Apparently the communist Karl Mark said that -"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people" and since then calling this or that 'the opium of the masses/people' has become somewhat of a meme with people often calling this or that 'the opium of the masses/people'. People seem to be forever coming up with new 'opiums of the people' whether it be rock and roll, football, tv, the Internet, social media and on and on. It seems to be the same types that love to use the word 'Orwellian' that are most likely to imitate Karl Marx and say that something is 'the opium of the people'. What I wondered is - was Karl Marx on opium? And what/who is the opium the opium of? Is the ruling class on opium? Anyway in recent years opium has become the opium of the American people with record numbers of Americans overdosing on opium. Opium is the opium of the American people. Apparently the reason for the record number of American opium overdoses in recent years is not a spike in heroin junkie overdoses but the fact that many law abiding American citizens are getting addicted to legal pain killers that are being given to them by a doctor - like Micheal Jackson. Apparently the main prescription opium drug that law abiding Americans are overdosing on is a drug called oxycontin. Apparently Canada has actually banned oxycontin. And since oxycontin are so easy to get there is a lot of people selling the oxycontins that they get from a doctor to drug users/opium addicts for a profit. I know a guy that had oxycontins given to him by a doctor for years because his stomach exploded inside of him and he had to go to the toilet through a bag in his stomach for a while until they sewed his stomach back together. Apparently this kind of thing can just happen to people. Anyway this guy did almost die and they had to cut sew his guts back together or whatever so he was in a lot of pain while he was recovering from all of this and the oxycontins seemed to do a great job of taking his pain away but his doctor just kept giving him scripts for high milligrams - I think he had 80 mg and the highest is 160 mg - and he was getting a lot of them as well as other pain killers like as many boxes of panadeine forte that he wanted as well as some other pain killer. It was obvious after a year had passed that he should have been taken off the oxycontin but the doctor kept giving them to him and I remember him complaining to me that his chemist was giving him hassles about how many pills he was getting - yet the doctor kept giving him the scripts. It wasnt until this doctor actually moved and the guy ended up with a new doctor that was shocked by all of these pain killers the guy had been taking for so long that he stopped getting the oxycontin scripts. The guy could have gone to another doctor and kept getting whatever he wanted but thankfully for his sake he took the sane doctors advice and got off the oxycontins - and he did say that he suffered badly with withdrawl when he did it. I blame the doctor for this guy becoming an opium addict. I think that my friend knew himself that he had become addicted to the oxycontin and he knew that he should not still be on them after so long and that he was an abuser but ultimately it is the doctor that is to blame because a person should be able to trust the advice of a doctor.I have known some heroin junkies in my lifetime and like oxycontin, or 'oxies' but when I was younger the big pill they all seemed to like was a sleeping pill called mogadon. Apparently mogadon is a benzodiazepine and heroin junkies use them if they cant get any heroin. I have never known any heroin junkie to like taking a suppository like Ewan McGregor does in that scene in the film Trainspotting but my friend that had his stomach burst inside of him did get some pain killers that were suppositories. He said he didnt like taking them either even though they were pretty good. Was that a suppository in the Trainspotting scene? It wasnt an oxy or a mogadon that he was getting to take later was it? But yeah its not just oxies that are being abused but many many different kinds of drugs.I am not big on pharming but when I was younger I used to like to mix codeine with pot and alcohol. My favourite were the yellow Mersyndol brand but I would buy another one called Dolased or the chemists generic brand. I used to go to a lot of different chemists and buy a heap of boxes of these condiene pills and then I would take four or six of them and then smoke some pot and drink a few alcoholic drinks - usually a long neck or two. You can get smashed as hell on six Mersyndol, some pot and a couple of long necks and it doesnt cost much at all. The box of Mersyndol says 'Do not mix with drugs and alcohol' or something but increasing the effects of drug and alcohol can save you a lot of money of drugs and alcohol right? Another pill I used to like was a sleeping pill called Restavit. I am pretty sure that it was the doxylamine succinate that I liked. The Restavit were good to mix with drugs and alcohol too. You can bring on sleep deprivation affects with pills like Restavit if you can stay awake and it is also cool to take some Restavit and then take some No-Doze pills and drink an energy drink and then smoke some pot. You could feel like you are walking on a cloud. The best thing about pills like Mersyndol and Restavit is that you do not need a script from a doctor to get them - you can just buy them over the counter at a chemist. But nowadays you cannot just go to a heap of chemists and buy a heap of Mersyndols at a time because now the chemists take down your name and address before they will sell you any codiene pills. Because of people like me I guess. You could probably still buy I heap of Restavit - all of the heat seems to be on the codiene - I think it is still possible to abuse the doxylamine succinate.Even more common than codiene abuse in Australia by lower than heroin junie drug abusers seems to be the panadeine forte. Panadeine Forte. I have abused them with drugs/pot and alcohol but I never really liked them because they kind of make me feel heavy where the Mersyndol and Restavit make me feel light. Or something. But lots of people abuse the panadeine forte and the main reason is because anyone with a sore back seems to be able to get a script for them and they end up getting passed around from drug abuser to drug abuser. But a panadeine forte isnt going to do much for a heroin junkie. They like to get vomit on themselves and pass out smashed. Your average junkie could take a box of panadeine forte and it wouldnt do much for them at all. But panadeine forte is just as big a problem as codiene abuse - if not bigger.So I do agree that it is probably not the best for people to be pharming prescription and over the counter drugs to get smashed and it is a problem that doctors are over prescribing addictive drugs like oxycontin but then again isnt it safer for drug users to get smashed on prescription drugs rather than to get smashed on drugs that come from some drug dealing criminal? I have never been a fan of taking any kind of chemical drugs that some drug dealer has made because I do not trust what is in the drugs. I have known guys that cooked speed/ice and I wouldnt even want to use their bathroom let alone put something into my body that a guy like that cooked up in his bathroom. The other thing is that the further down the line you are from the original maker of the drug the more likely the drug has been cut with something and for all you know it was washing powder or something. Heroin junkies are always dying from 'hot shots' or heroin that has been cut with something bad but this happens to speed/ice users all the time as well. MDMA/exctasy are the same - I wouldnt trust them - and the same with trips. Any drug that some drug dealer has made should not be trusted in my opinion - we all remember what happened Anna Wood - but if I get drugs from a doctor or chemist I can be confident that the drug is what I think it is which is a lot safer right? So isnt it better for a drug abuser to abuse prescription or over the counter drugs than it is for them to abuse drugs that a drug dealer has cooked up? What do you think should be done about the American opium epidemic? Should America ban the oxies like Canada did? Or are opium addicts better off getting smashed on a few oxies than they are getting smashed on some heroin they bought from a drug dealer? Would it be better if chemical recreational drug use was controlled and regulated by the state and corporations rather than by criminals since so many people seem to be into pharming?

"The value of life is an economic value used to quantify the benefit of avoiding a fatality" - wikipedia/Value of lifeOne thing that I truly hate are insurance commercials. I am Australian and when I was a young kid in the 80s you would never see insurance commercials but now that Australian society has been Americanized and people have to get every kind of insurance under the sun apparently it seems that every second commercial on tv is for some kind of insurance. It may be more than every second commercial because you often get a pet insurance commercial followed by a life insurance commercial and then you may even get a vehicle insurance commercial after that. And then you may get a funeral insurance one after those. And then medical insurance. Yes now that I am thinking about it I am sure that it is more than every second commercial on tv that is trying to sell insurance. I am a socialist and insurance is a very capitalist idea so that is the main reason I hate insurance commercials but as long as there are acceptable public options I can handle medical insurance commercials and things like house/contents/vehicle insurance I actually do agree with because I am more of a national socialist I guess than a hard communist - I believe in the idea of private property and the idea of people insuring their private property makes sense to me anyway. What I do not like is the idea of life insurance because this allows capitalists to actually value peoples lives according to their wealth. It is outrageous enough that capitalists will push the idea that the life of a doctor is more valuable than the life of a cleaner but even worse is when western/American capitalists value the life of poor people from the third world as less than poor people from the west. The reason capitalists can get away with paying less to compensate the family of a poor third world person that was killed in a factory fire in India than a poor westerner that has gotten diarrhea while they were on a cruise is because we let them get away with this life insurance nonsense. How much is a human life worth? According to capitalists it has a lot to do with your net worth and annual income - and also the value of your nations fiat currency if you have no surplus or ability to purchase/hold other currencies. So the life of a surplus capitalist is worth the most and the life of an unskilled worker from the third world is worth basically nothing. So yeah - I am not a big fan of life insurance commercials. So I do not like the idea of life insurance but I hate the commercials even more because the working class to upper middle class husbands in these commercials are always such cucks. They will always have some annoying unattractive late 20s to 40 out of shape wife that is nagging the working class to upper middle class husband that is a massive cuck to get life insurance. They always go along the lines of the annoying unattractive wife nagging about what her and the kids would do if the cuck husband suddenly died somehow. The cuck husband totally agrees and he makes a quick and easy call to a friendly operator to get some affordable life insurance. Its that simple. Of course working class to middle class husbands are massive cucks but there is no need to make fun of them in my opinion. Especially if you want them to buy life insurance. They mix it up a little here and there. Maybe the cuck husband has the idea to get life insurance because how would the unattractive past her prime wife pay the car and house repayments and feed the children and what not without his income? And the unattractive wife totally agrees and he makes a quick and easy call to get life insurance. Rarely - very rarely - you get a hot wife. But every husband in these life insurance commercials is always a massive cuck and they make me want to vomit. But I saw a life insurance commercial the other day that I loved.So in this life insurance commercial the bread winner is a quite unattractive 30-35 overweight beast of a wife that is sitting in her lounge room with no shoes on and she has disgusting fat feet. Her much more attractive effeminate looking husband comes in and sits with her to watch tv. The beast of a wife is wondering out loud how the much better looking husband-wife will pay the house repayments and car repayments and Chloes daycare fees without her breadwinning income. She declares that it would be a good idea for her to get life insurance and the much better looking husband that has been watching tv and is only half listening looks at her and shrug-nods an if you want so she dials the number on the screen. This was the first life insurance commercial that had a female as the breadwinner and she even had a bit of a poor mans trophy husband. It was hilarious. And I was thinking God what a cuck about the wife-husband but then I thought that he is probably a lot smarter than the working class to upper middle class cucks with annoying ugly nagging wives on the rest of our Australian life insurance commercials because he is not paying to be a cuck husband with an ugly annoying wife - he is getting paid. So who is the bigger cuck? I would say the male working class to middle class breadwinners. Just because nobody wants to have sex with your wife doesnt mean that you cant be a massive cuck. Right? Most of you are massive cucks. That is why capitalists get away with all of the stuff they do isnt it. Dont you agree?

I sat down to watch some tv while I ate my lunch the other day and the skinhead movie Romper Stomper was on so I decided to watch it. Romper Stomper is a 1992 Australian film that starred Russel Crowe. Romper Stomper won a lot of awards at Australias equivalent of the American Oscars and it is the film that made Russell Crowe a star here in Australia and launched him into a Hollywood career. I was about 13 in 1992 when Romper Stomper came out and I remember everyone saying how great it was but I didnt watch it because at that age a movie about skinheads from Melbourne really didnt interest me. The film Boyz n the Hood came out in 1991 and it was my favourite movie and at that time I was very interested in African-American media. I had nothing against Australian movies and back then we did have a decent Australian film industry that did produce at least a few good Australian films a year that would do ok domestically - and we had Australian movie stars. I really liked Australian film The Heartbreak Kid for example when it came out in 1993 and I did like to watch Australian movies but I didnt watch Romper Stomper and it has never been on my to watch list.I actually came across Romper Stomper while flicking through channels a few months ago and I half an hour of the middle of it mostly because it has a hot chick in it but it looked pretty stupid to me. I remember thinking that it was like a really bad A Clockwork Orange dressed up as a skinhead movie. For example - there is a scene where the skinheads do a home invasion and it reminded me a lot of the home invasion scene in A Clockwork Orange. There is no giant you know what but it seemed like a lame rip off and I changed the channel around about the home invasion scenes. I was just reading the wiki page to see if Romper Stomper won any international awards or was released beyond Australia and I read that a critic makes the A Clockwork Orange connection and so does some kid that beat someone to death in a detention centre that likened himself to Romper Stompers lead character Hando ( Russell Crowe ) and Alex from A Clockwork Orange. So even though most critics seem to think that Romper Stomper is just superb and what not, I think it sucks and it really is a lame tryhard A Clockwork Orange that is .... insulting - it isnt clever at all. Another thing is that the film was kind of controversial since it contains racial violence and the main character is a violent racist neo-nazi skinhead and after watching the entire film I think people were right to protest its release because while it is not quite The Turner Diaries I do think that there is a certain element in society that the Hando character appeals to and I dont think it is a good idea to give heroes to racists - even fictional ones. While I was watching Romper Stomper I googled on my phone to see why skinheads shave their heads. Apparently the first skinheads were British and they were punks not neo-nazis. Fair enough but I still do not understand why they shave their heads if they like nazis. If you look at nazis they mostly had very nice neat short haircuts so why would a neo-nazi shave their head? It seems very odd. Romper Stomper was one of the first big skinhead movies but I was looking at a list of them and there is a British 'television play' called Made in Britain starring Tim Roth that aired ten years before Romper Stomper in 1982. Using a skinhead movie to get an actor over as being brilliant was done in the British and Australian film industries before it was done in USA as far as I can tell. The big American skinhead movie that stands out is American History X and just like with Made in Britain and Romper Stomper which got Tim Roth and Russell Crowe over as brilliant performers - American History X seemed to cement Edward Norton as some brilliant actor. American History X came out in 1998. The critics seem to love a good skinhead performance every bit as much as they love an actor that plays a character that has some kind of mental disorder. Mel Gibson played a mentally disabled handyman that has a relationship with some old woman in the 1979 Australian film Tim you know. Anyway - critics love a skinhead movie. I didnt like American History X or Romper Stomper. I am not going to go out of my way to watch made in Britain.Another movie that has skinheads in it is Higher Learning which came out in 1995. Higher Learning was directed by John Singleton and was his second follow up to his big hot Boyz n the Hood which like I said was my favourite movie back in the early 90s. The first John Singleton movie after Boyz n the Hood was Poetic Justice which starred Tupac Shakur ( Tupac is also good in Above the Rim ) and Janet Jackson and I really liked it too. So I was interested in seeing Higher Learning since I liked John Singleton as a director. Because of Boyz n the Hood John Singleton was kind of bigtime for a while - bigger than Spike Lee - so he was basically the leading African-American director at the time. I remember thinking Higher Learning was ok when I watched it ( All of the hot chicks would have helped - it has a young Tyra Banks, Kristy Swanson and Jennifer Connelly. ) but remembering it now it was pretty stupid and bordering on being racist really. John Singleton kind of faded away after Higher Learning - apparently the only thing he did of note after that was direct a Fast and the Furious film which seems funny - but for a while he was the leading African-American director and his film Boyz n the Hood essentially spawned a genre - the African-American projects gang drama. There were countless Boyz n the Hood rip offs in the years after it was released and I watched a lot of them - the best of them was Menace to Society which came out in 1993. So obviously I am not a big fan of skinhead movies. But one skinhead movie that I kind of liked is the film The Believer which starred a young Ryan Gosling. Like the other skinhead films that I mentioned the critics just love The Believer and I do kind of agree that the movie is ok but like with the other skinhead movies I feel uneasy about any film that acts as a vehicle for any racist propaganda even if the film ties it all up with an appropriate ending and The Believer certainly does that. Unlike the insulting Romper Stomper and American History X - The Believer actually is somewhat of an intelligent film and if I was a censor I would have censored certain parts of The Believer that contain dangerous racist propaganda. But if I did have to name the best skinhead movie it would definitely be The Believer.The birthright of a skinhead is a couple of sausages at best so nothing has been stolen from the wretches. I dont know any skinheads but I have watched docos and read about these kinds of people and even their leaders are dumb as hell. Hitler would have hated them. The funniest neo-nazi skinheads are the Russian/Eastern European ones. Someone should tell them that their heads are the wrong shape. Skinheads are very stupid people and the fact that the skinhead characters from these skinheads movies are fatally flawed will not deter skinheads from making heroes of these characters which is why I tend to believe that skinhead movies are bad for society and I would be happy for the ones that I have seen to be banned. So what do you think about skinhead films. Do you agree that they are bad for society? Do you have a favourite skinhead movie?

I was just watching some news and I saw a hilarious story about some Silicon Valley security robot drowning itself in a water fountain.Ha. This is very funny to me because I hate the scum that work at Silicon Valley and I love to see them fail. This idiotic security robot that cant even navigate a city street without falling into a fountain is proof positive that the goofballs that work at Silicon Valley are utterly worthless. Artificial Intelligence? No wonder we all have to keep our hands on the steering wheel while we are driving around in one of Elton Musks so-called 'self driving' Teslas right? The goofballs of Silicon Valley cant even design a robot that can navigate a footpath/sidewalk.I remember laughing my ass off a few years ago when I read a news item about these funny looking security robots that Silicon Valley had made. I thought the robots were funny because to me they look like something that was designed for a Dr Who episode right? I am guessing that for inspiration the goofballs of Silicon Valley sit around watching old Dr Who episodes right? EXTERMINATE! And the original story about these silly Silicon Valley robots was funny to me because some young female Silicon Valley was standing next to the silly looking robot - actually, I am pretty sure she was hugging it - and to me the story seemed to be a case of capitalists and their scumbag employees trying to menace us masses. You know how capitalists are so gleeful when they tell us all that robots are going to take all of our jobs? It makes them so happy to fantasize about that doesnt it? But yeah - the original story seemed to be saying - And if you try to overthrow us you wont be able to because look! We paid our Silicon Valley minions to make Dr Who robots to protect us. The original story was so funny because the robots just dont look scary at all. They look funny. And I am certain that I could smash one of those Silicon Valley robots up by wearing a mask and attacking it with a baseball bat. But apparently you can just push them in some water. Would a bucket of water be enough to kill one? A hose? If you knocked one over with your car would it even be able to stand back up again? These stupid robots are sure as hell not going to have the John Conners of the world concerned in any way are they? And now look. The next I hear about these silly Silicon Valley robots one of them has fallen into a fountain because the Artificial Intelligence coming out of Silicon Valley is dumb as hell.These idiotic goofballs of Silicon Valley keep telling us that they are going to change the way we live our lives but what have they made that is so great anyway? An app to order a pizza? Wow.. They made some stupid apps did they? Ha. What the hell else are they making at Silicon Valley? What is it? They cant make a self driving car that you can actually drive you around unless you have your hands on the steering wheel. So no, they have not made any self driving vehicles. They cant even make a robot that can wheel itself down a footpath. And why doesnt the robot have legs? Silicon Valley cant get robots to walk unless they spend a fortune. And even then would you trust it not to trip over all the time if the Silicon Valley goofballs made it? What else are they making? 3D tv? Ha. Who cares? What else? Google glass? Pass. What else are they working on at Silicon Valley? Contact lenses that can check a persons blood sugar? .... HA! Fantastic! More apps? Maybe they will make some more apps for us. So yeah, these Silicon Valley robots are certainly no T-800 Terminators are they? What a joke the goofballs of Silicon Valley are. So are you as disappointed with the AI that is coming out of Silicon Valley as I am? How long do you think it will be before Elton Musk can make a Tesla that can actually drive itself without you having to have your hands on the steering wheel just in case the AI drives you into a water fountain or a school bus full of young children?

It is an exciting time for Asian Basketball fans because the first FIBA Asia Cup will tip off in just 25 days. FIBA Asia and FIBA Oceania merged in 2017 bringing the FIBA Asia Championship and FIBA Oceania Championship together to create the FIBA Asia Cup. China has dominated the FIBA Asia Championship in the past, with Iran and the Philippines being China's only real competition, but with the FIBA Asia/Oceania merger the Chinese national basketball team will have to best the New Zealand Tall Blacks and the Australian Boomers to be crowned the basketball champions of Asia by winning the FIBA Asia Cup. The Australian Boomers are ranked at number 10 on the FIBA World Rankings and will be the highest ranked team playing in the Asia Cup. China is ranked at number 14 on the FIBA World Rankings. New Zealand are ranked at 20, Iran are ranked at 25 and the Philippines are ranked at 28. The FIBA rankings do not mean a lot due to factors such as the fact that all of the Australian Boomers team members that have NBA contracts are unavailable for this tournament but these five top ranked teams of Australia, China, New Zealand, Iran and the Philippines will certainly be the teams to beat at the Asia Cup.The tournament favourite is a toss up between the top two FIBA ranked Asian basketball teams Australia and China. Australia and China have a good basketball relationship and we play many exhibitions and series together which are always hard fought. Very recently an NBL All-Australian team played a three game series against the Chinese national team in China and were defeated 2-1. The Chinese national team looked outstanding in this series and on that form many would have China as tournament favourites.The NBL is Australias national basketball competition and the NBL All-Australian team that was defeated by China featured NBL imports including 2016/17 NBL MVP, American import, Jerome 'handles' Randle (Adelaide 36ers). With all of Australias NBA talent unavailable for the Asia Cup the Australian team will be dominated by Australians that are playing in the NBL but the All-Australian NBL team that were recently defeated by China did not include many of Australias top NBL players including internationals Brad Newley (Sydney Kings) and Chris Goulding (Melbourne United). Both Newley and Goulding have been named to the 20-man Asia Cup squad that was announced recently, as well as a number of other top NBL players that did not play in the NBL All-Australian team that was defeated by China, plus there are some Australians that are playing in Europe right now that are in the 20 man squad too - so the 12 man Australian Boomers team that does get selected for the Asia Cup is sure to be a lot stronger than the NBL 'All-Australian' team that just lost a three game series to China.Chinese player Qian Wu (Zhejiang Golden Bulls) gave the NBL All-Australian team a lot of trouble and I am really looking forward to seeing him and the other Chinese national basketball team members match up against the Australian Boomers in the Asia Cup. China is certainly going to be hard to beat.The FIBA Oceania basketball region has always been kind of boring having just the two teams in Australia or New Zealand that could win the FIBA Oceania Championship. New Zealand is a great basketball nation and the Tall Blacks are always hard to beat but overall Australia has dominated New Zealand and I think it is great that with the FIBA Asia/Oceania merger the Australian Boomers have more competition and an even stronger regional rival than the New Zealand Tall Black in the Chinese Mens National Basketball Team.So I cant wait for the Asia Cup to tip off and I think its a very close call between Australia and China for tournament favourites. Like I said, Chinese gunner Qian Wu was very impressive against the NBL All-Australian team recently and if he plays in the Asia Cup and gets hot from outside then I wouldnt be shocked if he was named player of the tournament. Should Australia be considered to be the FIBA Asia Cup tournament favourites? Or should it be China that are considered tournament favourites? Who is your pick for player of the tournament? Who will you be cheering for when the Asia Cup tips off in Lebanon - 8-20 August? Australia? China? Chinese Taipei? Hong Kong? India? Iran? Iraq? Japan? Jordan? Kazakhstan? Korea? Lebanon? New Zealand? Philippines? Qatar? Syria? Who do you think will win the FIBA Asia Cup and be crowned as the basketball champions of Asia?

I was a little kid in the early 80s which is described by action figure aficionados as being the golden age of action figures. The big two action figures during the golden age were Star Wars guys and He-Man guys. I had most of them because my one of my uncles used to steal action figures and give them to my fathers youngest brother - uncle Sean. My father is the eldest of four brothers and I am first born son so Uncle Shawny was more like an older brother than an uncle in a lot of ways because he was less than ten years older than me. So all of the action figures that my uncle Paul stole for Sean were given to me when I was maybe five or so. So I had pretty much all the first run the He-Man line and 90% of the Star Wars/A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back figures to start my collection. My mother seemed to be in supermarkets a lot which always had a toy aisle, and in department stores which had bigger and better toy aisles. She would always buy me something and I would always get a Star Wars guy. I got He-Mans and Star Wars guys for birthdays and Xmas so I ended up with most He-Man and Star Wars guys, and often more than one of the same guy.Its all good to have more than one Jawa or Ugnaught but having more than one of the Luke Skywalkers or Han Solos types was not of much use because there can only really be one Luke or Han in a snowsuit during a game because I dont think there was any cloning in Star Wars in my day and my games tried to stay somewhat true to the movies and Star Wars universe. Having two Lukes or Hans in a snow suit would just be weird. But it was handy to have multiple Jawas and Ugnaughts. I only had a few of the basic Stormtroopers but it would have been good to have a lot more because I always wanted to recreate the scene in Empire Strikes Back where all the strormtroopers are lined up like Nazi on the Death Star to greet Darth Vader. I kind of still want to have a heap of storm troopers so I can line them up like Nazi for Darth Vader so I was thinking that I might buy some. So I was looking on ebay and found that you can get a loose vintage Hong Kong storm trooper for between $30-$70. You can also buy retro New Hope storm troopers that have been made more recently. So yeah I might buy some storm troopers. So while I was considering buying a heap of storm troopers I was remembering all the guys that I used to have. I got sick of my collection of action figures at some point and I guess they ended up in a toy box and what didnt get chewed up or broken by younger siblings would have been lost. I actually found a Bobba Fett at my parents house a few years ago that was missing a foot. My uncle was very anal and he had all of the guys weapons in a little weapons box when he gave me his collection and I wasnt too bad at adding to it without losing too many weapons. But yeah they are all gone. I dont know what I did with the crippled Bobba Fett but all I have left from Star Wars is a metal T-47 snowspeeder. I guess it survived my siblings because it is metal. When I came across it a few years ago I reclaimed it because it is awesome. I had all of the He-Man playsets apart from the Eternia one - Castle Grey Skull - Snake Mountain, and I even got Hordacks Fright Zone towards the end of my action figure playing days. I also had an awesome castle that my dad made for me out of wood that was painted silver and looked like a castle. It was like a doll house a bit I guess but it was better than the He-Man play sets because they were too confined even though they were kind of cool having things like trapdoors and a microphone what not. I didnt have a lot of Star Wars playsets though but I would use a stereo or cupboard or whatever for bases/death star, or play outside with them and pretend that a hole was the Sarlacc pit or whatever. So yeah I had a lot of action figures.Thinking about all the guys I used to have made me think of some of the cool non-Star Wars and He-Man guys that I used to have. Since He-Man and Star Wars guys were the big two most of the non-Star Wars/He-Man action figures were either 5.5 inches like the He-Mans or 3.75 inches like the Star Wars guys. I remember getting very excited about finding an AT-ST Driver because it was one of the Star Wars guys that stores in Australia didnt seem to stock much. The main reason I didnt have every Star Wars guy was because some seemed impossible to find. I could never find an Imperial Gunner for example. God I want an Imperial Gunner. Anyway, like I said, I had about 90% of the Star Wars and He-Man guys and more than one of a lot of them so at some point it became difficult to find Star Wars or He-Man guys in stores that I didnt have so I would get different kinds of action figures. It seems that to an action figure aficionado any 5.5 inch action figure that is not a He-Man is a He-Man knock off and any 3.75 inch action figure is either a Star Wars or GI Joe knock off. I had a few GI Joes and I liked them because they were better quality than the Star Wars guy and could bend at the knees and elbows but being from Australia GI-Joe was not as popular in Australia as it is in USA ( my uncle Sean had an Action Man doll ) and I really wasnt into GI-Joe like I was into Star Wars so my GI-Joe guys that I had became extra characters in Star Wars scenarios. Mask guys were cool extra characters too. Most of these guys made fantastic Bounty Hunters. But anyway, I got a lot of other 5.5 and 3.75 inch action figures and I guess that there is some truth in saying that these were knock offs but a lot of them were really cool and some of them were my favourite action figures.So thinking these cool non-Star Wars/He-Man action figures made me think of some of my favourites and I got curious to know exactly what action figure lines the cool extra guys that I had were from. To find out I was forced to go to the action figure aficionados to see if any of them mention my guys in their youtube videos or blog posts. It took a while but eventually I found the the guys that I was looking for. So, the first guy that I wanted to find was a 3.75 inch action figure that looked a lot like Lord Humongus from Mad Max/The Road Warrior. I used to use him as an extra Bounty Hunter. I also used to sometimes use a black semi-trailor that was a good size for playing with 3.75 inch action figures and recreate the end pf the Road Warrior movie where Mad Max is driving the truck and trying to escape the gang of marauders. I would pretend that Mad Max was driving the truck and this cool guy would be Lord Humungus leading various 3.75 inch marauders. The truck would have to make it across the backyard or through the house or whatever. So this cool non-Star Wars guy got a lot of play time and like I said, he was one of my favourite action figures - a star. So it turns out that this guy is from a line of action figures that Tonka released in 1986 that were called Steel Monsters. The guys name was Metal face. Even the Steel Monsters brief wikipedia page makes the Mad Max connection so I wasnt the only one. The second non-Star-Wars/He-Man action figure that I wanted to find was a 5.5 inch monster looking guy that used to fit really well with the evil forced of Skeletor. He was a green guy that had horns and a metal hand and I liked him every bit as much as I liked Trap Jaw or Moss Man. So it turned out that this guys was made by a company called Sparkle in a 1985 action figure like called Defenders of the Planets. His name is Quasar ( purple pants ). And while I was looking for these two guys I came across another one of my non-He-Man/Star Wars guys that was one of my favourites. He was from a 1986 line of action figures made by Kenner that were called Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos. This guy I liked was a big sumo guy and he was about the size of a He-Man at 6 inches so he became a member of the evil forces of Skeletor as well. His name is Tabe. So in my opinion the majority of these toy hunters and action figure aficionados dont know what they are talking about and their hate for so-called action figure knock offs is wrong. A lot of the so-called knock offs were the coolest action figures. We were blessed to have companies like Sungold that produced extra characters for our He-Man and Star Wars guy collections. Enough with the Baltard jokes is what I say. ( That was Baltard humour you guys. )So what action figures did you like? I also liked Transformers and I had some but I was never really a huge Transformer guy. Another type of action figure that I really liked were the 3.75 inch Robotech guys that were made by Matchbox. The Roy Fokker Robotech action figure was one of my favourites. He had an awesome helmet that you could put on and take off. I also had one of the Robotech jets that you could put the action figures in which was awesome and my Robotech guys often joined the Rebel Alliance and helped Luke battle The Emperor, Darth Vader and their Imperial Forces. Did you have a favourite action figure when you were a kid?

There was a very beautiful pink sunset where I live this evening and took a photo of it for you -I was at work when I noticed the pink sky and it was so beautiful that I had to stop to take a photo. The camera on my phone is not very good and you really cant appreciate just how awesome the sky looked today at sunset from my photo but you get the idea. It was a really beautiful sunset. We often get awesome pink and purple sunsets here in Australia this time of year. Apparently the reason for the sky turning pink and purple is a process called scattering - -----------------------The physical process of scattering causes the sky to appear pink at times and other colors too. During this process, tiny particles of light are bounced off air molecules. Wavelength, time of day and laws of quantum mechanics play key roles in determining the color of the sky.-----------------------------------------www.reference.comDo you get pink sunsets where you live? Purple?

I am from Australia and when I was a young kid in the 80s all of the athletes that played team sports in Australia were still semi-pro. In my state NSW the most popular footy code was/is Rugby League and back in the 80s even the best players all had jobs on top of their football contracts. For many of the good players their rugby league clubs would set them up with jobs that were flexible and these jobs were often token jobs of sorts but like I said, back in the 80s even the best players all had day jobs. It is only NSW and QLD that play Rugby League while the rest of Australia plays Australian Rules Football/AFL ( formerly Victorian Rules Football/VFL ) but in the 80s it was the same with the AFL players in that they all had day jobs so our biggest professional team sport competitions were all semi-pro. With Rugby League there were two competitions - the NSWRL in NSW and the QRL in Queensland, and the teams from each state did not play each other. So we had two state comps rather than a national/interstate comp. Since NSW is Australias premier state and the biggest market due to the fact that Sydney is the nations largest city, it was the NSWRL that was able to pay the higher contracts and many of the best Queensland players would come to our competition to play for a Sydney team. Initially the NSWRL was a Sydney comp featuring teams only from Sydney suburbs but the competition was able to expand into outer Sydney regions Penrith, and later to Illawarra and to the ACT ( which is within NSW ) with a team in Canberra. Due to the bigger market in NSW the NSWRL was able to develop into a more professional competition but the talent from Queensland was just as good, if not better than the talent from NSW. It wasnt until the NSWRL expansion in 1988 that brought in the new NSW team the Newcastle Knights, and two Queensland teams in the Brisbane Broncos and the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants that the NSWRL had truly emerged as the dominant Rugby League comp in Australia. But even in 1988, despite growing revenue from sponsorship and television/radio deals, the sport of Rugby League in Australia was still essentially semi-pro with most players still having day jobs. In 1995 the NSWRL became the Australian Rugby League/ARL and further expansion was attempted into with four new teams being added to the comp - two more QLD teams in the North and South QLD, a team from Western Australia and a team from New Zealand. The South QLD and WA teams both ended up failing but this 1995 expansion marked a point where the game of rugby league could be described a truly pro-sport rather than semi-pro. By 1995 being a Rugby League player in the top competition was a full-time job and players could earn big enough contracts that they no longer needed day jobs as well. So it was around 1995 that the Super League War began with Rupert Murdoch attempting to take control of professional Rugby League, not just here in Australia but in the UK/Europe and New Zealand. Both the ARL and Murdoch wanted to reduce the number of teams playing out of Sydney so the big Super League War was not so much a fight over the direction of league so much as a fight for control of rugby league. The ARL did want to reduce the amount of teams in Sydney but they wanted to still keep control of league in Sydney, for example - the war began in many ways over the fact that the ARL refused to consider the idea of allowing the Grand Final to be played in Brisbane rather than in Sydney where it had always been played in the past. But both sides did agree that to expand the sport there was a need to make the competition less Sydneycentric. Murdoch wanted to create an internationally televised World Club Series contested by the best teams from Australia, New Zealand and UK/Europe, which would have been a lot like the Champions League they have in soccer. So anyway, there was this big fight for control over rugby league that was fought between the ARL which had come from the NSWRL - and Rupert Murdoch/News Limited backed by the powerful Brisbane Broncos of Queensland, and others. By 1997 Murdoch had enough support to start his break away Super League, so in that year we had two top rugby league comps in Australia - Super League and the ARL - with 22 teams between them. The Super League War actually turned many Australians off Rugby League and the support that the sport did have was diluted by spreading the teams out so much and also by expanding into places that really didnt even like Rugby League. At the end of this 1997 season of two seperate competitions there was a truce between Murdochs Super League and the ARL and the two comps were merged to create the NRL which is still in place today.So a consequence of this obsession with expansion and the creation of a truly national/international rugby league competition was that a lot fo the Sydney teams - which were traditional pillars of the sport that had very loyal fanbases - were merged with each other. My team when I was a kid was the Western Suburbs Magpies and they were one of the Sydney teams that the ARL itself was trying to get rid of even before the Super League War. By 1999 the Western Suburbs Magpies were merged with the Balmain Tigers to form the 'Wests Tigers'. The same thing happened with the North Sydney Bears being merged with the Manly-Warringah Sea Eagles, and the St George Dragons being merged with the Illawarra Steelers. These mergers attacked the traditional die-hard fans of the sport of Rugby League. For me I feel as though I no longer have a team because I used to support the Western Suburbs Magpies and I really do not want to support a team called the 'Wests Tigers' because I supported the Wests Magpies not the Balmain Tigers - and I know that supporters of other clubs that were forced to merge feel the same way. If I have to choose a team I support the Wests Tigers but it is just not the same as supporting my team - Wests Magpies. So anyway, that is a brief history of the Rugby League transition from semi-pro to pro. These days scouts sign young kids to feeder schools and clubs at an early age and the majority of todays League players have never worked a day in their lives. But even though we can safely describe Rugby League as being a professional sport these days the fact is that the leadership in Rugby League is still quite amateurish when compared to other professional sport competitions around the world. The leadership of Rugby League in Australia is very amateurish when compared with the leadership of rival Australian footy code, the AFL who have managed to create a truly national competition at this point. Despite the dreams of expansion it is still only people in NSW and QLD that care about rugby league. We have a Melbourne team in the Melbourne Storm and they are a success but Victorians will always be AFL people and really it is still just NSW and QLD that care about League. Television rights and corporate sponsorship only go so far and that is the main reason the number of top rugby league teams has had to be limited, and the reason for the forced mergers of traditional Sydney teams that allowed for more teams in Brisbane and the Melbourne team but in my opinion it would have been better for the fans of League if the two original competitions - the NSWRL and the QRL - had merged to create an interstate competition that featured all of the teams that generations of Australians had loyally supported. The players would not be earning as much money and maybe a lot of them would still need day jobs but I would argue that the professionalism has led to players that no longer care about games the way players used to in the old days when they were playing for their clubs - and for the winning bonus. Compared to the great players of old, these new pro players are soft and they just dont care like players did when the sport was semi-pro. Another thing that has changed since the sport became professional is that nowadays a one club man is a true rarity. Back in the day the majority of players only played for one club for life. Nowadays the players are not loyal to their clubs or fans at all - it is all about the money. So all of this brings me to the big news in League today which is that the Wests Tigers have failed to sign three of their so-called 'Big Four' players that are all off-contract this year. All players are Wests Juniors that have come up through the club - and made a name for themselves at Wests Tigers - but three have decided to sign with rival clubs. In my opinion all three of these players are very overrated because none of them have actually done anything. With this so-called 'Big Four' the Wests Tigers have not even been able to make the semis/playoffs. Two of the three that are leaving have made some rep teams but at the end of the day none of them have done a thing for the Wests Tigers. I still have a casual interest in Rugby League and I am happy to see these players leave the club because like I said, in my opinion all of the Wests 'Big Four' are highly overrated, but in a lot of ways I do not blame them for leaving because the way that the Wests Tigers have handled their free agencies has been bizarre and it is interesting n the context of the semi-pro to pro story that I have briefly described above.Like I said - a one club man is a true rarity in league today but the Wests Tigers were lucky enough to have one in modern club legend Robbie Farah. Last year was an odd year at the Wests Tigers because the Wests coach Jason Taylor ( former Wests Magpies halfback ) decided that he did not want Robbie Farah in the team, arguing that even though Farrah is a good hooker, his creative style limited opportunities for the two young halves which make up two of the so-called Big Four. So despite the fact that Farah was being selected for the NSW representative team Jason Taylor dropped the guy to reserve grade. The NSW coach said that he would pick Farah for NSW out of reserve grade if he had to, and he did. So even though Farah is getting on in his career he was still a quality player last year but he was unwanted at the Wests Tigers due to the coach wanting to invest in the future in this so-called 'Big Four'. The Balmain Tigers used to have a NSW hooker called Benny Elias and Farah was like the new, modern Benny Elias, and he had played his entire career for the Wests Tigers, was still being selected to represent NSW in State of Origin games which are the highest level of Rugby League - yet the Wests Tigers didnt want him and they did everything in their power to get rid of him to make way for this so-called 'Big Four'. In the old semi-pro days of League it would have been unthinkable that a team would treat a one club man team legend the way that the Wests Tigers treated the second coming of Benny Elias - Robbie Farah. Whatever conflict there was between the club great and the younger generation coming through would have been managed so that Farah got to see his career out with his team and retire a one club legend. But in the new pro environment of Rugby League loyalty means nothing - not just between player and club - but between club and player. many of the Wests Tigers fans were outraged by how club legend Robbie Farah was being treated and they held protests at reserve grade matches that Farrah was forced to play in, holding up signs calling for coach Jason Taylor to be sacked rather than Robbie Farah. But Wests Tigers management ignored the diehard Wests Tigers supporters and gave full support to Jason Taylor and this so-called 'Big Four' - that have never done a thing. So at the end of the season last year Wests Tigers great Robbie Farah was forced to leave his beloved Wests Tigers and sign with Russel Crowes South Sydney Rabbitohs. South Sydney was a victim of the Sydney team cull just like the Wests Tigers were but rather than being forced to merge the Souths team actually folded for many years before Russel Crowe and a wealthy mate brought them back, much to the delight of Souths fans - many of which come from families that had supported Souths for generations. So anyway, Farrah is hunted out and has to sign with Souths - and the Wests Tigers management puts their full support behind coach Jason Taylor and his overrated 'Big Four'. So the Wests Tigers start out this season with a big win in their opening match over Farah and his new team Souths and everyone is thinking that the Wests Tigers must have gotten things right to get rid of Farah in favour of this 'Big Four' - but they follow their season opener victory with two terrible losses and all of a sudden the pathetic American wanna-be Australian sports media start asking if coach Jason Taylor should be fired - because after two losses - maybe he got things wrong.. Feeling the pressure of the media attacks on coach Jason Taylor and wanting to right the ship the clown management of the Wests Tigers decide that it would be a good idea to fire coach Jason Taylor. So the Wests Tigers fire Jason Taylor after the Tigers lose their third in a row - only four games into the season. So after backing Taylor over club great Robbie Farah - the Wests Tigers management decides to fire coach Taylor after only four games. These people have been watching American pro-sports on tv and they were thinking - fire the coach - thats the solution! But they had only just sacrificed a club legend in Farah by backing Jason Taylor throughout the previous season. If they were going to get rid of Taylor only four games into the new season then they may have well of gotten rid of him last year and kept club great Farah around to finish out his career as a one club man - especially since Farah was still making rep teams last year. So instead of keeping Farah or Taylor - the Wests Tigers get neither. Firing Taylor was a truly bizarre decision considering what had happened with Farrah. So Wests get rid of the coach that has backed this so-called 'Big Four' and then only a few short weeks later the top three of this 'Big Four' have all signed with rival clubs. In todays pro league environment I really do not think that these players had any loyalty to coach Jason Taylor even though he backed them over Robbie Farah, and I think that it is likely that all three would have left Wests even of Taylor had not been fired. These modern players love the attention of free agency and they love the attention they get from switching teams. The fact that all three are Wests Juniors means nothing to them - Rugby League is a pro sport and players no longer feel loyalty to the clubs that develop them. You just dont get loyal one club man players like Robbie Farah anymore - if you do you should treasure them because they really are a true rarity. I honestly believe that these three young overrated Big Four players would have jumped ship whether Farah had stayed or gone, and whether coach Taylor had stayed or gone. But you have to admit that the utter clown show that is Wests management didnt make it difficult for these guys to leave did they? Wests Tigers showed no loyalty to club great Robbie Farah, so why should anyone be loyal to the Wests Tigers? So I guess the question in the modern game of Rugby League - and in the modern world in general - is - is loyalty still worth anything? I would argue that yes it is. You will get a lot more out of someone when their primary motivation is loyalty rather than money. But to inspire loyalty one must be worthy of loyalty. Maybe the three 'Big Four' Wests Tigers would have jumped ship no matter what, we will never know, but the way the Wests Tigers treated both Robbie Farah and then Jason Taylor could have done little to inspire any amount of loyalty in these three Wests Juniors that were supposed to be the future of the club.- Robbie Farah/Wests Tigers- Robbie Farah/NSW Cockroaches- Robbie Farah/Souths Rabbitohs- Western Suburbs Magpies

The big news out of USA today is that White House press secretary Sean Spicer has said that Hitler did not use chemical weapons during WW2 and even though this is true many people are outraged because gas was used by the Germans to kill prisoners in concentration camps. The outraged are all rolling their eyes and asking if Sean Spicer knows history. Many are calling for Sean Spicer to lose his job as White House press secretary over his comments. In my opinion all of the outrage is utterly ridiculous because Sean Spicer obviously meant that Hitler did not use chemicals as weapons in warfare/combat, and apart from very minor use this is 100% correct. Hitler did not use chemical weapons in WW2. A gas chamber is an apparatus used for executions or euthanasia - it is not a weapon in the context of Sean Spicers comments. Obviously Sean Spicer is aware of the fact that the Germans used gas to execute the prisoners of war that were in German concentration camps but what he meant by chemical weapons was weapons used in warfare/combat. The reason Spicer brought up the fact that Hitler did not use chemical weapons in WW2 was because he was trying to make Syrian leader Assad seem more evil than Hitler for his alleged use of chemical weapons ( on his own people! ) to justify the illegal US military actions in Syria. Sean Spicer was not denying the holocaust or trying to downplay the suffering of Jews and others that were killed by gas in German concentration camps. The outrage over Spicers comments is pedantry at best but at worst the outrage is a result of the robotic, automatistic thinking that so many have in relation to the holocaust. People have been taught that the holocaust is the most sacred event in all of human history and they know that they must be outraged if anyone says a wrong word about it. So after hearing Spicers comments people ask themselves if he just denied the holocaust, or if his comments could be considered to be offensive to Jews and holocaust survivors in any way. They all know that to deny the holocaust is the worst thing in the world and that the right way to think is to be utterly outraged if anyone does. Peoples brains tell them that yes, Hitler did use gas to kill people in concentration camps, and gas is a chemical. Even though they know that Sean Spicers comments do not deny the holocaust, and that he meant chemical weapons that are used in armed combat, they decide that it is probably best to be outraged anyway just to be on the safe side. Nobody wants to be caught out experiencing the wrong emotion - it is best to think correctly. So this programed and automatistic thinking explains all of the outrage over Spicers comments when it is clear that what he said was correct and there was nothing offensive about it. Hitler did not use chemical weapons in WW2. This is true.This western hysteria over the use of chemical weapons in modern times is baffling to me because the allies used chemical weapons including mustard gas in WW1. World powers had agreed to an international treaty against poisonous weapons seven years before WW1 but both sides broke the agreement - first it was the French using tear gas against the Germans, and then the Germans responded with a large scale chlorine attack, which led to a chemical weapons arms race and chemical weapons becoming a significant feature of the war which is why the gas mask is such an enduring symbol of WW1. It seems more than a bit hypocritical and inconvenient that the so-called 'greatest generation' used chemical weapons to help them defeat the Germans in WW1. Doesnt using chemical weapons make people evil? Is the so-called 'greatest generation' evil? Or is using chemical weapons only evil when it is the enemy using them? The clever automaton historians may tell us that the so-called 'greatest generation' may be excused for their use of chemical weapons due to the fact that WW1 was a long time ago before we all became enlightened in relation to how very evil chemical weapons are but there was already an international treaty against the use of chemical weapons seven years before WW1. The clever automaton historians may roll their eyes and tell us that the so-called 'greatest generation' had to use chemical weapons because the Germans were using them - but it was the French that were the first to break the treaty when they used tear gas against the Germans weeks into the war. The clever automaton historians may shrug and tell us that WW1 is in the past anyway, but now we all really know that chemical weapons are evil. But if using chemicals is so very evil, even to execute or euthanize, then why is it still legal in three US states to execute prisoners in gas chambers?Yes it was the Americans that first used gas chambers to execute people at the beginning of the 1920s. It wasnt the Germans that invented the gas chamber - it was Americans - and it is still legal to kill prisoners in gas chambers in three US states. Gas chambers. And what chemicals are the Americans putting in their lethal injections anyway? Is chemical injection and electric chair really any worse than being executed in a gas chamber? USA is the only western nation that still has capital punishment and since the Europeans will no longer sell them the chemicals that they need to lethally inject prisoners that they want to execute the Americans are having to consider alternatives including firing squads and more gas chambers. The EU lethal injection export ban on lethal injection drugs has USA running out of the drugs fast and in places like Arkansas the drugs they have left are about to expire so they are executing eight prisoners in ten days later this month. Soon USA will be out of lethal injection drugs all together and many are suggesting that the best alternative to chemical injection is gas chambers. Now if a gas chamber is a chemical weapon then USA is guilty of using chemical weapons because it is already still legal to use gas chambers as an execution method in three US states and we have many more considering a return to gas chambers due to the EU lethal injection drug export ban which has caused the USA to run out of the drugs they need for lethal injections. If a gas chamber is a chemical weapon then the USA is guilty of using chemical weapons. What do the clever automaton historians have to say about that? Is it only evil when so-called 'nazi' use gas chambers? Is a gas chamber only a chemical weapon when it is not USA (Arizona, Missouri, Wyoming) that is using them? These clever outraged automatons can roll their eyes and ask if Sean Spicer knows history but how many of them really know history, especially history relating to the holocaust. The fact is that the Germans decided to use gas to kill prisoners because they were looking for a better method of mass murder than firing squad. To start with the Germans used to make large groups of prisoners dig their own mass grave and then they would have the prisoners stand on the edge of the mass grave and have a German firing squad shoot them all into the mass grave. The problem with this method was that it was not efficient and it was too traumatic for the German soldiers.The man that was given the job of coming up with a more efficient and less traumatic way of mass murdering Jews and other prisoners of war was called Arthur Nebe. It was Nebe that first reported that there were too many Jews and other people that the Germans considered to be undesirables to kill with firing squads. The task of killing so many Jews, especially after Jewish women and children were included was just too great to accomplish by firing squad. In the same month that Nebe sent his report - August 1941 - Himmler attended one of these mass shootings and he after witnessing this brutal mass murder he vomited. It wasnt just Himmler that was traumatized by this mass murder but also many of the German soldiers that made up the firing squads. So for the sake of the mental health of the German soldiers Himmler asked Nebe to come up with a more convenient way of mass murdering all of the Jews. Before deciding on gas Nebe experimented with other methods of mass murder including using explosives. Nebe had some mental patients but in a bunker and then he blew them up with explosives but on the first try not all of the mental patients were dead so they used more explosives but they ended up making a great mess with body parts ending up hanging from trees and what not. One of the reasons Nebe decided that gas was the way to go was because earlier in his career he had attended a party and after driving home drunk he fell asleep in his garage with his vehicles engine still running and he was almost killed by the carbon monoxide from the exhaust. The Germans were already using carbon monoxide to euthanize mental patients before Nebe came up with his idea of using carbon monoxide from the engine exhaust for mass murder. Since vehicles were readily available and the exhaust could kill quickly and efficiently Nebe decided that gas was the best method of large scale execution in invaded lands. During his experiments with exhaust fumes Nebe first tried killing with passenger vehicles exhaust but found that it didnt work well enough and took too long so he used the exhaust of a truck and found that this method killed within 15 minutes. After the truck exhaust experiment Nebe was convinced and he had vehicles fitted with sealed cabins that would be filled with vehicle exhaust and these were the first German gas chambers. His idea for using gas was adopted which led to the gas chambers being built in concentration camps and the later move from carbon monoxide to Zyklon B.So even though Hitler approved of the use of gas chambers it was not his personal idea. We all know that Hitler was the most evil man that ever lived but the fact is that it was Americans that invented gas chambers in 1921 long before any German thought to build them. Of course what the Germans did in murdering innocent Jewish men women and children in gas chambers is worse than executing criminals that have been found guilty of committing a serious crime but the issue that the outraged have with Sean Spicers comments is not that innocents were murdered by the Germans but that the Germans used chemical weapons by using gas chambers. By claiming that Hitler did use chemical weapons in WW2 because of the use of gas chambers the outraged are saying that modern USA is guilty of using chemical weapons because execution by gas chamber is still legal in the USA to this day. So what do you think? Do you agree with these outraged historians that a gas chamber is a chemical weapon? Are the outraged correct that Hitler used chemical weapons in WW2 because of the Germans use of gas chambers? If a gas chamber is a chemical weapon then arent USA guilty of using chemical weapons due to the fact that execution by gas chamber is legal in USA? ----------------Gas chambers were used as a method of execution for condemned prisoners in the United States beginning in the 1920s and continue to be a legal execution method in three states.--------------------------- wikipedia- American gas chamberReferences - wikipedia

When I was a little kid in the early 80s I used to have to drive around in the back of my parents car with them - like kids do - and my parents would often play music they liked on the cars cassette player. I am first born and my mother had me when she was 19 I think - she was young, and my father is a couple of years older than her, so they liked a lot of 70s type music. So on of my most traumatic childhood memories was having to listen to the Don McLean song 'American Pie'. For some reason I seriously hated that song when I was a little kid - about 3-6 especially. I dont even think my parents like Don McLean particularly, and I am pretty sure they had the song on some kind of 70s mix tape they would listen to on car trips, but my parents decided that it was hilarious that I hated 'American Pie' so when it would come on they would turn it up and my dad would sing along with it to annoy me. I hated American Pie so much, and probably also the fact that my parents were messing with me, so I would often cry when it came on - because my parents would turn it up and sing along to annoy me - especially my Dad. It is kind of funny now I guess ( not really ) but the song American Pie probably made me cry more times than most things when I was a kid. My parents are serious jerks. So when I think of being stuck in the backseat of the family car on a car trip as a little kid and having to listen to the music of my parents, the first song I think of is Don McLeans 'American Pie' and how much I hated it. But my parents wouldnt overdo it - they wanted to keep the hilarity going as long as possible I guess - so American Pie trauma was staggered with the last time they made me cry with it being when I was probably about 10 or something ( I would yell and scream at my dad to shut up and tell him to turn it off but it just made him sing louder and with more gusto. The music that I most associate with car trips in the family car as a little kid is the music of the sibling duo The Carpenters. Unlike Don McLeans 'American Pie' I used to actually kind of like The Carpenters music and I do not associate it with trauma but with feeling happy and secure. The The Carpenters songs are really nice in my opinion and there seems to be so many of them that are well known and that you might still hear being played today someplace. I know them all because the The Carpenters was my parents' go-to car trip music - they must have bought a greatest hits tape after Karen Carpenter died I guess. It seems as though the The Carpenters song 'Close to You' may be the most replayed The Carpenters song. I have heard Close to You played in countless movies and everyone seems to know it. I think it is a pretty nice song but it is not my favourite. Another The Carpenters song that everyone seems to know is 'We've Only Just Begun'. Again, I like it but it is not my favourite. Other well known The Carpenters songs include 'Rainy Days and Mondays', 'Please Mr Postman' and 'Top of the World' and I really like all three. When I was a kid I think my favourite was 'Please Mr Postman'. As an adult I have narrowed the best the The Carpenters songs down and I have decided that my favourite is a The Carpenters song called 'Sing'. I think that 'Sing' is a pretty well known The Carpenters song but not as well known as many of the others. I like 'Sing' because it must be the nicest most positive and encouraging song in the world. I used to be a childcare worker and 'Sing' is the kind of song that you could sing with a group of preschoolers. It is just such a nice song. Apart from traumatic childhood experiences like my father singing - "DROVE MY CHEVY TO THE LEVEE BUT THE LEVEE WAS DRY! AND GOOD OLD BOYS WERE DRINKING WHISKEY AND RYE! SINGIN _ THISL BE THE DAY THAT I DIE _ THISL BE THE DAY THAT I DIIIIE!!!" ( with a stupid exaggerated American accent ) - a good theme song for my childhood would be the music from the The Carpenters song 'Sing' - 'La La La La La, La La La La La, La La La La La, La La La La La!'Did you know that the Don McClean song 'American Pie' lasts for over eight minutes? God I hated 'American Pie' ( what is it about you guys? ) when I was a kid. I would always feel as though I was going to cry as soon as I would hear it begin. I would instantly think - NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!A few years ago I bought my mother a The Carpenters greatest hits CD for her birthday. If I thought that my father liked Don McLean I would buy him a Don McLean album maybe but I know that he doesnt particularly like Don McClean at all - he was just being a jerk.Anyway, so what is your favourite The Carpenters song? There are just so many to choose from hey. The Carpenters were a great duo.Sing/The CarpentersSing, sing a songSing out loudSing out strongSing of good things not badSing of happy not sadSing, sing a songMake it simple to lastYour whole life longDon't worry that it's notGood enough for anyoneElse to hearJust sing, sing a songSing, sing a songLet the world sing alongSing of love there could beSing for you and for meSing, sing a songMake it simple to lastYour whole life longDon't worry that it's notGood enough for anyoneElse to hearJust sing, sing a song(Just sing, sing a song)Just sing, sing a songAnd what music did your parents make you listen to as a kid in the family car?