MonteZuma

Only in a mathematical sense. In terms of managing public perception, the war on terror and looking after the national interest, I think it is better that a tyrant be responsible for 100 deaths than someone proclaiming to be 'the good guy' be responsible for killing 99. Conflict can last much longer than one generation. Wars can be unwinable.

I don't think people blow themselves to bits because they don't like the playing field being levelled. I think the issue is considerably more complicated than that. An oversimplification. Of course there is right and wrong. But right and wrong are social constructs. What is right in one context may be wrong in another. There is no fast way to make Iraq a self-sufficient and peaceful beacon of democracy in the middle east. The problem isn't defeating Saddam. That was easy. The problem is overcoming ethnic and religious divisions.

Yeah. The popular US news services are basically infotainment providers. The pictures are spectacular and the correspondents are sexy, but it isn't balanced news. I only have free-to-air tv and radio, but I can watch or listen to news from BBC, NPR and PBS (US), DWTV and radio (Germany) and Radio Netherlands. ABC (Australia) is also very good. These all provide fairly balanced views and different perspectives. Probably all of the radio stations are available online. The news programs are usually available 24/7 via podcasts. There are heaps of opportunities to get balanced news coverage - if you care for it. One day internet TV and radio will be integrated into all tvs and radios. That will cause a revolution in news. At the moment though, I suspect most people prefer dramatised news from Fox, CNN, NBC, etc, etc.

Child: I go over to his house with a shotgun and blow his head off, saving his wife's life. Father: The shotgun blast accidentally killed one of the kids. Some of the kids hate you for killing their brother and start throwing rocks at you. Some of the kids are angry because even though their father hit their mother, their father always looked after them, so long as they didn't complain. Some of the kids are glad you killed their evil father, but the kids who liked their father start to beat up the kids that are thankful that you killed him. What do you do now son? Child: I stay and try to maintain order until all of the kids become friends again! I tell them that if the family behaves like my family we can all live in the same neighbourhood happily! Father: They keep fighting. Sometimes they throw big rocks at you and it hurts. Some of the kids die in the crossfire. Many of the kids want you to leave. They say that things were better before you came along. The house becomes very messy. Windows are broken and they have no money to fix them. Rats and !@#$%^&*roaches come inside. They see their house get worse and worse. They see themselves fighting with each other. They say it was simple before when they knew that their dad was bad and that even though their mother got hurt, at least they had food and the house didn't have broken windows, and rats and !@#$%^&*roaches everywhere. They didn't need to beg for anything from anyone. They hate you more than ever. Child: But I'm the good guy! Why do they hate me????

What I don't get is why people who had a problem with what spinsanity was saying didn't just ?ignore him?????????

Sometimes I think a dog chases its tail because it is fun.

In your opinion it is garbage. But I don't care about your opinion any more than you care about mine. If you don't like the pub chat, be proactive and turn it off. It isn't like your are gonna miss any vital information that will make or break your gaming experience.

Spin: The mock chat demonstrates your issue quite nicely. Your comments under point one are noted. I generally agree... My view is just a little less extreme. You know....Some of the best public chats I've ever had in subspace have been about politics or about other non-ss issues (like 'my country is better than yours'....or yo momma jokes....talk about computers...or d & ms about whatever, etc etc etc). It is enjoyable to sit in spec and have a live chat with ss buddies and foes. It is easy to ?ignore people or just concentrate on playing the game. I can't speak for mg because I haven't played there and didn't see what happened, but in my view, I think being too heavy handed about this kinda stuff is not good.

He was a fascist. A right-wing authoritarian. There is no need for you to make up your own plolitical doctrine, because it already has a name. The Nazi/negativeliberal stuff was enough to get me going anyway... Speak for yourself I believe what I say and would like to be believed. Well. Spins views are radical. I think mine are moderate. I am sympathetic to many liberal/left views and when I see an opportunity to defend 'the cause', I will chime in. The good thing about spin is that he is mixing things up. Things were a little too quiet here for a while.

I think liberals and conservatives can both be gullible.

It is fair to object to being given a label of nazi (or fascist), whether the label is intended to be interpreted literally or not. But the satire in spin's posts is obvious. The nazis were different in that they were evil people.Not all nazis were evil, but I agree that most, if not all, "had a twisted image of what the world should be like". Some were evil. They valued destruction and unhappinessNot true. Their propoganda films show that they valued order, beauty and perfection. They were essentially liberals who turned to evil and twisted every liberal ideal to be the opposite of what it normally means.The nazis were liberals? By definition, liberals value protection of civil liberties. Nazis did not. The nazis were fascists. It textbooks this was falsely labeled conservatism because textbook authors don't have a concept of good and evil...to them the opposite of liberalism is conservativism.I doubt that any text book would declare a nazi to be a conservative. By definition, conservatives oppose radical changes or reform. Nazis were neither conservatives or liberals. You think that this is 'evidence' that he was a liberal??? I think you need to do better than that. Despite the name, Hitler hated socialism. Hitler saw socialism as part of a Jewish conspiracy. That seems like proof enough that Hitler was not a liberal. Doesn't it? I think there are other reasons why liberals (and others) hate Bush. What if it doesn't? I don't think you can force a country to be democratic. Onbviously Bush isn't committing genocide, but that is not to say that oil is not a big part of his decision-making process. Strangely enough, the majority of Kurds are Sunnis, and these were the biggest supporters of the US. It just isn't that simple. He isn't censoring the media. He is using and manipulating the media. I could comment on the rest, but I think you know my views well enough. In short, I disagree.

Ail. I can see that you want to introduce rules that ensure the quality and sensibility of the forum, but I don't think you should. I disagree with most points you raise. Imo, people should be able to post pretty much anything they want about anybody or group they want. The 'rules' should be similar to what we see in most zones. No racials. No harr!@#$%^&*ment. No spamming. No totally gross or pornographic text or images. Basically the original rules were sufficient. To summarise my view: Chill.

It is moot, but fwiw, democracy isn't simply a case of 'majority rules'. The desire to protect the rights and respect the opinions of minorities is a tenet of most democracies, even if this sometimes occurs at the expense of the majority of citizens. That is another example of inductive reasoning gone wrong. Nazis come in different flavours. In any case, it seems to me that the nazi jibe is not intended to be literal. Soup nazis and grammar nazis don't commit genocide. Nazi is basically a metaphor of fascist.

Yeah. I've noticed that. It sucks.

I'm not normally a grammar nazi, but this is kinda funny. To me anyway I think you mean "'know it all' kids".

I think spin is kinda funny. http://www.ahajokes.com/cartoon/kickme.jpg

Yeah. I agree with SOS. Two people can be both right and wrong about the same thing at the same time. It is a matter of perspective.

Congress can't prevent a hurricane, but that can allocate funds for building infrastructure and setting up agencies responsible for avoiding and mitigating a hurricane's impacts. One of the roles of congress is to scrutinise government agencies to ensure that they meet the community's needs and expectations. If a government agency fails, responsibility ultimately falls back to government. There is some evidence that things weren't right. The wretched experience of the people in the stadium and the allegations of refugees being turned back into the city at gun point. Confusion over the allocation of emergency funds to individuals, the delay in getting buses into the city. Not to mention the apparently avoidable failure of the levees. And I would have thought that any evacuation plan would have provided buses to evacuate those without other means of transport BEFORE the hurricane hit. An evacuation order should apply to everybody. Some or all of these problems may have been unavoidable. I think it is important to find out if things could have been done better. I doubt that many people (outside of the Gulf Coast) are criticising the emergency services staff and volunteers on the ground. The blame is going to the government and the bureaucrats. But I agree that there can be (and usually is) excessive blaming after a catastrophe.

Yeah. But so many things the US does affects all of us. Also, probably 50% of the online english speaking community are north american. Me too. I'm probably a bit older than you, but yeah....I think its been like this since WW2 Perhaps this is because Estonia was closely aligned yo the only other superpower of the last 50 years - the Soviet Union. Perhaps in estonia....In some countries, the media and the community are very active in politics. Voting in Australia is compulsory and voter-turnout is about 97% The media is very critical of the federal and state governments. There are gaps in media coverage and critical analysis of the issues, but in general the coverage by the media and the interest in the whole community is good. But when it comes to world news, I think American news and views predominate...and yeah...its a shame. The unity in the EU seems to be boosting European influence. I think that is a good thing.

On the face of it, a one year ban seems harsh and unreasonable. Anyone that didn't want to listen could have ?ignored you. But what can you do? Maybe vent your political views her instead?

Actually it is quite political. It is about the organisation of government, national insfrastructure and resources. I agree. At this stage of the game it is too early to lay blame. So they should. The hurrican is an immediate crisis. The rest can wait. It actually isn't Tom, !@#$%^&* or Harry's job. To most people, it seemed to take much too long to start the evacuation and rescue process. It is reasonable to want to know if this really was the case and why. The government is not simply another part of the !@#$%^&*embly process. The government is responsible for the proper functioning of the entire system. If there is a system failure, it may well be because the government failed to design a system that works. Perhaps the infrastructure was inadequate? Perhaps more money should have gone to strengthening the levees? Perhaps the current structure and funding of the emergency services meant that disaster preparedness was inadequate?....ETC ETC ETC...In cases like this, government needs to take a look at itself and see if government needs to make changes....not any single department in isolation.

Yeah....more cycles would be better....but 4% ploss is high isn't it?

I agree w/ sever and raem. Do we need to respect Mugabe? How can we discuss terrorism without discussing religion sometimes? Fwiw, I don't think we need rules....just common sense.

They were using both. Reports say that he was shot with the Glock. No reports say he was shot with a MP5 http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22...1707743,00.html On Friday the officers involved in the shooting, from Scotland Yard’s SO19 firearms branch, were debriefed about the operation.... Their Glock automatic handguns were passed to Scotland Yard’s laboratory at Lambeth, South London. The scene of the shooting inside Stockwell Underground station was sealed off for scientists to take measurements and photographs