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You mean the one that murdered the men, women and children at Waco and Ruby Ridge? Or the one that shot down twa flight 800 and covered it up? Or maybe the one that still arrests people for marijuana possesion in states that have decriminalized/legalized it for medical use? Umm, maybe you mean the one that invented the "incident" in the Gulf of Tonkin to drag us into the vietnam war? Or the one that let the FBI infiltrate protest groups in the '60s, subverting their rights to free speach? Wait, you mean the government that setup this phony war in Afghanistan, so we can build an oil pipline?

You talk about the loss of rights under the constitution. You must not have read the PATRIOT act, which schreds what little there was left of the bill of rights. With its passage you lose the right to trial by jury, the right to be free from illegal searches and seisures, the right to confront your accusor in court, and the right to criticize the government.

Heres an idea for you, turn off MSNBC/CNN/Fox News and look at some news sources that aren't run by and for the government propaganda machine.

Personally, I hope to be ready when the rest of America wakes up and decides its time to throw off the chains we've put ourselves in.

Use of Indonesian soldiers to provide "security" at the Nikomas Factory in Indonesia
Members of the Indonesian army are frequently employed as "security" in factories in Indonesia during periods of industrial unrest to prevent industrial action. In September 1999 a US student delegation observed Indonesian soldiers stationed at the Nikomas factory at a time when wage negotiations were being conducted. Following the publicity the issue received the soldiers were replaced by non-military security (police and security guards) who were playing an appropriate role. Subsequently however, during peaceful strike action by workers at PT Nikomas, police from Brimob (an armed police brigade) equipped with guns entered the factory and together with factory security guards and hired civilians they threatened and provoked workers. We repeat our call for Nike to ensure that Indonesia's armed forces are never called in to prevent or interfere with peaceful industrial action.

You go on to say: and, a little note: they hate us because we're the rich, good-looking kid on the playground who is smart enough not to give his lunch away everyday to the kids who are too stupid to find their own money.

Again, I feel I must correct you: they hate us because we are a genocidal nation of gun-crazy psychopaths and lunatics.

And it's long been hold that mere listings of information, like a PHONE DIRECTORY, can't be copyrighted (but a particular expression can), so you can retypeset the white pages and bind them with your proprietary yellow pages.

Here's some information about this.

Of course, Slashdot readers don't usually let the truth get in the way of a good story. They just like to sit home, hug their Macintoshes and Linux machines, and chuckle to their fat selves.

GSM phones work at two frequencies - 900MHz and 1800MHz (the US is 1900MHz). There was a large analog infrastructure, but this has gone (or will be gone very shortly). The reasons for this have been rehashed here several times, but in the UK the caller pays for the call which has lead to something like >80% of the population with a mobile. Mobile numbers are obviously mobile numbers too - in the UK they start with 07, compared to 01 or 02 for land lines, and 08 and 09 for special rates (from free to expensive). In the US I believe that the owner of the cellphone has to pay a proportion if people call. I know the reasons, but it always comes as a surprise to Europeans when they find this out.

Ah! Yes, I knew about the call-ee pays (and in fact that land line costs are normally per call too right? it is normaly "free" in a "local calling area" here). I just hadn't really thought much about it. Of corse that would make cell phones more popular.

Yes, most cell phones here cost the person with the cell phone. There are exceptions, many systems now have the "first incoming minute free" (Sprint). Some do incoming calls free (NexTel -- maybe only with some plans). Most do cost though.

I also didn't know about all mobile numbers starting with 07. I'm not sure how important that is, but it is interesting.

TV in the UK is available in widescreen (if you get digital signals via satellite or cable). I don't know if that is the case in the US.

Not really, there are a few HDTV stations (on-air in some places, on digital satellite for HBO, and I think Showtime). HDTV sets are not popular though. Nor are "normal" widescreen sets (which are mostly used for DVDs). There are "widescreen" broadcasts of shows on HBO, but they are normal NTSC broadcasts with black bars (-- including Band of Brothers, my TiVo is set already...)

Our pubs are infinitely more advanced, and so is the beer. How do you drink that stuff over there?

I don't. At least not the mass market crap. The microbrews are pretty good though (some local restaurants and pubs brew their own). Even some of the "mass market microbrews" aren't bad. None of the mass market "microbrew" stuff was as nice as the the warm ale from the pubs the locally brewed stuff is as good as what I had in the UK (but not better).

Plus sometimes I visit places that stock wonderful imports.

Ok--now go read about the deaths of 80 innocent civilians in their own homes at the hands of US Defense and the FBI in 1993; read how the United States is the world leader in incarceration, with many of the jailed being casualties of the War on Drugs; read about the victims of racial profiling in the US ("Driving while black"); read about prison labour in the United States; or police brutality; perhaps even the many violations of international law by the United States.

Go read all of those links (and while you're at it, brush up on your history; for instance, slavery in the United States), and come back and tell me that you welcome the US as a power any more than China. Take off your rose-coloured US-media-manipulated glasses, and realize that America is as affected by propaganda convincing its citizens that their country faultless as China is.

We're getting that much closer to Neal Stephenson's The Diamond Age where we have clouds of microscopic, lighter-than-air robots that serve as defense/attack systems. Pretty soon someone will engineer these bots into "smart bugs" -- eavesdropping devices that move around, making them harder to find.

A "good christian mother" drives her car into a lake and kills her children, including an infant.

Middle-aged day-trader shoots up an office center.

More than half of marriages do not last.

Decades of enslavement of an entire race in America.

Decades of spousal and child abuse in America.

Blow jobs in the white house by an intern, with a married president.

And it's the VIDEOGAMES that are causing moral panic?! Holy shit . . . Talk about blind

Today, it isn't the government, but corporations with far more power filtering.

You don't believe the government of These United States uses censorship? Then check out this Electronic Museum.

No.

It's that simple.

As one small part of the reason the answer is "NO", consider the ratings the US Government would put on the following, assuming equal violence, etc:

Our Heroic Merikin Troops Kick The Ass Of The Target Of Today's Five-Minute Hate

Rated G. In fact, all loyal citizens should set their browsers to start here. You are loyal, aren't you...?

Quadruple XXXX!! Nein Nein Nein!! Anyone viewing this has been infected by dangerous crimethink and needs to be placed under guard for the good of society!!!!