Comments by "Colonel K" (@Paladin1873) on "Today I Found Out" channel.

  1. You didn't mention Eddie Albert, Sterling Hayden, David Niven, or Anthony Quayle, who all served as spies or special operations officers. Jimmy Stewart's highest rank was Brigadier General. There was a myth he was a Major General which Ronald Reagan unintentionally helped propagate. When Reagan eventually learned the truth, he asked Stewart why he never corrected him. According to Reagan, Stewart responded, "Well, Dutch, because it sounded so nice when you said it."
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  2. I'm surprised nobody has made a movie about Benz and Bertha.
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  3. Simon, you left out what may be the only successful combat use of airborne tanks after WWII. That was the insertion by parachute of ten M551 Sheridans by USAF C-141 Starlifters during Operation Just Cause (the 1989 invasion of Panama). My brother was the navigator on one of these ten Starlifters.
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  4. It is regrettable that there has never been a movie made about these men and these times.
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  5. A pony is just a horse with a Napoleon complex.
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  6. We never called it S-A-C. We always called it SAC (pronounced "sack").
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  7. I'm a native Floridian and grew up during this period. I was in military school in Deland, FL in 1971 when Walt Disney World first opened. The commandant of our school announced we would be going there by bus. You should have heard the cheers that aroused. The place had only been open a short while and half the rides did not work, but we had a blast. I can still hear "It's a small world after all" ringing in my ears almost 50 years later (Will somebody stop the music!). After we returned from our day trip, the commandant somberly announced the school would be closing due to a lack of funds. Such much fun and misery in a single day.
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  8. Simon, THANK YOU for not saying "Congressional" Medal of Honor or using the terms win and winner. Your descriptions were most accurate as presented.
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  9. “I have never considered a difference of opinion in politics, in religion, in philosophy, as a reason for withdrawing from a friend.” - Thomas Jefferson If only Americans today felt such congeniality, what a happier and stronger nation we would be.
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  10. Decades ago I watched a documentary on the Vietnam War, which contained a scene showing an Army LT COL sitting on an emergency room operating table, calmly discussing with the surgeons the need to remove one of his legs which had nearly been blown off. He then sat back and let them proceed. While I have never suffered such a grievous wound, I have received several violent non-combat injuries that required immediate action. At first there was no pain, perhaps due to shock and disbelief. Then instinct took over and I did what I must to reach medical aid. Only later did I experience pain (quite a bit of it), but thankfully we have drugs to mitigate it. I can't imagine how men of the past were able to deal with it. The passing of time during recovery must have been agonizingly slow.
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  11. I was completely unaware of this atrocity. "No one who speaks German could be an evil man." (from the Simpsons "Cape Feare" episode (1993))
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  12. This is what happens when Normans conquer your country. They corrupt the language.
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  13. Thank you, Simon, for using the word "citizen" instead of the incorrect term "civilian" when describing police and public interaction. I'm surprised you did not mention the very recent court case where a criminal barricaded himself in a home, only to have the police shoot it to pieces. The Department successfully refused to fully reimburse the owner for the $100,000 worth of damage, citing the precedents you addressed.
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  14. Who knew that progressives and puritans shared a common antipathy?
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  15. I was told just the opposite by one former B-52 navigator I knew. Regardless, the movie remained a SAC favorite for years. A friend of mine who served as a missile launch officer did tell me that the launch sequence depicted in another movie (I forget which one, but I think it was Damnation Alley) was so accurate that SAC changed its procedures. How accurate or true such stories are is anybody's guess, but they do make for fun conversation.
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  16.  @MajesticSkywhale  You should have said "None, they all committed suicide."
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  17. Curious there's no cure for Curie's radium papers.
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  18. It's a skewed population sample within the prison. Only those who behave well get this treatment. I'd be curious to know what alternatives they have to influence the rest of the prison population.
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  19. After the Japanese attack on the Philippines in Dec 1941, Navy Lt John D. Bulkeley and the members of his six PT boats in MTB Squadron 3 were attached to a support ship that contained an ice cream maker and huge stores of ice cream mixture. Bulkeley and his men dined on ice cream at all hours of the day, intent on not letting it fall into Japanese stomachs. This had to be good for crew morale since nothing else was going right for them. Bulkeley later received the Medal of Honor for extracting MacArthur from the small fortress island of Corregidor when he was recalled to Australia by President Roosevelt.
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  20.  @Von_Splatterblast  Yes, I've seen the Pirates of Penzance. I was spoofing Jimmy Stewart's expression (apparently not very well).
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  21. I meant to include Lee in my list but forgot. Good catch.
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  22.  @MajesticSkywhale  The one commentator said "The British Secret Service, the OSS, whatever they were called." Roll eyes.
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  23. I forgot to mention Leslie Howard, who was killed while performing courier/propaganda service for the British government.
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  24. The Germans seem to run hot and cold on such matters. If memory serves me correctly, the German officers advising the Turks were appalled by the Armenian genocide. And during their WWII campaigns in Yugoslavia there were SS soldiers who complained about the murderous behavior of some Ustasha units. Even Hitler was appalled. Go figure.
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  25. Thank you Simon. It's so rare to hear anyone tell the rest of the story behind this photo (the only other time I can recall was when I read an article about it in a magazine about three decades ago). To answer your question, what would I do in this situation, I don't know, but I do not condemn the general for his actions. The country was in chaos during he Tet Offensive, and he could not allow such a dangerous man the opportunity of escape.
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  26. A family friend who served in WWII ended up in Czechoslovakia at the end of the war. He said the meaning of the nod and shake we reversed in Czech culture, which led to numerous misunderstandings between the local girls and the GIs.
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  27. That's the movie version. The truth is somewhat more subdued but no less fascinating. King went on to become a decorated Commando, was promoted to Captain, and served again in the Korean War where was again cited for bravery. He retired a major and later drowned in a driving accident in New Zealand in 1962.
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  28. It was aliens. One of our lizard overlords casually mentioned it to me the other day.
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  29.  @Epitome613  Aw, shucks.
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  30.  rwsthedemonking  I wouldn't fire the cops. They did what they thought was necessary to protect themselves and others. I would suggest that both the federal and state governments pass laws to ensure that property owners are properly reimbursed for any damages caused by police departments. This may require setting up some sort of insurance fund, which means Joe Taxpayer ultimately foots the bill. The courts should only get involved if the citizen believes he has not been adequately reimbursed. As for ordering people to assist law enforcement even to the point of risking life and limb, this seems to fly in the face of a SCOTUS decision that said police are under no obligation to protect individual citizens, only the community at large. It mean the police get have their cake and eat it.
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  31.  @IvanBaturaChannel  It was the dictator Noriega who repeatedly broke both Panamanian and international law in order to remain in power illegally. It was Noriega who was heavily involved in illegal drug tracking into the USA. And it was it was the Panamanian National Assembly that declared a “state of war” with the US on 15 December 1989, which was several days before we invaded. That was a pretty dumb move. The killing of an American military officer at a roadside checkpoint proved to be the last straw for Bush. As for the War Powers Act, the Congress has never enforced it because they know it will be challenged before the Supreme Court as being unconstitutional. So your argument boils down to this. Is any nation obligated to obey a treaty when other parties to that treaty are violating it?
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  32. Have you done an episode on screen legend Hedy Lamar's greatest invention, the frequency hopping technology for wireless guided torpedoes in WWII? It's still used today in such common items as Bluetooth headphones.
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  33.  @rlud304  Not even that anymore.
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  34. That's true, but in 1992 a circus elephant named Kelly went on a rampage in Palm Bay, FL, and had to be killed by police officers. There's even horrific video of her being shot multiple times by one officer using a 9mm handgun. She was finally dispatched with a rifle. In 1994 an elephant named Tyke was killed by a fusillade of bullets fired by Honolulu police after she killed her trainer and ran rogue during a carnival show.
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  35. WRNS can be such deadly little birds.
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  36. Disappearing into the Canadian Mist, he wasn't a Robin Hood but a Curtiss Robin Hood (as pictured in my logo).
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  37. In college I saw a documentary of German WWII propaganda movies. In one scene, whcic was set in a British run Boer concentration camp, the arrogant British camp commander is inspecting the terrible conditions the Boer women and children are suffering under before declaring there is nothing wrong. Since the majority of Boers were actually of Dutch origin, and Holland was struggling under the boot of Nazi oppression at the time this movie was made, the irony did not escape me. No doubt German audiences had a different view and probably nodded approvingly at the portrayal of the Brits as evil incarnate. It would seem comical today if the subject matter had not been so dark.
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  38. I recommend the Bronx cheer replace the Olympic salute.
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  39. A pilot at our local airport restored several WWII trainers in the 1970s. I went up with him in his North American SNJ (Navy version of the AT6 Texan trainer, aka the Harvard in Commonwealth use). He too sourced parts from anywhere and everywhere, including spent 22 LR casings which he discovered worked well enough as ersatz brass fittings on the engine. When he later sold his collection, I heard from my brother that the new owners were aghast once they uncovered the "workmanship" applied to these planes. Oh well, they weren't the first customers he had suckered.
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  40.  @MajesticSkywhale  I'm glad I wasn't in that movie. He might have learned that I was once in the OSI, then assumed I knew the bionic man.
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  41. Simon said it grossed $8 million.
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  42. What global temperature would you prefer?
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  43.  @IvanBaturaChannel  Which laws? You are being quite vague.
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  44. Annie Oakley was a great American, as was her husband, Frank Butler, and her story follows the classic Horatio Alger line of overcoming great adversity to achieve success. I only know of two movies about her life, neither of which stuck too closely to the facts, the musical "Annie, Get Your Gun" (1950), starring Betty Hutton and Howard Keel, and "Annie Oakley" (1935) starring Barbara Stanwyck. A proper treatise on her life and times would make a great contribution to American entertainment lore, but I imagine very few directors or writers today could master the subject without resorting to darker themes and motives. Such is the current state of the American dream.
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  45.  @MrS22222  Same here. At a MG shoot in NH we had a M2 .50 cal on the line that I thought was loud, but the guy next to me was worse. He was firing his pet HK53 (chopped down HK33 in 5.56 with 8.3" barrel), and despite my ear muffs, the concussion force coming from his muzzle gave me a headache and made me somewhat queasy.
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  46. I think the top speed of the Tu-114 was misstated by over 100 MPH. 880 KM/H is 545 MPH which is close to what Wikipedia shows. 650 MPH is nearly the speed of sound at 35,000 ft (660 MPH or Mach .98). I do not believe such performance is scientifically possible with propeller driven aircraft.
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  47.  @DFX2KX  You're probably thinking of the Republic XF-84H "Thunderscreech". The claims of it a having a top seed of 670 MPH have never been verified and contradict official Air Force records which put it at 520 MPH.
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  48.  @darksteelmenace595  No, while some humans are garbage, most are not. The real tragedy is that among the most, few are willing to recognize and take an active stand against evil until it's almost too late.
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  49. Well I'll be hanged- whoops, sorry about that. :)
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  50. The pistol at 11:36 is actually an American designed and built FP-45 Liberator in caliber 45 ACP. The plan was to drop them to potential resistance fighters in occupied countries. The theory was they could be used to kill an enemy combatant and take his weapon. The bore was not rifled so one had to be close to to his victim if he wanted a solid hit. Spare ammo was housed in the butt and a simple picture drawing showed the operator how to load, fire, and eject the round. Somewhere around a million them were made, though not that many were ever distributed. Most were destroyed after the war and now they are highly prized collector pieces. A friend of mine used to have one.
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  51. I remember the original pizza bomber story when it hit the news, but I never learned of the aftermath until now. Thanks for giving us the rest of the story.
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  52. When I was a teenager in the 1970s I knew five boys who were caught in a field just as a thunderstorm brewed up. This was in north Florida where such storms were quite common. Most kids were taught not to seek shelter under any tall object such as a tree or barn, but these boys decided to run into an old two story tobacco barn that was nearby. While inside with the doors open, they were struck by lightning which knocked them all down, but only four of them got back up. The fifth boy was dead. I later spoke with one of the survivors who was a friend of mine and he described the event as involving a massive blast of air and a large round fireball which streaked through the barn. I don't recall him mentioning any smell, but after watching this video I wonder if it might have been ball lightning.
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  53. If memory serves me correctly, the British government got wind of the operation and changed the appearance of their pound notes to thwart the Nazis. The most famous German agent, Cicero, was paid off in these fake notes. Now do a video on the American plan to flood Japan with poisonous snakes dropped by air. This is not to be confused with the far more practical and imminent plan of dropping bats armed with small incendiaries (negated by the use of the A-bomb).
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  54. The Iliad is the most tedious and repetitious story I have ever read. I'm thankful we have English translations with punctuation instead of the original Greek without any punctuation. Yikes!
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  55.  @MrS22222  Yes, it's the same effect one gets from motion sickness.
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  56. I think James Bond would have been sending short messages on a lengthy notice.
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  57.  @Morgan_Sandoval  You know nothing about me, but your comment speaks volumes about you.
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  58.  @Morgan_Sandoval  That would depend on what you consider equality. I believe in equality of opportunity where individual rights are concerned. From what I have seen of progressive equality, it is both a subversion and perversion of this idea. Your comments fit right in with this modern progressive attitude. Attack anyone you think opposes your worldview. Never engage them in intelligent debate. If this is to be your chosen path in life, I suggest you buy a flashlight. It will be a very dark journey.
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  59. I'm surprised politicians don't suffer from it, considering how often they eat their own.
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  60.  @stacyrussell460  Good point.
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  61. Even though they mean the same thing chronologically, BC predates the more politically correct BCE. Now let the hate flow.
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  62.  @micfail2  In a perfect world the criminal would compensate his victims, but this rarely happens. That's why we need laws to protect property owners, especially when their own insurance companies won't compensate them. The government has to assume some responsibility for its actions. It could be a law requiring the government to reimburse the property owner for anything not covered by his insurance company. The government could reserve the right to sue the criminal to recover those expense. The courts might even be allowed to extend the sentence of the criminal if he is unable or unwilling to pay the fine. This was done in the past with mixed results, so I would not hold out much hope of success. The current situation is untenable, for it absolves the government of any responsibility.
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  63.  Juanito G  Like so many expressions, the meaning of the prhase may have only a nominal relationship to fact. Napoleon was about average height for a peasant of his time, but he was considered short for an aristocrat. Today we might say somebody is overcompensating for a perceived shortcoming (no pun intended).
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  64. "The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left."           Ecclesiastes 10:2 (NIV)
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  65.  @erebostd  I think you are treating unrelated events as being equivalent. They are not. There was never a policy of native genocide in America. The tragedy of the American Indian was the result of two centuries of ad hoc policies, not some master plan. Though there were voices in both government and the general public who endorsed organized genocide, it was never a popular idea, nor was such a plan ever adopted. The dropping of the Atom Bombs was a strategic decision that hastened the end of WWII. In so doing, "The Bomb" saved far more lives than it cost. You can question the wisdom and effectiveness of large-scale bombing of cities, but it makes no sense to treat Hiroshima and Nagasaki separately from those earlier raids over Poland, England, China, Germany, and Japan. Sometimes mass destruction worked, sometime it did not. Any killing of noncombatants is regrettable, even tragic, but it is often unavoidable in war. It's the motives that matter. There is a clear distinction between killing people to end a war and killing them because you don't like the color of their skin, their religion, their form of government, or because you covet their land and resources, or wish to enslave them. I'm not convinced the world is an evil place, but I am convinced there are evil forms of government and some "well intentioned" people in and out of government who endorse terrible ideas. In the recorded history of the world it is governments that have ended more lives and enslaved more people than the collective acts of all individuals acting on their own. Neither is acceptable, and I agree with you that we must work every day to make the world a better place. It is an unending goal.
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  66.  @HalfdeadRider  I prefer to use the correct acronym and pronounce it "Feebie".
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  67.  @sarpbakrsoy8125  I'm reminded of a line from Audie Murphy's bio-movie, "To Hell and Back", when his best friend sarcastically remarks to him in the middle of combat with the Germans that “they can kill us, but they can’t eat us – that’s against the law”. Apparently some Japanese soldiers broke this law. Perhaps some Ustasha did as well.
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  68. Take heart, Simon; I may have still a fairly decent head of hair topside, but I've never been able to grow an awesome beard like yours to save my life.
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  69. I take offense at that :)
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  70. That was one helluva Christmas story. From now on I'll stick to Ralphie, Rudolph, Peanuts, and the Grinch.
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  71.  @joesterling4299  As a teenager my great-grandfather came from Germany (The German Confederation) to America at the end of the American Civil War (aka, the War for States Rights, the War of Northern Aggression, The Late Unpleasantness, The War of Secession, The War Between the States). During the period Reconstruction he started out as a riverboat peddler. One day, while waiting for a stagecoach, he overheard a young girl singing in German. Her family had come over from Prussia to start a new life in Georgia. In 1880 he married this now adult woman and they went on to have eight children, including my grandmother. This just goes to show you there is such a thing as a German love story, even halfway round the world.
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  72.  @jeanlessard8800  Rubish.
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  73.  @jeanlessard8800  Gee, I didn't know my extended family owned and controlled Hollywood. Oh, by the way, we're of German extraction as well. So Hollywood never presents a positive depiction of Germans thanks to the "Jewish community"? I presume you have never heard of "Schindler's List" which was made by Hollywood's most famous living producer, Steven Spielberg, whose family is Orthodox Jews. If you want to bash the majority of Hollywood elitists for their left to far left ideologies, I might agree with you. That is easily verifiable by their words and deeds. But attacking Hollywood, especially in today's anti-Israeli environment, for being anti-German or controlled by a Jewish cabal, means you have suspended critical thinking in favor of personal animosity. You really should stop lumping everyone into groups you can like or despise, and try treating each of them as individuals that you like or despise.
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  74.  @oslonorway547  No, he was in Pilsen as part of Patton's Third Army.
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  75. No wonder they weren't worried about mercury poisoning killing them; they were more likely to die from tuberculous long before then.
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  76.  @susim4503  Can you be more specific? Do you want weather that makes for abundant rain, abundant food? If so, what kind of food? Which part of the globe do you want to benefit from this weather? The whole world cannot benefit from warmer or colder weather, only parts of it can.
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  77.  @IvanBaturaChannel  Why do you say that?
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  78. Pick your patrons carefully.
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  79. ​ @jasholden9741  It used to be common practice to reward certain O6 and flag level officers with promotion to the next grade upon their retirements if they held Regular commissions and met certain other requirements. Whatever the case was back then, officers who held Reserve commissions were not afforded this opportunity. Since Jimmy Stewart held a Reserve commission, he would not have been eligible for a retirement promotion. I do not believe retirement promotions of this kind are authorized anymore. At least I do not recall ever witnessing one during my career. There are exceptions for enlisted members and officers who previously held higher ranks and satisfied at least 10 years of Reserve or Active Duty commissioned service and the necessary time-in-grade requirement for the most senior rank held. Such members can petition for a promotion even after they retire. I personally knew one retired Army E9, who much later had his rank upgraded to O4 (Major) because of his prior commissioned served in the Army Reserve. Don't ask me how it's done; it's too convoluted for me to understand, much less explain.
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  80. Fate is no respecter of heroes.
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  81. Why do fat chance and thin chance mean the same thing?
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  82. You'll have to ask Milton Berle.
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  83.  @chopinbloc  I agree. I used to work on a flight line where that was mandatory.
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  84. I think you've been misled about Bat Masterson's revenge killing of his brother Ed's murderer. He did fire on two men, wounding both, one of the mortally, but the rest of the story appears to be the fiction of some writer's imagination.
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  85. Curses, foiled again.
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  86.  @choughed3072  Yes, bloodhound evidence has long been accepted in US courts. There's even an old episode of Perry Mason where he discusses this very point.
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  87.  @Morgan_Sandoval  Now let me see if I've got this straight. You make up your mind in advance what you think of people before you engage them in debate. If you decide you don't think you will like a person's argument, you make a straw man of him, then knock him down in order to justify in your mind your decision not to debate. This is circular reasoning at its finest, but it isn't intelligent discourse.
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  88.  @Morgan_Sandoval  I did not open the discussion. Mine was the fourth comment. You then attacked me. Why? What is it that angered you so much?
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  89.  @nrsrymj  There is a flaw in your reasoning. Equality of opportunity does not coerce people to pay for other people's wants. It requires no action by anyone. It is the same with all the rights mentioned in the Constitution. You have the right of free speech; you do not have the right to be free from speech or to suppress the speech of others. But free speech only works when people behave ethically. Otherwise, anyone screaming profanities at your child or lying in court would be protected under the guise of free speech. In this regard we are all equally protected under the Constitution. You speak of healthcare and free education for all without examining what this entails. Both of these ideas involve coercive and overt action by government to force some people to pay for the benefit of other people. How is this freedom? Government decides what quality of service you receive. There is no freedom of choice or opportunity; there is no freedom at all. "Free for all" in these cases really means free for some; everyone else pays double. If you truly believe this is fair and just behavior, then you shouldn't mind if the cashier at Burger King charges you $100 for your next meal because he determined the previous ten customers warranted free food. It is an unworkable scheme that only guarantees that those who suffer most under this form of tyranny become even less productive and more disenchanted.
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  90.  @nrsrymj  The Founders were wise enough to realize the purpose of government was to preserve out liberties. The rest was up to us. Healthcare and education are not rights under the US Constitution. They did not fall under the purview of the federal government. They were the responsibility of state and local governments, which acted on them as each state saw fit. At best they are privileges, for nobody has the right to be healthy or educated (anymore than there is a right to deny the same), but almost everyone has the desire to be healthy, and many also desire to be educated. It costs money to do both. The states found it to be in their best interest to provide basic education to children, then later on they determined it desirable to have some form of higher education. Private schools and colleges predated them, but not everyone had access to them. State and local taxes made these educational opportunities possible. Public healthcare followed a similar path and coexisted with private care. As for federal taxation, it was authorized but very limited in scope, and its purpose was to pay for the basic functions of government. That worked well until progressives (that is what men like Wilson called themselves) saw an opportunity to greatly expand the power and reach of government. Once armed with the power to tax and spend as much as it liked, our federal government has been on an ever increasing trajectory to do just that. Free education and healthcare for all are chimeras offered by a government indifferent to the reality that we cannot afford the cost.
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  91.  Florian Held  Then it is apparent you know nothing about fascism. If you think I am a fascist, you are even more mistaken. Fascists advocate totalitarian rule and centralized control, both of which I find highly anathema. They have far more in common with communism than with our republican form of democracy.
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  92.  @nrsrymj  You are confusing rights with responsibilities. The Constitution recognizes preexisting individual rights, but it also describes the responsibilities and limits of the federal government and says that all other authority is retained by the states and the people. Common defense is not a right, but a responsibility of federal government that is authorized by the Constitution. There are no rights or responsibilities to education and healthcare in the Constitution. The federal government has no business in these areas. They fall under the province of the states. The whole idea of federalism is the division of responsibilities between federal, state, and local government. The progressive movement since the 19th century has been one long and largely successful attempt to pervert the Constitution and centralize power in the federal govenrment at the expense of the states and the people. One of the great disadvantages of this approach is that a one-size-fits-all mentally results. Under federalism the states are free to experiment with different ideas, to discard those that do not work, and serve as examples to other states when something does work. Another advantage is if you are not happy with the laws in your state and you have not been successful in changing them, you can always move to another state that more closely represents your views. This is not possible when the states reduced to being no more that organs of the federal government.
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  93.  Florian Held  Listen to yourself, Florian. You sound just like them. By the way, my father's side of the family escaped the Nazis, so stop your ranting.
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  94.  Florian Held  And who determines what constitutes the greater good? Good for thee but not for me? I am always wary of what people with a bit of power are capable of doing in the name of the greater good. It's why I do not blindly trust any large enterprise, be it government, business, or labor. To quote the late philosopher Eric Hoffer, “Every great cause begins as a movement, becomes a business, and eventually degenerates into a racket. And those who benefit in the racket will defend it with passion.”
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  95.  Florian Held  At last we find some common ground. Yes, I've read Rand and agree with much of what she said about individualism and selfishness. She was being brutally honest, but she meant it in the context of honoring one's commitments and being ethical in all dealings with others. This applies to all parties. When one party violates an agreement, the other party is no longer obligated to honor it. I detest the word capitalism, which was derived from Karl Marx's writings. History has proven just how wrong Marx was. Free enterprise and free trade are what I believe in, not crony capitalism, mercantilism, monopolies, or cartels. They are perversions of the idea, largely because they favor one group over another. A level playing field is the last thing their supporters intend. What makes you think people today are any more selfish, greedy, and indifferent than at any other time in history, and why focus your comment only on Americans? The primary difference I see between Americans and the rest of the world is that we enjoy a greater degree of freedom and independence. For it to continue, it is necessary for people to act in a morally responsible way. John Adams warned us of this when he said "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other". So in a sense you are correct. We risk becoming our own worst enemy. As to your last statement, you'll have to clarify it for me. I didn't quite understand what you meant to say.
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  96. Didn't Ayn Rand base her character, Howard Rourke, on Wright?
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  97. Winnie the Pooh must be healthy as hell.
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  98. Let's categorize countries as comfortable, tolerable, uncomfortable, and shit hole.
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  99. It's pronounced K-C one thirty-five.
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  100. Any chance they'll write one in poop?
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  101. My wife checks the ingredients on everything before she buys it. Oreo cookies still contain palm oil which is high in saturated fats. I used to eat both Oreos and Sunshine Hydrox. They are pretty much the samw, but I prefer the Oreo.
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  102. Governments hurting people??? That's inconceivable!
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  103.  Juanito G  I once read that Napoleon picked the tallest men to serve in his army. When fitted with a shako and plume as headgear, they looked like giants. Unfortunately, so many tall Frenchmen were killed during the Napoleonic wars that the average height of Frenchmen shrunk several inches.
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  104.  @devinewolfe1906  Perhaps you should try reading it before condemning it.
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  105.  @darksteelmenace595  Evil is easy to spot if you have a basic moral code. I agree that standing up to it is hard. Most people will capitulate, ignore it, or try to get along, all in the vain hope that it has been satiated. Or as John Stuart Mill wrote "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing."
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  106.  @sarpbakrsoy8125  It was meant as dark humor - a small consolation that the enemy won't eat you after they kill you.
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  107. Space, the final legal frontier.
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  108. In this current era of chronic victim-hood being seen as a sign of nobility, it is wise to remember Roosevelt's words, and give a man "no more and no less than he shows himself worthy to have".
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  109.  @Markle2k  My impression is this incentive is effective on a small percentage of the prisoners, but was not suitable for all. That leaves a large segment of the prison population in need of encouragement to make something better of themselves. There's usually a way to motivate people to do this, but finding out what works best for each one can be difficult. There will always be a few who are rotten to the core, but they can be segregated from the rest. I suspect that few people outside the system are interested in prisoner reform. If so, then we're just releasing ticking time bombs back on the streets after an arbitrary period of detention.
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  110. One version of the story claims that while Jackson was caning his assailant, he also verbally castigated him, expressing his disgust for anyone who couldn't even properly load a firearm.
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  111. In the 1970s my Dad was negotiating the purchase of an airplane from a man who had been Colonel Sander's personal pilot. During their discussions he said the Colonel was always a gentleman, but he held great contempt for the people he had sold his company to, always referring to them as thieves. Your story appears to dovetail with his.
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  112. Regarding the infamous photo from the Vietnam War, it should be noted that this napalm attack was not conducted by American forces, but by a South Vietnamese aircraft, and thankfully the young girl did survive. As for the ethical issue, I would like to know exactly which weapons kill and maim most humanely. Lastly, as kids we would pour gasoline into a Styrofoam cup and the cup would melt into a goo, which was an ersatz form of napalm.
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  113. The sugar myth may be partially a result chocolate candy, which typically contains enough caffeine to give a person a mild energy burst.
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  114. That's the most amazing story of survival I've ever heard, and I've heard some astounding ones.
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  115. No, it's Jack Benny. There is a photo of Wright reading his book, Gadsby. At the time of its publication he was white-bearded and in his 60s. A Google search of both personalities reveals the same Benny publicity photo being used to describe both men, hence the understandable confusion. However, a close examination of the photo shows Benny wearing a more modern suit, dating the photo to sometime around the 1940s or 50s. Wright died in 1939 at the age of 67. Jack Benny would have been 45 at the time.
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  116. What a sad macabre story. It's hard to believe nobody in Tennessee had a rifle powerful enough to kill her. By 1916 modern high velocity smokeless ammunition was commonplace. The US Army had adopted the 30'06 a decade earlier, and while somewhat light by elephant gun standards, it was certainly capable of doing the job quickly and efficiently if the bullet was placed in her brain. With large animals it is the penetration of the projectile to a vital organ rather than the size that matters most. During this time period the famous African big game hunter, W. D. M. Bell, had repeatedly proven this point by using the slightly less powerful 7mm Mauser rifle firing a full metal jacket bullet.
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  117. "Octopi" used to be the most accepted plural form of "octopus". The times, they are a changin'
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  118. I remember an animated Chevron commercial from 1977 where dinosaurs are shown being turned into oil. At the end of it, as a car drives away, a dinosaur pops its head out of the gas tank filler neck and makes a comical dinosaur sound. Thanks to the magic of the internet I found a link to the ad: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w0B0t_4MTuM
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  119. This video was really over the top.
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  120. In pop culture I guess this is what you'd call hitting rock bottom.
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  121. How can I enjoy such a tragic story?
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  122. Presidio is pronounced prah-sid-e-o.
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  123. I can't speak for the counter interrogation training our aircrews received at the time, but Scharff's methods are nothing new. Our own WWII Air Intelligence interrogators, many of them German and Austrian natives, were taught to use very similar techniques. I find it hard to believe all this was forgotten after the war and had to be reinvented decades later. Somebody is blowing smoke.
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  124. Simon, have you ever seen a pig on the back of another pig? Guess what they're doing. Perhaps piggyback has more than one meaning.
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  125. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it would appear music artists don't care for flatter. Hmm, the logic paradigm fails here.
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  126. Excellent overview. Though the US government did not actually ban silencers (the correct legal term), they did place a $200 tax on the transfer, which would have been a king's ransom in 1934. Thanks to inflation this is no longer the case. One of the reasons the tax was introduced was due to a belief that many people would resort to poaching during the Great Depression. The tax was seen as a way to deter poachers from using silencers. Such is the way the politician's and the government bureaucrat's minds function.
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  127. Eugene Stoner did not scale down the AR10 to create the AR15. That work was done by Leroy James "Jim" Sullivan. Other than that, good job.
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  128.  @hokutoulrik7345  A good friend of mine was a Minuteman launch officer when War Games was released and he was royally pissed by that scene, not because of any authenticity in the launch sequence, but because of the notion that any launch officer would refuse to fire his missiles. As he put it, "Everyone you ever loved has just been killed and you're just going to sit there and do nothing? Bullshi--, you're going to kill the enemy!" I can't speak to how accurate the launch procedures were portrayed, but I shared his sentiment.
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  129.  @marks1638  This is news to me. You'll have to provide me with a source I can research. In the meantime, I'll pass this along to him for comment.
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  130.  @marks1638  I received a response this morning from my friend and have entered it verbatim: I was in missiles in the early 80s. There were no such exercises. The very idea is stupid. Imagine what would happen if the effort to isolate the missiles was unsuccessful and the researchers were unaware and a missile was launched? Once a missile is launched it cannot be recalled, diverted, or destroyed. I can imagine the congressional hearings in the rubble of DC. "General, can you tell this assembly why you thought it was a good idea to play "Russian Roulette" with ICBMs?" BTW, we were issued S&W Model 10s for alerts, not to coerce your crewmate to turn keys but to help ensure that no one compromises classified documents, processes or equipment.
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  131.  @marks1638  There were a couple of real world incidents where crews came close to launching. On my first duty assignment I shared an office with a captain who was a launch officer in one of these incidents. In neither case did anyone receive authorization to launch. Outside of a training environment, which does not involve any real missiles, I have never heard of anyone ever being ordered to launch a nuke, either by mistake or on purpose. I've known a good number of SAC crew members, both missile and B-52. They have spoken very freely with me of their work and nobody ever hinted at a story like this. It does not pass any rational test of common sense. Somebody has a foggy memory of events or has been BSing you. There is no cover-up.
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  132.  @marks1638  Quite true. I've spent years trying to run down rumors, only to discover the truth behind most of them was quite pedestrian, but not always. Once in a while you find a jewel.
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  133. Well, yeah, after we did the initial landscaping.
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  134.  @sertaki  I think he was being facetious, as was I. To look at Hiroshima today and compare it with Detroit, one would conclude the latter had been nuked and never recovered.
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  135. I wanna be a space cowboy.
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  136. With regard to the overloaded Gettysburg battlefield rifles, it should be noted that most Union soldiers had only limited firearms training. Misfires were common due to the unreliability of percussion caps and black powder. In the din of battle they could not discern one shot from another. You do not notice the recoil because you are focused on the target and staying alive. There is even one recorded police shootout where an officer reinserted empty cases in his revolver. Confusion reigns for those who do not train to win.
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  137.  @susim4503  You were not objectively clear. Local weather is what constitutes global temperature. They are not inseparable, so what do you mean by average global temperature? How is that derived? I have asked a very basic question, but nobody has yet provided a concise answer. How do we know what global temperature is best for the Earth? What extremes in temperature are considered allowable, and for how long? I, for one, would love to live someplace where winters and summers are mild, where rainfall and sunshine are just right (whatever that means). No such place exists, or if it does, it isn't for very long. The world is full of extreme climate variations. If we favor one, does that not adversely affect the others? One might as well say I wish to live in a safe environment, or I wish to have a successful, fulfilling life. Fine, now tell me what that means.
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  138. "¡Ay, caramba! I guess I should stop complaining about the USA's soft-on-crime legal system.
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  139. What a delightful Christmas time tale - not!
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  140.  @IvanBaturaChannel  There are at least three international treaties regarding drug trafficking: the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 (as amended in 1972), the Convention on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances of 1988. Each treaty builds on the previous one. Noriega violated them through his engagement in illicit drug smuggling into the USA. This provided Bush with one of his justifications for the invasion. It has been contested by those opposed to the invasion that the UN treaties grant no invasion powers or even international law enforcement powers to its signatories. This in itself is an indictment of the UN. What is the point of a treaty if there is no way to enforce it? If one party cheats, what is the aggrieved party to do? It can impose trade and travel restrictions with a country or seize its foreign assets, but this has very limited effect as Iran has demonstrated. When all else fails, invade if you can get away with it. Otherwise, accept that you are essentially powerless to act in your own best interests. To answer your question, can invasion be considered an act of self-defense, I say yes. Israel did this in 1967, which is why they survived and won the war they knew was coming. If Putin invades Ukraine, he will use the same argument. It will be a lie, but, hey, he's PutIn.
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  141. They won't touch meat but they'll fling cow dung with their hands?
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  142.  @zafarsyed6437  Thanks.
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  143. Retarded, crippled, idiot, moron, cretin, etc. are just words. Shunning or banning their use and replacing them with terms such as mentally challenged, otherly-abled, and other nonsensical phrases may make the censors feel better, but it does nothing to solve these very real conditions; it merely sweeps them under the table.
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  144. I hear the tardigrade sauce is pretty good on fish.
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  145. It sounds like the husband really smoked her ass.
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  146. Beautiful story - a combination Zorro and Friar Tuck.
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  147. Even as a kid I found the sound cringe-worthy because it conjured up an image of my fingernails being ripped off. It still does.
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  148. Why are there any thumbs down on this video?
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  149. There is an episode of the 1950s TV series "Navy Log" which recounts in detail the ordeal of Lt Koelsch, and the Navy's efforts to learn the truth. You can view it on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JkN3CN9y4kI
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  150. Our rural mailbox sat near the highway and was periodically knocked over by passing vehicles. Eventually the flag was destroyed and the post was snapped off at the base. I affixed a new flag I had made out of scrap plastic and remounted the post in a couple of concrete blocks. I pounded bent angle iron into the ground in front and to the sides of the blocks. That was the last time anyone tried to knock over the box with their vehicle.
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  151. So MI6 proved the penis mightier than the sword. We'll have to rename some Bond novels: "On Her Majesty's Secret Semen", "Thunderballs", "You Only Cum Twice", "The Man With the Golden Penis", "For Your Fly Only".
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  152. A couple of other re-titled covers should include "From Rushing Her with Love" and "GoldenEye Cream".
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  153. Attlee, the man who propelled Groat Britain to dizzying new heights - or not.
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  154. Using BPI's logic, consumers should have been paying royalties every time they hummed or sang a tune. I suspect the next wave of technology will allow the average consumer to do much more than just copy a song or video. Given enough memory storage and software capability, I expect the average Joe or Josie will be able to produce major studio quality films starring their favorite deceased actors, without ever leaving the comfort of their computer work station. More enterprising film buffs may even join forces with pirate producers in other countries to make films starring entertainers who are still alive and active, but not associated with their project. In this brave new world don't believe anything you see or hear unless you are physically present when it occurs (egad, in the world of news making we are already there).
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  155.  @stevek8829  Yes, it created a fireball. A friend of mine had a HK51 that was even worse (7.62 NATO). I called it the Fleming Flamethrower, after the designer and builder of this conversion, Bill Fleming.
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  156. His name is pronounced Mitch-uh-lek
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  157. My takeaway is gravity freezes and stops working in ultra cold climates, much like me in the middle of a Montana winter.
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  158. The Flying Tigers or AVG (American Volunteer Group) were formed into a Group, not a brigade. Brigades are army ground formations. It is interesting to note that in the bulk of the USAAF (later the USAF) the Group normally is a subset of a Wing, which is a subset of an Air Division (now largely disbanded), which is a subset of a Numbered Air Force. The Group itself is composed of squadrons, which are made up of flights, which contain sections or elements. In the RAF the Group and Wing are reversed in order, leading to some confusion regarding relative rank. For example, in the USAF a typical Group Commander would be a Lt Colonel or full Colonel, while the Wing Commander would be a full Colonel or Brigadier General. In the RAF the Group Captain would outrank the Wing Commander, and their ranks don't directly correspond to the USAF ranks. In general, the USAF treats a Group Captain as a full Colonel and a Wing Commander as a Lt Colonel. Confused yet?
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  159. That was a pretty vague statement by the Congressional committee at the end. Did they release the names, dates, places, and events to back up their claim? It seems that little has changed since the 1930s as far as our elected government officials are concerned.
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  160.  @kennyhagan5781  It's a rare four-seat version that my Dad and some friends found rotting in a farmer's field in 1959. They bought it and then spent two years fully restoring. I enjoyed riding in it as a kid.
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  161. Simon gave up, thus proving the brilliance of the government's conspiracy! :)
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  162. So the only difference between Ranters and De Beers was unintentional candidness.
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  163. Up next, the etymology of "dick".
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  164. I once had dealings with one of Bull's business partners, but this was several years before his assassination. In retrospect I'm glad I did not take up his offer to come work for the company.
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  165.  @EnigmaticLucas  I agree. I've edited it.
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  166. Thank God I grew up when Bugs Bunny and Jonny Quest were the top kid shows.
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  167. I agree about psychopaths, ice cream, and raisins. I hope Big Brother is monitoring the folks who buy such abominations.
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  168.  Florian Held  A really bad thing.
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  169.  @Morgan_Sandoval  Really? I read your manifesto three times and still haven't a clue what your political, ethical, or social beliefs are, and you haven't a clue as to mine. I have learned two things about you, though. You are incredibly arrogant and demeaning in your discourse with people you don't even bother to get to know first. That's one of the great failings of social media. It provides a mask to everyone, be they lions or asses.
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  170.  @scottsorenson1859  All this bickering and nobody has bothered to define the term. What do you consider to be progressive equality? Perhaps we have different interpretations of the term.
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  171.  @Morgan_Sandoval  No, you spoke in obtuse ways, but never really stated anything clearly other than your disdain for me.
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  172.  @scottsorenson1859  Why, because you can't define the expression? Okay, define no-liberalism and explain to me how it is different from progressive equality. Frankly, I am not sure what either term means. What do they mean to you?
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  173.  Florian Held  That's the best insult you can come up with?
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  174. Segway . . . meme . . .
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  175. MORE!!!
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  176. I've never understood the enormous popularity of fantasy. I think even Tolkien was bemused by his celebrity for such work. A few years back I read "The Hobbit" aloud to my wife every evening before bed. It was a nice way to settle in for the night. A year later I read her "The Silmarillion", which did not make for good bedtime companionship. Indeed, we found it confusing, highly repetitive, and lacking direction, yet others have claimed it to be Tolkien's crowning achievement. As with other forms of art, tastes tend to vary.
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  177. Did he say 650,000 tons?
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  178. The machine gun pictured at 18:14 appears to be an Austrian-Hungarian Schwarzlose M.7, which differs internally from the Maxim by using a much simpler delayed blowback mechanism. The Lewis Gun was an American invention that was adopted by the British. I'm not sure what gun is pictured at 19:00, but I do not think it is a BAR prototype.
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  179. The image at 3:36 appears to be a .50 caliber machine gun fitted with a blank firing device and recoil booster (to help it cycle blank rounds).
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  180. Actually, the US counterintelligence community was well aware of Soviet penetration of the Manhattan Project, but they were repeatably stymied by senior government leaders and scientists when they tried to plug these leaks and purge the people involved.
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  181. I once served on a medical ethics advisory board at the largest hospital in the Department of Defense, Wilford Hall Medical Center (ironically nicknamed Big Willie). One of the experiments we approved involved male erectile implants. The doctor presenting the various experimental devices under consideration managed to maintain a restrained and clinically professional attitude throughout his presentation. These included a demonstration of a two-position ball and socket implant (up and down). He noted the problem with this device was that it kept the male organ stiff at all times. I don't recall how one was supposed to urinate, but presumably it was done by disconnecting the device and managing it like a fire hose. Another device was composed of a thick metal wire which was protected and sealed in a heavy synthetic outer coating. It could be bent into almost any shape , presenting some rather tantalizing options for the user. Standard practice was to insert two of these rods into the genitalia, thus allowing for adequate firmness and size. The doctor informed us the device had been tested successfully in India, however, for reasons of economy, only one of the rods was implanted in each patient. He further stated this had no apparent detrimental effect on the population growth of the country.
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  182. Brings a new meaning to the expression voting with your feet.
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  183. I remember when the Corona rumors ran rampant and I recall a news article which countered the false claim by describing the stringent standards at the brewery. I was not aware that Heineken was responsible for starting the rumor. Talk about a beer that tastes like piss.
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  184. While I was stationed at the Pentagon I saw a plaque on the wall of our DiLoreno Health Clinic. It was dedicated to Captain Saloman and describes the fighting, but makes no mention of his former training. This video explains how a noncombatant was able to take over a machine gun nest and effectively silence the enemy. I was unaware of the over half century struggle to right a wrong and award him the medal he so earnestly deserved.
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  185. This video did not put me to sleep. I want my 50 minutes back.
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  186.  @monsieurcommissaire1628  And look at what it's done for Wiley Coyote, Yosemite Sam, and Daffy Duck.
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  187. Nobel's ex-lover got a Peace prize? Are you sure it wasn't a Piece prize?
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  188. Lord, the UK isn't just a nanny state, it's becoming a ninny state. Regarding John Wick and his deadly Number 2 pencil, I think it would snap the first time he shoved it into a victim. However, when I went through investigator training, we were shown a good number of very ghastly and disturbing death photos in order to weed out those who literally could not stomach it. One of the pictures showed an airman who used his pen to kill himself by ramming it through his eyeball into his brain. As I recall, it took him several tries before he succeeded.
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  189. So you're saying Inspector Jacques Clouseau isn't that farfetched?
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  190. I'm not surprised. I much preferred Siskel.
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  191. All this nonsense went on for decades because the government wanted to control the name of a food item. And now they realize all they needed to do was list the percentage of ingredients on the label and leave the purchasing decision to the consumer.
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  192. Be careful what you ask for. Having the government regulate the dictionary is a bit too Orwellian for me.
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  193. David, I agree. That was the point I was trying to make in my first comment.
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  194. Simon, when I viewed this video it dawned on me that a relative of mine has been doing major research in this area for the past decade , so I passed the link to him. He was ecstatic to see you presentation, for it came about as a result of an eye test program he created called DYOP.
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  195. Check out the even more insane Soviet Antonov A40 flying tank (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_A-40)
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  196. No mention of Jello shots.
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  197.  @tsugumorihoney2288  Yes, thanks. I corrected my typo.
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  198.  @karlknechtel8119  Both. The reports of supersonic flight by propeller driven aircraft has never been verified. Some German sources claim it happened when a Me163 Komet dove steeply. Since such claims cannot be verified, they should not be accepted as factual.
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  199. Or were trousers truncated to create swimming trunks?
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  200. I can see why you waited a decade to make this story. It was your doody as you saw it.
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  201. Well, it's not a problem anymore at COSTCO.
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  202.  @micfail2  Quite true. That's why I think the states should create some sort of blanket insurance progrma that the various departments can use. The slippery slope is always with us, and keeping people in prison only works if their families are willing to pay their fines. This used to be the case in England, and was also true in Japan for a long time. I don't know which countries still practice it. I do know that keeping someone in jail is costly, however, a work release program to pay off debt might be feasible.
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  203. Did he find Phillip Morris smoking hot?
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  204. Another remarkable invention of the cloak-and-dagger departments was an explosive disguised as flour. One OSS operative kept some in his bakery, but carefully separated from the other flour. All was well until a group of German soldiers came in and insisted that on some pastries. The pasty chef apologized for not having any flour, but they spotted the explosive bag and demanded he use it. Left with no choice, he did just that. The shop didn't blow up and the Germans never complained about the pastries. Go figure.
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  205. Now make a video on the Shriners.
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  206. 600 simple rocket strapped together. What could possibly go wrong?
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  207. I'll bet that tree isn't in Ohio, but is a the Redwood in California. Damn commies.
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  208. I suppose others have said it before me, but you are displaying a picture of the wrong President Harrison. You want Benjamin Harrison, our 23rd President, not his grandfather and ninth president, William Henry Harrison.
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  209. @Lost Hero I'm glad somebody noticed.
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  210. The photo is of Jack Benny. There is a photo available online showing Wright reading his book, Gadsby. At the time of its publication he was white-bearded and in his 60s. A Google search of both personalities reveals the same Benny publicity photo being used to describe both men, hence the understandable confusion. However, a close examination of the photo shows Benny wearing a more modern suit, dating the photo to sometime around the 1940s or 50s. Wright died in 1939 at the age of 67. Jack Benny would have been 45 at the time.
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  211. Trump sure favors his grandmother.
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  212. What did his disciples want to learn, how to starve to death?
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  213.  @lenitaa7938  So buy a concert ticket already. :-)
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  214. Hoohaw. Such language!
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  215.  @dirtygiraffe  Churchill said something very similar.
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  216.  @darksteelmenace595  Being a good person and being nonviolent are not the same thing. Anyone who fails to take action to stop an unwarranted act of violence is both a moral and physical coward, so he is not behaving as a good person should. The action required may involve violence, but violence in this situation can be justified. If there is any doubt, we have courts in which to debate the issue. Morals are written in stone. They start with the Ten Commandments. The manner in which one perceives reality can be taken into account when judgement is rendered, or it can be ignored. It really depends on whether our judges prefer the letter of the law over some sense of justice and mercy. This is why we call them judges; they must be judgemental. But being mortal men and subject to human foibles, they too are prone to err now and then. Still, I prefer this risk to one involving the cold and indifferent output of a calculating machine.
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  217.  @kevinconrad6156  No, it was not genocide. It was the forced removal of native people from Georgia, Florida, Alabama, NC, and Tennessee. That they were deprived of their lands, their possessions, and their natural rights is not in dispute, nor is the fact that many of them died along the "Trail of Tears". It was an often merciless and bungled relocation effort, not an extermination program. The Indians fought the extradition in federal court all the way up to the Supreme Court, which sided with them. But President Jackson demurred and went forward with the relocation. For those who prefer to castigate his decision, I would like to point out the ugly fact that if he had sided with the high court, in all likelihood the local White populations and state governments might well have gone to war with these tribes. If Jackson had confronted these states with Federal troops, the Civil War could have started almost 30 years earlier than it did. Perhaps I am being too charitable, but I think Jackson chose the lesser of two evils. It is not my intent to diminish the suffering of American Indians throughout colonial and early American history, but to put it in perspective. By contrast, I believe what happened to the Trojans, Carthaginians, Herero, Armenians, European Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Tutsi, and the Ukrainian Holodomor qualify as true genocides. Tragedies such as the American Indian diaspora, the Irish famine, and the Bengal famine were avoidable atrocities, but not calculated genocide. Since the legal definition of genocide did not exist until 1944, it is hard to retroactively apply this term without diluting its impact. We should do so cautiously.
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  218.  @kevinconrad6156  I don't know where you are getting your definition of the word, but the commonly accepted one is "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group". The Greek prefix "genos" means race or tribe, and the Latin suffix "cide" means killing. Even under the expanded UN definition, the forced relocation of a group is not genocide unless its purpose is "to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group".
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  219.  @darksteelmenace595  You misread my statements. I said anyone who fails to take action to stop an unwarranted act of violence is both a moral and physical coward. What form that action takes can vary. It need not be direct violent action. It would be fool-hearty to inject yourself physically into a fight where your opponent or opponents are armed and you are not, unless you have no alternative or believe you too are threatened. But calling for help and assisting the authorities in identifying the attackers is not unreasonable. I would not describe myself as hard-ass, but I am retired military. You don't have to be a high speed, low drag street fighter or special operator to avoid a fight or prevail in one. Anyone can deal effectively with a potential attacker if they have the right mindset ahead of time. Few do, but the numbers appear to be growing rapidly. You show great disdain for humanity and classify all humans as garbage. Then you mock the very foundations of moral behavior that raise us above mere predators by dismissing the Ten Commandments as an outdated myth. Whether or not you accept the Bible or any form of Christianity (not the same thing), you must have a code of ethics to be accepted into any society. You have rejected the most relevant codes. What then have you replaced them with?
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  220.  @norbitcleaverhook5040  Good question, but I think The Great War was a forgone conclusion. Princip merely provided a convenient excuse to start it. By the way, he was underage and not executed as a result. Instead he was sentenced to serve 20 years and left in prison to rot and die of TB in 1918.
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  221.  @kevinconrad6156  I referenced the UN's definition, which I presume matches international law. If you have a link, I'll be glad to look at it.
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  222.  @sertaki  You might find that is the case for subsets of the American Indian population, but it was never a general policy applied to all Indians. Much of their decline was due to infectious diseases for which they had no acquired immunity and to the loss of prime land for hunting, farming, and gathering. The creation of Reservations and the paternalistic attitude of the federal govenrment turned many proud people into alcoholics, drug users, and wife beaters. This was not the intent of government, but has been the outcome.
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  223.  @kevinconrad6156  The statement "in whole or in part" is easily misconstrued or abused. The UN declamation clarifies this point to a degree in the subsequent two paragraphs: The intent is the most difficult element to determine. To constitute genocide, there must be a proven intent on the part of perpetrators to physically destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group. Cultural destruction does not suffice, nor does an intention to simply disperse a group. It is this special intent, or dolus specialis, that makes the crime of genocide so unique. In addition, case law has associated intent with the existence of a State or organizational plan or policy, even if the definition of genocide in international law does not include that element. Importantly, the victims of genocide are deliberately targeted - not randomly – because of their real or perceived membership of one of the four groups protected under the Convention (which excludes political groups, for example). This means that the target of destruction must be the group, as such, and not its members as individuals. Genocide can also be committed against only a part of the group, as long as that part is identifiable (including within a geographically limited area) and “substantial.” What really strikes me as odd about the UN declaration is that it specifically rejects what might be otherwise called "political genocide" and "cultural genocide". Because it does not specify the size of a target group, one could argue that the purposeful elimination of a small tribe or group qualifies as genocide. The UN does agree that under case law there must be an organized plan of destruction even though the international law does not require it. This brings me back to my central point. We should not apply the word genocide broadly because it dilutes its impact. Used too often and too easily, in time it will come to mean little to anyone. It should remain the most horrific term we can apply to an event or action.
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  224.  @kevinconrad6156  Offended by what? I expressed my opinion and you expressed yours. We simply disagree.
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  225. Uh, Simon, I'm not sure you fully understand the American connotation of your last statement.
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  226.  Harvey Smith  We have always used jargon in the military, often based on acronyms formed from the initials of official titles. It's a form of verbal shorthand. We say U-SAF instead of U.S.A.F., MAC instead of M.A.C., A-WOL instead of A.W.O.L., etc. If we can't form a word from the initials, we will enunciate the initials (AMC is pronounced A.M.C., TDY is pronounced T.D.Y.). You ask who cares; well, veterans care because these are the terms we are familiar with. Just as a lecturer or narrator tries not to mispronounce the names of people and places, so he should avoid mispronouncing military jargon.
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  227.  @Otokichi786  A machine. "Pinocchio is broken. Its strings have been cut."
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  228. You didn't mention C.Q. - Calling any Station. Is that still used?
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  229. Are we expected to have sympathy for a fraudster who freely revealed military secrets while fleecing her unsuspecting, grieving victims?
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  230.  @CasualNotice  I must respectfully disagree. There is no such thing as the Congressional Medal of Honor or the Presidential Medal of Honor. There is the Medal of Honor and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. There is also a Congressional Gold Medal. The confusion arises because the Medal of Honor, which was first created by an act of Congress in 1861, is typically presented by the President in the name of the Congress, however, both the President and Congress have limited roles in determining who is nominated or receives it. The nomination process typically begins with a service member being recommended by his immediate superior for consideration. Nominations which are submitted outside the two year time limit for consideration require an act of Congress before they can be accepted for review. In either case the nomination must work its way through various levels of review by the service decoration board, senior decoration board, personnel (manpower), service chief, service secretary, Secretary of Defense, and the President. At any point along the way the medal can be recommended or not recommended. The President has the final say.
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  231. Watch me make it fizz.
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  232. Does his punishment fit his crimes?
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  233. My grandmother only drank Sanka, and she was Jewish. I wonder if she ever knew about the Nazi connection.
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  234. Beware the crabcat!
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  235. John Steed was an assassin? I pray not.
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  236. FUN FACTS: The image at 10:55 is of a WWII M1A1 Thompson SMG. The image at 14:47 is a bit of a curiosity. The wood forearm is boxier than the type later offered as an option and then made standard on wartime 1928A1 guns. It's possible this may be a prototype forearm, a variant of the very rare Model 1923 SMG (chambered for the much more powerful 45 Remington cartridge), or it could be a Chinese made clone of the Thompson SMG. The image at 18:02 shows a 19121 Thompson fitted with the rare 100 round C-drum. The image at 18:17 shows Prime Minister Churchill holding an empty Thompson. This is evident by the fact the cocking handle is fully forward. The Thompson fires from an open bolt. When forward, the bolt blocks the drum and prevents it from being installed or removed. The gun handed to him is either empty or is loaded and has misfired (highly doubtful).
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  237. Simon, our Constitution also guarantees our right to free speech. You stated correctly that a person in a position of authority, such as a teacher or principal, should not criticize a student for refusing to state the pledge, but you did not address whether fellow students should be muzzled as well. To clarify this point, doing so would deny them their right of free speech. There is no right to be protected from ridicule or criticism. If there were, free speech would not exist.
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  238. Being one of the lizard overlords, this all comes as news to me.
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  239. I once nearly managed to tip a cow over all by myself. We were living in a building next to our new home while it was under construction. The building was bordered on one side by a fairly steep hill. This did not prevent a neighbor's cow from stopping by one day to relieve herself by the window. She then moseyed over to the side door, which I quickly swung open and yelled at her. Startled, the bovine stumbled over and fell partway down the hill before recovering her balance and walking off. She never did return.
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  240. The eagle has landed - well, crash-landed.
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  241. Those with discriminatin' tastes only watch Curly episodes...nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
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  242. GM, proving Brewster isn't the only company capable of building worthless aircraft.
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  243.  @writerconsidered  I don't follow your meaning.
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  244.  @tibbygaycat  That's what Simon claimed the Puritans believed. Of course, if the individual progressive is an atheist, his motivation will be based on this notion instead of the commercialization and entertainment aspect, but the effect is the same. For those who argue separation of church and state, I must point out such a concept is not in the US Constitution, nor was it ever intended to be. Out Constitution merely forbids the states from creating or funding particular churches. Therefore the central legal argument would be whether or not announcing a state or federal holiday constitutes support for a church (note, I did not say faith or religion). It can be reasonably argued that long after this nation was created we had no federal govenrment sanctioned holidays, yet somehow people celebrated them. Perhaps we should return to this concept and cancel everyone of them. This won't have any adverse effect on those who wish to celebrate a particular holiday unless their boss won't let them take that day off. This happens with many jobs anyway. I suspect most states will still declare the holidays to be official, in which case somebody will challenge their laws all the way to the Supreme Court. I can just see the SCOTUS in the unenviable role of the judge in "Miracle and 42nd Street". It should prove instructional and entertaining. Maybe the Post Office can help :)
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  245.  @writerconsidered  Thanks.
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  246.  @writerconsidered  I was explaining that the words "separation of church and state" are not in the US Constitution. It is a paraphrased comment made by Jefferson. As for the First Amendment, you only mentioned one word and used it out of context. The applicable phrase is "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". The founders were concerned about those states which had state sponsored churches. They didn't want the federal government to mimic them, so they forbade the practice at the federal level. By 1833 the last state sponsored church was disestablished. However, it wasn't until the solidification of the concept of incorporation (applying the Bill of Rights to the states) under the 14th and 15th Amendments that the practice by states was constitutionally made null and void. Despite this change in legal thinking, blue laws continued well into the 20th century. We had them in my hometown when I was growing up. It is impossible to remove faith from our society and government without completely destroying both. The USA was founded as a Christian nation and built on Christian principles of its forefathers. This is a well documented fact. It has survived this long because of its continued, albeit somewhat diminished, Judeo-Christian ethics. With them we are challenged; without them we are lost.
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