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Hamburgers, pizza, tacos, Chinese food and turkey.

Maybe laser-guided missiles installed in the planes would be a great deterrent. Shine a laser at the plane, you get a missile at your front door...

Unless you're in China, in which case they crash an old satellite into your apartment living room: http://www.china.org.cn/english/2004/Oct/109656.ht m

Microsoft was the first foreign company admitted into the China Software Industry Association. Microsoft Joins in China Software Industry Association (People's Daily Online, June 17, 2002)

China has brought intellectual property law into sych with it's major trading partners. Ministry of Science and Tecnlogy: Laws and Regulations

You do not maintain your position in world trade by ignoring the WTO. WTO China Updates

Microsoft was the first foreign company to gain admission to the China Software Industry Association. Microsoft Joins in China Software Industry Association (2002)

China's Intellectual Property Law has been brought into synch with the WTO and it's major trading partners. The Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations

Chinese films with a significant North American market are released as Region 1 DVDs. Films of China The Chinese government is not adverse to box-office success, commercial production, foreign investment and distribution. Chinese Film Industry To Be Established (2003)

Microsoft was the first foreign company to gain admission to the China Software Industry Association. Microsoft Joins in China Software Industry Association (2002)

China's Intellectual Property Law has been brought into synch with the WTO and it's major trading partners. The Ministry of Science and Technology: Laws and Regulations

Chinese films with a significant North American market are released as Region 1 DVDs. Films of China The Chinese government is not adverse to box-office success, commercial production, foreign investment and distribution. Chinese Film Industry To Be Established (2003)

Microsoft was the first foreign corporation admitted into the China Software Industry Association (2002). Microsoft Joins in China Software Industry Association World traders play by world rules.

1,442 Porn Sites Offline

http://www.china.org.cn/english/21054.htm/ Wuxi's per capita $4584.53 as of 10/24/2001.
It might be a little higher now, say closer to $5,500.

Who says that Chinese satellite technology can't monitor individuals? If the resolution from geosynchronous orbit is insufficient, they can just move the satellites closer. I'd say this distance should be sufficient.

Another variation gives it like this:

China plans to launch more than 100 satellites before 2020 to form a global earth observation system with satellites launched by other nations.

and also adds a tiny bit more detail on what its used for:

The network would monitor water reserves, forests, farmland, city construction and "various activities of society,"

Now the part that might concern us all...

Combining observation platforms of many nations enables all nations to share information. In April, 44 nations and 26 international organizations formally approved the establishment of a global earth observation system.


Why would an organisation be involved in a worldwide monitoring network?
Also, can anyone find out which countries are involved?

article here: http://www.china.org.cn/english/scitech/112584.htm

Part of that is correct, except that china, like many of us, essentially doesn't trust microsoft. The chinese have for a long time been supporters of linux as seen in this article here and here

The first Chinese man in space didn't see the wall, and this article says that the Chinese government has ordered the publisher of a text book to stop printing untill they correct the "falsehood".

According to this article, the patent fees can be as high as US$27.45 per unit. (about 20 to 30 percent of their production cost.)

According to this artice, they exported 41 million units in five months... that makes an average of 8.2 million units per month. US$8.2 million isn't that bad of a monthly profit.

I guess it depends on which side of the border you land, but believe me, I have many japanese friends and they don't know fuck all about history... it is a bit scary.

Kyoto hid under the cloak of global warming which is really just a political thing. Sure, people can affect the environment to some extent but thinking we are destroying the environment is not only scientifically invalid, it's almost unspeakably arrogant and naive.

You dont know what you are talking about. Human pollution is causing havoc planet wide, from habitat destruction for shopping-mall chochkies, ddt, asbestos, teflon, nuclear waste etc etc etc etc etc.

Global warming is just one problem, and honestly not even the tip of the iceburg.

The Kyoto accord was NOT ratified by the non-U.S. countries who tried to get the U.S. to commit to follow it....How, exactly, would moving production from the U.S. to areas which were to be exempt from environmental limitations contribute to a cleaner environment?

You dont understand the accord.

Oh, btw, China understands global warming. And is acting....in 2005 its car-fleet efficiency standards will be greater than the USA.

Without busting your bubble, you really need to get some perspective and understand that Kyoto is in the best interest of the Planet -- that is why reasonable (read: not plutocratic) governments signed it... the dellusions of seathing masses intending to destroy the Good Ol' USA(TM) is really jingoist nonsense.

Well, considering the it's probably mostly steel, and that Baosteel Group "has purchased 50,000 tons of the scrap steel from "Ground Zero," the ruins of the September 11 terrorist attack, at no more than US$120 each ton"

I guess the scrap metal for the 580 ton thingy should be worth $50-$100 K.

...perhaps I should have been more explicit and used 'as much'. I'm well aware that Mandarin is spoken outside China, just not so much as English!

Compared to how much English is spoken outside native English speaking countries, Mandarin is indeed not spoken 'so much' outside China. While there are more non-native speakers with *some* level of competence in English than native speakers, almost all speakers of Mandarin are native speakers. In the countries you mention, the language is spoken by ethnic Chinese, while English is spoken extensively by non-native speakers.

The British Council estimates that there are one billion people learning English, against a Chinese Ministry of Education estimate of 25 million learning Chinese. (Although I have no doubt that this will only increase in the future.)

Who makes this shit up? It doesn't take a telescope to observe sunspots, which is why the Chinese were doing it as early as 28 B.C.. Eurocentric bastards....

Arkwright's invention was independent, but there was very prior prior art.

Like that doesn't happen already!

Well then, here's some irony for you: the main reason I originally learned Esperanto was to communicate with Chinese people, and become acquainted with Chinese literature. Esperanto is big in China, just check out the Cxina Interreta Informa Centro if you need proof--and there is a great amount of Chinese literature availiable in Esperanto translation. This is better than reading Chinese lit in English or another European language, because in those translations it is a native speaker of the European language who produces the translation, and a lot of interpretation is required to do it (put any two translations of the Tao Te Ching side-by-side to see how divergent they can be!). But Esperanto lit is always translated by a native speaker from his own language into Esperanto, so at least the interpretation that goes into the translation comes from the same cultural context as the work itself.

But the biggest argument is, learning to read a literary work in Esperanto takes as little as a month, whereas if you're going to be reading Laux Sxe's "Kamelo Sxangxi" (to name a Chinese novel I've read in Esperanto) in Mandarin Chinese, and you're a native English speaker, you're going to be studying for years, not weeks. --Not that there's anything wrong with that, but that's a key thing about Esperanto, it's easy, so there's no reason you can't learn it AND Mandarin Chinese, even if you put 95% of your effort into the latter.

WPS Office is, unless something has changed, as proprietary as is Microsoft Office.

And AVS for audio/video is patent/royalty encumbered.

How is it in the interests of the people in any nation, that daily government operations and communication be dependent upon a private corporation?

When will we see a government -- a people -- that will stand up to large corporate interests and fund the development and deployment of an open source office suite and groupware servers and clients, of similar or higher quality than existing proprietary solutions, so that the daily operation of our government will not be dependent upon the business strategies of private corporations.

The whole world is literally at your finger tips. Here are a few examples.

The People's Publishing House have been selling Chinese translations of the Harry Potter books since 2000. News story here. The Chinese translation of The Order of the Phoenix will be out in October - 29-year-old Ma Aixin is doing the translation, as the old translators were making the language too elegant and stiff.

It's not a purely Communist system, though. Jiang Zemin and Shi Guangsheng have apparently been working towards a "Socialist Market Economy." No, I don't quite understand it either.

You must not have looked very hard:

China builds tai chi-playing robot (same article, different site)

Un robot imitant la boxe chinoise (from google cache)

Article in Chinese with PICTURE

Another Picture

China construye un robot que practica el taichi (Spanish, I think)

Chinese invent martial arts ready robot It can also surf the Internet, maybe

New Robot Developed in China (with Picture)

This looks like it could be the original source.

I'm don't know what you searched under, but Google returns these results.

Some others have picked up on it, there are some loose translations, but no real original articles. No pictures either.

Yeah, this looks a little vaporous. I hope not,the technology is certainly feasible, but I'm a little skeptical of uncorroborated articles in national chinese news sites. The japanese, however, have a robot that looks promising.

Before someone goes off-topic into strange theories of international law and jurisdiction, there are several international conventions to which Russia is a signatory thus at least on paper they do agree to enforce reciprocal protections. Both you and the vendor may have broken Russian law. I know Russia has much more dire threats.

Note that by signing on to those conventions, the countries consent to participation. This is a different matter from jurisdiction when you commit a crime abroad. For purchasing those CD's, your being an American would be beside the point; they'd be able to prosecute you. (Unless you are also a diplomat.)

China is the most notorious example of a country disregarding international copyright and pissing off the U.S., the source of so much of the material. And I can see why: they are a poor country with more to gain than lose by ignoring copyright. China purports to be mending its ways as participation in int'l trade becomes ever more important to it.

Now the average, urban, Chinese person (who has a yearly income of about $800) can stop buying cheap pirated movies and can, instead, spend a week's wages to buy a commercial video. That is, provided he/she was not planning to squander that money on food, clothing, or shelter.

Those living in rural areas, where the per-capita income is about 1/3 that will just have to sell a family member into slavery if they really want that video.

Maybe before whining about the evil Chinese pirating videos and software, you should consider what their incomes are compared to ours.

There are always better solutions than violence, especially violence to the scale of nuclear weapons. I am sure as hell not moving to Nevada...I hear nuclear radiation is bad for you. I would not be proud of having a nucleur test site in my state and I am not proud of having nucluar test sites in my country. The US is going to seriously regret messing with nuclear weapons oneday. This story about nuclear testing and cancer says: 'Fallout from US tests in Nevada spread substantial amounts of radioactivity across many states, particularly Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri.'

Are you telling me the defense industry doesn't care about the American people? That's it whole fucking purpose, is to defend morons like you

This is what the US defence industry does...

In the United States, close to 100 companies manufacture and export considerable quantities of instruments of torture that are banned in international trade. They have set up sales networks overseas. In its February 26, 2001 report, Amnesty International said some 80 American companies were involved in the manufacture, marketing and export of instruments of torture, including electric- shock tools, shackles and handcuffs with saw-teeth. Many instruments of torture and police tools are high-tech products, which can cause serious harms to the human body. For instance, handcuffs,which would tear apart the flesh of the tortured if the victim slightly exerts himself, are very cruel, and so is a high- pressure rope for tying up a person. Although categorically prohibited by US law, the Commerce Department of the United States has given official export licenses for exporting such tools. According to statistics, American companies have secured export licenses and sold tools of torture overseas valued at 97 million U. S. dollars since 1997 under the category of "crime control equipment." It is inconceivable that, while the US State Department is talking about human rights, the US Department of Commerce has given export licenses for products determined as instruments of torture in statutes of the US government, said Dr. William Schulz, who conducted the investigation.

Well, thats what we're saying. If you read a Chinese Newspaper, they say very different things. The Chinese state that we were in their airspace, and that we made a sharp turn off course to hit their plane.

If you buy what our people are saying, we appear to be in the right. If the Chinese are telling the truth, obviously we owe them an apology.

I find both stories somewhat hard to believe. Do you really think we would be on autopilot flying so close to another plane? I find that very hard to believe. Likewise the pilot of the Chinese plane was said to be a daredevil who frequently performed stunts of various sorts to rile foreign pilots.

The likely story - both sides were playing a dangerous game of chicken in the air and collided. That's something that is embarassing to both sides, and I don't expect either to admit it.

• China Internet Information Center
  http://www.china.org.cn/english/index.htm
• The People's Daily
  http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/home.html