helenic: (warrior princess)
[personal profile] helenic

I am now pretty much moved into [livejournal.com profile] deliberateblank and [livejournal.com profile] elise's house, which is lovely, actually, and as yet accompanied by none of my usual moving-panic. John and I have just been watching a Sky One effort entitled 50 Worst Decisions of All Time. This largely focussed on business gaffs of the last decade; entertaining enough, but hardly worthy of the title. Like Richard Thompson's legendary cover album, The Best Songs of the Millennium, which reacted against the standard last-thirty-years DJ list of the same name by compiling an album of folk songs dating back to the 11th century, I found myself wondering: what were the 50 worst decisions of all time? Invading Poland? Land wars in Asia? Choosing Aphrodite over Hera or Athene? I am young and unversed in world history, and so I leave the judgement up to you.

You don't need to suggest the whole 50, obviously, but it seemed mean to limit your input to just one.

[Poll #457709]

Re: To <lj user="kungfuchaos">...

on 2005-03-19 11:25 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
:-)

but it got taken away! apparently we can only put one in! *looks mournful*

To kungfuchaos...

on 2005-03-19 11:27 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] isquiesque.livejournal.com
Loved your response. Can't say I entirely agree, as I've got a pretty good life, but it still made me smile.

(Sorry for the deletes, H! Stupid perfectionism and lj being temperamental...)

on 2005-03-19 11:27 pm (UTC)
Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
i put three in! but only one worked. my other two were:

  • Dragging our fishey asses out of the sea. Dolphins have way more fun, and don't ruin the planet either!
  • Failing that, any decision where some dude considered him/herself before other people.
  • Re: To <lj user="kungfuchaos">...

    on 2005-03-19 11:28 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] isquiesque.livejournal.com
    Yeah, polls are bad like that.

    on 2005-03-19 11:29 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] calnen.livejournal.com
    Rats, looks like you beat me to it on the HHGTG front :(

    on 2005-03-19 11:29 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] isquiesque.livejournal.com
    I would list up there the mass conversions made by Christian churches that destroyed countless civilizations, and basically any instance of ethnic cleansing/genocide.

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-19 11:29 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    oh man. lj deleting and subsequent rearrangement of comments *way* too complicated for currently under-influence-of-alcychol mind! but yay! life kicks ass! like loads! have a good night!

    on 2005-03-19 11:32 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    HH... what...? all my tired brain can come up with is Heigh-Ho, Got To Go. :-)

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-19 11:33 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] isquiesque.livejournal.com
    Hahaha!

    Well, I was hoping I'd deleted in time before anyone replied. Basically, the first delete was because it didn't parse the "lj user=" bit and left the nasty tag in the title. Then when I tried to redo it, I got errors, then the next time I successfully did it, it had remembered what I typed in the body but not the subject, so it made no sense. So I posted *another* time. Sigh.

    And I haven't had any alcohol. Perhaps that is the issue.

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-19 11:38 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] isquiesque.livejournal.com
    Also, hrm. I know most of your stuff lately is friends-locked... could I have libellum vouch for my worthiness and add you as a friend?

    And I'll stop spamming your journal with comments now, H....

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-19 11:41 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    you reckoned without my ninja reactions*! but it's ok, cos your icons are totally awesome! as is your username. i have been trying to pronounce it for some considerable minutes now. (iss-kee-esk?)

    *erm yeah cos all ninjas hang around on the internet at 2330 at night. yup. :-)

    on 2005-03-19 11:41 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] maga-dogg.livejournal.com
    Also, "Y'know what? Let's get rid of our foppish court society in which sending a courtesan a dreadfully witty poem is considered the peak of manliness, and replace it with a psychotic martial ethos under which it's considered the peak of manliness to violently kill a friend for the unspeakable dishonour of giving you advice on which move to play in a chess game, and then die from the wounds inflicted in the fight! With any luck, the cultural backwash from this will eventually get us repeatedly nuked!"

    Also, "That crackpot's corrupting our wonderful society. Let's kill him so that his otherwise unremarkable wafflings can be enshrined in a gigantic martyr-myth by his acolytes! ...um, when did you say the embassy was getting back from Delos again?"

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-19 11:43 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    by all means! and then you'll be free to read all two entries i've written since last June! :-) i'm more of an occasional pop-my-head-up-and-say-hi LJ person.

    (hi!) :-D

    on 2005-03-19 11:54 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] calnen.livejournal.com
    sorry, hitchhikers guide to the galaxy?

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 12:47 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] maga-dogg.livejournal.com
    Close enough. Iss-kwee-esk.

    Re: To <lj user="kungfuchaos">...

    on 2005-03-20 02:05 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    well the maximum text box size is 255 characters. sorry :( I should've put more in!

    Also: Jacqueline, Iain. Iain, Jacqueline.

    oh, and Iain, apparently several chicks at the Calling thought you were hot :)

    Re: To <lj user="kungfuchaos">...

    on 2005-03-20 02:06 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    yeah; I was intending you to put it all in one entry, but they don't make the boxes big enough. darn it.

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 02:07 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    no problem! although slightly odd to be called "H" by someone else :) for years its been the sole prerogative of [livejournal.com profile] verte and [livejournal.com profile] z_e_r_o...

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 02:08 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    you should write more LJ. *nod*

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 02:09 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    You need alcohol FAST, chica.

    Although not homemade elderberry liqueur that's so soporific it appears to contain horse tranquillisers. I really should stay away from that stuff. *passes out*

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 02:11 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    I frequently covet [livejournal.com profile] isquiesque's icons. And the username is easier once you twig that it's an adjective ... took me a while.

    Iain, have you seen an anime called Spirited Away? Because if not you need to right now.

    on 2005-03-20 02:12 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    My ass isn't fishy. Growl.

    but erm, yes, seconded. Although I can think of exceptions to the latter, in that sometimes it's necessary...

    on 2005-03-20 02:13 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    tsk, call yourself a geek? *g*

    on 2005-03-20 02:14 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    isn't the humans-out-of-the-sea theme Dirk Gentley, not HHGTTG?

    on 2005-03-20 02:16 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    was that last clause inserted entirely so that people wouldn't think you meant Jesus?

    on 2005-03-20 02:19 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] maga-dogg.livejournal.com
    It was intended so that people would think I did mean Jesus, and then go 'oh, right'. I was making a funny. Though hardly an original comparison.

    on 2005-03-20 02:26 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] libellum.livejournal.com
    well, some people reckon Luke was making it, so, yes :)

    on 2005-03-20 10:27 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] deliberateblank.livejournal.com
    Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move, and that no one should ever have left the oceans.
    HHGTG, right in the prologue.

    Re: To <lj user="kungfuchaos">...

    on 2005-03-20 10:44 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    haha, awesome! there sure were some pretty girls there. :-) gonna be repeated next term, methinks.

    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 10:48 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    no! and now i don't have high-speed DC to reap the joys of anime! from ahem legal sources yup. managed to get Akira and Ghost in the Shell before i left though, score.

    i'll try and get hold of Spirited Away though. plymouth ain't good for much, but it sure has a lot of anime. :-)


    Re: To kungfuchaos...

    on 2005-03-20 10:50 am (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] kungfuchaos.livejournal.com
    woo! :-)

    (ahem) and... er... what does it mean? *does best not-linguistically-gifted-cos-i'm-a-science-student look* :-)

    on 2005-03-20 05:13 pm (UTC)
    Posted by [identity profile] smhwpf.livejournal.com
    Biblical; That Apple. "Let's make ourselves a nice, big Golden Calf!". "Cor, that Bathsheba chick's pretty hot." "My son's raped his sister? Well, he shouldn't, but hey, hot blooded youth n'all." "Yeah, my young advisors are right. What the people need is a good harsh crack of the whip to keep them in line! None of that namby-pamby 'listening to their grievances' that my old advisors are talking about" (Rehoboam). (OK, these could go on and on, so jumping forward...) "Barrabas!".

    Other: Invading Russia. (Napoleon/Hitler). Invading Sicily. (Athens). Killing all their competent generals for failing in a religious duty in the middle of a war. (Athens). Getting into that war in the first place. Not marching directly on Rome after Cannae (Hannibal). Offering battle to an invasion force with no prospect of reinforcements rather than waiting a day for the other half of your army to arrive. (Harold II of England). "Let's get in some Saxon mercenaries. They'll protect us from all these terrible Picts and Irish!" (Vortigern of Britain). Getting into WW1. (Everyone). The Treaty of Versailles. Not opposing Hitler's remilitarisation of the Rhineland. The Native Americans helping the Pilgrim Fathers survive the first winter.

    Guess that'll do for now.

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