Victory, Defeat, Armistice, Taxes, Depression

[n0kn0k]

Originally posted by Miech:

From the Netherlands too

NoNook: waar kom jij vandaan? Woon zelf in Hoofddorp

Volendam

[JerseyJohn]

Baron,

Hope it all gets straightened out but I agree with you, the government is so screwed up now, and has been for a long time, that it's anybody's guess.

America was very good to it's World War Two veterans, made it's Korean War vets return home through the back door. Allowed a bunch of asshole hippies to piss all over its Vietnam vets with a lot of other people who should have known better joining in. And from what I've seen it's been going downhill ever since.

I was injured in 1970 during my brief Air Force stint. It was bad even back then. The hospital administrator gave me forms to fill out for benefits but I heard so many red tape horror stories that I waived all of that and just took the honorable discharge. For a long time I regretted doing it that way, especially seven or eight years later when accident related problems started developing. In my own case the VA hospitals were very good, saved both my right leg and probably my life. That was in 77, friends have told me that the VA has also been going steadily downhill.

We have a country now that doesn't care about it's own people and treats its veterans with indifference -- or worse.

A pretty pathetic situation. But, again, I hope the mess clears up for you as soon as possible, no one should have to go through that nonsense. It's like being punished because you served your country.

[jon_j_rambo]

@Sir Jersey --- I'm with you bro. I tuned out to this planet the day I got saved.

[JerseyJohn]

Brother Rambo, As you've noticed my views are swinging ever more toward your own. Maybe the dinosaurs will get another chance after we cancel ourselves out.

[jon_j_rambo]

@Sir Jersey --- Yeah, guess I'm getting old too. I'm not as dogmatic as I was yesterday, LOL Actually, I hear the cockroaches (see Al Pachino as Scarface) get the next shot at running the planet. Maybe you & I could write some great new 30 minute episodes of Twilight Zone (bring back Klugman, Duval, & Shatner). I love that show, been watching the reruns on SciFi channel.

Far as my views of doom & gloom. Well, it's all from a relative point...I call it "groom will broom". They ain't my views, I just took them for me own after reading the book. Those "not with the program", it's bad news. For those on the other side of the "plus sign", it's a simple refresh. Even my dog has a computer chip in him...the storm is coming.

[ July 10, 2007, 03:11 PM: Message edited by: jon_j_rambo ]

[JerseyJohn]

Brother Rambo,

Yes, the cockroaches and rats are always included as surviving and, with the environment slightly altered, various creatures start getting larger. In the human case and most other mammals we branched off into disproportionally larger brains. But that might have been a mistake, perhaps the dinosaurs, with very small brains in proportion to their body size, might have had the right idea. I mean, they lasted something like 170 million years, which is a bit longer than we've been around.

Terrific slogans! :cool:

-- I think Jack Klugman was in a dozen or so Twilight Zone episodes. Two of them are among my favorites, the one where he's a trumpet player getting another chance, and the other one where he's a small time rackets man who gives his own life so his son, Billy Mumy, wounded in Vietnam, can live. I remember seeing that episode at a time when Vietnam wasn't even a big issue, I think JFK was just becoming president at the time! Shatner was in everyone's favorite, with the gremlin tearing up the wing of an airplane. Also love the one with Pat Pringle where he wants to go back to his own childhood and, when he gets the chance it turns out to be different from what he expected. A lot of other great episodes, mainly great stuff with the inevitable few scattered duds. :cool:

-- The episode with Andy Divine as a classic blowhard being taken by space aliens who take him at his word and think he's the greatest man on earth is also a really great one. My own favorite.

[Miech]

Targul:

4 euros (about 5$) for a pack of cigs? 2 euros for a glass of beer in the pub? 2,50 euros for a litre of gas (read: is about 8 dollars for a gallon).

and thats the top of the iceberg:)

[targul]

Our prices are about the same for Cigs and beer. Luckily for me I no longer use either because if I did I could not afford to survive.

Gasoline is always expensive in Europe. I lived there for 6 years and it was never cheap. Good thing about Europe over US when it comes to gas is you rarely if ever need a car. Mass transit is simply awesome there. I live in a little town outside of Nuremburg and worked in Erlangen. I would hop on the bus which showed up every 30 minutes from 4AM to 11PM and traveled to the train depot. Grab a train and bang there was a streetcar. It was extremely inexpensive compared to car use even if gas had been cheap which it wasnt.

Same case when I lived in Rodelheim and worked in Heidleburg. Grab a streetcar outside my home. To train station in Frankfurt change train to Heidleburg and back on a street car.

Both of these would have been long car trips to and from work through mind numbing traffic in Los Angeles where I live now but there I found them enjoyable and relaxing. But most of all inexpensive.

[Kuniworth]

Originally posted by JerseyJohn:

Brother Rambo,

Yes, the cockroaches and rats are always included as surviving and, with the environment slightly altered, various creatures start getting larger. In the human case and most other mammals we branched off into disproportionally larger brains. But that might have been a mistake, perhaps the dinosaurs, with very small brains in proportion to their body size, might have had the right idea. I mean, they lasted something like 170 million years, which is a bit longer than we've been around.

Terrific slogans! :cool:

-- I think Jack Klugman was in a dozen or so Twilight Zone episodes. Two of them are among my favorites, the one where he's a trumpet player getting another chance, and the other one where he's a small time rackets man who gives his own life so his son, Billy Mumy, wounded in Vietnam, can live. I remember seeing that episode at a time when Vietnam wasn't even a big issue, I think JFK was just becoming president at the time! Shatner was in everyone's favorite, with the gremlin tearing up the wing of an airplane. Also love the one with Pat Pringle where he wants to go back to his own childhood and, when he gets the chance it turns out to be different from what he expected. A lot of other great episodes, mainly great stuff with the inevitable few scattered duds. :cool:

-- The episode with Andy Divine as a classic blowhard being taken by space aliens who take him at his word and think he's the greatest man on earth is also a really great one. My own favorite.

Yeah twilight zone what a fantastic show that was. I would not mind buying a dvd collection of it. I like the one with the thief getting to heaven and there he gets everything he wants, everything he does turns to gold. After a while this gets boring so he realises that he was sent to hell not heaven as he thought.

[Liam]

Times don't change...

If it was 200 BC and me a Jersey John were feeling blue or bitter and didn't want a form of wine or beer we'd go down to the local headshop and score some 110% legal smokeable item. That or something you drink... The end result, to get rid of what ails you. That and a fairly cheap prostitute would probably cover it if you were a Soldier and had the Gold. Boy or Girl, Age, no consequence!

Now if you were weak you'd just die... God, Salvation, Honour, Righteousness has nothing to do with. None of them respect the institution of death once the Reaper Hammers on your door... If you have a door...

If Rambo was stabbed in the chest, we'd pay a Doctor in those days to clean it out best they knew how, stuff some Roots in it and sew it up... and pray to our Goddess that it gets better, maybe even sacrifice a Lamb if he was well to do!

Other than that, things didn't get better for couple thousand years... All the sudden someone discovers the Science of medicine and saves Millions of lives.

Veterans, are screwed often, because they come from the special core of individuals that really don't matter. Lets be honest, is a Millionaire's son going to enlist in the US Army! No... Is a broke man looking for opportunity, yes! Back in the day, Medieval Knights were all Royalty, with the Armee in Mass, all those illusions of our fighting men getting VIP treatment has sort of diminished...

"We came to Yankee Land, they put a Gun into our hand, Patty what you go fight for Lincoln, there is nothing here but war, what the hell am I fighting for, and I wish I was home in dear ole Dublin"

[JerseyJohn]

Kuni,

That was one of the better ones -- I think Sebastian Cabot played the guardian angel, uhh -- devil. The crook says, "I'm getting tired of heaven." and the reply is, "Heaven? Oh, this isn't heaven!"

Most of the good ones had a humorous twist. I also like the ones about returning to childhood, or a simpler time, and of course it never works out. And Gig Young had a great episode called Next Stop Willoughby that I think was unforgettable.

I've seen them on sale as DVD's but not as a DVD set. I'm sure they're also available that way too and it should include a lot of extras. PBS had a very good biography of Rod Serling that I hope would be included in the package.

Liam,

Sounds like we had a good time back in 200 B. C.

Terrific post. The Romans were well known for their battlefield medics -- those surgeons had plenty of practice, of course.

There was a show about one of them on the History Channel. In addition to legionaires he also tended to wounded gladiators and became renowned for his skill.

In more modern times I think the Austrians were the first to have an organized military medical system that was started around the 18th century.

But most countries didn't pay much attention to the welfare of their soldiers, it was all hit and miss as late as the Crimean War and American Civil War.

The wealthy and royalty, of course, bought commissions (Wellington started off as a major) for their sons, or organized a regiment to command. There was a lot of that in the U. S. Civil War.

[jon_j_rambo]

@Liam --- Interesting post. More interesting is who knows whether life on this planet has gotten better? Do we have more storms & diseases now? Say 5000 years ago, maybe there wasn't alergies? Maybe there wasn't as many "weeds" to prevent crop growth? Noah built an Ark, but was never told to put in cages or dividers Therefore maybe the animals didn't fight as much? Just another theory from the Legend. Maybe the dinosaurs got flooded out by Noah's flood?

Should we believe all those stories about the Middle Ages? It took mankind to the time of Magellean to figure out the Earth was round. Yet is was written in the book in 1500 B.C. about the circle of the Earth

"You are in the Twilight Zone",

-Legend

[Retributar]

"The CIRCLE of the EARTH"!...Yes Indeedee...that portion of the verse is in the Bible!...from thousands of year's ago!.

When Christopher Columbus sallied forth to find India, they at that time still believed that the Earth was 'FLAT'!...that's why they wanted him to head back to Spain after a few week's as they were very afraid of falling off the Earth!.

[JerseyJohn]

Retributar,

That's an interesting myth that still persists to this day. The crews believed the world was flat, but Columbus knew better, and so did the earlier Portuguese explorers whose records and maps he'd studied before going to Spain.

Christopher Columbus had a copy of the 6th century journal of Irish priest Brendon The Navagation who, with a group of Irish monks, travelled far north of Scotland, then out into the Atlantic and wound up off the coast of South America and up into the Caribean, following the trade winds in a circle back to Europe. The same year Columbus set out a globe was made in Italy showing the world as being round with the island of Bimini alone where the western hemisphere would be -- it was named for Brendon!

The Portuguese, who sailed well out into the Atlantic in order to get around the Cape of Good Hope with favorable winds, knew about Brazil because they kept skirting it! And Columbus, who'd worked for the Portuguese, knew about it too.

When he set out from Spain his three caravels had triangular sails so they could tack against adverse winds. They stopped off at the Spanish colony of the Canary Islands and switched to square sails, which enabled them to go faster but they wouldn't be able to go against the wind.

Columbus already knew the southerly winds went west the came around north and east again, almost forcing ships back to Portugal, where he almost wound up, at the northern harbor of Oporto. Not that he wanted to land there because the Portuguese would have killed him for giving the Spanish their secret. Portugal wasn't able to colonize both west and east at the same time so they chose Africa but wanted South America for the future.

Columbus didn't actually discover anything, he just uncovered what the Portuguese had been hiding.

The Portugues also knew about Nova Scotia and Iceland -- there's a document from 1475 in which the Portuguese and Danes agreed to a trading company that would have operated in that area. The trading route and colony never came into being, but the map they used still survives.

The only thing Columbus and the others didn't know was what, exactly, lay where North and South American run north and south. For a long time after Columbus they thought it was a huge chain of large islands. Most people who knew about these things didn't think you could sail around the world without running out of fresh water. Aside from which, the ships of that time weren't built to stay on oceans for very long; they were better at moving along coastlines.

-- There's an interesting book about these things, don't remember the author, but it's called They All Discovered America. Personally I think it was only discovered by the Ice Age Asians and Europeans who came to the east and west coasts via land bridges and established settlements. I could never see how anyone can discover a place already populated by millions of people, guess that's all in how one interprets the word.

[ July 11, 2007, 07:27 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

[Guest Mike]

The ancients know the world was round a coiuple of hundred years BCE - a chap called Ptolemy (what else!!) calculated the diameter by comparing the shadows at the bottom of 2 wells at a fixed point in time in the 3rd century BCE.

He got it wrong of course - by about 1/6th - initially too big, then by hte same margin too small a bit later!

His work was rediscovered in the late 1200's CE, so was known well before Colombus sailed.

[JerseyJohn]

Just noticed something odd. My post above says it was put up at

-- posted July 11, 2007 10:22 PM

and

-- [ July 11, 2007, 07:27 PM: Message edited by: JerseyJohn ]

I did the edit almost three hours before writing the original post?!! :eek:

[jon_j_rambo]

Okay...new subject. Not in the mood to argue which group said the Earth was flat. If you read the news today, that same group, said their group is the only true group, and any other sub-group, is really not a sub-group. Nothing has changed with them.

New subject is related to WW-2. Just got done watching "Letters From Iwo Jima", part #2 of the Clint Eastwood movie set. Man, the Japs got thumped. Clint tried to get me to feel for the Japs, but nope, didn't happen.

[JerseyJohn]

Brother Rambo,

Haven't seen the movie yet. Someone started a WWII movies thread -- hope you posted something about it there too.

Attitude toward the Japanese, I suspect you're mad about Ichero [?] hitting that inside the park homerun in the All Star Game.

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

The ancients know the world was round a coiuple of hundred years BCE - a chap called Ptolemy (what else!!) calculated the diameter by comparing the shadows at the bottom of 2 wells at a fixed point in time in the 3rd century BCE.

He got it wrong of course - by about 1/6th - initially too big, then by hte same margin too small a bit later!

His work was rediscovered in the late 1200's CE, so was known well before Colombus sailed.

This article gives some good detail on pre-Columbus globes showing the earth to be round:

< The original article with a photo of a 1492 globe replica >

Martin Behaim

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Martin Behaim (October 6, 1459 – July 29, 1507), or Behem, was a navigator and geographer of great pretensions.

Behaim was born at Nuremberg, according to one tradition, about 1436; according to Ghillany, as late as 1459 and was supposedly of Bohemian origin. He was drawn to Portugal by participation in Flanders trade, and acquired a scientific reputation at the court of John II of Portugal. As a pupil, real or supposed, of the astronomer Regiomontanus (i.e., Johann Müller of Königsberg in Franconia) he became (c. 1480) a member of a council appointed by King John for the furtherance of navigation.

His alleged introduction of the cross-staff into Portugal (an invention described by the Spanish Jew, Levi ben Gerson, in the 14th century) is a matter of controversy; his improvements in the astrolabe were perhaps limited to the introduction of handy brass instruments in place of cumbrous wooden ones; it seems likely that he helped to prepare better navigation tables than had yet been known in the Peninsula.

From 1484-1485 he claimed to have accompanied Diogo Cão in his second expedition to West Africa, really undertaken in 1485-86, reaching Cabo Negro in 15°40 S. and Cabo Ledo still farther on. It is now disputed whether Behaim's claims are true; and it is suggested that instead of sharing in this great voyage of discovery, the Nuremberger only sailed to the nearer coasts of Guinea, perhaps as far as the Bight of Benin, and possibly with José Visinho the astronomer and with João Afonso de Aveiro, in 1484-86.

Martin's later history, as traditionally recorded, was as follows: on his return from his West African exploration to Lisbon he was knighted by King John, who afterwards employed him in various capacities; but, from the time of his marriage in 1486, he usually resided at Fayal in the Azores, where his father-in-law, Jobst van Huerter, was governor of a Flemish colony.

[edit] The Erdapfel

On a visit to his native city in 1492, he constructed his famous terrestrial globe, called "the erdapfel" and still preserved at the Nuremberg National Museum, on the same floor as Albrecht Dürer's galleries. (Nuremberg was the heart of the German Renaissance.) The influence of Ptolemy is strongly apparent, but every attempt is made to incorporate the discoveries of the later Middle Ages (Marco Polo, etc.). The antiquity of this globe and the year of its execution, on the eve of the discovery of Americas, make it not just the oldest but the most historically valuable globe extant. It corresponds well with Columbus's notion of the Earth; he and Behaim drew their information from the same sources. All globes are virtual worlds, but this antique provides a glimpse inside the European world on the eve of unparalleled change. Its surface is covered with legends and paintings, and the Erdapfel or Earthapple, as Behaim named it, could be described as a turning encyclopedia. (The state-funded Digital Globe Project has made it available as software for scholars and the interested layperson.) Though less navigationally accurate than the beautiful Catalonian portolani charts of the 14th century, as a scientific work it is of enormous importance.

Its West Africa is marvellously incorrect; the Cape Verde archipelago lies hundreds of miles out of its proper place; and the Atlantic is filled with mythological islands that were psychologically important to isolated Medieval Christendom -- Antilia of the Seven Cities of the Christian Visigoth Kings would become the Antilles. Japan is 1500 miles offshore where Marco Polo had left it, putting it within tempting sailing distance of the Canaries. St. Brendan's Isle contains the entire Western Hemisphere in capsule form; the Earthapple is a map of just how unknowable the future is, and the difficulties of mapping the planet. Blunders of 16° are found in the localization of places the author claims to have visited: contemporary maps, at least in regard to continental features, seldom went wrong beyond 1°, but longitude was very difficult to ascertain before the invention of accurate clocks. It is generally agreed that Behaim had no share in transatlantic discovery though his globe suggests an easy sail to the East. Though Columbus and he were apparently in Portugal at the same time, no connection between the two has been established. He died at Lisbon in 1507. His family rescued the globe from city hall before it went the way of so many out-of-date artifacts.

[edit] References

C. G. von Murr, Diplomatische Geschichte des beruhmten Ritters Behaim (1778)

A. von Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen (1836)

F. W. Ghillany, Geschichte des Seefahrers Martin Behaim (1853)

O. Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde, 214-215, 226, 251, and Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, esp. p. 90

Breusing, Zur Geschichte der Geographie (1869)

Eugen Gelcich in the Mittheilungen of the Vienna Geographical Society, vol. xxxvi. pp. 100, etc.

E. G. Ravenstein, Martin de Bohemia, (Lisbon, 1900), Martin Behaim, His Life and His Globe (London, 1909), and "Voyages of Diogo Cao and Bartholomeu Dias", 1482-1488, in Geographical Journal, Dec. 1900;

See also

Geog. Journal, Aug. 1893, p. 175, Nov. 1901, p. 509

Jules Mees in Bull. Soc. Geog., Antwerp, 1902, pp. 182-204

A. Ferreira de Serpa in Bull. Soc. Geog., Lisbon, 1904, pp. 297-307.

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

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

[Ottosmops]

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

The ancients know the world was round a coiuple of hundred years BCE - a chap called Ptolemy (what else!!) calculated the diameter by comparing the shadows at the bottom of 2 wells at a fixed point in time in the 3rd century BCE.

He got it wrong of course - by about 1/6th - initially too big, then by hte same margin too small a bit later!

His work was rediscovered in the late 1200's CE, so was known well before Colombus sailed.

I guess you mean Eratosthenes

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eratosthenes

[Guest Mike]

Yeah - he'll do!

[jon_j_rambo]

*** HOT STOCK TIP IN ***

TJX --- Rumors of LBO (leveraged buyouts) is driving the July-30 calls high. Sell some covered calls & make yourself 5.9% for 2-weeks of rent.

AA --- Earnings call right now, with new metals contract to China. Sell some July 42.50 calls & make 3.5% in two weeks.

Low risk, tasty profit.

Wow, guess I'll make my covered call money. Picked up $700. Too bad I sold the calls, Alcoa went nutz, up 10% in 3 days I left alot of meat on that bone. Imagine how rich "real money" people get.

[JerseyJohn]

Brother Rambo, dega vous on posting the stock tips.

[jon_j_rambo]

Aggg, that "dega vous" didn't come up on my spreaken zee Englisch.

[jon_j_rambo]

Aggg, that "dega vous" didn't come up on my spreaken zee Englisch.

[JerseyJohn]

Ja, ja!