Why the Allies Won (WWII) by Richard Overy

Good read.  Richard Overy is a Brit, who has previously written and published  ten books on WWII subjects, so he knows something about it.  He picks six campaigns that he calls the war winners, as opposed to plenty of campaigns which simply consumed lives and resources without ever doing anything to win the war. I find Overy's views quite reasonable. 
   Overy starts out explaining how touch and go Allied victory was.  In 1939,1940,and 1941 the Axis swept all before it.  Their armies fought better and beat the Allied armies every time.  Hitler overran all of Western Europe save Britain.  Had the Germans been able to get the mines and farms and factories of this humongous area organized and producing, and the young men to enlist in the German army,  he would have had an empire to match his enemies. 
   Overy's first crucial campaign was in the North Atlantic, where the U-boats had to be defeated.  D-Day would not have been possible if the U-boats sank half the troops before they reached England.   He attributes this victory to a handful of Consolidated B24 Liberator four engine bombers that had the range to run air patrols clean across the Atlantic.  Prior to the Liberators, the shorter range patrol planes flying from Britain and Canada left a 1000 mile gap, "the black pit" seamen called it, where the U-boats ranged freely and sank thousands of merchantmen.  Too get the Liberators onto the North Atlantic patrol took direct orders from Churchill.  The RAF wanted to use them for bombing Germany and resisted putting them on a navy mission. 
   Overy's second key campaign is the bombing campaign against German industry.  Right after the war, we ran some surveys concluding that strategic bombing had not been very effective.  Overy disagrees, he cites the decline in German oil production, and the destruction of the German Air Force by the Allied long range fighters escorting the bombers.  By the end of the war, the Germans  didn't have enough gasoline to fill a Zippo lighter.  As an old Air Force veteran, I agree with Overy on this one. 
    For a third key campaign, Overy chooses the eastern front.  In 1941, the German Army completely out classed the Red Army and beat them every time.  The Germans got to the outskirts of Moscow, had they been able to take the city, Russian resistance might well have collapsed.  Somehow, the Russians stayed the course, rebuilt their armies, produced thousands of T-34 tanks, better than anything the Germans had, and inflicted the crushing defeat at Stalingrad in 1942.  Before Stalingrad the Germans had beaten the Russians every time.  After Stalingrad, the Russians beat the Germans every time.
   The last key campaign was D-Day, where the Allies put a huge army ashore, in the teeth of German resistance and succeeded.   The Allies then encircled and destroyed the German army in France.  For the rest of the war, the German's fought with newly raised formations, or units pulled away from the eastern front. 
   Anyhow, if you are a WWII buff, you want to read this book.
   

Rant about the IRS

Dear IRS,
  Next time you invent one of those damn forms try this.  Give each box on the form a number, or a letter.  Pick one (numbers or letters) and stick with it.  Either give each box a number, or give each box a letter.  Don't put numbers on some boxes and letters on other boxes.  That's childish.  And don't  put a number and a letter on the same box. 
Sincerely,
An Average Turbo Tax using Taxpayer.

So why didn't she just slap him in the face?

That's what women used to do to men who got too pushy or grabby or kissy.  Michelle Fields, the Breitbart reporter going after Corey Lewandowski doesn't seem to be that brave.  She is yelling for cops and lawyers, where as a real women would have just smacked the guy. 

147 FBI agents on the Hilliary server case

Wow.  That's totally ridiculous.  Ten agents would be too many. 

Raise the cost of something and you get less of it

California is talking about going to the  $15 an hour minimum wage state wide.  That ought pretty much close out jobs for high schoolers and entry level workers.  And if workers don't enter the job market, they don't continue in it.
 Lots a Luck there California. 

Orwell, blue jeans, pop music, movies, and fast cars won the Cold War

It took us 45 years, but we beat the Soviets without going to war.  Way back when we all worried about the Cold War turning hot.  Remember On the Beach? or Canticle for Liebowitz, or Seven Days in May?  or "We will bury you" ?  Amazingly, the fear of nuclear war on both sides restrained the military option, and the Cold War was fought out with propaganda, diplomacy,  intelligence, and other non-lethal methods.
   George Orwell got in the first solid hit with Animal Farm, and followed that up with 1984.  Nobody could believe in the benevolence of communism after reading Orwell.  Remember the Soviet spies Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, Kim Philby, Guy Burgess, and John Cairncross?  They (and a bunch of others) spied for the Soviets, even passed the secrets of the atomic bomb to Stalin.  By all accounts, these guys, all university graduates, were ideologically convinced that communism was the wave of the future, and they were doing good by spying for the  Soviets.  After Orwell, nobody worked for the Soviets out of pure love of communism.  The later spies were all working for money.
   Levi Strauss got in the second solid hit with blue jeans.  Popularized by Hollywood westerns, worn by American teenagers,  they became ultra cool behind the Iron Curtain, and Soviet teenagers would go to extra ordinary lengths to get their hands on a pair.  It was hard for the commissars to work up much antipathy toward the Americans when every young Russian wanted to dress like the Americans did.
   Detroit did some good with hot cars like the Chevy 409, the 'Stang, the 426 Dodge,  the 'Vette, the Pontiac GTO, The Judge, and the whole drag racing, Thunder Road,  and NASCAR racing scene.  Again, hard to get young Russians worked up against the Yankees, when every one of them wanted to get their hands on Detroit iron.
   Pop music, Elvis, the Beatles,  the Grateful Dead, and all the rest of 'em ruled.  Along with Hollywood movies.  Again, hard to stir up trouble when every one in Russia is listening to Western pop music.  We need to resurrect both pop music and Hollywood, and make sure they are getting  into ISIS land.
  In short we took down the Soviets with coolness, consumer products, popular music and movies.  Plus a few other things.
   This ought to be our strategy for taking out Islamic extremism.  It worked on the communists, it will work on the Islamic crazies.   

Trump 2016

A campaign sign, someone chalked on a wall at Emory University.  Now we have Emory students and faculty crying about physic injuries and the need for counseling to over come the horror of seeing a campaign sign for a candidate they don't like. 
   Remind anyone you know not to apply to Emory, which seems to have forgotten that in the United States anyone can run for office, and put up signs, run TV commercials, plant yard signs, and electioneer especially on public property. 
   I don't like Trump much myself, but he has the right to run for president, and the right to electioneer.