I read the news today oh boy! Page 905

Quote: Nogget @ June 25 2012, 1:58 PM BST

I just saw a piece about the end of the war in Japan, and it reminded me how much I feel the Americans should have dropped The Bomb earlier. Not only might it have saved thousands of US troops (13,000 died taking Okinawa alone!), I get the feeling fewer Japanese would have died.

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Okinawa was invaded long before the first atomic weapon was tested; I'm sure they would have dropped it earlier if they could. Only three weeks elapsed between the first test of the bomb and its use in Hiroshima, so I'd say the timetable was pretty tight.

'Enola Gay'

Quote: DaButt @ June 25 2012, 3:11 PM BST

Okinawa was invaded long before the first atomic weapon was tested; I'm sure they would have dropped it earlier if they could. Only three weeks elapsed between the first test of the bomb and its use in Hiroshima, so I'd say the timetable was pretty tight.

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The plans for the invasion of Japan make fascinating reading, fascinating and scary. There was all manner of brand new equipment, special rations, training, hundreds of thousands of troops. The Japanese had resorted to arming it's people with bows and arrows and suicide belts.

The estimated US casualties was 6-7 figures. One can see why the Americans used the bomb.

Quote: sootyj @ June 25 2012, 3:30 PM BST

The estimated US casualties was 6-7 figures.

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Japanese losses would have been ten times that figure.

The biggest tragedy is that Japan didn't surrender after the Hiroshima bombing, thus condemning tens of thousands of Nagasaki residents to death.

That certainly is true thousands dead because they thought there was a better deal to be done with the Russians

Will Gompertz at the BBC is talking about our favourite book -

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-18576914

'Sales were so good that the corporate publishing industry raced for the rights, with Random House winning the bid. The film rights went next, quickly followed by the unseemly sight of every major publisher in the world scrabbling around for some female-friendly porn to push.'

His conversation in the book shop seems entirely made up and his main complaint is that women are buying this book online instead of at suburban bookshops.

Is it a facet of mass marketing publicishing that some books do so incredibly well?

Quote: sootyj @ June 25 2012, 4:52 PM BST

Is it a facet of mass marketing publicishing that some books do so incredibly well?

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To be fair, the book had clocked up two million sales before anyone (outside of bookish female masturbators) had really heard of it.

I bet they make a kids cartoon of it
50 shades of greyskull

I think we are being far too critical about this book, it really is the great gender equaliser.

For years, people have said that the Internet is full of nerds who spend all their time looking at porn and wanking. Who knew it would be the women?

Or the one where the male lead is a swarthy Latino revolutionary, 50 Shades of Che.

50 shades of theresa may

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ June 25 2012, 5:08 PM BST

I think we are being far too critical about this book, it really is the great gender equaliser.

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Let's hope. I have a tendency to be quite cynical about this kind of stuff- in reality I'd quite like to be proven wrong.

Quote: Renegade Carpark @ June 25 2012, 2:19 PM BST

Those Germans were fighting against the Russians and quite rightly too. Once the Commies took Berlin, it was a raping, looting, shoot 'em up fest on the civilians. The Ruskies wanted revenge and from all accounts, they got it in spades.

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.. and when De Gaulle and the Free French were given leave to lead the invasion of south west Germany, they didn't loot, murder or rape any women at all.

.. and who were those americans who didn't capture any prisoners at all for the first 15 months of their involvement on the frontline, until questions were asked in the Houses of Parliament, with the miraculous result that they immediately started capturing prisoners? Was that the US Marines? Or am I getting mixed up?

Meh its a popular bit of porn that unlike most harms no one

I think it shows britain has a healthy sex life

Rule Britania, Britania f**ks them all!