Mark IV

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lawyer: ...a low alchohol fruit martini...<hr></blockquote> Now, that's just insulting. How NICE that you and Joe are having offscreen trysts. They say there is someone for everyone. Anyway, I'm off to San Antonio, where I always draw tactical inspiration from the Alamo. (Roll, roll) Here, have some more latex.

How sad to see our Lawyer emoting for free, though hardly pro bono. Several folks have mentioned the Win 98 Compatibility mode of XP. Perhaps the sky was really an acorn? Normal humans, and Joe, objected to the shrill, unreasonable, demanding, whiney, cajoling, threatening, and trolly tone of the delicate young thing, who ended up flouncing out of the room in a huff anyway, after his/her/it's demands weren't met in 24 hours. Now since MY machine can kick YOUR machine's butt, and HAS, and Kalifornia wants to harvest the thermal energy from the cooling fan on my 3 Googleherz CPU and I just moved the truck out of the garage to add more RAM and advanced alien civilizations in distant galaxies want to time-share my micro to run their month end payroll and my video "card" is cooled by liquid nitrogen to support its four-dimensional anti-aliasing, I think I am qualified to tell you that you are WAY off base here. Your whole argument smacks of Hitler, and sex. It is sad that you chose to ride the blouse-tail of a cross-dressing trollette, and even sadder that you chose to ride that boardie crap in here, the Holy of Holies. It is saddest of all that it forces me to occupy the same end of a polemic as Joe Shaw. For the last I can neither forgive nor forget. I shall draw your likeness on the wall, and then gleefully roll it out with a nice latex (where is Bauhaus, anyway?) semi-gloss. Or, in a word, feh.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Lindan: What has Linda done to understand the CM/XP/Nividia conflict problem ??<hr></blockquote> Good one, Lindan. CM/XP/Nividia = passenger/Ford/Firestone.

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by PeterNZer: I'm in Irvine, CA right now.<hr></blockquote> G) I am south of you, you poor flightless bird. Get a map and a charge card. 7) Check your e-mail. There are instructions there. c) If all else fails, head toward Mexico. Pass the dead Nixon and the live nuke plant. Pass Camp Pendleton, and yell "cheese-eating surrender monkeys, Taliban rules" as you drive through (best fling some white powder out the window for emphasis). I'll be waiting at the base hospital for you. Honest, I will.

For once, I actually wish I was in Minneapolice. The harmonic convergence of the Old Ones there could turn the entire universe as we know it into puke. I may call the Art Bell Show to see what they make of it. Deeply into house-painting and other unspeakable chores now, painting pods on the wall and then rolling them out with glee. Just opened me plain old blended scotch for the evening, but it sounds like you lot are having way more fun. Probably about time to pass around the loaded pistols for a bit of show and tell, what? Cheers to Peng, Berli, Seanachai, and I guess Shandorf... and a nice blight upon you all. Figures the only one among you with any class (Moriarty) isn't among you....

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Lars: Should have bought your waitress one or two Mark IV. Then you wouldn't have to paint the house.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Right. "Hey baby, how about after you're done puking, we go paint a house, and kill people on the computer..., yeah, we're into it, me and the guys here do it all the time", yeah, that's a real lost opportunity, there. Anyway, I have boots older than that girl, and an extant GF meaner than a hull-down Jagdpanther with modeled optics. There's a difference between "ambience" and "ambulance" and I have learned the difference. PS: How dare you address me directly.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Hanns: Bailey's, Creme de Menth and Goldschlager I believe. It's been a while but they tasted good at the time.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> It is one of the strengths of America that people of all proclivities can find their place in this great land. I am secure enough in my own liquidity that I don't find such a "preference" threatening in the least. I hope you can be happy with the choice you have made in life and wish you all the best. But GOOD GOD, man, didn't you have PARENTS??? That's not a drink, it's like running the kids' trick-or-treat bag through the blender. A frickin' Mai-Tai umbrella would fold up and retract rather than be seen in such puerile trash. Still, I think your life choice is very brave, and hope that you find whatever it is that you're looking for....

An informative and possibly helpful note from the Southern Cal CMers gathering: The waitress was a babe. Petite, doll-faced, and jeans about spray-painted on. I'm not saying this isn't why the computers didn't get fired up; we could talk turret speeds and running MGs for hours. There were even those who did not appear to notice this little fox. But I did. I thought THumpre's attention drifted a bit, as well. First meetings are so full of amazement at the actual existence of other CMers and shared experiences that no sane folk can relate to (when have you ever spoken to another flesh-and-blood human that identified positively with "refreshing monkey"?), that actually playing the game seems almost extraneous. The place was noisy and crowded anyway, where actual gaming requires a smokey, out-of-the-way place, where not a lot of questions are asked, and there are no such unholy distractions. If there is another meeting, the patina of cameraderie will have dimmed, and it will occur to the brighter among us that our new-found fellows should all be killed. Then out come the laptops, in go the CDs, and tonight's special will be hot tungsten, ya want HE with that? Anyone catch her name? Update to all my PBEM opponents: I see another CM-less week or two of house painting and some biz travel. It sucks but there it is. I will not surrender, nor will I accept surrenders, until a) you are dead or L) this bastard is painted and I am finally moved in past the garage, unless 19) that waitress calls me, which will be z) never. Sue me. We appreciate your patience, please pardon our dust, yadayada.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by edward_n_kelly: Brian has raised some interesting points of a much more general nature than I have normally seen on this site. At this stage he must be regarded as being on the winning side if for no other reason that no one has present a cogent counter. No need for name-calling or other abuse by any party.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ignoring some of the ad hominems and generalizations in the original post as well, what were the major points? 1. Australia’s contribution has been ignored by major historians, with the example of Keegan in "The Battle for History: Refighting World War II". 2. Brit/Commonwealth forces laid the groundwork for the eventual Allied victory, despite their apparently (to some) tangential significance to the “main effort”. 3. The B/C/E efforts were the only apparent avenus of action open to them at the time. 4. The B/C/E contribution to the victory over the Axis was the second most important after that of the Soviet Union's, on the battlefield. 5. “If nothing more, the North African, Palestinean and East African battles provided valuable experience and training for not only the men of the Allied forces but also perhaps more importantly, their commanders as well.” 6. “the American objective was the defeat of the Axis. The B/C/E objective was the defeat of the Axis and the preservation of the Empire as well. Two very fundamentally different objectives…” 7. “…Two different approaches to war - the American one of bull at a gate, go for the throat, attack the centre of mass method while the British preferred to preserve their forces as much as possible, husband their resources and peck around the edges until their enemy was weakened and it was then possible to destroy him. The first reflects perhaps naivete and the knowledge that there were large reserves of equipment and manpower to draw upon while the second reflects the reverse - more understanding of the nature of war and knowledge that equipment and more importantly manpower were limited”. Keegan is a British author, and his focus has not typically been the Pacific. We can only conclude that many major historians (including Keegan) have either overlooked, or discounted, the importance of those campaigns as war-winners. They will have to speak for themselves. B/C/E forces certainly rendered invaluable contributions to the war, but among them was the strident effort to bring the US into it. Apparently they were not confident in the USSR's ability to win one side while they won the other... ...since they no longer had valid passports for the Continent and could not force their way on, alone. Nor were they going to, in any amount of time that anyone can postulate, unless it would have been to greet the Red Army in France. I think this can be said without slighting the B/C/E contribution at all. After all, without a free, active, and allied Britain, there would have been nowhere to have launched an invasion from. Africa was the work of a desperate but determined colonial power offering battle as bait, which a poorly-thought-out enemy foreign policy took hook, line, and sinker. There was no way to justify the dilution of German effort against USSR, nor the decision to accept the African challenge while ignoring the relevance of Malta to it. Britain got a lot of leverage out of this relatively (to WWII) small effort. It was a shrewd move. But the point about the second greatest contribution after USSR's rings a bit hollow. USSR was sustained to a degree (possibly not vital) by shipments and other aid from US, not the least of which was the threat of invasion from the west. And the REAL argument is about the KIND of victory... Britain was no more interested in a "free" Europe under Stalin than US was. Hitler and Stalin were same pants, different pocket, in both British and US estimation, and to suggest that either USSR couldn't have defeated Germany without Britain's aid, or that Britain would have been satisfied with a Russian solution to the German problem, is clearly not true. Without direct American involvement the cause was lost, regardless of which dictator's flag flew over Europe. Britain alone couldn't have taken it back from either. That North Africa provided a valuable training ground is certainly true, but was it a war-winner (we can dismiss the "if nothing more..." as a figure of speech)? I believe that the American experience there helped to shorten the war, but it was probably more important as another geographical toe-hold east of the Atlantic. The US also gained experience at Sicily and Anzio that may arguably have been of more value in the destruction of the German heartland. They wouldn't have gotten this without North Africa, but Africa was "do-able" in any case. They still would have won the invasion of Normandy. The differing goals of US and the UK is historically accurate, but not calculated to garner much sympathy with Americans. The notion of colonial empire was already obsolete in 1941, and the Japanese were the second to the last to learn that. The sun set on colonialism and gave way to modern ideological empires instead. And they say there's no progress... Lastly, the generalization about American/British approaches to war sure overlooks a lot... Goodwood, Tractable, to name a couple... perhaps this point is best ignored until the poster elaborates.

I have an Aussie history (still packed away with the other things) called "The War in the Pacific". I bought it in Australia and I like it. It is an overview type of history, as one might suspect from the title, but goes into more than the usual depth on the fighting in New Guinea, and other operations in which Americans were not central figures. It is aussi-centric, though other nations are covered in the context of the overall effort. This is quite natural; it is an Aussie history for Australians. Much of that part of the war occurred in their lake and that is where their picture window faces. I guess some authors write to their audience. There is some commentary on both the British and American conduct of operations that might be construed as "biased" although it is generally couched as opinion. If memory serves, it was rather harder on the British... I also have a Brit history, "The Battle for the Rhine" about the British invasion of Germany. It is a fine book from a participant officer. There is very little about Patton in it. I also bought a book about the bombing of Darwin while I was in Melbourne. It was somewhat critical of Australian officials. Objectivity is one of the great contributions of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. My Japanese histories certainly downplay the German contribution... you'd think it was Japan all by herself in WWII. Go figure.

Hey Foobs, where's the picture? The scariest thing about this meeting was that it confirmed one of my worst suspicions... that many of you here actually exist! Perhaps one of the keys to (continued) civil discourse on the ol' BBS would be more of these gatherings. Some of these mooks had faces, and were quite pleasant and even interesting to drink and/or speak with. It may interest some of you to know that Captain Foobar is only 4 cm tall, and that THumpre has two heads, for example. Thanks to feldgrau for the surprise treat, and I promise to start trying mods... as soon as this ^%$#& house is painted. I suspect we all owe Navarre a drink. The BBQ/asado works for me.

Shakespeare's Map [ 10-13-2001: Message edited by: Mark IV ]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by bauhaus: By the way, it's been nuts here, ask Moriarty and Berli...News happens.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Wow. Guess that blows the Pavement Mod!! right out of the headlines.

I am now in the new house. The movers were finally here this morning with my stuff so I no longer have to sleep on the floor, it is only a matter of choice, or as we delicately say, a "condition". I have just now fired up the Big Rig (instead of the laptop) for the first time in a week, and collected the pathetic mewlings to this addy for the first time in a while. To the idiots who wondered what happened to me: You Idiots. I have posted updates here (where else?) on the fact that I was moving my entire life to Foobarland (SoCal), and so I have. This is hardly a matter of bundling my spit cup and my lucky bent coin into my kerchief and heading for the Greyhound terminal, as with some of you who queried, but an OPERATION. Phase One is complete. The stuff is here. Now I only have to drink, clean, paint, rewire, and unpack, in order of importance. Careful readers will note that I had a head start on this (the drink part) a post or two ago. CMBO will start being phased back in (this is the longest I have ever been away from it and it feels funny) as time permits, beginning with tomorrow's SoCal CM get-drunk-together as advertised elsewhere. Peng has, as usual, tested the ocean floor of my estimation, by neglecting Nietzsche (the only comedic philospher) from his liszt. The only salvation was including "Confederacy of Dunces", a book with a lesson, that being that if you want to write one of the funniest American novels ever, you have to die right after. I urge you all to attempt this. Don't post it here but have your mumma do so posthumously. The awful SSN (shouldn't it really be ssn?) that plopped by was dealt with quickly, but not really, really brutally. I was a little disappointed. Prease tly a rittle harder!!! Back to unpacking, ta for now.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Gyrene: Well, I've managed to scrounge plenty of ethernet cables to go with the router, now BYO Network Interface card <HR></BLOCKQUOTE> If you can actually network all these different machines and systems in a bar, I will be more impressed than if you walk in with the Garand, bayonet attached. Thinkpad A21p running Win2K with Netware services installed (LAN stuff built in with RJ45 right out the back). Also, I have the "pencil eraser" pointing device which I love and no one else can use... it is my force multiplier. I can bring a power strip too.