1. I’m no expert on WW2, but:

In 1960, William Shirer in his classic, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, took the view that although Hitler was not bluffing about his intention to invade, Czechoslovakia would have been able to offer significant resistance. Shirer believed that Britain and France had sufficient air defences to avoid serious bombing of London and Paris and would have been able to pursue a rapid and successful war against Germany.[30] He quotes Churchill as saying the Munich agreement meant that “Britain and France were in a much worse position compared to Hitler’s Germany”.[25] After Adolf Hilter personally inspected the Czech fortifications, he privately said to Joseph Goebbels, “we would have shed a lot of blood” and that it was fortunate that there had been no fighting.[31]

2. re: #186 Dark_Falcon

A big reason why I’m still here: This is one of very few places where an intelligent discussion of WWII can be had.

Even after I realized I had to quit smoking, it took some time and false starts to get serious.

I’m not alluding to LGF, but to the commented blogosphere as a whole. My temperament is not combative, and dealing with tactical toxicity isn’t worth the aggravation anymore. The kind of thing that I would once have perceived as pointedly witty, I now perceive as obnoxious. I don’t know (nor am I terribly curious) if blogs have changed, I’ve changed, or both.

3. Contributing to #2 is that I have little confidence in either major party. In my time there have been three successful Presidents afaic: Eisenhower, Reagan, and Clinton. I don’t see another one on the horizon.