What price Freedom in the USA

[Lord Orwell]

that's an unfair photo. I was hunting.

in a related ON-TOPIC post, check this out:
http://www.crunchgear.com/2011/04/19...chigan-police/

[Nightwalker83]

I just wish Americans could stop whining about gas prices.

I was watching the news and for a couple of minutes they stopped to whining about where the president was born. Obama choose to release his birth certificate so hopefully people will start whining about gas prices again.

[EntityX]

On the subject of the world's perception of the US I think the invasion of Iraq was a giant mistake in so many ways; no weapons of mass destruction ever found, did we really have to send giant salvos of cruise missiles to try to wipe out Hussein's living quarters, etc. etc. We made ourselves very unpopular in so many ways. The war has been so costly in so many ways in terms of money and human lives and is Iraq more stable now or was it more stable when Hussein was ruling.

I remember before the invasion happened there were politicians saying it is not our policy to assassinate any foreign leader but what were we doing at the start of the war. We were basically trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein using cruise missiles. Why not try to do so in the traditionaly way instead? It's less costly in terms of human lives lost and monetary cost and there's not so much collateral damage. I'm not saying I'm for assassinations but I'm saying that a typical assassination would be a lesser of evils in this case. If it succeeded then that would probably have destabilized Iraq as the war has so who knows what would happen. We could have just kept a very close eye on Hussein and if he ever started to misbehave like when he had Kuwait invaded then we could take action. The United States was the aggressor in the war on Iraq. That aggressive policy I think made us very unpopular in the eyes of the world. Pardon me for going off on another tangent.

[FunkyDexter]

Though I live in the US, I don't identify with traditional American values of "Screw everyone else" "I'm the best evar".

I think that's the real shame about it. Almost every American I've ever met has been an educated, erudite and thoroughly pleaseant. You're far too cheerful for your own good and seem to be infected with a wierd optimism that no Englishman will ever be able to relate to (for the record, the odds that a Brit is ever going to 'have a nice day' are practically nil) but those are hardly points to criticise. Unfortunately, recent history has changed the way your percieved, and probably unfairly. In the minds of Europeans you're now all the guy from Baja Yu's picture.

[Nightwalker83]

Though I live in the US, I don't identify with traditional American values of "Screw everyone else" "I'm the best evar".

Unfortunately, it seems a lot of the time the media attract and televise the worst of society.

[Shaggy Hiker]

[QUOTE=FunkyDexter;4001929 Almost every American I've ever met has been an educated, erudite and thoroughly pleaseant. [/QUOTE]

That big puddle between you and us does act as a marvelous filter.

However, most PEOPLE are generally nice and usually treat each other nicely...at least to begin with. Continued contact with any person will tend to expose the diffences which exist between any two people. Whether those differences can be ignored, or cause opposition, depends on lots of factors.

That only holds true for individuals. Groups work with dynamics that can be instantly repelant.

[BlindSniper]

lol talking about gas prices, about 10 years ago when I was 6 I could remember the gas price at R2 about 0.2 EUR. now it is at R9.50 About 0.97 UER, And about the Airport security: Here in south Africa it is non existent (at least it was before the world cup) I had a Knife on my belt with a 3 Inch blade And I went straight through security and I climbed on a Virgin Atlantic flight to London without anyone stopping me. I realized I had it on me when I sat and It was a cheap knife so I left it on the plane. lol

[Lord Orwell]

On the subject of the world's perception of the US I think the invasion of Iraq was a giant mistake in so many ways; no weapons of mass destruction ever found, did we really have to send giant salvos of cruise missiles to try to wipe out Hussein's living quarters, etc. etc. We made ourselves very unpopular in so many ways. The war has been so costly in so many ways in terms of money and human lives and is Iraq more stable now or was it more stable when Hussein was ruling.

I remember before the invasion happened there were politicians saying it is not our policy to assassinate any foreign leader but what were we doing at the start of the war. We were basically trying to assassinate Saddam Hussein using cruise missiles. Why not try to do so in the traditionaly way instead? It's less costly in terms of human lives lost and monetary cost and there's not so much collateral damage. I'm not saying I'm for assassinations but I'm saying that a typical assassination would be a lesser of evils in this case. If it succeeded then that would probably have destabilized Iraq as the war has so who knows what would happen. We could have just kept a very close eye on Hussein and if he ever started to misbehave like when he had Kuwait invaded then we could take action. The United States was the aggressor in the war on Iraq. That aggressive policy I think made us very unpopular in the eyes of the world. Pardon me for going off on another tangent.

the last time we sent bombers over Khadafi's country, it was to drop bombs on his house. He wasn't home. This was in the 80s i believe.

the US has a bad habit of picking sides based on oil. Can you see how differently the US has behaved to Egypt as compared to Libya? We butted out in Egypt's overthrow and were actually encouraging the Egyptian dictator (nevermind he was elected, we all know the truth) to do things a certain nice way. Khadafi is getting air strikes. The only difference in these countries is in how useful they are to the US.

[Shaggy Hiker]

Not exactly. The Egyptian dictator pretty much went belly up without a fight. Murmuring Giraffe (you'd have to know Damn You Auto Correct, which is the one site that, literally, literally makes me LOL, to get that reference) made all the prerequisite rambling, insane, speeches, but then he failed to follow through by rolling over.

[alexsipes]

... I'll just leave this here...

That's a pretty sweet four-wheeler.

[baja_yu]

I particularly like the bucket with what appears like toilet seat on it.

[Shaggy Hiker]

I particularly like the bucket with what appears like toilet seat on it.

Quite common, really. There are lots of places where the camping impact is so high that you have to carry out what you carry in, so those converted buckets (or at least the kits to make them) can be found in stores. I haven't seen that as much for camping, but nearly all whitewater rafting rivers in the west require all floaters to carry such a thing...so that they don't increase the number of floaters.

[Lord Orwell]

Quite common, really. There are lots of places where the camping impact is so high that you have to carry out what you carry in, so those converted buckets (or at least the kits to make them) can be found in stores. I haven't seen that as much for camping, but nearly all whitewater rafting rivers in the west require all floaters to carry such a thing...so that they don't increase the number of floaters.

that's nothing. Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cELtzlyi-eM