@F_alk:

i could have sworn that half of what F_alk said came directly from Stephen Hawkings’s “A Brief History of Time”

I don’t hope so. If so, then it didn’t happen on purpose (and i have to change my view on the book, as i didn’t like it that much).

i read the book again last night, well skimmed it is a better term (dont really feel like reading it again, i think we both kind of agree on its quality) while skimming through it i found similarites, but nothing to get my imaginary underwear in a bunch.

i will say i like the topic ,i have always liked gravity, here on earth it is basically the only constant.

@Imperious:

I still contend that FDR wouldn’t have waited for Japan to fall without a German DOW.  He would have gotten the Congress to declare war on both Japan and Germany (as Japan’s most powerful ally) then stripped Japan of that ally before defeating them.  It would have been the only way to save BritAIn (better F_alk?) from a successful, future German invasion.  He must have known the predicament Britain was in at that time because he was shuffling “volunteers” and weapons over as fast as he could to help them before the attack on Pearl.  Furthermore, we basically ignored the Japanese until Europe fell even after Pearl - the only excuse for this would be to save the Brits.

Could Germany have defeated Russia?  Yes, if the Brits and French had kept attempting appeasement instead of war, I think Germany could have successfully conquered the Russians, then turned on the French.

Yes i believe that can be argued as well with plausibility. After all this is speculative History!
OK i have two questions:

how much time would you expect a DOW from America to be made against Germany. What do you suppose Germany would be doing during the time before the DOW.

1)  I expect the DOW would be sent within that same year at least, probably before the second fiscal quarter.  Time was of the essense and FDR knew it.

2)  I really don’t have a clue.  If it were me I’d be setting up an invasion of England - but obviously Hitler wasn’t interested in doing that, he wanted them to surrender due to air assaults.  Being as that was the situation, I presume he’d continue is rocket attacks and bomber attacks while utilizing the majority of his ground pounders in Russia.

THe best, and only reliable, way to allocate scarce resources is the free market.

Prices go up, people buy less.

It works for socks, eggs, pasta, cars, houses, dog food, lawnmowers, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.  Why not allow it to work for Gasoline too?

Want to talk about price gouging for gasoline?  North Carolina prices pegged just under $4.00 per gallon after Katrina.  What did our government do?  They did what they have done for 16 years, had an automatic increase (takes effect 1 JAN) in the liquid fuels tax that is based on the price per gallon (the higher the price, the higher the tax increase) so on January 1 we go to…
29.9 cents per gallon STATE gas tax.

That is a 15% increase in just 6 months!

How is that for gouging?  The price goes up, the state taxes it more.

I made an open source program that simulates a battle in any version of A&A (except D-Day) 100,000 times and displays the results as to who won what percentage of the time.  This is a very early version and I plan to include more things that can be useful like average number of units lost and the such.  Please take a look at it and if you have any suggestions leave them here or email me.  I also have the source available for anyone other coders out there (its C# .NET 2.0), though I will go ahead and warn you its not well commented right now and the code is pretty messy.  I do plan on cleaning it up though.

Thanks!

Program - http://www.justynhunter.com/files/BattleSim.zip
Source - http://www.justynhunter.com/files/BattleSim.Source.zip

You will need the .NET framework 2.0 which you can get here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=B7ADC595-717C-4EF7-817B-BDEFD6947019&displaylang=en

and a sweet new year people!!!

My thoughts and prayers go out to the Dungy family.  Really tragic.

I hadn’t heard anything about a suicide till seeing those links.
I thought I read something about no foul play earlier in the day.
I suppose it could have been accidental, maybe he mixed the wrong type of stuff???
I suppose it could have been drug related, but everything I’ve heard and read would seem to negate that.
And there are instances of young people having heart problems or something.

At this point there is too much unknown for me, I’ll just wait for the coming reports.

In any case, what a tough situation, and right around the Holidays too.  Really really sad.   :cry:

Yes i did a long search as well when i was debating that point and could not find anything about the second war-just 1991. He may not have much of an air force to move anyway at that time.

Yeah, that was stupid of me.

http://axisandallies.metalsaber.com

Rune Blade

Do Holocaust Survivors count? 4th Cousins, 2 Brothers, Jews, who served in the German Labor Corps in Hungary Building and Re-Building Targets (several of which they happily witnessed get destroyed by waves of Allied Bombers). Finally one day they were marched onto a barge and sent downriver to BudaPest where they were lined up to be marched to another “assignment” (most likely off to a Concentration Camp). This was during the start of an Air Raid when the sirens were starting to go off. The “Guards” looked told the workers to go to the swedish embassy get false papers and hide in the city and finished by saying “And we will see each other again next year in Jerusalem.” Turns out they were Zionists. Both brothers were hidden in an Attic in Budapest until the war ended and they made it to Israel…

GG

Welcome back Jen.

Rune Blade

Another chap mentioned the escape velocity of atmoshpere in low gravity.
I ask you how do you explain Titan a moon which holds a decent atmosphere and oceans of Methane and slow moving tidal waves et al? by your idea it would have lost everything and become like our moon.

Titan’s atmosphere consists of heavier molecules such as ethane.  As these molecules are heavier, it is much less likely that they will attain escape velocity.  Additionally, Titan is much, much colder than the earth and this also make it less likely that these molecules will attain escape velocity.  Finally, Titan itself seems to consist of these molecules and any atmosphere that does bleed off will get replenished.

Since the poem I found last year caused such controversy, I’ve decided to post a totally more pollitically correct wish this year:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit my best wishes for
an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress,
non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice
holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious
persuasion or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the
religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their
choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all;"

Additionally,

A fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically
uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted
calendar year, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice
of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make
America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than
any other country or is the only “AMERICA” in the western hemisphere),
and without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability,
religious faith, choice of computer platform, or sexual preference of
the wisher."

(Disclaimer: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms.
This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely
transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no
promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for
her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is
revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted
to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for
a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday
greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement
of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the
wisher who assumes no responsibility for any unintended emotional stress
these greetings may bring to those not caught up in the holiday spirit.)

Some companies have also been taken private, gone bankrupt, or merged.  This reduces stock supply.

Banks, insurors, and college endowments will continue to invest in stocks.  In or out of the US would be the right question to ask.

My current and prior co’s 401K plans all offered an international fund.

I started allocating 60% of my paycheck contributions to it last year.

Just finished the sequel to God’s Debris, entitled “The Religion War”. And all i can say is !!! i loved it. outstanding. Adams has really posed some interesting questions, in a fascinating and entertaining way. even more interesting, he makes clear that the ideas are not his own (not entirely, at least, they may be partially). what can i say about religion war?
Religion War:God’s Debris::Kill Bill Vol. 2:Kill Bill Vol. 1. you can read it alone, but i suggest you read both. both are outstanding. and both are pertinent to having an interesting discussion. so i suggest after you read God’s Debris, if you are interested in a discussion about any of the topics, read The Religion War. unfortunately, it is not a free ebook. it will cost you, but not much, and its worth it. i highly reccomend it.

I think it is fantastic.  A private citizen doing what they feel is right.

Makes much more sense than charity at gun point via taxes.

I posted the very well known French threat levels in another thread.  But I found several more at this website…
http://www.jumbojoke.com/france_elevates_its_security_level_515.html

My FAVORITE is for the UK:

The British are also feeling the pinch in relation to recent bombings and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”. Soon though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”. Londoners have not been “A Bit Cross” since the Blitz in 1940 when tea supplies all but ran out. Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “Bloody Nuisance”. The last time the British issued a “Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the Great Fire of 1666.

The page also has US, German and Italian threat levels (and of course French)

Ha!  Got ya in here!  :-P

Thought some of you would enjoy this…  the 1st and 14th Amendments meet in Kindergarten when SCOTUS reverses the school prayer ruling…

“Children: Pull Out Your Chickens, Now!”
    by Roland Nethaway, Waco-Tribune Herald

“Let’s quiet down, children. Now that we’ve finally gotten rid of that terrible Supreme Court decision, I can finally again lead you in prayer. So children, let’s get ready for our morning prayer. Did everyone remember to bring their holy chicken?”

“Mary, where is your chicken? That’s all right, Mary. Don’t cry. As I told you yesterday, if you can’t afford a chicken, the school is required to provide one. I’ve got plenty of extra chickens up here by the prayer mats, meditation crystals and peyote buds. Did anyone else forget to bring their holy chicken?”

“As you know from your schedule, children, today I will lead you in a Santeria prayer. That’s a recognized, ancient religion. Now I know some of you have complained that many of these prayers don’t represent your beliefs. Remember, they do represent the sincere beliefs of many Americans. I promise you that eventually we will lead the class in a prayer representing your own religion.”

“But you’ll have to be patient. There are hundreds of Christian denominations with all sorts of beliefs in the United States. And there are hundreds more nonchristian religions recognized in America. If your religion isn’t on our list, just let us know and we’ll make sure it’s added. We don’t want to leave anyone out. That’s not the American way.”

“Be thankful. Everyone knows that you have never been prevented from praying in school, but for years you were denied having teachers and principals lead you in prayer. You should be thankful, now that all that’s changed.”

"Johnnie, I don’t know what you’re doing to that chicken, but stop it. You need to straighten up and be serious. This is important. If it were not, then why did 224 Texas counties and 51 Texas cities go to the trouble to pass resolutions supporting the reinstatement of state-sponsored prayer in our public schools?

I’ll tell you why: it’s because lots and lots of people said the lack of state-sponsored prayers is what led to drug use, crime, violence, teenage pregnancy, dropouts, family disentegration, child-abuse, pornography, racism, poor academic achievement, overcrowded prisons and lots of other bad things in our society."

“Before we start, I want to remind you that tomorrow we will have a traditional Wicca prayer and we’ll try to cast a spell on the press. Remember to bring a lock of your mother’s hair. Johnnie, keep that chicken quiet. What is it Lucy? If you want me to tell you when I will lead you in a prayer of your religion, you’ll have to tell me what it is. You can’t look at someone and tell their personal beliefs. Unitarian Universalist? Let’s see, what’s coming up next…?”

“Well, coming up soon we have Latter-Day Saints (Mormons), Islam, Christian Science, Amish, Confucianism, Tibetan Buddhism, Seventh-Day Adventist, Comanche, Zoroastrianism, Church of the Brethren, Druze, Calvinist, Baptist, Unification, Hassidism, Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, and Reconstructionist Jewish, Quakers, and Deliverance Pentacostal. That one should be interesting. I think that’s when you bring a rattlesnake and a cup of poison.”

“I don’t see it coming up right away, Lucy. Let’s see, we have the Reformed Druids of North America, Episcopalian, American Vegan, Lutheran, Shanti Yoga, Evangelical, Presbyterian, Baha’i World Faith, Gnostic Orthodox, House of Yahweh, Greek and Russian Orthodox, Jews for Jesus, Agasha, Temple of Wisdom, Church of Metaphysical Christianity, Jain Meditation, Catholic Charismatic, People of Destiny, Fundamentalist Christian, Branch Davidian, Coptic Fellowship, Church of Satan and the American Ethical Society…”

“I don’t know, Lucy. It doesn’t look like Unitarian Universalism is coming up any time soon. But if we don’t lead you in a prayer of your own church or religion this year, the government requires that we lead you in a prayer of your religion at least once before you graduate. This way, it’s fair for everyone.”

“OK, kids, on the count of three, yank the heads off your chickens and I’ll get the prayer started…!”