This has to be one of the best "gone off on a tangent" discussions I've seen! So much more informative and better than the original thread!
I've recently been banned from Manchester City's BlueMoon Forum. It's rather strange, as I was a regular contributor on there, especially on their dedicated Spurs thread. But I was given my marching orders for suggesting that James Milner's return of just one single goal in his 40 England appearances wasn't anywhere like good enough. Oh well...
I used to get habitually banned from Newgrounds' politics forums for having a remarkably different opinion to the moderators on the following issues: * US foreign policy * Israeli foreign policy * Gun control * Terrorism You know, things that Americans tend to be completely wrong about...
But are obviously never wrong about in their minds. Don't they get the irony of habitually using arms to stand up for democracy and freedom of speech when they struggle to apply those principles themselves?
The "guns in America"thing brings back memories. When the fellers at work used to read of the shootings there,they referred to gun carrying Americans as "bomb happy bastards".Not quite wrong either!Why they have this deep love of guns I'll never know.I thought they killed all the Indians off!!!!!
It's because the NRA has hoodwinked people into what the Second Amendment actually says. The text reads as follows: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." They just skip to the part about the right to bear arms and ignore the qualifier about the well-regulated militia. Of course, there's the deeper problem with the US that they have enshrined their Constitution as a sacred document that should stand until the end of life, the universe and everything which is, frankly, insane - since 1776, France has had sixteen constitutions, Spain has had ten, whilst Italy, Germany and Russia six, and the Soviet Union managed three.
I'd say that the US problem with guns is more complicated than just ownership, as other countries have similar laws but far less of a problem. It's a cultural issue, in my opinion.
Portraying Palestine + Middle East as the mortal enemy and connoisseurs of "terrorism" was the greatest thing they ever did. Allows their population (and ours) to have antipathy towards their civilians and nationwide apathy (in Western states) spreads allowing the US government to effectively get away with mass murder. The Fourth Reich in all but name.
When it comes to news reporting from both the US and UK, what they do is very subtly dehumanise the enemy in the way that deaths are reported. For example, in the case of Israel/Pelestine: A dead Israeli is a tragedy A dead Palestinian is a statistic And, yes, by doing this they are portraying the Palestinians as the enemy. What's bad about this is that, in the case of wars, civilian casualties are presented the same way - a few dozen Iraqis killed in a shock and awe attack was a statistic, whilst a single US or British serviceman being killed is a tragedy.
Spot on. This and also (deliberately) skewing the truth. I can't say too much on here for obvious reasons but creating the myth of terrorism was another stroke of genius on their part. It allows the population to not think twice about their "justified" tyranny of Eastern states whilst they continually use the political imbalance in those states to rape their resources and reserves. As a result of that people don't stop to think why extremists from those states are maybe a little annoyed hence retaliating against civilians in Western countries "In war, truth is the first casualty" - Aeschylus
Must be a hot air propulsion system...that would explain hbic's in depth knowledge! Nice spiel, but I don't need to check any of your rubbish, reading is your problem, I said Ship, Archemidis was a mere Tug that made a few short journeys plagued with breakdowns, on its first voyage of any distance the idiot who designed it didn't fit a safety release valve and it blew to pieces. Great Britain was a ship that made voyages to America and later Australia, hence its known tag as the first ship. I understand your desire to split hairs to save face. Edison is credited with inventing the light bulb, despite many previous versions years earlier, all of which proved impractical, so we'll use your logic and say it wasn't Edison because one of the others had wire glowing first, and he didn't invent the glass for the bulb.
I'm not the one wrongly attributing inventions to people here. So you feel you don't need to check two independent sources that I posted that kick your incorrect (and, frankly, obnoxious) argument into the long grass because...oh, right, it kicks your incorrect (and, frankly, obnoxious) argument into the long grass. The fact is the Great Britain was designed as a larger version of the earlier SS Great Western, until Brunel made two changes - adding the screw propulsion system after seeing the SS Archimedes (which says that Brunel didn't make the first screw-powered ship) and also the channel packet steamer Rainbow (which says that Brunel didn't make the first iron-hulled seafaring ship), he merely made a larger version of something that already existed. That means he didn't invent anything, nor was he the first. Also, you know another ship that blew to pieces on its first voyage? SS Great Eastern, designed by a Mr. I.K. Brunel. Edison wasn't an inventor, he was a patent thief and a charlatan. Put simply, Edison didn't invent the light bulb because it's a fact that light bulbs were in existence and various technologies had been patented before Edison was even born. Edison is credited with inventing the filament - and that can be argued, given Edison (as he often did) he helped himself to and took credit for the work of three other inventors, in this case William Sawyer, Heinrich Goebel and Joseph Swan. Firstly, it's an open and shut case regarding Sawyer - in 1883 the US Patent Office ruled that Edison's work had copied Sawyer's. Secondly, in the case of Goebel he actually approached Edison to show the filament he invented which Edison refused - but, after Goebel's death, he was quick to buy up the patent he saw no use in from his impoverished widow. As for Swan, he had patented his incandescent light bulb in 1878 (a year before Edison was testing his designs), so Edison blatantly copied Swan's design and started a media campaign proclaiming himself as the true inventor (a practice which is known as "lying" in most languages) Edison attempted to sue Swan for patent infringement, Swan pointed out he had patented his light bulb first, so as part of the settlement Swan was made partner in Edison's company which, crucially, manufactured filament based on Swan's design rather than Edison's. Yes, crediting people with things they didn't invent is worth facepalming yourself for.
Me being banned from the board of General Electric for calling Edison the patent thief and charlatan that he was?
Considering I brought Edison up as an example of history, I'm not sure why you've chose to lecture us all on who did what....I already know! I purposely picked him out of a variety of other examples, but it doesn't change what we're taught, Edison the light bulb, Baird the TV, Bell the telephone, Marconi the radio. Edison made the first reliable light bulb that had commercial use, instead of the experimental things that didn't last longer than a candle just merely proved an experiment. Bell's claim is sketchy, and i suppose you'll discredit Marconi in favour of Heinrich Hertz. I'm sorry you find history so disappointing, like I said, it depends what you call an invention. The light bulb using your reasoning should be attributed to no-one, because the 3 components to make one, metal, glass, and an insulator were not all 'invented' by one person. I wish you well in your one man crusade in the long grass to re-write history.
That's the point, in the case of Edison, history has already been rewritten - in his favour. In reality Edison was a bigger crook than Roman Abramovich and Mark Zuckerberg combined...especially if you subscribe to the theory Edison had Louis Le Prince bumped off to steal his patent for the moving picture camera he was scheduled to exhibit in New York - and Le Prince's son, who testified against Edison for patent theft, died in suspicious circumstances in New York. But that's not the version taught in history classes for the last hundred years. As I pointed out, Edison spent a lot of money promoting himself as a great inventor so people believed him, because people tend to believe something if an expensive PR campaign tells them something - something that has convinced people that ****ehawks like Simon Cowell and Alan Sugar are anything more than ****ehawks, or that the Pirates of the Caribbean films are any good.
I think we're both educated enough to know the shysters in history, there's loads of famous ones who've had a piggy back on someone else's homework. Anyway, good banter as ever , shall we move on...till next time its quiet!
