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There is no Pakastan. There is, however, a country named Pakistan. I think the CIA World Factbook might be a reliable source for the spelling of (and existence of) Pakistan. Perhaps that is what the editors intended. Certainly, the tags should never have to correct spelling mistakes created by the editors. This is even worse than a dupe or slashvertisement. This is a sad indicator of how low /. has fallen with these new editors. Fix it, already!

The first live test, with a sheep, failed when the harness twisted and strangled the animal. On subsequent tests other sheep fared better.

Yes, hard to believe a subsequent test where sheep fared worse, but I'm sure slashdot will oblige.

"Nose dive"? That is bullshit from the socialist fantasy bubble! Now here's a summary of objective benchmarks by which a country's reputation can be judged...

USA is #1 in overall National Brand ranking, and #1 in international tourism receipts (in spite of really shooting itself in the foot with all the post-9/11 security theater). USA gets more foreign investment than any other country - more than twice as much as the runnerup. It has the world's most respected universities, and some of the most admired and best managed companies. USA's credit rating went down a bit under Obama, but only a handful of countries rank higher. It ranks higher among preferred immigration destinations than most of Europe (sadly too many survey respondents thought France was a romantic destination, even though most people who visit it are disappointed) (and justly behind small Economic Freedom champs like SG and NZ).

USA's reputation was at an "all-time low" shortly after the Revolution, when it was seen as a pirate nation of rootless migrants and uncivilized wilderness. USA's reputation gradually went up and up during the 19th century, leapt upward as it became a superpower and a powerful anti-colonial influence after WW1, and went further up in the civilized world after WW2 and during the Cold War.

--libman

With 128 million Chenese living on less than $365/year I think he's right. There is no data from 2012, 2011 is last complete year. (source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html)

Let's see.
Possess Nuke Bombs? Russia: 1 CA and Au: 0
Economy size? Russia: 1 CA/AU 0 In fact, Russia is bigger than the other 2 COMBINED
Ability to put a navy anywhere around the world? Russia: 1 CA/AU:0
Ability to put a man into space? Russia: 1 CA/AU: 0

Your ideas on the modern world are centuries old.

Iranians are not Arabs, but they are almost purely Muslim. 89-90% Shi'ite Muslim, 9% Sunni Muslim, and 0.4-2% all other religions. That doesn't leave much room for atheists and agnostics!

It's not so much of a question of what religion you are, but how big of a factor that is in your decision making, and how much it impacts your opinion and behavior towards other people, especially violent behavior. For example, prior to the revolution, none of my female Iranian relatives in my dad's generation (what would be "baby-boomers" in the US) wore head coverings at all, and even those in my grandmother's generation only wore headscarves, not chadors (the black tent-like things). Most of the men drank about as much alcohol (a no-no for Muslims) as the average American male of their age. They didn't object to kids celebrating "chaharshanbe suri", a Zoroastrian fire festival thing that a lot of the mullahs have tried to ban (the situation has similarities with fundamentalist Christians in the US objecting to Halloween). Yet pretty much all of them were believing Muslims, and most of the older ones had performed their pilgrimage to Mecca at some point in their lives.

Also note that apostate Muslims (those who leave the faith) are subject to the death penalty in Iran -- and you're considered Muslim if you were brought up as one. Things like that tend interfere with accurate information gathering. You don't answer "atheist" if you're afraid that your answer won't stay secret and you'll wind up in front of a judge trying to explain the difference between that answer and the fact that you always used to attend services with your parents at the local mosque.

i thought iranians were persians with a different god from muslims, also i seem to remember that they were enemies of al-queda also
i might be just dreaming this whole thing up....

Iranians are not Arabs, but they are almost purely Muslim. 89-90% Shi'ite Muslim, 9% Sunni Muslim, and 0.4-2% all other religions. That doesn't leave much room for atheists and agnostics!

... and 87.6 percent of all statistics, along with everything you said in your post, has been pulled straight out of someone's ass.

Citation for world literacy rate:
  "World Statistics." CIA World Fact Book. Central Intelligence Agency, 16 Sep 2012. Web. 16 Sep 2012. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

I guess the stat I gave must be from the other 12.4%.

I post on Slashdot quite a bit.

Congratulations. I guess that makes you a very worldly person.

..and I'll go so far as to say that - insofar as reading entails comprehension rather than mere annunciation - even Slashdot has a dearth of those who can read. You are a case in point.

Nice lawyerese... I guess you were destined to mince words at birth.

Considering how you purport to be a frequent contributor to Slashdot, perhaps you might find these links to be enlightening. I'm sure the community would appreciate your attention to them:

"Signal-to-noise ratio." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 13 Sep 2012. Web. 16 Sep 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signal-to-noise_ratio.

"Troll (Internet)." Wikipedia. Wikipedia, 15 Sep 2012. Web. 16 Sep 2012. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet).

The normal quoted newborn survival statistics are in fact from the CIA world fact book, which is quoted as "the number of deaths of infants under one year old in a given year per 1,000 live births in the same year", thus not really warped at all.

The US comes in at 174 from 222 (222 being the best), slightly better than Croatia, but worse than (say) the EU (by one-and-a-half lives per year, in this case). The US is still significantly better than Afgahnistan though, by about 115 lives/year.

You can lie with statistics easily enough, but sometimes what's in plain sight is just that.

Simon.

I am Russian and I agree, good few quotes from Rambo 3 on this... Can't find the one from the end of the film but...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095956/quotes?qt=qt0342670

Modern weapons are amazing, but the cost is ridiculous.Afghanistans GDP is 18 billion USD - how much has the war cost? https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html

As long as there is enough support for the Guerillas or enough opposition against the "oppressors" but that is definitely not the way to go in this country.

Doesn't really help that the US helped create and train al-Qaeda to fight the Russians with the exact tactics that would work against a similarly (higher tech but oh so much more expensive) equipped army.

Gosh, both stupid and racist and further confirming the stereotype of stupid and racist people, posting anonymously.

Did you just say :

So if we're looking at the reality of what's likely here, we appear to have a choice between Bush-style military action against a nation nearly our size, or Obama-style military action in smaller, more carefully chosen venues

So I'm assuming you're American right? (believe it or not, the internet is used by people in other countries too! Would you believe it?!) Looking at the US's rather handy CIA world factbook you'll find the following facts :
    USA Population : 313,847,465 (July 2012 est.)
    USA GDP : $15.29 trillion (2011 est.)
    USA Area : 9,826,675 sq km
    Iran Population : 78,868,711 (July 2012 est.)
    Iran GDP : $1.003 trillion (2011 est.)
    Iran Area : 1,648,195 sq km

So on people, economy and size, the US is between three and fifteen times larger than Iran - nowhere like "nearly our size". Secondly, blowing up suspected militants and people nearby is NOT "carefully chosen venues".

Go back to school (or perhaps stay in school?), read some books and learn something about the wider world and maybe about how people work. Then come back when you understand why the following video clip is very funny indeed :
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTpe_5JYufE

Syria is NOT a major producer.

And prices spiked by a bit over dollar on an unfounded rumor from a tweet. That sure sounds like a bunch of panicky animals to me. A rational market might consider that any id10t can tweet.

The price was 1.17 since, in fact, nobody died and absolutely nothing changed except someone yelled BOO (in a silly voice). The $1 change would be about right IF the death was real and Syria simply exited the oil market entirely as a result. That $1 is generous considering the elasticity of SUPPLY and that Syria produces well less than 1% of the world's supply.

If ESP ever does prove itself an authentic protocol, then its tendency to allow the mind to accurately observe remote locations could suggest a breach in the presumed dependency of consciousness on the form. I also recommend visiting the CIA's CREST database and searching amongst the many thousands of Remote Viewing documents that have been released. Despite rational assumption, there's more than redaction lines to look at.

Here's my take on Remote Viewing: if any people (or animals) had this ability, it would be such an advantage that they would rapidly displace those who don't have it. But the vast majority of people don't have this facility, and animals don't have it, so probably nobody does.

Well, maybe not; but for those with a moderately open mind, you really should -- before concluding -- examine the works of two people. Dr. Lawrence LeShan and Dr. Daryl J. Bem have done some tremendous work on the subject of ESP. LeShan, in his early years went further, working with some extraordinary people, under genuinely scientific conditions. I simply can't imagine someone reading LeShan's The Medium, the Mystic, and the Physicist and having anything negative to say.

If ESP ever does prove itself an authentic protocol, then its tendency to allow the mind to accurately observe remote locations could suggest a breach in the presumed dependency of consciousness on the form. I also recommend visiting the CIA's CREST database and searching amongst the many thousands of Remote Viewing documents that have been released. Despite rational assumption, there's more than redaction lines to look at.

This is a fascinating subject and I am not telling anyone to make any assumptions either way, but please look at quality research that's available before making conclusions.

We cannot continue to reproduce like rats and rabbits.

This, I agree with.

First, it is dehumanizing to speak of human beings like that.

Second, the world fertility rate is at only 2.47 children per woman, and falling. [1] Our population will only increase to 9 billion by 2050, then crawl to 10 billion by 2100, then start falling.

There is absolutely _no reason_ to worry about alleged "overpopulation".

1. https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/xx.html

But the statistics contradict your anecdote, and who cares what the blow-dried airheads on the "news" say? What matters to me is statistics, and the bigger the sample, the better.

France has the longer life expectancy (they do, 81.46 years vs US 78.49), so they must be doing something right in a really big way. This same pattern holds across multiple (49 other) countries, too; the simplest explanation is that we're doing something wrong in the US.

I don't want to seem uncaring about your family's particular medical problems, but it really does seem like the statistics win and your family just had terrible luck. It's hard to screw up statistics involving death -- it's not like we use different definitions in different places. I've poked at the numbers more than a little looking for alternate explanations (is it our crappy infant mortality rate that? No, that's not a large enough effect. Are we using different definitions of "infant mortality"? Sometimes, but it appears not to be a big difference -- expected biases in "miscarriage" do not appear.)

Your numbers are wrong. For the most recent actual numbers, we can take the 2011 year.
See here for the budget: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/search/pagedetails.action?packageId=BUDGET-2011-BUD and here for the GDP numbers: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html
3.8 Trillion of 15 Trillion (roughly) is 25%.
40% of the current spending is deficit spending, but no idea where you get the idea that 60% is just financed by printing money. You need some citations for that. Finally, about 9.8% of the US GDP is deficit spending. That is a scary number - but the alternatives are scarier. And as someone pointed out, your information on the CPI is flat-out wrong.

For some who is making grand plans to influence the future, you are remarkably uninformed.

In English, Colombia is spelled with an O. Not a U. SO STOP MAKING SHIT UP.

Here, look it up for yourself:
https://maps.google.com/
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/co.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombia
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/35754.htm
http://www.colombiaemb.org/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/country_profiles/1212798.stm

The reason we have a separation of Church and State, is that our Founders, through experience of very recent (for them) history, knew very well the consequences of either having a Government-run Church, or a Church-run Government. Either case ALWAYS (over the last 800-900 years or so) ended in disaster.

So they decided: government will stay out of Church affairs, and Churches would stay out of Government affairs. And it has turned out to be, in the long run, a very healthy way to run that relationship.

The US is the world's most religious "developed" country. If you look at, say, Denmark which does not have separation of church and state (it is in fact officially a Christian country) religiosity is much lower... which is a good thing.

Now, it would be unfair to judge the founders by anything other than their historical context, but it appears that they were in fact wrong on this particular issue.

As for Mosaddegh he was about to nationalize the oil fields that we developed and was dealing with the Russians so it was right to depose him at the time.

That's a gross generalisation. In fact what was later to become BP gave Iran a bum deal, and when Mossadeq tried to negotiate BP answered with a flat out "no". (Which made made Acheson quip "Never had so few lost so much so stupidly and so fast.")

Now, also he didn't really talk the the Russians, as much as that's what the British needed Eisenhower to believe to justify American involvement. The US by and large were not that keen to rake the British chestnuts out of the fire, especially as the fire was of their own making. But painting Mossadeq as "soft on communism" did the trick. Selling that is more of a British diplomatic/intelligence success against a sometimes friendly nation than anything else.

This is all fairly well documented. And given what happened later (the Shah turning bad with tacit US approval) it's not too much of a stretch to say that the US "made Iran into a theocracy. (Esp. when you consider the embarassing intelligence failure on the part of the CIA that completely missed the revolution and hence prevented any mitigating actions by the US herself.)

So no. The US fucked up. Deal with it and learn.

Hmmm.
So, lets see. You point to a wiki that gets its information from China. IOW, it is ONLY Chinese saying what is going on with Canada.
According to Canada's information that CIA gathered, Export to China is not even 4% as of 2010.
US 74.9%, UK 4.1% (2010)
In fact, Canada exported .5T in 2010, and of that, China was less than 10B. To be fair, that last number was in 7B 2006, but do you really think that China massively increased the imports from Canada? I seriously doubt it.

More importantly, most all that Canada exports to China is RESOURCES. Not products. China blocks that, esp. from the west.

The ignorant one would be the person ignoring facts and just making them up. That would be you.

It seems they're seeing a disproportionate number of internet hosts in the US and want to find a way to break it up. The US has almost half.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2174rank.html U.S.A! #1

Among the others, the CIA ( https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html ), the UN, the International Hydrographic Organization, and Google ( http://maps.google.com/?q=persian+gulf ). And a lot of other people.

The White House, Department of Defense, the State department and the CIA beg to differ.

The Department of Defense says "Navy Looks to Bolster Capabilities in Persian Gulf" (2012):
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=67586

The State Department notes in a briefing by Secretary of State Clinton on her visit to India in May 2012 that peace in the Persian Gulf is important:
http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2012/05/201205085219.html#axzz1vAEAsbH0

The White House's press briefing includes references to carriers in the Persian Gulf (2012):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/09/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-4912/

This is the CIA's World Fact Book entry for Iran. Look at the map saying "Persian Gulf".
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html

The State Department shows the same map for Iran ("Persian Gulf"):
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/ir/

The CIA's Persian Gulf War Task Force was last reviewed and updated in January 2012.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/gulfwar/index.htm

The White House, Department of Defense, the State department and the CIA beg to differ.

The Department of Defense says "Navy Looks to Bolster Capabilities in Persian Gulf" (2012):
http://www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=67586

The State Department notes in a briefing by Secretary of State Clinton on her visit to India in May 2012 that peace in the Persian Gulf is important:
http://translations.state.gov/st/english/texttrans/2012/05/201205085219.html#axzz1vAEAsbH0

The White House's press briefing includes references to carriers in the Persian Gulf (2012):
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/04/09/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-4912/

This is the CIA's World Fact Book entry for Iran. Look at the map saying "Persian Gulf".
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ir.html

The State Department shows the same map for Iran ("Persian Gulf"):
http://www.state.gov/p/nea/ci/ir/

The CIA's Persian Gulf War Task Force was last reviewed and updated in January 2012.
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/gulfwar/index.htm

The problem I see with this minimum is that it is far too extreme for the crime, in the same way a life sentence is unreasonable for jaywalking,

That's just the problem, no matter what, in some cases it is too extreme, and the judges hands are tied anyway. The sentence isn't being imposed by a judge on a case by case basis with access to the facts, as it should be.

Moving violations, which includes your seat belt example, aren't technically crimes, they're civil infractions (outside of egregious behavior, obviously, such as driving recklessly or intoxicated, which is why those behaviors usually end in an arrest).

The difference between someone pirating an album to listen to it and pirating an album to makes copies of it and sell them at a profit is enormous in terms of intent, and intent is a big part of the law. Clearly the latter deserves a harsher sentence than the former, but mandatory minimums would impose the same sentence on both, and that's not really fitting with the spirit of justice, in my opinion.

The most ridiculous thing about these sentences, especially as concerns all this IP bullshit these days, is that a person that literally walked into a Best Buy and stole a physical CD would have 1/10th of the financial penalties of someone downloading that same CD's music online. The arbitrary nature of the determination of these financial penalties themselves is ridiculous. I mean, how could anyone see a $1,900,000 judgement for downloading 24 songs solely for personal use as a reasonable judgement at all? These guys literally argued with a straight face that Limewire cost them $75 trillion in damages. This exceeds the CIA's estimation of the Gross World Product in 2010 by $5 trillion, so apparently Limewire cost the RIAA more money than there is on the entire planet. Even the judge in that case thought it was completely absurd.

Mandatory minimum sentences when we're dealing with a civil infraction is much different in my eyes than mandatory minimum sentences for an actual crime. Historically the power to sentence has been in the judge's hands, and I still see no compelling reason whatsoever that a judge should have that power taken away by a mandatory minimum sentence.

You really shouldn't trust Wikipedia. In 2010 the U.S. produced 9,688,00 BBL/Day which ranks us third in the world behind Saudi Arabia and Russia. Those two did 10,520,00 and 10,270,00 respectively. If you add up the numbers in the link below you will see thats 15% not 9%. For some reason you refuse to believe the U.S. is "major producer". A relatively modest increase in production would have an impact on world supply.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2173rank.html

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585 Denmark: $37,585 Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The correct per capita GDP figures are:
Norway: $53,300
Sweden: $40,600
Denmark: $40,200
Finland: $38,300

How the *hell* did the parent comment get modded "+5 Informative"?!?! It mentions some *very* specific and *very* dramatic figured with absolutely no attribution. At least give it a cursory google for fuck's sake!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585 Denmark: $37,585 Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The correct per capita GDP figures are:
Norway: $53,300
Sweden: $40,600
Denmark: $40,200
Finland: $38,300

How the *hell* did the parent comment get modded "+5 Informative"?!?! It mentions some *very* specific and *very* dramatic figured with absolutely no attribution. At least give it a cursory google for fuck's sake!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585 Denmark: $37,585 Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The correct per capita GDP figures are:
Norway: $53,300
Sweden: $40,600
Denmark: $40,200
Finland: $38,300

How the *hell* did the parent comment get modded "+5 Informative"?!?! It mentions some *very* specific and *very* dramatic figured with absolutely no attribution. At least give it a cursory google for fuck's sake!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585 Denmark: $37,585 Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The correct per capita GDP figures are:
Norway: $53,300
Sweden: $40,600
Denmark: $40,200
Finland: $38,300

How the *hell* did the parent comment get modded "+5 Informative"?!?! It mentions some *very* specific and *very* dramatic figured with absolutely no attribution. At least give it a cursory google for fuck's sake!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585
Denmark: $37,585
Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The Per Capita GDP of Norway is $53,300, for Denmark it's $40,200, for Sweden it's $40,600 and for Finland it's $38,300. I can't believe this utter bullshit got modded "+5 Informative". Didn't anyone find it at least a *little* suspect that the per capita GDP was about twice as much in Norway than in neighboring countries?!?!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585
Denmark: $37,585
Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The Per Capita GDP of Norway is $53,300, for Denmark it's $40,200, for Sweden it's $40,600 and for Finland it's $38,300. I can't believe this utter bullshit got modded "+5 Informative". Didn't anyone find it at least a *little* suspect that the per capita GDP was about twice as much in Norway than in neighboring countries?!?!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585
Denmark: $37,585
Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The Per Capita GDP of Norway is $53,300, for Denmark it's $40,200, for Sweden it's $40,600 and for Finland it's $38,300. I can't believe this utter bullshit got modded "+5 Informative". Didn't anyone find it at least a *little* suspect that the per capita GDP was about twice as much in Norway than in neighboring countries?!?!

Per Capita GDP of...

Finland: $34,585
Denmark: $37,585
Sweden: $47,934

Norway: $84,443

Citation needed. The Per Capita GDP of Norway is $53,300, for Denmark it's $40,200, for Sweden it's $40,600 and for Finland it's $38,300. I can't believe this utter bullshit got modded "+5 Informative". Didn't anyone find it at least a *little* suspect that the per capita GDP was about twice as much in Norway than in neighboring countries?!?!

Yes, they have exactly one Aircraft carrier. HOWEVER, they have 4 keels laid already. In addition, it is though that the last one is nuclear powered. Add to that some 20 boomers and 15 attack subs, with 1-2 new booms/1-2 new attack subs going to sea EACH YEAR, well, I doubt that you will consider them piss poor in about 5 years.

What else you are missing is that their space program is part of their military. All of this man flight and their new space station is actually a military base.

Then add to that the fact that they spend more of their GDP on military than does even America and that was 5 years ago. Since that time, the American DOD budget has been steady or dropped, while China's has increased 5-10% EACH year.
Quite honestly, you should consider a bit of humility.

I am not a medical professional, or a statistician, but . . .

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html

Lots of people in the world . . . just don't live long enough to get cancer. Something else gets them first.

U.S.A. is 50th of 221nations listed above in overall life expectancy.

We're probably just the right mixture. . .
Better Health Care in general (so we live longer than many).
More industrialized (so more pollutants/preservatives ingested).
Poorer lifestyles than others (the average Swiss citizen is probably exercising more and eating less "good ole southern fried cooking" than we are.)

Its possible its right. We'd have to know all the life expectancies by weighted population to have a clear answer.

From what I've read, the environmental damage is "minor; some low level seismic activity and perhaps some pollution of water supplies. So charge a little more for the natural gas coming out of these rural (low population density) communities and pay for piped in water or buy them out.

Clean water is far more precious than cheap fuel.
The latest water number I could find is from 2005: Americans use 410 billion gallons of water per day (~9,762 million barrels)
The latest oil number I could find is from 2010: Americans use ~19.2 million barrels of oil per day

Based on usage, we can tolerate higher oil prices far easier than we can tolerate even slightly higher water prices.
Screw with our fresh water supply at your own peril

IN ADDITION TO the outrageous price we are paying for the oil,

Arguably, most of that price is the direct result of speculation and has nothing to do with actual supply/demand issues.
I recall reading somewhere that, in the past, the oil futures market was 70% actual demand and 30% speculation.
Now it's 70% speculation and 30% actual demand. If you want cheaper oil, force the speculators out of the market.

Seriously? How about basic civics class? What do YOU think authorizes the government to exist?

It depends on the government in question, but the most broad answer would be consent of its citizens, aka "public contract".

dude, go find a high school and sit in on a civics class, seriously.

If they teach that US is "republic not a democracy" in civics classes in US, that's really sad. In civics I did in my school, we actually learned what all those things mean, and we've learned them from examples of many different countries, not just our own; nor did we get stuck on archaic 250-year-old definitions.

The United States is a Constitutional Republic. Period.

References:
CIA World Fact Book
Wikipedia

And of course the Constitution itself.

Words mean something. If your school taught you that the US is a "democracy" then I'm sorry but your school taught you wrong.

North Korea's exports the most to China and imports the most from China and Algeria, according to the CIA World Factbook.

In Canada we ditched $1000 bills years ago, since the authorities figured the only people who would need that much cash are up to no good. The biggest cash purchase I've ever made (about $1500) was with a wad of $100 bills.

...laura

I guess these cowboys did what they could to protect the museum, but "forgot" about other parts of culture, like the university library. Protecting that oil must have appeared as more important.

So they didn't protect a university library... you're using too much sarcasm, I can't tell which parts you are serious about. They attempted to preserve a museum. That is more than I would expect from any invading force, from any time period, in any place. You could say the military was too soft, and be just as right. I mean you just don't find that stuff in say, The Art of War.

On the bit about the Ministries of Oil, again, my sarcasm detector must be broken because this is a country entirely dependent on oil exports for income. _Obviously_ it was more important.

"Iraq's largely state-run economy is dominated by the oil sector, which provides more than 90% of government revenue and 80% of foreign exchange earnings."
  - https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html

That's what I thought initially. The CIA World Factbook includes electricity consumption statistics for many countries and regions. Note that they're listed in kWh per year; 28 MW translates to about 245,000,000 kWh per year. This puts the data center at around #174 on that list, ahead of Rwanda, Eritrea, Belize, Bhutan, Chad, and Tonga, to pick a few (though note that the data for many of those countries is a few years old, so they may have moved up). For comparison, the entire US is listed at 3,741,000,000,000 kWh per year. This data center is then around 0.007% of the US's power usage.

Since there are something like 3000 counties in the US, assuming uniform distribution, an average sized county would have 1/3000 = ~0.033% of the country's electricity consumption. This county then has around 7/33 ~= 21% of the average population. That average would be ~300 million / 3000 = 100,000 people per county: and indeed, Crook County, Oregon has approximately 21,000 = 100,000 * 21% people. So actually the electricity consumption of the county appears to be quite average, even though it sounds rural from the Wikipedia page.

First off, the neo-cons are VERY much alive and doing well. They control the republican party. Neo-cons was originally applied to dems that switched to the republican party. reagan was the head of that. The big difference is that the group that adapted reagan's beliefs (changing republican party's core beliefs dramatically) called themselves neo-cons. IOW, they declared themselves a group by doing that. That includes not just reagan, but those that follow him such as W., Cheney, Rove, Rumsfeld, Boehner, Cantor, etc. (though not republicans like Poppa Bush, Nixon, Ford, etc; basically, republicans from before reagan). Even to this day, those ppl remain in control of the republican party.

Secondly, I am a registered Libertarian and support it. HOWEVER, I am also not so stupid as to ignore TANSTAAFL. Why would China offer us up a goods/services below costs esp. since the vast majority of Chinese leaders are opposed to the west, and pour more money into their military than does America?

China IS cheating. And it is designed to destroy America by denying us the industry that allowed America to maintain a solid economical foundation. According to WTO, IMF, and even our FTA with them, says that neither side will cheat the way that China has. And yet, we allow it. Worse, the neo-cons CONTINUE to push it. They fight against any punishment against China. Likewise, when we do the 2009 'investment', it was originally about buying American goods. Why? Because Germany and China made their investments all about THEIR nation. It has been over and over the neo-cons that fight to keep offshoring more to CHina with a coming disaster to America (and the west).

And if you would've bothered to check the real source (CIA factbook), you would've noticed that Sweden imports twice as much oil as it exports... https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/sw.html

I BREAK FOR WATER BOARDING! :: PsyOps ::
+ http://www.pipeline.com/~psywarrior :: The Office of Strategic Services :::
+ http://guardianspies.com/
+ http://osssociety.org/
+ http://ossreborn.com/
+ http://ossog.org/
+ http://ossinitaly.org/
+ http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/oss/oss.htm :: CIA ::
+ http://www.zoklet.net/totse/en/politics/central_intelligence_agency/index.html
+ http://cryptome.org/0005/cia-iqt-spies.htm
+ http://www.youtube.com/user/ciagov
+ http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciagov
+ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1004145-1,00.html
+ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KUBARK
+ https://www.cia.gov/ ::: WoW! :::
+ http://publicintelligence.net/
+ http://cryptocomb.org/
+ http://www.cryptome.org/
+ http://www.cryptogon.com/
+ http://afio.com/
+ http://www.afcea.org/signal/signalscape/
+ http://rijmenants.blogspot.com/

Indian Forward caste regime prefers their people to be poor/subservient/defenseless.
Otherwise they'll vote for their conscience.
Govt funded universal health insurance system without copayment for ~1 billion Indians in Private/Corporate hospitals costs only ~$10 billion (govt budget is ~$270 billion).
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/countrytemplate_in.html

Considering that between 35% and 95% of the information gathered by the CIA is "open source" (perhaps this use of the term predates ESR?), I think it is a reasonable use of the word "spy:"

https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/Vol49no2/reexamining_the_distinction_3.htm

Get off your lazy ass and read the report: https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html
Until you have done so & discovered that your third hand arguments are wrong shut the fuck up.

Last time I checked, Israelis was democracy.

So was Iraq.

Well, last time Iran had a legitimate democracy, the UK and the US said, "HELL NO!" and 1953 happened.