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

Oh, and I saw a bit on the hydrogen fuel cell on the news last night. Very cool - looks like a rollerskate.

BBC World Service usually satisfies me, but again tonight they described the "crisis" with Iraq.

What is the crisis with Iraq? Nothing is significantly different in Iraq than it has been the last few years. The crisis is that American public opinion after 9/11 has shifted to allow an attack on Iraq. There was no wave of new human rights abuses by Saddam, no new weapons discovered suddenly, no attacks. It's not like the AIDS crisis, where an exponentially larger bunch of people will die if we don't find a cure. If Bush and Blair decided not to invade, then things in Iraq would continue pretty much the same as they have for the last 10-12 years.

Why isn't this called a Washington crisis?

Even people who support the war, does it seem strange to you that some describe the current situation as a "crisis"?

"Crisis" in Iraq, is after all a long way away in a region where very few people from the US, Britain etc. are ever likely to go. The "crisis" with the local economy effects each and every one of us daily. So lets not think about the economy, but instead focus on this conviniently distant location.

Sorry if this has already been discussed, but someone here (in RL that is!) raised an interesting point. If Iraq did develop nuclear weapons they reckoned that Israel would not hesitate to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iraq because it is a threat to them. What do you reckon?

Well, it doesn't fit with the slighty mad logic of nuclear standoff which says that two nuclear armed countries will not fire at one another because it would result in "mutually assured destruction". That only applies to two comparably armed nations though. If Iraq developed, say, one nuclear bomb then Israel could launch a nuclear strike but they'd have to be certain that they'd got the launch site. Unless they had very good information it would be an awful risk, and anyway the diplomatic consequences of a pre-emptive nuclear strike would be high.

The unfortunate trend in nuclear weapons is towards "tactical" from the prior "strategic". The strategic weapons are huge, intercontinental, multi-warhead mistakes whose aim is to assure mutual destruction. The tactical weapons are smaller and as such have a higher likelyhood of being used. Troubling.....

I'm not certain that the weapons of mass destruction Iraq has are nuclear bombs, so the nuclear stand off doesn't quite work.
I think we're talking about bombs with biological warhead, or suitcases full of germs or a so called 'dirty weapon' which can also be in a bag or even anthrax in an envelope !
These items are much more difficult to detect than incoming warheads and therefore it is harder to 'see' where they come from and attack back as with nuclear bombs.
I think it is the DIY nature of such weapons that frightens the West, which has set itself up for more hi tech attacks.
Certainly we have been caught out by unexpected attack by hi jacked planes.

()

I would agree with a crisis in Washington. The current US government is currently the largest destabilising force in the world.

Subcom, your wife sounds a most entertaining person. Does she tell the stories for your children?

Subcom, I heard about the 12 year old boy... at least *he* wasn't given the death penalty though what did happen to him was bad enough!. A story I heard about Dubya, is that he actually gets off on (yes, I do mean in a sexual manner) executing retarded people.

tacsatduck - I *do* live in NZ, what made you think otherwise? Here we have Maori and Pacific Island people, who are not black, so black people we have here are either African, or African American. BTW, one Americanism that gets right up my nose, or two, I should say - is/are calling white people Anglo-Saxon or Caucasian. (NZ police use the latter, as I believe Americans do to, and the former is usually used, I believe, to distinguish Gentiles from Jews, I gather from TV shows.) Both are bizarre when applied to non-Jewish, non-black,non-Maori etc, people, because they have specific geographical, linguistic and historical meaning which renders them absurd when applied to Irish/Scots descended NZers or white Americans of often-unknown centuries-back European origin...

>>What scares me is that Ari Flesh-eater was talking about the possiblity of nuclear weapons being used against Iraq; when pressed to reveal further details, he said 'The answer was deliberately ambiguous.' Sabre rattling? Yeah, but that doesn't mean they won't drop a little one just to make a point.>>
I wish I thought you were kidding, Lentilla, but sadly I know you weren't... Good name for A.F., by the way. According to Helen Caldicott, he's barking mad!

Anyone in power, threatening with nuclear attacks, should be put away in an asylum.



TD.

...Hmmm...this just came to mind.


"Take all your overgrown children away, somewhere

and build them a home

a little place of their own

the Fletcher Memorial home for incurable

tyrants and kings.

They can appear to themselves every night

on closed curcuit TV

to make sure they´re still real

it´s the only connection they feel...."


-Roger Waters-

Put back into an asylum, that is.

That's right! Preferably drugged to the gills and only given spoons to eat with... although there's some pretty nasty things you can do with a spoon, if you really try.



You know the reason why Iraq has suddenly become a crisis. We all know. It's because Bush Jr. hasn't been able to do diddly-squat about eradicating the cells of Al-Queda, and Osama Bin Laden's still out there, somewhere. Iraq is a target. People can point to it on a map and say 'Let's bomb Iraq!' What Bush really wants to do is drop a bomb point first on Osama's head - he's just sublimating.

Not to mention the current $300 billion deficit (where did it all go? Here, Americans, take an extra $300 dollars and faghedaboudit.) Quick, a diversion!

I wonder how many Americans, like me, have suddenly found it necessary to become educated about world affairs, instead of living in blissful ignorance? Quite a few, I'd say.

Last night we talked about escape routes... it's not reassuring to live in a town with a military base.

I have to post this right away before someone else sees the joke.

On the local news, they just said that Tony Blair asked Bush to wait *six more weeks* for weapons inspections and to gain more international support for a war on Iraq. Doesn't Blair know that Groundhog Day is two more days away??!!

Della, thanks for inquiring. We don't have any children, because I wouldn't be able to provide adequate care for a child AND a wife who tells fairy tales about the cats. But we just got a second to make up for the intentional lack of children.

Della, another funny way that words used euphemistically for race don't always fit: I've heard of white South Africans, descendants of Europeans but born in Africa, who migrate across the pond to become US citizens. What do they call themselves? African-Americans.