A silly question

[Sarah Huntrods]

I've been thinking silly thoughts about history. If you could invent a time machine and go back in time, what historical figure would you like to kick square in the nuts?<P>I'd like to meet Ignatius Donnelly, the crackpot scholar that "invented" all the flakey theories about Atlantis...and also the bastard behind the whole Francis Bacon speculation about Shakespeare's work.
I'd like to kick him square in the nuts!<P>I'd also like to do the same to Nostradamus!<P>Anyone else have historical figures they'd like to give a swift kick in the balls?

[FatherTim]

The guy who wrote most of the Bible... 40 years after Christ died. I figure he's got to be responsible for the most pain and suffering cuased by a single person.<P><P>------------------
"I hope you don't screw like you type." - Angelina Jolie, <I>Hackers</I>

[Cannonshop]

Uh... Tim... You'd have to go back to about AD 400, and kick a whole raft of people in various places-the Bible is a comilation done by the Council of Nicea, under Empress Theodora in Constantinople. Before that, there were a wholo bunch of different "Gospels". It'd be easier just to take a tommy-gun with you and rake the room a couple times. This might not be such a bad idea-Editing by Comitee tends to result in material that is self-contradictory...
Personally, I think Woodrow Wilson could've been improved via a foot to the sweetspot, along with Karl Marx, friedrich Engels, Joe Stalin, Mao-Tse-Tung, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Vladimir Ilyanovich Lenin. The Crusades and witch-hunts were pretty bad, but-pound for pound, the "Religious Politics" of the 20th Century have been bloodier, and more horrible, with less justification (you can't say that university graduates were ignorant or uneducated, or acting on superstitious or tribal grounds) than anything that came before.
I mean, I doubt seriously that 40 Million people could have been involved in the Crusades, and that's just the Russian Purges of the early 1930's. Whats even sicker, is that there are people that will justify, even today, the actions of those men, and the works that they were inspired by.
There's just no contest...<P>------------------
<A HREF="http://galaxylegend.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>http://galaxylegend.keenspace.com</A> Darker, and more violent, guaranteed."

[Sarah Huntrods]

Basically I'm after anyone who's responsible for creating bad, infectious memes.
I'm not going to even touch the bible.<P>I was thinking of it like the way Black Adder in that Black Adder Back and Forth special kicked Shakespeare in the groin and then said "that is for Ken Brannah's four hour version of Hamlet!" I was just going for petty and satisfying revenge rather than a full out assault on history.<P>Donnelly is a particularly good target because he's a single twit responsible for a whole branch of suedo-science that just happens to annoy me. For one, I'm really sick of the "one world civilization" theory and figure that archeologists can better spend there time doing real research rather then trying to find evidence for Donnelly's crackpot theories. The guy's theories aren't even worth investigating. Seems most of them he just pulled out of his ass in the first place.

[Justinpie]

I'd also like to rochambeau that Francis Bacon supporter too, Sarah. Save me a nut.<P>Also:
GW Bush for all the stuff he's sweeping under the rug.<P>Jarry Falwell. Nuff said.<P>That Babylon 5 JMS guy for his work on Spider-Man (Cock up the storyline some more why doncha, jackass!)<P>------------------
<A HREF="http://killroyandtina.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>Killroy & Tina</A>

[Matt Bork]

hmm, maybe instead of the guy that made them famous....i'd go back further before he was born and get a good running start and kick his fathers nuts into oblivion. i think that would solve it.....mwahaha...um yeah

[ZOMBIE USER 866]

My choice would be Bill Gates. I can't think of another living soul who has been so successful in making millions of people learn to jump through unnecessary geek-lover OS hoops, while being convinced that it's the best way of doing things on a computer. Giving him a swift kick to the crotch would sure feel good to me! <P>Apple RULES! mwahahahaha!!!!<P>Kaichi Satake<P><a href="http://www.kyokipress.com/shadowfall/index.html"><img src="http://www.kyokipress.com/images/banner/sfgate200x40.gif" WIDTH=200 HEIGHT=40 BORDER=0></a>

[Cannonshop]

Oh, if that's the rules...
Lessee...
Frankie Valee, and the rest of the four seasons, the sick bastard who gene-spliced whatever to get N'Sync, in fact, howzabout kicking the whole Musical-Industrial complex in the nards? The !@##!$#(*&*~@#~!!!! who invented Top-40 Radio (all of them.), the guy who introduced John Lennon to Yoko Ono (thus breaking up the Beatles), the guy who gave Joe Cocker a break into singing, the guys who keep telling Eddie Vedder he sounds great solo-when he doesn't, and the @$$hole who came up with the idea of Televangelism.
As for the Political thing: If you're going to start kicking Presidents for keeping secrets, and sweeping shit under the rug, you'd best get started at the beginning-George Washington, because <I>All</I> of them do it...
Personally, I'd rather start kicking Journalism majors who want to "Change The World" rather than just "Reporting the News."
(there we go! the guy who invented Journalism as a College Course- it used to be a high-end blue-collar business, rather than something you had to go to college to do...) <P>------------------
<A HREF="http://galaxylegend.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>http://galaxylegend.keenspace.com</A> Darker, and more violent, guaranteed."

[Sarah Huntrods]

Hmm...lessee, there's a whole bunch of famous artists I'd like to kick in the balls,
Andy Warhol, Marcel Duchamps, Jackson Pollock...those are the big three, but the list goes on and on and on...

[Hunter]

<img src="http://demonicboppu.keenspace.com/images/hunt10.jpg"><P>How about hunting down and torturing the people who make DVD's so expensive?
::throws fit::<P>(Note from Sforzie: S/he's been watching <i>waaay</i> too much Slayers in the past week. --;; )

[Sarah Huntrods]

And CDs! The music industry is even worse!

[Matt Bork]

well, my choice wouldnt be a historical figure. id just go back in time and mule kick the guy that made nsync and the backstreet boys right in the crotch...i know even with the smack to the nards he'd probably still make those retards famous...but i'd just feel better =D

[Sarah Huntrods]

Heehee, that's generally the point.

[The Hammurabi]

Just off the top of my head,
-The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem during WW2; being an Arab in Palestine under the British, anti-Semitism was rather a natural fit, but who did he think was next after National Socialism and it's neurotic little leader finished the Jews? The kick in the cojones would be accompanied by a beating about the head with Mein Kampf.
-Neville Chamberlain and Ambassador Joseph P. Kennedy; another pair apparently blind to the Bavarian corporal and his band of psychopathic thugs.
-(If you aren't from BC, skip this)Bill Vander Zalm; first he sues an editorial cartoonist, then he gets caught making land deals in hotel rooms with paper bags full of money. What planet he is from has never been determined.
-John Diefenbaker and George Hees; for cancelling the Avro Arrow fighter plane in favour of American missiles that never worked and creating what was arguably the first high-tech brain drain to the States (NASA!).
-Pierre Trudeau and Paul Hellyer; amalgamating the three separate armed services into one "Armed Forces" and commencing the still-on-going emasculation of our national defense.
-whichever idiot started cutting money from the CBC (I like the radio services; I could care less about TV. Air Farce was *funny* when they were on the radio...).
-Myself; before I got involved with the chick that became my first wife. But I'm not bitter. Really.<P>I'm impressed with myself. That's not bad after a 15 hours on the road. Now, I must find some dinner before going to bed. I think there's some sushi in the fridge...

[Lazy]

I'd like to go back in time and kill that primordeal "EVE." Then the human race just wouldn't be. That'd make everything better. But, you know, maybe some one in the future did and killed the one that should have been the "EVE" and we came from the number 2 "EVE." That's probably why we are so messed up.<P>oh well...
<P>------------------
ROBOTS ! WITH THEIR OWN COMIC ! MAYHEM !!
<A HREF="http://lazyscomics.atp.cx/?a=6" TARGET=_blank>Sunday Morning Coffee's Robots Exposed</A>
and some other stuff too.

[Justinpie]

but if you kill Eve, then you'll never have been born to kill Eve, so Eve will live on and you'll be born, thus going off to kill Ever which will in turn prevent your birth and er, oh my...<P>------------------
<A HREF="http://killroyandtina.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>Killroy & Tina</A>

[Sarah Huntrods]

Wow, that's a weird thought! Eve 2, would that make the first Lilith then? Course I don't know if I'd consider Eve a historical figure...more mythological...(looks around hoping there's no rabid creationists in the room)<P>I wouldn't be out to prevent history myself. A kick in the balls to certain deserving historical figures for my own personal satisfaction is all I'm after, just to let them know what a terrible nuisance they've caused for future generations.<P>I'm specifically after people who were responsible for academic flakeyness.
Maybe I'll put Hunter S. Thompson on the list just for good measure.

[Cannonshop]

Heh,
Heh-heh,
heheheheheheheheheheheheh...<P>I'll be in the shed, working on a time machine...
<P>------------------
<A HREF="http://galaxylegend.keenspace.com" TARGET=_blank>http://galaxylegend.keenspace.com</A> Darker, and more violent, guaranteed."

[FatherTim]

First, take a couple of hours to read "The Man Who Folded Himself" by David Gerrold. It's the all-time ultimate time travel novel. I'd describe it further, but that would ruin the plot. Suffice it to say that after reading it you will never think of time travel the same way again.<P>
<P>------------------
"I hope you don't screw like you type." - Angelina Jolie, <I>Hackers</I>

[Sarah Huntrods]

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Cannonshop:
<B>I'll be in the shed, working on a time machine...</B><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Woohoo! Can I borrow it?<P>That is, if I can't get the time machine on Katlke's airship working...