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

Stephen Fry & Christopher Hitchens Vs Ann Widdecombe MP & Archbishop Onyienien

"Is the catholic Church a force for good?"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvZz_pxZ2lw&feature=PlayList&p=F821DBF3CE3374A3&index=0

Robert Sapolsky (Neurologist & Primateologist) giving the Commencement address to the graduates of Stanford University, this year.

The topic: "The Uniqueness of Humans."

You can skip the first 4 minutes of the introduction, but what follows in 30 minutes of distilled interestingness; I dare you not to be educated by this man.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrCVu25wQ5s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpVjBBDMOoA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8ko2nCk_hE

For cats who've had it up to there with cat food, Fido created...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuqUpCFzJxY

The Fun Theory:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw (lateral/vertical thinking)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEKAwCoCKw (litteral thinking?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9iq9gdeIE4&NR=1&feature=fvwp

Watch it to the end. This fellow managed to get a bunch of white right-wing Americans at one of those 'tea-parties' to cheer when he called for the deportation of all European Americans. The chant they joined in on at the end is quite humorous.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O66qDqfZm7k

Was that a real speech or a subtle bit of clever satire?

He *real*ly gave the speech, if that's what you mean.

and

he *was* being satirical, satirizing the very people to whom he was speaking. Sort of like if Chaplin were to do The Great Dictator for Hitler and a crowd at a Nuremberg Rally and managing to get the crowd to chant 'Deutschland für die Juden' when he's finished.

"Columbus Go Home!"

I've always thought it singularly odd that Columbus is considered a foundational figure in the U.S. psyche. It's sort of like if Canadians felt a particular attachment to Pizarro, or the Senegalese celebrated a Ghengis Khan Day.

I've always thought the U.S. psyche rather odd...

I'll not comment any further on the American psyche.








Viva Pizarro, eh?!

It makes sense to me. Even if he never set foot there, without Colombus there would have been no Mayflower or subsequent journeys.

Basque fishermen had been stopping over in what is now Canada for a few centuries before Columbus. If it hadn't been him, someone else would have come over to start the slave trade pretty quickly. And the Puritans would still have run away from England.

Wouldn't it make more sense to celebrate Menéndez Day, since that's the name of the guy who established the first permanent European Colony in what is now the U.S.?

(and the Mayflower came pretty late to the party.)

In 1497, Giovanni Caboto landed in what is now Canada. His first voyage was the previous year, 1496. So, four years after Columbus' first voyage Caboto set out and the next year, before Columbus' third voyage, Caboto was standing in Canada.

Somebody would have done it, even if Columbus had never left Genoa (or where ever he was from).

Where I live there is an informal holiday every summer: Giovanni Caboto Day.

http://www.albertasource.ca/abitalian/lifeways/giovanni_caboto_day.html

>>he *was* being satirical, satirizing the very people to whom he was speaking. <<

Ah good. I've always had a bit of a blind spot for mockery that sails so close to being a Poe.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLongUBPm5Y

The man widely considered the greatest mixed martial artist ever wins again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCZhDGQCGgk