The AI-generated cat pictures thread
01-20-2012, 03:01 PM
#7348
Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Maryville TN
Posts: 878
Total Cats: 79
Wisdom from an elderly Jewish man
A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.
She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she ap proached him for an interview.
"Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What's your name?
"Morris Feinberg," he replied.
"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims."
"I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop."
"I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man."
"I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a effing wall."
A female CNN journalist heard about a very old Jewish man who had been going to the Western Wall to pray, twice a day, every day, for a long, long time.
So she went to check it out. She went to the Western Wall and there he was, walking slowly up to the holy site.
She watched him pray and after about 45 minutes, when he turned to leave, using a cane and moving very slowly, she ap proached him for an interview.
"Pardon me, sir, I'm Rebecca Smith from CNN. What's your name?
"Morris Feinberg," he replied.
"Sir, how long have you been coming to the Western Wall and praying?"
"For about 60 years."
"60 years! That's amazing! What do you pray for?"
"I pray for peace between the Christians, Jews and the Muslims."
"I pray for all the wars and all the hatred to stop."
"I pray for all our children to grow up safely as responsible adults and to love their fellow man."
"I pray that politicians tell us the truth and put the interests of the people ahead of their own interests."
"How do you feel after doing this for 60 years?"
"Like I'm talking to a effing wall."
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01-20-2012, 03:02 PM
#7349
Elite Member
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Join Date: May 2009
Location: Jacksonville, FL
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Total Cats: 406
The war was already over at that point, Japan had lost all strategic points and was only fighting in fleeting desperation.
They chose to drop the bomb simply to show the Russians that we had it and we re willing to use it. Thus launching the cold war.
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01-20-2012, 03:46 PM
#7350
Boost Pope
iTrader: (8)
Join Date: Sep 2005
Location: Chicago. (The less-murder part.)
Posts: 33,015
Total Cats: 6,587
In April of 1941, Japan and the Soviet Union signed a Neutrality Pact with one another. Despite the opposite alignments of the two empires (remember, the Russians were our allies), this treaty made good sense, particularly for the Japanese. It afforded them the opportunity to continue their war of expansion to the south and east (furthering their goal of establishing dominance in the Pacific), while assuaging the Russians of the fear that Japan's activities in China might creep further west into territory which would threaten the USSR's claims in western Asia.
By 1945, however, it was clear to Soviet leaders that Japan's conquest was at an end, and the idea began to be floated that, just as the USSR had successfully expanded its territory into eastern Europe, by entering the Pacific war on the side of the Allied powers at this late stage, they might stand to benefit by gaining control of certain territories in the Pacific region as well. Thus, in April of 1945, the Soviet Union denounced this pact and declared war on Japan, beginning with the invasion of Manchuria, a part of China which was then held by the Japanese.
This was, for all intents and purposes, the last nail in Japan's coffin. Japanese leaders, who had already begun to float the idea of surrender, now begun to conduct formal talks with the USSR through their ambassador in Switzerland. Why the USSR? Simple- the Soviets had no axe to grind. Most of the other Allied nations (the US not least among them) were by this point felt to be fighting for revenge. But because the USSR and Japan had not long been at conflict, and little in the way of atrocities had yet been committed (eg: no long history of horrific mistreatment of POWs or the like), it was felt by the Japanese that Russia would be least predisposed towards converting the act of surrender into a final grand show of retribution.
Now, from the standpoint of the US and its western Allies, this was not an acceptable state of affairs. Even before the war's end, Cold-war-style tensions had already begun to grow. Were Japan to surrender to the Soviet Union, the Soviets would be permitted to expand their empire even further, gaining a dangerous foothold in a region already afflicted by one communist government, and considered to be of dramatic strategic importance to the US. The East / West division of Germany, in particular, was a debacle that the US and Britain did not wish to see repeated.
With this perspective in mind, it becomes obvious why the US felt it imperative that the war be prolonged until such a time that Japan could be brought to unconditional surrender on America's terms, rather than allowing the Soviet Union to broker the terms of peace. The use of the atomic bomb did not provide the quickest possible conclusion of the war, but it did allow the US to ensure that the Soviets were excluded from the post-war settlement of Japan's territories.
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Those had me ------- dying!
