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This is not about promoting research. Most people think (with some reason that spying agencias like GCHQ are somewhat creepy. So they promote a nice and cuddly puzzle contest as if to say 'Look, we are just regular guys who like to have some fun and read other countries' diplomatic mail every now and then'.

Reminds me a bit of the CIA Homepage for Kids , but not nearly as weird.

As for certain others getting 'pissed off' at the US I say GREAT! It means we are being effective. Lets face facts, every government in the Middle East (Iraq, Kuwait and Israel excepted) is currently pissed at us whether they can admit it in public or not because unless they are totally clueless they understand that it is our goal to topple every one of their perverted police states.


How can this have been modded up?
This is totally inaccurate. We have been setting up (the Shah in Iran) and supporting (the Saudi Royal Family) those "perverted police states" for the past 50 years! The United States military is not the harbinger of democracy that you pretend to believe it is.
Our underlying goal in the Middle East is the protection of our national and economic security in the form of oil. Democracy in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, for example, is most definitely not in the interest of the United States, because it would decrease the control we have over oil. Time to break through the ideology and look at what is actually happening: namely, the United States supports oppressive regimes when it suits their interests.

As for certain others getting 'pissed off' at the US I say GREAT! It means we are being effective. Lets face facts, every government in the Middle East (Iraq, Kuwait and Israel excepted) is currently pissed at us whether they can admit it in public or not because unless they are totally clueless they understand that it is our goal to topple every one of their perverted police states.


How can this have been modded up?
This is totally inaccurate. We have been setting up (the Shah in Iran) and supporting (the Saudi Royal Family) those "perverted police states" for the past 50 years! The United States military is not the harbinger of democracy that you pretend to believe it is.
Our underlying goal in the Middle East is the protection of our national and economic security in the form of oil. Democracy in Saudi Arabia or Kuwait, for example, is most definitely not in the interest of the United States, because it would decrease the control we have over oil. Time to break through the ideology and look at what is actually happening: namely, the United States supports oppressive regimes when it suits their interests.

FYI, FOIA isn't free, though the fees are pretty nominal. $0.10/page, $18/hr, after the first 100 pages, with a significant educational discount.

The thought of having a spook do my photocopying for me just sounds.... Hrm. Ironic?

It's not exactly surprising China would be the origin for a lot of spam in the future given the world's current biggest source of spam is the workd's biggest cheerleader for capitalism. Zero regulation plus the policies of ISPs since the mid-nineties = spam.

You seem perfectly capable of looking up your own reference materials.

Here's the clues you need:

biodiesel.org Though they are just a front for the SoyBean farmers association but plenty of resources for you to check out.

Central Intelligence Agency These guys have all sorts of info about agricultural output in USA and other nations.

Wired Magazine Do a search on biodiesel to verify the quotation.

Search Google News for Biodiesel Now click on the little News Alerts icon and subscribe to that search... you'll get all the news on biodiesel that's fit to publish as a current event and learn about how many organizations in US and around world are in fact mongin forward with serious biodiesel plans. Tell you what, there are a whole hell of a lot more actual implementations happening that for any other alternative fuel... happening now.

FYI reality is "socially constructed". Public opinion will wish oilseed crops into existence.. much like it wished electricity infrastructure into existence, wished a global communications system into existence... it's called Supply and Demand.. yeah I know it's just a theory and all but the basic idea is that when enough people want something to happen a Demand is created, which in turn prompts a Supply to come into existence through the efforts of entrepeneurs and business interests who seek to satisfy that Demand.

Technically it is already done. Refining apparatus that is reasonably efficient, and only needs economies of scale to become sufficiently efficient, is in use. New improvements are being researched and tested as we speak..

Energetically biodiesel contains as much or more available energy for combustion than petrol diesel. The plants used for oilseed require minimal energy input from people.. plant and grow.. that's why they love plants like soybeans even though they produce less oil than some alternatives like Castor plants which require more human intervention. On the other hand.. if the price is right the best plant for the job will be planted.

Ecologically... ;-p so you'd prefer the alternative? Which one? You can't take energy out of a system without impacting it. Use solar power and you're cooling off the atmosphere and pulling solar radiation out of the ecology. Use hydro and you're pulling the energy out of the water cycle... screwing with weather patterns by creating new evaporation points, etc. Use tidal power and you mess with ocean currents and tidal changes that maintain coastal ecologies... Hydrogen power has to come from somewhere, it's just a storage medium.. not a source of power.. so think coal, nuclear, etc. Biodiesel looks to have the least impact... carbon is grown, carbon is burned, carbon returns to the ecosystem, carbon is resequesterd through absorption of CO2 by plants... the same plants that are grown for the next generation of fuel.

Heres a great link for info about that from the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Socially it's a slam dunk. Reduced dependence on cartel producers. Environmentally benign compared to current fuels. Renewable resource that provides jobs. It can use the already available infrastructure with zero change and is usable in available vehicles with zero change. Take a look at the initiatives already happening across the nation and the positive reaction coming from every single one.. then look at what's happening in India, Maylasia, and on and on.

3,602,000,000,000 kWh (2001) http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ranko rder/2042rank.html

3 and a half million petawatt hours.

I agree with everything except your "small country" comment.

Unless you're speaking of the landmass and not the population that is. According to the CIA world factbook:

Population:
Definition Field Listing Rank Order
127,333,002 (July 2004 est.)

Versus the United States:

Population:
Definition Field Listing Rank Order
293,027,571 (July 2004 est.)

So whoopie, the USA is a whole double the population of a country smaller than California.

Considering the age of the planet, versus the age of the Human species, it will. Oil takes several tens of millions of years to form while under great pressures while the human species has only been on this earth for maybe 3 million years. Millions of years from now, oil will renew its self, and chances are heavily in favor of an extinction event occuring some time before them regarding the human race. So yes, petrolium will eventually renew, and will outlast the human race, because we will not be inhabiting the planet to extract the oil.

If you are reffering to the current oil reserves, (which I assume you are), then it is almost inevitable the impact on the human species due to inadequate oil supplies will take hold. Ranges on the peak date vary somewhat, with 2007 being the earliest generally accepted date. The USGS predicts peak extraction will occur around 2025, and this is considered a "best case" scenario. One only needs to look at previous data to confirm that M. King Hubbert was correct in his 1970 peak extraction date for the contidental United States. The CIA also performed a study in 1977 regarding the upcoming Soviet Oil Crisis (doc ER 77-10147). Interesting to note is the fact that this report was not declassified until January 29, 2001 even though the USSR had collapsed almost 10 years earlier.

Peak Oil is a well known phenomenon, only this time, it is taking place on a global scale, and not only on a reigonal basis. Due in part to the lack of sufficient energy, the Soviet Union no longer exists. The United States also outspending the USSR also contrubuted significantly to thier collapse. This situation is also being repeated with OPEC reducing the amount of funds held in USD in favor of the Euro and Pound Sterling, as well as Japan threatening a "Huge Dollar Sell Off". Enjoy the good times while they last, for they may not last long.

Therefore, if the child mortality rate is about ten times the rate in the USA, wouldn't you have a few more in order to improve the chances that at least a couple made it through to adulthood so as to look after you when you're too old to work?

Therefore, if the child mortality rate is about ten times the rate in the USA, wouldn't you have a few more in order to improve the chances that at least a couple made it through to adulthood so as to look after you when you're too old to work?

Here's something interesting. Just for S&G's,I checked the CIA factbook for Taiwan.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index .html

When I scrolled through the pull-down menu,I couldn't find it. Which makes sense,since the govt plays along with the 'one country' thing. But then I did a Google search and found this:

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

Note that this was last updated Nov 30th. Hmmm...

Here's something interesting. Just for S&G's,I checked the CIA factbook for Taiwan.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/index .html

When I scrolled through the pull-down menu,I couldn't find it. Which makes sense,since the govt plays along with the 'one country' thing. But then I did a Google search and found this:

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

Note that this was last updated Nov 30th. Hmmm...

Since the population of Canada is less than the number of people in America who voted for Kerry, I'd say you might just possibly be right.

I can't help but disagree with most of the responses to this point. In my opinion China is rapidly improving in many ways - just look at their progress within the last decade.

Arguably the two biggest problems facing their country - overpopulation and pollution - are slowly coming to an end (still decades though). What makes this case interesting is that the same government that has censorship to retain control can swiftly implement strategies to solve problems. By limiting families to one child by law - the population is remaining manageably steady at 0.57% growth (2004 est). Not that I'm promoting communism - but if the US suddenly faced a problem of overpopulation how long would it be before protesting and ignorance tapered done enough for our government to implement an obviously necessary law?

Ok, I will probably get flamed or modded down, but I just wanted to point out some interesting facts.

Currently, the U.S. foreign policy is to support the One-China policy. Under this policy as supported by mainland China, whose government is a communist state. The U.S. as of October 29 as stated by Secretary of State Colin Powell that the U.S. is against the independence of Taiwan, whose goverment is a democratic state with free elections.

It is kind of ironic that the United States would 'liberate' Iraq, a nation ruled under tyranny to establish and promote demoracy, but support the foreign policies of a nation (China) whose main objective is to denounce democracy and free speech of a 'rogue' province/nation/state (Taiwan) which is already an established democratic state simply because China is good for business. Oh wait, I forgot, Iraq has oil and China also has oil reserves in Manchuria.

In one hand we claim to support democracy while in another we support the downfall of a nation who is already democratic and support its integration with a communist state.

Another interesting fact is if you visit CIA's website on Taiwan, from the drop down list, all the countries are listed in alphabetical order, except for Taiwan. It is listed last, behind Zimbabwe. Coincidence?

Just thought I would point out a few interesting things. Then again, I could be mistaken or misinformed.

Ask your Uncle, M. "Rocket Scientist"... :)

There are indeed environmental issues but it's really taken into account, you cannot imagine how much the Swiss love their red flag to fit the sky's blue and the fields' green.

No, it's much more than that. It's a propaganda machine for the rest of the world too. Here's a hint, it's in English. They can't block Google outside of China or terrorize the rest of us with arrest for reading the wrong web page.

Here's another hint. Check out a search for Hungary. I thought of this because a few weeks ago was the 30th or 40th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion and brutal supresion of the a nascent anti-communist revolt. The Google result has the CIA world factbook as the second result. That's one data point, I'm sure you can find your own.

Any company dependent on money from China is going to have to let them censor their statements. You should ignore what your enemy says, because it's usually a waste of your time. I'm going to not worry about this new search engine and be happy for it.

I think this means that your internet connection doesn't originate in China

Are you saying they'ed have a system that recognized the source of a request then responded appropriately? Like foreign journalists get victomsofcommunism.com whilst a resident of Hong Kong gets his door kicked in?
Heh, not that our media folks, showbiz folks or academia actually question the legitamacy of Communism - just specific implementations.

We have nothing to fear but fear itself. Well, sort of.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0840 379943/103-2263410-8029437?v=glance

Venona Program
http://www.nsa.gov/publications/publi00039.cfm
http://www.cia.gov/csi/books/venona/venona.htm

That is actually the official name of what you call 'Mexico' .... ignorant asswipe.

CIA World

Do you mean a telephone? I am one of the few around here old enough to remember Maxwell Smart the TV detective. The CIA were obviously fans. http://www.cia.gov/spy_fi/item15.html

On second thoughts it might look a bit obvious these days - a mobile phone is less noticeable than a shoe!

Osama is at: 33 00 N, 65 00 E

World Factbook for Afghanistan (CIA).

Remote Sensing is not just for military/intelligence use. Environmental (forest/crop management), planning (local government - land use, errosion), utility (vegetation management under power lines, heat loss from structures*), and many other applications exist. Multi-Spectral imagery is pretty interesting to look at once you start pulling out spectral signatures (particular leaf type, soil types, etc...).

* - I've read some interesting articles on utility companies that map the heat loss from individual buildings. The power company can use the data to identify homes that would benefit from additional insulation.

A vacation in Azerbaijan?? I bet you are there for reasons other then vacation.. perhaps you are a missionary or are volunteering there to provide aid? Though personally I am intrigued by the country myself, mostly from light bit of research I've done on it.

"Local scientists consider the Abseron Yasaqligi (Apsheron Peninsula) (including Baku and Sumqayit) and the Caspian Sea to be the ecologically most devastated area in the world because of severe air, soil, and water pollution; soil pollution results from oil spills, from the use of DDT as a pesticide, and from toxic defoliants used in the production of cotton" (source)

And here's another beauty:

"Towns once located on the coast are now as far as fifty miles away from the shoreline, the salinity of the water is heavily increased, and the fishing industry is destroyed. As if these problems were not enough, the receding sea is beginning to expose a land bridge to an island used by the Soviet Union for chemical and biological agent testing. Although the facility is closed, the remains of lab equipment had been simply buried and could become easily accessible." (source)

I also read somewhere that they fear animals will/are making their way accross that land bridge and becoming infected with the agents in the facility and possibly spreading the agents amongst the local wildlife and people. Can't find that article now though but in any case be on the lookout while you are over there!

Or maybe you are over there looking for the true location of CITY 17? Thats how my fascination with Azerbaijan began anyways.

And yes I knew where Baku was without looking at a map ;) But I blame VALVE for that.

I thought that google.tv was for providing location-specific search for the residents of Tuvalu, just like google.ca or google.co.uk...

The birth rate is much higher now than it was during Barnum's time.

Indeed. According to the CIA World Factbook, 4 people are born every second.

Note to moderators: both "funny" and "insightful" apply to parent post! Stranger things have happened. Just a thought: maintain public-readonly source repository, use internal subtle-but-evil-injecting-filter and compile, and distribute clean-looking-but-subtle-screwed binaries. Just out of curiosity, I checked NSA site, but it looks they don't even distribute binaries, source code only, and nicely sorted into different packages.

/me thinks SELinux is nice demonstration of the power of open source, showing that contributions can be useful to anyone, competitors/enemies included (and vice versa!), regardless of hidden agendas. Just check if a modification suits you, and apply (or not) as you wish.

Dear Mr Bush,

We, the authors of the CIA World Fact Book, were under the mistaken belief that it was the People's Republic Of China (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /ch.html) - "mainland China" - who asserted sovereignty over Tibet, not Taiwan, (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /tw.html), which is an island off the south east coast of PRC. Thank you for the clarification. We must have overlooked the invasion of the mainland while we were looking for those pesky weapons of mass destruction.

We've got a small favor to ask - can you state that Palestine and Israel are in fact several thousand miles apart, and thereby ending one Middle East conflict? Oh, and the Department of Defence would like to know if you could move Iraq and Afganistan to a more temperate climate, and prefeably to somewhere where the transport costs are lower.

We have also liaised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan pn your behalf, and report that the translation the speaker was looking for in that awkward silence was "idiot."

Thanks.

Dear Mr Bush,

We, the authors of the CIA World Fact Book, were under the mistaken belief that it was the People's Republic Of China (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /ch.html) - "mainland China" - who asserted sovereignty over Tibet, not Taiwan, (http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos /tw.html), which is an island off the south east coast of PRC. Thank you for the clarification. We must have overlooked the invasion of the mainland while we were looking for those pesky weapons of mass destruction.

We've got a small favor to ask - can you state that Palestine and Israel are in fact several thousand miles apart, and thereby ending one Middle East conflict? Oh, and the Department of Defence would like to know if you could move Iraq and Afganistan to a more temperate climate, and prefeably to somewhere where the transport costs are lower.

We have also liaised with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Taiwan pn your behalf, and report that the translation the speaker was looking for in that awkward silence was "idiot."

Thanks.

If weapons were the central issue - why the Bush gov is not invading North Korea - where its believed they have the weapons material and means to parcel it near the US.

Accept it - this WAR was just for oil and nothing else.

Latvian 57.7%, Russian 29.6%, Belarusian 4.1%, Ukrainian 2.7%, Polish 2.5%, Lithuanian 1.4%, other 2% (2002)

Riga, the capital city, has a higher proportion of ethnic Russians. It is about fifty-fifty now.

Most of the ethnic Russians have not bothered to become Latvian citizens. Latvia joined the EU this year. This makes Latvian citizenship valuable. But new laws mean that they can't assume Latvian citizenship until they learn to speak Latvian.

Even more interestingly, the USA has 5% of the world's population, but emits 25% of the world's pollution

Some interesting math, taken from CIA factbook
China: 20% of population, yet only 12.5% of GWP
Russia: 2.3% pop, 2.5% GWP
Japan: 2% pop, 7% GWP
France: 0.9% pop, 3.2% GWP
Germany: 1.3% pop, 4.4% GWP
United K: 0.9% pop, 3.2% GWP
USA: 4.6% pop, 21% GWP

Hmmm... so a country w/ 4.6% of population yet 21% of the GWP emits 25% air pollution(assuming that number is true).

Maybe economic productivity is more of a factor on polution than population. As such...strict controls on polution would definitly hurt the economy.

You're right, it IS all in how you look at things.

No. It allows the efficient to continue producing efficiently while pushing the inefficient to produce more value for the amount of pollution they create.

Let me put this in perspective. The U.S. has an $11 trillion economy and produces 1,446,777 kilotons of CO2. China has a $6.449 trillion economy and produces 917,997 kilotons of CO2. So the U.S. produces 1.58 times as much CO2 but our economy is 1.71 times larger. From a pollution perspective we're doing more economic activity with relatively less pollution.

So who needs to adjust their habits? The U.S.? Buzzzz. Wrong answer. Currently China and the U.S. together produce 2,364,774 kilotons of CO2 per year with total economic activity of $17.449 trillion. Let's say you arbitrarily say that we need to reduce our emissions by 10% from 1,446,777 to 1,302,099. Let's just say that means our economy will drop 10% to $9.9 trillion. Let's say that that lost $1.1 trillion goes to China so their economy increases by 17% to $7.549 trillion and that that means a 17% increase in their economy means a 17% increase in their emissions to 1,074,056 kilotons per year.

The result? The total economic activity of China and the U.S. hasn't changed but now CO2 output has increased from 2,364,774 kilotons to 2,376,155 kilotons and jobs have been lost in the United States as economic activity moved to China. And that's not even realistic--in reality there would also be a loss of economic activity because the movement to China wouldn't be 100% efficient. So you will have lower worldwide economic activity and higher pollution.

No, punishing the United States isn't the answer. There are two possible solutions that will help the environment: 1) Move more production to the United States where we are better at producing goods at a lower rate of CO2 production. This would generate more employment in the U.S. and lower employment in China but it would lower total CO2 production. 2) Improve the efficiency of China's economy so it can produce more goods with the same or lower CO2 production. If China were as efficienct as the U.S. they would be able to generate the same amount of economic activity and produce less CO2.

I personally think the solution is making inefficient countries more efficient so they pollute less. But any way you analyze it it makes no sense to have a treaty like Kyoto that actually discourages activity in the countries that produce the least pollution for a unit of economic activity and encourage it in those countries that pollute more per unit of economic activity.

No. It allows the efficient to continue producing efficiently while pushing the inefficient to produce more value for the amount of pollution they create.

Let me put this in perspective. The U.S. has an $11 trillion economy and produces 1,446,777 kilotons of CO2. China has a $6.449 trillion economy and produces 917,997 kilotons of CO2. So the U.S. produces 1.58 times as much CO2 but our economy is 1.71 times larger. From a pollution perspective we're doing more economic activity with relatively less pollution.

So who needs to adjust their habits? The U.S.? Buzzzz. Wrong answer. Currently China and the U.S. together produce 2,364,774 kilotons of CO2 per year with total economic activity of $17.449 trillion. Let's say you arbitrarily say that we need to reduce our emissions by 10% from 1,446,777 to 1,302,099. Let's just say that means our economy will drop 10% to $9.9 trillion. Let's say that that lost $1.1 trillion goes to China so their economy increases by 17% to $7.549 trillion and that that means a 17% increase in their economy means a 17% increase in their emissions to 1,074,056 kilotons per year.

The result? The total economic activity of China and the U.S. hasn't changed but now CO2 output has increased from 2,364,774 kilotons to 2,376,155 kilotons and jobs have been lost in the United States as economic activity moved to China. And that's not even realistic--in reality there would also be a loss of economic activity because the movement to China wouldn't be 100% efficient. So you will have lower worldwide economic activity and higher pollution.

No, punishing the United States isn't the answer. There are two possible solutions that will help the environment: 1) Move more production to the United States where we are better at producing goods at a lower rate of CO2 production. This would generate more employment in the U.S. and lower employment in China but it would lower total CO2 production. 2) Improve the efficiency of China's economy so it can produce more goods with the same or lower CO2 production. If China were as efficienct as the U.S. they would be able to generate the same amount of economic activity and produce less CO2.

I personally think the solution is making inefficient countries more efficient so they pollute less. But any way you analyze it it makes no sense to have a treaty like Kyoto that actually discourages activity in the countries that produce the least pollution for a unit of economic activity and encourage it in those countries that pollute more per unit of economic activity.

Your CIA breaks down the religious components of the United States to be:

• Protestant 52%
• Roman Catholic 24%
• Mormon 2%
• Jewish 1%
• Muslim 1%
• other 10%
• none 10% (2002 est.)

and Christians include Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and Anglicans according to the World Fact page (and other sources), so I guess you just got yourself stereo-typed.

As for you having rights, it doesn't look like you yourself have any, but that's not my problem.

Your CIA breaks down the religious components of the United States to be:

• Protestant 52%
• Roman Catholic 24%
• Mormon 2%
• Jewish 1%
• Muslim 1%
• other 10%
• none 10% (2002 est.)

and Christians include Roman Catholics, Protestants, Orthodox, and Anglicans according to the World Fact page (and other sources), so I guess you just got yourself stereo-typed.

As for you having rights, it doesn't look like you yourself have any, but that's not my problem.

it's not like anybody could ever put a commercial satelite into orbit from a French-owned island near the Equator.

The beautiful thing is the industry is also raping the public domain.. 75 years ago. Go lord, you watched something that even those with survived WWI watched in their childhood?

The real absurdity of the time limit becomes apparent when you realize that, seventy-five years ago, we were just entering the sound-era in film and Hollywood, as we know it (the bloated, industry that wants these laws the most), didn't even exist.

Even more absurd, the average lifespan of a U.S. male is 77.43 for males (80.36 for females). Meaning, if you're male, you'll probably never be able to experience any of your favorite movies, books, or music--pieces of our common culture and heritage--without paying for it. And if you're female, you're not much better off because you're only LIKELY to see copyrighted material from before your sixth birthday go public domain.

-Grym

If you care to look at a map you will see that the coast of Greenland is dotted with 'small islands'.

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

"Southwestern Asia, bordering the Caspian Sea, between Iran and Russia, with a small European portion north of the Caucasus range
(Emphasis mine)

"Azerbaijan and Georgia lie partly in Europe according to definitions which consider the main watershed of the Caucasus as the boundary with Asia."

"From now on"? Gee, I haven't seen too much truth coming out for awhile now.

Yes you have.

You might never again in your lifetime see the CIA issue a report this critical of a sitting American president.

It turns out we were both right and both wrong. Although both youth and middle-age suicides are bad and getting worse, the highest number comes from the elderly, which is surprising considering they are only 19% of the population (2004 statistics)

Anyways, an excerpt on the youth rates:

"The latest NPA data confirm that suicide by elementary- and middle-school students is a serious social problem. The suicide rate for this group rose by a massive 57.6%, representing a total of 93 innocent lives lost, 34 more than in 2002. Among high-school students there was also a sharp rise of 29.3%. In total, 225 young lives were lost in this category. There was also an increase in the number of college students killing themselves. The overall suicide rate among people aged 19 or younger rose by 22%."

And generally:

"Based on provisional data for 2003, Japanese male and female suicide rates per 100,000 people are now roughly 40.2 for men and 14.9 for women, approaching levels normally witnessed in countries suffering severe economic hardships such as Russia, Latvia or Lithuania."

Anyways, here's another source for more up to date statistics.

> Small breeder reactors allover the place? Now
> there's a safe, low risk idea! Just like North
> Korea, you too can make plutonium in your back
> yard with your very own breeder reactor! Trucking,
> shipping, securing fuel/waste to thousands of
> minireactors without loss/theft/accidents? MTBF
> multiplied by a million parts per reactor
> multiplied thousands of power plants? Hmm.

I shouldn't respond, but this is just FUD. The idea behind the nuclear battery in the 10-100MW range is that you install the reactor with all the fuel it needs for 30-70 years. They are passively safe, and produce plutonium from U-238 in minimum quantities for fueling, and then burn that plutonium. They produce plutonium in three separate isotopes (239,240, and 242) which make them useless for the production of nuclear bombs.

You bury the reactor (they are about 15m by 3m ) and they are totally automated. They do all of their own reprocessing of waste, and you end up with 95-99% of the truly harmful isotopes transmuted. Slashdot talked about these briefly:

sstars

Economies of scale come into question, and new materials make the EROEI for this approach more than 1000.

I think that you are correct - that the current nuclear paradigm is not scalable and too expensive, but I am not talking about the current nuclear paradigm. You are hitting a straw man here.

Anyways, I really wish that solar in large scale like you suggest was economically feasible. Maybe in a hundred or so years. Where did you get your numbers?

Solar energy comes into the atmosphere at approx 1,350 W/m^2, and averages 170 W/m^2 when it reaches the ground.

At 17% efficient panels, this becomes approx 30 W/m^2, which you can expect to use intermittently depending on weather and time of year.

Now, the average use of energy in a household is from 20-100 W/m^2. The average use in supermarkets and office buildings is 200-400 W/m^2, and industrial places like steel mills and refineries about 300-900 W/m^2. High rise buildings go for about 3 kW/m^2.

So - where is your excess? Even without considering costs of *converting* solar power or *storing* it for base usage, or even the energy cost of converting it, or even the inefficiency of the spacing of panels on roofs (ie: you'll never get 100% of the roof covered) and the inefficiency of incorrect angles in capturing the energy (most solar panels need a correct angle to the sun in order to get the 17% you are talking about), there is no excess to send to the high-rises, let alone the steel mills.

And of course that doesn't even count the energy cost in creating and maintaining the solar cells.
It isn't for lack of trying - people have been working on photovoltaics since *1830*. And yet they only generate 20 times *less* energy than wind and only .1% of our total energy usage.

As to your numbers -

I don't know where you got your 'roof space' figure (2.43e11) but it seems high - that's about a 2000 square foot home for each three people in this country - but lets go for it.

Then, assuming that we get real solar power for about 8 hours a day -

170 W/m^2 * 2.43 * 10^11 ft^2 * 1 year * 8/24 in kilowatt hours

= 1.12 * 10^13 kwH

Google reference:

here

From the CIA factbook we use 3.602 * 10^13 kwH.

Reference here

So - even without counting the 17% efficiency rate, OR storage costs, maintenance costs, spacing inefficiencies, etc. this is only about 30% of our national electricity needs. Multiply 30% * 17%, and you get about 4.5%.

In other words, you did your math wrong.

Mentioning Taiwan as a source of cheap labour makes it sound like you know very little about this particular subject and you are simply making stuff up.

Oh my dear Minna, you got me!

Yes, I picked #2. #1 is:

The State, the general good.

While that may be a common usage today when naming nations, it is not the meaning of the word when used in a political science context. That is because when people discuss democracy v. republic, they are speaking of that definition number two, and of a republican form of government. Definition 1. does not describe a form of government, 2. does. This is English, words may have multiple, co-equal meanings.

As for the New Shorter OED being a kitchen-sink dictionary, you are rather mistaken. I didn't use a watch glass to read it. The NS OED is a two volume desktop dictionary, and is quite abridged.

The fact of the matter is that in the realm of legal philosophy, republic has a meaning. When the Romans kicked out the Etruscan king, they formed a government, the res publica, where the people were sovereign, but were governed by elected representatives. The People met in their centuries, exercised their sovereign powers and chose represenatives. First the Senate, then later the Pleb Assembly. That ultimate form of the Roman Republic is where the political definition of republic came from, as well as being a blueprint for many later governments. The term "republican form of government" exists as a contrast to a purely democratic form of government.

The fact that the People's Republic of China or the Republic of Kazakhstan chose to use a western term with a couple thousand years of meaning behind it does not somehow strip it of that meaning. When the United States Constitution guarantees to each State a Republican form of government, it has meaning which is understood, and it isn't that Karl Rove should design their government. If W or Boozer Kennedy use it in some other way, well, that's nice.

I unfortunately cannot spend much time researching this, and my college law and philosophy books are boxed up somewhere. I did a quick look through Russell's History of Western Philosophy but that's too obscure. However, when I looked up the Republic of Kazakhstan in the CIA World Fact Book, I did come across these:

Democracy - a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but which is usually exercised indirectly through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed.

Republic - a representative democracy in which the people's elected deputies (representatives), not the people themselves, vote on legislation

Perhaps you'll appreciate the CIA's classification system of world governments. Though I rather doubt it.

Larry

2. Any State in which supreme power is held by the people or their elected representatives as opposed to by a monarch etc.

That definition is partly correct- lack of a monarch is a critical feature of a republic, but power held by the people is not. For example, the United Kingdom isn't a republic, but it would match that definition (Their monarch has non-supreme power, but she does exist).

I see that you picked definition #2, which suggests you are omitting information that doesn't support your viewpoint. If a word has many definitions with non-overlapping meanings, then it has little descriptive power.

"Democracy" means that ultimate power resides in the people living there. "Republic" means nothing, because many non-democratic dictatorial/aristocratic states are republics.

I believe the OED trumps reference.com.

It doesn't. In fact, the kitchen-sink approach of such non-abridged dictionaries is more likely to supply definitions that are wrong (or at least obseleted). But more importantly, genuine usage trumps everything. And a quick survey of an atlas will show that I'm right. "Republic" has for centuries been used to refer to both democratic and non-democratic nations, as long as they are non-monarchal.

Usage by English dictionaries, legal dictionaries, political scientists, and active politicians from George Bush to Ted Kennedy (and beyond) all support my definitions.

but who is counting.

What percentage of the british population reads The Guardian?

The Guardian claims average daily readership of 1,076,000 people. Of course not all of those are in the UK but I'm sure the majority are. The figure is also probably inflated for marketing reasons. It's about 2.85 times the actual number of copies distributed.

The population of the UK is estimated at 60,270,708 people.

1,076,000 is 1.79% of 60,270,708. For reasons already stated though, that perentage is probably overstated.

It appears that not even moving to iceland will get me away from this administration.

Consider where they'll be in the next 50 years, not where they are now. According the the CIA World Factbook, China's current electricity consumption is 1.3 trillion kWh, oil consumption is 4.57 million bbl/day, and natural gas consumption is a paltry 27.4 billion m^3. By comparison, the US is consuming 3.6 trillion kWh of electricity, 19.65 million bbl/day of oil, and a whopping 640.9 billion m^3 of natural gas (although I will guess that this figure is necessitated due to the majority of the US population living the northeast to upper midwestern parts of the country, thus increasing the need for gas heat in the winter, while China's population base is mainly coastal and temperate and therefore winter heat needs are much less).

The difference is the growth rate of the industrial sectors of the two countries. The US is just barely expanding at a 0.3% growth rate, while China is massively expanding at a 30.4% yearly clip. IOW, China's energy needs for just the industrial sector are doubling just over every 3 years. Now couple this growth in industry with the subsequent growth in quality of life, and you'll have a similar growth in energy demands for the residential sector as well, meaning that there will be a massively increasing need for energy in China over the next 10-20 years.

Now unless they plan to tap some huge clean power source in the very near future, the Chinese are going to have to start doing the same things that the US currently must do in order to feed the energy needs of the country, and probably moreso in their case. But given the Kyoto accords, they will not be held accountable for the ensuing black cloud that will result from this huge and necessary increase of energy production if the industrial machine they are creating is to continue to progress.

You're entitled to think what you like. Being right is a different matter entirely.

In response to your points:

1. The US population is a fraction under 300 million people (source: CIA World Factbook). The world population is around 6.3 billion people (source: CIA World Factbook). The US population is therefore around 3% of the world population which, in my book at least, makes it a relatively small fraction - consider that India and China between them account for 2.3 billion people - over a third of the worlds population!

2. You are right, it is not only the US. If you look at the figures for CO2 emissions, you will find that the US accounts for around 36% of all emissions (source: UN Framework Convention on Climate Change) - far higher than their 3% of the population would attest to. In fact, it is double what the next largest polluting nation (Russia) emits. You will find that the figures for other pollutants are similar.

3. The US currently has a huge budget deficit. According to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the deficit for goods (i.e. tangible things rather than services) was:$150.8 billion (source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis). Contrary to your comment, this would suggest that the US imports far more than it exports.