Author Topic: Harris County, Texas.  (Read 15483 times)

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Offline N. De Plume

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #45 on: January 09, 2012, 02:34:42 pm »
When he got home he was missing his left eye and his left arm. This is a man who would have described being killed as "inconvenient."
Sounds like a fun guy. I’d love to meet him. :D
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Offline sandman

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #46 on: January 09, 2012, 03:12:23 pm »
No, no you wouldn't. He died in 61, so meeting him now would probably entail fighting him off before he gets to your brain. I know my Granpa. He would DEFINITELY come back as a zombie.
"In case you're interested, there's still some positions available for that bonus opportunity I mentioned earlier. Again: all you gotta do is let
us disassemble you. We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together. So that's a complete reassembly. New vitals. Spit-shine on the old ones. Plus we're scooping out tumors. Frankly, you oughtta be paying us." -Cave Johnson

Offline N. De Plume

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #47 on: January 09, 2012, 03:24:07 pm »
I am working on a time machine, you know. :D
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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #48 on: January 09, 2012, 03:30:54 pm »
No, no you wouldn't. He died in 61, so meeting him now would probably entail fighting him off before he gets to your brain. I know my Granpa. He would DEFINITELY come back as a zombie.

Was he in the Gordons or the Camerons?
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Offline sandman

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #49 on: January 09, 2012, 04:14:54 pm »
I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.
"In case you're interested, there's still some positions available for that bonus opportunity I mentioned earlier. Again: all you gotta do is let
us disassemble you. We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together. So that's a complete reassembly. New vitals. Spit-shine on the old ones. Plus we're scooping out tumors. Frankly, you oughtta be paying us." -Cave Johnson

Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #50 on: January 09, 2012, 05:32:28 pm »
My grandfather once described the Battle of the Somme (he was there) as "a bit of a dust up."
Wow. That is the biggest understatement I've ever read. That was the single bloodiest battle of WWI.

Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.

No. That's wrong, the Busilov offensive (in Russia) was the bloodiest battle of ww1.

That famous cavalry charge was actually successful, though unnecessary. And, of course, the battle was a victory for the British and an overwhelming win for the French on the right-flank. Interestingly, it was the first major military victory for my country, Australia.

Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.

The majority of the British did think it was a stupid idea, unfortunately, people such as Winston Churchill were trying to micromanage the war to the extent that the General commanding the British army had to put this in as Chruchill thought it would win.  After the Somme, General French was replaced by General Haig who tried, desperately, to modernise the army by getting regiments to use section attacks (instead of whole regiments or even divisions being committed to attacks) and a lot of other ideas such as having troops move towards the enemy using cover and giving covering fire.  Unfortunately, he was overruled by Churchill and Lloyd George who decided that, against all evidence to the contrary, they knew better.

That's just bullshit. Haig planned the attack at the Somme, and he's been blamed for poorly planning it ever since. The British new armies gradually developed small-unit tactics within the context of the usual corps-level assault, though the large-scale attack remained the norm. The French and Germans, of course, had been using small-unit tactics for the whole war, but the British were regarded as too newbie to do it. The real advances of the war were in the artillery.
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http://fqa.digibase.ca/index.php?topic=6936.0

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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #51 on: January 09, 2012, 06:05:36 pm »
I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.

Whereabouts was he from?  If it's Inverness it would probably be either the Camerons or Lovats, Aberdeen the chances are it's the Gordons.
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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #52 on: January 09, 2012, 06:09:39 pm »
Learned a good bit about that battle in my battlefield archaeology class. You'd have thought that the British would know a calvary charge on machinegun nests were very ill advised.

The majority of the British did think it was a stupid idea, unfortunately, people such as Winston Churchill were trying to micromanage the war to the extent that the General commanding the British army had to put this in as Chruchill thought it would win.  After the Somme, General French was replaced by General Haig who tried, desperately, to modernise the army by getting regiments to use section attacks (instead of whole regiments or even divisions being committed to attacks) and a lot of other ideas such as having troops move towards the enemy using cover and giving covering fire.  Unfortunately, he was overruled by Churchill and Lloyd George who decided that, against all evidence to the contrary, they knew better.

That's just bullshit. Haig planned the attack at the Somme, and he's been blamed for poorly planning it ever since. The British new armies gradually developed small-unit tactics within the context of the usual corps-level assault, though the large-scale attack remained the norm. The French and Germans, of course, had been using small-unit tactics for the whole war, but the British were regarded as too newbie to do it. The real advances of the war were in the artillery.

No General French did:  Haig, while a member of the British command, wasn't in charge.  General French, who had planned the whole fuck-up was and was backed by Lloyd George and Churchill who kept him in place because he sided with them.  Haig, contrary to the bullshit seen in Blackadder and Oh!  What a Lovely War was far in advance in modernising the army.  Haig didn't have command at the Somme because his political backers didn't have enough support in Parliament.
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Offline Lt. Fred

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #53 on: January 09, 2012, 06:51:36 pm »
No General French did:  Haig, while a member of the British command, wasn't in charge.  General French, who had planned the whole fuck-up was and was backed by Lloyd George and Churchill who kept him in place because he sided with them.  Haig, contrary to the bullshit seen in Blackadder and Oh!  What a Lovely War was far in advance in modernising the army.  Haig didn't have command at the Somme because his political backers didn't have enough support in Parliament.

French had been replaced by Haig in December 1915 (French took over the 'home defence', ie putting down Ireland). Haig did all the planning, alongside Rawlinson, and commanded the attack. Of course, it was a success, so there's that.
Ultimate Paragon admits to fabricating a hit piece on Politico.

http://fqa.digibase.ca/index.php?topic=6936.0

The party's name is the Democratic Party. It has been since 1830. Please spell correctly.

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-FDR

Offline sandman

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #54 on: January 09, 2012, 06:59:26 pm »
I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.

Whereabouts was he from?  If it's Inverness it would probably be either the Camerons or Lovats, Aberdeen the chances are it's the Gordons.

We're from Munlochy, north of the Firth near Hill o'Hirdle.
"In case you're interested, there's still some positions available for that bonus opportunity I mentioned earlier. Again: all you gotta do is let
us disassemble you. We're not banging rocks together here. We know how to put a man back together. So that's a complete reassembly. New vitals. Spit-shine on the old ones. Plus we're scooping out tumors. Frankly, you oughtta be paying us." -Cave Johnson

Offline Cerim Treascair

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #55 on: January 10, 2012, 09:00:45 am »
Sandy, yet again I've had to make several marks on my 'owe' board... right now, you're up to about a week's worth of dinners and a month of good beer, one a day.

You have made my morning.
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Offline armandtanzarian

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #56 on: January 10, 2012, 09:17:55 am »
Well, Texas, the most execution-happy state in the USA (and in the top 10 world-wide), still has the  15th highest rate of violent crime in the country, and the18th highest murder rate. In fact, if you look at the top 20 states in murder-rate, all of them except New Mexico and Michigan endorse the death penalty. (While Illinois is currently under a governor-initiated moratorium on executions, the death penalty is still in effect there.)

If the death penalty worked as a deterrent, you would expect the states without it to be high up in the list.
I actually bothered to do some statistics to this. I separated the states into two groups, those with and without the death penalty in 2010. I then found the average of each group, 4.6 in states with the penalty and 2.9 in states without it. I calculated the standard deviation, 2.1 in states with and 1.4 in states without. I used this to find the range of values at the 95% confidence interval in order to perform a rule of thumb t-test. At this confidence level the murder rate with the death penalty is between 4.0 and 5.3 and without is between 2.1 and 3.6. This strongly supports the assertion that the death penalty does not deter crime.

I've attached the spreadsheet I used to do the analysis, I used LibreOffice so it may not behave properly in excel.

ETA: I said 2011 instead of 2010
Not only does it not deter crime, the penalty seems to encourage it. (I know, I know)

Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #57 on: January 10, 2012, 10:03:36 am »
No General French did:  Haig, while a member of the British command, wasn't in charge.  General French, who had planned the whole fuck-up was and was backed by Lloyd George and Churchill who kept him in place because he sided with them.  Haig, contrary to the bullshit seen in Blackadder and Oh!  What a Lovely War was far in advance in modernising the army.  Haig didn't have command at the Somme because his political backers didn't have enough support in Parliament.

French had been replaced by Haig in December 1915 (French took over the 'home defence', ie putting down Ireland). Haig did all the planning, alongside Rawlinson, and commanded the attack. Of course, it was a success, so there's that.

And I admit I made a mistake there:  However....  Haig was the one that wanted to end full-on division level attacks and change to company and section level, it was Haig who called a halt on Machine Gun companies, getting soldiers to use support weapons during the advance instead.  Unfortunately he was up against Winston Churchill who never understood that he wasn't the military genius he thought he was - an example can be seen from his disastrous ideas about how the Dardanelles campaign should be conducted, a campaign he himself drew up the plans for but which were full of more holes than a colander (such as having the Royal Navy prep the beaches by firing on them six months before the invasion or having the British troops dropped off two miles out to sea and have them swim ashore in full kit, or having the ANZACS come ashore without any Naval support).  Churchill belonged to a different era and couldn't appreciate how much modern warfare had changed and resolutely believed the war was going to be won with a glorious cavalry charge against the Germans.  Which shows that he may have been good at politcs, but was crap at fighting.
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Offline Scotsgit

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Re: Harris County, Texas.
« Reply #58 on: January 10, 2012, 10:05:03 am »
I'm almost certain it was the Queen's Own Camerons, but I'm not 100% certain on that. I would have to dig into his old papers, and I don't even know where those are anymore. Probably in the attic at my cousin Alph's in Aberdeen.

Whereabouts was he from?  If it's Inverness it would probably be either the Camerons or Lovats, Aberdeen the chances are it's the Gordons.

We're from Munlochy, north of the Firth near Hill o'Hirdle.

On the Black Isle?  I was there this time last year. 

I'd say chances are he was a Cameron - they had about 7 battalions recruited by the end of the war.
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