Panama Canal

In Skypeland, two gentleman from the United Kingdom were talking to someone from Argentina. One of the Brits was shocked to discover that South America was a large area and even bigger than the UK by a large factor. He also asked about the name of the rainforrests in Argentina and talked about Macedonia being in South America. (Actually, I found out that there is a town in Brazil called Macedônia)

The Brit went on and on about how awful it was that Argentina was cutting down all its rain forests. (Although the Argentinian said Argentina had no rain forests, I was surprised to find out that in the far north of Argentina, there are some rain forests:
http://www.ecologyfund.com/registry/ecology/info_amazon.html
such as Yukatinga Nature Reserve and Iguazu National Park.)

I asked about the Malvinas/Falkland Islands. There was a bit of confusion when the two from the UK thought I was talking about the Maldives at first, or then Gibraltar. Finally I helped them understand that I was asking about the Falkland Islands. I told them that the US had given support to the UK forces with various military aircraft and they expressed doubts that this could be true. There was some discussion about the US ignoring the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance and helping the UK instead, and damaging its image as a result. One of the Brits was sure that this was the same as NATO and asked about it several times and had to be repeatedly corrected. The man from Argentina that there is no resentment towards the UK for the Falklands War, but there is plenty of resentment towards the US for supporting dictators in South America. I agreed that the US had not always covered itself with glory in Latin America, in places such as Chile. The two guys from the UK said that Panama was far worse, since about 25 years ago the Americans had slaughtered tens of thousands of Panamanians and flattened towns in Panama, making an exclusion zone around the canal, and selling the land which they did not even own. I said that this had to be associated with the building of the canal, and that the Americans built the Canal about 100 years ago. The two brits disagreed and said that the US had nothing to do with the Panama Canal and that it was the French that had built it.

Later they started to discuss the contributions of Argentina to world culture and the Argentinian mentioned some authors. Someone from Trinidad asked the Brits if they had read one particularly famous book. One of the Brits said, "if you ask me if I have read a book, 99.9998% of the time I will not have read it." The Brit asked about the standard of education in Argentina, and said that "the standard of education in Britain was supposed to be really high, but if you look to see what most teenagers leave school with, you have to wonder".

We started to talk about the Tuco Tuco, and the man from Trinidad said it was the second largest rodent in the world, and does not dig its own burrows. It uses the burrows created by a burrowing owl.


The Argentinian expressed surprise that the US had stopped the Argentinian condor missile program. He said that Argentinians had a lot of resentment about this. I pointed out that Argentina was doing it jointly with Egypt and Iraq, and therefore it was not a surprise that the program was stopped. The Brit said it was clear that it had some dirty Jews behind it.

I said that Argentina had a larger per capita GDP than the US 120 years ago. The Brit said that the US is clearly wealthier than other countries because they just print more money than other countries. The man from Trinidad disagreed since he said the US could not print more money than the amount of gold in Fort Knox. The Brit asked if the man from Argentina had ever come face to face with a Puma. They all agreed that Pumas lived in Argentina. The man from Trinidad said that Peron was a Nazi since he was part of the National Socialist Party in Argentina.


A discussion then ensued stating that the US had known the attack on Pearl Harbor was coming and that they had therefore sent all the aircraft carriers out to sea first. They claimed that the US had not left any ships of any importance in Pearl Harbor. The Israeli claimed that this was very well established and that there was no doubt about it.

The Argentinian asked what Americans thought of the lie to the world about the weapons of mass destruction, and that lie being used to justify the invasion of Iraq.

I asked about why the UN was evacuated. The Israeli started talking about how to make a dirty bomb and said it was easy to make. He said that the US had intelligence that a dirty bomb was going to be set off on the street outside the UN and therefore the UN was evacuated.

The Israeli said that the next terrorist attack will be using liquid gas ships since they had hijacked ships and learned to pilot them and then left them to continue. He said that clearly Al Qaeda planned to hijack a liquid gas ship and explode it in the New York harbor.

The Israeli said that a Texan had bought London Bridge and moved it to Texas. He said the Texan thought he was buying Tower Bridge and was fooled and bought London Bridge instead. There was a discussion of how noisy the new Millenium Bridge was because it vibrated when people walked on it. The Israeli said that the Romans were so long in Britain that the British did not learn anything from them, and should have known not to march over a bridge, but instead have just walked over the bridge.