1 You do get to the center of things, Gabe.

2 I came across a client with the last name Kobayashi and all I could think was Kobayashi Maru.

3 Okay, Kirstie Alley chiming in is pretty funny.

4 Kirstie Allie has gotten kinda chubby.

5 Kirsti in Star Trek. mmmmm

6 What am I, chopped liver?

7

oprah too.  what the hell is up with that?

8 Kirstie in Runaway mmmmm, i believe she gets nekkid in that one.

9 And what's wrong with cat videos?

10 Hah!

11 Rusty nails, broken glass, one mile, me, Kirstie. You know this one.

12 I had a bad feeling last week when I saw the "Hitler Finds Out Scott Brown Won the Massachusetts Senate Race" video had been blacked out in my Favorites.

What do the copyright holders of DOWNFALL think? That hordes of people are suddenly going to want to watch their movie if they do this?

13 You mean that clip is from an actual movie?

Get out.

14 What do the copyright holders of DOWNFALL think? That hordes of people are suddenly going to want to watch their movie if they do this?

Rush made that point today. He said that if no one had parodied that scene of the movie, he'd never have known about it and never have watched it. He said it was a pretty good movie.

15

I've got an odd pc question --

I can't get audio to play on youtube. I can run the clips, but no volume. And it's only on youtube. Any other form of media runs just fun. In fact, all other forms are just fine.

(Yes, before anyone asks, I've rebooted several times).

I don't have a youtube account so it's not like I log in and set specific preferences.

It's driving me batty. Anyone have any thoughts??

Thanks.

16

"Don't worry, he'll realize the irony soon".

 

Fucking. Gold.

17 If they take Charles Bronson clips off YouTube... I'll make the evening news.

18 TeeHee, you said hump day!!

19

What do the copyright holders of DOWNFALL think?

It's time for robot theatre hitler in the bunker. 

20 "And what's wrong with cat videos?" Speaking of kittehs, the overnight thread must have the Kim Kardashian + Kitteh pic above the fold.

21 I fucking hate cats.

Lousy Democrats!

22 I'm a fan of the bunker rants, and I think the takedown order is stupid, but that video is dumb. It's "hard work" putting subtitles on a scene?

23 I can't get audio to play on youtube. I can run the clips, but no volume. And it's only on youtube.

I know this sounds stupid, but check and make sure the volume on the videos is turned up, if you turn the volume down on one youtube vid it stays down on all of them that you watch after.

24

Hello, I'm Republican Leader Michael Steele.

For many years, like the ones between 1861 and 2010, blacks have had no reason to vote for Republicans.  Take it from me, Michael Steele.  And we don't really have any plans to change that, except for maybe pandering to Hispanics, which are sort-of half-and-half.  Half racist Whitey, half black.  Like me.  Michael Steele.

Buy my book and send the RNC a little money, you rich racist white people I don't feel comfortable being around, and maybe you'll feel a little better about yourselves.  But don't expect us to get any black votes.

Sincerely,

Michael Steele

 

P.S.: Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele, Michael Steele.

25 I'm sorry, but the Downfall parodies are the funniest things on YouTube today - with the exception og the Star Wars reviewer.  And I have seen Downfall.  It is worth your time.

26 Rush made that point today. He said that if no one had parodied that scene of the movie, he'd never have known about it and never have watched it. He said it was a pretty good movie.

NO ONE would ever have heard of this thing otherwise! And who knows how people have been spurred to watch it because of the YouTube parodies? Not only are they cutting off the best free advertising for their movie any studio/production company/whatever could ask for, they're alienating people like me who will deliberately avoid it now.

If they wanted to go after people who were putting up the ENTIRE movie on YouTube that would be one thing, but this is just plain stupid.

27

23 Heh. Thanks But I've tried that too. No dice.

Oh well. I'll just be ahead of the curve with not watching youtube I guess. They'll eventually become Google and they'll hide or disable any vid that would put Leftie in a bad light.

I'm just surprised it hasn't happened sooner.

28 Posted by: guy who doesn't keep up with things and understates the obvious at April 21, 2010 08:57 PM (ctR4U) You should repost that talking like someguy .

29

"Isn't Google supposed to be all 'Dont' be evil?'"

 

Genius.

30 OT but I can't stand these disingenuous anti-death penalty people. Lethal injection is unconstitutional because the drugs might cause the guy getting it pain.

OH NOES! GOD FORBID A MURDERER FEEL PAIN!!!!111!!!!111

WTF is wrong with these people?!

31 I thought Downfall was great. And I love the parodies. I know a guy who works for Constantin. I'm going to tell him his employers are jerks. (He knows that. It will accomplish nothing. But there you go.)

32 15 I've got an odd pc question -- I can't get audio to play on youtube. I can run the clips, but no volume.   Lacey I had a similar problem awhile back, but not with YouTube videos.  I couldn't hear sound on some ad videos I needed to play for my job.  IIRC, I went into my Control Panel, found the audio settings, and played around with those, finally getting it to work.  I have Vista, so this may or may not apply to you.  

33 Rush mentioned the de-Hitlerization today.  He was right: it's stupid for the copyright holders to yank those vids, since they have probably sold tons of copies of the DVD of Downfall.

34 "Isn't Google supposed to be all 'Dont' be evil?'"

Yeah, that was their mission statement. Kind of the way Bill Clinton promised "the most ethical administration ever" and Nancy Pelosi promised "the most open and honest Congress in history".

35 Downfall is very, very good.  Copyright holders notwithstanding, it's worth a watch.

36 Mayday, I installed service pack 1 on my Vista machine and it killed my audio. Then I installed service pack 2 and it worked again.

37

34  Yeah, that was their mission statement. Kind of the way Bill Clinton promised "the most ethical administration ever" and Nancy Pelosi promised "the most open and honest Congress in history".

Oh, I know that.  I thought Hitler's use of the quote in this was painfully ironic.  Google blows goats.  Anti-American pricks.

38

my Vista machine

Found the problem...

39 Andy Levy won't be happy with the "I hate fucking cats" comment...

40 NO ONE would ever have heard of this thing otherwise! And who knows how people have been spurred to watch it because of the YouTube parodies?

Sounds like Metallica and copied cassette tapes...

"Fair use" used to cover parody (who knows what Congress does on Saturday nights anymore?)...but usually people claiming fair use have done more rework than just adding captions.

41 27

23 Heh. Thanks But I've tried that too. No dice.

You could try this first fix iffn you wanna,  PC World is a reputable site so you won't pick up any buggies.

42 Is your volume working on redtube?

43 30 OT but I can't stand these disingenuous anti-death penalty people. Lethal injection is unconstitutional because the drugs might cause the guy getting it pain.

The day they snuffed Tim McVeigh I threw a solitary drunken self-debasement party. I was on a message board with a bunch of hand-wringers who insisted I was not a human being because I was counting down to the hour of execution.

Good times.

44 Direct link to the youtube fix

45 Posted by: The Chocolate Ration at April 21, 2010 09:08 PM (WuvMD)

Heh. That's why I mainly use a Mac.

46

I have Vista too. I'll try your suggestions later. Thanks peeps!

I like (well I don't *hate) Vista as some here do.

Now IE8,? Nightmare. IE7 isn't much better.

47 I was on a message board with a bunch of hand-wringers who insisted I was not a human being because I was counting down to the hour of execution.

We were talking about the death penalty in an ethics philosophy class and my prof asked us who believed in the death penalty if we were willing to flip the switch, so to speak. I has zero problem answering yes.

48

It's driving me batty. Anyone have any thoughts??

Thanks.

Posted by: laceyunderalls at April 21, 2010 08:53 PM (kxTnL)

Try checking your install of Adobe Flash player.  It may be (unlikely) that you have two versions installed and You Tube is invoking one that is disabled.  Just to be sure, uninstall flash player and then reinstall it with the latest version.

49 I drank a 40oz Budweiser when they took out old Tookie Williams.

50 Coming soon to LGF: ACE OF SPADES SAYS: "I AGREE WITH HITLER(!!)"......

51

Posted by: The Chocolate Ration

And I've just realized I'm still using a three day old sockpuppet.  BEGONE!

52 36 Mayday, I installed service pack 1 on my Vista machine and it killed my audio. Then I installed service pack 2 and it worked again.
WTR, maybe your solution will work for Lacey if she also has Vista.  My problem was a few months ago, so my memory is a little fuzzy on exactly how I fixed it.  It was just wierd, could hear sound on everything else except those certain videos, and I could see the picture on them.   Chocolate - I know Vista gets a bad rap sometimes, but I got mine free so I don't complain too much.

53 lacey
whatever you do, don't let your problem leak to the bunker. I hear Adolf tends to get really upset about shit lately.

54 Kirstie Alley. Remember how hot she was in that Star Trek movie? Then it's like they cloned her and she ate the clone and then they cloned the fatter version of herself and she ate that clone too. It's just a shame. A fat, sweaty shame.

55

51  And what a HORRIBLE puppet that is!!

Chocolate Ration??

The horror!!! I believe that would put me in fetal rocking sloooooly.

56 Kirstie, call me. I think we can still do business.

Beauty is only a lightswitch away.

57 I was on a message board with a bunch of hand-wringers who insisted I was not a human being because I was counting down to the hour of execution.

Yeah, I remember being on a message board that day with a bunch of dumb scrunts who didn't want their babies to grow up in a world where men who blow up other women's babies aren't allowed to sit around well-fed and smug until they die of old age.  WTF.  (Later they kicked me out for not being a "real woman", which I now understand meant "brain dead lefty sheeple")

58 Damn, Ovechkin for a nice go-ahead goal

59

I know Vista gets a bad rap sometimes, but I got mine free so I don't complain too much.

I have two laptops.  Both have Vista.  One runs like a champ, the other crashes if you look at it funny.  I've literally had it sitting there with no programs running, doing absolutely nothing, and crash.  Weird thing is, the one that crashes is newer that its counterpart by about a year.

60 Ironically, that might be the best of the parodys.

And yes, even if the company is run by a bunch of retarded douches, Downfall is a very, very good movie.

61 Damn, 4-2 Caps already!

62 vista sucks.

63 While I'm thinking about it does anyone know the reason some people are mixing exclamation points and ones. I'm seeing it all over the place. e.g. !!!!111!!!111!!!
You don't have to tell me if you don't want to.

64

61 Damn, 4-2 Caps already!

Ovie is the best player in the NHL.  Bar.  None.  And yeah, I hate the guy.

65 Is King Barry aware that the Kobayashi Maru was a no-win situation?

66 "Fair use" used to cover parody (who knows what Congress does on Saturday nights anymore?)...but usually people claiming fair use have done more rework than just adding captions.

That's the problem -- legally, the Hitler parodies probably aren't covered under fair use. Parodists get around legal issues by creating entirely new works based on the object of satire, the way Weird Al Yankovic does with his song parodies and Mad Magazine always did with its parodies of things like advertising and comic strips. Fair usage is very limited in what it allows.

The copyright notices for movies always read "no portion of this work may be reproduced in whole or in part without express permission of blah blah blah" and the Hitler vids always involve the direct use of a three or four minute chunk of the movie. So the holders are entirely within their rights to demand they come down -- but are they ever stupid for doing it.

67 When Howard Stern turns against the Dems . . .

68

@15 Sound problem with youtube...couple of other suggestions:

 - if you're listening to audio through speakers, make sure the main left and right are plugged into the green output of the sound card.

 - try right-clicking on a youtube video and check or uncheck 'enable hardware acceleration'

69

OT: Michael Steele at it again...

Blacks really donÂ’t have a reason to vote Republican, says Â… Steele: http://url4.eu/

70 You don't have to tell me if you don't want to. (Ahem) The point being that the poster in question, having quite been carried away by the passion of the moment, and enamorment of the Mighty Exclamation Point, has forgotten to hold down the SHIFT key (or has become spastic in anger or excitement and lost muscular control of the SHIFT-hitting finger). Joe Talmadge invented a prototypical "newbie" named B1FF (Biff) who posted some hilarious stuff on USENET back in Ye Olden Tyme, and the convention was the all-caps, multiple exclamation-points-and-ones type of post. You can find this stuff in a variety of archives.

71 65 Is King Barry aware that the Kobayashi Maru was a no-win situation?

I don't believe in a no-win scenario. So I reprogrammed the Congress so that it was possible to socialize the country. The Nobel Committee gave me a commendation for original thinking.

72

WTF.  (Later they kicked me out for not being a "real woman", which I now understand meant "brain dead lefty sheeple")

Speaking of, I posted this piece of garbage earlier.

The AP has an article about the new Justice and how it's will be "very important" to Obama (his words) for any Justice to take into account "women's rights" when interpreting the Constitution.

Neat, huh?!

My reading on the Constitution doesn't recall language of "women's rights" but then again I'm not a Constitutional law school professor adjunct, so what do I know.

73 Downfall is a very, very good movie.

Haven't seen it yet.  Saw Hitler's Secretary, documentary interview with Traudl Junge, who wrote the book Downfall was based on.

74 Weird thing is, the one that crashes is newer that its counterpart by about a year.

That makes me feel better about getting a Vista laptop when Vista was first released. I hardly use it, but until I added 2 GBs of memory I was seriously hating it.

75 59 I have two laptops.  Both have Vista.  One runs like a champ, the other crashes if you look at it funny.    I really don't have much trouble with mine most of the time.  Used to have a lot of problems with IE, but I learned to not move from site to site within one tab (open a new tab for each new site instead, and that's helped a lot).  Only other problem I've really had has been with really huge powerpoint reports...you just have to save your work often.  But I've had that ppt problem with other OS too.

76 Oh God, now this dick STEELE is picking up the old leftist lie about the "Southern Strategy"?

He's still around because WHY?

77 Here was one I made a few years ago;

Hitler reacts to the Mets choking again

78 Is King Barry aware that the Kobayashi Maru was a no-win situation?

Unless you're Kirk and you game the system.

79 Later they kicked me out for not being a "real woman"

Oh, we can definitely relate!

80

The only reason I watched Downfall was because I spent a few hours putting together a parody.  I suspected from the quality of that one scene (in which I only had my historical knowledge of Hitler's crazy) that it might be worth a watch.

 

It was.

81

I've got an odd pc question --

I can't get audio to play on youtube. I can run the clips, but no volume. And it's only on youtube. Any other form of media runs just fun. In fact, all other forms are just fine.

(Yes, before anyone asks, I've rebooted several times).

I don't have a youtube account so it's not like I log in and set specific preferences.

It's driving me batty. Anyone have any thoughts??

Thanks.

Posted by: laceyunderalls at April 21, 2010 08:53 PM (kxTnL)

I've had that problem in the past.

Fixed it by going into Windows Control Panel. Unfortunately there's like a dozen places there where you can mess with your audio there so you have to look around -- but every time I had that problem that's where I fixed it.

It seemed to stop after I regularly upgraded flash player. Download or update Adobe Reader and your problem will prolly go away.

82 76 Oh God, now this dick STEELE is picking up the old leftist lie about the "Southern Strategy"?

He's still around because WHY?

Posted by: The War Between the Undead States at April 21, 2010 09:26 PM (QOLCO)

Because we can't take the gloves off!

83 Some kind person put up an instructional video;

Hitler and Friends Explain How to Make a Hitler Parody

84 I wonder how long this clip will stay up??? I downloaded it so it will not be lost!

85 for any Justice to take into account "women's rights" when interpreting the Constitution.

Just not women's right to buy a jar of tomato sauce cooked with salt...or a woman's right to know when her underage daughter is being taken out of school to have a "medical procedure" done.

86

Posted by: laceyunderalls at April 21, 2010 09:24 PM

Yeah, I saw that too.  My first thought was, no kidding, genius.  That's like saying "I promise to ensure that my nominee is in favor of voting rights for non-whites."  It's a given.

I'd also like to compliment President Obama (May he live for ever) on a truly breathtaking attempt to pander to all the women he's pissed off.  Next month:  Federal subsidies on Coach purses and shoes!

87 81 Fixed it by going into Windows Control Panel. Unfortunately there's like a dozen places there where you can mess with your audio there so you have to look around -- but every time I had that problem that's where I fixed it.     That was my experience too.  The fix was not in the first/most obvious place I tried.

88 My reading on the Constitution doesn't recall language of "women's rights" but then again I'm not a Constitutional law school professor adjunct, so what do I know.

Only part of the Constitution I can think of that specifically addresses women is the 19th Amendment, and unless women are being turned away from voting booths en masse I don't know what Barry's on about.

89 When Vista keeps locking up it means you are not posting enough boobie pics on the internet.

90 85 My body, my choice, my salt!!

91 Kobayashi Maru from Wrath of Khan

92

lacy, is your PC plugged in?

Make sure it's plugged in.

93 I'd love to give money to Djou right now. Unfortunately, California and Washington DC had their yearly telethon last week. My ass still hurts too much to reach for my wallet.

94

Posted by: The War Between the Undead States

I can't think why, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the part he's referring to is the one that involves vacuum hoses and fetal tissue

95 86 I'd also like to compliment President Obama (May he live for ever) on a truly breathtaking attempt to pander to all the women he's pissed off.  Next month:  Federal subsidies on Coach purses and shoes!     I'm thinking this is a direct payoff for the Obamacare Stupak doublecross (as far as the feminazis were concerned).   BTW, I keep placing blank lines between the previous comment I copy and my new text, but everything shows up all smushed together.  Let's see if this one is any different.

96 So the holders are entirely within their rights to demand they come down -- but are they ever stupid for doing it.

Yeah.  Like Metallica suing their fans over Napster.

Somewhere, there are a half-dozen teenagers with a video camera and some Nazi-looking shirts from Urban Outfitters making a new parody.  Or maybe they'll do it in Legos.

97 I saw Downfall months before the first parodies came out. Definitely worth seeing. However the parodies are played out. Taking them down was over due.

Some one needs to bring back the Fanta Shokata vids though.

98 It was. Anthony Beevor's Battle of Berlin and Max Hastings' Armageddon are required reading if you want to really understand how horrible the last days of the Reich were (both for the victors and the vanquished). Everyone is always offended when I tell them that the Wehrmacht was the best army in the 20th century. The most evil, yes; but also the best. They had the best equipment, the best commanders, and the best-trained soldiers of any army in the world -- and this remained true until nearly the end of the war. It took three vast armies -- American, Russian, and European allies -- to defeat them, and even at the last they were still manufacturing ammunition and maneuvering units. Had Hitler been slightly less crazy, or Stauffenberg managed to kill him off, it's quite likely that the Nazis would have won the European war. Hitler fucked himself by pre-emptively declaring war on the US; had he refrained, FDR would probably have not had the political support for a European war and would have focused on the Japanese. The Nazis would have defeated England in fairly short order because America would not have broken the Kriegsmarine's blockade, and then the Nazis would have focused their full attention on Russia. World War II was a much more closely-run thing than people realize. (Though Japan never had a prayer of defeating the US, they might have been able to wangle a truce had the Nazis won the European war.)

99 95

Posted by: The War Between the Undead States

I can't think why, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the part he's referring to is the one that involves vacuum hoses and fetal tissue

Posted by: Secundus at April 21, 2010 09:35 PM (WuvMD)

Really?

100 85 My body, my choice, my salt!!

Ironically, saline solution is often employed in "choice." 

101 Do fake boobs get no saline either? The horror.

102 89 When Vista keeps locking up it means you are not posting enough boobie pics on the internet.

In Rum's case it usually means she has too many human-soul downloads going on at one time.

103 That was fuckin' funny.

104

Lacey, there's no problem. 

We just don't approve of anyone actually listening to Coldplay.

105 101 85 My body, my choice, my salt!!

Ironically, saline solution is often employed in "choice." 

Posted by: HeatherRadish at April 21, 2010 09:38 PM (OkT2m)

 

True, ask the 30 million chinese dudes without women how they like that!!

106 89 When Vista keeps locking up it means you are not posting enough boobie pics on the internet.
  Sifty, your helpfulness towards us Vista girls is noted.  You're obviously all about the giving.

107

Unfortunately, California and Washington DC had their yearly telethon last week.

Heh-- you gave me the mental image of President Obama (may he live for ever) as a TV evangelist:

"Brothers and sisters!  Before you today, we have a very special boy!  He suffers, brothers and sisters, from terminal financial Alzheimer's, but WE CAN HEAL HIM!  For just one trillion dollars, we can make him whole!  The phone lines are open!  Just one trillion, my friends!..."

108 Hitler vs Khan !

109 Yeah.  Like Metallica suing their fans over Napster.

Bingo. That was the point at which my attitude toward Metallica went from "man, these guys suck now" to "fuck them forever".

110

Really?

Yeah, unbelievable, huh?

111 I've always heard students of World War II say that Hitler's doom was sealed when Von Paulus lost Stalingrad, but that's not obvious to me. Even then, Hitler could easily have consolidated his gains in Ukraine and the Baltics, and reinforced the southern line to Baku to take the oil fields. It was only his arrogance and impatience that doomed the Russian campaign -- Stalin was reeling, and was very nearly a spent force even after the Stalingrad "victory". Think about it: had the Nazis simply stopped in 1943 to consolidate their gains, they would have won by default. They owned Festung Europa and most of western Russia (even with a resurgent Red Army), and if they had retrenched and not broken themselves in the East, they could easily have repelled the Allied invasion in Normandy in 1944. (Remember that Kesselring held Italy until the very last; the US forces never did push him all the way out.)

112 The Dude was right about Metallica.

113

I also need to keep an eye out for the Nisin Maru...

Those guys chased me all over the Southern Ocean!

114

One more thing -- after searching around Windows Control Panel I'd find an audio setting (somewhere) set to zero. Some sort of default to catch your attention I guess. It drove me nuts because I had a had a new $75.00 headphone that I thought I had broken its wires. Because I can break shit shit just by looking at it.

I've turned all of the automatic update stuff on my computer off because all that crap makes starting so much longer and it bogs down my box. After months of not upgrading Adobe Reader when it begged me to I finally broke down and upgraded and haven't had audio problems since.

115 Hitler was doomed the minute he forgot what happened to Napoleon.

116 Open threadish enough from me to softly call here.

What? it's San Jacinto Day, and thus Muster.

Here, motherhumpers!

117

Hahaha! Yes, everything is plugged in but it wouldn't matter if it wasn't--cord free, baby!

And I have all my Coldplay on iTunes and have no need for that on iTunes, thank you very little!

118

Yeah.  Like Metallica suing their fans over Napster.

Anybody see that documentary they made, Some Kind of Monster?  I went from being a fan to hating them simply on the basis of that thing.  They were paying a shrink 40k a month to sit in on their recording sessions and listen to them piss and moan about their feelings.

It's a good thing they quit booze and drugs, obviously, but here's the thing:  You can be an insanely awesome metal band OR you can whine in front of a camera.  Not both.

119 111 Really?  Yeah, unbelievable, huh?     That was my take too.  Dog whistle that he wants a justice that'll go for federal funding of abortions.  Of course with Zero, it's all BS; I don't think he really cares one way or the other.  But he needed to counterbalance the Stupak thing somehow, and he can check that off his list now.

120 My favorite Hitler parody is still there.

121

You all Love Me!

 

122 Hitler vs Khan II

123 Hitler fucked himself by pre-emptively declaring war on the US; had he refrained, FDR would probably have not had the political support for a European war and would have focused on the Japanese. The Nazis would have defeated England in fairly short order because America would not have broken the Kriegsmarine's blockade, and then the Nazis would have focused their full attention on Russia.

Exactly. And I've never understood why he did that, other than as an attempt to honor the Tripartite Pact -- but since when did Hitler ever feel like honoring agreements? His plan had always been to leave the U.S. alone while dealing with Europe and the Soviets, consolidating his power for a while, and then going after America much later, probably in the '50s. But when he declared war on us he blew that whole plan and sealed his fate.

124 .

125 They had the best equipment,

Excuse me?

126 They had the best equipment,

WTF?

127 They had the best equipment,

Say what?

128 Hitler was doomed the minute he forgot what happened to Napoleon. That's a fallacy. It's true that only part of the Wehrmacht was mechanized and that much of their army traveled by foot or by horse, but it was Hitler's abominable planning and not "General Winter" that defeated them. Had the Wehrmacht been competently provisioned, they easily could have taken Moscow. As it was, they very nearly did. (And might as well have, since Stalin panicked and sent everything east across the Urals.) I have never bought into the mythos of the Red Army. It was a horrible force, led by a man even more evil and crazy than Hitler, and led by mostly incompetent generals (though they did have standouts like Rokossovsky and Dribunin). That's why I always say that it didn't really matter who won the war in the East, because one was as bad as the other.

129 They had the best equipment,

Come now.

130 They had the best equipment,

Umm.

131 Interesting trivia about the Russian T-34: it was partially based on designs by an American named Walter Christie, who couldn't interest the American military. (The Sherman tank's only advantage was that it could be built quickly; otherwise it was a piece of shit nicknamed "The Ronson" by its crews because it burned so easily.) The P-51 Mustang was the best prop-driven fighter ever built, but it didn't show up in significant numbers until 1945. And the Nazis had a vastly superior plane, the Me262, the first real jet aircraft, by then. Had they produced the Me262 in sufficient quantities, it would have destroyed the American air cover. (The Nazis also screwed up royally by focusing on light bombers and fighters rather than heavy bombers as the Allies did.) The Germans also had the first cruise missiles (the V1), the first ballistic missiles (the V2), the first modern submarines (the Unterseeboot with a schnorkel for extended underwater operation), and the best light and heavy machine guns of any of the major combatants. (The AK47 was largely derived from an earlier German assault-weapon design.)

132

The big lesson the Kirstey Alley learned from Cheers is that the female lead can be easily replaced.  That's why if they have a re-union, she's going to be ready to try out for "Norm".  If I was George Wendt, I would sleep with one eye open.

133 Kobayashi Maru

I am not a trekki, so I had to pull it up on wiki.

Hmmm, the everybody dies if you act emotionally military exercise.

The real mind-screw is that if you don't commit an act of passionate aggression, and everybody dies, by violating another's space militarily, you failed.

Meanwhile, unrelated news...
Tea Leaf Reading...Admiral Mullen Refuses To Say The US Would Rule Out Firing On Israeli Planes Over Iraq On The Way To Iran

134 by violating NOT another's space militarily, you failed.

135 I've never understood the Kobayashi Maru test.   So, you're tricked.  Shields up, full spread of torpedoes and run like hell.

It's a liberal panty-waste (Morons, please note the correct spelling) mind-melt  - you in Star-Fleet (tm) are to die meaninglessly.

136

We need to be more worried about Toyota Maru

137 The Kobayashi Maru scene is not realistic.

In a no-win-certain-death situation, everybody would be screwing on the floor of the bridge.

138 The Germans' 88mm gun was pretty much the single best weapon in the war. Cordially...

139 127 They had the best equipment,

Rubbish!

140 In a no-win-certain-death situation, everybody would be screwing on the floor of the bridge.

Or looking for Ensign Lefler down in Engineering.

141 The Kobayashi Muru Test; What do you do when you're truly fucked?

142 142 The Germans' 88mm gun was pretty much the single best weapon in the war.

We can think of a better one

143 What do you do when you're truly fucked?

Good question - I actually T-FUBARed a week long filed command post exercise before the second day as a combat engineer staff peon - it was a Division river crossing exercise... (fade flashback...)

a month or so earlier I got some sweet hydrologic dam-break analysis software and in the course of trying it out on real life dams in a certain foreign country, found that I could work the floods back upstream (manually) and coordinate even bigger devastation by timing the modeled dam breaks... got bored with the little stuff and mechanics of the dam-break program and decided to run an analysis on all the big damns in the country...

(back to present) ... looking at our Division map and our forces approaching the exercise river crossing point I recognized that, NOT on our mapboard, off our upstream flank was a big ass dam I had just recently run a damn break on (30+/- meter flood for about a week at our position).

Briefed my boss, gave him the transparency overlays I made a couple of weeks ago... and off he goes to brief the General on the Division Engineer's take...

Basically, our Division decided to hold off the river crossing until big ass damn was secure. PERIOD. for whatever reason - Game Over Man!

Out of the field almost 5 days early.

What do you do when you're truly fucked?

Don't fuck yourself.

144 What am I, chopped liver?

Posted by: Robin Curtis at April 21, 2010 08:46 PM (QOLCO)

Yes.

145 Monty, the Soviets were horribly overrated. But they had a willingness to spend bodies, had more real estate than Germany could occupy, and Germany's bad decisions just compounded that.

And the P-51's were flying escort missions over Berlin in March '44. This from a grad school paper I just did:

OK, never mind, Pixy's fucking piece of shit software that allows the spam through rejected a cut and paste paragraph. Go fuck yourself, Pixy.

Besides, Hitler could have had all the Me-262's he wanted, but they would have been grounded for lack of fuel. Even at its height, Germany only possessed three percent of the world's supplies versus 90 percent for the Allies, and the one German attempt to capture one Caucasus oil field was a fucking disaster.  Once they lost access to the Romanian fields, that was it.

146 Monty @ #133-

     "The P-51 Mustang was the best prop-driven fighter ever built, but it didn't show up in significant numbers until 1945."

     I have to quibble with your above assertion.  P-51s were present in very significant numbers by D-Day in 1944.  In 1945 they were present in overwhelming numbers against the Luftwaffe.  you raise an interesting point about the ME-262 though.  It is interesting to speculate on what would have happened if Hitler had not tried to turn it into a fighter-bomber instead of allowing it to continue development as a straight fighter.

147 The way you beat a ME-262 force with P-51 Mustangs is deal with its three weaknesses.

1. Lousy range. It can only fight effectively near its bases.

2. It's very vulnerable on landing. That's how most 262's shot down were lost. Allied fighters followed them home and tore them up when they were out of gas and heading for the ground.

3. It requires lots of spare parts. The engines had to be pulled and rebuilt every few flights. Spare parts resupply is a logistics line you can target and break. Same with the Tiger tanks. The Germans only built one spare engine for every ten tanks. That's why they spent so much time coming and going from depot-level repairs in Germany, the spare parts didn't exist in the forward force.

148

Without their officers, the Russian Army was an out-of-control mob, and the incompetence and the brutality of Russian officers and nco's caused the unnecessary deaths of many Russian soldiers. Even today, their army isn't worth a shit, as was evidenced by the extent to which they had their asses handed to them in Afganistan, despite all of their technological advantages.

What set American and British soldiers apart from Japanese, Thai, German, Italian and Romanian soldiers was their independence of thought, ingenuity and resourcefulness, and their ability to fight on their own individually or in small fire teams without direction or control from officers and nco's. Suffice to say, U.S. and British soldiers are the finest in the world. They are the model for all of the troops in NATO.  Ignore Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's bravado. I wouldn't be surprised if he is changing his underwear twice a day and drinking Imodium AD cocktails every afternoon. In the history of this planet, there has never been a military like that of the USA.

149 The Ruskys won that war.  If they had not bleed them white, the US and Great Britian by themselves could not have won in 1945.   

150

#155 - Bullshit. In many respects, the Russians were more of a hinderance than a help. By their very nature, they are not team players. Their attitude was exasperating all during that war.

151 #155, bullshit. Admittedly we propped the USSR up from 1941 to 1945 with Lend-Lease, over half a million wheeled vehicles of all types, half their air force, and food by the shipload, but the Russians at least earned that largesse. But it was the opening of the Western Front that genuinely won the war. When they did, they faced a broken German war machine. The Allies had invested three years in shaping operations on sea, air, and land, to make that happen. Everything came together in sequence, and it was still a close-run thing. The Germans had to make their fair share of mistakes to make that war winnable.

152

"When they did, they faced a broken German war machine."

There are members of the 101st Airborne who would disagree with you;  the men who fought well-equipped, overwhelming German forces at Wilhermina Canal at Son and at Bastogne.

153 The Germans had to make their fair share of mistakes to make that war winnable. Yep. As I've said: had Hitler been less of a nut, or his generals less in thrall to him, the Nazis could very well have won the war in 1943. Many people argue that the Red Army alone pretty much beat the Nazis, but this is a fallacy in many ways. The Red Army was a hopeless force clear into 1943, and only prevailed through the worst kind of attrition tactics and profligate use of weapons and ammunition. (Stalin actually killed more Russians in that war than Hitler did, both through direct murder and through his ridiculous insistence that soldiers "hold" ground that had already been lost -- the great encirclements of the early battles lost the Red Army literally millions of men, many of whom died of exposure and disease at hands of their captors.) It was this absolute brutality on the eastern front that led many historians to call the contest "scorpions in a bottle", because neither Hitler or Stalin cared a whit for the lives of their soldiers or civilians. It was Allied action in Europe in 1944 that engaged the best German units, who had been held in reserve for just such a day. Had Hitler committed these units to the Eastern front earlier (or simply consilidated his gains in Ukraine and the Baltics), he could have shifted many of his forces from east to west and pushed the Allies off the continent by August of 1944. The Germans never really quit, not even when it was a bloody fight for inches in Berlin. The Russians lost about 400,000 casualties in that one campaign alone, with about 90,000 KIA. And this was against a Wehrmacht that was composed mainly of reservists, boys as young as 12, and comb-outs from field hospitals. Ammunition factories were still pumping out ammunition even when the enemies were at the gates. And the Red Army, as an invading force, proved even more brutal than the Nazis had been. Rape was nearly omnipresent -- few German women escaped it, and many were murdered afterwards. As I've said before: in terms of pure evil and human suffering, it was a toss up between Stalin's regime and Nazi Germany. It really didn't matter who prevailed; it meant yet more death and suffering for those who survived the carnage of the war.

154 .

155
Monty, your analyses of the Wehrmacht and World War II are riddled with errors and highly arguable conclusions. You state them well, however.

156 Its not really that surprising that Kirstie Alley remembers the Kobayashi Maru -- she was an actress in the Star Trek film where it was introduced. She was a principal actress in the /scene/ where it was introduced. She had dialogue about it.

157

I know its a dead thread, but the Me262 (Schwalbe) required lower grade fuel than other fighters. Watch Wings of the Luftwaffe, the pilots charged with ferrying them to Britain said 'simply the most devastating aircraft of the war'  With 4 30mm cannon to shred anything in your way and 150mph speed advantage, nothing could touch it (until landing or takeoff). Most were found underground being converted to bombers by order of the master aircraft designer and tactician A. Hitler.

158

Wikipedia says Kobayashi is the 9th most common Japanese surname, so I guess we'll all think of different people.

For me, it was Takeru Kobayashi. (Six consecutive titles at eating Nathan's hot dogs.)

159 #158, that was my regiment of the 101st that grabbed the bridge at Son. I've interviewed a bunch of those guys. But a local tactical advantage against a lightly armed parachute force does not mean the Germans could sustain a defense against the Allies. Germany had no tactical air support, insufficient fuel, and by September 1944 when the vehicle losses of the French battles were totaled up, only ten percent of the Wehrmacht remained motorized.

160 Kirstie gets nekkid in the movie Blind Date. In the dvd extras it happens over and over and over and over... um, I'll be in the back room.

161 penis büyütücü