i personally would remove the USA flag on top,
no because of it's nature but because
1) The site is far from American, since most posters are not
2) It is just time lost when gettin the page
3) I personally hate animated images on sites

The karma system is maybe just a bad idea, don't wanna start a flame war but, would't the thum up flag be just enough?(maybe a bad answer flag too)

Well, from my location the site is particularly slow to load, maybe a little server/BW upgrade could be worth it

regards, Benjamin