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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Dracon" data-source="post: 3326770" data-attributes="member: 14799">Have been dormant for a while, particularly after reading this thread in its entirety.  There was nothing in the curriculum of Buffalo High which prepared any of us to add intelligence to the eye and the brain's connection to binoculars.  After all we were the lads who had difficulty understanding why our basketball numerals weren't sewn on backwards when we looked in a mirror.  How many high school students anywhere shot gophers on the school grounds during recess with .22 rifles?   We did. That was only 63 years ago.  And the only admonition from the administration was to make sure we didn't hit any of the elementary children on the play ground. A kind of natural selection process in its rawest form, I guess. Our closest association with the brain was when we sawed off our trophy deer horns and discovered what real brains looked like - really mushy and convoluted.  That is really a grotesque image to see a deer without a skull plate and its eyes protruding beneath the saw line.  But adolescent ranch boys aren't given to having weak stomachs. Yet none of us grew up to be serial killers, wife beaters, and politicians.  The aforementioned John Kerry, former presidential candidate, senator, and now the U.S. Secretary of State, once celebrated as the  heroic Swift Boat Veteran, got Bill's ire up over some testimony relating to what the Big Eye could discern at 10 miles.  I found this most interesting.  Now the Big Eye boasted 20 power, and if the distance was really a measured 10 miles (hard to believe), it produced an image of a half mile or 880 yards.  Metric users will have to come up with their own calculations. I've never looked through a Big Eye, but here in Montana, particularly at ground level, there is always considerable wind and heat waves to create distortion at 10 miles. Identifying uniforms would be possible I guess if they were wearing blaze orange shirts and pants.  But the neutral colors of any uniform would be impossible to see, unless there was an unusual background such as a foot of new snow, which by the way has fallen in Montana today.Could a rifle been seen by the naked eye a half mile away?  Sure, if the contrasting background was white like today.  Vertical metal posts show up at a 1,000 yards with the snow.  I recall listening to some tall tales as a teen from some old codgers who claimed to kill deer at a mile with a 30-30.  Those shots were all fired up hog wash canyon. Bill and Lee got into some interesting exchanges about the English language.   That too, got me to thinking where we really differ. It is IMO primarily in the slang expressions and sense of class.  Americans think the Brits are stuffy, and the Britts think the Americans are ignorant boobs.  Some truth in both assessments.  Consider the device in front of a locomotive to clear the track.  Americans call it a cow-catcher.  Brits call it a plough.  Americans pay little attention to grammatical niceties, particularly in their speech.  The Brits speak with as much correctness that real communication will allow.   Consider the following story.Picture a language purist piloting a plane over Canada in the middle of the winter.  It is night time and -30 F below outside.  Suddenly the engine quits and the pilot has to crash land in the only place where he might survive, on a frozen snow covered lake.  There happens to be a trapper's cabin on the shore line, and luck is with the pilot because the trapper is home and a kerosene lamp shows in the window. The pilot makes a bad landing, catches a wing in the snow and flips over.  He is hurt but painfully crawls  towards the cabin in deep snow on his hands and knees, determined to live.   As he reaches the cabin door, he weakly knocks on it.  The trapper responds, "Who is out there?"  How should the pilot reply?  Should he say, "It's me, Joe?" Or should he say, "It is I, Joe?"  The one he chooses may cause the trapper not to open the door.  Guess which one? Watching Parliament in action on TV is great fun and this is where the Brits enjoy lampooning one another.  The U.S. Congress on the other hand feigns civility, e.g.,where Senator Fog Horn says,  "My esteemed colleague from the great state of Maine, " and so on, when the speaker hold him in utter contempt.  Here the Brits are using English the way it was intended to be used, malice intended. John</blockquote>

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