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

Who should go?

Anyone who feels his freedom is violated because he is not allowed to own a gun that can fire two dozen bullets in under two seconds. (Of course, he only uses it for hunting!)

In fact, anyone who claims that the rights granted in the US Constitution are "God-given rights". (Any high-school history book will reveal that they are our demi-god-given rights.)

Any man with more than five children by more than three mothers.

Approximately 70% of the lawyers in the US. Really. . . who would miss them?

Jerry Springer guests and aficionados.

Jerry Springer.

The producers and writers for the Jerry Springer show.

Actually, my revolution would involve a simple competency exam. And it wouldn't be simply pass/fail, either. Those at the bottom would be, of course, put to death. Some would even require public humiliation before death. Others would simply be made completely infertile. While they are not a danger to society, we definitely don't want them raising children.

The dozen or so of us left would be the first generation of the new age. . .

How about any women with more than five children by at lest three different men.

I forgot a few. Hey, it was only a fifteen-minute break!

Anyone who thinks that the best way to keep people from killing one another is to kill people. (Uh-oh! How does that abode with the current Iraq situation?!)

Lobbyists for the cigarette companies.

Lobbyists against the cigarette companies.

Actually, if you can eliminate the hateful, vocal minority, you can usually reason with the rest of a population.

I guess I'm on your list, now.

there are writers and producers on jerry springer! where are the grown ups

aha! found the revolution... kind of. eugenics is hardly a revolution. been around since the first genocide, which would be the one committed on Neanderthal by Cro Magnon... maybe. i wasnt there, so i'm really not sure. some of my genes were there, though. nice circle, yank. thanx yank. ok, it's really REALLY late. and i'm one of those people had a few kids with 3 different women, so naturally, i am now quite alone, just doin' my part to thin the herd... the one that tramples my sensibilities...

you have a few other streams started here, andy-- i'm gonna check them out. later tater.

If you take away alcohol, you eventually get a society of smart, attractive people.

Most ugly folks only mate by getting drunk first.

So prohibition=eugenics and is therefore evil.

dunno about prohibition bein' evil, but eugenics? oh yeah. alcohol never did me any good, neither did pot; gave 'em both up, aint sorry. got other vices that bring me a lot more satisfaction, no contest! and mixing them with alcohol and/or pot just diluted the pleasure, never enhanced it. seems the senses i was born with contain the means to achieve maximum joy and goodness.

funny thing is I find people become proportionately more smart and attractive if you add alcohol

yeah, but if you're drinking, the '2' you saw at 10PM is a 10 at 2AM... if you only drink ginger ale, the 10 you saw at 10PM is a 2 at 2AM. think about it, you might get it.

Funny thing about prohibition. When people think about alcohol they really only think about a bunch of drunk guys hunkered around a gloomy bar, or perhaps some over-sexed co-eds flipping cars on campus after a football game.

But think about the devastation that prohibition would cause in the culinary world. Think about that whole huge chuck of Italian and French and German culture that would be terminated with the onset of prohibition.
Not to mention the economic devastation in those same places, with so much land given over to vineyards. Suddenly, they would have a whole lot of grapes to get rid of. . .

A world without good cheap wine is a world I don't want to live in. Cooking tortellini with tomato sauce tonight and I have a bottle of Rosemount Estate Cabernet-Shiraz to go with it. There are few things I've ever tasted that equal a glass of good red wine.

Now the problem is going to be avoiding drinking the whole bottle in front of my semi-teetotaling girlfriend...



Here's to booze!

Note: Bourbon can equal and exceed good red wine.

ahhh, king alcohol, the deceiver, the great eraser. but good point, andy-- reminds me of the problem the tobacco growers face. who cares if 200,000+ americans die of smoke-related cause, every year? long as those farmers can feed their starving children...

as for the grapes, ya got grape juice, grape jelly, grapes, the fruit, available at your local grocery on a fairly regular basis. tell ya what really kills me: the story the american press puts out, about twice a year. goes something like this: SCIENTISTS DISCOVER SUBSTANCE IN WINE THAT PREVENTS SOME FORMS OF HEART DISEASE.
then it explains the substance is found inside the skin of grapes. funny, they dont tell ya that if you dont let the grapes ROT, that substance is even more effective!
how much do ya think the collective booze industry pays the media for that little number?
butcher, yer gonna lose that girl, ya dont stop drinking. i'll wager my entire bankroll on it.

Tell ya whut!

I believe in the healthful side-effects of red wine more than I believe in the harmful side-effects of secondhand smoke.

no argument from me there! ever see that thing about beer and smoke? goes sumthin like:

when you light up a cigarette next to me, you produce smoke, which gets in my hair, my skin and my clothing. if i drink a beer next to you, i produce urine. to even the score, can i piss all over your hair, skin and clothing?

Prohibition would be useless anyway. That was the only bit of American history we did (we didn't do the good bits coz we're *British*) and it didn't work did it? It just sems to end up with a lot of people shot. Not good.

It's interesting that British schools would bring up only the part of American history where we screwed up. (Not to say that Prohibition is the only time in American history in which we screwed up. It seems that most of the 19th century was a screw up, with some really good things happening occasionally. Oh, then there's the two atomic bombs. Oh, then Nixon... have we stopped screwing up yet?)

But, come to think of it, most of the British history we get in the states has to do with the American Revolution. But we can take classes in Shakespear and British literature over here. Do they offer classes in American literature in Britain?

You can do it at university. I don't know if it's a specific subject before then, but there might be the odd book on an English lit course.