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Some facts to make you feel less comfortable spouting patriottic nonsense:

1) You're wrong. The US is #26 in debt with 60% GDP. Some european countries are worse (eg belgium at 85%, france at 64), some are much better (eg holland at 46%, UK at 43%, spain at 35%).

2) US citizens don't save money, but are in debt themselves (eg creditcards). This means that most of the US debt is in the hands of foreign countries or nationals, while a large part of the european public debts is in European hands since europeans save a lot more.

3) The US imports way more than it exports (currently, the trade deficit is 600 billion (!), down from 800 due to the extremely weak dollar). Since these goods have to be bought capital flows out (eg to gulf states for buying oil). This capital flows back in the form of investments in US companies. This sounds good, but what it means is that you are selling Americal companies to foreigners to pay for your consumption. The EU countries generally have trade balance or surplus

Absolutely.

However, the Nevada Solar One plant uses this technology. It covers 400 acres of land, cost $266 million to build, and generates 134 million kwh of power per year. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One

The CIA world fact book ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html ) says the US used 3.816 trillion kwh.

So we only need 28,477 additional solar plants like the Nevada Solar One to get all of our energy, 24 hours a day ( due to the solar heat storage ), from solar power. That's 17,800 square miles of solar plants and a production cost - before economies of scale kick in - of just $7.5 trillion.

Petty cash.

More seriously, building more plants like this as we can as part of a broader strategy to support domestic energy production - and domestic jobs - seems like a great idea to me.

Brazilian economy is ten times bigger than Mexico's.

Ten times bigger? Brazil = $1.314 trillion. Mexico = $893.4 billion. Brazil's economy isn't even twice as large as Mexico's. And while your economy is slightly larger, Mexico's per capita GDP is $12,800 while Brazil's is $9,700.

Sorry, Mexico is doing better than Brazil by any meaningful measure. But yes, Brazil has more people earning less money than Mexico. What Brazil lacks in personal income it makes up for in population quantity.

Brazilian economy is ten times bigger than Mexico's.

Ten times bigger? Brazil = $1.314 trillion. Mexico = $893.4 billion. Brazil's economy isn't even twice as large as Mexico's. And while your economy is slightly larger, Mexico's per capita GDP is $12,800 while Brazil's is $9,700.

Sorry, Mexico is doing better than Brazil by any meaningful measure. But yes, Brazil has more people earning less money than Mexico. What Brazil lacks in personal income it makes up for in population quantity.

United states is not below replacement rate. our fertility rate is currently at 2.1 according to the CIA., at replacement value, regardless of the incorrect information at the bottom of that wikipedia article that contradicts the graph in the same article.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html

and it's rising, by the way.

Seriously, how many people in total have been affected by this? I don't mean "well, Johnny has had his stuff lost 500,000 times total, so it's only 3½ million" - just how many people have been affected, including the redundant ones?

The CIA World Factbook says the UK has a population of 60,943,912 (July 2008 est.) people. In just one year, 6 percent of the total population have been affected by this. That's an insane number!

If that percentage is applicable to the US, that's 18 million people. In the EU it would be almost 30 million!

I suggest we have new laws and regulations put in place with regards to this:

1) Any attempt to cover up losses will result in fines equalling 10$ and 1 day in jail (to be served end to end) per person affected for ALL people involved in the cover up, from regular employee to directors, CEOs, bureaucrats and politicians.
2) Any time there is a breach involving negligence (i.e. not someone physicaly breaking into the building and running off with the equipment), the people involved from employee to directors, CEOs, bureaucrats and politicians will have ALL their data posted in every newspaper in the state they live in. Relevant data of course - if "all" that was lost was SSNs and their names, then that's posted. If it's bankstatements then it'll be that.

Yes, 10$ and 1 day in jail doesn't sound like much for your data. But it's rarely only one person affected. Mostly it's counted in thousands. The average from the article is 2,007 people, meaning a 20,000 dollar fine and 54 years in jail. The smallest incident is "190 people in 5 incidents". That'd be a small fine - 380 dollars, but still 38 days in jail for each incident. Not something to scoff at.

Heck, it is insignificant even compared to the economic losses, which my country may sustain, if China's industrial espionage is successful

What commercial knowledge do you imagine the Chinese would want to steal from the US? 98% of everything you consume is made in China or its close neighbours. The US (and in fact the whole of the "west") trumps China only in the service sector, where China doesn't want to, and geographically can't, compete. The US long ago shipped all it's industrial secrets willingly to China, relinquishing them eagerly in the pursuit of Mammon.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2187rank.html

Compare the first and last on that list and bear in mind that they are each other's largest trading partners... (coincidence it maybe, but if you add together 1,2 and 4 (I'm guessing germany is not a huge trading partner) it almost balances out the US's deficit: perhaps a good indication of where the money went)

There is no real evidence here of anything but government misconduct. They are either covering up real contact or creating the whole story to cover up other secrets.

Either case is reprehensible but the former is worse. Periodically, US government agents lend enough credibility to UFO stories for anyone who distrusts government to suspect a cover up. They also also strongly deny this kind of thing and monitor those who listen. In other words, they actively encourage beliefs which are helpful or harmless to themselves but damaging to those who would believe them. We can quote a letter from the first director of the CIA to Congress on this subject:

"Behind the scenes, high-ranking Air Force officers are soberly concerned about UFOs. But through official secrecy and ridicule, many citizens are led to believe the unknown flying objects are nonsense."

This is a waste of taxpayer money which creates a demand for further wasteful spending and gives credence to all manner of crackpot theories while stigmatizing people with reasonable beliefs. Note that this is exactly the opposite of what is publically claimed. Secrecy makes it impossible to determine anything.

There can be no doubt that intelligent life exists on other planets. It is also clear that our government could do nothing but request assistance if confronted by a society that has intergalactic travel capability.

Namibia comes to mind. Few high profile CEO's are/were camping out there. Though they don't have an official extradition policy, it appears Interpol can nab you if it wants.

I mean, who is still buying Ipods?

Are you serious?

According to the numbers available here, Apple sold 32,764,000 iPods in their last 2 fiscal quarters for which the info is available. To put that into perspective, in a six-month period Apple sold one iPod for every ten people in the U.S. (based on the population number here).

Who is still buying iPods, indeed.

Also bear in mind that your incarceration rate for black people in the US today is 6 times higher than that of black people in South Africa during racial segregation. Why do you imprison generations of black people?

Straw man.

1) Wanna make declarative statements, and have them believed (or maybe believable)? Show us the numbers. Show us the cites. Where did you get these figures, and what are they?

2) Current US population (just over 303 Million) is approx 6 times that of South Africa (just over 47 Million), so the relationship you claim exists (existed?) would seem to be merely statistical, assuming a roughly even amount of population growth in the two countries in the last (however many, we don't know your time frame) years.

3) "imprison generations of black people"? Pish and tosh, that's pure hyperbole. I grew up and live in the US, in the Deep South, in a county which is 70% black. Many of my friends are black, we (whites and blacks) smile at each other even if we aren't acquainted, are polite to each other in public and private, our community stands up together to issues which face us as such, etc etc so on and so forth. You are so far out here in your assumptions that it is sad.

If *anyone* here is guilty of "grossly incorrect statements", that would be YOU. I would add in the word "ignorant" to that statement as well.

Most interesting and sadly amusing, I find that a post attempting to point out some sort of bigotry on the part of Americans, is in fact a prime example of bigotry against Americans. Your slip is showing, ma'am.

Also bear in mind that your incarceration rate for black people in the US today is 6 times higher than that of black people in South Africa during racial segregation. Why do you imprison generations of black people?

Straw man.

1) Wanna make declarative statements, and have them believed (or maybe believable)? Show us the numbers. Show us the cites. Where did you get these figures, and what are they?

2) Current US population (just over 303 Million) is approx 6 times that of South Africa (just over 47 Million), so the relationship you claim exists (existed?) would seem to be merely statistical, assuming a roughly even amount of population growth in the two countries in the last (however many, we don't know your time frame) years.

3) "imprison generations of black people"? Pish and tosh, that's pure hyperbole. I grew up and live in the US, in the Deep South, in a county which is 70% black. Many of my friends are black, we (whites and blacks) smile at each other even if we aren't acquainted, are polite to each other in public and private, our community stands up together to issues which face us as such, etc etc so on and so forth. You are so far out here in your assumptions that it is sad.

If *anyone* here is guilty of "grossly incorrect statements", that would be YOU. I would add in the word "ignorant" to that statement as well.

Most interesting and sadly amusing, I find that a post attempting to point out some sort of bigotry on the part of Americans, is in fact a prime example of bigotry against Americans. Your slip is showing, ma'am.

Germany gets 6% from wind. And the us uses 10x as much electricity.

And the US is 30x as large.

Space is not a problem for wind.

Thats 800,000mills. At current prices this will take 28trillion dollars to install

Let's check that, but not with numbers you've just made up.

The USA uses 7x the electricity of Germany, meaning it would need 20%/6%*7 = 23x as many wind turbines. Germany had 22,000MW installed at the end of last year, so the USA would need 516,000MW.

Pickens is planning on spending about $10B for 4,000MW, or about $2.5M/MW. $2.5M/MW * 516,000MW = $1,300,000M = $1.3T = 2% of what you claimed.

So it's pretty clear you don't know what the hell you're talking about, but I bet you Pickens does.

The real problem is that a 200MW farm takes 20 square kilometers. So to fill that 20% need it would cover around a quarter of texas.

At 20km^2 per 200MW, we'd need 516,000MW/200MW*20km^2 = 51,600km^2 of the USA's 9,800,000km^2 of land, or 0.5%.

Space is not a problem for wind.

We also aren't investing in bringing millions of new carbon powered automobiles onto the road each year either.

They're also building electrics as fast as they can.

The fact that within a generation they are going to have 200,000,000 - 250,000,000 more males than females (something completely without precedent in human history) as a result of the one-child policy.

To me, this is the most scary thing. Generally speaking when you have excess population you need to do something with them, and the most logical thing to do with a bunch of men is send them off to war. My understanding was that it was only 25 million now and 25 million later, though. Ye olde World Fact Book says:

Age structure:
0-14 years: 20.1% (male 142,085,665/female 125,300,391)
15-64 years: 71.9% (male 491,513,378/female 465,020,030)
65 years and over: 8% (male 50,652,480/female 55,472,661)
(2008 est.)

That puts us with 16+ million unmatchable males between the ages of 0 and 14, and 26+ million unmatched between 15 and 65 (probably mostly younger males, I'm okay for the purposes of this conversation with assuming they're all of military age. I don't see where your 250M come from. 42 million excess men is however still scary.

Western Civilization didn't fold the last time it was challenged -- it successfully beat a Great Depression and powerful directorships that aimed to slice up the World -- why assume it will this time?

I don't necessarily think Western Civilization will fold, but any serious fallout involving China may involve fallout and will certainly not be pretty. The only bright spot is that civilizations seem to change for the better after they get stomped a bit. However, the US has only ever really gotten its ass handed to it in Viet Nam and we're still in denial about that. We haven't learned yet as a society that when someone is bullied, someone suffers. Thus bullying is endemic to our culture right down to the schoolyard where it is accepted as status quo by the so-called educators and administrators.

You're right. So which point should I address? The "As we all know"? Because that's what people use to force BS concepts down the readers throats.

Or the "to keep up appearances, the American government will be forced to give Iraqis some sort of democracy" Just like all the other countries the US invaded and won?

"This was probably pre-emptive move to get the uranium out the grip of Tehran." I'm amused that you don't even bring up Canada's part this. Maybe they truly are America's hat. Anyway, Iran already has material.

As we all know.

But in case you don't believe me, In December 2006 and March 2007, the international community passed resolutions 1737 and 1747 respectively after Iran failed to comply with UN demands to halt the enrichment of uranium or to agree to full IAEA oversight of its nuclear program. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html

Your only connection to reality is from reading "The Guardian". I would try harder if I were you.

Well, the main reason is that Japan has a total area of about 375,000 sq km.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html

The USA has about 9,200,000 sq km, or about 30 times the area. Now we (the USA) have covered this out to supply power, telephone, cable tv, and internet but have not been able to cover every single residence with redundancy on these services.

Japan is slightly smaller than California, a large state, but still only one of 50.

Yes, but you have to realize that the U.S. is a lot bigger and a lot less densely populated than korea. From cia.gov, the total population/total landmass for the two countries-

USA- 30.92 people per square km

South Korea- 499.93 people per square km

Korea is more densely populated that the U.S. because there are more people in a given amount of space. In NYC, for example, land is fairly unavailiable/expensive, so the population density is high. In most of the rest of the country, there's more room to spread out, so cities become these sprawling behemoths and public transportation becomes less and less viable. I agree with you that the US will probably move towards larger, more dense cities, but that will take decades. There's a lot of infrastructure that needs changed, and can't be changed overnight based on changing oil markets. In the interim, cars (but not necessarily fossil-fueled) are, many times, a necessity.

(BTW, elaborate "in korea, only old people drive cars" joke, or what?

When the sky clouds over, are you going to sit in your own filth in the dark, like a Frenchman?

Comparing pledges against raw population I think is misleading. 1) Pledges don't reflect the actual download numbers, and 2) In many countries, the internet-using % of the population is actually quite low due to poverty.

A better gauge of Firefox's penetration would be to look at actual downloads against number of internet users in a given country.

a) Saddam tried getting yellow cake from Niger and the Congo. Despite what Richard Clark now claims, Saddam was indeed trying to get uranium.

It's not just Richard Clark, it's Bush's CIA Director ("These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President.") and the Bush Whitehouse itself ("Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.") who claim that Iraq never sought uranium from Niger and the Congo.

If you'd like to refer me to a particular bit of the Congressional report that you feel disproves this, I'd be happy to take a look. But every part of the executive branch has long since admitted that the claims of Iraq seeking uranium were based on forged documents, and entirely incorrect.

b) Saddam definately wanted to harm the US. Alliances with terrorists, incl. Al qaida. You can also reference many of the translated documents recovered from Iraq for more proof of this. Even Gen Clark at one point said that if Bin Laden was driven from his base in Afghanistan he'd likely end up in Iraq. So, hardly one lone voice here.

What alliances with Al Qaeda would these be? Every single entity that has investigated it has claimed that there were no such alliances and that the two groups shared only mutual enmity, so please cite any sources you have that dispute this.

c) Re the lapdog: Wouldn't it have been a whole lot easier for the Bush administration to cozy up to Saddam, and get rid of the UN inspectors and the sanctions, in exchange for a good price on Iraqi oil? If he was so kind, that would've been so much easier. No rabid peacenik libs. Well, fewer anyways....well, rabid over different issues I guess. No war issue, etc.

Uh, yes. It would indeed have been easier, safer, cheaper, smarter, and in all ways better to have not invaded Iraq. I'm glad we're agreed.

"Wow, a libertarian web site does not agree with the idea of socialized medicine. You've been drinking too much of the old libertarian cool-aid"

and you have been sipping the old socialist toilet water. Sprayed into your mouth by Obama and his comrades.

"People I've talked to from Canada, the UK, Germany, Japan, France, and Italy all love their socialized medicine. No one I've talked has ever, or even knows anyone, who has had to go to a free market health care system to cover what theirs will not."

UK population: 60 million: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/uk.html
Germany - population 82 million
Japan - population 127 million
France - population 60 million
Italy - population: 58 million
canada - population: 33 million

and what is the population of the united states? (280 million)

I asked for ONE example of a country the size of the US with successful socialized healthcare and you gave me a list of countries that aren't even half the size in terms of population.

"All you are doing here is parroting back the right wing lies I've heard a million times before. Please try to provide more than anecdotes with no verified evidence. Please do not use libertarian sources unless they are backed up with other, reputable sources. Libertarians almost all think the ends justify the means, and lie all the time."

well, I can give the same evidence as you. I have friends and relatives that live in China and Canada (both with socialized health care). They all have the same story. Checkups are okay, but anything beyond that is a very long waiting list and most just come to the united states.

"All you are doing here is parroting back the right wing lies I've heard a million times before. Please try to provide more than anecdotes with no verified evidence. Please do not use libertarian sources unless they are backed up with other, reputable sources. Libertarians almost all think the ends justify the means, and lie all the time."

now you are resorting to personal attacks and generalizations that just aren't true. You don't think the liberal media lies on a constant basis to push agendas?

It's pretty easy to see why universal health care won't work. In terms of a business, which is better, a monopoly or a free market? With socialized health-care, we would have one large monopoly run by the most inefficient business there is: the government.

Here is a nice example of how great french health care is (since you did include it on your list).

another great side-effect of universal health-care.

Being from the Netherlands I thought this was ridiculous, 'we' hardly have any oil, proven reserves of less than half a year consumption. Quite a bit of natural gas though.

Looking at the numbers I was surprised to see indeed a fair amount of oil export. I guess most of the exports are simply due to the Netherlands (port of Rotterdam) being such a big trading hub - importing a lot of goods simply to export them again to the rest of Europe. Make no mistake, the Netherlands import far more oil than they export.

Oil - exports:
1.546 million bbl/day (2004)
Oil - imports:
2.465 million bbl/day (2004)

Source CIA Factbook: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nl.html

From your low estimation of the importance of the office of President ("It's /just/ a presidential nomination"), one can surmise that you under a parliamentary government, where the executive is chosen by, and serves at the pleasure of, the winning party or parties in the legislature. So you get to vote for your MP, and then you can rest easy knowing that he will take care of everything. If you do elect a "president", it is a position of limited, almost ceremonial power.

But the US doesn't do it that way. The President of the United States has enormous power, both domestically and internationally. And the legislature only has the power to remove him for "high crimes and misdemeanors", not because they just disagree with his policies - there is no such thing as a "no confidence" vote in the US, or at least one that's not political theater.

So political skulduggery has entered the digital age - BFD. Are you going to pretend that intra- party conflict is somehow unique to the US? Ask Brown and Blair about back room deals, betrayals, and conflict.

Finally, "little country"? Are you stoned?

From the CIA Factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/

Geography: Third largest behind Russia and Canada
Population: Third behind China and India (No, the EU doesn't count as a country)
GDP: First

Yes, the US is first in some other categories as well, like debt, etc. so we certainly have our problems.

But little? Please.

The 24% and 1% numbers are apples to oranges. Parent said fuel and you said transport costs, which includes labor capital etc.

Here's a banana. US GDP is $13,840 Billion and we use 20.8 Million barrels per day of oil. 20.8M*365*$130 is $987 Billion a year. So roughly, at current prices US is using 1 Trillion dollars of oil a year in a 14 Trillion dollar economy (ouch). Roughly have the oil used in the US going into transport. So at these prices about 1/28th of US GDP goes to oil for transport. So seems that the orange above is closer to reality and a couple years ago was reality.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html

Estonia I can almost forgive, as they're relatively poor and didn't have much time to go from Soviet-era attitudes to something saner. They should still have done more. What bothers me much more is that the scorecards for US departments make it clear that the US is even less prepared for a cyberwar than even Balkan castoffs.

Actually, Estonia isn't very poor. They're a member of the E.U. They're the wealthiest of the Baltic States and their market economy has "one of the highest per capita income levels of Central Europe" (CIA World Factbook). Their unemployment is comparable to the U.S., at just 5.2%. They're actually quite modern. Most of their population files tax returns online. Does that sound like a poverty-struck backwards nation to you?

There's nothing very Soviet about them, really. They speak their own language, Estonian, which is quite similar to Finnish. Estonia and Finland have very close ties, culturally and financially.

You're clearly thinking of some other Estonia.

Could be worse, you could be talking to your shoe.

First? Germany's been there since 1972. Even negative growth has occurred in the last few years. The situation in Russia is by far the worst though.

CIA World Factbook

Tibet and Taiwan both insist that they are separate countries from China with their own governments. Much of the rest of the world (at least the non-communist west) considers Tibet and Taiwan as separate from China.

That is not what the rest of the world holds. For example, the state department includes Tibet as part of China. See Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005, which states that "The United States recognizes the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) and Tibetan autonomous prefectures and counties in other provinces to be a part of the People's Republic of China." What do the people of Tibet hold? It's not clear. The Dali Lama is not pushing for Tibet independence, just cultural autonomy. Many of the supporters of an independent Tibet left the region almost a generation ago or have no cultural ties to the region (e.g., most of the protesters who decided unilaterally that the Olympics were a symbol of Chinese oppression). The Mandarin Chinese who have built homes and businesses in Tibet certainly are not interested in having it become a separate country. Should their opinion count?

Taiwan, on the other hand, is in a limbo state. Western leaders continue to support the status quo. That is, western leaders do not want China to forcibly reunify Taiwan, which would be very destabilizing, but do not want the Taiwanese to declare their independence from China either. Support for the status quo is one of the reasons why the United States does not have diplomatic relations with Taiwan. See The CIA World Factbook. The majority of Taiwanese people support the status quo too.

...given that China has an absolute authoritarian system of control, and India is bitterly divided along ideological lines, China should have little trouble penetrating and subjugating the country. Already, the Han Chinese chauvinists have been responsible for funding the entire Communist party machinery in India, and have effectively created a subversive government (The Communist Party of India) that is the agent of a hostile foreign country. The CIA has already provided evidence as to how Indian Communists, underthe instructions of their Chinese paymasters, infiltrated the Indian Army during the Sino-Indian war and betray military secrets to Beijing.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-15.pdf

Highlights include:

#CPI(M) [Communist Party of India Marxist] heavyweight HK Surjeet influenced by Communist Soviet Russia to setup an underground organization
#CPI(M) did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army.
#China and Soviet Russia both insisted that the CPI(M) must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
#With the People's Liberation Army now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential "liberator" in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
#4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Beijing
#Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI(M) particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
#A foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with the Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas.
#Letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies.
#Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party.

In addition, the Communist Party of India have successfully carried out several pogroms and genocides against Hindus and Tibetan refugees in India, particularly during the 70's and 80's, all as part of a Trotskyist strategy of maintaining a state of "permanent revolution" (the most recent one being the Nandigram SEZ Massacre), all at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.

China has also aggressively sponsored the terrorist Naxalite Communist terror movement in India by financing major Communist radicals (ethnic Bengali Bolshevists like Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal received training from Chinese war camps in Tibet only to subsequently lead the naxalite reign of terror across India's "Red Corridor").

For a developing country, India is too damn democratic. If India was more authoritarian it would have taken care of such subversive Communist elements a long time ago, but India's democracy is it's greatest weakness, particularly when it is surrounded by totalitarian regimes like Pakistan and China that represent a major existential threat to the country.

...given that China has an absolute authoritarian system of control, and India is bitterly divided along ideological lines, China should have little trouble penetrating and subjugating the country. Already, the Han Chinese chauvinists have been responsible for funding the entire Communist party machinery in India, and have effectively created a subversive government (The Communist Party of India) that is the agent of a hostile foreign country. The CIA has already provided evidence as to how Indian Communists, underthe instructions of their Chinese paymasters, infiltrated the Indian Army during the Sino-Indian war and betray military secrets to Beijing.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-15.pdf

Highlights include:

#CPI(M) [Communist Party of India Marxist] heavyweight HK Surjeet influenced by Communist Soviet Russia to setup an underground organization
#CPI(M) did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army.
#China and Soviet Russia both insisted that the CPI(M) must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
#With the People's Liberation Army now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential "liberator" in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
#4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Beijing
#Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI(M) particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
#A foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with the Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas.
#Letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies.
#Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party.

In addition, the Communist Party of India have successfully carried out several pogroms and genocides against Hindus and Tibetan refugees in India, particularly during the 70's and 80's, all as part of a Trotskyist strategy of maintaining a state of "permanent revolution" (the most recent one being the Nandigram SEZ Massacre), all at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.

China has also aggressively sponsored the terrorist Naxalite Communist terror movement in India by financing major Communist radicals (ethnic Bengali Bolshevists like Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal received training from Chinese war camps in Tibet only to subsequently lead the naxalite reign of terror across India's "Red Corridor").

For a developing country, India is too damn democratic. If India was more authoritarian it would have taken care of such subversive Communist elements a long time ago, but India's democracy is it's greatest weakness, particularly when it is surrounded by totalitarian regimes like Pakistan and China that represent a major existential threat to the country.

...given that China has an absolute authoritarian system of control, and India is bitterly divided along ideological lines, China should have little trouble penetrating and subjugating the country. Already, the Han Chinese chauvinists have been responsible for funding the entire Communist party machinery in India, and have effectively created a subversive government (The Communist Party of India) that is the agent of a hostile foreign country. The CIA has already provided evidence as to how Indian Communists, underthe instructions of their Chinese paymasters, infiltrated the Indian Army during the Sino-Indian war and betray military secrets to Beijing.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-15.pdf

Highlights include:

#CPI(M) [Communist Party of India Marxist] heavyweight HK Surjeet influenced by Communist Soviet Russia to setup an underground organization
#CPI(M) did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army.
#China and Soviet Russia both insisted that the CPI(M) must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
#With the People's Liberation Army now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential "liberator" in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
#4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Beijing
#Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI(M) particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
#A foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with the Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas.
#Letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies.
#Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party.

In addition, the Communist Party of India have successfully carried out several pogroms and genocides against Hindus and Tibetan refugees in India, particularly during the 70's and 80's, all as part of a Trotskyist strategy of maintaining a state of "permanent revolution" (the most recent one being the Nandigram SEZ Massacre), all at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.

China has also aggressively sponsored the terrorist Naxalite Communist terror movement in India by financing major Communist radicals (ethnic Bengali Bolshevists like Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal received training from Chinese war camps in Tibet only to subsequently lead the naxalite reign of terror across India's "Red Corridor").

For a developing country, India is too damn democratic. If India was more authoritarian it would have taken care of such subversive Communist elements a long time ago, but India's democracy is it's greatest weakness, particularly when it is surrounded by totalitarian regimes like Pakistan and China that represent a major existential threat to the country.

...given that China has an absolute authoritarian system of control, and India is bitterly divided along ideological lines, China should have little trouble penetrating and subjugating the country. Already, the Han Chinese chauvinists have been responsible for funding the entire Communist party machinery in India, and have effectively created a subversive government (The Communist Party of India) that is the agent of a hostile foreign country. The CIA has already provided evidence as to how Indian Communists, underthe instructions of their Chinese paymasters, infiltrated the Indian Army during the Sino-Indian war and betray military secrets to Beijing.

http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-07.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-08.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/POLO/polo-09.pdf
http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-15.pdf

Highlights include:

#CPI(M) [Communist Party of India Marxist] heavyweight HK Surjeet influenced by Communist Soviet Russia to setup an underground organization
#CPI(M) did proceed to recruit a secret organization within the Indian Army.
#China and Soviet Russia both insisted that the CPI(M) must develop a standby apparatus capable of armed resistance, while intensifying penetration of Indian Military forces.
#With the People's Liberation Army now present along the Indian Border the Indian Party had a channel of support for Armed Operations and a potential "liberator" in the event of mass uprisings - 13 Sept 1959
#4 powerful radio sets had been installed in the office of the China Review in Calcutta to listen to broadcasts from Beijing
#Chinese Financial Subsidies to sections of the CPI(M) particularly the left faction strongholds in West Bengal
#A foreign supply base was now available for the underground organizations with the Chinese occupation of Tibet and other frontier areas.
#Letter asking for collaboration in Indian underground organization work aimed at an eventual revolution, because China has a border with India and can provide arms and supplies.
#Also Jaipal Singh, head of the illegal organization within the Indian Army decided to reactivate his organization in 1961 following the hard left faction gaining control of the party.

In addition, the Communist Party of India have successfully carried out several pogroms and genocides against Hindus and Tibetan refugees in India, particularly during the 70's and 80's, all as part of a Trotskyist strategy of maintaining a state of "permanent revolution" (the most recent one being the Nandigram SEZ Massacre), all at the behest of their Chinese paymasters.

China has also aggressively sponsored the terrorist Naxalite Communist terror movement in India by financing major Communist radicals (ethnic Bengali Bolshevists like Charu Mazumdar and Kanu Sanyal received training from Chinese war camps in Tibet only to subsequently lead the naxalite reign of terror across India's "Red Corridor").

For a developing country, India is too damn democratic. If India was more authoritarian it would have taken care of such subversive Communist elements a long time ago, but India's democracy is it's greatest weakness, particularly when it is surrounded by totalitarian regimes like Pakistan and China that represent a major existential threat to the country.

Only an idiot would point to Cuba as a model for anything

The literacy rate in Cuba is 99.8%.

GDP of Brazil: $1.269 trillion
Microsoft global yearly revenue: $57.95 billion

Not if you don't have anything of value to start with. Computer equipment costs money, building communications costs money, etc.

India has natural resources, I don't know why you think otherwise. It's one of the lead iron ore exporters: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/in.html

Tell me... how does one build a data center when you have no capital to buy the equipment and put the infrastructure in place?

How about this one?

seeing as USA is currently the most indebted nation on the planet its only prudent that someone take the reigns and start paying back whats owed, and that will be with the only tool the government have; taxes.
remember the Iraq war is costing you currently approx $43500 per household per year, where do you think thats gonna come from ?

this sales tax is only the beginning of a very long,very steep road.

Back in Reagan's day, our intel folks managed to slip the Soviets a surprise that would have made Jokey Smurf proud with their bundle of purloined technology.

This is still ignoring the huge tar sand deposits under Utah, Colorado, and Wyoming. The US still produces a lot of oil, even if Pennsylvania doesn't any more. We just import a lot more of it.

Yes, Canada is cheaper, but the service is crap in comparison. Mortality rates for most cancers, heart attacks, etc. is substatnially lower. Wikipedia will confirm:

The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000 ranked the U.S. health care system first in both responsiveness and expenditure, but 37th in overall performance and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study).

The CIA World Factbook ranked the United States 41st in the world for lowest infant mortality rate[13] and 45th for highest total life expectancy.[14]

One of the major complaints about the Canadian health care system is waiting times, whether for a specialist, major elective surgery, such as hip replacement, or specialized treatments, such as radiation for breast cancer.

Show me less cost and same value, or same cost and better value, and I'll believe you.

Yes, Canada is cheaper, but the service is crap in comparison. Mortality rates for most cancers, heart attacks, etc. is substatnially lower. Wikipedia will confirm:

The World Health Organization (WHO) in 2000 ranked the U.S. health care system first in both responsiveness and expenditure, but 37th in overall performance and 72nd by overall level of health (among 191 member nations included in the study).

The CIA World Factbook ranked the United States 41st in the world for lowest infant mortality rate[13] and 45th for highest total life expectancy.[14]

One of the major complaints about the Canadian health care system is waiting times, whether for a specialist, major elective surgery, such as hip replacement, or specialized treatments, such as radiation for breast cancer.

Show me less cost and same value, or same cost and better value, and I'll believe you.

Posting anonymously for what should be obvious reasons. Perhaps the "coward" part of the nom de plume is accurate.

I think the issue is one of scale. Let's take a look at an "old Europe" country: Germany. 82.4M people in an area "slightly smaller than Montana" according to the CIA World Factbook. If 10 million people are against a policy, this means about 12% of the people are upset. Compare this to the U.S. and it's estimated 301 M people, where 10 million strong opposition is a mere 3% of the population.

Size is an issue here, too. In Germany, it's a day trip to go protest on the steps of the federal government buildings. In the U.S., going from California to Washington D.C. is a 3+ hour flight each way at best, or a 2-day car trip. Sure, you can do local protests, but "10 geographically isolated marches of 100,000 people each" isn't as impressive as "a march of 1,000,000 people on downtown."

So, this becomes an issue of logistics. How do you spread the word and plan for something that could take 2 days? Assuming the government is truly corrupt (which is all too easy of an assumption these days), they have 2 days to do something about this sort of organization; arrest leaders, harass participants, declare individuals as "homegrown terrorists" and give them a relaxing stay at Guantanamo Spa and Resort, etc. Compare this to Germany, again, where someone could post, "Let's march on Berlin tomorrow!" and you have a decent chance of having more than a handful of people show up.

Consider this: Would the U.S. Revolutionary War have been waged as effectively if the country had been its current size? If they had to send troops from California to help defend against the British armies attacking the East Coast, would we have had a victory and independence? Hard to say, since that scale usually indicates things like infrastructure in place, etc., but I suspect the war might have been even more protracted.

Some would argue that the internet makes organizing things easier, but this also makes it easier to track things on the government's end. Hell, I'm just hoping I'm not already on too many government lists and that posting this anonymously still doesn't bump my profile up to "security threat level olive green". I'm not exactly world-famous, but I'm known as someone who works in an industry that gets a lot of unfortunate government scrutiny.

So, what about the U.K., then, given that it doesn't suffer from immense size? Well, there you have people that have given up their freedoms over a longer period of time. Most Americans are appalled at the idea of CCTV cameras everywhere, but the British seem to take it all in stride. Unfortunately, this is also what is happening to the U.S., where the unfortunate deaths of a few thousand people in a fluke terrorist attack has made the majority all too willing to give up their freedoms for perceived safety. If we stay on the current path, in a few years we're going to be looking at the same situation as what the U.K. is in and the immense size of the country is going to ensure that we never escape from that tyranny, I fear.

Live in Sweden is not that much different from Norway. Surely if you compare closely, Norway seems to be slightly more expensive and slightly better paid. But, in fact, given a choice which country of these two to live in, I would decide solely on other factors, like what sort of job I'd be getting.

Yet, very remarkably, Sweden has exactly zero hydrocarbon deposits (look it up in CIA world handbook if you don't believe). So, how much difference oil makes and how much traditions, education, press freedom, democracy, and, as the result, well run country makes? Oil is just an icing on the cake, and not that much icing for the fact.

Lookit me! I'm hacking the pentagon! And the CIA! And the FBI!

Hold on, one moment--someone's knocking.

I'm not sure I accept your contention Japanese corporate interests are more powerful relative to their respective government. Here in the US a pretty solid 70% of Americans want to see illegal immigration stopped, and yet the government makes almost no effort to stop it.

In Japan, the corporate interests may love cheap foreign labor, but they don't seem to have much success actually importing it in substantial numbers. According to the CIA World Factbook, Japan is 98.5% ethnic Japanese and has a 0% net migration.

35 errors per day is actually a pretty significant error rate. There are about (8.26 / 1000 / year * 301,139,947 * 1 day) = 6810 deaths per day in the US, so they are entering or receiving about one out of every 200 records incorrectly. This means that about ((35 / day) / 301,139,947 * 77.8 year) = .0033 or one in every three hundred people will be incorrectly marked dead during their lifetime if this error rate continues.

Guess who will win :/

http://economie.moldova.org/stiri/eng/39281/ says
"The U.S. legal system imposes a cost of $865 billion a year on the
  U.S. economy, or $9,800 a family"

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/print/us.html
says GDP (official exchange rate): $13.79 trillion (2007 est.)

So about 6% of the USA's economy is flushed down the drain that is the US legal system.

It would be interesting to see a chart of how the legal costs have been raising (or falling) over time. Maybe it's not so scary as many of us think, or maybe it's worse.

"Military industrial complex"? Please... Approximately 20% of the United States federal budget goes toward military spending. Providing for America's defense is mandated in our constitution. According to the same link, approximately 54% of the United States federal budget goes toward social security, medicare, unemployment, and welfare. Providing entitlements for Americans is not mandated in our constitution. As a percentage of gross domestic product, United States military spending was at 4% in 2005, making it 28th in the world behind countries like Greece, China, Singapore, and Turkey. In the 1950s, US military spending was closer to 15% of GDP. In the Second World War, it was close to 40%. If you're going to compare the amount of US military spending to the rest of the world, at least be honest enough to compare the sizes of the rest of the world's economies. US military spending has not fared well versus entitlement spending over the last several decades in the United States. If you want to see an American "military industrial complex," you're going to have to go back to the Eisenhower administration, ironically enough.