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

I once saw an athiest ITHUS fish on a car. It was identical to the christian one but had legs and the word "Darwin" in the middle. Cool.

I waas going to suggest a computer system that never went wrong, but then that would put me out of a job so maybe not.

Rama

'Spearcarrier' and Cloud,

As Clovis said, 'waaaay too many of them was a reference to the FISH, not the Christians'.

Sensitive? Paranoid?

It was not an anti-freedom of expression comment either. I could equally fairly have said something about 'death metal' bumper stickers, 'baby on board' signs, and stuffed toys suction cupped to windows. In fact, I just did. Also symbols of Freemasonry, rainbow flags, any other flags, political bumper-stickers, 'Kiss me, I'm Italian' signs, and all the other stuff people put on cars to make other drivers on the road aware of their religions, opinions, positions, etc.

If I thought there were waaaay too many Christians, I should *not* mention it here. Bigotry is *not* a source of humour, as you might have observed my saying, if you had read the backlog.

And this morning's Long-Distance Conclusion-Jump Award goes to that talking Cloud.

I know I am not bigoted. If you like, keep casting stones...

Sara Barnes, for LeKZ

Indeed - but by wanting something to be invented presumably you are advocating its use. Thus you are effectively saying that a person (you) should be able to remove the fish from someone's car. Since that fish is an expression of the car owner's religion you are saying is that you wish to be able to prevent that car owner expressing their religion through the medium of displaying the fish.

My point here is that those stickers are doing you no harm - regardless of what they advertise (religion, garfield, gun clubs etc.) so you do not have the right to remove them...unless, of course, you are going to create the item and then form a political lobby under the slogan "fish sticker whooshers don't whoosh stickers, people whoosh stickers".

Maybe instead we could invent some kind of filter for car windshields that would block out the vision of ICXTHS fishes and other assorted paraphenelia that's stuck on cars. This filter would also block out the vision of people making nasty gestures.

Might cut down on road rage a bit?

Mikey (who would like to point out that there are places in Texas where it's unsafe to drive without a fish on the back of your car. no fish, and people automatically assume that you're "one of dem pagans who eat babies". *sigh*)

Actually, advertising does harm, because it forces stuff I don't want to see into my brain, where I don't want it. Which is why so many people don't like banner ads, for example. There's a direct conflict here between freedom of expression and freedom of thought. Different people have different ideas of where the balance between rights should be placed, and indeed of the importance of rights at all. For example, the EU has a much more realistic (imo) concept of rights which is considerably different to the more absolutist variation present in the USA.

Duncan - you have successfully established that Sara of LeKZ has a different idea of the importance of freedom of speech than you. You have not established that her remarks were anti-christian. The one does not imply the other...

-X

Mikey,

Sad, but true. Yes, the filter is a great idea.

Also, a way to scramble incoming foam-at-the-mouth radio deejays and radio chat-shows, such that the signal would be transformed into music one likes.

Sara, for LeKZ
Advocating nothing in particular.

If the machine just washed everything off the bumper it is anti freedom of speech - if it specifically removes those Jesus fish then it is anti freedom of religion.

(I should point out that at the moment my car doesn't even have a back bumper and even if it did nothing would be put on it...I'm approaching this from the devils advocate stance.)

What I'd like to see invented is a device that prevents guns working - it could work by removing all the oxygen from the small area around the gun so that it couldn't fire..or by very rapidly super cooling the gun so that it became too brittle to fire.

Device to prevent guns from working, yes. The brittle idea is a good one.

Device to prevent armed robbers, rapists and other violent offenders from working, also yes. Something to spray that makes them forget what they had in mind, become polite, and excuse themselves because they need to pop over to the Police and surrender themselves?

I'm against excesses of visual 'noise'. Hoardings at the roadside, banner ads on websites, colossi telling me what kind of cigarettes I should buy, flashy neon anythings, *and* junk all over cars (especially the recent invention 'rent-this-space', which has cars custom outfitted with adverts for commercial products, to offset the owners' fees ) are eye pollution. I like Mikey's filter. That way they can have their junk, and I can't see it, too.

Sara, for LeKZ

> "If the machine just washed everything off the bumper it is anti freedom of speech"

Well, that's one view of it. But that's not anti-christian.

> "if it specifically removes those Jesus fish [snip]"

In this case it's suggested that it is going to be part of a number of such machines, which as a group would remove all the irritating stickers we have to put up with. So this isn't the case.

Ergo, nobody here is an anti-christian. This is a good thing, no?

Xanthia - should know when to quit

I'm an anti-stickerarian. I don't mind people having stickers as such, just so long as I don't have to look at them, so one of the suggested filters or head up glasses would do me - where do I buy them?

I'm particularly irritated by the sign on the back of horseboxes that says 'horses'. Don't these people realise that horses can't read? We need an invention to teach horses to read.

I also think we need an invention to teach deer to read so that they can cross the street at the deer crossing sign

Freedom of speech, and freedom of religion are great. I just get weary of being poked in the eye by people exercising them to excess.

Those 'Jesus' fish do not, in fact, say 'Jesus', nor did I say anything about fish that do. I was talking about the fish that say IXTHUS, which is Greek, which I can read, for FISH! Fish stickers that say FISH in Greek is the specific irritant to which I was referring. Not the empty ones, not the 'Jesus' ones, but the FISH ones.

That's not anti-Christian, that's anti- silly fish that tell you they are FISH --

and don't start. I know the not-very-historically solid basis people use to claim this as a Christian symbol. Remember, 3 years master's programme at a Christian seminary? Specious, revisionist history, most of it.

I shouldn't mind wiping all the bumpers in the world clean, so I didn't have to know that the big ugly lorry in front of me was driven by someone who IS the National Rifle Association. Oy!

The First Amendment to the US Constitution gives me the right to rebut free-speech that annoys, offends, etc. me. Lucinda's right, the EU have much more sensible, public-good oriented attitudes.

See US Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes' 'Clear and present danger' restriction on free speech. That should carry some weight in this matter, with humans controlling two-to-ten ton killing machines, no?

Sara, sick of this, for LeKZ

Definite second on the Deer Crossing signs. What about the Geese Crossing signs. That could be more of a challenge.

Um, there are signs everywhere there is road work, that say 'END CONSTRUCTION'. Nobody seems to pay any attention to them, however. They just keep tearing up the roads.

Indeed - when the roadworks sign says "Temporary Surface", don't you think it should also give some indication of when the surface is likely to expire?

Taking the visual filter to the extreme you could have a device that replaced the things you don't want to see with things you do but still giving you sufficient information from the real world to stop you getting hurt. So, instead of traffic jams we could see a herd of hippos, instead of high rises we could see majestic trees etc.

*unsubscribes*

Clothes that automatically keeps the right temperature. They´re working on those. They making suits out of coal fiber, that will alter temperature when power is sent through them. The only problem will be the automatic thermostat measuring the surrounding temepratures. If they can´t even make them work properly on radiators, what are the chances they can on clothes.

I also want to get the Ixhtus stickers removed, because they are offensive to me. If people can say I am not allowed to run around naked, I also want to be able to prevent people from wearing Christian stickers. If I went out in a "I Love Nazi´s" t-shirt I´d probably also get smacked. Look up the bottom of the Offensive thread to hear me ramble about all this.

BTW there´s Darwin fish, Satan fish, Science fish(made like a rocket ) Pagan fish, basically everything. But thanks to the lack of freedom of url here, I cannot tell you where you can buy them.

How do people who just like a bit of grilled trout every now and then show their devotion without getting mixed up with all these other groups?

normal cars witch turn pocket size when u park them (end of all carparks cars on pavement ect )