Hmmm...Many people now think that Regan actually did a pretty good job overall.
He was still as dumb as a sack full of hammer handles, as I believe they say your side of the pond.
What annoys non-Americans about Regan (and particularly Bush Jr) is not so much how evil they were, but how fucking thick. I mean, I hate Margaret Thatcher, but I wouldn't say she was actually of below normal intelligence.
Once your home broadband gets to 1 or 2 Mbps, that's really all you need to access anything on the internet. No, you may not be able to stream live HD video or download movies in a couple of seconds instead of a couple of minutes, but who really cares?
Once I made the jump from dial up to whatever the basic braodband speed at the time was, I was happy.
But no doubt the large media organisations will keep developing content that requires their special 4 billion Gbps delivery system to enjoy fully.
It is that French fat actor who ignores everything wrong with Russia and accepts asylum from a COMMUNIST KGB agent to seek refuge from having to pay taxes
Whatever's wrong with Russia at the moment, it's certainly not that it's too communist.
Putin was a COMMUNIST KGB agent for the same reason he's now a motherland-loving friend of the Orthodox church. It's about power. Thirty years ago, being a KGB agent in the USSR was a much better idea than being a poet.
And what's the difference between two prisoners, say a North Korean (NK) political prisoner and a US marijuana user.
It's unlikely that the US marijuana user in prison will be tortured and his family killed, plus he'll probably be in for a few moonths rather than decades. But apart from that they're exactly the same.
I find the whole war on drugs thing stupid, and am no great lover of US foreign policy, but the US really isn't in the same league as North Korea.
This shows that they either have not thought this through, or they have no stance on human rights (i.e. they show they just want to download illegal stuff, not increase freedom of individuals).
Even more worryingly, they may actually believe that the freedom to download copyrighted material is more important than anything else, including freedom of political speech and the chance to live in a democracy and not starve or be beaten to death in a concentration camp.
Don't forget, a lot of comfortably off and relatively privileged Western citizens take these things for granted, and get disproportionately annoyed at the appalling burden of having to pay a few quid to watch a film. (First World Problems).
It is through their efforts that you can sit all nice and comfortable while making such asinine statements.
The Taliban and Saddam Hussein were no threat to me here in the UK or to anyone in the US before we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Dealing with terrorists like Osama bin Laden should be an international police matter, not an excuse to launch a ground invasion.
If there is a problem, it is with the civilian control (politicians) of the military.
Let me guess, the US could have "won" in Vietnam if only the politicians hadn't hamstrung the military?
But to conduct war under the rules of the Geneva convention is a far greater atrocity than to conduct total war -- at least when one commits to total war they're not deluding themselves into believing that they're behaving in an ethical manner
That is an extreme pacifist argument, but there are a lot more shades between the black of "total war with no rules" and "total pacifism with no fighting whatsoever".
I would rather live in a world where people like the Nazis can be tried and punished for war crimes. Clearly, this requires a reasonable amount of openness, so that the public can find out if, for instance, our soldiers are torturing civilians or whatever.
Assassinating Bin Laden leaves the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan AND gives them a martyr to use for recruiting.
That would make complete logical sense if bin Laden had (a) been in the Taliban and (b) been in charge of the Taliban/Afghanistan. Sadly for the real world application of your words, neither of those were true.
If you're capable of getting (or have) a masters degree why would you enlist as a grunt in the military? Surely you should be aiming to be an officer? Or are the US armed forces so charmingly democratic that everyone has to start at the bottom?
At the time we invaded Afghanistan, we wanted to get bin Laden, priority one, and we wanted to punish the Taliban for thumbing their noses at us.
The US wanted to punish someone, and decided the Taliban were an easier target than Saudi Arabia. If the Taliban had actually organised and carried out the 9/11 attacks that would have been an act of war which justified the US response. Unfortunately, the worst they could actually be accused of was harbouring bin Laden, which is a police or diplomatic matter, not a justification for a ground invasion as part of the "war on terror".
There are no "dictators". All governments are, this way or another, are dependent on the people they govern, so it's not possible to "dictate" someone's will to a population that completely and entirely opposes it. It'd a myth. Bullshit. One may argue how much any given form of the government allows or prevents some part of population to influence government.
Dictatorship generally means that a significant minority of the population suffer. The obvious examples would be Jews, Roma, Communists and gays in Nazi Germany. You're right that a single person can't control an entire country's population, they certainly need the help of a fair proportion of that country's population, but not necessarily a majority. If your security/spy/terror apparatus is sufficiently enmeshed in society, you can certainly be a dictator like Saddam Hussein or Gadaffi.
Completely correct, and it's why I own several "scary" guns. The fun part is there is no paperwork tying them to me. So if they decide to outlaw them, they just get hidden. "No officer, I never owned any military style firearms. here is my.22 varmint rifle.... Oh I can keep that? thanks..."
Unbelievably, I don't think you're being paranoid enough. Why would you announce something like that on the internet? Do you really think that your AC status is safe with slashdot?
Saddam Hussien might originally have been a puppet who became a real boy. But he kept sectarian violence down, and relative peace between the violent versions of Islam.
Yeah, and Mussolini got the trains running on time.
I suggest you take another look. Iran's democracy was gone before the counter-coup removed the tyrant Mosaddeq. After securing the power to rule by decree he illegally dissolved the parliament and tried to cover his tracks with a fraudulent vote. He then refused to comply with the check and balance of the Shaw being able to remove the Prime Minister, making his overthrow of both the legislature and the executive complete while he remained to rule by decree. You don't have democracy if the parliament is dissolved, never to meet again and the ruler has no check and balance against him, and his whim is law. You are badly confused if you think that is democracy.
You also don't have democracy when a non-elected "Shaw" is head of state and has any real power. The UK, Netherlands and so on may have non-elected royalty as head of state, but they're purely ceremonial figures. The "Shaw" was a puppet of the West, you just can't stand the fact that Mosaddeq was a left winger who didn't want Iran to be a fucking subsidiary of BP..
Why do you keep saying that the US supported Castro?
As it is completely contrary to the generally accepted idea that Castro fought against Battista who was a tool of the Mafia, US business interests and the CIA, you need to provide some form of evidence that the US ever supported a revolutionary Communist.
The Saudi Arabian government is a vile dictatorship whose policies are not far removed from the Taliban's. But it's a fucking rich one, so we all continue doing business with it.
I, for one, look forward to the day the west no longer depends on oil and doesn't have to cosy up to the Gulf states.
Not that I believe M.E. has better situation. I just think many western countries just have illusions of democracy.
Just because we don't have perfect freedom and democracy doesn't mean that western countries aren't significantly freeer and more democratic than almost anywhere in the Middle East.
Whatever your views on their imperfections, Israel and Turkey are vastly more democratic than Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran or any other country in the region.
If you're referring to Fidel Castro, I think you need to buy some new history books.
As a hint, after WW2, the US was not noted for encouraging Communist revolutions and revolutionaries. Noriega and Hussein were extreme right wing dictators, who were rather more popular with the CIA while it suited them.
Slashdot Mirror
very few have a checkbook anymore.
Congratulations, it is quite impressive to make a statement that is so accurate and so unhelpful. You must be an actuary.
Hmmm...Many people now think that Regan actually did a pretty good job overall.
He was still as dumb as a sack full of hammer handles, as I believe they say your side of the pond.
What annoys non-Americans about Regan (and particularly Bush Jr) is not so much how evil they were, but how fucking thick. I mean, I hate Margaret Thatcher, but I wouldn't say she was actually of below normal intelligence.
Once I made the jump from dial up to whatever the basic braodband speed at the time was, I was happy.
But no doubt the large media organisations will keep developing content that requires their special 4 billion Gbps delivery system to enjoy fully.
It is that French fat actor who ignores everything wrong with Russia and accepts asylum from a COMMUNIST KGB agent to seek refuge from having to pay taxes
Whatever's wrong with Russia at the moment, it's certainly not that it's too communist.
Putin was a COMMUNIST KGB agent for the same reason he's now a motherland-loving friend of the Orthodox church. It's about power. Thirty years ago, being a KGB agent in the USSR was a much better idea than being a poet.
And what's the difference between two prisoners, say a North Korean (NK) political prisoner and a US marijuana user.
It's unlikely that the US marijuana user in prison will be tortured and his family killed, plus he'll probably be in for a few moonths rather than decades. But apart from that they're exactly the same.
I find the whole war on drugs thing stupid, and am no great lover of US foreign policy, but the US really isn't in the same league as North Korea.
You are missing the point: this is a moral issue, not an economic one.
This shows that they either have not thought this through, or they have no stance on human rights (i.e. they show they just want to download illegal stuff, not increase freedom of individuals).
Even more worryingly, they may actually believe that the freedom to download copyrighted material is more important than anything else, including freedom of political speech and the chance to live in a democracy and not starve or be beaten to death in a concentration camp.
Don't forget, a lot of comfortably off and relatively privileged Western citizens take these things for granted, and get disproportionately annoyed at the appalling burden of having to pay a few quid to watch a film. (First World Problems).
Countries are all named ironically. For example, neither the USA nor the UK are particularly united.
Only non ironic country name is Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Name is Kazakhstan, is Nation and of course has many Glorious Culture.
UK banks are terrible when it comes to "there be dragons" parts of the world.
It serves you right for living somewhere foreign.
It is through their efforts that you can sit all nice and comfortable while making such asinine statements.
The Taliban and Saddam Hussein were no threat to me here in the UK or to anyone in the US before we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. Dealing with terrorists like Osama bin Laden should be an international police matter, not an excuse to launch a ground invasion.
If there is a problem, it is with the civilian control (politicians) of the military.
Let me guess, the US could have "won" in Vietnam if only the politicians hadn't hamstrung the military?
But to conduct war under the rules of the Geneva convention is a far greater atrocity than to conduct total war -- at least when one commits to total war they're not deluding themselves into believing that they're behaving in an ethical manner
That is an extreme pacifist argument, but there are a lot more shades between the black of "total war with no rules" and "total pacifism with no fighting whatsoever".
I would rather live in a world where people like the Nazis can be tried and punished for war crimes. Clearly, this requires a reasonable amount of openness, so that the public can find out if, for instance, our soldiers are torturing civilians or whatever.
Assassinating Bin Laden leaves the Taliban in charge of Afghanistan AND gives them a martyr to use for recruiting.
That would make complete logical sense if bin Laden had (a) been in the Taliban and (b) been in charge of the Taliban/Afghanistan. Sadly for the real world application of your words, neither of those were true.
If you're capable of getting (or have) a masters degree why would you enlist as a grunt in the military? Surely you should be aiming to be an officer? Or are the US armed forces so charmingly democratic that everyone has to start at the bottom?
Welcome to what war really is. If you think War is only army against army, you need to read real books on the subject.
So you're fine with people using poison gas or nukes on civilians? You don't believe that there are such things as war crimes?
At the time we invaded Afghanistan, we wanted to get bin Laden, priority one, and we wanted to punish the Taliban for thumbing their noses at us.
The US wanted to punish someone, and decided the Taliban were an easier target than Saudi Arabia. If the Taliban had actually organised and carried out the 9/11 attacks that would have been an act of war which justified the US response. Unfortunately, the worst they could actually be accused of was harbouring bin Laden, which is a police or diplomatic matter, not a justification for a ground invasion as part of the "war on terror".
There are no "dictators". All governments are, this way or another, are dependent on the people they govern, so it's not possible to "dictate" someone's will to a population that completely and entirely opposes it. It'd a myth. Bullshit. One may argue how much any given form of the government allows or prevents some part of population to influence government.
Dictatorship generally means that a significant minority of the population suffer. The obvious examples would be Jews, Roma, Communists and gays in Nazi Germany. You're right that a single person can't control an entire country's population, they certainly need the help of a fair proportion of that country's population, but not necessarily a majority. If your security/spy/terror apparatus is sufficiently enmeshed in society, you can certainly be a dictator like Saddam Hussein or Gadaffi.
Completely correct, and it's why I own several "scary" guns. The fun part is there is no paperwork tying them to me. So if they decide to outlaw them, they just get hidden. "No officer, I never owned any military style firearms. here is my .22 varmint rifle.... Oh I can keep that? thanks..."
Unbelievably, I don't think you're being paranoid enough. Why would you announce something like that on the internet? Do you really think that your AC status is safe with slashdot?
Saddam Hussien might originally have been a puppet who became a real boy. But he kept sectarian violence down, and relative peace between the violent versions of Islam.
Yeah, and Mussolini got the trains running on time.
I suggest you take another look. Iran's democracy was gone before the counter-coup removed the tyrant Mosaddeq. After securing the power to rule by decree he illegally dissolved the parliament and tried to cover his tracks with a fraudulent vote. He then refused to comply with the check and balance of the Shaw being able to remove the Prime Minister, making his overthrow of both the legislature and the executive complete while he remained to rule by decree. You don't have democracy if the parliament is dissolved, never to meet again and the ruler has no check and balance against him, and his whim is law. You are badly confused if you think that is democracy.
You also don't have democracy when a non-elected "Shaw" is head of state and has any real power. The UK, Netherlands and so on may have non-elected royalty as head of state, but they're purely ceremonial figures. The "Shaw" was a puppet of the West, you just can't stand the fact that Mosaddeq was a left winger who didn't want Iran to be a fucking subsidiary of BP..
As it is completely contrary to the generally accepted idea that Castro fought against Battista who was a tool of the Mafia, US business interests and the CIA, you need to provide some form of evidence that the US ever supported a revolutionary Communist.
When communists or socialists win an election, the US and its allies don't count it as truly democratic.
I, for one, look forward to the day the west no longer depends on oil and doesn't have to cosy up to the Gulf states.
Not that I believe M.E. has better situation. I just think many western countries just have illusions of democracy.
Just because we don't have perfect freedom and democracy doesn't mean that western countries aren't significantly freeer and more democratic than almost anywhere in the Middle East.
Whatever your views on their imperfections, Israel and Turkey are vastly more democratic than Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran or any other country in the region.
The US put in power or supported after in, Castro
If you're referring to Fidel Castro, I think you need to buy some new history books.
As a hint, after WW2, the US was not noted for encouraging Communist revolutions and revolutionaries. Noriega and Hussein were extreme right wing dictators, who were rather more popular with the CIA while it suited them.