Walter_Sobchak

1 hour ago, Ramlaen said:

 

Does writing opinion pieces for WaPo make you a journalist?

What does it matter if he was a reporter or an op-ed writer?  

Anyhow, according to wiki he had a long career as a reporter, editor, opinion writer and foreign correspondent.  

On 11/23/2018 at 2:14 PM, Donward said:

Are we still pretending that the guy who got whacked in the Turkish Embassy was a “journalist”?

As opposed to being what exactly?

Magician and character actor Ricky Jay has passed away.

Grizzly for sale.  Serial number 30.  Only $275,000.  

http://www.armyjeeps.net/listings/1943-sherman-grizzly-canadian-built-m4-a1/

News story about the US gunner in that famous film footage of the Pershing/Panther duel.

A World War II hero returns to Germany to solve a mystery -- and meet an enemy

Interesting article about bogus health products shilled by both the right and the left.

https://qz.com/1010684/all-the-wellness-products-american-love-to-buy-are-sold-on-both-infowars-and-goop/

Apparently, Secretary of Defense Mattis has changed the name of Operation Faithfull Patriot to the somewhat less exciting yet more accurate name of "border support."

16 hours ago, Walter_Sobchak said:

I'm happy that here in Michigan, we overwhelmingly passed three state ballot initiatives that a lot of people had been working on.  Recreational pot is now legal in Michigan, Michigan citizens are now automatically registered to vote when they get their drivers license/state ID, and the creation of voting districts will now be in the hands of a non-partisan citizen board, which should reduce gerrymandering.  

Even better, we managed to piss of Ted Nugent.

Ted Nugent upset that Michigan is turning 'into a California s***hole' after Election Day

14 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Sessions has resigned.

He was my favorite Kate Mckinnon character on SNL. 

The other thing I found fairly shocking was that Axl Rose is anti-Trump.  I would not have guessed that one.

12 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

Good analysis though, I don't have much else to say on that.

One thing that did surprise me was how debate around the 14th amendment seemed to overshadow debate around 2nd amendment issues this election cycle.  I had assumed that this was going to be the election in which the gun issue was really going to get heated.  Instead, it seemed to take a backseat somethat to immigration.

30 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Know whose predictions were more on the money than Nate Silver?

>>>>this guy<<<<

I'll have to take your word for it.  I have been avoiding this thread for the past few weeks, so I haven't read all the posts here.  

Anyhow, here are my observations thus far.  I don't think any of these are particularly controvertial or original:

1)  Trump continues to be a polarizing figure, driving up voter turnout both amongst his supporters and opponents.

2) The historical trend of Party holding the presidency losing seats in congress holds true, although the Republicans were able to avoid trouble in the Senate due to a very favorable election map (repubs were defending far fewer senate seats than dems).  

3) Holding onto the Senate allows the Republicans to continue dominating high court appointments, something that has been a priority for them, and will continue to cause Dems great consternation.

4) Gaining control of the House allows Dems to proceed with more investigations against Trump.  Whether this tactic will ultimately hurt or help them remains to be seen.

5) While I haven't seen detailed breakdowns of the voting demographics, it would appear that the electorate is becoming more polarized along rural/urban lines and race and gender.  Certainly the election rhetoric was some of the most highly charged that I have seen in my lifetime.

6) Republicans should probably be concerned that they lost so many House seats despite the strength of the economy.  They did not seem to be able to capitalize on the economy issue as much as one would expect, although its been a weird sort of recovery in which real wages for working people have not been going up as much as overall economic growth would suggest.  Trump seemed more interested in promoting divisive social issues than in running on the strength of the economy, which probably plays well with his base but less well with the middle.

7) Democrats still have yet to come up with a really compelling, unified vision.  They can't just run against Trump, they need to figure out a way to stop letting Trump take up all the oxygen in the room. They also need to make sure the Clintons go away, never to be heard from again.  

8) There is a lot of chatter that there may be a good deal of turnover in the Whitehouse following the midterm.  Personally, I hope General's Mattis and Kelly stay onboard, they seem to provide a stabilizing influence on President's Trumps somewhat mecurial and unpredictable tendencies.  

9) Be prepared for a couple years of congressional gridlock.  

10) I have no idea how the situation at the Justice Dept and the Mueller probe will eventually play out.  Does Trump try to clean house?  If so, does it turn into a modern "Saturday Night Massacre"?  Does Mueller actually have the goods to get more indictments?  What legal powers does he even have to pursue indictments against a sitting president?  Will Trump play the pardon card if push comes to shove?  There are so many x factors regarding this stuff that I could see it going in all sorts of different directions.  

It's going to be an interesting couple of years.  And by interesting, I mean my consumption of Alka-Seltzer will probably keep increasing.  What times we live in....

I'm happy that here in Michigan, we overwhelmingly passed three state ballot initiatives that a lot of people had been working on.  Recreational pot is now legal in Michigan, Michigan citizens are now automatically registered to vote when they get their drivers license/state ID, and the creation of voting districts will now be in the hands of a non-partisan citizen board, which should reduce gerrymandering.  

Seems last night went pretty much as the polls predicted.  Perhaps polling is not dead after all.  

On 11/3/2018 at 2:39 PM, Sovngard said:

 

I found it ! 

 

http://pogoarchives.org/m/ns/m1/appendix-d.pdf

3 hours ago, Peasant said:

WT's MBT-70 has lots of controversy.

 

> Some claim the 152mm gun could actually achieve it's listed APFSDS penetration

 

> Some claim the loader could feed the gun a missile every 5 seconds

 

Are these false?

 

 

I recall reading some material stating that because the 152mm did not have any indication of being able to fire the projectile, a ported 105mm sabot, at any greater power than the L7.

In the WT version, does the driver have to take periodic vomit breaks due to motion sickness?

Today I learned that before  Senator Joe McCarthy became famous for his anti-communist campaign, he lobbied for the commutation of death sentences given to a group of Waffen SS soldiers convicted of war crimes for carrying out the 1944 Malmedy massacre of American prisoners of war. McCarthy was critical of the convictions because of allegations of torture during the interrogations that led to the German soldiers' confessions. He charged that the U.S. Army was engaged in a coverup of judicial misconduct, but never presented any evidence to support the accusation.  Shortly after this, a poll of the Senate press corps voted McCarthy "the worst U.S. senator" currently in office.

So this is where we will get to post all those pictures of burned out Leo 2's belonging to Turkey?  Cool.

38 minutes ago, Sturgeon said:

 

Bits of it might stop fire from an M3 Grease Gun!

The small shield around the gun is 5mm thick armor.  Is that enough to stop .45 ACP?

11 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

 

In both cases the purpose of those vehicles was to put as many guns in the field as possible using existing production lines. Neither the Panzer III nor the T-70 could fit their respective guns inside a turret, so they each had to have a gun-in-hull design. The other assault guns for each country were the product of the same design pressure.

 

After the war, the US and USSR produced only a handful of gun-in-hull types. The ASU-57 and ASU-85 and the M56 Scorpion were all constrained not by existing production lines, but by the need to be light enough to be air dropped from the cargo aircraft of the time - in each case the vehicle could only weigh a handful of tons.

Just to add onto that, I don't even think you can call the M56 an AFV.  It's an anti-tank gun with tracks and an engine.  

11 hours ago, Sovngard said:

I can't find the old article which demystified the so-called M1 Abrams flaws anymore.

 

I don't remember who had posted it on the forum, maybe @Walter_Sobchak

I don't remember that particular one. 

I think they should do a Prune Face movie.

12 hours ago, Sturgeon said:

Much more difficult to support friendly infantry if you have a casemate configuration. These tanks were used by some countries, yes, but in virtually every case that configuration was dictated by cost, time, or some other unique constraint. And as long as your guns are on the smaller side and your ball bearing factories aren't getting the snot bombed out of them, turrets are the way to go. Which is why the Americans didn't bother with them.

What he said.  When the US wanted to make a light fire support vehicle, they made the M8, which had a turret.

The only army that really was into the idea of turretless armored vehicles was Germany, and a good deal of that had to do with them realizing they had a ton of light tanks that were not of much use.  However, the priority was not converting these into infantry support machines, but rather using them as platforms for getting as many anti-tank guns onto the field as they could.  Of course, they later came up with something closer to what you are talking about with the Hetzer, which was fully enclosed and used as a low cost Stug substitute (despite being labeled a jagdpanzer).  

Is this a joke?