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Interesting statistics considering many of the to ten GDP countries are also EU members. The average has fallen quite significantly since some of the old eastern block countries jumped on board.

I suggest you don't try and compare the whole of the US and the whole of the EU. For one thing we're way bigger than you now and many of the states are top ten GDP countries. You're not comparing like with like. Comparing the EU to a US state. Okay what happens if I compare a US state to an EU one. How does Arkanasas compare with say Germany?

I dispute the figures quote re GDP. Compare the US economy with say UK. We have a far smaller land mass but more than a tenth of the GDP and lower unemployment (around 2%). Whilst the GDP per capita is higher for the US what's the median value? I know for example, the average salary in the UK is about $40,000 but the actual median is more like $30,000.

Bigger is not necessarily better. LA has the same population as greater London but about a quarter the size. But London has far more green spaces. Of course we have smaller residences. The UK isn't much bigger than a New England state. If we sprawled like you did we'd have no green space at all. Having said that proportionately more of us live in houses (well at least here in the UK), we have our gardens, and our cars etc.

Take my house for example. The income is about $120,000 a year. The house has a footprint of say 25 x 30 ie. 750 feet but there are three floors. The plot is about 50 x 100 feet. Our house is not exceptional. In fact it's quite ordinary in this area. I drive a $5000 Volvo from the late nineties (which would have probably cost more in the US). I have a washerdryer, dishwasher, bread maker, toaster, microwave, yoghurt maker, digital satelite box, digital terestrial box, several computers (Macs, SGI and PC), ADSL, DVD players, Stereos, 2 Playstation2s (one for the main room and one for the bedroom)...

Anyway how does the saying go, the are lies, damn lies and statistics.

How many people will ever want to do this?

I do.

I mean why not have the UI in your native Language?

My country's native language is not supported by any distribution. Thus I prefer to use an english desktop.

But this country also has a large community of french-speakers, as well as some german-speakers. The keyboard layout that is used most here is swiss-french, since it has both french and german accented characters. So it would be nice if everyone could use their language when they log in, while the keyboard layout needs to stay fixed.

Ideally, the keyboard layout should be choosable at installation time, while the interface language should be per-user (choosable at first login, then changeable through a nice obvious control center option).

According to the CIA World Factbook:

GDP per capita: United States: $37,800.

GDP per capita: France: $27,600.
GDP per capita: Germany: $27,600.
GDP per capita: Netherlands: $28,600.
GDP per capita: Sweden: $26,800.
GDP per capita: United Kingdom: $27,700.

I'll leave it to you to check the other countries of Europe. But the grandparent post seems to be true.

During World War II, it was able to successfully defend its freedom and resist invasions by the Soviet Union - albeit with some loss of territory. In the subsequent half century, the Finns made a remarkable transformation from a farm/forest economy to a diversified modern industrial economy; per capita income is now on par with Western Europe. As a member of the European Union, Finland was the only Nordic state to join the euro system at its initiation in January 1999.

Area - land: 7,617,930 sq km
Area - comparative: Slightly smaller than the US contiguous 48 states
Population: 19,913,144 (July 2004 est.)

This tells us that there are only approximately 2.6 people per square km, and thus, unless these are really enormous people, Australia is most definitely not full.

Therefore, you are proven wrong.

[...] for some reason it seems Australia is full of racist bastards. Basically, white people.

According to the CIA factbook, Austrailia is far from full.

Longer than ANY other democratic type of government in the past.

Presumably you're not including Iceland, with a legislative assembly established in 930, or The Six Nations, with their 800+ years of participatory democracy?? Just wondering...

Newspapers could be replaced by blogging aggregates, or Wikinews type collaborative efforts.

Corporations already produce information about things related to their industries (although its often just marketing.) In a free (as-in-beer) press environment the incentive may be strong enough to produce unbiased information. This could help the companies in a general way, i.e. More general knowledge about the auto repair could mean less competition from makers of cheap, low quality parts. A good situation for any company that competes on merit rather then brand.

Large organizations could become more public and timely. For example the CIA publishes the World Fact Book and Universities collect information for research and publication. Churches create newsletters that don't compare to the metro 'local' section, but that could change.

A mix of these is probably what will happen (as you said,) but I think free content will become even more common then it is now.

"The main reason why I'm going on and on about this is because, as a fairly young lawyer, I couldn't possibly imagine the amount of work and time it would take to do the research I have done on Lexis if I had no Lexis and only the printed sources available. I know I could do that, but I wouldn't want to."

Well, no shit. That's my point exactly. I'd think that the government would be better off spending a few billions on digitizing documents (and, in many (most?) cases, simply indexing the copies they already have digitized) and creating a Lexis-Nexis equivalent for free than, say, starting some expensive foreign wars (or insert your favorite "thing I don't like the gummint spending lots of money on" here).

Lexis-Nexis isn't evil because it's huge, fast or efficient. It's evil because it's huge, fast, efficient-- and the only huge, fast and efficient repository of such public data-- and run by a private company.

Public data should be most efficiently available from the original source/collector-- the government.

Yes, you like Lexis-Nexis. That's flippin' great. But explain to me how, out of Federal expenditures of $2.156 TRILLION dollars, they couldn't work in money for a Lexis-Nexis workalike?

Remember that English is an official language of India.

Thats not entirely accurate. English is used for national, political, and commercial communication, but Hindi was declared the national language by the Indian Government. See the CIA Factbook

Since power is equal to force times velocity, for a 100,000 kg spacecraft (assuming that the scramjet saves *alot* of weight and wants to put a payload into space--the Arianne V has a mass of 745,000 kg), the power output on your last part of the railgun would be 9.7 terrawatts. Considering that the entire world has an average power output of 1.7 terrawatts electrical (from 14,930,000,000,000 kWh used in a year), this is a fairly insane number. The facility to store enough energy to be able to power the last part of the railgun would be impressive.

Uh, the russian stuff was made from known bogus plans that NASA rejected back from the days we were trying to decieve their spys.

Perhaps they had an even better info-warfare system sabatoging our programs without us even noticing.

Well, by GDP per capita, Britain is down around 19, but by absolute measures the UK is down a bit lower. That second link lists the EU as a whole as well as its individual components, but with or without Britain is not in the top four. Obviously Britain is still very important -- I'm an American living in England atm -- but it's not quite as large as you make it out to be.

Well, by GDP per capita, Britain is down around 19, but by absolute measures the UK is down a bit lower. That second link lists the EU as a whole as well as its individual components, but with or without Britain is not in the top four. Obviously Britain is still very important -- I'm an American living in England atm -- but it's not quite as large as you make it out to be.

Doesn't Microsoft have more money than most countries?

Not sure how to analyze that. But here's one way. Microsofts revenues for 2004 were 38.47 Billion. Here is a link by the CIA for revenues for governments.

Unfortunately, it isn't in any order other than alphabetical. They do have more revenue than some Governments. Note Countries!=Governments.

Costa Rica doesnt have an army.

CIA fact book

Would we be the richest nation on Earth if we did dump all kinds of money into a national health care system?

Actually, it raises the question of reality. If you're really the richest nation on earth, how come you're in debt more than most other "first world" countries? Or how come You don't generate as much money as many other countries?

I guess the answer to the question is: You're only the richest if you consider military spending as the sole indicator of wealth.

"[That Bush is a bad president is] An opinion of yours, one that I do not share."

I don't have any illusion that everyone agrees with this position. My point was that your claim that people only talk about this stuff because of a "my-gy-lost-so-bash-Bush" mentality is false (and rather silly). I don't think everyone who supports Bush does so out of mindless jingoism (which would be an equally silly idea), but as the study I pointed to shows, a lot of people who voted for him didn't know some very relivant facts. So yes, I think many (but not all) voted for him partially out of ignorance.

"...look at the evidence, which says that THERE WERE WMD IN IRAQ before we got there (He had them, and used them on the Kurds.)"

I haven't read the 2002 CIA report, but the following is from the 2004 CIA report:

"ISG has not found evidence that Saddam Husayn possessed WMD stocks in 2003, but the available evidence from its investigation--including detainee interviews and document exploitation--leaves open the possibility that some weapons existed in Iraq although not of a militarily significant capability."

So there it is, it's possible, but there's no evidence. I would say that, as the report indicates, it seems doubtful but not impossible at this point that there were ever significant stockpiles of WMD in Iraq in the period immediately preceeding the war, but at that time the idea that Iraq had WMD was certainly plausible. Whether there were WMDs, though, is not really the point.

The reason many of us are angry with the Bush adminstration is that they presented claims about WMD as quite certain, when they were often based on extremely dubious evidence. They asked us to trust that the classified intelligence to back these claims was sound, and they betrayed that trust. One much discussed example of this was the case of the aluminum tubes, supposedly for use in refining uranium. It wasn't just that this turned out to be wrong but that it was widely known to be highly dubious in the intelligence community even before the claims were being made, as has been documented in many major news outlets, e.g. the Washington Post. Bush claims like, "Intelligence...leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised," completely misrepresented the sketchy evidence. The "lie" was not saying that Saddam had WMD, it was the "sound" evidence that was known to be faulty and the claims that there was "no doubt". Even if there actually were WMD, these would not cease being falsehoods.

I put lie in quotes, because I haven't seen conclusive proof that Bush intended to deceive people. He made unjustified claims, falsehoods, to congress, the American people, and the soldiers who went over there (some never to return), whether he did so out of an intent to deceive (i.e. he lied) or out of incompetence is not clear, but either is unacceptable in a president. That's what I'm talkning about.

Again, this has very little to do with Kerry, his loss in the election, and what he may or may not have said (which I can't judge with no knowledge of details or context). What we are saying is that Bush has failed his country, a statement that has nothing to do with anyone but Bush and his administration.

We "bash" Bush because he is doing a bad job as a president.

An opinion of yours, one that I do not share.

Unfortunately, a large portion of the populous is still ignorant of the facts, so he got reelected

The facts? Ok. About WMD in Iraq, see here. For a LONG time the US knew that Saddam was hiding weapons. Before Bush even took office, Kerry was talking about WMD and Saddam.

Instead of trying to tout this as Bush lying, you SHOULD take a look at the evidence, which says that THERE WERE WMD IN IRAQ before we got there (He had them, and used them on the Kurds.), ask yourself, where the hell did all Saddam's WMD go? Maybe Syria?

So, instead of giving false facts, here's what the CIA world factbook says about SOUTH Korea:

Net Migration Rate: 0 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2004 est.) read: no net emigration
Sex Ratio At Birth: 1.09 male(s)/female
Population Growth Rate: 0.62% (2004 est.)
Life Expectancy: total population: 75.58 years male: 71.96 years female: 79.54 years (2004 est.)
Literacy: total population: 97.9% male: 99.2% female: 96.6% (2002)

So, how does that stack up to the US?

Net Migration Rate: 3.41 migrant(s)/1,000 population (2004 est.)
Sex Ratio At Birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
Population Growth Rate: 0.92% (2004 est.)
Life Expectancy: total population: 77.43 years male: 74.63 years female: 80.36 years (2004 est.)
Literacy: total population: 97% male: 97% female: 97% (1999 est.)

So, basically - you're full of shit, and we have been trolled. However, I thought your bullshit should be shown for what it is - Bullshit. There is no such country called "Korea." They got pissed at each other and split up into North and South with SOUTH korea resembing the US and NORTH korea resembling a poverty stricken dicatorship. HAND.

South Korea purchasing power parity - $857.8 billion (2003 est.)

USA purchasing power parity - $10.99 trillion (2003 est.)

USA has around 93 times the land mass, but only around and only 13 times the purchasing power.

Of course, I believe that South Korea has a slightly higher population density also - the US does have a little empty space lying around.

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

South Korea purchasing power parity - $857.8 billion (2003 est.)

USA purchasing power parity - $10.99 trillion (2003 est.)

USA has around 93 times the land mass, but only around and only 13 times the purchasing power.

Of course, I believe that South Korea has a slightly higher population density also - the US does have a little empty space lying around.

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

I always hate writing out rebuttals to posts like the parent who talk like paper tigers "There cannot be glitzy progress ignoring 75% of the people". Tax rates are pretty high in India. Everything is taxed to kingdom come. But still the poor are just that, poor.
India is going to go to hell unless they control their population.
"At least, we don't have to sweep unpleasant facts under the carpet". Yes, for 50+ years now we having been wallowing in self-pity because we like to keep these facts in front of us. I cannot or should not make money because the person next to me is still poor. This is the attitude past govts have employed. Look where India is today.

Did you know that if the Indian govt directly gave 2.2 $ to every Indian who was classified as living below the poverty line, India would have no poverty at all. India spends a 3+ $ on these programmes and yet the poor Indian probably does not see more than 5-10 cents of it.

"In the absence of any corrective measures, I am sure even India can be like China. It has been acquiring a steady 6-7% growth rate for the past 5 years."

Yes, India will be in 2020 what China is in 2010. Mark my words, 2008 olympics is in china, 2016 is in india.

I haven't been to AP in a few years but what I do know is that Naidu did make Hyderabad liveable and attract a lot of companies. These companies create high paying jobs, meaning there is a trickle down effect in the economy.

Would you rather have Naidu who courts companies or some populist leader who dances to the tunes of farmers for their votes?

Being a former US resident, and a current bangalore resident, let me assure you that the bangalore(karnataka) govt went out only because of the drought. The previous govt was so much fucking better than the current dharam singh govt in place.

If you read the newspaper, you will see that the current govt is fucking pathetic in all aspects.
They have made bangalore a living hell with traffic mismanagement, no funds for infrastructure. All the chief minister does is give empty promises. His rural promises are also ring hollow.
Think about it. Bangalore's industries provide 70 % of the state's revenue. Why will you want to mess with that and the govt has taken bangalore and its citizens for granted. Many software companies are expanding, but not in bangalore. In other cities and states.

Read India Today" Dec 13 2004 issue "No Bang for the Buck" to know about blore. The current govt is going to pay for their lackadaisical attitude.

Now let us talk about China. It has one govt(whatever your opinion is on the political issue, lets focus on the economic one).
One govt means that it can focus on economic issues without political distractions. The chinese govt is putting a lot of its energies into building the infrastructure in China, be it power, communications, highways etc.

Just compare that with India. Here politicians cannot end squabbling among themselves, economy is down on their list.
Do you how many small cities in China are getting their own airports? How long is it taking to build the bangalore airport? See "indian bureaucracy is least friendly in asia" july, 04 in the deccan herald.

Democracy is a beautiful thing. That is why see what Bihar is today. Democracy works when your population is under control, not out of control with 30 million births a year.

Compare the infrastructure: in, cn. For amusement, take a look at just one feature in Iran's factbook, ir
Compare the number of runways above 3000m that India has and the number that Iran has.
That will give you an indication of how pathetic indian infrastructure is even when compared to a economy like Iran which has been under sanctions for 20+ years.

At the current rate India is progressing, it w

I always hate writing out rebuttals to posts like the parent who talk like paper tigers "There cannot be glitzy progress ignoring 75% of the people". Tax rates are pretty high in India. Everything is taxed to kingdom come. But still the poor are just that, poor.
India is going to go to hell unless they control their population.
"At least, we don't have to sweep unpleasant facts under the carpet". Yes, for 50+ years now we having been wallowing in self-pity because we like to keep these facts in front of us. I cannot or should not make money because the person next to me is still poor. This is the attitude past govts have employed. Look where India is today.

Did you know that if the Indian govt directly gave 2.2 $ to every Indian who was classified as living below the poverty line, India would have no poverty at all. India spends a 3+ $ on these programmes and yet the poor Indian probably does not see more than 5-10 cents of it.

"In the absence of any corrective measures, I am sure even India can be like China. It has been acquiring a steady 6-7% growth rate for the past 5 years."

Yes, India will be in 2020 what China is in 2010. Mark my words, 2008 olympics is in china, 2016 is in india.

I haven't been to AP in a few years but what I do know is that Naidu did make Hyderabad liveable and attract a lot of companies. These companies create high paying jobs, meaning there is a trickle down effect in the economy.

Would you rather have Naidu who courts companies or some populist leader who dances to the tunes of farmers for their votes?

Being a former US resident, and a current bangalore resident, let me assure you that the bangalore(karnataka) govt went out only because of the drought. The previous govt was so much fucking better than the current dharam singh govt in place.

If you read the newspaper, you will see that the current govt is fucking pathetic in all aspects.
They have made bangalore a living hell with traffic mismanagement, no funds for infrastructure. All the chief minister does is give empty promises. His rural promises are also ring hollow.
Think about it. Bangalore's industries provide 70 % of the state's revenue. Why will you want to mess with that and the govt has taken bangalore and its citizens for granted. Many software companies are expanding, but not in bangalore. In other cities and states.

Read India Today" Dec 13 2004 issue "No Bang for the Buck" to know about blore. The current govt is going to pay for their lackadaisical attitude.

Now let us talk about China. It has one govt(whatever your opinion is on the political issue, lets focus on the economic one).
One govt means that it can focus on economic issues without political distractions. The chinese govt is putting a lot of its energies into building the infrastructure in China, be it power, communications, highways etc.

Just compare that with India. Here politicians cannot end squabbling among themselves, economy is down on their list.
Do you how many small cities in China are getting their own airports? How long is it taking to build the bangalore airport? See "indian bureaucracy is least friendly in asia" july, 04 in the deccan herald.

Democracy is a beautiful thing. That is why see what Bihar is today. Democracy works when your population is under control, not out of control with 30 million births a year.

Compare the infrastructure: in, cn. For amusement, take a look at just one feature in Iran's factbook, ir
Compare the number of runways above 3000m that India has and the number that Iran has.
That will give you an indication of how pathetic indian infrastructure is even when compared to a economy like Iran which has been under sanctions for 20+ years.

At the current rate India is progressing, it w

I always hate writing out rebuttals to posts like the parent who talk like paper tigers "There cannot be glitzy progress ignoring 75% of the people". Tax rates are pretty high in India. Everything is taxed to kingdom come. But still the poor are just that, poor.
India is going to go to hell unless they control their population.
"At least, we don't have to sweep unpleasant facts under the carpet". Yes, for 50+ years now we having been wallowing in self-pity because we like to keep these facts in front of us. I cannot or should not make money because the person next to me is still poor. This is the attitude past govts have employed. Look where India is today.

Did you know that if the Indian govt directly gave 2.2 $ to every Indian who was classified as living below the poverty line, India would have no poverty at all. India spends a 3+ $ on these programmes and yet the poor Indian probably does not see more than 5-10 cents of it.

"In the absence of any corrective measures, I am sure even India can be like China. It has been acquiring a steady 6-7% growth rate for the past 5 years."

Yes, India will be in 2020 what China is in 2010. Mark my words, 2008 olympics is in china, 2016 is in india.

I haven't been to AP in a few years but what I do know is that Naidu did make Hyderabad liveable and attract a lot of companies. These companies create high paying jobs, meaning there is a trickle down effect in the economy.

Would you rather have Naidu who courts companies or some populist leader who dances to the tunes of farmers for their votes?

Being a former US resident, and a current bangalore resident, let me assure you that the bangalore(karnataka) govt went out only because of the drought. The previous govt was so much fucking better than the current dharam singh govt in place.

If you read the newspaper, you will see that the current govt is fucking pathetic in all aspects.
They have made bangalore a living hell with traffic mismanagement, no funds for infrastructure. All the chief minister does is give empty promises. His rural promises are also ring hollow.
Think about it. Bangalore's industries provide 70 % of the state's revenue. Why will you want to mess with that and the govt has taken bangalore and its citizens for granted. Many software companies are expanding, but not in bangalore. In other cities and states.

Read India Today" Dec 13 2004 issue "No Bang for the Buck" to know about blore. The current govt is going to pay for their lackadaisical attitude.

Now let us talk about China. It has one govt(whatever your opinion is on the political issue, lets focus on the economic one).
One govt means that it can focus on economic issues without political distractions. The chinese govt is putting a lot of its energies into building the infrastructure in China, be it power, communications, highways etc.

Just compare that with India. Here politicians cannot end squabbling among themselves, economy is down on their list.
Do you how many small cities in China are getting their own airports? How long is it taking to build the bangalore airport? See "indian bureaucracy is least friendly in asia" july, 04 in the deccan herald.

Democracy is a beautiful thing. That is why see what Bihar is today. Democracy works when your population is under control, not out of control with 30 million births a year.

Compare the infrastructure: in, cn. For amusement, take a look at just one feature in Iran's factbook, ir
Compare the number of runways above 3000m that India has and the number that Iran has.
That will give you an indication of how pathetic indian infrastructure is even when compared to a economy like Iran which has been under sanctions for 20+ years.

At the current rate India is progressing, it w

The sex ratio at birth (SRB) in Indian culture is 1.20 males to 1.0 females. The normal SRB is 1.05, which Japan, Sweden, and other Western nations have.

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.07 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 1.03 male(s)/female

total population: 1.07 male(s)/female (2004 est.)

Those are quite reasonable figures, and quite comparable to the United States' figures. I think you're confusing the figures in India with those from the PRC.

Sex ratio:

at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female

total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2004 est.)

The sex ratio at birth (SRB) in Indian culture is 1.20 males to 1.0 females. The normal SRB is 1.05, which Japan, Sweden, and other Western nations have.

at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.07 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 1.03 male(s)/female

total population: 1.07 male(s)/female (2004 est.)

Those are quite reasonable figures, and quite comparable to the United States' figures. I think you're confusing the figures in India with those from the PRC.

Sex ratio:

at birth: 1.12 male(s)/female

under 15 years: 1.13 male(s)/female

15-64 years: 1.06 male(s)/female

65 years and over: 0.91 male(s)/female

total population: 1.06 male(s)/female (2004 est.)

Anyway, the Feds had a bunch of export control laws to prevent Commies from getting Big Computers that they could use to design better Nukes, as well as laws to prevent Commmies (and Americans) from getting crypto.

• Those of us who were on Usenet 20 years ago remember the first Kremvax announcement (after the Russians had gotten a couple of Vaxes.)
• The Cray-1 Supercomputer was about the speed of the Pentium 133 doorstop I'm typing on right now (while my regular PC is getting fixed.)
• The Cray-2 supercomputer was pretty similar to some of the formerly-high-end graphics cards you can get for about $50 these days.
• The Sony Playstation 2, when it was about to out, violated the Supercomputer export control rules, which is why they were suddenly bumped up a couple of times.
• Gimongous Privacy-Invading Database Computers of the 1980s had less storage than that iPod in your pocket, and the user interfaces were less friendly.

Fundamentally, computers do keep getting faster, but they've been Fast Enough for Government Work for a long time - Moore's Law says that just about anything you can buy at WalMart is faster than a high-end niche-market governments-and-big-corporations computer of a decade ago. The ideal computer for terrorism isn't some supercomputer - it's three pounds of wetware that's really pissed off. The way to deal with it is not to clamp down on exports of technology or circle the wagons into a laager to keep the enemy hordes out or declare anybody with interesting oil reserves to be a Rogue State - it's to stop acting like an Evil Empire and pissing people off by supporting oppressive governments around the world.

The US's Debt to GDP ratio is no worse than pretty much any western democracy

The ratio of debt to GDP is what matters, not the net amount.

The US's debt to GDP ratio is in line with most every other western country. But, since we have the largest amount of debt people think that we somehow are in the biggest trouble.

Country | National Debt
England: 51% of GDP (2003)
US: 62.4% of GDP (2003)
Spain: 62.7% of GDP (2003)
Germany: 64.2% of GDP (2003)
France: 68.8% of GDP (2003)
Canada: 77% of GDP (2003)
Italy: 106.40% of GDP (2003)
Japan: 154.60% of GDP (2003)
Ranked by National Debt/GDP ratio:
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2186rank.html

Wales is part of the United Kingom. If you were born in the UK before 1983, you are British. (There are some extra requirements if you were born after 1983.)

That's too bad because what I quoted above is quite true. Science is not about consensus, it's about fact. Politics is about consensus.

No, sorry, we use a consensus of scientists as informative because we are not scientists ourselves. I, and 99.99% of other people, want and need to know about of issues like climate change, but have no way of analyzing the data and knowing ourselves because we are not climatologists spending their whole lives doing this sort of thing. But we can look at polls of scientists to learn for ourselves. This is imperfect, I agree, but it's the only way to do things short of all us quitting our jobs and becoming climatologists.

Second, you could use this argument to justify absolutely anything. If all you have to do to disprove a scientific finding was to simply say "all these scientists might be wrong" then you could disprove absolutely any scientific finding. So, how can you use it against one particular scientific finding and not (literally) all of the others? Logically, it applies with equal force. If you want to believe this, logically the only thing you can do is live in some world of Cartesian doubt where the only thing you can know is that you exist because you have thought. Everything you see even with your own eyes could, maybe, conceivably be an illusion somehow... so that means, if motivated, you can conclude that everything you see is an illusion, right?

While it is true that it is conceivably possible in some way that the consensus of scientists is totally wrong, how likely is that this is going to happen? Possibility != likelihood. In the past, in modern science, when virtually all of the given scientists studying the same hard science subject believed something, how often were they wrong? (And, by comparison, how often were the people with vested interests opposing them wrong?) It's, you know, possible that there's going to be some great Galilean revolution awaiting this field, but if you find that compelling enough to withhold any conclusions, then you can't conclude anything about anything scientific.

While it is true that "many important scientific discoveries have been in direct conflict with the consensus" what is the relative likelihood that this is true for any given scientific finding? Let's be scientific. You can't conclude anything by looking at only one corner of a 2x2 contingency table. Let's call the consensus of modern scientists on a topic of their expertise A and let's call the opinion of a few motivated non-experts B. If A or B is wrong, we'll call it !A and !B, respectively. All you're saying is that !A & B is possible, or non-zero, which is certainly true. So, what are the relative probabilities of (!A & B), (!B & A), (!B & !A) and (A & B)? Note that every cell is possible. !A and !B is possible -- it's possible that scientists and nonexperts are both wrong. (A & B may equal zero when A and B are contraries.) So, we just might as well conclude them true, right? But these four possibilities cannot be true at the same time, so you have to pick one, and I suggest you do so not by looking at only one cell and deciding whether it's non-zero, but based on the relative likelihood of all four cells comparatively.

India or China, who are expected to be responsible for most of the world's CO2 emissions in the next couple decades.
Yep. That is what the CIA is predicting. http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/14/194521 4&tid=99&tid=103 and http://www.cia.gov/nic/NIC_2020_project.html

a) US citizen
b) Known permanent resident alien
c) Unincorporated association substantially composed of US citizens or resident aliens
d) Corporation is it is incorporated in the US and non directed or controlled by a foreign government.

The NSA is not allowed to collect on any of those entities; see Executive Order 12333 and USSID 18. Of course, there are exceptions, which keep getting broader and more numerous. But if you're a US citizen, you can be reasonably sure that the NSA is not collecting on you.

Couldn't Microsoft just buy Denmark?

Hmm, let's see ... Denmark's biggest bridge, that's about 6 billion USD right there? You do the math.

While Microsoft may not be able to own the entire country, they may be able to buy up a bunch of the country's external debt which according to the CIA World Factbook is $21.7 Billion

That said, I'd be perfectly willion to spend 0.1% of the world's annual GDP on fusion, since after we solve the world's energy problem, I'd like us to reduce trips to other planets in the solar system to a few days each way. :-)

I saw a documentary about oil and energy efficiency a while ago that stated that solar power would required 1/3 of the world's land in solar panels in order to meet the world's energy needs. Hmm...

http://www.jc-solarhomes.com/solar_energy_facts.ht m

Assume each square metre can receives 1 KW hr per hr. Assume 20% efficiency for photovoltaics. So 0.2 KW hr per hr per metre.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001729.html says a kw hour is 3412 BTUs, so photo voltaics produce 0.2 * 3412 = 682.4 BTU/hr per square metre.

http://energy.cr.usgs.gov/energy/stats_ctry/Stat1. html says the 1998 U.S. energy consumption was about 94 quadrillion BTUs Assumong 8 * 365 hours of decent sunshine in the desert year around. So that's 100 * 10^15 / (8 * 365 ) = 34 * 10^12 BTUs/sunshine hour.

(34 * 10^12 ) / (682.4 ) = 49 * 10^9 square metres = 49 * 10^9 / 10^6 = 49000 square kilometres = 223 KM by 223 KM or 140 miles by 140 miles.

If you "want" the entire world to consume energy at per-capita rates like the USA, then assuming the US population is 300M, and the world population is 6B, then 6*10^9/(300*10^6) * 49000 = 980000 square km. The Earth's land surface area is claimed to be 148,300,000 sq km, so 980000 / 148300000 = .006608 or less than 1% of the Earth's land surface area.

Mind you, for infrastructure that huge, you have to build roads, support buldings, etc. So even if a factor of 3 off, that's still about 2% of the surface area.

Also, once demand for photovoltaics reached 1% of the above, I imagine the industry would drive efficiency from 20% to higher levels. So 1/3 of the land surface area is way too high.

The real problem with photovoltaics is the cost. http://store.yahoo.com/sancor/50w.html will sell you a 502mm x 939mm panel for $588, or 588 / (502 * 939) * 1000000 = $1247 per sq metre. Let's be hopeful that in quantity, wholesale lots, we could buy this for $1000 per sq metre. 980000 * 1000 * 1000 * 1000 = $980 trillion. Note that the annual GDP for Earth, according to http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print /xx.html is $51.48 trillion. That figure is at purchasing power parity. I'll leave it others to speculate whether photovoltaics can be manufactured cheaper in third world countries or not. If you don't think so, then considering that the U.S. economy is about $11 trillion, and that it is blamed for consuming about 1/2 the world's resources, the non purchasing power parity world GDP is probably closer to $22 trillion.

There needs to be a 10X reduction in the price/energy ratio of photovoltaics. Do that, i.e. reduce the cost of the solar energy to meet the world's needs to an investment of about $100 trillion, amortize it over 30 years, and I'm sure we can find the money and land to do this.

I'll give you the word "threat". However, let's talk about the level of "threat". Was it severe, dire, imminent (which would have warranted an immediate military strike)? Absolutely not, and the actual reporting that Bush saw (not the heavily-doctored stuff that Rumsfeld's illegal Pentagon espionage office produced) was FAR from concrete in terminology and opinion regarding the existence of WMDs in Iraq past 1995.

The level of threat which existed was that Saddam, left unchecked, would undoubtedly reconstitute his weapons programs and use them to exert his influence throughout the Middle East (thereby lending a destabilizing effect on the region). It was necessary to recognize this threat in order to keep international political and economic sanctions going against Saddam until he submitted to verifiable dismantling of his WMD stocks and programs.

I'll reiterate that only BushCo told us that they knew what, how much, and exactly where all these materials were. It turns out that they were wrong about everything they claimed as a justification for this war.

I find it especially curious now, after having engaged in unilateral invasion and occupation based on intelligence which has been unequivocally proven vague, that the Bush Administration would now soft-peddle an outright admission of having WMDs (in the form of nuclear weapons), while still putting intense pressure on Iran where the level of doubt is much higher.

That said, I'll apologize for the name calling and insults. However, it is very tiring to constantly see people trying to use those out-of-context quotes as though they somehow rose to the level of justifying Bush's illegal and immoral actions in Iraq (and inside the US, for that matter).

And actually even the claim that Saddam gassed his own people in the 80s has been disputed.

Jude Wanniski (whose website you linked to), is quite alone in denying that Saddam Hussein used chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds. Slate has a good article that discusses the issue. Besides, several of his claims are clearly false:

To begin with there were never any victims produced.

A quick Google image search for Halabja belies that claim. There are numerous photos of the immediate after-effects of the attack. More recently, there was a study to investigate the long term effects of the chemical exposure. The victims of the attack suffer from high rates of respiratory problems, cancer, birth defects, neurological disorders, and skin and eye problems. Maybe part of the reason he claims victims can't be found is because they're some of the 300,000 bodies discovered in mass graves.

The claim rests solely on testimony of the Kurds who had crossed the border into Turkey, where they were interviewed by staffers of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

The reports of the chemical bombing were not just from Kurds who crossed into Turkey. Some of the pictures linked above were from journalists flown in from Tehran the next day.

Wanniski even mentions the oft repeated myth: that at the very least our State Department gave a "green light" to Saddam Hussein to go into Kuwait in August 1990. According to this article from the Christian Science Monitor, that myth has been debunked by no less than Iraq's former Foreign Minister, Tariq Aziz.

It may well have been Iran, and in either case it happened on a battlefield.

It is highly doubtful Iran was behind the attack. In the first place, their troops and allies were the ones attacked (see here). Secondly, there is no evidence of Iranian use of the type of chemicals at Halabja (see here).

In addition, although chemical weapons were used multiple times in the Iran-Iraq war, the reason the Halabja attack sticks out is precisely because it was not a battlefield. At the time, Halabja was a city with a population of about 80,000 which had just recently came under control of Iran and their Kurdish allies. Many of the approximately 5000 victims of that particluar attack were civilians. Most of the published photos were of women and children killed, for the simple reason that news media thrives on sensationalism.

We've managed to kill 100,000 civilians with our advanced "smart" bombs - is it surprising that primitive mortars would kill 5,000?

First, the claim of 100,000 dead is based on an extrapolation from a survey. I'd take the 100,000 figure with a grain of salt until a more extensive survey is done. There is a Slate article that dissects their methodology. A reliable number of civilians deaths reported can be found at the Iraq Body Count (IBC) website. As of Feb 10, 2005, they count less than 18,000 civilians reported killed.

Second, most of the deaths are not from our precision guided munitions, the so-called "smart bombs." In fact, most of them

Israel? North Korea comes to mind, but the Resolutions were blocked by china AFAIK

BZZZT. There are no other countries that have UN resolutions passed under the 7th chapter of the UN charter. If you had any clue about the UN, you would know that Chapter 7 resolutions are the only kind that allow member states that are not party to the resolution to enforce with military or economic action.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-02 -un-wmd_x.htm

I see your link, and raise you one:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/: Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/200 3/david_kay_10022003.html: We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/pu blications/General_Powell.htm
think YOU are making a fool of yourself by claiming "well known facts" without backing

Without backing, huh? The only thing you have provided is an op-ed that directly contradicts your own claim. You said "Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. And THAT is well known and documented" and then "backed" that up with piece called "Al Qaeda-Iraq Connection Tenuous at Best". Which are you arguing? That there was no connection, or that there was a tenuous connection?

Here are some more sources:
Iraq-al Qaeda link comes in focus
Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam
The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties
Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
US State Department Indictment
Not so long ago, the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda were conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom was right
Saddam Hussein offered Bin Laden asylum
Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties
UN envoy confirms terrorist meeting
Ansar al-Islam: Back in Iraq

Israel? North Korea comes to mind, but the Resolutions were blocked by china AFAIK

BZZZT. There are no other countries that have UN resolutions passed under the 7th chapter of the UN charter. If you had any clue about the UN, you would know that Chapter 7 resolutions are the only kind that allow member states that are not party to the resolution to enforce with military or economic action.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-03-02 -un-wmd_x.htm

I see your link, and raise you one:

http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/: Saddam Husayn so dominated the Iraqi Regime that its strategic intent was his alone. He wanted to end sanctions while preserving the capability to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction (WMD) when sanctions were lifted.
http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/speeches/200 3/david_kay_10022003.html: We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002. The discovery of these deliberate concealment efforts have come about both through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials concerning information they deliberately withheld and through physical evidence of equipment and activities that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to the UN.

http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Anthropology/pu blications/General_Powell.htm
think YOU are making a fool of yourself by claiming "well known facts" without backing

Without backing, huh? The only thing you have provided is an op-ed that directly contradicts your own claim. You said "Iraq had nothing to do with Al Qaeda. And THAT is well known and documented" and then "backed" that up with piece called "Al Qaeda-Iraq Connection Tenuous at Best". Which are you arguing? That there was no connection, or that there was a tenuous connection?

Here are some more sources:
Iraq-al Qaeda link comes in focus
Terrorist behind September 11 strike was trained by Saddam
The Clinton View of Iraq-al Qaeda Ties
Clinton first linked al Qaeda to Saddam
The proof that Saddam worked with bin Laden
US State Department Indictment
Not so long ago, the ties between Iraq and al Qaeda were conventional wisdom. The conventional wisdom was right
Saddam Hussein offered Bin Laden asylum
Saddam Possessed WMD, Had Extensive Terror Ties
UN envoy confirms terrorist meeting
Ansar al-Islam: Back in Iraq

He claimed he had no WMD (a claim that has since been proven true) and offered significant cooperation with international inspectors to prove it.

Not sure what year you are living in. US national debt clock. I hate to admit it but it is a lot higher than 4.4 trillion. But it is still only around 62% of the GDP. Much lower (percentage wise) than some European countries (Spain, Germany, Belgium). One thing that might help the US however, is if China would float their currency. I.E. Let the market set the exchange rate instead of tying it to the dollar. http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2186rank.html

Population:
Germany 82,424,609(July 2004 est.)
Turkey 68,893,918(July 2004 est.)
Now tell me which one of those figures is bigger?

Population:
Germany 82,424,609(July 2004 est.)
Turkey 68,893,918(July 2004 est.)
Now tell me which one of those figures is bigger?

Madagascar, to take one example, has a population of 17.5million and a GDP of $14.3billion. There's a pretty wide disparity between the upper and lower classes. The upper 10% gets 30% of the income. The lower 10% gets 3% of the income, so that comes to an average of $233/year each -- or about $19/month. From that, you get to subtract food and rent, and Then start to save for a PC.

It's not too hard for most of us to spend $19/day on food, not to mention rent.

Given that most 3rd world companies tend to have a high disparity between the upper class and lower class, and 70% are below the poverty line, I'm guessing that most average villages are going to be full of people closer to $300-$400/year than the $800/year national average.

For people with an average income of $30/month, putting together $100 for a PC (even as a village) is still going to be a hard sell, no matter how much good we can see it doing for them. Putting together $400 for a current cheap PC would look all but impossible.

Either you're an ignorant or are trying to spread FUD. Either way, shut up.

According to the CIA, the GDP per capita of Somalia is $500 dollars. If you couldn't afford basic healthcare or reliably safe food and water, were under the continual threat of violence from separatists and were trying to raise a family, would you spend a fifth of your money on a computer?

Instead of accusing the spread of FUD (the /. equivalent of calling someone a Nazi, by the way) why don't you think about the problem a little harder?

It appears that the CIA considers Tibet to be part of China.

What the hell are you thinking? China has 1.298 billion people in its borders-- they have more people available for military service than there are, total, in the united states. Your paranoia has probably killed your last vestiges of common sense...