Nice try, "Jonathan", but you're a long way from passing that Turing Test right now.
"Why, with [1.4 million soldiers presently in the US military], does having 130,000 troops in Iraq put such a strain on the military that national guardsmen now make up nearly 40% of those in Iraq?"
A better way to look at this is in terms of brigades, of which there are 37 in the army. Ten are in Iraq, one in Korea, one in Afghanistan. (Three NG brigades are in Iraq and one in Kosovo, out of 37 potential NG brigades that could be called up, but let's stick to the regular Army). Now that gives 12 out of 37 currently deployed. Another 12 have recently been rotated back to the US and are resting, refitting and training after their operational tours. So that's 24. (all 12 could be called back into operations within four months in an emergency.) You need five more ready in the US to go to South Korea if something happens there. That's 30. Two are currently being reequipped with new armoured vehicles. That's 32. Presumably at least one more is ready to reinforce Iraq if things get even worse. 33. See how it mounts up?
Bottom line; for an invasion of Iran the Army could field at least four brigades (one division) currently free, plus twelve more recalled to service from the US, plus a large number of National Guard brigades (up to 30 in theory, but closer to 25 given the problems there would be with combat readiness and callup). Occupying the damn place, however...
Gosh, so he is. Mr Orzel: thanks very much for that. Mr Ford: nice work on the story.
Someone must know this one. Short story about a post-revolutionary society. It alternates between a description of how the new order reformed the spectrum (into colours like 'redor', 'angeyel' and 'enblu') and a love story between two characters on opposite sides of the revolution, referred to only as the Artillerist (her) and the Architect (him). Now, I can't remember the name or the author (it sounds like Iain Banks, but isn't; might be Ursula Le Guin). Can anyone help?
The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes (re-reading). (DHS please note: purely academic interest.) Read it first after seeing Michael Frayn's Copenhagen. Terrific writing - not just about the Manhattan Project but the revolution in physics leading up to it. There are some scenes that are very vivid, almost cinematic: Fermi looking down on Manhattan from his office window, squinting into the sun, cupping his hands together and saying "One little bomb this size, and it would all disappear." Bohr in his office, spraying chalk shrapnel in all directions and not daring to speak for fear of breaking his train of thought as he works out the reason for the uranium neutron capture curve. Sam Goudsmit with the Alsos intelligence team, up on the battle lines on the Western Front, chasing down the remains of the Nazi bomb project. Great stuff.
Or better still, his "Epitaph for a Statesman":
I could not dig; I dared not rob;
Therefore I lied to please the mob.
Now all my lies are proved untrue
And I must face the men I slew.
What lies will serve me here among
Mine angry and defrauded young?
The line between Kipling and the war poets is largely artificial. I don't think Kipling could have mustered the psychotic energy of "The Kiss" -
To these I turn, in these I trust—
Brother Lead and Sister Steel.
To his blind power I make appeal,
I guard her beauty clean from rust.
but his antiwar poetry, as well as "Ubique", match Sassoon at least.
But I don't want this to turn into a Kipling-swapping thread; well, I do, but it could be a bit of a bore for other guests here. The anthologies look interesting. I'll check them out; thanks. (The last SF I bought was due to a rec on this site - "The Atrocity Archives" by Charles Stross - and that paid off, no error, so I might do that again.)
Good lord. I thought I knew quite a bit of Kipling, but I'd never come across that one before - makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck.
I will file it along with Macaulay's "Naseby", the core of the Great Charter ("To no man will we sell, to none delay, to none deny justice or right"), and the Declaration of Arbroath - and the final few chapters of Ken Macleod's "The Star Fraction", for that matter - under "Stuff that makes me feel patriotic in a good way, and that would, in an ideal Britain, form the basis of our government." (This notional file is extensively crosslinked to the US Bill of Rights, Neal Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and the oratory of Martin Luther King, Jr, under the heading "Foreigners, but they had the right idea.")
Just my contrib - I can't comment on the US political machinations but I'm pretty confident that bin Laden is indeed alive, given that a source I trust reasonably well saw him alive, apparently healthy and mobile north of Gilgit in July this year.
Quarterly Journal of Medicine.
Except that QJM is, of course, monthly. But it used to be quarterly, so they kept the name because it was easier than changing it and everyone was familiar with the old name.
It is probably significant in this context that QJM is published in Britain. The above explanation, with suitable substitutions, will work as an answer to any foreigner's question that fits the pattern "Why does [British thing] [happen in this bizarre way] when [logic and/or the experience of the entire rest of the world would indicate that there is a far simpler and more rational alternative way]?"
The Simeon of Sisan Pillar of Eremitical Theology
The Bed of Jurisprudence (believed to date from the reign of Louis XIV)
The Seat of Reason
The Thomas Malory Temporary Chair of Mediaeval Mythology (also known as the Siege Perilous)
The Martin-Baker Chair of Aeronautical Engineering (also a non-tenure appointment)
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