1. Our clique? Please, give it up. As long as you refuse to respect the posts of others, don\'t expect to have your posts receive much respect either.
2. USSR=Not communist. However, it was always referred to as a communist state, so calling it communist only makes it simpler to talk about things like cold war activities. Whether it was communist or not, it makes sense to call it communist in such a situation.
3. The luckee Giga thing...in all honesty, that didn\'t seem like much of a personal attack...really something you should just brush off, or maybe respond to with an explaination. He said he can\'t respect such a position, which is fine. He doesn\'t have to. He then said very clearly that it\'s nothing personal against luckee. It seems to me that he deliberately worded his response in a way that allowed him to get his point across, and that he hoped would avoid angering anyone. I really saw nothing wrong with it.
4. Giga: sure you can use facial expressions

:o

. If you\'re trying to post something that you don\'t want someone to take offense to, try adding a big fat

to the end of it. Seems to help.