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

A very timely article on the war on Iraq and global warming.

http://indiancountry.com/?1043782669

I love the concept of global warming because it will be the first natural and extinction level phenomena I will actually, in all likelyhood, live long enough to witness. There is something to watching your way of life come to an end and fighting that end. It reminds me of Sitting Bull when the whitey showed up to exterminate the Lakota. He could see it all go down in his lifetime. Sometimes I wonder whether we will follow his example and see this battle in the very real terms that it is being put to us. I'd hate to think I missed the call.
Not that I am advocating violence toward anyone or thing as a response to industrial encroachment. Unless, of course, the situation dictates.

I don't think Sitting Bull knew what hit him.

He hadn't seen the huge hordes of people back east that Red Cloud had seen. He only saw soldiers falling upsidedown into the camp.

That dream came true, but the great victory was followed by even greater defeats. And the whites weren't driven out of the country. They even violated the earth, with impunity it might have seemed.

So when the men returned from the west with the promises of the Messiah, he believed the promises and was murdered for his faith.

By and by the Lakota learned to live in the new way, but they soon learned as well that the point of that living was something else. They were tricked into giving up their little farms and ranches and they were pursuaded to move into town. There they had to learn more new ways and they're still learning maybe.

So the parallel you draw is probably correct. I wonder how well the people will learn the new ways?

I'm sticking to my 99.96% theory. There is going to be some serious herd thinning.

What would really be helpful is some serious herder thinning.

The problem with that is the people that do the thinning end up wanting to be herders. That's why the Soviets never got communism out of the starting block. Because people as a general rule, are no damn good. Of course that's also what gives me hope, because I figure everyone's as paranoid as me.

Actually, communism seemed like a good idea as long as you didn't try to do it among strangers. If you tried that, you ended up with tons of remedial sharing lessons to teach.

I think that we were better off in smaller groups anyway. The only reason anyone should've gone outside their own range was to improve the gene pool a little. Now we're just screwing it all up.

Yeah, that and a little larcenous opportunity now and then. You can live with that. It's when they try to "settle" things that you end up with huge problems.

I'll stick to trying to improve the gene pool and you cover the larceny. We'll have civilization back in order in no time.

I think civilization, as defined by the civilizers has been the problem and putting it back in order is probably the last thing I want to do. I don't think it ever had any order other than privilege and power and nice little hierarchal levels and presumed evolutionary trends facilitating those things for a few people.

Okay, to hell with civilization, we'll just raze and sack straight through. We'll be done in no time, sending all the elite and priveleged straight to hell.

But you don't believe in hell, remember? Let's just settle for the bargain basement at Dollar Mart okay? That'll fix them.

How about we just turn them into fertilizer? It would be safer than what they put in fertilizer today. Safety tip: check your fertilizer with a Geiger counter prior to handling. It is legal to dispose of low level fissile materials by industry in fertilizer. It recycles it back into the Earth, according to the tortured logic of our current federal administration. We will ignore the fact that most of it, fertilizer that is, ends up as runoff and into our water supply and such. Just the fact that you can make your own garden glow by picking up a bag at the local Wallmart is a little scary, isn't it.

With all the frantic talk about terrorists using "dirty bombs" it's a wonder somebody didn't worry about what that white supremacist terrorist did to Oklahoma City with his truckload of explosive fertilizer, eh? I suppose it won't come up until people start complaining of unusual levels of cancer or birth defects.

I wonder if people's lawns glow in the dark too?

McVeigh wasn't a white supremacist, he was a paranoid anti-government type. Otherwise he would have blown up a baptist church instead of a federal building. As far as toxins in the fertilizer, it was illegal then. This is a new policy courtesy of our new EPA head in conjunction with our friends of the Earth at the White House.

How nice of them, eh? I wonder if Homeland Security knows about all those Tru-Green Lawn Care truck bombs driving around the suburbs these days?

Naw, Tom Ridge is too busy busting up civil service unions to know anything that's happening outside of D.C.

I was afraid of that. Centralized control = less security for individuals, families and associations.

Not to mention Bush actually rejecting funding projects for homeland security, such as air defense protection for Nuclear Plants. Even the French are smart enough to put AA guns around their power plants, and no one even had to drop a plane on them to figure out that it's a potential danger. I won't even get into the lack of funding elsewhere.