dieseltaylor

Well the 400million figure appears to be exceeding strange if derived from the figures at: http://www.sturmvogel.orbat.com/GermAmmoPoland.html which gives the figures from 1st April to 1st September which means they end as the Polish campaign starts. I am therefore taking a guess and a hope that the figures are for the 31st? September or 1st October and that someone has not done a mighty screw-up. However it does raise doubts and if one were to assume that the dates ARE correct and recorded amounts are those at the main ammunition dumps AND also assume that the German mobilisation during the summer lead to vast amounts of ammo being drawn for the new divisions and the artillery etc then you could argue that would explain the figures. A million men into arms with 100 bullets each gives a 100 million draw without any being fired. One might think they ought to have more. If the figure does cover to the 30th September and does cover fighting we cannot still take the figures as amounts fired. I am making an assumption that the German Army did not ask all soldiers/platoons/battalions/divisions to make returns of ammo held on that date. Speaking as an auditor there were only some things you would expect an organisation to keep track off and I doubt sincerely that 7.92 ammo would have been a reportable item at local level though it would have been an automatic re-stock. Overstocking at front line level might be anticipated. I am not a military man so I imagine the divisions need to know that there local ammo dump has sufficient for their anticipated needs and they order for delivery on anticipated need. Ditto the local dump draws from Army level resource. You will appreciate that the lost railcar/train can easily exist in this system as it will be counted as produced and if not recorded at a depot will go into the category of fired. The figures provided without the underlying detail of how they were originally gathered, and how or if front line ammo was reckoned, mean that any claim of 400million rounds expended in the Polish campaign needs some examination. Possibly it is true but I would certainly like better information before believing that much was expended in action.

Yep Chapter 11 will be avoided for all the wrong reasons. Daft to consider elimination of competition - between the big three - when you have Nissan, Honda, Toyota etc all able to build in the US. Competition will occur. I see SEAT[part of VW] are launching a cheap 73mpg that will sell in the expensive UK for £12K. This is better than most hybrids and cheaper. Unions can be bad and good - but poor managers will allow the unions too much. I cannot honestly see any car factory wishing to go unionised given the lesson of what kills companies in Detroit. Recruiting spree I doubt hugely.

Well the first thing will be shoot the MG gunners as they are obviously standing up. Show me a picture from 12" above ground and we shall see how far they might be able to be effective. Elevation is important for observation but it does have drawbacks if you can be fired at from many points - I am thinking of your previous photo across the valley of the sheep : )

Try to keep up SO! Next thing you will say its off topic or something!!

I was kind of curious as to the reported 400M bullets also. I could not actually see a necessarily direct link between claimed ammo expenditure and casualties providing a lethality index. Even after extracting HE casualties. However be that as it may it does raise two questions/points: With the old fashioned rifle/musket the ability to hose the surrounding countryside did not exist. It was fortunate therefore that everyone did the decent thing and stood up - most of the time. I was curious out of the claimed 400M bullets how much had actually been aimed at anyone in particular, or was suppression the majority use. Suppression both of live targets and potentially dangerous trees. I suspect that the Germans were not necessarily overly trigger happy but it is an interesting area if one were to equate bullets fired to casualties. Furthermore, with the US demonstrating how to lose $1billion dollars of military equipment in Iraq [http://cbs3.com/national/Pentafgon.Iraq.missing.2.604470.html], I was wondering how accurate records are in war zones. I trained in auditing once and in my minds eye I can see an ammunition train in a siding somewhere in Germany whilst the factories confirm their bills for payment and the army in Poland audits what stock they have left. Of course eventually the ammo will be discovered, perhaps one or two trains worth, and that will go into use some months later - possibly in Greece. Judging from what my ex-Army elders say Army record keeping could be flexible if a formed required a quick response .........

Love that advert JonS : ) Costard: You buy your own car you can have whatever you can afford! I suspect the guy in the Chevy is envious of the BMW owner so lets face it people are rarely totally happy until they have the AstonMartin. : ) Having a car other people are envious of seems to make the driver feel gooood! AslVet: Thanks for the links, it has been halpful to remove all the bull from the discussion. I am in favour of Chapter11 myself but obviously have no huge insight into the precise fiancial problems. My gut feeling is they will be back for more and nothing solved. Management are the chief culprits: And bear in mind that between them they have not had a top five selling car for years. It is a huge indictment of US business practices. Saddening.

Buying up the crop as a short term measure will, of course, eventually lead to imports to Afghanistan and an increased debt load for the West. If the West holds it off the market other drugs will fill the void created. If the West supplies to its population it will need to seriously consider the ways to prevent over-use., and possibly even fundamentally is it desirable. My preferred option is to sabotage all drug sources with a reasonable percentage of lethal agents until people REALLY understand that drugs kill. Of course the sending of soldiers abroad to kill and be killed to incidentally prevent the Afghan trade would seem to show that the West is prepared to kill people to further its aims. I just think its easier to do it my way. In societies were the state does not look after the family one can expect peer pressure and sense to help family units prevent dangerous use. However in most Western countries the concept that "society" will cure all, do all means their is an insidious breakdown of responsibility for individuals and their family. We have a case of everyone preaching freedoms for all and no one promoting responsibility - AS of course the "state" will provide. Unfortunately the "state" can do nothing as it is only a concept. People are required to make their State work and unfortunately there is a widespread abdication. That this is a function of more and more remote decision making I am absolutley certain.

http://finance.google.co.uk/finance?q=LON:ZEN Not really a hedge fund vehicle I would have thought for, as you say, not really enough liquidity in the shares. A long term investment. I see they have an agreement with Honeywell on a long term collaboration on chemicals for making HTS wire. Honeywell are an acquisitive company who will have greater insight eventually in the economics and marketplace - and they understand small turbines. I guess two years to see if this is going to be a flyer or a flop - but the technology certainly seems to have some big fans. I find it quite fascinating that there is so much tech out there currently.

You are correct, the demonisation was of the evil Sadam and his cohorts whilst the Iraqui people were OK. The reason for the war though was bogus and this is what I think makes the combat "pain" more corrosive. Dietrich. I am not arguing that fighting games are realistic but I do believe they are useful for desensifying young soldiers. And then when you can remove them from real life gory situations: http://gizmodo.com/5101765/ripsaw-ms1-remote-gun-tank-races-at-60mph I don't think there is any doubt it is easier to be lethal if you are divorced from the physical scene.

I was quoting todays regulatory announcement which is ahead of the site I suspect though if you look in the Press section now you should find it. The price is 105p though for non-UK it would be difficult to hold - sorry I am not recommending it as a purchase just pointing out that UK stocks are not easy to hold from the US. Good ideas do not necessarily make a company profitable and shareholders happy - and there could be technical problems and it could go tits-up! : ) I think it is more advanced than speculative as this indicate: I am most impressed with the 36% uplift in output. On that basis the economics for hydro have just improved somewhat : ) I am not a great fan of number of shares traded as being especially useful indicator of value. Particularly in small co's there are simply not huge numbers available. I was quite annoyed recently when a stock trading rag poked the AIM - a small company market - for the limited number of shares traded the previous month. Given a high number are developmental companies where trading tends to happen with announcements of technical breakthroughs or sales it seemed daft to consider it would have a high level of churn. Idiot journalists. : )

Interesting stuff Vark. It would seem that divorcing the killer from his target - video killing - is a good reason for the US Army to invest $50M over the next five years in "games". I think that there is unfortunately a counter-productive element when say Bush and Blair demonise the Iraqi's and then the troops find they are fighting not to save the Western world from mad Sadam and his weapons but are there on dubious cause. It is immaterial really on the rights and wrongs of that particular case I am just thinking that for someone to fight in a "wrong" war must be much more stressful on the soldiers involved. Killing women and children collaterally in a foreign country cannot be easy especially as even in "good" wars most men find it hard to kill ravening Nazis.

This is a piece from a company called Zenergy who have sold their first piece of HTS* kit through another company to E.ON probably the biggest power co. in Europe. [*high temperature superconducting] I just love it when science actually can improve old technology

http://www.war-experience.org/collections/land/alliedbrit/forman/default.asp the second page is also of interest. It was indeed Wigram of whom I was thinking. I continually press for gamers to use casualties as the default setting for playing rather than perfect squads. In Wigram's letter you note how the artillery is even used for recon patrols - and is generally very present. Given that the BF artillery allowance from 1941 for both sides and as a proportion remains the same into 1945 I cannot help but feel that the Allies get little value for their historically strongest arm.

http://nationalsecuritypolicy.blogspot.com/2006/03/psychology-behind-killing-brief.html

Runyan - the idea is for pensions to be funded whilst the worker is a GM worker, not funded by succeeding generations of workers. In the UK companies are required to fund their pension liabilities as they go. I doubt that the US can be much different in accounting procedures ... Sometimes companies get caught out and have to make a big dollop in as the actuaries have calculated a shortfall exists. Conversely there can be surpluses and the company can reduce payments or take a holiday from paying in. It is very apparent that the big three have not correctly funded their liabilities or have agreed terms in the past but not thought through the effects. Fundamental short termism to get their bonuses on the basis they will have retired by the time the house of cards collapses? Here is a little article explaining how it works with one company http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/business/BE-now-facing-pension-shortfall.2367820.jp

Interesting that the studies on people actually shooting to kill, rather than firing to suppress, have not been quoted. From the dregs of my memory I believe that a reasonable percentage of soldiers were found not to be natural born killers. Possibly an English study. I suspect that the Eastern front was a lot more personal.

Heritage My quote

ASL Vet - I have not had a chance to read those links yet - but this came my way and may be a repeat of somethings contained in yours. Briefly a short article on the lies about autoworkers wages http://mediamatters.org/items/200812060002?f=h_latest

Sorry I meant to spell XP rather than Sp! CDV was/is a German company who was licensed to sell in Europe. They had a horrible encryption on their CD's which meant a lot of readers couldn't. But some could. Anyway I understand that their packs got to the US and were going cheap. It should say on the label which company produced them. If the discs have run on other computers I think it is the specific reader on your new computer that is the problem - assuming the disks are not in poor condition. A quick check on an older machine should find out. It would also allow you to drag the entire folder via network onto your new machine : ). You could do that from a current existing installation on another machine also I suspect. I suspect you might lose the Windows ID ing it as a new program but you can link to the exe. file. BTW I am not a computer guru but this is what I would do in the circumstances without feeling I was risking damage.

The founders of the US system were keen to provide checks and balances in the constitution.. Perhaps they could not foresee the hybrid beast that would come from mega-companies employing ex-government appointees, elected officials etc to pressure lawmakers for their own purposes. I am not sure they would have approved of the development http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/06/business/06chrysler.html?_r=1&ref=business

I can solve part of your problem - dont' both er loading CMBO : ) Please confirm whether you have those nasty CDV versions of the great game. Obviously does not apply to CMBO ........ I have had problems years ago I vaguely remember that slowing my reader down helped get all the close knit files off. Yours is not being seen at all suggestd to me something is wrong with the set-up. Have you played any other CD's in the machine? I know its a silly question but it gives me confidence : 0 Which games? At least its Sp!

A phrase we use for self-inflicted problems - in the US it seems its shooting yourself in the leg http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7761283.stm

Chinese since the 17th century - apart from the Japanese for 50 years - 73 miles from mainland China. Sounds like a recipe for disaster and I too cannot see any nation would really feel it was a battle that was feasible to win in the long term, and fairly pointless as a short term prospect. Not a hope in hell [apart from a deluded PM with God on his side] would the UK fight for Taiwan. Cruise missiles might be sufficient for a low intensity war which the US would have to escalate to mainland attacks to stop. Very unattractive. I still think the PRC would substantially subvert Taiwan before anything too aggressive. I have no doubt that it has been very useful to have Taiwan as a conduit for high tech information to go into China. Its usefulness as a stalking horse is diminishing rapidly as US and other countries build factories in the PRC. However very high tech probably still needs to be mined for .....

Interesting site and links. Well done him

I have had my CMBB corrupt like that twice on the current machine. Wicky's solution cures it. However why it should corrupt is a good question!!