h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

-------



That´s why I said "Pre-fascist". You can not compare Bush and his administration at the current time to "Fullblown Nazi Germany".

And Hitlers goverment in 1933 was almost angelic compared to Hitlers goverment 10 years later.




"The Germans killed the jews,

the jews killed the arabs,

and the arabs killed the hostages,

and that is the news.

Is it any wonder; that the monkey´s confused".




Roger Waters.



Had to do that.


TD.

On civil liberties, I've just read the stuff in the Queens' speech including proposals to end the double jeopardy rule and to allow juries to hear defendants' previous convictions. I suppose the latter means that appeal to prejudice is now sanctioned in UK law.

>The US has a moral obligation to aid every nation that it attacks and destroys as a result of it's pointless war mongering. Regardless of the outcome. The people who suffered and died in Vietnam still felt their pain just as much whether America won or not.<

How can you speak to moral obligations when you have twice stated that you would personally assasinate president bush if you could.

"How can you speak to moral obligations when you have twice stated that you would personally assasinate president bush if you could."

Huh?

Huh?

Huh?

When and where did I say that?????????? You're confusing me with someone else. You fool!

This post has been removed.

Empty Sky I most humby apologise. You did not say that it. It was said by *Bob the farmer* in the 'What do you think about Bush' thread. I was reading that when I came on your post which is not even in the same thread. The only thing I can say is I have been up for over 24 hours and made a mistake. For that I am very sorry and accept the title of fool.

"up for over 24 hours"

No-one should ever have to do that. Get some sleep and that's an order.

You are most gracious Empty, Good Night Sir.

This is really nice to see. All these hundreds of postings pushing back and forth, swaying no one's opinion, deadlocked like trenches in WWI. Those last couple of posts are like the apocryphal story of the futbol game in no-man's-land that broke out at Christmas time.



!

Hi, Subcom!

Lots of conversation since your post... No time (as usual) to read it all right now, but it looks interesting.

Maybe I'm just paying more attention to politics than I used to. Maybe this isn't the biggest split ever... but with the Republicans shouting 'War!' and the Democrats shouting 'Peace!' it certainly seems like it to me. Now that the Republicans have a majority, we're going to have a war. I can't see any way around it.

The talk from the experts is that the Democrats didn't show up at the polls because they didn't expect to do any good. That doesn't make any sense to me - people usually vote only when they don't like what's going on. And everybody I know is unhappy with the current administration. (Of course, I know a lot of liberal Democrats, so there you go.) But the Republicans were drummed up to a frenzy by their party leaders, and sent out to the polls to 'Make America Safe!' Democrats had Dick Gephardt, who has the appeal of dry toast dipped in water.

I hear and read a lot of protest against Bush too, but not from television. Television just seems to be going with the flow... of course, because it would be *unpatriotic* not to support the war. Donahue seems to have his head on straight, but then he's balanced by Pat Buchanan, who makes me want to spew. Maybe that's just me.

Bay of pigs... oops. You are absolutely right... Bay of Pigs was the Cuban Missile Crisis, while Gulf of Tonkin was the gunboat in the night. I feel silly - thanks!

"but with the Republicans shouting 'War!' and the Democrats shouting 'Peace!'"


You know, I really cannot tell the difference between republicans and democrats anymore. If democrats are shouting 'peace', it really isn't any more then a whimper and I'm beginning to suspect that it's just lip service to some lobby group that donated money to their campaign.

The whole thing about two distinct parties appears more and more to be a myth.

I can't remember which house got which votes, but I think one of the bodies of Congress voted 75% in support of war, and the other body was more like 2/3rds in support of war. Since the #s of Democrats and Republicans were almost equal, that means that somewhere between 32% and 50% of Democrats supported the war. Not exactly "shouting" for peace.

But I can't tell whether they're ignoring their constituents or following the will of their people. I heard polls from around the time of the election that said the war was not the biggest issue concerning people.

So I don't know whether to be mad at the Democrats or my fellow Americans.

Re: Bay of Pigs, getting closer. I'm pretty sure the Bay of Pigs was an invasion or assassination attempt on Castro, not necessarily linked with the Cuban Missile Crisis. A group of Cubans or ex-Cubans was given some support ($ or weapons or trainging?) and encouragement by the US to invade Cuba and oust Castro, but their attack failed. Pundits sometimes claim that the US gave too little support because they were afraid to be too deeply entangled, in case world opinion saw this as a US invasion of Cuba. But if we had given more air support or something like that, supposedly the invasion would have succeeded. I think it happened some time in the 'Sixties after the Cuban Missile Crisis, but I'm not totally willing to bet my reputation on any of these details.

"On civil liberties, I've just read the stuff in the Queens' speech including proposals to end the double jeopardy rule and to allow juries to hear defendants' previous convictions. I suppose the latter means that appeal to prejudice is now sanctioned in UK law."

The double-jeopardy law was stupid and needed repealed. It allowed someone to get away with a crime if the evidence was uncovered after the trial. I can't see anything wrong with getting rid of it.

As for hearing defendants previous convictions. I'm unsure about that. I er on the side of it being a bad thing as it opens jury's to prejudice rather than a reliance on the facts (something lawyers probably do already, anyway).

An email I've recieved from a gri lankan friend accross te room. People here are good 'getting things' unless it's drawn out in crayon. So I don't know how it'll go over.


President Bush and Colin Powell are sitting in a bar.

A guy walks in and asks the barman, "Isn't that Bush and Powell sitting
over there?"

The barman says, "Yep, that's them."

So the guy walks over and says, "Wow, this is a real honor. What are you
guys doing in here?"
Bush says, "We're planning WW III ".

And the guy says, "Really? What's going to happen?"

Bush says,"Well, we're going to kill 140 million Iraqis and one blonde
with big tits."

The guy exclaimed, "A blonde with big tits? Why kill a blonde with big
tits?"

Bush turns to Powell, punches him on the shoulder and says, "See, Smart
Ass?

I told you no one would worry about the 140 million Iraqis."

-------------

LOL. That's brilliant, Apparition. It sums it up perfectly.

It would be clever if they could kill 140 million Iraqi's when there's only about 20 million of them.

Bush was doing the maths, then?

"It would be clever if they could kill 140 million Iraqi's when there's only about 20 million of them."

Heard the same joke some months ago, but it was 40million (in the joke) back then. The joke probably started with 20million (as you rightly said): just goes to show the natural tendancy to exaggerate.

"The double-jeopardy law was stupid and needed repealed. It allowed someone to get away with a crime if the evidence was uncovered after the trial. I can't see anything wrong with getting rid of it."

You can't see ANYTHING wrong with getting rid of it? Do you know why it was there (and still is for the moment) in the first place?

"You can't see ANYTHING wrong with getting rid of it? Do you know why it was there (and still is for the moment) in the first place?"

Double Jeapordy means that someone cannot be tried twice for the same crime. Correct?

So, if someone is put on trial for, say, murder and aquitted but (years later) evidence is uncovered that, yes, they did do it, they can't be placed on trial and so get away with it.

Sorry, but this strikes me as taking the p**s.

If you're worried about "stitch-up" jobs consider this: If the state wanted to stitch someone up, why not do it on the first trial. Also, if someone is wrongfully jailed they can appeal. With double jeapordy, there is no "appeal" against someone who could turn out the be a proven criminal.

It's a stupid law. I don't know why people defend it.

I argued this with Ormydroyd and he was reduced to telling me that "That David Blunkett wants to take all our rights away, you know" rather than face my arguments head-on.

Sorry, nothing is going to persuade me that someone cannot be re-trialed if new evidence comes to light. If there are abuse-issues they can be dealt with in a better way than only allowing a single inviolable trial.