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

dave.

Love the way you're handling the: "genus (Papio) of large gregarious primates of Africa and southwestern Asia having a long square naked muzzle."





And ps, the US ain't all that bad....

thanks zoomer. I agree it's not all bad...but I've become quite disillusioned of late. We have to get rid of Bush, otherwise we're toast.

Well, at least you have the choice between an idiot, a lesser idiot, and a dreamer idiot. We vote in another month between a corporate lackey idiot, a fundamentalist idiot, and a 60's socialist idiot. I like your chances better....

when you put it like that, I bet you'll elect the 60's socialist. That sounds pretty good to me anyway.

You'd think that having things simpler up here would make life easier, wouldn't you? The *socialist* in question is just another *spend everything, tax the rich, up the unions* type so I don't think he'll get my vote. Unless I revert to strategic voting in the hopes of a minority government. (See? Not so simple!)

I wish you and your countrymen well in this election, I can't remember last when a US election was watched by the rest of the world with such interest.



ps & btw, when are you going to throw a pic our way? 900?thread=90019314" >F119314?thread=421977&latest=1

Yeah, I guess it isn't. But in the US, up the taxes sounds like a must right about now, that's why I would go for the socialist. B/c dubya's running us into the ground with his tax cuts. Anyway..

My picture is in the album, #38 It's from 2 years ago. I now have a beard, and hair on the side of my head

I'd missed that (and the pandas!!).

We've got a whole pile of problems here as well so I sympathise, btw. I guess in a few months we can all get together here on hootoo and comiserate on what went wrong. (Why do I get the idea that neither of us will have much to celebrate?)

I'm trying to stay optimistic...I'm still hoping to celebrate in november. But we'll commiserate either way.

You know, I stopped reading the economist a month or 2 ago. I really thought they were unbiased, but they keep loving George Bush no matter what happens. I guess it lifted a veil from my eyes.

I'm more concerned about Fox, frankly. Although we do have a good laugh about them here:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...ageid=968867495754&col=968705925735


http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet...umnists/Columnist?author=John+Doyle

Sorry, just checked and found both those links had died. I'll try to find out if they're archived somewhere. Later.

fox is out of control. I watch it occasionally, just to see how much foam is at their mouths. They have 0 journalistic integrity.

Let me describe what clinched it for me. Take a high standard of journalism - Tim Russert, NBC, Meet the Press. He asks someone he's interviewing a question, which makes the person slightly angry. The person fires the same question back at Russert, who says I'm not answering - it's not important what I think.

Russert didn't want to influence his viewers with his own personal opinion at all. It's virtually impossible to figure out how he feels about the issues. His main concern his elucidating positions, pointing out logical/factual inconsistencies...

Now take an interview on FOX. Interviewer asks a question along the lines of what do you think about this democratic idea/candidate. Person responds pointing out flaws/mistakes. Interviewer then agrees with person!!! "Yeah, I know, what are they thinking!".

That sealed the deal for me.

At the risk of sounding like that interviewer, I know what you mean!

I'll try again:

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040429/DOYLE29/Columnists/Columnist?author=John+Doyle

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1083535813145&call_pageid=968867495754&col=968705925735

Those are just so you can get an idea of what we think in The Great White North.

Come to think of it, that title isn't very PC anymore, maybe we should be the Great Frozen North....hmmm....nope, that's out of date with Global Warming....

Those articles are great! Have you heard about Al Franken's book, and subsequent run-in with "O' Lie-ly" as he likes to call him? It's so great to hear O'Reilly continue to say he's not ultra-conservative - as if just saying that makes it true!

How about calling canada the majestic North?

Majestic....hmmmm....sounds more like a condom size...

One more just to tie up the bow (and Franken is mentioned):

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20040501.wmallick1/BNStory/International/?query=FOX

Zoomer I loved those articles. They got me thinking...recently an ultra left wing fanatic protested during our graduation ceremony, and was arrested. One of her supporters wrote an angry editorial in our school paper, pointing out the long history of the Administrations suppresion of free speech on campus. Of course, it was a very selective history.

It was glaringly obvious to me that the ultra-left wingers were using the exact same tactics as F*X News, Bill O'Lie-ly, Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter...so I wrote a letter to the editor rebutting the op-ed piece (I mainly filled in the facts they had conveniently omitted) and then pointed out the analogy. I guess I'm in a unique position to see extremists on opposite ends of the political spectrum using the exact same tactics.

I developping a sense/belief that you have to take the high road if you want to "win" an argument. The other thing I'm learning is that I'm really only winning the argument with myself - I'm developping a burden of proof, which once satisfied, makes me feel confident I've stumbled on the something correct. As a corollary, there will always be people who violently disagree with any conclusion I reach - which leads back to the beginning of this paragraph.

I guess this all started at Hootoo...arguing on the WWWA thread...and now I'm finding practical applications in RL. Any thoughts?

Well done if you can pick your way through the minefield of politics anytime, I say! I agree, the methods of *debate* here and in RL leave a great deal to ask for. I generally try to stick to my beliefs if I can back them up with statistics, but of course we both know that there is more to it in most instances. I find that (of course) the intangibles are the least able to support since they have no *hard* facts to back them up. And then even the statistical data is subject to interpretation. As Mark Twain said (I think), there are three kinds of lies- lies, damn lies, and statistics. We all work as well as we can with what we've got I suppose.

Such is life, though. If it were easy to support political ideals understandably and with proof, we'd have honest politicians.

true, true. I guess history is the best way to tell if a policy was "right", but it doesn't do you much good as your implementing it. And that's why politicians stay in business.

So I guess we use previous history as our guide to making current decisions, and then let future history decide if we were right.