Youtube comments of Arthur Mosel (@arthurmosel808).

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  9. The actual shooter had been arrested more than six months before for carry a firearm illegally, since he was 15 at the time and previously convicted, and breaking and entry. Six months before the. Shoot; it was plea bargained down to trespass and the firearms charge dismissed despite previous arrests and convicts for gang related crimes, and given probation.. During the time before the shooting, he violated his probation but wasn't rearrested to serve his sentence. When the shooting took place; he was 16 and again in illegal possession of a fire arm for the same reason. He and the driver were out to retaliate for another gang shooting one of theirs. The park where the shooting took place was on the "turf" of the other gang and they saw a group of people and opened fire killing the young woman. Let's see, the police did their job arresting and charging him previously; however, the prosecutor and court system failed theirs by ignoring his record and firearms possession and dropping serious charges and giving him probation. The probation officials failed to request his arrest or he police didn't rearrest him; which I don't know. So an innocent young woman died not because of gun violence; but rather gang violence that to me was abetted by prosecutor and the courts. Violence in Chicago won't be eliminated by chasing guns and gun dealers alone; well intentioned but flawed beliefs allow people who despite their age are repeat offenders back on the streets without punishment. It will not be solved by politicians and elected officials who fail to crack down on gangs. A new night basketball program or some other boondoggle won't stop gangs, it will just provide a different location to hang out in and a new recruitment center.
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  35. Actually the problem started in the mid to late 60's when trying to socialy engineer an end to poverty and the ills of the ghettos, the Federal Government and civic activitsts tried to move ghetto dwellers out into better environments thinking that their environment caused the social ills. The Government took over unfinished houses in projects where the contractors were failing and Government loans were involved, selling them at below the market values of the home s arealdy owned in the projects. These sales were made to people without conc e rn to their ability to pay. The civic activists provided the first years costs. The end result people would move in for a year and then be unable to pay the mortgage and be replaced by a new family. The families didn't change and there were few jobs in the immediate areas since the people living their weren't employed in the area and were commuters. What did change was the crime rates which rose drastically. Areas that had experience little crime found major crimes occurring. Harvey and Markham were examples of this ill-advised plan. Instead of integration, the crime drove the original home owners out. They lost money as no one wanted to pay more for the existing homes ewhen the Government controlled ones cost less for the same house. As to crime, my parents left after at least to rapes (one an 80 year old woman) and the bodies of two foster care children were found buries in the crawl space of one these new families (they were still receiving money for them until someone figured out they were gone). The reason for the move was that I had two sisters (1 in grade school and 1 in high school), I was in college. They lost money on the deal which took them some time to recover from. Markham and Harvey today are both much changed, with high welfare and crime rates. They weren't the only suburbs destroyed this way, but two that I am familiar with. As I have said, moving people to effect change doesn't work, they take their behavior and beliefs with them; just as a person infected with a deadly bacteria or virus takes the disease with them when they flee the source of their infection.
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  39.  @DieselRamcharger  Sorry, about firearms, I own several and have for years; and none cave ever attacked me or anyone else. Shootings are conducted by people, not firearms. When plea bargains by local prosecutors drop firearms related charges routinely (Chicago's Kim Foxx who recently refused to charge anyone on either side because it was mutual conflict) you signal illegal use of firearms is condoned. Even if all firearms vanished tomorrow, violence world remain. There have mass injuries from knife and axe attacks in the PRC; recently an archer in Canada killed and injured 7 people; the UK and New Zealand have gone after knife sales. This is just as useless, because of my military duties I learned how many deadly things are available in almost every home if someone researches and wishes to do harm. So, drop the firearm nonsense and concentrate on criminals. As to the wall, how often was progress stymied by Congress (via funding) or lawsuits in front of friendly (mostly Democrat judges); yet then Wall was being built. Remember that was one of the first thing President Boden stopped, for months the Feds paid the contractors for doing nothing, and recently came to a settlement to end the contracts; leaving the materials piled to rust. Contrary to the Dems and leftists; President Trump didn't play dictator and ignore the courts, by the way our current President has played fast and loose ignoring the courts. Again unless you wanted him to act as a dictator, he couldn't try or jail Ms. Clinton. Remember the same people who lied about him in the DOJ protected her and the Bidens. Hunter anyone? So, as I suspect that I am actually dealing with an anti-law type pretending to equally damn both sides; try dealing in facts not talking points.
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  49. I suggest that a number of nations and groups within nations were purpisely omitted. For example, the Basque people in Spain. Several Native Merican tribes (which might explain in breedingix some states). Geography and difficulty in travel also explains inbreedingi. Some cases; again this is touched on in the video, deserts or mountainous terrain limiting travel and interaction between communities. Finally, while he specifically mentions first cousins; in other places he just mentions relatives who may be far enough removed as to present litgle risk. For example, some one marrying someone born to a couple who while related hsve no diect ties for a couple of generations. Lets say their grandfather's brother who married someone unrelated unrelated to either parent, his son married someone unrelate to ether parent and their son now marries the daughter of his grandfather's brother whose history is the same, i.e. all marriages are to unrelated people. By this point both of these off spring sould only share at most one eighth of their genes. Why at most, because just which genes are transmitted will vary between siblings, i.e. each brother while inheriting half his genes from his father may not have inherited the same genes. So two brothers sharing half of the genes from their father may not hsve inherited the same genes. The same applies to the grand daughter. So, while dangetous if it happens too often this one interaction has a far lower risk of issues, than first cousins even though they are distantly related. The risk goes up however as the population involved decreases, for example a severe neurological disorder affecting Eastern European Jews because of the ghetto system that was in effect there for generations (how much of this no longer is pertinent since that system was abandoned).
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  74. Actually maps of Japan from the beginning of the 1700s show all of Sakhalin and the island all the way to the Kamchatka Peninsula as well as locations on the coast of Siberia. Most of these were gradually lost during the next 150+ years. By 1875, it had lost all of those except the last half of Sakhalin and a few nearby islands with the Russians pushing toward those islands and Hokkaido; so a treaty was made ceding the last half of Sakhalin to protect those islands and Hokkaido. This video also ignores that Spain actually ruled Portugal during part of the period, and the very real concern was the Catholic Church. An embassy left Japan in the late 1500s and went around Spanish South America and saw what happened in Peru to the Incans. After they returned, the Japanese increased their opposition to Roman Catholicism (notice them continued to have limited ties with the Protestant Dutch). This ultimately led to outlawing contact with those nations following the Catholic Church. Initially, they also continued trade with England, who cut ties because it wasn't profitable and the Civil War in England; when they tried to restart it following the Stuart Restoration; however, due to the King's wife being Roman Catholic, they were banned. Is video left out a great deal of detail and fact that would have made it more accurate and infinitely more complex. There is a Japanese word "aite" (sp? Not working with my notes), it means both companion and opponent. This is like the history of Japan and the West, complex and not simple.
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  99. In point of fact, the first troops were formed in the late 1600's. If you check, the Madras Army stayed loyal, as did the Sikhs and Napalese. The major portion in of the rebellion was the. Bengal Army. This video skims the surface of a very complex state of affairs. The change in the nature of the British occupation were also played a role. Initially few British women came to India, so it was common for the British officers to have long term relationships with Indian women. These women served as a way for the officers to become aware of issues with their troops, as well, as helped the officers learn the language. This type of officer began to disappear after the Napoleonic Wars with increasing number of married officers (especially of senior rank) bringing their wives and families and unmarried officers in relationships was frowned on and the daughters and unmarried relations of those married officers increasingly married those unmarried officers, cutting off the earlier ties. Another thing not stated was that there were regular British Army units in India; however they and the European troops in the three Presidencies were a smal, fraction of the total force, something changed after the crown took over. That trouble started brewing was seen when troops refused to go to Burma in one of the early British-Burmese Wars (and yes I know the name has changed to Miramar). I left off the John Company's role in the opium trade which also heavily involved the Royal family, nobility and wealthy as well as the Crown government. This was disjointed and should have been put together better, but it does mention things ar least on the surface.
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  169.  @alibali1968  Victimhood is a poor excuse. Almost every ethic group has faced some degree of discrimination; and most worked through it in one or two generations. The original Jim Crow laws were based on a Minnesota law that was probably aimed at Scandinavian settlers who neither spoke nor read English. The Knownothing Party of the early 1800s was heavily aimed at Irish immigrants and in East Coast cities signs often read Irish and Blacks (probably a more offensive term was most common) need not apply were common. Irish were given menial and often dirty work, sound familiar. Germans were called Dutch and considered stupid (during WW 1, Germans were lynched if they spoke German. The Chinese and Japanese immigrants had it worse. Poverty is not a very good excuse either. My great grandfather came to this country as a child; married and died young. He left six sons and two daughters and a wife who never learned any English. The house was heated with coal scrounged from alone the rail road. Only the very youngest brother received college because of the older brothers. They started their own Iron works and all but one brother worked there (not much work during the depression). One brother became a supervisor for the electric company. Both sisters married and one's husband worked in the Iron works, while the other worked as a supervisor at another company. During the Depression, my grandfather and father (finished only 6th Grade) sold apples on the street to help make ends meet. My father finished a four years apprentice program and later a GED and was the outside foreman for the family company and later another one. Again my point is no one helped them and none turned to crime or abandoned the family. Poverty isn't a reason to fail, your response to it determines who fails. When my wife and I married, there were 17 states that had missagenatiopn law (despite the Supreme Court having ruled them unconstitutional a year earlier). She was an Asian foreign student in Mississippi, and we were denied a license there, and the Federal authorities recommended getting married in another state (so much for equal treatment,six months later they got a different couple where the ethnicities were different a through the courts in six weeks). Later a major commander heard a nun cover issues with marriages between Americans and women from a specific country; and thought it was great. He had the nun modify the presentation and give it throughout the command. As result, the IG had to go to every base to calm things down; because the only change she made was dropping the country name and inserting Asian which than made the presentation offense to almost everyone including female Ametican officers. When several of us mentioned this at a wing staff meeting, the base EOT officer said programs against racism only applied to Blacks (he won the command EOT Officer of the Year Award that year). It resembles the line from "Animal Farm" where a sign was changed from all animals are equal to some animals are more equal. This kind of selective response to the same problem doesn't help anyone. More specifically, unequal treatment of criminality by schools and civilian courts leads to apparent disproportionate punishments. In one school that I taught at later, a Black and a White student got into a fight, the Black student was the aggressor. The White student was suspended (no previous disciplinary problems) and the Black student (who had a disciplinary record) was in class the next day. What was the lesson each learned? Another student a Black young woman had a disciplinary record all four years. I went to the dean about why nothing was being done. He told me that she had promise and he wanted to protect a future leader. She graduated, and two weeks later she was beaten to death by another young Black woman in a different gang. Yes, he protected her from making changes that might have actually allowed her to become a leader. The same applies to the legal system where too often an offender gets off time after time because of some perceived inequity until they do something and they are punished harshly. An example a few years ago in Florida, 13 year old shot and killed a foreign visitor in a car jacking. It was his 65th arrest for motor vehicle theft. Obviously no earlier lesson was taught other than I can steal without consequence. I know that much of the points that I am making with these stories won't agree with your position, but think about them objectively. I suspect that you are much younger than I and have seen a lot less. I have lived in several countries and seen alot of different situations over the years as well as having read a great deal, and I suspect that you will find your views changing as experience grows.
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  190.  @dukecraig2402  I agree in many of your statements; however it wasn't until somewhere in the 1950s that the last "Republican" (actually anarchist and communists were put down, and the various separatist movements minimized (think particularly the Basque). As to his willingness to go with the flow, Franco was a Spanish nationalist before anything else. My own opinion is that he would literally made a deal with the devil to preserve the Spain in which he believed. I believe that you have under estimated the fracture lines in Spanish society when the civil war ended in 1939. The war put Franco in what was at best an awkward situation. The socialist leaning and communist leaning governments had backed his enemies; and the Axis had supported him. He couldn't afford offending those who supported him, especially when the Axis seemed to be winning; nor offend the Allies who weren't beaten. His strategy during WWII, therefore, was to avoid offending either. The Blue Division that fought in Russia is a good example, volunteers allowed to go (probably encouraged) to fight with the Axis; but keeping the Spanish army out of the war, thereby giving the Allies no reason to waste the effort to go after Spain. I also wonder how many of the officers and men of that division were more strongly national socialists that Spanish nationalists. I think too many take the easy way out and judge him by their own belief systems and not by the society from which he developed. From the RIF War leading the Spanish Foreign Legion (making it an elite force) to the Spanish Civil War, he seems to have only shown belief in Spain. As far as atrocities, it is interesting to note that following the civil war the Swiss Red Cross did a survey on that issue with some interesting results. Franco's forces committed some 50,000 war crimes; however the supposed good guy Republicans had committed some 80,000. One done by either sides is too many, but it shows that the Western perception of the Republicans as the good guys is far more false than most Westerners believe. Desecration of churches, the murder of nuns and priests are some of the more telling, with the additional twist of having the priests violate their vows by violating the nuns before killing them both. As the communists took over from the anarchists, they began eliminating them. Franco's forces included church militias, monarchists and national socialists (some of whom supported Germany or Italy more bean Spain) that type of polyglot force probably accounts for much of the war crimes on his side. You can imagine, for example if a church tied militia did if it caught an anarchist who had raped and/ or murdered a nun. Other war crimes were less crimes than propaganda, the bombing of Guernica was not the wanton attack on the public that is usually mention. Guernica was a choke point on the supply route to the front with military convoys having to go through it because of the road net. The attack was actually on a convoy during an offensive, you saw the same thing by both sides in WWII. I wondered around a great deal to make this point, Franco, while not great, has received a very bad handling by many on the Allies, especially those with sympathy for the so-called Republicans who were just as tyrannical.
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  193. I actually hate these type of videos. They include both good data. To research; however, they include much false or incorrect information. In point of fact, the technology gap between the West was only around 50 years, and has multiple causes including the Dutch annual briefings that did withhold some information. Besides this annual requirement for the Dutch to trade in Japan which continued throughout the period of closure; there were three intelligence gathering rings. One into Korea, one into China out of Okinawa and a third also out of Okinawa. Since Okinawa was technically not mainland Japan and under the Satsuma Han, there was some degree of outside countries (Britain being of note). Additionally, a number of covert foreign visits were undertaken. Starting around 1700, the government began running foreign study groups, and were even able to publish this knowledge as long as it had been purged of anything that hinted foreign origin. In "Abandoning the Gun" the author mentioned a medic al book of Japanese origin; in reality it was the product of one of these study groups which had taken a Western text and purged it of any trace of Western origin. Besides realitively friendly relations with the Dutch during the period, the Japan had diplomatic involvement with Imperial Russia. Including treaties the Russians routinely violated. In maps drawn in the early 1700s, Japan claimed all the islands upto the Kamchetka (Sp?) Peninsula, as well as enclaves on the Siberian Coast, and the entirety of Sakhalin Island. In a series of little bites, Russia despite formal agreements with Japan siezed most of them. By 1875, they were encroaching on the last two island off Hokkaido and Hokkaido itself. To stop this Japan ceded the last half of Sakhalin to Russia for the promise of not siezing the remaining islands and Hokkaido (remember that by this point Britain was starting to back Japan against Russia). My point is that Japan was far from isolated from the world at the governmental level. The shogunate just wanted the populace from upsetting the apple cart; and controlling what the Japanese public knew was how. In point of fact, the Shogunate started considering modernization of defenses in the 1840s after the Dutch king warned them of other European nations interest in forcing things with Japan. Initially, this took the form of the shogunate requiring increased firearms training among the Han. This was followed by obtaining a Dutch infantry manual and weapons for the troops. While the progress was spotting, it was ongoing from this point forward. Remember that through the Dutch and their own spy rings they were well aware of what was happening between the Europeans (particularly the British and French). I suspect that the Japanese shogunate probably was even happy to deal with the US forcing the opening rather than Britain and France. The US had not played a major role in the forcing of China, and by comparison demanded far less in their treaty with Japan. This to some extent helped Japan in its dealings with those powers. Between the changes in Japan by the 1880s, extra territorial rights were essentially a dead issue. Japanese courts were by this point based essentially on the Napoleonic codes (as was most of Europe) removing a major reason for extra teritoriality. In fact, perhaps the cause of the later First Sino-Japanese War can be traced to a Chinese fleet visiting Japan around 1884 whose admiral demanded those rights, and the British had already given them up. Japan refused and began building the fleet that was responsible for defeating Imperial China i 1894/1895. Sorry to be so long winded, but there is so much more than videos like this use.
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  231. The probable. Isn't just the media, the first so-called news conference was a disaster. The appropriate one should have been just a single spokesman announcing that an incident occurred, where it occurred, that the incident was over and mthe area secured; and that no detai.s could be released at that time. No questions will be taken now; and a clear statement that another news conference would be announced after the event became clearer. The conference held provided nothing more than that and a constant repetition of the saying that I can't provide that information. This type of show doesn't help anything or reassure anyone since it looks more like hiding things than providing things. An additional issue was Congressional personnel releasing information via sympathy to the slain officer's family before the loss was officially announced, another very stupid move. I once held an exercise where during an exercise press briefing, a "reporter" asked a question about deaths that the senerio hadn't reported yet. The briefer a senior company official answered that he was very concerned over the deaths. The correct information should have been that he had no information about that and would check if the information correct. By the way, it wasn't. The accident in question had nothing to do with the plant emergency other than occurring while the emergency was happening. Try to unring the bell that the people died as a result of the plant emergency. Why you don't hold detailed briefings before the data is clear and you never confirm a reporters claims until you check them out.
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  235.  @aick  I don't agree with you, but you are free to have that opinion. My feeling is that giving false hope is more dangerous to the survivors. It slows the grieving process and makes the eventual results even more painful. A more honest answer would be that there is little hope, but all efforts will continue until we can confirm either survival or death. A very unpleasant reality is that given the collapse of the floors many bodies will never be found or confirmed. The degree of damaged caused by tons of material will be very much like putting a body in a rock crusher. I am sad to say this; but once upon a time I was responsible and trained for emergency planning and response at a certain level. While the ranking official seldom like to give out this kind of word, either because they will be blamed for not doing enough to save someone, or in the extremely unlikely case there is a survivor they would be attacked for having said that as well.. In someways like the flight that hit the Pentagon on 9/11; people who ask where is identifiable parts of the plane don't understand a fully fueled aircraft in a dive hitting a reinforced concrete building designed to take artillery shells of 15 or 16 inch caliber will make mince. Wheat of the plane and occupants. In one accident that I know of an aircraft going slightly more than 100 miles an hour was turned into 30 foot high pile of metal [including 17 people on board, if i remember the number of trainees aboard) after hitting a protective pedestrian walkway at an airport.. most people are shielded from the reality of this type of catastrophe.
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  297. I just listened to another, more informative news video, and like I was worried about; animals had dug up the grave and scattered the bones hereby making it far more difficult to determine cause of death unless a stab wound or bullet hit a bone and that no animal marred the evidence. Evidence of strangulation will be difficult since the small bone involved will be difficult to locate and easily damaged by scavenging. Contamination of any DNA if any is found will be difficult. Also, he was charged and later the charges dropped without prejudice when an investigator for the state slipped up and mentioned that finger prints found in her car were tied to three sexual assaults. This is exculpatory evidence and the prosecutor's withheld it from the defense which is a Brady Violation which could have resulted in the case being dropped with prejudice. The prosecution dropping the charges allowed them to refill if the found actual evidence and protected them from ethical and possibly civil charges for violating his right to a fair trial. I forgot to add that no comment was made if her clothing was found. If it was, shooting or stabbing could be determined if not too damaged by animals, if they weren't found it would indicate an attempt to make identification harder, a murder scene somewhere else, and or sexual assault. What is available so far indicates that getting a conviction will be harder than you think. As I said, forensic expert or not opining without all the data is just repeating textbook data not case facts. While not the same, I was taught how to look at very old aircraft crash sites for remains, since we were responsible for initial reconnaissance into scenes from smoking debris to crashes decades old. So, while no expert, I do have some knowledge of the difficulties.
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  337.  @the2ndcoming135  Some additional data for you to muse over; there were jobs considered too dangerous to have slaves do. An excellent example was the cotton chute at Vicksburg. Slaves were allowed to work at the top of the chute where the cotton bales started down the bluff to the docks; but weren't allowed to work at the docks. The heavy bales picked up enough speed and momentum that if the weren't stopped safely a man could be killed or maimed. It was cheaper to hire a White worker for l e so than a Dollar a day. If the White worker at the docks was killed there was no payment to the family: and if maimed or injured the employer owed the worker and their families nothing; while if a slave was maimed or injured the laws still required the slave owner to feed, cloth, house, and provide medical care (even if the slave could never work again). So given the initial cost and upkeep, using the poor White (often immigrants when available made good economic sense, even if by today's standards morally depraved. By the way, study how the manufacturers in the North treated their workers, you will find the main freedom that they had was to quit or be fired and starve; while working conditions were horrible. Again, these Northern workers were White. The mistreatment of the poor was a common thread throughout the Western world, Eurasia and Asia, no matter if the rulers were White or people of their own race or ethnicity. By the way slaves continued in the Western Hemisphere for more than a decade after the US Civil War ended it in the US. Brazil, if I remember correctly, finally ended it over a decade after it ended in the US; while in the than Belgium Congo even worse treatment of Africans continued beyond that. The Moslem world openly practiced it against Africans into the 20th Century (and against Whites in the Balkans almost as long). Even today after the US and Europe removed Gaddafi from Libya open slave markets have reappeared where Blacks have been enslaved by Moslemz not Caucasian Europeans. Myopic vision seems to be a very bad disease among liberals and Progressives.
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  402.  @davidvonkettering204  By this point, hanging probably would have been the punishment. Either way the risked their lives and fortunes, no matter the cancel movement for the slave owners day, they were men of their time. It is a shame that we h a very forgotten so much of t he intent. No state was to control the Capitol, that is why the District of Columbia. It was to be a small Government controlling things that required a unified response, defense and mail. There weren't to be any political parties. The people didn't elect the President; but rather Electors who were supposed to reflect the will of the people electing them. The electors were to sit down and decide on the nest man for the job of President, today it would be the best person. The Senator were elected by state legislator and were to represent their states and have a long enough term that demagogues won't control the results. The people's direct representatives were the member of the House of Representatives. Their terms were short to allow for public approval and sentiment to be expressed but we ith the Senats to prevent a demagogue from gaining control. We lost all that though, parties were formed and the electors came to represent party candidates and the Representatives the same. Fina lly, the Senators became party candidates no longer representing the State and long term interests; but rather the party's current ideologies and leaders, made worse in some ways by a third of the Senate being elected every two years. Instead of a parttime Government the positions worked throughout the year with a permanent bureaucracy to run it. Then Administrative courts were added that didn't follow the Constitution since people hauled in front of them are presumed guilty and have to p r over their innocence. Now, we are rapidly becoming a one party state whose elected officials lie with impunity. Franklin, if I remember, said something to the effect we have give you a republic if you can keep it. The Founders are at least rollin in their graves.
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  424.  @JackHartigan  Not really, or you won't have so many wanting thd change over to stop. The only question is do we want evrry country eventually using their own system or return to the Standard System. Business was a winner with the semiannual change since it did reduce requirements for energy use. It has been going on so long that unless you study history; you don't know why this particular dance was started. Too many Government behaviors started for good reason, but have continued because bureaucracies don't like abolishing things. Not related but pertinent, remember the military's super expensive hammers and toilet seats? Well procurement officials were using the same standard contract for them as nuclear weapons components which required large amounts of paperwork and compliance documentation, most of the cost actually was the administrative expense of documentation and the personal running the system. Bureaucracies are like that, tell them you need a tack and you get a gold plated one because it is easier to duplicate the requisition than right a specific one. Similarly, look at the end of year spending sprees. You have to spend what you requested for the year or next year the budget. I was overseas, and needed an item, the contract was outsourced to a special purchasing program rather than either a company normally in the business or allowing me to get a host country contractor. Two years in a row contractors under that program failed to deliver; and since I was prohibited from filling the funds over, I had to spend them and place the new request in the following years budget. The special procurement policy involved was a failure; but politics and social concerns made sure that we were stuck with it. So not all dumb things are done for power and control, but rather ideology and/or laziness.
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  436.  @patriciabrenner9216  Ms. Brenner, needless your consistent harping on justifying your hate is to convince yourself of the need to hated. Lets start with China, how much do you know about the Warlord period that took place as the initial republic that replaced the Manchus fell apart? Almost every crime the Japanese were accused of took place during this period, including the slaughter of civilians, war in Asia was never as rule bound as war in Europe. Did you know before the Japanese took Manchuria that the Soviets fought and won a war with the Chinese government there and gained concessions. Remember the Rsso-Japanese War in 1904-05 was as much sparked by Imperial Russian moves into the same area. Russia been expanding at the expense of both Japan and mainly China for going on 350 years at that point (violating agreements reached with both constantly). As to Death Marches, read the book "War Without Mercy". Remember the Russians marched the prisoners from Stalingrad 240 miles in the Russian winter after seizing what food and medicine that they had. The Bataan March was shorter, the Japanese never planned for the number of prisoners, the prisoners themselves actually made matters worse by lack of discipline with the first prisoners at each food site grabbing as much as possible of the food and water and ruining the rest because fighting over it; as to Japanese cruelty, the problem was indiscipline there as well, with one unit going by actually giving out food while another unit beat prisoners. By the way, the Japanese had comfort women who were Japanese as well; by the way the French army had a history of using field brothels as well (two of them were at Dien Bein Phu I. 1954). FDR wanted to fight Germany, so by July 1941,he had taken actions that were aimed at forcing Japan into war. Several of these were acts that were actually acts war under international law even then. Not normally discussed in US books, mentioned in some by Naval Institute years ago (I have the titles somewhere in my notes. Does any of this make what the Germans or Japanese right, no; but it does indicate there are no real 100% good guys if you dig beyond the superficial hype. Even things such as the Rape of Nanking make more sense when you discover that Chinese troops and civilians both were shooting at the Japanese (the problem was the troops were wearing civilian clothing as well). Did that make all the Japanese behavior right, no; but does it help to explain why they were out of control. I have been studying military history and wars for going on 60 years, and while I may dislike one side or another; I can not hate the people. I can detest governments though.
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  438. You have to realize somethings about Japanese culture prior to WWII. It was highly hierarchical, remember that today Japan has a high suicide rate largely based on feelings of shame, an important element in their make-up. Marriages (especially in elite portions of society) were arranged by parents with little or no involvement by the couple; this was not necessarily true at the bottom of the social structure; but even there obedience to the parents, those considered above their place in society, and of course the government was mandatory. Compliance had been drilled in by the period of Tokugawa dominance. At the lowest level, the Father or eldest male member was responsible for reporting crimes or dereliction to their superior. Failure to do so could result in the entire family being punished.. Depending on position, one family in every five or ten was responsible for everyones' conduct in that group and again failure to report problems could result in the group leader and his family being punished. This leads to a society highly responsive to authority figures. Japanese military law was extremely strict and disobedience (failure at a task could be called disobedience) was strictly punished. Surrender in battle was considered a military crime and was severely punished, which by extension affected the man's family. This may explain (not excuse) some of the treatment of POWs. For example, the "Bataan Death March", they actually had food and water at specified locations; but not enough, they had expected fewer prisoners based on their own culture. They didn't account for the loss of discipline and control where the first troops at a site fought over food, spoiling some and leaving nothing for late arrivals. As Japanese units passed the column of prisoners, you saw acts of kindness and brutality; one unit might do nothing, another give food, while another mocked and beat prisoners; this depended to a great deal on the leaders control and attitude. In other words the treatment mirrored the nature of Japanese society. As to the Geneva Convention, remember it was and still is (at least to see extent) a shame based society; violating the convention was a crime to many, but was only a shame when they were held accountable. My point is, we must always consider how an opponent thinks. Our worse failing as a nation today is thinking everyone is like us. Remember many believe everyone wants the same thing. Take happiness for instance; we define happiness one way; a society made of head hunters would define it differently. While an extreme example, think of how a shame based society (mostly Asian) and a guilt based society (essentially European) would view the same thing; there would be grossly different opinions.
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  448.  @johnmullholand2044  if you notice, I said shoot center mass, unless your some sort of expert marksman (I guess marksperson would be politically correct),, shooting anywhere else won 't stop them. You never shoot to kill, only to stop, and if they die that is their hard luck for a bad decision. Remember you are responsible for where every bullet you fire goes, make sure it is the center of the body mass where it is less like to cause collateral damage. Remember if you post that you would like to kill a shooter, liberal DAS and can twist that into charges. If a shooter services being stopped, don't finish him off, it is for the courts. As to the list, I stated when I felt the death penalty should apply. Mass shooters need to be stopped, and death should be the penalty if they survive to be charged. Murder in commission of a crime deserves the same, again via the courts if possible. Other forms of homicide do require more consideration of the motive and event. A person who intentional planned to kill some one and did it, deserves death; since these usually require deceive work, they should face a trial. Negligent homicide.deserve punishment other than death; and finally accidental deaths may or may not need to be punished depending on the incident. People who kill someone to prevent a violent crime, murder or severe injury (I consider that to include forcible rape), should not face any charge as long as they did not kill the offender after they were no longer endanger the individual or others. Those are pretty much the rules in most states; however you need o know the local written and unwritten laws since DAS more interested in a criminals rights than the public can still hurt you.
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  466. There was an established list of 16 Japanese cities on the target list. These were largely undamaged, because they were less militarily pertinent and we wanted to assess the damage caused by the A Bomb. Another point that was the Japanese public losses by the other choices would have been worse. Continued siege of Japan and destruction of it infrastructure by conventional munitions which would have resulted in millions of civilian deaths due to starvation and disease (endemic diseases were widespread spread both nutritional and bacterial/virus. Invasion would have resulted in massive civilian and military casualties among the Japanese, and 1,000,000 casualties to Allied invaders (casualties in this sense is dead, wounded and missing. The why for these comments is the training Of the general population with both actual and improvised weapons; Japanese propaganda had told the public that the Allied troops would kill the men and rape and impregnate the women to destroy the Japanese culture, and this was believed. Upper class Japanese women were given poison pills to take to avoid this. In other words mass genocide was the alternative to the bomb. I think that would be even more widely condemned than the bomb now. As to Russian invasion, they lacked the shipping and landing craft for an effective invasion of even Hokkaido. The islands off Hokkaido were sparsely populated with little defenses. Sakhalin was already half occupied by the Soviets with Japan having only taken back the southern half after the 1904/05 Russo-Japanese War. Why half was taken then was due to the fact it had been Japanese until 1875 when it was given up to preserve Hokkaido and the off shore islands that Russia wanted. In other words a concession by force. In fact Japanese maps before the Russian appearance in East Asia showed scattered Japanese holdings throughout the coastal areas of Siberia, all of Sakhalin, and all island up to Kamchatka. Imperial Russian slowly took all of them. It was up to the Daimyo who owned Hokkaido to defend them and the Han there couldn't, being one of the poorest in Japan. Do some reading on Japan that isn't biased by WWII and you will find many things that you weren't taught.
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  482. Not bad as these things go; however, some details should be noted. Before the Dutch arrived, the Spanish had a fort on Northern Taiwan; the Dutch arrived because the then Chinese government won't allow them to set up a trading station on the mainland. The Dutch were told that they could set up on Taiwan because it wasn't part of China. When the Dutch arrived, besides the few Chinese living there, there were 32 Japanese villages outnumbering the Chinese. The Chinese who took Taiwan from the Dutch were not the government of China (the government there considered them pirates operating from an area outside of China). To finally end the piracy, China took the island. While they held it for around 200 years, they did nothing for the island. The Chinese only controlled the coastal areas, and could not even go into the interlands (modern DNA analysis has shown the indigenous population is more closely aligned with Philippinos than Chinese). During the 1870s, two foreign incursions into Taiwan occurred. Both the French and the Japanese invaded the island to punish the indigenous tribes who murdered shipwrecked sailors. Why? Because the Chinese government said that they could not control the indigenous peoples, again pointing out that China really didn't control the island. As mentioned, the Japanese did develop the island and brought them to the then modern standards. After the return of inland control in 1945, it wasn't just the soldiers mistreating the Taiwanese. The government did little to repair the damage of the Allied attacks during the war and as a government effectively looting the island. Again, this video covers much of this. So, mainland China never has done much for Taiwan ; it was only after the Republicans no longer controlled the mainland that US aid and Nationalist interests developed the island again. Should Taiwan be independent, in my estimate, YES!
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  502.  @Brehat29  First, let's deal with March 1945 in Indochina. The French Vichy Government appointees and armed French troops still operated there much as the Vichy Governments in North Africa did before the Torch Landings. Yes, there was Japanese interference, but unlike the Dutch Eadt Indies, the French nationals weren't interned. In March 1945, the French Governor planned an uprising against the Japanese. Someone informed on them, and the Japanese struck first, attacking and disarming the troops and siezing the government openly. The question of was there a declaration of war is moot. As an ally of Germany, Japan can said to have acted like the Germans when they siezed the Vichy portion of France earlier. This not to say that the action was right, but that argument can be made. I should point out that some troops fought their way out of Indochina to China; where the Chinese disarmed and interned them. Despite the fact they were now fighting the Japanese. Additionally the US Army Corp in China had been ordered not to support them as they fought out. Despite the order General Chenault (sp) did have aircraft fly support for them. This action probably led to his relief of command shortly thereafter. Now to 1940, first you are aware that the French and Thais fought a border war and that the Japanese acted to end the conflict. As earlier mentioned the French Indochinese government was Vichy. The government there had requested arms and supplies from the US, but had been refused (openly because it was Vichy and additionally, probably because FDR strongly disliked colonial powers). When the Japanese requested passage through Indochina (actually occupation similar to Germans in French North Africa) there was no opposition. Why not a full occupation? Probably unlike the Dutch East Indies, the Vichy government hadn't participated in the US secondary embargo against Japan. A secondary embargo was considered an act of war under international law at the time; so, from around July 1941 the Dutch East Indies had been at war with Japan, as had the US. (Something usually not mentioned). Of course the Japanese were German allies, but until December 1941 managed to ignore thar fact. If you aren't aware the Japanese were quisi-allies with Thailand who let use bases and travel through the nation (Actually the Thai royal family played its usual game of having one of its princes supporting each side, the old game "I win tails you lose", meaning in this case no matter which side one the monarchy won't lose.) Back to Indochina a minute, the first US forces there arrived in early 1944 (an OSS Mission), sent to train Ho Chi Minh's people to fight the Japanese; however, the only battle ever mentioned that I have found was an attack by them on a French military outpost (shades of things to come). By the way the first US troop killed in Indochina was in 1946, when one of this team was killed by the Viet Minh while trying to setup a truce between the French forces who had returned z (by the way, the Brits brought them there the US recused). After this the US pulled out and supported neither side until the Nationalists lost the mainland. You can see why I didn't want to get into the weeds here; there is too much the popular media and press didn't know, ignored, or failed to report. Try finding the full set of the PENTAGON PAPERS (I have, and it is ashelf of books in its own right). Additionally get into the official documents, they will, make you think.
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  505. Lets talk about several things. First is that carbon graphite reactors were used to produce plutonium for weapons used. The light water reactors, pressurized or boiling water, are not major producers of plutonium. Second is that the Chernobyl reactor had no containment, only a building to provide a shield for weather. The light water reactors in the West had containment buildings designed to keep radiation products inside, even under accident conditions. Why no containment, so fuel rods can be removed to obtain plutonium. Makes sense only if you want the plutonium, so I will leave you to decide why the Soviets did that. Third is that according to the official reason for the reactor not being run in the proper condition for the test was that a problem occurred elsewhere. The supervisory authorities demanded the power be provided not reduced. The separate authorities, who wanted the test demanded the test, Two competing authorities that they had to please. Fourth is the fact that the graphite began started on fire which caused the water to boil. Similarly, Britain suffered a similar issue with a graphite reactor. Windscale. The reason is called a Wigner Reaction (pardon my spelling). Graphite absorbs energy when the reactor is running, to bring it back to normal state, it is heated. If this release isn't controlled the graphite will burn, and that temperature is extreme. In the West adfitional thermalcouples were added to avoid this after Windscale. The Soviets may not have had full readouts for the graphite. From their yes a hydrogen and steam reaction blew the weathershield apart. Fifth the amount of radiation into the environment was caused by the fire the Soviets claimed only 15% of the core was damaged. Compare that to the Three Mile Island accident where up to 60% of the core was damaged, but almost all the radioactive products were trapped in the containment. In fact the sensors indicated that if you sat at the site border during the event you would have been exposed to only what is allowed to a plant worker in a year. I used to train on Emergency plans and response for a company that ran multip,multiple, reactors and saw the International Atomic Energy Reports oh Chernobyl, and while this explanation was better than most, it skipped the damning info on how the Soviets ran their reactors, their competing bureaucracies, and their ignoring of information from previous events elsewhere.
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  526.  @darrekworkman8685  Sorry, but that is an opinion. I have a much different opinion based on a couple of practical realities. 1. When you fire a bullet in a non-military situation; you are responsible for where the bullet ends up. This means if you miss, or if the bullet goes through what you aimed at, you are responsible for who or what is finally hit. Shooting at something or someplace where the bullet won't be stopped, by the target, or you miss a realitively small and frequently moving target like an arm or leg; and you hit someone behind that person it is possible to be held responsible especially with the attacks on qualified immunity. 2. Even if you hit an arm or a leg, there is a good chance of causing death. This is especially true in the leg where the femoral artery can bled a person out in minutes; while the main artery in an arm is somewhat slower, the death is just as likely. Beyond bleeding out, the chance of permanent injury if a bone is hit is highly possible. Depending on the caliber and overall damage, the loss of a limb is even possible. Allow this also omits considering infection. Again, legal issues abound. 3. Despite the movies, a person hit (even leathally) could still potentially fire a round back striking by the officer.m the main reason for the .45 ACP round was to increase the chance of stopping an attacker; since in the early 1900s US troops were killed or injured by insurgents hit with the .38 caliber weapons than used. So, the so.ution than was not only aim at a location that would increase the chance of stopping the attacker (center mass) but heavy enough to provide stopping power. 4. The greatest chance of stopping an attacker or preventing the attacker from further using or using a weapon in a threatening position is center mass. What is you suggestion? I will added that stun devices require personal contact which may be impossible in the situation. I own a Taser, and it is useless under most conditions, the area that you can target is limited for safety reasons, both prongs must make contact which may not happen in a fluid situation, and clothing thickness (winter jackets especially) may prevent effective use, and finally some drugs make it less effective. So, what is or are your solution/solutions?
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  605.  @mikeinmd915  While the idea has merit, I think it infeasible. The Government has grown too large and interconnected (not necessarily a good thing). The increased inefficiency of trying to run scattered sites will only increase costs and make effective management more difficult while leading superiors in distant locations more apt to act on their own beliefs because of relative isolation. I also question if local governments won't exercise undue influence on those separate branches (think Portland, Chicago, etc.. style beliefs on the DOJ), or try to tax Federal property. I agree the representation and group think questions are real problems; but just giving them to a state isn't a real answer either. The group think comes from education/indoctrination that occurs rather than real education. Couple this with the effect of ideologically driven people moving up the hierarchy and slowly insuring the promotion of like minded people into senior positions. One of the 60's radicals (Abby Hoffman, if my memory is right) told his followers that their attempt to take the country had failed; and that they should infiltrate the establishment to prepare for the next revolt. In the 1970's book, Survival Is Not Enough, a professor whose expertise was Impetial and Soviet Russia, stated that the communists had chosen, media and education to infiltrate to weaken and defeat the US. Several of the key players who helped continue the Russia Gate Hoax have acknowledged early ties to socialist or communist groups; including a Director of a major intelligence agency and Comi (sp?) In the FBI. Also for consideration, there was a book in the last couple of years which described what happened in Eastern Europe after WWII; the chapter on Romania looks very similar on what is happening today here, including the crimanization of opposition leaders. Another thing is to look at how the NAZIs (actually a socialist movement, Stalin was the one who called them right wing - they were only the right wing of socialism though) used von Hindenberg, a popular and moderate leader who was very ill, to gain power. Look at history, and you may see the present.
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  611.  @LaHayeSaint  The force recon was insufficient, They were traveling in an area that provided the enemy cover for what amounted to an ambush, which was carried out by a night attack from all sides. As indicated there were some defenses, however I agree inadequate; however with foreclosing from all sides, a soldier, animal or camp follower could be hit from behind or the side even 8f safe from t he front. The terrain was forested and gullies, not hilly, so there was no high point to site it, and since the fire was coming from conceled shooters, no clear meaningful targets.for the guns. The same issue with the Nordenfelt guns. As stated, they were tired, already on short water rations and suffering from the heat. Add to this the Mahdi prevented a direct assault where the artillery and Nordenfelts might have caused enough casualties to change things. The Mahdi used his best weapons, heat and water shortage, to force movement from the entrenched position to an march situation where his numbers, their fanaticism, and the forest allowed them the optimum chance of success. My take, poor recon, wrong direction of advance in enemy territory, heat and water shortage, and the poor quality of the forces that he was given ruined the Egyptian forces. This was aided by depending on bad advice because of unfamiliarity with the region and faced with an enemy leader who knew his advantages and used them made the outcome less a question the colonel's ability than over optimism at all levels.
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  616.  @c.blakerockhart1128  My point is that slavery in the US was dead among the Whites in the US except within the slave states and various Native American tribes (some of whom joined the South). If you are saying every country had slaves at some point, I won't argue; however, by the the point of the Civil War slavery was essentially dying. It was an expensive system (high overhead) supported by cheap goods from Europe and good markets for the cotton there. The protective tariffs that had been passed by the Northern and Midwestern States and the abolitionist movement in the North and Midwest was slowly strangling the South economically. Yes, slavery figured heavy in the constitution and succession, but also was their basic economy. Outlawing slavery was to them the same outlawing textile mills in the North (read about conditions there, including child labor in unhealthy and dangerous environments). This is not a defense of slavery but trying to place in the environment and period. A major problem today is worrying too much about past sins against one group or another cherry picking facts to complain about their victimization without looking at the actual world of the time. Humanity 's history isn't very nice our concentration shouldn't be on making up for the past; but on rather avoiding horrors of the future. Suggested questions to consider, "How did Hitler get the German people largely believe Jews were inherently evil?" or "How did racists make people think Blacks were inherently inferior due to skin color?" One part of this was experts (educators and scientists) told them this. "How is this unlike experts today with the 1619 Project or all Whites being inherently racist or systematic racism which can cover anything someone wants?" "Is eliminating a group based on skin color any different than the Holocaust?"
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  640.  @the2ndcoming135  Another example, not directly related to the Civil War, the Mexican-American War is often portrayed as a massive US attack on a weaker neighbor. While this can be viewed as partially true today, look at newspapers, books and articles from the period (not just US sourced). It turns out that the US was negotiating to buy the disputed area along the Texas-Mexican border and having some success; however, the British ambassador got involved. Remember the Northeastern states were not pleased with the idea of hostilities. The ambassador pointed out the entire US Army was only authorized less than 10,000 men and was understrength; while the Mexican Army had around 37,000 men and had much more combat experience due to recent rebellions. He stressed that the US militia had performed badly during the war of 1812 with Great Britain and failed in most battles. He pushed the idea that Mexico could win, so the war started. What the gentleman hoped for was a splitting of the mercantile North Eastern states from the rest. He either did not know or failed to recognize that after the war of 1812; the US Government made very strong efforts to improve militia arms, training and officers; and these allowed a better trained officer corps and far better militia troops to succeed with relatively little difficulty. On the Mexican side, poor weapons, poor modern training and lack of industrial base doomed the Mexican Army (well organized on paper) to a losing war. Added to this was the political turmoil caused by over 10 different governments in 12 years and conflicting factions, and Mexico should never have considered war an option. By the way, Mexico had already mostly abandoned the areas that the US siezed. It had lost control of the land route to Czlifornia to Native Americans in the 1820s following its independence. In both whatis now Arizona and New Mexico, there were fewer Mexican settlements than before independence. For example, mines in both areas were closed when transportation routes were closed due to Native Americans. Sante Fe hand one supply caravan from Mexico per year (it also brought the tax collectors which was why the escort]; while trade from the US over what was known as the Santa Fe Trail became real lifeline. When US troops arrived, they were greeted with friendship by most of the population. In California a very similar situation existed. The main product was cattle hides, gold was yet to become a major item. It took goods six months to move from Vera Cruz to Pacific ports and then to California, with no real market for the hides; however, New England was industrializing and used pulley belts made of cattle hides. A ship from New England could reach California in about three months or less, and could carry cargo that was needed and paid in Dollars for the hides. At this time, Mexican landowners were more than willing to have their daughters marry into New England shipping families (it gave them an edge on selling goods). So dissatisfaction with an ineffective and distant government made it easy to separate California as well. I will admit following the take over others came from the US that abused and mistreated the former Mexican citizens and their property, but those who initially had contact were far different than those who followed. So, another area where the actual facts make the reality much more murky and complex than most of what you will see in today's sources.
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  664.  @Sergej-Safonov  Yes, a non-aggressive pact is not an alliance, the alliance was with NAZI Germany. The Soviet Union and NAZI Germany agreed on splitting Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, and in 1939 and 40 both acted on it. The Japanese signed the non-aggression pact since the Soviets were now aligned with Germany. Even when the Soviets and Germans went to war, the Japanese honored that pact. The point you and other Russian apologists seem to refuse to acknowledge. The Soviets honored that pact by interning US aircraft and crews making emergency landings in Russian territory and trading strategic material with Japan, making a mockery of its new alliance against Germany by helping Japan against Soviet allies. Yalta may have seen the Western Allies ask the Soviets to join in the Pacific War, Russia did not tell the Japanese that it changed its status. As to proxie wars in Manchurian and Northern China, I find it interesting since the Soviets waged a war against the Manchurian Tuan opposed to both Japan and China in the late 1920s, defeating him. Since these conflicts were ended by the non-aggression pact; it is strange that those same issues can be used as an excuse for and attack in 1945. Logic would dictate that since Japan had honored the pact and the Soviets had as well (going so far as to cut off aid to Nationalist China); that conflict still existed between them prior to August 1945. As to the proxie wars, I can only think of one conflict at the time. Russia, whether Imperial or Soviet had been pushing southward in East Asia since at least the 1700s; taking land from both China and Japan. So, the question really is were these proxie wars or resistance to Russian aggression. Remember Sakhalin was still half Japanese until 1875 (earlier besides owning the whole island, it had all the Kyrils and enclaves on the Sibetian coast) when the Japanese ceded it in return for no further occupation of the Kyrils and no attempt on Hokkaido; and China lost significant lands in the north In the1800s and had initially lost lands starting in the mid-1600s. Russia has traditionally been an impererial power taking lands from others.
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  730.  @nytn  My biggest problem was the jumps in the time line. An example, you mentioned the Klan which was a post Civil War issue but later went back decades earlier to the "No Nothings" which from when I went to school referred more their attitude toward the educated than hiding activities. You hit a good point on using immigrants (not just Irish, but also lower class Whites regardless of where they were from) for tasks that were too dangerous for the more valuable slaves. A professor used this example (he taught when intellectual honesty was still important), it concerned cotton chutes at Vicksburg. The cotton was taken by wagon to chutes used to slide the bales to the river front. Slaves were only allowed to work on top of the bluff unloading the bales and s t acting them on the way down. At the bottom end were essentially day worker Whites (immigrants or lower class); the heavy cotton bales had 0icked up so much energy on the way down that they could literally rip off arms or legs or crush bones if improperly caught. Besides the cost of a slave (somewhere between $500 and $1,000 right before the war), the slaves owner had to provide shelter, food and medical care whether a slave could work or not; on the other hand, 8f that White man at the bottom of the bluff was injured or killed he had no responsibility for any of that or support of an family. Yes, a very big economic incentive for keeping slaves safe. As far as treatment of immigrants and lower class Whites in the North, look into factory conditions in the new manufacturing sector, in many ways as bad or worse, and yes they could quit; but it was common for the owners to insure that people who complained were free to starve since they won't be hired by anyone else after the word was passed. This was another area where Irish were involved. I may of missed it, but did you mention the signs to "Ns" or Irish allowed (or words to that effect). Again without going back to it, I believed you mentioned the immigration acts; but these were more than a half century after the Potato Famine. On that point, under the system in effect at the time, all grain in Ireland was grown for export, as the money crop. Potatoes which needed little care was what the English expected the Irish to live on. Like I said you hit the major points but jumbled.
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  734. Chernobyl was not a maintenence accident, there was a test of an operation. This test should not have been run, since a power emergency kept the reactor running too long, this allowed what is termed burnable poisons to accumulate. To get the power needed, they pulled control rods. This caused a Wigner Release of energy from the graphite causing a fire which melted the water filled tubes in the reactor to melt, causing a steam explosion which shredded to reactor and destroyed parts of the reactor building roof (the reactor had no containment, only a building to shield it from weather. The ultimate blame should be shared by several elements of the Soviet government (still in power then). First: the reactor type was an overgrown weapons reactor which allowed fuel rods to be removed for processing, why there was no containment. Second: The danger of this type of reactor was shown by the British Windscale Reactor fire which caused exposure into Northern Europe. This was a planned Wigner Release and they found their weren't enough thermo couples to determine heat. I am not sure if there were adequate thermocouples at Chernobyl or if they were ignored. Third: two different Soviet bureaucracies were involved. Since Chernobyl was a power generating reactor, they were told to keep running after they were to shutdown; meanwhile the nuclear safety people wanted to run a test to see if the reactor could safely shutdown in a particular condition. If shutdown on schedule, the burnable poisons wouldn't have been an issue. However the operators were left in the middle. They had to please both, so they kept running and tried to pull rods to keep the power up for the test. Result disaster. In the US, the test would have been cancelled; in the Soviet Union, the two agencies were equal and the operators had to please both because either could harm their careers.
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  805.  @masond2838  Let's see, President Biden, before and after he took office, claimed not to have discussed Hunter's business dealings with Hunter. Evidence and sworn statements prove that he did. He had classified material, as did former President Trump; two big problems: 1. Trump had them secured while Presiddnt Biden had them scattered and unsecured but claimed that they were; 2. Former President Trump had rights to much of if not all the material under law; while President Biden had no such right as a Senator or Vice President but still had classified documents from that time, despite the fact he would have had to certify that he didn't (false Federal document). So President Biden has lied about things both important and unimportant. He counts on people so hateful of former President Trump to ignore, forget, or forgive his acts and words. So, can you honestly say that President Biden doesn't lie; or that you can trust him about anything that he says? As to the comment about police and vehicles, I can only assume that you weren't aware of the Portland mayor's comments. He stated that equipment and recruitment were at all time high levels after avoiding the issue of defending (which the city did) and loss of officers (which did occur). Finally to the comment that I was replying to about former President Trump causing Portland's problems; as I stated, the local Progressive Democrat government set local policies. The President (no matter who) has no direct and only limited indirect effect on policy. Something anyone actually aware of our form of government should know and understand.
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  814.  @chrishamilton2559  Motiive makes a major deference in what they are and what can be done. Your comment is like saying running across a poisonous snake while walking is like trying to lay in a pile of poisonous snakes. Gangs are like piling a group of poisonous snakes together, expect you will get bitten. Walking around you may not see a single snake which may or may not bite you. That single snake may ignore you, try to flee, or bite you depending on your actions or its situation. Most mass shootings (other than ideological, i.e. political or religious terrorism) are caused when some individual's trigger is pushed. These people invariably have indicators, a recent California mass shooting had a long history of minor issues and even had been talked to by the FBI and had an order of protection. Under California state law, it is even questionable that he could legally possess a firearm. Most gang shootings involve previous criminal activity, arguments over turf, criminal activities, etc. Invariably the firearm is illegally possessed, either stolen or illegally trafficked. A single mass shooter (operating out of real, supposed, or delusional reasons) is difficult to predict, but as I said potentially has raised red flags. The gang shooter in a mass shooting can be more easily dealt with. Go after the gangs. Eliminate them or neuter them by making their activities more costly to them than obeying the law. The major bank robbery gangs of the early 30's were hunted down and dealt with, no one cried over their demise. The self inflected wounds of prohibition were dealt with by using good sense, not progressive dreams of an alcohol free world. Our drug war would have gone better if we actually went after the bosses, not the users and mid-level dealers. The dealers should be charged with every crime committed by the user that they supply. A man burglars 20 homes for drugs, his de a leg should be charged with 20 burglaries. The bosses with every murder and crime committed by the users and sellers of his product. In other words, make the offenses cost to the higher levels too great to risk. The saw should apply to anyone intentional supplying gangs/criminals with firearms. For people selling an old firearm, it will make them check closely who they are selling to and make sure that they keep a record of the sale. I know that I wandered a bit, but my point is that actions against criminal mass shootings are different than those of ideological based shootings and those of the mentally unstable.
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  823.  Walter Turner  oh, you must be talking about the fringes around the Black Isrealites. Another crock disproved by archeology and genetics. The ancient Isrealites were neither Black or White, but more like Middle Eastern and Mediterranean populations today. They same movement refuses to consider the Ashkenazi Jews as Jews. The closest to the original Jewish population genetically today are the Sheppardic Jews, who never left the Mediterranean and Mideastern region. Massacres essentially wiped out the European branch about the time of the Crusades. By religious law money lending was illegal for Christians, so it became one business they could practice. Eliminating them was the fastest way to get out of debt, and the Crusades gave an excellent excuse. My point is that history is far more complex than you seem to realize. You mentioned Kazars, they are Central Asians who converted to Judaism. The story goes that the ruler asked for Christian, Jewish and Moslem followers to come and tell them about their faiths. After listening, he directed his followers to become Jews. The Talmud is more from that tradition than Sheppardic from what I can determine. Again a much more tangled strand to follow than the propaganda that was given to you. As to the Rusdian Revolution, it wasn't only Jewish Kazars who lead it. Try researching It on your own, it is even more convoluted than Kazars and Judaism. In other words study history on your own and use more than the materials found in the echo chamber in which you have placed yourself.
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  825.  @princeofopinion2692  The vehicle has been recovered in a canal. There were people in the crowd also firing, and the police have now stated that at least two gangs are involved. Gang wars are just that gang wars, they aren't concerned over anything else. This wasn't a spree shooter or crazy trying just to hurt people; it was gang members going after other gang members and not caring if others were hurt. The other question is how many of that crowd were actually innocent and how many chose to place themselves at risk knowing that they were hanging with gang members. I strongly feel that, much like tasks forces were formed in the early 1930s to go after the Barker gang, Dillenger, Bonnie and Clyde, that the same approach is past due for gangs. Give them a deadline to disband. After that they have a choice surrender or face what comes. Back to the mass shooting issue, i can't see this as a mass shooting the sense of Sandy Hook, just as I don't see Fort Hood as being Sandy Hook. What I call a mass shooting has no purpose, the victims are random, and the shooter really hasn't thought about escape. What needs to be done varies in each case. My job used to be emergency planning and response, in things like this (we were involved in a large number of other events) was mass casualty responses. As such, I don't see these events in one dimension. A mass casualty event for terrorism, requires one type of mind set, while a crazy another. Terrorism and gang violence should be largely avoidable using good intelligence gathering and observation. The crazies are harder. The most recent California shooter still had his firearms despite a restraining order and a history of emotionally related violence. He had been questioned by the FBI. Under the Red Flag law in California, he shouldn't have had the firearm. Again, the common denominator was the shooting was in a gun free zone (most church shooting are for the same reason). So, when looking at events, what does it say? To me it says gun free zones provide target rich environments and time to shoot. The Colorado theater shooter had been banned from campus because of the risk, but despite local and state rules no one told the off site authorities. What does that say about Red Flag Laws? That their effectiveness is questionable and the rules allow them to be misused, the Supreme Court recently ruled against them on due process grounds. The recent shooting in England of a BLM activist in a country were legal handgun ownership is near impossible points out that preventing the populace from owning firearms fails as well. In England, you can't blame lax gun laws in a neighboring state. It only points out criminals will get weapons and ammunition no matter what. Within the last coup.e of months there was a mass shooting in Russia and a knife attack with mass casualties in the PRC. Neither of which make firearms available to the public. What must be done is place emphasis where it belongs, on personal and group violence.
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  849.  @AngelaSantanaYoSantana  Some points, alcohol can be metabolized, and turned into sugars. As sugar (glucose) it can be used as an energy source or stored as fat (a negative towards health). As far as damaging effects, in a healthy person, this has to be looked at in reference to both quality used and time used to drink it. Most healthy people can detoxify alcohol at a fixed rate, so if the quantity used does not exceed the bodies capability there is little effect; while a smaller quantity can cause harm as well. The problem with Marijuana is that it can't be metabolized, it has a half life in the body, it is also stored in fate cells (a separate issue). That means that a regular user accumulates the active chemicals in the blood stream and/or fat. So, for argument sake let's assign a value of 2 as intoxicated (since the effect is very much individual based, I know of no standard value for intoxication). A person smokes 1 joint today giving a value of 1. Marijuana's half life is seven days, so the user only uses 1 every seven days (very artifical behavior, more frequent use is probable). On the seventh day after smoking the value in the blood is 1.5, one from that days joint and .5 from the devious one. Seven days later, the user smokes another joint. After smoking, the blood value is 1.75; one from that day, .5 from the previous week and finally .25 from two weeks ago. Now a fourth week, again after smoking, the value is one from the fourth week, .5 from the third week, .25 from the second week, and finally .125 from the first week. Giving a blood level of 1.875. A fifth week will place the user in a state of intoxication, something the user doesn't believe because it has never happened before. The results aren't this simple, the strength of the chemicals in Marijuana (the dangerous ones are in street purchases ) very by a number of factors including how much non-Marijuana material is included, some of which are dangerous in their own right, other being whatever weeds they can add. The dangerous ones include Jepsen Weed (sp?), meth, opium, and even fentinal, the last are more likely added to move the user to other drugs to replace the effect. Now to the affects, years ago the Canadian government of the time ran a series of experiments to determine the risk to equipment operators (including truckers). The results included three things adversely affected without the user being aware; and all three are tied to gether. Speed, distance and time perception. People routinely felt they were going faster or slower than they were, the same misperception of distance and speed where either over or under judgements are made. Other tests have shown a tendency towards paranoia with heavy, frequent users (particularly an issue with people with paranoid issues or tendencies). Others at risk are people with borderline personality issues and people with some other psychological issues. The problem with much of this is the fact the user may no longer see the effects; while those around the user do see them. In other words, the user may lose the ability to determine reality; additionally, a heavy frequent user may be open to suggestion from the environment or others. Again, we are talking frequent, heavy users; but for some, the distance between occasional use and heavy frequent use becomes blurred due too altered perception.
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  850.  @Noahspurlin22  "No it's not" refers to what part of the post? It is hard to debate or refute an vague statement. If it is the half life of Marijuana in the system, it is about 7 days to the best of my memory. In other words half of the amount smoked in one day will still be there in 7 days. A half of that will still be there in 14 days, and half the amount there at 14 days will be there in 21 days. If you smoke the same amount each day, at some point you will exceed the amount that you use in any one day. The potency of the Marijuana also is a factor, somethingthe user doesn't control. A Oint to remember Bhang is a Marijuana product made out of the flowering portions of the plant, Marijuana is made from leaves and stems, hashish is the sap of the plant beaten out of the plant and dried. All these are natural and get their effect from THC, with Marijuana being the lowest concentration and Hashish the highest. Hashish is a dangerous drug which can cause psychosis, brain, liver and kidney damage. The amount, frequency and potency of the others all can affect what effects if any occur and how fast they occur. You notice that I did not discuss edibles, the problem with these have the same potency, frequency and amount, but the additional issue that the effect take longer to manifest themselves, and actual overdoses have occurred requiring medical intervention. Now an additional variable, the psychiatric state of the person taking the THC. People with borderline personality disorders (something they not really know about) and certain other mental conditions may see a worsening of those issues. This especially with people with paranoid tendencies. Even people without undetlying conditions may have psychological issues. THC has a.so been tested as an incompacitating agent by at least two militaries of which I know. Neither adopted it because the effects were not predictable. These ranged from zoned out to psychotic. The latter especially a problem if the agent was meant to reduce violence.
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  878. Not specific to Hitler, but to many situations. Many people, groups or societies that we call insane really are just different than ours. Being different due to other cultural, social or political paradigms don't make people insane. The PRC had a one child per family rule which resulted in abortions or the outright murder of female babies. Was that policy wrong by most standards, YES. Did the policy cause societal problems, YES. The PRC has announced that it will stop being able to sustain its population by between 2050 and 2075; while kidnapping and actual slavery of women is real according to the UN because there aren't enough women; and problems of over protected male children born during that period. Was it insane for a society to harm itself in this way, yes; by our way of thinking, not theirs of the time. As he mentioned Pol Pot murdered one third of his population because they were European educated or belonged to non-Khmer ethic groups. By his logic, he wished to purified the Khmer people of foreign beliefs or non-Khmer peoples. To the Western nations this crazy; but to his beliefs, this was logical and followed some of Moa's ideas for creating a "good" social order. We can find many examples, to the moder n world, through the ages of apparently evil or insane beliefs or actions. We talk of t he crusades, but ignore the Islamic jihad that conquered all the way into France before being pushed back. The Spanish inquisition was an outgrowth of this; and actually very similar to what was done to Christians who made politically driven open conversions to Islam who were caught at the lie. Both committed similar acts, but today only one is mentioned. My point is selected outrage and cultures judging others on their beliefs.
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  900. Talking about the Baltic Fleet, this bad history. First, Japan had taken Port Arthur after the First Sino-Japanese War; but were forced to give it back and immediately the Rusdians took over, taken as an insult. Add this to around 200 years of low level hostility between Imperial Russia and Japan. In 1700 the Japanese owned the entire Kyril Islands, Sakhalin and various coastal areas of Siberia. Despite repeated agreements with the Russian, including one involving an official delegation in Moscow, by 1870's Japan only retained half of Sakhalin and a few islands off Hokkaido due to Russia's constant expansion. In order to protect those islands and Hokkaido, Japan then ceded the rest of Sakhlain to Russia (it didn't hurt that Japan had British support on the issue). The Russo-Japanese was as much over fears of further Russian advances as anything else. The Japanese used a favorite tactic, delivering a declaration of war just before the attack began (done in Moscow, ensuring it being too late to alert the Russian fleet. Once it was sunk or contained, the Japanese had freedom of movement to the continent. Russian only rail line to East Asia was incomplete and unable to handle heavy traffic. The only hope to the government was to regain control of the sea route to the continent, hence the political decision to send the Baltic Fleet. The fleet itself include obsolescent vessels and as described poorly trained crew (remember the Navy wasn't important to Tsarist Russia, mainly a land force centered in Europe and the Turkish areas). Most of the events as described (rather childishly by the narrator) were about as described, except that Great Britain was actually unfriendly to the voyage even without the Dogger Bank Incident. It was a disasterious voyage, using ships not designed for the voyage, and no real support or maintenance enroute. The Navy wasn't the real problem however; it was the political decisions that caused Japanese concerns, lack of concern in Russian East Asian Forces, conceit about their supremacy over the Japanese (alot like before WW2), and of course the political decision that caused the mission to be sent. The failure of this war actually resulted in a revolt in 1905.
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  943. Rome's fall was more involved than that. Rome grew with small land owners protecting their society, then with the farmers losing their jobs to slaves (machines and robotics seem to be doing that today). In order to gain power, the elites the rich began providing food and entertainment making the population less self-reliant. The newly conquered people began to take up the military manpower role. Then the empire stalled with no new riches from conquest and the expense of maintaining its structures, the elites began finding ways to obtain funds from all others; but they also had a large number of idle who they eventually made to work (shoemakers children had to be shoemaker and etc.). The enemies outside the empire became more realized and better armed; while plague and civil wars reduced parts of the empire to a shell. At this point the enemies started pushing into the empire which need troops to fight them. So, increasingly they hired other groups and didn't make them Romanized; but the did improve their arms and armor, allowing local enemies to equal local garrisons in quality while outnumbering them. So lighter quick response forces were created that could be quickly moved using training to offset the fact that their opponent both out numbered them and at least had a core as well equipped. That worked for awhile, but ultimately they couldn't replace the trained manpower that they lost, thereby increasing dependency on non-Roman manpower. This finally led to non-Romans controlling the landsof the Western halfof the empire ushering in what still known as the Dark Ages (although modern studies have shown that is something of a misnomer). The Eastern hal of the empire struggled on first as the East Rome Empire and later renamed the Byzntine Empire until the Turks finally destroyed in the 15th Century.
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  952.  @patriciabrenner9216  Your attitude shows with your "blah blah" comment. Again, I point out that all sides have hatreds, some more justified than others. How many Getmans died when their cities were razed and firebox Ed (remember we tried Germans as war criminals for similar acts)? Was the expulsion and mistreatment of ethnic Germans less bad than their treatment of people were Jews under the Nurenburg Laws? Was the loss of half of Germany and the seizure of their land less wrong than the seizure of property by the Germans? As I said my wife's mother was from Hiroshima (luckily she and her family were out of town bartering for food that day). She helped with casualty/body recovery. My wife's father's health was permanently damaged by the war and his brother worked downtown in Hiroshima when the bomb exploded, and his body never found. Despite that I felt no hatred when I visited them, they had no concern over her marrying a USAF officer, the widow of his brother welcomed me when we visited; in other words they placed their hatred aside years before I met my wife and never let it affect her and her siblings. My point is hatred is a poison, both to the person who hates and to those that someone takes revenge on. Was what happened to your family a horror, YES. Should it have happened, NO! Does hatred change anything that happened, No. So what does hatred do positive, Nothing. Spend that emotional strength doing something positive and make sure that horror can never happen again.
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  983.  @huey.r.ruckus  I am just implying that you are taking a limited sample and applying it broadly. My wife graduated college in her native country and came here post graduate, through her I have met any people who have come here; in the service I knew many of my people who had foreign born wives, out of the service I have worked alongside foreign born US citizens, and when I taught high school for a few years I met many foreign born students both legal and illegal. Yes, I have an issue with illegals based on my experience, and even legal immigrants may have issues depending on their country of origin. A woman from many of the Southeast Asian countries may be virtually illiterate in her written native language and very limited schooling (I saw that on active duty, where I tried to help deal with INS issues); in high school, I saw students dropped into classes that they were ill prepared for due to age (often unable to read material in their native language) whose parent's language skills were even more limited in many cases. On the other end of the scale, most of the legal immigrants who were educated when they came here can adapt well. Whether they understand the principles of our Constitution and Government depends on their desire to understand them and how they view learning (in some countries, such things are really the concern of most people). So, we will have very different perceptions based on our experiences. So yes, you can say in your expetience; but I have to point out that your experience may be an exception that many of us will dispute.
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  993. Sorry, the comments about Japan are based on misconceptions. Japan started seriously studying the West around 1700. They had previously had three spy rings watching China, Korea and the West. The government kept this research from the mainstream population to avoid overthrowing the government. Western knowledge was distributed where it caused no danger to the government after any mention of the West was deleted. In "Giving Up The Gun", the author mentions a medical textbook as evidence of Japanese efforts; however in a more scholarly text, this book is mentioned as a Japanese translation of a Dutch medical textbook after any mention of the West was edited out. Modernization of the Japanese military actually began in the late 1840s after the Dutch king warned Japan of Western interest in forcing it open. Japan was well aware of the Opium Wars and foreign affects on China. So. Was the choice of opening up to the US forced or the choice of the least aggressive (at the time) foreign government. Remember the US terms were far easier than those typically enforced against China. The Japanese actually were only about 50 years behind the West in technology (mainly due to the Dutch not actually living up to the terms of trade that required an annual Intel briefing on technology and political events in the West). Unlike the Chinese government of the time, the Japanese ousted the "no change people" there and grasped change. They adopted the Napoleonic legal code used by most of Europe; and thereby made the European nation's demands for extraterritorality mute. This insured no dismemberment. So while elements of this creator's videos may be true, the adoption of the new (to the public) ensured the type of positive results that he assumes were there.
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  1053.  @condorX2  Not exactly right. The British and others started opium as a major trade item much earlier. The Chinese refused to buy European products, barbarians couldn't make anything that they needed. They believed that the only things worth anything were produced there. If you wanted to buy Chinese s I lk, tea, etc.; you needed to buy it. Opium already was in China as a luxury item imported in small quantities on camel back over the silk road. The British found that India produced huge quantities of opium and the British East India Company (called John Company) began to import it by the shipload. It moved from luxury item to a cheap escape from the despotic and corrupt governments; while at the same time providing the silver needed to buy Chinese goods. For decades this continued, until the government finally realized the problem; and tried to stop it. This led to conflict between John Company and independent traders which got the British government involved. Unless you dig into it you will miss some very interesting facts. John Company operated on a Royal Charter for which it paid the Crown (of course that also meant the King). It was a stock company owned by many of the nobles and wealthy, including the Royal family, who therefore personally profited from it as investors. Finally taxes on both the auction of the opium harvest and its subsequent sale enriched the government and the crown without mentioning the profit on tea and other trade goods brought into Britain and its colonies from China. It was until after the Indian Mutiny in 1857 that this changed because the Crown took direct control and didn't. Want a direct involvement in that trade. Cotton then became a major crop, re during t he need for US cotton which had an impact on the US Civil War (by the way, the French started buying cotton grown in East Africa around the same time, again reducing the need for US cotton). So, there is alot of threads that are usually ignored when you see this war discussed.
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  1072.  @drizztdourden5291  I am conservative also, and I do support the police. If you want to complain about some of the nonsense that legislatures pass; and they must enforce; we would probably find more agreement. A good example was the death of the guy selling single cigarettes in NYC. The law was passed by the legislature, supposedly to reduce smoking; however, if you look at the letter put out that should have been part of this incident it complained about lost tax revenue and called for increased enforcement. By the way, the same law was a boost the cigarette smuggling industry. The mayor than wrote to the police chief who had the bosses get on the patrolman and women. Now, add to this that Mr. Gardner had several prior arrests and convictions for this and tried to walk away from the officer, and the receipe for disaster. We can argue if a chokehold was used or different but similar method was initiated but slipped into a chokehold. The fact remains that he had resisted arrest and was still alive for sometime after the event. The arguments ignore how many officers were kneeling on him to hold him down. His family got millions; interestingly, his daughter died of the same type of heart failure, but she was neither choked or held down by the police. Media facts and all facts frequently tell very different stories. While I don't agree with stoning the left, media should be held liable for the damages done due to bad reporting. Those are both damages to the individual defamed and; and any property damage that insues.
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  1083. The yield at a was recalculated from the samples taken and the photos of the site. The new calculation is around 17 KT; however I suggest that you review a copy of the Journal of Health Physics which covers this. By the way the Tsar Bomb was a theoretical 50 MT; it actually didn't reach its full potential, thre. Are actual physical limits to how much of the material will undergo fusion. To get a bomb with that potential would require a horrendously large delivery system; so ends t he tale of super-sized bombs. By the way terrain and altitude play havoc with planning. The Hiroshima bomb was set to detonate without the fire ball touching the surface, but it did causing more fallout. The Nagzsaki bomb's fireball didn't touch the ground despite its greater size and because of terrain the damage was not as uniform as Hiroshima a flat coastal site. An additional factor was the type of construction (wood with a great deal of paper screens) and the fact breakfast charcoal fires were common in most dwellings, coupled with the disruption of water lines and burst gas mains meant a great deal of the damage were secondary to the bomb. None of this is not agree that the weapons arenn't horrendously destructive and dangerous. I am only saying that books like the Effects of Nuclear Weapons (used to be available through the US Government Printing Office and include a circular slide rule to figure theoretical effects under optimum conditions at sea level) can't help you get a good feel for these weapons and there is an excellent book on the medical and forensic records at Hiroshima.
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  1116.  @camm8642  I suggest that you review Chinese history starting from around 1911 to 1932. Most of what the PRC and Chinese complain about the Japanese they complained about against other Chinese during that period. The whole moral construct that we view things from is European, war was historically a much nastier thing in East Asia. That does not justify Japanese conduct, but places it in context. By the way, we tried Germans for doing what we did to German and Japanese cities. In their case, we called it war crimes. The Russian essentially had a death march of the Axis forces surrendered at Stalingrad. Only around 30,000 survived the March and camps. Closer research on the Bataan Death March will show that it was never intended for that purpose; however the number of prisoners was higher than expected and discipline among the prisoners had broken down leading to spoilage of what food and water that was available. Japanese troops were inconsistent in their treatmentent of prisoners as well with some passing units actually giving them food and others beating them. In other words inconsistency, Soviet treatment of Axis troops was exceedingly consistent and bad. German u-boat warfare was bad, but our unrestricted submari e warfare was good even though they were the something. Propaganda and victory often determine who is seen as a villain. Stretch your imagination. a minute and think of a German victory tribunal judging FDR and Churchill for the deliberate fire bombing of German cities; or the Japanese trying Us leaders for things like the intentional fire bombing of Tokyo which killed at least 100,000 in a single night.
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  1247.  @whitescar2  First and foremost your comments prove that you can't get beyond certain beliefs. One, that a biased assessment of future risk based on a biased set of factors is wrong. I notice you ignored the 600 pound guerilla, the canceling of a program that would mitigate Iran's and North Korea's nuclear missile ambitions, which were already clear. The blindness to the PRC ambitions and those were made clear by the manmade islands which former President Obama and then VP Biden ignored. Putin was already developing new nuclear weapons before former President Trump took office and the Obama Administration did nothing. Former President Obama shifted NASA's attention from space to diversity and climate, leaving Russia and the CCP to move into the void. So flawed or biased politically motivated threat analysis controlled military policy, and generals and admirals supporting those analysis were promoted. As to upgrading existing systems and not developing new ones; sometimes their are clear advantages to buying the more expensive spread. A railgun doesn't need explosive propellants or a bursting charge, the effect is kinetic energy. This reduces, the need to protect magazines and the danger of accidental or combat explosions and fires; thereby making the ship safer. Additionally the range would have given a significant advantage. The cannon that was used to replace it had a good range, but at the expense of higher cost per round (which limited procurement of the shells), was less than the range of a railgun and required explosive propellants and shells. Then, the question of upgrading a 30 year old hull, electronis and propulsion system has to be considered. Even with upgrades, a 30 year old hull is 30 years old. For upgrades to work, often completely new parts are needed, for an aircraft an easier task. The A10 upgrade has new wing spars included, which means a great deal of the aircraft is literally new. The idea of buying new F15s sound weird, but again, even though the design is old a newly completed or completely rebuilt airframe (since stealth only air fleets are over rated since new tech has limited its effectiveness against peer forces) makes sense with standoff weapons and drone swarms. Rebuilding a ship's hull is a larger commitment in terms of available resources. The ship will be out of use for several years at least, and in the meantime the operational forces will be reduced further. I do agree that the Zumwalt's have significant issues because of assumptions made when designed; I would agree a more conventional design probably would have been better. The railgun could have still been included, and a more effective vessel resulted. Slightly changing the subject, the LCS was a popular because it required less crew, thereby reducing operating costs at the expense of personnel but decreasing the ship's ability to deal with damage. This wasn't a factor if you weren't dealing with non-peer adversaries, but quite significant with peers.
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  1276. Question, how do these readings compare to records of Europe from around 1000 AD ( my preference rather than the phony CE which uses the same start point but ignores what it is) to somewhere in the early 1800's. Since there are no true records world wide until the second half of the 1900's, we can only use reports of observers where such reports are available. Around 1000AD, the Norse found large areas of the west coast and south of Greenland capable of supporting farming of crops and live stock in areas of Norway. By around 1300AD, the ice and weather had ended farming and the colony was gone (I won't get into a discussionof what became of them). This matches severe weather records in Europe affecting crops and records of glacieral advances in the Alps. In the North American southwest the period saw the end of the Anastasi farming culture, the migration of tribes from the north of the continent, and geological soil samples have indicated a decades long drought in the Great Plains in southwest starting somewhere around 1300 AD. These match reports from earlier periods (admittedly spotty due to losses of earlier written records) and other geological records. This seems to indicate a cycle of about 500 years in heating and warming of the Earth. Can man affect the cycle, probably. Can man control the cycle, probably not. Using a 500 year cycle, we should be reacing its peak, perhaps early because of man. There is evidence of the Gulf Stream being disrupted due to Greenland melt water, which could adversely affect northern North American and Northern Europe, making it harder for agricultural pursuits. At the same time, satellites have shown greening along the margins of the Sahara. What will happen for sure, I don't know. All I do know is that its humankind's ego that thinks that it understands all the factors that go into climate. By the way, I haven't even gone into the connected world wide ocean current whose cycle is around 1000 years. Solar cycles that we are still learning about, or the effects of seismic and volcanic events such as the volcano that blew up near Tonga recently.
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  1352.  @larry6601  Ranked choice and open primaries are abominations. The open primary means that the top two or three vote getters run against each for the office. Which means in California, no Republicans or Conservative stands a chance at state wide office. You run enough candidates in the primary dilute the vote and there usually the choice is between the two most left candidates. As electronic voting, the weak point is how politically lopsided that we find both programmers and firms are. Your basic assumption is that there will be enough review to insure an algorithm that adds, subtracts or alters votes can't be inserted into the software without being discovered. My position is that it can be done. Not strictly analogous, but we have seen the social media copies place there thumbs on the scales of an election by either suppressing news or hyping it for their preferred candidate. Run this scenario in your head. Company X is run by a firm believer in socialism (or venal enough to be bribed or weak enough to submit to threats). He/she hires socialist believers for whatever reason to write or update election software; and they modify it to alter the vote count in someway. This altered software is than provided to voting districts or states who support the cause. An alternative is sending people from the company to update software immediately before an election. In districts supporting their side no one will be allowed to challenge the election and the company will refuse to allow the software to be checked. This defeats all of your safeguards because from the company to the user all are in on the scheme. In other words, a computer can only do what its software tells it to do. Hacking the program while running may be impossible, but corrupting the software is very doable if a group desires it.
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  1353.  @larry6601  I am no professional programmer, but on several occassions I have worked closely with them in developing programs/record systems that I needed. 8n at least one case, I caught the assumption that the programmer made that turned an existing data base into garbage when forgot that those entering the data did not all finish an entry the same (some added a space). The affect was cumulative, throwing each next entry off by an additional amount, the NRC wasn't happy with the results and it rolled down hill. I have done some simple programming myself after I bought my first computer back in 1982. So I do brave great respect for those with the patience to work at it. My work involved command and control, planning for, responding to, and recovering from various emergencies and disasters (man-made or natural). As a result I have a strong belief that a certain percentage (usually small thank God) are totally unethical, will cut corners or try to cheat. So, I am routinely assume the worst and hope for the best. If you've planned on the worst, anything less is easy. Also effecting my beliefs is the fact that I have spent a great deal of my military time around special ops and electronic security units. Some thing that makes it easy to accept that there are people out there ours and theirs who are willing and able to do not so wonderful things. Not bad when it happens to an enemy, not so much when your side is on the receiving end. Something to remember is that the system used in Arizona (and some other states in 2020) fought releasing information on their system because it was proprietary, not an open system. It was in Arizona where someone from the company made a software upgrade after the machines were certified according to some sources. We'll never know for sure because the court cases never got to discovery. So, to me, these were two red flags that should have been checked and resolved. If you have nothing to hide, why hide.
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  1371.  @jr.fidelcastro8890  First, by your choice of screen name you are either a good socialist or communist believer; I am not, so we are not brothers. Second, given that screen name you probably don't believe in any deity, I happen to believe in one. So you apparently assign a deity's power to man, I do not. Three, man did not have the power to change the climate during the previous cycles; man doesn't even really understand all the factors now let alone have he power to change them. Your type of belief reminds me of several cartoons during the ice age scare of years ago. Perhaps the best one for this comparison was an ant floating down a river yelling raise the draw bridge. Man an not affect at least three planetary factors, the Earth's wobble on its axis with about a 25,000 year cycle; two the Earths relative position the Sun which sees a complete reversal of the seasons. This is around a 50,000 year cycle; three, the degree of eccentricity of the Earth's orbit which moves from near circular to and an oval about every 100,000 years. Climate alarmists ignore those because of how long they take despite the fact these aren't taking place on a magic set schedule and. The results of each adds to or subtracts from the other. We have less than n 100 years good data on solar activity; but do know it varies even on a short scale; we do not know long term cycles. That just covers massive scale events. You ignore the effects of the global ocean circulation system that is estimated to take a thousand years to complete one circuit of the planet. Why is. That important, because melt fresh water off the Arctic disrupts that cycle cooling the Northern Hemisphere and eventually affects the Soutnern Hemisphere but not at the same time, so the affect seems local not planetary. Again, this is occurring while orbital and solar changes are happening, so what are the interactions. I can go on, but so many things have be6en learned and studied by those specifically in their own fields. The issue isn't science but the problem of integrating pieces of science together without political ideologies or human quests for power getting in the way.
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  1372. Besides the intent of the Constitution; the reality was that private arms frequently were more cutting edge than those of the US Government. Captured Ferguson breech loading rifles stayed in private arms long after the Revolutionary War. Most backwoods men and frontier dwellers continued to use rifled muskets while the Government continued to arm the army with smooth bore muskets. Percussion cap muskets and minnie ball (actually conical projectiles which expanded to take riflings) were in civilian use before the US military. As late as the Civil War the Union still used some smooth one muskets; while several workable breechloaders and early cartridge firing rifles existed (few in troops hands). Early magazine fed arms started showing up in the military but were dropped soon after the war with singles hot breech loaders replacing them. While the US military continued with single shoot breech loaders until the 1890s, magazine feed repeaters were in widespread civilian use. The first semiautomatic rifles were civilian. Submachine guns were commonly available until the early 1930s; when they were largely banned because a few got widespread publicity because of criminal use. Then as now, appearing to do something was more important than doing something. The difference was that law enforcement was told to end those gangs one way or another; Ma Bsrker's gang, Baby Face Nelson, Dillenger to name a few were either killed or surrendered, and no tears were shed over the deaths; and they killed far fewer than today's drug gangs. The point is that at no point in history until the 1930s was it considered wrong for the public to own weapons as modern or more modern than those of the police or army. That is the true enforcement of the 2nd Amendment. Oh, by the way. In New York, the original motivational firearms laws was to disarm the opponent party's poll watchers of firearms while keeping Tammany Hall's armed, I will let you check out who Tammany Hall represented one hint it wasn't Republicans.
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  1395. Chris, please do research before pontificating. The Brist and the US among others used 8 men under a corporal as an administrative volunteer element. They formed a much larger platoon or company which was the lowest deployed combat unit. During the war the platoons wer re broken up into specialized squads or groups for an attack. The Germans did deploy an eight or nine man assault element in their storm troops which were disrupt the enemies rear areas,y headquarter, communications and supplies. The new infantry formation which was what initially used in WWII was a battle family of a machinegun eleme nt under its commander and a supporting/maneuver element with grenades and rifles. SMGs were to be used in both. The SMGs weren't delivere d in sufficient numbers and the battle families weren't completely organized due to losses and battlefield conditions. You will find that the French followed much the same logic. The US and Britain didn't follow that pathway. The US didn't adopted a true light MG, using the BAR to provide much the same role and reverted to larger sections. Manpower reductions reduced the number of these sections in the platoon during peacetime. By WWII, the US was planning on 12 an squads with no LMG or BAR and a dedicated BAR squad added to the platoon. The British on the other hand also went back to an 8 man "squad" probably as a cost cutting and manpower issue. Some form of LMG was added until they adopted the. BREN Gun which armed one man, they eventually increased their squad size to 10 as well. Now to LMGs and firepower. Germany didn't originate the. LMG. One example of an early one was the Danish Madsen (which the Germans used for awhile, going so far as equipping entire battalions with it to stop breakthroughs. Before the German MP18 came out they used various Mauser (no extra sized magazies since it did not have a detachable magazine) and Lugar variants that had detachable shoulder stocks, and 32 round drum magazines. There is a great deal more details, but you should look for yourself.
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  1398. Lets see after New Spain became Mexico, the overland route to California was closed due Native Americans, the only way to reach it was by sea from Mexican Pacific ports. Mexico used California as a tax farm. Manufactured goods had to arrive at Gulf of Mexico ports. Carried across Mexico by ox cart, loaded on ships and sent to California. So, little manufactured goods were available at higher prices. The Californians were expected to pay taxes in coin; however their only real product was cattle hides. The Californians did have a market, New England that needed pulley belts for their growing industries. A sailing vessels from New England could carry as much or more manufactured goods at a lower price to California, and was willing to trade goods and pay for the hides in coin. A this time, many California families were happy to marry their daughters to captains in this trade. Today's Arizona and New Mexico had similar stories. The population of the at area had dropped drastically as Mexico was unable to protect them due to its internal conflicts. Santa Fe only saw one caravan from Mexico proper a year; because it was the tax collectors coming and it was escorted. Most manufactured goods came from the US via the Santa Fe Trail. In both, only a small number of population centers remained in the area. Many previously working mines were lost when the Native Americans wiped out them miners. An interesting aside, while slavery was illegal the Mexican population old raid the Native American populations and take people hold them in virtual slavery to teach them to become "people of reason"; that didn't help relations very much. In fact when US 5roops first arrived during the Mexican American War they were cheered as saviors from the Natives. Now, you omitted a very important fact mention in documents of the period. Mexico and the US had virtually come to an agreement before the fighting when the British Ambassador stuck his nose into the matter. He pointed out that Mexico had around 32,000 battle hardened troops on hand while the entire US ABrmy was authorized less than 9,000 (even less in fact) and had not fought an organized army since the War of 1812. The US militia had been less than effective then. He convinced them that they could beat the US. It has been considered that since the New England states were opposed to such a conflict that the US might breakup and Great Britain be able to gain the area. He did not realize that various militia reforms had taken place which resolved many of the War of 1812's issues; nor did he realize that. A number good military schools have produced good potential officers in an emergency. This wasn't the case in Mexico where politic, money and family played as big or bigger part in whether someone was an officer. As to whether a Polk pushed the war by troops in the disputed territory, remember the Mexicans put troops there as well. It could be said that they were trying to get the US to attack first. This was a war that shouldn't have happened. Mexico was well on the way of losing their northern most territory to Native Americans or local insurrection well before the war. Britain's ambassador piled the fuel on to create it and pride on both sides ignited it.
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  1416.  @alibali1968  For another time, I will tell you that that name and source were in old notes that I had taken while looking for other information. These are now packed away, and it was from a time when data that I found interesting but not relative to my primary research was stored poorly. As to the stories that I mentioned, most are ones in which I was involved or had direct knowledge. The only one that I didn't have direct. Knowledge of was the 13 year old car jacker who murdered the zbritish tourist; and that made national news. As far as assuming something about your age and experience, I have found most people posting are considerably younger. I have served in the military for years, including as a squadron section commander (responsible for discipline) and have seen the affects of uneven or lax enforcement of rules based on favoritism or undeserved sympathy; in one unit I was brought in to fix that issue and was had to discharge around 10% of that unit's strength over a year. The shame is that most of those weren't bad people, just people who began thinking the rules didn't have to be followed because nothing would be done. At the end of the year, if a person had a problem, they came for help be fore acting out and they knew driving drunk, fighting, leaving work would be acted on; and so didn't do it. By the way the majority of those discharged were White; learning bad habits isn't limited to any one ethnic group. I have taught high school as well, and seen what happens when rules are bent for some and not others. People ended up hurt or punished who shouldn't have been. So, I don't have a great deal of respect for the liberal mind set that has created the gang h--ls I. Our major cities. An example was Ms. Foxx here in Chicago who fairly recently refused to prosecute any one involved in a shootout between two gangs because it was a mutual combat. Teenagers with pistols(illegally possessed and carried under Illinois and Federal law) shooting wildly and endangering others while harming each other; but whose conduct was ignored. A more unfortunate incident shortly after President Obama's second inauguration was the murder of an innocent young Black woman, shoot by mistake. The shooter roughly six months before (16 at the time) was caught breaking and enteringa facility while carrying a pistol. The charges were plea bargained down to trespass and the firearms charge dropped despite a lengthy record of gang crimes. He was placed on probation, which he violated but wasn't rearrested, before he got another pistol and went out to retaliate against another gang for a shooting. He mistook this young woman and her friends for that other gang since they were in that gang's territory, and opened fire killing her and injuring others. He was 17 now and was charged as an adult. So, a young woman doing well in school with a clean history was murdered by a gang banger who was given repeated slaps on the wrist for crimes, and a probation system that took no action when he violated his probation.
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  1418.  @alibali1968  Sorry, but Government funded research to support a previously established position is a fairly common problem. Many years ago, the professor who was teaching statistical analysis in a Psychometric Measurement class, that I took, used several government reports to show how to misuse statistics and bias analysis. That final test of a two semester test was the hardest that I ever took. We had taken two semesters to write the questions that he used, and each section got the others questions. The point is that I could still write a bad survey to get results that I wanted to provide data to provide the analysis and position that I wanted. The difference is that doing so is both bad science and unethical; just as ignoring data that disproves a point is a common failing among scientists who let politics and grants get in the way of actual research. Did the papers you mentioned do that? I can't say since I didn't review them or their data; however, I basically distrust any paper that doesn't show all the data that went into it. As to my two examples, I actually used four between my posts. I could have easily found more. Just check out assaults recently in New York and other cities where people with 10s of arrests are caught from hours to a few days committing the same offense (sometimes with fatal results); not all of these people were Black the common thread was minimal punishment. To no punishment and often release within a day of the previous arrest. Saying no bail is law refuses to accept the mind set of those who passed the law, or prosecutors who refuse to charge "minor crimes" until the person does something that can't be ignored. Two example are Ms. Foxx in Chicago, Ms Mosby (sp?) In Baltimore. You can find other, including several on the West Coast. These aren't cherry picked examples, they are major issues as businesses close and cities, I some cases begin to fail, for example Seattle, Portland and San Francisco. In New York, the DA and mayor have stated opposing views with the DA unwilling to charge in many cases. These aren't isolated events but ungoing issues.
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  1421.  @alibali1968  I can do you one better, throughout 2020 White liberals and Blacks rooted, burned down buildings, attacked government buildings, looted and attacked police and civilians. How many were jailed. On 6 January 2021, nothing was burned, nothing was looted, there was little violence by the supposed rioters as is shown on the few videos released so far. Many of these people are still imprisoned and the vast majority have either been uncharged or charged with misdemeanors after being held for longer than the sentences for the conduct. Many have been held in solitary confinement, and the prison warden for one charged for violating court orders for documents. I think that clearly shows uneven treatment; because if going into the Capitol was a crime or insurrection trying to burn Federal ans state buildings (at least in one case after trying to block the exits while people were inside is definitely a violent insurrection. Without saying anything about his death, George Floyd could be used as an example. A career criminal and drug abuser who was awaiting trial for a armed home invasion. If he had been jailed and an honest attempt at treatment provided, would he have died? We can discuss other cases where the dead man should have already been in jail but was out and involved in further questionable activities. Why no research, because it coesn't fit the prevailing Government narrative. My position is early legitimate enforcement of rules and laws supported by the community would prevent having to take drastic action or tragic events later; that was the point of talking about the unit that I had to takeover. It was too late to correct behavior, no one would listen if I tried to help someone that first year. I was only able to do more once the worst offenders were dealt with, even if many of them probably could have served out their enlistment had they learned early enough that military laws and rules had to be followed, and that took a year of being very hard nosed about them. By the end of the year, when I went to bat for someone, I was listened to. Learning as a child that society has rules and laws and that they will be enforced while the punishments are minor allows the child is young can prevent worse behavior later. Maslow (if I remember correctly) once said something to the effect ofgive me a child early enough and I can make him/her genius or a criminal. I believe that he was correct. Teaching a child to make good choices is what this society has forgotten.
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  1467. @Aditya Chavarkar Lets, I do look outside my window and check the thermometer. I also have lived long enough to see cycles and studied history enough (besides my military history, I studied weather among other things as my duty was emergency planning which included natural and man-made disasters). I was born in a snow storm at the end of March which doesn't normally see them. On one vacation I was stopped by a snow closed road on the 4th of July. My first year out of the service I lost two car engines to the coldest winter in the region in recorded history. I remember the year as a teenager the roads in Cook County were closed due to snow for three days, and I pulled a sled more than a mile to the store. Besidez this year which had the longest or one of the longest periods of below freezing in recorded history here. Yes, I know that these are all personal events, but the point is that they occurred years apart from each others in climate cycles. Again an example from the past, in the 1880s there was at least one year cattle on the Great Plains froze to death standing up. Geologists, using tree rings and soil core samples showing a recurring drought cycle in North America about every 50 years with a decades long one occurring around every 500 years (strangely, the estimated for the last matches records of the Little Ice Age. Remember during the warming cycle that the Little Ice Age ended, areas of Greenland that people bemoan are warming were fertile enough to grow oats and barley, as well as support animal husbandry. The Vikings settled there during the period d archelogical research verified what I just mentioned. During the same period glaciers in the Alps advanced rapidly enough to overrun villages, and wide spread crop failures due to weather caused issues. These ended in the early 1800s, if the geological and historic records follow the same cycle, we are near the peak of this warming cycle. Could man affect this natural cycle, yes. He might make the peak higher or last longe,; but with natural cycles, they will happen. Man is like an old cartoon, an ant floating down a river on a left screaming raise the drawbridge.
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  1507. Well over simplified about both Romans and Japanese. The original Samurai were bowmen using a long unsymmetrical bow. The other weapons were used, in fact the bowmen were mounted bowmen; hence the asymmetrical bows. Originally the Romans troops were like the Greeks using a spear, shield, and short sword/long knives in a phalanx. Then they moved to the pilum (heavy javelin which could be used as a spear), however the troops in the 3rd rank continued to use the spear and were to cover the first two lines if they had to retreat or drop back to reorganize. This was because of the broken country much of the zitalian fighting involved. Then the third line became armed as the first two. This was the norm, until somewhere around 200-300 AD (I'm working from memory on the date) when spears began being used again and the formations used included the phalanx again due to increased likelihood of fighting mounted enemies. By somewhere between 400 and 500 AD spears were the most common with a sizeable missile (mostly bows) armed troops. What had changed was the increased fighting against cavalry because open formations were an invitation to disaster. As the use of cavalry increased on both sides of a conflict, the need to hold off the cavalry increased its missile arms used to break their formations, think like the early gunpowder formations using pikemen and early firearms to take down cavalry. We won't go into legion size that started as a single legion (not enough population for two) of approximately 3,000 men; to one of between 4,000 and 5,000 back down to mobile legions of around 1,000 men by the end of Rome. Also the changing enemies over more than 500 years affected arms and weapons as well; another long discussion.
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  1523. ​ @lindapindabelinda3570  I keep brushing the send key. And on paper they pay good dividends, along came COVID, businesses closed and people needed money. The banks really didn't have adequate resources, so the government acted and banks seized or limited depositors ability to get cash. Lets look at housing. Builders were essentially running a Ponzi scheme where projects were funded by sales of future projects. This meant without future projects being sold that they could fund the ones already sold. People were using these purchases for investments since housing prices constantly rose. They would borrow from the bank to purchase the home, and immediately start paying for a project that hadn't even been begun. Again, along came COVID and this House of Cards began to collapse. Builder couldn't build and building material prices rose if they could. People started complaining and refusing to pay. The builders went bankrupt, losing billions and leaving buyers holding the bag. Since biggest part of the economy was the home market, the national economy took a direct hit. Now look at the actual buildings. Historically there was a practice, often called "the squeeze" by Westerners of the period. Under Imperial rule, people at all levels of the government took some of the Imperial money entrusted to them; an honest man only took up to 10%. This would mean if a project had an Imperial funding of 100,000 (I am not using the money's name or a real amount), the first person kept say 10,000 leaving the project 90,000. The next man kept 9,000, leaving the next 81,000. The next took 8,100, leaving 72,900. This would continue until it reached the last person. For our example, let's say it was the man who got 72,900. He of course needed to make a profit, so he would use the cheapest labor and material he could and pocket the savings. Look at today's Chinese construction. It often uses substandard or even fraudulent materials, leaving buildings to start breaking up within a few years. This applies to even some government projects. Meaning the actual value of compieted buildings is less than the paper value. By the way, this method of reducing costs has also been seen in poison baby formula (substituting a poisonous material for a more expensive item) bolts made of cheaper grade steel than that required, etc. Now to the governmen, the game there is played by companies being owned by the government officials family. There by allowing the official to profit from this position (perhaps learned from the West or perhaps the West learned from them. Think President Biden's family. Enough said, the Chinese economy has always been a Hkuse of Cards made of smoke and mirrors awaiting a strong wind to destroy it. COVID was that wind, it didn't cause the problems; it exposed them.
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  1619. The usual issue, as the units are canceled the per unit cost rises. Why? It costs X to develop the technology and Y to establish any special production facilities, and final Z which is the cost of producing special items for the design. The unit cost than is cost of X+Y+Z divided by the number of units added to the profit. As t he number of units purchase drop, the cost per unit rises. For argument sake let's say we are building something where development is 100,000 you chose a currency). It will cost 50,000 to modify the production facility; and another 50,000 to produce specialized equipment. I have left off the actual cost of production (man hours × pay per hour) lets say this is 100,000 per unit; and we say that the profit will be 10,000 per finished unit. Again for this case, we will use 50 units as the original target. This means that the unit would cost 200,000÷50 + 100,000 (actual production cost per unit)+ 10,000 ( profit per unit). When the math is said and done, will be 114,000. Now let's say we cut back the order to 25 units. Now the cost per finished unit will be 200,000÷25 + production cost + profit, or 118,000. Not a horrible increase so far, but remember if a new system is added, it could require a reworking of plans, cancelation of existing parts orders, and other cascading changes. Since I am keeping it simple (unlike what was done to the F-35 which has evolved into three different designs plus modification for air superiority ops for which it was never originally intended). Lets say the bean counters decide to reduce the production to 10 units. Now without changes, the cost of fixed expenses is 20,000 per unit, and a finished unit is now 130,000 or 26,000 more than the original costs; or an increase of a very little over 14%. Now the bean counters have a fit, and reduce the buy to three units too advanced to cancel and say we will now want the work completed over several years. We can now add inflation in materials and wage increases (again ignored for this example). The per unit cost of the fixed 200,000 expenses in the original development is now divided by three, making development costs now 66,700 per unit (I rounded it to the nearest hundred). This makes the unit cost, as completed, 176,700, or an increase of something over 61%. Now remember these ships cost much more than 100,000 to design, their building facilities cost more than 50,000 and the subcontractors probably had expenses and profit much higher than 50,000. I have no doubt inflation. In material and labor increased cost, and their armament was modified meaning design changes and delays, plus the profit was probably a percentage not a fixed amount. So drastic increases (overruns) aren't just the developers issue. From funding, design changes and work schedule changes; everyone in the purchasing system add costs. What was the real costs in dollars adjusted for inflation is never mentioned, just as design change costs are mentioned. It might anger the public at the Government, not just the contractors.
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  1629.  @jamesa77522  I can research, but I also have learned long ago how to edit and splice. I want the official. Material starting at the beginning. This like the officer saying he saw attackers wearing Trump items; I hate to tell you that in 1939 the NAZIs attacked a radio station in Germany and left corpses in Polish army uniforms to justify the invasion of Poland. False flag operations have a long history, a recent example was Jessie Smolette hiring people to simulate Trump attackers. How many claims of racist posts have been proven to be actually have been done by Black activitists? Reality time proof is needed. Testimony only covers what one person saw at a particular moment in time; it says nothing of what led up to the incident and what occurred before the individual's arrival. I once had an airman referred to me for disciplinary action for raising his hand to strike an officer. On the surface, it was valid, but the airman said the office was insulting and raised his fist first and he only made a move to block it. He then named several witnesses that confirmed his story and who the officer agreed were there. It also came out that this officer showed clear bias against civilian employees of a certain racial background which was the same as the airman's; no action was taken. Why all evidence needs to be dispassionately reviewed. By the way, I would have loved if the charge was valid, the airman had two article 15's and a letter of reprimand already plus multiple counseling by both his supervisor, the First Sergeant and myself; but in this case my own feelings aside he was innocent. That is objective justice.
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  1652.  @NeptunesLagoon  Please check your data, sea level was around 400 feet lower about 17,000 years ago. There was still extensive glacierization at that point. The ice and land bridge from Siberia to Alaska existed at least at the beginning of this time. I do agree that further back there was even more ice in some past periods; however the Earth has cycled between hot and cold throughout eons. Check out the three orbital cycles, one of which has the Earth in an extremely elliptical orbit somewhere around every 100,000 years. There was a cartoon around in the 70's when the fear was of a new ice age; it featured an ant on a leaf floating down a river demanding the drawbridge be raised. Mankind believing that it can change/control the climate is equivalent to that ant's belief that the drawbridge needed to be raised for him. The climate will change whether we want it to or not. We have yet to identify all the causes of climate change; that is why none of the models have accurately predicted climate changes. I remember hearing Al Gore confidently predict all Arctic Ice would be gone a decade ago. I saw the satellite pictures of Arctic ice covered with dust from explosions used by Russia rerouting rivers to run to the north coast of Siberia trying to allow Siberia to warm. That dust actually allowed more melting of the ice;. Yes man can affect climate, however, the same ice melt disrupts the Gulf Stream that warms the North American Continent and Northern Europe and in around 500 years finally affects the Southern Hemisphere since the Gulf Stream is part of a world wide ocean system that is estimated to take 1,000 years for a complete cycle. Remember that around 1,000 AD or CE (they both use the same start point) Greenland 's coast included arable land well up is west coast. The Little Ice Age ended that, now that land is emerging again; the Little Ice Age ended in the the first decades of the 1800's (lets use around 1820). If a roughly 1000 yea r cycle is involved, we should be looking at being near the peak of the warming cycle. Just an aside geologists taking core samples inthe Great Plains found a decades long drought around every 500 year; this was verified by tree ring samples. That drought occurred near the point of the Little Ice Ages beginning. Instead of wasting time and money trying to prevent climate change, that effort needs to go into 0lznning to survive it.
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  1659. You covered the invasion, but starving Japan out was the third option. If the invasion was almost genecidal, this option was truly genicidal. While the official standard for civilians was 1500 calories per day, the actual in many areas was under 1000. The US bombing and naval gunfire had broken much of Japan's rail and road nets, meaning moving supplies around the country was difficult to impossible(my wife's mother survived Hiroshima because the family was out in the ountry side that day bartering for food). We had also been destroying coastal shipping (transport) and fishing vessels (food). You mentioned no one was left to work in factories; but we had destroyed almost the entire industrial capacity of Japan including that manufacturing medical supplies. Various diseases were endemic, and the death toll from starvation and disease would have been as great or greater than the losses of the invasion. As an aside, while radiation injured many from the A Bombs; many of those who died might have survived if they weren't malnurished and diseased. Radiation reduce immune response, so infections, burns and diseases that a healthy well nurished person would have survived proved fatal (My wife's family had goods that they could trade for food, and were healthier, and did not suffer (to my knowledge) from radiation affects despite helping clear rubble and bodies) . Additionally, many died from the uncontrolled and uncontrollable fires. Besides destroying gas mains and the water systems, blast damage caused building collapses or knocked down wooden panels and paper screens in homes. Since open fires existed since breakfast had recently ended, these plus straw mats common in Japanese homes made for great fires. Also killing people who might otherwise survived. These results would have been magnified by a prolonged siege and been fatal to far more.
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  1660. The F-35 was originally designed as a low cost supplement to the air superiority F-22; an accurate comparison was the F-16 fighter bomber to the F-15. When the F-22 purchase was reduced, the F-35 had to improve its air superiority ability; hence a redesign which included a new engine. Added to this, the same plane had to provide carrier capability for the Navy and VSTOL/STOL capability for the Marines. The end result was a plane that only has somewhere between 40 and 60 % compatibility between models and truth be told probably could be given their own unique designations; putting to bed once again the idea that one design can do everything. The F-111 was the last try at that dream. It was meant to be an air superiority fighter, ground support fighter, carrier fighter, and bomber. It was too large and unmaneuverable for air superiority, too big for carriers, to fragile for close air support. It finally found a role as a good bomber. As a result the F-4 was forced into roles that it wasn't originally designed to do. If you want to see a historical example of this mania look at some of the French aircraft developed in the 30's that ended up as night bombers in 1939/1940 because they could do none of there intended roles in daylight. While the F-35 can do its jobs, it is still an effort to adapt something designed for a specific role into a single aircraft that can do everything; but in reality if honestly looked at isn't a single design at all. By the way, remember the cost of an aircraft's development go into its price tag. Redesign adds cost, major differences in the aircraft add cost since each type has different parts, and finally the production costs are folded into the number purchased, meaning that production cost is static and its amount included in the price depends on how many are purchased. Buy 1,000 of something and the development costs are divided by 1,000 and that one thousandth is added to the actual cost to produced; reduce that purchase to 100, and the same development cost is added to the production cost, but only q0 times as much as if you bought thousand. Slow purchase and production of several years, and now the cost of materials and labor goes up, a nd companies add in for that as well. How many bad decisions go into making something being the most expensive ever?
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  1755. Tim is naive about this. Let's look at several items that be found if you search. 1. Canada has charged and convicted a scientist who was smuggling Corona viruses from a research lab in Canada. This was last year before the virus emerged. 2. Several US or in one case a Chinese researcher here in the US were also arrested for similar charges between this year and last. 3. Indian scientists reported findings DNA evidence of other viruses in the DNA of this Crona virus. No one has disproved of those results. 4. The Wohan lab was actually the replacement for an earlier lab which had an accidental release due to poor safety measures. My opinions: 1. The researchers was weapons research. 2. That the initial release could have been accidental and more likely was. 3. That the PRC may have decided to let it spread internationally after it got loose to ensure that the Chinese economy was not the only one affected. 4. That no government in the world would acknowledge that the PRC was engaged in biological warfare in violation of various since that could be grounds for a war; and no government wants to risk a war that could go nuclear. Official scientists would go along with that effort for that reason. An example of this was an anthrax epidemic in the then Soviet Union. They said it was illegally purchased meat that got into the food chain. Years later after the Soviet Union fell, an international research team studied the event that occurred down wind of a Soviet ammunition plant making anthrax ammunition in violation of a bio warfare treaty with the US. I have reason to believe we knew that was true when the event occurred. Congress requested and did not get a response from the Soviets. The military increased concern over bio weapons in their planning, and had begun preparations for large scale inoculations seen during the first Gulf War. No one wanted a direct confrontation with the Soviets at the time so it was allowed to die off with the public; but the military and government didn't do the same. I suspect a similar pattern of behavior is going on today. The military seems to be emphasizing flu shots for the troops especially strong this year.
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  1787.  @the2ndcoming135  No, they don't support either side. That is the problem today; only one side is too often covered and then with little context or history. Man has a long history of being inhumane to others whether because of race, ethnicity, nationality ot beliefs. The side that controls the narrative often controls what people hear. "Roots" is often used as an example of slavery despite its own author saying its a myth and the fact that he was sued for lifting a portion from a book by someone writing about the experience of an individual in her family. He further acknowledged lifting parts from other sources to make the narrative that he desired. In the "Amsted" facts that mattered were ignored or rushed over; key was that the importation of slaves from Africa was banned by an 1809 Congressional act based on a letter signed by the 13 former colonies that no new slaves could be brought from there after 20 years from the Constitution's adoption and that was 1809. Often held as proof of racism was that slaves weren't counted as a full man in the Constitution, what those who use this against the US forget or ignore was that the Southern states with fewer free men (there were free Black men already there including Black slave owners) wanted slaves to count as a full person and the more populace Northern states really didn't want them counted at all. The North felt that counting slaves as a full person would give the Southern states too much power in the House of Representaives. The number permitted was a compromise (not based on race but rather legal status) to balance power more evenly. Context and history are everything when trying to understand both the good and bad about the past. Another unrelated example from Europe is the period of the Spanish Inquisition. Usually shown as the worst of Christainity, the background of almost 800 years of war on the Iberian Penninsula is ignored. One thing caused by the shifting borders was insincere conversion when one side or the other gained or lost ground. Islam executed (sometimes brutally) those who falsely converted to Islam and the Christians essentially followed the same practices in reverse. This led to a fair number of false converts, and eventually as the Spanish church gained power, their more vicious form of inquisition became the norm (not saying the inquisition was ever kind or good). So looking at the behavior of the Catholic Church in Spain; you have to look at its opposite number Islam and a 800 years of violent confrontation and war where neither side was innocent. Similarl, the crusades must be looked at not just by looking at the Crusaders but also the Moslems, including how the Middle East and North Africa became Moslem and their conduct. Again, no one is innocent when looked at from both sides in context to historyznd context. Looking at unvarnished facts is hard when too often they are ignored.
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  1795.  @the2ndcoming135  The problem was that after the war, people who didn't fight in it moved to those areas. They brought their religious and racial prejudices, as well as many who sought to take advantage of people of a different language and culture. Also, you should be aware that Mexicans at the time were and today still aren't a homogeneous mixture. Adopting the Spanish language and culture made you a Mexican, so the majority of the people were either Native Americans or some mixture in these areas. One of the factors that helped create friction was the quaint Mexican custom of allowing the Mexican elites to sieze Native Americans and effectively hold them as slaves in order to make them "people of reason" (I can't remember the Spanish term for this, but that is a fair translation. There is an excellent book that was published on Mexico's Northern Frontier which covers from independence until after the Mexican American War.). This plus the wide spread illiteracy of the Mexican population made misunderstandings and exploitation possible. Again little of this would have happened if Mexico had continued to negotiate, remember the later Gladson (sp?) Purchase that finalized the Southern route to California where we bought the land not seized it. Yes, we were expansionist, but we weren't always warlike. Remember an example of this with our later actions in the Phillipines where we in 1935 begn the transfer of government to that nation. At this point there was no armed revolt and complete sovereignty was to be granted in 10 years, allowing that new government to establish itself. WW2 intervene, but we honored that promise although it would have been better if we delayed it until after the war's destruction and anarchy could have been resolved. The HUK (communist) revolt actually harmed the Philippines and adversely affected the nature of the resulting nation.
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  1833. No one following the law sells a pistol to a 13 year old, and it s also illegal to sell a pistol to someone under 21 years old. I am considerably older, and no licensed gun dealer will sell me a weapon in Indiana, since it is illegal. In Illinois, you must have a concealed carry card to carry a concealed firearm, and open carry isn't permitted. So first in Illinois you must have a have a Firearms Owner ID (FOID) Card to buy any firearm or ammunition. To get the card requires a background check. To own a firearm, you must be of legal age, 18 for a long gun and 21 for a handgun. To carry concealed, as I have said, you have to have a Concealed Carry Card. To get this, you need to be 21, undergo another background check which includes fingerprinting, receive 16 hours of training, and already have a FOID Card, and finally the local law enforcement can still block its issuance if they view you as a riskgxc . So, let's see; a 13 year old carrying a handgun ,'which he can't legally own, shooting a cars (reported), fleeing from the police; question how many laws has the 13 year old violated without considering Federal law? Second point, if a fleeing subject could present a lethal threat to others, someone fleeing from a shooting scene should be considered a lethal threat, who seems to be getting an illegal weapon to fire at an officer, isn't asking to be shot, what is he doing? By the way, he had just returned home after two days missing (unreported by his parents, who thought that he was in his room this nighf) and was out on the street at 2:30 AM; what was the reason he was there?
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  1847.  @craigmiller4528  How about you giving me one. Again actual evidence of wide spread cultures starting say 10,000 years ago. Europe, Middle East and Asia. Written languages, Middle East and Asia; somewhat later in MesoAmerica. I am not saying people didn't exist in other areas e as; but rather little has been found. In Brazil there is some wide spread evidence of large scale populations, but nothing written, carved or available. The Pacific Coast of South America remains of early civilisations; but no written or carved language, even the Inca had no actual written language, although through their knowledge cords they were able to transmit information. My point is that cultures that leave no hard evidence or writings behind are hard to study. We can look at what we can find, make guesses based on funeral offerings and graves, find camp or village sites; but the transmission of knowledge determines what we can say about a past people. New knowledge is added over time as New methods are developed to search for it; but until things are found that tell us something about the people who used the site, there is little to study. Neanderthal was originally thought not to have any artistic or cultural traits, now we know that they had funeral practices, did use decorations and even some art. Less than 50 years ago that won't have been believed. The oldest pottery found was in Japan whi.e the first glazed pottery came from the mountains of Asia 500 years later. Submersibles have found evidence of settlements at the bottom of the Blsck Sea at least as old as those found in Turkey. My point is that we learn over time and condemning Eurocentrism for lack of concern over other cultures is just as foolish as ignoring that as our tools improve, our ability recognize earlier civilizations improve. The question then becomes why did they disappear, and the answer is only zeuropeans.
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  1857.  @derrick4544  Again, the "scientist" referenced the report as the reason for his sction and stated that it was proof of the problem. So yes, it was a short video, but the "scientist" stated this himself not the person making the YouTube video. Nothing was stated about additional training on climatology or hard sciences. Courses don't always need to be in a college. For example, my case. I started out to be an engineer, but found that people using what was built never figures into the classes. Changed majors to psychology, no minor since I had physics, biology, chemistry and various math classes (trig, calculus, etc.). Picked up statistical analysis in the psychology program and took 500 level courses in Human Factors/Industrial Psychology (Industrial engineers took the same classes but called it something 3lse in their catalogue). The Air Force provided additional training in administrative management before I ended up in emergency planning which gave me equivalent to two years of college on chemical, biological and radiological warfare and accidents as well as training on volcanology, earthquakes, meteorology and several other issues. I have been through several tropical storms, one typhoon, one hurricane (really the same as the typhoon), one major earthquake, and assorted other issues. When I got out, I went to work for a nuclear utility and had continuing health physics courses and training on BWR and PWR reactor types. Those unrelated to graduate level class taken after that in management, international relations, and addition industrial psychology classes. There were several other military schools along the way. Am I an expert on the climate; no, but I am knowledgeable enough to understand that the issue is far more complex than any one factor. I do know that modeling without including all factors is an exercise in futility. There are several cycles that exist from axial tilt, to orbital excentricity, to the world wide ocean current that takes around 1,000 years to complete. I do know there is geological evidence for extremely long droughts in the US (at least) on both about an average of 50 years for a multiple year drought in he Great Plains and Southwest and a multi-decade long one on around a 500 year cycle (strangely the last occurred around the gtime of the Little Ice Age). There is archeological evidence that areas of the Greenland coast were in fact ice free before the Little Ice Age, there are medieval documents discussing the rapid growth of glaciers during that time, just as there is written evidence that cyclic extreme cold periods have occurred with a peak to trough interval of around 500 years or in other word a complete cycle of around 1,000 years. Guess what using the historical record, we are reaching the peak of the warm part of the cycle, that started in the first decades of the 1800s (exact date is debated). Can man effect the cycle or cause local climate/weather affects, yes. In Chicago, the wall of very tall buildings have diverted weather that used to come straight down Lake Michigan either to the southeast or southwest of the city and the winter storms that used to go straight down the lake and sometimes down to Kentucky don't happen. Heat islands exist around major urban areas which provide a very phony appearance of global warming because too many readings from measuring stations around them are the evidence for global warming; while world wide weather satellite measurements have only around 50 years of data. In other words, realize that the world is a very complex environment controlled by many factors, man can control them; but only add to or mitigate them. The money spent on the global climate change concept would be better spent on mitigation of climate change on human populations and their food supplies.
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  1859. Baby K probably could have been rehabilitated if the first time he did something that warranted police/law enforcement involvement appreciate action was taken. All too often these juveniles have multiple incidents that weren't reported or got minimum sentences, until they do something so bad it can't be ignored, and then they are punished to the maximum (seemingly unfairly, but actually due to the totality of their records including events for which didn't receive punishment). Not the same, but similar the commander and first sergeant of a unit were relieved on the same day. I and a new first sergeant took over and found unacted upon incident reports and charges over a year old. The unit had the highest number of incidents and issues on the base. Over the next year, we discharged 22 out of 220 people; but by the end of that time, we had the least incidents on base. Besides discharging people, the other thing that we did was stay after the close of duty hours and had a side door unlocked. People learned that if they had a problem, knocking on the side door and getting help actually resulted in getting help, not punishment. They learned that they didn't want us to call them to the orderly room during duty hours because it was too late for help. Based on what we saw, more than half those discharged could have finished their enlistment and if they desired got reenlisted, but the previous commander and first sergeant let too many bad bebhaviors become unacceptable habits. If you want people to behave well, they have to know what behavior is expected; and punish unacceptable behavior. Hand in hand with that, you reward positive behavior and provide a safe way to get help if needed. Right now, none of that is done in too many cities.
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  1871.  @whitestrake2760  Wrong in my estimation. You have a responsibility to insure the safety of your actions. If you know that other groups mean to use your activity for cover for their actions (I do not mean the one off idiot that throws a stone, but organized groups) than you must take some responsibility for those actions, especially when those groups hide their face and identities. Yyou can't just ignore that you have given them cover. One of the points of a peaceful demonstration is that bad actors like to put the innocent out front where to get to them; you have to go through them. However, there are groups wearing what amounts to a uniform and Kass to hide their faces that attack using youeaceful demonstration as cover. These are insurrectionists. If you want to have your rights, you should do everything in your power to prevent their actions. It isn't enough to wring your hands and say it isn't us. You didn't address my other point about assuming your right to protest has greater value than the rights of others to travel, work, or be safe. I doubt that you will since that limits where and when you demonstrate. Too many demonstrations are essentially means of what amounts to extortion or bullying. Its like a child throwing a tantrum in the aisle of a storm because the want something? Finally your stating your opinion as a fact. It either shows unawareness of the affect of your actions, or that you have let your opinion become something it isn't, a fact. Opinions are something that we all have, and yours may not be right or theirs may not b be right but both should be respected.
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  1890.  @BBarNavi  Unbelievably uninformed. Following WWII, part of pre-war Germany was given to Poland while Russia took over the part of Poland that Imperial Russia held until its breakup following WWI. Ethnic Germans whose families had lived in many Eastern European counties for centuries were forced out. In many cases the communist parties used these acts to help solidify their hold. A few years ago, the BBC had a documentary on this, and it is almost impossible to find even a reference to it today since it was brutally honest on what happened in Eastern Europe after the war. The ethnic Germans were forced out without food or adequate clothing and several million died, murdered, starved or frozen to death (those expelled in the late part of the year). Polish communists placed ethnic Germans in concentration camps. These ethnic Germans weren't NAZIs. NAZIs didn't largely move into occupied nations. I did not include mass rapes and torture in this list of sins. Two wrongs don't make a right. Fear of Germany having a desire for revenge helped keep East and West Germany as separate for many years, just as much as the Cold War. By the way, you example holds up better for Japanese held areas; however, even there behavior was questionable. Taiwan had been held be Japan for 50 years; there were Japanese there who had never been to Japan, the same was true in Korea and parts of Manchuria. Mass murder, rape and other mistreatment as well as the theft of everything that a family had isn't morally correct. Also, read a history of the Chinese civil war period, and realize that much of what the Japanese either did or were accused of doing was done by one Chinese faction against another for years. The Nationalist government there was still trying to uproot the various Tuan, and Chiang was trying to build a truly National Army and nation instead of the collection of regional governments and troops with different training, weapons, and doctrine, so mistreatment there wasn't just done by Japanese. History is never as simple as many have been tought. I have been studying it (primarily military and the social and economic influences) nearly 60 years, reading material from multiplesources and nations either in English, English translations or where I knew enough in the original language, and I can guarantee that it is more complex than most have been taught. As an example, I challenged the classification of one US document that should have been unclassified years before, and found it contained information that was both embarrassing and the reason for certain events. In another document a key page had been "damaged" and replaced by a retype one in a larger font omitting a paragraph mentioned by another author, again both embarrassing and in this case damning. Try doing more research, you will find it enlightening.
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  1892.  @sombrerogalaxy1  Even with Taiwan, the story is heavily muddied. In the early 1600s when the Dutch wanted to establish a factory (trading post on the Chinese mainland, they were told no; however, they were told that they could place on on Taiwan (I won't get into name changes) since it was not part of China. When the Dutch began, the Spanish already had a facility on the north end of the island, there were 22 Japanese villages along the coast and one lone Chinese village; most of the island was held by natives (genetics has shown the native Taiwanese are related to Fillipinos not Han Chinese). The Dutch saw the Spanish off; while the isolationist policy ended the Japanese settlements. During the next few years (especially after the Manchus took China) mainland Chinese arrived in some numbers preferring the Dutch to Chinese rulers.. After the Manchus took over, an adherent of the previous dynasty seized Taiwan from the Dutch and used it for raids on the mainland and general piracy in the region. While the Dutch were planning to take it back, the Manchu government decided to eliminate the thorn in their side and invaded, taking over the island. From that point on (1686 if I remember the year), it was administered from the closest mainland province. Such control that the Chinese had was limited to coastal plains with most of the island in native control (the Chinese could not defeat the natives who continued their way of life including head hunting. This was the situation in the 1870s when both France and Japan (1875, again if I remember), after shipwrecks, sent separate forces to punish the natives for killing shipwrecked sailors (taking their usual trophies. The reason for the punitive expeditions was the Chinese governments comments it had no control over the native peoples (obviously if you own a place you have control; however China only controlled coastal areas). During the roughly 200 years of Chinese control to this point, they had done almost no development of the island. Then after losing the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), Japan claimed Taiwan and other territory, the most important a bit that got called Port Arthur after European pressure got Japan to get out and Russia promptly moved into it. The Japanese than did the following, gained control over the entire island and population (something the Chinese never did); they also started the first school system, modern roads, electrification, sanitation and water systems. Additionally they began industrialization. In other words, modernized the island. Were they brutal, no worse or better than the Chinese overlords had been (suggest that you look at the Chinese legal system and punishments, some hadn't changed in hundreds of years and were every bit as cruel as anything Japan did). During WWII, the Allies did bombard Taiwan, damaging the infrastructure. When the war ended, the Japanese were removed, but the Chinese Nationalists did little to repair the war's damage. Nothing very positive happened there until the Nationalist retreat to the island, and while the island recovered the mainland suffered under Maoist policies. So, Taiwan wasn't considered part of China until the 1680s and never was developed by mainland China. So, its history is far more complex than just calling it part of China.
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  1933. One of my favorite cautionary studies. The F-16 was not originally developed as an air to air fighter, nor an all weather fighter. It was to be the cheap assistant to the more expensive and much more capable F-15. The F-15 was meant to be an all weather air superiority fighter, using it for bombing wasn't even considered. I won't go through the changes over time that has made the F-15 into a fighter bomber and upgraded the F-16, except to say that look at funding concerns and the idea peer to peer warfare wasn't likely. Flash forward, the F-22 was meant to be the Supreme air superiority fighter and the F-35 a more limited fighter bomber. Cost overruns and increases, caused at least in part due to Congress reducing the number of aircraft being bought thereby increasing the amount of R&D costs in the unit cost, the cycle of higher costs further reducing the purchase, thereby increasing further increasing the unit cost until the F-22 purchases were stopped. This effected the F- 35 by forcing the Air Force to improve its air to air capability, requiring redesign; while requiring it to meet Marine desires for a STOL/VSTOL capable aircraft and a Navy version meant major design changes for each role (in point of fact somewhere between 40 and 60% of the aircraft is different, enough to say that they could just as easily be given their own designation). All this created further delays and increased costs, and that has slowed purchases, with the usual affect of increasing costs. So, we have new cheaper (compared to F-22 nd F-35) F-15 model and possibly a cheaper improved F-16 version to provide the numbers of aircraft needed. Would this work in a peer to peer conflict remains to be seen.
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  1943. By the way, I checked Google, and as I said survival in a void is possible, especially one that can be reached. She was found in such an area, then area seems to have been identified by one of 300 search and rescue dogs used. No where near that level of resources have been deployed in this case. Also, it appears to have been a fluke (described as a miracle) that she wasn't killed outright; since only dead people were around her. She had done what she could to ensure her survival, evacuated by the safest route (stairs) and had reached a lower level (started on the 64th floor while trapped by the collapse at the 11th floor). This is what you mean by not giving up, and I agree; w hat I was talking about is equivalent to an on- scene commander briefing the media and families, a very different part of the response. What I feel that you are discussing is part of the pre- emergency training of personnel. An organization/unit needs to ensure that people are trained on what to do before something occurs. How and we hen to evacuate is part of that, something that couldn't be done in this situation. Like the earthquake that occurs in the middle of the night, the damage is done before an individual can respond. Yes, don't give up if you are in that void, try to get out if possible, knock on pipes or anything that will carry sound or yell, don't panic, these are the things that a trapped person can do. So, we are talking about apples and oranges here, both are fruit but not the same pre-event planning and training and post event actions with regards to individuals verses people dealing with the response and provision of assistance.
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