USA certainly has it's issues. Not only globally but locally as well. Still however any entity that attacks innocent civilians to push their cause is chicken shit and any people that laugh at such a thing are beyond my capability to put into words. Laughing at the deaths of 3000 humans is just not moral or ethical. Shouldn't matter were they live or what they believe.

1) a happy balance between socialism and capitalism can be found. The major problem is corruption.

2) .... what about every other conflict that america has been in, say, in the last 50 years? im sure i dont need to reel off the HUGE list. Ditto to 2a, forget the gulf war did we?

3) Out of line? lol. Freedom of speech bud, get over it. I guarrantee if it was anywhere else, something would have happened faster.

4) Christchurch is totally insignificant in New Zealand. Thats like bombing Alaska.

5) Your partner…classic

you're a very sad man, well done, you made yourself look like an asshole AND a homophobe. Partner here means long time partner, and yeah, shes FEMALE. Its not my fault you're so Americanised that you dont know other peoples customs - hell, thats half your problem with other countries isnt it? 'i dont like what you're doing, so ****ing change it before I blow you up'. Cool.

7) its ****ing sad, and if you think thats 'acceptable' and the tshirt is 'bad' then you've obviously one of those that label anything in that ilk as 'unpatriotic! how dare they!' Priorities?

8) Where did i say all black people are poor? stop taking words and twisting them to your own intent.


10) Personally, i dont really care... we stood up for what we believed in, they crossed the line. They havent done anything since. If it was the US you'd have bombed the Effiel tower or something ridiculous.

JD - as i said, the loss of life was completely tragic. The sight of people jumping from the buildings is still in my head. The fact that noone saw it coming was like pearl harbour, 'noone would ever dare do that'. Its time for America to get its head out of its own ass and figure out what the rest of the world thinks of its political actions.

Dont bother replying lothar, im not going to reason with a homophobe who twists words to his own meanings.

I am not going to argue with that. Keep in mind however that the USA has 290 million people scattered across a huge continent. That is 290 million people that have various religions and beliefs and races. For the most part we don't get along with each other and spend most of our time just trying not to kill each other.

I live in a area that has a lot of white supremacists. They wish death to pretty much everyone that is not white no matter if they are a US citizen or not. You have cites like LA that have double the population of your entire country that have large populations of people from other countries like Mexico, Japan, Vietnam, China and so on. It is hard enough to just get people to get along from the diversity of the population let alone worry about foreign affairs.

The good part is for the most part the majority of the country is good people that can get along. There is a fair portion though that refuse to get along and many that are pig headed and stuck in their ways.

The US is a lot more complex country than many think it is. Hell I didn't understand it much myself until I started traveling the US. After 8 years of traveling and covering most of the country I am pretty amazed the USA is as strong as it is. It is really hard to deal with your own state let alone the country let alone the world.

well... I do have to say this is one amazingly complex thread hijack :)

Wow... Sometimes I can tell where a thread is going to go... this one has taken some turns that have baffled me :)

Yeah, website reviews seem a little less important after a political highjack. :D I tried stop posting my political views long ago after i stopped going to amdmb. Usually end up fighting with people I would otherwise get along with just fine. Internet has it ups and downs for sure.

Pre-rant: None of this is specifically directed at you Jaydee (ie i dont think any of this is your fault) so dont take it that way :) If i use 'your', its just because its easier in the context, just meaning 'USA'.

Agreed, BUT - what gives America the 'world police' rights? Heres a nice statistic for you -

"In a single day, U.S. cluster-munition attacks in Hilla on March 31 killed at least 33 civilians and injured 109. A hospital director in the southern Iraqi city told Human Rights Watch that cluster munitions caused 90 percent of the civilian injuries that his hospital treated during the war. Human Rights Watch obtained hospital records from Hilla, Najaf and Nasariya indicating 2,279 civilian casualties in March and April, including 678 dead and 1,601 injured."

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2003/12/12/iraq6582.htm

"A more conservative figure comes from Iraqbodycount.net, a British Web site that compiles media reports on Iraqi civilian deaths. Based on such reporting, the site says there have been a minimum of 12,778 civilian deaths in Iraq and a maximum of 14,820."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Sep21.html

12,000 civilian deaths Jaydee. TWELVE THOUSAND.

Kinda makes the world trade centre look pretty average in comparison, yeah? Makes a terrorist attack look almost justified, doesnt it? How is the US govt/army any different to terrorists, when the end result is worse than what the terrorists did?! In your own words, its 'chicken shit'. No two ways about it.

Then, you add in the damage done to MANY buildings, farmland, homes; the general occupication would destroy many things, along with trade (touched on in the other delphi thread). And thats just the gulf war man, what about korea? vietnam? the cold war? all the other conflicts? Id like to know specifically how many innocents the US has killed since WW2.... To be honest, im disgusted with the rest of the world (specifically the UK) for backing it as well. There must be some mighty fine money passing hands somewhere, and ill bet its stained by crude.

I dont pretend to understand all of the dynamics of the US, but one thing is clear to the rest of the world. Stop trying to clean up the rest of the world when theres just as much shit in your backyard that needs tending to. Drop 5% of the military budget, and I wonder how many people would be taken off the streets, I wonder how many people would be given health care so they can actually become functioning parts of society.

Not doing anything about these people is just passive genocide, in my opinion, and to have the GAUL to occupy other countries because 'what they're doing is wrong' when theres so much ****ing shit in their own country is just laughably hypocritical.

How does this relate to the thread topic? Censorship, Media and Statistics. If your average American thinks that their boys in uniform are all doing the right thing over there, but are unaware they they are killing many more innocents than terrorism does, but yet they cannot stand up against their govt and can be sued/questioned/investigated/whatever pretty much through the patriot act (that was a good act/bill to pass...) for insinuating anything against their govt, how is that so far removed from dictatorship?

'he said something against saddamn, cut off his head',
'he said something against bush - investigate him and his family, if you find anything, 'deal with him' or make him a media scapegoat...'

Seems that people are getting more and more afraid to speak their mind, and its sad. Censor everything, and eventually noone knows whats bullshit and whats not any more...

edited profusely for ease of reading

ps - sorry joe :D but realistically the root of this issue goes further than just law, its down to the complete function of the USA in all of its aspects, from FUD media mongering to global politics and the decisions made by the govt. Thankfully in NZ suing people hasnt gotten to the USA stage of things; 'you dropped hot coffee on me, i want a cool million, thanks!' - but evidentially its effected Aus (specifically OCAU) already :/

just a remark:

"we" keep asking,
money, goods, military involvement.
happily supplied, and with the know effects.
i'll take Clinton back any day of the week.

In Defense of the US -

Iraqi's Lived in terror of of torture,rape or death. Mass graves with over 200,000 dead have accounted for, Saddam gassed thousands of Kurds, murdered Shittes, had a prison for childern etc. Saddam had Video recorded torture for his own enjoyment.

Now for me the WMD is secondary, maybe just an excuse to go in and change things, it is not important.. The real MORAL issue is from a humane point of view is that if you are witness to such atrocities and have a capability and opportunity to stop it, what do you do? Get the UN to pass a #15 sanction/ resolution?

The US and others through diplomacy has tried for years to reform the middle east for the betterment of it 's people and nothing has gotten better only worse. Military action on the US part was a moral action, the middle east has some pretty nasty Social dynamics working against it and is at a tipping point and unless brought under control was likely to bring the whole region into chaos.

Now you have Syria out of Lebanon, The Isralies out of Gaza and Qaddafi renouncing terrorisim and abandoning his Nuke program and a Stalin (Bathists were socialists modeled after Hitler's Nazii party) wannabe Saddam removed from power, and a murding terrorist regime removed from Afganistan. Looks like a improvement in my book.

U.S. Meddling world police? What gives us the right? Because we can, because we have the ability, because we have the will. because we have the courage to stand alone and do what we see as right. It is called leadership and until somebody else steps up to the plate we will continue to do it our way. Too bad for those who dissagree they are welcome to challenge us at any time


Side note to Liberals. - Liberal repressive regimes killed 78 million people in the last hundred years. Hitler Mao, Mussolini, Saddam, Pol Pot, Peron, Batista all were leftitists. Almost all Military dictatorships are/were left wing and you would be hard pressed to find one that is conservative rightwing. If you see political repression mostly you will find a socialist at it's root.

As far as censorship, the forums are like the wild west, a kind of free for all. Resllers, manufacturers both pumping and bashing products. Sometimes an inept analysis or understanding of product application by indiduals causes angst. I could see where manufacturers would get rightfully upset, However I think it generally reaches a healthy equalibrium or gets sorted out in the wash.

Hmmm.... I just think that public display or use of the word "****ers" shouldn't be allowed in public. It's a nasty insult that should be termed libel but probably won't and is certainly not useful in polite discourse.

Not that the govt will listen to me or that many of you will agree.

Free speech should fully apply to and support the criticism of our government. However, invective and insults do nothing to change status and instead seem to further polarize and energize the negative emotions displayed by all parties involved.

In other words, just be polite! There is plenty of room to criticize policies and viewpoints. I fully support the calls for the impeachment and removal from office any public official deemed unworthy to hold their position. But, insults just shove the mud around.

So, was the airline justified in ejecting a passenger for being impolite? Sure. Free speech protects people from the GOVERNMENT and not from people that don't want to be around a rude individual. If someone can't stop from spewing profanity, I don't want them on the same plane as me.

keep in mind the word was not "****ers" but actually "Fockers"

as in "Meet the Fockers"

also note that it was a TITLE of a movie, and used in this movie numerous times...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0290002/

also rated PG-13

and about USA/World/Etc, id love to argue there, but i cant because i know little compared to any of the people posting here. (kind of like how im n00b with the watercooling)

Part of the problem is everyone expecing that they DESERVE for some reason that people will not offend or be polite all the time. I expect people to treat me truthfully... if I am a dick, call me a dick, if I offend you, tell me... I only get offended at when false accusations are made. And at that point its my problem that I am offended and its my responsibility to try and recify it. NOT the courts, and not the person who offended me.

I hate it when people seem to think they have a right some where to not ever be offended by words. Words are what you make of them. This is the same reason that those anti swear people are ****ing nuts. Because instead of swearing they change the words... to do what? Imply the SAME ****ing thing just with a different stucture of sound coming from your mouth?.

Its not whats said, its what the terms mean thats important. If someone is offending you with WORDS, walk away, walk out of ear shot. People have as much of a right to offend others, and others do to walk away. (or ask them to stop doing it.)

First, I don’t know if you are male, female, or your particular orientation. Actually, I have a very liberal view on social issues and I could care less who someone sleeps with or marries. In fact I think not allowing gays to marry is vary bigoted. And a simple equal protection issue under the US Constitution. I think it is classic that you used the term partner. I find what has happened to the English language over the last 10-15 to be comically Orwellian…do you not recognize that you have unwittingly self censored by the specific language you have chosen. How very sterile, non-specific and inoffensive.

That's actually the whole reason why this isn't a Free Speech issue, and why the airline was perfectly within it's rights to do what they did.

The other people on the plane couldn't walk away. (well, they could, but that first step's a big one) And the airline did ask her to stop doing it, and she refused.

If it were a public place, then yes, it would be protected political speech. But airplanes aren't public places, they're private property. If someone came into your home, or business, and starting doing something that offended you or your customers, and they refused to stop when asked, what would you do? You'd boot them to curb. And it'd be perfectly legal, just like this is.

It's actually an important civil liberty to be able to control what happens on your property. I'd be more worried if the government started telling me that I had to allow someone to come onto my property and offend me without recourse.



To get back to the website issue......

For a review site the possibility of being sued for a negative review is non-existent. A product review is a journalistic endeavor, even if done by an amateur, and as such is protected by freedom of the press. In order to sue successfully the manufacturer would have to prove libel. Libel requires not just printing something negative, but that the negative was both false and written with "actual malice" , ie either knowledge that it was false, or a disregard for whether it was true or false.

The simplist defense against libel is the truth, and so long as the opinions expressed in the review have some form of evidentiary backup - test results, photographs, etc - then there's no libel. Of course that doesn't protect all the sites who write reviews without test results. :rolleyes:


I could see the potential for forum postings being libelous, especially with the evidence of manufacturers using employees as trolls in forums to go out and trash other companies products. (Silenx anyone?) If a website knew that was going on and didn't try to stop it, then they could be legally accused of supporting it. There's a simple prevention for this though too, a single legalese line somewhere on the site that says something to the effect of, "Comments in forums are property of their posters." is protection enough. Most forums tuck that in with their blanket copyright notice somewhere.

No problem.


The UN is supposed to be the world police but they can't seem resolve anything. If we don't do something we get bashes if we don't do something we get bashed.... We are in a lose lose situation with the rest of the world. We are much like Microsoft. Big evil entity that everyone hates but can't live without.... :D

Did you fail to read the rest of that article. Saddam left in power would have killed 10 times that amount... At least those lost were not meant to be killed on purpose.

Umm, no. Not at all in fact. We don't target civilians.

Why just pick on the USA? The rest of the world is not any better man.The USA is not the only country that has ever been in a war eh?


5% Wouldn't do jack. You could take the entire military budget and still not cover 10% of the US population with health care. Also many people on the street choose to be there. There are plenty of jobs to be had, they choose not to have them. All the homeless I see are not standing in line at the unemployment office. They are standing in the street asking for charity. Everyone has the same opportunities in this country. That is why people from all over the world flock here.
There is plenty being done actually. There are dozens of government programs specifically for such people. Not sure why you don't know it being you seem to think you know everything else about the US? People do in fact get free health care here in the USA. The people that need it that is. Also our employers are required to offer it. I only pay $40 a month for health dental and vision for myself and my daughter.
Huh? You seem to have no idea what people think here. Not sure were the rest of the world gets their opinion of the USA but if it is from similar sources I can certainly understand why the world would hate the US people.

That is not the way it works here. People bash Bush all day long and they do not get investigated. :D Not sure were you form your opinions but they certainly are not on target with regards to how the US is run. Maybe all you guys hear is the things that get blown out of proportion and only happen once or twice. Maybe you guys fail to see the hundreds of thousands of protesters throughout our country speaking their mind against the Bush admin... The way the news works these days I would not be suprised. All they seem to focus on the the extremes of everything and always the negative.
That I will agree with but maybe for other reasons.
Just to be clear I do completely agree with you we should be taking care of our own better and should be focusing more on helping our own people. However the rest of the world constantly complains enough about how little we do for the world over all. Damned if we do damned if we don't....

Do I think we should have went to war in Iraq? Not really. I would have rather seen it stay political until Saddam gave up and let the UN get it's way or Saddam forced a card and started the war. Then again 100,000's of people would have been killed by Saddam on purpose as opposed to the 12,000-15,000 accidentally killed by us and the rest of the Coalition. Hell more people die of cigaretts everyday... Why dosn't the governments of the world do something about that and the 500,000 people a year that die from it and the 50,000 non smokers that that die from it a year? Oh yeah, tobacco products are a huge revenue source...

Anyway the USA sure isn't perfect on any level. However there is a reason people from all over the world flock her to live and stay here after they got here.

Just for a note this will be my last post on politics. I come here to get away from such subjects. :)

Sweet as Jaydee, i think we agree on most points. However, any innocents dying in my opinion is unacceptable, otherwise its 'the ends justifies the means' in my eyes. I think, as you do, that it should have been settled with the UN. I agree entirely with the cigarette issue, its blatent profiteering, much like oil is - its not like alternative forms of energy couldn't have been found earlier than now. There are points that i disagree with entirely, but i fail to see the point in arguing it, not going to end anywhere pretty.

Nice back out Lothar. Partner has a very valid use in this country, as theres pretty much two things you can call it - girlfriend or partner, if you're not married. I dont intend on getting married, and i think im just a little past having a 'girlfriend' when its 3 years plus... and hey, in our GOVERNMENTS EYES, shes CALLED a partner... you have a wife? you'd call her your wife, yes? whats the difference in censorship? oh, none? yeah. Theres no censorship in what im saying, its just the easiest thing to get across. I could say long time girlfriend, but hey, that sounds both A) like im 17 years old and B) its a bloody mouthful.

"In fact I think not allowing gays to marry is vary bigoted." Its legal in nz, but in a very... hrm, abstract way. I believe its not called marriage, rather Civil Union, but has all the recognition and benefit of being married, not sure what the status of it is in the US.

I thought the modern US variant of "partner" was "ho", or "bitch". Perhaps this is where the confusion lies, and is what Lothar meant when he said you were being too politically correct. Not even "girlfriend" would have really cut it. "F*ck-slut" or "knob polisher" may have been taking it too far though.

That was not a back out. I personally have suffered incidents of racial discrimination in my life and that experience makes me sensitive to all forms of bigotry.

Same sex marriage is a hot button issue right now. Our constitution establishes that all laws not covered by the constitution are at the discretion of individual states provided that they do not conflict with the constitution. Marriage is not mentioned in the constitution. Thus this issue is being hashed out by individual states. A few states have decided to allow civil unions but others have passed laws which defined marriage as only between the opposite sexes. Thus, it is creating some interesting legal challenges. For instance what is the status of a same sex couple who is married in New Hampshire and Moves to Texas? At some point our Supreme Court will have to sort this out.

Only among a certain age group, that are in a rebellious stage of their life.

hey hey hey, not all teenagers are slutty skanky hos... cause some of us *cough cough* are just, dare i say, mature. OK, maybe not "mature", but slightly less immature and stupid and lame and... </rant>
while i'm not surprised that this thread completely derailed to politics because of some basic first amendment rights stuff, THIS THREAD HAS BEEN TOTALLY DERAILED! ;)
the real problem with politics isn't capitalism, socialism, fascism, or any other ism. its just corruption. power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. no way around it.

Korea was a UN operation - in which New Zealand was also involved... (as they were in Vietnam, albiet on a tiny scale, which the UK somehow stayed out of...)
http://www.korean-war.com/newzealand.html

Yep, of which NZ had supporting role to the states. Also, the before mentioned govt who now wants to cosy up to bush + the US who MAY end up getting in power now (yay for politics) were in power at the time.

The UK was involved in getting the US to "help out" in Vietnam. They were just smart enough to keep their troops out of it.

Remember, the US was obsessed with the "domino" theory at this time. The popular belief was that countries would "fall" to communism one after another. The only way to stop the entire world from turning against us was to stop a link in the chain -- that link was Vietnam.

It was a bad idea. Very stupid. However most of the CIA's asian department and most of the state department's asain experts were fired after China went communist and none of them predicted it. So, the policies were made by people that knew nothing about the problem area (sound familiar *cough*)

hmm - do enlarge on this please.... as afaik UK involvement in Vietnam is limited to handing control back to the French in 1945, and persuading eisenhower not to use massive conventional bombing or tactical nukes to support the french besieged in Dien Bien Phu, then being part of the geneva accords that divided vietnam in 1954 following the french decision to withdraw....

IIRC Churchill came over to the US and made a personal plea to have the US backup the French specifically in support of the colonial powers. The US was not originally inclined to make the effort but he was one persuasive guy.

But, I'll be the first to admin that my last MilArt class was almost 8 years ago and my memory is a bit rusty.

Aside from having the scenario wrong the tactical nuke thing is completely overboard. The only time I ever recall the use of nukes being used was when UN forces were forced into tactical withdrawal buy Chinese troops in Korea.

BTW Ike was the one who came up with the term "Military Industrial Complex"
:shrug:
Your right as a matter of fact the term "Iron Curtain" and "domino effect" was dubbed by Churchill an avid anti-communist. Churchill was certainly right about the Iron Curtain and Ike was the one who came up with the term "Military Industrial Complex." The US was telling the Europeans they had to give autonomy to all of there colonies. This was a condition of the US bailing out Europe during WWII. The British honorably kept their agreement but the French did not. Thus the US was initially content to let the French fail in Vietnam.

I think it is easy to look back and Vietnam and say the domino effect was wrong in South East Asia, hindsight is 20/20. Further, I would argue that the Domino Effects limited effect in the region (Cambodia and Laos) was due more to geography and topography than a flaw in Churchill’s view on the spread of communism.

If the domino theory held water, wouldn't that have suggested that popular uprisings should occur in a region once one of the countries initially made the switch?

If so, when has that happened? I can see why they would think that -- look at how the previous era of revolutions swept the world (the US and France being the obvious major powers involved but there were a few more.) However, I think you'd expect Cuba to have kicked off something (go red-Haiti)

There is no empirical evidence that communism elicits a popular uprising. Both of the big examples (Russia and China) were military coups with a communist coverstory.

One of the basic tenents of communism is that it would spread by popular uprising. The "domino effect" was based on the theory that Lenin and Marx's ideas would actually work, ie that people "repressed" in one capitalist country would see the unbridled joy that communism brought to the "freed" people in a neighboring country, and revolt. The Domino Theory was flawed in that it gave communism too much credit: there's never been a country where the majority "asked" to become communist, it's always been forced upon them by an armed minority.

the "Domino Theory" I recall was that Communist states would promote revolution - most specifically in adjacent states
nothing to do with a 'popular' uprising, though such is the language of all pretenders

http://vicpeace.ca/centre/readings/nukeuse.htm#crisis5

"Iron curtain is indeed Churchill (from his Fulton, Missouri speach in 1946, when out of office) but the "domino theory" is stricly american (and not something the UK ever subscribed to...)

hmm - i doubt it as Truman began backing the French in 1950, when Churchill was still in opposition .....(after losing the "khaki" election in 1945 he didn't get back into power untill 1951 - with 4% less of the Vote than labour, but more seats...)

so though it could have been a personal request by him, it'd be like holding the USA to something that George Bush senior did during the first Clinton administration...

edited for clarity