dieseltaylor

http://www.maptube.org/home.aspx Is an example of cooperative uses on current maps. Russia may not be available in the same detail!!. Howevr even at the existing resolution one could overlay several maps for higher level formations. On drawback as you zoom in is that the landscape, extent of towns and roads is wrong. So perhaps an overlay for the period and then others superimposed. However using Google maps does make it very much more doable. The Western Desert or the French 1940 campaign would provide an early learning curve ! : )

I can't say how happy I am that none of those truckers lost a big load in your vicinity.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/8616743.stm for those who can see it. The funny part of the interview with the owner was she was walking back from shopping and met a neighbour who said " A rock has hit your car" the owner thought he meant a stone ....

Advertising Exec: "Lets show how strong the safety cage is!"

Good decision. Hope the move goes smoothly. And I look forward to a series [commercial] on an Aussie grappling with the French/Swiss heroically. You will need to downplay your wifes nationality to make the story more entertaining for Aussie editors : )

Being sloppy costs taxpayers plenty

Someone was optimistic when building their rockery?

Something from Motley Fool. Makes me wonder what someone has to do to be jailed for criminal negligence. "Executives earned millions in the boom, but conveniently claim ignorance for the bust. "There is a lot of amnesia that's emerging, apparently," former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan told the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission last week. He's appalled that we don't remember the Alan Greenspan who fought for more regulation and led a crusade to stomp out predatory lending. And we don't. Because he didn't. Greenspan's testimony, along with cameos by former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Citigroup executive Tom Maheras, are classic examples of soaking up adulation and nine-figure paydays during the run-up of a bubble only to plead ignorance after it pops. Exhibit A: Alan Greenspan Throughout Greenspan's two-hour testimony, committee members persistently asked why the Fed sat on its hands while subprime lending ran wild. Greenspan's rambling reply was that he and the Fed actually tried to warn everyone of its hazards and even attempted to do something about it to no avail. He backs up his regulator-in-chief stance by noting: In 2001, we issued our "Expanded Guidance for Subprime Lending Programs." This guidance warned regulated institutions that loans designed to serve borrowers with impaired credit "may be prone to rapid deterioration in the early stages of an economic downturn," and imposed requirements for internal controls to protect against such risks. This took me off guard -- it didn't sound like something laissez-faire commander Greenspan would say. So I looked up the report and quote in full context and found this: Although subprime lending is generally associated with higher inherent risk levels, properly managed, this can be a sound and profitable business. Because of the elevated risk levels, the quality of subprime loan pools may be prone to rapid deterioration, especially in the early stages of an economic downturn. Sound underwriting practices and robust effective control systems can provide the lead time necessary to react to deteriorating conditions, while sufficient allowance and capital levels can reduce its impact. Russian Roulette All the report says is that subprime can be safe and sound provided it's done in a safe and sound manner ... which it isn't, wasn't, and never will be. Subprime and "sound underwriting practices" is oxymoron to the extreme. Like a prudent round of Russian roulette. But more importantly, the report Greenspan mentions is simply a guidelines statement. The word "should" is mentioned 58 times in the report, and specifically states, "we expect institutions to recognise that the elevated levels of credit and other risks arising from these activities require more intensive risk management." Just expect banks to behave, and call it good. At any rate, we know how Greenspan felt about subprime when he used blunter language. In 2005, he wrote: Where once more-marginal applicants would simply have been denied credit, lenders are now able to quite efficiently judge the risk posed by individual applicants and to price that risk appropriately. These improvements have led to rapid growth in subprime mortgage lending; indeed, today subprime mortgages account for roughly 10 percent of the number of all mortgages outstanding, up from just 1 or 2 percent in the early 1990s. But apparently we're the ones suffering from amnesia. Deny, deny, deny… Next, Greenspan tackled credit derivatives. Brooksley Born, the former chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission who was famously ostracised for her derivatives warnings a decade ago, asked Greenspan to comment on AIG's fatal use of credit default swaps. His answer is a spectacle of denial: [AIG] was selling insurance. They could just as easily have sold and gotten into the same trouble by issuing insurance instruments rather than credit default swaps. My understanding is the reason they did that is because there were [different] capital requirements, but that is not an issue of the credit default swaps per se. No, that's exactly the issue per se. Banks love credit default swaps because they can gamble their brains out behind closed doors without setting aside a penny to cover losses like regular insurance products. Had credit default swaps been regulated like insurance, issuers like AIG would have only been able to sell them to investors actually insuring something (not "naked" swaps that are purely speculative), and regulators would have forced issuers to set aside enough money to cover probable losses. But they weren't, and taxpayers paid dearly. Exhibit B: Robert Rubin Next in the hot seat was Rubin, a former Goldman Sachs boss who became Treasury secretary under President Clinton. While in office, Rubin was instrumental in repealing Glass-Steagall regulations, which paved the way for the creation of Frankenstein financial behemoths -- particularly Citigroup. After leaving Washington in 1999, Citigroup named Rubin chairman of the executive committee, where he was paid $126 million over the next eight years -- call it $43,000 a day. Rolling Stone columnist Matt Taibbi gets the award for explaining this relationship: "they don't call it bribery in this country when they give you the money post factum." A Very Highly Paid Face Rubin's defence for Citigroup's misery boils down to the claim that he had no operational duties, and didn't realise the bank was choking to death on toxic mortgages until it was too late. He was more of a highly paid face, and "wasn't a substantive part of the decision-making process." Others disagree. In November 2008, The Wall Street Journal reported that "Mr. Rubin was deeply involved in a decision in late 2004 and early 2005 to take on more risk to boost flagging profit growth." The New York Times quotes a former Citi executive as saying, "Rubin had always been an advocate of being more aggressive in the capital markets arena. He would say, 'You have to take more risk if you want to earn more.'" And earn more he did, which gets to the heart of the matter. When you're making $15 million a year as the head of the executive committee, you're not an innocent bystander. You're responsible for the outcome whether it makes you look good or not. Exhibit C: Tom Maheras This one's short and sweet. Maheras, who ran Citigroup's toxic-asset campaign, was asked by the committee what led him to pile on so much risk. The reason, he claims, was that's what the pros told him to do. "Based in part on a careful study from outside consultants…" he explained, "the company decided to expand certain areas of our fixed income business that we believed at the time offered opportunities for long-term growth." He went on. "Even in the summer and fall of 2007, I continued to believe, based upon what I understood from the experts in the business, that the bank's [CDO] holdings were safe." $97 Million And Not An Expert It's worth asking: If Maheras wasn't an "expert in the business," why was he running the business? And if he wasn't an expert, why was he paid $97 million -- ninety-seven million -- during the three years before Citigroup disintegrated? Makes you wonder what kind of money the experts made. Suck it up and say it like it is I'd like to have sympathy for these people. But every time we hear their side, it's the same story. They didn't know. They were blindsided. It was someone else's fault. Or they tried to warn, but no one would listen. What's sad is they were the first to accept full responsibility for the bubble's success on the way up, but largely claim ignorance now that the cat's out of the bag. We'd call that hypocrisy."

Thanks for the link Runway. That is a beautiful series with an intelligent view given to both sides. Particularly sweet is the debunking of the myths that exist in episodes 5-8a. Bets piece ion climate change I have watched. If the SD made this compulsory watching then I would be impressed with their smarts !!

Coo what a grouch!

The Actual bill as passed [including interrelavity]. I am curious as to whether any bill using invented or nonsense words could be used for enforcement? http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/46000.html

Thermological apparently is not a real science. No surprise then. However to be fair to SD some people said it was just a rough draft that was being quoted: The new wording includes this INTERRELATIVITY! WTF the word does not exist other than as a company name. I suspect that using "relationship" could not be countenanced because it did not end in an -ology or -ity. What is it with America that they have to use big words instead of normal words? Prove how educated they are or just BS*itting each other.

Just to add fuel to the fire: A major free paper in London has printed " Women who take the contraceptive are 12% less likely to die than those who never have." Wonderful - everlasting women! Kmart replaced a stainless steel vaccuum flask because "the vacuum had escaped" The Kmart may be forgivable on the basis of the quality of staff they can employ but .. I am sure there are many more examples but for all the talk of better education and literacy I am beginning to think its all baloney. : (

The state legislature has managed to create a stir in educated circles around the world by passing a resolution ordering its schools to "teach the controversy" on climate change. Not that noteworthy other than instructing teachers they must tell students about the " variety of climatological, meteorological, astrological, thermological, cosmological, and ecological dynamics that can effect world weather phenomena." ASTROLOGICAL!!!! for ******* sake what a bunch of ignoramuses. One has to weep at the quality of a legislature where apparently not one member or staffer knows what the astrology ****ing means.

SOme of this is astounding. Here a link to one of the famous three: http://www.creativetempest.com/street-art/edgar-mueller/ A search of Google will find more of his art

http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/83220 This book analyses the British success in defeating Communism in Malaya - an almost unique feat. It looks at all the factors in combination - military, political, cultural and economic - rather than isolating just one subject. The Malayan Emergency starts with an overview of the state of Malaya in 1948 and reviews the troubles and problems during and after the Second World War that had made the country such a ripe target for insurrection. It goes on to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the two sides in 1948 before describing the history of the long-running Emergency, and looking at the impact on the campaign of the personalities involved: Chin Peng, the Communist Secretary General; Gent and Gurney, the two High Commissioners who died tragically and violently in office; and, of course, Templer, famed as the 'Tiger of Malaya', who effectively brought victory to Malaya.

Things are improving from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ErZ9hfpJ18&feature=related or is the Hellfire OT

Casualties for the NZEF were: 124,211 men mobilised 100,444 deployed overseas 59,483 casualties including, 18,166 killed New Zealand soldiers won 18 Victoria Crosses during WWI and another 7 were won by New Zealanders serving with other countries armies. Pretty high heroism rate! First nation to send a contingent and the first to capture German territory. Yes I know you knew it was Samoa I realise you may mean the Russo-Polish war and for that I have no information.

A thorough post BD.

Excellent site for Pont-Farcy though modern pictures probably show the benefits of 50 years of French subsidised farming with larger fields. I talso states the larger farms would have been 10-12 hectares in older times. [25-30 acres] Note that is not a field that is the the whole farm. http://www.christopherlong.co.uk/pont-farcy/index.html the author has also a site relating to the saving of a WW2 Bailey Bridge http://www.christopherlong.co.uk/baileybridge/index.html on one of his sites is this overhead Which is very useful for showing the road density. If you look very carefully in the bottom left hand field you can see the old hedge lines that divided it into three. If fact the small fields you can see are probably what the whole area was covered in. The use of ditches to drain raods and to demarcate fields was common when it was arable crops. Do BF do a ditch tile?

Nice -not much town left but instructive to see the houses spaced and hte area they had for growinng their own food. Here is one of a series of travel videos: Old Towns of Normandy

Interesting. Thanks for posting both links.

: ) Nice one Elmar

http://www.past-to-present.com/showcountry.cfm?country=France&fp=0 5500 photos and I have looked so far 1930 -1955. There are perhaps a dozen town shots showing narrow streets but several showing the typical sort of paling fence where the fence is about a metre tall with chestnut palings an inch in diameter held upright every 4 or 5 inches by wire running along at top and bottom. Sufficient to keep chickens etc from straying. Not suitable for cattle horses! The site does seem to have a large number of nude women photos but I have fought my way past them. Now perhaps from the beginning to 1930.! http://www.past-to-present.com/photos.cfm?reference=S12556 http://www.past-to-present.com/photos.cfm?reference=G14136 wire fence with small uprights around airfield http://www.flyingpioneers.com/pixsm/g15505_t.jpg town http://www.past-to-present.com/photos.cfm?reference=S17098

Having seen the picture bones thrown by BF it struck me that most people who might design scenarios would be unfamiliar with what Northern Europe, particularly Normandy, looked like in 1944. I thought it would be handy to have links to collections of photgraphs etc that would be relevant to making believable terrain. In case you wonder what I was mulling over - the wooden railings, the width of the road/square in the village shot, and the idea that a railroad would run through a village. I know BF have scenery tweaks to do - particularly the changing of the railway gauge from 7 ft to smaller : ) - but mostly this is aimed at the scenario/map makers.