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Also English is one of the official Indian languages

Hindu is the national language and primary tongue of 30% of the people; there are 14 other official languages: Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Malayalam, Kannada, Oriya, Punjabi, Assamese, Kashmiri, Sindhi, and Sanskrit; Hindustani is a popular variant of Hindi/Urdu spoken widely throughout northern India but is not an official language

The benefits of this are enourmous in a place like Papua New Guinea where subsitance farmers don't really have a true cash economy and as such don't have any way to adequately pay for kerosene or "zoom" - motorboat fuel as I like to call it. Solar is to expensive, but fruits and vegitables are really cheap and plentiful.

So? You don't actually believe that the combined economies of two of the most populous countries on Earth is somehow smaller than that of two countries (North America is the U.S.A and Canada). Do you?

Well, let's look up the answer, shall we?

Year 2000 GDP

USA - $9.963 trillion
China - $4.5 trillion
India - $2.2 trillion
Canada - $774.7 billion

So in fact it's not even very close (even without counting Canada.)

No, their are not Spanish-accented, they are Portuguese-accented as you can confirm hear, and if are affraid of visiting Brazil, just because a tv series make some humor the country then you don't know how to hold a joke.
By the way do the U.S. know how to hold democratic elections?
May be, if they had one ;-)

It is really sad that the didn't mention the Spectrum and the british side of this. For some reason, here in Uruguay the computer culture grew around the european culture. I guess it was partly because the magazines that came here were published in Spain.

And there were great games. I particulary remember one called Sir Fred, that in some way can be seen as a precursor of graphic adventures or CRPGs (and we are talking 80s!!). Did that games get to the US?

According to the CIA World Factbook, China is a "Communist state." You can argue what you want, but I'll take their word for it.

So its ok for the CIA to fund FARC but it's not ok for a group of students to link to them?

The mind boggles.

Sorry to nit-pick, but Bangladesh isn't a "small country." Quite small in land area and small economically but a huge group of people:
Population: 131,269,860 (July 2001 est.) - from the CIA Factbook
That's over twice as many people as live in the UK.

As for danger to rest of the world India is far less of an issue than Israel

this is either blind prejudice or blind ignorance. But just in case someone doesn't know the facts, I'll bite:

size of India : 2,973,190 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly more than one-third the size of the US
# of citizens : 1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.)
these data (unlike your prepostrous claim) are not blown out of my ass, but can be found here

size of Israel : 20,330 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than New Jersey
# of israelly citizens : 5,938,093 (yes, that's six millions, not billions ...)
again, this is from the same source

so, wether or not India should be viewed as a potential threat by the US, it is a laughable to claim a country the size of New Jersy, with 1/200 the population of india, is anywhere near the military threat that can potentially be posed by india.

(this is not to say india is a threat to the US, just that Israel and India are of completely different o.o.m. ,and that the comparison is therefore absurd)

but, I suspect mpe will not let such shaky facts stand in the way of his solid prejudices.

As for danger to rest of the world India is far less of an issue than Israel

this is either blind prejudice or blind ignorance. But just in case someone doesn't know the facts, I'll bite:

size of India : 2,973,190 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly more than one-third the size of the US
# of citizens : 1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.)
these data (unlike your prepostrous claim) are not blown out of my ass, but can be found here

size of Israel : 20,330 sq km
Area - comparative: slightly smaller than New Jersey
# of israelly citizens : 5,938,093 (yes, that's six millions, not billions ...)
again, this is from the same source

so, wether or not India should be viewed as a potential threat by the US, it is a laughable to claim a country the size of New Jersy, with 1/200 the population of india, is anywhere near the military threat that can potentially be posed by india.

(this is not to say india is a threat to the US, just that Israel and India are of completely different o.o.m. ,and that the comparison is therefore absurd)

but, I suspect mpe will not let such shaky facts stand in the way of his solid prejudices.

And which website was that from, then? Try something like the United Nations, or the CIA World factbook.. The name comes from the Act Of Union in 1801, when it was titled the "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland". After partition, the name was changed to reflect the change to "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland".

Being part of the British Isles is irrelevant, as Eire is also part of the British Isles and no longer forms any part of Great Britain or the UK. The other dependancies that you mention are part of Great Britain (the names - British Indian Ocean Territory, etc) often give a suble clue to this. You seem to be mixing geographical (British Isles) with political (Great Britain). The latter includes all of the dependent territories that you mentioned.

For instance Bermuda.
"Bermuda is one of the fourteen (14) Overseas Territories of Britain." It's part of Britain, not just the UK.

Close... Actually, England and Scotland are seperate countries.

Odd...Neither the CIA Country Factbook nor the UN Stat. Division lists Scotland as a country.

For several reasons.

Freedom of speech and of the press and of assembly to a degree that would shame most of Europe. Not only do we have dissenters here, many, like Noam Chomsky for instance, are fairly prominent.

Freedom to keep and bear arms. You can now scratch Canada, UK, Australia, and New Zealand off the list of "freest nations".

Our businesses have far more freedom to hire and fire workers than the vast majority of industrialized countries. Conversely, our working population has more freedom to change jobs, move to a different location, acquire new skills.

Because our country has so much freedom, we also enjoy much higher social mobility than virtually anywhere else in the world. All that it takes to go from poor to rich here in the U.S. is the willingness to work hard.

As a result of our freedoms, we enjoy the highest standard of living in the world. From the CIA factbook: "US business firms enjoy considerably greater flexibility than their counterparts in Western Europe and Japan in decisions to expand capital plant, lay off surplus workers, and develop new products."

You might be saying, so what, that's business firms, not the general public. Well, 2/3 of all Americans are employed by small, family-owned businesses. Small business in America is widely seen to be the engine of economic growth. That's just another indicator of the freedoms we enjoy here in this country.

Far from being brainwashed, my statement about being the freest country came about as a result of trying to find another country, anywhere in the world, that could claim to have as much freedom as U.S. citizens do. I couldn't find one.

Check the facts. The US is below replacement values, as is every country in Europe. I used the 2001 estimates in the CIA World Factbook

The US, (at 2.06 children born/woman) while slightly higher than most European birthrates is still below the break-even number (considered to be 2.1) Mexico is 2.62. Columbia is 2.66. India is 3.04. Malaysia is 3.24. Kenya is 3.5. Saudi Arabia is 6.25.

The US ain't even coming close to outbreeding the rest of the world. To be honest, unless something changes, we're dying out.

Hence, NA, despite being way larger in population, has a much less percentage of people who are tech savvy

Actually, the Population of the US and Canada is about 315 million while the EU has about 378 million. Given EU net users number 186 millon and NA net users number 182 million this gives us the following net usage rates: EU = 49%(186/378) and NA = 57%(182/315).

Since your premise that NA is larger in population is incorrect can we reverse your conclusion and state that NA actually has a higher proportion of people who are tech savvy? Knowing the Europeans I've known I don't believe the education of that continent is lacking so maybe we have to blame the EU telecoms.

Given what English friends of mine have said I blame British Telecom.:)

IMHO, as per.
J:)

Hence, NA, despite being way larger in population, has a much less percentage of people who are tech savvy

Actually, the Population of the US and Canada is about 315 million while the EU has about 378 million. Given EU net users number 186 millon and NA net users number 182 million this gives us the following net usage rates: EU = 49%(186/378) and NA = 57%(182/315).

Since your premise that NA is larger in population is incorrect can we reverse your conclusion and state that NA actually has a higher proportion of people who are tech savvy? Knowing the Europeans I've known I don't believe the education of that continent is lacking so maybe we have to blame the EU telecoms.

Given what English friends of mine have said I blame British Telecom.:)

IMHO, as per.
J:)

I can't agree with some of them. For example :"Don't use non-standard controls".

I agree with you, however... I suspect the reason Apple makes this suggestion is that most developers over estimate their expertise in designing user interfaces. They think, "it makes sense to me" and they write a control that makes no sense at all. Their intimate familiarity with the product and it's intended use makes it difficult for them to imagine the thought process of a new user.

Designing user interfaces is pretty complicated, and requires a lot of thought. Even with this time investment, you still need to do user testing etc on your new control to see if it gets used the way you had hoped. This is true of any new interface, but especially true if that interface is full of non-standard controls. Most software products don't have the resources to devote to this aspect of development.

So yes, an intelligent design with non-standard control *can* work. But you won't go far wrong with the ones that have been carefully thought out and provided for you. As soon as the article say something like "most developers will do better with the standard controls", every developers suddenly feels like he is part of the group that doesn't fall into that category. (Everyone overestimates their own ability.)

Per the CIA world fact book

If we take some of the countries in the EU (France, Germany, Italy, Spain and UK) and look at their area and GDP it comes to 2m sq km and $7 trillion in total. If we look at the US it comes to 9m sq km and GDP of $10 trillion. We are ignoring Scandinavia, Holland, Belgium, Austria etc etc...

Yes the US is both larger and wealthier than any one European country the EU is comparable in economic might as a whole. What I'm saying here is you can say anything with statistics.

"A new way to give us fast mobile net access spells further trouble for 3G.Imagine being able to surf the net at speeds faster than DSL from anywhere, at any time"

I could imagine that, except I can't get DSL out here, and likely won't be able to at least until the end of the decade. I'm assuming you mean by very limited definitions of "anywhere." More like "anywhere you would care to be."

"you could watch a live video webcast while waiting for the bus,"

"Bus" = "Public transport" = "population density" = "not me."

"email photos to your friends while sitting in the park,"

"Park?" Another one of those things that suggests population density. See, out here we have these things called "back yards"...

"I smelled vapour until I saw a demo of MeshNetworks at 802.11Planet in Philly."

802.11 is a wireless LAN technology. Do I need to remind you what the "L" in "LAN" stands for? Rigging up local transceivers for a single building is a heck of a lot simpler (and cheaper) than an entire city. And that's only for you folks that live in cities (read "for those of you that matter" as far as just about everybody seems to be concerned, even on here).

On the other hand, 3G is essentially a WAN technology, with its much wider tranceiving radius. It may be a cold day in Hell before BellSouth gets off their good-for-nothing behinds to upgrade the local switches for DSL (let alone somebody setting up 802.11 WAPs every few hundred feet along US 90... not that I live close enough to 90 to begin with...), I at least have some access to Sprint's network out here.

I'm sorry, but trying to say that 802.11 can and will compete with G3 is like saying that Gigabit Ethernet is going to edge out the T-3 market.

Oh, and before somebody brings up how Canada has DSL "everywhere" with their larger land mass and smaller population, ever wonder why the United States seems to have twice as many meters of paved highways per person than Canada? Maybe because the Canadian population isn't as dispersed as the American population?

"A new way to give us fast mobile net access spells further trouble for 3G.Imagine being able to surf the net at speeds faster than DSL from anywhere, at any time"

I could imagine that, except I can't get DSL out here, and likely won't be able to at least until the end of the decade. I'm assuming you mean by very limited definitions of "anywhere." More like "anywhere you would care to be."

"you could watch a live video webcast while waiting for the bus,"

"Bus" = "Public transport" = "population density" = "not me."

"email photos to your friends while sitting in the park,"

"Park?" Another one of those things that suggests population density. See, out here we have these things called "back yards"...

"I smelled vapour until I saw a demo of MeshNetworks at 802.11Planet in Philly."

802.11 is a wireless LAN technology. Do I need to remind you what the "L" in "LAN" stands for? Rigging up local transceivers for a single building is a heck of a lot simpler (and cheaper) than an entire city. And that's only for you folks that live in cities (read "for those of you that matter" as far as just about everybody seems to be concerned, even on here).

On the other hand, 3G is essentially a WAN technology, with its much wider tranceiving radius. It may be a cold day in Hell before BellSouth gets off their good-for-nothing behinds to upgrade the local switches for DSL (let alone somebody setting up 802.11 WAPs every few hundred feet along US 90... not that I live close enough to 90 to begin with...), I at least have some access to Sprint's network out here.

I'm sorry, but trying to say that 802.11 can and will compete with G3 is like saying that Gigabit Ethernet is going to edge out the T-3 market.

Oh, and before somebody brings up how Canada has DSL "everywhere" with their larger land mass and smaller population, ever wonder why the United States seems to have twice as many meters of paved highways per person than Canada? Maybe because the Canadian population isn't as dispersed as the American population?

In Canada, which has nearly twice the geographic area of the US and a tenth the population

In Canada, which has nearly twice the geographic area of the US and a tenth the population

In Canada, which has nearly twice the geographic area of the US and a tenth the population

Here is what the CIA has to say on the subject.
Demo Trends CIA report

Granted, it's the CIA's site we're talking about here but my initial impression is not so good. I'm seriously looking for a place though. The most important factors to me are relatively low crime (at least in an area where I could live), low government corruption, generally relatively politically innocuous and sovereign, open for immigration and has something I can employed at - I'm a programmer but I'd do carpentry or baking or whatever; for income I just want to make enough to get along, maybe buy a house (with a mortgage) in 10 years. A (western) music scene would be a really good bonus. I'd like to be able to bring or buy a computer new or less than 3 years old and have a dial up connection but those aren't huge deals. The whole pace and attitude towards life around here is just rotten.

Communist country?

Check your facts, troll.

Seriously, you don't think that you are somewhat biased?

Here are some facts from the CIA handbook on India. These are more reliable than your very biased observations.

GDP: purchasing power parity - $2.2 trillion (2000 est.)
GDP - real growth rate: 6% (2000 est.)
GDP - per capita: purchasing power parity - $2,200 (2000 est.)
GDP - composition by sector: agriculture: 25%

industry: 24%

services: 51% (2000)
Population below poverty line: 35% (1994 est.)
Household income or consumption by percentage share: lowest 10%: 3.5%

highest 10%: 33.5% (1997)
Inflation rate (consumer prices): 5.4% (2000 est.)

A growth rate of 6% with a purchasing parity of $2.2 trillion ain't too shabby. The Indian middle class is estimated at 300 million people. Any simple characterization of India is deeply flawed if it does not take into account the wide spectrum of people that you find there.

really are....It must be tracked...

Information and who's accessing it....

So as many may be trying to rationalize invasion of privacy by thinking only of terrorism excuses, perhaps there is the other side of the coin as to what the feds may be looking for......like those assessing information in order to see the truth:

take a look at this: World Meters

Take a good look at the different meters! Then look at this: What the World Wants

We have the technology and we have the funds to make good things happen.

So why is it not happening? You want to fight about it?

Assuming you don't want to fight about it, that fighting is not the goal or main desire of people, then there must be something else, something bigger that is the problem. You know, considering annual world military spending is $780 billion dollars (US) and to solve the major world humanitarian problems only needs 1/3 of that....

The problem has to be more than something under a trillion dollars.

A CIA Fact Sheet on Indonesia -- see the religion percentages (88% muslim).

OK, (given the above muslim population of indonesia): from the pbs trillion dollar bet article:

"In the summer of 1997, across Thailand, property prices plummeted. This sparked a panic that swept through Asia. As banks went bust from Japan to Indonesia, people took to the streets - events so improbable they had never been included in anyone's models."

and in Indonesia May 1998:

"Sources all over Asia tell Uscher that Asians know about local corruption but believe America is taking advantage of the situation to grab Asian markets and Asian wealth."

and (read the article!!!) another article from CNN:

"The austerity measures were a condition of the International Monetary Fund's $43 billion aid package to bail out the southeast Asian nation. "

World Bank wanted to help Indonesia out but charge interest (usery) entrapment???? Funny how China is the only country who did not participate in this stock game and are better off then the rest of us for not doing so.....

Where the US bailout was only (pbs article):

"We expect that they're going to explain to the members of this Committee why the Federal Reserve has organized the $3.5 billion bail-out for billionaires, why Americans should be worried about the gambling practices of the Wall Street elite"

And there is Something Else I have run across for that timeline as well (making the "trillion dollar bet" just icing on this cake?):

(note: overall I find information from this resource to be integratingly correct enough to be both useful and insightful, though with a touch of blind bias towards capitalism, though it does try not to be blindly biased, it is to subjective to capitalism to completely avoid it.)

"During the 1993-1999 bubble era of false economic progress, many CEOs, executives, employers, employees, even customers adopted the scams of clintonian-era politicians, lawyers, journalists, academics to become increasingly dishonest, corrupt, even criminal. The bubble-building, stock-market fraud began when Chairman Alan Greenspan clintonized the
Federal Reserve. He signaled that politicization by blatantly breaking a time-honored apolitical precedent when he sat as a special guest in the president's box during Clinton s first State-of-the-Union address. Greenspan, the former acolyte of capitalism-champion Ayn Rand, then married a socialist/clintonian journalist. His drive to create a Clinton-boosting, economic boom -- a high-tech bubble economy -- escalated from that point. He with Robert Rubin and Bill Clinton artificially increased the value of the dollar, relentlessly increased the M-3 money supply, recklessly created sloshing liquidity, and pied pipered consumers and corporations into bankrupting debt. He engineered those cancerous long-term policies to continually fuel the equity markets for baleful political ends and unearned glory.

The bubble burst in early 2000 causing losses of four-trillion dollars. After several sharp bear-market rallies, those equity losses launched a long-term economic decline -- the feared L-shaped recession or worse."

Oh yeah and this 5 year stock market link comparing the DOW with the S&P and most important the NASDAQ. Where you can tell where the money went and also know what the dot coms were all about.

Given the above

From theCBS article on the NSA (National Security Agency) total system failure:

"In January 2000, Gen. Mike Hayden, the director of the NSA, received a call from the agency's watch officer alerting him that all of its computers had crashed."

In that same article (in fact in the previous paragraph):

"A phone call intercepted by the NSA is often the first warning that a terrorist such as Osama bin Laden is planning an attack against Americans. To find that threatening phone call, email or radio transmission among the billions made daily, the NSA relies on rooms of supercomputers."

The date of this CBS article is Aug 29, 2001.

Do you really think maybe Y2K brought the systems all down? For what is supposed to be the top spy agency in the US? (they don't say what caused the three and a half day crash.)

Or do you perhaps see a simpler Truth to the matter, such as:

Stock market gamblers and Gov. screwed up the world economy so bad and especially for muslims that the NSA had damn good reason to KNOW what was going to happen and that they needed an excuse for their total inability to deal with it.

*And then there is this, how might Afghanistan participate in global* *humanitarian issues:*

And the Bill of Rights

How about now? Do you want to fight now? And if you were an Afghan Muslim, instead of a US citizen?

Targets....White House for it's political control over Pentagon military backed control over World Trade Center ....world economy.

We taught them how to do it, How to fight smart, how to learn what they need to know and where they can get supplies (anthrax, planes, etc..) from us to use against us....... then we lite a bon fire under their ass to motivate them into action while we turned our backs to intelligence....played ignorant......so they could more easily do it.

And Ted Turner (CNN) said something about the attack being an act of desparation. Which he later apologized for.....because of why?

I wish they made a cell phone with a rotary and a real ringer, that'd be cool.

Statistically inaccurate. The referred site includes two statistics: Israel has one one thousandth of the world's population (accurate -- Israel has a population of 5.9 million out of 6 billion on Earth); Israel has one thousandth of one percent of the world's population (inaccurate -- this would be 60,000 people. Andorra has more than that.).

I don't disagree with all of the assesments on the site, but I don't like to see numbers abused so horribly. :)

-c.

Statistically inaccurate. The referred site includes two statistics: Israel has one one thousandth of the world's population (accurate -- Israel has a population of 5.9 million out of 6 billion on Earth); Israel has one thousandth of one percent of the world's population (inaccurate -- this would be 60,000 people. Andorra has more than that.).

I don't disagree with all of the assesments on the site, but I don't like to see numbers abused so horribly. :)

-c.

See the CIA World Factbook

Some newer numbers courtesy of the CIA:
US infant mortality rate:
6.76 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.)

Netherlands infant mortality rate:
4.37 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.)

One other country that mostly has births performed at home (China):
28.08 deaths/1,000 live births (2001 est.)

Of course, they don't tend to have trained mid-wives.

Population: 1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.)

According to the CIA World Factbook.

Open your book again and lookup Germany. There should be only one entry.

To ensure that Secure Computing Corp continues to receive funding and win contracts with the U.S. military and intelligence agencies we have decided to bow down to the Puzzle Palace's (NSA) goal of providing a freely available SELinux distribution.

We promise will not attempt to sue to world's largest black budget organization, and is the government agency with the fewest publicly available details (part of mandate in E.O. 12333 is classified).

We fear their black helicopters.

United States Population: 278,058,881 (July 2001 est.)
China Population: 1,273,111,290 (July 2001 est.)
India Population: 1,029,991,145 (July 2001 est.)
Japan Population: 126,771,662 (July 2001 est.) That's a lot of people for the amount of land!

We are switching to the metric system. You just can't expect it to happen overnight since the vast majority of the population thinks in feet and miles.

good point on the definitions. A few notes back though:

The CIA does not consider the US a democracy NOR a democratic republic. this , we are in fact a federal republic.

Democracy is actually a system of mob rule. This was one thing that even James Madison decried in the Federalist Papers.

I will say this, however, that lately the US is becoming more and more of a democracy when special interest groups with the most money (the biggest mob) bend the ears of the politicians.

You see, in a democracy, the rights of the individual are superceded by the rights of the larger group (the mob). What happens when the mob is made up of luddites? Computers and coffee machines become illegal and we are all out of work. In a republic, my right to work and make a living supercedes your personal beliefs on technology as long as it doesn't infringe on your right to hold that belief.

I know that's a bad example but it's the best that I could come up ATM. A democracy is a terribly unstable beast. The whims of the people are more fickle than the winds of the four corners.

I've attached some links at the bottom. Some of these come from religious websites but it makes a valid point none the less. Note that I don't endorse any of the religous links posted. I could care less. Thomas Jefferson said once (paraphrase) "If a man believes in god or does not, what does it matter to me? It neither picks my pocket or breaks my leg." Another of the links is to the Cato Institute (disclaimer: an organization which I wholly support)

Some Links:
1
2
3
4

OK, from the flip side of the coin.

Italy is predominantly Roman Catholic... check it out. [CIA]
and the Roman Catholic lawbook is the Bible...
and the Bible says all sin and blasphemy is forgivable, except blasphemy against God... check it out. [Bible]

So from that end, it makes perfect sense to block a website that carries blasphemy against God, instead of say, child porn.

There is no ambiguity except for those that wish to create it by confusing a continent (either North America or South America, or both) with the country referred to, in short version, as "America."

An "American" is a citizen of the United States of America just as a Mexican is a citizen of the "United States of Mexico" (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).

"American intersts" refer to interests of the United States.

"North American interests" refer to intersts of the continent of North America while "South American intersts" refers to the interests of South America. If talking about both continents, "Intersts of the Western Hemisphere" would be the most accurate.

It's all really quite academic. If you say "I'm an American" everyone knows you're from the United States, not from Canada or Mexico. Only those that want to be confused will be.

There is no ambiguity except for those that wish to create it by confusing a continent (either North America or South America, or both) with the country referred to, in short version, as "America."

An "American" is a citizen of the United States of America just as a Mexican is a citizen of the "United States of Mexico" (Estados Unidos Mexicanos).

"American intersts" refer to interests of the United States.

"North American interests" refer to intersts of the continent of North America while "South American intersts" refers to the interests of South America. If talking about both continents, "Intersts of the Western Hemisphere" would be the most accurate.

It's all really quite academic. If you say "I'm an American" everyone knows you're from the United States, not from Canada or Mexico. Only those that want to be confused will be.

Liquid Audio basically received a patent for saying that a domain ending by "co.uk" is in the UK.

We all know that .com/.net/.org aren't restricted to the United States anymore, but even ccTLDs aren't necessarily geographically restricted. Years ago, there was a poster in one newsgroup I followed. I don't remember his name, but I recall that even though he was here in the US, since he worked for Ericsson, his email address ended in .se (this would've been before they snagged a .com address).

There's also the little matter of ccTLDs (.to, .tv, .nu, etc.) that have been opened up to everybody. If for some strange reason I decided to register alfter.tv and associated that with my home server, I would be disappointed with a geolocation system that concluded from my domain name that I was on a tiny island in the south Pacific.

To do your homework for you, a full rundown of the content of these declassified files can be found here. As clearly stated therein, while aware that senior military officials were considering a coup (in response to Allende's suspension of the Chilean constitution and of Chilean democracy), the CIA provided no support to this coup, and had no advance knowledge of when or if it would actually occur. The most you can complain is that the CIA did not actively intervene to defend a pro-Castro anti-democratic dictatorship in Chile, but I can't see how you could square such a complaint with the non-interventionist stance in the rest of your post...

Your complaints about Vietnam are equally odd. Even if we take it as a given that the US-backed government in Vietnam was guilty of `imprisoning and killing' their critics -- something you provide no evidence of -- this is clearly rather less of a matter than the death of hundreds of thousands in re-education camps, as occured under Ho Chi Minh's government, so it's hard to see what your complaint is. Do you really believe that it is never wise to support the lesser of two evils? Or is it just your rule that whatever side the US backs is worse, on principle?

This certainly seems to be your argument in Colombia -- you complain that US-funded coca-eradication programs by the Colombian government are ineffective. Then what? If these programs are not effective does that make FARC right? Does that make the cocaine cartels right? You have presented ample grounds for arguing for more effective programs. You have presented no grounds for opposing the existence of such programs, which are an effort by the democratically elected government of Colombia to deny funding to a totalitarian movement which seeks to sieze control of the nation.

Oh, good going there... try to fight stereotypes with some of your own, huh? Despite what you believe, Texas is not full of ignorant hicks. In any case, your first sentence doesn't necessarily follow from your second. 35% of Indians are below the poverty line. And with a population of about 1 billion, that's 350 million people in poverty. Sure, parts of the country is quite advanced, but that doesn't change the fact that a significant percentage, and an even more significant number of the population live in poverty.

... the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

How about Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden? (Okay, so Sweden is "only" 99%). Those are all estimates though; I doubt if the literacy rate is really 100% in any country (or state).

P.S. Speaking of facts, the Census of India says that the literacy rate in Kerala is 91%. Very good, certainly, but a bit short of your 100% claim.

Oh, good going there... try to fight stereotypes with some of your own, huh? Despite what you believe, Texas is not full of ignorant hicks. In any case, your first sentence doesn't necessarily follow from your second. 35% of Indians are below the poverty line. And with a population of about 1 billion, that's 350 million people in poverty. Sure, parts of the country is quite advanced, but that doesn't change the fact that a significant percentage, and an even more significant number of the population live in poverty.

... the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

How about Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden? (Okay, so Sweden is "only" 99%). Those are all estimates though; I doubt if the literacy rate is really 100% in any country (or state).

P.S. Speaking of facts, the Census of India says that the literacy rate in Kerala is 91%. Very good, certainly, but a bit short of your 100% claim.

Oh, good going there... try to fight stereotypes with some of your own, huh? Despite what you believe, Texas is not full of ignorant hicks. In any case, your first sentence doesn't necessarily follow from your second. 35% of Indians are below the poverty line. And with a population of about 1 billion, that's 350 million people in poverty. Sure, parts of the country is quite advanced, but that doesn't change the fact that a significant percentage, and an even more significant number of the population live in poverty.

... the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

How about Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden? (Okay, so Sweden is "only" 99%). Those are all estimates though; I doubt if the literacy rate is really 100% in any country (or state).

P.S. Speaking of facts, the Census of India says that the literacy rate in Kerala is 91%. Very good, certainly, but a bit short of your 100% claim.

Oh, good going there... try to fight stereotypes with some of your own, huh? Despite what you believe, Texas is not full of ignorant hicks. In any case, your first sentence doesn't necessarily follow from your second. 35% of Indians are below the poverty line. And with a population of about 1 billion, that's 350 million people in poverty. Sure, parts of the country is quite advanced, but that doesn't change the fact that a significant percentage, and an even more significant number of the population live in poverty.

... the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

How about Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden? (Okay, so Sweden is "only" 99%). Those are all estimates though; I doubt if the literacy rate is really 100% in any country (or state).

P.S. Speaking of facts, the Census of India says that the literacy rate in Kerala is 91%. Very good, certainly, but a bit short of your 100% claim.

Oh, good going there... try to fight stereotypes with some of your own, huh? Despite what you believe, Texas is not full of ignorant hicks. In any case, your first sentence doesn't necessarily follow from your second. 35% of Indians are below the poverty line. And with a population of about 1 billion, that's 350 million people in poverty. Sure, parts of the country is quite advanced, but that doesn't change the fact that a significant percentage, and an even more significant number of the population live in poverty.

... the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

How about Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden? (Okay, so Sweden is "only" 99%). Those are all estimates though; I doubt if the literacy rate is really 100% in any country (or state).

P.S. Speaking of facts, the Census of India says that the literacy rate in Kerala is 91%. Very good, certainly, but a bit short of your 100% claim.

Blockquoth the cOdEgUru:

Heck! the state that I am originally from (look it up on National Geographic - as "Kerala" was named as the one of the best 50 places to visit), the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

Interestingly enough, Cuba can. According to the CIA, the total population literacy is 95.7%

Cuba is exactly the sort of place I'd expect the Simputer would do wonderfully. Many of its citizens have close ties with Americans--Americans with money. Education is one of the few things the Cuban government got right--very right. (Their medical system isn't that bad. What it lacks in sophistication and material supplies it make up with truly universal coverage with a strong emphasis on preventative measures, or true health maintenance.) Cubans have the skills to put computing to good use and the potential access to computers through those who escaped to America.

Now, all we need is to lift the embargo....

b&

P.S. Communisim is terrible. The Cuban people deserve a representative government and a leader other than Castro. Heck, even true Communisim would be a huge step up from what they have now. That the Cuban people have done as well as they have is a testament to their strength. Lifting the embargo would go a long ways towards destabilizing the Castro regime to the point where a replacement is practical. b&

Heck! the state that I am originally from (look it up on National Geographic - as "Kerala" was named as the one of the best 50 places to visit), the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

Vatican City, a.k.a. The Holy See, immediatly comes to mind. See here.

Heck! the state that I am originally from (look it up on National Geographic - as "Kerala" was named as the one of the best 50 places to visit), the literacy rate is 100%. Can any other place in the world claim the same ?

Vatican City, a.k.a. The Holy See, immediatly comes to mind. See here.