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

Happy to hear the EvolveFish graphics situation is working out grand! I thought that it would. As to "bandwidth teft" I simply don't get it. You put something on the net, and its world readable, where is the theft? As for my servers, we have our circuit, and we pay a fixed amount regardless of the bytes sent down the pipe. If you can't afford the cost of open-end access where you pay by the byte (or whatever) you best be on a throttle.

As to the reeds and the oak, not sure of the origin, but I don't think they are particularly eastern. They may even be Aesop Fables, but I'm not entirely sure.

I remember another fable where the Sun and the Wind have a bet as to who is more powerful. The story goes that the one who could remove a man's cloak would win. The wind furiously roared and blew, but the man drew the cloak closer around him, and hung on tightly during the assault of the wind. On the sun's turn he simply came from behind a cloud and calmly shone down upon the man, who feeling warm shed his cloak.

--ZenMondo

Lear, ZenMondo,
In my dim and stodgy mind I can hear voices telling me it's from Sun Tsu or Lao Tse. Oh and I was paraphrasing wildly, probly shouldn't have putquotes around it. So yeah, it's from a general who didn't like fighting or the bloke who wrote the Tao de Ch'ing. Please forgive me it's the codeine.
Stay beautiful!
Hey GB!
The last thing I want to do is steal somebody's bandwidth, why in some states and counties you can get arrested for looking at a bandwidth if you're less than a hundred paces from a church or school!
(what is a bandwidth? I've got some great mental images but I'm pretty sure they're wrong)
Would it be a better bet to direct people to the FFFF home page via a link from mine own, then everybody could share which would be beautiful - like a train or a tram, you know, give it back when you're finnished

I'm getting increasingly keen on this fatwa idea of patriarchs I must say.hmmmmm.

Ah good, the Tao te Ching. I'll have a closer look one evening when I get the chance. I felt slightly embarrassed for a minute there when I read ZenMondo's suggestion that it probably came from Aesop - just about to make up some sort of shamefaced excuse ('very profound', indeed!), but you saved the day Ado...

I imagine that if the sun keeps shining this poor fellow's going to have to put his cloak back on again soon enough, probably also making some sort of sunblock for his head out of it, else he's going to come down with a nasty case of skin cancer... I'd put a wager on Water winning through in the end, whether it appears in the form of a stream blocking his path or in the form of rain. With the former, he'll have to swim through it and thus he'll be weighted down unless he takes the cloak off; if it rains, likewise he'll have to remove it or the water'll soak through to his skin and give him pneumonia. And either way it'll take him hours to get the thing dry again...

There's a possible new twist on the old tale...

Ok guys, check out this link right now! http://www.landoverbaptist.org Be sure to read over some of the email they receive. I put a link to this site from my own if you don't feel like bookmarking it, but I really think it should be linked from our front page as well.

It's added. Very funny site, and, unlike some of the other ones we've seen, it is so obviously a parody that I can't understand how ANYONE would accidentally take them seriously.

People are stupid, GB, plain and simple.

I'm just glad that these people say that it's a parody.

After all, look at all the people who douse themselves with petrol and set fire to themselves, or poison themselves, or worse, believeing that this is the best route to heaven. Seem like natural selection to me.

That sites dead funny. If you haven't read it already, read the 'Unarmed Student Shot in the Head by a Jesus Puppet' article.

Funneee

Regarding that Landover Baptist site, has anyone seen this?
http://olobshutdown.tripod.com/index.html

I'm not sure whether it's serious or not (its so hard to tell anymore ), but it doesn't seem to be. If it is serious, it's the most hypocritical pile of nonsense I have ever seen (well, in the top ten, at any rate). Obviously 'Freedom of Speech' is something that they believe only Xtians should be allowed.

Hehe... they call Douglas Adams a "anti-Christian blackguard."

They're for real, I believe, since there doesn't appear to be an ounce of humor in that diatribe. Well, except that part about the US being a Christian nation... they should go back and read some of Jefferson's works, and find out exactly what he meant by "Creator."

I have a sneaky feeling that the "Anti-Landover" site is there to generate attention for the Landover site.

If the anti-Landover site is for real, the thing I find funny about it is the way they say Landover mocks Jesus, when in fact they are only mocking people like them.

I'm curious Gb; if you don't mind summing up quickly, what DID jefferson mean by 'creator'? I've heard a lot of quirky and interesting stories about Jefferson and I'm wondering whether yours relates... mind sharing?

Jefferson and most of the other Founding Fathers ascribed to a now defunct cosmology known as Deism. Deists believed that the world was created by a god, who then set it in place, gave it a spin, and then moved on to find other things with which to amuse himself. They didn't call this entity "God" because that would imply the xtian version of the guy, so they simply called him the "Creator."

Hmmm, this bit never makes it into the Australian version of US history. Tell me GB, was the Deism as a result of or in conjunction with the founding fathers' adherance to Masonry. It seems a small point but it would put a lot of historical political events into perspective for me. --- Ado!

Probably in conjunction. Remember, the one inviolable requirement for membership in a Masonic lodge is a professed belief in God. It doesn't have to be the xtian one, in fact, it can be any personal version of the deity you wish, but you must believe in something. Deism would be the most secular and atheistic belief system allowable under those conditions.

Thanks Gargle Blaster.
A lot of stuff seems to make much more sense now. Frinstance the whole founding father setup of the US seemed to be queerly democratic in a staunchly xtian world.
I'm guessing (and it's only guessing mind,) that the version we have of what these folk were about has undergone a kind of revisionist interpretation to fit in with what current folk need, much more than what was actually taking place, or at least the spirit of what was taking place. Or am I completely out here?

Oh, the revisionists have definitely had their way with our history. The US is a staunchly xtian country, and the xtian revisionists will have you believe that it was designed that way by the Founding Fathers, and that Creator business is in fact a sign of the pious xtianity the Fathers embraced. It's rediculous, especially if they ever looked at Jefferson's Bible, but there it is. The fact is that there was never anything in the national character about religion until the 1860's, when the battle song of the Union armies was a religious dirge, the Battle Hymn of the Republic. Then in the 1950's they made all the school kids take the Pledge of Allegiance every morning, which ends with a "one nation, under God..." line. That's usually the line the idiots quote when trying to defend their belief that this always was and always will be an xtian nation.

Let us not forget that we are also taught that the continent was colonized by Christians fleeing persecution. Though its often left out that the persecution was coming from a different flavor of Christianity than the pilgrims on the Mayflower practiced. So, you could say that the pilgrims were fleeing Christianity....

No one in authority will ever espouse Jefferson's ideology. If they preach Jeffersonian thought, their authority will be in serious jeapordy. I'm sure its a thorn in many a conservative's side that Jefferson denied the very possibility of anything supernatural, and edited his bible to reflect this. A Founding Father no less! The horror!

Where cam I get a look at the Jefferson bible? Will it be available somewhere on the net? Oh, and while I'm here and understand I'm not trying to poke fun or be contarary, why are there so many banned books in the US when there is the free speech amendment. In Aust we are lega;;y a subject race so that m,akes sense. But whay in the Us ---- sorry gotta go --- seeya Ado!