Can you imagine how much even 1/10th of that budget could do to help raise the standard of living?
Let's see, 1/10 of $15 billion. $1.5 billion. Divided among 300 megapeople. So, about $5 per head. Per year, of course. Assume that we only divide the money up among those people below the poverty line. That's 11.7% of the population, in case you weren't aware. So ~$45 per person, per year.
Given that the poverty line is defined at ~$9000 for a single person, that translates to a 1/2% improvement in their standard of living.
Doesn't look like it would do as much as convincing them to stop smoking would. And yes, it's still true that poor people smoke more than average (33% vs 22%).
I just can't see how this country can justify spending so much money ($11B!) on space programs, when so many of it's citizens are starving and dying in the streets.
I think the figure is $15B, actually.
And American citizens are starving? In what state? Or City, or whatever? Sure not anything I've seen mentioned on the news recently.
Dying in the streets I won't argue with (much). There are entirely too many auto accidents still, even after many years of declining mortality on the highways....
I think the SeaRay Amphibian might qualify as well, but I don't have the website offhand so I'm not sure. [just have to google I guess]
That's a very nice little plane. But it won't qualify. Just checked the specs, and it has retractable gear - which is a no-no for this new classification.
This is not a violation of your rights, since it has not, historically, been a right at all. Same-sex marriages have only been legal in Massachusetts for a couple of months, and, even then, is limited (under current MA law) to residents of Massachusetts.
Re:uh,, Black and White anyone?
on
Game with God
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· Score: 2, Informative
although any religion's purpose is to "convert the world."
Umm...no. Evangelical religions want to "convert the world". Others don't.
As an example, Judaism is not an evagelical religion. Generally, Jews have no interest in converting others, and, as I vaguely recall, make it moderately difficult to do so.
Christianity or Islam, on the other hand, are evangelical religions, and want to "convert the world". The extent to which any individual member tries to convert others to his/her beliefs is, of course, self-determined.
Buddhism is either evangelical or not, depending on the flavour of Buddhism. Some early Japanese variants were known to fight among themselves over details. Others, such as Zen Buddhism, don't bother trying to convert others.
Zoroastrianism isn't evangelical, so far as I know, but it's been 20 years since I even knew anyone who followed that religion, so my knowledge is fuzzy, at best. Ditto Hinduism. Ditto Shinto.
Most old religions are not especially (if at all) evangelical. The idea seems to have sprung from Jesus direction to Paul to be an Apostle to the Gentiles (all of us non-Jews, though the Mormons use the term differently).
I would like to think the Constitution will win, but I dunno
I hate to say this, but there doesn't seem to be a Constitutional issue with this proposed law. It might be struck down as vague or overly broad, but that could be dealt with by changing a few definitions in the proposed statute.
On the plus side, it will be essentially imnpossible to enforce, due to the international nature of the internet.
Let me get this straight, they're complaining about album sales going down forom 50 million per hit to 33 million
No, they're complaining that the Top Ten went down that much. If, Heaven forbid, people were to start listening to something other than the Top Ten, the Republic would be in jeopardy!
The Top Ten account for ~10% of music sales, reduced, according to them, to ~7%. Note that they didn't say that sales overall were down by that much. Come to that, they didn't say that sales overall were down at all.
I don't know of anyone who keeps their old tools around for use.
On the other hand, anyone here doubt that a 200-year old hammer would work just fine for anything a modern hammer is used for?
Or a wheelbarrow?
Or a drill?
Sure, modern tools are better (don't know what I'd do without my power tools - I'm lazy), but I've seen tools a century and a half old in the Home Place (Land Between the Lakes), and none of them were unusable, or unrecognizable.
Since Bush has been in power the Geneva convention is more or less void,
Yah, crashing airplanes into buildings is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. So is beheading hostages.
What happened at Abu Ghraib is also a violation, which was dealt with as prescribed in the Geneva Convention (the parties committing the violations were brought to trial)
Interestingly, I find that the USA never ratified Protocols I and II in 1977. Among other things, these expand the definitions of protected people somewhat. The lads we are fighting in Iraq now don't seem to be covered under Conventions 1-4, which we did sign/ratify.
I also find it interesting that the Palestinians are in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. Terrorism, hostage taking, using children in conflict, etc. The Israelis may also be in violation, but that is not so clear - there are some sections that are moderately vague, such as the sections defining the efforts required to justify attacks on places where civilians are (you can attack places civilians are present if they are of military significance (a bomb factory would count), but the exact limits of military significance are unstated)
Israel gets a "do whatever you like" card
Israel is a sovereign country. What do you expect should be done about it? Should we invade them? Bomb them into submission? Do all those things you disaprove of when done to other countries? Frankly, if the Palestinians would STOP FIGHTING, then Israel would immediately have to stop doing what they're doing, or find themselves clearly the BAD GUY. Then the Palestinians could do the sensible thing - pull out their lawyers, and start a blizzard of lawsuits in Israeli and International Courts. They could win that...
Your characterization of all of these things as "since Bush" is disingenuous, though. Most of these things were happening WAY before Bush came along. He's mostly continuing the trend of the last generation.
It is my opinion that that is what is happening. I do not necessarily approve or disapprove of what is happening.
Note that in the original, I said I did not approve or disapprove of "what I describe". I did not say I did not approve or disapprove of "what I believe".
As an example, I agree that killing is sometimes necessary, but by no means do I approve of killing. It is, at best, a necessary evil.
If you wish to allege that I said something, you ought to at least look at the words I used. You quote me above as saying "approve or disapprove", then immediately say that I said "agree or disagree".
Or do the words "approve" and "agree" mean something different in Australia?
Yah, it is my opinion that that is what is happening. I do not necessarily approve or disapprove of any of the things that I describe, though. I just describe them
For someone who claims to be a 'free thinker' you would make a perfect poster boy for American News events, your views seldomly differ from the crap they pump out
I claimed to be a "free thinker"? Interesting. I thought I had claimed that I wasn't telling you what I really think. Not at all the same thing.
Also interesting that you think that "American News events" (whatever they are) are similar to my own. Most newspapers I see disagree with me, most news programs do as well. They tend rather toward your point of view, rather than mine. Well, other than the "Bush is EVIL" thing. Only about a third of the news stories I see seem to believe he's EVIL! The rest are split between "foolish" and "misguided"....
This guy seems to be assuming that he will never be our of office. An unremovable microchip giving access to a crime database seems a bit out of place for a private citizen.
On the other hand, if *I* can get access to the Crime database at the price of being tracked everywhere, where do I sign up? I'm sure I can find a way to profit from such access.
No I'm just interested in fully understanding you the person im arguing with because to me it seems you have contradicting views, and have a hard time keeping your argument relative to your previous posts...
Ahh. I'm arguing with you. My own views seldom enter into this. I am describing events in history, and governmental policy as I understand them, not as I believe they should be. And sometime the latter isn't terribly consistent.
You'd probably be much more horrified if you knew my REAL views;)
So when your President says to the world that
he is fighting for "World Peace", and it's in the worlds interest for America to succeed, I guess too thats a lie. But hey he's lied about WMD and Al Queada so i guess its not really suprising is it...
Hmm, how you drew that conclusion from what I said would be a fascinating thing to learn.
And Thanks for proving my point that the majority of Americans( the ones which vote for G.W BUSH) clearly don't care for anyone else but yourselves...
The majority of Americans didn't vote for Bush. Not even a majority of those who voted voted for Bush. And where did you get the idea *I* voted for Bush?
So, tell me, do the majority of Australians spend much time thinking about world opinion? Do they worry that, say, Brazil might disapprove of what they do? Anyone care to bet that the majority of people EVERYWHERE are far more concerned with their own backyards than they are with the opinions of people half a world away? Having lived in Europe, visited the Middle East and Asia, I can't see any sign that the rest of the world is so enlightened as to believe that "world opinion" is all that terribly important in their daily lives. Or that "world opinion" even matters very much. Certainly, it isn't a topic for discussion at any pub I've ever seen, in America or out.
And WE the world should put all out faith in American keeping the peace, and being the superpower, your right that clearly makes a lot of sense. When they only care for there own interests.
Oh, my, no! You should spend some of your money to upgrade your militaries to a level comparable to ours, so that you, too, can be a superpower, and take care of your own interests. What? You can't afford that? Why the hell not? The USArmy is about three times the size of the Australian WW2 Army, and surely your GNP is at least three times the size it was in WW2.
Now, I admit, developing the industrial capacity to build your own tanks, missiles, artillery and what-not will be expensive. But if you want to be able to take care of yourself without US interference, it's really the only option. SO get to it. And keep me posted as to how it is coming along.
Oh, and don't forget your own space program. Satellite launch, at least. Can't really be much of a superpower if you buy your satellite launches from the Europeans....
The USA gets away with throwing its weight around because the rest of the world has been hiding behind the shield of the American military for a long time. Remember Bosnia? Where Europe couldn't talk itself into dealing with a strictly European problem without our support (which we had, and have, little interest in providing for trivia - yet we still have troops there, nine years later).
And of course we care for our own interests! Does the Australian government spend a lot of time and effort caring about Icelandic interests? Brazilian? American? Do you? I thought not.
The assumption that {any particular people} is more important than {my people}, no matter what names you put in those two slots, is pretty much untenable for humans. We're not genetically or culturally predisposed to care much about people we've never met, nor will ever meet. Everyone can look at the misery around them and be moved by it. Very few can read a description of misery suffered by someone two thousand miles away, and spend more than a moment or two feeling bad about it, before going on with their own lives as they always have.
*My* logic? You must think I work for the government or something...
That said, I suspect that the difference is that we WON in Iraq. Being magnanimous in victory is usually seen as a virtue. Rebuilding Vietnam would have looked entirely too much like we were paying reparations to Vietnam. This is usually seen as a bad thing.
Ultimately, however, it comes to this: it is in our interest to have a reasonably stable, democratic Iraq (not that we have one yet, nor are we especially likely to have one soon). So we rebuild there. It is irrelevant to us whether Vietnam is stable or democratic, therefore we ignore the place. When Vietnam becomes even moderately crucial to American interests, we'll do something about it - but don't hold your breath, since Vietnam is just slightly more important to America than Nepal is. And probably less important than Monaco is.
In the same way, the party in power in Australia is irrelevant to us, so we don't waste time and effort trying to prop up one wing or another of your local politics. Whichever of your parties is in power will have more or less reasonable attitudes (not likely that any of your parties will invade New Zealand, is it?;) ). Same with Mongolia, or any of a myriad (okay, probably ~100) of other countries - it makes no difference to us, so we don't worry about either helping or hindering them.
Keep in mind that we did not go to Vietnam through any high-minded principles. We were just opposing the Soviet Union. Once our own internal politics forced us to abandon South Vietnam, and opposing the USSR there became essentially impossible, the place returned to having its natural value to the American government - zero.
Interestingly, the USA is about the only country that I have ever read of that has spent much time and wealth rebuilding our former enemies. Most countries that defeat someone completely loot them, rather than rebuild, e.g. Great Britain and France after WW1.
Clearly from you lack of care for millions of deaths and lack of humanity speaks for it's self in your posts...
No, I don't care much about a few thousand deaths in a war. Millions disturb me rather more. But, as Stalin said "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic".
And you nicely proved my point of how i see the majority of Americans, And how allot of people in the world does..
Yeah, you see Americans just the way you think Americans see the rest of the world.
Your leaders even say you have lost credibility in the worlds eyes and that just an understatement...
Why should I give a rat's hind leg about what my "leaders" say? I don't believe them anymore than I believe anyone else's "leaders". Get over this fixation with "leaders", and lead yourself.
Take your biggest allay UK. polls before and after Iraq invasion showed that 80% of UK was against the war, Now after the EU election Labour has lost more then 200 seats and will most defiantly not get elected next year..
Since I care little about who is elected anywhere but where I vote, why should I care about that? Tell me, do you care about the next elections in Brazil? Thought not.
Look at all other EU polls and you will see the same. Over 25 million people world wide prosted your war.
You are still assuming I care whether anyone approves of any particular war or not. Or whether *I* approve of any particular war or not.
And polls in most country's show that the majority of the world see America as the threat to world peace, and G.W Bush the worlds biggest terrorist.
Yah, and we must all listen closely to the polls, right? After all, if the majority of the sample group disapprove of something, we wouldn't want to do anything so crass as to be individualistic enough to disagree with them.
Instead of playing on your patriotic bs.. why don't you stop thinking everyone else is wrong and im right.. maybe just maybe your wrong and everyone is else is right?
Perhaps they are. Takes more than numbers to make "right". So far, your arguments haven't convinced me of much. When you come up with some good ones, try again.
And while you may believe America invented the CPU and the Internet why don't you bother researching it, you may be surprised.
Whyever do you think I believe that? I do, however, believe, that almost all PCs today include CPUs developed in America by American companies. Hmm, let's see - 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium Pro, Pentium, Pentium 4, Celeron, Athlon, Duron. That list of CPUs (all American) should cover 95+% of all PCs. And it doesn't include IBM's CPUs. Do yourself the favour of looking at your own PC - find out whether it has an Intel, AMD, IBM, or some other CPU.
America may own most of the technology but it produces and invents very little...
Let's see. Transistors, IC's. Just to name two relevant to your computer. And, for that matter, to most modern technology. Or did you think Texas Instruments and Bell Labs were European?
Actually im Australian.
not like you even know where that is anyway
Do I get a hint of ad hominim attack there? How's the genocide against the Aborigines going? Have they given up on their demands for sovereignty? See, I can offer irrational and irrelevant arguments just as well as you can.
How does that have any relevance to the deaths due to torture? Or is torture in your eyes no worse then death from old age ?
I take it you can prove the deaths were from torture, and not from some other cause? If so, how?
Just 11,000 ?? Only 2,000 American's died in the twin towers Attack, And you claimed grim death on the middle east. Can't you relate issues ?
And just your shear shrug-off of 11,000 people's deaths really shows your humanity.
Yes, I can relate issues. Can you? 11000 people have probably died since my last post, worldwide. You speak as if it were a huge number of deaths, but it's not. 12,000,000 people died in the Nazi death camps. The Soviets lost anywhere from 30-50 million in WW2, China did in a few dozen million of its own people, the Cambodians killed 3,000,000 or so under Pol Pot. 11,000 is peanuts. Note, by the way, that I believe that the number killed in Iraq to be more than 11,000 - rolling up a few divisions of infantry should produce that many casualties, much less a whole war.
Just because your happy with it doesn't mean the world is, And no I'm not confusing it, your current government deny's the connection even existed.
Did you notice the part about "hiding among civilians and taking hostages" removing one from the protections of the Geneva Convention?
"After hearing pleas on the issue of punishment, jury head Colonel Clifford Ford pronounced Calley's sentence: "To be confined at hard labor for the length of your natural life; to be dismissed from the service; to forfeit all pay and allowances."
Sounds like prison to me....
Calley spent exactly 3 days in jail.
President "Tricky Dick" Nixon, feeling sympathy for a fellow criminal, ordered Calley removed from the stockade and placed in the more comfortable circumstance of house arrest. "
Alas, the President has the power to do that. Course, your tale leaves out the fact that he was under house arrest on a military base for several years (until late 1974). "Country Club" prisons are not uncommon in the USA, for so-called "white collar criminals". I don't particularly approve of it, but there it is.
He killed 102 civilians, And got house arrest.
He was convicted of killing 22. And got House Arrest. Pol Pot ordered the killing of 3000000. Stalin and Mao between them did in 40+ millions. I don't seem to recall reading about the outrage then.
And it was wildly reported that massurces like this was happening all over Vietname.
"Wildly" is likely correct. No evidence that it was actually happening, of course. Not even the Vietnamese wasted a lot of time claiming that.
If you bothered to research any of this and not just believe what you've been told you would know that They used it all over Vietname,
Yep. Jungles all over Vietnam.
Also America to this day wont put a dime to remove all the Barrels of the shit all over Vietname which is still causing deaths,including un-exploded cluster bombs that are scattered all over the fields of Vietname which they estimate to be in the millions.
Why should we? Just curious, because the notion we should clean up for our enemies strikes me as peculiar. Just as peculiar as the idea that they should not clean up their own country. And they obviously haven't, or people wouldn't still be having problems.
Here is some quotes from some of your government officials at the time.
Interesting that all three were from Democrat administrations...
Actually if you look closer you will notice a sticker with "Made in China" or "Made in Taiwain" Your country contributes very little to anything except Globalisation and fast food.
Intel. AMD. IBM. Most of them have plants outside the USA, but the CPUs in use in modern PCs were developed in the USA.
Again if you bothered to research history you would realize this to be false, America
Slashdot Mirror
China did this, once upon a time, a couple thousand years ago.
Well, they didn't outlaw them, they only restricted them to one knife per three(? eight, perhaps?) families.
The contract between Chrysler and AT&T (SCO was not a party to it, and neither was DC) did NOT specify a 30 day window for responses.
That particular idea came from SCO.
Ahh. Thank you! I had read the FAA site without bothering to go to the detailed description (14 CFR Section 1.1). You are quite correct.
Let's see, 1/10 of $15 billion. $1.5 billion. Divided among 300 megapeople. So, about $5 per head. Per year, of course. Assume that we only divide the money up among those people below the poverty line. That's 11.7% of the population, in case you weren't aware. So ~$45 per person, per year.
Given that the poverty line is defined at ~$9000 for a single person, that translates to a 1/2% improvement in their standard of living.
Doesn't look like it would do as much as convincing them to stop smoking would. And yes, it's still true that poor people smoke more than average (33% vs 22%).
(a) Cheer?
(b) Hope Microsoft wins?
(c) None of the above?
Personally, while I don't use Windows, I vote for (b).
I think the figure is $15B, actually.
And American citizens are starving? In what state? Or City, or whatever? Sure not anything I've seen mentioned on the news recently.
Dying in the streets I won't argue with (much). There are entirely too many auto accidents still, even after many years of declining mortality on the highways....
Is "certificated" the same as "certified"?
That's a very nice little plane. But it won't qualify. Just checked the specs, and it has retractable gear - which is a no-no for this new classification.
This is not a violation of your rights, since it has not, historically, been a right at all. Same-sex marriages have only been legal in Massachusetts for a couple of months, and, even then, is limited (under current MA law) to residents of Massachusetts.
Umm...no. Evangelical religions want to "convert the world". Others don't.
As an example, Judaism is not an evagelical religion. Generally, Jews have no interest in converting others, and, as I vaguely recall, make it moderately difficult to do so.
Christianity or Islam, on the other hand, are evangelical religions, and want to "convert the world". The extent to which any individual member tries to convert others to his/her beliefs is, of course, self-determined.
Buddhism is either evangelical or not, depending on the flavour of Buddhism. Some early Japanese variants were known to fight among themselves over details. Others, such as Zen Buddhism, don't bother trying to convert others.
Zoroastrianism isn't evangelical, so far as I know, but it's been 20 years since I even knew anyone who followed that religion, so my knowledge is fuzzy, at best. Ditto Hinduism. Ditto Shinto.
Most old religions are not especially (if at all) evangelical. The idea seems to have sprung from Jesus direction to Paul to be an Apostle to the Gentiles (all of us non-Jews, though the Mormons use the term differently).
I hate to say this, but there doesn't seem to be a Constitutional issue with this proposed law. It might be struck down as vague or overly broad, but that could be dealt with by changing a few definitions in the proposed statute.
On the plus side, it will be essentially imnpossible to enforce, due to the international nature of the internet.
No, they're complaining that the Top Ten went down that much. If, Heaven forbid, people were to start listening to something other than the Top Ten, the Republic would be in jeopardy!
The Top Ten account for ~10% of music sales, reduced, according to them, to ~7%. Note that they didn't say that sales overall were down by that much. Come to that, they didn't say that sales overall were down at all.
I don't know of anyone who keeps their old tools around for use.
On the other hand, anyone here doubt that a 200-year old hammer would work just fine for anything a modern hammer is used for?
Or a wheelbarrow?
Or a drill?
Sure, modern tools are better (don't know what I'd do without my power tools - I'm lazy), but I've seen tools a century and a half old in the Home Place (Land Between the Lakes), and none of them were unusable, or unrecognizable.
Since Bush has been in power the Geneva convention is more or less void,
Yah, crashing airplanes into buildings is a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. So is beheading hostages.
What happened at Abu Ghraib is also a violation, which was dealt with as prescribed in the Geneva Convention (the parties committing the violations were brought to trial)
Interestingly, I find that the USA never ratified Protocols I and II in 1977. Among other things, these expand the definitions of protected people somewhat. The lads we are fighting in Iraq now don't seem to be covered under Conventions 1-4, which we did sign/ratify.
I also find it interesting that the Palestinians are in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions. Terrorism, hostage taking, using children in conflict, etc. The Israelis may also be in violation, but that is not so clear - there are some sections that are moderately vague, such as the sections defining the efforts required to justify attacks on places where civilians are (you can attack places civilians are present if they are of military significance (a bomb factory would count), but the exact limits of military significance are unstated)
Israel gets a "do whatever you like" card
Israel is a sovereign country. What do you expect should be done about it? Should we invade them? Bomb them into submission? Do all those things you disaprove of when done to other countries? Frankly, if the Palestinians would STOP FIGHTING, then Israel would immediately have to stop doing what they're doing, or find themselves clearly the BAD GUY. Then the Palestinians could do the sensible thing - pull out their lawyers, and start a blizzard of lawsuits in Israeli and International Courts. They could win that...
Your characterization of all of these things as "since Bush" is disingenuous, though. Most of these things were happening WAY before Bush came along. He's mostly continuing the trend of the last generation.
Okay, so he was speaking to Monica when he said that....
It is my opinion that that is what is happening. I do not necessarily approve or disapprove of what is happening.
Note that in the original, I said I did not approve or disapprove of "what I describe". I did not say I did not approve or disapprove of "what I believe".
Approve != agree.
Disapprove !- disagree.
As an example, I agree that killing is sometimes necessary, but by no means do I approve of killing. It is, at best, a necessary evil.
If you wish to allege that I said something, you ought to at least look at the words I used. You quote me above as saying "approve or disapprove", then immediately say that I said "agree or disagree".
Or do the words "approve" and "agree" mean something different in Australia?
For someone who claims to be a 'free thinker' you would make a perfect poster boy for American News events, your views seldomly differ from the crap they pump out
I claimed to be a "free thinker"? Interesting. I thought I had claimed that I wasn't telling you what I really think. Not at all the same thing.
Also interesting that you think that "American News events" (whatever they are) are similar to my own. Most newspapers I see disagree with me, most news programs do as well. They tend rather toward your point of view, rather than mine. Well, other than the "Bush is EVIL" thing. Only about a third of the news stories I see seem to believe he's EVIL! The rest are split between "foolish" and "misguided"....
He's not a Senator - he's the Attorney General. Soon as El Presidente loses an election, there'll be a new AG.
On the other hand, if *I* can get access to the Crime database at the price of being tracked everywhere, where do I sign up? I'm sure I can find a way to profit from such access.
No I'm just interested in fully understanding you the person im arguing with because to me it seems you have contradicting views, and have a hard time keeping your argument relative to your previous posts...
Ahh. I'm arguing with you. My own views seldom enter into this. I am describing events in history, and governmental policy as I understand them, not as I believe they should be. And sometime the latter isn't terribly consistent.
You'd probably be much more horrified if you knew my REAL views ;)
So when your President says to the world that he is fighting for "World Peace", and it's in the worlds interest for America to succeed, I guess too thats a lie. But hey he's lied about WMD and Al Queada so i guess its not really suprising is it...
Hmm, how you drew that conclusion from what I said would be a fascinating thing to learn.
And Thanks for proving my point that the majority of Americans( the ones which vote for G.W BUSH) clearly don't care for anyone else but yourselves...
The majority of Americans didn't vote for Bush. Not even a majority of those who voted voted for Bush. And where did you get the idea *I* voted for Bush?
So, tell me, do the majority of Australians spend much time thinking about world opinion? Do they worry that, say, Brazil might disapprove of what they do? Anyone care to bet that the majority of people EVERYWHERE are far more concerned with their own backyards than they are with the opinions of people half a world away? Having lived in Europe, visited the Middle East and Asia, I can't see any sign that the rest of the world is so enlightened as to believe that "world opinion" is all that terribly important in their daily lives. Or that "world opinion" even matters very much. Certainly, it isn't a topic for discussion at any pub I've ever seen, in America or out.
And WE the world should put all out faith in American keeping the peace, and being the superpower, your right that clearly makes a lot of sense. When they only care for there own interests.
Oh, my, no! You should spend some of your money to upgrade your militaries to a level comparable to ours, so that you, too, can be a superpower, and take care of your own interests. What? You can't afford that? Why the hell not? The USArmy is about three times the size of the Australian WW2 Army, and surely your GNP is at least three times the size it was in WW2.
Now, I admit, developing the industrial capacity to build your own tanks, missiles, artillery and what-not will be expensive. But if you want to be able to take care of yourself without US interference, it's really the only option. SO get to it. And keep me posted as to how it is coming along.
Oh, and don't forget your own space program. Satellite launch, at least. Can't really be much of a superpower if you buy your satellite launches from the Europeans....
The USA gets away with throwing its weight around because the rest of the world has been hiding behind the shield of the American military for a long time. Remember Bosnia? Where Europe couldn't talk itself into dealing with a strictly European problem without our support (which we had, and have, little interest in providing for trivia - yet we still have troops there, nine years later).
And of course we care for our own interests! Does the Australian government spend a lot of time and effort caring about Icelandic interests? Brazilian? American? Do you? I thought not.
The assumption that {any particular people} is more important than {my people}, no matter what names you put in those two slots, is pretty much untenable for humans. We're not genetically or culturally predisposed to care much about people we've never met, nor will ever meet. Everyone can look at the misery around them and be moved by it. Very few can read a description of misery suffered by someone two thousand miles away, and spend more than a moment or two feeling bad about it, before going on with their own lives as they always have.
That said, I suspect that the difference is that we WON in Iraq. Being magnanimous in victory is usually seen as a virtue. Rebuilding Vietnam would have looked entirely too much like we were paying reparations to Vietnam. This is usually seen as a bad thing.
Ultimately, however, it comes to this: it is in our interest to have a reasonably stable, democratic Iraq (not that we have one yet, nor are we especially likely to have one soon). So we rebuild there. It is irrelevant to us whether Vietnam is stable or democratic, therefore we ignore the place. When Vietnam becomes even moderately crucial to American interests, we'll do something about it - but don't hold your breath, since Vietnam is just slightly more important to America than Nepal is. And probably less important than Monaco is.
In the same way, the party in power in Australia is irrelevant to us, so we don't waste time and effort trying to prop up one wing or another of your local politics. Whichever of your parties is in power will have more or less reasonable attitudes (not likely that any of your parties will invade New Zealand, is it? ;) ). Same with Mongolia, or any of a myriad (okay, probably ~100) of other countries - it makes no difference to us, so we don't worry about either helping or hindering them.
Keep in mind that we did not go to Vietnam through any high-minded principles. We were just opposing the Soviet Union. Once our own internal politics forced us to abandon South Vietnam, and opposing the USSR there became essentially impossible, the place returned to having its natural value to the American government - zero.
Interestingly, the USA is about the only country that I have ever read of that has spent much time and wealth rebuilding our former enemies. Most countries that defeat someone completely loot them, rather than rebuild, e.g. Great Britain and France after WW1.
Pfft. Didn't even notice the smiley. And you're right - sarcasm is hard to do online....
Clearly from you lack of care for millions of deaths and lack of humanity speaks for it's self in your posts...
No, I don't care much about a few thousand deaths in a war. Millions disturb me rather more. But, as Stalin said "one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic".
And you nicely proved my point of how i see the majority of Americans, And how allot of people in the world does..
Yeah, you see Americans just the way you think Americans see the rest of the world.
Your leaders even say you have lost credibility in the worlds eyes and that just an understatement...
Why should I give a rat's hind leg about what my "leaders" say? I don't believe them anymore than I believe anyone else's "leaders". Get over this fixation with "leaders", and lead yourself.
Take your biggest allay UK. polls before and after Iraq invasion showed that 80% of UK was against the war, Now after the EU election Labour has lost more then 200 seats and will most defiantly not get elected next year..
Since I care little about who is elected anywhere but where I vote, why should I care about that? Tell me, do you care about the next elections in Brazil? Thought not.
Look at all other EU polls and you will see the same. Over 25 million people world wide prosted your war.
You are still assuming I care whether anyone approves of any particular war or not. Or whether *I* approve of any particular war or not.
And polls in most country's show that the majority of the world see America as the threat to world peace, and G.W Bush the worlds biggest terrorist.
Yah, and we must all listen closely to the polls, right? After all, if the majority of the sample group disapprove of something, we wouldn't want to do anything so crass as to be individualistic enough to disagree with them.
Instead of playing on your patriotic bs.. why don't you stop thinking everyone else is wrong and im right.. maybe just maybe your wrong and everyone is else is right?
Perhaps they are. Takes more than numbers to make "right". So far, your arguments haven't convinced me of much. When you come up with some good ones, try again.
And while you may believe America invented the CPU and the Internet why don't you bother researching it, you may be surprised.
Whyever do you think I believe that? I do, however, believe, that almost all PCs today include CPUs developed in America by American companies. Hmm, let's see - 8088, 8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, Pentium Pro, Pentium, Pentium 4, Celeron, Athlon, Duron. That list of CPUs (all American) should cover 95+% of all PCs. And it doesn't include IBM's CPUs. Do yourself the favour of looking at your own PC - find out whether it has an Intel, AMD, IBM, or some other CPU.
America may own most of the technology but it produces and invents very little...
Let's see. Transistors, IC's. Just to name two relevant to your computer. And, for that matter, to most modern technology. Or did you think Texas Instruments and Bell Labs were European?
Actually im Australian. not like you even know where that is anyway
Do I get a hint of ad hominim attack there? How's the genocide against the Aborigines going? Have they given up on their demands for sovereignty? See, I can offer irrational and irrelevant arguments just as well as you can.
How does that have any relevance to the deaths due to torture? Or is torture in your eyes no worse then death from old age ?
I take it you can prove the deaths were from torture, and not from some other cause? If so, how?
Just 11,000 ?? Only 2,000 American's died in the twin towers Attack, And you claimed grim death on the middle east. Can't you relate issues ? And just your shear shrug-off of 11,000 people's deaths really shows your humanity.
Yes, I can relate issues. Can you? 11000 people have probably died since my last post, worldwide. You speak as if it were a huge number of deaths, but it's not. 12,000,000 people died in the Nazi death camps. The Soviets lost anywhere from 30-50 million in WW2, China did in a few dozen million of its own people, the Cambodians killed 3,000,000 or so under Pol Pot. 11,000 is peanuts. Note, by the way, that I believe that the number killed in Iraq to be more than 11,000 - rolling up a few divisions of infantry should produce that many casualties, much less a whole war.
Just because your happy with it doesn't mean the world is, And no I'm not confusing it, your current government deny's the connection even existed.
Did you notice the part about "hiding among civilians and taking hostages" removing one from the protections of the Geneva Convention?
"After hearing pleas on the issue of punishment, jury head Colonel Clifford Ford pronounced Calley's sentence: "To be confined at hard labor for the length of your natural life; to be dismissed from the service; to forfeit all pay and allowances."
Sounds like prison to me....
Calley spent exactly 3 days in jail. President "Tricky Dick" Nixon, feeling sympathy for a fellow criminal, ordered Calley removed from the stockade and placed in the more comfortable circumstance of house arrest. "
Alas, the President has the power to do that. Course, your tale leaves out the fact that he was under house arrest on a military base for several years (until late 1974). "Country Club" prisons are not uncommon in the USA, for so-called "white collar criminals". I don't particularly approve of it, but there it is.
He killed 102 civilians, And got house arrest.
He was convicted of killing 22. And got House Arrest. Pol Pot ordered the killing of 3000000. Stalin and Mao between them did in 40+ millions. I don't seem to recall reading about the outrage then.
And it was wildly reported that massurces like this was happening all over Vietname.
"Wildly" is likely correct. No evidence that it was actually happening, of course. Not even the Vietnamese wasted a lot of time claiming that.
If you bothered to research any of this and not just believe what you've been told you would know that They used it all over Vietname,
Yep. Jungles all over Vietnam.
Also America to this day wont put a dime to remove all the Barrels of the shit all over Vietname which is still causing deaths,including un-exploded cluster bombs that are scattered all over the fields of Vietname which they estimate to be in the millions.
Why should we? Just curious, because the notion we should clean up for our enemies strikes me as peculiar. Just as peculiar as the idea that they should not clean up their own country. And they obviously haven't, or people wouldn't still be having problems.
Here is some quotes from some of your government officials at the time.
Interesting that all three were from Democrat administrations...
Actually if you look closer you will notice a sticker with "Made in China" or "Made in Taiwain" Your country contributes very little to anything except Globalisation and fast food .
Intel. AMD. IBM. Most of them have plants outside the USA, but the CPUs in use in modern PCs were developed in the USA.
Again if you bothered to research history you would realize this to be false, America