OFF: Petition the PM!

[Jonathan Jarrett]

On Thu, Nov 16, 2006 at 04:40:35PM +0000, Amphetamine Embalmer typed out:

	<snip>

> define criminal.. they are people too, i am in jail but i'm not a criminal. There should be no
> prisons and no guns in Utopia...

	I have it on the authority of Messrs Brock and, ahem, `Steele', that Utopia will be pretty 
boring. At least there could be target shooting :-)

> Helloooo down there in England... swiss dave eats swiss cheese, Norway is not Switzerland... we eat
> Jarlsberg and brown goat's cheese with honey and jam up here in Norge. Norway had an empire as big
> as the English too so lets preserve european high culture and interests and set an example for USA,
> who should rather shoot politicians or themselves, not just criminals.. 

	Norway's empire was pretty big, if rather intermittent. What, Iceland, the Northern and 
Western Isles, Norway, sometimes Denmark, a bit of Sweden, yes? The Faroes too. It depends whether 
you count the Archbishopric of Trondheim, which contained a lot of territories belonging to other 
states and didn't necessarily answer to the will of the King of Norway. And of course, sometimes the 
King of Norway was imposed by the King of Denmark. It's all rather confusing for a few centuries 
there.

	I'm not sure all this adds up to quite the territorial extent of the British Empire but that 
was seven hundred years later and achieved after the invention of the steam-powered airship of 
course. Oh hang on, wrong reality :-) Yours,
					     Jon (campaigning for historical accuracy in off-the-cuff 
internet rantings since 1996 or so)

ObCD: Blue Oyster Cult - _Secret Treaties_
-- 
"When fortune wanes, of what assistance are quantities of elephants?"
	    (Juvaini, Afghan Muslim chronicler, c. 1206)
 Jon Jarrett, Fitzwilliam Museum, jjarrett at chiark.greenend.org.uk