Dare this is disingenous posting. Leaving aside from the fact that you work for MSN Spaces, and therefore are not exactly unbiased, this one writing of mine does not preclude that I haven't also written out against actions taken in this country--actually in defense of Microsoft's actions once in this regard.

Personally I think American corporations are responsible for many problems in this country -- including influencing our government's methods and relations with other countries. Even countries that are becoming bizarrely competitively oppressive.

I'm disappointed at this post.

Dare, I'm with Shelley on this one. A great post until the end when you cherry pick one writing by each blogger. For shame.

Thanks for the post. For a person from South Asia, I was not aware of the extent of this.

I believe both, this and against censorship for freedom articles by Chinese are needed.
And Brown people (even if it is a direct quote), avoidable. Moreso, if you notice, they are specifically targetting muslims.

Amit C

Posts like these are one of the reasons that this blog is on my daily reading list.

Cherry picking or not, the points brought up are both valid and are sadly not often heard due to pointless buzzing of most blogs inculding my own.

There is terrible injustice in the Justice System. Have not all of us experienced it at one time or another?

We are in a very serious time. There are people that want all Jews and Christians DEAD. They successfully killed 3000 +/- on our soil. There were others outside the country. We, finally, said "No More", and have been taking the usual government ineptness, however - The Final Result has been in maintaining our overall strength in persistence and positive outcome to keep our country in balance is working.

IT IS NOT WEAKNESS BUT STRENGTH - AND THE POWERS BEYOND US - THAT KEEP US IN BALANCE. (Washington has within, all of the ego maniacs and those struggling for power, so back to US - to separate the weeds from the flowers).

doug

So how would you improve this system?

I always see you liberals maoning and complaining but offering little in way of coming up with ways to solve problems.

Dare, the "perceived injustices" that Shelley and Scoble write about obviously have implications in "faraway lands," but they're writing about the actions of a company in their own country. They tend to write about tech topics and the tech business, and they're writing about the actions of a major player in the tech industry. A very, very, American player.

Great post. Thanks for speaking out on this.

Great post - sadly Dare what you describe is not uncommon. In fact recently in the UK we had stop and search laws which have since been repealed because 90% of the people stopped were non-white! In the last century they used to round up people they thought were witches and burn them at the stake or drown them not alot has changed ... they are just brown now!

Personally I am non-religious they are all as bad as each other - christian, jews, muslims, etc. All claim to be the only way and the right way to reach God and righteousness and yet they are all man-made methods dating back in time to control the mass population through fear (the term God-fearing christian comes to mind or the threat of Hell etc) whilst feathering the nest of the elite. i.e the Pope's not doing too badly sat in the the world's richest city.

Why where so many large churches, mosque's etc built when the average person was starving to death during the last two centuries? "Make poverty history" the church proclaims - well for starters sell the Vatican in fact all churches, synagogues, temples and mosques etc and have the proceeds go to needy causes like aid, water, food, education, shelter. That might actually help fix the problems facing the poor and hungry! Remove the trade barriers applied to the 3rd world and support "fair trade". And that's just for starters.

But lets be clear this is not a war on terror this is a war for oil and profits. The West is an economy built around oil - the problem is the Arabs have it all and the West wants it but only if it is cheap. Just imagine if the Arabs did not have the oil - guess what - they too would have been left to starve just like the Africans and only remembered when Bob Geldof decided to run another Live Aid concert.

So the Western governments like religions have created this fear factor around us to justify their actions in our names and less we forget they round up a few "boogey men" to remind us that their actions are "holy" justified.

But what we should not forget is the CIA created and trained Al-Queda to fight the Russians and as an ex-Army officer in the UK I used to train Iraqi soldiers in the late 80's to fight the Iranian's. Back then Saddam was our friend!

If it truly is about removing terrorist dictators and not oil then why are the Americans and Brits not in Zimbabwe (whites and blacks are being killed by Mugabee) or in North Korea - because they have no oil!

The expression is "you can fool some of the people some of the time but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time".

So what's the answer - Michio Kaku in his wonderful book Parallel Worlds describes a Level 1 planet in which the people have a common language, currency and government. Man-made National "classification" bounderies are no longer of importance. A black-man born in America today is classified as an American not an African just because he is black, just as a white-man born in India may choose to be classified as an Indian today. And in the future both will simply just be classified as a member of planet earth.

As for religion well it is becoming less important - note the drop in the level of church attendees - in the future the internet may provide the main socio-economic groupings people associate themselves with. I personally probably have more in common with geek bloggers than my non-technical neighbour or a Hindu in India. Federated Trust may well eventually enable me to choose who I wish to associate myself with.

Today my passport tells you I am British and my parents religion tells you I am Hindu but in the future people of a Level 1 planet and historians may look back on this national religious classification as old-fashioned quaintness and the sole reason why the world was at war with itself for so long!

Sam,

Be sure and tell the Iraqis that have gone "un-tortured", "un-raped" and "un-killed" because the United States removed a brutal murdering dictator that sponsored terrorists of your insane viewpoint.

http://lqblog.com

http://scoblewatch.blogspot.com/2006/01/human-rights-vs-vista-tablet-glass-3d.html

Dave,

But don't forget - the reason Iraq was invaded was to rid the world of his weapons of mass distruction - not because he was a brutal dictator. I've no problem with Saddam's removal, I've a big problem with being deceived, and then being forced to watch as the orginal story becomes unnews before my eyes.

Oh - and it wasn't the US - if I remember correctly, there was some sort of coalition involved - British troops are dying out there too - but hey, whatever.

Oh, and I also kinda resent being viewed as a potential terrorist because of the colour of my skin.

anu

oh - i meant to say "it wasn't *just* the US that removed Saddam..."

Anu,

I would also object to you being viewed as a potentional terrorist because of the color of your skin!

Take care.

Sobig.F dung that had made