Bush ‘Nazi’ Smear Unworthy of Critics

New York Observer ^ | 10/27/03 | Joe Conason

[Righty1]

Liberals can't get through a sentence without using nazi, racist, sexist, or the most dreaded epithet homophobic. If you give it back to them they call the PC police.

[Righty1]

Watson of IBM basically invented the punch card computer to enable the destruction of european jews. An honest article should have mentioned this little fact.

[In The Defense of Liberty]

Watson of IBM basically invented the punch card computer to enable the destruction of european jews. An honest article should have mentioned this little fact.

Oh, that is such a load of crap. Wherever do you get your 'facts'? Look, I'm as conservative as the next guy, but at least I'm dealing with reality here.

I worked for IBM for 15 years, and I know exactly why the punch card was invented, and who invented it. First of all, Watson had absolutely nothing to do with inventing the punch card - Watson was an excellent manager but he never invented a damned thing. Herman Hollerith invented them in order to do a census (see HERE)... he used a punched card because he had recalled seeing a similar system used in a Jacquard loom and it occurred to him that the two were really similar jobs - that of recording information for later retrieval.

Now, as to the shape and size, these cards were exactly the same size as a dollar bill of that era, mainly because Herman new he was going to have millions of these cards and he needed a place to store them... and the only practical receptical was a bank-note drawer. The corner was cut off so you'd know which way was up and which side was front. Very simple, but effective.

Please do get your facts straight before making rash accusations. This is an urban myth that persists only by virtue of those who deem to ignorantly repeat it.

[In The Defense of Liberty]

Oh, and BTW, that census was in 1890... that's just a wee bit of a time before anyone was considering extermination of Jews.

See HERE for more information.

[In The Defense of Liberty]

....Furthermore....

TJ Watson was only 6 years old when Herman Hollerith first invented that punch card... and Watson was only 16 years old when it was first used.

Old Mr. Watson didn't even join Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. until 1914 (C-T-R, which later became "IBM"), over 34 years after the punch card was in practical use.

[Freedom4US]

SPLC calls the NRA a "hate group"??? Really? I don't believe it, or don't want to believe it. If true, I'm sure their super-secret-squirrel list has all white republicans included, too huh. Guess we'll just have to wait a few years.

[TrueBeliever9]

the candidate that looks and acts the most like a nazi is Dean

[Lancey Howard]

Hmmm...
Conason wrote this? Well, I don't think Bush is in danger of losing the Jewish vote, so why? Why? Ahhh... Might there be something in the Rodham family history that is festering beneath the surface like a canker, just waiting to puss up and explode?

[In The Defense of Liberty]

The only shred of truth is that indeed, these machines were used by the Nazi's before and during the war... just as they were also used, to great advantage I might add, by the Allies.

You must remember, however, that by the mid-1930s the Nazi's had nationalised all the major industries in Germany at the time - with IBM's German subsidary included - and so it was not, in fact, IBM (i.e. TJ Watson) that controlled these assets, but instead it was the German government themselves that directed their use, just as they did the railroads and every other industry. IBM US had little to say about it nor any power to prevent their misuse.

The Nazi's tried to get the US to co-operate and assist them - in fact they even tried awarding TJ Watson a medal to encourage him - but he promptly returned the medal and refused to help the Germans.

That's the facts.

[tubebender]

And that is how I saw it portrayed on the History (?} Channel on the evolution of the computer...

[In The Defense of Liberty]

And that is how I saw it portrayed on the History (?} Channel on the evolution of the computer...

Thanks for the ditto, TB. Yes, they got it reasonably right... IMHO that was a fairly good programme.