I am not sure what exactly you are trying to say here. I suspect neither do you.

Americans by and large, always tend to paint WW2 as the ultimate battle between "good and evil", and how they finally "saved the world". World War II was initially two colonial powers vying for controls. Britishers, contrary to whatever they may have you believe, were NOT fighting Germans because Germans were very "evil". Hitler would funnily enough, have had a very limited role in history. His initial aims were to simply gain back the territories lost to Poland due to treaty of Versailles(through diplomacy actually, believe it or not). Britain's usual lust for controlling and ruling the world, saw them guaranteeing Poland its independence, which led to Hitler failing in his diplomatic attempts. Hitler did not one day wake up, and decided that he wanted to rule the world. Since Britain set itself as Germany's enemy, and declared war on Germany after its invasion of Poland, Hitler got an opportunity to cement his power even more, and launch his holocaust agenda under guise of "war necessity". To be fair, Germany was simply trying to regain its lost territories initially.(I am not trying to justify Hitler here btw). Britain and France basically feared a new rising power so close back home. And in that mix, in jumped Italy and Russia. Cue World War 2. Hitler may have been trying to become a local power, but it was Britain and France declaring a war against it, which forced it on a campaign to move against Britain all over Europe and allying with other powers. Pakistan keeps trying to win back Kashmir from India. It is apparently not "evil" for starting wars to do so as per USA, and is an "important ally".

So if starting wars is not an evil act then all you have then, is the Holocaust. And we just proved that Britain had killed 10 times more folks than Hitler ever did, in the holocaust, making Britain 10 times more evil than Hitler/Nazis. And therefore USA actually sided up with the more evil guys. I mean the guys who did Holocaust times ten, in India. So how can US claim being one of the good guys then? You do not have to remember every genocide in history. But Americans have a tendency to blow anything they got remotely involved in, as the more important event since the big bang. Every thing they do, including brushing their teeths in the morning, and from sneezing, and bombing the crap out of civilians, carrying out assassinations, or funding the drug trade in Afghanistan in 80s, is to "SAAAAVEEE THE WORLDDDDD!!!"(tm). That was the only thing I was commenting on. Feel free to argue whatever you wish, beyond that.

I suppose unlike the dinosaurs, we can also survive for a long long time without needing to breathe? Cretaceous atmosphere is supposed to have been much more oxygen rich(50% more apparently) based on QMS analysis of ancient air bubbles trapped in amber. The higher oxygen content plausibly explains the huge sizes attained by many species too(since the related metabolism could be supported back then). I suppose the said 99.9% of the people of earth will all evolve overnight to make do with 50% less oxygen again? How about no sunlight for years? Stored grains and canned food will support you for years, with crop failures?

Also keep in mind, that all the dried dead plants from lack of sunlight will give rise to plenty of inflammable carbon fuel lying around. We are talking about a world wide wildfire. It is interesting how some people think of meteorite as something like a huge nuke, that will kill everything directly/instantly.

Close calls like these do need to be made as sensational as possible, to remind people how important it is to not put all your eggs in one basket, and why cutting NASA's budget is like deciding to do away with life jackets on a ship, so as to "not waste money".

Let us put this another way then. Let us say that you are stuck say in NY, on September 11th 2001. Or some similar situation, perhaps a natural catastrophe. Food and supplies are scarce. Especially clean drinking water. Your rich neighbor goes and buys 15000 bottles of water from all the stores around for miles. Because he is rich. While your loved ones/little babies are dying of thirst.

And you will be just grinning and watching it happen. Because showing any concern about this sort of hoarding of resources, which impact your loved ones? That will be you just envying the rich, right?

I am not at all conflicted. I said I will not get into the debate of how "evil" or "good" Japan was. And you just excused murder of 58.73 million people through greed and apathy. Congrats. Looking at you, I am now beginning to understand how the British of those time could do such things. Monsters transcend ages and times.

History is written by victors because victors' propaganda manages to ultimately dilute the way majority of people later perceive things. Murder of 6 million is more "evil" than intentionally starving 58.73 millions to death, according to you for example. You are *very* sure of that. While I was looking at this photo : http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d8/India-famine-family-crop-420.jpg

Look at those living skeletons. Do you think that breastfeeding baby was getting any actual food? To me that photo, except for skin-color and clothes could be one of the holocaust victims. To me they are BOTH a horrible testament of man's cruelty to others. And yet the propaganda works well enough on you, that when *you* look at this picture, you think "oh but they are not holocaust victims... so if this woman's baby died due to British destroying food crops, that is a much, much lesser evil thing than a *Jew* mother losing her baby due to starvation in a concentration camp. Yessir!".

Victors NEED to justify their all their acts. even the downright evil ones. So they become "necessary evil". Or "the final results justified it". Or "the other side was pure evil and ate live babies". The goal is not to make everyone forget, but to make everyone stop caring. You remember the 20 million because ultimately Stalin and his philosophy did not win obviously, as these things go. Mao and his philosophy won, and the 20-30 millions of deaths his policies caused have been forgiven too. China tries its best to censor the Nanking massacre and the public eventually stops caring. Even though you are aware of it, you hardly spare a thought to the genocide of native Red Indians for example, do you ? I noticed that that was not the first thing you said you remembered. Telling, isn't it? And that is what I am objecting to. The American seem to have this need to paint themselves as savior of the world and to belittle every other tragedy in the world, in comparison to the ones where they got involved. And that is how THAT propaganda has been working. Your second line just proved my point.

You did not understand my correctly. Did you miss the point about sanctioning BOTH sides? Not supplying steel to british would have crippled them a fair bit. Same with not supplying oil to the Japan. To sit out the war, this is what US should have ideally done. Ceased trade with BOTH sides straight off. There would have been considerable less carnage with both sides fairly crippled. And you nailed it. Roosevelt wanted a war that US public did not. So hell bent he was on getting his way, that he did everything possible to initiate one anyways. I will remind you btw, that currently US considers economic warfare exactly same as actual terrorist acts/acts of war. Have you taken a a look at the US laws lately?

Aggressive invading country? Was Japan invading USA right then? Or if it is some "fair and justice" principle you are supporting, why then ally with Britain first place which had been invading countries left and right before? We may argue till kingdom come, of the consequences of ceasing trade with both sides. But the key thing to remember is that by actively taking sides, you are entering the fight anyways. So you were NOT sitting it out. I am not debating whether or not Japan needed to be stopped or whether US was wrong or right in entering the war. It is the excuse of "we were minding our own business even though we were trying our best to ensure that British won" that I am objecting to.

In a rugby match, you are an audience only till you stay out of the field. When you start tripping one of the players, you are putting yourself in the game. "I am still audience because I did not touch the ball" won't wash.

Spoken truly like someone who has absolutely no clue regards attitude of many Britishers of the time had towards Indians.

Let us see :
Charles Dickens: "I wish I were commander-in-chief in India ... I should proclaim to them that I considered my holding that appointment by the leave of God, to mean that I should do my utmost to exterminate the race."

Winston Churchill : "I hate Indians. They are a beastly people with a beastly religion."

General Dyer on his Jalianwalanbagh Massacre "I would have killed more Indians, if more ammunition had been available".

The actual nearest things to commander-in-chief of India during these periods, were not so different either:
Lord Lytton, the governing British viceroy in India during 1877–79 famine(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#British_response) :
Reacting against calls for relief during the 1877–79 famine, Lytton replied, "Let the British public foot the bill for its 'cheap sentiment,' if it wished to save life at a cost that would bankrupt India," substantively ordering "there is to be no interference of any kind on the part of Government with the object of reducing the price of food," and instructing district officers to "discourage relief works in every possible way.... Mere distress is not a sufficient reason for opening a relief work."

Intentionally destroying food crops, so that British cloth factories can get their dyes, even if it meant a famine, how is that so different? At least Hitler had some justification and a personal grudge in his mind. But intentionally starving millions, just because you believe they were less than human?

What is worse? Hitler ordering extermination of Jews due to a personal grudge, or the British purposefully starving millions so that the empire could turn more of a profit? I leave it to you to decide, since I cannot honestly decide. But your attitude is exactly what I am talking about. 58.73 millions killed for profit is excusable as per you, while 6 million killed due to a personal grudge is a huge crime, since it was done by the "evil" Germans, rather than one of the war partners.

I am not saying that holocaust was not a tragedy. But the guy excusing genocide of 58.37 millions... that is the person you are. All so that your childish belief in America "saving the world from evil" can be maintained.

I would like to revise my figures actually.

The first major famine in India was caused directly due to the taxation policies of British as well as ordering farmers to crop Indigo plants?(for producing dyes for British cloth factories) instead of food crops. Food crops were in fact destroyed wherever found. Deaths caused : 21 million.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770#East_India_Company_responsibilities
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India#British_rule

The second big one in 1876, took a toll of 26 million, directly attributed to Bengal governor Richard temple, wanting not to be too charitable and suppressing relief efforts.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_of_1876%E2%80%9378#Famine_and_relief

All in all, 58.73 millions were estimated to be dead, as per figures officially recorded. Jewish holocaust victims? About 10 percent or so, of that.

If Nazis were monsters for causing all the holocaust deaths, allying with British meant siding with the bigger monster by that criterion.

Except that you didn't really. Propaganda and attempts to retroactively edit out history, cannot not change actual history. Let us observe the chain of events.

1. May 1939, USA, under Roosevelt, informs Japan that it is withdrawing from the 1911 Treaty of Commerce(Japan was highly dependent on USA for oil etc). Japan goes ahead with its conquest plans anyways.
2. July 1940, United States/Roosevelt imposed an embargo on aviation gasoline and high-grade scrap iron to Japan. Japan looks for alternative sources.
3. United States responds with a complete embargo on scrap iron. Japan announces the Axis Pact next day.
4. The United States extends the embargo to tools, iron, steel, copper, bronze, and many other critical metals.
5. Roosevelt orders freezing all Japanese assets in the United States.
6. Cut from critical resources, Japan tries negotiating with United States. After those failed, Japan declared war.

Your definition of sitting it out(while waging full blown economic warfare) is pretty different from rest of the world. I am not commenting on whether Japan needed to be stopped and how evil they were, and how they were killing babies and barbequing them and eating them raw even etc. etc. But Roosevelt was NOT sitting this one out.

World War 2 was not the glorious battle between "good and evil". It was two equally evil, bloodthirsty colonial powers duking it out. For the Nazi Holocaust, we have an quietly ignored Indian Holocaust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Rebellion_of_1857#Aftermath) that saw British killing millions of Indians in direct reprisals. Add another 10 million or so, if you count the ones who died due to the famines caused by apathetic exploitative British rule. I think Jew holocaust casualties, high as they were, pale in contrast. But since history books are written by the victors, even though the figures were pretty much recorded, they are usually always ignored, else things like Jalianwala bagh massacre and 1857 massacres would make british much much more evil in terms of body count.

In the end, USA took sides, and was already participating in economic warfare against one of the sides. Truly staying neutral would have meant embargoing both sides(Britain for steel and Japan/Germany for oil) while the war was on, which would have crippled both sides and resulted in perhaps lesser carnage.

No. But the cops and the lawmakers apparently are. :)

Except that the next time it happens to a common man, he can claim the "big misunderstanding" defense citing the Judge's case. Even powerful, rich and influential ignore the media at their peril. Arab Spring should have taught you otherwise by now. Oh well, guess not.

And here I thought the Pakistani courts and religious leaders kept passing orders anyways to censor domains, based on hearsay about "immoral stuff" to be found on them . Doubt poor pakistani netizens could tell the difference here.

Someone hacks into sets this Judge's computer and sets it up as an exit node, and anonymously notifies the authorities and the media, and this ruling would change 2 days ago too. We will get to see if law is really an ass, or just a hypocrite, right there and then :)