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Governments (this time it's Russia) cannot allow competition on criminal activity. Governments are the only ones with the 'legal' (legal in quotes, anything governments do they see as legal) authority to any form of criminal activity. All that governments are is criminal activity. No individual is allowed to murder another individual, to steal, to kidnap. Governments do all those things and it's legal because they say it is.

I am going to translate some of the text from here:

Moscow, March 10th, INTERFAX.RU

Ministry of Finance has prepared a more strict set of rules that will be added to the criminal code. These rules will apply to issuance of fiat currencies (in TFA they call it 'currency surrogates'). Anybody issuing a 'currency surrogate' can be sent to prison for up to 4 years. For any top managers of banks or financial organisations the prison sentence can be up to 7 years and also a prohibition to work in certain top management positions in the future.

The previous version of the law was less strict in that it only would have sent a person to prison for up to 1 year maximum (or if somebody is a part to an organisation up to 2 years maximum) for any one of the following:
1. purchasing with the intent to sell,
2. selling of 'money surrogates'

According to the March rule changes, now for the same 'offence' the punishment will include a monetary fine of up to 500,000 rubles or an amount equal to the 3 years of salary or 3 years of any other income of the 'offender' or imprisonment of up to 4 years.

In case an individual acts as part of an organisation the prison sentence went up to 4 years. Also for an organisation (organized group) there is also a fine starting from 500,000 rubles up to 1,000,000 rubles or an amount equal to 2 - 4 years or salary or other income and a prison sentence of up to 6 years.

Also for top managers of a financial institution, a bank, an insurance company, a stock market, etc.), the penalties will be much heavier. They will face up to 7 years in prison and they will no longer be allowed to work in top management positions in certain companies (and government I suppose) and they will not be allowed to work in certain professions for a period of up to 3 years. They also may face a fine from 1,000,000 to 2,500,000 rubles or an amount equal to 2-4 years of their income.

Ministry of Finance considers usage of 'money surrogates' to be a proof of criminal activity by definition and by default.

Actually there is, in both, short version and full version Russian version and translated version

i noticed several caustic remarks that we (Russia i mean coz i'm russian) use Baikonur for our launches. Yeah, we sometimes use it, but we pay $115billions for using it and we rented it up to 2050 by the way (http://www.interfax.ru/r/B/politics/23.html?id_is sue=11652093/). And the second, more important. 80% of our commercial launches we execute from our own Plesetzk space centre. Though it's more difficult/expensive and less profitable. And as to our research programs: two days ago we started experiment to prepare for Mars expeditions. 5 volunteers will spend 500days in special isolated module fulfilling functional duties of participants in the Marsian expedition. (http://www.interfax.ru/r/B/politics/2.html?id_iss ue=11656172/)

i noticed several caustic remarks that we (Russia i mean coz i'm russian) use Baikonur for our launches. Yeah, we sometimes use it, but we pay $115billions for using it and we rented it up to 2050 by the way (http://www.interfax.ru/r/B/politics/23.html?id_is sue=11652093/). And the second, more important. 80% of our commercial launches we execute from our own Plesetzk space centre. Though it's more difficult/expensive and less profitable. And as to our research programs: two days ago we started experiment to prepare for Mars expeditions. 5 volunteers will spend 500days in special isolated module fulfilling functional duties of participants in the Marsian expedition. (http://www.interfax.ru/r/B/politics/2.html?id_iss ue=11656172/)

There is one "free" energy source. Thermonuclear fusion. Running fusion reactors for a hundred generations at full world energy capacity would lower the level of the oceans by 1mm. Again and again and again we come back to this in these conversations about future energy supplies. Fusion is the only realistic long term, clean and safe solution to the world's "constant on" high energy density and high power density needs. Yet even today we languish in pissing contests over where the first demonstration reactor will be built. Fusion is an extraordinarily difficult but ultimately solvable problem, and we will solve it. We have to solve it.

They're already starting to take over:
http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?menu=1&id_iss ue=5659510

I'm a very selective news junkie. For instance, I avidly follow Russian and Irish politics (I don't know why). The NYTimes(print) has excellent coverage of these, asa well as a wonderful weekly tech section, which is the other subject I avidly follow.
With the exception of newswires like InterFax, it seems to me that the only advantage the net has over print journalism is accessibility. My only othe online news source, besides /. and interfax, is The Irish Times, an online form of a print paper. But I find it much more comfortable to read from a printed page, and it seems that more care goes into newspapers than online new spots like Yahoo.

Also, to any NYTimes people reading this: Comics are a Good Thing. ;)
-Ravagin
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is NPR! And that means....it's time for a drum solo!"