The best and worst things about your country

dunkman wrote:

*sigh*

nice use of a US govt website there..

The Althing was also viewed as a part of Icelandic culture due to its long tradition in Iceland and its use as a unifying force for the citizens of the country, as well as its status as the oldest parliament in the world[26].

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Althing




and for Isle of Man

Tynwald is usually said in the Isle of Man to be the oldest parliament in continuous existence in the world, having been established by 979 (though its roots may go back to the late 800s as the thing of Norse raiders not yet permanently resident on the island) and having continued to be held since that time without interruption.[1]

There are other parliaments which are undoubtedly older but these have not had a continuous existence. The Icelandic Alþingi was established in 930 but abolished in 1800 and not re-founded until 1845.


Th eIsle of Man still runs its own affairs, taxes, laws, education system, etc... its a country within a country.

i believe its called a 'freedoms'

Pj_Gurl wrote:

i agree with the distance. good and bad.

the best: beaches, weather, barbies, families, grand final day, andrew g, powderfinger, big day out, oh hell just about everything.

the worst: so remote and far away from the rest of the world. 22 hours to get home and then some.

digster wrote:

Well, if you want to turn this into a pissing match, I'd rather not. But since you turn your nose at the fact that somehow it took us till the 60's to move towards racial integration...are we talking about the same Europe? The one where you can't walk down the street in most western European countries without getting a whiff of casual racism or hatred of foreigners? That Europe? Or maybe you're talking about the Europe whose leftist citizens rail endlessly about the American imperialism throughout the world, but when genocide breaks out, whether in Darfur, Kosovo, or Rwanda, there's no citizen's outcry, much less any government intervention. That Europe? The British Imperialist Europe? The Europe that helped establish an apartheid system of governance in South Africa? Please tell me you're not trying to win some contest with who has the best record; no hands are clean. As I said, there's no point to a "my country is less racist/more advanced than your country" but please spare me that holier-than-thou crap.

digster wrote:

Anyone from South Africa on the boards? Went there for a year a few years ago to work with a non-profit...beautiful, magnificent place.

Heineken Helen wrote:

that's pretty much always the case when it's a joint account... otherwise one could take all the money and run off with it. It's nothing to do with her being a woman. It's pretty standard stuff!

digster wrote:

When did I say that because there is a prevalent amount of racism in many European countries (I know this both from eyewitness accounts to me and my personal experience in Europe) means there is no racism in America? If you go back to my pros and cons about the United States, I said the worst problem in the United States is the racism and prejudice. Racism might cause Barack Obama this election. However, the poster I was replying to had a pretty overt air of superiority, "look at how shoddy your race relations are compared to Europe." I was just trying to remind him that yes, your crap indeed does stink like the States.

And if you can prove your assertion that there has been government aid, humanitarian intervention and public outrcry regarding places like Darfur, Rwanda, Bosnia, etc. etc. in regards to their respective human rights atrocities in comparison to both aid and awareness in the States, I'd love to see it. Nowhere do I state that the U.S. does enough, but Europe does even less, and it strikes me as hypocritical that they would concentrate on the very real atrocities that America commits and not give when genocides occur elsewhere in the world. This is a Western nation problem, not an American problem, and when you have a rally of over 60,000 people in Washington, pressuring leaders on the genocide in Darfur, for example, I don't see that counterpart across the sea. You stated that my facts are wrong, but you haven't given me any evidence to show that they are wrong. Taking the Darfur genocide as an example, the U.S. Congress has thus far funded a vast amount for the African Union troops stationed there; it has been the member of the Security Council pushing for sanctions. European powers have opted out entirely of peace-keeping. America has not done as much as I would like, but at least they have done something; why is Europe, so prescient about America's human rights violations, not taking a role of leadership in conflicts such as these? Smacks a bit of hypocrisy to me.

EDIT: Also, in the recent past when military intervention has been organized and authorized by NATO to try and stop genocide (both in Bosnia and Kosovo), it is the U.S. military and air force that primarily does the work and foots the bill. I understand that much of this is due to the fact that America has the largest military in NATO, but I would want to see more European leadership, of which there's been slim to none.