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

Your flu immunization idea is excellent, Abbi.
The SARS outbreak in Toronto was probably more deadly than it might otherwise have been because some of the sufferers appear to have had another virus in addition to the SARS. Flu might complicate any efforts to control bio-terrorism.

"I find it hard to believe that people can't identify the difference between a self serving agenda pusher and somebody who would just like to see Harmony in action."

Me too adelle.

OO, I was calling cl a b*****d in a friendly way. Round here, it's a term of endearment.

Abbi, much as I would love to claim a huge arcane knoledge on said subject, it's actually having studied Latin that gets me through! Sorry to disappoint!

Everyone else, top thoughts on an interesting subject! Now, someone please tell me, is W as thick as he's made out to be in the meejah? I mean, was he just parachuted in to the presidency, and all the positions he held before, just because of his name? I really want to know.

On a serious note, yes, at the moment, the various agencies of the US government are not able to process the vast amount of data they are collating. But in the future? The possibility of manipulating the data via AI beckons. In fact, the technology to do this exists at the moment - the missing ingredient is processing speed; and look how that's come on in leaps and bounds over the last couple of decades. Meanwhile, they go on collating it, and collating it, and collating it...

Ooohhh...you may have stirred up a hornet's nest by asking about Dubya. Here are some links just to get started...

http://www.thedubyareport.com/

http://www.columbiacentral.com/dubya/

http://www.dubyasworld.com/

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=15372

My guess ReddyFreddy is that every free net sever is on the back burner. I would say strategic severs are crawling with fed bugs.

The satellite military configuration will be deployed strategically. Land lines to financial laundering centres will be tracked. But the mobile phone stuff musyt be a nightmare.

You will notice the odd widespread crash. Draw your own conlusions!
But the sheer numbers of mobile global co-ordination means that the rest of 'em will be caught. Bin Ladin in particular.

Or perhaps you would like his resume?



http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/blbushresume.htm

Thanks Paul H

Well do you want links Reddyfreddy?

The BBC (or bbci)has a page about a special they did after the book Fortunate Son. That is a good overview of his *amazing accomplishments* after his perfect record of repeated failures.

The pre- Presidental history is usually not found on the page as more current Prez history. If liberal sites do not offend there are nice neat lists laid out on some. They are also in the backlog of this thread I imagine.

The Republican political machine has talked about how they all went to his Texas Ranch (documented)gave him some lessons about how things are, then asked him to run.

You all are fast!

Sadly, cl, all those websites are written by people who don't like W. They tend to be a bit biased.

If anyone else was so unsuccessful in their job, they wouldn't keep getting promoted, would they? (Oh, the naivety!) No really, he must be able to do something, surely? Otherwise, they'd pick someone better at these Republican rallies that they have?

It would be just as easy to write a similar CV about everyone's favourite, the vicar of St. Albion's.

If you looked a little closer, freddy, you would see that all the attacks are backed by facts. Have a close look at the *resume* if you want to see how friendly Republican outlets treat his corporate backround and legal history. Sealed records are one thing they specialise in, but the open stuff is shocking as well. I didn't make this stuff up, why don't you find a friendly report like the White House site. What isn't glossed over is ignored there.

Here's a nice little site from Austin Texas that is meant to be a source for students who want to do a report on the President.

http://austin.about.com/cs/bushbiographies/a/bush_background.htm

Have a look, it seems nice enough until you start clicking on the links to some of the statements. Then the cocaine, the National Guard route to staying out of war, the failed businesses, all the rest start to show up. And this is a *friendly* site for children! Try to find one single site that is friendly but doesn't either show the seedy underbelly or simply glosses over or ignores the facts. I've done it and even the White House site seems hollow when describing him.

Oh, I don't disagree that those are facts, cl! Far from it!

Since "peace" was declared in Northern Ireland by the vicar of St Albion's, xxx (insert number of choice) people have been killed in NI, by the "we have renounced violence...a bit... IRA". This from the man who said "there will be no (IRA prisoner) releases until weapons have been decommissioned".

Strange for me to be defending Tony B. Liar on these pages, but that is not his only non-achievement. What I'm saying is, surely Bush must have done something right, at some point in his career, to justify his position? Please tell me I'm right in this!

Because there is an inevitable corollary...

What I was asking, for those of you who posted a bunch of websites, is whether W is as thick as he's made out to be. I've just had a quick look through some of those sites. One of them told me that he went to Yale and Harvard. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you need more than just money to get into these places? You also need a certain amount of intelligence? Same as Oxford and Cambridge? Or can you just buy an Ivy League degree these days?

Just a quickie... don't have time to post a link to back up this particular statement, but Bush Jr. barely made it through Yale/Harvard. I think for his admission Bush Sr. had to buy them a library... or maybe a jet plane.

Okay, Reddyfreddy. Just about everybody acknowledges that George W. Bush has *some* political and/or leadership abilities. Early in his career as Governor of Texas, his Assistant Governor was a highly experienced and industrious public figure. George appears to have let the Assistant Governor keep the state running. Now, as President of the U.S., George has lots of assistants to do the work of helping run the country. So, he's willing, able, and happy to delegate work to others. Plus, he's the first U.S. president ever to have earned a Master of Business Adminstration degree (from Harvard, no less, though the story is that he would rather have gotten a law degree from yale, but didn't have high enough grades to get in). Whatever.

He seems to have a sense of humor. He's not particularly pompous, He's low-key. He accepts that people in his position will catch a lot of flak no matter what they do. Many of these qualities were shared by Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. Some voters may have voted for George Bush thinking they'd get another affable, easy-going Ike or Ron. Maybe they're happy with what they got. Maybe they aren't. It's too late to reconsider in any event.

My hope is that George W. Bush will manage to rise to the occasion. We've only got one President, and he happens to be it. I'm actually not as worried about Bush as I am about the precedent of the Supreme Court settling the outcome of the 2000 election. I am not persuaded that the Founders of the country would have wanted that. I could be wrong, though. Does anyone know for sure?

To have "barely made it" through Yale and Harvard puts you in the top 0.001% (or similar) of the nation's intelligentsia. Hardly an argument for calling him a thicko.

Can anyone give me a rational reason for calling him thick?

I expect that he would score pretty well if you gave him an oral intelligence test. I say oral, because he has dyslexia. This may have hampered his efforts to do well in college.

I know of studies that have been done on his writings and speeches. The conclusion was that his working vocabulary is not nearly as large as that of other recent U.S. Presidents. So, are we dealing with a latter-day Eisenhower, who deliberately feigns poor syntax so as not to overtax the minds of the heartland voters that he wants to have on his side? Or is he a Chance the Gardener (as in "Being There"), whose simple pronouncements can be construed as hints of a much deeper con-sciousness? Take your pick. We will *never* get into his mind to see how it really functions.

Paul H, sorry for the simulpost, yeah, what you said seems to make sense.

One of the differences between W and St. T of A is that he (W) knows how to delegate. One of our prime ministers, Wilson, said that being prime minister was the easiest job he had, 'cos all he had to do was make sure he had the right people in the job, and fire them if (when) they f****d up. And this was in the 70s.

Tony B.Liar is such a control freak that he tries to take over the running of every department himself. The only ones who won't let him are Brown and that blind bloke. Who are also both control freaks.

Tony B.Liar is suffering heath problems from his inability to delegate. W looks better than ever, cos he lets his delegated employees get on with the jobs they're paid for.

Regardless of your politics, draw your own conclusions.

Personally, I think that Bush has done poorly in hiring such control-hungry power freaks as Cheney and Wolfowitz. They're responsible for making Iraq such a debacle. Bush is happy to delegate, because he lacks the ability to make decisions with authority.

dearest abbi normal,

thanks.