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is still found here in the USA, in eastern Oregon. It's the size of 1,665 football fields! More info here.

My only surprise was that it wasn't in Texas. Aren't they supposed to do everything bigger?

Some quick research:
Florida population in 2000: 15,982,378
Percent of poulation under 18: 22.8% , or roughly 3,643,982
Number that voted for one of top three candidates: 5,922,531
Percent of Florida population over 18 in 2000 that voted: 48%
Seems to me like we need to worry less about 15,000, which is .000938% of the population and GET PEOPLE TO VOTE.

Flash mobs only pose a security risk if you are a fascist. I think with the advent of the cell phone and text messaging, the possibility of a coup d'etat in the developed world is slim to none. Before any would be junta could consolidate power there would be protests in the street, largely due to cell phones and text messaging. I think this a good thing. It safeguards our freedoms and if a few celebrities have to put up with mobs of teenage girls, then so be it.

Remember the 1991 August Coup in Mocba, where communists attempted to oust Yeltsin from power an put back the communists in power?

Ultimately it was defeated by people who phoned each other to assiege the russian parliament buildings.

BULLSHIT! If you look at the vote totals at this website you can see that the vote totals were:

BUSH: Total: 50,456,002 - 47.87 percent

GORE: Total: 50,999,897 - 48.38 percent

NADER: Total: 2,882,955 - 2.74 percent

I don't know what cow college you studied math and statistics at but I'd say that a difference of 543,895 votes, or one half percent, is statistically significant. The Florida debacle aside Gore won the popular vote. If we had a direct popular vote, or if electors were allocated by percentage of votes won in each state rather than the winner take all system Gore would be president today.

They haven't before the War on Terror (TM). Not anymore? "Despite the U.S. "War on Terror," al-Qaeda continues to be a threat world-wide. There have been about a dozen major attacks by al-Qaeda terrorists since September 11, 2001."

http://www.fairvote.org/turnout/preturn.htm
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
http://www.fec.gov/pages/htmlto5.htm
http://www.multied.com/elections/

Look at some of the figures on that last link. The last time the turnout went above even 70% was 1900 - and that was a 2 party election. Hell the turnout 1896 was almost 80%, and that was a 2 party election too. So I'm legitimately curious about this, guys - if what I'm saying is a bunch of crap then why in the last century have voter turnouts held around the 50%-60% range? Are we waiting for something? The right issue, or set of issues? The right guy? The right scandal? I'd honestly like to know.

Brown University got $100M today. Bill's cheap! :)

Brown's Endowment is $1,484,292,000.
CMU's Endowment is approximately $756,000,000.
The schools are approximately the same size.

I know the parent was joking, but with the sorry state of donations to CMU, $20m is pretty impactful.

Please note that this is the one time you can feel safe on clicking a link that says "endowment".

You might be interested in knowing that Gulf War2 started in 2003 and ended on May 1st, 2003. I don't know where you're getting 2004 from.

Black males' life expectancy is 68.6 years. White males' life expectancy is 75.0 years. For people born after 1959, Full Retirement Age for Social Security is age 67. Thus, on average, black males receive 1.6 years of Social Security payments, while white males receives 8.0 years of payments! White males receive 5x as much Social Security payment, but they probably did NOT work 5x as many hours! Without Social Security, retirees could keep the fruit of ALL their labor AND pass it down (with compounded interest) to their children. You can't do that with Social Security.

Life Expectancy at Birth by Race and Sex, 1930-2001

It would be highly embarassing to the current administration to have to N. Korea's insane nuclear ambitions (which is a back burner issue for them) dominate the news during the 9/11 observance.

Actually I would expect the leadership of the last administration to be far more embarassed than the current one. The Bush Administration has been warning about North Korea for quite some time now. They saw the danger. The Clinton Administratino punted... well, to be fair they implemented a weak, unverifiable policy which the North Koreans cheated on as soon as the ink was dry. Apparently they didn't remember Regan's wisdon, "Trust, but verify."

Until a war actually starts, the North Korean situation is best handled by diplomacy. Guess what the Bush Administration has been doing? Using multilateral talks to try and improve the situation. It may not work because the "Dear Leader" is a nut. It will no doubt put you on your butt in shock to realize that even a President with the wisdom of Clinton or the charisma of Kerry might have to go to war in Korea.

Isn't it amazing though? The US government can do more than one thing at a time even when run by President Bush. Who knew? What is even more amazing is that it isn't just two things, but at least three. The US has convinced the Europeans to move closer to its position regarding Iran's nuclear program.

Oh, and your "game" is stacked in favor of George. The is/was a nut behind each of the curtains labeled Iraq, North Korea and Iran. Live and learn I guess.

we should change the National Anthem to Waltzing Matlida?

Nader received 2.4% of the popular vote in 2000! If this were a poll and not an election, that would be called a margin of error, and certainly cannot be used to justify your outrageous claim of "a sizeable chunk of Democratic voters cast their ballots for Nader". If you're going to state an opinion, for ghusake; start with some easily verified facts else you are unintentionally supporting the very partisanship you decry!

http://opera.infoplease.com/search.php3?in=diction ary&query=mis-spelt

If there are PCBs in the Hudson, I believe the GE stockholders are personally responsible to clean them up.

You are skipping over the step of proving that dredging is the appropriate remedy & that GE (who never made PCB's but used them in capacitor and transformer manufacture) is the appropriate entitiy to pay for it, as compared to, say, Monsanto, who made PCB's, utility companies who bought the products, or local governments who required the use of PCB's in their building codes. GE's claim is that the discharge levels were within legal levels of the time and that a much cheaper motitor-and-spot-clean-as-necessary approach is more appropriate. But my point here is not to defend GE, but to say that GE is acting perfectly within the normal charter of its business to engage in a political debate which affects the company's interest. To expect over a million separate shareholders to spontaneously organize into PACs every time a political issue impacts a $350 billion company is ridiculus.

I think you underestimate the good effects of having limited liability corporations. Before the corporate form was introduced, capital intensive businesss like canal bulding, banking, and insurance were the domain of super-wealthy patricians. (In the case of banking, it was a tight-knit group of Jews because Thomistic Christian theology prohibited collecting interest; we are still stuck with lingering conspiracy theories from that). In Roman times these patiricans would hire private armies, intimidate courts, and take over provincial governments. Limited liability corps permitted the middle class to pool resources and give these aristocrats some competition, and as such consititute a great progressive political reform. Would you prefer that Bill Gates personally owned Microsoft? Would you want to buy fire insurance from Marcus Crassus?

This would likely have been true in the 1990s. But today, with a substantial increase in public education standards, as well as increased cooperation with non-govermental organizations (typically populated by well educated, well meaning young individuals), corruption has been on the decrease. Here's the stats on perceived corruption index. It shows India at 2.8. 10 is squeaky clean. UK, Canada at 8.7. US at 7.5. URL is here InfoPlease I would like to see rate of reduction of corruption. Overall, from talking with acquaintenances it has been on the decrease but clearly there's substantial room for improvement.

That was my post w/ the geographic map. I couldn't log in for some reason..

My only point is this. People often diminish the importance of these other states. Especially those from New York and California. I often get the impression more that Californians (especially) think less about people from rural areas.

that map shows 20 states voted for gore and 30 voted for Bush. But people sometiems forget a great chunk of our population lives in NewYork and California.

If you do some research into how the electoral college works, it is precisely to protect these smaller populated rural states. A strictly popular vote could potentially be hazardous to the longevity and more specifically the wealth of these states.

Anyways, even disregarding that, people seem to act like this is the only incident where this has happened. Which is completely not true

FOUR PRESIDENTS won the presidency but lost the popular vote: Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lost the election to John Quincy Adams (1824); Samuel J. Tilden won the popular vote but lost the election to Rutherford G. Hayes (1876); Grover Cleveland won the popular vote but lost the election to Benjamin Harrison (1888); Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election to George W. Bush (2000).

If you didn't vote in 2000, or know someone who hasn't then listen to this:

1) In 2000, national voter turnout was 51.3%. (Source http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html)
2) For a party to get federal funding, they need to get 5% or more.
3) That means that if the remaining 48.7% voted randomly then we could have a total of 11 parties running. (9 at 5% each, plus the standard 2).

11 parties nationally recognized in the US!!!! And all that has to happen is people must just vote - vote for anyone! Their dog! Their mom! Some weird-lookin' independent guy you hear about on the news now and then!

Ralph Nader wanted to get 5% of the vote in 2000, but only got 3%. That means 2% of the population could have just gotten up and made a powerful statement for change just by walking down the street to your nearest voting place, and pulled a random lever in a booth. You don't even have to agree with the guy.
(Source http://www.dailytexanonline.com/news/2000/11/09/Ne ws/Nader.Barely.Misses.Federal.Funding-700791.shtm l)

Anyhow, I encourage everyone to pass this on. That may make some of the apathetic voters go out and do some good. Having more alternatives would be a major help to the US election system. (Then, we can push for run-off elections so we can reduce the split-election problem)

I remember hearing about that in Auto Tech in high school. I remember that the patent was eventually ruled invalid because it only covered two-cycle engines and at that point most cars were using four cycle engines.

The man was George Selden, and you can info about that patent mentioned here.

You didn't misunderstand as much as I was vague in my condemnation of the strong pro-gun lobby.

I do think guns are fine. I don't think the legislative threat to private gun ownership is as great as the NRA and the GOP would have you believe, however. The NRA has a vested interest in promoting the concern that the liberals are trying to take our guns away. It's job security for them. The GOP leverages this misconception because polls show that for a large group of people, their votes are based on this issue alone. Just like abortion defines so many other peoples' voting patterns.

Because so many people in America feel so strongly about gun ownership, we will have guns available in plentiful quantities for many generations to come. Here's how you can tell this: The main proponents of anti-gun legislation are cops and victims of gun crimes. Both these groups together are far outnumbered by gun enthusiasts. Count how many people you see at pro-2nd ammendment demonstrations and then count how many people are at anti-gun protests. The former dwarfs the latter by a lot.

Now and again you'll see gun-limiting legislation proposed. In most cases, this is an effort to capitalize politically on some tragedy that occurred somewhere or the politicians floating it are trying to get the endorsement of the police unions. That endorsement allows them to claim they're 'tough on crime.'

I do have to disagree with your recommendation that citizens own fully automatic rifles. In the rare instances where we have people go berzerk and shoot up an elementary school, or their workplaces, or just random strangers, one of the things that limits the amount of violence is the rate at which bullets can be fired. I do think it would be very fun to shoot a fully automatic weapon, but if it means that a nut shooting into a crowd can kill 30 people rather than 17, I think it's worth it to not enjoy the experience as a private citizen. In all the well-publicized shooting cases I can think of, the killers were law-abiding citizens prior to the killings, btw.

The Buckeyes are out of town on that day, so there will actually be room to move around the OSU campus.

But hey, any day is a good day to come and visit the USA's 15th largest city!

Quick back of the envelope: (+ irresponsible google searches)

• Their guess is that 150kg of Deuterium would run a 1000 MW reactor for a year. (google cache, unfortunatly. Searched for "kg deuterium world energy")
• Ratio of deuterium to hydrogen: 0.015% = 1.5 10^-4
• Total world energy consumption: 403 quadrillion btu/year = ~14 TeraWatts
• Mass ratio of hydrogen in water molecule: ~1/9 So:

  (9 kg water/kg hydrogen)*(14e12 Watts)*(150 kg D/reactor) / ((1.5e-4 D/H)*(1e9 W/reactor)*(1000 kg water/m^3)) =

  1.2 10^8 cubic meters of water processed per year.

  Which translates to a mere .1 cubic kilometers of water needed to be processed per year. Of course, it's late at night, and *my* math might be wrong.. :-)

Gitmo is far to luxurious and opulent for this obvious agent of Anarchy! I say, let him meet Diego Garcia! And throw in a 24/7 120db DMCA recital on speakers for good measures. That will bloody well teach the anti-social creature some manners...

All hail RIAA!

You know, all the replies to this are correct--and I'm wrong! I feel sort of silly for not reading more carefully, I was posting from work and had to leave.

There actually were 17 blue moons total with both definitions of a blue moon: about the same number of each kind (probably 8 of one and 9 of another).

The "13 lunar cycles in a year" was just a common (and, in my defense, approximately correct) approximation. But that .6 makes a big difference. I stand corrected.

Still, I wouldn't call it rare.

I don't know where this google calculator gets its numbers from, but blue moons are actually twice as common as it implies.

There are approximately 13 lunar cycles in a year, and 12 months. Simple math should be able to tell you that there must be a blue moon on average at least once a year--rarely two, and rarely none. In fact, over the next 20 years, 17 will have blue moons.

That's about every 1.2 years.

Music critics rule! We all know that Led Zeppelin weren't successful.
</sarcasm>

We invaded a sovereign state just because they wouldn't buy our trade goods..probably many other examples through history as well...

Opium Wars, 1839-42 and 1856-60, two wars between China and Western countries. The first was between Great Britain and China. Early in the 19th cent., British merchants began smuggling opium into China in order to balance their purchases of tea for export to Britain. In 1839, China enforced its prohibitions on the importation of opium by destroying at Guangzhou (Canton) a large quantity of opium confiscated from British merchants. Great Britain, which had been looking to end China's restrictions on foreign trade, responded by sending gunboats to attack several Chinese coastal cities. China, unable to withstand modern arms, was defeated and forced to sign the Treaty of Nanjing (1842) and the British Supplementary Treaty of the Bogue (1843). These provided that the ports of Guangzhou, Jinmen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai should be open to British trade and residence; in addition Hong Kong was ceded to the British. Within a few years other Western powers signed similar treaties with China and received commercial and residential privileges, and the Western domination of China's treaty ports began. In 1856 a second war broke out following an allegedly illegal Chinese search of a British-registered ship, the Arrow, in Guangzhou. British and French troops took Guangzhou and Tianjin and compelled the Chinese to accept the treaties of Tianjin (1858), to which France, Russia, and the United States were also party. China agreed to open 11 more ports, permit foreign legations in Beijing, sanction Christian missionary activity, and legalize the import of opium. China's subsequent attempt to block the entry of diplomats into Beijing as well as Britain's determination to enforce the new treaty terms led to a renewal of the war in 1859. This time the British and French occupied Beijing and burned the imperial summer palace (Yuan ming yuan). The Beijing conventions of 1860, by which China was forced to reaffirm the terms of the Treaty of Tianjin and make additional concessions, concluded the hostilities.

See A. Waley, The Opium War through Chinese Eyes (1958, repr. 1968); H.-P. Chang, Commissioner Lin and the Opium War (1964); P. W. Fay, The Opium War, 1840-1842 (1975).

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2004, Columbia University Press.

Any day now, Congress will convene a "Central Committee" to handle this issue.

I keep wondering when media lobbyists are going to just give in and start calling their strategy a "Five-year plan"...

What is the LD50 for irony, anyway? The US Federal Government must be poisoning us all with it by now...

Al Gore did support continued funding for DARPA projects like ARPANET, after they had already been started, and for that he would deserve some credit, if he hadn't tried to inflate his small contribution to the level of something critically important.

Having said that, Al Gore was not in any way instrumental in initiating funding for the creation of ARPANET. According to this history of the Internet, the plans for ARPANET were published in 1966/67, and it was operational by 1969. During this time, Al Gore was still an undergraduate student, so not in any position to 'take the initiative' in funding creation of anything. Gore apparently finished law school in 1976, at which point he entered American politics as a member of congress.

Since Bush has been in power the Geneva convention is more or less void

Well, considering that the Geneva conventions are limits of wartime behaviour, they have been more or less void since December 1941, which is the last time congress declared war.

a country has been overrun

Overrun by what?

the country is spending billions (more) on weapons

Wrong. Defense Spending is significantly lower than previous times of conflict, which is impressive considering that we are not fighting any single nation, but rather a philosophy that is present in many parts of the world.

Israel gets a "do whatever you like" card

US policy regarding Israel hasn't changed over the past 30 years. Why would you blame Bush for this?

rights have been taken away from citizens

And what "rights" would those be? The right to know if a Cell Phone network went down? (Hint: If your phone loses service, there is a good chance the network went down)

corporate america has been placed above the law

Besides the crooks who broke the law.

the VN was almost invalidated

The UN was invalidated because they failed to enforce their own resolutions for 13 years.

money for good causes is being withdrawn

Let me guess, a "good cause" is something that you agree with, right?

America, get yourself another president, _please_.

owlstead, get yourself an educated argument, _please_.

People say the feel more secure.

THE TERRORISTS INVOLVED IN 9/11 USED FUCKING BOX CUTTERS. It seems as though even though these terrorists don't use hi-tech methods, people think this shit actually makes a big difference in combatting terrorism. Need more examples?

• 1920 Sept. 16, New York City: TNT bomb planted in unattended horse-drawn wagon exploded on Wall Street opposite House of Morgan, killing 35 people and injuring hundreds more. Bolshevist or anarchist terrorists believed responsible, but crime never solved.
• 1975 Jan. 24, New York City: bomb set off in historic Fraunces Tavern killed 4 and injured more than 50 people. Puerto Rican nationalist group (FALN) claimed responsibility, and police tied 13 other bombings to the group.
• 1983 April 18, Beirut, Lebanon: U.S. embassy destroyed in suicide car-bomb attack; 63 dead. Oct. 23, Beirut, Lebanon: Shi'ite suicide bombers exploded truck near U.S. military barracks at Beirut airport, killing 241 Marines. Minutes later a second bomb killed 58 French paratroopers in their barracks in West Beirut.
• 1988 Dec. 21, Lockerbie, Scotland: N.Y.-bound Pan-Am Boeing 747 exploded in flight from a terrorist bomb and crashed into Scottish village, killing all 259 aboard and 11 on the ground. Passengers included 35 Syracuse University students and many U.S. military personnel. Libya formally admitted responsibility 15 years later (Aug. 2003) and offered $2.7 billion compensation to victims' families.
• 1993 Feb. 26, New York City: bomb exploded in basement garage of World Trade Center, killing 6 and injuring at least 1,040 others. In 1995, militant Islamist Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman and 9 others were convicted of conspiracy charges, and in 1998, Ramzi Yousef, believed to have been the mastermind, was convicted of the bombing. Al-Qaeda involvement is suspected.
• 1995 April 19, Oklahoma City: car bomb exploded outside federal office building, collapsing wall and floors. 168 people were killed, including 19 children and 1 person who died in rescue effort. Over 220 buildings sustained damage. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols later convicted in the antigovernment plot to avenge the Branch Davidian standoff in Waco, Tex., exactly two years earlier. (See Miscellaneous Disasters.)
• 1996 June 25, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia: truck bomb exploded outside Khobar Towers military complex, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds of others. Thirteen Saudis and a Lebanese, all alleged members of Islamic militant group Hezbollah, were indicted on charges relating to the attack in June 2001.
• 1998 Aug. 7, Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: truck bombs exploded almost simultaneously near 2 U.S. embassies, killing 224 (213 in Kenya and 11 in Tanzania) and injuring about 4,500. Four men, two of whom had received training at al-Qaeda camps inside Afghanistan, were convicted of the killings in May 2001 and later sentenced to life in prison. A federal grand jury had indicted 22 men in connection with the attacks, including Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who remained at large.
• 2000 Oct. 12, Aden, Yemen: U.S. Navy destroyer USS Cole was heavily damaged when a small boat loaded with explosives blew up alongside it. Seventeen sailors were killed in a deliber

A child can walk into a school library and check out a book containing the words you mention. The child can read the book aloud on a street corner with a megaphone. The child may print the words from the book on a poster and hang it on the side of a building. The child may make t-shirts and bumper stickers containing the words in the book and display these items in public. The local newspaper can even print a book review written by the child that quotes these words from the book. But if the child visits a radio or tv station and reads the book over the air, the FCC will fine the broadcaster a sum of possibly $275,000. Do you not see the draconian perception our government has of the broadcast media?

Mr Dreyfuss could probably pay these fines and call it the cost of doing business

Please note that the legislation pending intends to increase fines for broadcasters to $275,000 per violation of the indecency law. How many PBS stations are there? Can Dreyfus really afford that? I ask because I don't know how much money he has left from Jaws.

I haven't read the links yet, but I just have to point out that the U.S. government has a long history, particularly in the mid 20th century, of using humans as guinea pigs. In particular, see the Tuskegee Syphilis experiment, which took place between 1932 and 1972, and which basically allowed about 40 black men to die of syphilis so that doctors could study the effects of the disease, even after effective cures for it were known.

The US government was looking for Mengele until at least his death in 1979, but continued the aforementioned experiment on a group that it considered racially inferior until 1972. Amazing.

You can call it flaimbait but what Gojira has said here is true. means => ends not ends => means I personally would consider any help to such an organisation the same as aiding the PLO, IRA, Hezbollah, ELN or any of many other organisations

Even when its a freak right is right. (Gojira has me listed as a foe)

Correlation, not causation. The people who stood their own frail bodies in front of the tanks deserve a hell of a lot more praise than Reagan.

Woah there, youngbuck! That was Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China not Soviet Russia.

If the war in Iraq was truly about liberation, then any number of other sovereign states should've had priority.

Like...? I don't recall this ever being the sole purpose in going to Iraq.

If the war in Iraq was about "weapons of mass destruction", then we would've found some by now.

(1) There is a lot of sand in Iraq, which means a lot of hiding places. If you have ever lost anything in something as small as a beach, imagine the scale involved with a "beach" that is 167,924 square miles. (2) Saddam was not above "hiding" weapons (of any sort) in cemetaries and hospitals, so the number of places that one could expect to find anything pretty-much jumped to every square inch of the region. (3) Fox News and an ABC affiliate report on the fact that the United Nations found missile engines and other parts that were suited for the purpose of making WMDs in a scrap heap in Jordan. The source of all this metal? IRAQ.

If the war in Iraq was about "ties to al-qaeda", then we should've hit the Saudis first, 15 of the 19 highjackers on 9-11 were Saudis.

That's flawed reasoning. One should not condemn a nation based on the nationality of a criminal. Acting on a nation based on the actions of its Head of State is something quite different.

If the war was waged simply to procure cheap oil, then companies such as Haliburton would be clocking obscene profits in Iraq right now...

No, we'd be doing something to shut the mouths of people against drilling in the protected lands within the US. I agree that we should protect the land, so that environmental damage is minimized as much as possible, so don't think for a second that I'm in favor of drilling. By the same token, when the entire world is quite capable of watching the corporate goings-on (especially with regard to oil), I would hope that companies (like Haliburton) have the smarts to avoid doing something so blatently stupid. We all know, however, that not everyone thinks things through before acting...

Having said all this, I think that Moore has every right to think what he wants to think, and to make films based on these if that's how he wants to spend his time, even if it means people paying him for his extremist views. HOWEVER, for a pompous self-rightous man like him to put something like "Fahrenheit 9/11" in the same realm as a documentary when it offers absolutely no counter point is foolish and irrisponsible.

At least one person who should know agrees(*). If Moore was really so anxious about telling the truth (as he wants us to believe), I would like to see his take on the military prowress of Kerry, especially as it relates to Iraq.

* Link to http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/ doesn't seem to work through the preview...

I'd recommend going to see the film anyway. If you disagree with his presentation and style, then sure, you have a right to be upset with it. The information alone presented in the film is worth it. You'll learn a thing or two that are infuriating and fascinating, I know I did.

The Oscars have been a political platform for years. Marlon Brando in 1973 sent up a Native American girl who read a speech blasting Holly to accept his prize for him; Jane Fonda gave a black panther's salute in 1970. Even if Moore were to not use his time for politics, others inevitably will.

The thing to remember over all is that the film isn't about Moore, but it's about Bush. Regardless of how it's presented, the information in there is shocking. Go education!

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0825447.htm l

Not many Americans know about our testing with Syphilis and radiation. We all have our dirty little secrets.

What's your point?

This amount you're proposing isn't exactly small either, it's 56x56 kilometers, which is 3136 square kilometers, and 60 meters deep. The area along is over 1% of the area of the UK, or upwards of 3% the area of New Zealand.

I can see at the time I posted this that you've been smacked down as flamebait, but please, tell me how these numbers are reasonable.

With electronic voting, you should (in theory) get more accurate results, in less time, using fewer people. The paper verification means that if there is a dispute and a recount is called for, the option is available. However, you don't have to front that level of expenditure everywhere. It's much more efficient.

It's worth noting that in their national elections in 2000, Canada had 21 million voters and the US had 105 million. You can see why the US might be a little more obsessed with the cost and speed elements.

Last one I remember is Dunblane in 1996. 17 people were killed (although by an adult rather than other students). If This site on school sshootings is anything to go by, the chances of being shot at school do seem to be quite low wherever you are. Much lower than deaths caused by dustmites, for example.

As an aside, I think the US only has a population around 5 times that of Great Britain.

Actually, in 40 years, no generals, 3 lawyers. 17 of the 43 Presidents were governors, and only 3 of the 8 in the last 40 years were governors, so I would hardly say that's the trend.

To answer your political point, I would harther have a president who served without distinction, than one who served only to return to criticize his peers. Or to put it in terms you would understand, I would rather have someone who joined the reserves and did his time without incident (obviously since little records exist, he did nothing that drew attention to himself), than one who joined the military only to tell his fellow soldiers he had joined for political gain, who exited early under the 3 purple heart rule yet will not release any records explaining his injuries that led to the medals. And I wont even go into how he threw "his" awards away...

France paid $29.5B in 2002, while the US paid $399B. Who's safer?

I suppose the only consolation is that it could have been worse

Could have been worse? I'm actually impressed at how good it is (compared to the others). It's actually a great title. Too bad it's a ripoff of what is considered one of the best movies of all time: The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915 -- #44 on the AFI's top 100 list)

niggers + GRID = GNAA

the 4th CD consists of lots of languages (and nothing else) so most people can skip it

really, do most people speak english ?
me thinks 90 percent of the world cannot speak one word in English.

He slashed defense and ran away from every armed conflict around the world. He gave no response to bombings of the USS Cole, the World Trade Center (yes it was previously bombed in an attempt to take it down), Somalia, the US Barracks in Kenya etc, which taught the terrorists they could kill us without response, which of course landed us with September 11.

• USS Cole - The attack was Oct. 12, 2000. This bombing was staged by suicide bombers, so it is a tad bit difficult to find them after they blow themselves into fish bait. There has been an investigation and arrest of someone who may have been involved in planning of the attack. Also, George W. could have done something about this in Jan 2001 when he took over.
• World Trade Center Bombing - there was something called a TRIAL and conviction that took place. They are meant to determine innocence or guilt. It is part of what makes America a great place to live. Ask Bush about Guantanamo. BTW, the trial was only on the news about every day for a year, so I don't blame you for not knowing this.
• Somalia - Dude, didn't you watch Blackhawk Down?
• US Barracks in Kenya (I'm assuming you meant US embassies) - Again, there was a trial and conviction.
• which taught the terrorists they could kill us without response, which of course landed us with September 11 - Since there WAS a response to every single action you listed, I'll simply address your "of course landed us with Sep 11" as more stupidity. How can you singly blame a single individual who wasn't even in office for 9 months when the act occurred? The acts of Sep 11 were committed by TERRORISTS and we (America) didn't stop it.

He took a great economy handed to him and tanked it in his final 2 years. Pahleease. Don't you remember the recession were we in when George Bush Sr. was in office? Presidents don't affect the economy as much as people give them credit for.

Now let me address the last point, about the prisoner abuse and beheading of Nick Berg. I watched the video of Nick Berg being beheaded. It was slow and brutal. It was an innocent man being beheaded by other selfish men who used him as a pawn in their game. The beheading was meant to be horrible and cause terror. It was much worse than the prisoner abuse we have seen. HOWEVER, the people who beheaded Nick Berg were terrorists and we are a country that advocates life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have a constitution that forbids cruel and unusual punishment. We cannot use the actions of terrorists as justification for our mistakes. The terrorists do not set our moral standards. We do not live by their moral standards. The Iraqi prisoners were not even convicted yet. And, if they had been, they should still have not been treated like they were. Even if you don't agree the treatment was cruel it was certainly unusual. US Soldiers vow to uphold the constitution. The soldiers, commanders, and govt. officials who let this happen on their watch are just as bad as the terrorists who beheaded Nick Berg, because their job is to protect others. Terrorists kill others, so for them to behead someone is in their character.

Again, the beheading of Nick Berg was much more horrible than any prisoner abuse we have seen, but it is no excuse for our treatment of Iraqi prisoners.

Corrent except for the fact that Nobel created Dynamite not TNT. He also developed the blasting cap I think.

Correct nitroglycerin was a touch to volitile... but using clay to absorb the nitro. Unfortunatly during this time between the Civil war and WW-I much of the world was at peace so the only application of his invention construction, road / railroad building, minning and such.

Also see the Time line.

Apparently, the assignation of the patent to Microsoft was an error.

Well, we all know what a house of assignation the Patent Office has become lately, so it's no surprise to me that these sorts of things are going on!

Yeah! And what if the same crackpots who brought you homeopathy, a flat earth, creationism, phlogiston theory, alchemy and vitalism turn out to be right about the existance of magical dragons?-say it ain't so!!

To think that mere crackpottery is indicitive of actual evidence is a laughable lapse of judgement.

They also laughed at Bozo the clown, to paraphrase Carl Sagan.