Patting the wrists, rolling the eyes.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by notcasesensitive
Note to self: Don't take Spanky's word for it when he later tries to assert that he is a France expert.

I guess I am slow, but I don't get your humour at all. Didn't you mean French expert? Are you implying that I did not live in Japan? Are you saying that I claim to be a Japanese expert? I never did, I just told you some personal experiences. Did you think that these personal experiences did not apply to the issue at hand BTW: I did live in Paris prior to moving to Japan. Just so you don't think I am making this up later: The cities I have lived in are: London, Paris, Florence, Warsaw, Moscow, Tokyo, Washington D.C., Colorado Springs, Los Angeles and Palo Alto (six weeks in Nairobi Kenya - I don't know if that counts as living or visiting). LessinSF can confirm this because I met him before I ever lived overseas.

Originally posted by Spanky
I guess I am slow, but I don't get your humour at all. Didn't you mean French expert? Are you implying that I did not live in Japan? Are you saying that I claim to be a Japanese expert? I never did, I just told you some personal experiences. Did you think that these personal experiences did not apply to the issue at hand BTW: I did live in Paris prior to moving to Japan. Just so you don't think I am making this up later: The cities I have lived in are: London, Paris, Florence, Warsaw, Moscow, Tokyo, Washington D.C., Colorado Springs, Los Angeles and Palo Alto (six weeks in Nairobi Kenya - I don't know if that counts as living or visiting). LessinSF can confirm this because I met him before I ever lived overseas.

SPanky, you just totally fucked up my trifecta pattern.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by paigowprincess
SPanky, you just totally fucked up my trifecta pattern.

Sorry - I am not sure what you were exactly doing. Is the picture from the Big Lebowski?

Originally posted by Spanky
Sorry - I am not sure what you were exactly doing. Is the picture from the Big Lebowski?

Spanky, you are correct. And, while I haven't really gotten a feel for you yet, you seem like a mild-mannered man , so I don't mean to offend. I just have some creativity to burn at the moment since my job is so uncreative. So I am trying to creat a trifecta pattern. I hope that will satisfy me so I can get back to my documents, bc lord knows, they arent going to review themselves. What is going on on that Referral board? I didn't even know it existed. ncs can be a little bitchy, but she is all right. She just needs to differentiate herself from NFH.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by paigowprincess
ncs can be a little bitchy, but she is all right. She just needs to differentiate herself from NFH.

you know I'm not one to talk about people, but yesterday ncs was saying she had decided to be nice. Now, its nice she finally decided to drop the nasty act, but she's acting like she invented it. I don't know if you invented being nicer or if it was me, but it certainly wasn't her.

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you know I'm not one to talk about people, but yesterday ncs was saying she had decided to be nice. Now, I don't know if you invented being nicer or if it was me, but it certainly wasn't her.

Now you are fucking up my trifecta. I had it for like five minutes. It was strangely soothing to see my fake name all over the place. I think I am in love with my alter ego.

I dont thin ncs is bitchy but she is being mean to spanky. go to the heretoforeunknown Referral board.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
you know I'm not one to talk about people, but yesterday ncs was saying she had decided to be nice. Now, I don't know if you invented being nicer or if it was me, but it certainly wasn't her.

I guess I should have a thicker skin, but when other people on the board critisize me I find it either interesting or funny or both. When I read ncs's posts the voice I get in my head is George Costanza's Mom from Seinfeld.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Spanky
I guess I should have a thicker skin, but when other people on the board critisize me I find it either interesting or funny or both. When I read ncs's posts the voice I get in my head is George Costanza's Mom from Seinfeld.

for ncs I hear Kathleen Turner 15 years ago. When i read fringey's posts i hear newman's voice.

[Replaced_Texan]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
for ncs I hear Kathleen Turner 15 years ago. When i read fringey's posts i hear newman's voice.

I don't even want to know

Originally posted by Spanky
I guess I should have a thicker skin, but when other people on the board critisize me I find it either interesting or funny or both. When I read ncs's posts the voice I get in my head is George Costanza's Mom from Seinfeld.

Huh? Isn't the point of thick skin to not be hurt by other people's criticisms?

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Spanky
I am sorry but the Donkey was right. They were kicking our ass. We lost the phillipines. Our Allies lost IndoChina, Burman, Thailands, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. We were reading their codes so we were able to stop them at coral sea when they were going to invade northern Australia. And because of reading their codes we got them at Midway. The thing was when they lost a carrier they couldn't replace it and we just kept producing them. If we had lost at Midway we would have still won because our production would outproduce theirs. We really won WWII based on Logistics. We could produce more so we simply overwhelmed them. I think they built like two carriers during the conflict with the US and we built like twenty. The Japanese knew that they could not sustain a long war with us because of our industrial capability. They were hoping that a devasting blow at Pearl Harbour would force us into a peace agreement. The underestimated the US public's rage at the Attack.

I'm not sure whose side you are supporting, but what you posted is based on a speculative conclusion. Whereas, I am pointing to facts that directly contradict the numerical-superiority part of NB's original post.

My point was that they weren't kicking our asses based on numbers when the tide turned. The tide turned at Midway. Midway was in June 1942, basically 6 months after Pearl Harbor. We were not even close to a numerical superiority then. Particularly not in available naval power. We had 3 available carriers to show in the Pacific at the time of Midway, and one of them (Yorktown?) was limping out of drydock from (heavy) damage at the Coral Sea. We even asked the British to lend us one of theirs from the Indian?? ocean, and they said "nyet" to Admiral King.

Meantime, the Japanese had the Hiryu, the Soryu, the Kaga and the Akagi, all of which they lost. They also had numerous additional carriers like the Shokaku and the Zuikaku out and about, though I think one had been recently damaged.

So it wasn't numerical superiority.

As for the speculative part of your post, what would have happened if we didn't knock out (maybe) half the available Japanese carriers at Midway? Well, the whole reason they attacked Pearl Harbor was because the oil embargo was slowly strangling them. Its not like they really liked Nazis! They got their oil from the Dutch East Indies I think. What happens when they suddenly lose half their offensive striking power 6 months after they started? Suddenly, their oil supplies aren't so well protected. Suddenly, they aren't able to continue rolling up islands. Don't know where they would have went if they were able to grab Midway, but I think it would have been somewhere a bit closer to Pearl Harbor.

Meantime, what happens if the Germans didn't divert forces to the Caucasus area? Suddenly, maybe they could have knocked Russia out of the war.

So I don't agree with your implication that defeat of the Japanese was inevitable based on materials and resources. The Europe-first strategy would have been that much harder if the Germans didn't manage to lose 3 million soldiers on the Eastern front after fucking up the first two drives.

On a side-note to a thread a few weeks ago, the Japanese attacked us because we were threatening their oil supplies. The Germans diverted to the Caucusus mountains (or whever) to secure oil supplies.

I again recommend reading "The Prize" if anyone here has not read it yet. Oil is explained as a huge common factor that drives the outcomes of events over the past 100 years.

Anyhoo, I'm just saying, I don't know what would have happened, but they weren't kicking our asses until we overwhelmed them with our masses. The tide turned before we had masses to overwhelm them with. The Yorktown, Enterprise and Hornet were just about all that was standing between us and Japan's offense for a few critical weeks where the tide turned and the U.S. kicked started kicking ass.

Which is why I said I disagree with the absolute truth of his statement. It was partly true (as is implicitly acknowledged), but its not true in the absolute sense in which it was presented.

And, since Not_Bob is probably the most civil poster on these boards except for maybe the Larry David Experience, I will just note that I'm not attacking him. I'm just quibbling with his statement as a bit overbroad.

Hello

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Spanky
I want to party with you Cowboy

Yeah, you want to dump Delay, and probably Bolton too. Sidd will accept your balls in a small ziplock, if you're wondering. You might have to beg, but, hell, that might get your Cali guys re-elected, so try it.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Sure, but it turns out that the Japanese military, like ours, conscripted a lot of people who were not Bushido samurai and who would have been just as happy to be fishing off Osaka, or something.

Not everyone in life gets to approach decisions with the freedom you have. Sometimes, life fucks over groups of people, dependant upon who they have allowed to take control of their sphere. Lots of unwarlike Japanese got incinerated only because they allowed militaristic nutjobs to run their country.

Life is hard.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
fuck you too. when I first came here I was as cutting and sincere as anyone. I just saw that this forum was a bunch of semi-intelligensias masturbating about shit they read here or there. If you think you are accomplishing anything, you are a bigger idiot than my PB persona- and my sole aim is to be a nuisance. Congrats!

Maybe you could do a long analysis of how you pick your ass. It would be as valuable as your pointed descriptions of very high level moves!

You have misinterpreted, mischaracterized, and . . . . well . . . missed. Think about what else he could have meant here.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Spanky
I think Hank will back me up here, but Nijonjin form a very unique culture. It is the most alien culture I have ever lived in. When I first went to the theater I noticed all these empty seats with wallets and purses on them. That is how they reserve seats in the movie theater. No one locks their bikes and they don't get stolen (except by an occasional drunk Gai-jin). They simply do not break the rules. One of their favorite phrases is "the nail that stick out must be hammered down". In other words there is no individualism. Their verb for to be different - Chigaimas - is also the word for being wrong. Same word. Same meaning. When I told people that I was going to the United States for Christmas and was returning to Japan after Christmas, people looked at me like I was insane. What I was supposed to say was that I was returning to the United States and then going to Japan. I could not return to Japan because I was not Japanese (even though I was a Japanese resident). I know of six ways to say in Japanese, "what are you going to do" or "se la vie". I have been told there are at least fory. They just accept everything they are told. My lawfirm set up a trip to Cuba for a vacation. The law firm paid for the whole thing. Just before the trip one of the partners was told that Americans were not allowed to travel to Cuba. When I told them I didn't care what my government says, I want to go to Cuba anyway - they thought I had lost my mind. Disobeying the government was unthinkable. Their are very nationalistic and when talking about Japan they refer to "we the Japanese". If you can imagine, their system must have been much more conformist prior to WWII than it was after the American occupation and forty years of US influence.

They are the most consistently racist people I have ever lived amongst.