Wednesday, June 24, 2015
Very Good Announcement Speech, Bobby Jindal
Just finished listening to Bobby Jindal on Fox News. They carried his entire speech, live. Jindal is pretty good, at least as good as The Donald, the the business of a good old fashioned stem winding speech. He may be Indian American, but he gave a good old effective American political speech. He is a real governor, who did a lot of good work in a state that needed it after Hurricane Katrina. I wish him well. He could make a decent US president, better than the one we have.
Could the Germans have won?
We now think of allied victory in WWII, which set the pattern for the rest of the 20th century, as inevitable. America, Britain, and Soviet Russia had a vastly greater population, vastly great industrial capacity, and all the natural resources needed to fight a war. But, you need to look at the world as it was in 1940, Hitler's high tide. His armies had crushed Poland and then France, occupied Denmark, Holland, Norway, Belgium and Luxemburg, and driven the British into the sea at Dunkirk. Hitler owned most of Western Europe. Britain alone stood in opposition.
Starting from this high point, what could the Germans have done to win the war, and dominate the world, probably until today? To be real about, or even semi real, we have to have Hitler running Germany. Without Hitler, we would not have had WWII. In 1940 everyone in Europe remembered the horror that was WWI, only twenty years in the past. Nobody, except a madman, which Hitler was, could think that any diplomatic gain, territorial expansion, anything at all, was worth doing WWI over again. If Hitler is removed from the scene, say by assassination in the 1930's, the world would have been spared WWII. Under any other leader, the Germans would have thrown their weight around, and obtained concessions, but they would have not sent their army into Poland in 1939.
First of all, Hitler could have gone for the bomb. It was Otto Hahn, a German physicist working in Germany, who discovered nuclear fission in 1938. If the industrial resources the Germans poured into the fairly useless V2 rocket program been applied to creating nuclear weapons, Germany might well have been able to nuke London or Moscow by 1944.
Second, Hitler could have polished off the British in 1940. This would have destroyed one of the three great allied powers. It would have allowed Hitler to throw more force against the Russians in 1941 without the British sniping at him from the West. It would have deprived the allies of the airbase from which the RAF and USAAF bombed Germany flat by 1945. It would have captured the launch pad for Operation Overlord, which sealed the fate of Germany. Overlord's vast armada of shipping was largely short range shallow draft landing craft, seaworthy enough to cross the Channel in good weather, but incapable of crossing the Atlantic.
The British Army had abandoned all their tanks, artillery, motor vehicles and heavy equipment at Dunkirk. Only a few troops still had their rifles when evacuated to England. Had the Germans put three or four divisions ashore in England that summer, the place would have been theirs. The trick was to get those divisions across the channel in the face of the Royal Navy. Barges and landing craft full of troops are dead meat when the British steam up along side with a battleship. The German counter to the Royal Navy was the Luftwaffe. Air attack with bombs and torpedoes will sink anything that floats. The Luftwaffe needed to achieve air superiority, namely beat down the RAF to the point where the slow and vulnerable Stuka's could operate over the channel without being bounced by RAF Spitfires. The Luftwaffe nearly achieved air superiority during the 1940 air battles, doing it the hard way, flying into British airspace and dog fighting with RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes. If they had concentrated upon knocking out the coastal radar stations, the sector stations, the air fields, and the aircraft factories they might have done it. All the British accounts of the Battle of Britain stress how close the Germans came to winning it.
Thirdly, Hitler could have given Rommel and the Afrika Korps more support. Rommel only had a couple of German divisions, going up against the British with eight to twelve divisions. A couple more divisions for Rommel taken from the 140 sent into Russia would have made all the difference in the middle east but wouldn't have made much difference on the eastern front. If the paratroops sent to take Crete had been used to take Malta instead, Rommel's supply lines across the Mediterranean would have been secure. Had Rommel taken Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Iraq oilfields it would have solved Hitler's fuel problems, and dealt a crushing blow to the British.
Fourth, Hitler could have refrained from declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor. He had made no binding treaties with the Japanese, he didn't owe them anything. As it was, he made Roosevelt's job in pursuing a "Germany First" strategy far easier. And he drove the last nails into the American isolationist's coffin. Without Hitler's gratuitous declaration of war, the isolationists might have kept America out of the European war for months and months. For Hitler, locked in a death struggle with the British and the Soviets at the time, a delay of months in American belligerency is not to be sneezed at.
There are others, but the first four above are enough for this post. And a world where the Third Reich won would have been very bad indeed.
Starting from this high point, what could the Germans have done to win the war, and dominate the world, probably until today? To be real about, or even semi real, we have to have Hitler running Germany. Without Hitler, we would not have had WWII. In 1940 everyone in Europe remembered the horror that was WWI, only twenty years in the past. Nobody, except a madman, which Hitler was, could think that any diplomatic gain, territorial expansion, anything at all, was worth doing WWI over again. If Hitler is removed from the scene, say by assassination in the 1930's, the world would have been spared WWII. Under any other leader, the Germans would have thrown their weight around, and obtained concessions, but they would have not sent their army into Poland in 1939.
First of all, Hitler could have gone for the bomb. It was Otto Hahn, a German physicist working in Germany, who discovered nuclear fission in 1938. If the industrial resources the Germans poured into the fairly useless V2 rocket program been applied to creating nuclear weapons, Germany might well have been able to nuke London or Moscow by 1944.
Second, Hitler could have polished off the British in 1940. This would have destroyed one of the three great allied powers. It would have allowed Hitler to throw more force against the Russians in 1941 without the British sniping at him from the West. It would have deprived the allies of the airbase from which the RAF and USAAF bombed Germany flat by 1945. It would have captured the launch pad for Operation Overlord, which sealed the fate of Germany. Overlord's vast armada of shipping was largely short range shallow draft landing craft, seaworthy enough to cross the Channel in good weather, but incapable of crossing the Atlantic.
The British Army had abandoned all their tanks, artillery, motor vehicles and heavy equipment at Dunkirk. Only a few troops still had their rifles when evacuated to England. Had the Germans put three or four divisions ashore in England that summer, the place would have been theirs. The trick was to get those divisions across the channel in the face of the Royal Navy. Barges and landing craft full of troops are dead meat when the British steam up along side with a battleship. The German counter to the Royal Navy was the Luftwaffe. Air attack with bombs and torpedoes will sink anything that floats. The Luftwaffe needed to achieve air superiority, namely beat down the RAF to the point where the slow and vulnerable Stuka's could operate over the channel without being bounced by RAF Spitfires. The Luftwaffe nearly achieved air superiority during the 1940 air battles, doing it the hard way, flying into British airspace and dog fighting with RAF Spitfires and Hurricanes. If they had concentrated upon knocking out the coastal radar stations, the sector stations, the air fields, and the aircraft factories they might have done it. All the British accounts of the Battle of Britain stress how close the Germans came to winning it.
Thirdly, Hitler could have given Rommel and the Afrika Korps more support. Rommel only had a couple of German divisions, going up against the British with eight to twelve divisions. A couple more divisions for Rommel taken from the 140 sent into Russia would have made all the difference in the middle east but wouldn't have made much difference on the eastern front. If the paratroops sent to take Crete had been used to take Malta instead, Rommel's supply lines across the Mediterranean would have been secure. Had Rommel taken Egypt, the Suez Canal, and the Iraq oilfields it would have solved Hitler's fuel problems, and dealt a crushing blow to the British.
Fourth, Hitler could have refrained from declaring war on the United States after Pearl Harbor. He had made no binding treaties with the Japanese, he didn't owe them anything. As it was, he made Roosevelt's job in pursuing a "Germany First" strategy far easier. And he drove the last nails into the American isolationist's coffin. Without Hitler's gratuitous declaration of war, the isolationists might have kept America out of the European war for months and months. For Hitler, locked in a death struggle with the British and the Soviets at the time, a delay of months in American belligerency is not to be sneezed at.
There are others, but the first four above are enough for this post. And a world where the Third Reich won would have been very bad indeed.
Tuesday, June 23, 2015
Marketing 102.
Manufacturer's with sense label their product with their name, "Made in USA", and the model number. This way the product itself serves as company advertising for the life of the product. Just came away from an estate auction, loads of cool stuff, very little of it marked with the maker's name.
And, don't change the model number until you redesign the product in a serious way. Model numbers like 747 and XP and GTO have staying power. Your model number might grow in name recognition if you didn't change it every season like Sears Roebuck used to do.
When doing TV ads, understand that we all have color TV now. Don't do your ads in black and white just cause someone at the ad agency thinks black and white looks cool. Color makes your product look better and more desirable than black and white. And you don't have to pay extra to do a TV ad in color, unlike in the old days when a color newspaper ad cost extra.
Your ad will be more effective if the product name is shown on screen and spoken by the announcer. Do this at the beginning of the ad. A huge number of loser ads fail to make it clear what they are peddling. You cannot tell if the ad is selling cars, or pretty girls, or Caribbean vacations or open road, or what.
The most important specification of anything is the price. Don't skip showing the price in ads. Some marketeers say that customers will be scared off when they see how much it will cost them. If this is the case, you need to do some cost reduction and get the price down to make the product look like a bargain. When an ad omits the price, I always figure the product will be too expensive for me, and I lose interest.
And, don't change the model number until you redesign the product in a serious way. Model numbers like 747 and XP and GTO have staying power. Your model number might grow in name recognition if you didn't change it every season like Sears Roebuck used to do.
When doing TV ads, understand that we all have color TV now. Don't do your ads in black and white just cause someone at the ad agency thinks black and white looks cool. Color makes your product look better and more desirable than black and white. And you don't have to pay extra to do a TV ad in color, unlike in the old days when a color newspaper ad cost extra.
Your ad will be more effective if the product name is shown on screen and spoken by the announcer. Do this at the beginning of the ad. A huge number of loser ads fail to make it clear what they are peddling. You cannot tell if the ad is selling cars, or pretty girls, or Caribbean vacations or open road, or what.
The most important specification of anything is the price. Don't skip showing the price in ads. Some marketeers say that customers will be scared off when they see how much it will cost them. If this is the case, you need to do some cost reduction and get the price down to make the product look like a bargain. When an ad omits the price, I always figure the product will be too expensive for me, and I lose interest.
Monday, June 22, 2015
Is my laptop listening to me?
Have I been bugged by my laptop? Who knows. Yesterday the Chrome Browser by Google was accused of flipping on the internal mike and sending all the audio to Google. I don't use Chrome, but if Chrome can do it others will do it too. I dug into the wordy but vague instructions for my HP Pavilion no-model-number laptop. You can go to Control Panel, find an applet "Sound" and disable the internal microphone. At least in software. Who knows what Windows bug will allow hostile code to turn the mike on again? The internal mike is hidden under a groovy looking perforated panel above the keyboard. I don't quite fear audio snoopers enough to take the laptop apart and risk breaking something. I did bother to put a piece of tape over the internal camera lens.
The Second World War by Antony Beevor
It's comprehensive, It's long (863 pages). It's up-to-date (2012). It covers all the lesser known second world war actions such as Kolkin Gol, where the Soviets whipped the Japanese, the Ichigo offensive in China, and the Hurtgen forest operations. The author is a Brit, but he joins in with numerous others in trashing Montgomery. He covers the really grisly parts of the war, the Holocaust, treatment of prisoners, in horrible detail. He doesn't believe in strategic bombing.
His writing style is pedestrian, "They did this, then they did that, then something else happened, ...". Little to no background information, little discussion of why things happened, no explanation of might-have-beens. Little to no discussion of why the winners won and the losers lost. Little discussion of the political angles of the war and the peace, such as could the Soviet takeover of eastern and central Europe been avoided?
I have read better World War II histories, starting with Winston Churchill's war memoirs (6 volumes), John Keegan's Second World War, Rick Atkinsen's Liberation Trilogy, Samuel Elliot Morrison's Two Ocean War, Harold Spector's Eagle against the Sun, William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and many others
His writing style is pedestrian, "They did this, then they did that, then something else happened, ...". Little to no background information, little discussion of why things happened, no explanation of might-have-beens. Little to no discussion of why the winners won and the losers lost. Little discussion of the political angles of the war and the peace, such as could the Soviet takeover of eastern and central Europe been avoided?
I have read better World War II histories, starting with Winston Churchill's war memoirs (6 volumes), John Keegan's Second World War, Rick Atkinsen's Liberation Trilogy, Samuel Elliot Morrison's Two Ocean War, Harold Spector's Eagle against the Sun, William Shirer's Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and many others
Sunday, June 21, 2015
Nutcase control
The horrible killing in Charleston SC has brought the gun controllers out in force. This is misguided, and distasteful. The gun isn't the problem, the crazy man pulling the trigger is the problem. I say anyone who kills nine people, worshiping, inside a church, is crazy. That's just not human behavior. It may not meet the lawyer's definition of insane, but what do lawyers know, really?
What should have happened, sometime in the past. Someone, family, friends, teachers, should have noticed that this young man Dylan Roof was doing and saying strange things. Some competent psychiatrists should have examined Roof, decided that he was a dangerous nut case, and popped him into a mental hospital. We used to do things like that, but 1960's activists managed to close mental hospitals all across the country and make it practically impossible to involuntarily commit anyone, no matter how crazy they might be.
In our free society,we are reluctant to grant anyone, even proper courts of law, that kind of power over citizens. The soviets showed us how political opponents could be taken out of action by committing them to mental institutions against their will.
I don't believe we can ever have an airtight system but we can do better than we do. At a minimum we ought to have some empty beds in mental hospitals for those clear cut cases, where everyone, authorities, family, friends, agree that so-and-so is crazy, there is somewhere to put them. Up here there are no empty beds and the patient winds up handcuffed to a bed in a hospital emergency room, often for several days.
What should have happened, sometime in the past. Someone, family, friends, teachers, should have noticed that this young man Dylan Roof was doing and saying strange things. Some competent psychiatrists should have examined Roof, decided that he was a dangerous nut case, and popped him into a mental hospital. We used to do things like that, but 1960's activists managed to close mental hospitals all across the country and make it practically impossible to involuntarily commit anyone, no matter how crazy they might be.
In our free society,we are reluctant to grant anyone, even proper courts of law, that kind of power over citizens. The soviets showed us how political opponents could be taken out of action by committing them to mental institutions against their will.
I don't believe we can ever have an airtight system but we can do better than we do. At a minimum we ought to have some empty beds in mental hospitals for those clear cut cases, where everyone, authorities, family, friends, agree that so-and-so is crazy, there is somewhere to put them. Up here there are no empty beds and the patient winds up handcuffed to a bed in a hospital emergency room, often for several days.
Friday, June 19, 2015
"World's greatest Deliberative Body" needs an overhaul
That's what the US Senate likes to call itself. But it indulges in procedures that allow members to conceal their votes from their constituents. It plays the "let's vote on whether to have a vote" game which is a way to kill a bill without actually being seen to vote against it. It gives the leadership a private veto of bills it doesn't like. When the leadership doesn't want a bill to pass, it just refuses to bring the bill to the floor. It allows individual members a blackball on appointments. If a member doesn't like a candidate for a judgeship or other federal office, he can file a "hold", a secret note saying don't bring this guy up for a vote. "Holds" are secret, nobody outside the Senate knows they exist, or who filed them.
The Senate ought to give up this "vote to have a vote" malarkey. All bills should come to the floor, for one vote, pass or fail, each session. In New Hampshire, with a 400 + person legislature, every member's bills are always brought up for a vote. No reason the 100 person US Senate cannot do as well.
The Senate ought to give up this "vote to have a vote" malarkey. All bills should come to the floor, for one vote, pass or fail, each session. In New Hampshire, with a 400 + person legislature, every member's bills are always brought up for a vote. No reason the 100 person US Senate cannot do as well.
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