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An Interesting exchange of words on a slashdot forum originally about verizon/at&t giving up their phone logs without warrants. This might seem a little off topic, but I just love it when someone gets put in their place when they have such a narrow view on things. I only extracted 3 posts from the whole exchange of words
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by turbofisk (602472)
Of course there is a lot of truth in this… France did have a lot of presence in Iraq and made a bundle, but the *people* are pissed about something else. Saying that the world is pissed out of envy and money is just pure bs. There is the whole spectrum your carelessly choose to ignore. How about invading a sovereign country, killing thousands of civilians and generally destabilizing the middle east even more while doing some cowboy shit about terrorists are behind every stone and thus any measure is ok. Generally you have polarized the world as well, either your with us or your against us. Saddam was a dictator and we can’t have that… All while supporting other countries who are run by dictatorship. Of the top of my head: Using capital punishment on your own citizens is a biggie. Degrading taliban and terrorists to Enemy combatant and thus denying them the rights of the Geneva Convention. No trials either. By doing this, imo you have let the terrorists destroy what you are trying to defend - freedom. And at the same time those who are whistleblowers get the sharp end of the stick for doing just that, ensuring that illegal stuff doesn’t pass. I’m from Sweden and there is a general resentment that just wasn’t there during the Clinton era.

by baldass_newb
“Just about every other nation looks at the U.S. in a bad light these days because we’re prudish, invasive, annoying, and hipocritical.”

Hate to break it to you, champ, but it’s been that ways since 1789. It ain’t going to change anytime soon.
We’ve liberated the French two times and they were selling Stinger missiles to Saddam during the arms embargo via the ‘oil-for-food’ program, promulgating the largest fraud in world history.
We cut off their cash cow…of course they’re pissed.

Same things happening with Russian and Iran.
You don’t think this hatred is idealogical or that these countries don’t spy on their own citizens, do you?
Or are you a naive libera…oh, nevermind.

by orzetto (545509)
We’ve liberated the French two times […]

No you didn’t. To begin with I do not think you (singular) served in both WWI and WWII, so stop bragging about “We”.

In WWI the US had hardly a modern army to speak of. The US entered the war late and did little. It may be debated whether they tipped the balance, but it is a fact that Germany and Austria-Hungary were already at the brink of collapse in 1917. And anyway, Germany in WWI was just any nation at war, no better or worse than the other ones. They had not even started the war (Austria-Hungary did), so what’s the point in talking of “liberation”? From what? In any case, the US sacrificed very little compared to the British, yet I don’t hear the British whine so much about the French being ungrateful.

In WWII, most of the work to win the war was done by the Soviets. On any reasonable scale (soldiers dead, enemy soldiers killed, land lost, land gained, overall number of dead, …), the Soviet Union sacrificed much more than the US, even counting in the Pacific theatre where only the US were active. The eastern front saw the two most bloody battles in human history at the same time (Leningrad and Stalingrad), each three times larger than the one in third place (battle of Wuhan). Had the US stayed out, France would have been liberated by the USSR instead of the USA, or it would simply have risen up and taken back sovereignty when Berlin would eventually have fallen to the Red Army.

So cut the “we saved the world”-crap. The reason the US emerged as a superpower after WWII was that they had gone through two world wars without a single enemy soldier on their terrain, and had entered only when the outcome was almost guaranteed. Just like Switzerland, the US found out that not having armies marching through your country is beneficial to the economy.

[…] the largest fraud in world history.

According to Transparency International, the most corrupt politician ever was Suharto, dictator of Indonesia. Do I have to tell you who installed the guy, let him carry genocidal policies including but not limited to the invasion of East Timor?

You don’t think this hatred is idealogical or that these countries don’t spy on their own citizens, do you?

I don’t “hate America”, I think people (Americans, French, Congolese, Tikopians) who refuse to hear criticism of their own country, stick by the motto “good or bad it’s my country”, or trust the government (any government) are stupid and a threat to democracy.

Billy

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The European Organization for Nuclear Research (French: Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire), commonly known as CERN, is the world’s largest particle physics laboratory, situated just northwest of Geneva on the border between France and Switzerland. The convention establishing CERN was signed on 29 September 1954. From the original 12 signatories of the CERN convention, membership has grown to the present 20 member states. Its main function is to provide the particle accelerators and other infrastructure needed for high-energy physics research. Numerous experiments have been constructed at CERN by international collaborations to make use of them. The main site at Meyrin also has a large computer centre containing very powerful data processing facilities primarily for experimental data analysis, and because of the need to make them available to researchers elsewhere, has historically been (and continues to be) a major wide area networking hub. CERN currently has approximately 2600 full-time employees. Some 7931 scientists and engineers (representing 500 universities and 80 nationalities), about half of the world’s particle physics community, work on experiments conducted at CERN. As an international facility, the CERN sites are not officially under Swiss or French jurisdiction, and some company vehicles have diplomatic number plates. (wikipedia)

Billy

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This video doesn’t really require a whole lot of description. Nice and short, but definitely motivational =P

Billy

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This is a neat demonstration of how centrifugal force can work to stabilize things in space…now just imagine this on a larger scale and what that might be useful for ;)

Billy

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I found these two videos and decided to post them together. Watch them in order to gain some perspective about where you live. After watching these videos I don’t want to hear anyone complain about how long it takes to get across the map in StarCon2

Billy

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I have decided that independence day is a dumb name for this holy and sacred day of capitalism.
No one celebrates the struggles of our forefathers to gain independence from the wacky blokes across the pond and their tea. No one remembers that congress secretly voted for independence from Great Britain on July 2nd (read: Lee Resolution), even John Adams felt that the 2nd was the true date of independence for the country that fuels our consumer whorisms. In a letter to his wife, John Adams wrote “The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.”
The vote for independence was simply made public on July 4th…But who cares! :D
We only worry about Food, Beer, and Fireworks…therefore i have decided to rename this commemorative event to Hot Dog Day. After all, a friend once said “You can’t get any more American than Hot Dogs” …even though they come from Germany…dating as far back as 1480…when the world was flat and the Americas hadn’t even been discovered yet. Yeah, know your history kids :P
Happy Hot Dog Day everyone :D

Billy

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just feelin this sucka out

Billy

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