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

But what can you do eh? Just put your X in the box of someone with a moral compass and a dash of sanity and hope everyone else does the same

egon... yep...

there are still quite a lot of misinformed people who will be tempted to vote for them but fortunately won't do it because they realise what's _really_ behind the "respectable" facade of such groups...

the irony is that they're using the democratic system to plug their ideas...

I must admit I was almost tempted to put my X in Labour's Box (we haven't got a candidate standing <"we" being the Lib Dems&gt, but decided against it, as they will certainly win any way. I'm just hoping that the BNP gets few enough votes to be considered "soundly beaten"

egon... i see what you mean.. it might be a case of voting against the candidate you don't want in tho'... the french presidential was a good example of the potential consequences of not voting... for the second turn they had to vote for the one they despised the least...

[i'm kind of exaggerating a bit there i know... they are some people who think chirac is a great president of course...]

well, to be quite frank you could stand a gerbil for political office in Sunderland and if it was Labour it's win, so we're probably safe from the BNP on that one.

What I am more bothered about is that the liberal party (who are standing a candidate in the absence of the lib dems) and the tories both beat the BNp as well, which i think would send a strong message.

Why not vote for one of them then?

Perhaps standing gerbils is the answer!

They likely have bigger brains than your average political candidate...

Hello again. Banging my "race isn't what it's cracked up to be" can again.

A few pages back (Posting 290) Matholwch /|\ said "Only humans would think to find more reasons to divide themselves than already exist."

To an evolutionist like me this is pure pessimistic baloney.

All animals are spurred to do what they do by selfish genes. That means they favour their personal offspring over all others: mostly over rival groups, but even over their own brothers' and sisters'. Naturally hard-wired bad behaviour (or original sin) encompasses racism of all sorts, among many other unenlightened practices, and they are our heritage from wayback before we were even mammals, let alone humans.

It is the most natural thing in the world to divide ourselves as many ways as we can, and we are not the only species who do so, we are probably the only species who can sometimes refrain from doing so. We divide ourselves up without thinking, all the time. Think of the new "race" the American cops have invented: Hispanic.

Here in Ireland we mostly look indistinguishable, so we divide along 'religious' lines. Same impulse, different pretext.

Only when we *think* do we see how things can be done better.

Tefkat- you mean Liberal party, Tory, or Gerbils? I have voted for one of them, and posted my ballot form off earlier today.

egon... at least the gerbils will have more votes than the BNP...

[or am i getting confused somewhere?!...

Bottom of the ballot:

NIBBLES................\../
Mr. H. Nibbles..........\/
RSPCA animal shelter ./Seaburn................/..\

Arse, the X went skewif.

NIBBLES................\../
Mr. H. Nibbles..........\/
RSPCA animal shelter ./Seaburn................/..\

Ah, buggrit. That was supposed to be a nifty mockup of a ballot paper, but it all went slightly up didn't it? Please, continue the rational conversation while I act like a raving bufoon.

Alas you can't post in GuideML and put it in a table . . .

Do raving baboons vote?

(I meant the Libs or the Tories, but gerbils are a much better idea)

Sorry serious folks. Just pretend you didn't see us.

*makes mental note to stand at next election as "Mr H Nibbles, Gerbil Party"*

The MIL took the child shopping Saturday.
She offered to buy the child a gerbil.
The child came home with a hermit crab instead.
What party is a hermit crab?
And can we get it into office soon?

Hermit crab- I believe they're part of the coalition in support of the English branch of the Scottish natioonal party, which not only wants full independence for scotland, but also for England to be a dependency of Scotland.

hi Recumbentman,

>>All animals are spurred to do what they do by selfish genes. That means they favour their personal offspring over all others: mostly over rival groups, but even over their own brothers' and sisters'. Naturally hard-wired bad behaviour (or original sin) encompasses racism of all sorts, among many other unenlightened practices, and they are our heritage from wayback before we were even mammals, let alone humans<<

I disagree that animal behaviour is 'reasoned' or even 'selfish' as those are human traits. It is natural to protect your own offspring and I don't think animals are being malicious when they do this. Nor are they being racist.

Meanwhile, humans are meant to be civilized. And so behaviour that may have been quite natural a few thousand years ago obviously is no longer acceptable.

az