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"Dark times for democracy."

And there lies the problem.

Democracy is mob-rule. I wish we would stop trying to push democracy in the middle east and making democracy into some perfect system of government. See what it got us in Palestine? Hamas.

Here's what the CIA has to say in the world fact book about the government in the U.S.:

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

Government type:
        Definition Field Listing
Constitution-based federal republic; strong democratic tradition

We don't have a democracy. Democracies suck. Democracy is the rule of the mob. A republic is the rule of law.

What's happened is that we've let the rule of law slide for others. One of my favorite from Thomas Jefferson about democracy:

"A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."

James Madison says this in Federalist #10:

"Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property; and have in general been as short in their lives, as they have been violent in their deaths. Theoretic politicians, who have patronized this species of Government, have erroneously supposed, that by reducing mankind to a perfect equality in their political rights, they would, at the same time, be perfectly equalized and assimilated in their possessions, their opinions and their passions."

I know I harp on this a lot but I blame our government and our schools. It's this same "redefinition" of a word that got us to the creationism/evolution "theory".

Bah!

The CIA apparently helped overthrow the democratic government and install a dictator (I don't know that he was a *bad* dictator per se

Are you fucking insane?

Once you accept the fact that the CIA overthrew a legitimate democratic government, then you might considering educating yourself on the consequences of US involvement in Iran before spouting off.

I feel America needs to give the middle east an apology for so much meddling, and get the hell out of their business.

Stop trying to co-opt an old message people long since gave up trying to argue effectively.

Of course, I may be completely wrong.

You are.

This is but ONE issue. And there are many. The plutocratic empire will not survive forever, PNAC or not.

We, Slashdot readers/writers, are the future of freedom - we need to put our coding where our values lie. If we can make it easy to use, the general public can enjoy protection from "democratic" bodies.

Doesn't sound so attractive now, does it.

Here we go again, with the ignorant hate of GW Bush and the United States. Did you even KNOW that the US uses a considerably higher percentage of renewable energy sources than countries like the UK and Japan.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/solar.renewables/page /trends/table1.html
check it out 6% Renewable energy in 2004, and it never dropped below 5% in this 5 year period.

So what do we see from the UK over the same period?
http://www.restats.org.uk/electricity.html

Hmm it hits a peak of 3.58 in 2004, but for the majority of this time the US used twice the percentage of renewable sources during this time period.

now I point to energy production:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2038rank.html
So lets see... I'll save you the math I did but I calculated that the US DOES produce 10X as much non-renewable electricity as the UK. But look at the flipside of the coin we are producing 21X as much renewable electricity as the UK.

So yeah we are probably leading the world in pollution, but we are probably also leading the world in renewable energy usage. I agree, YES, we should use more renewable energy. But its not because GW is evil, its not because the United States is a terrible polluting machine, and its not because of that media scare tactic (in other words crock of ****) known as Global warming. We should the Earth is going to warm up and cool down on its own and what we do is not going to change that much. But, we are going to run out of fossil fuels and we are going to fill it up with disgusting toxic sludge. Lets go for the heart of the problem instead of pointing fingers and spreading fear.

Love and worship a child? My parents love me, but I think support would be a better word than worship. I like the term 'approve'. My parents will always love me, they'll even support most of my decisions, but their true approval is reserved for when they agree with my actions.

The case of 'approval' for killing varies. My parents are prepared for the case of me killing somebody, as I am military. They acknowledge a difference between killing for wrongful reasons(murder), killing in self defense, killing to defend others, and killing as an act of war. For that matter, the possibility of their child killing a person is something any parent of a police officer has to face. Being a police officer, upholding the law, keeping the peace is considered a good occupation, at least for many parents. It doesn't pay the best, but then again, it's usually a good steady career choice. Police don't often get laid off without some significant cause.

Society teaches parents to approve of military service? Then why is the Army having recruiting difficulties? According to the articles I've been reading, the major problem the recruiters are having are not with the young adults(who are as eager to join up as ever), but with the parents nixing the idea.

Besides, military service is a fairly rare occupation today. Per the CIA factbook, 3.3% of GDP is dedicated to the military, and that there are 108 million people considered fit for military service(both male and female). Of that, 1.4 million are active duty. That's 1.3% of the eligible population. Out of the whole population of 295 million, about .5%. Most military members are support, not combat ops. Police are about .2% of the population in the USA. There is a statistical significant overlap between police officers and reserve/guard service.

Spamming and debt collection, interesting choices. Spamming as a career is very new. Still, most kids don't grow up saying 'I'm going to be a Janitor!'. Most spammers don't get rich, and debt collectors, from my understanding, actually tends to run in families. Still, remember I seperate love, support, and approval. Good parents will love their spamming son, maybe support him in his choice of career(not throw snit fits over it), but not approve(Dear, I'd prefer for you to find a new career path).

Why? Well it's because this is the age of the information society, AND the American people do not have the capacity to understand what most data mining engineers do: that's information exploitation, which from the help of technology (i.e. computers), people have the capacity for gathering domenstic intel from businesses to your neighbor, likely to exploit you. The current administration, which has a direct relationship to the George H. Bush Center for Intelligence knows intimately about this, the basic notion that information == control == power.

It's not information wants to free, but information wants to be exploited (implicity defining data vs. information!), hence you can be exploited. That is were the problem is, the gov't is supposed to safeguard your information, i.e. privacy (not protect you, BTW), but currently with the FISA laws and how the 'orders' were issued, it appears to be questionable.

Back in 2001, a closed session of cleared congressmen, and a pork-barrel-like clause to change FISA would have solved this debate, cause I doubt citzens nor enemies are really reading the fine print in our current laws (as convoluted as they are). Instead, the administration came in cowboy style and ignored the system, and there's a critical reason why a system is there in the 1st place. Note, why things played out as well is because of the incapacity of our agencies to communicate "out of the box", non-linear in technical aspects. And that should have been fixed first before ignoring the system. We have 2 competing systems, domestic (Justice Dept) and international (DoD), and FISA was somewhat helpful in drawing the lines. It should have been reviewed back then...

If everyone worked together, certain countries wouldn't be able to exercise their power over other countries.

Huhu. Whoever makes it work first - where it is fusion, ethanol, whatever the Next Big Step turns out to be in energy production - is the new Middle East. That's why as their economy was collapsing around them, the post-Soviet Russians continued to dump more and more money into programs like the Tokamak reactor. That's why though they're having a hard time paying for basic infrastructure for food, they're looking at mining the moon.

For instance, the USA wouldn't be able to keep their dollar overvalued by maintaining control over a scarce energy commodity (oil).

We haven't been an exporter of oil since Houston was considered oil central. The overvaluation you're thinking of is occurring right now in Dubai, not Washington. We are absolutely hemmorraging money into the Middle East, to the tune of 12.6 million barrels a year, at a January 20 price of $68.35, which comes to a rough estimate of $861 billion annually; being free of oil would make our economy much stronger, not weaker. Our annual oil costs would have paid for both major hurricane reconstructions and the war in Iraq, beginning to end, twice over.

We haven't had control of oil since Nigeria was in our pocket and Syria/Lebanon were at war. Also, hippies aren't the dominant social group anymore. Get some new data.

and would never recover since, with a devalued dollar (in relation to foreign currencies), it wouldn't be able to import necessities like food.

Uh, the only food we import is luxury food, like citrus or Kobe beef. We have an annual food export of $1.6 billion, and an annual food import of $200 million. Please remember that comparatively few people buy food from the US because we price it so high, and even then it's an 8:1 export favor. We let almost three quarters of our arable fields lie fallow on Government subsidy to keep the prices of grain depressed; even if we had 85% of our fields wiped out and our borders nailed down, we'd be fat as pigs. The United States is in fact the single most agriculturally productive nation on Earth, and is the most agriculturally productive nation per square foot if you chop tiny island nations off of the list.

Of course, since food is such a drastically small cost compared to other things (less than 1% GDP), and since the #3 agricultural power (Mexico) is to our south, disasterously economically depressed and desperate for trade, it's pretty much a non-issue. We put more money into video games than food. Try to keep perspective.

It couldn't keep its economy afloat with its two main professions: lawyers and real estate agents.

Well, it's cute to say things like that and all, but in fact almost 20% of our economy comes from industrial and manufacturing sectors, where again we're the dominant export power by a factor of nearly three. Lawyers aren't in fact that big of a drain on society; there aren't enough of them. You should probably stop learning about your economic structures from TV dramas; they're on every show because they seem powerful and add an air of legitimacy to business aspects of shows. By comparison, in the fifteen years I've been in industry, I've only ever had to deal with them once - and then, it was a patent lawyer, who's actually generating new things for society (give all the parasite yammering you want, but what I made couldn't have been made without the temporary economic protections afforded by that person.)

Real estate agents don't generate wealth at all. They redistribute it.

No normal country, on

If everyone worked together, certain countries wouldn't be able to exercise their power over other countries.

Huhu. Whoever makes it work first - where it is fusion, ethanol, whatever the Next Big Step turns out to be in energy production - is the new Middle East. That's why as their economy was collapsing around them, the post-Soviet Russians continued to dump more and more money into programs like the Tokamak reactor. That's why though they're having a hard time paying for basic infrastructure for food, they're looking at mining the moon.

For instance, the USA wouldn't be able to keep their dollar overvalued by maintaining control over a scarce energy commodity (oil).

We haven't been an exporter of oil since Houston was considered oil central. The overvaluation you're thinking of is occurring right now in Dubai, not Washington. We are absolutely hemmorraging money into the Middle East, to the tune of 12.6 million barrels a year, at a January 20 price of $68.35, which comes to a rough estimate of $861 billion annually; being free of oil would make our economy much stronger, not weaker. Our annual oil costs would have paid for both major hurricane reconstructions and the war in Iraq, beginning to end, twice over.

We haven't had control of oil since Nigeria was in our pocket and Syria/Lebanon were at war. Also, hippies aren't the dominant social group anymore. Get some new data.

and would never recover since, with a devalued dollar (in relation to foreign currencies), it wouldn't be able to import necessities like food.

Uh, the only food we import is luxury food, like citrus or Kobe beef. We have an annual food export of $1.6 billion, and an annual food import of $200 million. Please remember that comparatively few people buy food from the US because we price it so high, and even then it's an 8:1 export favor. We let almost three quarters of our arable fields lie fallow on Government subsidy to keep the prices of grain depressed; even if we had 85% of our fields wiped out and our borders nailed down, we'd be fat as pigs. The United States is in fact the single most agriculturally productive nation on Earth, and is the most agriculturally productive nation per square foot if you chop tiny island nations off of the list.

Of course, since food is such a drastically small cost compared to other things (less than 1% GDP), and since the #3 agricultural power (Mexico) is to our south, disasterously economically depressed and desperate for trade, it's pretty much a non-issue. We put more money into video games than food. Try to keep perspective.

It couldn't keep its economy afloat with its two main professions: lawyers and real estate agents.

Well, it's cute to say things like that and all, but in fact almost 20% of our economy comes from industrial and manufacturing sectors, where again we're the dominant export power by a factor of nearly three. Lawyers aren't in fact that big of a drain on society; there aren't enough of them. You should probably stop learning about your economic structures from TV dramas; they're on every show because they seem powerful and add an air of legitimacy to business aspects of shows. By comparison, in the fifteen years I've been in industry, I've only ever had to deal with them once - and then, it was a patent lawyer, who's actually generating new things for society (give all the parasite yammering you want, but what I made couldn't have been made without the temporary economic protections afforded by that person.)

Real estate agents don't generate wealth at all. They redistribute it.

No normal country, on

If everyone worked together, certain countries wouldn't be able to exercise their power over other countries.

Huhu. Whoever makes it work first - where it is fusion, ethanol, whatever the Next Big Step turns out to be in energy production - is the new Middle East. That's why as their economy was collapsing around them, the post-Soviet Russians continued to dump more and more money into programs like the Tokamak reactor. That's why though they're having a hard time paying for basic infrastructure for food, they're looking at mining the moon.

For instance, the USA wouldn't be able to keep their dollar overvalued by maintaining control over a scarce energy commodity (oil).

We haven't been an exporter of oil since Houston was considered oil central. The overvaluation you're thinking of is occurring right now in Dubai, not Washington. We are absolutely hemmorraging money into the Middle East, to the tune of 12.6 million barrels a year, at a January 20 price of $68.35, which comes to a rough estimate of $861 billion annually; being free of oil would make our economy much stronger, not weaker. Our annual oil costs would have paid for both major hurricane reconstructions and the war in Iraq, beginning to end, twice over.

We haven't had control of oil since Nigeria was in our pocket and Syria/Lebanon were at war. Also, hippies aren't the dominant social group anymore. Get some new data.

and would never recover since, with a devalued dollar (in relation to foreign currencies), it wouldn't be able to import necessities like food.

Uh, the only food we import is luxury food, like citrus or Kobe beef. We have an annual food export of $1.6 billion, and an annual food import of $200 million. Please remember that comparatively few people buy food from the US because we price it so high, and even then it's an 8:1 export favor. We let almost three quarters of our arable fields lie fallow on Government subsidy to keep the prices of grain depressed; even if we had 85% of our fields wiped out and our borders nailed down, we'd be fat as pigs. The United States is in fact the single most agriculturally productive nation on Earth, and is the most agriculturally productive nation per square foot if you chop tiny island nations off of the list.

Of course, since food is such a drastically small cost compared to other things (less than 1% GDP), and since the #3 agricultural power (Mexico) is to our south, disasterously economically depressed and desperate for trade, it's pretty much a non-issue. We put more money into video games than food. Try to keep perspective.

It couldn't keep its economy afloat with its two main professions: lawyers and real estate agents.

Well, it's cute to say things like that and all, but in fact almost 20% of our economy comes from industrial and manufacturing sectors, where again we're the dominant export power by a factor of nearly three. Lawyers aren't in fact that big of a drain on society; there aren't enough of them. You should probably stop learning about your economic structures from TV dramas; they're on every show because they seem powerful and add an air of legitimacy to business aspects of shows. By comparison, in the fifteen years I've been in industry, I've only ever had to deal with them once - and then, it was a patent lawyer, who's actually generating new things for society (give all the parasite yammering you want, but what I made couldn't have been made without the temporary economic protections afforded by that person.)

Real estate agents don't generate wealth at all. They redistribute it.

No normal country, on

Northern Ireland, though part of the UK, is not part of Britain. So the claim stands.

I think people are talking at cross-purposes to some extent. The headline here is "Britons Unconvinced..." People seem to be taking that to mean that the people from Britain are unconvinced. That's perfectly understandable, but wrong.

The labels "Briton", "Brit" and "British", while historically used to refer to a particular race, now officially refer to a citizen of the UK. The whole UK, not just Great Britain. Sources:

• CIA World Factbook
• Wiktionary
• alt.usage.english FAQ

If you read the BBC News article, you'll see this is a survey of UK citizens, not just people from Great Britain.

yeah you really got to hate aiding a fascist country.... i cant believe google would do such a thing, oh wait, they still haven't, unless i missed, last time i checked, id be pretty sure china is a COMMUNIST state...... but what would i know...
and you know, aiding a fascist/authoritarian state NEVER done by a US company, or you know maybe the US government.....
and the majority of western nations would never let a dictatorial regime take control of country, even if it resulted the deaths of anywhere from 200 000 to 1 000 000 (some sources say over) innocents dying.... and the imprisonment of over 1.5 million political prisonners....

That was a sample from 0.0033% of the population of the UK.

I was wondering if the numbers would differ if the survey could evolve into one that samples a larger number of people?

Of course, I do understand that getting people to respond to surveys is so hard that you almost need Divine Intervention.

Sure?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2004rank.html

It is baffling that adults are so self-righteous about artificial violence in video games while in real life they are doing a damned good job of teaching their children that violence is a great way to solve your problems.

It is baffling that adults are so self-righteous about artificial violence in video games while in real life they are doing a damned good job of teaching their children that violence is a great way to solve your problems.

Bigger online market?

United States -- Internet Users: 159 Million (2002)
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/field s/2153.html

China -- Internet Users: 94 Million (2004)
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/field s/2153.html

And I don't see why this would dramatically change in the next 5 years.

Bigger online market?

United States -- Internet Users: 159 Million (2002)
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/field s/2153.html

China -- Internet Users: 94 Million (2004)
According to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/field s/2153.html

And I don't see why this would dramatically change in the next 5 years.

More directly relevant to this discussion: Is there a shortage of other minorities in the IT field? The entire Asian continent seems to be pretty well represented, especially Chinese and Indians.

Is it because they are "less black," or is it because there are a lot of Asians in the IT field that have both the education and the technical skills necessary to be attractive candidates for employment?

Any honest assessment suggests the latter.

Does racism still exist? Of course it does, and until the entire population is comprised of people that are all subtle shades of brown, there always will be. I think it's far less pervasive in the IT field, but that's only my assessment. I've been supporting myself in this industry for 16 years now, and if I had to put a number on it, I'd say that 35-40% of my co-workers over the years have been non-white.

According to the CIA World Factbook, Blacks make up 12.9% of the United States population. So if you work in an office of 10 people, 1 of them should be black. If 2 of them are black, then they are statistically over-represented.

Looking down the hallway, our Network Support Team is an office of 7 people. 3 are black, 3 are white, and 1 is Asian. Again, the CIA World Factbook says that 81.7% of the US population is white. Should I be screaming racism because white people are severely underrepresented on our Network Support Team? Isn't this evidence of racism? Haven't quotas and racial preferences produced an artificial result in our own hiring practices?

I freely admit to my own bigotry, not without a sense of pride. I refuse to hire stupid people for any position, especially in IT roles. I couldn't care less what color your skin is. If you're bright, reliable, and you can make me money, you're hired. Fail me in any of those categories, and I'll replace you with someone better.

The free market is the only tool that can bring about racial justice without causing more problems than it solves. Attempts to rig "the system" to ensure a specific outcome breeds resentment, and ultimately, greater disharmony. Any company that fails to hire the best candidates at the lowest possible price is yielding an advantage to the competition, and will ultimately suffer at the hands of the marketplace.

I'm sorry that those results can take so long to manifest, but they are inevitable.

I feel slimy from just reading your thoughts.

But because I'm so nice, I'm going to give you directions to a free market libertopia. It's a land with no official government, no taxes, no lawsuits, and no regulations. Private militias provide security. Businesses print their own money. There are no business licenses, no medical regulations, no welfare, no subsidies.

It's a little slice of heaven called Somalia. Perhaps you've heard of it?

The fact that you aren't living there right now is the de facto proof that you don't even believe the garbage you spew. I doubt anyone could pay you enough to move there, which says more than any argument you make ever will.

Mr. President,
    Our most recent intelligence reports here:
          http://www.indexmundi.com/en/commodities/minerals/ copper/copper_t20.html
    erm... I mean here:
          http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ ci.html
    CLEARLY indicate that Augusto PINOCHET left WMD's laying around (you know before he left/exiled)as he wasn't a very nice person. I recommend that we invade post haste to prevent these WMD's from falling into terrorist hands. Of course we will be doing the entire WORLD a HUGE favor in doing so, and thus it would be justified if we help the pooor Chilies "Restructure" their economy, it will probably smooth the transitional process if we get some good wholesom USA companies like Haliburton behind the rebuilding process, you know, to help. Of course they will need to make a profit, as that is the American way right?

So its all set right? We'll go get those WMD right away! Oh your at the ranch that weekend, how about July 17? No thats your Vacation time isn't it....Hmmm Septemberish? Good! USA HO!

No I don't. I have yet to see the ACLU put up a vigorous defense of the 2nd Amendment. Not only is the 2nd a civil liberty, it is a civil right. If the ACLU cared about the 2nd as much as they do the first, I wouldn't have to fear the armed criminal or have to fight for my right to self defense against state governments that usurp the federal constitution.

On a side note, anyone else notice that one of the petitioners is the grandchild of the Rosenbergs? Is this more about "getting" the current Administration or your civil rights? Should I trust someone with a committed political axe to grind to be the defender of my civil rights?

It did not fall under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) because, at the time, there were no stipulations for physical searches only electronic. Secondly, Ames himself chose not to pursue having any evidence thrown out based on the issue of warrents as you seem to be claiming. Here is the Criminal Complaint form from Ames' Case. I'm going to highlight some important areas:

"Paragraph 11: As a result of information obtained through electronic surveillance authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, searches authorized by the Attorney General pursuant to section 2.5 of Executive Order 12333, trash covers, and other investigation which is detailed herein, I believe AMES has traveled abroad to meet surreptitiously with KGB/SVRR."

So they had what was necessary to aquire the evidence.

Here is a link to and specifically Section 2.5:

"The Attorney General hereby is delegated the power to approve the use for intelligence purposes, within the United States or against a United States person abroad, of any technique for which a warrant would be required if undertaken for law enforcement purposes, provided that such techniques shall not be undertaken unless the Attorney General has determined in each case that there is probable cause to believe that the technique is directed against a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power. Electronic surveillance, as defined in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, shall be conducted in accordance with that Act, as well as this Order."

They had probable cause which allowed them to go warrentless. The next three instances, again pulled from the Ames Criminal Complaint form referenced above, we see that FISA was used throughout the investigation.

"Paragraph 18: Based on information acquired in an electronic surveillance of AMES' personal computer and software within his residence, which was authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, on or about October 9, 1993, along with other information obtained through electronic surveillance and other means, I believe "B" refers to Bogota, Colombia. From electronically stored documents located in AMES' personal computer, "North" has been identified as a signal site used by the SVRR to contact AMES, and "Pipe" is a dead drop used by the SVRR to pass messages, instructions, and cash to AMES. In this message, AMES indicated he could not be contacted from the 13th through l9th of September. I have been advised by CIA officials and learned through electronic surveillance that AMES traveled to Turkey on official business on or about September 13 and returned to the U.S. on or about September 17, 1993.

Paragraph 28: Based on several factors, including but not limited to the following, I believe AMES signaled his assent to the November meeting in Bogota by placing a chalk mark at the mailbox, "SS Smile", on or about October 13, 1993:
        a. First, on or about October 12, 1993, FBI Special Agents monitored, by means of electronic surveillance authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a discussion between AMES and his wife ROSARIO AMES, substantially as follows:

Paragraph 48: Based on information obtained through electronic surveillance authorized by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, I believe AMES also owns two condominium apartments and a farm in Colombia. The condominiums are in Bogota and Cartagena; the farm is referred to as the "Guajira.""

As you can see, FISA was involved and the case itself never came down to contesting the gathering the evidence. So you see, everything was in order and our government was able to find a spy on our soil without gross violations of our Constitutional rights.

To help put the story in perspective, New Zealand's population is 4 million, 0.067% of the population of the world.

Australia's population is 20 million, 0.33% of the population of the world.

To help put the story in perspective, New Zealand's population is 4 million, 0.067% of the population of the world.

Australia's population is 20 million, 0.33% of the population of the world.

If things (like politicians) are for sale it must be capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system. A monarchy is a governmental system. I'm not aware of any socialist or communist monarchies... You pick a monarchy that has some economic system other than capitalism and I'll pick... well there aren't that many morachies left are there...

Let's investigate, how's about the good ol' fact book: http://cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/no.h tml
What does it say about the government: "constitutional monarchy"
What does it say about the economic system: "The Norwegian economy is a prosperous bastion of welfare capitalism, featuring a combination of free market activity and government intervention.""

FURTHERMORE:
I don't see how you can come off claiming that Mexico doesn't have a capitalist economic system - Are you on crack or just have your head up one?

oh, but don't take my word for it... see your proctologist immediately.
The CIA fact book has this to say about Mexico's economy: "Mexico has a free market economy that recently entered the trillion dollar class." Which is just the sort of thing you would expect from a federal republic (oh, I bet your head was up there during 8th grade social studies too - a federal republic is the type of government utilized by the US).

Actually, it's 0.007% of the global output, if you'd check the easily available stats you admit you didn't bother to.

And since when has 0.01% of the total output of an entire continent been a small amount, especially on something as frivolous as a redundant satellite positioning system with essentially no added value except the ability to not have to listen to the French bitch about the possibility of a US cutoff?

Well, maybe that might make it worth it.

If France isn't innovating, how come people are investing in French companies more than in USA companies?

Okay, I take that back. It was true in 2003, but more recent figures don't support that point. Having said that, the idea posited originally, that France is so backwards and yet giving the USA a run for its money, is still not true.

France has a 99% literacy rate. The USA has a 97% literacy rate. So much for education.

Sorry, I should have stated my source, the CIA: France, USA.

Anonymous Coward? Heh.

And "tigeba" isn't anonymous?

If France isn't innovating, how come people are investing in French companies more than in USA companies?

Okay, I take that back. It was true in 2003, but more recent figures don't support that point. Having said that, the idea posited originally, that France is so backwards and yet giving the USA a run for its money, is still not true.

France has a 99% literacy rate. The USA has a 97% literacy rate. So much for education.

Sorry, I should have stated my source, the CIA: France, USA.

Anonymous Coward? Heh.

And "tigeba" isn't anonymous?

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

22,894,384 (2005) in population, 13+ million people are online. Making legislative body to make policy against a major player in computing industry (Microsoft in this case), may create one of the most damaging ripple for Microsoft.

Although that 13.8 million internet users won't turn off their Windows machines over night, but it's plausable to tinker with the idea that Taiwanese government may legislate a similar policy to goverment contractors and corporations dealing business with Taiwanese government to enforce private sectors to depend less on Microsoft product. And knowning China and her relationship with Microsoft, this may be interesting to see how Chinese government will react to this plausable senario.

And what falsehoods would those be? Oh, I know 99% of /. believe that "Bush lied about WMDs." But that's just not the case. Even assuming that Saddam had decommissioned his WMD collection (of which there is little evidence), and not shipped them off to Syria (of which there is some evidence), then we are still stuck with the matter of whether that's a "lie" or not. I submit that at worse, it's a mistake, a misconception.

Keep in mind, I hope the WMD are gone, and gone for good, not just to Syria. But the question remains, Saddam did have and use them - where are they now? Maybe he used up his stockpile.

I'm sure you have other examples of "lies" though, so feel free to vent.

You said: "It's almost impossible for a US based company (or any company based in the West) to go to some third world nation for a launch." The problem is that even if they're not really third world nations - the possibilities for terrorists and the like are always present.

Virgin Galactic could always move their operations to another launch site - so let's look at the contenders:

The European Space Agency (ESA) launches it's missions from their French Guiana base which is in South America. Not exactly a third world nation since it's "part of" France - but the area itself is hardly developed. I imagine they could more easily bribe and conspire in that environment [outside the base itself].

The only other serious launching site are the Russian ones (Baikonur etc) - they're already in the business of serving the rich space tourists. Now, the Russians have lived through more terrorism than the US ever will - they know their stuff. Still a few extra dollars will get you far...

On another note NASA used an African site in Gambia as backup for several missions - I imagine the Gambians would welcome the business. They would certainly accept a few extra dollars - and we all know where that leads...

On a final note there's always SeaLaunch - though I hardly think that they're going to launch SpaceShipOne from there!

2 cents, take at face value: South Korea has a significant Christian population, no idea on how conservative their leanings and what affiliation there may be to those of extreme Right To Life pursuasion. Source: CIA World Factbook

Heh, this is almost fun.

Nope, this is just your usual dictatorship FUD; keep the population poor, afraid and ignorant.

Poor:

An Analysis of the Presidents Who Are Responsible For Excessive Spending
Bush Borrowed More Than All Previous Presidents Combined, Group Says
Surplus? US Debt Pushes $6 Trillion
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK (this is a very interesting one, in my humble opinion)

(hint: guess whose taxes are going to pay for that)

Afraid:

U.S. Department of Defense News About The War On Terrorism
The War On Terrorism
AMERICA'S WAR AGAINST TERRORISM

Ignorant:

Education Not a Bush Budget Priority, Representative Miller to Testify
Bush Budget Slashes Education, Other Domestic Programs
$2.5 Trillion Budget Plan Cuts Many Programs
Bush administration Cuts Public School Funding to Pay for New Private School Voucher Scheme

And you complain about China? I'm afraid you have the same problems in your country (assuming you're American).

The idea fascinated me, so I looked up the statistics in the CIA world fact book. By my back of the envelope calculations, China experiences about 47,000 births per day which is well short of the 86,400 seconds per day. Now, if you had them walk past once every two seconds, the math would add up.

The CIA factbook entry on the Nigerian economy starts "Oil-rich Nigeria, ...". Companies such as Shell have been operating in Nigeria for a long time, but not everyone is happy about it.

"Even if you had some mechanism like stargate (That could take people off the earth as fast as you wanted to feed it) and you had people running into it constantly, I don't think you would even slow the rate of world population growth much."

It's not that bad. Given the world's birth rate of 20.15/1000/year and death rate of 8.78/1000/year (CIA Factbook) you have a growth rate of 11.37/1000/year. The current population is 6.4e9, so if you can shove (6.4e9 * (11.37/1000)) = 7.3e7 people per year into the Stargate, you can eliminate growth. That's 200,000 per day, 2.3 persons per second.

Keep the line at a brisk walk and you should be ok.

Of course if there's only one stargate you have a pretty tough logistics problem getting everyone to the line. But comparing that to faster-than-light travel you're comaring "pretty tough" to "physically impossible". (I know we're talking about feeding a stargate here, but you could imagine making the line without the stargate)

I don't think he's seeing the context of reality...or truth for that matter. You can't be a "top" wage earner in America and only pay 20% in taxes. He's either lying (probable), manipulating his tax data to the IRS, or has a very different take on "top" wage earner than you or I. Now, I'm assuming that despite his protests, he really is ignoring all the other taxes (Social Security, Property, consumption, state, local etc), but if this were true, it would put his income even lower than my estimate. My guess is that he earns between 40 and 50 grand a year: http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's only slightly above average, and certainly doesn't qualify one as a "top" earner. Maybe in Mexico, but not in the US where the median income is over 40K a year: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/income_wealth/002484.html

In short, I call Bullshit.

I don't think he's seeing the context of reality...or truth for that matter. You can't be a "top" wage earner in America and only pay 20% in taxes. He's either lying (probable), manipulating his tax data to the IRS, or has a very different take on "top" wage earner than you or I. Now, I'm assuming that despite his protests, he really is ignoring all the other taxes (Social Security, Property, consumption, state, local etc), but if this were true, it would put his income even lower than my estimate. My guess is that he earns between 40 and 50 grand a year: http://taxes.yahoo.com/rates.html.

Nothing wrong with that, but it's only slightly above average, and certainly doesn't qualify one as a "top" earner. Maybe in Mexico, but not in the US where the median income is over 40K a year: http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/income_wealth/002484.html

In short, I call Bullshit.

HOw about places like Angola, India, North Kora, etc?

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2004rank.html

I guarantee that anyone making $10000/yr could live quite comfortably in most sub-saharan countries, much of Asia, or much of Latin America.

Well, I live about 10 km (6 miles) from a major Brazilian slum and I have (5) choices of broadband. I guess you have been watching too much the National Geographic channel and reading too little about geography. BTW, Uruguay is the "second-smallest South American country (after Suriname); most of the low-lying landscape (three-quarters of the country) is grassland, ideal for cattle and sheep raising" . There are no jungles there.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ sm.html
http://www.visitsanmarino.com/defaulte.asp

"'Britain' isn't a country", really?

Huh, conventional long form: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; note - Great Britain includes England, Scotland, and Wales http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ uk.html

http://www.visitbritain.com/default.aspx

Calling someone from the United Kingdom's main island, Great Britain, a Brit is like calling someone from the United States of America an American.

You want to be called by your State name, English or other, then let us know where you are from and please ask everyone from the United States of America what State, Commonwealth, Protectorate, District, Indian Reservation, Incorporated Territory or Unincorperated Territory they are from and refer to us properly too. I'm a South Dakotan from the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.

(1) The United States of America is the only country in the world with the word 'America' in its official name. Search the CIA World Factbook if you don't believe me. The only possible exception is the Territory of American Samoa, which is not an independent country.

(2) The official name of that country to the USA's south is Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

"American" is therefore unambiguous. "United Statesian" and similar constructions are not.

Unemployment is down, the economy is booming, we haven't had a terrorist attack...

So, you'd prefer to live here ?

If you think this place is "falling apart" by all means leave and tell me what you see elsewhere.

I don't even need to leave my chair to do that....

HOWEVER that is not a system accepted by default by american companies. See those little symbols behind a credit card form? American Express, VISA, Master card and another? Well those are american, some banks do offer a combo but then you simply have a combo debit credit card with each credit payment being charged to your credit account. With very bad conditions like interest and subscription fees.

Paypal? Credit Card. it is a well known problem and the reason companies like Global Collect and Bibit exist. They take the hassle away from companies like sony and do the collecting for it. Bibit offers sometimes a dozen ways to pay for each country. I know I worked with them for a european wide ISP.

Sadly like you, and the guy I responded to before american just can't get their head around the fact that europe has a different banking system.

Oh and the GDP of europe is a bit bigger. Although I do suppose I must clarify that I did not mean just the EU. Even fairly advanced countries are not in the EU and you would be suprised by how many poles and other ex-soviets play online (yet for some reason can't get a credit card) http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2001rank.html

The eu is fraction behind the US count the non-eu european nations and you will have a larger GDP.

As to the reason online shopping here could be bigger. Easy, why wait 6 months to buy a dvd when it is on sale in the US already? Region protection you say. Fraid not. France ruled it illegal a while ago. meaning that you can now legally circumvent it.

Next question is where do we put the detectors? AFAIK every inch of coast line on earth is varnable. How many detectors are needed? Do the people living away from the coast need to help pay for detectors they don't need?

Statistics are a good start but things are more complex than the raw numbers may show.

appointing hardliners

I suggest you start with a refresher course on Iran, namely it's government structure (the president is elected, once every four years. It's the chief of state that is appointed (Khamenei). The chief of state in Iran has the role of the president in the US, while the president in Iran has the roles of the heads of the House and the Senate in the US). The electoral trends had been moving more moderate back before the invasion of Iraq, culminating in the election of the very moderate** Khatami and an overwhelmingly moderate legislature. Look at it now :P

** - Moderate in Iran generally means on almost everything we would see as moderate (social reform, democratization, freer trade and better international relations, etc) except the nuclear program. The country's nuclear program is actually something that most hard-liners and even most anti-government youth in Iran agree on - most see it as a double standard that other nations should be allowed nuclear tech but have it forbidden to them, and want to show the world that they're smart enough to develop it. It's highly popular in the country.

Forgetting Poland is one thing, but forgetting Russia? It's almost double the US's size!

While you're right that Canada's numerous lakes make it larger in total area but smaller in land area than the USA, you're also forgetting that the USA's numerous lakes make it larger in total area but smaller in land area than China.

Any way you measure physical size of the country[1], the US is in third place.

[1] Not making obesity joke...

Can you imagine a world with 450 billion people? It would be like rush hour on the tube in Tokyo at all times of the day...