No, schrodinger was right. The joke is: they make up everything. Picked that one up from Big Bang Theory.
I see what you did, creating an ambiguity between the two uses of “up”, as an adverb or as a preposition. The problem is that you shouldn’t use a preposition at the end of a sentence.
The problem is when you tell a geek joke you have to abide by geek rules, there's no allowance for nouveau
For years I'd get the timing of my propositions wrong (usually too soon) and now I'm getting my prepositions in too late! There's an adverb and a verb for that.
Just seen highlights of VJ Day ceremony, held at the Memorial Arboretum (worth visiting....beautiful, interesting and touching). It reminded me of my visit a few years back. I was on the train taking you round all memorials dedicated to various regiments and incidents. Suddenly an elderly man next to me began to weep. Brought it home to me.
Yes. So thought provoking. Makes you realise that there by the grace of the universe we live in a peaceful society. A lot wrong with our part of the world, but at least we don't live in fear of war, murder and general atrocities all the time. When we say we have nothing, we still have basic human rights and dignity.
As I said when I was talking about the programme the first time around, the pure arrogance of us waltzing over there, thinking that we'd be doing everyone a favour by imposing democracy. There was such a complete lack of understanding about how that region works, and the tribal politics there. Saddam was a bastard, but he was a bastard keeping a lid on a vipers nest. But the most shocking thing is that we didn't learn. We then went and did the same thing in Libya and Afghanistan. Insanity that has led us to where we are, and led those poor bastards up the creek without a paddle. Such an important programme. It should be shown as part of the syllabus to all American and British kids at school.
That's what struck me. The sheer arrogance of the west (US & us basically) thought our way of democracy would work there. It won't. Democracy isn't a bad thing don't get me wrong, but there are so many things to balance there (such as strong religious groups and views), that a hybrid democracy is what was needed. In the end we went there with the view that we are superior and know best, 'liberated' Iraq, then stood back and watched the carnage. I've always been a pacifist anyway (my motto in life is I'd much rather live a chicken than die a hero ), but wars solve nothing, especially in a region that is divided by religion and deep held beliefs. Hindsight is great, but what I got from that is Saddam was right when asked in captivity how long to fix it. Give him an hour - 45 mins to shave and 15 minutes to address the people. Total evil bastard as you said, but he exploited that to keep a lid on it and keep the equilibrium in the area. Still can't see what this war was about really - the first in the 90s was about oil, this was about arrogance that the west knows best. It works in the west, but not there. there is no one size fits all way of running a region. I'll step off my soap box now as rather than off topic, it may become political and then Chilcs will move us over to that thread
Which you must be prepared to fight for and defend because as sure as eggs is eggs this ****ing lot in power at the moment are taking us back to some very dark days. You had better get ready to kiss the NHS goodbye for a start. The powerful and the wealthy in this country and several others have seen how the Russian oligarchs stripped their county of its resource to enhance their own wealth and now they want some of the same. Johnson has already started making sure his cronies get their hands on our wealth through contracts through by passing normal procedures. This lot are a bunch of bandits out to rob the country of its wealth and ours as well.
Ok I was allowing discussion of the Iraq programme on the grounds that it wasn’t an overtly political discussion. Godders, once again, has forgotten where he was. No more, please, go to Politics.
However, our discussion on the program isn’t political - it is a review of a BBC documentary. So we can stay here ?
