Homer Simpsons the greatest american- what's wrong with Brits?

[Dis]

I put Hilary Clinton in there because my poll was lacking in women.

The British poll had no women in it. What have they got against women?

And Hilary Clinton is sometimes called the most powerful and one of the smartest women in america (not by me of course), so I included her.

[MikeH]

What's wrong with people taking this poll too seriously?

Oh and Dissident, if you could only think of Hillary Clinton and Marylin Munroe it's not surprising there weren't any women in our poll.

[Mr. President]

What's not wrong with Brits? Nah, I'm only kidding. My life's dream is to sit in the terraces at Old Trafford.

Oh and Dissident, if you could only think of Hillary Clinton and Marylin Munroe it's not surprising there weren't any women in our poll.

Dissident's just dumb.

He could have put Susan B. Anthony, or Helen Keller, or Rosa Parks, or Betsy Ross who made the flag, or Judy Garland. But he didn't.

[MikeH]

You can't sit in the terraces. Terraces were all standing bits of the... er... stands. Also, the Premiership grounds are all seater now so there are no terraces at Old Trafford anymore.

[MRT144]

Originally posted by Q Cubed
i think mrt meant feynman.

that i did...

[The Viceroy]

Who put the list together for the BBC poll, as it seems to be lacking some of the greatest Americans. I think if it wanted to be taken seriously, it should have stated that all entries MUST be real people ..

I voted for Franklin, although I wanted to vote for Edison .. I didn't realise he was Canadian though.

It doesn't suprise me that homer got so many votes, its the kind of thing students would vote for, and chain mails to get everybody to vote for .. swamping the result.

Have to remember, when the Greatest Brits was being ran, people actually voted for Diana ... so votes for Simpson, seem almost sensible in comparison.

[CerberusIV]

At the risk of pointing out the obvious, the reason brits are voting for Homer is that he matches their prejudices about americans. If I were an american I might wonder what this says about how my countrymen are perceived overseas but then if I were Homer Simpson I probably wouldn't notice or care.

[MikeH]

Nah, it's because he's funny.

The existence of The Simpsons proves that there are very funny, intelligent Americans out there who can mock the stereotype. The fact that it's a massively popular show proves that vast numbers of Americans get the joke and can laugh at it. So anyone who sees the Simpsons as evidence of a stupid America is like totally missing the point dude.

[JohnT]

Originally posted by Narz
Thomas Edison! How can you compare a politition or an activist to an inventor?

Because the activist and politician effects things only within their sphere of influence, while the inventor effects the world?

FDR, MLK, even George Washington, for all their accomplishments, didn't change the world anywhere near as much as the man who gave us:

Recorded music
Electric light
Motion pictures

and a 1,000 others.

[JohnT]

"I voted for Franklin, although I wanted to vote for Edison .. I didn't realise he was Canadian though."

Huh? His parents were of Canadian heritage, but Thomas is American...

"Thomas A. Edison's forebears lived in New Jersey until their loyalty to the British crown during the American Revolution drove them to Nova Scotia, Canada. From there, later generations relocated to Ontario and fought the Americans in the War of 1812. Edison's mother, Nancy Elliott, was originally from New York until her family moved to Vienna, Canada, where she met Sam Edison, Jr., whom she later married. When Sam became involved in an unsuccessful insurrection in Ontario in the 1830s, he was forced to flee to the United States and in 1839 they made their home in Milan, Ohio.

Thomas Alva Edison was born to Sam and Nancy on February 11, 1847, in Milan, Ohio. Known as "Al" in his youth, Edison was the youngest of seven children, four of whom survived to adulthood..."

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/edhtml/edbio.html

[Dis]

I was going to include Rosa Parks, but I wasn't sure if she was qualified. She may qualify as the bravest american, but greatest?- I'm not sure.

Standard PC response: where are the hispanics, asians, and disabled people on this list?

And I heard someone dissing Edison earlier. What's the deal with that? Did he do something wrong that I don't know about?

[JohnT]

No, it's just another "Tesla vs. Edison" gripe. Tesla gets one thing right in his career, Edison erroneously says "you're wrong", Tesla quits Edison labs and goes to work for George Westinghouse who then proved that Tesla's ideas were, in fact, superior to Edison's. Edison was quite the beyatch about it, and many people make the claim that he "destroyed" Tesla. The fact that the man was mentally unstable and drifted often into fantasy land has nothing to do with it, of course.

Or it could be a complaint about the worth of applied science vis-a-vis theoretical science.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by JohnT
No, it's just another "Tesla vs. Edison" gripe. Tesla gets one thing right in his career, Edison erroneously says "you're wrong", Tesla quits Edison labs and goes to work for George Westinghouse who then proved that Tesla's ideas were, in fact, superior to Edison's.

Was it about the towers in Red Alert?

[JohnT]

Never played Red Alert.

[Provost Harrison]

Wilbur.

And I am not voting, there is no option for Homer Simpson (my role model )

Originally posted by MRT144
everyone forgets fienman

who? do you mean Richard Feynman?
Great guy definetly
Greatest? I don't know...
Although it doesn't mean anything so why not him right...

[Dis]

Didn't one of them use direct current, and the other alternating current?

What's the big deal? What did Edison do specifically?

[JohnT]

Edison invented (I listed some of these above):

Motion pictures
Recorded music (plus the means to play it back)
Electric lights
Stock ticker
A bunch of inventions regarding batteries, including the nickel-alkaline battery, galvanic batteries, rechargable batteries, a battery powered by heat, voltaic batteries, alkaline batteries
Miner's safety lamps
The telephone dial tone (really! Patent# 203,017)
Paraffin paper
discovered the "Edison effect."

http://www.tomedison.org/invent.html

http://www.tomedison.org/patent.html

[JohnT]

Edison was DC, btw.

[Dis]

no I meant, what bad things did he do? He doesn't seem to get much respect for all he's done on this forum at least.

[JohnT]

Edison conducted a smear campaign against Tesla and the AC system, even going so far as to invent the AC electric chair. He also tried to eliminate the word "electrocute" from our language, rather saying that things got "Westinghoused."

Here's a site (done by a HS student) that does a pretty good job explaining the issue: http://www.leyada.jlm.k12.il/proj/edsntsla/hist1.htm

[Dis]

yeah I remembered the AC DC debate.

I guess it was a little more than a debate

And he did a good thing by using AC power for the electric chair. That is a far better way to kill a person. Although eliminating the word electrocute seems kind of dumb.

[gsmoove23]

What about Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser? I know compromise isn't very popular but if not for him the Union might have fallen apart long before the civil war. He definately deserves a place on the list.

As for Homer Simpson, just consider it a vote for Matt Groening.

Where's Jimmy Carter too?

[Dis]

Jimmy Carter?

well actually you have a point. The stuff he's done since his presidency is very commendable. He's a good man.

[Drogue]

You do a poll based on a BBC poll, yet don't include the option that one by a country mile Just because you don't think Homer should be, the fact that 47% of that poll voted for it means it should be included

[TCO]

washington. kicked Redcoat ass. With a little help from the Frogs.

[Dis]

Homer is not a real american person. 'nuff said

[Vince278]

These polls have the same fatal flaw: people confuse popularity with greatness. I see it as a Rorshach test for the way people think.
The Princess Diana was very popular around the world and a great humanitarian but when it comes to real greatness she is not in the same league as Queens Elizabeth I and Victoria. Even as a humanitarian it would be hard for man or woman to top Mother Teresa.
Of course, greatness and popularity is relative.

[Drogue]

I voted for FDR. Although FDRs new deal was genius, and got America out of a hell of a bad time.

I voted for Homer on that poll, not taking the piss. Partly because of the other characters, and partly because Homer is a great, down to earth guy. I would judge this not by their actions, but by who they are, what sort of person they are. Homer is a great guy. Yeh he's stupid, but he means well. I would rather have voted for Matt Groening, but Homer is a great man IMHO. That he is not a human doesn't matter. I just vote as if he is him.

[Vince278]

Originally posted by Dissident
Jimmy Carter?

well actually you have a point. The stuff he's done since his presidency is very commendable. He's a good man.

Are you kidding me. It was the only time in our history when people were swimming the Rio Grande in the other direction.