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Comment Re:Hideous? (Score 1) 337

Alas, while the Chinese rulers are pragmatic enough to accept things they don't really like but can't control, the French rulers are idiots who believe nothing is beyond their power, because, after all, they're French....

The U.S. authorities have a history of this type of behaviour. Just think of the case Microsoft is currently fighting, the one where they do not want to give the U.S access to emails being held in the E.U. (Ireland), or the case where some NYC judge imposed a massive fine - and confiscation of assets - on the Iran for some terrorist attack they patently had nothing to do with.
The U.S. mostly try to be a "force for good", but accept no outside authority in the many cases where they failed - often maliciously.

For the record, I am not particularly happy with the "right to be forgotten".

Comment Misrepresenting what the Nazis did (Score 2) 73

to the Nazi's battle to burn as much "degenerate art" as they could find

The "degenerate art" removed from the museums headed in all sorts of directions,

  • Sold on the international markets to raise money for the Reich
  • vanished into private hands - Cornelius Gurlitt's collection resurfaced as recently as three years ago
  • vanished into private hands and then was destroyed in allied bombing raids
  • destroyed by the Nazis

Hitler used to use Baedeker travel guides as a guide to what should be destroyed, although a famous library in the Netherlands was bombed at the start of the war "just because". After the Allies (ok, the British) destroyed a few German cultural spots of neglible military value, the Luftwaffe was sent to destroy highlights selected from Baedeker such as Coventry Cathedral.
There were two Warsaw uprisings, the Jewish one and then later - with the Soviets approaching - the Polish one. As revenge for the second one, buildings were blown up in the order of their ranking in the Warsaw Baedeker - best to worst. The Soviets ceased their advance and waited for the Nazis to suppress the uprising before resuming operations. That is one of the factors behind the Polish attitude to Russia, Katyn being another big one.

With ISIS (I thought it was ISIL) now starting to operate in Saudi Arabia, I wonder if Islamic sites are in danger. One would think not but I had not expected the recent suicide bombings either.

Comment Re:Yes to Brexit (Score 1) 396

Airstrip One.

The previous Tory leader - can't remember his name just now but he was a minister in the coalition government - absolutely loathed the EU to the extent that he apparently asked the Dubya administration if there was some way of joining the Mexico-US-Canada trading block. No.

Comment Substantially correct, but . . . (Score 3, Interesting) 270

What is meant by the U.S. government made the same mistakes in Iraq as it did in Iran.? The U.S. has not invaded Iran any time recently.

Just how the weapons became ubiquitous is also not touched on in this summary: Saddam Hussein had an armory. The U.S. forces took that armory. Then they carried on towards Baghdad, towards the major prize and *glory* (cue exciting music). One undefended armory.

One thing that totally stank is that the whole thing was then lost in U.S. party politics. The Republicans lied about having lied and all their supporters started claiming black was white and that the weapons of mass destruction had really existed. We are getting the same kind of crud now from the St Petersburg Propagandazentral with respect to the Ukraine.

Another thing that stank was the sacking of pretty much all Baath party members. Being a party member was a requirement for many kinds of job, sacking all these people created a large pool of disaffected people. This was known at the time but the idiots in charge "knew better". I found it difficult to believe that so much stupidity was not malicious.

Comment Re:Pretty soon... (Score 2) 309

There was a court case raised recently - not sure if it has started or finished yet - by descendants of Goebbels' family. Yes, *that* Goebbels, Hitler's rentamouth. His family are claiming copyright for his words - they want cash for quotes.

70 years is just long enough to cover that.

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