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The CIA World Factbook lists the former name as "Savage Island," so maybe you'd better think twice!

I don't think they will have enough serious users to pose a problem. Most of the people are plantation farmers (or so says the CIA) so I can't imagine they have much time to go bandwidth-crazy.

Also, the purchasing power isn't too terribly large ($7.6 mil, or $3600 per person per year) so they probably can't buy too many computers.

I've never heard of the place.

All About Niue

> Communication is an important aspect of being part of the international community.

Indeed. However, I am sure that these Laotian villagers that you've mentioned would prefer, say, a better road system to the internet. I also suspect that better telecom and electricity infrastructure would be needed. (source).

> Obviously, no one can bring peace and prosperity all in one package.

Obviously, no one can bring peace and prosperity period. Those have to be "generated" by the people. I agree that they can use all the help they can get but see below.

> What's important is that those who want to help do their little part, according to their ability.

Unfortunately the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

> I see much irony coming from you, but ask yourself: have you done your part?

Yes, I do ask myself this question sometimes, then I answer it and so far I have been reasonably satisfied with my answer. Of course, not having bombed anyone "back to the stone age", I don't have much to atone for.

As Galen put it: Primum non nocere.

Interestingly enough, "In spring 2000, Korea was elevated to the Special 301 "priority watch list" as a result of continuing concerns regarding inadequate IPR enforcement, lack of protection for clinical drug test data, lack of full retroactive protection for pre-existing copyrighted works and pharmaceutical patents, problematic amendments to Koreaâ(TM)s Copyright Act and Computer Program Protection Act, lack of coordination between Korean health and IPR authorities on drug product approvals for marketing, and continued counterfeiting of consumer products."

I always found this picture interesting, projected world population growth in megacities from a CIA report called "Global Trends 2015." Check it out here. That picture never fails to blow my mind...

See this place This is where your jobs will go if you keep whining about unions and suing for overtime and everything else.

What you *really* want to do is get Indian workers to unionize.

Brian Ellenberger

So I take it home, wait a day or two, and then find that it's on the Sci-Fi channel tonight. Nuts. Turns out it was a made-for-TV movie, which isn't a good sign. Oh well, I did get it for free, so ...

I watch it. Most of the story happens in Bhutan, which I'd never ever heard of. I ask my wife if she'd heard of it, no she hasn't. It's near China, which I've heard of. I decided that they'd probably just made up some little country to serve as the location of the movie ... and now I know differently!

See? Slashdot is educational!

(In case anybody asks, the movie was bad. Not the worst movie ever, but in the bottom 1/3rd.)

(And I'm very impressed with the CIA world factbook ... interesting reading. I'll have to see how many other countries are out there that I've never heard of. Especially countries with big honking mountain-like things growing out of them overnight that attempt to terraform the entire planet!)

With regards to tibet, the military significance of a country is influenced to a large degree by its economic importance. With massive mineral wealth, including minerals needed for high technology and the space programme, china had to invade them. Add that fact to the fact that the China-Russia oil pipeline is on schedule and underway, you can see why America has to take more resources from other nations just to maintain the balance of power.

Why do you think we went to war in iraq? If we were concerned with humanitarian issues, we would be all over Uzbekistan.

We're not.

Why? Their main wealth is derived from cotton, which is deminishing because massive use of agrochemicals has destroyed their environment and ariable lands. Furthermore, they're useless as a base right now, but that may change in future.

With regards to Imperialism, yes since the 20th Century empire building was frowned upon. Instead the superpowers started up client states which they armed, used to extract natural resourses and committed to proxy wars. The only major difference between a colony and a client state is that a colony has a Governer General, and a client state has a Benevolant-President-For-Life.

The bottom line is that Empires never went out of fashion since the day they were invented in ancient sumeria. Some people ran from them and settled out in Australia, or Northern Europe or Central America. Some empires fell over and died, because running empires is hard to do. But eventually one empire or another will come for you.

Unless you are an empire yourself, you are screwed.

You've got the attitude backwards, it is not "the rest of the world be damned so long as we are wealthy and safe."

The hard truth of the matter is "To remain alive, safe and reasonably well off, we must damn the rest of the world."

The planet earth is closed. Few things fall from the cosmos to provide us wealth. Under this atmosphere it is a zero sum game.

Anybody who uses a computer or a cell phone has funded the violence in the congo because both sides are arming themselves with the sale of the mineral coltan which is used to make capacitors for high technology electronics like cell phones and 802.11b. We don't stop buying from the militias, simply because there is no other source to mine. Instead we let people like you buy a computer or a car or a nice pair of jeans or a public transport ticket or any number of other blood soaked consumer products knowing that you will never truly find out how the atoms which come together to provide those products and services are actually the result of untold human misery.

This is the truth in which we live. Once upon a time, when the first human beings (or their ancestors) could travel faster than they could overpopulate and area, we were able to spread from messopotamia and walk over oceans during the great ice age. We didn't have to take the fruits of creation from another person's mouth just to feed our own.

I propose to use any means needed to go back to those days. If it takes a nuclear rocket to take us to the stars. So be it. If it takes research which might produce a stable negative strangelet (a particle which reacts with normal matter to produce more stable negative strangelets) so be it.

We have to get off the planet, and begin spreading the human empire to other stars. If we don't we will mine this planet dry and strangle each other fighting over the scraps. And if we somehow avert that, then somebody else who beleives in imperial power will get us.

In fact, I would even hazard a guess that somebody who belie

1) [Sweden is] a small boutique economy

2) They have a ... homogeneous work force

In that they have a 99% literacy rate, while the U.S. has 97% (what a joke! As a certified literacy tutor, I can personally attest that the U.S. English literacy rate, including undocumented workers, is closer to 85%.)

3) Because they are a small country, they can depend on other countries for things like defense

They spend 2.1% of their GDP on defense.

4) since they are a small country, their economy is a tiny fraction of something like the US

Their economy is 69% services, whereas the U.S. economy is 80% services. Which do you think is more robust?

1) [Sweden is] a small boutique economy

2) They have a ... homogeneous work force

In that they have a 99% literacy rate, while the U.S. has 97% (what a joke! As a certified literacy tutor, I can personally attest that the U.S. English literacy rate, including undocumented workers, is closer to 85%.)

3) Because they are a small country, they can depend on other countries for things like defense

They spend 2.1% of their GDP on defense.

4) since they are a small country, their economy is a tiny fraction of something like the US

Their economy is 69% services, whereas the U.S. economy is 80% services. Which do you think is more robust?

What is Sweden's secret? Progressive taxation. Average production workers in Sweden pay no income tax to their central government because the bottom bracket starts about a tenth above the average production worker's salary. The Swedish tax rate is typically about 57% of income earned above that base. Sweden only has two central government tax brackets: 0% and 25%, so their "federal" taxes are actually closer to the "flat tax" than ours are in the U.S. The additional 32% or so varies by local jurisdiction, as does the income bracket at which it takes effect.

The problem in the U.S. is that top-bracket income earners (including corporations, medium-sized businesses, and most of the top 1% rich, excluding some of the prominent top rich in the media spotlight) pay a huge amount of money in order to help elect government officials who will keep the top tax brackets low. This effectivly "saves" them an even larger amount of money, except for the externalities like crime rate, debt, and property values. We used to have regulations providing equal air time for federal candidates, but Reagan's FCC did away with those, so most candidates today, even most nationally prominent Democrats, sure know which side of their bread is buttered on. There are some notable exceptions, however.

Bhutan has a life expectancy of 53 years

Looks like Bhutan was "ruined" long before television arrived.

On the other hand, I would certainly be pissed off if the government decided I couldn't watch television because it might make me 'violent'. So it would be hypocritical for me to proscribe that for some other nation. And the self-proclaimed "dragon king" of this place has no more right either. Everyone hated the Taliban, who imposed a similar ban on Television, but loves the Bhutanese. Sure, the taliban were all-around evil people, and the Dragon King seems genuinely interested in national happiness, but still. People need to be free to make up their own minds about what information they want to take in.

The CIA World Factbook at http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/ can give you pretty much anything you need to know about any country in the world. Invaluable, especially to me as a history-political science major.

The human population won't grow into the trillions, because there is a strong negative correlation between GDP and birth rates, and there are no reason to suppose that this trend will reverse itself anytime soon.

Birth rates have been steadily dropping all over the world since WWII. In countries such as Japan and Sweden, the birth rate is so low that most experts predict it to fall below the replacement rate within the next two decades. Some countries, such as Latvia, are in fact already faced with negative population growth.

That is not to say that in 50 years time there won't be a lot of people around. A recent UN forecast puts it at slightly over 9 billion. But the absolutely phenomenal increase of the human population as we've seen happen over the past 200 years appears to have run its course.

The human population won't grow into the trillions, because there is a strong negative correlation between GDP and birth rates, and there are no reason to suppose that this trend will reverse itself anytime soon.

Birth rates have been steadily dropping all over the world since WWII. In countries such as Japan and Sweden, the birth rate is so low that most experts predict it to fall below the replacement rate within the next two decades. Some countries, such as Latvia, are in fact already faced with negative population growth.

That is not to say that in 50 years time there won't be a lot of people around. A recent UN forecast puts it at slightly over 9 billion. But the absolutely phenomenal increase of the human population as we've seen happen over the past 200 years appears to have run its course.

The human population won't grow into the trillions, because there is a strong negative correlation between GDP and birth rates, and there are no reason to suppose that this trend will reverse itself anytime soon.

Birth rates have been steadily dropping all over the world since WWII. In countries such as Japan and Sweden, the birth rate is so low that most experts predict it to fall below the replacement rate within the next two decades. Some countries, such as Latvia, are in fact already faced with negative population growth.

That is not to say that in 50 years time there won't be a lot of people around. A recent UN forecast puts it at slightly over 9 billion. But the absolutely phenomenal increase of the human population as we've seen happen over the past 200 years appears to have run its course.

For a more specific entertainment niche, I got to Setlist.com for (duh) setlist information.

The best geography/government site: the CIA World Factbook. I'm not sure how the CIA landed that responsibility but it's very well done.

And, of course, for Americans the IRS forms site is a must.

I didn't concern myself with the "country name" vs "city name". For instance, Hong Kong's capital is officially called Victoria, though hardly anyone uses that name any more. Just whether there was a territory that basically was one city and maybe some countryside. So whether, for instance Kuwait, falls into this "city-state" category is a matter of opinion.

I'm not quite sure how large the island of St. Helena is.

410 sq km, over several islands. (Half the area of Hong Kong.)The CIA World Factbook is good for all those basics, including simple maps. And here is a good list of TLDs and links.

Well, it's not entirely correct, but it's not incorrect either.
The Yugoslav republic of Montenegro uses the Euro as its official currency (although they are a federal state of Yugoslavia, the Yugoslav Dinar is not an official currency there).

Have a look at the Factbook page for Yugoslavia.

Sorry to be repetitive... but this isn't a lame flamewar or a series of trolls so I'll post again to get more attention to this ... for fun.

Just check out the per capita stats for Japan in the world fact book. This information is corroborated elsewhere. You'll see a failing Japan is a lot better place to be fresh out of college/university in this world than say, 98% of all other countries in existence.

While there are flaws in their system, and they have bizarre aspects about them, I would consider this console thing a sign that they are more interested in something else rather than on the verge of economic collapse. It is very bad, particularly coupled with the recent US slump, but by no means are people flooding from Japan to emigrate to China or North Korea.

I just though it would be a lot smarter to look at a bunch of factors than to come out an claim to know the answer as the original poster did based on anecdotal evidence.

Just check out the per capita stats for Japan in the world fact book. This information is corroborated elsewhere. You'll see a failing Japan is a lot better place to be fresh out of college/university in this world than say, 98% of all other countries in existence.

While there are flaws in their system, and they have bizarre aspects about them, I would consider this console thing a sign that they are more interested in something else rather than on the verge of economic collapse. It is very bad, particularly coupled with the recent US slump, but by no means are people flooding from Japan to emigrate to China or North Korea.

I just though it would be a lot smarter to look at a bunch of factors than to come out an claim to know the answer as the original poster did based on anecdotal evidence.

Luxembourg is larger than a city.

Nor is Hong Kong

they are small, yes, but note the other "dots" on those maps.

Luxembourg is larger than a city.

Nor is Hong Kong

they are small, yes, but note the other "dots" on those maps.

No. Holy See is it's own country, comprised of one city, Vatican City.

Hmm... this might be true, if Egypt had a theocratic government. They actually have a constitutional ban on religious-based political parties.
(ref)

Granted, there are significant religious pressures on their government (just as there are in the US, and in many other countries.)

You really shouldn't make sweeping generalizations about a country you've never been to. That's what they do in Russia.

Umm... I get the impression that you're implying that Egypt has an "Islamic" government. You do realize, of course, that Egypt has a constitutional ban on religious-based political parties.

You might want to check your facts before posting.

By strange coincidence, Ralph Nader's total number of votes in the US in 2000 was 2,864,810. This means that for every Naderite, there's a person in jail.

Under the U.S. form of government, we are getting decade-record levels of unemployment and crime, but at least the rich are a little richer, if you don't coun't externalities like the crime rate and overall property values.

Just don't count on all those nearly three million newly-unemployed people to vote on election day. I wouldn't put it past Bush to do something "exciting" right before election day. After all, you have a guy who claimed that he didn't tell anyone about his drunk driving conviction because he was trying to protect his daughters, but he doesn't ask the Secret Service to lift a finger to keep them from being caught drinking underage. He simply can not be trusted. How many times did he leave the "have you ever been convicted" question blank on Texas election forms? However, there is still hope.

Next time, try the CIA World Factbook ;-)

Native Saudi Arabians are on average much richer than Americans.

There are many rich people in Saudi Arabia, but most of the money is concentrated within a very small minority of the people who do business with American and European oil compnaies. The average Saudi Arabian is quite poor. This inequitable distribution of income only feeds the anti-Western sentiment.

From the CIA World Factbook, GDP - per capita.

Saudi Arabia: purchasing power parity - $10,600 (2001 est.)

USA: purchasing power parity - $36,300 (2001 est

Native Saudi Arabians are on average much richer than Americans.

There are many rich people in Saudi Arabia, but most of the money is concentrated within a very small minority of the people who do business with American and European oil compnaies. The average Saudi Arabian is quite poor. This inequitable distribution of income only feeds the anti-Western sentiment.

From the CIA World Factbook, GDP - per capita.

Saudi Arabia: purchasing power parity - $10,600 (2001 est.)

USA: purchasing power parity - $36,300 (2001 est

• India: $2540
• Czech Republic: $15,300
• and desperately impoverished little poor Singapore: $24,700

Cheers,
-j. (who outsourced himself to Singapore and got a pay raise in the process)

• India: $2540
• Czech Republic: $15,300
• and desperately impoverished little poor Singapore: $24,700

Cheers,
-j. (who outsourced himself to Singapore and got a pay raise in the process)

• India: $2540
• Czech Republic: $15,300
• and desperately impoverished little poor Singapore: $24,700

Cheers,
-j. (who outsourced himself to Singapore and got a pay raise in the process)

However, the US seems to have no problems keeping it's military bases' lights on either when:

Population below poverty line: 13% (2001 est.)

(Src: CIA World Factbook

Add to that the mighty price tag of US $850, and this will be another failing on IBM's part. The purchasing power parity in India is $2,540 ( CIA WorldFactBook). Wal-Mart's offering of Linux based PC's would be much more attractive. IBM has a history of misunderstanding the market as a whole though.

Chongking, the largest city in the world

This city covers more than 31,000 sq.miles / 82,000 sq. km! It would rank between Maine and Indiana if it were a state. It's larger than Ireland.

I don't think it's a real city; a few years ago the Chinese gov't merely decided to call it a
municipality.

According to the CIA world factbook, China already gets 1% of it's power from nuclear plants.

Heh, nice try. While I suppose you could continue to assert that there is lots of evidence out there, you just won't link to any of it because you're afraid that I `won't accept it', I suspect that by now anyone reading this thread has realized that your evidence is like the mysterious girlfriend that a kid in middle school claims he has, and yet never actually produces -- something which doesn't actually exist, and yet which you talk about endlessly.

After all, let's look at the thread to date. For nine messages now, you have been assuring us that you can provide links to evidence of US involvement in Pinochet's rise to power, and yet what have you produced? Here's what:

• In this post you linked to a list of articles about Chile. Some of these articles make the same assertions you make (though most explicitly do not), but either explicitly state that there is not yet evidence to back their claim, or simply do not discuss evidence at all.
• In this post, you link to a report pointing out that Pinochet committed murders, something no one in this thread has denied. Even so, you appear not to have read the report, since you misstate it's findings about the number killed by a factor of five to ten.
• In this post, you mysteriously link to a site which praises palestinian murder-suicide bombings, calls Louis Farrakhan `wise' and `balanced', and repeats centuries-old anti-Jewish blood-libels, but contains no content about Chile at all.
• In this post you link to:
  • A picture of the dustjacket of Christopher Hitchens' The Trial of Henry Kissinger, which you have not read. Had you read it (as I have), you would know that Hitchens admits openly that he has no evidence of US involvement in Pinochet's coup, but believes that such evidence may someday be found. In either case, only two of the book's eleven chapters discuss Chile at all.
  • A copy of a `secret' memo mentioning that Henry Kissinger met with Pinochet in 1976. 1976, of course, was three years after Pinochet's rise to power, and the meetings in question are a matter of public record in any case -- in fact, they established the connections which Reagan was later to use to pressure Pinochet into stepping down.
  • An article written in 1999 which states that no evidence of a US link to Pinochet's rise to power has been found, but that such evidence might turn up when all of the CIA's records regarding Chile are declassified. It has now been three years since those records were declassified, and dozens of groups going over those records for evidence of such a link have found that, in fact, the CIA was as surprised by Pinochet's rise to power as anyone else was.

and nothing more.

In contrast, I have linked to:

• a review of the full declassified records of CIA activities in Chile, showing no inolvement in Pinochet's rise to power.
• the findings of the Chilean chamber of deputies regarding Allende's abuses. You, of course keep refering to these as `ad hominem accusations by politicians', a claim which shows a tremendous disregard for democracy or the rule of law on your part. The legal rulings of the duly appointed body of a democratically ele

Let's see what kind of percentage of the USA's total budget is spent on defence...
Budget:
revenues: $1.828 trillion
expenditures: $1.703 trillion, including capital expenditures of $NA (1999) (source)

So, taking the previously mentioned $379 Billion... that's 22% of the State's total budget, including capital expenditures, spent on the defence force!

That's ridiculous!

Um, yes. Did you read those articles? Did they allege that illegal SCUD and al-Samoud missiles were not fired? No. They state that the Patriot missile system was also involved in two friendly fire incidents.

And? Why just today, CNN is reporting in more detail on an Iraqi use of illegal al Samoud missiles during the war. The missile described in the story was fired from `North of Basra' and landed outside Camp Doha in Kuwait.

It only takes about five minutes and a map of Iraq to confirm that a missile firing on a camp outside Kuwait City from Basra has a range greater than the 150 km permitted. As noted here, the al-Samoud also violates the restrictions on maximum engine size for rockets and missiles.

Thirteen other illegal ballistic missiles were fired during the war as well, as both the articles I linked and the articles you linked confirm. Eight of these others were intercepted, and five were off course enough to be deemed unthreatening to troops or populated areas.

Are you denying these facts, even though the articles both of us have posted agree on them? Are you agreeing with glrotate that no such missiles were fired, and the cruise missile attack on Kuwait City was the only attack? Really?

India is not a poor country, where everyone is just trying to break free of poverty. Please.

You must remember that you are speaking with an American. In their eyes, if you don't live in the "Good Ol' US of A" then you are living in a gutter and probably a terrorist.

India is not a poor country, where everyone is just trying to break free of poverty. Please.

You must remember that you are speaking with an American. In their eyes, if you don't live in the "Good Ol' US of A" then you are living in a gutter and probably a terrorist.

India is not a poor country, where everyone is just trying to break free of poverty. Please.

You must remember that you are speaking with an American. In their eyes, if you don't live in the "Good Ol' US of A" then you are living in a gutter and probably a terrorist.

Try not to say "nonsense" and "inescapable logic" right before you start guessing.

This article states that PC sales exceeded 10.1 million units in 2002 alone. Assuming that people keep their PCs for 3 years (which is not unreasonable for a poorer country where a PC is a major investment), we should be talking about a population of over 20 million PCs. Even that conservative estimate is already twice your guess. In fact, if you believe this article, China overtook Japan as the second biggest PC market in the world last year.

Prove it. I think you mis-googled.

The CIA World Factbook China page, under "Communications", says "Internet Users: 45.8 million (2002)".

In any event though, even if they have 50m internet users, it doesn't mean there is a problem.

The trouble with Slashdot, and in particular with folks of "inescapable logic", is that you don't actually read. Where did I ever say there was a problem? I was answering somebody's question as to how many people in China can read or write, or have ever seen a computer, relative to the US. Later, I was correcting your apparent mental block with the low percentages of users from China.

You're are probably right about the IP space being fine for the number of actual computers, but I wanted to respond to this point:

I'd love to some facts to backup your claim of 45.8m internet users in China

The CIA says 48.5 million users. I see no reason why they'd lie. The figure may be inflated a little, but it's probably ballpark accurate.

Your own link (first one) states 1% of China has a computer. That's ~10 million computers. But Hong Kong alone (technically part of China, listed separately in the stats on that link) has 7 million people - and 29% have computers in their household.

The abundance of (literally thousands) of internet cafes probably helps as well. People over there will certainly share access (ie: one PC per household of six / one PC at a cafe may have 8 different users a day) - but each person still counts towards being a user of the internet.

45.8 million internet users in China is not an unrealistic figure.

Also, note that China has an official Linux distribution: Red Flag Linux (english website | review). They also make their own CPU, the Dragon, a MIPS clone originally designed for the Chinese military.

I don't think I said it was any consolation for his victims, any more than Allende's being deposed was any consolation for his, or any more than Castro's eventual death will be any consolation for the families of the tens of thousands he has murdered.

What I did say, and am now repeating, is that as opposed to the random unbacked accusations which you are making, the actual evidence is now on the table, and it shows that we were not involved in the Pinochet coup.

To quote the report:

Although some of these residual propaganda operations may have benefited Pinochet and the putchists indirectly, officers of the CIA and the Intelligence Community were not involved in facilitating Pinochet.s accession to President nor the consolidation of his power as Supreme Leader. For most of the period, CIA had no covert action authority for Chile. While the CIA had liaison relationships with various security services over the years, there is no indication that any service asked for, or that the CIA offered, any assistance to promote Pinochet to the Presidency.

Fundamentalist Islamic country without any telephones?

Can I have some of whatever your smoking please?