Today...

[Bujin]

@ Yamu: None of that even originated in France.

The accent thing, however, is true. Sadly I've lost most of it in 12 years of living here.

[Yamu]

I got lucky in that I come from the one part of Alabama that had electricity and paved roads. Woot, to Mobile and Baldwin County.

Some people have heard me on Vent I think and can vouch.

Bujin: You can always fake it though. You have the truth behind ya, if i try it i look like an ass.

[Bardock]

@ Yamu: None of that even originated in France.

The accent thing, however, is true. Sadly I've lost most of it in 12 years of living here.

You haven't lost it, it's just hibernating. Go back to France for a month and you'll come back sounding like a beret-wearing baguette.

[Pink Underoo]

Look, America's role-model!

Back during the American secession war, everybody thought Abe Lincoln was a crazy warmonger who was only supporting the rich by following a suicidal ideology that was going to ruin the nation while caring little about popularity but somehow won a second term to carry on the fight to its bitter end.

Public opinion is fickle and changes with time.

[Bujin]

Very true, Yamu. Very true.

I love how I can resolve slight issues by ripping France apart. I have so many practical uses for this.

Wife: "Do I look fat in these pants?"

Me: "Yes."

Wife: "What!? How dare you!?"

Me: "Uhh...uhh...you know who sucks? France."

Wife: "You know what? You're right. Thanks honey."

Ahaha, I'm golden now. Thanks guys.

Bardock: Yeah, you're probably right. I'm just not willing to take that chance.

[Bardock]

Back during the American secession war, everybody thought Abe Lincoln was a crazy warmonger who was only supporting the rich by following a suicidal ideology that was going to ruin the nation.

Public opinion is fickle and changes with time.

Agreed. History remembers things differently than the propaganda of current times.

[Yamu]

I remember at a conference once and someone asked me if we called it the 'War of Northern Aggression' still in Dixie.

I just stared and went, "I'm pretty sure EVERYone calls it the Civil War..."

[Bardock]

The South just can't stand that they lost. Sore losers.

[Yamu]

On a whole other note: TODAY in history the bikini was released in 1946 and Venezuela declared independence from Spain in 1811.

[Bujin]

Now that's something worth celebrating. *raises glass*

[Raditzu]

We should have bikini-shaped fireworks for the fifth.

[Pink Underoo]

Agreed. History remembers things differently than the propaganda of current times.

I tend to think that people in any particular era, being unaware of the future, are more negative and naive about the whole picture and with some hindsight and seeing the way that events unfold after conflict everything becomes more clear.

[Krillin]

We should have bikini-shaped fireworks for the fifth.

Yes, and blow-up dolls to fit them.

And blow darts to knock the dolls out of the sky.

And an accountant nearby to tally the "frags" and record them.

[Raditzu]

That would be the best holiday ever.

[Minoshia]

Back during the American secession war, everybody thought Abe Lincoln was a crazy warmonger who was only supporting the rich by following a suicidal ideology that was going to ruin the nation while caring little about popularity but somehow won a second term to carry on the fight to its bitter end.

Public opinion is fickle and changes with time.

While i agree that in the future, towards the end of our lives or probably even when we're al dead and gone, Bush will be remembered in a more positive light (he has to, he can't go anywhere but up for christ's sake.) but i don't think his situation will mirror Lincoln's. Bush won't be thought of as one of the greatest presidents, i think he'll reach 'okay' at best. Lincoln also won the war he started, remember. Bush's war cannot be won.

[Burter]

Despite being in complete agreement with the analogy made about Lincoln, I still find it hard to believe Bush will be remembered as anything but the worst president in history.

[Yamu]

Calvin Coolige is the worst president ever.

[Amadeus]

The bombs hastened what had become a foregone conclusion by weeks, maybe months, and saved more lives then they took. Without those strikes the Pacific campaign would have continued, the Japanese were prepped for a land war on Japan even after the Russians rushed through China. Those preparation did not unravel until AFTER Hiroshima and Nagasaki specifically, not just the general time frame.

Your argument assumes that Japanese leadership was not aware of that foregone conclusion. But they were. They rallied the populace in national defense, but that was all a propaganda stunt. Most of the leadership knew well that their chances of repelling an invasion were slim. That is why they seeked to gain a peace in which the Emperor`s preservation was guaruanteed.
The irony is that the American occupation forces did preserve the Emperor, who remained at his position until his death in 1989.

So let us recheck the facts. The Japanese were willing to surrender if the Emperor was preserved. The US was well aware of that, thanks to their possession of Japanese naval codes. The US preserved the Emperor after the war anyway. When one considers all that, you realise that the war could have been ended well before September. The US goverment had both the means and the conditions to reach a peace settlement without having to resort to nuclear weapons or even invasion and they knew it.

So in the end of all things, the nuclear bombings only ended up taking lives and not saving them. Those lives and many others (including those of people in Hiroshima and Nagasaki) could have been saved before the nuclear bomb was ready for use.

Also, as far as I know, the armed civil defense was disbanded by the occupation forces and not the Japanese goverment.

The reason I doubt the Russian victory in Manchuria as being the true crux if victory is because it was that very action that left the U.S. to drop to bombs to PREVENT them from getting a foothold in Japan. We wanted their help, we didn't want them to run the show. The timeline of events supports the Atom Bomb as being the rational and the other factors to merely be contributing.

The problem with that reasoning is that both hit targets were located in southern parts of Japan. Hiroshima is located in the most southern part of the largest main Japanese island Honshu whereas Nagasaki is located on Kyushu, the most southern of the main Japanese islands. If the intention of the atomic bombings was to prevent the Soviets from getting a foothold in Japan, a more logical choice of targets would have been in the northern part of Honshu and Hokkaido (which the Soviets did indeed have plans to invade).

[Bujin]

Calvin Coolige is the worst president ever.

Jimmy Carter and Herbert Hoover. Two more that were worse than Bush.

[Hellfighter 17]

It's sad that shit happened in Belarus. =(

Also, Bra, while it is true that Russia was needed, they would have inevitably gone in. I doubt that they could have gotten Western Europe too much, so unless revolutionaries in Britain took hold, it's hard to say whether Britain would have lost its independence. However, German victory in the early 'forties is nigh impossible. If Hitler had waited another dozen or so years like his advisors said, shit woulda been going down for a while.