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

Could you just tell us the issue number of New Scientist that it was under?

*Laughs loudly at the moderators*

thanx for the giggle Propaganda and Lucinda!

Also can I say excellent summing up of the situation of nmd, in your ealier post P.

Well that's NMD wrapped up in my books thanx to Propa Ganda,

What's the next/last critiscm?

Z.

I guess the only thing I can say about US Foreign Policy is it has taken a turn for the better lately. As far as I can tell the White House has not used any international dailing codes because the world is at peace for the last week.

Can I put in a good word for 2B as he has broken my stereotypical xenophobia and proved that reputable facts kill rumours. Military spending in the US does appear to be much lower.

Any one want to review Pearl Harbour the movie? I heard it was state sanctioned. I haven't seen it yet and would like to compare it to "Private Ryan" & "Enemy at the Gates".

Yowuz> "see what I mean, if we try to lead, or just infact participate with the other contries in the world, we are said to be pushing out weight around! If we retract we are critisized for isolationism. I'm really tired of trying to please any other country. And even if we where to blow up an asteroid that would wipe out Earth, France would still be p****d at us!"

One of the more amusing sections of one of the meteorite disaster movies (Deep Impact? maybe) was that towards the end of the film there was an off-handed comment that "Europe has been wiped out". For some reason, this absolutely cracked me and my friends up - we spent a lot of time celebrating the fact that Hollywood had finally realised that other countries exist - if only for precisely one sentence.

It is possible to participate in world affairs without pushing your weight around. However, I consider it a pointer to the problem that you say "try to lead, or just in fact participate" - clearly "leading" is the first option, and mere participation something that is clearly inferior. My wild suspicion is if Russia tried to "lead" the world, there would be equal irritation and dislike, including from the States.

What is obviously missing here is a middle ground: that of participation between equally created men and women, rather than anyone trying to pretend that they know best what should be done. That means, picking my own bugbear, not sulkily withdrawing from the Kyoto treaty because it doesn't contain a line saying "but the USA can carry on polluting as much as it likes, we don't mind".

And it even works. Compare the relative success of Bush trying to "lead" (aka bully) the Chinese into handing over plane and crew; relative to using negotiation and dialogue. The former was a great bit of comic relief, but the latter actually got the job done. One would like to hope that lessons were learnt from this.

I loved it when you saw paris get obliterated in Armageddon was it? Finally a different city than NY being destroyed. I saw Pearl Harbor, it would have been a great film if they had just gotten rid of the first 40 minutes! It's a bonafied love story until the main guy gets sent to England, I won't ruin it any more, just arrive 40 minutes late to the movie, then it will be a totally excellent awsome movie.....

Lucinda, I think you're over-estimating Bush's capacity for learning - my guess is he was sorting his crayons when all the negotiating got done. As a rule his foreign policy seems to be "We're the greatest democracy on earth, so do what we tell you".

Yowz Can I recomend Japanese B Movies where Gozirra !! or Mothra lay waste to Tokyo. I also recomend Enemy at the Gates for a total devasation movie (again minus the comical love interest).

Does any one know where Bush got the idea for 1300-1900 new powerstations from. Why so many? By all means build a new one in Calif. But even there it is more a case of poor de-reg than insufficient capacity. It sounds like he gave the microphone to one of his BigOil and KingCoal Buddies. (Can anyone substantiate the claim that BigEnergy paid for half of his election campaign?)

Isn't 1300-1900 his lunch break?

nice

I didn't get to go see Enemy at the Gates, but everyone said it was a good movie! Dude, those godzilla movies...man, very far out (has just watched Bill and Ted's totally excellent adventure, must watch again, must watch again....)

This drifting on to films has been making me wonder how it related to the subject matter and US films are a subversive plot to get their policy and culture infiltrating and taking over other cultures!

Tho aside from that thumbs up to the CIA sending a bloke to sort out the Israeli Palestinian thing...

...CIA? What are they doing being involved in overt diplomacy?

Z.

The CIA don't do covert stuff overseas any more - they save that for back home .

Back to subversive mind control among the list of banned tracks during the gulf war were: Duran Duran View To A Kill, Tears For Fears Everybody Wants To Rule The World , John Lennon Give Peace A Chance.

Quite funny and scary at the same time.

I've just watched this programme, "Correspondent" on BBC2. It was fascinatingly enlightening about the relationship between America and the rest of the poor saps in NATO. There was a lot more in the programme than in this page:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/audiovideo/programmes/correspondent/newsid_1390000/1390536.stm

But do go and read it if you're interested in why the Europeans want their own army.

The sooner we get the American military out of Europe the better.

We shouldn't be in your theater of operations anymore, maybe a few bases but not at the scale it is now. You guys can fight for yourself and stand up for yourself. You no longer need the US to do it. We should be at home, willing to help if needed, and willing to refuse if something is strickly your problem and you ask us.

"Former UN Commander in Bosnia General Sir Michael Rose was aware that the Americans were secretly bugging his
office: "We were always very careful in what we said in that office. And if we did say something, it was with deliberate
intent." "

I very much doubt that, no one in their right mind would actually admit to being caught unawares. Besides, anytime he would have used any form of electronic communication we would have picked it up. The fact is though, Clinton should have never approved the entire situation!

In a way I agree. I don't think we're needed there any longer for the defense of Europe. There's no real enemy for NATO to defend against any longer. I think a EU army would be able to handle whatever came up there. If there was a really big problem, then we could redelpoy troops at that time.

Our Army is so small now, that I don't think it's a good idea to have large units scattered all over the world. It's good to have them positioned there, but if we depoly units out of Europe, we have to send more troops to Europe to keep the bases secure and functioning.

On the other hand, from all Ive heard (My overseas tour was in Korea), it's a wonderful place to be stationed, and I hate to take that away from the troops. Sometimes you just have to do what's best for the nation, and I think that means bringing the Seventh Army home.

I read that article. I always thought that sending weapons was the best idea. I don't see why we should have kept it secret. It was a very popular idea over here. I think a lot of Americans thought that we should help them by arming them.

I don't think we should have been giving them Stingers though. That's a very sophisticated piece of hardware. I don't think we should be giving them away to anyone. I'm sure they would have done fiune with the older Red Eye SAM's.

Agreed.

There isnt much point to having 100'000 men in Europe. However it does remove some of the validation for large armed forces. I.e. you can no longer say, 'we are already overstretched, we cant be cut back anymore', when all your men are in Fort Bragg, or Fort Worth. Its a good reason to pester for more manpower and more moolah.

Two Bit ... said "I read that article. I always thought that sending weapons was the best idea. I don't see why we should have kept it secret. It was a very popular idea over here. I think a lot of Americans thought that we should help them by arming them. "

The point was made in the programme that the American representatives in NATO agreed with the rest of the members that arms shouldn't be supplied then, behind the backs of the other members, America went ahead and supplied arms. There were one or more incidents where UN workers came under fire from those very weapons, supplied by the Americans. The underlying sentiment is with friends like these, who needs enemies.

I'm not sure that the American populace agreed with it. thought the best thing to do was arm those who are defenseless and let them sort it out amoungst themselves.