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

What you say, JD, reminds me of an editorial in Analog sometime in the 1980s, by Stan Schmidt (sp?) He was talking about the space programme and how a risk-free exploration wasn't possible.
In everyday life, most people tend to estimate risk responsibly. Males 18-25 (and some female in that age group too) tend to think they're 'bullet-proof' and drive unsafely etc - I am reminded of a guy who leapt off a major waterfall, (I think it was Huka Falls here in NZ) to celebrate his 21st birthday. Of course, he died, but no way did he expect to.
Risk-taking for profit on behalf of other people, is, or should be, a criminal act!
Do do your other article when you have time!

That's an excellent point, Della. What JD seemed not to notice was that distasters like Bhopal endangered the lives of innocent people who had no connection with the risk takers.

Risking one's own life and safety is one thing but endangering the lives of innocent others is a risk that no-one has the right to take.

I know this is way out of context... just catching up with the backlog, and I saw this comment from Empty. Empty, you've gone here before, and I've tried to point out how your views on this aren't internally consistent.

> The present government was allowed to take power and is allowed to stay there (remember America claims to be a democracy) so it's reasonable to assume that its actions have the tacit approval of the American public.

However, according to you, Bush stole the election with the help of his buddies in the Supreme Court. If that is true, which you believe it is, then Americans have nothing to do with the current actions of its government, and cannot be held responsible.

"However, according to you, Bush stole the election with the help of his buddies in the Supreme Court. If that is true, which you believe it is, then Americans have nothing to do with the current actions of its government, and cannot be held responsible."

What nonsense, Lentilla. It's true that Bush stole the election with the help of his buddies in the Supreme Court. That's an absolute fact.

http://www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=217&row=2

It's also true that the American public would have been quite able to stop or overturn this travesty if the will had existed.

If the possibility does not exist to identify and prosecute corruption in public office, then America (which likes nothing more than to boast about the superiority of its democracy) is inferior, in this regard, to every other democratic nation in the world.

Lentilla you do Bush more favours than perhaps anyone else, with your inability to grasp what's really going on. What worries me most is the concessions that people like you keep giving Bush and his cronies just because they're American. There seems to be this belief that Americans are somehow genetically superior and are incapable of doing wrong beyond a certain superficial level. So the full horror of Bush's evil is never quite real to some people. This is more worrying than anything else and has some frightening implications for the future.

There's a danger that history will record Dubya as a bufoon when he should be remembered as an absolute criminal.

And it's all down to Lentilla.

How did you ever get the impression that I would not notice such a thing? You have but to read the article I wrote some year and a half ago (the link is in one of my earlier posts) to see that I bring up that exact point about risk in an industrial society - that is, that such disasters endanger the lives of innocent people who did not accept the risk themselves.

I'm not sure if you're trolling me or if your ignorance of how I think is just accidental. Either way, I am going to be out of town for a while, so any more replies for me will have to wait a few days to get my attention. Not that replies of this kind will get my attention more than once.

- JD

JD, I have neither the time nor inclination to read your autobiography. But in post 6280 you banged on about risk takers as if they're somehow noble and admirable.

Mostly they're simply irresponsible.

( BC listening to conversation with amused detachment)

Good for you BC.

EMPTYHEAD:

Yeeuukk!

It's not surprising that most Americans are so overweight.

Actually it is suprising to anyone who is even vaguely aware of any facts about health and obesity in particular.As present figures indicate roughly 1in4 americans are overweight by no stretch of the imagination is this "most".

A more accurate use of the word "most" is: Most posts about americans by non americans on this thread contain bigotted and ill-informed opinion instead of facts.
http://www.iuns.org/features/obesity/tabfig.htm

You may like to look at this site which shows actual results from real studies, rather than any old thing Empty fancied posting at the time. The last but one graph shows Stanford USA as having very similar figures for overweight and obese people to the figures for......Aukland NZ

For goodness sake, blickybadger. We've been through this in the past on this thread. It is generally acknowledged that at least 60% of adult Americans are overweight. No-one is contesting that. There are arguments about the causes and the implications of it, but no-one disagrees that the majority of adult Americans are overweight.

You may be thinking of obese, which is a sub-set of overweight and is around 20% (conservatively).


http://www.uwgb.edu/4e/12-4opinionoverweight.htm

http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/03/05/obesity.poll/

http://www.healthatoz.com/healthatoz/Atoz/dc/caz/nutr/obes/alert01202000.html

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/fatland/

In fact, blickybadger, I've just looked at your link and as expected it does measure OBESITY, not overweight.

You're very easily confused.

Please remeber to read the words, over 25, and adults, this means a section of the population.

MY mistake on the mix-up of words though.

I should of checked, I guess that makes two of us?

Good grief!

Average out the population and the overweight figure still exceeds 60%.

http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/booksellers/press_release/fatland/

Fair enough I take it all back.

According to the December 11,2003 issue of the economist...
The following countries (in descending order) all have over 60% of the male population being overweight (including obese):
England
US
Spain
Australia
France

The numbers are lower for overweight women, though in this category, the US has the highest % of overweight women. But my point is, it seems that only the US is being accused of being overweight, when the problem is really occurring in many places.

I do find it amusing that the subject of these posts is "twinkie."

Non communicative diseases, otherwise known as "diseases of affluence", are the leading cause of deaths in most of the world, except India and subsaharan Africa. As a nation's economy improves so does the percentage of population suffering from NCDs.

While diet is a critical factor in obesity, so is physical activity. Children are eating less nutritious diets and spending more time watching television and at computers.

With that in mind, one of the most shocking news items I've read recently concerned trends in schools here in the US. Because of tightening budgets and federal regulations stressing standardised tests (the results of which are linked to funding), schools are dropping recess periods for elementary (grades k-6) school children and PE classes for kids in intermediate and high schools. Instead, they are sitting in classes learning how to pass tests. The loss of recess periods also means the loss of informal interaction. This will be very detrimental the development of these children's social skills as well as they're physical development.

And don't worry, empty, New Zealand is making a valiant effort to join those top ranks:

http://www.abc.net.au/ra/newstories/RANewsStories_984732.htm

dave

I dont dislike americans, my cousins are american. I do dislike the curent president un-elect and his cronies, inc Rummy, Karl Rove et al. However in my imediate family of my parents and my two brothers, I'm the only one who isn't overweight, where as, to the best of my knowledge, none of my cousins are. I think 'Sherif Buford T. Justice' from the Roger Moore James bond films and the steriotype he portrays has a lot to do with the image of americans as a load of fat idiots.