Poland and are threatening to invade England! What should we do?"

"Someone, get me Ghandi on the hotline, fast. He's the only one who can save us now."

Sir sir! The germans are slaughtering our troops and blowing all out planes out of the sky during these day raids!

KEEP DOING THEM! We can't let a single german civilian get hurt! THINK OF THE HISTORY BOOKS!

And I suppose the Nazis were nice guys for bombing the crap out of London....

Oh yeah, and there was that whole Holocaust thing, but... you know... we'll just kinda forget about that.

This is really a big case of the pot calling the kettle black. Tell you what, I say England apologizes to Germany as soon as Germany pays reparations to the families of every Jew killed. Sounds fair to me.

Now granted, Bomber Harris was a murdering bastard for hitting a non-strategic, civilian target. But still, pot, kettle, yeah. The raid on Dresden killed about 10x as many Germans as Britons killed by the entire Nazi bombing campaign over 6 years. To their credit, they only hit major production centres. It's even at the end of the day though, mindless slaughter wise. Plus what the fuck can you really do, 60 years later?

Use the magical dragonballs and wish everyone back to life?

Originally posted by Razer Wolf
Now granted, Bomber Harris was a murdering bastard for hitting a non-strategic, civilian target. But still, pot, kettle, yeah. The raid on Dresden killed about 10x as many Germans as Britons killed by the entire Nazi bombing campaign over 6 years. To their credit, they only hit major production centres. It's even at the end of the day though, mindless slaughter wise. Plus what the fuck can you really do, 60 years later?

I know this sounds rediculously heartless, but IT'S FREAKING WAR. Bad shit happens, good people die. It really sucks, but if there's gonna be a war, this WILL happen, it's unavoidable. And it's not like this was a vietname type thing where people were going "should we even be fighting this war?" there was a psycho leading an army psychos murdering thousands of innocents for no reason, and trying to take over the whole freaking world.

Plus, it was even less avoidable in the 40's, when bombs consisted of "wait untill our plane is over the right spot, then drop the things, and hope they land where we want them to". When that's the best you can do, people are gonna die. It's not like they had remote-control, laser guided mavericks back then.

The people who feel that Germany was a victim of WWII needs to be pissed at the Nazis, who made their country looked bad and forced the hand of the rest of the world.

I say, slap Germany in the face and tell them to grow up.

Originally posted by TheGamemaster
IT'S FREAKING WAR. Bad shit happens, good people die. It really sucks, but if there's gonna be a war, this WILL happen, it's unavoidable.

Yes, it was war, but it was avoidable. We went after a civilian population centre. We could have just not. It didn't help us win the war, it was just revenge. Which in the end just brings shame to us all. I'm patriotic, but something like that just aint British at all.

the german raids on london were quite contrary to hitler's policy during the war. he was adamant that british cities do not be bombed- some think for fear of retribution, others attribute it to the "respect" he seemed to have for the british. either way, german bombing of london resulted in a daring counter attack that struck berlin... the germans intensified their bombing of british cities in return, which could have been their biggest blunder during thebattle of britain, because it took the pressure off of the previous targets- allied airfields.

now- the issue with daylight bombing was that there was no fighter planes in existence that carried enough fuel to escort the bomber formations all the way to their targets and back. the germans were staging their sorties from french airfields, while the british had to fly all the way from england to germany and back. so, the allied fighters would escort the bombers as far as they could, and then they'd turn back. the german fighters would tear into the tightly packed bomber formations all the way to their targets, and all the way back, until allied planes resumed their escort. much later, this problem would be solved by the introduction of the american P-51 mustang, which carried external fuel tanks under its wings that could be jettisoned once they were empty or when engaging in combat- however, this was mostly a moot point by the time the americans entered the war.

so, with no way to reliably get the bombers to german targets in daylight, the british had to bomb at night. this is before radar, which the british and americans were developing, and so night sorties meant the bombers were much harder to spot. it also meant it was harder for the bombers to navigate to their targets, and to hit their targets... althoughi don't think their targets were intentionally civilian population centres- it's just that where there are factories, there tend to be civilians. and striking at the germany industrial capabilites truly was britain's only method of attacking germany for the entire battle of britain.

i think, however, that the focus of the article is on the so-called "terror bombing" - the most notable example was the firebombing of dresden, a city of mostly wooden structures. allied bombers indiscriminantly set the city ablaze night after night...

even so, i'd have to say the british attacks were simply another horror of a war that saw its share of horrors... i'd say it pales in comparision to the decision to bomb not one but two japanese cities with atomic weapons...

most interesting, however, is that germany might finally be willing to turn a critical eye to the war. certainly, there are reasons that they have the strictest anti-nazi laws in the world, but at the same time, that same zealous desire to separate themselves from the stigma of adolf hitler has for too long stifled their intellectual investigation into that era of german history..

It makes you wonder though how close the Germans were to creating a nuclear bomb of their own and what might have happened.

http://tms.physics.lsa.umich.edu/214/other/news/010602BohrLetterTimes.html

From an intellectual historical point of view I suppose that it's about time that Germany finally started contributing their side of the story (as obviously the history we read is rather one-sided) but calling Winston Churchill a war criminal goes a little far... Many countries involved in World War II had their share of atrocities.

Hi! Welcome to war! Bad, bad shit is going to happen while you are engaged in war. If you would like bad shit to not happen, please disengage from war immediately, otherwise, shut your goddamn mouth.

well, i think i can see the point about some things that *can* be avoided in war... all the nations who signed the geneva convention set out a list of rules for how prisoners of war should be treated... most pilots in world war 1 and 2 wouldn't take out parachuting pilots... most of the first world nations also have "outlawed" the use of chemical and biological weapons... nuclear weapons are pretty highly frowned upon as well...

the other thing i wanted to mention was that winston churchill was, among many thinks, a pretty funny guy, and a lot of those quotes seem to be taken out of context... of all the things he wass or might have been, i'm pretty sure that "war criminal" is not one of them

Churchhill had a warrior's spirit. He's one of my all-time favorite historical figures. When I said "unavoidable" I was talking about the war. We couldn't sit back and watch what the Nazis were doing any longer. We probably shouldn't have sat back as long as we did. And though I know only slightly more about history than those people that Jay Leno makes fun of, I find it hard to believe that England INTENTIONALLY blew up civilians for no reason. It sounds to me like there were strategic objectives, and there just happened to be civilians living near those objectives. Like I said, they didn't exactly have laser-guided missles back then, so it was hard to control exactly what you damaged.

In other news, look at Prae, being all like...smart and junk.

d00d.

It's the goatee. As we all know, facial hair is his secret weapon. I mean, look at kris (http://www.nightlightpress.com).

Ironically my real name is Kris too. :)

ah but do you have a goatee? :beard:

or, perhaps, a CONTINUALLY GROWING GOATEE THAT MAKES THE WORLD FEAR AND RESPECT YOU?!?! ONE THAT CAUSES PEOPLE TO THINK THAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY YOUR ***EVIL TWIN*** ?!!?

http://www.licensetochill.ca/eviltwin.jpg
evil twin cam

:devil:

Dear Prae,
Please give up on this lineage thing and make us a new Ultima Game.

HAH! He does look like that Lord British guy!!! /me falls off chair laughing..

Originally posted by praet0rian
ah but do you have a goatee? :beard:

or, perhaps, a CONTINUALLY GROWING GOATEE THAT MAKES THE WORLD FEAR AND RESPECT YOU?!?! ONE THAT CAUSES PEOPLE TO THINK THAT YOU'RE ACTUALLY YOUR ***EVIL TWIN*** ?!!?


Like that Star Trek episode with Spock and Evil Spock!

Speaking of which I'm working on that goatee thing... I'm probably already evil enough though. Unfortunately I just tend to look like a hippie when I grow my beard...

You know, I think prae's finall;y taken that final step towards complete unbridled insanity

The only thing I know about Winston Churchill was that he was horrible at arithmetic. In fact, when appointed Minister of Finance he singlehandedly managed to plunge Britain into the great depression five years earlier than any other country, due to ignoring economic advice. In fact, he ignored basic frailties in the british economy and artificially held up the value of the pound as a point of prestige -- causing millions to suffer for 10 years. He's not as great as some people think. He absolutely sucks at anything related to finance.

I swear to God all some people can remember about anyone in a leadership position is how they handled money. So he wasn't a financial wizzard. He had a warriors spirit. I respect that.

Given that our entire economy (and therefore life) is gauged by the financial system it rests on, if a leader does a bad job managing a country's monetary system, he is a bad leader.

Just because economical ignoramuses such as Churchill and Dubya can use war and delusions of patriotism to cover up the fact that they're plunging a country into financial ruin doesn't mean they were (or are) good leaders.

Churchill had the good fortune to have a clear and truly dangerous enemy, but even with that victory under his belt he didn't last too long as PM of England after the war ended, did he?

That's why Bush is so lucky, he can draw the 'War on Terrorism' out for as long as he wants, and use it as license to DO whatever he wants. It's every Republican's dream.

Yeah Churchill was a good political wartime leader despite the fact that he was terrible at finances.


I get the sense that George Bush doesn't actually do anything beyond being a powerful symbol or puppet for the Republican party. Everything he does and says seems to be carefully scripted and managed....like he doesn't ever do anything by himself.

Americans need a popular third party.... Something midway between the far right Republicans and the liberal leftist Democrats.

<political rant begins>
I tend to like the Democrats more (not that it really matters because I'm Canadian but their political leanings tend to be closer to that of Canadians than the Republicans). But they really didn't plan too well for what they'd do after Clinton left office beyond throwing support behind Gore. Now that they've lost the election they seem to be essentially leaderless and they're squabbling over it. Out of the people who would be front runners there's Gore (who is debating on whether or not to make another election run in a couple years) and there's Hilary Clinton (who despite not having the following that Gore has is a Senator of prominance and seems to be widely respected within her party but brings with her any baggage tied to the former administration). Other than that it seems to be a bunch of no-namers and also-rans(like Lieberman (/me shudders). In the past couple years the Democrats have lost quite a bit having lost the election and now lost control of the Senate.


There's essentially now no moderation to the Bush Administration. They can just push through whatever legislation they want with their majority with the Democrats just being a powerless token opposition.

Personally I'm more in favour of a strong three party system. You have two powerful parties that represent the right and left extremes and then you have one moderately powerful third party that sits in the middle or at least doesn't lean too far towards either end that provides the balancing effect. Any more than three parties and you get into the coalition governments that are popular in Europe but that are always falling apart. Representation is more even (and argueably more fair) in these countries due to Proportional Representation voting systems and you avoid the geographical-based (instead of population-based) voting blocks that you get here in North America. For example Gore would be President now instead of Bush because he actually won the popular vote. So in summary I believe the ideal democratic political system to be a three party based system based around some kind of Proportial Representation voting system that only allows for three powerful parties and no coalition governments. The only problem I've noticed with this idea is that governments might end up being minority governments and that could cause a lot of problems. I'm still thinking about that one....

<political rant ends>

Yeah, at our last election there was a major Republican landslide. Some kid (well,an 18 year old kid) at work voted a straight Republican ticket. It doesn't bother me if you vote for the representative that you think shares your ideals and goals, but I have never liked the idea of straight-party voting.

The ideal system would be one where an artificial intelligence program is created to produce solutions to any given problem that would be the most beneficial to the most people. Then, an elected legislature could vote on whether or not to implement those solutions.

Allowing stupid corruptable humans to write our laws is what got us into the shithole we're in, and it'll take the cold logic of a machine to dig us out.

Plus, having a robot as our leader would be SO cool.

Until said Artificial Intelligence decides that puny humans are expendible and shouldn't be the dominant life form on earth. Haven't you seen the Terminator and the Matrix?

>>>Given that our entire economy (and therefore life) is gauged by the financial system it rests on, if a leader does a bad job managing a country's monetary system, he is a bad leader.

Hardly. I'd rather be dirt poor and ethical than rich and morally bankrupt. Likewise, I'd rather have a leader I could at least respect than someone who's actions make me ashamed of being in anyway even remotely associated with him.

>>>Just because economical ignoramuses such as Churchill and Dubya can use war and delusions of patriotism to cover up the fact that they're plunging a country into financial ruin doesn't mean they were (or are) good leaders.

That’s right. That’s what Bush is doing. Because the madman who might be stock-piling nukes and chemical weapons has nothing to do with it.

And Churchill? What the hell did England’s finances have to do with WWII?

>>>Churchill had the good fortune to have a clear and truly dangerous enemy, but even with that victory under his belt he didn't last too long as PM of England after the war ended, did he?

I have no idea. I don’t follow England’s history. The man was, at heart, a warrior, not an accountant.

Rune:
>>>I get the sense that George Bush doesn't actually do anything beyond being a powerful symbol or puppet for the Republican party. Everything he does and says seems to be carefully scripted and managed....like he doesn't ever do anything by himself.

Oh, what, and Clinton DIDN’T fit that description? Come on, he’s a politician. They suck. Welcome to life.
Oh, wait, Clinton DID do something for himself.
Her name was Monica. She was chubby.

>>>Americans need a popular third party.... Something midway between the far right Republicans and the liberal leftist Democrats.

Holy crap, is this true. Seriously. Last election, just about everybody I know answered the “who are you going to vote for” question the same way “candidate X, but only because I hate the other one more”. I didn’t trust bush any farther than I could through a Buick. But I hated Gore more. Bush has grown on me, though. He’s still not my idea of the ideal president, and I think his father was better, but I also think that people are kinda overly critical of him.

>>>Personally I'm more in favour of a strong three party system. You have two powerful parties that represent the right and left extremes and then you have one moderately powerful third party that sits in the middle or at least doesn't lean too far towards either end that provides the balancing effect.

Sounds good. You do, know, of course, that there’s nothing stopping anyone from FORMING a third party, aside from the difficult of doing so. There’s no law or anything. Technically, there WAS a third party last election, the green party. It just really sucked. From what I hear they were all damn, dirty hippies. Or part gorilla. Or something, I dunno.

My big thing is why the hell do we still have an electoral college? I mean, these days we could very easily go by the popular vote. You know, everyone complains that Gore actually won the election, but I’m pretty sure that Bush Sr. won the popular vote his second term, but no one complains about that. I think it’s really more that democrats aren’t pissed that the popular vote was ignored as much as they are that their candidate loss. I sincerely doubt they’d be HALF as bothered if thing were turned around and bush had won the popular vote and lost the electoral.

tate :
>>>It doesn't bother me if you vote for the representative that you think shares your ideals and goals, but I have never liked the idea of straight-party voting.

Agreed.

>>>Plus, having a robot as our leader would be SO cool.

Hmmmmm, SOMEBODY voted for Gore.

TheGamemaster said:

Holy crap, is this true. Seriously. Last election, ... Gore ... Bush...

You do realize that there was an election last month.

Yes, I do. However, since we were talking about presidents, I figured everyone would understand I was talking about presidential elections.

well, what i could be bothered to read of that made sense...

Actually, Clinton worked on a few personal projects of his own (although, yes, he was also a puppet of the Democrats) involving education and other social programs.

As for Dubya, I agree that Saddam should be ousted, I just have trouble trusting the people doing it. Especially since most of them stand to gain considerably from it. Hell, the oil reserves of Iraq have already been divided up among Big Oil.

Yes, Clinton DID work on a few personal projects, I forgot. There was also Paula Jones and those other two whos names I can't remember.

Strange how America seems to prosper the most under presidents who screw around on their wives...

Exactly... you ought to be urging them to screw around more! When they do the economy's always in great shape and everyone seems to like the President...

hmm okay so i'm guessing none of you have ever studied even beginning macro-economics..
(its been a few years for me even so i can't be all technical)...
there is basically this economic wave.. one president will have a depressed economy and have to work with a budget to save it, then the next president usually just gets to ride out the economic upturn provided by the previous president... i mean its not always consistently from one president to the next, but we're talking about presidents so i thought that would be a good context to put it in..

That may be so, but in this case it's the economic policies implemented by Clinton that strengthened the american economy, not those of Bush or Reagan.

A good example of what you're talking about happened here in Canada. The Tory party started up a plan to revitalize our economy, but it unfortunatly entailed doing a few things that pissed people off. As a direct result of this, they were voted out in the next election. Strangely enough, the Liberals (the winning party) were actually smart enough to realize that the policies of the Tories were solid and so kept them going (all the while telling the public that they were in the process of dismantling them).

Guess who took the credit when our economy boomed and we started having budget surpluses and all that other good shit...

"ALL HAIL THE GREAT AND MIGHTY CHRETIEN, FOR HE HAS BROUGHT YOU MUCH MONEY, AND HIS SHIT SMELLS LIKE PETUNIAS"

I dunno about the germans willingness to turn a critical eye towards the war. During the summer i went to poland, and while there visited a concentration camp. To get a tour of the camp you must first tell them where you are from. As they give germans and austrians different tours then everyone else.

I asked our guide why they did this, she said that the german people generally believe that the claims of the concentration camps are exagerated if even true. I hardly consider that to be a critical eye.

The first time my dad's new wife went to see it she witnessed a german family break down and start crying as they saw their grandfathers name as one of the SS officers who served there.

Personally i consider the daily news to be composed of people and ideas that are more to the left then france. And there is something wrong when you are more liberal then france.

Holy Religious Relics, Fanboy, it's Nolman! How the hell have you been?
hooly SHIT! it's been a LONG ass time since i've talked to ya...

i've been okay, school has been keeping me pretty busy, got the 3 days 3 final streak coming up.

so how are things going with you?

eww i feel ya nol (in a non-sexual way)..

i have 3 presentations, 2 massive final projects, a quiz, 6 finals, and web site for my internship... all by friday.. finals=hell

Ewww, Finals crunch time, that is one thing I don't miss about school! Nope, don't like politics, so don't wanna go there.