King Tiger

[M Hofbauer]

Slapdragon, thanks for the explanation. I mean it, thank you.

However,

you write

"The United States has no national language, since to mandate language would be a violation of civil rights."

and in the next sentence you write

"Some States have passed English Only laws, but they only cover in what language official documents are published."

excuse me but I find this ridiculous, it is like saying "No, it is NOT a bike, it is a BICYCLE". If something is officially published in english, then english is de facto an official language, call it whatever you want.

"Many areas have more than one language for official documents"

but only a limited number of such quasi-official languages, this does not cover the example of the armenians above.

"Finally, if you are arrested in this country it is required that you are read and understand your constitutional rights."

Interesting. In our legal philosophy, it is important that people know what's right and wrong BEFORE they violate the law. This is hard to do if you get a translation of official law into you language only after you violated it.

You did not answer my question about "authoritative text" above. The main job of jurists is to interpret the text as presented by the law. Obviously, translations of the law into other languages means a loss or change in meaning. Hence it is important to know which is the authoritative version, if all other means of interpreting fail to reach a common meaning between the two possible versions. Hence my question about the authoritative version of the US Code. If the authoritative version of the US Code is the english one, then this proves IMO that english is the de facto official language. what do you think?

again, thanks for your explanation

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"Say i think u all need to chill out." (GAZ_NZ)

[Vanir]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

so you are saying that there are armenian american citizen which are born in the US, grow up never learning english, go to a school where they are educated in armenian, make their armenian-american high-school diploma, go into politics, become president etc. pp. without ever having to speak english?

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, no, not really. Although English is not the official language, for all intents and purposes it might as well be. Fact is, most Americans don't speak anything other than English. Therefore, anyone who can't speak it passably is very disadvantaged. That's reality whether the law says so or not.

As far a education, immigrant children are generally instructed in their native language if resourses permit, but they are always taught English at the same time so that they will have a future when they get out into the real world.

In short, I think the main reason English has not been made the official language is because it is the de facto official language already.

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So maybe you should listen to this Vanir guy instead of ignoring him -- he has the best take on the whole thing. - Combatboy

[Slapdragon]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by M Hofbauer:

Slapdragon, thanks for the explanation. I mean it, thank you.

However,

you write

"The United States has no national language, since to mandate language would be a violation of civil rights."

and in the next sentence you write

"Some States have passed English Only laws, but they only cover in what language official documents are published."

excuse me but I find this ridiculous, it is like saying "No, it is NOT a bike, it is a BICYCLE". If something is officially published in english, then english is de facto an official language, call it whatever you want.

"Many areas have more than one language for official documents"

but only a limited number of such quasi-official languages, this does not cover the example of the armenians above.

"Finally, if you are arrested in this country it is required that you are read and understand your constitutional rights."

Interesting. In our legal philosophy, it is important that people know what's right and wrong BEFORE they violate the law. This is hard to do if you get a translation of official law into you language only after you violated it.

You did not answer my question about "authoritative text" above. The main job of jurists is to interpret the text as presented by the law. Obviously, translations of the law into other languages means a loss or change in meaning. Hence it is important to know which is the authoritative version, if all other means of interpreting fail to reach a common meaning between the two possible versions. Hence my question about the authoritative version of the US Code. If the authoritative version of the US Code is the english one, then this proves IMO that english is the de facto official language. what do you think?

again, thanks for your explanation

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Well, those laws never stand up in court. In the US, any politico can pass a law, but if the law does not meet certain strandards, then it gets thrown out. Those laws usually get thrown out. They are passed more to let some very right wing politicos say they are protecting the interests of "Americans". Although it is a hollow argument since a citizen of the United States is not recquired to speak any language if they do not wish, or they may mumble in gibberish if that is their desire, or even speak in Esperanto.

Is English defacto? Sure it is. But as more people whose first language is not English move into an area you will find newspapers, television, and even the law books being written in that language.

[Combatboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Aussie Smith:

Combat...

I acknowlege your points - but lets just say I would like reason to prevail.

Yes in 1956 the Olympics were in Melbourne.

And just FYI I was not just highlighting you in my previous post but a view on the total take on the way this thread is/was heading.

Cheers

Craig

Ozzie Ozzie Ozzie Oi Oi Oi

Ps Statistically Australia is about 4 times ahead of everyone else in the medal count for a country with >20m people we're doing bloody well

<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Thanks for being so cool Aussie. (The Aussies are kicking butt! What is every other Aussie an Olympis athlete or something. Everytime you turn around there is some race with three of them in it.)

Aussie you are right -- but notice that the Hofbauer guy and the Slapdragon guy and the Vanir guy are having a nice conversation without the flames, maybe not about the King Tiger (which Rocks!!!) but they are really adult and all. Makes me feel better about my elders!

And to help the eastern Canada guy, just assume if you do not understand who I am talking about it is about you!!!! I have a cool tee-shirt: "I am not paranoid -- everyone really is out to get me!" I am waiting for that other guy though to stick his head in and say, "Uh, I can't figure out that constitution thing so you all are stupid...duh." Then the party will start all over again!!

I have to say even if some of you have a twist in the old shorts that is making you grumpy (be happy -- I play Carmagedden when I get grumpy ), that almost everyone else is about the nicest group of people I have ever met. Which is weird cause you spend most of your time blowing things up with your computer

"Tune in next week for As the Turret Turns: will Hofbauer convince Slapdragon English is the official language? Will Aussie Smith win the Olympic 1000m Combat Mission event? Will people start being nice to the guy from Eastern Canada?"

[Gregory Deych]

Allow me to offer a parallel on the whole Russian/Ukranian debate. Nobody would argue that Britain and United States have exactly the same culture right now, even though they are still quite similar. However, for many years after the American Revolution, people could reasonably speak of a common culture. This is a good metric to apply to Russian/Ukranian relationship - the two cultures are not 100% identical but they still share 99% comonality. If you take Russia and Belarus, it's probably 99.5%. On the other hand, if you were to take Russia and Latvia it's probably closer to 80% and being held at that level only by the Russian minority in there.

FYI, Latvians are barely a majority in Latvia...as recently as 15 years ago they had only 51-52% of Latvian population, I believe. Of course, driving out some Russians tended to improve that ratio.

[Dittohead]

I thought we was talking about big tanks at one point.

[Combatboy]

That one died when someone got mad at being called an eastern canadian . This is cool anyway, and the guys who own this place have not shut it down. Probably because it is a zoo -- hey look at that Combatboy -- throw him a peanut! Hey look, a real live Vanir! And that is a great example of a Hofbauer. Look over at that cage though.... Opps, look at what those two are doing in the cage!!!!

[Slapdragon]

Ok -- now I have some information from a Russian studies professor (he is though, a Lithuanian from St. Petersburg).

"The Russian majority are extremely sensitive about seeing the Soviet Federation as a Russian Federation. With Chechnya and the split up of the Soviet Union, discussing the non Russian members of the Soviet Union with a conservative Russian Soviet is like discussing the place of Black Americans with a conservative White Alabama planter.

Basically, the greater Russian theme is that all people who at any time were members of a Russian Empire, and that means as far back as you can go, are essentially "lesser Russians" and a Great Russian is a "father figure" to these "slavic" races. Many conservative Russians see the Estonians, Ukranians, Uzbeks, and any other former subject races as "children races" that are rightfully under the great Russian father. This can extend to some feeling Poland, Serbia, and Finland are also in this enforced family.

This shed some light on the issue of Yugoslavia. When NATO attacked the Yugo republic, the Russian reacted angrily, despite the actions of the Serbs which would have normally recieved Russian condemnation. But to a Great Russian, it was more like the Germanic peoples picking on the Children of Russia. The funny thing is that many Great Russians do not care for Poles and Serbs both of which handed Russia defeats in years far past. But when the brother is in trouble the father get angry despite not really liking them.

So, you will likely not be able to discuss all of this with a true conservative Great Russian who sees the Soviet Empire as the high point of society. You are better off discussing these issue with the younger Russians who are in Universities, since they have, for the most part, rejected the Greater Russian theme and are more content with finding compromises to racial problems. "

An interesting perspective.

[Combatboy]

Cool, so someone who is hard core Russian wont want to even admit that other people than Russians exist in the Soviet Union. I really think it is like the South (I live in the South, but in Florida, not really part of the South) were some people are still uptight over black people even if they are not bigots.

[Combatboy]

halloo

(My grandad saus that is Estonian)

I did a web search and came up with some neat stuff!

This say Soviets stamped your nationality on your passport, so even the Soviets did not buy the everyone is Russian thing:

http://www.prio.no/html/osce-russianminorities.htm

This one talks about how uptight the Russians got over upity baltics:

http://eserver.org/history/baltic-history.txt

I found a bunch of other stuff which I will read again and report on. I am almost finished with the research book, and it says pretty much what BigTime was saying about research. It does have one great term though I thought I would share:

Luddite. I am still figuring everything that this terms means, but it it funny to read this books description of anti-science people.

(I never new there was pro science and antiscience people until I met them here!)

tänuavaldus

[RMC]

Räägime eesti keelt!

CB,

I never heard hallo used in conversation. It seems to be used when answering the phone exclusively. Normally the greeting is "tere" which has several forms - tere hommikust (good morning), tere õhtust (good evening) etc. Some friends used to use "hei, hei" which cannot be found in any text book.

So do I get an award for taking this thread the furthest off topic?

[M Hofbauer]

Bob, stuff your little bit of command of estonian, actually "Räägime eesti keelt!" translated means "I had to use the bathroom but now it's too late".

Award?? All you get is a nosepunch for not answering to my "authoritative version" question on this stinkin' "english as official language" - topic that _you_ have brought up.

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"Say i think u all need to chill out." (GAZ_NZ)

[Phil the Dill]

Well just to answer the question why Australia is so good, is because we have the Leadership of Fatso (the battlers prince) who has motivated us all to win. - To those outside of Australia or who have no knowledge of Roy & HG this will make no sense whatsoever (serves you right for not being an Aussie).

BTW. Combatboy, you are now my personal hero - you are like a ringmaster to this circus post.

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"Your Mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries"

[RMC]

Oh, so solly, Mr. Autholitative text! Thought pelhaps the answel was obvious. But I forget you are lawyel wannabe and thelfole seek to inject additional complexity into simple thngs.

English is the de facto language of the US. However, most atempts to write that into law are defeated in the courts.

[Slapdragon]

That is correct on English: A defacto standard just means you are a disadvantage if you do not speak it because everyone else uses it, it does not mean you are forced to learn it or that even they can force you to use it legally. You can fill out your drivers liscence application in Estonian and file it, but if the clerk cannot read it they may: 1) find someone to translate it, 2) toss it in the trash. In the right place clerks at all governmnet businesses are functionally billingual (but murder Spanish). When I got my marriage liscence the clerk spoke to my wife in Spanish -- mistaking her for a Spanish speaker.

Laws are passed restricting language use mostly for political gain to appease right wingers. Legally though it does not wash because of the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States--

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the

people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

The wording is so simple that except for certain types of speach not considered full covered by the amendment (comercial speach is not fully covered) it stands completely in the way of English only laws passed.

In fact -- someday we may see a second defactor language. By 2030 35% of the US population will speak Spanish.

[Combatboy]

Hey Phil, thanks, I think this thread is ever so much better now that cool stuff is getting talked about -- I hope it reaches a thousand. We are learning about each other's culture and that is way cool.

About the Estonian -- you are going to laugh. I asked my grandfather what he said when one of his friends calls him up on the phone! So You are right. He is kind of cool because he has some Estonian friends and they all walk down to downtown Saint Petersburg and sit on these green benches and feed pigeons and talk dirty about women in Estonian. His father sent him out of the country when he was 5 and disapeered into a Gulag in Russia, and he has the boat tickets to Sweden still. Great Grandpa just disapeered -- he was a sheet metal worker so he never had enough money to find him, and now its to late of course. He says in Estonian "away with the days snow" which is prettier in Estonian.

Now I have another question, and the people from Germany may not like it, but they seem really cool so I will ask it. I have a friend at JC named Norbert who is from Liezpip (something like that) and he was telling me the concentration camps were made up by the Americans to justify the war. He is a history major, but something like that seems a bit odd. Do many Germans talk about that part of the war, or do they just sort of skip over the whole Hitler thing in school like they skip over slavery in school here?

[danielh]

To the Tiger II's effectiveness:

Experiences and problems in employing the Tiger II on the East Front are revealed in the following report dated 25 November 1944 written by Hauptmann Fromme, commander of schwere Panzer Abteilung 503 :

"The Abteilung was loaded to move to Hungary starting on 9 October 1944 in order to complete their organization in the area of Budapest. The government crisis made it necessary to employ the Abteilung for the ocupation of the castle on 16 October. This was almost exclusively a demonstration but was thoroughly successful."

" Increased enemy activity east of the Theiss and near Debrecen required immediate employment. The Panzers were unloaded from rail transport in the Szelnok area, but because of a shortage of Ssyms-Wagen , not all of them arrived on time in the assembly area. Those that were unloaded immediately marched off to the assembly area in order to start the attack several hours later. The Panzers that arrived the next day were also concentrated in a Kampfgruppe , and attached to another Division, so the Abteilung went into action in two Kampfgruppen with different Divisions on different days with the intention of reassembling after successfully penetrating through the enemy defenses. Both Kampfgruppen were extraordinarily successful. From 19 October until the unit was reassembled on 23 October, 120 anti-tank guns and 19 artillery pieces were destroyed. The very tough and determined opponent (punitive battalion) was badly shaken by an energetic charge. Rearward communications were brought into complete confusion by destroying convoys and a transport train, which caused the Russian 6th Army to pull out of the Derbacen area. The entire stretch covered in this action of about 250 kilometers was achieved without significant mechanical breakdowns. In these battles, the Tiger II proved itself in its armor protection as well as mechanical reliability. It was not exceptional that Tiger II were hit up to 20 times without falling out."

"The following action was limited to small tasks, especially counterattacks with weak Infanterie forces against the enemy who crossed over to the Theiss northwest of Szolnok. However, these caused the Russians to forbid their units from conducting any major combat where Tigers were located."

"During this week, and continuing up to today, the Abteilung was not given time to perform maintenance in spite of urgent requests continuously being made. This was partially due to the situation, but also to partially due to the lack of understanding of the higher command to which the unit was subordinated, who always asked two questions: 'How many are operational?' and 'How many will be repaired in the next few days?' In spite of this, up to 30 October an average of 25 to 30 Tigers II were operational every day."

"After 18 November, the Abteilung was in action in the Gyoengyoes. Continuous bad weather made it almost impossible to leave the roads. Because the Panzergrenadier Regiment and Grenadier Regiment are too weak, the Tigers and also the Flak-Panzer usually had to stand guard in the main battle line without any sort of infantry close protection. Attacks in total darkness at night in non scouted terrain with infantry forces that were much too weak, capturing a city heavily occupied by the enemy infantry and anti-tank guns by a night attack with 120 convalescents and a SPW-Battalion with a strength of 40 men, were not unusual. These attacks were successful only if the Grenadiere actually accompanied the the attack in front and to the side of the Tigers ( to destroy the anti-tank guns that were frequently located in the doors of houses and gateways which couldn't be engaged by the Panzers) and if the infantry didn't crumble and desert the Tigers when when they met the first resistance so that it was easy for the enemy tank-hunter teams to fight the Tigers.

"In tank versus tank combat, the 8.8 cm KwK.43 gun is effective in destroying all of the types of enemy tanks, including the Stalin, at ranges up to 1500 meters. Under favorable conditions, the T-34 and T-43 tanks can also be knocked out at ranges up to 3000 meters. As previously experienced in the West with Allied tanks, it was often observed that the Russian tanks declined to fight Tigers or turned and fled after their first tank was knocked out. The same thing applies to the Russian assault guns as to the Stalin tanks. Kills at over 1500 meters have not yet occurred."

"In summary it can be said that the Tiger II has proven itself in every way and is a weapon that is feared by the enemy. The concentrated Tiger -Abteilung correctly employed tactically will always bring success. But most of the higher commands that were encountered did not perceive the technical and tactical importance of a Tiger-Abteilung ."

Greets

Daniel

[M Hofbauer]

Combatboy,

the camps and third reich are gratuitously covered in any german school curriculum. It is also not unusual to have the class make a field trip to one of these places which is a very sobering experience.

The east germans however are a slightly different thing. these people are so...uhm...way off that there is a big problem with rightist views etc. over there. East germany is a sore wound in many respects.

What your east german friend said constitutes denial of national socialist crimes according to § 130 III StGB (german criminal code) and will get him up to five years in prison.

do you have his full name & address and do you have a document or other prove (are you willing to testify?) that he publically (he must have said it in public) said this?

[RMC]

In Deckung!

[Combatboy]

Norbert never wrote anything that I know of, he was just being an a--hole in the cafeteria. (If I can get him to write something I will have it scanned and post it), A lot of people heard him though. His father is a US citizen now, can you charge him in the United States? I do not know his address but it will be in the SPJC phone list.

So, if I am in the cafeteria with him and he starts saying that stuff is all made up, what would be your answer to him? And what makes East Germans different that West? Is it because they were communists for so long?

I am sorry about sounding stupid in this, but this is the type of stuff they don't tell you in school. I never knew Norb could go to jail for being an idiot. I think it would be funny to see the police show up though to tell him to quit being stupid.

[danielh]

One more to eat...

Found on: http://www.wargamer.org/GvA/background/ammotypes4.html (A very good site)

Use of a piercing cap does not guarantee that the projectile will not shatter. In the case of the USA 76mm M1 gun firing an M62 APCBC projectile the shatter gap occurs between about 200m and 1200m, when the target plate is around 100mm thick and hard, such as typical German vehicle armour. That is why the USA 76mm M1 gun was a Tiger I killer on the charts, but not in real life. When it was fired in tests it tended not to shatter because USA test plate was somewhat soft, so the shatter gap was not revealed by the USA testing and development program

Greets

Daniel

[Combatboy]

By the way, how do you post things on this forum? I see people put picture up, but I don't know how they do it.

[Guest Germanboy]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Combatboy:

By the way, how do you post things on this forum? I see people put picture up, but I don't know how they do it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

I use my Geocities webpage, upload the picture there and then post the link with the tags

As to your question about the cafeteria, I normally give people the benefit of the doubt (i.e. that they are really so stupid to believe what they just said, but that if they get better info they will see the light). So in this case I would just point him towards some run-off-the-mill books with first-hand experience, e.g. Klemperer, 'I shal bear witness' or Eugen Kogon, 'Der SS-Staat' (don't know if there is an English translation). If they then insist on their stupidity I will just publicly humiliate them, and drop them from the list of people I deal with.

------------------

Andreas

[Slapdragon]

Combatboy, make sure you do not judge the German people based on one immature example. If Southerners in the south took the responsibility to owning up to the past that Federal Germans do, you would be taking a trip to a slave plantation and having a whol course in civil rights in school.

The gentleman that is denying the holocaust is likely just doing it to get attention. A few scholars have even come forward saying the same thing, and have been roundly beaten up in academic literature.

The other thing, if his father is now a US citizen, then Federal German laws do not apply, he is protected by the first amendment even if what he is saying is stupid. Still, you can tell him that Germans in Germany do not appreciate that sort of thing, and the Internet will assure people find out about it.

One last thing: Do not use his last name unless you have written proof of what you are saying. Each time you post to this arena your IP address gets recorded, and if this kid shows up and sees you are talking about him, he may decide to try you out for slander. Likely he would not win, but it would be a pain for you, which is why most slander suits are brought.

[Combatboy]

I don't know if our library has them, its pretty bad, but Norb speaks German so I assume he can read it.