What have been the worst home handyman accidents you've had,or seen so far ?

[kfvorwerk]

I forgot it also prevents pregnancy. Karl

[Gunner]

You left out "by other means"

Is there some reason you wish to hide those figures?

Gunner

[John Rumm]

My favourite (favorite!) story came from someone I knew who used to be an instructor in the Royal Air Force. One job he quite enjoyed was when he was sent to one of the USAF bases over here to induct new service personnel into the pitfalls of our common language. His opening line was always "Is there anyone called Randy, in the room?". He said you could guarantee that a few hands would go up. His response of laughing out loud and saying "you poor s**ts!" always seemed to raised some indignation. He would then point out that the closest word in meaning they would be familiar with would be "horny". He said you could see a few faces drop as the implications sank in!

[Swingman]

A personal favorite was when my cute secretary at the aircraft factory where I worked in Heston, UK would say to me frequently: "knock me up".

-

Last update: 8/08/07 KarlC@ (the obvious)

[Kurt Ullman]

You have True Believer against True Believer. This may take awhile to sort out.

[Kurt Ullman]

Which of course brings up the immortal words of Claire Wolfe: "America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too early to shoot the bastards."-- Claire Wolfe

[Norminn]

I strongly disagree :o)

[Kurt Ullman]

Should I assume you are taking exception to the second part and not the first?? (g)

[willshak]

on 9/13/2007 8:36 AM Kurt Ullman said the following:

To quote Robin William's character, Presidential candidate Tom Dobbs, in "Man of the Year". "Politicians are a lot like diapers. They should be changed frequently, and for the same reasons."

UK - diapers = nappies

[clifto]

Careful. There were definite distinctions between any number of short hair styles. IIRC a buzz cut was shorter than a crewcut, which was shorter than a butch. The shortest of all was the baldy sour.

"Sh-Boom"

[Bob Eager]

And in the reverse sense (UK to US): "I'm dying for a fag"

[Just Wondering]

Count the postings to this thread. YOu'll find that even though OT it is generating more interest then anything else going on in this newsgroup right now. That's the First Amendment at work. Don't like it? Then exercise your own rights rather than try to suppress others, by just ignoring this thread.

William Noble wrote:

[Just Wondering]

Saddam Hussein was sitting in his office wondering who to invade next when his telephone rang.

"Hallo! Mr. Hussein," a heavily accented voice said. "This is Paddy down in County Cavan, Ireland. I am ringing to inform you that we are officially declaring war on you."

"Well, Paddy," Saddam replied, "This is indeed important news. Tell me, how big is your army?"

"At this moment in time," said Paddy after a moment's calculation, "there is meself, my cousin Sean, my next door neighbour Gerry, and the entire dominoes team from the pub -- that makes eight."

Saddam sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have one million men in my army waiting to move on my command."

"Begorra!" said Paddy, "I'll have to ring you back."

Sure enough, the next day Paddy rang back. "Right Mr. Hussein, the war is still on. We have managed to acquire some equipment."

"And what equipment would that be, Paddy?" Saddam asked.

"Well, we have two combine harvesters, a bulldozer and Murphy's tractor from the farm."

Once more Saddam sighed. "I must tell you, Paddy, that I have 16,000 tanks,

14,000 armoured personnel carriers, and my army has increased to one and a half million since we last spoke."

"Really?" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back."

Paddy rang again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, the war is still on. We have managed to get ourselves airborne. We've modified Ted's ultra-light with a couple of rifles in the cockpit, and the bridge team has joined us as well."

Saddam was silent for a minute, then sighed. "I must tell you Paddy that I have

10,000 bombers, 20,000 MiG-19 attack planes, my military complex is surrounded by laser-guided surface-to-air missile sites, and since we last spoke, my army has increased to two million men."

"Faith and begorra!" said Paddy. "I'll have to ring you back."

Sure enough, Paddy called again the next day. "Right, Mr. Hussein, I am sorry to tell you that we have had to call off the war."

"I'm sorry to hear that," said Saddam. "Why the sudden change of heart?"

"Well," said Paddy, "We've all had a chat, and there's no way we can feed two million prisoners."

[SteveB]

Lets take if a step further. The one who should be tried is the government who allows such nutters to have guns.

Right?

I mean, it's the next logical step.

Steve

[J. Clarke]

If the government does in fact "allow such nutters to have guns".

[Morris Dovey]

J. Clarke wrote: | Morris Dovey wrote: || Robatoy wrote: ||| On Sep 12, 1:21 am, "Morris Dovey" wrote: ||| |||| My _preferred_ weapons are keyboard and ballot. ||| ||| I so wish I had a ballot. || || Y'know, I was thinking about that a while back. Not your (r's) || ballot || specifically, but the notion that citizens of a country aren't the || only stakeholders in choosing that country's leaders. || || It was just idle thinking, of course, because no one in any country || would be willing to give someone from another country a role in || choosing their country's leadership. Still, it's an interesting || thought - and I've wondered how things would play if the world || outside || the USA could elect one senator and one representative to our || legislature... | | Probably about like they play in Puerto Rico and like they played in | the Phillippines.

Quite possibly. Still, because of their far wider constituancy (assuming that the individuals /would/ actually attempt to represent their constituants), it'd be interesting to see if they could do other than vote "Nay" on all issues. :-)

||| That said, it does not render my views and my ability to express ||| them as impotent. ||| It's that 'forest-from-the-trees' thing, Morris. || || Absolutely true - that's the "keyboard' part of the arsenal. || Discourse || /can/ bring about change when well-chosen words are spoken/written || in || a suitable context. | | But only if the people with power to effect change see the words.

That's a given. Are you feeling ignored?

|| Well, in a manner of speaking, we're all trees in the forest - even || though we'd each like to speak our own piece and be heard as || individuals. || || It's being worth listening to that's the real challenge. | | Getting heard is harder than being worth listening to.

I haven't found that to be the case - but I may have some advantage because of my location. I've been going to campaign "town hall" meetings and have a different view.

||| A lot of my peers were on loan to Iran to build their electrical ||| networks. They made a lot of friends. So many Iranians we'd love ||| to have as neighbours. What's with the war drums? || || Fear and a certain amount of bigotry. Fear that Iran will develop || nuclear weapons as powerful as those we have and fear that they'll || act irresponsibly. | | Several of nations have nuclear weapons as powerful as those we have | and are not a problem. I don't think that anyone in the US gives a | damn if the Brits or the French have nuclear weapons of any degree | of power. Iran though is run by Islamic fundamentalists, and while | the ones running Iran have not done so recently, Islamic fundies | seem to like to blow up anything they dislike and don't really seem | to give much of a damn who, including themselves, gets hurt in the | process. If it Iranians nuked a city somewhere and the whole | country got paved as a result they'd be acclaimed as gloriout | martyrs to the Jihad.

Posession of nukes imposes (IMO) a requirement for non-stop 100.000% responsible behavior of which I see little evidence in any human society - YMMV.

_Radical_ fundamentalists of _any_ persuasion are so labeled, at least in part, because they deny cultural and social norms - and so their ability to act responsibly in a wider context is diminished.

A world in which we have jihad, crusade, purge, ethnic cleansing, etc. as operative concepts is not a good place in which to even store nukes.

| That's why Iran having nuclear weapons is a bad thing. In fact | Pakistan having them is a bit scary--the current regime there seems | to be reasonable, but it doesn't even have the whole country under | control--there are places in Pakistan that the cops don't go | without a military escort, and there have been attempts to | assassinate the current leader. If the fundies take over Pakistan | then it's quite possible that Very Bad Things will follow.

I agree. It's already /possible/ - but the probability would likely increase significantly.

|| I worked (and socialized) with some Irani immigrants in San Jose. I || was pleased to give 'em all the furniture I'd built for my || apartment when I returned to Iowa, and I'd be still more pleased || to have them living next door here. | | Every Japanese I've met has been a good guy. So has every German. | That doesn't mean that Pearl Harbor and the Holocaust didn't happen. | | It's not the man in the street that starts wars, it's the | government. In the late '30s and early '40s both countries had | rather nasty governments that didn't much care who got hurt while | they pursued their dreams of power and there was precious little | that the man in the street could do about it. A lot of good, | decent Japanese and Germans got killed either by or for those | governments. | | Do you really trust the Iranian government? You don't seem to trust | the US government and the US government is at least notionally | answerable to the populace, so why is the Iranian government more | trustworthy?

No, I don't - but neither do I have total confidence in /any/ government. I like to think that the US government - both as a whole and as a collection of elected/appointed/hired individuals - is more responsible, responsive, and answerable than most - but the news is filled with evidence of irresponsible and unwise behaviors. However good it is, it's not 100%.

|| In order to beat the war drums, it's necessary to /ignore/ the || value of individuals. I've concluded that "hawkishness" is || inversely proportional to the number of places from which one's || friends come and || inverse-squared with one's appreciation for cultures other than || one's own. | | So which would you rather? Some of those valuable individuals die | sooner while the Iranian government is prevented from obtaining | nuclear weapons that it doesn't need, or a lot more die later when | that government uses those weapons?

I'd rather you extended my range of choices. :-)

| Why is the Iranian government so Hell-bent on nuclear weapons | anyway? That money could be far better spent expanding the economy.

I don't /know/ why - but I'd guess that they're afraid and have convinced themselves that they can live less in fear if they can wave a bigger stick. I'd also guess that the primary sources of their fear are the USA and Israel.

I agree that the resources could be used much more productively.

||| Won't you add impeachement to you arsenal of keyboard and ballot? || || That's not really a solution to the problems we've created for || ourselves - for a number of reasons. For instance: How would you || feel || knowing the head of household next door had carelessly shot a || _friend_? | | What does this have to do with impeachment? And how often does that | particular scenario happen anyway? That's another statistic that | you people pull up at the drop of the hat without understanding | it--"shot someone you know" is not the same as "shot a friend".

Relatively seldom. I am not, by the way, "you people" any more than is John Clarke. It was not a group of people who wrote the article to which you responded. I'm making an effort to respond thoughtfully and honestly to you as an individual - and I'd appreciate if you make that same effort.

I maintain that a hunter is responsible for where his bullet/shot ends up - absolutely and without exception. If the trajectory cannot be known to be safe, the shot must not be fired. In my considered opinion Cheney demonstrated his inclination to act irresponsibly at a very fundamental level.

I not only would not hunt with the man - I would be loathe to allow him to trade control of his shotgun for control of our nuclear arsenal.

|| IMO, our stars never shone so brightly as when we focused our || efforts || on sharing our best with others in need - and they never dimmed so || rapidly as when our politicians changed their focus from 'help' to || 'control'. || || They _still_ don't have 24-hour electricity in Baghdad. | | And they aren't going to until the Iraqis quit blowing each other to | Kingdom Come. | | That's why the US is there right now, to try to keep the lid on | until the government is strong and stable enough to do so without | help. Now, I'm sure you're going to counter with the argument that | everything will be peachy-keen in Iraq if the US leaves. And you're | right, it will, if you define "peachy-keen" as "The Mahdi Army | overthrows the government, establishes a Shiite dominated Islamic | fundamentalist state, arrests and imprisons or executes anybody who | dissents, lines up all the troublemakers and lots of other innocents | who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and | shoots them, establishes a new secret police, and Moqtada Al-Sadr is | elected President for Life by a 110 percent majority".

No - I'm going to counter by reminding you that the US is there right now because our President declared Iraq to be a "clear and present danger" to the United States and directed his Secretary of Defense to send our military forces there to remove the weapons of mass destruction.

I understand that you're frustrated, as am I, but let's not lose sight of facts nor allow ourselves (or others) to duck responsibility for actions taken and not taken.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

[Owain]

It's certainly annoying if a neighbour knocks you up to bum a fag off you.

Owain

[Gunner]

IvanOleg, the young guy who runs the website. Rather good photographer, pro second amendment.

Russian immigre as I recall.

He of course does other stuff, chop it down to just the www and look at his other work

Gunner

[Gunner]

So it was the Spanish given smallpox infected blankets to the Indians and paying bounties on scalps?

By baptizing the lot of them, then setting them on fire.

Gunner

[Colin Wilson]

I see no reason to bother continuing with your feeble arguments - your murder rate is three times higher despite your attempts to say gun ownership prevents crime.