Tags for this video have been changed from 'vonnegut, dresden, bbc, war, slaughterhouse five' to 'vonnegut, dresden, fire bombing, bbc, war, slaughterhouse five' - edited by calvados

"Dresden Generating Station is the first privately financed nuclear power plant built in the United States. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Nuclear_Power_Plant

Research. It works, bitches.

>> ^Ariane:

Did Fukushima not teach you shills for the nuclear industry anything? Nuclear energy is far from clean or cheap. The cost of a nuclear power plant exceeds the cost of electricity it will produce which is why there has never been a privately financed nuclear plant EVER!

This lack of accuracy is one of the great tragedies of WW2. There was an effort on the Allied side to concentrate bombing raids on military targets, but as described here, real life conditions made targeted strikes little more useful than indiscriminate bombing, especially since many of the raids before air supremacy was achieved over mainland Europe had to be conducted at night, and so less discriminating policies were installed. There was, even at the time, controversy over the usefulness of bombing civilian targets, and maybe cities would have been targeted to some extent even if bombing precision had been better, but the woeful inaccuracy of bombers unfortunately gave a lot of support to the proponents of total war - style bombing raids. Such raids continued even after air supremacy was achieved, which - in hindsight, admittedly - was not optimal for the war effort, but the procedure was established and difficult to change.

Thus, Dresden.

nitpick: that's not xkcd, that's the excellent Dresden Codak.

- a big fan of both

Anyone, including us, who kills civilians maliciously should be prosecuted by the international court as they have violated the social contract that we all live by.

Very rarely in history has a SINGLE individual been responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. When coupled with the fact that this individual espoused a racist, mysoginistic world view that was a danger to all mankind this is particularly heinous. In those instances where the violation of the social contract is so egregious, we as a society have a responsibility to enforce that contract and serve the penalty for the good of mankind.

Should Osama have been brought alive to justice? Perhaps. More to the point, he as a symbol of beliefs by going unpunished can longer be a point of origin for pain and misery felt by people around the world.

Am I happy he is dead? Damn straight.

>> ^Stormsinger:

>> ^Yogi:
A person that orders the mass killings of civilians is someone I would kill with my bare hands. In one very poignant way 9/11 was different than Pearl Harbor...

Like firebombing Tokyo or Dresden, perhaps?...

>> ^Yogi:

A person that orders the mass killings of civilians is someone I would kill with my bare hands. In one very poignant way 9/11 was different than Pearl Harbor. It was an organized attack on a civilian population, not an attack on an invading force that was waiting in a colony that they annexed. Yet would anyone sit there and say that Pearl Harbor was justified? No. So 9/11 is way way worse than that.


Like firebombing Tokyo or Dresden, perhaps? Would you pass the same sentence on the Allied leaders, or would you give them a pass for some reason? What about those who trained and used him as a weapon in their own little wars, setting this whole disaster in motion?

Mass killings of civilians -is- the history of war...like it or not, it does seem like he was only following a multi-millenial precedent in -that- respect. That said, I certainly won't miss him, and I do believe the world is a better place without him...but I do not agree that this is cause for celebration. This is just the latest act in a long running tragedy.

then you should be one happy motherfucker, because we dance all the time
In reply to this comment by eric3579:
I so love the idea of you and your 8 yr. old dancing together. Puts a smile on my face.
In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
*promote cause my 8 year old and i just danced our asses off.

also, amanda palmer is the singer from the dresden dolls and is married to neil gaimen. hottest. couple. ever.

I so love the idea of you and your 8 yr. old dancing together. Puts a smile on my face.
In reply to this comment by peggedbea:
*promote cause my 8 year old and i just danced our asses off.

also, amanda palmer is the singer from the dresden dolls and is married to neil gaimen. hottest. couple. ever.

*promote cause my 8 year old and i just danced our asses off.

also, amanda palmer is the singer from the dresden dolls and is married to neil gaimen. hottest. couple. ever.

>> ^bremnet:

"Air raids on non-military targets that claim large numbers of civilian casualties are prohibited under international law". I guess the International Police were busy that day. For people to be shocked by such practices or debate it in the context of whether it is civil or not during war are delusional. It's war after all. (Should the Allies have stopped carpet bombing Germany while millions of other civilians are taken to the death camps because, you know, it's the proper thing to do? My ancestors would have voted no).


How is it better to try to kill everyone in the city--including innocent civilians, Jews, and POWs (like Kurt Vonnegot, who was in Dresden during that attack) than to do a targeted bombing campaign that specifically targets infrastructure, communications, and factories?

"It's war, after all."

You could justify just about anything with that statement, including the indiscriminate use of nuclear and chemical weapons, the execution of POWs, or the flying of jet planes into skyscrapers. It's not delusional to do as much as possible to prevent atrocities from occurring (or re-occurring as the case may be). You may not be able to wage a war without the possibility of an atrocity occurring but that certainly doesn't mean you shouldn't try to limit that possibility as much as possible.

As far as I can find, you're wrong, but information on the matter is fairly sketchy.

Dates ranging from February to March (March date only on wikipedia, that oh so solid source for information.... ) - Germany's surrender was in May. and death tolls ranging from 20,000 to 500,000. All depending on who's viewpoint you take - the political responses section is interesting on Wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#German

However, probably the largest hole I can poke in your comment is this recent investigation which was undertaken by '13 prominent German historians' in 2008.

-----------------------
Historical Investication
For decades historians have accused the Allies of killing up to 500,000 civilians on the night of February 13 1945, when British and American planes destroyed the old city centre.

But a special commission, comprising 13 prominent German historians, has now revealed that the previous figures were exaggerated or derived from dubious sources.

Instead, they concluded that no more than 25,000 people died during the attacks, debunking the claims of many revisionist historians who wished to compare the bombing to the Holocaust.

The commission, assembled in 2004 and headed by one the country's most prominent military historians, Rolf-Dieter Mueller, studied all the available evidence about the event - much of which was examined for the first time.

Mr Mueller said that the final report of the commission, to be published next year, aims to end the "ludicrous speculation" about the Dresden causalities, which was used for propaganda by the Nazis.
------------
With that in mind, "A million or so civilians" and "After the surrender of Germany" seems a bit much.

Either way, this is a video about a German car factory - and a pretty cool one at that. Upvoted for the auto-bots.

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

"Dresden is best known for it's historic buildings."
I guess they cut the part that goes on, "Which were all burned to the ground along with a million or so civilians when British bombers firebombed the city after the surrender of Germany."

Tags for this video have been changed from 'vw, phaeton' to 'volkswagen, phaeton, dresden glass factory' - edited by xxovercastxx

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

"Dresden is best known for it's historic buildings."
I guess they cut the part that goes on, "Which were all burned to the ground along with a million or so civilians when British bombers firebombed the city after the surrender of Germany."


Accidental upvote. The bombing is true and terrible, but not the dating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II

>> ^Drachen_Jager:

"Dresden is best known for it's historic buildings."
I guess they cut the part that goes on, "Which were all burned to the ground along with a million or so civilians when British bombers firebombed the city after the surrender of Germany."


I believe the allies hadn't even crossed the Rhine when the dresden bombing took place.

"The River Rhine was not crossed until 23 March 1945, after the Dresden raid. German V rockets were dropping on London and Antwerp at the time of raid."

just sayin

"Dresden is best known for it's historic buildings."

I guess they cut the part that goes on, "Which were all burned to the ground along with a million or so civilians when British bombers firebombed the city after the surrender of Germany."