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

I really hesitate about telling you this (but it will be fun to watch) I started a thread this morning on the "Open Debating Society" (which usually reads to me like the "praise Bush society").
I started the new thread partly as a reaction to this thread:




I started mine with: "Is the US defunct? Is it controlled by a bunch of self-serving warmongers? Has its much vaunted constitution been so undermined and dismantled that it really serves no purpose at all? Should the rest of us finally just bite the bullet and ignore them like deep down we know we want to?"
I think the questions are valid debating points, as I try to make clear in some of my posts to the thread. So far, no one (except Jodan) has taken up the challenge.
This is the new thread. Join in if you want:
F124615321173"?thread=#p4128754

I will look into it. I do hope people make more sense that certain lately arrived erstwhile router-operators....

Is it just me or does this guy make no sense whatever?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/classic/FP19585?thread=84337&post=4128104#p4126896

Someone please give him instructions for his router... its all he really seems to want.

I've been watching the iceman, too. Routers have got to be the simplest of power tools. I'm not going to tell him about them.

okay, actually now Ste has taken up the challenge and things are pretty reasonable so far. And Apparition is turning it into a debate about "Yank bashing".

Well, I put my two cents-worth in.... (that is... what 11 1/2 cents US?)

I am wondering why the Router Rooter is looking in hootoo for info on how to use a router... and then asks if anyone can direct him to a website about woodworking. I wanted to point out the Google might be a good place to try, but figured it would only enourage the use of powertools by people who cannot operate a computer keyboard WITHOUT USING ALL CAPS OR something.

It's hard to not get emotional about this whole America thing, isn't it. I'm trying hard.

I am very proud of you....

I think you know as well as anybody, if I wanted to I could be give them something to really complain about.... But I am a delicate little flower, and don't have a vindictive bone in my body. (You may arise from the floor, when you've finished laughing....)

The worst is when I am at work and I catch up on the threads, then spend work-time writing responses. At least this week with all our &#$^*&^*&$^ computer probelms, while waiting for the server to connect I have had plenty of downtime to check in without feeling guilty.

You know, seriously, I would be interested in a calm, reasoned discussion of what the world's beefs are with the US. I don't have a real problem with the American people: I suspect there's a huge number of them who are inconceivably misinformed about the world around them. We can't talk to most of them. We can only talk to a few here. I would like to calmly give them discussion.

BTW, despite living in California, Ste is British.

Funny how so many British-ers are so gung-ho defensive of the US. Baffling, really. I was quite taken aback when I was in London during the Gulf War. Ironically, there was a protest march decrying the treatement of the Kurdish people by Saddam Hussein.

Of course, their plight didn't register with either the Americans or the British who were more interested in the oil than a few thousand peasants.

The pro-American bunkum just about everywhere you went was positively nauseating. Most of that had to do with Maggie Thatcher and Bush senior's contest to see who could get their head further up the other ones backside. Mind you, our own Brian Mulroney did his best to do the same which was even more embarassing.

Mulroney, by the way was a lobbyist for the ill-fated Barrick Gold Corp. George Bush also actively lobbied on the comapany's interests.

And Bush became honorary senior adviser to the board, created in May 1995.

"Both former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney (a director of Barrick Gold) and former U.S. President George Bush (a member of Barrick's International Advisory Board) are believed to have made phone calls to Indonesian President Suharto on behalf of Barrick. (Mulroney's Barrick stock options are worth an estimated $2.6 million.)" (East Timor Update, March/April 1997, printed in The ACTivist, Act for Disarmement, p.11).

The Busang gold deposit in Indonesia, discovered by Calgary-based Bre-X, was estimated to contain more than 70 million ounces of gold, making it the richest in the world. Bre-X attempts to find a partner to exploit the mine led to intense negotiations and pressure by both Barrick Gold and its competitor, Freeport McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. "In hopes of winning Busang, [Barrick Gold] hired the son of Indonesia's production and distribution minister to pursue its interests. It then hooked up with the mining minister's son and [Indonesia president] Suharto's eldest daughter, Siti (Tutut) Hardiyant Rukmana, who was to receive a handsome contract to build roads for the mine" (Globe and Mail, April 19, 1997, p.B1,B4).

Barrick eventually lost its bid to Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold Inc. In the spring of 1997, Bre-X shares plummeted when it was revealed that new drillings had uncovered insignificant amounts of gold at the site. The alleged gold finding was later found to be one of the world's biggest mining scams ever (Globe and Mail, May 12, 1997, p.B3)."

http://www.afrocentricnews.com/html/bush_gang.html

Hmmm... an apology from Blatherskite?

Do I put this in my diary?

The problem was that Ste couldn't decide if he was Anit-anti-American, Pro-Anti-American, American wanna-be, or Anti-Pro-Anti-American....

...and yet,he thought his arguments perfectly logical.

You know the saying "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"? I have paraphrased it. "Grammarism is the last refuge of the confused." (or something.... needs work.) The point is, if your argument completely falls apart, pick on the grammar (or punctuation) of your opponent.

I was unfair with the original question. I do dream of having these people get some tiny inkling of what it's like to be out here. I don't expect it will happen, but, we'll see.

I don't think you were unfair at all.

The question on which you based your question was so inflammatory. I think it is fairly clear to anyone with an ounce of intelligence that the UN may be impotent, but it is so as a result of the US hog-tying it.

The US thinks it can wrap every other country around its big fat fingers. The fact is, that if America continues to make enemies of every other nation, it will eventually run out of friends. By fettering the UN as it has, it does a disservice to itself in the longrun. Eventually, America will run out of money, run out of friends, and when it needs help, will have no one on its side.

Yep. But we have the good fortune of being allowed the view from the outside (which doesn't explain some of the people around here.) But look at a guy like Jodan: He's a patriotic American, but without illusions. He's quiet about his patriotism (and he's probably reading this the little creep). It seems to me that he told me some time ago that he realizes that there's sort of a blinkered view from where he is and so he's quite excited to hear what the world is thinking.

I do lament the fact that there is an sad lack of rigour in most people's statements, on both sides. In some ways I think we should all just shut up and read that book I recommended and then come back to have a chat.

Well, I have to say, my brother, who lives in Oregon, is very vocal about his feelings about Bush and he current stuation.

So vocal, in fact, that I never broach the subject with him, he gets so worked up.

And yet, I have quite innocently sent him something like the supposedly true interchange between a US Aircraft carrier and a lighthouse, in which the aircraft carrier is ordering the lighthouse to get out of the way. His reaction was that I was "America-bashing". He loves getting the jokes where Canadians are poking fun at themselves, but the mere mention of an American gets him going.

You can imagine the uproar that occurred when I sent the "Talking to Americans" link to all my friends and relations, including him.....

And yet, when I sent around the email that was going around about searching "weapons of mass destruction" on Google and with the subject line that came with it "This is hilarious", I got an email back "This is NOT hilarious" and a list of travesties that the Bush administration had lately instigated.

Frankly, I am one of those people who feels that laughing is better than slitting your wrists, which is sometimes what crosses one's mind.... It isn't necessarily enjoyable laughter, but better than getting an ulcer.

I recently sent some bit of humor to someone, one of those emails circulating. I cannot recall exactly what it was, but it was a sarcastic look at life. She sent a response that she found it disturbing that these days that humor has to be so "nasty". I tried to tell her that sometimes humor is used to start debate and eases people into talking about painful things, and a way of accepting the human condition.

However, she is one of those "black and white" people. If something is a "bad" thing, you have to take it seriously. I feel sorry for people who cannot laugh at the absurd. The one thing I learned from my Kosovar friends is that as bad as things get, you have to learn to laugh at absurdity, to find something funny in the darkest moments, otherwise you are lost.

Concentration camp survivors, as bad as their situation was, found moments of laughter, especially at the absurdity of the day to day living.

I have been lurking on the "US defunct" conversation. I don't intend to get in on it again, but an observation about Ste's complete lack of knowledge about exactly what went on before, during, and after Kent State, and the entire era.

Saying that the the shootings don't have anything to do with infringing on free-speech is ludicrous. So, at the precise moment the soldiers pulled the triggers they weren't trying to infringe on free-speech. The reason they were there was because the American government and the American people were so afraid of dissent that they were willing to take any steps to stop it.

I don't know how old Ste is, but if he is anywhere near my age, he must have spent the late 60s and early 70s in a very sheltered environment.

Anyone who is reasonably aware of what was going on during the Vietnam era knows that there were people, common Americans, who felt that those who were anti-war were Commies and sould be dealt with by rounding them up and shooting them. The fear and loathing ran deep and the military, the National Guard, and the Police were ready, willing, and able to take any measures to silence dissent.

At best, the soldier(s) who fired on the protesters were brainwashed into believing that the protesters were Commies which was akin to the Devil Incarnate then. At worst, they knew what they were doing. Either way, the deaths cannot be considered as "isolated" or as unrelated to the systematic elimination of the freedom of speech.

I have been listening to Phil Ochs this week. Someone loaned me a copy of "Farewells and Fantasies" the 3 disc retrospecitive of his work. It is amazing to listen to his songs and see how little has changed with how the US government deals with both the rest of the world and its own citizens. If you get a chance, you should listen to his songs. Sadly, he became so disillusioned with the lack of change and the complacancy of the people that in 1976 he committed suicide.

http://www.ocap.ca/songs/lovemeim.html

This is good. Phil Ochs one of the "Chicago Seven". At the trial (my brother, incidentally, was a juror for one of the trials) he was called to testify. The following is a transcript of his testimony. The bit about the pig is a must-read....

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/Chicago7/ochs.html

I'm going to look at that stuff tommorrow as I'm already asleep. About Ste: if I remember correctly, he's English, living in California. He probably didn't learn much about Kent State, no matter what his age.

oh, and, according to Ste's Personal Space, Ste is nearly 25. I wouldn't expect a twenty-four year old Englishman to know much about Kent State. Heck, I've heard rumours of twenty-four year old Canadians who think Stalin was a Czar.(This made the viewing of Enemy at the Gates a very strange experience, I'm sure.)

...and 20-year-old Brits who don't know who the Beatles were....



Sad really, to live a life so utterly removed from the immediate past and, yet, with such condescension.

Night, night. (though it is 3:10 am and you are already in bed....)

Luckily, we are having a staff PD day tomorrow. Lecture in the am and curling (the kind involving rocks and ice) in the afternoon. Knowing my inherited ability to fall and get a concussion while standing perfectly still on a flat, dry surface, I will be watching, not participating.

Unfortunately, it is about collection numbering methods at the National Archives or something, which, while interesting enough mid-afternoon, is a snore-fest at 8:30 am. At least we get food and TONS of coffee provided gratis....