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No, India elected a foriegn national (Italian) as Prime Minister. However she stepped down:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/G/GandhiS.asp

There are plenty of other resources online that are free:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/
http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/
http://encarta.msn.com/

Those are just a few.

The point of my original comment is that Wiki entries are "Open Source". I love open source but disseminating information based on rumor and opinion of the writer is not a good use of open source when the actual intent is to give information based on facts. This is much akin to the media world. Many news stories (much like many Wiki entries) are written by individuals that have already formed a bias about the topic and rather than just state the facts, they allow their personal opinions and feelings skew the entry and thus, skew the facts.

The reader is left, as I stated before, with a mishmash of fact and fiction.

Furthermore, if another user disagrees with a Wiki entry, they can pretty much just change it to reflect their views.

As for your comment that this works for the Internet as a whole, you are correct to a certain degree. However, the difference being, many people are misled in regard to Wiki, thinking it is based wholly on fact purely because of the name they use, specifically the "pedia" portion.

Of course, I have heard people say "I saw/read it on the Internet so it must be true".

So, In Firefox tab A, I have Google and tab B is Yahoo. Both searched on Kyzyl.

Results (pleae pay attention because htmling this was a pain...):

Yahoo's first 5 entries:

* All Russia Hotels All Russian Hotels - We offer discount hotel reservation services online in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Russia, Ukraine, CIS and Baltic. www.allrussiahotels.com

* Tuva Travel Kyzyl city is the capital of Tuva Republic (Russia) Kyzyl city is positioned right in the center of Asia, which is proudly claimed by a local monument specifically dedicated to this fact. www.sokoltours.com

WEB RESULTS

1. Wikipedia: Kyzyl
Open this result in new window
Wikipedia Free Encyclopedia's article on 'Kyzyl' en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyzyl

- More from this site - Save - Block

2. Weather Underground: Kyzyl, Russia Forecast
Open this result in new window Find the Weather for any City, State or ZIP Code, or Airport Code or Country. Email. Password. Maps. United States. International. Information. Refinance Rates. GoTo Meeting. Kyzyl Singles. Hosting Companies. Online deals! Vitamins. Internet Mall ... Updated: 8:00 AM KRAST on August 02, 2005. Observed at Kyzyl, Russia (History) Elevation: 2064 ft / 629 m ... Coming soon: Flash Stickers. Kyzyl, 63 F / 17 C ...
www.wunderground.com/global/stations/36096.html
- 64k - Cached - More from this site - Save - Block

3. AllRefer.com - Kyzyl (CIS And Baltic Political Geography) - Encyclopedia
Open this result in new window

3. AllRefer.com reference and encyclopedia resource provides complete information on Kyzyl, CIS And Baltic Political Geography. Includes related research links. ... By Alphabet : Encyclopedia A-Z - K. Kyzyl, CIS And Baltic Political Geography ... Kyzyl or Kizil[both: kizil'] Pronunciation Key, city (1989 pop ...
reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/K/Kyzyl
More from this site - Save - Block

Now, for the first five Google Results on Kyzyl:

Kyzyl'-administrative center of Republic of Tuva, Russia Kyzyl' Republic of Tuva,
|Central-Chernozemny| ... Republic Capital:, Kyzyl. Capital Population:, 91000( at 01/01/94) ...
members.tripod.com/~argun/kyzyl.htm
- 5k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyzyl on Encyclopedia.com
Kyzyl or Kizilboth: kzl, city (1989 pop. 85000), capital of Tuva Republic, S Siberian Russia, on the Yenisei River. It services motor transport and has ...
www.encyclopedia.com/html/K/Kyzyl.asp
- 47k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyzyl Travel Information. Photos, Stories and Diaries about Kyzyl
Sustainable Tourism for independent travellers (travelers) and backpackers. www.worldsurface.com/browse/location.asp?locationi d=5654
- 59k - Cached - Similar pages

Kyzyl, Tuva, Russia current local time
Kyzyl, Tuva, Russia - before placing a telephone call or making travel plans for a flight or hotel, get the current local time provided by ...
www.worldtimeserver.com/current_time_in_RU-TY.aspx ?city=Kyzyl
- 17k - C

Sol (our sun) is a 3rd generation star, in what is considered one of the original galaxies in the 13.7 billion year old universe ( http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/earth_age_04 0817.html ) Sol about 5 billion years old and located 2/3 of the way out on the Orion arm which extends some 42,000 light years from the stellar nursury at the center. ( http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/MilkyWay_ SizeandShapeoftheMilkyWay.asp ) IIRC, centripital acceleration slowly pushes stars out from the center towards the edge. The Milky Way is approximately 10,000 lightyears thick at the edge and 30,000 light years think in the centre.

If we assume that intelligence and time since your sun was born have a positive correlation, this means the smarter aliens would be further from the galactic core, and this space covers approximately 11 billion cubic lightyears of a total 169 billion cubic lightyears, about 6.5% of the space. If we assume that the galaxy's 200 billion stars are evenly distributed over this volume (they aren't, the galaxy is denser towards the center), that gives us 13 billion stars with the possibility of intelligent life smarter than us. If we assume that 1% of them actually do harbor intelligent life (and that figure is probably way too high), that leaves us with 130 million stars, spread out over 11 billion cubic lightyears. Since we have an even distribution of stars, that means intelligent life will happen once every 85 million light years.

So the nearest intelligent life with an advanced society is 85 million light years away. Unless the alien race has discovered a means to FTL travel, if they left 85 million years ago, they would be arriving right now. Serious SETI research isn't aimed at meeting ET, or having a conversation, but confirming that extraterrestrial intelligence exists.

If I see someone getting pickpocketed and I can aid them in getting their money back,... What am I going to do? Stand idly by and not say anything?

yep - check out this info. 3 Miles is wayyy too close http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/w1/waters-t.asp

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/C/Chernoby.asp

To put things into perspective, one could point out that the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th edition makes the same mistake about Hamilton's birth year as Wikipedia did until recently.

Lets see:

official prohibition or restriction of any type of expression believed to threaten the political, social, or moral order. It may be imposed by governmental authority, local or national, by a religious body, or occasionally by a powerful private group
That's from http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c1/censorsh.asp

Censorship is the use of state or group power to control freedom of expression
and that's from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship

I think the GP's use of the word is correct, don't you?

Huh? How are our farm subsidies causing problems abroad?

Here are a few links: 1, 2, 3.

U.S. Farming is way outside my realm of knowledge, but it seems obvious being sure we're able to produce our own food is quite necessary.

In fact I've been worrying a bit lately that we're migrating too much to a service economy and moving more and more production and manufacturing out of the country; we need the ability to produce our own goods, too.

You mean like another military power before the US?

Andrew Fastow, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky

Well, I guess I'm one of those who dismisses the names because they're not real. At least, they don't meet the grandparent comment's objectives of "people who are actually doing REAL prison time". Andrew Fastow's prison time was delayed as part of his plea bargain. He didn't want to be in jail at the same time as his wife, because then his children would've had to go into foster care or live with a relative or something. So he's not doing time NOW. Yes, he will be in for about 10 years when his turn comes around.

Milken did only two years and Boesky did three, so they are not actually doing time now. Did the punishment fit the crime? Knocking over a bank will get you a lot more than three years in the big house, and won't net you a few hundred million.

As for the rest of them, I've never heard of them.

A final thought: my current primary role in life is to put food on my family's table. If I could guarantee putting food on my family's table forever in exchange for two years in prison, I'd probably do it.

Well, I shouldn't really comment since I don't live there or anywhere close by, but according to encyclopedia.com Extremdura "is poverty-ridden, with poor communications, absentee landlordism, and steady emigration."

Interesting. Encyclopedia.com says koalas *are* native to Australia. As does this site which claims they've been on Australia for some 25 million years. Got any more reliable sources?

When I was told that Thatcher had a tax for breathing, I laughed. Then I found out the truth:

Poll Tax

photo 1

photo 2

More on the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp ecology can be found here:

Link 1

Link 2

Soil Crust Analogs on Earth???
Likewise a USA Today article Imprint shows Mars craft landed in 'weird stuff' describes "The soil was stripped up and folded in an interesting way," said Jim Bell, who designed the panoramic camera that Spirit used to photograph the "mud-like" patch. "It has quite alien textures."

Might this soil crust on Mars be same/similar to the biological soil crust found at Arches National Park (Moab, Utah)?

Additional details regarding biological soil crusts maybe are to found here:

intermediate details

advanced details

photo 1

photo 2

More on the Great Salt Lake Brine Shrimp ecology can be found here:

Link 1

Link 2

Soil Crust Analogs on Earth???
Likewise a USA Today article Imprint shows Mars craft landed in 'weird stuff' describes "The soil was stripped up and folded in an interesting way," said Jim Bell, who designed the panoramic camera that Spirit used to photograph the "mud-like" patch. "It has quite alien textures."

Might this soil crust on Mars be same/similar to the biological soil crust found at Arches National Park (Moab, Utah)?

Additional details regarding biological soil crusts maybe are to found here:

intermediate details

advanced details

AU: Astronomical Unit, defined as the radius of the Earth's orbit, appprox 93M miles. Used for convenience and because when you get such large values that change all the time, people get sloppy. :)

Mars' orbit is ~1.6 AU from the sun. (See Bode's Law.) This means that Mars can be as little as 0.6 AU's or as much as 2.6 AU's depending on where the planets are in their orbits relative to one another. Communication times therefore would range from about 4-5 mins to 20+, one-way.

The spacecraft are relatively slow to travel, since they coast the whole way. The path they take is a long leisurely curve so that less rocket fuel is required. There's a good animation of the path at Nasa (MPG, MOV.) So the timing of the launches is chosen for when the locations of Mars and Earth give the easiest launch (least energy required) and communications is secondary.

Hope this helps.

You know, ever since Apple has released OS X and their new sexy metallic machines (what's next? Gallium?)

Maybe, but only in places as cold as Norway: the melting point of Gallium is only 29.78 degrees Celcius...

More about Bitterfeld, a place where nobody wants to live. It is a real ugly town (it was worse under communism), so going to Bitterfeld for holiday, makin photogpahs of chemical plants... that's cool.

article on acid rain

I was not aware of the North American acid rain situation, but in the Scandinavian case I had the impression that attention had turned more to local causes, particularly forest fires, which put acid into the atmosphere but deposit alkaline ash on the soil.

As time went on, the guild system became increasingly rigid, and the trend toward hereditary membership grew very marked. Thus the development of new trade and industry fell to the capitalists, who adapted themselves to new demands in an age of exploration and expansion. By the 17th cent. the power of the guilds had withered in England, and their privileges were officially abolished in 1835.

Sound familiar?

Xix.

There are 2 places that the end results (processed ore) can go: Earth or space. Earth's enormous gravity well demarcates that ... anything from low Earth orbit (LEO) upward is essentially the same, since LEO requires a velocity of about 5 miles a second to maintain.

If it's Earth, you'd have to figure out how to (1) get the material there, and (2) down to the surface. Present technology can get it there with mass drivers, even off the surface of the Moon (and especially so, I'd figure). And after that, economy dictates that it be hard landed. Thus means you package the materials into ablative shells to make it as cheap as possible, and then let them smack into a desert area. After some time of bombardment, ground crews can venture out into the shattered zone and dig it up to collect the goods. Admittedly, it'll take some hard thinking and good engineering to come up with a way to sling the stuff down Earth's energy well without it coming in like a meteor; perhaps slingshot-then-return, perhaps atmospheric-skip-n-drag, perhaps even a mass catcher in Earth orbit. But these are engineering details.

The question is, is this kind of thing worth it for materials X, Y and Z? Once the costs of space development are amortized, I suspect that few materials will be appealing. This strongly suggests materials of a more processed nature, even products, which can be made in a space environment cheaper than on Earth. Arguably, with microgravity, some things can't be made on Earth at all, hence uniqueness can ensure a market.

As for space ... you have no choice but use materials mined in space in order to live in space. Hence, the cost is irrelevent. Either you mine the Lunar regolith and asteroids for your air, or you will die. There might be possibilities for mining Earth's outer atmosphere, I'd imagine ... but you'd have to get close to the Earth for that, and the closer you get, the more fuel you'll need to get away with your payload.

Lunar regolith is great raw ore, in a good environment for smelting it. It contains all the stuff that you'd need to build a civilization on the Moon and in Cislunar space (even out to the asteroids, but once in the asteroids you will probably find it more economical to mine local resources). Regolith is finely pulverized from billions of years of bombardment, and not only yields aluminum, iron, silicon, magnesium and titanium, but oxygen as well. The downside to the moon is that it has almost no volatiles like nitrogen and hydrogen, and of course there's our old friend carbon. These must be imported (luckily, carbon imports for air can be tiny, although direct usage for plants and animals will be sizeable) ... and as soon as possible you have to stop importing them from Earth since even that's too expensive, and start exploiting them from asteroidal sources. It also desn't seem to make economic sense to ship water to the Moon, since your cargo will be 89% oxygen, which is what the Moon has plenty of anyway (locked up in the rocks).

(According to an online source, the air we breathe has the essential component of about 20% O2. See here and here for Human and plant respiration respectively. The roughly 80% nitrogen component of air is an inert portion ... divers have done without it by substituting helium. But helium is still a volatile on the moon. And plants raised in the Lunar facilities will need nitrogen for their root systems. So, nitrogen will still need to be imported in significant quantities.)

Reaching for Mars without a Earth-orbit station and Lunar station is very foolish. It'll be another Apollo program that will result in a lot of abandoned equipment and horri

My favorite mouse is Rocky. Bullwinkle is cool too.

Anyway: remember, firebombing was much more common.

Actually from a little googling it looks like the rules says that "etry visas" or visas for a general long term entry is decided on a case by case basis. Also no work permits are required. Look at this link and scroll down to the "work permits" part.
Seems like they have reasonable migration policies.Moreover no restriction on Natural/Naturalised citizens in politics either. An former Italian is the opposition leader

"2. Interstate/International commerce: While this should affect spammers in all states (as explained in another post [slashdot.org]), how will this hold up with international companies? Does this stop a company in the US from sending it's spam through a Canadian e-mail advertising agency? Does it apply to non-US companies at all? I'm far from a legal expert, so if you have any ideas please share them."

If they try to regulate interstate email there is good precedent to have that law declared unconstitutional. See the Wabash Case

"I'm sorry, there is nothing innocent about supporting a regime..."

Who voted for Hideki Tojo?

Japan has a parliamentary system of government--they have since the late 19th Century. Tojo was elected by his party to serve as PM, just like Tony Blair (or Winston Churchill) in the UK. Now, there was a lot of intimidation by nationalist military extremists in 1930s Japan, so it was not exactly a free Democracy, but throughout WWII Japan technically had an elected government.

Besides that, . The atomic bombs weren't until August 1945.

i wonder why you didnt had pick up the british dictionaire? Its only 900 years older than the one you had pointed

Football means foot on ball
-American Football its played mostly with the hands,
-WorldWide Football its played mostly with the foot

From somewhere about 7,000km to 52,000km above the earth lies whats called the Van Allen Belts, which are basically the magnetic fields of the earth sucking in high energy particles...the Department of Defense (renamed from the War Department) after WWII began experimenting with exploding nuclear weapons up in these atmospheric belts. These experiments were also concerned with EMP bursts and the resulting loss of radio communications. They found out from these experiments (Argus in '58, Starfish '62, Russian experiments later in '62) that they could create new radiation belts around the earth, you know, really fuck with the atmosphere.

Anyway this led up to the Solar Power Satellite Project, whose purpose, among other things, was to place 60 satellites the size of Manhattan into space, collect the solar energy, and then beam it to earth with microwaves.

Following Argus and Starfish, people are noticing that by burning holes in the ionosphere , you can disrupt communications over a wide area. This led some people to review the Solar Power Satellite plan, which is the precursor to Star Wars, because the microwave beams from these satellites could of course be used as weapons, either to knock out other satellites, terrorize people on the ground, knock out ICBMs, and, yes, burn holes in the ionosphere. There were also some experiments with the space shuttle in 1981 where they dumped some gases (like chlorine) into the ionosphere and were able to "induce ionospheric holes."

In 1986 the military is still experimenting with beam weapons...they attempted to set off a hydrogen bomb in one room, and then--get this engineers!--close the door to the room so fast that only one radiation beam would enter. This could be used as beam weapon. As you can guess, it didn't work, and alot of people suffered from the fallout, mostly blamed on the Chernobyl accident.

Which leads us up to 1993, with the HAARP program in Gakona, Alaska (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program). Basically rather than use a satellite in space, they decided to build a big generator to shoot something like 3.6 GW into the atmosphere. Basically its like microwaving the atmosphere. It also has the "added benefit" of being able to shoot the beam at ICBMs, etc etc. Anyway I'm getting tired of typing, but my point is that the program you're looking for is probally HAARP. Theres plenty information available, I suggest Google.

From somewhere about 7,000km to 52,000km above the earth lies whats called the Van Allen Belts, which are basically the magnetic fields of the earth sucking in high energy particles...the Department of Defense (renamed from the War Department) after WWII began experimenting with exploding nuclear weapons up in these atmospheric belts. These experiments were also concerned with EMP bursts and the resulting loss of radio communications. They found out from these experiments (Argus in '58, Starfish '62, Russian experiments later in '62) that they could create new radiation belts around the earth, you know, really fuck with the atmosphere.

Anyway this led up to the Solar Power Satellite Project, whose purpose, among other things, was to place 60 satellites the size of Manhattan into space, collect the solar energy, and then beam it to earth with microwaves.

Following Argus and Starfish, people are noticing that by burning holes in the ionosphere , you can disrupt communications over a wide area. This led some people to review the Solar Power Satellite plan, which is the precursor to Star Wars, because the microwave beams from these satellites could of course be used as weapons, either to knock out other satellites, terrorize people on the ground, knock out ICBMs, and, yes, burn holes in the ionosphere. There were also some experiments with the space shuttle in 1981 where they dumped some gases (like chlorine) into the ionosphere and were able to "induce ionospheric holes."

In 1986 the military is still experimenting with beam weapons...they attempted to set off a hydrogen bomb in one room, and then--get this engineers!--close the door to the room so fast that only one radiation beam would enter. This could be used as beam weapon. As you can guess, it didn't work, and alot of people suffered from the fallout, mostly blamed on the Chernobyl accident.

Which leads us up to 1993, with the HAARP program in Gakona, Alaska (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program). Basically rather than use a satellite in space, they decided to build a big generator to shoot something like 3.6 GW into the atmosphere. Basically its like microwaving the atmosphere. It also has the "added benefit" of being able to shoot the beam at ICBMs, etc etc. Anyway I'm getting tired of typing, but my point is that the program you're looking for is probally HAARP. Theres plenty information available, I suggest Google.

From somewhere about 7,000km to 52,000km above the earth lies whats called the Van Allen Belts, which are basically the magnetic fields of the earth sucking in high energy particles...the Department of Defense (renamed from the War Department) after WWII began experimenting with exploding nuclear weapons up in these atmospheric belts. These experiments were also concerned with EMP bursts and the resulting loss of radio communications. They found out from these experiments (Argus in '58, Starfish '62, Russian experiments later in '62) that they could create new radiation belts around the earth, you know, really fuck with the atmosphere.

Anyway this led up to the Solar Power Satellite Project, whose purpose, among other things, was to place 60 satellites the size of Manhattan into space, collect the solar energy, and then beam it to earth with microwaves.

Following Argus and Starfish, people are noticing that by burning holes in the ionosphere , you can disrupt communications over a wide area. This led some people to review the Solar Power Satellite plan, which is the precursor to Star Wars, because the microwave beams from these satellites could of course be used as weapons, either to knock out other satellites, terrorize people on the ground, knock out ICBMs, and, yes, burn holes in the ionosphere. There were also some experiments with the space shuttle in 1981 where they dumped some gases (like chlorine) into the ionosphere and were able to "induce ionospheric holes."

In 1986 the military is still experimenting with beam weapons...they attempted to set off a hydrogen bomb in one room, and then--get this engineers!--close the door to the room so fast that only one radiation beam would enter. This could be used as

From somewhere about 7,000km to 52,000km above the earth lies whats called the Van Allen Belts, which are basically the magnetic fields of the earth sucking in high energy particles...the Department of Defense (renamed from the War Department) after WWII began experimenting with exploding nuclear weapons up in these atmospheric belts. These experiments were also concerned with EMP bursts and the resulting loss of radio communications. They found out from these experiments (Argus in '58, Starfish '62, Russian experiments later in '62) that they could create new radiation belts around the earth, you know, really fuck with the atmosphere.

Anyway this led up to the Solar Power Satellite Project, whose purpose, among other things, was to place 60 satellites the size of Manhattan into space, collect the solar energy, and then beam it to earth with microwaves.

Following Argus and Starfish, people are noticing that by burning holes in the ionosphere , you can disrupt communications over a wide area. This led some people to review the Solar Power Satellite plan, which is the precursor to Star Wars, because the microwave beams from these satellites could of course be used as weapons, either to knock out other satellites, terrorize people on the ground, knock out ICBMs, and, yes, burn holes in the ionosphere. There were also some experiments with the space shuttle in 1981 where they dumped some gases (like chlorine) into the ionosphere and were able to "induce ionospheric holes."

In 1986 the military is still experimenting with beam weapons...they attempted to set off a hydrogen bomb in one room, and then--get this engineers!--close the door to the room so fast that only one radiation beam would enter. This could be used as

My father-in-law spent 7 years in a prison camp in one of these Utopian societies. He was sent there just in case he had the idea to tell anyone that the Utopian government wasn't l33t. The amazing thing is that he is not a bitter man, but very thankful he got his family out of there. My original post was not to accuse this project of being a bunch of religious wackos, but more as a statement of what had happened historically. Perhaps when you are a bit older you will not make such off-the-cuff remarks about things you do not understand.

well some countries are declaring wars on other things too, if you can declare war on "the threat or use of violence, often against the civilian population, to achieve political or social ends, to intimidate opponents, or to publicize grievances."

seriously though, what news is this? you would kinda except that a pr person who clearly makes a mistake of this pr value would at least get a smallish bitchsläp to his/her face.

the slashdot posting says btw, that the person tried to pass her as someone that had switched from apple to win*, is she still using apple then ?-) (ok more probably never had even)

I know we're wandering way offtopic here, but here's a few definitions.

Communism: An economic system in which the government directly controls both production-related goods and goods that are consumed.

Fascism: An economic system in which private industries control production-related goods, but government controls all goods consumed.

Socialism: Any political philosopy which states that governments should control distribution of goods.

In other words, all three are on the strong-government-control end of the political spectrum.

That said, the Nazi Party was Germany's National Socialism party.

They stole the Palladium first, because that was what protected Troy.

According to this location, other research teams have managed to create element 116 directly. Maybe the Berkeley lab lied about 116, but it's been created other places.

It'd probably be in your best interests to check your facts before you lambast people to "do a little research so you don't look uneducated."

I think this is where the Declaration of the Rights of Man failed...

check out:

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/c/cyrusgre.asp

Cyrus the Great See also: Ancient History Middle Eastern Biographies

(sires), d. 529 BC, king of Persia, founder of the greatness of the Achaemenids and of the Persian Empire. According to Herodotus, he was the son of an Iranian noble, the elder Cambyses, and a Median princess, daughter of Astyages. Many historians, following other ancient writers (such as Ctesias), deny this genealogy, and the whole of Cyrus' life is encrusted with legend. Cyrus overthrew Astyages, king of the Medes, sometime between 559 BC and 549 BC He entered Ecbatana and, taking over the Median kingdom, began to build a great empire after the Assyrian model. Cyrus' objectives were to gain power over the Mediterranean coast, secure Asia Minor, and civilize the east. Croesus of Lydia, Nabonidus of Babylonia, and Amasis II of Egypt, joined by Sparta, tried to build a strong alliance against him, but to no avail. He defeated and captured Croesus (546 BC), and Lydia became a satrapy under the Persian government. The Chaldaean empire of Babylonia fell to Cyrus in 538 BC He did not conquer Egypt, but he prepared the way for later Persian victories there. Cyrus demanded the surrender of the Greek cities that had been under Lydia, and they also became satrapies of Persia. Cyrus was much admired by the Jews, whom he favored, placing them in power in Palestine. His motive was probably to create a buffer state between Persia and Egypt, but the result was a rehabilitation of Israel. Cyrus was admired as a liberator rather than a conqueror, because he respected the customs and religions of each part of his vast empire. The exact limits of Cyrus' eastern conquests are not known, but it is possible that they reached as far as the Peshawar region. He used Susa, Ecbatana, and Babylon as his capitals but was buried at Pasargadae, where he had built a splendid palace. At his death his son Cambyses succeeded him, despite the ambitions of another son, Smerdis.

Jerusalem's history stretches back about 5,000 years. About 2500 BC, the Canaanites inhabited the city. Later, Jerusalem became a Jebusite citadel. When DAVID captured the city (c.1000 BC), the Jebusites were absorbed into the Jewish people. David made Jerusalem the capital of his kingdom, and SOLOMON built the first Temple to house the Ark of the Covenant. In 586 BC, the Babylonian NEBUCHADNEZZAR II destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple and exiled the Jews to Babylonia. Fifty years later (537 BC), CYRUS THE GREAT of Persia conquered Babylonia and permitted the Jews to return to Jerusalem and rebuild their Temple.

I haven't gone camping in a little bit, but I know things like this have been out for a long time. Maybe they're not the same implementations, as I have mainly just used the self heating meal packages, but I'm sure the idea behind it all is the same. You just have a certain chemical mix that will produce some heat when combined, and the chemicals are seperated until the user does something (the ones I used had you pull a string) and then they are combined. Here, it appears that the user needs to push a button on the bottom of the can to mix the chemicals, and they seem to just be mixing calcium oxide with water - which is definitely an exothermic process. From Encyclopedia.com:

Calcium oxide is a basic anhydride, reacting with water to form calcium hydroxide ; during the reaction (slaking) much heat is given off and the solid nearly doubles its volume.

And these setups were no joke, the meals came out piping hot. Anyways, this technology has been out for several years back since the mid to later 1990s, and this appears to just be another implementation of it - although that's not to say it isn't useful. Carrying a can around with you and being able to push a button to heat its contents up is still neat.

A few links to some of the self heating meal packages:

AlpineAire Foods - I believe these were the packages I had previously used. It appears as though they have discontinued production of their self heating meals.

Heater Meals appears to have the user apply the water themselves. I've never used these before, but they look to be more of an emergency situation use. Still, self heating meals!

The radius of the milky way is 100,000 light years with an average thickness of 10,000 light years. There is a 30,000 light year thick bulge at the center of the galaxy where many of the hundred billion stars in this galaxy reside. I'm basing this on this page. at this rate of planetary discovery it seems that a high rate of stars may have jovian size gas giants. Until we have more data though it's a difficult number to determine. However jovian planets are largely hydrogen and helium gas. Potentially they could form anywhere a star could, while earth type planetoids would require enough dense matter to form into solid planets.
these planets also have to form within the stars habitable zone. Still with roughly 4 billion cubic light years of milky way galaxy on average there are 25 stars within one cubic light year of each other. Meanwhile we're at a density rate of about 0.1 stars per cubic light year, meaning that even with an optimistic calcualtion the nearest earth like planet would be 50 light years. The nearest earth like planet in a habitable zone 150 light years away the nearest life inhabited earth like word 450 light years away and the nearest civilization some 1,350 light years away. That means SETI is a worth while project, but that unless we defy physics by coming up with a FTL drive there isn't any way we're meeting any alien races.
Note these are Highly optimistic numbers and assume that every star system with as many jovian planets as ours would have as many solid planetoids like our system.

While what you say is more or less true, let's not forget that in the hands of bad people, the US system is not as happy and carefree as you suggest. The classic example of this is President Nixon.

Now I know Nixon is a big conservative hero, but the reality is that he used his power, both political and military, to opress political opposition to further his own ends.

The best example of this is probably not the whole Whitewater scandal, but rather the Pentagon Papers. For those not in the know, this was a book written by the Pentagon designed to be a report of the US involvement in Vietnam. When a newspaper (NY Times) got a hold on it and started printing it, Nixon arranged to have the first order against a newspaper printing a story in the history of the US issued.

Now mind you, this wasn't a list of current battle strategies or logistics, but a history of the war that had been going on for 7 or 8 years at this point. The newspaper was vindicated in the end, but not before suffering attacks and threats.

This isn't liberal innuendo, it's the facts.

And if that fails, we shall see if these wonderful machines can withstand the attack of a human with a sledgehammer!

The sledgehammer approach has been tried before; it didn't work.

Because the American legal system was based on the British one, which in turn was based on Habeas Corpus, literally "you should have the body". This requires a high standard of proof and innocent until proven guilty.

Cheers,
Ian

Thank you for putting things into perspective. I have never been to Poland, so can hardly picture what life is like there. Was in USSR in the eighties, and if that was any indication...

Most of the 20th century meant wars or occupation for Poland (I personally know people who were prisoners of the extermination camps in Oswiecim (Auschwitz), so I've heard a lot of really terrible stories), but there were times, where we had an empire that reached from the Baltic to the Black Sea, being a very important power in Europe, not only as a military power, but also in the terms of culture and science. Those were times of the great Aztecs civilisation in America.

Living in the exact centre of Europe is nice, but being exactly between the Germany and USSR used to be very unfortunate.

Now we're part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and soon we'll join the European Union. I do hope that things will change for better, and that the 21st century will mean, unlike the 20th century, first of all peace and freedom, but also a fast economical and technological growth for Poland.

A good introduction to Polish history is the History of Poland on Encyclopedia.com and the History of Poland on Wikipedia.

You can find more general info on Encyclopedia.com, on Wikipedia and on Britannica.com. If you're interested, there are lots of links to information about Poland on Polska.pl (Polska means Poland in Polish).

If you are ever on the West Coast of the US, drop me a line. Email is the last bit of my URL at the domain name in front of it. I'd be happy to show you one way of providing bandwidth to a community.

Thank you for putting things into perspective. I have never been to Poland, so can hardly picture what life is like there. Was in USSR in the eighties, and if that was any indication...

Most of the 20th century meant wars or occupation for Poland (I personally know people who were prisoners of the extermination camps in Oswiecim (Auschwitz), so I've heard a lot of really terrible stories), but there were times, where we had an empire that reached from the Baltic to the Black Sea, being a very important power in Europe, not only as a military power, but also in the terms of culture and science. Those were times of the great Aztecs civilisation in America.

Living in the exact centre of Europe is nice, but being exactly between the Germany and USSR used to be very unfortunate.

Now we're part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and soon we'll join the European Union. I do hope that things will change for better, and that the 21st century will mean, unlike the 20th century, first of all peace and freedom, but also a fast economical and technological growth for Poland.

A good introduction to Polish history is the History of Poland on Encyclopedia.com and the History of Poland on Wikipedia.

You can find more general info on Encyclopedia.com, on Wikipedia and on Britannica.com. If you're interested, there are lots of links to information about Poland on Polska.pl (Polska means Poland in Polish).

If you are ever on the West Coast of the US, drop me a line. Email is the last bit of my URL at the domain name in front of it. I'd be happy to show you one way of providing bandwidth to a community.

First, if you're going to insist on a REA-type federal approach, at least insist that a hard time limit be imposed on the agency. The REA hung around until 1994, and even then was assimilated into a similar government agency. Bureaucracies don't ever put themselves out of work.

Second, does it really take that much money to get started? And that cost is continuously dropping, especially with the help of open source projects. Isn't it likely that this problem can be solved within the next several years without government intervention? I'll bet on private initiative and creativity (hmm, solar powered WiFi relays anyone?) to get the job done.

Besides, if taxes weren't so damn high more individuals would be able to finance such initiatives. It would be far easier to bootstrap ventures if, say, we didn't have 1-1/2 months per year of labor confiscated by the Socialist Security system.

• There is a deep cynicism about managed culture, and this is our modern popular culture. A kind of sovietism that worked

LL has a true gift for langauge. Younger readers may not be aware just how tightly managed the Soviet Union was. The production of everything was strictly controlled by a series of Five Year Plans that attempted to match supply to predicted future demand. By "everything", I mean that the number and colour of toothbrushes that would be produced was planned on a five year basis.

Picture this from the populace's point of view. You go to buy a new toothbrush. You quite fancy an orange one, but all they have is blue. Everyone else is buying blue toothbrushes, so, hey why not? One toothbrush is much like another, right? They're all just cheap mass manufactured plastic that'll be old in six months, so you might as well buy what they've got. You quickly get used to it. In time, you stop even wondering what an orange toothbrush - or a non-Government toothbrush - would be like.

Compare with the US music industry. You go to buy a CD... you see where this is going?

Big labels plan years in advance. They produce acts to fit the niches that they have decided there will be demand for. If there isn't demand for those acts, well tough, that's all there is on the shelves, and they aren't going to change their CD pressing schedules to suit you. That would play merry hell with their smooth profits. They know they're getting your money, because all the artists are just cheap mass manufactured plastic that'll be old in six months, so you might as well buy what they've got. You quickly get used to it. In time, you stop even wondering what an independent artist would be like.

If you don't believe that labels plan that far ahead, look at Mariah Carey. She has a five album 80 million US dollar deal. Despite suffering an "emotional and physical breakdown" and releasing a film and album that both tanked, EMI has not canned her. They can't. They have a Five Year Plan. We will love Mariah, and we will buy her albums, because they will make damn sure that when the next album comes out, they'll have cut a deal to ensure that no big name from any other label will release at the same time, and the advertising will be Mariah, Mariah, Mariah.

Or so they think. The trouble with their Five Year Plans is the same as in the Soviet Union. The people aren't stupid. They know what kind of toothbrush they want. If they can't get that, then they'll take what's available. But when the non-Government toothbrushes become available on street corners, even though it's illegal, they'll buy them, and they'll tell their friends where to get them, and a black or grey market will spring up to supply the genuine demand, and the Five Year Plan is suddenly in disarray because all the cheap plastic government approved toothbrushes are sitting in factories and nobody wants them any more.

At this point, the analogy breaks down because it's comparing sharing with purchasing. The toothbrush analogy is very immediate, but if you want a better history lesson of why monolithic government/industry content control is doomed from the get go even if abominations like the SSSCA are passed, then read about samizdat, and understand that We, the People will find a way.

Yes, I'm very aware of this. Problem is, the UN Security Council was created on the basis of countries having nuclear capability. Rediculous, no? Or maybe they think security can be maintained by those who have guns?

Now, on to Scientology and Germany. German courts have ruled that Scientology is not a religon. Yet in Germany Scientologists are not arrested, nor is the worship banned. It is simply not a religon in the view of the state of Germany.

Well, those Christians allowed to practice in China are allowed because their religion was "registered". Not too sure what this means, but I'm supposing you have to have government approval to be recognized. Yes, the Scientologist weren't arrested or banned, but they still called it persecution. What's a country to do? In China's case, I don't know if this or that "Christian" is truely being persecuted because they could simply be stretching the truth, to gain sympathy, using China's terrible reputation to score points. But China's still responsible, in the public eye, if some group were to suddenly commit mass suicide (their choice). Remember the UFO cult from Taiwan that relocated to Texas in 1999? The Taiwanese government sent reps there to make sure the cult didn't plan on committing suicide (would've looked bad seeing how Taiwan "was apathetic" to mass suicide by its citizens). On a related note, when the Solar Temple cult committed mass suicide in California? (or was that the European group, I don't remember clearly), the government got some flack because they couldn't stop it.

Even if the government of China does not want Falun Gong or Christians in the country, because they are a member of the United Nations and the UDHR, they shouldn't be banning a religion.

No, I'm sure they're more worried about incidents like the Taiping Rebellion. I personally know some people who say they practice Falun Gong, and while I can't say they're evil (they're quite nice), looks can be decieving and you don't want Microsoft telling you want comprises excellent software. But, you're right they shouldn't ban religions. Too bad some beliefs are just so unreasonable (read radical Islam).

It's that simple. What goes on in China is documented at Amnesty International. It's not just what I "failed" to mention.

Yes, but "failing" to mention key points could easily cause your argument to be one-sided. One-sided arguments usually lead me to believe the arguer has an agenda to promote. I appologize for sounding rude, but I'm sick of all the same banter about China this and China that. Everyone just seem to use the strawman argument whenever China comes up (geez, I think we need an amend. to Godwin's Law). There's no doubt horrible things are happening there, but I don't think there's a quick fix for all of China's problems, specifically democracy. I'd like to see democracy (yes, in your words Republic or Democratic) there, but it's unrealistic to expect them to suddenly change. There supposedly are democratic elections on the local level there, but news organizations don't like to report on "mundane" topics like that. No, they'd rather talk about "unusual" (our definition, not theirs) topics over there. Heck, there supposedly are elections within the Communist Party, but most people assume it's voting for Happy Jiang or Sad Jiang. It's this cynicism mixed w/ revile that's a cause for concern for me.