Tall Paul's Dad, a WW2 vet, passes away

@barnee

Bit late, but seconded.

I liked the skating and team play.
It is improving each olympic game.

James will never be a Laker and actually nobody good wants to be a Laker.

The kicker is this, though: there was no poop actually in the toilet bowl. Everywhere else, but not there. What WAS in the toilet was his soiled underwear that he had abandoned.

FYI I just about died of laughter after reading this LOL

It sounds like to me he flushed the toilet first, and then must have left the underwear in there after.

LOL… that said never leave an underpant behind!

LMAO one just happened a few mins ago that got me laughin :lol:

Geze: Ya, 1000 registered users but how many have actualy posted?

432 never posted

and 266 have only posted one or twice

thats 698 users of 1008 that have posted 0, 1 or 2 times!

Dezrtfish:Well, it’s a good thing you have posted once for each of them.

AahahahAHahhAhahHAHahaH!!! now that’s comedy. Well it’s funny if Dezrt is saying what I think he is. I hope he is, cuz then it’s funny.

I think most of the backing came due to two facts:
(1) the USSR needed reforms, that was obvious.
Still, they probably wanted a long term leader that could be influenced => a younger one, after the two short reigns of Andropov and what-was-his-name… Probably, the influentials wanted some change, but surely not that much that it would threaten their power-base, one of the reasons for the coup that failed due to Jelzins help for Gorbachev.
(2) The general secretary and all the other positions he fills made him the most powerful man in the USSR. Probably, whoever put Gorbachev into place, underestimated him. Pretty much the same underestimation that Hitler faced when he was appointed Chancellor, but luckily Gorbachev used that to reform positively, and i consider the new freedom of information, the right to ask wether the party is right and that the crucial reform.

So, I don’t think that there was “real” backing, i believe Gorbachev was kind of a compromise candidate, kind of a makeshift. Of course, once he was into power, you ccouldn’t remove instantly, that would have meant that the party made a mistake (which was not “allowed” before Gorbachev). And he was clever enough to stay into power, and use his popularity at the beginning (which soon, after the economy started to collapse openly, was reduced to more or less nothing) to enforece the reforms.

Another memorable commander was Günther Prien, commander of the U 47.

He went into the port of Scapa Flow with his sub….
have a look at:
http://uboat.net/ops/scapa_flow.htm

Yes… one would imagine if the Germans had had their 300 U-Boats that Donitz wanted if not for Hitler.