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On June 20 2008 23:27 himurakenshin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2008 09:09 Chuiu wrote:
Yeah English is the most widely known language around the world (not natively, of course, China wins that one). I don't think that is really true. Most Chinese people can't understand each other natively, because there are so many major dialects like Mandarin Cantonese Hakka Shangainese and then there are even Mandarin Dialects. For example Mandarin is a completely different language to Cantonese (some people will argue otherwise) but it's being branded as a dialect so that the country can say that the whole country has 1 language. They are really different languages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
Wow, i though that it was first the Arabs and then China or India. Still, it's an estimate.
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United States22883 Posts
On June 20 2008 23:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
that doesnt get you shot. :p
we do in europe have some dormant anti-racism laws though (in norway, there has only been one case ever of someone being charged with it though, that is when this political party named "white election-alliance" had "forced sterilization of every non-western adopted person" as part of their political program. )
but if you think you're free to say anything everywhere in usa you're pretty wrong.. usa does not have less government censorship than western european countries because there is essentially none here either. seriously, that one incident is the only incident where "free speech" was stopped in the past 20 years, it's not like you can freely go around screaming "i have a bomb im going to kill the american president" in usa either.
You're mixing Norway and the rest of Europe.
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I like canada because beavers are cute
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On June 20 2008 23:36 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2008 23:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
that doesnt get you shot. :p
we do in europe have some dormant anti-racism laws though (in norway, there has only been one case ever of someone being charged with it though, that is when this political party named "white election-alliance" had "forced sterilization of every non-western adopted person" as part of their political program. )
but if you think you're free to say anything everywhere in usa you're pretty wrong.. usa does not have less government censorship than western european countries because there is essentially none here either. seriously, that one incident is the only incident where "free speech" was stopped in the past 20 years, it's not like you can freely go around screaming "i have a bomb im going to kill the american president" in usa either. You're mixing Norway and the rest of Europe.
You're mixing Western Europe and the rest of Europe.
Edit:Or Europe as a whole with western Europe? Something like that...
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United States22883 Posts
On June 20 2008 23:42 jello_biafra wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2008 23:36 Jibba wrote:On June 20 2008 23:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
that doesnt get you shot. :p
we do in europe have some dormant anti-racism laws though (in norway, there has only been one case ever of someone being charged with it though, that is when this political party named "white election-alliance" had "forced sterilization of every non-western adopted person" as part of their political program. )
but if you think you're free to say anything everywhere in usa you're pretty wrong.. usa does not have less government censorship than western european countries because there is essentially none here either. seriously, that one incident is the only incident where "free speech" was stopped in the past 20 years, it's not like you can freely go around screaming "i have a bomb im going to kill the american president" in usa either. You're mixing Norway and the rest of Europe. You're mixing Western Europe and the rest of Europe.
Germany, France and Switzerland are which part then?
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Norway28669 Posts
there are 12 european countries with laws against public holocaust denial, out of roughly 50. several of these countries have a history that makes this law extremely sensible (e.g, germany, austria, poland) and either way it's hardly ever enforced anywhere. if a professor preaches holocaust denial he deserves to lose his job anyway because you cannot be a teacher if you lack that kind of basic knowledge.
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On June 20 2008 22:26 Liquid`Drone wrote:
its certainly laughable when americans seem to think that "they saved europe", but thinking germany would have been defeated without american help is equally stupid.
Are you serious? =/
about the first part. 
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Norway28669 Posts
are you seriously asking me if I am?
my point is that when any american claims that "we saved europe from the facists" that is a claim that could be made with the same force and truth to it as when any non german, spanish, italian, swiss or swedish european person makes the same claim. it was a team effort, usa only joined in after they had been attacked by japan and joined in to protect their own interests, not because they had a noble cause to defend europe against the nazis. usas contribution was of course great, and necessary to win the war, but to make the claim that "we saved europe" is to downplay the effort made by all other european countries that fought against nazi germany, especially great britain and russia, both whom sacrificed far, far more than usa did. (hell, usa was essentially the only country in the world to benefit from world war 2.. )
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On June 20 2008 23:27 himurakenshin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2008 09:09 Chuiu wrote:
Yeah English is the most widely known language around the world (not natively, of course, China wins that one). I don't think that is really true. Most Chinese people can't understand each other natively, because there are so many major dialects like Mandarin Cantonese Hakka Shangainese and then there are even Mandarin Dialects. For example Mandarin is a completely different language to Cantonese (some people will argue otherwise) but it's being branded as a dialect so that the country can say that the whole country has 1 language. They are really different languages.
Yeah ... well I can't understand the tech support guy in India and we're speaking the same language so I guess it evens out, eh?
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On June 20 2008 23:44 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On June 20 2008 23:42 jello_biafra wrote:On June 20 2008 23:36 Jibba wrote:On June 20 2008 23:23 Liquid`Drone wrote:
that doesnt get you shot. :p
we do in europe have some dormant anti-racism laws though (in norway, there has only been one case ever of someone being charged with it though, that is when this political party named "white election-alliance" had "forced sterilization of every non-western adopted person" as part of their political program. )
but if you think you're free to say anything everywhere in usa you're pretty wrong.. usa does not have less government censorship than western european countries because there is essentially none here either. seriously, that one incident is the only incident where "free speech" was stopped in the past 20 years, it's not like you can freely go around screaming "i have a bomb im going to kill the american president" in usa either. You're mixing Norway and the rest of Europe. You're mixing Western Europe and the rest of Europe. Germany, France and Switzerland are which part then?
I'm just saying that there's like 50 countries in Europe, its easy to overgeneralize. (Is that even a word?)
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Spain is also a great place to live !
culture, food, wine, weather, beaches, "La Liga", etc.
.... We could be much better now... we had a 36 years of Franco's dictature (1939 - 1975) 
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United States22883 Posts
On June 20 2008 23:46 Liquid`Drone wrote:
there are 12 european countries with laws against public holocaust denial, out of roughly 50. several of these countries have a history that makes this law extremely sensible (e.g, germany, austria, poland) and either way it's hardly ever enforced anywhere. if a professor preaches holocaust denial he deserves to lose his job anyway because you cannot be a teacher if you lack that kind of basic knowledge.
Fair enough, but there still exists a number of anti-racist speech laws. In the US, you'll still get shot if you call someone a nigger, but at least it won't be by the government. 
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On June 20 2008 23:49 Liquid`Drone wrote:
are you seriously asking me if I am?
my point is that when any american claims that "we saved europe against the facists" that is a claim that could be made with the same force and truth to it as when any non german, spanish, italian, swiss or swedish european person makes the same claim. it was a team effort, usa only joined in after they had been attacked by japan and joined in to protect their own interests, not because they had a noble cause to defend europe against the nazis. usas contribution was of course great, and necessary to win the war, but to make the claim that "we saved europe" is to downplay the effort made by all other european countries that fought against nazi germany, especially great britain and russia, both whom sacrificed far, far more than usa did. (hell, usa was essentially the only country in the world to benefit from world war 2.. )
i lolled at ths :D. but u already edited so i dont have to post anything ..(lolling @ american, not u...)
Also I may add that Naziz had already 'lost' the war, it would have been only question of time when Russians would march to Berlin...
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United States24682 Posts
On June 20 2008 07:19 aseq wrote:
Flattest country in the world, How is that good? I hope you can swim. best drug laws and prostitution laws. Best? I'm not so sure. Prime minister looks most like Harry Potter. Haha.
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hey what about canada?
we were elite shock troops
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On June 20 2008 23:00 Liquid`Drone wrote:
you're free to do things that would get you shot in some dictatorships and third world countries.. that's nothing to be proud of. :p
It's not so much that it's soemthing to be proud, because most civilized countries are similar in this regard, but it's taken for granted by so many. There's still a ton of countries where the press is controlled by the govt, where you can't criticize the govt., etc etc. I mean, zulu can't even look at certain pages on here because of key words lol. It's me realizing that, regardless of some of the stupid shit that goes on in the US, we've still got it pretty fucking good in that regard.
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Norway28669 Posts
fair enough
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Boxer, Nal_rA, YellOw, Bisu, sAviOr, Flash, Jaedong, Reach... and the list can go on.
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Yeah, it annoys me when fellow Americans think that we're the only ones that did much to beat Germany in WWII.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://virtual.finland.fi/finfo/images/famous/spo_jli_b.jpg)
