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"It's hopped the twig! It's shuffled off this mortal coil! It's rung down the curtain and joined the choir invisible! This.... is an EX-PARROT!!"

Actually, it's a stuffed pheasant toy. Shelley gnaws her bones and all hard plastic toys to bits, but tends her stuffed toys carefully. She still has the mallard duck stuffed toy she had as a tiny pup (its squeaker however is long since come unsqueaked.) She used to have a bright neon orange stuffed hedgehog with four little hard rubber feet (in tennis shoes). She very carefully chewed all four feet off close to the body, but takes very good care of the rest of the hedgehog.

I guess it's her "soft mouth" heritage not to chew anything that feels like it might be feathers. She sure doesn't. She once caught a tufted titmouse in flight and brought it to me completely unharmed (that bird had a story to tell his wife when he got home!)

Prisoners were captured by the tens of thousands
in the Po Valley and marched to the rear, often
unguarded or guarded by only one or two men.

[Dave Brower, Po Valley, Italy, 1945 by Arthur Argiewicz]

The Polish/German Panzer IV

At least one PzKpfw IV ausf. H was used by the Warsaw Tank Brigade of the 2nd Corps in Italy during 1944.

Sadao S. Munemori

John D. Magrath

1943 Buick

aka M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer

The Tank Destroyer Command decided in February 1943, that it wanted to have the more powerful 76 mm M1 gun installed. Six prototypes were built similar to the T67 with the 76 mm gun and were designated the T70 GMC. As a result of the trials a new shape for the hull front and a new turret were designed. Production started in July 1943 at the Buick factory.

Fastest AFV of World War II. Low silhouette, well sloped. It had a center guide track, torsion bar suspension, and an automatic transmission. Two escape hatches in the hull roof and in the floor.

Used by tank destroyer battalions in Europe. It was intended to be used in an ambush roll with its quick speed.

It first saw action in the Summer of 1944 in Europe. One unit to use it quite effectively was the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion in July 1944 reported destroying 53 Panthers & Tigers and 15 self propelled guns with only a loss of 17 of their M18s.

Could penetrate 101 mm. Muzzle velocity 2,600 ft/sec.

M5A1 Stuart Light Tank

M-24 1944

france surrenders to crew of M4 Sherman tank stopping to ask directions.

Image: Mussolini's disfigured corpse is displayed on a shallow porcelain tub after the first of three autopsies, May 1945. One year later, his corpse was stolen from its first grave by Fascists and hidden. Found four months later, it was buried a second time, after another autopsy, in an undisclosed location. The corpse was returned to Mussolini's widow eleven years later, after a final autopsy, and officially buried in Predappio on August 31, 1957. White robe in background belongs to one of the group of medical examiners who were posing with a group of proud Italian officials and the corpse. (credit: National Archives, USA)

Frontline on PBS aired half-hour "Forbidden Iran" this evening. Canadian woman journalist surreptitiously reports from inside Iran.

Fascist ragheads beat students with clubs, attack sleeping students with machetes, imprison and torture--to death--untold numbers.

For Khamenei and Khatami alike, the Full Mussolini.

Memo to Powell: no "dialogue" with Islamist Bombers.

Regime change before these terrorists subject us to the full catastrophe.

Executive Action in Tehran--not just a theory--it's Allah's will.

On Thursday Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei lambasted America, describing it as "the Great Satan" and said "the Islamic Republic of Iran is honoured to be the target of wrath and anger of the most hated Satan in the world".

He then went very red in the face and fell right over.

A feathered dart protruded from his swollen left carotid.