Harsh sentence compared to most violent crimes Id say. Few rape sentences run that long for instance.

Just when I think I get the hang of sarcasm...

Very interesting. Neither I myself or anyone I know has ever had any use for a gun to defend ourselves. But then I live in Sweden where the cult of the gun never really has taken off.

The day that the US Airforce's first nuclear-tipped ICBM went online the second amendment to the US constitution was obsoleted.

The Germans produced less than 1350 of the legendary Tiger tank, and less than 500 of the King Tiger). I think we saw how that turned out for the Germans. Americans and Russians just kept churning out Shermans and T-34's, and simply overwhelmed them.

Is a lot more complex than that, dont forget the Panther family and all the different tank destroyers that they employed. Fuel was in many ways the deciding factor, with enough fuel the Germans could have held out for maybe three or four months more. The Battle of the Bulge for instance might have gone quite differently if the German commander had had enough fuel.

Yup, I know that one alright :) "Blinkar Blå" is even better though.

Bah. 94% of voters didnt vote for these racist nincompoops. They will be lame ducks, the established parties are not interested in cooperating with them.

Yes, just like in many other countries all over the world (including the US) lots of people were quite impressed by Germany and its martial and socioeconomical prowess in the thirties/early forties. Sweden had strong ties to Germany and German culture. Germany was and is an important trade partner. Add to that the fact that quite a few German divisions were based in occupied Norway and Denmark, the Soviet aggression against Finland in 1939 and well, its not hard to understand that Sweden preferred to stay out of the war if possible. Fear of a German invasion and of a strong Soviet Union played its part . There was and is a great deal of post facto shame about the iron ore sales and the transiting of German troops but also some relief that we managed to keep out of the war.

Im a teacher by profession and here in Sweden this entire debate would be a non-starter. Why ? Because our curriculae are designed in a completely different way. We have a national curriculum set by the Riksdag (parliament) but thats designed by teachers and experts in concert. I have just participated in the evaluation of the new Science curriculum, a very interesting process where we get a say in what the focus should be.

In addition, our curriculae do not specify in mindnumbing detail what kids should learn, that is left up to us professionals. Quite a contrast from the standards that I saw when I visited schools in Virginia and Maryland last year. Of course, our kind of curriculum has its own challenges. Oh, and we get to choose our textbooks freely as well. We can pick whatever we find to be good books, regardless of what some well-meaning nutcase thinks.

Considering the american love affair with guns in general, why not just round up some random gun-toting militiamen and call that the US army ?

Firing a 30mm gunship cannon at people picking up wounded is murder however you try to justify it. No matter what the gunship crew thought they saw earlier there is no threat from people picking up wounded. Just because theres a "war" on doesnt mean that you get to fire indiscriminately at anything that moves.

IE9 will most likely be a big, complex monster like IE8 is. Chrome is the future of browsers IMO, small, fast and unbloated.

Why else ? "Embrace, extend, extinguish" is the Microsoft motto when it comes to competing standards.

The difference being that very few people consider Pakistan to be a democracy, whereas Venezuela is a democracy teetering on the brink of a single party system.