Slashdot Mirror
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."
Here is the printable version ...
as noted at the bottom,
this this is an excerpt from an upcoming book The Pentagon: a History by Stephan Vogel. Newspapers tend to do these reprints over 3-day weekends since
not a lotta news happening -
here's something ... uhhhhh ... exciting happening today ... ;-)
Hulk SMASH Celiac Disease
Ever heard of the law of fives ?
That's a pretty good cover story. Really they had to radiation-shield the pentagram that locks down the devil at its center, with lots of authoritarian human bodies to absorb the extremely high frequencies that scorch souls.
--
make install -not war
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.
Historical trivia on how one of the most known military buildings in the world came to be, I'd say. If they thought the Pentagon was built that way to fit the enormous pentagram in the basement and that the US military is run by devil worshippers, they'd simply do so. Right up there with the flat earth society and those that believe the moon landing was a hoax. Both of which should be put on a one-way rocket to crash into the moon's surface, HHGTTG style so they'd hopefully realize their error along the way, but that's a different story.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
How the Pentagon Got Its Shape... (It's pentagonal.)
This vividly reminds me of "the time when the milkman was 47 minutes late"
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
At least they were honest back then. Now it is called the "Defense Department"?! HA!
Mind | Body | Spirit | Cash
of a post 9/11 Daily Show comment calling it "the quadragon". but no one really knows how that happened.
oh marmalade.
I kind of expected the definition of the origin of the math pentagon: "After 4 sides, a square, became so useful we had to think for years about how to top it.. and then it came to us: FIVE sides".
..."Rectangle", "Quadrilateral", and "Square", tested poorly in focus groups.
wow an anti-conspiracy theory guy on Slashdot? I didn't think you guys existed.
Bobo Mahoney
You mean all those conspiracy web sites that claim that the shape of the pentagon and capitol hill are giant satanic drawings are bullshit!?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
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.
But simple truth is way too mundane when compared to the rich fantasy available with conspiracy theories, Freemason plotting, The New World Order, Zionist global domination, Extraterrestrial influence, etc.etc. ad nauseam!
All this talk of technology and free software is a distraction. What really matters is our preparations and readiness for war.
Pretty much everything we do just conforms to the limitations of our environment. It's all we can really do, after all. That the Pentagon's shape happened because of an artificial "environment" (the shape of a plot of land) is irrelevant. And then, the shape wasn't changed when it was moved because of a lack of time...well, this is also pretty common, I think.
I'm not trying to pooh-pooh the article, but it's just kind of...well...you know, my shoe is shaped kind of oblong and rounded because, well, that's how feet are shaped. Isn't that amazing?
I guess what I'm getting at is...erm...why is this interesting? I guess the only news here is the bit about how it was shaped to fit one site, then moved. Riveting stuff, that.
gameDB
In more innocent days, the center ring, lower level of the Pentagon contained a mini-shopping mall (called the Concourse) with department stores, a bookseller and other shops, restaurants, a Post Office, and businesses such as dry cleaners. It was also a major transfer point for people taking public transportation (at that time it would've been all buses) into and out of Washington, DC.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Trivia: the Pentagon was constructed without regard for the curvature of the Earth. That's right, they just flattened the site out without even considering the effects of the curvature of the Earth.
This is proof that the Flat Earth Society was working in league with the Satanists and the Teamsters to create the cold war. Stalin was in on it, and so was Eisenhower and Truman. Pudge knows, but he's not saying. He's avoiding military service, because if he were caught by the terrorists in Iraq and the secret got out, it would be the end of our way of life. I salute you, Pudge, for keeping our secrets safe within the borders of the nation, and away from the terrorists in Iraq. Such a brave man.
Fascism trolls keeping me up every night. When I starts a preachin', he HITS ME WITH HIS REICH!
WW2 was a special time in the history of the public service. Projects were approved and built at a pace that embarrasses us today. Sure, the military had a bureaucracy but there was a war to be won. Everyone focused on being effective. Petty bureaucrats with petty bureaucratic concerns were swept aside.
The lessons were learned in WW1. When that war started, the British officer corps was incompetent. They were in charge of the empire's troops and there were massacres of Canadian, Australian, Newfoundland etc. troops. The colonies weren't about to put up with that. In fact there is a story that the Canadian prime minister hauled the British prime minister out of his chair by his lapels and made it very clear that, if there was another such massacre, the Canadians were going home. The incompetent British officers were replaced by competent colonials. By the time the Americans arrived, they had some very good models of military efficiency to copy. (You could also make the argument that they weren't that stupid in the first place.) In any event, when WW2 came along, the lessons learned in WW1 were still living memory.
Sadly, given enough peace time, the fat bloated bureaucracy rears its ugly head again. The meritocracy is suppressed. If we had to build another Pentagon today, it would cost too much and take too long, and some company close to certain politicians would get rich. In fact, looking at the corruption and waste of money in Iraq, I'm feeling very depressed.
I blame the freemasons.
Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Sides.
It isn't flamebait if it is the truth.
--
Censored by Technorati
Have a new defense department in a building shaped like a circle. The theme of the building being what goes around, comes around.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
At the risk of being way off-topic, the truth is the best flame-bait. Different people have different versions of the truth - try talking sense to anyone who believes in "Intelligent Design". Or who thinks Iraq isn't another Viet-Nam. Or who thinks Windows is the only "legal" operating system.
Kevin Smith on Prince
I'm not trying to imply that you personally are a conspiracy nut, and while I may not agree with your assessment of the US role in global politics, you have a right to your opinion.
It's the whole religious nut aspect where the pentagram is supposed to actually have some evil spiritual meaning (i.e. other than a mere trig concept) that I just can't identify with.
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.
A million? Why not use seven million in your delusion, then you'll be able to accuse the U.S. of killing more than the Jewish Holocaust.
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
As they say, the Devil is in the details...
The NSA: The only part of the US government that actually listens.
I take your point.
Under a different username, I once got modded -1, Insightful for speaking the truth, and it trashed my account (I went from excellent karma to, um, terrible or awful or whatever it's called, in just one post.)
As my fake sig might suggest, I have little patience for words used to justify my speech being deleted/censored/moderated/whatever.
--
Censored by Technorati
wow an anti-conspiracy theory guy on Slashdot? I didn't think you guys existed. - it is, of-course, a conspiracy.
You can't handle the truth.
They're using this fictional history as a way to cover up that Yog-Sothoth is imprisoned in the center. Certainly the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon was an attempt to free Yog-Sothoth (see the "Elder Sign" section).
Ah, never mind, I'm sure they'll get it right in rev 2.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Rushed work is crappy work.
Proper planning is expensive, but pays for itself in the long run.
Sometimes you have to rush, but we tend to rush things a lot more than we need to.
It sucks.
So we shouldn't bother honoring the persons killed in past wars in defense of our nation because we disagree (however strongly) with the war going on today?
Good solid thinking.
One area where the Brits and Americans had to relearn the lessons of World War I was anti-submarine warfare. Only after many ships were sunk, and lives lost, did they reinstitute the convoy system that had proved so successful in the previous war. It was if the allied navies had suffered a collective attack of memory loss and were determined to repeat all of their previous mistakes. In contrast, the Germans had developed and practiced new tactics to make more effective use of their modernized submarine fleet. The damage to the allies was only limited by the relatively small size of the German submarine fleet and design deficiencies in their torpedoes.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Point taken: we should all take time out to remember. However, maybe you're being hard on Taco? I mean, that's not even a headline; it's the fun tag that is usually ignored by most. And, to be fair, this is an article about a U.S. Military building, so not entirely orthogonal to the spirit of the day. Plus, he still has many hours left in the day to post articles about or mention things more relevant to Memorial day.
So be a little less prickly today. And don't forget to perhaps thank a serviceman who is still living; it isn't the expressed purpose of the day, but I'm sure they would be grateful anyway.
I generally post what I Think, not how I Feel. Try it sometime (it requires effort, but you can do it!).
To me religion and it's various symbols (crosses, stars, moons, etc.) seem to be but a mere crutch for those unable, or worse, unwilling to do their own thinking. As far as what the American flag symbolizes, I think you are deliberately portraying extreme negative symbolism represented therein in order to elicit a heated response from your fellow slashdotters, (On Memorial Day no less)
At this point I think you are simply trolling.
Perhaps if you stopped watching Fox News or drinking out of the toilet you'd know this already.
Lancet had Iraqi casualties at 655,000 and that was over a half year ago and doesn't count military.
And of course, that doesn't count what we did in Afghanistan, where we spent months bombing civilian targets that lay along the pipeline routes, bombings that took place long before we went after Tora Bora and bin Laden. And missed.
Add the sanctions under Clinton responsible for at least a half-million Iraqi dead. Add the millions dead from the Iran-Iraq war, which we clearly instigated. Or the Gulf War, which we probably manufactured (see April Glaspie). The depleted uranium getting into everything, including the mothers breast.
Most of the Bush White coming out of Afghanistan since the invasion is destined for Iraq as well, so we need to consider that too.
It is genocide and in truth the number is way over a million, it's in the many millions.
Your saying otherwise is no different than the "good" Germans denying the "Holocaust".
Please, have the heart to become human again, and stand against this atrocity.
--
Censored by Technorati
Was that your first post?
Today you have been modded down and your karma is still good.
Also the "full time professional Army" isn't winning in Iraq because the war was horribly mismanaged right after the fall of Baghdad.
The Iraqi police were fired (but kept their weapons), the factories (which provided jobs) that were in operation before Saddam was captured weren't opened back up, and the people that actually had some real experience governing (the Sunnis) were banned from... government.
So now you've got a bunch of armed unemployed Iraqis with nothing to do and al-qaeda whispering in their ear, and a bunch of novices running the government...
Here's to the crazy ones
There's a movie related to that experiment.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Wow, you haven't wandered far off-topic at all.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
Thank you mr. jack thomson. Your insight into the ingenius theory that people play violent video games because they want to kill another living being is undoubtable! Also the fact that only people who are raise with bad parenting play bad video games. Astonishing! You should get a nobel prize for such wonderful insight.
You never realize how much manually made unmanaged "linked" lists suck, till you have src.link.link.link.link...
I totally agree. Like all open source ventures, the quality just isn't there. The proprietary masons would have done it properly.
It's not wasting time, I'm educating myself.
"a million dead"
Aside from being a troll, you're a fucking liar.
No, it was under another username, I went in having excellent karma and an active accout, indeed, I had donated to slashdot under that account, and then when I posted on the subject of TWA 800 the moderation was so violent up and down that I ended up with shit karma and so I had to create a new account.
But I scored the coveted -1, Insightful moderation. You don't see that very often.
--
Censored by Technorati
Oh wait...
We weren't allowed to go after major NV cities/production centers, we weren't allowed to bomb Chinese supply convoys, often weren't allowed to go north of an imaginary line drawn on the map by our politicians.
Yeah, Vietnam is such an example of how unrestrained warfare can't work.
Please note that I don't like some of what happen in vietnam. On the other hand, we could of avoided much of it if it wasn't for politicians running the war. You don't win a war by holding back.
I also feel that part of the problems we're having in Iraq is that we've gotten too clean with our attacks. People are more afraid of the terrorists than they are of us.
I don't read AC A human right
Perhaps you aren't old enough to remember the Vietnam war, but I do. The US was never officially at war against North Vietnam, they spent ten years helping South Vietnam fight the Viet Cong insurgents. They dropped a few million tons of bombs in North Vietnam, for sure, just like they did on the Viet Cong supply routes in Laos and Cambodia, but they never attempted to invade North Vietnam.
If the US had wanted to win the Vietnam war they should have invaded North Vietnam. Land there in an amphibious attack and war would have been won in a matter of weeks. Likewise, if they want to win the Iraq war now, they should invade Syria and Iran. If the US Army had stopped at the German border after liberating France from Nazism they would have lost WWII.
Ever since Truman refused the MacArthur request to attack China during the Korea war, the US has had this doctrine of limited wars, fighting proxy armies as if the power behind them did not exist. A very expensive way to obtain limited results.
I saw something interesting in a documentary several years ago. The article may mention this, but as a /.er, I did not read the article. Anyways...
The courtyard of the Pentagon is sort of a casual area for the military personnel. They can go there to relax and not have to worry about saluting any of the 100s of other individuals from various branches, regardless of rank, who happen to be strolling the grounds or sitting on benches.
During the Cold War, the Soviets had their sky satellites fixed on the position of a large US flag and the structure beneath it right in the center of the courtyard, thinking there was some kind of missile silo hidden there. In reality, they were for years targetting a hotdog stand.
Software and Games for Wii's Opera Browser
I thought everyone knew this, but I guess not...
A pentagon is a very traditional shape for fortifications. Reason is very simple. If you have a pentagon shaped fort then each side of the fort can provide supporting fire to its two adjacent sides.
A sides on a square fort cannot provide supporting fire at all. Sides on a hexagonal fort can but with a hexagonal fort you can only get 50% of the defenders firing against an attack on a side. With a pentagonal fort you can get 60%. This basic fact makes a pentagon the most effective shape for a fortification, assuming no terrain features to change the situation.
It would be an amazing coincidence if The Pentagon was pentagonal for any reason but this.
The real reason was that certain other countries had a building with FOUR sides and the people who built the pentagon were thinking, fuck it all, we're going to FIVE BLADES..errr SIDES!!!
TLF
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Screw the pentagon, i want to know how this military building got its shape.
Most of the Slashdot community? Most of Americans? Most of Government? Most of humanity?
Just who are you trying to dehumanize with that statement?
Earlier up this thread you said "The symbols are important, only because our population is comprised mainly of poor fools who know how to respond to nothing else."
Setting aside your hubris and arrogance, the point that you have failed to grasp is that the Pentagon's shape may not be as "Symbolic" as previously surmised. But please continue to embarrass yourself and wallow in self pity all you like, it may be totally off topic, but it is a bit entertaining.
Which I assume is why America is having no problems in Iraq.
Deleted
"You don't win a war by holding back."
Yes, but how do you win a police action?
"Any war where there are rules will always be decided in favor of the side which ignores the rules."
Best observation all day. In fact, that pretty much applies to any sort of conflict, armed or otherwise.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Is this the way you honor your brothers sacrifice? He would have been real proud of you I'm sure.
I feel your pain :-)
What?
Try the Congo, or Dafar. Somalia is another place.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Anyone got figures handy on how many of these dead Muslims (however many there may be) were killed by other Muslims?
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Sure, nukes. And let's ignore the consequences of nukes, not only on the civilian populations of said countries (not to mention, one of said countries had absolutely nothing to do with attacks on the US), but of the surrounding countries that have nothing to do with this war. That's the answer!
The article details that Army officials noted with pleasure how the pentagonal shape recalled the era of pentagonal shaped fortifications.
Anyway, if you read at least the first page of the article you would have learned that the Pentagon was originally sited close to Arlington National Cemetery on an oddly shaped tract of land bounded on five sides, thus necessitating the five-sided nature of the building. When members of Congress and other officials protested that the monolithic design would obscure the view of Washington from L'Enfant's tomb, the building was moved to its current location.
When I was about nine years old, my father and I were discussing the shape of the Pentagon and the reasons for the unique shape of the building. I concluded that perhaps the shape recalled the branches of the military of government that occupied the various wings of the building; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Joint Chiefs/Secretary of Defense. That's what I thought, at least.
what freedoms are they fighting to protect
In this particular case, the freedom of civilization to live without states sponsoring radical terrorism.
The only freedom I see being protected by this war is the freedom for war profiteers to use the bodies of non-christians to increase the size of their bank account.
Some people certainly do, as is true in all wars (including WW/II, the war most people agree was necessary). The trouble with people like you is that you focus ONLY on that, rather than all the myriad, complex factors of the thing.
Tell me again why my bottle of water is a terrorist threat?
Because it's possible to mix two clear chemicals to produce a bomb. And before you link me to some idiot who says it isn't possible, John Carmack has actually demonstrated it using hydrogen peroxide (I'm too lazy to dig up the link, but he responded to someone else who said it wasn't possible).
And ask the average Iraqi citizen if they have more or less freedom under the Occupiers as opposed to under Saddam - you might be surprised.
The average Iraqi citizen doesn't have the faintest clue what freedom means after so many years of not having to think about it, particularly in a country with such a religion that dictates so many things. That said, it's interesting how many people voted in the election.
Anyway, there's a difference between security and freedom. Objectively, they certainly have more freedom. But many have a lot less security, so they'd probably say they are "worse off" now than they were before, which is completely different from freedom.
I have a feeling you're one of those people that would pull out the old quote of, "those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither." But apparently you believe that doesn't apply to the Iraqis, where you seem to think that having security is better than freedom.
(this will be my only post on the subject, since I don't want to get into yet another protracted debate that will go nowhere, so I will give you the last word, if you want it)
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Ahh your solution is to kill everyone who isn't you.
I bet you didn't play very well with others at school, or were you the one they all made fun of and this is what you turned into?
The other way to stop people whose country you royally fucked up from trying to kill you is to simply STOP.
Bush and Blair ate my sig!
Within every disorder there is order, just as within every order there is disorder. This is called the Hodge-podge.
I am not a KFSC.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
i always thought it was one side for each military branch
1. army
2. navy
3. air force
4. marines
5. coast guard
i thought each side of the building was devoted to that military branch's offices
is that something that just farted into existence in my subconscious?
i swear i heard that somewhere
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
In all seriousness, how many buildings actually have to care about that? Probably half are owned by Boeing and the other half by NASA.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Comment removed based on user account deletion
It's just because the middle east is outside of his monkeysphere.
Fnord.
Can we please get rid of the attitude that WWII started on 7 December 1941. I always find it interesting that the British (and even the occupied Dutch) declared war on Japan the same day the Americans did, but not only did the Americans take two years to declare war on Germany, they didn't even declare war on Germany first--Germany declared war on the US! Looming indeed!
I'd put one in Afghanistan, too. Actually, Afghanistan should have been first.
Yeah, what exactly do you think that'll do, move the rocks around?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
Headquarters at Bergstrom Air Force Base, Austin, Texas, was a circle. The building is now the Hilton Austin Airport Hotel after the base was converted into the new civilian airport. Reportedly, the old SAC war room is now the hotel ballroom, and a number of retired officers came for New Year's Eve 2001 as the hotel was opening and stayed in their old offices.
They say the mind is the first thing to
Actually you're about as similar as is possible, personality-wise, as those you "blog" about so vitriolicly. You both discard logic for emotion, you're rabidly racist, and you have a fundamental lack of critical thinking skills. Look over at the kettle, pot, then look in the mirror. You're a nice, deep black. I would say you should be ashamed of yourself, but I don't think have the basic human decency to feel shame at your wasted life.
Er.. WWII started in 1939 (with pre-war practice in China starting in 1931-37). By 1941 it was well under way.
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
From the summary: "In July 1941 with World War II looming"
A wee bit late, no?
"any war where there are rules will always be decided in favor of the side which ignores the rules."
So we're winning in Iraq because we're refusing to follow the Geneva Convention?
"I can finish of the insurgency in Iraq with one word: nukes"
And thereby begin 1,000 new insurgencies against the US everywhere else.
In this particular case, the freedom of civilization to live without states sponsoring radical terrorism.
That'd be us, right?
The trouble with people like you is that you focus ONLY on that, rather than all the myriad, complex factors of the thing.
What myriad complex factors led GWB to topple Iraq's fovernment and, in so doing, destabilize the region with no real exit strategy?
The average Iraqi citizen doesn't have the faintest clue what freedom means after so many years of not having to think about it, particularly in a country with such a religion that dictates so many things. That said, it's interesting how many people voted in the election.
Shows what you know. Iraq was a secular state, and that is why it was fairly stable - one brutal guy keeping everybody in line while not really taking sides in the religion thing. Of course, now the average IRaqi probably thinks freedom means having to worry about being blown up by some guys who think they worship Allah in the wrong way, or shot by some hired mercenaries for no reason. I very much doubt, though, that they distinguish between regular army and Blackwater.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
On the other hand, we could of avoided much of it if it wasn't for politicians running the war.
Politicians always run wars, particularly in modern times. The application of force is a function of politics, not the other way around, and therefore will always be constrained by political considerations.
--
$tar -xvf
Finally a good Free Masons joke!
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
I'd guess you bike to work? 'Cause you just determined that having radioactive oil is preferable to using a more deliberative approach.
--
$tar -xvf
What does that have to do with anything? It doesn't matter what kind of regime Iran has, funding insurgents in Iraq to make things difficult for the US is in their best interest, as that makes it harder for the US to attack Iran. And in case you haven't noticed, the US is building a missile shield in eastern Europe with the purpose of nullifying the Russian nuclear deterrent, so the reason Russians are arming Iran is hardly because of a purely "economic motive". As for the Chinese, Taiwan. In case it needs elaborating, more US resources wasted in the middle east = less US resources available to defend Taiwan.
A pentagon shaped building is cool. Squares are for nerds.
Camping on quad since 1996.
Two lines and a triangle got a bit tipsy at the company holiday party. The rest, as they say, is history.
Politicians always run wars, particularly in modern times.
Politicians start and end wars, they should stay out of the fighting of them, or at least listen to the military advisors.
Basically, they should give the military a goal, then let the military figure out how to impliment it.
Requiring senatorial approval to target individual SAM sites isn't how you should run things.
I don't read AC A human right
What is an elephant?
It's a mouse built to military specifications.
Not surprised they built a five-sided building.
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
I know this is off-topic, but it bears saying.
Not just Jews died under the Nazis, but everybody seems to forget that.
I am not trying to minimize the plight of the Jews, just trying to remind everyone that they weren't the only ones who died.
They are the only ones we seem to remember. A whole ton of Roma died too, and it is STILL ok in Europe to screw them over.
The entire world knows that American hot dogs are dangerous.
In fact, the 18th century designers of Washington, DC inscribed an inverted pentagram into the street system, with the southern point being what would become the Washington Monument (itself loaded with Masonic stones). A less strong argument can be made for the Pentagon itself. If you can get past the UFO talk and specious arguments, this map shows that one of the five points of the Pentagon points to the Washington Monument and another of the five points to George Washington's home in Mt. Vernon.
you should've super-imposed a pentagon on goatse and posted that instead.
failure.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Well you start by having people trained to be police rather than soldiers...
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Hold up... skyline!! What skyline? DC has laws stating that no buildings may be over 20 feet taller than the width of the street they face. What DC has is a profound lack/i> of skyline!
Poor urban planning and laws like this have, of course, caused many of the city's problems. The sprawl around DC is absolutely unbelievable.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
if only we got such intelligent humour more often around here
dang, I'm outta mod points.
I could guess the only other building that even comes close is in Romania, Bucharest... namely, the building formerly known as "Casa Poporului" ("house of the people"). It was one of the most megalomaniac projects of former "Socialist Republic of Romania" Communist party leader Nicolae Ceausescu.
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
We bombed the shit out of civilians (Tokyo, Dresden, Hamburg etc etc). The nukes killed far fewer people then conventional bombing as well as far fewer then would have died in an invasion. No the Japanese were not ready to surrender when we nuked them, learn some history. They wanted to keep China in exchange for ceasing hostilities. Using nukes on the Japanese was the right choice, no question.
It was total war on both sides.
We certainly didn't follow the Geneva conventions as they are currently re-interpreted by anti-war zealots. (e.g. Geneva conventions only apply to uniformed combatants, but the 'anti-war' folks today think they apply to insurgents.)
What we did was mostly constrain the looting and pillaging that has been a feature of just about all other armies/wars (e.g. The Soviets took everything that was or wasn't bolted down out of East Germany and all the other countries they rolled through.)
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The English and French leadership used their own men as cannon fodder thought out WWI.
Tactics simply hadn't caught up with weapons. Modern infantry tactics are all about mobility and flanking. America learned that in the Civil War. England and France had not learned it in WWI.
General Pershing was a hero for telling the English and the French that there was no way in hell American troops would be put under the incompetent English and French officer corps.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As the article says, it was originally designed as an irregular pentagon to fit a particular piece of land that was also an irregular pentagon.
When I was a kid, I always thought the shape of the Pentagon was a patriotic reflection of the shape of the five-pointed star on the American flag, Army Air Corps insignia, general's stars, etc.: connect the five points and you have a perfect pentagon. (Also, trim off the five arms and you're left with another.) The article mentions nothing about this, but it's hard to believe they didn't notice this.
Q: What does the "B." in Benoit B. Mandelbrot stand for? A: Benoit B. Mandelbrot
Not to pick a hole in the history but lets be clear that WWII with the Nazi regime in Germany committing genocide and the enforced slavery and prostitution going on in Japan started quite a few years before... by 1941 pretty much all of Europe was occupied and large parts of Eastern Asia were equally suffering.
So its interesting on the shape and all... but its only on the verge of the US entering WWII, most certainly not on the verge of the war itself.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Nokilli is just pissed off because the girl he liked in high school married a soldier.
Judging by his writing skills, he wasn't in AP English.
Actually, that's a pretty good idea. One small tactical nuke at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue should do the trick.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
Wow, all this time I just thought it was a monument to Murphys law, four walls and a spare!
Or as I've heard from friends assigned there, the five sided squirrel cage!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
What really happened was: They said "Thy will be done Dark Lord", and began to build.
"we've got trenchcoats and bad attitudes" - John Constantine, HellBlazer
The Nazis began building U-boats again in 1935, and they were largely a continuation of WWI designs from 1918 or 1920 at the latest. They were small and cramped. The Type VIIC was the most common U-boat, and they began building in 1940, IIRC. They were only around 700 tons. For an example of how cramped they were, they had two heads, one of which was almost entirely used for stowage of provisions, and the entire crew (44?) had to use the one other head. It was not a pressure head, and could only be dumped either when surfaced or possibly near the surface. At any depth beyond that, the crew used buckets and cans and whatever else would hold the sewage until it could be dumped overboard once surfaced.
There was no forced ventilation system; they relied upon open hatches. Once surfaced, it took a long time for the ends of the boat to get fresh air. Combine that with buckets of sewage and you do not have a happy crew.
These problems were typical of the rushed repeat designs carried over from WWI. There were some design considerations between the wars, typically such as making safer electrical wiring and going to hydraulic controls, but nothing close to a proper design bureau.
Yes, convoys were introduced right in the beginning, and yes there was a severe lack of escorts. The US, altho not involved for two years, had a typical problem. They had rushed thru massive building programs in 1917 when they entered WWI, most of which (the famous flush deck four pipers) were not built until the war was over. As small as they were, and as obsolete as they gradually became, Congress was in no mood to discard them for new designs in the tight economy of the Depression of the 1930s. Those were the 50 ships transferred to the British, and in spite of them being half the necessary size, and having puny 3" guns in most cases, the British were glad to accept them, even after the war had been going on for a year, simply because they were desperate for escorts.
The Wolf Pack of WW II was thought up by Donitz long after WW I. It was not effective at first because there were so few U-boats. I believe there were only something like a dozen U-boats at sea at any given time during the first few months of war, including those in transit. These first U-boats had good pickings because they dove deeper than the British had expected and because the British were as unprepared as the Germans were. There were very few escorts to protect the convoys, but there were every few U-boats to take advantage of that. If you look at the stats, you will find that sinkings per U-boat dropped alarmingly as time went by, averaging something like one sinking per boat per month, annd most boats were sunk without ever having sunk any ships.
Contrary to your belief, contact exploders were by far the most successful. Both the US and Germans gave up on the too-clever idea of magnetic exploders and went back to the tried and true contact exploders. The US problems were compounded by having both magnetic and contact exploder problems, and by the original testing being done in cooler Atlantic waters as opposed to operational use (and failure) in the warm south and central Pacific. There were quite a few well documented cases of ships coming into port with unexploded torpedoes embedded in their sides.
There is a general myth about the superiority of the German military because they had so much secret development between the wars. Their U-boats were awful designs, successful only at first and only because the British were equally unprepared. Their battleships were lousy bang for the buck, being just overbuilt WWI designs with poor armor placement and poor guns; they survived only from being vastly overbuilt, not from good design. Compare the Washington (35,000 tons, 9x16 inch; 27 knots) vs the Bismarck (42,000 tons, 8x15 inch, 30 knots). Their tanks at the beginning of the war were no better than anybody else's; it was their continuation of their new late WWI strategy and the French continuation of old WW I strateg
Infuriate left and right
I actually think that the Pentagon is beautiful. However, I think its shape is too distinct, and is prone to aerial attack. A pilot would easily find it even without a map. Shouldn't such an important building have an ordinary shape, be camouflaged, or lie completely underground?
"In July 1941 with World War II looming, ..." - ????!!!!!!!
Up until 1941, the world, minus America, were just playing silly buggers.
.
Five is right out!
www.bannination.com Two things float to the top he
And for that matter how do you make a grilled cheese sandwich?
all those things... AND FREEDOM. Also Memorial Day remembers people who died. SERVING OUR COUNTRY, something you will never have the guts to do. And damn well right you better well not celebrate. Remember and mourn.
If you hate America SO MUCH leave it, never use the internet, an American invention. Never use the light bulb. Steam engine. Internal combustion engine. Radio. Refrigerator. Vacuum. Use slaves. Never use our imports, never use a phone, never export anything to us. Go live on an island. Come back when you appreciate everything that was sacrificed to make this country great.
"The quickest way to end a war is to lose it" -Orwell
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
Killing someone doesn't dehumanize them, you are an idiot to think so.
You mad
You can't be satisfied with merely *making* a grilled cheese sandwich.
You have to win it!
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
Basically, they should give the military a goal, then let the military figure out how to impliment it.
That would imply the military knows more than the politician about something. How's your ego going to feel when a bunch of dumb roughneck hicks with guns come up with a brilliant tactical strategy?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
and can drop rocks on anyone's head.
:)
If you worked for the Reader's Digest, they could sell it as a pamphlet!
(I'm going to borrow your explanation for future use).
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I'm not trying to pooh-pooh the article, but it's just kind of...well...you know, my shoe is shaped kind of oblong and rounded because, well, that's how feet are shaped. Isn't that amazing?
You're obviously not a woman. Take a look at the shape of some of their footwear sometime, and tell me it's not amazing.
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
...but they just didn't have the polygon counts back then. Computer Aided Design on the early von Neumann machines was not fun.
You morons make me laugh!
WWII was a war of necessity. We were attacked, and the enemy was of such consequence that if we did nothing, they stood the potentional of overwhelming us. Let me make that more clear. There was a VERY BIG chance that we would LOSE BIG in WWII. Everybody understood that.
Which is why the full resources of this nation were directed towards the war effort. The bulk of our federal budget. The bulk of our industry. The bulk of our economy. Every man, woman and child was called to help in whatever way possible they could to build that war machine.
Vietnam... And most certainly Iraq... These aren't threats to our nation.
Want proof? When did the President call up the CEOs of the Big Three auto companies and ask them to shut down car factories and retool them to build tanks or planes.
Hasn't happened.
Hell, Bush is doing everything he can to make certain the American people don't feel anything from the war. No tax hikes. No rationing(well except the high price of gas). Nothing. Go about your business. IN FACT, GO SHOPPING!
Vietnam and Iraq and wars of that sort are what you call Elective Wars. They are fought not because we have to, but because some moron politician decided he wanted a war and that war will continue as long as he's got the support of the electorate. Who love victory, but don't have a strong tolerance for collosal bungled failures.
It's a plain simple fact. Don't go to war unles you HAVE TO. This has been the rule since at least Sun Tzu. If you are not willing to commit everything to the victory, it's not worth fighting.
What's even more pathetic is for a while there, this was called the Powell doctrine. That is, until the blowhard sent our soldiers off to die in Iraq without the support of a nation. Hard to believe, but given he ran away from his own self when it was convenient, one can hardly call it the Powell doctrine today.
And I've heard all of the excuses from the moron classes to last me a lifetime. Boo hoo, we lost vietnam/iraq because of the media. Boo hoo, it was because they don't fight fair. Boo hoo, it was the American people are defeatists who run in the face of danger.
Instead of excuses and blaming others, why not take a man's route and admit to being wrong?
Well sweety, you see, when a hexagon and a quadrilateral love each other very much...
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
Do they? Or is that just what they want you to think?
Free as in mason.
Well, it starts by renaming enemy "soldiers" and "prisoners of war" to "combatants" and going downhill from there.
I'd say only the Great Wall (and the Great Wall isn't a building).
The curvature of Earth is on the order of 30 meters at more than 10 kilometers, or so.
The United States was not at war until December. From the perspective of the United States, the war was "looming".
Looming does not necessarily mean something doesn't exist yet. It just means it is on the horizon. Forgive me for not using the OED, but they don't seem to have an ad-supported online presence, and it'd be silly for everyone reading this to have to subscribe.
How many British do you suppose would have said the threat of war was "looming" in 1937 and 1938? Well, Japan had already invaded Manchuria in 1931 and Germany had already sponsored the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Japan invaded China in 1937. Germany annexed Czechoslovakia in 1938. So the conventional, "the war started in 1939" might sound a little Poland-centric to those countries.
So when, exactly, do you propose that the war definitively was not "looming" for any particular country? 1931?
BTW, the US, despite trying in vain to remain neutral, was doing swift business with those countries resisting Axis advances before it entered the war.
That wouldn't reach the Pentagon.
Learn to love Alaska
Not being a part of the Defense Department, the Coast Guard isn't even IN the Pentagon. Also, the Air Force didn't exist as a service at the time the Pentagon was built. So I don't think your theory holds up.
Yeah, and look how well that turned out for them! We're well down the path of giving up democracy in favor of empire, bread and circuses, etc, ourselves.
I could pick a few nits with this, but you're largely right. The question is, what is our continued presence likely to accomplish? The answer is, more of the same, but with our folks caught in the middle. The simple fact is that not even ORDER is going to be imposed on Iraq by us, to say nothing of DEMOCRACY. It's time to cut our losses and get out.
Additionally, those we're fighting NEVER signed the Geneva conventions, meaning they forfeit their rights to protections of the Geneva conventions. That's in the actual text of the Geneva conventions themselves. Both sides have to play by the rules or it doesn't apply. Given that one side doesn't wear uniforms, uses protected sites like churches, schools, and hospitals as staging grounds, attempts to use the general population as cover, and does not abide by the Geneva conventions pretty much guarantee they don't apply...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I can finish of the insurgency in Iraq with one word: nukes.
Thing is, the US military (or, at least, the administration) doesn't have the balls to fight to win.
Maybe you're right, if you assume as is often the case that "balls" are a complete but inadequate replacement for "brains". The military isn't waging war the way you suggest because they remember that "win" doesn't always mean "wipe out the enemy". In this case, we are supposed to be there to free people from repression, and while nuking them may free them from many things including this mortal coil, it would not in any way be a "victory".
Your solution is the same as kicking over the chessboard in a petulant rage and going home because you couldn't win the game you started out playing. Remember we waged this war by choice, so trying to turn it into some all-out war is ridiculous.
People keep positing inane "we lost Vietnam/are losing Iraq because we are too restrained!" theories which completely fails to see why we lost those wars, and what we were trying to win in the first place. Hint: There could be no victory in either conflict without the support of the locals. Escalating the level of violence used would only hurt that cause, and would only ensure that defeat comes sooner.
The enemies of Democracy are
Clearly the point was somewhat lost on you. Killing everyone who opposes me in warfare is, by definition, how you win a war. If you consider surrender and option for "winning," I must point out that surrender is the other side deciding not to oppose you - under pain of death - and since you've killed everyone else, ergo the definition above. There is absolutely nothing noble or desirable about war.
Note also that I did not say that we should have gone to war. We don't have any fucking business in the middle east. They can keep all their oil, for all I care - $8/gallon for gasoline is just fine with me, and I drive quite a gas hog (it's a truck; I actually use it for work). There is no useful way out of this conflict. Our idiotic^Willustrious leader has managed to make many of the same mistakes that were made in Vietnam. It's all the more surprising since his advisors were mostly involved with Vietnam after things were in total disarray.
Again, what I meant was that if you go to WAR, you must be willing to destroy your enemy completely, with no trace that they ever existed. Anything else is just sport. Thing is, this "sport" our administration is playing looks like war to them - and they are reacting properly to it. Those people really hate us, and they hate us more every day. We will win this war, or we will lose this war - there are no other outcomes. And, quite honestly, since turning Iraq into radioactive glass is not a realistic option either (since it is the only way to "win" this "war"). Unfortunately, our president has too small a penis to admit that he has utterly failed.
--
And, for the record, I was very popular in school. You see, I was objective and understood consequences of actions - from the beginning. It came across as being fair and honest. I'm a consultant now, and people hire me because I am honest.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
No, it was the Binary Commission.
Dumbass.
Where have I made a judgement as to the necessity of various wars?
Where did I express that I feel our entry into Iraq was necessary, good, or even advisable?
Hell, Bush is doing everything he can to make certain the American people don't feel anything from the war. No tax hikes. No rationing(well except the high price of gas). Nothing. Go about your business. IN FACT, GO SHOPPING!
Yes, this might suck a bit. On the other hand, war material production has become a rather specialized industry. It's just not as easy to redirect a car manufacturing plant into a tank one. It may even be easier to simply build a new one. The same with body armor, even humvees are produced in a specialized plant.
It's a plain simple fact. Don't go to war unles you HAVE TO. This has been the rule since at least Sun Tzu. If you are not willing to commit everything to the victory, it's not worth fighting.
Oh, I agree with this entirely. However, we're involved in Iraq at this point. Whether our justification was right or not, we have to finish this, one way or another. I happen to feel that it's our best bet to stick the course, until the Iraqi government is strong enough to stand on it's own. That takes time.
And I've heard all of the excuses from the moron classes to last me a lifetime. Boo hoo, we lost vietnam/iraq because of the media. Boo hoo, it was because they don't fight fair. Boo hoo, it was the American people are defeatists who run in the face of danger.
Where did I mention the media in my post? Sure, I feel that our media has been helping to bolster our enemies's will to fight. Propaganda works. If we could present a vision of a unified nation against them, they wouldn't quite so willing to believe that this or that attack might be the straw that breaks the camel's back. Still, it's only one side. We didn't have nearly the propaganda during the Vietnam war as we do now.
Finally, I'll just mention something that your post makes me think you believe, despite you not posting it: I don't believe that 9/11 provoked Bush to invade Iraq, to the contrary, I believe that it delayed the invasion. I figured that we were going to do something about Iraq when he was elected the first time.
I don't read AC A human right
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
You're such a fascinating moron...
And I'm the one being sleazy. The sign of intellectual bankruptcy is namecalling.
Doesn't being so stupid a handicap in your everyday life ?
Your grammar in that sentence pretty much answers the question...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What I'm trying to say is that we're fighing so clean we're giving up on attacks of known targets in order to avoid collateral casualties. It doesn't help that one of their techniques is to 'clean up' after a battle and try to characterize their own fighters as 'civilian casualties'. They're fighting a war on the propaganda front, we don't seem to be. It's still an important part of any war. While we think it quaint today - just look at WWII posters.
Of course, I think that we should also be a heck of a lot more proactive in protecting anybody willing to turn insurgents and terrorists* over.
*Though at this point they're mostly terrorists. Attacking civilian markets and such doesn't make you an insurgent.
I don't read AC A human right
Here's an alternate theory of the Pentagon's shape.
http://brunix.ie/pics/Tyrant%20Prince.jpg"Fortress for a Tyrant Prince"
From 'Serlio on Domestic Architecture'
By Sebastiano Serlio (1475-1554)