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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.

I found it difficult to get data about the 60s, which I consider the hay-day of the Soviet Union. Even so, according to the CIA, the illiteracy rate in the US is considerably higher than in Russia.. Of course, the numbers are from different years, and a lot of other things are to be considered here (immigration, for example), but for all I know it is generally agreed, that the Soviet Union had a literacy rate of close to 100%.

As far as health care goes, this was a constitutional right in the Soviet Union, so things are quite different than in the US. Thus, there was no such thing as being to poor for health services.

Now, having this said, my point was not that everything was great in the Soviet Union back then. Lack of freedom and democracy come to mind, and of course the crimes of the Stalin era alone can fill volumes.

What I was trying to say was that the reasoning of the original poster, (Many Chinese are poor, so their country shouldn't engage in space flight), could just as well have been made against the US during NASAs finest days. That's all.

I found it difficult to get data about the 60s, which I consider the hay-day of the Soviet Union. Even so, according to the CIA, the illiteracy rate in the US is considerably higher than in Russia.. Of course, the numbers are from different years, and a lot of other things are to be considered here (immigration, for example), but for all I know it is generally agreed, that the Soviet Union had a literacy rate of close to 100%.

As far as health care goes, this was a constitutional right in the Soviet Union, so things are quite different than in the US. Thus, there was no such thing as being to poor for health services.

Now, having this said, my point was not that everything was great in the Soviet Union back then. Lack of freedom and democracy come to mind, and of course the crimes of the Stalin era alone can fill volumes.

What I was trying to say was that the reasoning of the original poster, (Many Chinese are poor, so their country shouldn't engage in space flight), could just as well have been made against the US during NASAs finest days. That's all.

I found it difficult to get data about the 60s, which I consider the hay-day of the Soviet Union. Even so, according to the CIA, the illiteracy rate in the US is considerably higher than in Russia.. Of course, the numbers are from different years, and a lot of other things are to be considered here (immigration, for example), but for all I know it is generally agreed, that the Soviet Union had a literacy rate of close to 100%.

As far as health care goes, this was a constitutional right in the Soviet Union, so things are quite different than in the US. Thus, there was no such thing as being to poor for health services.

Now, having this said, my point was not that everything was great in the Soviet Union back then. Lack of freedom and democracy come to mind, and of course the crimes of the Stalin era alone can fill volumes.

What I was trying to say was that the reasoning of the original poster, (Many Chinese are poor, so their country shouldn't engage in space flight), could just as well have been made against the US during NASAs finest days. That's all.

So only 8 countries in the world are richer than Russia (#1 in the list is "the world").

Russia produces about 2,9% of world GDP.

It worked well, apparently.

Or like the CIA's Terrorism Busters logo?

No, not really. The problem with intercepting an ICBM is above all one of decoys. The radar and IR sensors see an incomning cloud of 100 identical shiny, round objects. One of them contains a warhead. Which do you hit?

Why, all of them, of course. Definitely the biggest hurdle.

Given that it's MUCH easier to build a decoy than an interceptor, that is a game that you can't win (assuming equal resources going in - which against the Russkies is a reasonable bet).

ROFLMAO! The US and Russia have equal resources? Man, what are you smoking? The US has a GDP of $10.45 trillion, Russia's is only $1.4 trillion. That's almost an order of magnitude in difference. Do you honestly think Russia can build enough decoy ICBMs to counter the number of interceptors we could assemble?

No, not really. The problem with intercepting an ICBM is above all one of decoys. The radar and IR sensors see an incomning cloud of 100 identical shiny, round objects. One of them contains a warhead. Which do you hit?

Why, all of them, of course. Definitely the biggest hurdle.

Given that it's MUCH easier to build a decoy than an interceptor, that is a game that you can't win (assuming equal resources going in - which against the Russkies is a reasonable bet).

ROFLMAO! The US and Russia have equal resources? Man, what are you smoking? The US has a GDP of $10.45 trillion, Russia's is only $1.4 trillion. That's almost an order of magnitude in difference. Do you honestly think Russia can build enough decoy ICBMs to counter the number of interceptors we could assemble?

Do the Russians even have the money to do this?

NASA Watch only had a short quip that funding was a fantasy.

While the Russian economy is growing, it still seems less than likely that they'll be able to afford this. They have a PPP GDP smaller than France, Italy, or Brazil right now.

Do the Russians even have the money to do this?

NASA Watch only had a short quip that funding was a fantasy.

While the Russian economy is growing, it still seems less than likely that they'll be able to afford this. They have a PPP GDP smaller than France, Italy, or Brazil right now.

Do the Russians even have the money to do this?

NASA Watch only had a short quip that funding was a fantasy.

While the Russian economy is growing, it still seems less than likely that they'll be able to afford this. They have a PPP GDP smaller than France, Italy, or Brazil right now.

Do the Russians even have the money to do this?

NASA Watch only had a short quip that funding was a fantasy.

While the Russian economy is growing, it still seems less than likely that they'll be able to afford this. They have a PPP GDP smaller than France, Italy, or Brazil right now.

And a fucking damn good one at that. But that being said, when I first read "Georgia", I thought of the country near Russia (info).

I ask that you please say "US state of Georgia" or something similar next time to make things clearer for those of us who are international.

CIA World Factbook. :-)

HTH!

Will google find this?
The locations of all CIA agents in the world

Google will try to index it, but it won't since it doesn't exist (?) Dumber spiders might index it though.

Seriously: Somebody might place a file in public_html by accident (a symbolic link gone awry, or dropping a file in the wrong folder icon); but basing your security on not being searched is retarded.

Don't be silly. Everyone knows that the swastika was just the Isle of Man Flag with an extra arm

The CIA Factbook states the following

Australia: slightly smaller than the US contiguous 48 states.

http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ as.html#Geo

It would be pretty hard for the call cent[er|re]s to pick out all of the English speakers, since it is the single most common language spoken in India.

-Peter

WOW

Last year, counterfeiters turned out $44 million in U.S. currency...

--
Evan

By joint mission, you are perhaps refering to the fact that the US shoulders ~85% of the cost compared to the European 8.3. Interestingly, the GDP of the US is 10.45 trillioncompared to a European 11.52 trillion (this is a bit of overestimate for member space nations, but not 80% off). So, yes, in some bizzare way the American media has come to conclusion that the ISS is mostly a NASA success.

Living in the US and talking to many people, I can tell you that few take complete credit for winning WWII. The general opinion is that it was the US, Russia, and England were the important players. If you believe resisting invasion for ~14 days should mean getting credit, then we will have to just agree to disagree. Victory in the war in the Pacific was pretty much a United States effort. In Europe, Russia and England showed amazing heroics holding out, but were in little danger of ultimately overrunning Germany by itself. (Keep in mind that although Russia did stage an impressive counter attack after stalingrad, this was possible in large part because a two (3) front war existed. Take away the US/British fronts and...) However, it was the massive influx of men and material from the US that in the end saved the day. So, yes we somehow believe that the US deserves a great deal of credit for the war. To me, this is not too far off base.

Try here

Col. Vetrov, aka Farewell, died because of the CIA involvement (If I remember well, he was caught communicating to American agents after the big explosion mentioned), and before DGSE could smuggle him and his family out of the USSR. In short, he paid the price for American incompetence.

About the time [Gus Weiss] met with Casey, Vetrov fell into a tragic episode with a woman and a fellow KGB officer in a Moscow park. In circumstances that are not clear, he stabbed and killed the officer and then stabbed but did not kill the woman. He was arrested, and, in the ensuing investigation, his espionage activities were discovered; he was executed in 1983. CIA had enough intelligence to institute protective countermeasures.

The CIA project leader and his associates studied the Farewell material, examined export license applications and other intelligence, and contrived to introduce altered products into KGB collection. 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. The Pentagon introduced misleading information pertinent to stealth aircraft, space defense, and tactical aircraft.(4)

The Central Intelligence Agency Directorate of Science and Technology

Human intelligence is Directorate of Operations. Weird tech stuff is under the aegis of the Directorate of Science and Technology, and they do a LOT of it.

The CIA actually has a fairly long article (study?) on their website about this incident here

Here is an article Gus Weiss wrote on the CIA's website that includes some other interesting tidbits. Including the design of the Buran (soviet space shuttle) being a rejected NASA design that was leaked to them as a part of this stuff.

http://www.cia.gov/csi/studies/96unclass/farewell. htm

The story of the program is partially corroborated here:

Though there is no information about the explosion.

For those of us that feel the government is not as out to get us as big corporations here is a link to the CIA account of the event.

According to the CIA World Factbook 2003, here are the nuclear power % of all electricity sources in each country:

France: 77.1%
Germany: 29.9%
Japan: 29.8%
USA: 20.7%

So yeah, France is pretty dependent on nuclear power. Germany, although at around 30%, is very anti-nuclear power right now. They are planning on discontinuing all nuclear power plants. Japan has been developing (shoddy) nuclear plants in recent years. Incidentally, they can make a nuke right away if the gov't wants to.

Also interesting are various countries' dependance on fossil fuel for electricity:

USA: 71.4%
Germany: 61.8%
Japan: 60%
France: 8.2%

Ethnic groups: New Zealand European 74.5%, Maori 9.7%, other European 4.6%, Pacific Islander 3.8%, Asian and others 7.4%

It seems like every second week there's a story on the rise of India in the global economy and its cost to us in the Western world. But I am worried that our thinking is being dominated by anecdotal evidence as opposed to solid data. I'm no expert but in the last hour I spent looking at the situation I've found some things that give me reason to be skeptical.

For example, if one looks at the ISI Highly Cited website we see that researchers from Western economies still dominate research journals. Suggesting that these countries will countinue to lead the world in technological development in the near future. This of course probably means jobs for those in the industry of researching and developing technology. Just how great the desparity is, is illustrated with a few numbers:

United States - 2830 highly cited researchers
United Kingdom - 306 highly cited researchers
Australia/New Zealand - 78 highly cited researchers
Switzerland - 60 highly cited researchers
India - 8 highly cited researchers
China - 5 highly cited researchers

Also if we look at the CIA World Fact Book we see Western Economies still appear to have a significantly greater GDP per capita which means there is more money to invest in industry:

United States - $36,300
Switzerland - $32,000
Australia - $26,900
United Kingdom - $25,500
China - $4,700
India - $2,600

Indeed, I can't help but feel that we're overemphasizing India. That they are really the IT sweat-shops of the 21st century and while they may be master code-monkeys the chief beneficiaries of their work will be the Western world. Who will get cheap labor and services but still carry out most of the research, design, marketing and retail. This article mentions specifically significantly reduced operating costs and 500,000 jobs moving overseas, but the latter statistic is useless unless we know how many other jobs are (or are not) going to crop up to replace them and where. My post isn't really an informed opinion on the matter, but what I hope it will do is encourage others to think critically about the situation instead of getting tied up in the tsunami of pessimistic articles posted on Slashdot.

For comparison, it is a bit lower than the United States' 19%.

For comparison, it is a bit lower than the United States' 19%.

For comparison, it is a bit lower than the United States' 19%.

The information on that page seems to be from the CIA "Factbook". I would not trust anything coming out any spy agency, even if it were my own country. First of all, CIA most likely manipulates information to suit its own purposes (eg. claim a country is made up of this many people of a particular group when in fact it isn't (Iraq and the census "controversy" comes to mind)). Second, as you pointed out, the listing is totally useless since it uses inconsistent antiquated, obsolete, and racist categories (eg. mongoloid*). I would not trust anything out of the CIA, whether it claims to be correct or not. Lastly, the listed info is totally useless--even if it were true--because someone (CIA in this case) chose whether to lump people togeter into categories or not (eg. white vs Italian/German/etc vs European).

The best place to get information is from the UN or some NGO. I don't think the UN collects ethnic data (at least not for all countries) so probably nothing there. I don't know of any NGO either (although I'm sure there are some). So the last place to find ethnic info is from census carried out by each country (needless to say, one should ignore everything coming out of totalitarian countries, dictatorships, monarchies, etc**).

Just looked up some info and here are some links:

US Census
Canadian data Canadian data that is detailed (but includes people who are doublecounted)

Having posted thos links, I have to admit that they are not directly comparable. US census is too simplistic (at least from what I can find). On top of that, it would be preferable to have percentages worked out in a pie-chart, instead of just a bunch of numbers :( Overall, I think Canada is FAR more diverse than USA.

I do think though that if you look at those numbers objectively, the lower numbers of black, and hispanic populations in Canada would swing the pendulum in the US's favor.

Not really. Even though Canada doesn't have the same size of black and hispanics***, it has many more smaller ethnic groups (like chinese, south Asians, Arabs, etc). So Canada is indeed more diverse.

Having said that, some cities in USA are very diverse. A city like New York is diverse (in fact, it is one of the most diverse cities in the world).

But checkboxes on a census form is not the entire answer. Because 'white' could mean many things. We do have a huge Russian population here, where they are maintaining a lot of their Russian culture. So, while they are 'white', their culture is different.

You CAN figure out ethnic groups with a census but the way USA does it is very unscientific and primitive. I imagine it is done that way because of conservative influences. Conservatives attempt to assimilate people (eg. USA) whereas liberals attempt to diverse people (eg. Canada). First of all, you should not use something vague like skin colour. Something like "white" or "black" is totally meaningless. Instead of asking whether people are white, the government should be asking to check off 'German', 'English', and so forth.

(* Mongoloid isn't exactly discriminatory but it is very inaccurate).

(** If you must know why one can't trust ethnic information coming out of an autocratic country, it is because governments use that to carry out their discriminatory activities. For instance, many services provided by government are tied to the size of the population (eg. a library gets a grant based on the size of the population in that area. By manipulating ethnic data, governments can alter their fiscal policies to discriminate against others. This is generally true outside multicultural countries like USA and Canada since ethnic groups are geogra

I'll admit right away that I know quite little about Africa in general, but hey! This is Slashdot! ;-)

For many reasons this is not true in large parts of Africa. Heavy rain washes away entire roads, not to mention cables. Theft is an issue. ... ...These are the reasons Africa is not already cabled

True, there are some unique problems with using cable in Africa. You can't use it everywhere. But Nigeria is already using cable. Just think about if they used fiber instead of coax! And you don't usually lay fiber in the jungle. You lay it near paved roads (60,068 km (including 1,194 km of expressways) ) or railways (3,557 km). And where that is not enough, you can use microwave radio links (which Nigeria already does). It's just that I don't think WiMax is a good substitute for all that.

Since Nigeria is the ninth most populous country in the world with more than 130 million people, I think the benefit of a good well-dimensioned communication infrastructure would be great. Even if the country is poor.

I'll admit right away that I know quite little about Africa in general, but hey! This is Slashdot! ;-)

For many reasons this is not true in large parts of Africa. Heavy rain washes away entire roads, not to mention cables. Theft is an issue. ... ...These are the reasons Africa is not already cabled

True, there are some unique problems with using cable in Africa. You can't use it everywhere. But Nigeria is already using cable. Just think about if they used fiber instead of coax! And you don't usually lay fiber in the jungle. You lay it near paved roads (60,068 km (including 1,194 km of expressways) ) or railways (3,557 km). And where that is not enough, you can use microwave radio links (which Nigeria already does). It's just that I don't think WiMax is a good substitute for all that.

Since Nigeria is the ninth most populous country in the world with more than 130 million people, I think the benefit of a good well-dimensioned communication infrastructure would be great. Even if the country is poor.

the benefits of software patents are falsified by emirical ressearch.

Were the patents registered in the Emirates?

Ahem. Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. Perhaps the poster should read his Encyclopedia Britannica.

Or at least give the World Factbook or WikiPedia a quick look.

Nice bit of misinformation there.

According to international law:

... an Antarctic Treaty was negotiated that neither denies nor gives recognition to existing territorial claims; signed in 1959, it entered into force in 1961.

What strikes me is that 93 percent of all adult internet users are less than 65 (7 percent are 65 or older), the CIA states that 12.4 of all americans (including children) are 65 or over. Concidering that 20.9 percent of all Americans are under age 15 (number of 15-17 year olds would take more research)

So, if 79.1 percent of all americans are 15 or over (229M) and we take 7 percent of that we get 13M (not accurate, but kinda close. Actual number would be less), there are 36M americans 65 or older.
I have trouble believing that 13 out of 36 seniors are using the internet (probably closer to 10 out of 36)

CIA World Factbook

The CIA World Factbook is a nice place to go for information like this. (Communications->Internet users for example)

Here's a list of how many internet users there are in each county. No percentages though, which would have been more interesting.

The CIA World Factbook is a nice place to go for information like this. (Communications->Internet users for example)

Here's a list of how many internet users there are in each county. No percentages though, which would have been more interesting.

If you actually do some research, you would see that the population of Antartica includes representatives from 27 nations, with Australia coming in 5th in the number of personnel behind the US, Chile, Argentina, and Russia. I'm fairly confident that if and when any other countries decide to become a signatory to the treaty, and build research stations, they will be welcome.

On a more important note, when did \. become so broken that obvious trolls, with arguements with such a solid foundation as "everybody knows", get modded +5 insightful?

Uber procrastinators should try for a USPS signature server on Guam where America's day begins. :)

Compare former third-world countries like Chile, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea... against any nation you want to choose in Africa.

.tm is the tld for Turkmenistan