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Wow, and I who thought the charge of Custer's Michigan Brigade only happened in a movie with Erroll Flynn!

No seriously, it's interesting, but combining the attacks of Pickett and Stuart in such a way and have the latter show up at precisely the right moment sounds like a fantastic gamble to me. Heck, we're talking huge distances here, anything could have went wrong with such a plan. Sorry, but therefore it actually sounds like a pretty lousy one to me. What if Stuart had run into the VI Corps (placed in reserve behind the Union line)? The position of Stuart must have been at least 10 kilometers away from Cemetery Ridge. I fail to see how his cavalry division could have made it in an hour, Custer or no Custer.

Actually, how did they coordinate it at all? I was of the impression that Lee had no contact with Stuart throughout the battle.

Anyway.

Usually according to me, the Confederates lost the victory the moment Ewell's II Corps failed to assault the Union right flank during the Afternoon of the first day. Since then the Federals occupied a very strong position along Cemetary Ridge with an army of what, 80 000 to Lee's 50 000?
Or should we say the decisive moment was Longstreet's attack on the round top on July 2, just to make it more interesting.

Ehum, might I ask what's the Sitz im Leben for these "starship" models? :?

Ah, never mind. Since the war actually has two endings (the American pull out in '73 and the South Vietnamese fall of Saigon in '75) it's an easy one to mix up when it's not current brain feed, and then follows consequences as to dates of presidential elections and what not. The famous footage of last US advisory personell trying to get out and the choppers being thrown into the Pacific are from the latter event, for example. I'm sure others made the same error against better actual knowledge as you did, they were probably only better at hiding it.
:;):

Yes Cobra, indeed, I did get confused up by the Stormtroopers, at least to begin with.

Current theory though is that you display an Imperial trooper and Cindy a Republican one (which would be apt), am I correct?

Hehe, well I've just kept it in mind somewhere since I felt it was such a perfect cut through the core of the bull.

Indubitably. Just asking myself why he's had such a relatively unfavourable reputation. At least that's the case around these parts. Could it possibly have something to do with a certain black and white movie featuring Mr Dylan on tour in the UK (in his dead serious folk singer pose) and a few not so favourable comments he made, I wonder?

I'm not sure I'm following you here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the (US) Vietnam War ended in January 1973 and the cease fire and American exit had been negotiated all through the autumn of 1972 (actually, talks had been going on since 1969). The reason the North yielded to a cease-fire at last without a demand for US bombings to end first, was a combination of being left in the cold by Russia and China due to their detente with the US and the Christmas bombings which finally pulled the plug. It had nothing to do with Watergate.

The Khmer Rouge rise to power in 1975 was an effect of the US bombings of Cambodia which had begun in 1969 and which managed to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people in a neutral country (it was also invaded in 1970). This rallied support to the previously marginal Cambodian Communists in the countryside, especially since Prince Shiounuk, the uniting figure of the country, had been ousted and replaced with the America friendly Lon Nol, with the good memory of Washington.

And of course, the US secretly came to support Pol Pot as soon as soon as conflict erupted with Vietnam and continued to do so for many years after he had lost power.

Oh by the way, way cool to have "Deep Throat" identified at last.

Right. Biggest hurdle is definitely that is sounds just all too unreal and at the same time so mundane and typical of mythological beliefs and fantasies.

Cobra:

Naturally, people can imagine all sorts of things, especially when they have vested interest of doing so, or show a desperate need for something to be true. It's when professional pilots are implied to confuse UFO's with planet Venus that it becomes strange.

I know you had to put this down since it was part of mandatory protocol. Nevertheless, I must admit that I don't understand this sort of reasoning at all. *If* we were really visited by the scary reptiles from Alpha Draconis (good as any), then spreading alien technology around would in my opinion be the best long term strategy of countering eventual interstellar threats, apart from benefiting and empowering the human species enormously all by itself, that is.

If there is such a thing as a coverup, I tend to think of other explanations. One could be that intelligence compartmentalization has acquired a life of its own. Need to know is so restricted that heads of government cannot get access, or even heads of intelligence organizations. There are claims that president Carter asked for a full inquiry into the matter, but was denied access by his head of the CIA, for example. He lacked the appropriate security clearence.

Another, which could be combined with the first explanation, has to do with confidence. There might well have been valid security reasons for keeping it all a secret initially, especially when no one knew just exactly what it was or where it came from. I mean, heck, how much did the Russians know about it? As time went by and no reason to tell anything ever really presented itself, and ridicule and intimidation conditioning had already been put into effect, the effects of disclosure would simply have become too embarrasing. The sad story is that once you've started to lie, you must continue to lie. If such a huge absurdity, vehemently denied by everyone credible and responsible, was actually real, what conspiracy theory does not suddenly become entirely plausible? Say, things related to WWII, or need I say 9/11?

Songs of America?

One generation got old
One generation got sold
This generation got no destination to hold

Pick up the cry!!

Hey now it’s time for you and me
Got a revolution, got to revolution
Come on now we’re marching to the sea
Got a revolution, got to revolution

Who will take it from you
We will and who are we

well,

We are volunteers of America
volunteers of America
volunteers of America...

---

Yeah, I'm drunk and spending my morning hours listening to rock music.
:band:

Besides, Hurdy Gurdy Man, I have to admit, is the best rock song catching the moment in time, all categories. Cindy is right.

And I'm in love with Grace Slick. Don't tell anyone.
Volunteers of America,
volunteers of America...

Nah, I wouldn't be too happy if the US continued to make a perfect ass of itself and ever more children had to get their limbs amputated.

Question is what you are trying to achieve in Iraq at all. Keeping the country stable so it won't turn into a civil war between rival factions? Looks like you're putting out the fire with you know what. Don't think you could do so much about it either if that was a fact. The power struggle would only recommence as soon as you leave.

Why not just walk away from it and leave it to the Iraqis themselves? I mean if they want democracy, it's their choice isn't it? Will hurt less the sooner you fold, won't be able to pull any bluffs, anyway.

If I was the US president I'd make preparations to leave the theater all together. Let them keep their Bunker-T and go to hell. Then I'd initaite an ordinary, plain criminal investigation of the 9/11 events, no strings attached.

Cobra long ago wrote:

Your thinking is not unreasonable but in my opinion it's based on flawed assumptions. Reinstating the caliphate I believe is a traditional muslim goal (there is no "moderate" Islam, Islam if taken piously is extremist by its very nature, bent on world domination) but in reality it is only pursued by some fringe groups like bin Laden's who are inconsequential to world politics. And even if it came to pass it would not constitute an actual threat to the west. Their world is too poor, culturally primitive, lacking in resources and population to ever seriously challenge the west as long as we pursue a policy of containment. The only way they can defeat us is by demographic infiltration. This route they do exploit and it's significantly helped along by a western superpower raving about their turf, creating carnage and unstable conditions.

If you on the other hand want to divide and rule the muslim world (I'm not saying you really have to do this), the natural thing would have been to support secular movements. In attacking Iraq, the US did the exact opposite (and not for the first time), destroying a potential ally on the one hand and making life hard on the scatter of democratic elements in the mid-east on the other, as the bloodshed only serves to unite them behind ancient antiwestern agendas.
The stumbling block is and has always been Israel, I reckon, who does not want secular, well ordered and strong arab societies, being probably a lot more content with Jihad morons who are good for nothing but slamming swords into their foreheads. It also helps retaining the precious image of being the eternal victim, which is of no small value considering position, power and status on a worldwide scale.

I believe your support for your government's actions largelly relies on the presumption that what is done is because of some greater hidden wisdom the public is too ignorant or too bleeding-hearted to understand. I would however rather think of the whole thing as a farce of banality, pursued by a small interest group that dominate US politics, exert total control over mass-media and have small regard for the average American apart from their use as tools of the trade. They simply do their thing because they can.

Haven't seen the new one yet, but hopes aren't highly set so who knows, I might even like it.

A bit off topic, but a couple of basic flaws of the new film series in my opinion:

1) Centres too much on characters and the impact of a handful of protagonists on the fate of an entire galaxy.

2) Too many reconnections with the earlier movies (of which really only part 4 and 5 were any good, by the way). For example, why should R2D2 feature in part 1 as the later Darth Vader's personal droid!? Why should Anakin come from Tatooine? In part 4 it was said of Tatooine: "well, if there is a bright centre in the universe this it the place it's farthest from". In the new movies you get the impression Tatooine is at the very centre of the universe, next to Courausant and Naboo. Why does the planet feature at all until possibly late in the third episode, I wonder? There are many examples of this sort of bad script writing.

3) Time. To cover the later period of the republic, it would have been advisable to let each installment cover at least a couple of years. Adventures running over a few days simply don't make any sense.

4) And then it's Jar Jar, the action exaggerations (which began in part 6 and the remakes and only have become worse since then), silly droid armies, and all the usual laments of course.

There, guess I had my fill of cranky nerdiness for the day now.

*Laughs*.
Great fun post there, dicktice. Can't resist some nitpicking though. By 1900 gas driven automobiles had taken over from steamcars. They were a fairly common sight in Berlin and Paris at the time, although it admittedly took longer for the US to catch up. In the United States most early cars were in fact electrical and only used locally in urban settings (due to the undeveloped road network).
Also, by 1900 telegraph wire was old hat, the telephone already having reached a decent spread, so people at that time probably wouldn't have expected "worldwide wireless Morse-code communication using the Marconi technique" as the next big thing.

By the way, I agree with Cindy. Technological advances don't seem to change the world at nearly the same pace as they once did.