Recent content by A J Kemble

  1. DBWI: Israel not a Soviet client state?

    Perhaps if Marshall Trotsky hadn't become the second leader of the USSR? - perhaps if there was a non-Jewish, classically Russian anti-Jewish leader, who then refused to allow large scale Jewish immigration from the USSR this would happen?
  2. President of Israel Albert Einstein

    David Ben-Gurion felt he had to offer him the Presidency, but allegedly said "What the hell are we going to do if he says yes?" Einstein would have been President for about 3 years at the end of his life, I think the only difference really would be a different face on one of the NIS notes...
  3. WI King George VI had a longer life?

    basically none - except for the mid 50s optimistic period when people said England was entering a new Elizabethan age, and Punk using the 1977 jubilee as a target ect. - very minor cultural stuff like that. The monarchy doesn't write the speeches of the times, but it sometimes changes the accent...
  4. Presidents of a British Commonwealth

    I'd also like to table an amendment: No person who has previously held the office of Prime Minister or Leader of the Opposition shall be eligible to become President of the Commonwealth of Great Britain.... Queen Elizabeth the Third? Fucking Aye! :D
  5. Presidents of a British Commonwealth

    I think it's not impossible that after QE2 dies, and Charles succeeds her then we might have a British Commonwealth by 2025. If that happens then it depends how the ceremonial President is elected: is it by popular vote, or by Parliament which is the case in many countries with ceremonial...
  6. Alternate and More Awesome Olympic/Paralympic Sports

    For the Paralympics: Murderball! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheelchair_rugby
  7. What If: Ramsay MacDonald forms a Labour-Liberal coalition in July 1931

    You'd have to win Ramsay McDonald away form Philip Snowden and the orthodox economists in the civil service, and into agreement with J M Keynes and Lloyd-George to go for their plan of public works, deficit financing and devaluation - something that would be a radical and very controversial move...
  8. WI: Al Smith wins in 1928

    anyone elected in 1928 would have been sworn in only about 6 months before the Great Crash begins, so it would be to late for them to implement any preventative policy change - even if they had the insight (with the knowledge and economic theory of the time) to see the problem coming. In order...
  9. Question about US power.

    *applause*
  10. Question about US power.

    In any war with the USA you have to consider geography primarily: the US has thousands of miles of ocean between it and a major aggressor. This not only means that Mexico or Canada would have to be conquered / persuaded to ally against the US to provide a launching point for an invasion, but the...
  11. AHC: President Daniel Inouye

    I thought of that too - it's plausible he might have settled somewhere else after the war, but what chance would he have stood getting elected? Besides - Georgia and Arkansas are small states too...
  12. The Best Man? LBJ in 1960

    Well Addison's wasn't Kennedy's only health problem - according to the Robert Dallek biography he was also suffering from colitis and chronic prostatitis, and compression fractures of the spine - which needed heavy pain meds. At one point during campaigning in Connecticut his medicine bag was...
  13. The Best Man? LBJ in 1960

    I'm watching The Best Man - a more attractive Adlai Stevenson (played by Henry Fonda) is facing of against an even more evil John F Kennedy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_Man_%28play%29 In the course of events each man gets some dirt on the other and attempts to use it to force the...
  14. AHC: Modern Day Teddy Roosevelt

    he's not Bad Ass, and I don't think he'd be widely regarded as a Great American (although that seems to be the least closely followed in all the time-lines so far)
  15. AHC: President Daniel Inouye

    Well he did well during the Watergate hearings didn't he? So perhaps he runs in 1976 instead of Jimmy Carter? Or - he was friends with Bob Dole - what if he were nominated as a Dole VP sometime during an alternate 1980s? The problem is: there is a very small window of time between the nation...
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