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In 2004, Bush got a little over 28% of support (from people of voting age). Kerry got a little under 26.7%. (numbers from the first two sites on Google for "election voter turnout")

As you said, these numbers don't even reflect actual voter support: some (you and I presume large) fraction of these voters are only voting to keep the other guy out of office, making the support for the leader of the country miniscule at best.

Interesting statistics, just thought I'd post.

The failure is really in the voters, who stay away from the polling places in droves during non-presidential elections. True, there is occasional gerrymandering and other questionable practices, but, in the end, we get the politicians we deserve. Democracy is a gift wasted on so many Americans.

In the real world, there are about six acres of land per person. I.e. three people take up about eighteen acres of land (on average). This actually seems pretty accurate.

By contrast, New York City has about forty people per acre.

Of course, that's just land area. If you include water area, both those numbers would be lower.

Land area:
World: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0001763.html
NYC: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City

John Kerry got the second highest number of votes cast for any presidential candidate, ever. W got the highest number of votes ever (unless Diebold made up a bunch of votes). The 2004 election also had the highest voter participation in terms of percentage since 1968. This means that voter apathy did not keep voters away from the polls.

I'm not happy with the results of that election either, but the problem wasn't apathy. And since Kerry got 'the second highest...', you can't say that the Democrats did a poor job of motivating turnout among their base.

Why has America not gone after Saudi Arabia, where 9 of the hijackers were from? Why are our borders still porous?

Beats me, especially as Saudi Arabia has more oil than Iraq as does Iran (and Canada). Bush is so incompetent he can't even wage a war for oil properly. I was promised that Americans would be stealing "Iraqi" oil (no idea what exactly makes it "Iraqi" oil, as "property is theft"), and to this day, I haven't seen that happen to my satisfaction. I am also dissatisfied by the misuse of the American military, which is wasting most of its time in the cities (where there is no oil!) instead of securing the oil fields (out in the desert). They should have just secured the "Iraqi/Mesopotamian" oil fields; immediately afterwards, the American forces should have been split into three groups: 1) guard the "Iraqi" oil, 2) Go south, get the "Saudi" oil, 3) Go east, get the "Iranian/Persian" oil.

According to Marxist principles: "from each according to [oil capacity], to each according to [oil need]." Frankly, I don't recognize Muslim property rights to oil especially as they conquered almost all of the land they now hold, and then proceeded to ethnically cleanse their newly conquered land. How do you think Mesopotamia ("Iraq", the cradle of civilization) ended up 99.9% Muslim and Persia (Iran, strong Zoroastrian country) ended up 99.9% Muslim? And that doesn't even take into account that oil only has value because the West invented technology to make use of it, and that all oil is extracted using Western tech, and that before being nationalized, all those Middle Eastern oil fields were being operated by Westerners (since they were the only ones who had the tech and the need for oil).

Seriously, we need more vacation. If we got more vacation, we wouldn't need to slack off at work at all. We'd be rested enough to do our jobs. But we don't get nearly enough. We're not slacking - we're dog tired, burnt out, whatever you want to call it. Give us more time off and I'll bet productivity will go up more than enough to compensate.

And cut out PTO while you're at it. Only thing that does is lump your vacation days and your sick days together. It'd be a good idea if we got enough of them but we don't. So every time someone at the office gets the flu, they think "If I take sick days off I'm losing vacation days - and I want to go to the Bahamas this year" and come to the office anyways. And get everybody sick.

Stop treating time off like a loss to the company - it isn't. Healthy and happy workers make for a better company.

Um, not quite.

There are lots of other examples (this or this for instance)

Probably going to be an invisible AC but here goes...

In short, I think the country's gotten too large for most average citizens to be held accountable for the screwups attributed to our country and its leaders. Yes, holding us accountable as individuals is a great sound byte but it's just not that simple. While I have no idea where "Whiney Mac Fanboy" is actually from, I notice alot of the anti-US sentiment comes from European/Australian posters. Consider this, though: http://www.photius.com/wfb1999/rankings/population _0.html

The US, at over 270 million people (plus, what is it now, 11 million illegal invaders that are pandered to despite lack of voting rights), is the 4th most populous nation in the world. From the region of the world I mentioned above, our nearest comparisons are the Russians at 146 million, the Germans at 82 million, the british at 59 million and the French at 58 million. We outnumber the Russians nearly 2:1 and the other 3 combined by 70 million.

To take this a little further, the average asshat in the House is supposed to represent of 504000 Americans and the average troll in the Senate pretends to listen to almost 3 million. How exactly do you "take a stand" getting either of these people to do what you want them to do, even if there were no idiotic "free speech zones" or other such deliberate obstacles?

Look at it another way: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0004986.html

Supposing you were, say, a Pennsylvanian and you were sick of the trolls in Harrisburg looting your treasury. In simplest terms, a majority of only 6 million people could organize to overthrow them. Even through our current incredibly corrupt system (with a dismal ~15% attendance to boot), we managed to do just that last week, kicking over 2 dozen of them out in the south central part of the state and several were too afraid to even run for re-election at all (sorry, can't find an online source).

This is the basis for the states' rights arguement, that by having decisions locally, rather than hundreds or thousands of miles away in DC, those officials would be grounded in something closer to reality instead of the fantasy untouchable world they inhabit today. It's like the Internet jackass formular really; people drop all pretense of civility when they don't have to answer to anyone.

The best thing the US can do is to yank as much away from the federal government as possible, if not split into 50 individual nations. You will see alot of problems gets solved in a hurry, that's for sure. The only real (as in, not manufactured) concern I can come up with is national defense. Then again, if we bring home the National Guard...

My understanding is that the first virus ever in the wild was for apple computers.

This is an interesting timeline It lacks some details but gives an idea of importance virus played in history.

In 2002, diarrhea seems to be the6th leading cause of death world wide. The third leading cause in children under 5 (second if you discount children whom do not survive birth).

15 of the the top 20 most liveable counties are in the EU.
Most and Least Livable Countries: UN Human Development Index, 2005
see http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0778562.html

and skin cancer sucks

Compared to living in Australia, it's tempting because the EU has (my personal top 10 reasons):

• a richer cultural history ; I love the diversity
• The Prado, The Uffizi, The British Library, The Musee d'Orsay, etc etc etc
• the best horses and riding instructors
• the best skiing
• it's not an eternity to get anywhere interesting , vs. us stuck here at the arse-end bottom of the world.
• an EU bill of human rights, and a EU court that will enforce them over any individual state goverment
• signed up to Kyoto
• greater diversity and numbers of job opportunities for our kids
• politically about 20 years ahead of us, Green politics in particular.
• 15 of the the top 20 most liveable counties are in the EU.
  Most and Least Livable Countries: UN Human Development Index, 2005
  see http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0778562.html

• and skin cancer sucks
  http://www.cancer.org.au/content.cfm?randid=960742

Actually, only a small percentage of Americans voted for him. The problem is, most people did not, or were 'unable' to vote...

http://elections.gmu.edu/voter_turnout.htm

lookee here, 55 to 65% of americans elegible to vote, voted!, of those, bush got just over 50% and kerry 48%. I dont think anyone was suppressed, unless you think illegal immigrants and the like should be allowed to vote...granted most people who didnt vote just plain did not want to.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html
http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/a rchives/voting/004986.html
http://www.voterunlead.org/facts/voter_turnout_2 004_e.cfm

so what the HELL are you smoking?!

8 jqe3 y8j qh 9rr34 y3 d97oeh[5 43r7w3.
I made him an offer he couldnot refuse.

wow.That missing space almost threw me off.
Hey this ain't no ROT, you cheat.

Helful links:

http://www.infoplease.com/applets/xwordsearch.php
http://www.fizzl.net/projects/crypto/
http://www.mcld.co.uk/decipher/

There are 600 coal plants in the US, and they produced a total of 1,974 terrawatthours in 2003. The largest nuclear plant currently operating has a capacity of 1335 MW, or 11.69 terrawatthours under the unrealistic assumption that it operates 24x7 at full capacity. Replacing all coal plants would therefore require building 169 new nuclear plants, all as big as the largest currently operating in the US. The Palo Verde plant cost $5.9B to construct (in 1988 dollars), so the cost of building all these new nuclear plants would be about $1 trillion.

The enormous scale of the problem really makes SHUTTING DOWN coal plants anytime in the near future virtually impossible. I think the bottom line is that we can't continue to consume energy at the massive per capita levels we do now. People need to realize that there's so much we can do to drastically cut down the amount of energy (and materials, as a matter of fact) without meaningfully impacting our standard of living. If every adult in the US could find a way to save the power equivalent to lighting a single 60 watt bulb for one hour every day, that would save enough power to eliminate one coal plant. (1974 TWh / 600 plants / 150M people / 365 days = 60 Wh)

Well, you show me the people that had access to the wreckage afterwards, and who inspected it, and what they inspected it for. Put simply, if someone HAD inspected it, we wouldnt be talking about 'theories' of what caused the building to collapse. We would be looking at their emperical data and argueing over that.

Such things take rather a lot of setup to pull off

I guess it would be an advantage if your brother was a principal memeber of the board for the company that provided electronic security to the WTC towers...

But hey, why shouldnt I trust a government? Its not like they never lied about things before

That should take care of Diebold repair people, poll workers, and voters, leaving the country free to be be taken over by our future squirrel overlords.

I, for one, welcome our new squirrel overlords...

It is usually those who are safe on the shore who pity those drowning in the sea, but I suppose a starved of oxygen, delusional brain would hallucinate that it is the sea that is rising and subsequently try to send condolences to those on dry land. Making the spectacle of desperate thrashing about, whizzing lasts gasps and grasping at straws all the more pitiful.

I'd really like to apologize for the actions of the presidential administration that put you in this predicament.

That is of course a thing quintessentially American, and even more so Republican: to see yourself as the navel of the universe, as the only actors in the grand scheme of things and the rest of us as mere props for your stage theatrics. Coincidentally, an attitude indistinguishable from that of a 6-year old child. And equally as wise and realistic.

I'd really like to apologize for the actions of the presidential administration that put you in this predicament. If Polk had been a little more serious about "54'40 or fight" then ...

Then probably the White House would have burned down, again. Such is the nature of wars of conquest. They tend to turn on you. For more information see: Vietnam or Iraq.

you might not be stuck in a country where you spend 6 months of the year working to support the government and all its wonderful social programs

I am very happy here, but thank you for your deep concern for my money. That is so unbelievably kind of "conservatives" or "libertarians" to be always so graciously concerned about other people's, and in particular my, money. Such an altruistic, selfless attitude brings a tear to my eye.

Also, for your information, the taxation burden in Canada is below the average of all of the industrialised world, all of which, naturally, being not American, does not measure up to your standard of perfection: that of your own rear end. More curiously, the US, which you seem to imply being far superior in this regard for an average individual, is nearly indistinguishable from Canada. Funny things happen when you do not include billionaires and corporations in your statistics, don't they?

Add to this the fact that such a worker receives but a fraction of the services the Canadian government provides. But boy, has he got a shiny, gizmo-laden, whiz-bang army for his buck! Too bad that some bearded goofuses in towels with AK-47s and Victorian-era rifles have got it all bogged down in some place far away. It would seem that infinite, self-righteous, sanctimonious hubris has its downsides.

where the per capita GDP is only 3/4th that of your neighbor to the south

And curiously, Sweden, Norway, Luxembourg, Denmark and Iceland, all dens of socialist ways of thinking beat USA in this department handsomely. Perhaps our problem is that we are too much like the USA and not enough like Sweden or Iceland in our social and economic policies.

with a corresponding standard of living

Err...

and where you have to put up with snooty people who think they're still in France.

As opposed to snooty Americans in Alberta who think they're still in Texas?

Well...Polk might not have been able to do much about the quebecois,

That's quite unsurprising as he was not able to do much other then talk big. Which is quite typical of all those big-mouthed chickenhawks who you are so fond of over there.

but I'm reasonably sure that you'd be spared the embarrassment of calling your currency a "Loony."

That's a "loonie" as in "loon".

But don't f

"These are sufficiently serious problems that the fact that they happen at all is too common. I won't pretend that Canada has a perfect record in this regard -- but compared to the US we're orders of magnitude better. The only reference to a race riot in the 20th century in Canada that I could find was from 1933 (although I do wantt to note that there was a riot in Toronto in 1992 that coincided with the Rodney King riots in LA, it seemed more opportunistic and involved people of all races. It's hard to see what the motivation would be for it, considering Canada has no say over the laws, courts, or police forces of the United States. But who ever said a riot has to make sense?). "

Wow...I make a very innocent remark about Canada..and not one intended to put down Canada mind you...and you cunucks get your shorts all up in a wad. I guess that since Canada has less than a 2.5% black population and less than a 30% minority population overall (source: http://www40.statcan.ca/l01/cst01/demo52a.htm) and the United States having around 12% black population and 37% overall minority populations (source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0762156.html (2001)) makes them easy to compare. Not that it matters really what our different percentages are...but heck, our minority population alone constitutes almost four times your entire population. I hardly think you can compare Canada's racial issues with the United States. I am not excusing our race issues, but man..you took an innocent supposition about Canada and went all crazy with it.

Besides, I wasn't attacking Canada at all...I just thought that free speech would be protected, under and governed by the law. It evidently is..thanks for the info!

According to this German site, Toledo is the 4th largest city in Ohio. Columbus being the first, with Cleveland and Cincinnatti bringing up 2nd and 3rd. Toledo is actually the 57th biggest city in the US. more info

On the other hand, it is Ohio. It's all just one big small town. BTW, I've been living the past 15 years in Columbus so I can speak from experience. :)

wait wait wait! are you telling me that bush got a greater percentage of the popular vote that clinton ever did?

Distance from Shanghai to LA: 6438 miles.
Distance from Berlin to NYC: 3965 miles.
Source

And half the people inside the US know it too (not coincidentally, it's the same half who doesn't use Faux News as their sole source of information, and who voted against Bush).

Actually, only 27% of eligable voters turned out to vote against Bush: (122294978-62040610)/221256931 . 28% voted for him and 45% thought there was something better on TV.

So, if you want to be pedantic, 73% of the voting-aged population didn't care to vote him out of office.

And when the field is important, like software, or lets say healthcare, what then? Capitalism can't cure everything. When you get it to cure buggy software or america's high infant mortality rate (compared to places like Canada or Europe with Communist Care (tm)), please let us know.

I call shenannigans.

acoring to yahoo, boston has a population of 600,000 !!! thats not a small town thats a large city !!!

Boston is the 24th largest CITY in the USA !, thats not a small town

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0763098.html

Indeed. At least back to 1981 on the Apple II. Or "Elk Cloner" in 1982 according to wikipedia.

BY THE WAY: Here's a link. http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0873729.html

You'll notice the murder rate peaked in 1980, with some other highs in the 1970's, and is currently at about half the peak rate.

You'll ALSO notice that the peak years for homicide in this country were years in which there WERE NO REALISTIC VIDEO GAMES AVAILABLE.

Please explain how this affects your theories. :)

For extra credit: determine the conversion factor from Belgiums to Libraries of Congress.

I know there's a large contingent out there that believes the white male is an "oppressed" group in America due to affirmative action, Title IX, or other assorted anti-harassment and anti-discrimination laws or rules. I'm sure the strain must be unbearable...

I Am Not A Conspiracy Theorist (IANACT?) but there could be something more sinister at work here than some computer algorithm linking the social commentary of "The Planet of the Apes" with Martin Luther King's role in the civil rights struggle.

And speaking as an African American (and I don't get up on this soapbox often, folks), this was offensive and I am not amused.

Yes. It may also surprise you to know that many other countries consider themselves to be undercounting; I've read newspaper articles from several commenting on this (France, Germany, and Israel). In general, governments like to undercount because it makes them look good.

Close to funny but you should have made a change to it.
Puerto Rico is a US territory so no surprise
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0113949.html
You should have put in the UK. That would have been more funny and got a better response...

Tuesday, Dec. 12--The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bush v. Gore 7-2 to reverse the Florida Supreme Court, which had ordered manual recounts in certain counties. The Court contends that the recount was not treating all ballots equally, and was thus a violation of the Constitution's equal protection and due process guarantees. The Supreme Court of Florida would be required to set up new voting standards and carry them out in a recount. The justices, however, split 5-4 along partisan lines about implementing a remedy. Five justices maintain that this process and the recount must adhere to the official deadline for certifying electoral college votes: midnight, Dec. 12; other justices question the importance of this date. Since the Court makes its ruling just hours before the deadline, it in effect ensures that it is too late for a recount. The decision generates enormous controversy. Those objecting to the ruling assert that the Supreme Court, and not the electorate, has effectively determined the outcome of the presidential election. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes in a scathing dissent, "the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.

The first thing which strikes our attention is, that the executive authority, with few exceptions, is to be vested in a single magistrate. This will scarcely, however, be considered as a point upon which any comparison can be grounded; for if, in this particular, there be a resemblance to the king of Great Britain, there is not less a resemblance to the Grand Seignior, to the khan of Tartary, to the Man of the Seven Mountains, or to the governor of New York.
The President of the United States would be liable to be impeached, tried, and, upon conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes or misdemeanors, removed from office; and would afterwards be liable to prosecution and punishment in the ordinary course of law. The person of the king of Great Britain is sacred and inviolable; there is no constitutional tribunal to which he is amenable; no punishment to which he can be subjected without involving the crisis of a national revolution. In this delicate and important circumstance of personal responsibility, the President of Confederated America would stand upon no better ground than a governor of New York, and upon worse ground than the governors of Maryland and Delaware.

The precautions for their responsibility are comprised in the article respecting impeachments. They are liable to be impeached for malconduct by the House of Representatives, and tried by the Senate; and, if convicted, may be dismissed from office, and disqualified for holding any other. This is the only provision on the point which is consistent with the necessary independence of the judicial character, and is the only one which we find in our own Constitution in respect to our own judges.

So first they took away our call centers... Then they took away our IT jobs... Now they're taking our priviledge to test dangerous drugs on the poor and destitute?

Are you kidding? Americans are the world leaders in testing drugs on the "poor and destitute", in fact I'm sure there is an RFC somewhere out there concerning The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment. If you didn't know... now you do!

"I don't think they can visit 100,000 people"

They'll be very easy to visit once they've all been rounded up...

http://www.infoplease.com/spot/internment1.html

120,000 Japanese Americans were rounded up in 1942 so I'll bet with todays technology rounding up 100,000 commies would be childs play.

Its a sad state of affairs considering there are serious threats to our lives and liberty here in the States, and it appears that sometimes the threat is ourselves. What I find intriguing is that a book on communism is on a watch list for Homeland Security, is communism truely a threat to our internal security, aren't these guys supposed to be going after terrorist threats?

burnin

Tuesday, Dec. 12--The U.S. Supreme Court rules in Bush v. Gore 7-2 to reverse the Florida Supreme Court, which had ordered manual recounts in certain counties. The Court contends that the recount was not treating all ballots equally, and was thus a violation of the Constitution's equal protection and due process guarantees. The Supreme Court of Florida would be required to set up new voting standards and carry them out in a recount. The justices, however, split 5-4 along partisan lines about implementing a remedy. Five justices maintain that this process and the recount must adhere to the official deadline for certifying electoral college votes: midnight, Dec. 12; other justices question the importance of this date. Since the Court makes its ruling just hours before the deadline, it in effect ensures that it is too late for a recount. The decision generates enormous controversy. Those objecting to the ruling assert that the Supreme Court, and not the electorate, has effectively determined the outcome of the presidential election. As Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes in a scathing dissent, "the Court's conclusion that a constitutionally adequate recount is impractical is a prophecy the Court's own judgment will not allow to be tested. Such an untested prophecy should not decide the Presidency of the United States.

Yes, clearly in 1938 the Nuremberg Laws, the forced sterilization of Gypsies and the handicapped, the re-armament of the Rhineland, the outright assassination of political opponen...

That was normal then. Here in the US we had the Jim Crow laws that were revoked in 1964. In South Africa, there was apartheid that lasted until very recently. Also, the US government experimented on syphilis on black people for 40 years. If you know anything about syphilis, you can appreciate the injustice here.

The Germans and the US were in a bad depression and would do anything to get out of it. The Germans took it out on non-Germans and started remaking the map of Europe. Its common for a group of people that are stressed to get tight and nationalistic and take out scapegoats. Look at the US during WWI, WWII, and after the 9/11/01 terrorist attacks. Flags a waving, and a desire to go and kill the bad guy. The people in the US used conquering Japan and Germany to get out of their depression, just like Germans followed Hitler to get out of theirs. The US has never, and apparently will never have an "enemy". Look at pro "wrestling", they were first Nazi's, then Russians and Iranians, I guess now they are terrorists (don't watch it).

He wasn't some fairytale poster boy who just randomly went bad; though I've never read it, I understand that the size of his ambition is evident in Mein Kampf, written long before 1938.

I'll be sure to never mention his name again. Its just a bad thing. Mein Kamph was written during his 8 month jail sentence for the '23 attempt to take over Germany.

No, he is no more of a fairytale poster boy than anybody. He was basically given permission to do what he wanted by millions of people.

Humans by definition are created by other humans. All of them. The good and the bad. If any human is not in contact with others they don't walk upright, they do not and cannot learn to speak, they surely will not ever rule a country. Hitler is a black eye on almost everybody's face.

Indeed. It's not even the largest skyscraper, compare it to the Sears Tower. The Taipei 101 may have a little observation deck that's up higher (as well as an "architectural spire" for added height), but the Sears Tower is a dramatically larger building. For that matter, the profile doesn't even do it justice, because the Sears Tower is square, while the Taipei 101 is round.

I'm not trying to 'prove a rule by using one person.' I'm saying that you're using an odd definition of 'introvert' and giving an example of how an introvert who I've known would assert their superiority, for illustrative purposes.

from http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/sci/A0818058.html

The extrovert is characteristically the active person who is most content when surrounded by people; carried to the neurotic extreme such behavior appears to constitute an irrational flight into society, where the extrovert's feelings are acted out. The introvert, on the other hand, is normally a contemplative individual who enjoys solitude and the inner life of ideas and the imagination. The extreme introvert's fantasies give him or her libidinal satisfactions and tend to become more meaningful to him than objective reality.

(Note that Jung, who invented the 'introvert' and 'extravert' (sic) labels uses the term 'libidinal' in a generic nonsexual sense, inconsistant with the mainstream Fruedian definition)

So the notion that an introvert would be passionate about the superiority of one idea over another or one thinker over another, including their own ideas, is exactly consistant with the definition of introversion. You don't think that there are some very introverted people who compete academically and intellectually and are proud of their success? It would be uncharacteristic of an introvert to run out and tell the world about their successes. It would not be uncharacteristic for them to tell an associate in a one-on-one environment, or similar controlled situation.

Introverts can be quite social in one-on-one situations or small groups of close friends. And they can be just as arrogant as extroverts.

Canada is not a socialist country and it has a pretty damn good economy. Here is a graph of the Toronto Stock Exchange vs. the S&P500. By your metric, if Canada is Socialist then almost every western country other than the US must be too. Checkout The Economist's factsheet for Canada. Also, Canada has the second largest oil reserves in the world.

It is not the case that you go from the highly bay area safe streets onto the highly dangerous BART system. If you follow the news, there are pleny of murders in Richmond, Oakland, San Leandro, and San Francisco.

I travel weekly to the Bay Area and I keep up on the news to get an idea of where not to hang around.

There was a BART employee stabbed recently. A while ago, in San Leandro, there was someone shooting people driving down the freeway.

In 2003, Richmond had 35 homicides. Berkeley had 5 homicides. Oakland usually has around 80 a year.

On this web site,
Richmond is listed as the 12th most dangerous city. Oakland is 24th.

I did e.g.

http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0844878.htm l

"The act, based on the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce, declared illegal every contract, combination (in the form of trust or otherwise), or conspiracy in restraint of interstate and foreign trade"

So if I sell my software and get a 95% market share, that is not in itself illegal, but tying agreements are if you are declared a monopoly. The interesting thing is, they are not illegal as far as I can see until then. So I can offer my customers the most restrictive contracts possible and get a massive market share, but then once I'm declared an abusive monopoly, they become illegal. Which is the situation Microsoft is in.

The article incorrectly reports the name of the High School. It's named after Pope John the 23rd of Vatican II fame, not the John XIII.

I regard the school's actions as ludicrous.

Most countries in the world have official languages. Just because a language is the official one doesn't mean every citizen must speak it.

Also, I don't understand how this particularly helps keep the milk fresh, as the usual problem is bacteria entering your milk after you break the seal, isn't it?

The winner-takes-all nature of the American political system makes it almost impossible for third parties to get anywhere even if they do have money. Whether that's a feature or a bug is arguable.

Well, look, I just can say that the system don't work since 1876, they could have changed it by the time ? And it seems to me that the original system (1789-1800) was more democratic (not by the numbers, but by the constitution article).

I already did a post about that in June.

Voting methods like Schulze method used by Debian is better, but quite impractical for a large number of voters.

Two-turns elections like practiced in France for presidential elections seems to me a quite good compromise.

100 years ago, most kids were getting married around age 15

depending on where you lived, kids were getting married a few years younger than that.

Dying at 30 moves things along little faster.

Umm, very few people died at 30. 30 was the mean age of a bell-shaped curve. Lots of deaths when very young (less than 10) plus lots of deaths when very old (over 60) meant that the mean average of ~30 was useless as a statistical measurement.

A better explanation can be found here. Note that while in 1850, the mean average life expectancy for newborn white males is 38, but for 10 year olds, it's 58. This doesn't mean that most of them died when they were 38, it means that most died before they were 10, and the majority of people who lived beyond that made it to 60.

The nation had few taxes in its early history. From 1791 to 1802, the United States government was supported by internal taxes on distilled spirits, carriages, refined sugar, tobacco and snuff, property sold at auction, corporate bonds, and slaves. The high cost of the War of 1812 brought about the nation's first sales taxes on gold, silverware, jewelry, and watches. In 1817, however, Congress did away with all internal taxes, relying on tariffs on imported goods to provide sufficient funds for running the government.

In 1862, in order to support the Civil War effort, Congress enacted the nation's first income tax law. Those with incomes of more than $10,000 paid taxes at a higher rate (I read $10,000 as wealthy).

In 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent fixture in the U.S. tax system. The amendment gave Congress legal authority to tax income and resulted in a revenue law that taxed incomes of both individuals and corporations.

Taxes increased usually during time of war. But, at the start, I don't see any taxes that affected the wages of the average working man until 1862 and those were very low (I'm thinking they were mostly on property)-- do you have any links for that?
So, about 110 years until we had even a basic income tax. Read it here; http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005921.html/
Most of the taxes were tariffs on imported goods and the rest were on sales of luxury items like tobacco and booze. Pretty much opposite of the "free trade" advocates. Now there might be something to the economic theories of "efficiencies" -- that country X can specialize and produce Y product cheaper, thus allowing America to produce a lot of Z. Once we exported simple manufacturing and low tech labor -- maybe that makes some sense. But now outsource everything. But where really does this efficiency come from? We export raw timber out of the US to Canada, on roads that taxpayers built and we charge almost nothing from the timber industry. Then we buy the imported cabinets that might be only a few dollars cheaper than if they were local -- but we got none of the labor wages. And this is only feasible because fuel is almost subsidized. And we do this now with cars and airplanes and parts are shipped here and there -- wherever 10 pennies can be shaved in cost of production. But how much do we lose in money that could have gone to an American worker? How much do we lose in technology and know how? There is more than just raw costs of goods -- but those issues don't matter to the business that wants to make a profit. They would matter to a government that wanted to look out for the welfare of its citizens -- but we don't have that government. If they can rob a dollar from everyone so that a few can get more wealthy -- then that is what you are going to get "told" is the smart thing to do. You aren't privy to the back room meetings that come up with these trade schemes or the Banking Reform Bills. You don't really have an advocacy involved -- other than, someone in the room saying; "what can we get away with?" Also helped now by a corporate media that shills for these schemes.

I also don't think the founding fathers were perfect, untouched by greed or omniscient so all things can change -- for better or worse. I'm just asking people to realize that wages, and sales taxes on Non-luxury items is NOT the best way to do things. Let a business hire an accountant. Why does someone making $60k have to go to H&R Block and spend $400 to figure out what they owe the government when most of them don't even have a retirement plan? I've found that when I made less money -- I was actually working harder. So I don't think that is fair or even good for me -- even though I might make a lot more than that to make people who provide labor for this country to also have to provide a tax base for the government that more and more just creates infrastructure for businesses and the well to do.

If we got most tax revenue

Experience is fundamental.

Let's have some facts please. How has a lack of judicial experience affected previous justices? There are an abundance of justices with no judicial experience, so you should be able to point out all sorts of related flaws. Since you hold this opinion, I'm sure that you already have specific examples in mind.

That is why, in his first term, Bush selected Democratic senators to join his cabinet. He was able to say "look i am not partisan, i want to unite everyone" AND remove a democrat from the senate.

Who are you refering to? The only Democrat Senator in Bush's first cabinet was Norm Mineta, and he had already retired from Congress.

A useful summary from several sources for the US is given here. The life expectancy for a white male turning 65 in 1940 was (by interpolation) just about 12.25. The life expectancy for a white male turning 65 in 2005 would be (by interpolation and extrapolation) about 17.25. So this year's 65-year-old can expect to make it to 82. But 1940's 65-year-old could expect to make it to 77, which surprises a lot of people. The bigger difference between then and now was the fraction of the cohort that made it to 65. I would be surprised if the UK case was really that different -- can you provide a pointer to the study you mention?