Patriot Act to be expanded

I've been around the whole east coast of the states and the only places I'd stay where Boston and New York, I'd like to see some of California though.
 
hmm... now that statement is tempting... but I'll leave it alone..
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reverse engineering with the purpose not to copy but to make a product that is compatible with competitor products... very much illegal in the USA and it is the prime reason why my company does not sell to the USA!

That, and the fact that Americans can sue you for everything under the sun!
 
Spamtheman said:
I've been around the whole east coast of the states and the only places I'd stay where Boston and New York, I'd like to see some of California though.
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I've read (and seen) that a great swathe of the USA is dull as ditchwater. zillions of acres of farms, small towns with strip malls and industry.

I now realise, approaching middle age, how much of the "American Dream" the world has been fed is a pile of bullsh1t. I've read enough and seen enough movies to understand that poverty in the USA is a massive problem and always has been.

There are things I'd like to see there - as I mentioned, New York appeals to me. I'd also like to attend E3 and Quakecon at some point. The Grand Canyon - hmm, dunno, rather see the Great Barrier Reef to be honest.

Fact is, the US doesn't mean a lot to me. I made my peace with it after being a rabid USA hater for so many years - it was very fashionable to hate the USA when I was a teen in the UK back in the late 1970's - our parents did because of the **** the UK got dragged into for being partnered with the US so closely.

The US people are to all intents and purposes, good people, it's just their government that sucks so much.
 
poverty in the USA is a massive problem and always has been.
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Very true, I was surprised to learn this from an American friend I had once
The US people are to all intents and purposes, good people, it's just their government that sucks so much.
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that, and their stupid laws and legal paranoia

I would rather go see Japan than the USA
 
I've spent a fair amount of time in the states and its amazing the misconceptions people have about Americans based mainly on television and the news - one based on fiction and one so sensationalized (if it bleeds it leads) that the picture portrayed is often so far from reality it might as well be called fiction.

The average American doesnt stand in a queue for days on end for a movie, the average American doesnt live on a diet of fast food, and after 9/11 the average American doesnt believe he/she still lives in a utopian society.

As for the conspiracy theorists - good grief. Still - we know where you live . . . . . :p
 
massive American poverty? "Impoverished" Americans would be middle-class South Africans. America is what you make of it - a great deal more social mobility and opportunity than anywhere else in the world. And McCarthyism?! Are you joking? Does anyone care to remember what great social systems South Africa had in place at the same time (until painfully recently for that matter)? It is a law-bound and litigious culture - but then again, you are pretty certain that some squatters aren't going to lay claim to your land (or other African fiascos). Or that monopolies are going to take as much money from you as the possibly can.

The xenophobia is running thick in here - maybe boycotting the States will help you stay under your 3GB cap. Start with boycotting Google... then all things Microsoft, then FireFox (being that the Mozilla foundation is a California not-for-profit), then many of the games you love, and finally abandon the internet altogether (rumor has it the much hated US military had something to do with its creation)
 
the average American doesnt live on a diet of fast food
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I disagree.... the person I knew there ate Burger King every single day, and so did others I knew. Home cooked meals were few and far between. Lots of them don't go to school, are apparently on "homeschooling" and sit on the internet, all day, every day and chat and surf sites
 
Just like this country there are both positives and negatives to the US. What constitutes a positive or a negative depends on an individual's POV.
On a visit to the US a few years back one of my inlaws made a comment about being in the land of the free. My response was that the US was a police state in comparison to SA. Now that can be both a good or a bad thing depending where you are coming from. In SA, to my mind, we have unacceptably high levels of crime whereas in the US, due to the litigious nature of their society and heavy handed law enforcement you always feel constrained in anything you do (far from being free).
I could carry on at length with examples of every day things from both countries that are both good and bad, remembering that someone may not share my POV on a particular aspect.
Whil'st I don't like generalising I have found that the US citizens (those that I have met) mostly have a hard time accepting a POV that differs from their own. This I think is probably why they are often disliked elsewhere as they seem to have a tendency to want to impose their own POV on other societies.
Anyway I think i'm probably going OT here so time to shutup.
 
ignacio said:
massive American poverty? "Impoverished" Americans would be middle-class South Africans. America is what you make of it - a great deal more social mobility and opportunity than anywhere else in the world. And McCarthyism?! Are you joking? Does anyone care to remember what great social systems South Africa had in place at the same time (until painfully recently for that matter)?
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I like the States and I like Americans. I also have travelled the US and Canada extensively, both as a tourist and for business. I have been to the backwaters and the big cities - 36 states in all. I dont like American politics and I dont like politicians (anywhere) - My reference to McCarthyism was to point out how bureaucracy can make a mountain out of a mole hill. My point was that innocent people had their lives ruined because the witch hunt was so over zealously applied. It in no way had any reference to the fascism practiced and applied in law by our previous government (although they had an amazing track record themselves: hiding in cupboards to catch people in the process of contravening the "immorality act" for example).
I think the US Government has used one terrible act of violence and terrorism to perpetrate and justify their own similar acts. IMO the american people in the main are a conservative and naive bunch. The Patriot Act is subject to interpretation by a largely uninformed populace who above everything else, think America Number 1 and so the dilution of the idea down to the trenches is going to be abused and in certain cases zealously applied. I shudder for the families who have emigrated (and the refugees) to the US from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and so on, living in middle America whose "land of the free, home of the brave" dream is about to be shattered.
bb_matt said:
...I've read (and seen) that a great swathe of the USA is dull as ditchwater. zillions of acres of farms, small towns with strip malls and industry...
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There are large tracts of nothingness but one thing is common to every town i have ever seen in the states - they are clean, they are neat and the people love their towns. the sense of national pride is tangible and the welcome is sincere. we could learn a lot from the average American Joe about pulling together.
 
Kei said:
I disagree.... the person I knew there ate Burger King every single day, and so did others I knew. Home cooked meals were few and far between. Lots of them don't go to school, are apparently on "homeschooling" and sit on the internet, all day, every day and chat and surf sites
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ergo they ALL do?
 
ergo they ALL do?
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All the people I knew. My next door neighbours used to stay at home a lot and do nothing. The dad was part of the church so he got out some and he was into running so he didn't wind up being 200 pounds.

I agree there are positives as well as negatives. The USA is a police state and I think their laws are ridiculous. However I envy their country in that they don't have TAXI's PUTCO BUSES, and crime as bad as here. Note that this is not a racial remark. I think it's really bullsh1t that people must still be transported like that, 10 years after the new dispensation and also contribute to the gridlock that traffic is becoming these days.

Of those things, I think the USA is great. Of everything else, wouldn't touch the country with a barge pole! Would probably be arrested on site for looking into iBurst firmware and a host of other things I did to learn how things work and to excel in my career
 
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