and as for safety, just ask yourself this: who'd be safer, an indonesian in sydney, or an australian in djakarta? not even close, is it... the only Ozzies you can see in Jakarta these days are diplomats or pimps: not much has changed, and either they have armoured limousines or local thugs to protect them precisely my point! an australian in djakarta is in far greater danger of for his life than an indonesian in sydney! glad you see it my way! also, where do you get off, as an indonesian, protesting about discrimination against indonesians in australia (there is none) and other western countries, when in your very own country not only are westerners at far greater risks, but look at the horrific treatment the east timorese suffered for years at the hands of indonesians.. what about indonesia's chinese population, terrorized and had homes and shops burnt down (check your history books buddy)... or how about being a christian in indonesia.. good luck... mahatir can rant and rave all he likes (and he does it a LOT), but he thank his lucky stars for the colonial period that brought culture and civilization to what would have otherwise no doubt been another sout east asian backwater hole. I don't know what culture you refer to, you mean that agglommeration of pastimes which Australians waste their entire lives on? look, you don't have to like other cultures, but they are STILL cultures. just out of curiousity, what are you guys doing in indonesia that's so vastly superior? devoting your lives to serving allah? geez, i'm hard pressed to think of a greater (and sadder) waste of time than that... what planet are you on? we already HAVE massive scale asian immigration. walked down inner melbourne or sydney lately? there's entire regions where you'll be lucky to spot a non-asian. melbourne's mayor is chinese (and can barely speak english). you are out of your mind. those sections of Melbourne and Sydney are almost the only places where you can get some decent food! ok, so you prefer asian food. great. personally, i hate it. i find it disgusting. but can you see how that is entirely beside the point? furthermore, with your constant jabs at westerners, your attitude seems to me FAR more racist than anything i, or hapaboy, or any others here on "my side" have said to you. i thought the days when those primitive chinese and japanese deadheads considered westerners "barbarians" were long gone.. maybe i was wrong.. now, if by "large scale" you mean we should just open the floodgates and let in every low life, no-skill parasite with a heartbeat, you, again, are out of your mind. not bad! say: how long ago was it that the main qualification for going to Australia was to be a criminal and convict? about 150 years ago. so? (or maybe we should take the chinese "historical perspective" and make australia a penal colony again...) I found those remarks by Mr Wild on the history of the English language highly interesting. And as a consequence I will take a closer look at the German language and culture. yes, they were interesting weren't they. although, ultimately, i think wild is WAY OFF in calling english a german dialect (he is completely ignoring the Norman influence). sure, go ahead and take a look. i recommend, for a balanced understanding, that you have a look into the development of the 'highly cultured' doctrines of Lebensraum and Drang nach Osten that played such a large role in german (and hence european) history after the formation of their unified state (c 19th century) to begin with I was denied service at a restaurant and eventually left. That is what I call "endemic racism": that fish and chip shop woman in Queensland is just the tip of the iceberg, and if you do not understand me, then you are just a living proof of my statements. fairplay, i'm not denying that some australians are racists (to varying extents). i meant, what legislation is there in australia that denies an asian immigrant (or visitor) anything that is available to non-asians. NONE! obviously i can't guarantee that every single australian is going to be overjoyed to see and serve you any more than you can guarantee me the same in indonesia. if you came and settled in australia, you'd probably seek out members of the indonesian community to form friendship ties with... it's only natural. am i to call you a racist for not choosing white anglo-saxons? obviously not. people have preferences. the point is that, probably to a greater degree than any other nation in the world, australians, in the cities at least, have learnt to not only tolerate, but appreciate and, increasingly, celebtrate cultural and ethnic differences. and, you might be interested to know, i'm an immigrant myself. i also half from gypsy origin. so i can certainly relate to being discriminated against on a racial basis. but i learnt to get over it, and, lo and behold, i mysteriously saw less and less evidence of it occurring in my life. the lesson: most of what you regard as discrimination is probably nothing more than a figment of your imagination. oh, and also, when i'm in america i'm usually mistaken for either a mexican or an arab. so you can imagine the fun i have with the INS the thing is, i'd feel the immigration authorities weren't doing their jobs if they didn't zero in on me (young arab/mexican male) and ask me their 1001 questions. the last time i entered was shortly after 9/11. i was shocked at how easily i got through at Vegas's McCaran aiport. Then: your highly skilled immigration officers are only trained to pick on Asian travellers. Why is it that any fairskinned traveller walks through baggage control and all Asians have their luggage sniffed at by dogs, if not for offending our feelings. You know it and everybody else knows it. because it's a well known fact that the vast majority of drugs entering the country come from asia. it has nothing to do with offending your feelings (i refer you to what i wrote above). I do not quite see how "western" Australia is: seen from most places in Asia and Africa it lies to the East. And I repeat my statement: the absence of culture in that country will hopefully soon be eradicated by a few million Indonesians who cannot find a livelihood in their own country. i don't see how "eastern" the East is either. obviously they are terms we use out of convenience. if you truly don't understand why australia is classed as a western nation you have no place even taking part in discussions like this. again, there IS a culture here. apparently it is not one that you appreciate. good for you! you don't have to! but if the only reason you find it inferior because it's different to your own, well sonny, that, in my book, is RACIST. as for the immigration, there is some debate here about ideal population levels. if it was decided to increase them by a process of lessened immigration controls, obviously indonesians would play a role. however, i'm highly, highly doubtful (and opposed to) those immigrants being of the sort that "can't find a livelihood in their own country".
but will they be able to at least have some faint idea of what the other is saying? i don't really know, but i would imagine that they could. i, as an English speaker, on the other hand, would have absolutely no idea at all what a german speaker was saying, high german, low german or any german... my point is that although english is to a very large degree derived from germanic roots, what english is TODAY, is so different from what is german, that i find it silly to call it a dialect. it is much more a separate language than a dialect.
no, at least not if they´re from different dialect regions like - say - Platt & Frankish, Hassian & Lusatian etc. ... or neighbouring Swiss Alpine valleys. in my capacity as a west-Westphalian speaker (Mönsters Platt) from Münster i have no difficulties to understand the Dutch spoken in the Holland & Twente provinces ... and the Flemish spoken in the region around Gent & Brugge in Belgium. http://www.muenster.de/ http://publikom.muenster.de/muensterland/index.html wild
ok wild, i'll buy that. i just recalled the extreme difficulties i had in understanding someone form north western macedonia (it's neither serbian nor macedonian...) now, you've said yourself that there exists a "high german" that various dialect speakers use as a kind of lingua franca. i assume this means that these dialects were not derived from this high german (ie, what is commonly understood by the word "german") but that they existed independantly of it. therefore those dialects are germanic dialects... in the same way that danish and swedish could be considered germanic dialects. therefore, english, too, can fairly be said to be a germanic dialect (ie, it has germanic roots), but very misleading to call it a german dialect.
1776 - The US declares independence from England. George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Patrick Henry immediately begin plans to conquer the world and take over the oil reserves. 1803 - the United States buys the Louisiana Territory from France. James Madison, the U.S. Secretary of State, pays 15 million dollars for the land, known to be flooded with underground oil reserves. Madison is quoted calling the French âles suckers.â 1812 â The US engages in war with England in a dispute over the worldâs oil reserves. 1846 â The US and Mexico go to war over Mexican oil reserves. 1861 â The US civil war begins. Abraham Lincoln skillfully portrays a root cause to be the ending of slavery, when in fact the war is over the Southern statesâ wanting more of the percentage of the worldâs oil reserves. 1876 â Alexander Graham Bell patents the telephone for the purpose of aiding the US government in its quest to finding and stealing the worldâs oil reserves. 1879 â Thomas Edison patents incandescent light for the purpose of aiding the US government in its quest to finding and stealing the worldâs oil reserves. 1903 â The Wright Brothers make history with the first powered aircraft flight. These craft were invented for the sole purpose of aiding the US government in its quest to finding and stealing the worldâs oil reserves. 1908 â GE patents the electric toaster for the purpose of aiding the US government in its quest to finding and stealing the worldâs oil reserves. 1914 â WWI begins. The US gets involved only after Germany declares the war is about ending the USâ lusting after the worldâs oil reserves. 1929 â The Great Depression is triggered by a shortage of the worldâs oil reserves reaching the US. 1939 â Hitler invades Poland, igniting WWII. Hitler exterminates millions of Jews, Gypsies, and other ethnic criminals he suspects have aided the US in its plans to steal the worldâs oil reserves. 1948 â The 51st state, Israel, is created to help the US steal the worldâs oil reserves. 1950 â The Korean War begins after the North invades in order to take over the lucrative South kimchee industry. The US relies on one of its greatest generals (and member of the Texaco board of directors), Douglas MacArthur, to repel the Northern attack. June 4, 1955 â Saddamâs hatred for the US begins on this day when his Chevy runs out of gas en route to his prom. He takes out his frustration by raping his date. 1962 â The Cuban Missile Crisis erupts after US reconnaissance planes take incriminating pictures of the Soviets building pipelines near Havana. 1964 â In the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, American oil engineers are fired upon, giving the US the excuse to begin the Vietnam War and gain access to S.E. Asian oil reserves. July 20, 1969 - Commander Neil Armstrong becomes the first man on the moon. His historic words, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind" were never spoken. CIA audio specialists changed his original words, âHouston, we have a problem. I donât see any oil around here.â
quote from daniel_m ... look at the horrific treatment the east timorese suffered for years at the hands of indonesians... Blood on our hands More than 200,000 people have been killed since Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975. For decades, the British government was complicit in these killings. All that was supposed to change in May 1997. Instead, it's been business as usual. ... In the first three months, some 60,000 people died resisting the invasion, or were slaughtered. Or they died in concentration camps, where many starved to death. The role of the American, British and Australian governments in this crime was crucial. The CIA's senior operations officer in Jakarta at that time was C Philip Liechty, whom I found, in retirement, in Washington. 'Suharto was given the green light by President Ford and [Secretary of State] Kissinger to do what he did,' he told me. 'There was discussion in [signals] traffic with the State Department about the problems that would be created for us if the public and Congress become aware of the level and type of military assistance that was going to Indonesia at that time. The decision was taken to get the stuff on the high seas before someone pulled the chain. Most of it went straight into East Timor and was used against non-combatants... 200,000 people died.' ... more at http://www.guardian.co.uk/indonesia/Story/0,2763,208968,00.html regards wild
UNO-SICHERHEITSRAT (UN security council) Deutschland wird dem Krieg definitiv nicht zustimmen (Germany will definitely not agree to the war) Bei einer möglichen zweiten Uno-Resolution im Weltsicherheitsrat zu einem Angriff auf den Irak wird die Bundesrepublik nicht mit "Ja" votieren. Ebenso liefert sie keine Flugabwehrraketen in die Türkei. http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/0,1518,231310,00.html Membership and Presidency of the Security Council in 2003 Month Presidency Membership Term Ends ... February Germany 31 December 2004 ... Germany's Statements in the Security Council http://www.germany-un.org/securitycouncil.html The Sanctions Committee on Iraq Similar to its last term on the Security Council in 1995/1996, Germany has taken the chair of the Iraq-Sanctions Committee for the years 2003 and 2004. This Committee has been established by the Security Council Resolution 661/1990 after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and is therefore known as the "661 Committee". The objective of the sanctions is not a punishment but a tool to force the Iraq regime to comply with the obligations imposed by the UN. In connection with the ceasefire agreement and Security Council resolution 687/1991, Iraq agreed to implement a number of measures that would prevent it from becoming a threat to peace and security in the region once again. Demands included to remove its weapons of mass destruction and to refrain from building up new arsenals. It was decided that the economic sanctions should be lifted when Iraq had complied with the requirements of the Security Council. Medicines and food for humanitarian purposes have always been exempted from the sanctions. more at http://www.germany-un.org/iraqsanctions.html regards wild