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How the Pentagon Got Its Shape
Pcol writes "The Washington Post is running a story on the design process for the Pentagon building and why it ended up with its unusual shape. In July 1941 with World War II looming, a small group of army officers met to consider a secret plan to provide a permanent home for War Department headquarters containing 4 million square feet of office space and housing 40,000 people. The building that Brig. Gen. Brehon Burke Somervell, head of the Army's Construction Division, wanted to build was too large to fit within the confines of Washington DC and would have to be located across the Potomac River in Arlington. "We want 500,000 square feet ready in six months, and the whole thing ready in a year," the general said adding that he wanted a design on his desk by Monday morning. The easiest solution, a tall building, was out because of pre-war restrictions on steel usage and the desire not to ruin Washington's skyline. The tract selected had a asymmetrical pentagon shape bound on five sides by roads or other divisions so the building was designed to conform to the tract of land. Then with objections that the new building would block views from Arlington National Cemetery, the location was moved almost one-half mile south. The building would no longer be constructed on the five-sided Arlington Farm site yet the team continued with plans for a pentagon at the new location. In the rush to complete the project, there was simply no time to change the design."
1941 and they were already considering a permanent home for the "War" department. In a country where the army was not to be a standing army and it was to be all-volunteer? Typical.
Here's a idea to get rid of the Empire quickly: pass a Constitutional amendment that no military troops can be paid or reimbursed, ever. This way, the only reason why men will go to war is a real one -- real fear that their families, friends and properties may see harm.
Good article, by the way.
If you are in IT, construction, or just about any other business where one has to deal with stringent project deadlines, you know exactly how true this situation is.
If you are in the study of genocide, and policies tantamount to same, you know how much bullshit is spent by those complicit in the atrocity to defend these policies.
I never suggested there was a pentagram in the basement of the Pentagon, only that, given what they are asked to do in Afghanistan and Iraq, and soon Iran and Syria, that confusing the Pentagon with the Pentagram is only natural.
Not everybody is stupid.
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No, we still weren't allowed to kill _everybody_, we were trying to "free" them. Worked well, as you stated.
I can finish of the insurgency in Iraq with one word: nukes. I'd put one in Afghanistan, too. Actually, Afghanistan should have been first.
That's right, one large piece of radioactive glass. We'll call it "New Arizona" and in a few thousand years resettle it. Thing is, the US military (or, at least, the administration) doesn't have the balls to fight to win. Modern militaries in first world countries have forgotton their pasts - any war where there are rules will always be decided in favor of the side which ignores the rules. We may as well wear bright red coats and march in a line at this point.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Just who are you trying to dehumanize with that statement?
You are so simple.
Of course, you can't dehumanize anyone with a statement.
It takes bombs and bullets and all of the other excrement we rain upon these people in the name of your rat monkey God and your rat monkey nation to truly dehumanize a person.
As I said, you are a monster. People who speak of other people as you do are monsters. It isn't the entirety of the slashdot community, or the entirety of the American electorate to be sure, technologies like megaphone and vote fraud see to that, but you do seem to carry the day and see to it that villainy triumphs over virtue and fraud supplants reason.
Don't worry. You'll win.
I just want it to be understood that I have nothing to do with you or your ilk. Permit me that small concession, please, as I am moderated into oblivion by the sheer weight of rat monkeydom.
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Excuse me, but what part of the Geneva Conventions has the US not followed?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!