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I am happy to present my results in the form of a new spreadsheet, a CSV file and a GIF formatted graph. I am too hungover, and too rotten a statistician, to draw any conclusions. Enjoy.

and while we are at it, who needs a federal government anyway, why bother with a united states when all the states could do much better on their own.

Agreed. I'm tired of being the 'New Rome.' I'd like to see us paid back for the past 70 years of getting Europe out of its own messes, and keeping the Red Bear from swallowing Europe whole, but hey, lets let by-gones be by-gones, ok?

I believe you were paid back. Germany finished paying its repatriation debts only last year in fact. And lets not forget that the 'red bear' did most of the dying repelling the germans and you americans only came in at the end when the pickings were easy, and germany had already declared war on you. meanwhile granpappy bush was still busy funding the holocaust and rummy's parents were fighting on the german team. the USA has well documented debts owing to the UN and it is an outrage that they have never settled up.

My reference to the US govt being afraid of the Dutch relates to the bloody great big wall made of shipping crates they just put up around their embassy in Amsterdam, presumably to stop stoned Dutch kids from haranguing them.

Ever been to Amsterdam recently. The US Embassy there is so scared of pot fumes and hoards of stoners bumbling about the coffee shops that they had to put in place a massive steel wall made of shipping containers. See the photos and be astounded. If the the US government is that afraid of the Dutch, how scared must they be of the rest of Europe? I've seen their emabssies in other, far less chilled, cities than Amsterdam and they have a few concrete bollards - but nothing like the 'wall of shame'. It must be the pot that forces them to cower so.

Several years ago I worked on an a-life project in which a population of tiny colour eating 'photobots' is let loose upon various images. After running for a few days, eating, shitting, breeding and passing their genes on down to their offspring not only could you see clear evidence of speciation on the micro scale but also the whole colony, one it hit the upper limits of the resources of the host computer, would coalesce into one or very rarely two giant blobs - meta organisms in effect. the bugs in the middle had extremely short life spans and were essentially there to be harvested by the bugs that formed the outer wall of the blob. at the very periphery there were longer-lived bugs that served to find new food for the blob. slowly but surely the blob will move around, exploiting rounding errors to consume all the colour from the image and leave black in it's place. see http://www.davesag.com/motp scroll down and click on a picture to see this for yourself.

the Borg are a clever metaphor for Western consumerism, and that is why they struck such a chord with audiences. whether they realised it or not. the best metaphores are sublime. they also were cool cos there were about the only aliens who were not just people with wrinkly foreheads.

the best sci-fi is allegorical. think robocop as an allegory for the corporate excesses of the 80's, think starship troopers as an allegory for US corporate fascism, think ST:TMP as an allegory for the unintended dangers that emerge from even the most benign seeming technology (as the unabomber so wizely warned us.)

the worst sci-fi is tv-spin-off lamo effects driven drivvel. this unfortunately is where the ST and SW franchises both languish right now.

I agree. Here is a photo of what was left of my iPod after I slammed into a tourist on my bike in amsterdam and landed on my right ear. note the rather severe scraping on the ear piece. Was quite surreal sitting there in a pool of my own blood listening to "psycho candy" by the jesus and mary chain.

last year I stacked my bike and my old TiBook came flying out of my backpack and hit the road, open and on. I was wearing my iPod and it hit the road too and was still playing as I scraped myself up off the cobble-stones. The TiBook was anything but damaged. I have tipped two drinks though it in the past, a Vodka and Ice and a Beer and both times my tibook was fine after a quick wash and dry. who cares about a few scratches here and there. everything fades. the tibook actually looks kinda rugged with a few nicks in it. now i have a new tibook (my old one was stolen) and love it.

cheers

dave

cheers

dave