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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."
Goatse!
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.
Hey! I had the first pentagram comment! You need to pay me royalties or otherwise Jesus is going to kick your ass!
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No, I'm sorry, our troops today are engaged in atrocities around the world.
While they are not responsible for the policies they are being asked to enact, it hardly seems fitting to honor them for their sacrifice when we're looking at over a million dead Muslims by their hand.
This Memorial Day, I'm remembering those who we have killed for no reason whatsoever.
And praying that we end this madness.
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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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You're attacking my blog, so that is a different subject altogether.
p art-2.html
The comment about Sifry being Jewish makes no sense unless you read this and this post.
My only intent in the first post is to mock this thing we call Memorial Day. I'm sure the Nazis had their version of Memorial Day as well. I see no reason to celebrate either.
I find it difficult to honor people for committing atrocities. To be sure, America fought wars for freedom but that is once upon a time stuff. Today we are fighting wars for greed, racist hatred, and just because we're really good at it.
I'm not celebrating this shit, and so I think my comments are appropriate.
Wave your flag, just don't do it in my face, OK?
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http://holocaustnow.blogspot.com/2007/01/mad-rip-
If you don't know what Cmd-Shift-1 and Cmd-Shift-2 are for, GTFO.
If you think Firefox is a decent Mac application, GTFO.
If you're still looking for the "maximize" button, GTFO.
If the name "Clarus" means nothing to you, GTFO.
Bandwagon jumpers are not welcome among real Mac users. Keep your filthy, beige PC fingers to yourself.
t's the whole religious nut aspect where the pentagram is supposed to actually have some evil spiritual meaning...
I sympathize, but I wonder, how do you feel about the use of symbols like the Christian cross or the American flag to justify every manner of barbarity.
It isn't just the Pentagon. It's also the star in our flag. And it's what we do around the world.
The symbols are important, only because our population is comprised mainly of poor fools who know how to respond to nothing else.
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The biggest shared project of U.S. citizens and the U.S. government, by far, is killing other people. Every U.S. citizen works an extra two months a year so that he or she can contribute to the killing.
The least sophisticated way of relating to other people is killing them. The blowback from that is obvious on any street in the United States. People are unhappy because they have been killing other people. They react to their unhappiness, increasingly, by eating too much. The U.S. is now the most obese nation on earth, in the history of the world. The ugliness of what U.S. citizens do is now apparent even just looking at their bodies.
I've tried to document some of the killing, but it is far, far too big a job for one person working without pay just for the love of his country: History surrounding the U.S. wars with Iraq: Four short stories .
The U.S. government has killed directly or indirectly about 11 million people since the end of the second world war. Most of them were killed for profit, but many of them were killed because there are people in government who like to kill, especially because someone else pays. A lot of government killing happens for the same reason that people like to play violent video games: They don't know any better way to handle the anger they have because they received bad parenting.
The U.S. government has become much more corrupt, and there is a danger the U.S. will become a (hidden) dictatorship: George W. Bush comedy and tragedy.
it hardly seems fitting to honor them for their sacrifice when we're looking at over a million dead Muslims by their hand.
Q. What do you call a million dead Muslims?
A. A good start!
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?
The beauty here is that, I don't need to do anything to you. You're doing it to yourself.
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listen you fucking pansy. this is slashdot, where everybody's opinion (and moderation) MEAN NOT ONE FUCKING THING in the real world. you DO have a real life right? you need to quit bashing our troops, you need to respect holidays commemorating the dead, you need to quit crying because someone in the past gave you a negative moderation. you fucking cry-baby! look at what you're typing (saying), then ask yourself if your being "censored' for a reason. pray that I never meet you in person...
the significance of a signature is insignificant
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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A. Not enough dead Muslims.
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!