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

But military intelligence is an oxymoron.

i for one would not be able to change that

Nor I.

i might be able to locate some weapons of mass distraction () but you don't need intelligence to do that

I'm undecided. Bring on the and let's see what they can do.

i was going to - but alas, i got distracted

I bet they are goodhearted . Surely they will give you a second chance.

hope dies last

But these are very much alive.

oh yes, and redhaired as well. i would not be surprised if they were irish gals doing A riverdance

Sometimes the river dances because there's been an earthquake.

The Mississippi flowed backwards once.

What you said about riverdance made me remember New Madrid (New MAEH-drid).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1812_New_Madrid_earthquake

I didn't realise that's what made Reelfoot Lake.

I think that that fault has had another quake since the 1800s.

Yes, I think so, too.

But imagine what that must have been like - a 8, back in the day.

They might have thought it was the end of the world...

It probably *was* the end of the world for anyone who died as a result of it.

That's true. The stories of collapsing houses, terrified livestock...sounds pretty scary.

The other week, we were reading Davy Crockett's memoirs. He was around back then, in Tennessee, and he mentioned landscape features that showed earthquake damage.

when darwin visited south america he experienced a quake and wrote in his journal 'if you can't trust the ground beneath you, what can you trust?'

says it all, doesn't it?

True.

Elektra still holds it against me that I once said, 'Oh, it's just an earthquake.'

In self-defence, I point to the fact that the Athenian event in question was a minor tremor - and I didn't feel it until I took my feet off the table...

What concerns me most about the Haiti earthquake is that another one occurred there 8 days later.

i experienced a minor quake when living high up in a hotel in hollywood. just a day or two before that i heard a local tell about the big quake in - was it 1995?

i know high rises are safer than small buildings, but still, it made me