Donward

Sometimes I enjoy reading a good restaurant review. http://www.yelp.com/biz/washington-state-penitentiary-walla-walla

As for the quality of blades, I think there are a couple of things going on. I too have read about the better quality of ores in Toledo But what I think probably also occurred was a cascading effect where a better material made for better knives and swords which created greater demand which made for more prolific swordmakers who then became more practiced in making good swords who were then able use good ore to make better swords, etc all the while at the same time attracting/keeping good smiths who wanted to learn how to make good swords. As a modern day example there is the aircraft manufacturer Boeing in my own backyard. Among the several reasons for its early success was the comparative advantage the company had in its ability to access cheap aluminum and electricity thanks to the construction of aluminum smelters and hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. As time marched on, the cost of raw materials have become less of a factor in gauging the bottom line and the cost of unionized employees is seen as more of a deficit which is why management at Boeing has for over a decade now been trying to shift aircraft production out of Washington state and to a "right to work" state like South Carolina where they can offer lower wages and less benefits. In fact, other than nostalgia, there is no legitimate corporate reason to keep Boeing in the Pacific Northwest. The only trouble is that South Carolina doesn't have the manpower infrastructure in place to make their new state of the art plants in the South competitive. Boeing has not been able to the replicate and replace experience of its workers up in the Pacific Northwest because their new plant doesn't have the culture and know-how of running something as complicated as a commercial airline factory yet.

Alternate title? Mine Clearing Dolphins Have A Hard Job

I shared this elsewhere and most of you have seen it. But I'll post it here again.

This is America, pardner. We use the British Imperial system.

It seems kind of like a discussion on firearm ballistics and whether SCHV, Thuddy-cal or GPC is better and I am certain there were similar debates back then. Although, given the threat of violence and the possibility of having a sharp blade stuck into ones bowels, I'm sure the debates were more polite. It's curious to learn how nuanced and important the differences were in the swords where the shape, length and weight of the blade and pommel were designed with particular fighting styles in mind for the consumer much like a good modern day gun manufacturer will craft a handgun or rifle for a particular purpose.

The whole issue was always kind of annoying to me since it starts out with the false premise that swords "cut" through other swords when in fact the metal is broken or fractures. It's all kind of silly since the whole thing is a Hollywood/Japanese cinema invention for the most part which no doubt draws from the use of theater swords. Taking the scene where Uma Thurman cuts through the Yakuza kid's sword like it's a sausage seriously is like someone watching old Westerns and thinking that Colt Peacemakers and Winchesters can be used as a squad automatic weapon because they cleared five black hats from their saddles.

And if the 24 scenario were to occur, some guy like Jack Bauer will bust in after avoiding LA traffic during rush hour and break all the rules anyway. I'm happy to have the thread drift go to America's past mistakes. I'm certainly more than willing to hear from the guys who've been there, done that or know who have. As for the Islamic State, is it time we should be regarding it and its fighters as a legitimate (illegitimate) state power? They're an outlaw regime, scum and whose fathers smelt of elderberries of course. But I'm not sure how beneficial it is from a tactical and long-term strategic goal in the region to keep pretending these guys are some outliers and are merely terrorists.

I was going to comment here earlier but got distracted. The sad truth is that many of the fatalities incurred in the fishing industry are entirely avoidable with the use of simple safety equipment like Personal Flotation Devices (PFDs). Ever since our accident, my wife has been working with different safety groups to help raise awareness of the issue. For decades, there has been a sort of fatalistic culture in the fishing community about dying at see which is compiled by myths regarding how long you can live while in the water. The good news is that a new generation of fisherman aren't buying into the idiotic notion. Something as simple as wearing a $150 PFD can turn a man overboard accident and fatality into a punchline. Hey guys, remember that time when the crab pot knocked me into the water? Wow, that was crazy! The "Deadliest Catch" which is Alaska's commercial crab fishing industry is no longer the deadliest and is a good example of how sane rules and regulations combined with an emphasis on safety training can make a job as crazy as that more routine.

I see the Turks have not forgotten anything from their Byzantine predecessors. Everyone knows that if the Turks wanted to they could put two and two together and figure out which individuals were flying to Istanbul from Europe or North America and taking a bus south.

That is darker than Kurt Vonnegut telling a dead baby joke. That is blacker than a Richard Roundtree movie marathon. That is more inky than a Pacman ghost. That is as Stygian as a R.E. Howard spellcaster. That is... really cool.

Someone must never have told them that the movie "Team America: World Police" is a parody and not a documentary.

More North Korea news. Feminist Gloria Steinem and a group of international female activists have crossed into North Korea. Can we put up a petition calling for "No Givesies Backsies".

Yeah. I don't claim to have any firm knowledge of this level of physics or chemistry other than at a very elementary level. And I'm mostly happy to live in a world of Newtonian physics with the vague hope that some general/politician/jihadi/NorthKorean/redneck doesn't strap a bunch of dynamite around a chunk of uranium/plutonium and say "Hey y'all, watch this!". (Nuclear reactors are just giant steam engines, they're cool too). Still, this sort of thing is always fascinating to me (admittedly much in the same way as a slack-jawed villager views travelling a magic act).

Since this is rapidly turning into a food thread, I shall continue the discussion by posting this photo of a bag of popsicles I discovered. Dear God. I hope the Yellow Sunshine Monster is Mexican for the Letter "O" and not the letter "E".

Well personally I'm in favor of feeding them all to Cinereous vultures and Golden jackals. But we know that is not going to happen. Well, not officially.

Forgive me the flippant title. But I had a thought after watching yesterday's Senate testimony and news coverage regarding the success of the Islamic State in the Middle East. Given the probability of United States military involvement in Iraq and Syria and the future deployment of "boots on the ground" (God, I hate that term) the question has come to my mind of what to do with any ISIS prisoners that the United States and its partners will inevitably capture? The Islamic State styles itself as an independent country with a military that has all the trappings of a traditional army including a chain of command and uniforms, I'm not certain that we can continue to use the dubious title of "enemy combatants" to ISIS fighters. Wouldn't they actually be prisoners of war and entitled to all the rights of a uniformed opponent? We've all watched the footage of ISIS fighters in action and they drive in vehicles that are generally uniformly painted. They sport clothing and paraphernalia that mark them as soldiers of the Islamic State. And presumably they have a command and control apparatus with officers (or chieftains) who give and take orders. Conversely, if these individuals are regarded as soldiers, wouldn't they also be liable to prosecution for war crimes?

Park Chung-hee Died For Your Sins!

I would imagine that it was environmentalists who want to restore salmon habitat or some such thing. As for lawn waterers, I am fully in favor of lynching rich celebrities who continue to water their estates.

I think we've had this discussion earlier but who would lose in a fight faster? The Iraq Army or the ARVN?

... OK, I'm not high. But still.

Funny. My family cat grooms off his belly hair too. Cats are weird. They are a sucker for someplace warm though.

I see the Doomsday Prepper ants in that video were quick to abandon the nest with their bug-out bags. ... ... Meanwhile in the Bad Puns thread...

Good kitteh. No use letting that heat go to waste. Also. That ceiling length cat tree!

If I'm recalling our early comments, I think the great complaint was the use of hit points and the issue that any weapon was just a generic damage dealer. Now this was often modified with games where certain types of armor or certain villains would negate different weapons and their attack values (slashing, bludgeoning, piercing, etc). Your spear or arrow is going to do much less piercing damage versus that undead skeleton whereas your warhammer will smash them up nicely. As for hit points, we've all been in games where our character is chugging away with 2 hit points left out of 40 and he's still rolling his full attack bonuses regardless of the fact that he is chopped up like Monty Python's Black Knight. Your opponent is a block of ice. You chip away at it until he is gone and the determining factor is how hard the ice is and how big the chunk is and how pointy your ice pick is. (Ice axe gets a special damage role against Leon Trotskys). Whereas in "real life" if you get whacked by a tomahawk and it pierces your armor and cleaves flesh, you will generally be incapacitated, even temporarily. It's an all or nothing approach where an attack will have a lot more blows delivered (or simply one that gets through) which would place more emphasis on the type and direction of the attack. I'm "old" and am used to the previous game system and never have had any real problem with DnD or any similar game designs. However, our young guys are eager for a new and realistic approach. Which is also cool just so long as it doesn't turn into an exercise in data collating.