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Actually ... I did some research on this just to confirm that the USA is the #1 as far as first world countries go (I thought that maybe Australia, Canada or New Zealand might be contenders, too). But instead, I found this:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro-environment-areas-under-protection

Nationmaster is fairly accurate as far as I know.

The per-capita statistic is fairly interesting, too:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro_percap-areas-under-protection-per-capita

Pretty much all of them. Unless your going to claim a normal gas released by the act of humans breathing is something toxic, but look at who puts the most effort in it?

Um ... carbon dioxide ? That's fairly toxic. Concentrations above 7% in the inhaled air will kill in a matter of minutes. That's very easy to verify and even less disputed than it being a greenhouse gas.

The US has given Europe money to help clean their shit up in the past.

For example ... ?

Yep, you have different numbers then I do. Maybe a cite would be worth it.

Here, for example:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_une-labor-unemployment

That these numbers aren't pulled out of someone's ass can be cross-checked:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Zeitreihen/WirtschaftAktuell/Arbeitsmarkt/Content75/arb422a,templateId=renderPrint.psml

And most of that gain seems to be attributed to a negetive population growth.

I would contest that. The people who die aren't in the unemployment statistics anymore. In fact, the number of people who do have a job has increased:

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerbstaetige/Tabellen/Content50/InlaenderInlandskonzept,templateId=renderPrint.psml

They have done this by wrecking their economy and not growing as a population.

I hardly consider the economy over here wrecked. And about the growing thing, well, what's the government supposed to do about that ? Give people money for reproducing ? They're doing exactly that, and it's not working. And they can't exactly force people to have kids.

Ask yourself why the supposed answers that are going to fix the Problem seem to be more about giving money to poor countries then fixing the problem.

So that the "rich" countries realize that Earths atmosphere is not their personal dumping ground ? Because once it costs money to do so, they might get off their asses and start working on long-term solutions ?

But after you do, then ask yourself why, if this is a global problem and it is so bad that we need to force every country to work on fixing it even though only 37 or so of the 158 countries signed on to the Kyoto protocol have emissions limits imposed on them while it is being toughed as the FIX for Global warming, but seriously, ask yourself this important question and tell me wh

Actually ... I did some research on this just to confirm that the USA is the #1 as far as first world countries go (I thought that maybe Australia, Canada or New Zealand might be contenders, too). But instead, I found this:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro-environment-areas-under-protection

Nationmaster is fairly accurate as far as I know.

The per-capita statistic is fairly interesting, too:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro_percap-areas-under-protection-per-capita

Pretty much all of them. Unless your going to claim a normal gas released by the act of humans breathing is something toxic, but look at who puts the most effort in it?

Um ... carbon dioxide ? That's fairly toxic. Concentrations above 7% in the inhaled air will kill in a matter of minutes. That's very easy to verify and even less disputed than it being a greenhouse gas.

The US has given Europe money to help clean their shit up in the past.

For example ... ?

Yep, you have different numbers then I do. Maybe a cite would be worth it.

Here, for example:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_une-labor-unemployment

That these numbers aren't pulled out of someone's ass can be cross-checked:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Zeitreihen/WirtschaftAktuell/Arbeitsmarkt/Content75/arb422a,templateId=renderPrint.psml

And most of that gain seems to be attributed to a negetive population growth.

I would contest that. The people who die aren't in the unemployment statistics anymore. In fact, the number of people who do have a job has increased:

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerbstaetige/Tabellen/Content50/InlaenderInlandskonzept,templateId=renderPrint.psml

They have done this by wrecking their economy and not growing as a population.

I hardly consider the economy over here wrecked. And about the growing thing, well, what's the government supposed to do about that ? Give people money for reproducing ? They're doing exactly that, and it's not working. And they can't exactly force people to have kids.

Ask yourself why the supposed answers that are going to fix the Problem seem to be more about giving money to poor countries then fixing the problem.

So that the "rich" countries realize that Earths atmosphere is not their personal dumping ground ? Because once it costs money to do so, they might get off their asses and start working on long-term solutions ?

But after you do, then ask yourself why, if this is a global problem and it is so bad that we need to force every country to work on fixing it even though only 37 or so of the 158 countries signed on to the Kyoto protocol have emissions limits imposed on them while it is being toughed as the FIX for Global warming, but seriously, ask yourself this important question and tell me wh

Actually ... I did some research on this just to confirm that the USA is the #1 as far as first world countries go (I thought that maybe Australia, Canada or New Zealand might be contenders, too). But instead, I found this:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro-environment-areas-under-protection

Nationmaster is fairly accurate as far as I know.

The per-capita statistic is fairly interesting, too:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/env_are_und_pro_percap-areas-under-protection-per-capita

Pretty much all of them. Unless your going to claim a normal gas released by the act of humans breathing is something toxic, but look at who puts the most effort in it?

Um ... carbon dioxide ? That's fairly toxic. Concentrations above 7% in the inhaled air will kill in a matter of minutes. That's very easy to verify and even less disputed than it being a greenhouse gas.

The US has given Europe money to help clean their shit up in the past.

For example ... ?

Yep, you have different numbers then I do. Maybe a cite would be worth it.

Here, for example:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_une-labor-unemployment

That these numbers aren't pulled out of someone's ass can be cross-checked:

http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Zeitreihen/WirtschaftAktuell/Arbeitsmarkt/Content75/arb422a,templateId=renderPrint.psml

And most of that gain seems to be attributed to a negetive population growth.

I would contest that. The people who die aren't in the unemployment statistics anymore. In fact, the number of people who do have a job has increased:

http://www.destatis.de/jetspeed/portal/cms/Sites/destatis/Internet/DE/Content/Statistiken/Arbeitsmarkt/Erwerbstaetige/Tabellen/Content50/InlaenderInlandskonzept,templateId=renderPrint.psml

They have done this by wrecking their economy and not growing as a population.

I hardly consider the economy over here wrecked. And about the growing thing, well, what's the government supposed to do about that ? Give people money for reproducing ? They're doing exactly that, and it's not working. And they can't exactly force people to have kids.

Ask yourself why the supposed answers that are going to fix the Problem seem to be more about giving money to poor countries then fixing the problem.

So that the "rich" countries realize that Earths atmosphere is not their personal dumping ground ? Because once it costs money to do so, they might get off their asses and start working on long-term solutions ?

But after you do, then ask yourself why, if this is a global problem and it is so bad that we need to force every country to work on fixing it even though only 37 or so of the 158 countries signed on to the Kyoto protocol have emissions limits imposed on them while it is being toughed as the FIX for Global warming, but seriously, ask yourself this important question and tell me wh

Where are you facts to back up Finland has a higher divorce rate than the US? I googled and could find stats pointing in both directions. Here's one for the US:

US Divorce rate!

"countries that have more liberal rules about drug usage than we do haven't seen these epidemics occur. Do they have drug addicts? Sure... on parlance with us, or even less"

hmmm

switzerland is pretty liberal on drug policy

and will ya look at that...

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_dru_off-crime-drug-offences

No, daughters with hidden guns fix rapists and muggers. Oh, that's right - rapes don't happen Down Under

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap-crime-rapes-per-capita

Hmmm - looks like Australian girls should be carrying MORE guns, not fewer. Oh, that's right, they aren't allowed to. That's OK - just close your eyes and think of England, honey.

I am from holland and we got the SAME crime rate as the US when you stop and think. You got to look at the crimes that are crimes in BOTH countries, murder rate, same.

Petty crimes, same.

Canada also has a national debt - about 40% of GDP as I understand.

According to NationMaster, the level of the US public debt is around the same level as that of Austria, France, Canada, Germany, and Portugal, around 65% of the GDP, give or take. These numbers are across different years, but are probably still accurate to within a reasonable degree.

Looking elsewhere, the deficit for FY2007 came in much smaller than predicted at $163 billion, about 1.2% of the GDP for the country. Comparing this to the deficits run by several European countries, such as France (2.5%), Germany (1.7%), and Austria (1.4%), it's not that bad (though it should be a mild surplus). The next year should prove interesting to watch, though, as various financial issues may hit tax revenues. We shall see.

California would be the 8th country in GDP so what it does has more impact than the vast majority of other countries. And for good or bad the US can claim California.

All this is immaterial, it wasn't an assertion which was core to my point (I'm not sure it was an assertion at all). My point is that there are people who forsake education because they are convinced that they will hit it big in either the lottery, or with a music contract, or with a sports scholarship. For some of these people who demonstrate no natural phenomenal talent in music or sports, the odds are basically zero that they will land a contract.

But anyway:
There are many types of lottery, and some of them have chances which are substantially better (but of course the payoff is also substantially lower too). Instant scratch cards, pick 3, pick 4, etc.

You get one shot at the pro's in your life, and pro positions only open a fraction of the total per year since most pro athletes are in their position for numerous years. Ignoring this though, and assuming your figures (which by your own admission also ignore factors like non-US-origin players), something is off in your calculations. 1400 / 301,139,947 = 4.65e-6

Meanwhile you can play the lottery hundreds of times a year. Let's assume that you play only 100 times per year for 10 years. This is a VERY generous assumption for those who are looking at it as an escape; the reality is that some such people will play 20-30 times per DAY, basically every spare dollar they have: as it was described to me by one individual, if they are going to make it work, they have to give it everything they have since it won't matter once they win anyway (note the assumption that they *will* win, and it is only a matter of trying hard enough - at the lottery). You're actually looking at .00629 chance of winning the lottery by your figures (or 6.29e-3). To use real figures, Power Ball, the multi-state lottery in my area which sports the biggest payouts (and hence the worst odds) has a chance of winning of 1 in 146,107,962. That's to say that continuing the same generous assumption as before about the number of plays over a life for people in the demographic I'm describing, this comes out to 6.84e-6, for the best payout for the worst lottery odds of which I am aware.

maybe because the education system is not as good as other developed/ing countries?


Yeah, that's why we win all those Nobel Prizes and have so many of the top universities. Because our education system is bad.

Try again.

P.S. English is written with both upper and lower case letters. Perhaps your superior education didn't include that nuance?

And the idea that we're somehow better than our pets, and they would eat us if circumstances were different?

I have a couple of friends that own a rabbit. And I get rabbits in my back yard. They're cute enough, but I know I'm just a couple of missed meals away from looking at any rabbit and thinking "lunch".

Pets are a lot more faithful than people are to other people. And it's not as though the pets got to choose who they decided to spend their lives with.

===

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." -- (Einstein)

"We are a brutal kind." -- The Shins, So Says I.

>So why the drug users use those drugs again and again and again?

For the same reason you do anything you enjoy more than once. It's fun.

>Using such drugs for 'recreational' purposes is the stupidest (and quite damaging) way of recreation, if you ask me.

Are they more damaging than skateboarding or skiing, or riding a bike? Point being, that however you decide to have fun is going to have some risks.

>So why the drug users use those drugs again and again and again?

For the same reason you do anything you enjoy more than once. It's fun.

>Using such drugs for 'recreational' purposes is the stupidest (and quite damaging) way of recreation, if you ask me.

Are they more damaging than skateboarding or skiing, or riding a bike? Point being, that however you decide to have fun is going to have some risks.

No. No, "we" don't.

The United States of America has the highest incarceration rate per. capita. By a hell of a margin, too.

execute doesn't mean the same thing as incarcerate.

True. How nice that the United States at least waits until the person turns 18 before they execute them. Highly civilized. Pat yourself on the back.

Statistics please, your assumption that everyone in Europe is mediocre with all the clever ones going to the USA, is just... well speculation.
I am tempted to go live in the states (rather than the Uk). why?
the dollar is so weak.
I sell on-line, so i get paid in dollars, and the dollar is so weak in Europe it badly affects my income.
I wonder how many other people are making the move on the same basis. Nothing to do with the the US as a place to live, just a wise currency move. in fact, I'd really miss our state health service, which is one reason I'm still here.

also Ireland has net immigration:

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_net_mig_rat- immigration-net-migration-rate

which seems to be higher than the USA. Luxembourg and Portugal also beat the USA in terms of net migration.

well lets consult the stats: (just adding some data to the discussion)
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/imm_imm_to_the_u ni_sta_ori_2004-immigration-united-states-origin-2 004
this is where people new to the USA came from in 2004:

#1 Mexico: 8,544,600
#2 China: 1,594,600
#3 Philippines:1,413,200
#4 India: 1,244,200
#5 Cuba: 1,011,200
#6 Ireland: 997,800
#7 El Salvador: 899,000
#8 Dominican Republic: 791,600
#9 Canada: 774,800
#10 Korea, South: 772,600

Not sure what to make of that. Not a big influx from Europe though, to be expected due to distance maybe. huge number from india, and china. Also, how do we rate mexico? are the people fleeing capitalism or socialism? (don't know fuck all about mexico).

Please don't randomly spew forth information (in this case, incorrect information) without at least citing a source.

Also, 24 is pretty far from 1. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-c rime-murders-per-capita

I'd consider a few of those nations in front of us on that list to be "developed".

"Russia is one of the worlds largest oil and gas producers" oil(10%), gas (~20%, but so is US, slightly less). It is an ambigious power, because Russia's economy is very much dependent on the sale of those resources (actually, people attribute recent Russian economic growth mostly to the high oil prices).

"Russia is one of the worlds largest (if not the worlds largest) arms exporter in the world" it is indeed largest according to http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/mil_con_arm_exp- military-conventional-arms-exports, but only slightly ahead of United States. Oil comment, ibid.

"Russia was a superpower" that is just general words and I do not care about habits. Can you seriously imagine Russia invading ANY of the neighbors, like it did before and like US is doing now?

"How well economies develop is ... also about peoples perception of the future." I just dismiss that as empty words. Tell that to a 3rd country leadership if it means anything to them.

The position of Russia in Security council is a joke. That is one. And security council is a joke by itself, because of the veto. US can do anything it wants to do regardless of vetoes of China, France and Russia.

Australia's influence in its region is larger than Russia's influence in its region.

China's influence in its region is much larger than Russia's influence in its region.

You can here from time to time about attempts of Russia to squeeze its small neighbors, but they are successfully fended. The trend is that most of the former satellites of USSR are running towards alternative blocs and unions (NATO, EU). India, former bhai-bhai of rusis, is now biggest US friend. Georgia, Azerbaidjan, Baltics, almost of of Central Asia.

Russia lost its commie positions in Cuba and Middle East (the commies like Arafat and Hussein are gone, Asad is on the way). Former Russian African friends like Egypt (long gone), Somali, Yemen, Mozambik, Angola and other former colonies are no longer following Russian line.

Yes, I am talking about thirl world, because in other worlds Russia have zero influence. All Western Europe and Asian tigers are much more closely connected and dependent on US than on Russia.

Open your eyes, the Russian position of superpower is long gone (like 15 years, thank you, Gorby). Recent economic surge is circumstantial and highly dependent on oil. OPEC had more power in 1970's than Russia has now. All of Middle East producers of oil and all but one (Iran, that is why all this antiiranian crap) Middle East producers of gas are in the American pocket now. This is kind of common place and if you need to convince somebody otherwise you have to try like magnitudes harder with the numbers in the hand, not some general words.

But that requires superior education. At the moment, the US spends $50 per person per year on education. This doesn't seem to be a whole lot. You'd certainly never reach the level of enlightenment required for a stable democracy.

The spending figure is easily proven to be false. The remainder of the argument is simply non-sensical. Has per capita education spending, on any reasonable basis, decreased since the founding of the country? Is the U.S. lagging the western world in education spending? (No)

NEA data

48,132,518 students in K-12 education (2003-04)
$7580 per student median spending (2002-03)
301,200,000 people in the U.S. (2007)

Yields a level of around $1200 per person excluding anything relating to college, graduate schools, professional schools, adult education, and the like. It's not even clear whether those numbers include private and parochial schools. That's an embarrisingly far cry from $50 per person per year.

But that requires superior education. At the moment, the US spends $50 per person per year on education. This doesn't seem to be a whole lot. You'd certainly never reach the level of enlightenment required for a stable democracy.

The spending figure is easily proven to be false. The remainder of the argument is simply non-sensical. Has per capita education spending, on any reasonable basis, decreased since the founding of the country? Is the U.S. lagging the western world in education spending? (No)

NEA data

48,132,518 students in K-12 education (2003-04)
$7580 per student median spending (2002-03)
301,200,000 people in the U.S. (2007)

Yields a level of around $1200 per person excluding anything relating to college, graduate schools, professional schools, adult education, and the like. It's not even clear whether those numbers include private and parochial schools. That's an embarrisingly far cry from $50 per person per year.

My God. You say a) temperatures are rising. Lots of hard data to support this, and everything looks statistically significant. b) greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere are rising. There is more debate here, but mankind has most certainly contributed and the question is simply about narrowing down "how much". Then you say something about how you don't trust the results because computer models are being used, which just goes to show you how well the rest of the paragraph is going to go. Then you say... What I do see very clearly is that all suggested solutions seek to punish the united states while leaving some other areas of the world untouched. I pick "punish" deliberately; it's as if the US has been "bad" and now everyone wants their ounce of vengeance. Maybe it's because, uh, the United States can only make laws for itself? We could pass laws telling China to emit less greenhouse gasses, but I don't think they're going to listen. Or maybe it's because we emit FAAAAR more carbon than any other country? So not only do I choose to wait, but my attitude is now skeptical - this seems like a typical "america bad" attitude on the side of the global warming proponents. So basically, your argument is "Yes, there's a lot of data, and it looks statistically significant, and there's broad agreement in the scientific community, but because it makes America look bad, I refuse to believe it." This is the worst kind of ignorance. The kind where you choose to be ignorant on purpose, and the kind that no amount of education can overcome.

Ah, Slashdot, the MOST ignorant site on the Internet. Americans have the highest rate of personal computers per capita in the world (Ignorance be gone). But please, keep on with the Slashdot Hive mind, it will reward you well with mod points and an even less fulfilling life.

Here are some decade-old numbers comparing per capita spending on health care. The United States wins, hands down. I think this is still true.

Near the bottom of this page, there are two graphs that show life expectancy vs. per capita health care spending. The United States does not win; not at all. This does not necessarily mean that Americans are being taken to the cleaners when they go to the doctor, though. It may mean that an unhealthy lifestyle is covered up by enormous spending on doctors and pills. Frankly, I think it's probably a bit of both.

That's a drop in the bucket. World wide figures: 1,416,338,245 televisions.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/med_tel-media-te levisions

Almost any system has a few good outcomes; I'm sure that even the Mafia has saved a life or two. The point is not whether there is any good but whether the good outweighs the bad. Americans spend twice as much on healthcare, relative to Canadians -- and despite all that lavish expenditure, Americans die sooner. This tells me that the bad outweighs the good, by far, in the U.S. system.

I don't understand why the existing system has so many supporters. Why do you want to die earlier than necessary? Do you all have a death wish?

Next, let's assume for the moment that you are correct and that the entirety of the correlation is due to differences in health care. The difference in life expectancy between Canada and the U.S. is 80.34 vs. 78 years, or a 3% difference. The difference in average annual purchasing power is $35,280 vs. $43,601, or a 23% difference. Arguably, those 2.34 fewer years of life are more than made up for by greater disposable income and higher standard of living. (My apologies for having to use mean rather than median, I was unable to find global median income stats in a quick Google search. The difference in median income is likely to be smaller due to the U.S.' disproportionately unequal wealth distribution, but the numbers should suffice to get the point across.)

Which brings me to a point I've been hinting at thus far but haven't stated. What if the degree of economic prosperity is tied to type of health care system? What if the lack of universal coverage in the U.S., as brutal as it is, has the darwinesque effect of tending to filter out those whose economic output is insufficient to counter their predisposition for disease and injury, whether from genetics or stupidity? Suddenly, you're faced with having to consider not just the primary effects of universal health care (which are all positive), but also the secondary and tertiary effects (which could be negative).

I really like the suggestion someone else put forth on this topic: The U.S. doesn't need to jump wholescale to a universal health care system. A few States can implement it on their own. This has the advantage of controlling for differences in economy, social standards like propensity for violence, genetic (ethnic) makeup, and the myriad of other factors we probably haven't even thought of. If it works well in those states, that'd be a solid argument to expand it nationwide. If it doesn't work well, then at least we'll be able to pick it apart to try to figure out why it's having problems, to reach a better decision about what to do next. (Incidentally, in this light, my anecdote supports universal health care since the reason the minimum-wage employee got his exemplary treatment was because California requires all businesses to carry worker's comp insurance.)

in which case, the usa should study this chart (life expectancy by country) and simply copy whatever system is in place in the countries with the longest lived citizens

the usa will be achieving a great victory in its war against mortality by adopting whatever system prevails

and it seems to be the very countries where mortality isn't given as much credence as it is in the usa

so there you go

.haeger

Source for previous comment statitics...

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap- crime-prisoners-per-capita

Interesting tidbit from this site, Russia has almost twice as many magistrates and judges than the US while the US has 8 times as much crime. Also, while the US is #1 in the total number of crimes, it is #8 in crimes per capita.

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_per_liv_in_u rb_are-people-percentage-living-urban-areas

I would not be so sure about that:

Percent of people living in urban areas:

#40 Sweden: 83%
#43 United States: 80%
#88 Finland: 61%

Now the real question is what are the other percentage of people doing? are they in communities which are not urban but still sizable? are in farming?

DEFINITION: Percentage of people living in urban areas. Data for 2003. Urban-rural classification of population in internationally published statistics follows the national census definition, which differs from one country or area to another. National definitions are usually based on criteria that may include any of the following: size of population in a locality, population density, distance between built-up areas, predominant type of economic activity, legal or administrative boundaries and urban characteristics such as specific services and facilities.

I don't care to start searching about the US vs Swedish or Finish definition but my basic point is, its not as simple as people are making it out to be.

#1 Dominica: 113.822 per 1,000 people
#2 New Zealand: 105.881 per 1,000 people
#3 Finland: 101.526 per 1,000 people
#4 Denmark: 92.8277 per 1,000 people
#5 Chile: 88.226 per 1,000 people
#6 United Kingdom: 85.5517 per 1,000 people
#7 Montserrat: 80.3982 per 1,000 people

Three-fifths of the prisoners studied said that a criminal would not attack a potential victim who was known to be armed. Two-fifths of them had decided not to commit a crime because they thought the victim might have a gun. Criminals in states with higher civilian gun ownership rates worried the most about armed victims.

Heck, without having the methodologies available it's not even clear those stats are comparable.

That statistic shows per-capita murder rates. You said, and I quote:

"Prove to me banning firearms wouldn't just create a pool of focibly disarmed victims."

The answer is in those statistics, and the answer is, in general, "it wouldn't" (yes, there are some outliers). In countries where gun ownership is significantly lower, there is no increase in per capita murder rates, or overall crime (see here), for that matter. Thus, the population doesn't become "disarmed victims", as you originally posited.

Now, to be clear, I'm not arguing that the answer to all violent crime is to ban guns. However, it is clear that doing so would not automatically lead to a disarmed, victimized citizenry, as you seem to insist.

When I lived in Japan, I knew two people who were murdered.

Uhuh... so a pair of anecdotes constitutes proof to you? Wow... well, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

See, silly me, I was expecting something like this. You know. Real proof. But apparently you don't understand the difference.

From http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-c rime-murders-per-capita

Murders per capita:
#24 United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
[...]
#55 Ireland: 0.00946215 per 1,000 people

We also have a fairly high murder rate, one of the highest incarceration rates on the planet [...]

Minor correction: you have *the* highest incarceration rate on the planet. But of course, that only strengthens your argument - and I totally agree with what you said, anyway.

Mexico for example is in second place in terms of worldwide obesity. I lived in Mexico for a few years, and traveled in most Latin American countries, and what you see is that the poor people drink softdrinks almost exclusively, and cook with loads of oil and fatty meats. Fruits and vegetables grow abundantly, but they don't use them.

The grandparent is right, food is too cheap: Staying with the example Mexico, there was an outcry from people that the higher tortilla prices have forced them to use meat only once a day. Go figure!

According to the CIA World Factbook of 2007, the US is currently consuming 20.7 million barrels of oil per day. Let's suppose that "the amount of technically recoverable oil in the ANWR 1002 area 'is estimated to be between 4.3 and 11.8 billion barrels ... with a mean value of 7.7 billion barrels.'"

Quick, do the math. 7.7 billion divided by 20.7 million per day gives us ... 371 days -- just over a year's worth. And it will take about 10 years for the drilling to come online.

Personally, I don't think it's worth it -- but I'm not an oil investor. ;)

Same for health care.

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php
http://www.cmwf.org/publications/publications_show .htm?doc_id=372221
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per- health-spending-per-person

http://thebluesite.com/ustopseducationspend.htm
http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/economic/educati onlibraryspending.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_tot_exp_as_o f_gdp-education-total-expenditure-gdp

And yet, both are getting worse. MAYBE spending more isn't the answer...

By the way, I love the Anti-US troll. I can't get enough of the pandering.

Same for health care.

http://ucatlas.ucsc.edu/spend.php
http://www.cmwf.org/publications/publications_show .htm?doc_id=372221
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/hea_spe_per_per- health-spending-per-person

http://thebluesite.com/ustopseducationspend.htm
http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/economic/educati onlibraryspending.htm
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_tot_exp_as_o f_gdp-education-total-expenditure-gdp

And yet, both are getting worse. MAYBE spending more isn't the answer...

By the way, I love the Anti-US troll. I can't get enough of the pandering.

It depends how you define something as "working". When you're focusing ONLY on crimes committed by people using firearms, sure, banning guns "works". When you focus on the overall amount of VIOLENT crime, gun control has the opposite effect. These statistics that gun control advocates always cite are misleading for multiple reasons.

Yes, because pro-gun people NEVER cite misleading stats, ever, do they? Like the "Oh, X banned guns and their gun crime rose after they did that" or "X has gun control and has lower gun crime rates than Y, but what they don't say is that in 1900 when neither had gun control, X still had lower gun crime rates!".

And actually, rates of murders overall follow the same pattern. (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap- crime-murders-per-capita). The exception is Switzerland but as everyone is given a gun by the government it's safe to assume that murder rate and murder with firearms rate are more or less the same there.

United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
Canada: 0.0149063 per 1,000 people
United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
Switzerland: 0.00921351 per 1,000 people

"Gun deaths" include suicides, accidents, cases of self defense, "gang warfare" and police shootings.

"Murders with firearms" however, which we are talking about, would not definitely not count suicide and almost certainly wouldn't count accidents or self-defence either. I believe that those would both fall under manslaughter. Gang warfare and police shootings, yes, but I don't see why this alters the point at all. Certainly all of the other countries I've listed would have gang warfare and police shootings from time to time. Britain certainly does.

Furthermore, looking only at "gun crime" completely ignores the well documented deterrent effect of lawful firearms ownership! How many stabbings, bludgeonings, rapes and home invasions are you willing to tolerate in order to prevent one firearms-related death?

The murder rate follows the same pattern, as I have established.

Burglaries - (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_bur_percap- crime-burglaries-per-capita) - seems to disprove my point? Wrong. Switzerland has the highest guns per capita in the world, everyone does national service and they're allowed to keep their guns at home after they do it, and most people do. Despite this, it has a higher rate of burglary than the USA, where gun ownership is (odd as it sounds) less. This would imply that how many people have guns has shit all to do with burglary rates and that this "deterent effect" only works when that gun is pointed at you at the time.

Now, rape. (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rap_percap- crime-rapes-per-capita). Canada has by far the highest rate, the USA is second, UK is third, Switzerland is last. No correlation, clearly. Robberies (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_rob_percap- crime-robberies-per-capita), UK highest, USA second highest, Canada and Switzerland far behind third and fourth respectively. Total crimes (no seperate stats for violent crimes, I'm afraid - http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_tot_cri_perc ap-crime-total-crimes-per-capita) - UK, very slightly behind is the USA, Canada behind the USA by the same amount the USA is behind the UK, Switzerland fourth. Assault (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_ass_percap- crime-assaults-per-capita) - USA first, UK and Canada slightly behind, no info on Switzerland. Car theft (http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_car_the_per cap-crime-car-thefts-per-capita) - UK, Canada, USA, Switzerland.

So, what we've learned here is that gun control effects the murder with firearms rates and the murder rates, but has little impact on other crime either way. We've also learned that if you dislike crime,

http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir_ percap-crime-murders-firearms-per-capita

0.0279271 per 1,000 people for the USA - very little gun control
0.00534117 per 1,000 people - gun ownership is compulsory and everyone has extensive firearms training through national service.
0.00502972 per 1,000 people for Canada - some degree of gun control
0.00102579 per 1,000 people for the UK - the nearest thing to total gun prohibition you get in any developed country.

These three nations are very comparable, and I think that the trend tells us something, don't you? Namely that gun control and prohibition DOES work. However, an acceptable alternative is national service and extensive education on the subject. I don't think either will appeal to the Libertarian crowd.

Alcohol ... well ... in a western country, yes, it's unviable to do so, but it works fine in Arabic countries where it's not really in the culture.

And as for prohibiting bad speech ... it depends what the bad speech is. America is about the only country which defends pretty much all speech, many other developed countries have laws against hate speech. I don't see these countries descending into an Orwellian dystopia just yet. Do you? So, you're overreacting here. This is a worry because it's subjective, but it's far from what you make it out to be, it's just a well-meaning law that's not really precise enough.

I'm guessing that you're an American libertarian, correct? ... well, in future, before making these blanket statements, please look at examples from outside the borders of the US. It shows that many of the ideas you find so abhorrent can, do and are working. I'm expecting not to get any markings up for this, because this has arrived late and will piss off all of the /. libertarians that hang around here, but, really ... don't carry ideas to extremes with no thought for how the world actually works.

The USA is by far the country with the least vacation time in the world -- much lower than most third-world countries.

If you live in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Mexico you'll only get 7 days. Chinese workers probably envy their neighbors, assuming that this page can be trusted ...it's not without errors though, here in Denmark we've only got five weeks and not six.

"People like you have no idea what it means to live in a society where everyone has a gun."

How do you know? Maybe he's Swedish, where every male is required by law to join the army as reserves from age 18 until 30 (34 for officers) and keep a weapon at home:
"The gun policy in Switzerland is unique in Europe. The personal weapon of militia personnel is kept at home as part of the military obligations. This, in addition to liberal gun laws and strong shooting traditions, has led to a very high gun count per capita."

and yet they have far less murders than we do. Every 18-30 yr old Swiss male has an assault rifle at home, yet they have one of the lowest murders per capita in the world, #56 out of 62 countries (US is #24).

Norway has a similar policy, yet they complain when "In the past 16 years at least 18 people have been killed following incidents involving the army's AG3 automatic assault rifle." If only the US had only 18 murders in 16 years!

Yeah, quite interesting readings.

But sorrily they forget about a very "little and simple" fact: chances to be violently killed per million inhabitants. One would think that's an easy and clear number, isn't it? But, hey, they seemed to forget about it in the NRA-supported articles you kindly cite.

Well, here come some numbers http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_mur_percap-c rime-murders-per-capita (to say the truth, this is data from 2000, so quite old):
    United States: 0.042802 per 1,000 people
    France: 0.0173272 per 1,000 people
    Australia: 0.0150324 per 1,000 people
    Canada: 0.0149063 per 1,000 people
    United Kingdom: 0.0140633 per 1,000 people
    Germany: 0.0116461 per 1,000 people
    Japan: 0.00499933 per 1,000 people

So, your chances to be killed in the USA were x3 those from "wild Australia", "violent UK" or "mad Canada", or x10 those from "samuray Japan".

But, hey, this is old data!

Well, here comes the "2005/2006 Home Office Statistical Bulletin for England and Wales" (http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs07/hosb0207. pdf), quite up to date, uh? Well, let's see 746 murders in that period (including the 57 victims from the 7/7 London bombs), which makes 14.0 per million.

And what about the USA? Well, disastercenter (http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm) says there were 16,692 murders in 2005, or 56 murders per million. Hummm... how much it does 56/14? Well, it's even WORSE THAN DATA FROM 2000! Your bets of being murdered in USA are 4x those from the "wild UK". Isn't it soooooooo strange after the "facts" from our friends of the NRA?

Guns make people safer! That's why America, with the highest guns per capita of any first-world nation, is the safest nation on Earth, right alongside such sterling examples of crime-free zones like Costa Rica and Colombia.

Get a goddamned grip. The US has more guns -- and more gun deaths -- than any other developed nation.

Clearly the solution to today's situation would have been for everyone to have guns, then people could have started firing recklessly into the fray and that would have been really fucking great!

Where are you getting your numbers?

http://www.nationmaster.com/red/pie/agr_gra_cor_pr o-agriculture-grains-corn-production