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My last iteration:

A redact is a person who redacts something.

Likewise a censor.

The nominative usage of each verb refers specifically to the person performing the act, not to the product of the action.

A redact produces a "redaction". A censor produces "censored material". The main purpose of redaction of government documents is censorship, though a colophon or masthead or invoice may be added. If new text is inserted in the material to change its meaning, it's an FOIA no-no, tantamount to lying, though I couldn't point to any cases of it.

These guys seem to have a handle on the one-way trip information takes in an FOIA redaction, and they manage to omit misuse of the word entirely!

These guys, however, blow it.

There's hope we'll discover intelligent life in Washington, as long as we avoid those who call themselves "intelligence" for reasons of maintaining their cover.

Even then, you would probabally need to get permission from the nation who is the official registrar of that ship you are floating in. Almost all ships in the ocean, and all commercial vessels, are registered to a specific country, mainly to deal with maritime law and other subtle legal issues such as what country a child belongs to when they are born aboard ship, if a crime happens what country has juristiction, and should that ship be allowed to trade in a given port or not.

Ships registered to the U.S.A. are given protection of the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard, and an attack against an American flag ship is considered an act of war against the U.S.A., with all of the consequences that follow from that.

There are nations that do a "flag of convience" like Liberia, who only charge a modest licensing fee and do practically no inspections. (An inspection consisiting of "Yeah, the ship is there" is probabally a little bit too much for Liberia) Of course, the Liberian Navy isn't exactly going to go out of their way to help you out either.

The point here is that if you launch from a ship, even in international waters, you need to get permission from the government who you have the ship registered to. That is why I've suggested in the past that the Liberian Space Agency might end up with the largest fleet of space going craft, but even so you have to deal with at least some sort of government.

Who knows, maybe this can be a source of revenue for Nauru to suppliment their income from domain sales.

What is obvious to us is obvious to the europeans.

Do not buy american products.

Pepsi, MacDonalds, Coca-cola, Marlboro, etc, are all international companies, who have local factories in Europe. A mass boycott of these products would be more an act of symbolism against Capitalism than anything useful; in fact, this would hurt the local economies, not the North American.

However, there is an increasing preference of national/european products over american ones.

Do not go to american movies.
Do not listen to american music.
Do not wear american clothing.
etc.

And what change would any of this make in Europe? You're talking about AMERICAN CULTURE. American products+movies+music+clothing+games don't sell enough to sustain the USA economy. It's WEAPONS and TECHNOLOGY that matter here, and the European Union is already seeking independence in these sectors.

Honestly, I wouldn't even know where to begin.
May be by reading the CIA World Factbook.

Oh, well.

*sigh*

According to these documents, again from the OMB, the Federal budget for FY2005 will be $2.4 trillion. According to the good ol' CIA World Factbook, the US GDP in 2002 was $10.45 trillion. Even without factoring in the 2.45% GDP growth rate the WFB lists, that means that next year's Federal budget is only 23% of the total GDP.

I could take the time to figure out the actual GDP is, and even throw in the numbers for state and local governments, but these numbers are close enough for Slashdot. Suffice to say, none of this supports the idea that the government drives the economy in any major way.

how in the world do 280 public hot spots cover two-thirds of a country (that is 45,226 sq km in area)?

what is the technology behind these super hot spots? or is this just another case of aggrandized mathematics?

Heck, forget about cities... this asteroid is 25 times larger (in two dimensions) than an entire country! That is, if the country in question happens to be Holy See (Vatican City), recognized as a separate country.

Or, it's just slightly smaller than Tuvalu.

I'm sure the same can be said about your salary (>$50k?) by someone making $500 a year.

Good for you.

You're an idiot. You take a section of his post as though it's comical.

Rand was a bitch and not one I take seriously. Friedman, OTOH, has more economic clue in one of his dick-hairs than you have in your whole body.

Show me a successful command economy. Is there one? Prove it.

Here's a list you can research, some better than others:
USSR
Russia
China
North Korea
Vietnam
Argentina
Sweden
Denmark
Norway
Finland
India, 1948-1990
Cuba
Brazil
East Germany
Yugoslavia

Go look them up in the CIA World Factbook. Compare those still-existing nations to the United States or Canada or Switzerland. Pay particular attention to per-capita GDP.

Sweden is going to probably be your best pro-socialist argument.

But even there, they are trying market-oriented ideas that even America is afraid of, such as a school voucher system.

For almost every leftist, there is a corresponding ignorance of economics and even of fundamental recent world history. I know, because I used to be a leftist myself...

But look at the list I've presented above. Every one of those nations has a lower per-capita GDP than market-oriented countries. This is not a coincidence.

Milton Friedman wrote in "Free to Choose" that the starkest example of the problems of command economies could be seen by comparing West Germany and East Germany (the book was written in 1980, 9 years before the fall of the Berlin Wall). West Germany was a thriving market economy, where people were free to do generally as they please and sell what the please. East Germany was a wasteland with buildings which hadn't been rebuilt since their destruction in WWII.

Why else would the East Germans have been so happy to see the wall torn down? Why else would they be the ones tearing it down? If command economies work so well, why are people so unhappy in them?

Don't be an idiot. Go read works besides those on statist websites like Commondreams and the World Socialist Web Site.

The most exciting use of it, in my opinion, was in the Arctic for Operation COLD FEET. A summary is given here, and a good book on it is here (or at least a review of the book---I've read the book, by the way, and I couldn't put it down until I finished it).

Jakarta is in Indonesia. Asscork.

americans are often accused of being ignorant of the rest of the world

well the parent poster, and every one modding him up, are proving exactly that

ENGLISH IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE PHILIPPINES!

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

someone please mod the parent comment into oblivion, it showcases american ignorance, and apparently, even the ignorance of americans living in the far east!

Here are some references:
Showing the 45% figures
In graph form

When you look up figures, how fresh they are are vital. The Iraqi and Afghan war has substantially boosted the USA military spending.

Unless the US's GDP is THAT much higher than the 46 countries above us, your facts are wrong.

The answer to that is yes. The US GDP is indeed that much higher than most of the 46 countries above you (except China).

Another possibility is that the CIA is biased (or incompetent). As their recent record in Iraq shows, their intelligences obviously isn't that great (unless you reckon they deliberately mislead the public). See the discrepency between their figures (that US spends $280B/year and the other figures $420B/year. Part of this is also probably because the Afghan, Iraqi and war on terror figures haven't made their way into the CIA factbook. Military spending in dollar figures.

Anyway, my central contention holds, that the fear by Roosevelt of the military-industrial complex has become a fact. That such spending will over time lead to China, India, Indonesia and Europe increasing their spending without necessarily buying security for anyone -- you, me, the citizens of USA or other countries. We all lose, this is MAD. (pun intended)

#1 - They're enforcing the laws of our country. The FBI is just the police that operate at the Federal (National) level. It is not the FBI's job to deal with foreign matters.

#2 - The responsbility for tracking down Bin Laden lays with the NSA (It coordinates, directs, and performs highly specialized activities to protect U.S. information systems and produce foreign intelligence information.) and the CIA (Providing accurate, comprehensive, and timely foreign intelligence on national security topics.). The Department of Defense (the military) are the ones who carry out the work to actually find him.

I don't get why someone that's intelligent would reply to such a post. The article mentioned you're sensitive on the "chick hacker" topic, but is it such a reflex to respond to trolls and ignorant people when there are things more worth your time?

Since you talk about this on your webpage, I'll write my opinions here. It's greatly unfortunate the chauvinism in computer science/engineering and the world in general. And while I'm sure that has impact on women entering the field, I think that's minor compared to other cultural factors.

Rates in grad school are probably a little different from undergrad and this is only one case, but let's look at my school. In the CSE department, only 26 out of 146 students are female (18%). Most statistics I've seen hover around 20% (for graduate and undergraduate engineering in general). Here, 65% of the grad students are foreign. While the US men hold at 38%, only 19% of the female are from the US. While China and India "only" account for 53% of the men, they account for 69% of the women. While China and India's percentages of women are still low (31% and 23%, respectively), it's much better than the rest (10%).

So either many women aren't finding this intersting, they find it too difficult, or there are cultural issues involved (or mixtures). So is the government (and society in general) not taking steps we should be? If so, what are they? The same can be said regarding male teachers.

Kids are already being told to fear math and science and find it difficult and boring, what other social factors need to be addressed to change what's being told to the girls? While chauvinism is a factor (and should be addressed just because it's wrong), I think there are many other issues (many of which I don't know) that need to be addressed before we can see any dent in the percentages. I mean, recent statistics (going on memory from 60 Minutes report) show girls getting better grades than boys in high schools and the majority of students at MSU are girls. So it's beyond just stressing education.

Generalities and stereotypes can be used very negatively, but at the same time, they are often indicative of something and they should be studied and learned from. Some believe they already know or don't care, however, too many people consider the issues too sensitive to even discuss. It's generally accepted that physically, top female athletes in many sports cannot compete with the top men. Our physiologies are different enough that men have the advantage and we know enough to explain much of that.

But what are the reasons for male to female ratios in top chess players and other mental/educational disciplines? Why do certain racial and ethnic groups score much higher than others in SAT and other standardized tests? How come Jews around the world (with a smaller population than my home country of Nepal, around 13 million to 26 million) hold more wealth, influence and power despite being persecuted almost everywhere they go?

However, the main people really "thinking" about these issues are male chauvinists, extreme feminists, racist bigots and anti-semitists/Islamic fundamentalists. That's not a good sign...

Anyhow, good job in the interview and I thought your answers were well said. Good luck on improving computer security and raising awareness of security. And good luck on changing the atmosphere of chauvinism (of course I'll do my part).

Or, it may have to do with the fact that English is not the official language of Nigeria ...

Apart from that English is the official language of Nigeria, the above statement is 100% correct.

"People on my team are masochistic. They enjoy the difficulty of working with PlayStation 2"

Then he's a fucking idiot. All things being equal, the PS2 would have been abandoned long ago. It's underpowered and deserves to die. The only reason people still make games for it is because of the market penetration. Xbox and even the Gamecube are easier to to develop for and are more capable platforms.

"You know, it sells better in the United States. There are more people who buy the game"

Duh. Could that have anything to do with there are 2.2 times more people in the US than Japan? (290 million vs 127 million, source). And they've sold more Playstation 2 consoles in the US than in Japan? Well I never!

If the game is big in the U.S., it will do better in Japan. And I do not think that the hype works for you the other way around.

You mean the Japanese publishers suddenly find themselves with more cash to market a game at home if it does well abroad? That's an absolutely stunning revelation.

This whole interview reminds me of the episode of South Park where the Japanese are going around talking about the "huge American penis" to distract the Yanks from the Jap invasion plans - it's complete bullshit designed to make American gamers feel good about the absolute piece of shit that is the MGS series.

If I could point to one thing that MGS does that's particularly brutally retarded - it would be that they still have boss fights. I loved the demo of MGS (because it was a fair fight against the enemies you encountered) - but I absolutely loathed the full game. I tried MGS2 and hated that as well. Splinter Cell and Syphon Filter are both *far* better series if you ask me.

Nice cherry-pick of economic numbers there, John Kerry. I don't think your hours worked GDP numbers tell the whole story. For example, we have much higher overall per-capita numbers. If you think an economy should be judged on how much leisure time a nation's peoples have, well we will never speak the same language. France has been around a lot longer than the US, but we produce almost nine times its overall GNP. What about growth? Innovation? Employment? (France and Germany's unemployment numbers are almost twice as high!)

The bottom line is there is trouble in both of your socialist paradises: France has been racing toward a free-market economy to the point where it is becoming merely a very heavily-taxed capitalist economy, and your vaunted 35-hour work week has been killing the economy:

• France is in the midst of transition, from a well-to-do modern economy that has featured extensive government ownership and intervention to one that relies more on market mechanisms...The current government has lowered income taxes and introduced measures to boost employment (9% unemployment). At the end of 2002 the government was focusing on the problems of the high cost of labor and labor market inflexibility resulting from the 35-hour workweek and restrictions on lay-offs...The tax burden remains one of the highest in Europe. The current economic slowdown and inflexible budget items have pushed the deficit above the EU's 3% debt limit. Business investment remains listless because of low rates of capital utilization, high debt, and the steep cost of capital.
• Source

Germany's economy has been in the crapper for years, and its latest numbers look weak. And it seems your socialist welfare state has some outsourcing problems of its own:

• Germany shed the most jobs in a decade last year as companies including Siemens AG, the nation's biggest electronics company, SAP AG, Germany's biggest software provider, and Volkswagen AG, the largest car producer in Europe, shift production to China, India and Eastern Europe, where labor costs are a fraction of the level in their home market.
• Source.

Further,

• Germany's economy has expanded by an average of 1.2 percent every year since 1992, the same as Japan and less than half the rates in the U.S. and the U.K. in the period.
• Source.

And

• Germany's ageing population, combined with high unemployment, has pushed social security outlays to a level exceeding contributions from workers. Structural rigidities in the labor market - including strict regulations on laying off workers and the setting of wages on a national basis - have made unemployment (now above 10%) a chronic problem.
• Source

Oops! Looks like this socialist utopia is collapsing under its own weight. Your socialist economies just can't compete in a free world market, something that even China and the Russians are coming around to. Pretty sad your two shining examples of socialism are invalidated by the fact that their economies suck!

• The Cologne-based IW economic institute said in a survey last month that German industry's labor costs are the highest in the world, with 72 percent of 523 companies questioned saying they would hire more staff if the government made headway on lowering the burden.

• ``The reason that we go more to India and those countries is we get highly skilled young people in a flexible labor market for cheap prices,'' said Henning Kagermann, 56, chief executive officer of SAP, in an interview at the Cebit fair in Hanov

Nice cherry-pick of economic numbers there, John Kerry. I don't think your hours worked GDP numbers tell the whole story. For example, we have much higher overall per-capita numbers. If you think an economy should be judged on how much leisure time a nation's peoples have, well we will never speak the same language. France has been around a lot longer than the US, but we produce almost nine times its overall GNP. What about growth? Innovation? Employment? (France and Germany's unemployment numbers are almost twice as high!)

The bottom line is there is trouble in both of your socialist paradises: France has been racing toward a free-market economy to the point where it is becoming merely a very heavily-taxed capitalist economy, and your vaunted 35-hour work week has been killing the economy:

• France is in the midst of transition, from a well-to-do modern economy that has featured extensive government ownership and intervention to one that relies more on market mechanisms...The current government has lowered income taxes and introduced measures to boost employment (9% unemployment). At the end of 2002 the government was focusing on the problems of the high cost of labor and labor market inflexibility resulting from the 35-hour workweek and restrictions on lay-offs...The tax burden remains one of the highest in Europe. The current economic slowdown and inflexible budget items have pushed the deficit above the EU's 3% debt limit. Business investment remains listless because of low rates of capital utilization, high debt, and the steep cost of capital.
• Source

Germany's economy has been in the crapper for years, and its latest numbers look weak. And it seems your socialist welfare state has some outsourcing problems of its own:

• Germany shed the most jobs in a decade last year as companies including Siemens AG, the nation's biggest electronics company, SAP AG, Germany's biggest software provider, and Volkswagen AG, the largest car producer in Europe, shift production to China, India and Eastern Europe, where labor costs are a fraction of the level in their home market.
• Source.

Further,

• Germany's economy has expanded by an average of 1.2 percent every year since 1992, the same as Japan and less than half the rates in the U.S. and the U.K. in the period.
• Source.

And

• Germany's ageing population, combined with high unemployment, has pushed social security outlays to a level exceeding contributions from workers. Structural rigidities in the labor market - including strict regulations on laying off workers and the setting of wages on a national basis - have made unemployment (now above 10%) a chronic problem.
• Source

Oops! Looks like this socialist utopia is collapsing under its own weight. Your socialist economies just can't compete in a free world market, something that even China and the Russians are coming around to. Pretty sad your two shining examples of socialism are invalidated by the fact that their economies suck!

• The Cologne-based IW economic institute said in a survey last month that German industry's labor costs are the highest in the world, with 72 percent of 523 companies questioned saying they would hire more staff if the government made headway on lowering the burden.

• ``The reason that we go more to India and those countries is we get highly skilled young people in a flexible labor market for cheap prices,'' said Henning Kagermann, 56, chief executive officer of SAP, in an interview at the Cebit fair in Hanov

England has existed as a unified entity since the 10th century; the union between England and Wales, begun in 1284 with the Statute of Rhuddlan, was not formalized until 1536 with an Act of Union; in another Act of Union in 1707, England and Scotland agreed to permanently join as Great Britain; the legislative union of Great Britain and Ireland was implemented in 1801, with the adoption of the name the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1921 formalized a partition of Ireland; six northern Irish counties remained part of the United Kingdom as Northern Ireland and the current name of the country, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, was adopted in 1927

I'm not disagreeing with you, there is a vast difference between the USA and China.
I find some of the differences interesting.

From the CIA World Fact Book:

USA:
Area: 9,629,091 sq km
Oil consumption: 19.65 million bbl/day (2001 est.)
Population: 290,342,554 (July 2003 est.)

China:
Area: 9,596,960 sq km
Comparative Area: slightly smaller than the US
Oil consumption: 4.975 million bbl/day (2001 est.)
Population: 1,286,975,468 (July 2003 est.)

So their population is 1 billion higher, but in roughly the same total area as the US.
They consume 1/4 of the oil the US does, but this is increasing rapidly.

The average daily oil consumption in the US is 0.06767 bbl/day.
If we apply that number to the Chinese population, their consumption becomes a staggering 87,100,797 bbl/day!

We know there isn't enough oil available, as world production is around 75 million bbl/day, and there aren't any significantly large new fields being discovered (fig 4 on the page).

Read http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

I'm not disagreeing with you, there is a vast difference between the USA and China.
I find some of the differences interesting.

From the CIA World Fact Book:

USA:
Area: 9,629,091 sq km
Oil consumption: 19.65 million bbl/day (2001 est.)
Population: 290,342,554 (July 2003 est.)

China:
Area: 9,596,960 sq km
Comparative Area: slightly smaller than the US
Oil consumption: 4.975 million bbl/day (2001 est.)
Population: 1,286,975,468 (July 2003 est.)

So their population is 1 billion higher, but in roughly the same total area as the US.
They consume 1/4 of the oil the US does, but this is increasing rapidly.

The average daily oil consumption in the US is 0.06767 bbl/day.
If we apply that number to the Chinese population, their consumption becomes a staggering 87,100,797 bbl/day!

We know there isn't enough oil available, as world production is around 75 million bbl/day, and there aren't any significantly large new fields being discovered (fig 4 on the page).

Read http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/

Compared to the population China's economy is far far worse than the US's. Compare GDP: US $10.45 trillion (2002 est.); China $5.989 trillion (2002 est.).

China's apparent success is based on a huge population (1,286,975,468 (July 2003 est.)) which is very poor. Essentially China has unlimited free labor; as the standard of living in China increases any competitive advantage China has in the world economy will decrease.

Read the CIA factbook

Due to the USPTO's current high demand to patent everything under the sun, they have been increasingly outsourcing their positions to Mayotte, having a workforce that "fits the qualifications of our most rigid analysis positions", cites one top official. That same official said that due to some difficulties in getting the children in the country Internet access, however, they probably won't be able to surpass the 90% outsourcing objective they recently peaked at.

The tag line for the article is:
from the in-perfect-harmony dept.

So I assume Hemos was remembering the 1980s Band Aid concerts (warning: auto-playing MIDI crap). The song "Do they know it's Christmas?" hit the top of the UK charts in November 1984, and was at the top of the US charts soon after. The touching refrain was this:

Feed the world
Let them know it's Christmas time
Feed the world
Do they know it's Christmas time at all?

What I didn't even think about, my senior year, was that the "they" we were congratulating ourselves on feeding, victims of a drought in Ethiopia, may not have known it was Christmas time at all for an entirely different reason. To wit, these stats:

Religions:
Muslim 45%-50%, Ethiopian Orthodox 35%-40%, animist 12%, other 3%-8%

So around 65% of the population would not even *celebrate* Christmas... and those that do, celebrate it on January 7th! And it's not a particularly important date, compared with Epiphany two weeks later.

Since much of the discussion of this topic centers on social questions and not "nerd" issues, I think it might be apropos to consider that one of the most well-known "feed the world" programs of its time based itself around a catchphrase that likely generated laughter and scorn among those it purported to help.

That must explain why there are Arab members of the Knesset. It must also explain the "Suffrage: 18 years of age; universal" on the World factbook entry for Israel.

But since it is Israel, we are exercising our veto power in the UN Security Council to PREVENT a condemnation of the assassination.

The assassination of a the leader of a known terrorist organization that is responsible for hundreds of innocent deaths of both Arabs and Isreali's. Breaks my fucking heart that they killed him. Even the spineless EU considers Hamas to be a terrorist organization. Tell me again why the Israeli's shouldn't have killed this SOB? Would we pass up Bin Ladan if we had a shot at him?

This double standard is only one part of why so many in the arabic world hate us.

Double standard? The Arab fanatics want another Holocost of the Jewish people. It'll be over our dead bodies before that happens. Too bad the Europeans don't seem to remember history very well. They will be doomed to repeat it.

You have a confounding variable though.

Canada, Germany, Britain, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Sweden, (gasp) France (gasp), Greece, AND MOST OF THE FUCKING CIVILIZED WORLD have single-payer medicine. And you know what? They live longer than we do.

They most certainly do NOT live longer than we do. The only places in the world where the people have a longer life expectancy than in the USA are Japan and Lichtenstein. So get your facts straight!

04. Japan 80.93
09. Sweden 79.97
11. Canada 79.83
14. Italy 79.40
16. France 79.28
18. Liechtenstein 79.25
19. Spain 79.23
20. Norway 79.09
24. Greece 78.89
26. Netherlands 78.74
30. Germany 78.42
36. United Kingdom 78.16
48. United States 77.14
49. Denmark 77.10

The average consumer makes $36,300 a year according to the CIA (i will leave links for proof at the end). The average main stream artist makes WELL over 1 million dollars a year. So if they have a problem with a little girl that wants to hear Brittney Spears so she downloads the song I would have to say fuck them. Secondly you stated that if someone was constintly going around and robbing our neibors that you would see a bunch of dead theives. Your damn right because the average consumer works fucking hard to buy what they have. You state that your product is being sold for $14 dollars on Ebay. How much do you sell it for. Now think to yourself...is that too much...are you suggesting (with price) that you are worth more then you really are? Just think about it. Now with the services out there that allow you to buy one song off an album im sure file sharing will go down conciderably. mainly because we dont have to sit threw 12 shitty songs just to hear the 3 (if we are lucky) that are worth a shit. That is my 2 cents and I'm out

CIA Page

I'm going to assume that the "country's growth" you refer to is its economy (which, ultimately, defines who is a superpower and who is not).

China's population rate is still growing (0.6% in 2003 and 0.9% in 2000, compared to the United States' 0.95% in 2003)

Your example, India, grows at 1.47%.

I realize that the lag between an increase in population and an increase in the country's population exists (i.e. until the new population become functioning citizens), but even then... the effects of the staggering birth rates in China during the 60's will last for many decades. India's current and continuing population growth will likely continue propel its economy (and, therefore, world clout) in the future, I don't think China's lacking in that respect either.

While a country's growth rate may influence its GDP growth, their link really isn't strong enough to say that on that factor alone, a country will or will not be an economic superpower - letting alone the fact that China has yet to have a negative population rate in recent years. That may change, though.

I'm going to assume that the "country's growth" you refer to is its economy (which, ultimately, defines who is a superpower and who is not).

China's population rate is still growing (0.6% in 2003 and 0.9% in 2000, compared to the United States' 0.95% in 2003)

Your example, India, grows at 1.47%.

I realize that the lag between an increase in population and an increase in the country's population exists (i.e. until the new population become functioning citizens), but even then... the effects of the staggering birth rates in China during the 60's will last for many decades. India's current and continuing population growth will likely continue propel its economy (and, therefore, world clout) in the future, I don't think China's lacking in that respect either.

While a country's growth rate may influence its GDP growth, their link really isn't strong enough to say that on that factor alone, a country will or will not be an economic superpower - letting alone the fact that China has yet to have a negative population rate in recent years. That may change, though.

This country isn't in the UN member list.

What kind of government does this Palestine have? Who is its head of state?

Foreign Missile Developmentsand the Ballistic Missile Threat Through 2015

APS Study Group on Boost-Phase Intercept Systems for National Missile Defense

We can never build a foolproof system. The technical hurdles involved are immense and expensive, while the countermeasures are relatively simple and inexpensive.

How much money will it take to convince you that you're safe?
Why don't we buy North Korea if we're willing to spend billions of dollars a year on safety? Im sure the people in North Korea wouldn't mind not starving.

Project Gutenburg 2 claims to have 27,000 books available for free in HTML format, and 60,000 books they charge for in PDF/eBook format (Those aren't the same format, and their site confuses them.)

So, they're obviously ripping off PG's trademarked name (unless they have permission, as a couple people have speculated), but are they really ripping off their content? And even if they are, where are they getting the rest of their books? Presumably, all 27,000 HTML books are duplicated within the 60,000 PDFs, since they claim they pioneered converting from HTML to PDF... But that still leaves 50,000 books that had to come from somewhere other than PG. PG2 is a front for the World eBook Library, which claims to be a consortium of either 45 or 'hundreds' of companies, depending on what page you're on. But their counterfit Adobe page doesn't exactly instill confidence. Then again, with them claiming support from the likes of PG, the Internet Archive, Google, Amazon, Systran, and the LOC, how can they be bad? I mean, on that page they even list the CIA as one of their contributors, and have an outdated mirror of the CIA world factbook. That book is, of course, in the public domain, except that they didn't bother to strip out the official CIA logo, as required by the CIA. Talk about the wrong people to piss off.

So, this whole thing smells like a major scam, but I still want to know where they got the rest of their content (assuming they actually have it...)

And this is exactly why you should not depend on the government to do anything with any degree of compentency. Every time someone suggests handing over some large project or economic or social program to the federal government, I cringe. Large organizations are inherently inefficent, and the larger they are, the more inefficent they are. Governments are some of the largest organizations out there, and in fact, the U.S. Government is the single largest organizational entity on the planet.

Obviously, there are some things that can only be done by an entity of that size (going to the moon in 1969, for example), but to expect efficent and effective IT policy from the Department of Interior is like getting angry when your pet elephant tramples your flowers.

It pisses you off that no American company today would ever do something like this? Well, get off your butt and do it; it is a free country after all. For all the bitching /.ers do about US business you'd think we were eating gruel for dinner every night. We really fair well.

See, those "boobs" in "America is #1" T-shirts seem to do a decent job of keeping America #1. Those boobs make it possible for you to have the money for the computer with which you bitch. If you disagree, grow a business to Ford size and make some robots. sheeze!

And what is this "our leaders" stuff. Do you mean government? Business succeeds dispite government not because of it. Look at the former USSR to see what much government gets you. Leaders are for sheep and kids, not mankind.

This story is not totally correct. Take a look at The CIA Factbook and you will see that Japan is indeed paying quite an amount (compared to "nothing"). Further, more than 80% of the cost of the US-military stationed in Japan is payed by the japanese government.

Considering conditions in India are far better than in the USA (crime, violence, poverty, terrorism).

Fundamental concerns in India include the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, massive overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife... Population below poverty line: 25%

Considering conditions in India are far better than in the USA (crime, violence, poverty, terrorism).

Fundamental concerns in India include the ongoing dispute with Pakistan over Kashmir, massive overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and ethnic and religious strife... Population below poverty line: 25%

Oh, by the way, I don't mean to whitewash the US's involvement... The CIA was involved in many coup-related program activities during 1970. But these did not come off for whatever reason. The 1973 coup was a separate event.

Nice spin. I liked your post up until the conclusion. Yes, it does strike me as plausible, especially since driving my car around is 50% of my 300 million btu annual energy budget. Did you see the part of the article where it mentions the energy budget for producing a single DRAM chip?

How much of the water used in industrial processing is required to be heated to a specific temperature? As I'm sure you know, the definition of a Btu is the amount of energy required to heat a pound of water 1 degree fahrenheit. I'd imagine lots of the energy is just for pre-heating water and other solutions.

The age of cheap energy is over and this new reality is going to hurt no country more than the good ol' U.S. of A. Other western nations use half the energy per capita that the US does and they have far less reliance on gas, oil and coal then the US.

The north slope has peaked, the north sea has peaked, and the prize of prizes, Saudi Arabia's largest field, the North Ghawar has been declining at over 5% per year for years now. They've been pumping sea water into it to keep it pressurized and it's getting more and more expensive to extract it.

Q: What percent of the USA's energy needs were imported last year (2003)?
A: 66%

Q: Who was the largest oil exporter to the US last year?
A: Canada

Q: How many barrels of oil did the USA burn each and every day last year?
A: twenty million

Q: From how many countries does the USA import oil?
A: fifty and climbing

Q: Where does the USA get all this energy?
A: well, from these countries (Courtesy of the CIA)

Before starting in on the tin-foil hat boy ad hominem attacks check out the following:

In Google News search for "new oil discovery" do some reading.
Then, also in Google News search for "oil depletion OR peak" and do some more reading.

Also look up Matthew Simmons he was part of the Bush administrations energy task force. You know, the one we're not allowed to know about.

The next time you're in the shower do a little calculation in your head about how much energy is going down the drain every time you shower.

Regards,
JSMS II

Industry tips:
Shell recently announced that based on current production, it is reducing its proved reserve life to 10.6 years from 13.4 years. Shell also warned that it would replace only 70%-90% of its 2003 oil and gas with new finds.

To meet expected demand, by 2015, we will need to find, develop and produce a volume of new oil and gas that is equal to 80% being produced today (industry experts call this a dream). In addition, the cost associated with providing this additional oil and gas is expected to be considerably more than what industry is now spending.
-- Exxon-mobil

"I was reading somewhere the other day, where we can get out of this crisis by more wind. That's an interesting thought, except our technology isn't enough to capture enough wind to be able to make sure our economy continues to grow. And so I strongly believe in conservation. I believe we made great progress in conservation. But I know if we don't find more product, we're going to have a problem."
-- George W. Bush

You're over-aggerating. According to the CIA World Fact Book, 18.6% is older than 65, while the median age is 42 (how could it be different ;-). A fertility rate of 1.38 is not very healthy indeed - although 22 countries have an even lower rate, especially is eastern europe. So the fact that those robots mainly come from Japan rather than Europe (or the USA) is not caused by the age structure, but must have other causes.

The mean age in Japan is approaching 70

Uh, I thought that sounded a little rediculus, so I thought I would check around. I was right according to the this: CIA Factbook

The mean and median ages are barely past forty.

the whole thing is a total hogwash and "feel-good", "ain't we just the cat's ass" type of drivel for the gung-ho right wing "hawks" in the US public.

A partial accounting of this story of counterespionage appeared in 1996 in "The Farewell Dossier" by Gus Weiss in the journal Studies in Intelligence.

It refers to more than just this, but if you are correct that the whole store is just a lie (which I seriously doubt), then the lie was begun back in 1996.

A few quotes:

"In the summer of 1981, President Mitterrand told President Reagan of the source, and, when the material was supplied, it led to a potent counterintelligence response by CIA and the NATO intelligence services."

"I met with Director of Central Intelligence William Casey on an afternoon in January 1982. I proposed using the Farewell material to feed or play back the products sought by Line X, but these would come from our own sources and would have been ''improved," that is, designed so that on arrival in the Soviet Union they would appear genuine but would later fail."

"American industry helped in the preparation of items to be "marketed" to Line X. Contrived computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline, and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory."

Since this is an unclassified report from the CIA, it's reasonable to expect that many important details may have been changed, left out, or completely invented, since the operation was classified.

But it seems that, at the least, a very similar operation did in fact happen. (And it was before 1989.) It is certainly not something with "no factual basis" dreamed up by "gung-ho right wing 'hawks'".

It is possible that the Trojanned products were turbines or chips rather than software. It may even be that 1989 explosion was conflated with this operation. But to say that this is "a total hogwash" is not supported by the facts.

there's a bit of information on the CIA's website about it too. no explosion info though

Heck, do you even know how much larger the US is than the entire European continent?

Um, 8% smaller? I've tried to find the area of Europe on line, coming up with figures ranging from 6.7 to 9.9 x10^5 square kilometers. The smaller number may be a total area of "European" countires (not including the European part of Russia, perhaps?). The CIA world factbook lists the US area as 9,629,091 sq km, but has nothing about Europe. The wonderclub.com site has information about both:

Information about Europe

Information about the US

But are we talking about land area only (because who lives in water?) or should we include water, too, because some boats have computers? Wasn't there something recently about the USS Umpty-Squat having its email servers 0wned by spammers?

On the other hand, this is trivia, not "stuff that matters."

We're the largest country.

China is ever so slightly smaller than the U.S., in case you wondered if she were larger than Russia. Canada is also a bit larger than the U. S. at just under 10 million km^2.

I wouldn't call it the evolution of stupidity in the users. It is, however, an overall de-evolution of users. This is by management design. Payroll is almost always the most expensive part of any business. In efforts to manage cost, businesses will invariably utilize available technology to replace *thinking* workers (skilled, intelligent people cost more) with workers who can't think their way out of a paper bag. This is natural, because idiots cost less and are more readily replaced.

Lowering labor cost is a Holy Grail of most corporate management teams. Be it outsourcing to countries like India and lovely China, or doing everything possible to dumb-down any job so the only requirement is a pulse and an ability to follow simple (elementary school level) directions. ("Hi, thank you for calling tech. support...No, sir...I'm sorry...I have to follow the script...I don't know that...I can't...did you reboot?...but I...my head would explode if I tried to answer that question...")

Don't blame users for being stupid. Blame management. I'll say again: it's by design. </rant>

A wonderful example of what happens when you pass draconian laws -- they come back to bite you in the ass no matter how "good" your intentions were.

Which awfully sounds like every law that is passed is good. Which of course holds in a democracy, but not a in republic.