Free Peter Berdovsky  

Sounds like the only ones...
Sounds like the only ones who are panicing, are the Boston police.
Is this story even real, it honestly sounds too stupid to be true. Crazy country, this US of A.
But I love the whole idea with the LED lit figures of the mooninites. Great pictures.

It was already known...
that fear, although a very human emotion, is not the right state of mind to make intelligent decisions. It is most unfortunate and indeed inhumane that a society would grow to be so disoriented that millions of people fearlessly take part in traffic (a known killer of thousands of americans a year) but that a simple publicity stund generates such draconian mobilisation of force.
Is it really surprising that such a society has such bad judgement when it plays it's role as a nation amoung nations...

As a Boston-area resident
and a native Massachusetts-ite (commonly known as a masshole due to our impatient driving habits)I am embarrassed for the Boston Police. As of midday here, the guys are out on bail (paid by Turner Broadcasting) and there is an active protest being mounted to drop charges on the the two fellows.

Sounds like....
Sounds like the Boston police needed to arrest someone to have something to show for the overreacting they did. Or wait, was that President Bush in our current war mistake.

overhere
in belgium we really got a not so nice thought of the usa and its president. whenever we read something about the us it is when they are failing to give help to katrina victims (refusing help from cuban doctors), police that is fingertriggy with their stenguns, 6year old boy being accused of sexual harrasment, live events being broadcast with a minute delay so that no nipplegate could happen again or bad language being spoken, cia agents that kidnap and torture an innocent german, swedish royals trown in jail, miss nevada that must regive their crowns because 6 years earlier some pics were made of her drunk, teachers being trown in jail because during class thanx to spyware pornpop ups appeared, girls loosing their jobs because of posing for playboy, the believe in creatonism, even this publicity stunt was published in a flemish newspaper. I wonder; were is the common sense overthere. i would say time to ban the guns and the violence in movies and replace it by love and sexscenes. you know i am scared of going to the us. scared of the tyranny and dictatorship and misabuse by policeorces. this is just a perception from a regular european. pointing this to art; can in such a country where censorship rules meaningfull, liberating and renewing art being made? or should we just continue laughing with the us? in some media that country of freedom is already being called 'amerikanstan'...
i hope i do not offend anybody now.
http://www.hln.be/hlns/cache/det/art_367256.html?wt.bron=homeArt4

Well......
The USA is a great place, except we keep hitting new lows and lowering our standards. We seem to be having to adapt, then be adapted to(meaning drugs, crime, and other problems at critical mass). The Media and Hollywood have really caused us a lot of problems, of course that not the only thing. The USA is a money pot for many people and they have no interest in adapting to the way of life that is intended when this country was thought up. Who the hell am I though. Oh and there was a bunch of the "light show boms" on Ebay today(bid between $1,000-$3,000), but they were cancelled, one guy even admitted(in the auction discription) he stole one.

Hegemony
The USA's world hegemony is on the wane. Probably not as spectacular a tumble as the USSR but a lower spot on the global heirarchy. It was a good run. Better than Alexander or Persia less the Britain. I'm betting on China to be next.

For certain
it's going to take us years, probably decades to recover from what our present political administration has done to us. The famed American melting pot boils over at the moment with poorly mixed ingredients. Add to that that we are lead by a crew that is only interested in the welfare of 1% of the pot. Please don't get me going on our current politics, it makes me want to go live in the woods or emigrate to scandinavia or both...

Solution...
We should all go live in the forest and whittle furniture out of wood and crude materials.

All true, sadly
gerrit -- your list of American idiocies ... all true. What can I say?
Maybe ..... that this country is still one of enormous promise and potential ... that we're still learning and growing and constantly struggling to reach our ideals ... that our core principles are fundamentally good, even if their applications are often badly misguided ... that there are 300 million people who live here, so it's not a surprise that we have millions upon millions of lunatics / idiots / jerks ... that more than 50% of us voted against Bush in 2000 ... and that there are millions of us who are designaddicts, maybe more than anywhere else in the world (just by sheer numbers).
And you should not hesitate to visit the USA. i really think you will gain a different impression than what is captured from afar. again, all you say is true, but there are many more appealing truths about the US and Americans that you'll discover when you come.

That's funny james, but...
That's funny james, but maybe there can be a middle ground. Gerrit.be, it is good to see the joke we've become is an international sensation.
Most of us here I think just want to change the station - the facts of our lives, if anyone wants to see them, are not well hidden, even in the USA. The same old gruesome news on the same old gruesome station, day after day, no, minute after minute, until it is no wonder the best many can do is wish it would all just go away.
But as somebody's grandpa used to say, wish in one bucket and piss in another and see which one fills up the fastest.
We can and have to do better. Suck it up, said my old basketball coach, or you'll have hell to pay.

DA Interface
Sorry to change the subject but the thread here is a good example of why you use visual user avatars. Comments from two different people both named James. You know who wrote this latest message before you've even had the chance to make the concious descision to READ the post. No chance to accidently send or say something because of confused identity.
Now as for links...
http://James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George Dupree)

Note that
a common reaction of some political conservatives is to dismiss the opinions of one's neighbors -- which relates in some way to the Golden Rule, surely ? America needs all the correctives she can get, I fear.
A recent news item had a gentleman in the Northwest USA objecting to the showing of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" at his daughter's school. An evangelical or fundamental Christian (if that is pertinent), he declared that it was preposterous to suggest that the "greatest country on Earth" could be responsible for damaging the planet. The school cancelled the showing of the film -- for the time being.
The advertising "bombs" (Pac-man was a terrorist ?) were in place in Boston for days before someone rose the alarm. Other cities experienced no problem with identical placements. Obsessed, repressed, distressed; is this any way to live ?

We have the smiley face...
We have the smiley face thing to denote when we are trying to be funny, but what should one use to denote seriousness. Maybe I should just be more careful, use words more carefully, that is. I was not meaning to be sarcastic. What was said by 'James' I felt was actually funny, and the post by 'gerrit.be' was enlightening and "good to see". I think as a country heavily involved in the act of trying to attain/maintain world dominance we need to see more of this. If we are insulated from anything any more, it is from how we are viewed by the rest of the world.