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

I thought about calling this one 'Not on this planet', but then I had a better idea It will almost certainly be one of those ongoing threads. It's for stories that are too way out even for the 'Seriously?' thread.

(And it reminds me that I can still remember the first time I heard that particular episode of the HHGTTG (Fit the Third) and the bit where Peter Jones reassures us that the planet they're in orbit around is Magrathea, that the deadly nuclear attack will only result in the bruising of someone's upper arm and the untimely creation and sudden demise of... well, you know the rest I remember listening to it (before I found out whose upper arm was bruised) and thinking, damn, Douglas Adams is a really clever writer to think of something like that).

Any road up.

Iran
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/olympic_games/london_2012/9410046.stm

Well, we all knew the people who run that country are barking mad, but really. The Olympics logo is a piece of crap, but to seriously think that it spells 'ZION' is a step into fairyland.

Good idea for a thread.

I'll just add this with no need for elaboration.

"Anything said by either Qaddafi or Charlie Sheen this entire week."

Oh, I take it back, I will add just one little thing. This is from Chuck Lorre's Vanity Card (a one second splash at the end of shows he produces) in response to Charlie Sheen's behaviour this week. I really don't care about Charlie Sheen or the show he was on, but this little blurb was quite pithy. For some reason people are finding it "cryptic" and "confusing".

_____________
I understand that I'm under a lot of pressure to respond to certain statements made about me recently. The following are my uncensored thoughts. I hope this will put an end to any further speculation.

I believe that consciousness creates the illusion of individuation, the false feeling of being separate. In other words, I am aware, ergo I am alone. I further believe that this existential misunderstanding is the prime motivating force for the neurotic compulsion to blot out consciousness. This explains the paradox of our culture, which celebrates the ego while simultaneously promoting its evisceration with drugs and alcohol. It also clarifies our deep-seated fear of monolithic, one-minded systems like communism, religious fundamentalism, zombies and invaders from Mars. Each one is a dark echo of an oceanic state of unifying transcendence from which consciousness must, by nature, flee. The Fall from Grace is, in fact, a Sprint from Grace. Or perhaps more accurately, "Screw Grace, I am so outta here!"

Questions?
_____________________

>> I believe that consciousness creates the illusion of ...

That makes perfect sense to me.

The olympic logo is quite obviously Lisa Simpson knelt down performing an erotic act on someone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-12889347
"psycho-acoustic simulation"

R-i-i-i-g-h-t.

I think that means he waved those "power bands" over the CDs first.

I* was the 'live model' for the olympic emblum

Up until now, the News of the World phone hacking story has pretty much belonged in the 'Seriously?' thread, but this http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14017661 propels it out of that one at a single bound, and it's so far beyond human decency I'm not even sure this thread is suitable for it.

There are some people who need to be Guests of Her Majesty for a very, very long time.

That is some of the most despicable behaviour I've read about in a good while.

TRiG.

Props to Ford and a handful of other companies for pulling their ads from NotW, but I can't help feeling that the action would carry a lot more weight if, instead of puffy and long-winded statements such as "Ford is a company which cares about the standards of behaviour of its own people and those it deals with externally.", they'd just said "We don't want to be associated with that kind of sleaze", and left it at that.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/9531686.stm

Wow. Just wow. Have standards of behaviour and personal responsibility dropped to the point where this kind of thing is "no big deal"? Really? How did that happen? How could someone listen to the evidence and, instead of (as he says) thinking "Ooh, that's a good lead", call the police and report it? This 'constant pressure for results' is no justification. The idea of a free press is no justification. There is no justification. Full stop. End of.

I recently watched a clip from The Andy Griffith Show http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wL9Li0f1Po
that is quite relevant. It's more relevant to the abuses of the USAPATRIOT act, but still relevant.

http://links.xn--es-zka.info/l/illegal-vegitables/

A vague law (well, city ordinance), which states that only "suitable" plant material is allowed in the "lawn area" of residences, means that a woman in Michigan could serve 93 days in jail for planting vegetables.

TRiG.

I can't get the link to work.

I've heard some fantastical stories about things that are deemed to be improper by cities and neighbourhood associations in this country, to the extant that they can even take your home away although you're up to date with your mortgage. They can take your property away in some cases. Out-bloody-rageous.

http://wp.me/p16myI-e4 is a shortlink to it.

TRiG.

Some things are as inevitable as night follows day
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14166162

Whenever your boss, whether your boss is a business owner or the prime minister or the president, says they have 'full confidence' in you, the writing's on the wall. It's simply inconceivable that she could have stayed on in her job and News International retain any shred of decency and respect, and a shred is just about all it has in the eyes of the UK population right now.

But you can bet your life that Murdoch has seen her right, somehow.

""The protesters are protesting against people who make $40,000 or $50,000 a year and are struggling to make ends meet. That's the bottom line," he said."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15134806

Oh boo hoo. I would love to make $40,000 or $50,000 a year and I sure as hell wouldn't be struggling. Okay, I know everything's relative and there are people with kids who would have a hard time making ends meet on $50,000, but my beef really isn't with them, it's with billionaire Mr Bloomberg and the politicians (yes, even you, Mr President) who seem to be oblivious of working class people living paycheque to paycheque, and who constantly bang on about the middle class as if the working class simply don't exist, or, more to the point, don't vote. There are people on far less than forty grand who are in financial straits that make life just as miserable as for their more affluent (but skint) neighbours. But when you're as well off as Mayor Bloomberg the idea that anyone could survive on less than $40,000 is probably unthinkable.

This story http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-14406818 leaves me utterly gobsmacked (wouldn't be a really useful smiley, btw). If it's true and if it's provable in court, there has to be a case here, surely. Murder? Manslaughter? Culpable homicide (whatever that is)? I want to see these people locked up, one way or another.

If this story is true, there is a very, very, *very* deep circle of hell reserved for these s
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2011/nov/15/call-action-vulture-funds-preying-poor?intcmp=122

I wonder to whom Grossman has paid significant campaign contributions.

It's crap like this that has this world in a such a state. If you keep the poor and working classes impoverished the economy just won't recover and yet these people are profiting like never before. Tax cheats, vultures, hedge funds, derivatives, etc... all just different ways to profit off of the misfortunes and poverty of others while adding nothing to society. Parasites.