I bet you didnt know that

jmayo · 07-02-2018 08:05PM

Liam28 wrote: »

OK, time to debunk some of these examples of democracies at war.
Finland was at war with Russia in 1941, and Britain, as Russia's ally, did declare war on Finland. But by war, I mean a 2 way armed conflict with multiple casualties. Finland-Britain had none of these.

Speaking of Finland and war with USSR.

The world's most successful or prolific sniper was a Finn who fought in the Winter War of 1939-1940.
Simo Hayha had been a hunter and farmer and was in voluntary militia when war broke out and USSR invaded.

He was credited with 259 confirmed sniper kills and roughly the same number through machine gun/sub machine gun fire.
He was nicknamed the White Death by the Red Army and they even resorted to artillery fire to kill him.

On 6 March 1940, he was hit in his lower left jaw by an explosive bullet and it wrecked his jaw and blew off his cheek.

He survived and past away in 2002.

The astonishing thing is he never used a scope as it meant he presented too big a target and he even put snow in his mouth to stop his breath being visible by the enemy.
He was operating in temperatures down to -40C and in very short daylight hours and was averaging 5 kills a day.

EDIT: just realised the site can't cope with Finnish language characters.

Capt'n Midnight · 07-02-2018 08:36PM

Liam28 wrote: »

There has never been a war between two democracies.

When it comes to democracies invading , it's mostly UK, US , India, or Israel.

And yes the Brits bombed Finland during the war.

But despite being at war with the Axis and Allies and standing alone against the Soviet Union , Helsinki was the only capital city of the combatants on the continent that wasn't invaded by a foreign army.

( In the case of Moscow it was just about to the suburbs. YMMV)

theoneeyedman · 07-02-2018 09:49PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

When it comes to democracies invading , it's mostly UK, US , India, or Israel.

And yes the Brits bombed Finland during the war.

But despite being at war with the Axis and Allies and standing alone against the Soviet Union , Helsinki was the only capital city of the combatants on the continent that wasn't invaded by a foreign army.

( In the case of Moscow it was just about to the suburbs. YMMV)

Sure, wasn't Saddam Hussein's Iraq (theoretically a democracy. Didn't he receive 95% and over 99% in successive elections

theoneeyedman · 07-02-2018 09:50PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

When it comes to democracies invading , it's mostly UK, US , India, or Israel.

And yes the Brits bombed Finland during the war.

But despite being at war with the Axis and Allies and standing alone against the Soviet Union , Helsinki was the only capital city of the combatants on the continent that wasn't invaded by a foreign army.

( In the case of Moscow it was just about to the suburbs. YMMV)

Sure, wasn't Saddam Hussein's Iraq (theoretically a democracy. Didn't he receive 95% and over 99% in successive elections

StupidLikeAFox · 08-02-2018 01:50AM

cdeb wrote: »

Wasn't Hitler democratically elected? Or is it just that he had done away with democracy by the time war broke out?

I think he was democratically elected, then staged a communist attack on the reichstag and convinced the elderly president to sign all his powers over to him, thus making him dictator.

I wasn't there myself mind you. Only heard that second hand so don't quote me on it

Capt'n Midnight · 08-02-2018 02:01AM

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

I know but it's actually a constitutional monarchy with the Queen as head of state.

The UK despite all the guff about it has no written constitution, and besides thanks to the rules it wouldn't matter if it did.

The effective UK constitution is three words long.

Parliament is God.

And the Parliament Act means the House of Commons can overrule the House of Lords, so in practice the lower house has no restrictions on it's power.

Much as I hate Dev, having a constitution that the Dail can't change is a quite a good thing. One side effect is we've been able to get better terms from the EU because of it.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 08-02-2018 02:14AM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

The UK despite all the guff about it has no written constitution, and besides thanks to the rules it wouldn't matter if it did.

The effective UK constitution is three words long.

Parliament is God.

And the Parliament Act means the House of Commons can overrule the House of Lords, so in practice the lower house has no restrictions on it's power.

Much as I hate Dev, having a constitution that the Dail can't change is a quite a good thing. One side effect is we've been able to get better terms from the EU because of it.

Parliament is supreme. Not God.

To me a parliamentary democracy unencumbered by a codified constitution is a healthy thing. It’s much more flexible.

The U.K. has a written constitution - the constitutional laws of parliament are written down. They are not oral laws.

These laws are, however, not in a document to be changed by judicial interpretation, or worse frequent referenda. A Parliament encumbered with either an ancient text, a legal interpretation by an unelected Supreme Court or in cases like Ireland - the baying mob - is not really fit for purpose.

And all American type systems have a major flaw which often leads to coups. The US hasn’t had one yet but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Fourier · 08-02-2018 02:39AM

Riva10 wrote: »

Light doesn't necessarily travel at the speed of light. The slowest we've ever recorded light moving at is 38 mph.
https://www.nature.com/articles/17561

It does. It has to via relativity. What's happening there is light being absorbed by the atoms at the first layer, giving them enough energy to produce light to pass onto the second layer.

It's successive beams of light being passed between layers of atoms, with gaps between production. Light however always is travelling at the same speed, the structure of spacetime means it is impossible for it to do otherwise.

ohnonotgmail · 08-02-2018 11:01AM

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Parliament is supreme. Not God.

To me a parliamentary democracy unencumbered by a codified constitution is a healthy thing. It’s much more flexible.

The U.K. has a written constitution - the constitutional laws of parliament are written down. They are not oral laws.

These laws are, however, not in a document to be changed by judicial interpretation, or worse frequent referenda. A Parliament encumbered with either an ancient text, a legal interpretation by an unelected Supreme Court or in cases like Ireland - the baying mob - is not really fit for purpose.

And all American type systems have a major flaw which often leads to coups. The US hasn’t had one yet but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Acts of parliament are not a constitution. The UK does not have a written constitution.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 08-02-2018 12:25PM

ohnonotgmail wrote: »

Acts of parliament are not a constitution. The UK does not have a written constitution.

It does. It doesn’t have a codified constitution.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kingdom

sbsquarepants · 08-02-2018 02:16PM

Fourier wrote: »

And all American type systems have a major flaw which often leads to coups. The US hasn’t had one yet but I wouldn’t rule it out.

There's a lot of people who would regard Kennedy's killing as a coup.

But then again there's probably lot of people who'd swear the lizard people done it because he was going to reveal the world is actually flat:D

Fourier · 08-02-2018 02:50PM

I gotta stop mouthing off about the Yanks.

jeffy jefferies · 08-02-2018 02:51PM

I didn't know that. I mean I didn't know that most people didn't know that.

Are Am Eye · 08-02-2018 05:40PM

Sex is banned aboard the International Space Station.

Professor Moriarty · 08-02-2018 06:15PM

Are Am Eye wrote: »

Sex is banned aboard the International Space Station.

Damn. Joining the 240 mile high club was on my bucket list.

Capt'n Midnight · 08-02-2018 07:47PM

Franz Von Peppercorn wrote: »

Parliament is supreme. Not God.

...

The U.K. has a written constitution - the constitutional laws of parliament are written down. They are not oral laws.

Those laws and traditions could be changed tonight should Parliament decide to do so.

And thanks to the Parliament Act the House of Lords can't stop the House of Commons either,

Most seats are safe seats so anyone wishing to hack an election only needs to concentrate on the marginals. We still don't know what ads the likes of youtube and facebook showed to targeted demographics during recent elections, so we don't even know if they were truthful or not.

Did you know May was just 786 voters short of an Overall Majority ?

Capt'n Midnight · 08-02-2018 07:49PM

The difference between a civil engineer and a mechanical engineer is that mechanical engineers build weapons and civil engineers build targets.

Franz Von Peppercorn · 08-02-2018 08:31PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Those laws and traditions could be changed tonight should Parliament decide to do so.

And thanks to the Parliament Act the House of Lords can't stop the House of Commons either,

Most seats are safe seats so anyone wishing to hack an election only needs to concentrate on the marginals. We still don't know what ads the likes of youtube and facebook showed to targeted demographics during recent elections, so we don't even know if they were truthful or not.

Did you know May was just 786 voters short of an Overall Majority ?

Yes changing the traditions overnight is exactly what Parliamentary sovereignty is designed to do. I’m not sure how overriding an unelected house helps your case or why the distortions of FPTP is relevant. However we are off topic enough.

valoren · 09-02-2018 02:24PM

The term 'dolally' i.e. to go crazy, derives it's meaning from the Deolali transit/military camp established by the British Army in Deolali, India. The conditions were so harsh and unpleasant that many soldiers who spent any amount of time there suffered from a combination of those conditions as well as extreme boredom and went a little, well, dolally.

jmayo · 09-02-2018 02:53PM

Johnny Cash was probably the first American to learn of Stalin's death.

He was very adept at morse code while he was a radio operator in the Air Force and one of his jobs was intercepting Soviet radio traffic.

Curly Judge · 09-02-2018 09:23PM

Are Am Eye wrote: »

Sex is banned aboard the International Space Station.

Sex in zero gravity is a bit difficult anyway.

RiderOnTheStorm · 09-02-2018 09:31PM

Curly Judge wrote:

Sex in zero gravity is a bit difficult anyway.

Challenge accepted....

Capt'n Midnight · 09-02-2018 10:00PM

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Challenge accepted....

Too late

In 1999 the Uranus Experiment was made on one of the Vomit Comets, so called because puking is a fairly common reaction to zero-g.

Realt Dearg Sec · 09-02-2018 10:19PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

RiderOnTheStorm wrote: »

Challenge accepted....

Too late

In 1999 the Uranus Experiment was made on one of the Vomit Comets, so called because puking is a fairly common reaction to zero-g.

That's what the woman told the man anyway

Buford T. Justice XIX · 09-02-2018 10:28PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Too late

In 1999 the Uranus Experiment was made on one of the Vomit Comets, so called because puking is a fairly common reaction to zero-g.

I'm hoping they just never thought through the implications of that name....

Greybottle · 09-02-2018 10:35PM

jmayo wrote: »

Johnny Cash was probably the first American to learn of Stalin's death.

He was very adept at morse code while he was a radio operator in the Air Force and one of his jobs was intercepting Soviet radio traffic.

He picked up the message and wrote it down. But he didn't understand it as it was in Russian, and even if he could speak Russian, it was in code. But it was him who picked it up first.

The messages were recorded anyway and other operators would listen back to a slowed down version to make sure that no mistakes were made, but by that time Eisenhower would have heard about it from Cash's first message.

His biggest hit was a Ring of Fire, but this was his cover version of the original song. The original song was written by his later wife June Carter and first recorded by her sister Anita Carter.

The agreement was that if it wasn't a hit after 6 months, John Cash* could record it. He speeded it up, added horns and it became his biggest hit.

*None of his family or close friends ever called him Johnny. He was always called John, or John R.

I've seen him either solo or as part of The Highwaymen 6 times. Great performer. Total Gent.

evolving_doors · 09-02-2018 10:59PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Too late

In 1999 the Uranus Experiment was made on one of the Vomit Comets, so called because puking is a fairly common reaction to zero-g.

May I step in and say that zero gravity is a myth... especially near any planets anyway.
People often cite the ISS as having zero gravity (Dara O Brian for one :rolleyes:).
If that were the case the moon would just float away as it's in 'zero gravity'.
What is happening is that the ISS is continuously 'falling' around the earth.

Capt'n Midnight · 09-02-2018 11:07PM

"Crystal Energy"

Our ability to to extract or store energy in crystals isn't worth a damn.
It's handy to determine fossil dates though.

But our civilisation is now totally based on our ability to transform, harvest and especially control energy with crystals.

Capt'n Midnight · 09-02-2018 11:17PM

evolving_doors wrote: »

May I step in and say that zero gravity is a myth... especially near any planets anyway.
People often cite the ISS as having zero gravity (Dara O Brian for one :rolleyes:).
If that were the case the moon would just float away as it's in 'zero gravity'.
What is happening is that the ISS is continuously 'falling' around the earth.

It's zero because the gravities and accelerations cancel out.

It's like getting paid and all your money going out in debts and bills and living expenses. You aren't getting nothing, but you have nothing at the end of the week :mad:

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1 · 09-02-2018 11:22PM

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

It's zero because the gravities and accelerations cancel out.

It's like getting paid and all your money going out in debts and bills and living expenses. You aren't getting nothing, but you have nothing at the end of the week :mad:

Effective gravity is a combination of gravity and acceleration. So the effective gravity on the ISS is very close to zero but is not zero.

I bet you didnt know that

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