Free Republic

Fans don’t like to let their favorites go, but now they don’t have to. We live in a world desperate to remake, reboot, and flat-out return to beloved franchises, hunting the closest thing to a sure audience there is. But the more beloved these continuations are, they harder they are to get right. Fans want them to somehow be exactly the same while still being fresh and new, an impossible request—except, it turns out, for the return of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The show returns today on Netflix with its 11th season, 18 years after season 10 ended in 1999....

OPERATION DOWNFALL, to be complete within one year of the end of the war in Europe, had two major components. * Olympic . November 1, 1945. Invasion of Southern Kyushu to provide a large base for naval and air forces within range of Tokyo. * Coronet . March 1, 1946. Invasion of Central Honshu and Tokyo. OLYMPIC Olympic entailed landing three corps on southern Kyushu, the most southern of the four Japanese home islands. The center portion of Kyushu is almost impassible mountains which would be difficult to transit and was to be used to isolate southern Kyushu from counterattack...

Relying on harassing tactics never exhibited during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Iraqi military has inflicted heavy damage this week on two of the U.S. Army's most fearsome weapons, the Abrams tank and the Apache Longbow helicopter gunship. ---snip--- But when the smoke cleared, two Abrams tanks -- virtually impregnable, 70-ton behemoths -- had been shot in their soft spot, a rear grille covering the engine. ---snip--- On the battlefield, it was not immediately clear what weapon the Iraqis used to knock out the tanks. A senior defense official said yesterday that it was a French-made Coronet antitank missile.