I worry that we're increasingly building ourselves into a situations where it becomes impossible to live within walking distance of both work and basic retail. And that one day we're going to wake up and realize the environmental impact and energy-inefficiency of that situation is going to become painfully clear.
IMHO, one of the primary reasons we find ourselves in the situation you describe is the mortgage interest tax deduction (a tax deduction that I take advantage of to the fullest). This deduction allows people like myself to purchase homes larger than they need. And, as a result, it encourages builders to construct larger and larger homes further out into the 'burbs.
I took advantage of this deduction. And, so do millions of other Americans. But, with all of the vested interests (Real Estate Agents, Homeowners, Home Builders, Home Depot/Lowes, Furniture Companies), I cannot imagine this tax deduction going away in our lifetime.
So, I imagine Ann Arbor, and most other urban 'cores' will continue to whither away.
In my defense, I was hoping to purchase a house in the City of Pittsburgh, but I was given the opportunity to purchase 2 1/2 acres within Allegheny County (the 'center' county around here). Purchasing acreage in the main county is something I could not pass up.
There were two reasons why I didn't choose either the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. One, as I posted elsewhere, I am eligible for discounts on Ford Motor Company Cars. So, the Mazda was much less expensive in comparison to the Honda and Toyota. And Two, as indicated in this post, the Mileage (as tested by Consumer Reports) for the Mazda was comparable to Honda's and BETTER than Toyota's.
Excuse me? "fuel-efficient" Mazda 3? What in the fuck are you talking about? My Mazda 3 is *far* from fuel-efficient. In fact, it's by far the most fuel-inefficient car I have owned in my *entire* life.
As promised, here are the Consumer Reports ratings on Fuel Efficiency. These are the most fuel efficient 2006 models small cars. The mileage listed below is not EPA estimates, instead, it is the mileage CR received during actual real-world driving. As such, it combines both Highway and City driving (I believe CR tries to make it 60% city driving, 40% highway during their testing -- that is very similar to what most drivers experience in their normal daily life). I'll only list small cars (most of the other cars are well-below the mileage listed here):
Honda Insight (hybrid) -- 51 mpg
Honda Civic Hybrid -- 37 mpg
Volkswagen Jetta TDI (diesel) -- 34 mpg
Scion Xa(manual transmission) -- 31 mpg.
Honda Civic EX (MT) -- 31 mpg
Mazda 3 i (MT) -- 30 mpg
Note that the "3i" is the 2.0 liter engine. As I indicated in my previous post, I drive the 2.3 liter (the "3s"). But, I am still achieving 26 mpg combined highway/city. Maybe your driving involves alot of sitting idle in traffic.
As for the 35 to 40 mpg you received on your Saturn, I honestly don't know how you could achieve that mileage. The ONLY other vehicles that CR lists as making better than 30mpg are hybrids, the Mini Cooper (the base model at 30mpg) and Scions. Every other vehicle (small car, sporty car, Sedan, Mini-Van, SUV) tested by CR is below 30 mpg. Even the Toyota Corolla doesn't make the list above 30mpg.
But the simple fact is I can't believe that people think they're doing their bit to lower fuel consumption when they're still using an engine that's probably almost twice the size it needs to be.
Mazda is owned by Ford Motor Company. We purchased the Mazda because I am eligible for the Supplier Discount on Ford Vehicles. The "3" is the smallest vehicle Mazda sells in the United States. It has two engines, the 2.0 and the 2.3. Unfortunately, the 2.0 was not on the dealer's lot the day we were looking for vehicles. And, because we were using the Supplier Discount, the dealer told me that we either had to buy we he had in stock, or we would have to go to another Mazda dealer.
Compared to all vehicles in the Mazda 3 class (the Honda Civic, the Ford Focus, the Chevy Cobalt and the Toyota Corolla), the engine we have is a bit larger. But, it is still much smaller than the vast majority of engines sold in the US.
Maybe you partake in illegal street races and need the speed to rip up the tarmac.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and maybe you're reading into the EPA estimated mpg for the Mazda3 instead of actual numbers from 18,500 miles of driving
We have 3,000 miles on the car. We are averaging 26 mpg, combined highway/city driving. I calculate the mpg's each time I fill up (my wife commutes by back roads in the morning, by highway in the afternoon). We are driving the 2.3 Liter engine (the larger one), and we have a manual transmission. And, 26 mpg is pretty good. If you check Consumer Reports, you will find that there are very, very few cars that get over 30mpg (combined hwy/city). If I have time later on today, I'll get you a list of cars that get over 30mpg.
I predict that the board will now force her immediate resignation, but will they also strip her of her directorship? What about severance? They should take it all, retroactively.
That is what they should do, but, in the world of corporate governance, that is not what happens. Remember, after HP fired Carly Fiorina, they gave her a $21 Million severance package (LINK). And, Carly pretty much ran HP in to the ground. While Dunn's actions are arguably worse (both in terms of HP's reputation and legality) than Carly's mis-management, the fact is that Dunn will probably get a nice big check.
I imagine that even if Dunn ends up in front of a judge and jury because of this, her lawyers will ensure she still gets paid.
With all that invested in a product, (not just the product but the support infrastructure), it would take years to change over to new hardware.
I am working on this type of migration right now. We are moving all applications to one vendor's hardware platform (and virtualizing it all). Our timeline on this project is 3 years. We could complete the task much more quickly, but we are being hamstrung by customer internal processes.
So the city planners aren't to blame. Blame the housing consumers.
This is slightly off-topic. But, the reason you can't blame City Planner's is that in most suburban communitites, 'planning' is not considered. Have you ever driven down a suburban 4-land road, the kind of road that has traffic lights, feeder roads that lead to subdivisions, and strip malls aligning it? Ever notice that these roads usually are traffic nightmares? That's because the local "planner" allowed too many curb-cuts -- a 'curb-cut' allows entrance to the gas stations, convenience store and strip malls from the main street (it's called a curb-cut because the curb is actually reduced from the normal four to five inch height down to street level). Each curb-cut reduces the flow of traffic on the primary road -- it takes time to turn right or left into a convenience store parking lot. A true 'plan' would have coordinated the curb-cuts and road configurations to minimize traffic delays.
European cars get better mileage and it is easier to live without a car there than it is in the US, where every store is a 20 minute drive away and there is only the barest shell of viable public transport.
In most Western Countries, you can choose where you live. I could have chosen to live within the City Limits, where the store is within walking distance (and public transportation is actually quite good). Instead, I chose to build a house in the suburbs. It is MY OWN DAMN FAULT that I now have to pay $50 a week to fill up my Ford Escape. And, my wife and I chose to purchase a fuel-efficient Mazda 3, because her new job had a very long commute.
If you feel that the stores are too far away, then either move to a new house (closer to the stores you shop at), or buy a more fuel-efficient car.
It can't be that big, after all there are only 200 million or so registered voters.
There's more to it than the number of voters. It's probably a relational DB. So, each type of record has to be stored on a different table. Not only do they track your name & party registration, they probably track your address, your voting history (how many times you voted, not who you voted for), your phone number, your phone polling history, your door canvassing history, how many pieces of political mail you received, and some of the other things the OP mentioned -- your requests for ride to the polls, etc.
So, if you have responded to 10 phone polls in the past 10 years, then each one of those responses may be a separate row in the PHONE_POLL table. Of course, this would only be for polls run by the party. Polls run by the news media or polls run by the opposition party would not be included in the DNC database.
In our brief chitchat, he mentioned that they all love them, really reduces the wear and tear on the body that your normal security goon has to deal with.
I never realized that being a 'mall guard' goon was such a rough lifestyle.
People who do push polling need to be fined or thrown in jail. I can't believe you would do that and even admit it.
Why do you say that? Campaigns are nothing more than glorified advertising campaigns. The primary job of a campaign is to portray your candidate in the best light possible. The most cost effective method of advertising for most campaigns is mass media (there are some campaigns where direct mail is more effective, but that is limited to certain expensive media markets). Radio and TV advertising is limited to 30 second sound bites, you cannot run an issue-based campaign via Radio and TV. As a result, your advertisements are limited to either "My candidate equals Motherhood and Apple Pie" or "My opponent is a lying sack of shit".
Push-polling is yet another version of advertising to supplement the negative ads you see on TV. Have you ever received a political snail-mail advertisement that was "negative"? They ususally are comparison pieces. My candidate voted THIS WAY, the opposition voted THAT WAY. Same thing as a Push-Poll, just via mail. Sometimes, a more effective method than by phone, but it can be very costly to run mass mailings -- multiple mailings are required to have a true impact.
Now, before you start complaining about negative campaigns, let's think of traditional (non-political) advertising. A decade or so ago, Burger King ran negative ads against McDonalds. In these Ads, Burger King claimed their burgers were "flame broiled" and that much better than frying. Of course, "flame broiled" meant that Burger King ran their burgers over open jets of burning natural gas, but "flame broiling" sounds better.
Or, how about the most recent set of Miller Light beer ads? Miller Light claims to have 'more taste' than Bud Light. Note that Miller Light doesn't say that their beer tastes better. They only say it has MORE taste. Since taste is rather subjective, you could argue that Miller Light has more of a shitty taste.
Don't be so hard on push-polling. It is purely advertising. And, what is more American than a good advertisement?:)
just a thought... would it be illegal (I would hope it would be, but don't know) for Candidate R. to call a bunch of people and super-annoyingly tell them to vote for Candidate D., in hopes of pissing them off enough that even if they would have voted for R, they would instead vote for D?
I don't know if it is illegal, but there have been stories of that type of activity occuring for decades.
I don't think I've received any calls of a political nature. My guess is that most campaigns realize that cold-calling people will generally a) not get them to vote for you anyhow, if they don't support your party, and b) possibly piss off people who DO support your party already.
In a previous (pre-IT) life, I was paid political consultant (the pay wasn't high, which is why I am now in IT). Anyway, when we called folks, it was usually folks who were very consistent voters. If it was a primary election, we only called voters that had voted in two of the last three primaries. If it was a general, we tended to open up the list a bit more, but, again, we didn't call anyone who hadn't voted last general election.
The primary reason for this was money. Why spend money calling someone that had a less than even chance of showing up at the polls?
Beyond that, our first phone call was usually a straight forward "poll". Would you vote for candidate A, candidate B, or are you undecided? Trust me, when you pick up the phone and someone asks for your opinion, you are more likely to stay on the line. Then, a month or so before the campaign, we would run a "slanted" poll. For those folks that either supported our opponent (candidate B in this example) or were undecided in the first round, we would call them back and ask "Would you vote for candidate B knowing he/she was a lying sack of shit (or some phrase that would echo our most recent negative campaign commercial)"? The goal here was to PUSH the undecideds and opposing voters into either voting for our candidate (candidate A) or not voting at all.
Then, a few days before election, we would go back to our loyal candidates (in general elections, those voters in our party) and encourage them ALL to vote. Get Out the Vote.
Since I never won and election, I am now a stinkin' IT consultant and James Carville/Karl Rove are all either making millions or are about to make millions. But, even though I never won, trust me, this is the usual way of running political phone banks.
the idea among Americans that humans didn't "evolve" from earlier forms of animals isn't new, and definitely hasn't changed markedly since 2000.
While I don't have any link that can back me up, I do seem to recall some articles that referred to how the United States is a much more religious society than most European countries. I am not sure why that is so, but if it is true, then I think that would explain, at least in part, why Americans tend to rejet evolution more than other countries
Ah, yes, I do know what happened in WWII. But, obviously, you don't understand the events that lead up to WWII (and neither does the moderator that marked my post down a notch). So, let me clarify for you. In your post, you claimed that:
You don't fight something by sitting around waiting for it to happen and you most certainly don't win something by sitting around waiting for it to happen.
Before WWII started, the future Allied Powers (especially Britain, France and the US) did absolutely nothing to prevent the Hitler from becoming master of Europe. There was no "Pre-Emptive" Strike by Britain. There was no search for Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Here is the history that you obviously do not udnerstand: Hitler rose to power in 1933. He spent the next six years building up the military strength of Germany and, in addition, he did the following:
* He remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 (violating the Treaty of Versailles)
* He sent troops in support of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War
* He annexed Austria in March of 1938
* In September of 1938, he annexed The Sudetenland
* The rest of Czechoslovakia was annexed in March of 1939
* He signed a non-agression pact with the Stalin during the summer of 1939 and he and Stalin subsequently jointly invaded and divided Poland.
After the invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. But, it wasn't until Germany invaded France in May of 1940 that there was significant action between British, French and Germany military units. For the months following the invasion of Poland, there were no major miliary engagements between those three major European powers (this period of time was called the Phony War by the British citizenry).
But, despite your claim that you "can't win by doing nothing", the fact is that the eventual victorious allied powers did nothing from the time Hitler rose to power in 1933 until May of 1940. The Allied powers did win the war. It is true they came very close to losing, but they did not engage in a pre-emptive strike. If the Wester Allied Powers had followed the George W. Bush Doctrine of "Pre-emptive" strikes, they woud have invaded Germany right after Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland. Instead, the allies sat by and did nothing.
So, in short, your claim is completely incorrect. You can win by doing nothing. And, if you understood your history, you would have not replied to my post.
Everyone wears paper hospital gowns with no underwear on planes after having changed in front of an official,
At first, I was thinking that this would be a GREEAT idea. Then, I remembered what kind of person I always sat next to when I traveled for a living. In all of those seven years, I think I sat next to TWO attractive women. And, BOTH of those situations occurred AFTER I was married. I just can't take the visual of the balding middle-aged man wearing hospital gowns.
You don't fight something by sitting around waiting for it to happen and you most certainly don't win something by sitting around waiting for it to happen.
So, just how did the Allied powers win World War II then?
This has been on CNN for the last 8 hours. I think that Slashdot's entire story submission process is to slow to effectively cover breaking news, since it just isn't news anymore.
And for those of us that have been SLEEPING for the past 8 hours, it is news.
That submission is what constitutes a "good overview" these days? Maybe it is, if you are the person trying to drive traffic to TechTarget.com sites....
Either WWI or WWII was the first war to have more civilians than soldiers killed (I do not remember which).
For centuries of human history, accurate wartime "body counts" were not available, at least until the 20th century. Don't forget that during the Peloponnesian War, it was not unusual for one faction to literally kill every resident (men & women of all ages, plus children) of an opposing faction's city. When they weren't killing them all, they would enslave them. The same for Genghis Khan, The Roman Army, European Medieval States, and on throughout history. So, civilian deaths have not been unknown in war. It is just that in the past 100 years or so, civilian deaths have become propoganda.
Actually, Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in a low-level conflict for a long time. Hezbollah was formed in 1982, as an answer to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah didn't start firing rockets a few weeks ago. They've been launching rockets into Israel for years. Until this most recent set of events, Israel would respond with an occasional air raid. But, nothing like what they launched a few weeks ago.
Slashdot Mirror
IMHO, one of the primary reasons we find ourselves in the situation you describe is the mortgage interest tax deduction (a tax deduction that I take advantage of to the fullest). This deduction allows people like myself to purchase homes larger than they need. And, as a result, it encourages builders to construct larger and larger homes further out into the 'burbs.
I took advantage of this deduction. And, so do millions of other Americans. But, with all of the vested interests (Real Estate Agents, Homeowners, Home Builders, Home Depot/Lowes, Furniture Companies), I cannot imagine this tax deduction going away in our lifetime.
So, I imagine Ann Arbor, and most other urban 'cores' will continue to whither away.
In my defense, I was hoping to purchase a house in the City of Pittsburgh, but I was given the opportunity to purchase 2 1/2 acres within Allegheny County (the 'center' county around here). Purchasing acreage in the main county is something I could not pass up.
But, she didn't deserve a $21 Million parachute, either.
There were two reasons why I didn't choose either the Honda Civic or Toyota Corolla. One, as I posted elsewhere, I am eligible for discounts on Ford Motor Company Cars. So, the Mazda was much less expensive in comparison to the Honda and Toyota. And Two, as indicated in this post, the Mileage (as tested by Consumer Reports) for the Mazda was comparable to Honda's and BETTER than Toyota's.
As promised, here are the Consumer Reports ratings on Fuel Efficiency. These are the most fuel efficient 2006 models small cars. The mileage listed below is not EPA estimates, instead, it is the mileage CR received during actual real-world driving. As such, it combines both Highway and City driving (I believe CR tries to make it 60% city driving, 40% highway during their testing -- that is very similar to what most drivers experience in their normal daily life). I'll only list small cars (most of the other cars are well-below the mileage listed here):
Honda Insight (hybrid) -- 51 mpg
Honda Civic Hybrid -- 37 mpg
Volkswagen Jetta TDI (diesel) -- 34 mpg
Scion Xa(manual transmission) -- 31 mpg.
Honda Civic EX (MT) -- 31 mpg
Mazda 3 i (MT) -- 30 mpg
Note that the "3i" is the 2.0 liter engine. As I indicated in my previous post, I drive the 2.3 liter (the "3s"). But, I am still achieving 26 mpg combined highway/city. Maybe your driving involves alot of sitting idle in traffic.
As for the 35 to 40 mpg you received on your Saturn, I honestly don't know how you could achieve that mileage. The ONLY other vehicles that CR lists as making better than 30mpg are hybrids, the Mini Cooper (the base model at 30mpg) and Scions. Every other vehicle (small car, sporty car, Sedan, Mini-Van, SUV) tested by CR is below 30 mpg. Even the Toyota Corolla doesn't make the list above 30mpg.
Mazda is owned by Ford Motor Company. We purchased the Mazda because I am eligible for the Supplier Discount on Ford Vehicles. The "3" is the smallest vehicle Mazda sells in the United States. It has two engines, the 2.0 and the 2.3. Unfortunately, the 2.0 was not on the dealer's lot the day we were looking for vehicles. And, because we were using the Supplier Discount, the dealer told me that we either had to buy we he had in stock, or we would have to go to another Mazda dealer.
Compared to all vehicles in the Mazda 3 class (the Honda Civic, the Ford Focus, the Chevy Cobalt and the Toyota Corolla), the engine we have is a bit larger. But, it is still much smaller than the vast majority of engines sold in the US.
Maybe you partake in illegal street races and need the speed to rip up the tarmac.Obviously, you have never driven the Mazda.
We have 3,000 miles on the car. We are averaging 26 mpg, combined highway/city driving. I calculate the mpg's each time I fill up (my wife commutes by back roads in the morning, by highway in the afternoon). We are driving the 2.3 Liter engine (the larger one), and we have a manual transmission. And, 26 mpg is pretty good. If you check Consumer Reports, you will find that there are very, very few cars that get over 30mpg (combined hwy/city). If I have time later on today, I'll get you a list of cars that get over 30mpg.
That is what they should do, but, in the world of corporate governance, that is not what happens. Remember, after HP fired Carly Fiorina, they gave her a $21 Million severance package (LINK). And, Carly pretty much ran HP in to the ground. While Dunn's actions are arguably worse (both in terms of HP's reputation and legality) than Carly's mis-management, the fact is that Dunn will probably get a nice big check.
I imagine that even if Dunn ends up in front of a judge and jury because of this, her lawyers will ensure she still gets paid.
I am working on this type of migration right now. We are moving all applications to one vendor's hardware platform (and virtualizing it all). Our timeline on this project is 3 years. We could complete the task much more quickly, but we are being hamstrung by customer internal processes.
This is slightly off-topic. But, the reason you can't blame City Planner's is that in most suburban communitites, 'planning' is not considered. Have you ever driven down a suburban 4-land road, the kind of road that has traffic lights, feeder roads that lead to subdivisions, and strip malls aligning it? Ever notice that these roads usually are traffic nightmares? That's because the local "planner" allowed too many curb-cuts -- a 'curb-cut' allows entrance to the gas stations, convenience store and strip malls from the main street (it's called a curb-cut because the curb is actually reduced from the normal four to five inch height down to street level). Each curb-cut reduces the flow of traffic on the primary road -- it takes time to turn right or left into a convenience store parking lot. A true 'plan' would have coordinated the curb-cuts and road configurations to minimize traffic delays.
In most Western Countries, you can choose where you live. I could have chosen to live within the City Limits, where the store is within walking distance (and public transportation is actually quite good). Instead, I chose to build a house in the suburbs. It is MY OWN DAMN FAULT that I now have to pay $50 a week to fill up my Ford Escape. And, my wife and I chose to purchase a fuel-efficient Mazda 3, because her new job had a very long commute.
If you feel that the stores are too far away, then either move to a new house (closer to the stores you shop at), or buy a more fuel-efficient car.
OK, now you owe me a beer (and a new keyboard)....
There's more to it than the number of voters. It's probably a relational DB. So, each type of record has to be stored on a different table. Not only do they track your name & party registration, they probably track your address, your voting history (how many times you voted, not who you voted for), your phone number, your phone polling history, your door canvassing history, how many pieces of political mail you received, and some of the other things the OP mentioned -- your requests for ride to the polls, etc.
So, if you have responded to 10 phone polls in the past 10 years, then each one of those responses may be a separate row in the PHONE_POLL table. Of course, this would only be for polls run by the party. Polls run by the news media or polls run by the opposition party would not be included in the DNC database.
I never realized that being a 'mall guard' goon was such a rough lifestyle.
Why do you say that? Campaigns are nothing more than glorified advertising campaigns. The primary job of a campaign is to portray your candidate in the best light possible. The most cost effective method of advertising for most campaigns is mass media (there are some campaigns where direct mail is more effective, but that is limited to certain expensive media markets). Radio and TV advertising is limited to 30 second sound bites, you cannot run an issue-based campaign via Radio and TV. As a result, your advertisements are limited to either "My candidate equals Motherhood and Apple Pie" or "My opponent is a lying sack of shit".
Push-polling is yet another version of advertising to supplement the negative ads you see on TV. Have you ever received a political snail-mail advertisement that was "negative"? They ususally are comparison pieces. My candidate voted THIS WAY, the opposition voted THAT WAY. Same thing as a Push-Poll, just via mail. Sometimes, a more effective method than by phone, but it can be very costly to run mass mailings -- multiple mailings are required to have a true impact.
Now, before you start complaining about negative campaigns, let's think of traditional (non-political) advertising. A decade or so ago, Burger King ran negative ads against McDonalds. In these Ads, Burger King claimed their burgers were "flame broiled" and that much better than frying. Of course, "flame broiled" meant that Burger King ran their burgers over open jets of burning natural gas, but "flame broiling" sounds better.
Or, how about the most recent set of Miller Light beer ads? Miller Light claims to have 'more taste' than Bud Light. Note that Miller Light doesn't say that their beer tastes better. They only say it has MORE taste. Since taste is rather subjective, you could argue that Miller Light has more of a shitty taste.
Don't be so hard on push-polling. It is purely advertising. And, what is more American than a good advertisement? :)
I don't know if it is illegal, but there have been stories of that type of activity occuring for decades.
In a previous (pre-IT) life, I was paid political consultant (the pay wasn't high, which is why I am now in IT). Anyway, when we called folks, it was usually folks who were very consistent voters. If it was a primary election, we only called voters that had voted in two of the last three primaries. If it was a general, we tended to open up the list a bit more, but, again, we didn't call anyone who hadn't voted last general election.
The primary reason for this was money. Why spend money calling someone that had a less than even chance of showing up at the polls?
Beyond that, our first phone call was usually a straight forward "poll". Would you vote for candidate A, candidate B, or are you undecided? Trust me, when you pick up the phone and someone asks for your opinion, you are more likely to stay on the line. Then, a month or so before the campaign, we would run a "slanted" poll. For those folks that either supported our opponent (candidate B in this example) or were undecided in the first round, we would call them back and ask "Would you vote for candidate B knowing he/she was a lying sack of shit (or some phrase that would echo our most recent negative campaign commercial)"? The goal here was to PUSH the undecideds and opposing voters into either voting for our candidate (candidate A) or not voting at all.
Then, a few days before election, we would go back to our loyal candidates (in general elections, those voters in our party) and encourage them ALL to vote. Get Out the Vote.
Since I never won and election, I am now a stinkin' IT consultant and James Carville/Karl Rove are all either making millions or are about to make millions. But, even though I never won, trust me, this is the usual way of running political phone banks.
I didn't realize the publisher of the The Indianapolis Star had changed the name of the newspaper.
While I don't have any link that can back me up, I do seem to recall some articles that referred to how the United States is a much more religious society than most European countries. I am not sure why that is so, but if it is true, then I think that would explain, at least in part, why Americans tend to rejet evolution more than other countries
Wow, nice flame.
Ah, yes, I do know what happened in WWII. But, obviously, you don't understand the events that lead up to WWII (and neither does the moderator that marked my post down a notch). So, let me clarify for you. In your post, you claimed that:
Before WWII started, the future Allied Powers (especially Britain, France and the US) did absolutely nothing to prevent the Hitler from becoming master of Europe. There was no "Pre-Emptive" Strike by Britain. There was no search for Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Here is the history that you obviously do not udnerstand: Hitler rose to power in 1933. He spent the next six years building up the military strength of Germany and, in addition, he did the following:
* He remilitarized the Rhineland in 1936 (violating the Treaty of Versailles)
* He sent troops in support of General Franco during the Spanish Civil War
* He annexed Austria in March of 1938
* In September of 1938, he annexed The Sudetenland
* The rest of Czechoslovakia was annexed in March of 1939
* He signed a non-agression pact with the Stalin during the summer of 1939 and he and Stalin subsequently jointly invaded and divided Poland.
After the invasion of Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany. But, it wasn't until Germany invaded France in May of 1940 that there was significant action between British, French and Germany military units. For the months following the invasion of Poland, there were no major miliary engagements between those three major European powers (this period of time was called the Phony War by the British citizenry).
But, despite your claim that you "can't win by doing nothing", the fact is that the eventual victorious allied powers did nothing from the time Hitler rose to power in 1933 until May of 1940. The Allied powers did win the war. It is true they came very close to losing, but they did not engage in a pre-emptive strike. If the Wester Allied Powers had followed the George W. Bush Doctrine of "Pre-emptive" strikes, they woud have invaded Germany right after Hitler remilitarized the Rhineland. Instead, the allies sat by and did nothing.
So, in short, your claim is completely incorrect. You can win by doing nothing. And, if you understood your history, you would have not replied to my post.
At first, I was thinking that this would be a GREEAT idea. Then, I remembered what kind of person I always sat next to when I traveled for a living. In all of those seven years, I think I sat next to TWO attractive women. And, BOTH of those situations occurred AFTER I was married. I just can't take the visual of the balding middle-aged man wearing hospital gowns.
So, just how did the Allied powers win World War II then?
And for those of us that have been SLEEPING for the past 8 hours, it is news.
That submission is what constitutes a "good overview" these days? Maybe it is, if you are the person trying to drive traffic to TechTarget.com sites....
For centuries of human history, accurate wartime "body counts" were not available, at least until the 20th century. Don't forget that during the Peloponnesian War, it was not unusual for one faction to literally kill every resident (men & women of all ages, plus children) of an opposing faction's city. When they weren't killing them all, they would enslave them. The same for Genghis Khan, The Roman Army, European Medieval States, and on throughout history. So, civilian deaths have not been unknown in war. It is just that in the past 100 years or so, civilian deaths have become propoganda.
Actually, Hezbollah and Israel have been engaged in a low-level conflict for a long time. Hezbollah was formed in 1982, as an answer to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Hezbollah didn't start firing rockets a few weeks ago. They've been launching rockets into Israel for years. Until this most recent set of events, Israel would respond with an occasional air raid. But, nothing like what they launched a few weeks ago.