America

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Of course I never go Southside, I wouldn't want to be beaten to death with steel-toe Dubes.And to Thor, I believe a third bomb was going to be dropped but weather conditions prevented the mission from completing.

"..beaten to death with steel-toe Dubes"What are you on about?! The likeliest place to get a hiding is this side of the Liffey! All joking aside, I spent three days in the mater hospital last year after a bad hiding I got in Ballymun. I was stabbed multiple times in the fracas. An odd point about being stabbed; it doesn’t feel like what you'd imagine being 'stabbed' would be, in that there is no sensation of cutting. It feels just like getting punched.

It was a joke! I spent all of last night in Doran's. Was great, had two lesbians sitting on my lap for most of the night.I can understand how it can feel different than expected, when I broke my arm it didn't feel like it had broken (altho the CRACK sure sounded like it).

I know it was a joke, you spanner-head! & 'CRACK' uurrrgh, that sounds horrible! Did you actually hear the sound just like that?I broke my toe a good few years back, but I KNEW it was broken the moment it happened - the bleedin roar that came out of me! Did you not feel a broken bone was a curious sort of pain that came from so deep inside you that you just knew it had to be broken? That's mad, I'd have expected an arm to be much more painful than a toe! It was a bit embarassing, hobbling around...!

I knew it was a joke also.... bitch.Honestly, I didn't feel anyhting wrong with it for about 10 minutes. It was just sore. And I was playing football at the time. And yes it was actually a very loud crack, I just didn't realise what it was until I went to the school nurse and she started freaking out.

At least you got a cast. The thing with a broken toe is there's fuckall they can do for it only strap it onto the next one and send you hobbling home. And the worst part of all is you cant even give the doctor a kick in the bollocks..

Well next time you break your toe, just give the doc a really bad handjob. That'll show him.

Ha ha ha, you dirty fucker! I am knackered and am going to bed. Might read a few pages of 'Moll Flanders' before I go to sleep.. You'd better stay up late now and keep up the good work re the Irish insomniac reputation, since I, lightweight that I am, must drop out of the race.. Nite!

I can't stay up tonight, I'm reading at my granddad's funeral tomorrow morning.

I will tell you what I know of it, or atleast what I was taught...True ornot I cant honestly say, its just what I was taught in a shitty school in Utah.I think for the sake of argument we have to first agree that dropping the first one, was a good idea, before hindsite and what not kicked in.With that frame of mind what i know is this,we warned Japan what we hadand what we intended to do with it, they scoffed at our claims and we dropped the first one on one of doolittles runs.Japan then believed what we had claimed. They did not surrender soon enough so we dropped the second one.Now what I was taught is that we originally were going to drop several, one at a time with the idea that they would surrender after the first one.Since they didnt, we went ahead as planned and dropped number two, they then said "Oh Fuck" and were in a hurry to surrender.What id read since my high school education, is pretty much the same, aside that Japan wanted to surrender after bomb one, but because of communication problems and delays with the emporer, were not able to do so BEFORE we dropped number 2, but had wanted to do so.How accurate what I wrote is, is up for grabs, so long as anyone wanting to prove me wrong, or has a contrasting view, is that the victor writes the history, and at the time it was written, the world was a much bigger place. Now its smaller, thanks in a large part to the internet closing gaps of culture and distance. I havent done any research about it since long ago, I may have to do so now though.And Steve, according to what I had been taught long ago in that shitty school, Thors nyumbers are right.They may not actually be correct, but they are what my generation was taught on the subject, by the victors that wrote the page in historys anals.

Im sorry to hear that Bob.

The number I've seen tossed around is 500,000 American casualties prevented. I don't know where 4 million came from. Some history from the National Archives, etc. Interview with Leo Szilard (one of the developers of the original A-bomb) Technical information on the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Ralph Raiko explains why the "Amereican lives saved by dropping the A-bombs" numbers are absurd An objective discussion from U. Colorado It is anything but clear that dropping the first A-bomb was justified, much less the second one. And they were planning a third?

It is anything but clear that dropping the first A-bomb was justified, much less the second one. And they were planning a third? No matter if you belive the first was OK or not, to have the things I said hold up, you have to take the side of those that say the first one was a great idea.As to lives saved, American and Japanese together (projected) on a assault and invasion vs the japanese lifes lostby the bombing. and even then you have to give them the benifit of believing no one knew about nuclear fallout and radiation poisoning for so long after the actual detonation.as for how many they planned to drop, the number stuck in my head is 5 total planned bombings if no surrender was offered.But that number is stuck in my head, about 20 after it went in , so, accuracy may vary.

The decision to drop the bombs reminds me of the decision to invade Iraq.

"Oldfolks - I remember seeing it on a documentary concerning the issue several years ago...perhaps the History Channel. That's the best I can give you. Nothing was known if the sub ever reached Japan, but records of its cargo and destination were obtained. One must conclude that if they bothered to send a sub to Japan to carry this info that there must have been something they thought was worth sending."Are you thinking about Germany sending non-weapons grade plutonium to Japan by sub, somewhat earlier in the war? I have heard of that. The physics behind building the bomb was pretty well understood by leading physicists throughout the world, not to as wide an extent (not as many physicists), but including Japan. Japans interest in nuclear power was mainly, just that, an interest in much needed power. They did have a very small research group looking into the A-bomb and it was rumored that they did detonate a very, very small A-bomb about a month before the close of the war but I know of no evidence of this having ever surfaced or it being considered anything more than a historical-rumor.Given that the physics were pretty well understood it's the execution of the build, not the design, that presented the limitations, mainly do to time and quantities of necessary resources. It takes a lot to convert plutonium to a weapons-grade product. Regardless, Japan, like Germany had no capability to actually build the bomb. While, it seems to me, we probably had a pretty good handle on what German capabilities where with regard to the bomb, I have never read what, if any, intelligence we had about Japan and their atomic capabilities.I'm honestly not arguing the point. I'm just curious. I can't imagine what Germany could possibly give to Japan, design wise, that they didn't already know. Personally I'm little leery of T.V. documentaries anymore. They seem to be sensationalizing history more and more for the sake of dramatic entertainment and in so doing rewriting the finer points of history.If you happen to think of the show or see it again PM me and let me know what it is. Thanks.

Thanks Steph. :smile:

I hate funerals, I'd nearly rather go to my own than sit through another bloody funeral. Sorry to hear about that Bob, x.

How did the reading go honey??? hope it all went well........well as well as funerals go, you know what i mean cuddle

Thanks Star and Angel.And funerals and dead people and dead relationsions don't really effect me. I'm a horribley insensitive person. But the reading went well. It was weird, I hadn't gone to mass in years and I was amazed at how much of a cult it felt like. Everybody droning out the same words over and over. And honestly, if I have to do one more fecking Rosary...

I know what you're saying; that sort of prayer has never felt spiritually connective to me. It sounds like a load of zombies droaning on.. There's no feeling or meaning in it, at least none that I can see.