I do NOT recommend this Patton fan--but I'll tell you what I DO recommend, here on Amazon.
589761
I was shocked when this fan arrived (& its identical smaller "brother," a 14-inch one), & I removed its box. I had read the many positive reviews, but the quality I saw as it arrived was appalling. The plastic switch was extremely cheap looking, like it could break at any moment, though it was new; that was my first impression of its quality. The switch also put out an annoying high pitched vibration sound sometimes, from the plastic parts vibrating together. I am not exaggerating to say that I was in shock, & before even turning it on was making mental plans to return it. The grill was light, & would probably last a long time with care, but definitely not heavy duty as I expected. The motor seemed to work well, the fan was reasonably high speed, but I believe you have to buy products based on its weakest link. If the switch breaks, what do you do? Sure, it can be replaced, but at what cost in time, effort & materials? I also have to conclude the rest of the unit is not high quality if the switch is not, logically speaking. But even with a quality switch, I would have been very disappointed, especially considering the high price (though I would not have paid $20 for this fan in a store, seeing its quality in person; the whole fan looked cheap).

I immediately started research again for a quality fan, & before long came across Air King fans (on Youtube). You could tell from the demonstrations that people were excited about the quality of these fans--they were heavy, powerful, & had ball bearing motors, which are much superior, apparently (the small Air King 12" model only has the typical sleeve bearing). To my great joy, Amazon had these fans, so I bought two of the 18" models (model 9318, for mounting). These Air King fans just scream quality; I could not be happier!! In my research, I could find nothing close to this quality, & Amazon had the best price.
2033810
Its not as good as the original Patton, but it is interesting
1238820
I had a different patton fan and it was built much better.  The fan moves air and I did not think it was that noisy for the amount of air movement.  It is lighter than my last patton fan which is an advantage if you like to move it a lot.

But the biggest factor will be how long it lasts.  That is unknown at this time.
2078228
Ok where do I start. It is a collection of Jon's blog posts. So you can read this for free on his site and I still would not sure I recommend it. There is the occasional insite but there are hard to find a rare.

Jon does 2 things that personally bug the hell out of me.

1) He contradicts him self allot. "Don't out source anything" 10-20 pages later.... "Out source anything your bad at" this is one of a number of examples.

2) He uses he own "successes" as examples in the book. Don't get me wrong he has a book on Amazon, I am assuming a fairly popular website and as he likes to mention a lot a software company, so he is not unsuccessful but that is never a good idea.

Jon, I am speaking directly to you now, you business / life is not the perfect fit for every problem. I understand you want to draw from personal experience but parts of this book read like a "Jon Lifetime Achievement Award" and to be honest (and you just sent me an email asking me to be) it gets boring really quickly. You simply are not that impressive. Maybe in you little corner of Canada or amongst your group of friends but in the group of people I know you would look truly average if not slightly below. I really like your effort but it makes you come of supremely arrogant.
3329301
literally!!!
I'm not impressed with this.  At. All.
.
.
.
.

 12 more words required.  Post on Amazon for com.
4533588
Like all the other reviewers, I was puzzled why Amazon would recommend this kind of nonsense to me. Their note said that people who had read or rated books by Art Spiegelman have also bought this crazy book. Hard to believe. The phrasing "we've noticed" in their notes is also ridiculous -- clearly no "we" (i.e., a human being) noticed anything; the software just spit out a bogus correlation. I might be interested in books by Jeff Smith the Cartoonist, or even Jeff Smith the Frugal Gourmet, but definitely not Jeff Smith the Religious Nut.

Didn't Amazon's software notice that I've read and rated books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, Daniel Dennett, Karen Armstrong, Kevin Phillips, Bernard Lewis, E. O. Wilson, and Larry Gonick? All of whom I recommend to the actual readers (if any) of this nut version of Jeff Smith.

Amazon, this is a very lame "service."
3268901
This is one of those shows that needs the laugh track or else it appears to be too dry. And what is with that commentary by that arrogant director, it does not make it an more of a pleasant experience and why does he keep bashing Mr. Belvedere? Now that is a show I am waiting for on DVD, with the laugh track please. If you really want to relive this series, get it from the library where you will not have to pay for it.
4213662
Well, 140+ reviews are already in, but I'll throw my two cents in.  Let me preface this by saying I'm not a soldier and never will be, don't support the Iraq war, but would support a well-managed war on terrorists who actually threaten our safety.  I suppose that makes me reasonably unbiased.  i started this book not knowing a thing about its contents or the attitudes of the author.

It's a collection of possibly quasi-fictive vignettes and memories of the author's tour patrolling the streets of Baghdad for over a year.  Crawford is an extremely bitter man, and I was struck by how entitled and selfish he paints himself, how little empathy he shows.  Even the subtitle, "an accidental soldier," is misleading: he wasn't drafted, he signed up for the National Guard.  If he didn't think that made him a soldier, then I pity his ignorance.

But much worse, throughout the book, his behavior and attitudes are shocking.  He knows and cares nothing for the culture, history or people of Iraq: this from an anthropology major (one who was, he informs the reader several times, "just two credits away from graduation," as if that makes a difference).  His stories are straight out of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket: these are not patriotic soldiers, or even the devil-may-care kids out for violence and glory depicted in Generation Kill.  They're drug-taking, food-stealing, rule-breaking, apathetic clowns.

Crawford's stories condemn him again and again: he steals food from Iraqi refugee packets; he steals an Iraqi's motorbike; he flirts with Iraqi women, getting one possibly thrown into the street as a whore; he befriends but does not protect a loyal Iraqi shopkeeper; he watches with glee a small boy about to be beaten by a gang.  In short, he depicts himself as a terrible person, which makes his stories of incompetence, clueless superiors, and failure throughout the Army, even if true, less moving.

My dislike of the man doesn't color the literary side of the review, however, and Crawford gets three stars for several powerful stories, and a stirring, provocative argument that certainly makes you think.
796612
I tried three or four times before sending it back for another on my Amazon unlimited. While it was recommended on several sites I follow, I found the verbiage rough and the story, well I guess not to my liking.
3192835
Most weapons books are just a lot of gee whiz factoids and personal opinion.  This one is different. It is history of how the Sherman tank was designed and developed, combined with an analysis as to how it participated in the defeat of the axis as part of the allied war effort.  The lack of pre war development of tanks by the U.S., the need to produce tanks big numbers, the fact that U.S. Armor had to be shipped across the ocean, and the strategic decision that airplane would be the decisive arm and get the lions share of the resources, are all considered.  If you want gamers' stuff about Tiger v M4 at 1000 yards forget it, if you want to learn why the Pershing was so late and why Patton was sceptical about the 76mm gun this is the one.
2948784
Boring, poorly written, and I love war novels too!  Although I'm not a  Jesse Ventura fan, I don't see Ventura as a liar and think this clown is more apt to lie for the press.  Poor form soldier.
454750
Frankly pales in comparison to any biography of Patton I have previously read. Often felt better editing was needed to eliminate repetitive passages. if you saw the film "Patton," much of what Keane writes would be familiar.
4913138
Due to my reasoning that Stephen King would HAVE to write a good essay, I bought this and read it. While his opinions do carry some weight, I found that I must dismiss his argument since he did not perform the most basic research. Without having performed this research, his essay is just another "get rid of guns" rant that I am forced to dismiss. He did not research the term "assualt rifle" which can be a trigger word to such strong reactions, and should not be used lightly. And, he referred to the AR-15 as an assault rifle, which it is not. The AR-15 is a "varmint rifle" dressed up in plastic to look fearce. He also says one was used in Newtown, and even NBC admits is not the case - that only 4 handguns were used. [...]. I had hoped for much better from him. If you are just looking for another person to agree with you in anti-gun dialog, then this is just the thing for you. It is filled with volatile, profane, overly emotional phrases. It is too bad, really, because some of his ending arguments are reasonable - such as increasing the waiting period. Since Lanza did stop on his way to the school (again, follow the links in the article mentioned above)and attempt unsuccessfully to buy an AR-15 (unsuccessful because the store turned him down because of the waiting period), we know that waiting periods do actually work. King also recommends comprehensive and universal background checks. These are in place in Connecticut - since it takes around 6 to 8 months to get a gun permit there (in actual experience). The necessary and missing part of his argument here is that these background checks MUST be shared in a national database. I will look elsewhere for a more reasoned discussion that can be shared with proponents on both sides of this argument.

Edit after posting went "live": I see that my link was deleted. Too bad, since it would have helped many people to do their "homework". I did not know when I wrote this that we cannot post links.
3005685
I enjoyed the book.  Patton was the best American general of the Second World War but I do not buy the conspiracy theories surrounding his death.  It was a car accident.
If Bill O'Reilly was not writing a series of "killing books" he would have writen a much more interesting book about Patton.
4613135
My first review was rejected, perhaps because I used a politically incorrect word while describing a politically incorrect author, which I found ironical. I'd read some of Lind's articles and thought the novel might be interesting. However the protagonist is a Marty Stu and the glee Lind takes in the destruction of those he does not approve of, which includes most blacks, all environmentalists, feminists, Puerto Ricans, pagans, Muslims, and so forth is puerile. His view of women echoes that of the apostle Saul -- sit down and shut up unless you're making supper.  The Christian empire of Victoria is not an appealing place.

As far as the didactic parts of the novel where he treats fourth generation warfare, hardly an original or novel concept, it is done much better elsewhere.  I would suggest Matt Bracken's books as much more realistic and readable:
<a data-hook="product-link-linked" class="a-link-normal" href="/Matthew-Bracken/dp/B00350B7EU/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_txt?ie=UTF8">Matthew Bracken</a>
3601799
So, I was looking up info on a particular type of zombie when I happened across this guy's review of High Plains Drifter. Because it was so far off the mark and the author seemed more concerned about making tenuous connections to philosophy and classic literature, I looked up some of his other reviews. To make it fair, I read ones of movies I had actually seen (like High Plains Drifter).
You know how you have that one friend that thinks he is "high brow" because he has seen all the documentaries and doesn't listen to popular music and knows the safety ratings of all the mini-vans even though he is now considering getting a Prius when he is really just a boring sort of fellow who has mistaken his overwhelming pedantry for a useful skill? If that friend wrote a book, it would probably read like the reviews I saw. On the plus side, the reviews did warn against spoilers. But as plus sides go, that's akin to have the perfect temperature water in the tub when you slit your wrists. I couldn't recommend getting an entire book of that.
3038002
Unfortunately I didn't get through this.  I have enjoyed Tom Clancy in the past - but this set was way too complicated to follow - too many names, too many locations - I like to listen to books on tape while I work out, do housework etc.  Maybe someday in the far future when I have absolutely nothing to do but 'study'. 2) The second mistake I made was get it second hand - the tapes were out of order  and not ready to go.  I promised myself I just would have to order 'new' from now on. I'm sure there are Tom Clancy 'military' types out there who are scratching their heads.