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

That is the worst collection of third-grade jokes I've ever seen.

(Third-grade jokes=jokes for 8-year-olds, with lots of bad puns in them.)

I don't mind sinking to low levels for humour

I'm away to kiptake care my friend and I'll see you later

Founding fathers? You wouldn't by any chance be talking about the Adamses? I've met more than few Adams descendants in my day, and have some cousins who married into the Adams line.

If so, be aware that Benjamin Franklin sized up John Adams pretty well in a July 22 1783 letter to Robert Livingston: "He means well for his country, is always an honest man, often a wise one, but sometimes and in some things, absolutely out of his senses." This is the material of which that family's gene pool is composed.

I think there was a Daisy Adams who married into the family several generations later. I believe that things did not end well for her in terms of mental health, and this would bode even worse for the family gene pool. I did a translation of a letter from a French town to an Adams who may still be alive. He was a genealogist.

That is really interesting information, Paul. We have something in common - I, too, am related to domestic terrorists. (My lot burned down a colonial courthouse in North Carolina.)

I sort of thought those Adamses were nutty. I'm working on the US history course, and have been deep into Adams goings-on before 1776. struck me as being little better than the Provos. If he had had bomb-making materials, he would have been even more of a threat to good order and discipline.

Of course, as a president, John Adams was a tyrant, but I think it is Cokie Roberts who blames a lot of that on Abigail.

One of the people I've decided I liked was Thomas Gage, the military governor of Massachusetts when it was under martial law. He said that Americans were all bullies, and the worst bullies were in Boston.

Dmitri, you need to remember that pretty much *everybody* (not just Franklin) saw through John Adams. When Adams was president, the Congress retaliated against him for some reason, by passing a resolutuion that referred to his huge butt. Adams sued them, and the judge overrulled him on the grounds that his butt really *was* huge.

As for terrorism, some historians see terrorism ("as we know it") not starting until the 1960s with General Sherman marching through Georgia. I disagree with them, but what power have I over historians who could probably out-debate me with one brain tied behind their backs?

I have a much more modest frame of reference: time and again throughout history, whenever barbarians have taken over any civilized country, one of the first casualties is libraries. I do not believe that I can survive without civilization, and I want to make sure libraries are protected. I don't care that much who is a terrorist and who isn't, as it is almost always a judgment reached by someone else.

"Hi, I'm Joe, and I'm a terrorist" are words you won't hear spoken except in some sort of fictional work.

You're right about the terrorists. But I think the Sons of Liberty were terrorists - and, er, I pretty much wrote that. I think the historian in charge agrees. You just have to remember that one man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. Always was like that, always will be.

Thanks for the tip about John Adams' butt. I didn't know that. (You don't have a link, do you? I'm looking ahead to the next chapter...)

If Adams was funny-looking, he was in good company: George Washington had his suits tailor-made. According to my historian buddy, Washington was sort of pear-shaped. What he said was, 'He was built like Bill Clinton.'

I'd say Sherman was 'state-sponsored terrorism'.

That's a pretty cool dream to have.
Mine tend to be bad dreams.
Or working on stuff I already do during the daytime ones.

I used to run a technical services department in a library in the days when you had to file cards in a card catalog to keep track of your holdings. To this day, I have recurring dreams about catching up witht he filing.

I had to use a card catalogue when I was a small boy. I can remember them.
So the reason why they were kept up to date was because out of scene there was a staff of people busily working on them?
That makes sense.

Up through about the sixth or seventh grade I think.

i remember writing my final paper in order to get my exams

at some point i got so tired that i went to bed - and instantly started dreaming i was writing said paper

i woke up and almost cried, thinking this was so unfair that i could not even relax from w*rk when sleeping

Compared to that, piracy must have been a breeze.

Do pirates have nightmares about chasing prize ships that they can't catch up with?

yes - that and kidnapping damsels who won't serve you in bed

You might even want to have nightmares about damsels who put arsenic in the they serve you in bed!

Sorry, delete "want to" from the previous post.

Freudian slip.

Freud wore a slip?

Well, maybe Anna Freud did.