Very good questions, in particular the 2nd one. My apologies for getting so far off target.

Not sure why acknowledging that slavery existed means I hate America but in any case the exchange seems pointless. I hope you enjoy your photography.

Actually the posting I quoted doesn't include the qualifications you're making. I'll grant for the sake of argument that the combination was new, although I don't think the first and second amendments reflected what was lacking elsewhere, just things that hadn't been specified in the original constitution.

I'd also observe the great irony (one word for it) that the free country thus formed had a significant slave population underpinning much of the economy. (If I remember correctly, slaves were quite happy to escape to the British lines during the Revolution, and Washington was PO'd that the Brits wouldn't return the slave owners' "property" when they left.) This doesn't negate the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution (although I think the 3/5ths clause is a stain), but I do think it's rather difficult to claim that special innocence and virtue expressed by claims of "American Exceptionalism".

To get back a little closer to the original topic, we fight our wars because of our perceived self-interest. This is as it should be, but we shouldn't pretend that our motives are selfless.

There's so much factually wrong with this that it's impossible to know where to start. None of those ideas was born with the US and the idea of republican (non-monarchical) government goes back to.... hmm, the Dutch Republic? the Swiss Confederation? the Italian city states? the Roman Republic? The Greek city-states?

Acknowledging history is not the same thing as denigrating the United States. Amusingly enough, you're demonstrating the kind of thinking you find in fascist and communist dictatorships.

The trouble is changing only part of the equation. No invasion of Russia? Stalin is a neutral and anxious not to irritate the Germans. The German economy is enormously stronger since they have all of Central and Western Europe except GB (but who knows?) plus a cooperative trading partner. There's a reasonably good chance that the Brits vote Churchill out of office and make a deal to keep their empire. If you assume instead that Germany beats Russia in 1941, then the set up isn't all that much different, but I think it would be even more likely that Britain would make peace on the basis of you keep Europe and we'll keep the empire. The Japanese might decide to initiate a war in the Pacific, but they might not. Would the US have continued rearming? How about investing $2 billion in the Manhattan Project? Another government boondoggle.

Or it all could have gone in completely different directions--we have no way to tell. It would be a very different world as of December 1940 when Hitler makes the firm decision NOT to invade Russia, or December 11, 1941, when he decides NOT to declare war on the US, or as of.....

[quote=Architect1776]

No one has defended the Soviet or Communist Chinese regimes or mentioned a communist utopia. The discussion has been about the relative role of the US or US/UK and the Soviet Union in defeating Nazi Germany. There was no combined German/Japanese onslaught on Russia because the Japanese were busy in China and had gotten beaten by the Russians in 1939. We did not have a significant impact on the ground war at least until November of 1942 and the strategic bombing campaign didn't have much impact until the following year.

It helped the Russians to have us fighting, and it helped us to have them fighting. The senior US commanders were concerned to keep Russia fighting and worried that they might make a separate peace since every German they killed or captured was one that we didn't have to kill or capture. If you think that didn't make any difference, consider that there was exactly one regular German infantry division on the Normandy beaches and that was at Omaha where we came close to disaster. The rest were troops physically unfit for service in the east or Red army soldiers who had been captured and taken into German service.

We can and should balance things by noting the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact of 1939 that made the war possible and not allow the Russians to claim that we somehow let them down or didn't pull our own weight. But claiming that the US won on its own is both foolish and pointless.

When? They stopped the Germans in 1941 without our aid and they hadn't received very much by the time of Stalingrad. We didn't draw Japanese troops away--the Japanese had gotten a bloody nose in 1939 and decided it made more sense to move south rather than east in 1941. If anyone tied up Japanese troops (as opposed to the Japanese Navy) it was the Chinese, not the Americans. Our aid to Russia was most useful from 1943 on and mainly supported the counter offensives.

Our main military contributions to the eastern front came from the impact of the Anglo-American bombing campaign from 1943 onward and eventually the need to fight on the ground in the west in 1944 (you might want to compare Operation Bagration, aka the destruction of Army Group Center, with what was going in France that summer). In any case, the campaign in the west would have been enormously more difficult if we had had to face the German troops tied down or already killed or captured in the east.

Off hand I would say that the aid we did provide Russia was a pretty good investment--it helped them kill Germans--and hardly worth worrying about.

I think the problem was less with the amount of winter clothing than with the difficulty of getting it forward because of transportation difficulties and the need to get ammunition etc. up as well. We had a similar problem in 1944--we focused on ammo and fuel in hopes of ending the war in the fall. It meant that US troops didn't have proper winter combat uniforms until pretty late.

Okay, I'm a Patriots fan and a rule is a rule, but this whole thing is pretty silly. On the evidence of the AFC Championship either the infraction was irrelevant or the Pats should really be charged with point shaving (17 points with under inflated balls and 28 points with proper inflation).

It's a professional game with serious betting going on, not sandlot football where you can't play until the guy who owns the ball shows up. If the air pressure made any difference then the refs would control the balls at all times and not follow the current ritual.

Federal troops had the city locked down? Not unless they federalized the Boston city police force and those of various suburbs.

There was quite a bit they didn't know about--including banks, double entry bookkeeping, vaccination, the internal combustion engine, gunpowder, iron plows, stirrups, etc, etc, etc. The writers of the New Testament (and apparently Jesus himself) thought they were near the end of time. Since they were wrong (unless you give a really extended meaning to 'near'), people have been finding signs that the end really is near this time ever since. There are reasons to find implanted micro chips pretty creepy, but I don't think they have any relationship to the Bible.

Could you specify what this means? Radar and counter measures? Stealth? Weapons? Engines? Something else?

I have the T1i and this Christmas I got a G16 and S120 for travel (the S120 for when you really don't want any bulk). For your purposes I'd look at the G16 first. Since you specified that you didn't want a touch screen I don't think you'd like the S120. Incidentally, G16 has a "real" viewfinder which was part of its attraction, but it's not that good and I find I almost always use the LCD for framing.

Does anyone here remember the FB-111? It was essentially the same idea as the F-35--one plane to do everything (love the FB designation) and designed from the start for both the navy and the air force. It didn't work very well. The navy never took any of them. The air force bought a few as bombers. Whenever I see anything on the F-35 it sounds like the same deal -- very advanced in some ways but too many compromises. Of course times change, technology advances, etc., but I suspect that the concept itself is mistaken.