Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

If you thought you’d already seen people saying the stupidest things possible on the internet, prepare yourselves.

This country desperately needs a functioning Fourth Estate.

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

“I never thought they’d lock HIM up,” sobbed a distraught member of the Lock Her Up Party.

Sadly, media malpractice has become standard practice.

Republican speaker of the house Mike Johnson is the bland and smiling face of evil.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You are so fucked. Still, I wish you the best of luck.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

“When somebody takes the time to draw up a playbook, they’re gonna use it.”

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Marge, god is saying you’re stupid.

Wake up. Grow up. Get in the fight.

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195Comments

  5. 5.

    lamh36

    I’m watching Princess and the Frog is on Disney Channel. I remember seeing it in Dallas and it made me SOOOO homesick for NOLA.

    I know some people complained about the first Black Princess being a frog for the majority of the movie, but I’ll just tell you that it didn’t matter to my lil younger girl cousins or my lil Maddie, cause ALL the Princess Tiana products DID NOT have Princess Tiana as a frog AT ALL. They all had Princess Tiana’s Black face and the dark face of Prince Naveen.

    I always think of it as another case of adult sensibilities being attributed to children.

  6. 6.

    TaMara (BHF)

    and Betty@top, I’ve been meaning to watch that, now I’ll have to for sure.

    Busy day today. Since Bixby has topped 30 lbs, I had to get him to figure out how to go down the deck stairs, carrying him is soon not going to be an option. They are open on all sides and steep, so he goes up ok, but couldn’t figure out down. We practiced at a friend’s house on carpeted stairs and then came home and after about 10 minutes of practice and bribery, he’s the stair master. Can’t keep him off of them now.

  7. 7.

    p.a.

    It’s controversial, but some cave paintings found recently near Gibraltar may be the work of Neanderthals.

  9. 9.

    Iowa Old Lady

    We recently watched “Tim’s Vermeer,” which is a Penn and Teller documentary about an inventor using lenses and mirrors to try to duplicate a Vermeer painting. It was surprisingly interesting.

  10. 10.

    Mr Stagger Lee

    Does PBS allow stream the next day for their documentaries? I do want to see the Ken Burns doc on the Roosevelts.

  16. 16.

    Dog On Porch

    @tybee: Dick Butkus is a direct descendant of that rhino. That’s why he’s Dick Butkus, and America is better for it.

    That said, and as well, there is no such thing as a non-football thread during football season.

    Go Niners…

  18. 18.

    hildebrand

    I know, I know, we are very late to this, but the whole family has been binge watching Firefly this weekend. What an outstanding show. Unreal that Fox only gave it one season.

  21. 21.

    lamh36

    Since I’m talking about movies, ya may not know, but I kinda love Idris Elba…lol. So of course when he has a movie, I try my best to support and watch it. Now I prefer my fake boyfriend Idris to be sexy and brooding in a role, I’m not too sure I can handle him as a true psycho villain, but I may just have to cause I admit, this trailer for “No Good Deed” with him and Taraji P Henson does look good to me. I’m not one much for “horror”, but I do love a good suspense thriller and I hear there is a “twist” at the end so even though I don’t wanna see my Idris as a baddie, I may just have to get over it.

    No Good Deed Official Trailer #1 (2014) HD

    Well, there is an Idris shower scene, but I’m thinking I’m NOT supposed to like that bit since ya know is is a psychopath, so…there is that…lol

  22. 22.

    scav

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: What’s a mammoth but essentially a cold weather elephant? I so suspect Neanderthals suffer from bad press to some degree — that and a spot of bias about ladders of being and simplistic evolution. Nice blurry overlap and muddle is my personal default. Still is just a bias. More details on exact Neanderthal cave art in thisBBC link.

  23. 23.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @lamh36:

    ya may not know, but I kinda love Idris Elba

    How could we know? You’ve never once mentioned it.

  25. 25.

    hilts

    “A new poll on Scottish independence has put Yes in the lead for the first time.

    The poll shows a four point increase in support for Yes from the last YouGov poll published earlier this week. The No camp were leading by 14 points in mid-August and 22 points early last month, when undecided voters were excluded. The findings give Yes its best result so far in any poll of the campaign – Yes has reached 51 per cent, with No dropping to 49 per cent, once ‘don’t knows’ are excluded.”

    h/t http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/scottish-independence-poll-puts-yes-in-lead-1-3533686

  31. 31.

    shelley

    @scav: Well, hasn’t it been debunked that Neanderthals were this backward group that just disappeared, poof, when other groups came along? Evidence that they comingled with Cro-Magnons. Modern folk (us) have Neanderthal DNA

  36. 36.

    lamh36

    @raven: bascially yes.

    I have all my flights paid for. I’ll be traveling thru Oakland for a total of a lit over 48hrs. Then to Honolulu for the first three days of the trip. My birthday will be in the middle of that one. Then I’ll be traveling to the Big Island for another three days. I really want to see VNP, so I’ll travel to Hilo and rent a car to drive to and from VNP from there. Then travel back to Honolulu for one more night leaving for Oakland the next day and one final night overnight in Oakland before leaving back home to NOLA.

    I’ve pretty much narrowed down my choices for hotels in Honolulu. I’ll be purchasing a package deal for the HIlo portion via Hawaiian Airlines on Friday. My plans for Oakland is just budget transitory hotels.

    After this weekend, I’ll just be narrowing down my daily plans including maybe a guided tour or two since I’d like to see as much as I can during my time there.

    So total 11 days, 7 days in Hawaii, 48hrs (1 full 24h day, 2 half) in Oakland/SFO prior to Hawaii, and only overnight stay on the final night/day.

  39. 39.

    lamh36

    @raven: It’s pretty much all coming together. It’s kinda awesome when I realize that in less than 2 months, I’ll be in Hawaii.

    I’m pretty excited about it…

  40. 40.

    Steeplejack

    @tybee:

    Yep.

    Cave of Forgotten Dreams is definitely worth seeing. I saw it in the theater when it first came out—in 3-D, which was really cool. The movie is a little longer than it should be, but the cave art is stunning, and there is some heavy knowledge dropped, e.g., scientists were able to determine from the cave art whether the male of some breed of prehistoric big cat had a mane, because one of the images was of said cat with balls and with/without mane. (Can’t remember which, sorry.)

    And at the time the cave paintings were done you could walk all the way from southern France to where London would later be, because the ice was 30 meters thick (IIRC) all the way.

  43. 43.

    scav

    @shelley: There seems to be some regrouping along the ‘but they were idiots!’ frontier of “our twig is best neener neener” school although the co-mingling of DNA dogma has fallen. Especially funny in light of how much intelligence, communication and toolmaking is showing up in crows and cockatoos (!) et al over and beyond other mere primates. More fun with wooly rhinos by the by. Fish are even rarer in cave art if I can remember that far back.

  44. 44.

    Hal

    I don’t see how there could be cave paintings that old when according to future President Ben Carson the earth is only a few thousand years old.

  46. 46.

    PurpleGirl

    @TaMara (BHF): I’ll bet Bixby looked cute figuring out the stairs. One of things I like about watching the kitten cams is seeing them start to walk and climb and run and all that discovering stuff.

  48. 48.

    Steeplejack

    @Steeplejack:

    From the old thread that Anne Laurie dug up:

    [. . .] as a researcher in the film notes, because of these pictures we now know that male cave lions did not have manes. It blows my mind to contemplate that fact being transmitted across the unimaginable distance of 30,000 years, from a time when the Alps were buried under 9,000 feet of ice and you could walk from France to England because the English Channel was a dry seabed.

  50. 50.

    Mnemosyne

    @lamh36:

    Are you going to be visiting friends/family in Oakland or just hanging out? Across the bridge, they’ve put a bunch of new stuff at the Presidio, including (of course!) the Walt Disney Family Museum. I think the Marc Davis exhibit is ending before you get there, though. :-(

  51. 51.

    cckids

    @lamh36: I just re-watched that with my son Thursday, it is such a fun movie, and should have been a bigger hit. No guesses really needed as to why it wasn’t.

    Tiana doesn’t show up as often as she should in the various “princess” round-ups either.

  54. 54.

    raven

    Frank’s Place

    The idea for the series came from CBS vice president, Gregg Maday. As a young man, Maday frequented a restaurant in Buffalo, New York named Dan Montgomery’s. Maday also wanted a series based in New Orleans due to the mid-1980s interest in Cajun cuisine and zydeco. The two ideas were combined. Wilson and Reid spent time in New Orleans for research. They found a restaurant named Chez Helene and many of the things they encountered there were included in the series. Big Arthur was based on Chez Helene’s owner, Austin Leslie. The series focused more on Creole cuisine and Creole culture rather than Cajun.[2]

  55. 55.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:

    Because Fox TV executives hated the show. Plus it debuted right before the World Series, so it kept getting pre-empted.

    The weirdest decision Fox made was to start with the second episode rather than the pilot even though they’d been running promos for weeks promising “a girl in a box!” scene that’s only in the pilot. It was basically a giant clusterfuck from start to finish.

  58. 58.

    Mnemosyne

    @raven:

    One of my all-time favorite shows!

    I have to go out to dinner, but two of my favorite “cancelled too soon shows” were on the same network in the same season: “Cupid,” with Jeremy Piven, and “Nothing Sacred.” Discuss. :-)

  59. 59.

    MomSense

    @raven:

    Have to watch that!! Zydeco comes from an old French song about les haricots (green beans being sauteed in a pan). Say les haricots ten times fast and it sounds like Zydeco.

    @Mnemosyne:

    Fucking producers. They screw everything up.

  61. 61.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: just hanging out. I don’t really know anyone in the Bay area, but I had planned on spending my one full day seeing the sights and sounds in San Francisco. It might be best to do a guided tour for that day since my time will be pretty limited.

    I plan to take a full San Francisco trip at a later date so I can do a full tourist extravaganza.

  65. 65.

    lamh36

    @cckids: It really is a good movie. The music is stellar and Princess Tiana seems to be one of the first Princess who’s truly didnt’t need the Prince to “save” her. At the very least, I like that they went back to the “classic” Disney animation for the movie rather than the usual compute/Pixar-type animation Disney has ONLY been doing of late.

    I can’t really fault Disney over the movie’s box office though, she promoted the hell out of the movie on media and channels.

    A friend of my who is white had a little boy, Andrew and he told her he really wanted to see the movie, it was advertised on Disney that much.

    She took him and he loved it.

  66. 66.

    MomSense

    @hilts:

    I know this seems strange but the tv show Outlanders, based on the novel by Diana Gaboldon, is a huge success and is contributing to the support for the independence campaign. They have been filming it for about a year in Scotland and it deals with the Jacobite rising of 1745. It is a major production and many of the Scottish cast are supportive of independence. It has been interesting to follow the momentum for the Yes campaign.

  70. 70.

    raven

    @tybee: Them’s Limey’s looks like but they are tanks not sp arty

    The Rhino tank (initially called “Rhinoceros”)[1] was the American nickname for Allied tanks fitted with “tusks”, or hedgerow cutting devices, during World War II. The British designation for the modifications was Prongs.

    In the summer of 1944, during the Battle of Normandy, Allied forces – particularly the Americans – had bogged down fighting the Germans in the Normandy bocage. This landscape of thick banked hedges proved difficult for tanks to breach. In an effort to restore battlefield mobility, various devices were invented to allow tanks to navigate the terrain. Initially the devices were manufactured in Normandy, largely from German steel-beam beach defensive devices on an ad hoc basis. Manufacture was then shifted to the United Kingdom, and vehicles were modified before being shipped to France.

  71. 71.

    JR in WV

    Last fall we took our first trip to the Old World, an organized tour by the AIA (Archaeological Institute of America) which took us to 13 caves in northern Spain and southern France, all but one with dramatic art of various kinds.

    We also visited an outdoor park where efforts were underway to breed back to some of the animals which were depicted in the cave paintings. There were trips to various churches and cathedrals, we started our trip with 3 nights in a Paradour hotel in a medieval village that hadn’t changed since the 1300s.

    It was hard work to keep up, the tour leader was a Cambridge PhD in prehistoric art, very well spoken and outgoing person. Worth every penny, we had saved up for a long time for the trip, it was amazing. We were fortunate to get into a second group after the first tour sold out, there were only 12 of us so it was quite intimate.

    The second tour in this page is the one we took:

    http://www.archaeological.org/tours/land

    The movie (which I haven’t yet seen) is also said to be amazing, Herzog is properly famous and just to get permission to take the 3-D equipment into the cave from the French authorities was a huge accomplishment. I’m hoping to see it eventually.

    Some of the local cave guides were amazing, they could move their lamp below the painting and make the perception of the animal move and look out to you. The art is far more sophisticated than you would think for the artist to have 2 colors to work with, plus etching of the cave wall.

    Many of the caves are quite restricted with only a few people allowed in on any given day, to protect the environment within the caves. People show up at the cave early in the morning hoping to get one of the few tickets allocated for that day. We actually ran into some resentment when we were able to go into the caves first as the AIA had arrangements with the authorities running the caves.

    Amazing discovery of the talents of our ancestors!

    By the way, WVU is leading Towson 31-0 at the beginning of the second half, and Marshall U was leading URI 18- at their halftime. Go Eers!

  72. 72.

    lamh36

    @Mnemosyne: I just checked the listing for the Marc Davis exhibit, and it must be serendipity, cause the final weekend is actually the weekend I’ll be in Oakland.

    Thanks. That’s going on my list!

  75. 75.

    tybee

    @raven:

    looks german and the photo is labeled bundes

    so does anyone know what’s the one on the left, the one in the middle and the one on the far right in the background?

  76. 76.

    Mike in NC

    Today’s local rag had an op-ed by someone named “Mitt Romney” calling for a massive increase in US military spending, because of course half a trillion dollars a year can’t even begin to defend us enough against a host of sham bullshit “threats”.

    Sounds like this “Mitt Romney” person will run for president in 2016.

  77. 77.

    Anoniminous

    @tybee:

    The one on the left is a Panzer Mark IV. Not sure about the one in the middle but it could be a knocked-out Sherman.

    ETA: And the more I look at it and the one in the back the more I’m sure they are Shermans.

  78. 78.

    hildebrand

    @Mnemosyne: Gah! That kind of executive thinking makes my brain hurt. We have really enjoyed the show this weekend, which is rare, because we find very few shows that we all like (me, Spouse, 18 year old, 12 year old). That it clicks with all of us is great (outside of Doctor Who, that just doesn’t happen).

  79. 79.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @tybee: The one on the left looks like it is a Tiger. The one in the center and the one in the back I can’t see well enough to identify.

  80. 80.

    eemom

    @raven:

    And he’ll lose that phony ass law degree too, right?

    Not the degree, but his license.

    And when you suck so bad even the lawyers won’t have you…..well, then you really suck. [cackle chortle]

  82. 82.

    hildebrand

    @Mike in NC: You would think said ‘Mitt Romney’ person would not want risk getting humiliated in a general election again, and know bloody well enough to stay on the sidelines this time.

  84. 84.

    Anoniminous

    @Anoniminous:

    And the more I look at it and the one in the back the more I’m convinced they are Shermans because of the Horizontal Volute Spring Suspension.

  86. 86.

    Scamp Dog

    @tybee: the one on the left is a Tiger. The one in the middle looks like a Sherman, an Allied tank, but why would the Germans be operating one of them? Maybe it’s actually a French tank? I’m not familiar with them.

  87. 87.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Mike in NC: what taxes did this Romney fellow propose to pay for his increase in waste, fraud and abuse?

    @hildebrand: I’d be shocked if Willard volunteers to be the one who lost to the Kenyan and the devious sosh’list She-Clinton. I think he’s just keeping the Mormon Kennedy name in GOP minds for whenever Twig or Branch suddenly realizes that he’s always wanted to live in Utah and pull a Liz Cheney on Orrin Hatch.

  92. 92.

    MomSense

    @WaterGirl:

    It really was so good. The last couple episodes they definitely were rushing to tie everything up–but wow I loved those characters.

  93. 93.

    tybee

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name):

    weren’t some of the IV’s up gunned to 88s?

    some years back i read a book by a member of a tank repair unit in the drive across france. “death traps” or something similar. his opinion was that if there weren’t for the fact that shermans were easy to fix and there were a bunch of them, the germans would have kicked patton’s ass back to the channel.

    personally, i can’t tell one piece of armor from another.

  95. 95.

    WaterGirl

    @MomSense: I have at least half the episodes saved on Tivo – if you download from iTunes or elsewhere or get the DVD, they changed all the music because they didn’t want to pay the royalties for the good stuff. Sadly, I learned that only after deleting some of the episodes from my Tivo box, but at least I still have a lot of them. One of these days I plan to watch it again.

    Wasn’t that the year of the writer’s strike, too? That killed some really good shows.

  96. 96.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @tybee:

    weren’t some of the IV’s up gunned to 88s?

    No idea. My knowledge of tanks isn’t that deep.

  97. 97.

    raven

    @WaterGirl: It ruined “Heroes” with WInkler, Sally Field and Harrison Ford. The original film had “Carry on my Wayward Son” by Kansas in the last scene but they yanked it on the DVD for some bullshit.

  101. 101.

    Mike in NC

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I’ll go with standard GOP proposal to cut taxes on the rich (assuming like Willard, they don’t even pay federal income taxes) while screwing over the bottom 99%. Seldom seems to be a losing strategy.

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @raven: Can you imagine someone of Cole’s height fitting in there? I’ve been in the TC hatch of a Bradley a couple of times, but most of my time in a track was spent in the TC hatch of a 577.

    @Mike in NC: Gasoline not diesel powered.

  109. 109.

    catclub

    @Mike in NC:

    Sounds like this “Mitt Romney” person will run for president in 2016.

    Best possible opponent for Hillary to be matched up against, assuming she runs. Her age would be about the only thing most of the others could bring up. Of course, she could make their heads explode by using the line Reagan did.

  111. 111.

    Mike E

    @hildebrand: Big Bang Theory made it one of Sheldon’s myriad of specific demands in his roommate contract, that the teevee would be reserved during Firefly’s timeslot “for years, since the show’s going to be around for a long time.” I laughed; I cried.

    Matt Groening talks of asking for the rights for a Simpsons spin off from Fox (a live action Krusty Show… Dan Castellaneta in grease paint!) but they refused to take, as he put it, “the 2nd greediest position.” It woulda been short lived for sure, but you’d still be seeing it on Adult Swim…

  114. 114.

    p.a.

    This topic has petered out, but the hell with it, it was a great show: March 19, 2012
    Frank’s Place was one of the most extraordinary half hours on television, justification for the quirky “dramedy” genre all by itself. Read other comments here for details, I’m writing to share what I’ve learned about why this cultural gem (all the more important in the shattered aftermath of Katrina) is still not out on non-bootlegged DVD, where it certainly belongs.

    The problem, ironically, is what most remember as one of the show’s great virtues – its amazing New Orleans soundtrack. The producers only secured broadcast rights for those songs, not the right to include them in commercial video recordings. Had they done so up front, Frank’s Place would have been released years ago. Unfortunately, nowadays the rights to that treasure trove of material have gotten so expensive that it breaks any reasonable budget for the project before it can even start. Believe it or not, the only practical alternative seems to be commissioning and recording entirely new performances, and Reid respects the music too much to do it half-baked, so it’s going to be a lot of work, and I’ve no idea if they’ve started. Here’s hoping this wonderful American creation is finally allowed to reach its audience.

  117. 117.

    Anoniminous

    M113, including all the variants, is the most successful, the most numerous, and longest serving fully tracked military vehicle ever. A cousin of mine rode one in Nam and his grandson rode one in Iraq.

  119. 119.

    p.a.

    And Malcolm in the Middle after year 1, in the US. Twin Peaks pilot show also, last time I checked. If one wants to buy a zone 2/3 DVD player and power adapter you can get the DVDs in Britain and Oz.

  121. 121.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @raven: Didn’t the arty unit you were in have M577s or were you light? They are tall M113s. It’s where the FDCs and Battalion TOC live.

  123. 123.

    Anoniminous

    @raven:

    According to my cousin you didn’t want to crew in one in combat. They were RPG magnets. And one unprotected M2 50 as original issue main armament. Crews fixed that as soon as they could get their hands on some scrap metal and retro-fitted some shields.

  126. 126.

    MEitCong

    I’m not the biggest fan of documentaries, but Cave of Forgotten Dreams transcends the genre. Made it a point to see it in the theatre. It’s fascinating both for the subject matter and as a Werner Herzog piece. Most – if any – of us will never view the cave in person. Herzog makes the most of his access to it and, since you can’t be there in person…just a sublime piece of film making. Definitely worth a view.

  127. 127.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Anoniminous: The armor was designed to stop small arms fire and shrapnel. The TC hatch on the all of them was really exposed. M577s were not armed and the TC hatch was pretty comfortable; in violation of most safety rules and battalion policy, I liked perching on the edge and bracing a foot against the other side for leverage – it looked (well, felt) far more dashing than standing there with just my head and shoulders out.

  128. 128.

    raven

    @Anoniminous: Lot’s of double amputees from rpg’s going through the front. We put sandbags on the floors of our trucks just hoping they’d do some good.

  129. 129.

    Skerry

    @lamh36: Today is Idris’s birthday. as a present I give you this.

    @fuggirls: It’s Idris Elba’s birthday! Here he is in a tuxedo, and then also jogging in a sleeveless shirt

  131. 131.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name): I don’t think the suspected Shermans are the same tank. The one in the foreground, between the Tiger and the Nashorn, could definitely be the British Sherman Firefly variant. I don’t think the one in the background has the sloped deck and proper turret shape for any sort of Sherman. I am guessing that it’s the wreck of something, though.

  134. 134.

    patrick II

    @WaterGirl:

    I also liked Damien Lewis’ partner, played by undercomplimented Sarah Shahi. The character was interesting and complex and Ms. Shahi showed some fine acting chops in her portrayal.

  139. 139.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @tybee:

    some years back i read a book by a member of a tank repair unit in the drive across france. “death traps” or something similar. his opinion was that if there weren’t for the fact that shermans were easy to fix and there were a bunch of them, the germans would have kicked patton’s ass back to the channel.

    The Sherman gets a bad rep that it doesn’t really deserve. Part of the problem is that a hell of a lot of people, including a lot of the GIs serving in France, didn’t really understand the concept. Shermans, and indeed all American tanks, weren’t designed to fight against other tanks. They were meant to be infantry support vehicles. Fighting tanks was supposed to be the job of the tank destroyer units.

    That’s why the Sherman’s gun in the M4A1 version wasn’t effective against heavy German armor. There is (or at least was back then) a trade-off when you were designing a tank gun. The sorts of long barreled, high velocity cannons that were best for destroying other tanks were less effective than shorter barreled, low velocity guns like the 75mm most Shermans were armed with. When some Shermans were upgunned, either with the American 76mm or the British 17-pounder in the Firefly, it was quite effective in an anti-armor role.

    In terms of the amount of armor, again, it’s important to keep the Sherman’s intended role in mind. And comparing it to a Panther or a Tiger is nuts. It was significantly smaller than either, and the fact that there were a lot of them is directly related to that fact. The German approach to building monstrously huge tanks with very heavy armor also meant that they had a lot fewer of them. For various reasons that was probably the right design choice for the Wehrmacht, which had critical manpower shortages from about 1942 on and so maximizing the value of every tank crew was important.

    For the Americans it would have been a lot less smart. The American answer to the question as old as tanks as to whether they should be concentrated in armored units to maximize their impact or spread out among the infantry units to provide support was, “Both.” And if you could produce and crew enough tanks to do both then that was absolutely the right answer. German panzer divisions were awesome things but their infantry frequently suffered badly from the lack of armor support produced by that concentration.

    There were two main problems with the Sherman. The first was its tendency to catch fire when it was penetrated. This was a real problem, but it has to be weighed against the benefits of being very easy to repair, in particular by just popping a hatch and winching the engine and transmission out and a new one in so that those could be repaired while the tank was still fighting. And, again, there was a trade-off between the two.

    The other problem with the Sherman was that it was too tall and so had a harder time taking cover. Unfortunately, that was something that was baked into the original design for a very good reason that people tend to forget: every piece of equipment built in America had to be put on a ship and sailed to wherever it was supposed to fight. The dimensions of the Sherman were tailored to the holds of Liberty ships in order to maximize the number of them that could be crammed in there. And the extra height minimized the width and length. So, again, a lower tank would have meant significantly fewer of them on the battlefield.

  140. 140.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @raven: I am the taller guy with non-regulation sunglasses. The other guy stayed in and retired as an LTC. Our battery commander made 2-star and commanded White Sands Missile Base.

  145. 145.

    big ole hound

    @Dog On Porch: From what I’ve read it will be a repeat of Ireland’s bank crisis….no jobs for miles around plus all the brit tariff’s go away and prices will sky rocket. Big currency problems too. It’s hard to start a country.

  147. 147.

    max

    @Anoniminous: You’re right. It is a Tiger as the turret is flush to the deck and has the flat front glacis for the machine gun.

    Yeah. That’s because it has the 90 degree (unsloped) sides on the turret, which is the way you distinguish the Tiger from all other series. The turret sides slope on the Pkfw IV. Those are very likely wrecked Shermans since that photo was taken in Italy – only place it could be taken but Italien is also in the URL. The other German beastie is a Nashorn tank destroyer. And those gentlemen are attached to an SS unit.

    That has to be somewhere in the general vicinity of Anzio.

    max
    [‘Huh.’]

  149. 149.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @raven: Part of it is the angle and part is that I am about 5′ 10″ on a tall day. So no tall folks in the pic.

  151. 151.

    Mike J

    @big ole hound:

    Big currency problems too

    Yes, since the Brites and the EU have both told them they’re out of luck. They’ll have no official currency and no way to use that tool to help manage the economy.

    I’m not saying they should never devolve, but it will be fucking disastrous if they go now as unprepared as they are.

  154. 154.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @eemom: That pic was from 24 years ago. See my Ice bucket challenge vid on the book of faces for a more recent version.

  157. 157.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)

    @raven: Not a good day for the Big 10. My Gophers are 2-0, though, proving that half of life is choosing the correct opponents.

  162. 162.

    2liberal

    @raven:

    Sky Harbor! My step mother is a greeter there!

    i am not aware of greeters there. I always go thru Terminal 4 for Southwest, twice per year, traveling back east to see family. There are some information booths scattered around. Also some agents who direct passengers into various queues.

  164. 164.

    rikyrah

    @raven:

    FRANK’S PLACE?

    FRANK’S PLACE???

    sigh…

    I want a DVD on that show. It was way too smart for network television.

    My favorite episode was when Frank realized that he failed the paperbag test, but a ‘Colored’ Club was going to let him in anyway because of his bonafides.

    ” All my life, I’ve been the ‘only Black’. The only Black in this club, this school…or that job…… But, I’ll be damned if I’m going to be the ONLY Black..IN A BLACK CLUB.”

  167. 167.

    rikyrah

    Since folks are bringing up long lost shows…

    Dare I mention PROFITT?

    It was 2-3 years ahead of its time and on the wrong network. If it had started out on an HBO or Showtime, it would have been legendary, IMO.

  168. 168.

    raven

    @2liberal:

    Volunteer as an Airport Navigator

    Be a bright spot in someone’s day! Sky Harbor Navigators are a group of friendly volunteers whose mission is to make our guests’ experience at Sky Harbor Airport faster, easier and more enjoyable. Navigator volunteers serve all over the Airport by providing directions, information and friendly assistance. They also serve as a welcoming presence to over 100,000 passengers each day.

    Sky Harbor is proud of our volunteers who were recently awarded one of the Governor’s Tourism Awards for the outstanding customer service provided. Read more.

  175. 175.

    PurpleGirl

    Sorry to come to the thread so late. Been watching TV and working on a jigsaw puzzle.

    MomSense — I’m watching Outlander. I read the first book of the series.

    Raven — I loved Frank’s Place. I had a crush on Tim Reid. I was very mad that it wasn’t renewed.

  177. 177.

    Schlemazel [was Schlemizel till NotMax taught me proper yiddish!]

    @Little Boots:
    Because he never acts like an asshole, unlike some people I won’t mention, little boots.

  180. 180.

    Tenar Darell

    I developed a herniated disk last summer. Sciatic nerve pain on the bottom of my foot killing right now, probably aggravated from sitting too much today. Ice pack on foot not kicking in yet. Anybody here have any suggestions?

  181. 181.

    Mnemosyne

    @MomSense:
    @PurpleGirl:

    Stephanie Pearl-McPhee had an amusing aside about the Outlander series, which she’s listening to on audiobook:

    I don’t know why I waited so long to get to this series, it’s fabulous. I’m on the second book, and it’s super entertaining, although really, did anybody else notice that there’s really a lot of inappropriately timed sex in strange locations? Those two must really love each other – that or they’re loaded all the time, which, actually isn’t that far off of possible. There’s a lot of brandy and ale.

  182. 182.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @Mnemosyne:

    there’s really a lot of inappropriately timed sex in strange locations?

    She needs to define “inappropriately timed” and “strange locations.” For example, midightish in the fountain in the main square in Kitzbuhel, Austria, seem appropriate and reasonable at the time. And so on….

  183. 183.

    PurpleGirl

    @Tenar Darell: Try putting the ice pack on your lower back. Also take some ibuprofen; it should help relieve inflammation of nerve. Not a pain killer because the pain is referred from the nerve, but lessen the inflammation of the nerve. Also when you lie down put your legs up on several pillows which will help flatten your back and, again, relieve the nerve inflammation/pain.

    ETA: Also that the ibuprofen every 6 hours, again not to treat the pain but relieve the inflammation. I took 4 OTC tablets every 6 hours when I had the herniated disk (and before surgery).

  184. 184.

    PurpleGirl

    @Mnemosyne: Thanks for referral to Stephanie. I’ll go over to her blog in a bit. I’ve read the first book, but I bought them all when Borders was having various sales before closing. I liked it but I began reading a spat of short books.

  185. 185.

    seaboogie

    Betty, thank you for recommending this, it is wonderful (in the true sense of the word) and I am enjoying it now.

    Also @Little Boots: You are a younger child in your family, yes?

  186. 186.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @seaboogie: Interesting observation. I am elder in mine and I am willing to do random shit to placate – as long as may ultimate authority s recognized. My younger brother got to stay up until my parents came home as long as he was in bed with the lights out when the parents got home. When he did not manage to do that, I enforced the parental bedtime for a couple of occasions. He learned – and, in his defense, he never narced about anything ever.

  188. 188.

    Omnes Omnibus (the first of his name)

    @seaboogie: Yep. Our life was simple. He was ready for bed and as the parents’ headlights hit the driveway, he was in his bed. If not, there would be problems. We had an agreement and it worked.

  191. 191.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    @tybee: There were rhinos all over the place, even North America! I had the good fortune to visit a paleontologist at the University of Nebraska, and he showed me the collection and discussed the bone bed and the event (an ash fall from a volcano lasting a week).

  193. 193.

    JR in WV

    @Tenar Darell:

    Your problem isn’t where the pain is manifesting, you need to treat the sciatic nerve, not your foot. The pain and the damage are in two different places.

    Took me a long time to learn this. Treat your low back with alternating heat/cold, stretch it gently, take a NSAID like Naproxen/Aleve to help reduce inflammation. Hot shower or even a Jacuzzi type tub (my personal favorite best back treatment) will help.

    Not that it hurts to treat your foot too!

  195. 195.

    Tenar Darell

    @PurpleGirl: @JR in WV: Thanks. I was doing basically all of that last night. I guess I was just hoping there was one more thing that I wasn’t thinking of that would help immediately. Pain does crap all for remembering and following my usual pain relieving steps.

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