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

Hooloovoo, seriously, he had it coming.

to be fair, MrX, Great Britain still means the 4 countries (it's Northern Ireland, btw )
People's Republic of China - which nobody really says in full tbh - differentiates it from Taiwan when you really need to do that.

America - well, it could be Canada to the pedants

"Great Britain still means the 4 countries "

Nope. "Great Britain" is an island. SOME (but not all) of Scotland, SOME (but not all) of Wales, and SOME (but not all) of England are on that island. The Hebrides are part of Scotland, Anglesey is part of Wales, and the Isle of Wight is part of England, but they're none of them part of Great Britain. The "Great" refers simply to the size of the island, being as it's the largest in the archipelago.

If you want the four countries, the term is "the UK", as in "the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland", which by convention includes all the associated lesser islands including the Hebrides, Shetlands etc.

Shoa sked what pounding the preacher was. So just to clear up that bit:

Back in the old days - from 1800 to about the 1940s - a lot of rural preachers were part-time farmers/part-time community servants. They were poor. So were their parishioners.

So, once a month or so, the congregation 'pounded the preacher'. Each family brought a pound of something - flour, lard, bacon, whatever - for the preacher's household.

And they took turns inviting them to dinner.

I just meant it as an example of lost-cost community solutions to an economic problem.

>> America - well, it could be Canada to the pedants <<

No.
Canada is not the United States of Amiracle.

We're above all that. Way above it.



~jwf~

Pounding the Preacher sounds good then.

Pound the preacher and stone the crows.
They do say an ounce of prevention is worth
a half kilo of cure.


~jwf~

>> We're above all that. Way above it. <<

Alas(ka) I'm not so sure.

ps why didn't Canada grab Alaska?

It belonged to Russia at the time.
And Russia was a friend of England,
the Royals were cousins and all.
And they sold it to the US for money.
Money! Can you imagine? How crass.

Besides there's nothing up there.
The gold was in the Yukon territories.
We grabbed that.


~jwf~

Alaska was not known as 'Seward's Folly' for nothing.

(Seward was Lincoln's Secretary of State. He insisted they buy the thing. Everybody kept asking why.)

(To make it more difficult for Russia to mount a potential invasion. I suppose the folly part comes from the fact that Russia never bothered.)


"Besides there's nothing up there.
The gold was in the Yukon territories.
We grabbed that."


Missed the oil though, didn't you.

No point crying over spilt Exxons now though.

And again, oil would be anachronistic to that age
as a consideration. Gold however has always been
the true investment.


~jwf~

That's a Ferengi myth.

I saw this by chance: what it's like to carry a gun, illegally, in New York.

http://www.bostonreview.net/BR38.1/hal_stucker_gun_control_violence_second_amendment.php

That article was a thought-provoking read. Thanks!

Excellent story in that link pedro.
The moral seems to be that guns bring with them
their own seeds of hate, suspicion and fear. The
very act of possession and access creates potential
for misuse and abuse.

The writer's honest appraisal of his own descent into
the dark forces of gunpower strikes a scary chord. A
true cautionary tale.


~jwf~

Oh... hello.


~jwf~

This morning I received an eMail. 6 paragraphs, roughly the same length each, from
[email protected].
The subject is: Gun Control Is Treason

Here's about one third of the first para:

>>Overwhelming evidence has surfaced to prove that Sandy Hooks is a hoax. For example, the recently released CNN helicopter footage that is supposed to show children escaping from the school is obviously set somewhere else. The "grieving" parents are surprisingly joyful during their interviews... <<


No, I haven't read it all (but will post it all if you insist!).

Any comments?

I'm a bit concerned about where they got my address but otherwise more than a bit sad.

8 paras

This is really sad, there have been over 1,000 gun deaths in the US since the Sandy Hook shooting. Too high a price for 'freedom'.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/us-gun-deaths-sandy-hook_n_2602074.html


That link that Pedro provided, shows what a slippery slope gun ownership is.