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

are you having trouble staying OT saturnine? Do you need help keeping up?

please do not reply to the previous comments, my alter ego was let out of its cage for a moment and i apologize for any comments that he might have said. he is a republican! i am currently taking medicine for the problem.

Not at all. After all, I know that Canada has running water. All year round. Imagine that.

Leave your own country sometime dave. Then you can make an attempt to demean my superior intelligence. You'll always fail, but heck, at least you try.

RedBone - why not open up an alias account for your alter ego? Then we know who to blame for the inflammatory comments. That is the beauty of h2g2.

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Technically. He won technically. I see. Robert Mugabe won the last election in Zimbabwe, technically, too.

> My point wasn't why do people support him now...Do Americans really not give a s**t about the election being fixed by a few Republicans in sunny Fla?

Pedro & Dave -
Ah, the question of why we have Bush Jr. in office. Well, after all, about 45% of the votes went for Bush. He didn't get the majority, but he is supported by a little less than half the country. (Or he was - that statistic has dropped considerably in the last year - yay.)

And there were a lot of protests in the beginning. But Americans are (were) complacent, and assumed that Bush couldn't do much harm - after all, we tend to assume that any elected president will at least be semi-competent and not take advantage of their position. Boy were we wrong!

The office of President has become a lot more powerful than it used to be, but the impeachment process remains the same. It's a soapbox of mine - there's something horribly wrong if a president can't be impeached because their party holds a majority in the House and Senate. We've got to have some restrictions on abuse of power.

> I Am Present And We Are Sorry For It.

This surreal moment brought to you by Lord Valkryrie. Are your hands too big to work the keyboard, milord?

> I'd say rather the major political parties and the media are controlled by people from the same, well I wouldn't call it a clique, its too broad for that, but you get the picture.

Most media try to be middle of the road. For example, let's say your news station has two liberal and fifteen conservative stories that are available to cover. It wouldn't be fair to the liberals for the news station to spend all their time on the conservative news, or vice-versa. This means that because of time limitations, stories end up not being covered. Which is why Fox News has thrown everything out of whack. With their exclusive coverage of conservative news, and their decidedly Republican slant, it means that more conservative than liberal news is going out to the viewers.

Read this article - it's really good, and further cements my dislike of Fox News.

http://www.fair.org/extra/0108/fox-main.html

Just got back from browsing the Doonesbury site... You probably know that Garry Trudeau has offered an award for anyone giving evidence that they worked with Bush in the National Guard in Alabama. Here's a couple of the entries he's received.

I served at Dannelly, and I saw Mr. Bush, or specifically part of him, on numerous occasions between May and November of 1972. In late May or very early June I saw a portion of his left ear. In July, on two separate weekends, I saw his lower jaw and the side of his knee, and one of his buttocks was in front of me in line at the PX on the weekend of the 29th. I saw one of his arms sometime in the fall. I hope these recollections secure the president's good name, and help prove he served, if piecemeal, during that dangerous time.
  -- B. Tripp, Altadena, CA

Please give the $10,000 to me. I am a master's student in engineering in Paris. Since I am a foreign student, and from Pakistan, I'm having trouble making ends meet, especially since the French are fond of taxing cigarettes and I am fond of smoking them. Giving me the money would make your life easier, since all you'll get are kook letters anyway. Just write me a cheque and put yourself out of your misery.
  -- I. Hamid, Paris, FRANCE

pedro7
My point wasn't why do people support him now, but if it was in say, France, there would have been tens or hundreds of thousands of marchers protesting in the streets. The country would have been at a standstill. Do Americans really not give a s**t about the election being fixed by a few Republicans in sunny Fla?

To be fair to Americans, just for a second, in France they have protests over *everything*.

one love

yeah, one of these days you're gonna end up with the police and government offials blocking all the roads in protest at the unions and the strikes/protests and all the trouble they cause

for you're read they're, unless, of course, you're French. Oh and the above was a joke, before I get flamed for it

The french comment is actually quite a good remark.

The french worlwide known to be the biggest grevist and revolutionarie of all time: why haven't they made a big national protest in the streets against the war in Irak or Bush leadership? I am a little confused here. Mainly because after U.S. wan the war the irak petro centers, partialy controled or with th participation by the french, the petro-money changed from petro-euro to petro-U.S. dollar.

Maybe i was wrong about the last statment and the french really had never had business in Irak petrol commerce. Nevertheless, what really happened is that the all world didn´t do a thing about stoping war in Irak and now that the U.S. control it i believe we must agree that Irak now is better than before ( this i say with a little conviction because i have seen a documentary very recently made by an iraquian, were he concluded and everyone else he interviwed in the street, that: "Was it worth it? Yes it was, now at least you could see this" ).

But was it really the best way of action? "Americans" have shown to all of us that there is a solution to fight tyranny and terrorism: fight war with war. Even worse was Bush and Blair administration to have used a very bad first escuse to make a war. To my mind it was the worst thing that could have been shown:

First: terrorists don't see that they are complete lunatics! There is no political or social difference that can be made with the cost of innocent lifes. They can´t see that even if they demandas were made: like for example give ETA the independence of the basque country. Who would rule it? If anyone would stand to leader it would immediatly be considered a past terrorist at the eyes of all. And who would let a murderer rule?

Second: Terrorism is bad, tyranny or the ruling taking advantage of a people ignorance is also bad.
The Irak and afganistan war is the first example that we all won't stand anymore for terrorism or tyranny. But if war is the best solution we can find and we all accept it ( because no big majority made big demonstrations against it), we can´t accept bad escuses also.

So "Americans" are not wrong, we all are wrong always in some way. Even though i hope Bush administration is overrun this year elections, and i hope we all start to choose leaders from different countries who can stand against such kind of administrations, form anywhere.

Respect, Education and Cooperation is all we need.

Lentilla -

he got considerably more than 45% - he was within a 10th of a percentage point of Gore, if I remember correctly. It was extremely close.
Our governement was originally designed to curb power through checks and balances - obviously they are not as effective as we would like right now - that's why the shrub is running rampant.

Modern history - that's an oxymoron. Isn't that where people study what's been on TV for the last couple years? What a great major you've chosen Saturnine. 1st, you didn't even know when the US was established. 2nd, you claimed that it was a great military power in its infancy. You claim to be a student of modern history, but obviously you don't spend too much time actually studying - unless as above, modern history really is just watching TV. So you sit somewhere watching TV, getting tatoos, and listening to music, and you think that makes you an intellectual? Well, everyone has their own delusions...

dave

Don't forget that Nader had a few percentage points in there as well, so 45% isn't as far off as you might think.

Nader didn't reduce shrubs, if anything he reduced the votes Gore got.

http://www.uselectionatlas.org/USPRESIDENT/

George W. Bush Richard Cheney Republican
total votes: 50,460,110
percentage: 47.87%
electoral college votes: 271
percentage: 50.37%

Albert Gore Jr. Joseph Lieberman Democratic
total votes: 51,003,835
percentage: 48.38%
electoral college votes: 266
percentage: 49.44%

Ralph Nader Winona LaDuke Green
total votes: 2,883,075
percentage: 2.73%
electoral college votes: 0
percentage: 0.00%

In both the popular & electoral college the election was within 1% (not a tenth like a thought - but certainly not as wide as 5%)

Saturnine - don't be scared by the big numbers or the "%" sign. We'll work through it together.

dave

the most effective demonstrations are near military bases

Dave you're not very good at insulting people, give up .

Modern in terms of history means pretty much anything after the French Revolution (the big one that is, with the Jacobins and the storming of the Bastille and all that).

most effectiveive is a burial of sf servicemen with a flag draped effigy

Dave, please don't resort to sarcasm until at least the other person is about to answer and/or they've resorted to it as well. And just so you know, she's a firecracker so don't burn your fingers!

The percentage win thing has been discussed to death, but it boils down to the Electoral College so it really doesn't matter what we think here. I'd rather discuss Richard Clarke and his book. Sounds like the wagons are circling when you listen to the Bush administration replies to the allegations that they were warned long before 911.

Dave, the US is still in its infancy.