Crap Throwing Monkey

Actually, they had better equipment than the Germans, for the most part. What they didn't have was radios, doctrine, and morale - the socialist movements of the '30s left French morale fatally weakened, so that resistance fairly melted away at the German point of attack.

What I really don't get is: if you want to donate money specifically to go towards purchasing specific educational software...why not buy the software and donate it directly? Is there some sort of tax implication or something? Otherwise, I don't see a reason for it.

Yes...but there's no real concept of anyone owing you a job. And realistically, an employer has to be able to show cause, or risk civil action for unfair labor practices. Theoretically they can get rid of workers at will...but as a practical matter, it's not nearly that easy, particularly if there's blatant bias at work (such as when an employer tried to fire me for being bipolar - a big no-no, as it's an illness covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act.)

I was speaking specifically of WWII, and one of the reasons I didn't think it applied. Though if you want to be a insane neo-con and credit this administration with that rebuilding... Iraq IS different. Substantially. As a matter of fact, I'm hard-pressed to come up with any similarities between the two beyond "They're foreign regions we have troops in." However, the fact that the Balkans and Iraq are different does not mean that either policy is defensible. They're not. They're just completely different manifestations of ass-!@#$ed stupidity. Very true. However, if you read up on any of the details of how the British manage their zones, they do so significantly differently than we do (not nearly as ham-handed and overbearing, more willing to interact with Iraqis on their own terms...basically, everything they learned from ruling India with a handful of officers and men.) The institutionalized knowledge born of British imperial history is of significant (but not overriding) importance.

We have very different interpretations of the postwar rebuliding, then. And, as I implied, the post-war phase was NOT planned militarily; most of that effort was coordinated through State, as far as I know. Not even remotely relevant. There's a huge difference between post-war occupation of a conquered nation, and post-war rebuilding of a country you're not even directly engaged in. That's all I can say to that. If the Balkans is an example of our institutional knowledge base, we're !@#$ed. That must be why we invaded a country in the region agains everyone's advice, alienating damn near the entire populace by treating Arab Muslims like misguided Americans who just need to nudged forcefully in the right direction. Actually, it was never obvious it was ever going to work to begin with, no matter what the troops and money ("time" is another thing...but we're talking on the order of not even years or decades, but a couple generations). It's also not terribly obvious that Shinseki based his estimates on such considerations...the simple fact that his estimates were more accurate than the official ones does not mean he interpreted precedent and experience correctly, particularly in light of the fact that most of the precedent doesn't even apply (this is more of a colonial situation than any other occupation the US has ever undertaken...colonialism has different rules. The British are far more suited to this sort of thing that we are, due to their colonial history...and not conicidentally, the Brits made a better transition from "combat" to "post combat" and maintained the peace better than we have in central Iraq.)

They should've traded for Ramsey a few years ago, before the 'Skins horrible offensive line, carousel coaching, and Gibbs' lack of confidence in him totally messed up his head. I seriously hope the guy does well from here on...but I think it's more likely he's ruined as an NFL QB.

"The actual performance commenced in the St. Burchardi church on September 5, 2001 with a pause lasting until February 5, 2003. The first chord was played from then until July 5, 2005. Currently the organ is playing a three-note chord..." What tempo would that be? Gravississississimo?

Charlie's got more insight than the rest of us, though...his dad runs a fictitious White House on TV. Does anyone ever get the sense that the only thing keeping Charlie from being a member of the Church of Scientology is that they won't have him?

Because traditionally peace hasn't been the responsibility of war planners. There's plenty of good historical examples of that. The invasion of Iraq, in that respect, was kind of a watershed event, in that it made military planners realize that, if you're going to wage aggressive and preemptive wars of conquest, war planning has to encompass the occupation as well (although the plan for invading Iraq did pay lip service to post-war issues...but it didn't, as far as I can tell, go into any detail.) If you think about it, it's really the first war the US has fought in which that became a problem. !@#$ed up? Yeah, sort of...but not really. Probably about par for the course, given the body of experience we have to draw on for such cases...

It's the movie equivalent of retatta: so stupid, it's genius.

The only thing missing that would make this completely surreal is someone complaining about their "abduction" by US forces...

Not really. It has more to do with the planners by nature being focused on the invasion rather than the post-war stabilization. The war planning was actually very, very good. It's the peace planning that was all !@#$ed up.

I cry during the Ring Cycle. But that's only because after 12 hours it's only half over.

Real men don't cry over songs. They cry over pro wrestlers retiring.

Let's just expand it to thirty teams. Then football will be like the old days in hockey, when everyone except Hartford made the playoffs...

Yeah, so what. What does that have to do with international terrorism?

FLIGHTSUIT! HALLIBURTON! GOAT STORY!

Ooyay eeplepay eednay ootay etgay aya ifelay.

1) Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while. 2) You didn't find a nut. There's a difference between noting that the practice is common, and justifying it with "Well, THEY do it too!"

The Queen cover, at least, wasn't...horrificly bad.

You think correctly. Sad it was so misunderstood. I thought my intent was funnier than the direction it took.

Somehow I think the answer will be: But JP's had two years! Hell, ever since he was drafted I've been stating my expectation that the kid will be a bust. And I STILL think this is a stupid topic.

Yeah. Precisely two.

Did you know there's a half-eaten donut in my trash can? Well, we are discussing near-total irrelevancies now, aren't we?

Oh, well that proves it. Because it's not like Charlie's a !@#$ing idiot or anything. (Scary thing was that he married Denise Richards. They had to easily be the dumbest couple on the planet...and he was the brainy one in the relationship.)