Amnesty questions claims about Libyan attrocities

It is, but if they don't pay I am sure they will only get about 20-30% of total dispatched trailers, the region through which they have to go is very treacherous, and the terrain itself is very conducive for gorilla warfare. Only two people in history has 'conquered' this area, i.e. Taimur and Babur, but they had totally different set of circumstances which ended up helping them.

One simple reason, one person one vote means they get elected, but once in power, that one person is no longer important. Rather, they divert their attention to people who have helped them (and their parties) to get in power in the first place, the real masters of these puppets. Unfortunately people haven't yet understood this aspect of democracy, you can't do much about it unless you are willing for a very radical surgery.

Exactly, but have we done anything about it? Well nothing, and herein lies the problem, somehow, people have developed a mindset which is, that they are doubting their own abilities and feel helpless about affecting a change.

Oh i see, I mis-understood what you said. I thought you said that "NATO are supplying the Taliban so the Taliban can fight NATO and other forces"...which is obviously crazy. I think i understand what you were saying now though.

In England also, the government is set up to regulate itself, which is obviously a recipe for disaster. The toxic party political system which England has is only answerable to itself inside whitehall. The people don't even get a chance to change these things because the power to call referendums on stuff like this belongs soley to the government.

"Democracy" in a place like England is also laughable. We don't even get to choose our own leader. In the US, people vote for a person to lead their country on the values that person presents to them...while in England, all we vote for is a local MP in our general election; then it's those MP's of the winning party that choose our leader.

And we only get that vote every 5 years also.

It's a sham basically.

Don't believe that. We get marketed a figurehead every four years. You can't get elected on merit. The party machine tells voters what they want to hear, then the advisers tell the president what to think and do. In Bush's case it was **** Cheney.

The system you're describing does indeed sound crappy. But remember, we still have the "electoral college" as our proxy.

Then again, at least your government can claim they no longer rule by "divine right". But is that the truth?....:suspiciou

Absolutely wrong impression, beyond the cosmetics of voting, that one person hardly ever represent will of the people on the street. All the US presidents since (at least) Reagan, I don't think there is one single president who did anything good for the people for the actual well being of the people (even if by an accident they ended up doing something generally it was to serve corporate interests). Every one of them is responsible for creating 'so called economic freedom' which is destroying the very fabric of society, and yet hardly any one raises their voice against it.

I think Bush and his cronies e.g. Cheney and Rumsfeld were; and Obama and his gang of incompetent imbeciles are 'ultimate' thugs in cop's disguise.

I'm not fully up to speed on the "electoral college" system, although it does look sketchy from here, across the pond. I suppose it's part of the way the US has its election results gathered up so fast. We take at least 4 hours to get our first projections.

I never said that the US had good or bad presidents, I was just making the point that in the US people - at least - get the vote (whether the vote is meaningless or not) to choose between this person, or that person to lead the country. What we get is a list of 20 different people to choose for local governance...not a choice for a leader.

And people in Britain are so stubborn to certain partys, that we'll never, ever get out of the "ping pong" party system that exists here. The only outside chance we can get out of it is if the government itself makes that choice...and obviously that'll never happen.

The proof of our "democratic" system happened with our last Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. The guy was given the job in 2007, with no election from the public, by Tony Blair (who won the election in 2005)...Gordon was our leader for 3 years, and not one person in our country voted for him, not even party members themselfs. The top job in our country is like pass the bloody parcel.

People behind the scenes running things or not, that would be unthinkable in the US.

It is one of the most stupidest ideas in practice I've seen, as it is neither representative nor convey 'equality' in anyway.

Probably it is the same for any and every two party states.

I guess we need to come with a new system to govern and elect people. I mean how hard can it be?

Yeah, problem with us though is we aint no two party state. Anyone can create a political party in Britain and attach it to any values you wish (even the bad stuff like fascism). Our problem is with the two biggest parties, Labour and the Conservatives; these are so deep rooted in our system that all the other parties are pretty much invisible, and might as well stop spending money on trying to get elected because it'll never happen.

....Yeah, i hear ya. I don't know, in my country maybe i would just settle for a seperate election, where we get to vote for a leader rather than just a Member for Parliament .

A directly elected Prime Minister, it's called...It's actually been disscussed in the past (but never taken further ).

Still a two party system for me, as the minor parties are in no position to do anything. Although I agree with you, the mindset of people plays major role about continuation of this situation. I've felt/observed many times that in general, people are afraid of change. Probably thinking they are better off choosing a known evil, perhaps believing it to be a 'lesser evil' as well.

I was thinking more like, if we could arrange a duel, where all the leading contenders must kill the other one to win. Such evil plan can also succeed in 'steadily eliminating' corrupt politicians.

Actually, at the moment in the UK we have a coalition government involving a third party (the Liberal Democrats), but this hasn't happened for around 80 years and it's only a small party that doesn't have any real clout. I think you're right, It's the fact that people are scared for change, that they would rather hold the center ground.

Oh, like that you mean. Well, I'm all for it mate, just let them slice and dice each other. The price for the TV ratings would be through the roof.

However, would a top class swordsman and a cold hearted killer make a good leader? Hmmm.... :suspiciou

For your reading enjoyment, may I present Mr. Lyndon Larouche: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndon_LaRouche
Good old Lyndon was trying to get himself elected president for years. But, as you know, small parties can't win major elections. (Especially those with radical platforms).

Then, he formed a "PAC", (Political action committee). Anyway, PACs enjoy NPO status. Therefore Mr. Larouche can pretty much do as he sees fit with contributions. Wanna bet he lives in a big ole house?

Oh well, so much for those multi-party systems.

I am sure he thought he could make money out of this from the get go.

By the way Benny, I have been following NoW issue for few days. All the shenanigans of Rupert Murdoch and his cronies apart, I think people are at fault as well because they bought his paper / watch his channels just for the sake of scandalization of personal problems of anybody who is famous enough. I may be wrong, but I think people have developed a mentality, where they only talk about ethics and law, once they are in trouble. Otherwise, all is fair and fun.

Also, News Corps power clearly illustrates that my argument about 'creation of corporatocracies' is relevant.

Well i've been a valid reader of the News Of The World for many years and for my view, I'm sad to see them go. What happened hasn't even been investigated yet, but it's clear that the practices that were going on were from the stupidity of a select few, like: the Private investigators that were involved, the ex editors of the NoW, the corrupt police officers that were involved. 200 people have lost their jobs because of the mistakes of a few, and that few (one being Rebekah Brooks) are still working for News Corp to the unfairness of that 200.

I see all the good things that came from the NoW name: the crazy amount of scandals it uncovered (more than any British newspaper could ever find), the charity it's done for all the war heroes gone by from Iraq and Afghanistan. I find it shocking that its name has been tarnished in this way. 168 years that it's been running, all for it to end this way by a bunch of lowlifes.

I agree about News Corps power, but then it wasn't so bad with the good choice of papers we've had here for a long time. I also must say that i don't like Rupert Murdoch with a passion. His planned take over of British SKY Broadcasting is a joke, a joke that wouldn't come around in the US due to proper laws. I hope the UK regulator can nip this short before it happens.

Why don't Ofcom (I think that what it is called right?) simply block such take over attempts, which will inevitably lead to creation of a monopoly. Personally, if I could, I would ban anyone from owing a News Channel and a Newspaper at the same time, they can have one but not both.

I would also like to see how NoW discovered all those scandals in the past as well, hopefully a broader more comprehensive inquiry will do just that.

That actually makes alot of sense and i would agree with that. Unfortunately, the way our laws are set up make that a no go, but i do hope that the law is changed because of what's been happening with the NoW thing. Apparently, Ofcom are planning a very detailed investigation into the takeover by Murdoch (or in other words: they're going to try and slow it down enough for Murdoch to hopefully call it off for now, as so the government can make a change to the law in that meantime)

Alot of the most famous ones were due to the use of the named "Fake Sheikh": a reporter dressed as a middle eastern buyer of some sort...It was quite clever.

But an Englishman dressed as 'Sheikh' should be easily identified as 'fake sheikh' in the first place, not sure how that worked out.

One can always hope, but the way the system now works, it is subservient to big business, so I would not be holding my breath for this change coming any time soon.

Celebritys can be stupid .....Nah, there are plenty of Englishmen with dark skin and an accent.

Yes you're right. But i think public pressure is gonna come down on our side with this one, It has a funny feel about it. Plus we already have a seperate body that's a tune to this sort of thing, the competition commission; you would feel the pressure on it from the fallout should beef up its practices. And then there's Ofcom, but they can only control the TV side of things which is only a small portion of overall business here in the UK.

Will News of the Screws reappear as Sunday.co.uk?

I guess this links tells that probably News Corp is simply changing the medium while continuing to do what it always has done.

That is a given, I have yet to see one with 'some brain'.

Yeah, I think everyone already knows that The Sun newspaper will take over as a "Sun on Sunday", and i say good luck to 'em. I just bought the final edition of the News of The World this morning and it's obvious from the first page all the good they've done for the British press. Like i said, no other paper ever came close to the scam finding that the NoW did (but maybe that was because their team had a whole week to investigate things and people, unlike daily newspapers)

So yeah, I can't wait for them to start bringing in those scandals again, even if it is under a new name. I just hope any editors that may have wronged in the past take something from this ugly episode.

Tell me about it. I suppose i could come up with a few old 'seasoned' actors that's had their head screwed on in the past though.

Sean Connery wasn't easy to fool...I know that

Oddly, I watch a show called "Jeopardy", which is a quiz show. (In reverse though. They give the answer, you determine the question). When celebrity tournaments are held, more often than not, it is people from the news media, (reporters and such), that get their clocks cleaned by movie stars.

In reality, being a movie star today is a harder job than in the past. Many stars are gifted and intelligent. And while this may sound sexist, it's usually the men. I would hazard a guess that it's because they can't skate on their looks, as can the average ingenue. The men are usually much more interesting when interviewed also.

In a late night talk show situation, you find yourself trying to look up the woman's skirt, and manage to completely miss noticing, the sound of air escaping from her head.

Tom Selleck,. Matt Damon, and Ben Affleck are pretty sharp it would appear after seeing extensive interviews with them.