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ratings are only meaningful in comparision.

Utter rubbish; it is entirely possible to set absolute standards (and I seriously hope you aren't responsible for maintaining any potentially deadly machinery or critical infrastructure). Cherry-picking a worse example than the Smithsonian without acknowledging that other museums are far better is actually totally meaningless and irrelevant, unless you're deliberately trying to justify low intellectual standards by means of low intellectual standards.

We did not go to Iraq to "torture and kill civilians" -- it happened, but it was not the government's real intent.

Read what I wrote again: I never said we invaded Iraq specifically to kill civilians (a little shy on comprehension skills, I see), though that is the only really predictable consequence of war. What I did say is that whatever justification we have for killing and torturing civilians is an equal moral vacuum to the Japanese's reasoning. The only significant difference is scale; intent makes no difference to the victims, even if it salves your conscience.

But are you trying to convince me that those "extraordinary renditions" to countries like Uzbekistan, Syria and Egypt that are known to use torture were all unintentional, and Abu Grahib and the ongoing reports of torture by Iraqi police are a coincidence? That would have to be the most logistically complex and consistent series of accidents of all time; a cynic might say it looks more like covert policy.

Naive as it may or may not be, we really did (and do) want to make Iraq a democracy.

Mr Pot, meet Mr Kettle. It wasn't "about regime change", it was about those WMDs that were so ready to use that we couldn't wait for the UN to reach a resolution, remember? Except they didn't have WMDs after all (though we did find that mobile hydrogen plant) and the intelligence connecting Saddam with Al Qaeda or Nigerian uranium dealers turned out to be fabricated, and that's when it magically metamorphed into a campaign to spread democracy. This isn't saying Saddam was a nice guy (the ever so predictable hawk straw man), this is saying I'M FUCKING FURIOUS THAT MY GOVERNMENT LIED, as any rational person in a representative democracy should be whenever their government lies about something that has cost many, many lives and over $400,000,000,000 to date with no end in sight.

Listen to the samples in this SWF from 2004. Three years later has a single one of these quotes been proven accurate?

http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2004/anthr.shtml

So who is revising history now? If revisionism is good enough for you on current issues, its good enough for the Japanese view of history, end of argument, you lose.

Japan's real intent was to capture the lands and the natural resources (ore, coal, oil, rubber, lumber, etc.

And of course it's just a coincidence that an administration with close ties to the oil industry should choose to exploit the nation's grief and fear over a terrorist attack to invade a militarily impotent but oil rich country with no connection to terrorism at all, then put their select corporate buddies to work fixing the critical infrastructure. Nope, that's not even remotely suspicious, and anyone questioning the motives behind it all is an idiot because we're invariably the good guys, right? Or, just maybe, someone has the flag so far up their ass they can't see what's going on for all the stars.

In the six weeks of the course of Nanking Massacre alone, Japanese Army has killed above 100000 Chinese non-combatants. But yes, please, do continue comparing it with, what, 50 victims of American troops' deliberate murder or torture (not all of it of civilians even)

I will, if it helps reinforce my point that selective comparisons are entirely subjective and therefore completely useless, as well as being intellectually dishonest. Not clued in on irony either, are we?

A random search on Google found this amusing website:

http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2004/fngr1.shtml

"The Department of Homepage Security in cooperation with Microsoft, has developed a method to fingerprint people using their monitors."...

Silly, but amusing.

"if there was a "Star Wars: Death to Ewoks (and Jar Jar)", I'd buy it and play it frequently"

Guess you've never been here before

Warning, requires flash to work.

Does This answer your question?

Honestly, Flash kicks ass.

Nukes are the ultimate detterent. That is why we will see more countries than ever striving for them.

The world noticed that the USA attacked Iraq but not North Korea. What will your average 3rd world dictator make of this? Well, North Korea has nukes and rockets to at least reach Japan.

They will draw the perfect logic conclusion, that in order to not be at the mercy of the USA they will need nukes and intercontinental rockets.

This amongst other good reasons is why my government (Germany) and the French tried to tell the US administration (long standing allies after all) that this war at this point in time with that little international support is a really bad idea.

Now we can just hope for the best and pray that things will not develop like this

With the actual problem in Middle East (and possible consequences) maybe the next war will be really a Junkyard war.

Happily, the US government has indicated their interest in continuing the development of a continuous global war. Sources have even leaked a demo!

Flash demo of GULF WAR 2

Ok, it's obvious but I had to post it.

http://www.idleworm.com/nws/2002/11/iraq2.shtml

Idleworms has a fun game called Barney Minesweeper.

http://www.idleworm.com/games/gamesBarneyMinefield .htm

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