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More development of wireless access in developing nations seems expected. These nations don't have the resources to make everything landline and so they spend the money trying to improve their network prevalence through wireless methods.

I'm not just making this stuff out of my rear-end. Look at the land-line phone vs cellular phone use in the United States vs. a developing country like India or Pakistan . Cell phone use in developing countries is more prevalent than land-line phones. Why should we expect something different for wireless vs. land-line internet connections?

0.000000153% of the total world's population.

10/48,422,644

0.000020651% of the South Korean population.

So, yes, compared to the total deaths in S. Korea from cancer (~65,000 in 2004) or suicide (~12,000 in 2004) [source] I would say it is rather insignificant.

I mean, "every day, 37 Korean children under the age of 14 are killed or injured as pedestrians in road traffic accidents." [source] These people were playing video games too much.

So yeah, the planet is ridiculously big, and it's unimaginably old. But there are a lot of us, and we are going to town on that atmosphere.

So only 6 million Revolutions by next march? That doesn't sound too good to me. A quick look at the factbook page for Japan says that Nintendo has 67%, or roughly 80 million, people in the 15-60 range to sell to, just in Japan. I'd say that they're going to need at least 10 million units to launch there alone, and considering that basically everyone in the rest of the world wants one too, 6 million by March just isn't going to cut it.

With the current trend of things for this console, I hope Nintendo isn't going to intentionally under produce. They've been intentionally playing the carrot-on-the-stick game with us in terms of details about the system for a good while now, but it has to end eventually, and production would be a nice time to.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."

Hello, that's the Declaration of Independence. An important historical document to be sure, but not one that has any legal footing in our current system of government.

In fact, the founding document of our government (the Constitution), makes absolutely no mention of God. Neither does the bill of rights. We know for fact that our founding fathers were religious men, so this omission cannot be by mistake.

When our country lost its collective faith in God, it had political consequences. All our rights are up for grabs now.

Ugh. You can't be serious.

Putting aside the above argument, your logic fails in that the at least 80% of the US population belongs to a religion that believes in God. (And by this, I mean: Protestant 52%, Roman Catholic 24%, Mormon 2%, Jewish 1%, Muslim 1%. "Other" is listed as 10% and the vast majority of those probably feature a single God as their Chief Executive Deity.) You're also forgetting that religious conservatives are currently the majority both at the polls and in the White House and Congress. Nevermind facts when doomsday preaching will do, eh?

Really, if your claim is that the US is falling apart from lack of faith in God, you need your head examined.

• Labor force:
  3.001 billion (2005)
• Labor force - by occupation:
  agriculture: 42%
  industry: 21%
  services: 37% (2002 est.)

I probably shouldn't respond to the obvious troll but ...

How exactly do you explain a country with the following racial makeup:
black 90%, white 4%, Asian and mixed 6%

Having a 99.7% literacy rate?

Numbers are from an actual country entry in the CIA World Fact Book and this is one of several countries with a largely non-white and non-asian ethnic makeup with a high literacy rate.

For that matter lets take a look at the numbers for Mexico:
mestizo (Amerindian-Spanish) 60%, Amerindian or predominantly Amerindian 30%, white 9%, other 1%
Literacy rate: 92.2%

I personally do not feel that another 8m class telescope is what the community needs.
Are you suggesting that there are ways to spend 300 millon in Chile that might somehow better serve the community? At first I thought maybe schools or infrastructure might be better places for the cash, but after reading up on Chile in the World Factbook http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ ci.html I think that some high end scientific spending is quite appropriate. Now should that money come from US taxpayers? That's a different question.

The omission of those key qualifiers--"essential" and "little"-- makes all the difference in the world. Ben Franklin has been hijacked to endorse an untenable and deadly view that no sacrifice of any liberty for any amount of safety at any time should ever be made.

These pseudo "civil libertarians" love to quote the venerable Benjamin Franklin (whose 300th birthday we celebrate this year) who said: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." But they quote him entirely out of context.

First, his statement appears in his "Historical Review of Pennsylvania," published in 1759 (not available on line), a decade and a half before the Revolutionary War broke out. He was warning that state's legislature against putting too much trust in royal governors during the French and Indian War. True, it was often quoted later, but the purpose was to criticize those who sought safety from occupying British armies, not those who cooperated with Patriot measures to secure everyone's liberties by winning the war!

The Continental Congress regularly received quantities of intercepted British and Tory mail. On November 20, 1775, it received some intercepted letters from Cork, Ireland, and appointed a committee made up of John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Johnson, Robert Livingston, Edward Rutledge, James Wilson and George Wythe "to select such parts of them as may be proper to publish." The Congress later ordered a thousand copies of the portions selected by the Committee to be printed and distributed. A month later, when another batch of intercepted mail was received, a second committee was appointed to examine it. Based on its report, the Congress resolved that "the contents of the intercepted letters this day read, and the steps which Congress may take in consequence of said intelligence thereby given, be kept secret until further orders."...

Before we go too far, it's worth noting that Franklin was talking about liberty, not privacy. There is a relationship between the two, but I find it strange that no one bothers to quote Franklin when we're talking about the liberty to choose how your children are taught or smoke cigarettes in public. Instead, he's used to protect us from the government trying to find out whether or not we're terrorists.

The truth is, the government must strike a balance between privacy and security. Reduced privacy leads to a certain number of innocent private lives disrupted and reduced security leads to a certain number of successful terror attacks. The NSA data mining effort did not take place in a vacuum: it actually stopped real terror plots.

It was the theory behind sendng a third as many troops as the generals knew were needed. Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al were as entranced by the "Revolution in Military Affairs" as McNamara was by his precious operations research.

We have about 150,000 troops in-theatre. According to the CIA factbook (link here: http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ iz.html there are 26.7 million Iraqis. According to the math, we have one soldier for every 179 Iraqis, many of whom are still armed. This is a recipe for disaster.

The quote "No battle plan ever survives contact with the enemy." has been variously attributed to Field Marshall Helmuth Carl Bernard von Moltke, Colin Powell, Murphy Military Laws, and Heinz Guderian (there may be others). D. Rumsfeld and his boys would do well to remember that, since they seem to be incapable of altering either their battle plans or their rhetoric.

"The official name is the United Mexican States (Spanish: Estados Unidos Mexicanos)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexico
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ mx.html#Govt

Okay, so they use a lot more electricity than liechtenstein or tuvalu, so what?

Your link doesn't work for me, Here's some figures, on consumption of electricity, oil and natural gas ( http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/count rylisting.html ) adjusted for population (per person, per year)

US
12250 kwh
24.5 barrels
2123 m^3

Japan
7424 kwh
15.97 barrels
679 m^3

Who do the stats say is exemplifying consumption the extreme? SUVland.

But since Japan's a lot colder than the US, maybe Canada would be a a better comparison?

15737 kwh
25.36 barrels
2924 m^3

Even the socialist bastards of sweden(no offense meant to swedes or socialists, or bastards) use a lot more electricity per person than the Japanese:

14618 kwh
14.01 barrels
108.7 m^3

And you say the Japanese believe that spending more money makes you happier? That's not as bad as believing that spending lots of money makes you better, like in america.

I actually meant you switch to your own uniform so noone can accuse you of being a spy

Helping the enemy and not being in the enemy's uniform is traditionally used as proof of being a spy. A chameleon garment which has the ability to simulate enemy uniforms might in itself be considered a spying tool, although being seen in fake uniforms before changing back to your own uniform would surely be fatal.

... an age-old custom prevailed: if you were caught in your army's uniform, you were a prisoner of war; if you were in disguise, you were a spy and could be hanged.

Military designers would surely use such technology to create "camouflage" garments which can be used to hide a soldier, and perhaps could also emulate one's own uniform. Spy agencies might use such technology to create full chameleon garments which can emulate many uniform designs, but a spy would be operating under different rules than would soldiers.

The above post brought to you by the Costa Rica tourism board.

As Australia consumes 50 billion litres of oil yearly, and this plant produces 1 million litres of oil yearly, I'd say you're going to need a lot of waterways clogged with algae!

On a side note - I believe the Australian waterways are clogged with blue-green algaes? (The same neon-blue blooms you see in many US waterways). It's a big problem - but I'm not sure blue green algaes are suitable for this method of biodiesel production.

How much is that compared to the oil consumption of New Zealand? How many of those factories would be needed to be independent of crude oil and would that be feasible?

NZ consumes around 151,900 blue barrels a day that's around 8815 million litres a year. So this plant will be able to provide around 0.01% of NZ's fuel.

But, there is going to be no single replacement for fossil fuels, there's going to be many (and this is just the first plant).

I wish Aquaflow Bionomics Corporation's home page was a little more professional looking, but this is most certainly good news!

So you live in a country like kuwait of 1990 perhaps?

Please either reread my comment - particularly the line rely on good relations for defense. or understand a little history - particularly the sort of relations Kuwait had with its neighbours in 1990.

Personally, I tend to like the swiss model. Have good relations with everybody and have a good mliitary.

Swiss are completely different - they're a neutral country (not even a part of the UN) and hard to compare. As for a 'good military'...well it aint so expensive.

Swiss military expenditure 1% of GDP

US military expenditure 4%+ of GDP" (interestingly, slightly less then Kuwait you mentioned earlier.

Where we go wrong is that we have presidents who every so often have to prove something or they want something such as oil. Then we throw out might around (basically a bully or being greedy).

I'm afraid more then 'every so often'.

So you live in a country like kuwait of 1990 perhaps?

Please either reread my comment - particularly the line rely on good relations for defense. or understand a little history - particularly the sort of relations Kuwait had with its neighbours in 1990.

Personally, I tend to like the swiss model. Have good relations with everybody and have a good mliitary.

Swiss are completely different - they're a neutral country (not even a part of the UN) and hard to compare. As for a 'good military'...well it aint so expensive.

Swiss military expenditure 1% of GDP

US military expenditure 4%+ of GDP" (interestingly, slightly less then Kuwait you mentioned earlier.

Where we go wrong is that we have presidents who every so often have to prove something or they want something such as oil. Then we throw out might around (basically a bully or being greedy).

I'm afraid more then 'every so often'.

So you live in a country like kuwait of 1990 perhaps?

Please either reread my comment - particularly the line rely on good relations for defense. or understand a little history - particularly the sort of relations Kuwait had with its neighbours in 1990.

Personally, I tend to like the swiss model. Have good relations with everybody and have a good mliitary.

Swiss are completely different - they're a neutral country (not even a part of the UN) and hard to compare. As for a 'good military'...well it aint so expensive.

Swiss military expenditure 1% of GDP

US military expenditure 4%+ of GDP" (interestingly, slightly less then Kuwait you mentioned earlier.

Where we go wrong is that we have presidents who every so often have to prove something or they want something such as oil. Then we throw out might around (basically a bully or being greedy).

I'm afraid more then 'every so often'.

>WMD actually have been found in Iraq as well as the intent to manufacture them.

After a huge effort with teams of experts and complete freedom to inspect sites and empty out filing cabinets, this is what we found:
The Duelfer Report

>Iraq harbored terrorists and in fact supported the 9/11 attacks.

President Bush says differently. On September 18 2003 he told reports in DC "We have no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the 11 September attacks" . Do you disbelieve the President?

If you disbelieve the President, that has interesting implications. Remember that President Bush has informed us that "God speaks through me". If you don't believe in what the President says, you don't believe in God.

The senior President Bush had this to say about people who don't believe in God: "No, I don't know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered as patriots. This is one nation under God. ".

If you're not a citizen, you don't have the rights of a citizen. There's a court ruling that you don't even have habeas corpus.

Being Anonymous Coward won't help you. The government can subpoena Slashdot or show them a National Security Letter demanding their logs. USAPATRIOT second 215 says they don't even need a court order.

In a country of around 1.3 billion people, "almost noone" [sic] is still a hell of a lot of people; and it only takes that one 'wrong person' to totally screw up the rest of your life for you.

I don't mean to read to much into these things, ("Lies, damn lies, and statistics", and all that), but still, you guys MIGHT want to, you know, provide a little more healthcare than you already are. You have the by far highest GDP, and the only ones that beat your GDP per capita can be considered anomalies.

I don't mean to read to much into these things, ("Lies, damn lies, and statistics", and all that), but still, you guys MIGHT want to, you know, provide a little more healthcare than you already are. You have the by far highest GDP, and the only ones that beat your GDP per capita can be considered anomalies.

I don't mean to read to much into these things, ("Lies, damn lies, and statistics", and all that), but still, you guys MIGHT want to, you know, provide a little more healthcare than you already are. You have the by far highest GDP, and the only ones that beat your GDP per capita can be considered anomalies.

I don't mean to read to much into these things, ("Lies, damn lies, and statistics", and all that), but still, you guys MIGHT want to, you know, provide a little more healthcare than you already are. You have the by far highest GDP, and the only ones that beat your GDP per capita can be considered anomalies.

The official nationality of people from the UK is British, not English. By referring to Brits as "English", you're pissing off a sizable number of people who are proud to be Scottish, Irish, Welsh, etc. Us English did some pretty nasty things to them in the past, so calling them "English" isn't exactly going to ingratiate yourself with them.

By referring to people from the UK as British, you're still going to piss off some Irish, but at least you're correct in your terminology. Yes, British is the correct term to use for somebody from the UK, even if they aren't from Great Britain. References:

• alt.usage.english
• CIA World Factbook
• Wikipedia

Having read the article, I have no clue exactly which region of the world it is talking about, because it seems to use different regions as synonyms. It could be the UK, which is a country and member nation of the UN. It could be Great Britain, which is a geographical region within the UK comprised mainly of England, Wales and Scotland. Or it could be England, which is a region, home nation and constituent country of the UK, but which doesn't have its own government.

If I had to guess, I'd say that they were talking about the UK, even though they don't use the word "UK" at all, instead opting for "British" and "England". I base this guess on years of experience with peopel from the USA getting it wrong and the sentence "Those dismal results are despite the fact that U.S. health care spending is double what England spends on each of its citizens." Hint: England spends nothing whatsoever on its citizens. The NHS in England is run by the UK government. It's the NHS in other parts of the UK that belong to their respective constituent countries - England actually has very little to call its own these days.

England, Great Britain and the UK are three completely different things. Mix them up, and you piss people off. It's a bit like mixing up California with the USA with North America. You'd think somebody was pretty ignorant to do that, right?

If U.S. territory within 100 kilometers of the border were a state, its 11 million residents would rank:

                * last in access to health care, with about 30% of the population uninsured;

Ok, how is this a disease they're importing?


                * second in deaths due to hepatitis; and
               

Which state is first?


                * third in deaths related to diabetes.

Which state is first and second. Also DIABETES IS NOT CONTAGOUS! Are you ignorant? Actually these deaths are more than likely because these people don't have access to diagnosis treatment (caused by lack of access to health insurance and would explain the hepatitis stat too).

Rates of several serious communicable diseases are far higher there:

                * tuberculosis along the border is six times the national rate;

Which state has the most ..has this to do with environment? Ok whatever .. you found an anomaly. What's the numbers for toenail fungus prevalence?

* measles and mumps are twice the national rate; and


Who's first? Also, as proven above they dont have access to health care insurance

* HIV/AIDS is spreading rapidly, especially in the California sector.

Mexico has a lower HIV prevalence than the United States!

  http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ mx.html

--

Anyway whatever .. you hate these people and you'll interpret whatever half ass "science" and "statistics" to favor you. You'd hate them regardless of what they're carrying. "No room in the inn" is the phrase we're hearing. "Reject the lepers". Etc.

Not all illegal aliens are here to steal! They may have broken the law (ever speed?), but it's a) it's a misdemeanor b) they are seeking to work and improve their family's lives while providing a service

===

Leviticus 19:10 Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the alien. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 19:33 "'When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love him as yourself, for you were aliens in Egypt. I am the LORD your God.

Deuteronomy 10:18 He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing.

Jeremiah 7:6 if you do not oppress the alien, the fatherless or the widow and do not shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not follow other gods to your own harm,

Jeremiah 22:3 This is what the LORD says: Do what is just and right. Rescue from the hand of his oppressor the one who has been robbed. Do no wrong or violence to the alien, the fatherless or the widow, and do not shed innocent blood in this place.

Matthew 25:
  42
        For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
43
        a stranger and you gave me no welcome, naked and you gave me no clothing, ill and in prison, and you did not care for me.'
44
        18 Then they will answer and say, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or ill or in prison, and not minister to your needs?'
45
        He will answer them, 'Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.'

According to what? The CIA World Fact Book and your manipulation of their numbers? Hahahahahahahah. Like that's an unbiased factual resource? Please credit us with the sense not to believe everything your govenment says (the very same people that have been denying global warming), however I'll use their figures for my analysis since it's your source. (source http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2004rank.html which is about the most recent I can find)

Lets look at this a little differently taking into account some of the things you've skipped ( I don't blame you - perhaps you've been force fed too much propoganda and haven't quite managed to engage in independant thought, they are after all pretty good at it ).

Firstly the EU is expanding and helping new members grow and flourish - Europe invests a huge amount inwardly in developing newer member states. The US doesn't have this burden to bear so your figures straight away are skewed.

Next lets think about this in terms of *efficiency* of production not just quantity:

US uses far more resources than Europe per capita - about twice as much as Europe.
(http://atlas.aaas.org/index.php?part=2 it's hard to find figures for this). They have about half the population but by net are a bigger resource user than Europe and so must be using at least twice the resource.

So for resource in and time given the Americans are less productive than the US. You give 10 Americans twice the resources of 20 Europeans and more time and the Europeans still out perform the US. And the EU doesn't have a huge trade deficit and spriraling national debt to add into the equation.

Again this is before we consider the environmental cost of your productivity that you've not factored in (of course there is no environmental effect if we believe your goventment, handy).

Who's more productive, and who has a unsustainable lifestyle and goes around the world using it's milatary to control other's resources (wars of aggression over resoureces - oil recently) in order to try to support their unsustainable (and thus clearly net unproductive) culture?

How long does the truth have to stare you in the face before realise the dreamlike fantasy you're living is actually causing everyone's worst nightmare.

Wake up, please - it might just not be too late.

Actually, it's 1:600k people.

298,444,215 / 435 =
679,848.58390804597701149425287356 to be exact :)

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ us.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_o f_Representatives

It still needs to be reorganized, though.

USA (3,732,400 square miles)
Sweden (173,732 square miles)

you're free to move to Cambodia - Because your *country* is quite probably physically smaller than my *state*. The entire land mass of Europe...

Combodia isn't located in Europe. You missed by a half planet; Learn your geography first, aye?

As it stands, all the computers run Windows. Because of the age of the boxes, they even use windows 95. My first reaction to this is a free unix could be installed on those machines and they could run modern software at a faster pace. It'd also be easier to administer for a multiuser system. And they could all be kept updated from a central location. Plus the FOSS nature allows them more control and they won't be at the whim of major US corporations. Let's just say I think Linux has lots of practical advantages over Windows 95.

But then I had to return to reality. Nobody there except me is going to have a clue about Linux. There are a few other volunteers but they aren't unix experts. And the locals have been learning only Windows for years now, but still only have few of them have a grasp on it. If I were to setup Linux boxen there, when I left, nobody would be left to administer them. The benifits of Linux would be lost, but so would the benifits of a usable computer.

Now this brings me to my point. Unless linux takes a foot-hold in the first world and as many volunteers to The Gambia are experts in it as experts in Windows, it's a bad idea to try to burdon the locals with being FOSS pioneers.

According to the CIA's own figures the USA's world share of GDP (purchasing power parity) has fallen to 20%.

I'm over forty years old. I have lived though, vividly remember and fully comprehend the late 1970s oil crisis, New Zealand's own 1984 balance of payments crisis and the 1987 share market crash. My Father was born a year after the 1926 stock market crash and is well acquainted with the effects of the resulting depression. I have repeatedly seen fools and so called wise men throw their fortunes on various markets and schemes based upon expected high return on investment. Eventually and inevitablely the pyramid schemes -- for in the end that's all the revolving investment schemes are -- collapse.

I am fully aware of attempts to prop up and explain away the current US deficits, but, if you bother to read though the texts you will find the same language and faulty logic that was used to explain away the sustainability of pre-1987 junk bonds. It did not work then, and without radical adjustments, the system will fail again.

Current account balance ? 150th out of 150, United States $ -829,100,000,000 2005 est.
Lowest external debt ? 205th out of 205, United States $ 8,837,000,000,000 30 June 2005 est.
The look on a redneck's face when he finally comes to the realization that President Bush has screwed over his life savings : Priceless.

Current account balance ? 150th out of 150, United States $ -829,100,000,000 2005 est.
Lowest external debt ? 205th out of 205, United States $ 8,837,000,000,000 30 June 2005 est.
The look on a redneck's face when he finally comes to the realization that President Bush has screwed over his life savings : Priceless.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2119rank.html

1% of USA population ~= 2,984,442

Regarding them lying - I think it's more likely that they're counting hits which don't equate 1:1 to a person.

> Matthew, you're suffering from the belief in an incorrect meme that seeks uniform distributions.

No, you just missed his point.

Japan's standard of living is predicated on important vast amounts of foodstuffs and raw materials. It is physically impossible for every region in the world to import and consume raw materials at the pace Japan does, since there must be somewhere else for them to import from.

As a concrete example, Japan is about 0.25% of the world's land area, yet consumes about 7% of the world's oil production. The world would only be able to fit about 15 Japans before it ran out of oil production, even though there is physical space for 400 Japans. By contrast, Mongolia would fit into world oil production about 7,500 times, but there is only landmass space for 90 of them.

This isn't a question of whether Japan is good or bad, and the Khmer Rouge has nothing to do with anything here. This is a question of how many physical resources are available in the world, and what that means for overall consumption. And what that means is this:

The world cannot fit very many Japans.

Due to global trade, an increase in Japan's population directly corresponds to a decrease in the maximum sustainable population of the rest of the world. Rich nations can effectively rent space from other nations, allowing their own populations to grow beyond the carrying capacity of the land inside their borders. So overpopulation is a global consideration, not a local one.

> Matthew, you're suffering from the belief in an incorrect meme that seeks uniform distributions.

No, you just missed his point.

Japan's standard of living is predicated on important vast amounts of foodstuffs and raw materials. It is physically impossible for every region in the world to import and consume raw materials at the pace Japan does, since there must be somewhere else for them to import from.

As a concrete example, Japan is about 0.25% of the world's land area, yet consumes about 7% of the world's oil production. The world would only be able to fit about 15 Japans before it ran out of oil production, even though there is physical space for 400 Japans. By contrast, Mongolia would fit into world oil production about 7,500 times, but there is only landmass space for 90 of them.

This isn't a question of whether Japan is good or bad, and the Khmer Rouge has nothing to do with anything here. This is a question of how many physical resources are available in the world, and what that means for overall consumption. And what that means is this:

The world cannot fit very many Japans.

Due to global trade, an increase in Japan's population directly corresponds to a decrease in the maximum sustainable population of the rest of the world. Rich nations can effectively rent space from other nations, allowing their own populations to grow beyond the carrying capacity of the land inside their borders. So overpopulation is a global consideration, not a local one.

Not only that, only 111 million Chinese use the Internet out of a population of 1.3 billion. Most people in China are really not going to notice this or care.

I think it should be pointed out again that your numbers seem to be made up:

Check out the CIA world factbook. Some quick math shows that in 2001, the US was($12.4 trillion / $59.6 trillion) about 21% of the world GDP.

If we produce 25% of the world's pollution, as you claim, we are actually not the most efficient - far from it.

Unless you can pull up some sources, I would say your argument fails.

I agree with you.. but your GDP % is way off:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ us.html#Econ
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ xx.html#Econ

US GDP (PPP): $12.41 trillion
World GDP (PPP): $59.59 trillion
Therefore: US = 21% of GWP

I agree with you.. but your GDP % is way off:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ us.html#Econ
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ xx.html#Econ

US GDP (PPP): $12.41 trillion
World GDP (PPP): $59.59 trillion
Therefore: US = 21% of GWP

86,200 km 1.520-m gauge (40,300 km electrified)

Electricity - consumption: 3.656 trillion kWh (2003)

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ us.html

My vote is for fusion too.

The US Public Debt is 64.7% of GDP but your deficit is 5% of the GDP. But if you compare it with Germany Public debt is 68.1% of GDP and the defict is 3.7% of the GDP, UK the Public debt is 42.2% of GDP and the defict 3.6% of th GDP or even France with a Public Debt of 66.5% of GDP and a defict of 4.2% of the GDP.

The main diference between european countries and the US is that while the US spends on the military (4.06% of GDP )in Europe this is spent on social policies Military Spending in: Germany - 1.5% France - 2.6% UK - 2.4%.

If you don't trust these numbers please check the CIA fact book

Ignoring your circular argument between your first and second points....

Our population density is *half* of yours...

Really? I guess your math skills are also half of ours. Let's see
US land area: 9,161,923 sq km
US Population: 298,444,215 (July 2006 est.)
US density: 32.57 people/sq km
EU area: 3,976,372 sq km
EU population: 456,953,258 (July 2006 est.)
EU density: 114.92 people/sq km

In case you still can't figure that out, the EU is almost four times denser than the US. Gee, I wonder why there's more public transportation there...

EU Figures
US Figures

Ignoring your circular argument between your first and second points....

Our population density is *half* of yours...

Really? I guess your math skills are also half of ours. Let's see
US land area: 9,161,923 sq km
US Population: 298,444,215 (July 2006 est.)
US density: 32.57 people/sq km
EU area: 3,976,372 sq km
EU population: 456,953,258 (July 2006 est.)
EU density: 114.92 people/sq km

In case you still can't figure that out, the EU is almost four times denser than the US. Gee, I wonder why there's more public transportation there...

EU Figures
US Figures

Just take a look, the Defense Intelligence Agency has a "kids' site", the CIA has a kids' site, the NSA has a website, and even the State Department has a kid's site where you can learn exciting things about SecState Rice meeting Elmo...

Sure, some of them have a little bit of recruiting-type material on them, but most of it links back to the "grown-up" site and I've yet to meet a 4th grader who wants to be an analyst or diplomat when he or she grows up. There's a fair amount of "say no to drugs" material as well, which makes sense in any case.

I wonder if there's legislation somewhere requiring all government agencies to put up a kid's site. My money is that yes, there's some requirement somewhere for this. It's the only possible explanation for some of these exceedingly lame websites - they just gave them to an intern or flunkie to throw together real fast to meet regulations.

Just take a look, the Defense Intelligence Agency has a "kids' site", the CIA has a kids' site, the NSA has a website, and even the State Department has a kid's site where you can learn exciting things about SecState Rice meeting Elmo...

Sure, some of them have a little bit of recruiting-type material on them, but most of it links back to the "grown-up" site and I've yet to meet a 4th grader who wants to be an analyst or diplomat when he or she grows up. There's a fair amount of "say no to drugs" material as well, which makes sense in any case.

I wonder if there's legislation somewhere requiring all government agencies to put up a kid's site. My money is that yes, there's some requirement somewhere for this. It's the only possible explanation for some of these exceedingly lame websites - they just gave them to an intern or flunkie to throw together real fast to meet regulations.

"Japan isn't Buddhist, but their culture has grown around a lot of similar basic values..."

Such as Buddhism:

"Religions: observe both Shinto and Buddhist 84%, other 16% (including Christian 0.7%)"

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ ja.html#People